'o'>7r*- % J> v*-^T'*.^ BOH^S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. i lokdon: printed by william ci.owes and sons and charing cross. JTAMtOKD STKKKX CRITIQUE DP PURE REASON. TRANSLATE!? FROM THE GERMAN UV IM MANUEL KANT. EY J. M. D. MEIKLEJOJI.N LONDON: BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1872. Bj Tranrfte Ag 9 7 # BACO DE VERULAMIO, INSTAURATIO MAGNA-PR.EFATIO. .NOBIS IPSIS SILEMUS : DE RE AUTEM, QUJ5 AGITUB, PETIMU3 UT HOMINES EAM NON OpINIONEM, SED OPUS ESSE COGITENT AC PRO CERTO HABEANT, NON SeCT^ NOS ALICUJUS, AUT PlaC'- ITI, SED UTILITATIS ET AMPLITUDINIS HUMANE FUNDAMENTJ MOLIRI. DEINDE UT SUIS COMMODIS ^QUI — IN COMMUNE CON- STANT — ET IPSI IN PARTEM VENIANT. Pe^ITEEEA UT BENE SPKRENT, NEQUE INSTAUEATIONEM NOSTRAM UT QUIDDAM INFI- NITUM ET ULTRA MORTALE FINGANT, ET ANIMO CONCIPIANT : QUUM EEVEEA S7T INFINITI EREORIS FINIS ET TERMINUS LB- GITIMUS. r CONTENTS. Fur,* Translator's Preface xi Preface to the First Edition of the CRniauje x T .ii Preface to the Second Edition xxiv INTRODUCTION. I. — Of the Difference between Pure and Empirical Know- ledge 1 II. — The Human Intellect, even in an dnphilosophical STATE, IS LN POSSESSION OF CERTAIN COGNITIONS A PRIORI 2 III. — Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall DETERMINE THE POSSIBILITY. PRINCIPLES, AND EXTENT OF Human Knowledge A PRIORI 4 IV. — Of the Difference between Analytical and Syntheti- cal Judgments 7 V. — In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgments A PRIORI are contained as Principles . . 9 VI. — The General Problem of Pure Reason 12 VII. — Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a Critique of Pure Reason 15 TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS. PAJ^TEIRST.— TRANSCENDENT AL -ESTHETIC. ■^ § 1. Introductory 21 Sect. I. — Of Space. § 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception 23 § 3. Transcendental Exposition of the conception of Space 25 § 4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions 25 j Sect. II.— Of Time. \ 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception 28 \ 6. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time 29 \ 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions 30 \ 8. Elucidation 32 \ 9. General Remarks on Transcendental JEsthetic ...... 35 VI CONTENT?. PART SECOND.— TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. Introduction. — Idea of a Transcendental Logic. I. — Of Logic in general 45 II. — Of Transcendental Logic 49 III. — Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic 50 IV. — Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Tran- scendental Analytic and Dialectic 53 ^TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC— EIRST DIVISION. Transcendental Analytic. § 1 54 Analytic of Conceptions. § 2 55 CHAP. I.— Of the Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of all Pure Conceptions of the Understanding. g Introductory. §3 56 Sect. I. — Of the Logical use of the Understanding in gene- ral. § 4 56 Sect. II. — Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgments. § 5 58 Sect. III. — Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories. § 6 62 CHAP. II. — Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding. Sect. I. — Of the Principles of Transcendental Deduction in ge- neral. § 9 71 Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Catego- ries. §10 77 Sect. II. — Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Con- ceptions of the Understanding. Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold repre- sentations given by Sense. § 11 80 Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception. § 12 81 The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception is the highest Principle of all exercise of the Understand- ing. § 13 84 What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is. § 14 86 The Logical Form of all Judgments consists in the Objective Unity of Apperception of the Conceptions contained therein. § 15 86 All Sensuous Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as Conditions under which alone the manifold contents of them can be united in one Consciousness. § 16 88 Observations. § 17 88 In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is the only legitimate use of the Category. § 18 90 CONTENTS. v ii Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in general. § 20 02 Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible em- ployment in experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding. § 23 97 Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the Under- standing. § 23 101 Short view of the above Deduction 103 TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC— BOOK II. Analytic of Principles . . 103 Introduction. — Of the Transcendental Faculty of Judg- ment in general 104 Transcendental Doctrine of the Faculty oe Judg- ment, or Analytic op Principles. CHAP. I. — Of the Schematism of the Pure Conceptions of the Un- derstanding 107 CHAP. II. — System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding. ... 113 Sv>TEM OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PURE UNDERSTANDING. Sect. I. — Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgments 115 Sect. II. — Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgments., 117 Sect. III. — Systematic Representations of all Synthetical Principles of the Pure Understanding 12" I. — Axioms of Intuition 122 II. — Anticipations of Perception 125 III. — Analogies of Experience 132 A. First Analogy.— Principle of the Permanence of Substance % 136 B. Second Analogy. — Principle of the Succession of Time 141 C Third Analogy. — Principle of Co-existence .. 166 IV.— The Postulates of Empirical Thought 161 Eefutation of Idealism 166 General Remark on the System of Principles 174 CHAP. III. — Of the Ground of the division of all objects into Pha3- nomena and Noumena 173 Appendix. Of the Equivocal Nature or Amphiboly, the Conceptions of Eeflection from the Confusion of the Transcendental with the Empirical use of the Understanding 190 Remark on the Amphiboly of the Conceptions of Reflection 194 Vlli CONTENTS. Page TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC— SECOND DIVISION. Teanscendental Dialectic. — Inteoduction. I. — Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance 209 II. — Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Ap- pearance A. Op Reason in General 212 B. Of the Logical Use op Reason 214 C. Op the Pure Use of Reason 216 TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC— BOOK I. Op the Conceptions op Pure Reason 219 Sect. L— Of Ideas in General 221 Sect. II. — Of Transcendental Ideas 225 Sect. III. — System of Transcendental Ideas 233 Book II. — Of the Dialectical Peoceduee op Puee Reason . , 237 CHAP. I. — Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason 237 Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the Sub- stantiality or Permanence of the Soul 245 Conclusion of the Solution of the Psychological Paralo- gism 251 General Remark on the Transition from Rational Psy-i chology to Cosmology 253 CHAP. II. — The Antinomy of Pure Reason 255 Sect. I. — System of Cosmological Ideas 256 Sect. II. — Antithetic of Pure Reason . . 263 First Antinomy 266 Second Antinomy 271 Third Antinomy 278 Fourth Antinomy 284 Sect. III. — Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-Contra- dictions 290 Sect. IV. — Of the Necessity Imposed upon Pure Reason of presenting a Solution of" its Transcendental Problems 298 Sect. V. — Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems" presented in the four Transcendental Ideas . . . 303 Sect. VI. — Transcendental Idealism as the Key to the Solution" of Pure Cosmological Dialectic 307 Sect. VII. — Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problems . . 310 Sect. VIII. — Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to the Cosmological Ideas 316 Sect. IX.— Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason, with regard to the Cosmological Ideas 321 CONTENTS. IX Page 1. — Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Composition of Phaenomena in the Universe 322 II. — Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division of a "Whole given in Intuition 325 Concluding Remark on the Solution of the Transcen- dental Mathematical Ideas — and Introductory to the Solution of the Dynamical Ideas 328 III. — Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Deduction of Cosmical Events from their Causes 330 Possibility of Freedom in Harmony with the Uni- versal Law of Natural Necessity 333 Exposition of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom in Harmony with the universal Law of Natural Necessity 335 IV. — Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Dependence of Phaenomenal Existences .... 345 Concluding Remarks on the Antinomy of Pure Reason , 349 CHAP. III. — The Ideal of Pure Reason. Sect. I. — Of the Ideal in General 350 Sect. II.— Of the Transcendental Ideal 352 Sect. III. — Of the Arguments Employed by Speculative Reason in Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being 359 Sect. IV. — Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God 364 Sect. V. — Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God .• 370 Detection and Explanation of the Dialectical Illu- sion in all Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of a Necessary Being 377 Se^t. VI. — Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof 381 Sect. VII. — Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason 387 Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason 394 Of the Ultimate End of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason 410 TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF METHOD 431 CHAP. I. — The Discipline of Pure Reason 432 Sect. I. — The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dog- matism 439 Sect. II. — The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics 449 Sect. III.— The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis 467 Sect. IV.— The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs 475 CONTENTS. Page CHAP. II.— The Canon of Pure Eeason 482 Sect. I. — Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Eeason .... 4S3 Sect. II. — Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Deter- mining Ground of the ultimate End of Pure Reason 487 Sect. III. — Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief 496 CHAP. III. — The Architectonic op Pure Eeason 503 CHAP. IV. — The History of Pure Eeason ; 515 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The following translation has been undertaker] w\ih the hope of rendering Kant's Kriiik der reinen Vernunft intelligible to the English student. The difficulties which meet the reader and the translator of this celebrated work arise from various causes. Kant was a man of clear, vigorous, and trenchant thought, and, after nearly twelve years' meditation, could not be in doubt as to his own system. But the Horatian rule of Verba prse^ isam rem non invita sequentur, will not apply to him. He had never studied the art of ex- pression. He wearies by frequent repetitions, and employs a great number of words to express, in the clumsiest way, what could have been enounced more clearly and distinctly in a few. The main statement in his sentences is often over- laid with a multitude of qualifying and. explanatory clauses; and the reader is lost in a maze, from which he has great difficulty in extricating himself. There are some passages which have no main verb ; others, in which the author loses sight of the subject with which he set out, and concludes with a predicate regarding something else mentioned in the course of his argument. All this can be easily accounted for. Kant, as he mentions in a letter to Lambert, took nearly twelve Xll TEANSLATOE S PEEEACE. years to excogitate his work, and only five months to write it. He was a German professor, a student of solitary habits, and had never, except on one occasion, been out of Konigs- berg. He had, besides, to propound a new system of philoso- phy, and to enounce ideas that were entirely to revolutionise European thought. Or. tie other 'aai d, there are many excellencies of style in this work. His expression is often as precise and forcible as his thought ; and, in some of his notes especially, he sums up, in two or three apt and powerful words, thoughts which, at other times, he employs pages to develope. His terminology, which has been so violently denounced, is really of great use in clearly deter- mining his system, and in rendering its peculiarities more easy of comprehension. A previous translation of the Kritik exists, which, had it been satisfactory, would have dispensed with the present. But the translator had, evidently, no very extensive acquaint- ance with the German language, and still less with his subject. A translator ought to be an interpreting intellect between the author and the reader ; but, in the present case, the only interpreting medium has been the dictionary. Indeed, Kant's fate in this country has been a very hard one. Misunderstood by the ablest philosophers of the time, illustrated, explained, or translated by the most incompetent, — it has been his lot to be either unappreciated, misappre- hended, or entirely neglected. Dugald Stewart did not understand his system of philosophy — as he had no proper opportunity of making himself acquainted with it ; Nitsch * and Willich'j* undertook to introduce him to the English philosophical public; Richardson and Haywood "traduced" * A General and Introductory View of Professor Kant's Principles By F. A. Nitsch. London, 1796. Willich's Elements of Kant's Philosophy, Svo. 1798. TEANSLATOE S PEEFACE. X1L. him. More recently, an Analysis of the Kritik, by Mr. Haywood, has been published, which consists almost entirely of a selection of sentences from his own translation : — a mode of analysis which has not served to make the subject more intelligible. In short, it may be asserted that there is not a single English work upon Kant, which deserves to be read, or which can be read with any profit, excepting Semple's translation of the " Metaphysic of Ethics." All are written by men who either took no pains to understand Kant, or were incapable of understanding him.* The following translation was begun on the basis of a MS. translation, by a scholar of some repute, placed in my hands by Mr. Bohn, with a request that I should revise it, as he had perceived it to be incorrect. After having laboured through about eighty pages, I found, from the numerous errors and inaccuracies pervading it, that hardly one-fifth of the original MS. remained. I, therefore, laid it entirely aside, and com- menced de novo. These eighty pages I did not cancel, be- cause the careful examination which they had undergone, made them, as I believed, not an unworthy representation of the author. * It is curious to observe, in all the English works written spe- cially upon Kant, that not one of his commentators ever ventures, for a moment, to leave the words of Kant, and to explain the subject he may be considering, in his own words. Nitsch and Willich, who professed to write on Kant's philosophy, are merely translators ; Haywood, even in his notes, merely repeats Kant; and the translator of " Beck's Principles of the Critical Philosophy," while pretending to give, in his " Translator's Preface," his own views of the Critical Philosophy, has fabricated his Preface out of selections from the works of Kant. The same is the case with the translator of Kant's "Essays and Treatises," (2 vols. 8vo. London, 1798.) This person has written a preface to each of the volumes, and both are almost literal translations from different parts of Kant's works. He had the impudence to present the thoughts contained in them as his own ; few being then able to detect the plagiarism. ) XIV TEANSLATOE S PEEFACE. The second edition of the Kritik, from which all the sub- sequent ones have been reprinted without alteration, is followed in the present translation. Rosenkranz, a recent editor, main- tains that the author's first edition is far superior to the second ; and Schopenhauer asserts that the alterations in the second were dictated by unworthy motives. He thinks the second a Verschlimmbesserung of the first; and that the changes made by Kant, "in the weakness of old age," have rendered it a " self- contradictory and mutilated work." I am not insensible to the able arguments brought forward by Scho- penhauer ; while the authority of the elder Jacobi, Micnelet, and others, adds weight to his opinion. But it may be doubted whether the motives imputed to Kant could have influenced him in the omission of certain passages in the second edition, — whether fear could have induced a man of his character to retract the statements he had advanced. The opinions he expresses in many parts of the second edition, in pages 455 — 460, for example,* are not those of a philosopher who would surrender what he believed to be truth, at the outcry of preju- diced opponents. Nor are his attacks on the " sacred doctrines of the old dogmatic philosophy," as Schopenhauer maintains, less bold or vigorous in the second than in the first edition. And, finally, Kant's own testimony must be held to be of greater weight than that of any number of other philosophers, however learned and profound. No edition of the Kritik is very correct. Even those of Rosenkranz and Schubert, and Modes and Baumann, contain errors which reflect somewhat upon the care of the editors. But the common editions, as well those printed during, as after Kant's life-time, are exceedingly bad. One of these, the " third edition improved, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1/91," swarms with errors, at once misleading and annoying. — Rosenkranz has * Of the present translation. I TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. made a number of very happy conjectural emendations, the accuracy of which cannot be doubted. It may be necessary to mention that it has been found .requisite to coin one or two new philosophical terms, to repre- sent those employed by Kant. It was, of course, almost im- possible to translate the Kritik with the aid of the philoso- phical vocabulary at present used in England. But these new expressions have been formed according to Horace's maxim — pared detorta. Such is the verb intuite for anschauen ; the manifold in intuition has also been employed for das Mannig- faltige der Anschauung, by which Kant designates the varied contents of a perception or intuition. Kant's own terminology has the merit of being precise and consistent. Whatever may be the opinion of the reader with regard to the possibility of metaphysics — whatever his estimate of the utility of such discussions, — the value of Kant's work, as an instrument of mental discipline, cannot easily be overrated. If the present translation contribute in the least to the ad- vancement of scientific cultivation, if it aid in the formation of habits of severer and more profound thought, the translator will consider himself well compensated for his arduous and long-protracted labour. J. M. D. M. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITI0N.~(i78i.) Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves ; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to dis- cover, because the principles it employs, transcending the liprifcs of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic. Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences ; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap con- tempt and scorn upon her ; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba, " Modo maxima rerum, Tot generis, natisque potens . . . Nunc trahor exul, inops." * At first, her government, under the administration of the * Ovid, Metamorphoses. o> XVU1 PKEFACE TO THE FCEST EDITION. dogmatists, was an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show traces ©f the ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy ; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organised them selves into civil communities. But their number was, very happily, small ; and thus they could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform plan. In recent times the hope dawned upon us of seeing those disputes settled, and the legitimacy of her claims established by a kind of physiology of the human understanding — that of the celebrated Locke. But it was found that, — although it was affirmed that this so-called queen could not refer her descent to any higher source than that of common experience, a circumstance which necessarily brought suspicion on her claims, — as this genealogy was incorrect, she persisted in the advancement of her claims to sovereignty. Thus metaphysics necessarily fell back into the antiquated and rotten constitution of dogmatism, and again became obnoxious to the contempt from which efforts had been made to save it. At present, as all methods, according to the general persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns nought but weariness and complete indifferentism — the mother of chaos and night in the scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or at least the prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science, when it has fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill-directed effort. For it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to such inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity. Besides, these pretended indifferentists, however much they may try to disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes on the language of the schools, un- avoidably fall into metaphysical declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much contempt. At the same time, this indifference, which has arisen in the world of science, and which relates to that kind of knowledge which we should wish to see destroyed the last, is a phaenomenou that well deserves our attention and reflection. It is plainly not the cfFect of the levity, but of the matured judgment* of the ♦ We very often hear complaints of the shallowness of (he present age, PREFACE TO THE EIEST EDITION. age, which refuses to be any longer entertained with knowledge. It is, in fact, a call to reason, again to ui the most laborious of all tasks — that of self-examination, establish a tribunal, which may secure it in its well- git claims, while it pronounces against all baseless assumptions and pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws. This tribunal is nothing less than the Critical Investigation of Pure Reason. I do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical inquiry into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions to which it strives to attain without the aid of experience ; in other words, the solution of the question re- garding the possibility or impossibility of Metaphysics, and the determination of the origin, as well as of the extent and limits of this science. All this must be done on the basis of principles. This path — the only one now remaining — has been entered upon by me ; and I flatter myself that I have, in this way, dis- covered the cause of — and consequently the mode of removing — all the errors which have hitherto set reason at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical thought. I have not returned an evasive answer to the questions of reason, by alleging the inability and limitation of the faculties of the mind ; I have, on the contrary, examined them completely in the light of principles, and, after having discovered the cause of the doubts and contradictions into which reason fell, have solved them to its perfect satisfaction. It is true, these ques- tions have not been solved as dogmatism, in its vain fancies and of the decay of profound science. But I do not think that those which rest upon a secure foundation, such as Mathematics, Physical Science, &c, in the least deserve this reproach, but that they rather maintain their ancient fame, and in the latter case, indeed, far surpass it. The same would be the case with the other kinds of cognition, if their principles were but firmly established. In the absence of this security, indifference, douVt, and finally, severe criticism are rather signs of a pro- found habit of thought. Our age is the age of criticism, to which every thing must he subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But, if they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examir.ation. O 2 I PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. res, had expected ; for it can only be satisfied by the of magical arts, and of these I have no knowledge, jither do these come within the compass of our mental powers; and it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the illusions which had their origin in misconceptions, whatever darling hopes and valued expectations may be ruined by its explanations. My chief aim in this work has been thorough- ness ; and I make bold to say, that there is not a single meta- physical problem that does not find its solution, or at least the key to its solution, here. Pure reason is a perfect unity ; and therefore, if the principle presented by it prove to be in- sufficient for the solution of even a single one of those questions to which the very nature of reason gives birth, we must reject it, as we could not be perfectly certain of its suffi- ciency in the case of the others. While I say this, I think I see upon the countenance of the reader signs of dissatisfaction mingled with contempt, when he hears declarations which sound so boastful and extravagant; and yet they are beyond comparison more moderate than those advanced by the commonest author of the commonest philo- sophical programme, in which the dogmatist professes to de- monstrate the simple nature of the soul, or the necessity of a primal being. Such a dogmatist promises to extend human knowledge beyond the limits of possible experience ; while I humbly confess that this is completely beyond my power. Instead of any such attempt, I confine myself to the exami- nation of reason alone and its pure thought ; and I do not need to seek far for the sum-total of its cognition, because it lias its seat in my own mind. Besides, common logic presents me with a complete and systematic catalogue of all the simple operations of reason ; and it is my task to answer the question how far reason can go, without the material presented and the aid furnished by experience. So much for the completeness and thoroughness necessary in the execution of the present task. The aims set before us are not arbitrarily proposed, but are imposed upon us by the nature of cognition itself. The above remarks relate to the matter of our critical in- quiry. As regards the form, there are two indispensable con- ditions, which any one who undertakes so difficult a task as PIIEEACE TO THE TIItST EDITION. XXI that of a critique of pure reason, is bound to fulfil. These conditions are certitude and clearness. As regards certitude, I have fully convinced myself that, in this sphere of thought, opinion is perfectly inadmissible, and that everything which bears the least semblance of an hypo- thesis must be excluded, as of no value in such discussions. For it is a necessary condition of every cognition that is to be established upon a priori grounds, that it shall be held to be absolutely necessary ; much more is this the case with an at- tempt to determine all pure a priori cognition, and to furnish the standard — and consequently an example — of all apodeictic (philosophical) certitude. Whether I have succeeded in what I professed to do, it is for the reader to determine ; it is the author's business merely to adduce grounds and reasons, with- out determining what influence these ought to have on the mind of his judges. But, lest anything he may have said may be- come the innocent cause of doubt in their minds, or tend to weaken the effect which his arguments might otherwise pro- duce, — he may be allowed to point out those passages which may occasion mistrust or difficulty, although these do not con- cern the main purpose of the present work. He does this solely with the view of removing from the mind of the reader any doubts which might affect his judgment of the work as a whole, and in regard to its ultimate aim. I know no investigations more necessary for a full insight into the nature of the faculty which we call understanding \ and at the same time for the determination of the rules and limits of its use, than those undertaken in the second chapter of the Transcendental Analytic, under the title of Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding ; and they have also cost me by far the greatest labour — labour which, I hope, will not remain uncompensated. The view there taken, which goes somewhat deeply into the subject, has two sides. The one re- lates to the objects of the pure understanding, and is intended to demonstrate and to render comprehensible the objective validity of its a priori conceptions ; and it forms for this reason an essential part of the Critique. The other considers the pure understanding itself, its possibility and its powers of cognition — that is, from a subjective point of view ; and, al- though this exposition is of great importance, it does not be- long essentially to the main purpose of the work, because the XX11 PBEEACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. grand question is, what and how much can reason and under- standing, apart from experience, cognize, and not, how is the faculty of thought itself possible? As the latter is an inquiry into the cause of a given effect, and has thus in it some sem- blance of an hypothesis (although, as I shall show on another occasion, this is really not the fact), it would seem that, in the present instance, I had allowed myself to enounce a mere opinion, and that the reader must therefore be at liberty to hold a different opinion. But I beg to remind him, that, if my sub- jective deduction does not produce in his mind the conviction of its certitude at which I aimed, the objective deduction, with which alone the present work is properly concerned, is in every respect satisfactory. As regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first place, discursive or logical clearness, that is, on the basis of conceptions, and, secondly, intuitive or aesthetic clear- ness, by means of intuitions, that is, by examples or other modes of illustration in concreto. I have done what I could for the first kind of intelligibility. This was essential to my purpose ; and it thus became the accidental cause of my in- ability to do complete justice to the second requirement. I have been almost always at a loss, during the progress of this work, how to settle this question. Examples and illustrations always appeared to me necessary, and, in the first sketch of the Critique, naturally fell into their proper places. But I very soon became aware of the magnitude of my task, and the numerous problems with which I should be engaged ; and, as I perceived that this critical investigation would, even if de- livered in the driest scholastic manner, be far from being brief, I found it unadvisable to enlarge it still more with examples and explanations, which are necessary only from a popular point of view. I was induced to take this course from the consider- ation also, that the present work is not intended for popular use, that those devoted to science do not require such helps, although they are always acceptable, and that they would have materially interfered with my present purpose. Abbe* Ter- rasson remarks with great justice, that if we estimate the size of a work, not from the number of its pages, but from the time which we require to make ourselves master of it, it may be said of many a book — that it would be much shorte?; if it ivtre not so short. On the other hand, as regards the com- PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. XX1H prehensibility of a system of speculative cognition, connected under a single principle, we may say with equal justice — many a book would have been much clearer, if it had not been in- tended to be so very clear. For explanations and examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of the whole ; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey of the system, and the colouring and em- bellishments bestowed upon it prevent his observing its arti- culation or organization, — which is the most important con- sideration with him, when he comes to judge of its unity and stability. The reader must naturally have a strong inducement to co- operate with the present author, if he has formed the intention of erecting a complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science, according to the plan now laid before him. Meta- physics, as here represented, is the only science which admits of completion — and with little labour, if it is united, in a short time ; so that nothing will be left to future generations except the task of illustrating and applying it didactically. For this science is nothing more than the inventory of all that is given us by pure reason, systematically arranged. No- thins: can escape our notice ; for what reason produces from itself cannot lie concealed, but must be brought to the light by reason itself, so soon as we have discovered the common principle of the ideas we seek. The perfect unity of this kind of cognitions, which are based upon pure conceptions, and uninfluenced by any empirical element, or any peculiar intuition leading to determinate experience, renders this com- pleteness not only practicable, but also necessary. Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.* Such a system of pure speculative reason I hope to be able to publish under the title of Metaphysic of Natin-e.f The content of this work, (which will not be half so long,) will be very much richer than that of the present Critique, which * Persius. t In contradistinction to the Metaphysic of Ethics. This work wau uever published. See page 509. — Tr. XXIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. has to discover the sources of this cognition and expose the conditions of its possibility, and at the same time to clear ana level a fit foundation for the scientific edifice. In the present work, I look for the patient hearing and the impartiality of a judge ; in the other, for the good-will and assistance of a co- labourer. For, however complete the list of principles for this system may be in the Critique, the correctness of the system requires that no deduced conceptions should be absent. These cannot be presented a priori, but must be gradually discovered ; and, while the synthesis of conceptions has been fully exhausted in the Critique, it is necessary that, in the pro- posed work, the same should be the case with their analysis. But this will be rather an amusement than a labour. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.— (1787.) Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge winch lies within the province of pure reason, advances with that undeviating certainty which characterises the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to determine. If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits, unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought to follow ; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations, invari- ably brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and com- pelled to retrace their steps and strike into fresh paths, we may then feel quite sure that they are far from having attained to the certainty of scientific progress, and may rather be said to be merely groping about in the dark. In these circum- stances we shall render an important service to reason if we succeed in simply indicating the path along which it must travel, in order to arrive at any results, — even if it should be found necessary to abandon many of those aims which, without reflection, have been proposed for its attainment. That Logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest times, is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been unable to advance a step, and thus to all appearance has reached its completion. For, if some of the moderns have thought to enlarge its domain by introducing psychological PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXV discussions on the mental faculties, such as imagination and wit, metaphysical discussions on the origin of knowledge and the different kinds of certitude, according to the difference of the objects (Idealism, Scepticism, and so on), or anthropological discussions on prejudices, their causes and remedies : this at- tempt, on the part of these authors, only shews their ignorance of the peculiar nature of logical science. We do not enlarge, but disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits, and allow them to run into one another. Now logic is enclosed within limits which admit of perfectly clear defini- tion ; it is a science which has for its object nothing but the exposition and proof of the/brwza/laws of all thought, whether it be a priori or empirical, whatever be its origin or its object, and whatever the difficulties — natural or accidental — which it encounters in the human mind. The early success of logic must be attributed exclusively to the narrowness of its field, in- which abstraction may, or rather must, be made of all the objects of cognition with their characteristic distinctions, and in which the understanding has only to deal with itself and with its own forms. It is, obviously, a much more difficult task for reason to strike into the sure path of science, where it has to deal not simply with itself, but with objects external to itself. Hence, logic is properly only a propedeutic — forms, asit were, the vestibule of" the sciences ; and while it is necessary to enable us to form a correct judgment with regard to the various branches of know- ledge, still the acquisition of real, substantive knowledge is to be sought only in the sciences properly so called, that is, in the objective sciences. Now these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain elements of a priori cognition, and this cogni- tion may stand in a two-fold relation to its object. Either it may have to determine the conception of the object — which must be supplied extraneously, or it may have to establish its reality. The former is theoretical, the latter practical, rational cognition. In both, the pure or a priori element must be treated first, and must be carefully distinguished from that which is supplied from other sources. Any other method can only lead to irremediable confusion. Mathematics and Physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the latter is partially so, but is also de« pendent on other sources of cognition. XXVI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In the earliest times of which history affords us any record, mathematics had already entered on the sure course of science, among that wonderful nation, the Greeks. Still it is not to be supposed that it was as easy for this science to strike into, or rather to construct for itself, that royal road, as it was for logic, in which reason has only to deal with itself. On the contrary, I believe that it must have remained long — chiefly among the Egyptians — in the stage of blind groping after its true aims and destination, and that it was revolutionised by the happy idea of one man, who struck out and determined for all time the path which this science must follow, and which admits of an indefinite advancement. The history of this intellectual revolution — much more important in its results than the discovery of the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope — and of its author, has not been preserved. But Diogenes Laertius, in naming the supposed discoverer of some of the simplest elements of geometrical demonstration — ele- ments which, according to the ordinary opinion, do not even require to be proved — makes it apparent that the change in- troduced by the first indication of this new path, must have seemed of the utmost importance to the mathematicians of that age, and it has thus been secured against the chance of ob- livion. A new light must have flashed on the mind of the first man (Thales, or whatever may have been his name) who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle. For he found that it was not sufficient to meditate on the figure, as it lay before his eyes, or the conception of it, as it existed in his mind, and thus endeavour to get at the know- ledge of its properties, but that it was necessary to produce these properties, as it were, by a positive a priori construction ; and that, in order to arrive with certainty at a priori cognition, he must not attribute to the object any other properties than those which necessarily followed from that which he had him- self, in accordance with his conception, placed in the object. A much longer period elapsed before Physics entered on the highway of science. For it is only about a century and a half since the wise Bacon gave a new direction to physical studies, or rather — as others were already on the right track — imparted fresh vigour to the pursuit of this new direction. Here, too, as in the case of mathematics, we find evidence of a rapid intellectual revolution. — In the remarks which follow I shall confine myself to the empirical side of natural science. PBEEACE TO THE SECOND EDITIOK. XXV11 When Galilei experimented with balls of a definite weight on the inclined plane, when Toeeicelli caused the air to sustain a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of water, or when Stahl, at a later period, converted metals into lime, and reconverted lime into metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain elements ;* a light broke upon all natural philosophers. They learned that reason only perceives that which it pro- duces after its own design ; that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles of judgment according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to rep 1 y to its questions. For accidental observations, made ac- cording to no preconceived plan, cannot be united under a necessary law. But it is this that reason seeks for and requires. It is only the principles of reason which can give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and it is only when experiment is directed by these rational principles, that it can have any real utility. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress. We come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a completely isolated position, and is entirely independent of the teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions — not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition — and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone. It is the oldest of the sciences,, and would still survive, even if all the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of an all- destroying barbarism. But it has not yet had the good for- tune to attain to the sure scientific method. This will be ap- parent, if we apply the tests which we proposed at the outset. We find that reason perpetually comes to a stand, when it attempts to gain a priori the perception even of those laws * I do not here follow with exactness the history of the experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved in some obscurity. XXV111 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. which the most common experience confirms. We find it compelled to retrace its steps in innumerable instances, and to abandon the path on which it had entered, because this does not lead to the desired result. We find, too, that those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits are far from being able to agree among themselves, but that, on the contrary, this science appears to furnish an arena specially adapted for the display of skill or the exercise of strength in mock-contests — a field in which no combatant ever yet succeeded in gaining an inch of ground, in which, at least, no victory was ever yet crowned with permanent possession. This leads us to enquire why it is that, in metaphysics, the sure path of science has not hitherto been found. Shall we suppose that it is impossible to discover it ? Why then should nature have visited our reason with restless aspirations after it, as if it were one of our weightiest concerns ? Nay, more, how little cause should we have to place confidence in our reason, if it abandons us in a matter about which, most of all, we desire to know the truth — and not only so, but even allures us to the pursuit of vain phantoms, only to betray us in the end ? Or, if the path has only hitherto been missed, what indications do we possess to guide us in a renewed investigation, and to enable us to hope for greater success than has fallen to the lot of our predecessors ? It appears to me that the examples of mathematics and natural philosophy, which, as we have seen, were brought into their present condition by a sudden revolution, are suffi- ciently remarkable to fix our attention on the essential circum- stances of the change which has proved so advantageous to them, and to induce us to make the experiment of imitating them, so far as the analogy which, as rational sciences, they bear to metaphysics may permit. It has hitherto been as- sumed that our cognition must conform to the objects ; but all attempts to ascertain anything about these objects a priori, by means of conceptions, and thus to extend the range of our knowledge, have been rendered abortive by this assumption. Let us then make the experiment whether we may not be more successful in metaphysics, if we assume that the objects must conform to our cognition. This appears, at all events, to ac- cord better with the possibility of our gaining the end we have in view, that is to say, of arriving at the cognition of PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXI* objects a priori, of determining something with respect to these objects, before they are given to us. We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same experiment with regard to the intuition of objects. If the intuition must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we can know anything of them a prio?'i. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge. Now as I cannot rest in the mere intuitions, but — if they are to be- come cognitions — must refer them, as representations, to some- thing, as object, and must determine the latter by means of the former, here again there are two courses open to me. Either, first, I may assume that the conceptions, by which I etfect this determination, conform to the object — and in this case I am reduced to the same perplexity as before ; or secondly, I may assume that the objects, or, which is the same thing, that experience, in which alone as given objects, they are cog- nized, conform to my conceptions — and then I am at no loss how to proceed. For experience itself is a mode of cognition which requires understanding. Before objects are given to me, that is, a priori, I must presuppose in myself laws of the understanding which are expressed in conceptions a priori. To these conceptions, then, all the objects of experi- ence must necessarily conform. Now there are objects which reason thinks, and that necessarily, but which cannot be given in experience, or, at least, cannot be given so as reason thinks them. The attempt to think these objects will hereafter furnish an excellent test of the new method of thought which we have adopted, and which is based on the principle that we only cognize in things a priori that which we ourselves place in them.* * This method, accordingly, which we have horrowed from the natural philosopher, consists in seeking for the elements of pure reason in that .which admils of confirmation or. refutation by experiment. Now the propositions of pure reason, especially when they transcend the limits of possible experience, do not admit of our making any experiment with their objects, as in natural science. Hence, with regard to those conceptions XXX PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. This attempt succeeds as well as we could desire, and pro- mises to metaphysics, in its first part — that is, where it is occupied with conceptions a priori, of which the correspond- ing objects may be given in experience — the certain course of science. For by this new method we are enabled perfectly to explain the possibility of a priori cognition, and, what is more, to demonstrate satisfactorily the laws which lie a priori at the foundation of nature, as the sum of the objects of ex- perience — neither of which was possible according to the pro- cedure hitherto followed. But from this deduction of the faculty of a priori cognition in the first part of Metaphysics, we derive a surprising result, and one which, to all appearance, militates against the great end of Metaphysics, as treated in the second part. For we come to the conclusion that our faculty of cognition is unable to transcend the limits of pos- sible experience ; and yet this is precisely the most essential object of this science. The estimate of our rational cognition a priori at which we arrive is that it has only to do with phae- nomena, and that things in themselves, while possessing a real existence, lie beyond its sphere. Here we are enabled to put the justice of this estimate to the test. For that which of necessity impels us to transcend the limits of experience and of all phaenomena, is the unconditioned, which reason absolutely requires in things as they are in themselves, in order to com- plete the series of conditions. Now, if it appears that when, on the one hand, we assume that our cognition conforms to its objects as things in themselves, the unconditioned cannot be thought without contradiction, and that when, on the other hand, we assume that our representation of things as they are given to us, does not conform to these things as they are in themselves, but that these objects, as phaenomena, conform to our mode of representation, the contradiction disappears : we and principles which we assume a priori, our only course will be to view them from two different sides. We must regard one and the same con- ception, on the one hand, in relation to experience as an object of the senses and of the understanding, on the other hand, in relation to reason, isolated and transcending the limits of experience, as an object of mere thought. Now if we find that, when we regard things from this double point of view, the result is in harmony with the principle of pure reason, bat that, when we regard them from a single point of view, reason is involved in self-contradiction, then the experiment will establish' the correctness of this distinction. PIIEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXI shall then be convinced of the truth of that which we began by assuming for the sake of experiment ; we may look upon it as established that the unconditioned does not lie in things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they are in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition.* But, after we have thus denied the power of speculative reason to make any progress in the sphere of the supersensi- ble, it still remains for our consideration whether data do not exist in practical cognition, which may enable us to determine the transcendent conception of the unconditioned, to rise beyond the limits of all possible experience from & practical point of view, and thus to satisfy the great ends of metaphy- sics. Speculative reason has thus, at least, made room for such an extension of our knowledge ; and, if it must leave this space vacant, still it does not rob us of the liberty to fill it up, if we can, by means of practical data — nay, it even challenges us to make the attempt. f This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the pro- cedure of metaphysics, after the example of the Geometri- cians and Natural Philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason. It is a treatise on the method to be followed, not a system of the science itself. But, at the same time, it marks out and defines both the * This experiment of pure reason has a great similarity to that of the (Jhemists, which they term the experiment of reduction, or, more usually, the synthetic process. The analysis of the metaphysician separates pure cognition a priori into two heterogeneous elements, viz., the cognition of things as phsenomena, and of things in themselves. Dialectic combines these again into harmony with the necessary rational idea of the uncon- ditioned, and finds that this harmony never results except through the above distinction, which is, therefore, concluded to be just. f So the central laws of the movements of the heavenly bodies es- tablished the truth of that which Copernicus, at first, assumed only as a hypothesis, and, at the same time, brought to light that invisible force (Newtonian attraction) which holds the universe together. The latter would have remained for ever undiscovered, if Copernicus had not ven- tured on the experiment — contraiy to the senses, but still jusjt— of looking for the observed movements not in the heavenly bodies, but in the spec- tator. In this Preface I treat the new metaphysical method as a hypothesis with the view of rendering apparent the first attempts at such a change of method, which are always hypothetical. But in the Critique itself it will be demonstrated, not hypothetically, but apodeictically, from the nature of our representations of space and time, and from the elementary concep- tions of the understanding. XXX11 PEEFACE TO THE SECOKD EDITION. external boundaries and the internal structure of this Science. For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enu- meration of the possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire system of metaphysics. For, on the one hand, in cognition a priori, nothing must be at- tributed to the objects but what the thinking subject derives from itself: and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to the principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as in an organised body, every member exists for the sake of the others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the same time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason. Hence, too, metaphysics has this singular advantage — an advantage which falls to the lot of no other science which has to do with objects — that, if once it is con- ducted into the sure path of science, by means of this criti- cism, it can then take in the whole sphere of its cognitions, and can thus complete its work, and leave it for the use of posterity, as a capital which can never receive fresh acces- sions. For metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as determined by these principles. To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may justly be applied : — Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum. But, it will be asked, what kind of a treasure is this that we propose to bequeath to posterity? What is the real value of this system of metaphysics, purified by criticism, and thereby reduced to a permanent condition 1 A cursory view of the present work will lead to the supposition that its use is merely negative, that it only serves to warn us against venturing, with speculative reason, beyond the limits of experience. This is, in fact, its primary use. But this, at once, assumes & positive value, when we observe that the principles with which specu- lative reason endeavours to transcend its limits, lead inevitably, not to the extension, but to the contraction of the use of reason, inasmuch as they threaten to extend the limits of sen- sibility, which is their proper sphere, over the entire realm of PREPACE TO THE SECOXD EDITION. XXX113 thought, and thus to supplant the pure (practical) use of reason. So far, then, as this criticism is occupied in confining speculative reason within its proper bounds, it is only negative ; but, inasmuch as it thereby, at the same time, removes an obstacle which impedes and even threatens to destroy the use of practical reason, it possesses a positive and very important value. In order to admit this, we have only to be convinced that there is an absolutely necessary use of pure reason — the moral use — in which it inevitably transcends the limits of sensibility, without the aid of speculation, requiring only to be insured against the effects of a speculation which would involve it in contradiction with itself. To deny the positive advantage of the service which this criticism renders us, would be as absurd as to maintain that the system of police is productive of no positive benefit, since its main business is to prevent the violence whieh citizen has to appre- hend from citizen, that so each may pursue his vocation in peace and security. That space and time are only forms of sensible intuition, and hence are only conditions of the existence of things as phenomena ; that, moreover, we have no conceptions of the understanding, and, consequently, no elements for the cognition of things, except in so far as a cor- responding intuition can be given to these conceptions ; that, accordingly, we can have no cognition of an object, as a thing in itself, but only as an object of sensible intuition, that is, as a phaenomenon, — all this is proved in the Analytical part of the Critique ; and from this the limitation of all possible specula- tive cognition to the mere objects of experience, follows as a necessary result. At the same time, it must be carefully borne in mind that, while Ave surrender the power of cognizing, we still reserve the power of thinking objects, as things in them- selves.* For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the exist- * In order to cognize an object, I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its reality as attested by experience, or a priori, by means of reason. But I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself; that is, provided my conception is a possible thought, though I may be unable to answer for the existence of a corresponding object in the sum of possibilities. But something more is required before I can attribute to such a conception objective validity, that is real possibility — the other possibility being merely logical. We are not. however, confined to theoretical sources of cognition for the means of satisfying this addi- tional requirement, but mav derive them from practical sources. c itXXlV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. ence of an appearance, without something that appears — which would be absurd. Now let us suppose, for a moment, that we had not undertaken this criticism, and, accordingly, had not drawn the necessary distinction between things, as objects of experience, and things, as they are in themselves. The principle of causality, and, by consequence, the mecha- nism of nature as determined by causality, would then have absolute validity in relation to all things as efficient causes. I should then be unable to assert, with regard to one and the same being, e. g., the human soul, that its will is free, and yet, at the same time, subject to natural necessity, that is s not free, without falling into a palpable contradiction, for in both pro- positions I should take the soul in the same signification, as a thing in general, as a thing in itself — as, without previous criticism, I could not but take it. Suppose now, on the other hand, that we have undertaken this criticism, and have learnt that an object may be taken in two senses, first, as a phseno- menon, secondly, as a thing in itself; and that, according to the deduction of the conceptions of the understanding, the princi- ple of causality has reference only to things in the first sense. We then see how it does not involve any contradiction to assert, on the one hand, that the will, in the phaenomenal sphere — in visible action, is necessarily obedient to the law of nature, and, in so far not free; and, on the other hand, that, as belonging to a thing in itself, it is not subject to that law, and, accordingly, is free. Now, it is true that I cannot, by means of specula- tive reason, and still less by empirical observation, cognize my soul as a thing in itself, and consequently, cannot cognize liberty as the property of a being to which I ascribe effects in the world of sense. For, to do so, I must cognize this being as existing, and yet not in time, which — since I cannot sup- port my conception by any intuition — is impossible. At the same time, while I cannot cognize, I can quite well think freedom, that is to say, my representation of it involves at least no contradiction, if we bear in mind the critical distinc- tion of the two modes of representation (the sensible and the intellectual) and the consequent limitation of the conceptions of the pure understanding, and of the principles which flow from them. Suppose now that morality necessarily presup- posed liberty, in the strictest sense, as a property of our will ; suppose that reason contained certain practical, original prin- PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION XXXV ciples a priori, which were absolutely impossible without this presupposition ; and suppose, at the same time, that specula- tive reason nad proved that liberty was incapable of being thought at all. It would then follow that the moral presup- position must give way to the speculative affirmation, the opposite of which involves an obvious contradiction, and that liberty and, with it, morality must yield to the mechanism of nature ; for the negation of morality involves no contradiction, except on the presupposition of liberty- Now morality does not require the speculative cognition of liberty ; it is enough that I can think it, that its conception involves no contradic- tion, that it does not interfere with the mechanism of nature. But even this requirement we could not satisfy, if we had not learnt the two-fold sense in which things may be taken ; and it is only in this way that the doctrine of morality and the doctrine of nature are confined within their proper limits. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which warns us of our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phaenomena. The positive value of the critical principles of pure reason in relation to the conception of God and of the simple nature of the soul, admits of a similar exemplification ; but on this point I shall not dwell. I cannot even make the assumption — as the practical interests of morality require — of God, Free- dom, and Immortality, if I do not deprive speculative reason of its pretensions to transcendent insight. For to arrive at these, it must make use of principles which, in fact, extend only to the objects of possible experience, and which cannot be applied to objects beyond this sphere without converting them into pheenomena, and thus rendering the practical exten- sion of pure reason impossible. I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief. The dogmatism of metaphysics, that is, the presumption that it is possible to ad- vance in metaphysics without previous criticism, is the true source of the unbelief (always dogmatic) which militates against morality. Thus, while it may be no very difficult task to bequeath a legacy to posterity, in the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in accordance with the Critique of Pure Reason, " still the value of such a bequest is not to be depreciated. It XXXVI PKEEACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. will render an important service to reason, by substituting the certainty of scientific method for that random groping after results without the guidance of principles, which has hitherto characterised the pursuit of metaphysical studies. It will render an important service to the inquiring mind of youth, by leading the student to apply his powers to the cultivation of genuine science, instead of wasting them, as at present, on speculations which can never lead to any result, or on the idle attempt to invent new ideas and opinions. ' But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector. For, as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be, without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error. This important change in the field of the sciences, this loss of its fancied possessions, to which speculative reason must submit, does not prove in any way detrimental to the general interests of humanity. The advantages which the world has derived from the teachings of pure reason, are not at all im- paired. The loss falls, in its whole extent, on the monopoly of the schools, but does not in the slightest degree touch the in- terests of mankind. I appeal to the most obstinate dogmatist, whether the proof of the continued existence of the soul after death, derived from the simplicity of its substance ; of the freedom of the will in opposition to the general mechanism of nature, drawn from the subtle but impotent distinction of sub- jective and objective practical necessity ; or of the existence of God, deduced from the conception of an ens realissimum, — the contingency of the changeable, and the necessity of a prime mover, has ever been able to pass beyond the limits of the schools, to penetrate the public mind, or to exercise the slightest influence on its convictions. It must be admitted that this has not been the case, and that, owing to the unfitness of the common understanding for such subtle speculations, it can never be expected to take place. On the contrary, it is plain that the hope of a future life arises from the feeling, which exists in the breast of every man, that the temporal ia inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his nature. PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXVU In like manner, it cannot be doubted that the clear exhibition of duties in opposition to all the claims of inclination, gives rise to the consciousness of freedom, and that the glorious order, beauty, and providential care, everywhere displayed in nature, give rise to the belief in a wise and great Author of the Universe. Such is the genesis of these general convictions of mankind, so far as they depend on rational grounds ; and this public property not only remains undisturbed, but is even raised to greater importance, by the doctrine that the schools have no right to arrogate to themselves a more profound insight into a matter of general human concernment, than that to which the great mass of men, ever held by us in the highest estimation, can without difficulty attain, and that the schools should therefore confine themselves to the elaboration of these universally comprehensible, and, from a moral point of view, amply satisfactory proofs. The change, therefore, affects only the arrogant pretensions of the schools, which would gladly retain, in their own exclusive possession, the key to the truths which they impart to the public. Quod mecum nescit, solus vult scire videri. At the same time it does not deprive the speculative philoso- pher of his just title to be the sole depositor of a science which benefits the public without its knowledge — I mean, the Critique of Pure Reason. This can never become popular, and, indeed, has no occasion to be so ; for fine-spun argu- ments in favour of useful truths, make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of specula- tive reason, and thus to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses. It is only by criticism that metaphysicians (and, as such, theologians too) can be saved from these controversies and from the consequent perversion of their doctrines. Criti- cism alone can strike a blow at the root of Materialism, Fatal- ism, Atheism, Free-thinking, Fanaticism, and Superstition, which are universally injurious — as well as of Idealism and Scepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely XXXV111 PREFACE TO THE SECOKD EDITION. pass over to the public. If governments think proper to in- terfere with the affairs of the learned, it would be more con- sistent with a wise regard for the interests of science, as well as for those of society, to favour a criticism of this kind, by which alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the de- struction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can 'never feel. This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic proce- dure of reason in pure cognition ; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, must rest on strict demonstration from sure principles a priori — but to dogmatism, that is, to the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure cognition, derived from (philosophical) conceptions, according to the principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing — without first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the possession of these principles. Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism, of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arro- gates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to scepticism, which makes short work with the whole science of metaphy- sics. On the contrary, our criticism is the necessary pre- paration for a thoroughly scientific system of metaphysics, which must perform its task entirely a priori, to the com- plete satisfaction of speculative reason, and must, therefore, be treated, not popularly, but scholastically. In carrying out the plan which the Critique prescribes, that is, in the future sys- tem of metaphysics, we must have recourse to the strict method of the celebrated Wole, the greatest of all dogmatic philoso- phers. He was the first to point out the necessity of establishing fixed principles, of clearly defining our conceptions, and of subjecting our demonstrations to the most severe scrutiny, instead of rashly jumping at conclusions. The example which he set, served to awaken that spirit of profound and thorough investigation which is not yet extinct in Germany. He would have been peculiarly well fitted to give a truly scientific cha- racter to metaphysical studies, had it occurred to him to pre- pare the field bv a criticism of the orgaaum, that is, of pure PPEPACE TO THE BECOKD EDI1 reason itself. That he tailed to perceive the necessity o. ft procedure, must be ascribed to the dogmatic mode- thought which characterized his age, and on this point tl philosophers of his time, as well as of all previous times, hai . nothing to reproach each other -with. Those who reject a once the method of Yv'olt, and of the Critique of Pure Reason, can have no other aim but to shake off the fetters of science, to change labour into sport, cert inty into opinion, and philosophy into philodoxy. In this second edition, I have endeavour as pos- sible, to remove the difficulties and obscurity, whicn, irkhoni fault of mine perhaps., have given rise to many misconceptions even among acute thinkers. In the propositions themselves, and in the demonstrations by which they are supported, as well as in the form and the entire plan of the work, I have found nothing to alter ; which must be attributed partly to the long examination to which I had subjected the whole before offering it to the public, and partly to the nature of the case. Tor pure speculative reason is an organic structure in which there is nothing isolated or independent, but every single part is essential to all the rest ; and hence, the slightest imperfection, whether defect or positive error, could not fail to betray itself in use. I venture, further to hope, that this system will maintain the same unalterable character for the future. I am led to entertain this confidence, not by vanity, but by the evidence which the equality of the result affords, when we proceed, first, from the simplest elements up to the complete whole of pure reason, and then, backwards from the whole to each individual part. We rind that the attempt to make the os: alteration, in any part, leads inevitably to contradic- tions, not merely in this system, but in human reason itself. At the same time, there is still much room for improvement in the exposition of the doctrines contained in this work. In the pi I have endeavoured to remove misappre- hensions of the resthetieal part, especially with regard to the i of Time : to clear away the obscurity which has been found in the deduction of the conceptions of the under- ing; to supply the supposed w\ant oi sufficient evidence in the demonstration of the principles of the pure understand- ing ; and, lastly, to obviate the misunderstanding of the paralo- gisms which immediately precede the Rational Psychology. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. d this point — the end of the second Main Division of iYanscen dental Dialectic — I have not extended my altera- 3ns,* partly from want of time, and partly because I am * The only addition, properly so called — and that only in the method , f proof — which I have made in the present edition, consists of a new efutation of psychological Idealism, and a strict demonstration — the only one possible, as I believe — of the objective reality of external intuition. However harmless Idealism may be considered — although in reality it is not so — in regard to the essential ends of metaphysics, it must still remain a scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason to be obliged to assume-, as an of mere belief, the existence of things external to ourselves (from which, yet, we derive the whole material of cognition even for the internal sense), and not to be able to oppose a satisfactory proof to any one who may call it in question. As there is some obscurity of ex- pression in the demonstration as it stands in the text, I propose to alter the passage in question as follows : "But this permanent cannot be an in- tuition in me. For all the determining grounds of rny existence which can be found in me, are representations, and, as such, do themselves re- quire a permanent, distinct from them, which may determine my existence in relation to their changes, that is, my existence in time, wherein they change." It may, probably, be urged in opposition to this proof, that, after all, I am only conscious immediately of that which is in me, that is, of my representation of external things, and that, consequently, it must always remain uncertain whether anything corresponding to this repre- sentation, does or does not exist externally to me. But I am conscious, through internal experience, of my existence in time, (consequently, also, of the determinability of the former in the latter), and that is more than the simple consciousness of my representation. It is, in fact, the same as the empirical consciousness of my existence, which can only be determined in relation to something, which, while connected with my existence, is ex- ternal to me. This consciousness of my existence in time is, therefore, identical with the consciousness of a relation to something external to me, and it is, therefore, experience, not fiction, sense, not imagination, which inseparably connects the external with my internal sense. For the ex- ternal sense is, in itself, the relation of intuition to something real, ex- ternal to me ; and the reality of this something, as opposed to the mere imagination of it, rests solely on its inseparable connection with internal experience as the condition of its possibility. If with the intellectual consciousness of my existence, in the representation: / am, which accom- panies all my judgments, and all the operations of my understanding, I could, at the same time, connect a determination of my existence by in- tellectual intuition, then the consciousness of a relation to something ex- ternal to me would not be necessary. But the internal intuition in which alone my existence can be determined, though preceded by that purely intellectual consciousness, is itself sensible and attached to the condition of time. Hence this determination of my existence, and consequently my internal experience itself, must depend on something permanent which is not in me, which can be, therefore, only in something external to rae, to which I must look upon myself as being relatet 1 Tilu» ihe reality of PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xli not aware that any portion of the remainder has given rise to misconceptions among intelligent and impartial critics, whom J do not here mention with that praise which is their due, but who will find that their suggestions have been attended to in the work itself. In attempting to render the exposition of my views as intel- ligible as possible, I have been compelled to leave out or abridge various passages which were not essential to the com- pleteness of the work, but which many readers might consider useful in other respects, and might be unwilling to miss. This trifling loss, which could not be avoided without swelling the book beyond due limits, may be supplied, at the pleasure of the reader, by a comparison with the first edition, and will, I hope, be more than compensated for by the greater clearness of the exposition as it now stands. I have observed, with pleasure and thankfulness, in the pages of various reviews and treatises, that the spirit of pro- found and thorough investigation is not extinct in Germany, though it may have been overborne and silenced for a time by the fashionable tone of a licence in thinking, which gives itself the airs of genius — and that the difficulties which beset the paths of Criticism have not prevented energetic and acute thinkers from making themselves masters of the science of pure reason to which these paths conduct — a science which the external sense is necessarily connected with that of the internal, in order to the possibility of experience in general; that is, I am just as certainly conscious that there are things external to me related to my sense, as I am that I myself exist, as determined in time. But in order to ascertain to what given intuitions objects, external to me, really correspond, in other words, what intuitions belong to the external sense and not to imagination, I must have recourse, in every particular case, to those rules according to which experience in general (even internal experience) is distinguished from imagination, and which are always based on the pro- position that there really is an external experience. — We may add the remark, that the representation of something permanent in existence, is not the same thing as the permanent representation ; for a representation may be very variable and changing — as all our representations, even that of matter, are — and yet refer to something permanent, which must, therefore, be distinct from all my representations and external to me, the existence of which is necessarily included in the determination of my own existence, and with it constitutes one experience — an experience which would not even be possible internally, if it were not also at the same time, in part, external. To the question How? we are no more able to reply, than we are, in general, to think the stationary in time, the co-existence of which with the variable, produces the conception of change. Xlii PBEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. is not popular, but scholastic in its character, and which alone can hope for a lasting existence or possess an abiding value. To these deserving men, who so happily combine profundity of view with a talent for lucid exposition — a talent which I myself am not conscious of possessing — I leave the task of removing any obscurity which may still adhere to the statement of my doctrines. For, in this case, the danger is not that of being refuted, but of being misunderstood. For my own part, I must henceforward abstain from controversy, although I shall carefully attend to all suggestions, whether from friends or adversaries, which may be of use in the future elaboration of the system of this Propedeutic. As, during these labours, I have advanced pretty far in years — this month I reach my sixty-fourth year — it will be necessary for me to economize time, if I am to carry out my plan of elaborating the Metaphysics of Nature as well as of Morals, in confirmation if the correctness of the principles established in this Critique of Pure Reason, both Speculative and Practical ; and I must, therefore, leave the task of clearing up the obscurities of the present work — inevitable, perhaps, at the outset — as well as the defence of the whole, to those deserving men who have made my system their own. A philosophical system cannot come forward armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite possible to take objection to parti- cular passages, while the organic structure of the system, con- sidered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking these out of their connection and comparing them with one another, it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions, especially in a work written with any freedom of style. These contradictions place the work in an unfavourable light in the eyes of those who rely on the judg- ment of others, but are easily reconciled by those who have mastered the idea of the whole, If a theory possesses stabi- lity in itself, the action and reaction which seemed at first to threaten its existence, serve only, in the course of time, to smooth down any superficial roughness or inequality, and — if men of insight, impartiality, and truly popular gifts, turn their attention to it — to secure to it, in a short time, the requi- site elegance also. Konigsberg, April 1787. INTRODUCTION. I. OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PURE AND EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE. ■^EAT all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt./ For how is it possible that the faculty of cog- nition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of them- selves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare, to connect, or to se parate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called ex- perience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it. y But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows, that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical / know- ledge is a compound of that which we receive through im- pressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us at- tentive to, and skilful in separating it. At k, ihciefore, a question which requires close investigation, and is not to be answered at first sight, — whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions ? Knowledge of this kind is called a priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience. / But the expression, " a priori" is not as yet definite enough, adequately to indicate the whole meaning of the question above started. For, in speaking of knowledge which B 2 INTRODUCTION. has its sources in experience, we are wont to say, that this or that may be known a priori, because we do not derive this knowledge immediately from experience, but from a general rule, which, however, we have itself borrowed from experi- ence. Thus, if a man undermined his house, we say, " he might know a priori that it would have fallen ;" that is, he needed not to have waited for the experience that it did actu- ally fall. But still, a priori, he could not know even this much. For, that bodies are heavy, and, consequently, that they fall when their supports are taken away, must have been known to him previously, by means of experience. By the term " knowledge a priori" therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all ex- perience. Opposed to this is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, through experi- ence. Knowledge a priori is either pure or impure. Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up. For example, the proposition, " Every change has a cause," is a proposition a priori, but impure, because change is a conception which can only be derived from expe- rience. II. The human intellect, even in an tjnphilosophical STATE, IS IN POSSESSION OE CERTAIN COGNITIONS A PRIORI. The question now is as to a criterion, by which we may securely distinguish a pure from an empirical cognition. Ex- perience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is con- stituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise. Now, in the first place, if we have a proposition Which contains the idea of necessity in its very conception, it is a judgment a priori ; if, moreover, it is not derived from any other proposition, unless from one equally involving the idea of necessity, it is absolutely a priori. Se- condly, an empirical judgment never exhibits strict and abso- lute, but only assumed and comparative universality (by in- duction) ; therefore, the most we can say is, — so far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this or that rule. If, on the other hand, a judgment carries with it strict and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible excep- A PEICSI COGNITIONS. 6 tion, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely a priori. Empirical universality is, therefore, only an arbitrary ex- tension of validity, from that which may be predicated of a proposition valid in most cases, to that which is asserted of a proposition which holds good in all ; as, for example, in the affirmation, " all bodies are heavy." When, on the contrary, strict universality characterizes a judgment, it necessarily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of cognition a priori. Necessity and strict univer- sality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other. But as in the use of these criteria the empirical limitation is sometimes more easily detected than the contingency of the judgment, or the unlimited universality which we attach to a judgment is often a more convincing proof than its necessity, it may be advisable to use the criteria separately, each being by itself infallible. Now, that in the sphere of human cognition, we have judgments which are necessary, and in the strictest sense universal, consequently pure a priori, it will be an easy matter to shew. If we desire an example from the sciences, we need only take any proposition in mathematics. If we cast our ey s upon the commonest operations of the un- derstanding, the proposition, " every change must have a cause," will amply serve our purpose. In the latter case, indeed, the conception of a cause so plainly involves the con- ception of a necessity of connexion with an effect, and of a strict universality of the law, that the very notion of a cause would entirely disappear, were we to derive it, like Hume, from a frequent association of what happens with that which precedes, and the habit thence originating of connecting re- presentations — the necessity inherent in the judgment being therefore merely subjective. Besides, without seeking for such examples of principles existing a priori in cognition, we might easily shew that such principles are the indispen- sable basis of the possibility of experience itself, and con- sequently prove their existence a priori. For whence could our experience itself acquire certainty, if all the rules on which it depends were themselves empirical, and consequently for- tuitous ? No one, therefore, can admit the validity of the use B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. of such rules as first principles. But, for the present, we may content ourselves with having established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a faculty of pure a priori cog- nition ; and, secondly, with having pointed out the proper tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity. Not only in judgments, however, but even in conceptions, is an a priori origin manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience — colour, hardness or softness, weight, even impenetrability — the body will then vanish ; but the space which it occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to annihilate in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our empirical conception of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties which mere experience has taught us to connect with it, still we cannot think away those through which we cogitate it as substance, or adhering to substance, although our conception of substance is more determined than that of an object. Compelled, therefore, by that necessity with which the con- ception of substance forces itself upon us, we must confess that it has its seat in our faculty of cognition a priori. III. Philosophy stands in need of a science which SHALL DETERMINE THE POSSIBILITY, PRINCIPLES, AND EXTENT OE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE A PRIORI. Or far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise com- pletely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole ex- tent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgments beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investi- gations of Reason, which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phsenomena. So high a value do we set upon these investigations, that even at the risk of error, we persist in following them out, and permit neither doubt nor disregard nor indifference to restrain us from the pur- suit. These unavoidable problems of mere pure reason are DOGMATISM. O God, Feeedom (of will) and Immoetaeitt. The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics, — a science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it con- fidently takes upon itself the execution of this task without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such an undertaking. Now the safe ground of experience being thus abandoned, it seems nevertheless natural that we should hesitate to erect a building with the cognitions we possess, without knowing whence they come, and on the strength of principles, the origin of which is undiscovered. Instead of thus trying to build without a foundation, it is rather to be expected that we should long ago have put the question, how the under- standing can arrive at these a priori cognitions, and what is the extent, validity, and worth which they may possess 1 We say, this is natural enough, meaning by the word natural, that which is consistent with a just and reasonable way of think- ing ; but if we understand by the term, that which usually happens, nothing indeed could be more natural and more comprehensible than that this investigation should be left long unattempted. For one part of our pure knowledge, the science of mathematics, has been long firmly estab- lished, and thus leads us to form flattering expectations with regard to others, though these may be of quite a different nature. Besides, when we get beyond the bounds of ex- perience, we are of course safe from opposition in that quarter ; and the charm of widening the range of our know- ledge is so great, that unless we are brought to a stand-still by some evident contradiction, we hurry on undoubtingly in our course. This, however, may be avoided, if we are suffi- ciently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account. Mathematical science affords us a brilliant example, how far, independently of all experience, we may carry our a priori knowledge. It is true that the mathematician occupies himself with objects and cognitions only in so far as they can be represented by means of intuition. But this circumstance is easily overlooked, because the said intuition can itself be given a priori, and therefore is hardly to be distinguished from a mere pure conception. Deceived by such a proof of ° INTBODUCTION. the power of reason, we can perceive no limits to the ex- tension of our knowledge. The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in air- less space. Just in the same way did Plato, abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the void space of pure intellect. He did not reflect that he made no real progress by all his efforts ; for he met with no resistance which might serve him for a support, as it were, whereon to rest, and on which he might apply his powers, in order to let the intellect acquire momentum for its progress. It is, indeed, the common fate of human reason in speculation, to finish the imposing edifice of thought as rapidly as possible, and then for the first time to begin to examine whether the foundation is a solid one or no. Arrived at this point, all sorts of excuses are sought after, in order to console us for its want of stability, or rather indeed, to enable us to dispense altogether with so late and dangerous an investigation. But what frees us during the process of building from all appre- hension or suspicion, and flatters us into the belief of its solidity, is this. A great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the business of our reason consists in the analysation of the conceptions which we already possess of objects. By this means we gain a multitude of cognitions, which although really nothing more than elucidations or explanations of that which (though in a confused manner) was already thought in our conceptions, are, at least in respect of their form, prized as new introspections ; whilst, so far as regards their matter or content, we have really made no addition to our con- ceptions, but only disinvolved them. But as this process does furnish real a priori knowledge,* which has a sure progress and useful results, reason, deceived by this, slips in, without being itself aware of it, assertions of a quite different kind; in which, to given conceptions it adds others, a priori in- deed, but entirely foreign to them, without our knowing how it arrives at these, and, indeed, without such a question ever suggesting itself. I shall therefore at once proceed to examine the difference between these two modes of knowledge. * Not synthetical. — Tr. ANALYTICAL AND SYNTHETICAL JUDGMENTS. / IV. Of the difference between analytical and SYNTHETICAL JUDGMENTS. Tn all judgments wherein the relation of a subject to the pre- dicate is cogitated, (I mention affirmative judgments only here ; the application to negative will be very easy,) this rela- tion is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as somewhat which is contained (though covertly) in the conception A ; or the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although it stands in connexion with it. In the first instance, I term the judgment analytical, in the second, synthetical. Analytical judgments (affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the predicate with the subject is cogitated through identity ; those in which this connexion is cogitated without identity, are called synthetical judgments. The former may be called explicative, the latter augmentative* judgments ; because the former add in the predicate nothing to the conception of the subject, but only analyse it into its constituent conceptions, which were thought already in the subject, although in a con- fused manner ; the latter add to our conceptions of the subject a predicate which was not contained in it, and which no analysis could ever have discovered therein. For example, when I say, " all bodies are extended," this is an analytical judgment. For I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find extension connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is, become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception, in order to discover this predicate in it : it is therefore an ana- lytical judgment. On the other hand, when I say, " all bodies are heavy," the predicate is something totally different from that which I think in the mere conception of a body. By the addition of such a predicate therefore, it becomes a synthetical judgment. Judgments of experience, as such, are always synthetical. For it would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgment on experience, because in forming such a judg- ment, I need not go out of the sphere of my conceptions, * That is, judgments which really add to, and do not merely analyse or explain the conceptions which make up the sum of our knowledge. — TV. 5 INTKODTJCTTO^, and therefore recourse to the testimony of experience is quite unnecessary. That "bodies are extended" is not an em- pirical judgment, but a proposition which s Lands firm a 'priori. For before addressing myself to experience, I already have in my conception all the requisite conditions for the judg- ment, and I have only to extract the predicate from the concep- tion, according to the principle of contradiction, and thereby at the same time become conscious of the necessity of the judgment, a necessity which I could never learn from ex- perience. On the other hand, though at first I do not at all include the predicate of weight in my conception of body in general, that conception still indicates an object of ex- perience, a part of the totality of experience, to which I can still add other parts ; and this I do when I recognize by ob- servation that bodies are heavy. I can cognize beforehand by analysis the conception of body through the character- istics of extension, impenetrability, shape, &c, all which are cogitated in this conception. But now I extend my know- ledge, and looking back on experience from which I had derived this conception of body, I find weight at all times connected with the above characteristics, and therefore I synthetically add to my conceptions this as a predicate, and say, "all bodies are heavy." Thus it is experience upon which rests the possibility of the synthesis of the predicate of weight with the conception of body, because both con- ceptions, although the one is not contained in the other, still belong to one another (only contingently, however), as parts of a whole, namely, of experience, which is itself a synthesis of intuitions. But to synthetical judgments a priori, such aid is entirely wanting. If I go out of and beyond the conception A, in order to recognize another B as connected with it, what foundation have I to rest on, whereby to render the synthesis possible ? I have here no longer the advantage of looking out in the sphere of experience for what I want. Let us take, for example, the proposition, "everything that happens has a cause." In the conception of something that happens, I indeed think an existence which a certain time antecedes, and from this I can derive analytical judgments. But the conception of a cause lies quite out of the above conception, and indicates something entirely different from " that which SYNTHETICAL JUDGMENTS A PEIOEI. V happens," and is consequently not contained in that con- ception. How then am I able to assert concerning the general conception — "that which happens " — something entirely dif- ferent from that conception, and to recognize the conception of cause although not contained in it, yet as belonging to it, and even necessarily? what is here the unknown = X, upon which the understanding rests when it believes it has found, out of the conception A a foreign predicate B, which it nevertheless considers to be connected with it ? It cannot be experience, because the principle adduced annexes the two represent- ations, cause and effect, to the representation existence, not only with universality, which experience cannot give, but also with the expression of necessity, therefore completely a priori and from pure conceptions. Upon such synthetical, that is augmentative propositions, depends the whole aim of our specu- lative knowledge a priori ; for although analytical judgments are indeed highly important and necessary, they are so, only to arrive at that clearness of conceptions which is requisite for a sure and extended synthesis, and this alone is a real acquisition. V. In ALL THEORETICAL SCIENCES OE EEASON, SYNTHETICAL JUDGMENTS A PRIORI AEE CONTAINED AS PEINCIPLES. 1 . Mathematical judgments are always synthetical. Hitherto this fact, though incontestibly true and very important in its consequences, seems to have escaped the analysts of the humai mind, nay, to be in complete opposition to all their conjec- tures. For as it was found that mathematical conclusions ali proceed according to the principle of contradiction (whict the nature of every apodeictic certainty requires), peoph became persuaded that the fundamental principles of thl science also were recognised and admitted in the same wa) . But the notion is fallacious ; for although a synthetical pro- position can certainly be discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, this is possible only when another syntheti- cal proposition precedes, from which the latter is deduced, but never of itself. Before all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propo- sitions are always judgments d priori, and not empirical, be- cause they carry along with them the conception of necessity, 1 INTRODUCTION. which cannot be given by experience. If this be demurred to, it matters not ; I will then limit my assertion to pure ma- thematics, the very conception of which implies, that it con sists of knowledge altogether non-empirical and a 'priori. We might, indeed, at first suppose that the proposition 7 + 5=12, is a merely analytical proposition, following (ac- cording to the principle of contradiction), from the concep- tion of a sum of seven and five. But if we regard it more narrowly, we find that our conception of the sum of seven and five contains nothing more than the uniting of both sums into one, whereby it cannot at all be cogitated what this single number is which embraces both. The conception of twelve is by no means obtained by merely cogitating the union of seven and five ; and we may analyze our conception of such a possible sum as long as we will, still we shall never dis- cover in it the notion of twelve. We must go beyond these conceptions, and have recourse to an intuition which corresponds to one of the two, — our five fingers, for ex- ample, or like Segner in his " Arithmetic," five points, and so by degrees, add the units contained in the five given in the intuition, to the conception of seven. For I first take the number 7, and, for the conception of 5 calling in the aid of the fingers of my hand as objects of intuition, I add the units, which I before took together to make up the number 5, gradually now by means of the material image my hand, to the number 7, and by this process, I at length see the number 12 arise. That 7 should be added to 5, I have certainly cogitated in my conception of a sum==7-t 5, but not that this sum was equal to 12. Arithmetical propositions are therefore always synthetical, of which we may become more clearly convinced by trying large numbers. For it will thus become quite evident, that turn and twist our conceptions as we may, it is impossible, without having recourse to intui- tion, to arrive at the sum total or product by means of the mere analysis of our conceptions. Just as little is any princi- ple of pure geometry analytical. " A straight line between two points is the shortest," is a synthetical proposition. For my conception of straight, contains no notion of quantity, but is merely qualitative. The conception of the shortest is therefore wholly an addition, and by no analysis can it be ex- tracted from our conception of a straight line. Intuition SYNTHETICAL JUDGMENTS A PEIOET. 11 must therefore here lend its aid, by means of which and thus only, our synthesis is possible. ^ Some few principles preposited by geometricians are, in- deed, really analytical, and depend on the principle of con- tradiction. They serve, however, like identical propositions, as links in the chain of method, not as principles, — for ex- ample, a=a, the whole is equal to itself, or (a + 6) 7 a, the whole is greater than its part. And yet even these principles themselves, though they derive their validity from pure conceptions, are only admitted in mathematics because they can be presented in intuition. What causes us here commonly to believe that the predicate of such apodeictic judgments is already contained in our conception, and that the judgment is therefore analytical, is merely the equivocal nature of the expression. We must join in thought a certain predicate to a given conception, and this necessity cleaves already to the conception. But the question is, not what we must join in thought to the given conception, but what we really think therein, though only obscurely, and then it becomes manifest, that the predicate pertains to these conceptions, ne- cessarily indeed, yet not as thought in the conception itself, out by virtue of an intuition, which must be added to the con- ception. 2. The science of Natural Philosophy (Physics) contains in itself synthetical judgments a priori, as principles. I shall adduce two propositions. For instance, the proposition, " in all changes of the material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged ;" or, that, " in all communication of motion, action and re-action must always be equal." In both of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin a priori clear, but also that they are synthetical propo- sitions. For in the conception of matter, I do not cogitate its permanency, but merely its presence in space, which it fills. I therefore really go out of and beyond the conception of matter, in order to think on to it something a priori, which I did not think in it. The proposition is therefore not analyti- cal, but synthetical, and nevertheless conceived a priori ; and so it is with regard to the other propositions of the pure part of natural philosophy. 3. As to Metaphysics, even if we look upon it merely as an attempted science, yet, from the nature of human reason, an 12 INTRODUCTION. indispensable one, we find that it must contain synthetical propositions a priori. It is not merely the duty of meta- physics to dissect, and thereby analytically to illustrate the conceptions which we form a priori of things ; but we seek to widen the range of our a priori knowledge. For this purpose, we must avail ourselves of such principles as add something to the original conception — something not identical with, nor contained in it, and by means of synthetical judgments a priori, leave far behind us the limits of experience ; for example, in the proposition, " the world must have a begin- ning," and such like. Thus metaphysics, according to the proper aim of the science, consists merely of synthetical pro- positions a priori. VI. The universal problem of pure reason. It is extremely advantageous to be able to bring a number of investigations under the formula of a single problem. For in this manner, we not only facilitate our own labour, inas- much as we define it clearly to ourselves, but also render it more easy for others to decide whether we have done justice to our undertaking. The proper problem of pure reason, then, is contained in the question, " How are synthetical judgments a priori possible ?" That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so va- cillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact, that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judg- ments, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the im- possibility of synthetical knowledge a prion, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem : yet it never acquired in his mind sufficient preci- sion, nor did he regard the question in its universality. On the contrary, he stopped short at the synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its cause, (principium causal- itatis), insisting that such proposition d, priori was impos- sible. According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given the appearance THE GRAND PROBLEM OE PURE REASON. 13 of necessity. Against this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality. For he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which assuredly cannot exist without synthetical propositions d, priori, — an absurdity from which his good understanding must have saved him. In the solution of the above problem is at the same time comprehended the possibility of the use of pure reason in the foundation and construction of all sciences which contain theoretical knowledge a priori of objects, that is to say, the answer to the following questions : How is pure mathematical science possible ? How is pure natural science possible ? Respecting these sciences, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible ? — for that they must be possible, is shewn by the fact of their really existing.* But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, as far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence. Yet, in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must un- questionably be looked upon as given; in other words, meta- physics must be considered as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind (metaphysica naturalis). For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great know- ledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any em- pirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom ; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system * As to the existence of pure natural science, or physics, perhaps many may still express doubts. But we have only to look at the different pro- positions which are commonly treated of at the commencement of proper (empirical) physical science — those, for example, relating to the perma- nence of the same quantity of matter, the vis inertias, the equality of action and reaction. &c. — to be soon convinced that they form a science of pure physics (physica pura, or rationales ), which well deserves to be separately exposed as a special science, in its whole extent, whether that be great or confined. 14 INTRODUCTION. of metaphysics. It will always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of speculation. And now the question arises — How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible ? In other words, how, from the nature of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason proposes to itself, and which it is impelled by its own feeling* of need to answer as well as it can ? But as in all the attempts hitherto made to answer the ques- tions which reason is prompted by its very nature to propose to itself, for example, whether the world had a beginning, or has existed from eternity, it has always met with unavoidable contradictions, we must not rest satisfied with the mere natu- ral disposition of the mind to metaphysics, that is, with the existence of the faculty of pure reason, whence, indeed, some sort of metaphysical system always arises ; but it must be possible to arrive at certainty in regard to the question whether we know or do not know the things of which metaphysics treats. We must be able to arrive at a decision on the subjects of its questions, or on the ability or inability of reason to form any judgment respecting them ; and therefore either to extend with confidence the bounds of our pure reason, or to set strictly defined and safe limits to its action. This last ques- tion, which arises out of the above universal problem, would properly run thus : How is metaphysics possible as a science ? Tl . , the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science ; and, on the other hand, the dogma- tical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless asser- tions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism. Besides, this science cannot be of great and formidable prolixity, because it has not to do with objects of reason, the variety of which is inexhaustible, but merely with reason her- self and her problems ; problems which arise out of her own bosom, and are not proposed to her by the nature of outward things, but by her own nature. And when once reason has previously become able completely to understand her own power in regard to objects which she meets with in experience, it will be easy to determine securely the extent and limits of her attempted application to objects beyond the confines of experience. We may and must, therefore, regard the attempts hitherto IDEA OP A CRITIQUE OP PURE SEASON. 15 made to establish metaphysical science dogmatically as non- existent. For what of analysis, that is, mere dissection of conceptions, is contained in one or other, is not the aim of, but only a preparation for metaphysics proper, which has for its object the extension, by means of synthesis, of our a priori knowledge. And for this purpose, mere analysis is of course useless, because it only shews what is contained in these conceptions, but not how we arrive, a priori, at them; and this it is her duty to shew, in order to be able afterwards to determine their valid use in regard to all objects of expe- rience, to all knowledge in general. But little self-denial, indeed, is needed to give up these pretensions, seeing the undeniable, and in the dogmatic mode of procedure, in- evitable contradictions of Reason with herself, have long since ruined the reputation of every system of metaphysics that has appeared up to this time. It will require more firmness to remain undeterred by difficulty from within, and opposition from without, from endeavouring, by a method quite opposed to all those hitherto followed, to further the growth and fruitfulness of a science indispensable to human reason — a science from which every branch it has borne may be cut away, but whose roots remain indestructible. VII. Idea and division op a paeticulae science, tjndee THE NAME OP A CeITIQTTE OP PlJEE REASON. Feom all that has been said, there results the idea of a par- ticular science, which may be called the Critique of Pure Reason. For reason is the faculty which furnishes us with the principles of knowledge a priori. Hence, pure reason is the'faculty which contains the principles of cognizing any thing absolutely a priori. An Organon of pure reason would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone all pure cognitions a priori can be obtained. The completely extended application of such an organon would afford us a system of pure reason. As this, however, is de- manding a great deal, and it is yet doubtful whether any extension of our knowledge be here possible, or if so, in what cases ; we can regard a science of the mere criticism of pure reason, its sources and limits, as the propcedeutic to a system of pure reason. Such a science must not be called a Doctrine, but only a Critique of pure Reason ; and its use, LO IXTEODUCTIOtf. m regard to speculation, would be only negative, not to en- large the bounds of, but to purify our reason, and to shield it against error, — which alone is no little gain. I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much occu- pied with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori. A system of such conceptions would be called Transcendental Philosophy. But this, again, is still beyond the bounds of our present essay. For as such a science must contain a complete exposition not only of our synthetical a priori, but of our analytical a priori knowledge, it is of too wide a range for our present purpose, because we do not require to carry our analysis any farther than is necessary to understand, in their full extent, the principles of synthesis a priori, with which alone we have to do. This investigation, which we cannot properly call a doctrine, but only a transcendental critique, because it aims not at the enlargement, but at the correction and guidance of our knowledge, and is to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all know- ledge d priori, is the sole object of our present essay. Such a critique is consequently, as far as possible, a preparation for an organon ; and if this new organon should be found to fail, at least for a canon of pure reason, according to which the complete system of the philosophy of pure reason, whether it extend or limit the bounds of that reason, might one day be set forth both analytically and synthetically. For that this is possible, nay, that such a system is not of so great extent as to preclude the hope of its ever being com- pleted, is evident. For we have not here to do with the nature of outward objects, which is infinite, but solely with the mind, which judges of the nature of objects, and, again, with the mind only in respect of its cognition a priori. And the object of our investigations, as it is not to be sought without, but altogether within ourselves, cannot remain con- cealed, and in all probability is limited enough to be com- pletely surveyed and fairly estimated, according to its worth or worthlessness. Still less let the reader here expect a critique of books and systems of pure reason ; our present object is exclusively a critique of the faculty of pure reason itself. Only when we make this critique our foundation, do we possess a pure touchstone for estimating the philosophical IDEA OF A CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. value of ancient and modern writings on this subject ; and without this criterion, the incompetent historian or judge decides upon and corrects the groundless assertions of others with his own, which have themselves just as little foundation. Transcendental philosophy is the idea of a science, for which the Critique of Pure Reason must sketch the whole plan architectonically, that is, from principles, with a full guarantee for the validity and stability of all the parts which enter into the building. It is the system of all the principles of pure reason. If this Critique itself does not assume the title of transcendental philosophy, it is only because, to be a complete system, it ought to contain a full analysis of ail human knowledge a priori. Our critique must, indeed, lay before us a complete enumeration of all the radical concep- tions which constitute the said pure knowledge. But from the complete analysis of these conceptions themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived from them, it abstains with reason ; partly because it would be deviating from the end in view to occupy itself with this analysis, since this process is not attended with the difficulty and insecurity to be found in the synthesis, to which our critique is entirely devoted, and partly because it would be inconsistent with the unity of our plan to burden this essay with the vindication of the completeness of such an analysis and deduction, with which, after all, we have at present nothing to do. This completeness of the analysis of these radical conceptions, as well as of the deduction from the conceptions a priori which may be given by the analysis, we can, however, easily attain, provided only that we are in pos- session of all these radical conceptions, which are to serve as principles of the synthesis, and that in respect of this main purpose nothing is wanting. To the Critique of Pure Reason, therefore, belongs all that constitutes transcendental philosophy ; and it is the complete idea of transcendental philosophy, but still not the science itself ; because it only proceeds so far with the analysis as is necessary to the power of judging completely of our syn- thetical knowledge a priori. The principal thing we must attend to, in the division of the parts of a science like this, is : that no conceptions must enter it which contain aught empirical ; in other words, that c nfTJBGDTJCTION the knowledge a priori must be completely pure. Hence, although the highest principles and fundamental conceptions of morality are certainly cognitions a priori, yet they do not belong to transcendental philosophy ; because, though they certainly do not lay the conceptions of pain, pleasure, desires, inclinations, &c, (which are all of empirical origin) at the foundation of its precepts, yet still into the conception of clu^—as an obstacle to be overcome, or as an incitement which should not be made into a motive,— these empirical conceptions must necessarily enter, in the construction of a system of pure morality. Transcendental philosophy is con- sequently a philosophy of the pure and merely speculative reason. For all that is practical, so far as it contains mo- tives, relates to feelings, and these belong to empirical sources of cognition. If we wish to divide this science from the universal point of view of a science in general, it ought to comprehend, first, a Doctrine of the Elements, and, secondly, a Doctrine of the Method of pure reason. Each of these main divisions will have its subdivisions, the separate reasons for which we cannot here particularise. Only so much seems necessary, by way of introduction or premonition, that there are two sources of human knowledge (which probably spring from a common, but to us unknown root), namely, sense and under- standing. By the former, objects are given to us ; by the latter, thought. So far as the faculty of sense may contain representations a priori, which form the conditions under which objects are given, in so far it belongs to transcendental philosophy. The transcendental doctrine of sense must form the first part of our science of elements, because the con- ditions under which alone the objects of human knowledge are given, must precede those under which they are thought. GENERAL REMARKS ON TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC 35 to pass the limits of that sphere. The latter has, indeed, this advantage, that the representations of space and time do not come in their way when they wish to judge of ob- jects, not as phsenomena, but merely in their relation to the understanding. Devoid, however, of a true and objectively valid a priori intuition, they can neither furnish any basis for the possibility of mathematical cognitions a priori, nor bring the propositions of experience into necessary accordance with those of mathematics. In our theory of the true nature of these two original forms of the sensibility, both difficulties are surmounted. In conclusion, that transcendental iEsthetic cannot con- tain any more than these two elements — space and time, is sufficiently obvious from the fact that all other con- ceptions appertaining to sensibility, even that of motion, which unites in itself both elements, presuppose something empirical. Motion, for example, presupposes the perception of something moveable. But space considered in itself contains nothing moveable, consequently motion must be something which is found in space only through experience, — in other words, is an empirical datum. In like manner, tran- scendental iEsthetic cannot number the conception of change among its data a priori ; for time itself does not change, but only something which is in time. To acquire the conception of change, therefore, the perception of some existing object and of the succession of its determinations, in one word, experience, is necessary. § 9. — General Remarks on Transcendental JEsthetic. I. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as pos- sible, what our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. "We have in- tended, then, to say, that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phsenomena ; that the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us ; and that if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear ; and d 2 •55 TKANSCENDEOTAl ESTHETIC. that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves but only „ a What may be the nature of objects considered as Lg in themselves and without reference to the recep tmty of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our own mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar t°u,td which, though not of necessity pertaining :to every animated being, is so to the whole : human race With thx> alone we have to do. Space and time are the pure torms thereof; sensation the matter. The former alone can we cog- Zt priori, that is, antecedent to a act ual. percep ion ; and for this reason such cognition is called pure intuition. ^ ine atteris that in our cognition which is called cognition a pes- Sf that is, empirical intuition. The former appertain ab- solntely and necessarily to our sensibility, of whatsoever land onr s nsations may be ; the latter may be of very diversified character Supposing that we should carry our empirical ntufiion even^ the* very highest degree of clearness w, should not thereby advance one step nearer to » ^° wled f of the constitution of objects as things in themselves For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition of our ov> n mode of intnitiom that is ; of our sensibility and to* alwa£ under the conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely, the conditions of space and time ;— while the ques- don-^'What are objects considered as things in them- selves?" remains unanswerable even after the most thorough examination of the phenomenal world. To say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the con fused representation of things containing exclusively tha which belongs to them as things m themselves, and this under In accumulation of characteristic mark, and partial -Po- tions which we cannot distinguish in consciousness is a W ? A- cation of the conception of sensibility and phamomen.za ion wh ch renders our 4ole doctrine thereof empty and useks Tlie difference between a confused and a clear representation i. merely ogical and has nothing to do with content. No doub rtie conception of right, as employed by a sound under an d ing, contains all that the most subtle mvestigation could unfold from it, although, in the ordinary practical use of the w«d, we are not conscious of the manifold repmentafaona ^com- prised in the conception. But we cannot for tin reason, assert that the ordinary conception is a sensuous one, con- GENERAL REMARKS ON TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. 37 taining a mere phenomenon, for right cannot appear as a pheenomenon ; but the conception of it lies in the understand- ing, and represents a property (the moral property) of actions, winch belongs to them in themselves. On the other hand, the representation in intuition of a body contains nothing which could belong to an object considered as a thing in itself, but merely the pheenomenon or appearance of something, and the mode in which we are affected by that appearance ; and this receptivity of our faculty of cognition is called sensibility, and remains toto coelo different from the cognition of an ob- ject in itself, even though we should examine the content of the phenomenon to the very bottom. It must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an entirely erroneous point of view to all investi- gations into the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensuous and the in- tellectual as merely logical, whereas it is plainly transcenden- tal, and concerns not merely the clearness or obscurity, but the content and origin of both. For the faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with an indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous in- tuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a pheeno- menon. In phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially belongs to the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty of every human being, from that which belongs to the same intuition accidentally, as valid not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for a particular state or organ- ization of this or that sense. Accordingly, we are accus- tomed to say that the former is a cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the latter presents only a particular appearance or pheenomenon thereof. This distinction, how- ever, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere pheenomenon (as we ought to do), in which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found, our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize objects as things in them- 38 TRANSCENDENTAL JESTHETIC. selves, although in the whole range of the sensuous world, investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly as we may, we have to do with nothing but phaenomena. ,/Phus, we call the rainbow a mere appearance or phsenomenon in a sunny shower, and the rain, the reality or thing in itself ; and this is right enough, if we understand the latter conception in a merely physical sense, that is, as that which in universal ex- perience, and under whatever conditions of sensuous percep- tion, is known in intuition to be so and so determined, and not otherwise. But if we consider this empirical datum gene- rally, and enquire, without reference to its accordance with all our senses, whether there can be discovered in it aught which represents an object as a thing in itself (the raindrops of course are not such, for they are, as phenomena, empirical objects), the question of the relation of the representation to the object is transcendental ; and not only are the raindrops mere phsenomena, but even their circular form, nay, the space itself through which they fall, is nothing in itself, but both are mere modifications or fundamental dispositions of our sensuous intuition, whilst the transcendental object remains for us utterly unknown. The second important concern of our ^Esthetic is, that it do not obtain favour merely as a plausible hypothesis, but possess as undoubted a character of certainty as can be de- manded of any theory which is to serve for an organon. In order fully to convince the reader of this certainty, we shall select a case which will serve to make its validity apparent, and also to illustrate what has been said in § 3. Suppose, then, that Space and Time are in themselves ob- jective, and conditions of the possibility of objects as things in themselves. In the first place, it is evident that both present us with very many apodcictic and synthetic propositions a priori, but especially space, — and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically a priori, and with apodeictic certainty, {enquire, — whence do you obtain propositions of this kind, and on what basis does the understanding rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary and universally valid truths ? There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such ; and these are given either a priori or u posteriori. The latter, namely, empirical conceptions, together with the GENERAL REMARKS ON TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. 39 empirical intuition on which they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such as is itself also empi- rical, that is, a proposition of experience. But an empirical proposition cannot possess the qualities of necessity and abso- lute universality, which, nevertheless, are the characteristics of all geometrical propositions. As to the first and only means to arrive at such cognitions, namely, through mere concep- tions or intuitions a priori, it is quite clear that from mere con- ceptions no synthetical cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be obtained. Take, for example, the proposition, " Two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and with these alone no figure is possible," and try to deduce it from the conception of a straight line, and the number two ; or take the proposition, " It is possible to construct a figure with three straight lines," and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition. But of what kind is this intuition ? Is it a pure a priori, or is it an em- pirical intuition? If the latter, then neither an universally valid, much less an apodeictic proposition can arise from it, for experience never can give us any such proposition. You must therefore give yourself an object a priori in intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition. Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition a priori ; if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition a priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible ; if the object (that is, the triangle,) were something in itself, without relation to you the subject ; how could you affirm that that which lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself? For to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add any thing new (that is, the figure) which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by means of it. If, therefore, Space (and Time also) were not a mere form of your intuition, which contains conditions b\ priori, under which alone things can become external objects for you, and without which subjective conditions the objects are in them- 40 TKANSCEKDE1S-TAL JESTHETIC. selves nothing, you could not construct any synthetical pro- position whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore uot merely possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that Space and Time, as the necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience, are merely subjective conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects are therefore mere phaenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us in this particular manner. And for this reason, in respect to the form of pheenomena, much may be said a priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these phsenomena, it is impossible to say any thing. II. In confirmation of this theory of the ideality of the external as well as internal sense, consequently of all objects of sense, as mere phsenomena, we may especially remark, that all in our cognition that belongs to intuition contains nothing more than mere relations. — The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, which are not cognitions, are excepted. — The re- lations, to wit, of place in an intuition (extension), change of place (motion), and laws according to which this change is determined (moving forces). That, however, which is pre- sent in this or that place, or any operation going on, or re- sult taking place in the things themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not given to us by intuition. Now by means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself ; and it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as through the external sense nothing but mere representations of relations are given us, the said external sense in its representation can contain only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself. The same is the case with the internal intuition, not only, because, in the internal intuition, the representation of the external senses constitutes the material with which the mind is occupied ; but because time, in which we place, and which itself antecedes the consciousness of, these representations in experience, and which, as the formal condition of the mode according to which objects are placed in the mind, lies at the foundation of them, contains relations of the successive, the co-existent, and of that which always must be co-existent with succession, the permanent. Now that which, as represent- ation, can antecede every exercise of thought (of an object), is intuition ; and when it contains nothing but relations, it is th« GENEEAL EEMAEKS ON TEANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. 4 J form of the intuition, which, as it presents us with no repre- sentation, except in so far as something is placed in the mind, can be nothing else than the mode in which the mind is affected by its own activity, to wit — its presenting to itself represent- ations, consequently the mode in which the mind is affected by itself ; that is, it can be nothing but an internal sense in respect to its form. Everything that is represented through the medium of sense is so far phsenomenal ; consequently, we must either refuse altogether to admit an internal sense, or the subject, which is the object of that sense, could only be represented by it as phsenomenon, and not as it would judge of itself, if its intuition were pure spontaneous activity, that is, were intellectual. The difficulty here lies wholly in the question — How the subject can have an internal intuition of itself? — but this difficulty is common to every theory. The consciousness of self (apperception) is the simple represent- ation of the " Ego ;" and if by means of that representation alone, all the manifold representations in the subject were spontaneously given, then our internal intuition would be intellectual. This consciousness in man requires an internal perception of the manifold representations which are pre- viously given in the subject ; and the manner in which these representations are given in the mind without spontaneity, must, on account of this difference (the want of spontaneity), be called sensibility. If the faculty of self-consciousness is to apprehend what lies in the mind, it must affect that, and can in this way alone produce an intuition of self. But the form of this intuition, which lies in the original constitution of the mind, determines, in the representation of time, the manner in which the manifold representations are to combine themselves in the mind ; since the subject intuites itself, not as it would represent itself immediately and spontaneously, but according to the manner in which the mind is internally affected, conse- quently, as it appears, and not as it is. III. When we say that the intuition of external objects, and also the self-intuition of the subject, represent both, objects and subject, in space and time, as they affect our senses, that is, as they appear, — this is by no means equivalent to asserting that these objects are mere illusory appearances. For when we speak of things as phsenomena, the objects, nay, even the properties which we ascribe to them, are looked upon as really 42 TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. given ; only that, in so far as this or that property depends upon the mode of intuition of the subject, in the relation of the given object to the subject, the object as phsenomenon is to be distinguished from the object as a thing in itself. Thus I do not say that bodies seem or appear to be external to me, or that my soul seems merely to be given in my self-con- sciousness, although I maintain that the properties of space and time, in conformity to which I set both, as the condition of their existence, abide in my mode of intuition, and not in the objects in themselves. It would be my own fault, if out of that which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made mere illusory appearance.* But this will not happen, because of our principle of the ideality of all sensuous intuitions. On the contrary, if we ascribe objective reality to these forms of representation, it becomes impossible to avoid changing every thing into mere appearance. For if we regard space and time as properties, which must be found in objects as things in themselves, as sine quibus non of the possibility of their existence, and reflect on the absurdities in which we then find ourselves involved, inasmuch as we are compelled to admit the existence of two infinite things, which are nevertheless not substances, nor any thing really inhering in substances, nay, to admit that they are the necessary conditions of the exist- ence of all things, and moreover, that they must continue to exist, although all existing things were annihilated, — we can- not blame the good Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusory appearances. Nay, even our own existence, which * The predicates of the phenomenon can be affixed to the object it- self in relation to our sensuous faculty ; for example, the red colour or the perfume to the rose. But (illusory) appearance never can be attributed as a predicate to an object, for this very reason, that it attributes to this object in itself that which belongs to it only in relation to our sensuous faculty, or to the subject in general, e. g. the two handles which were formerly ascribed to Saturn. That which is never to be found in the ob- ject itself, but always in the relation of the object to the subject, and which moreover is inseparable from our representation of the object, we denominate phenomenon. Thus the predicates of space and time are rightly attributed to objects of the senses as such, and in this there is no illusion. On the contrary, if I ascribe redness to the rose as a thing in itself, or to Saturn his handles, or extension to all external objects, con- sidered as things in themselves, without regarding the determinate relatiou of these objects to the subject, and without limiting my judgment to that relation, — then, and then only, arises illusion. GENERAL REMARKS 01ST TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. 43 would in this case depend upon the self-existent reality of such a mere nonentity as time, would necessarily be changed with it into mere appearance — an absurdity which no one has as yet been guilty of. IV. In natural theology, where we think of an object — God — which never can be an object of intuition to us, and even to himself can never be an object of sensuous intuition, we carefully avoid attributing to his intuition the conditions of space and time — and intuition all his cognition must be, and not thought, which always includes limitation. But with what right can we do this if we make them forms of objects as things in themselves, and such moreover, as would con- tinue to exist as a priori conditions of the existence of things, even though the things themselves were annihilated ? For as conditions of all existence in general, space and time must be conditions of the existence of the Supreme Being also. But if we do not thus make them objective forms of all things, there is no other way left than to make them sub- jective forms of our mode of intuition — external and internal ; which is called sensuous, because it is not primitive, that is, is not such as gives in itself the existence of the object of the intuition (a mode of intuition which, so far as we can judge, can belong only to the Creator), but is dependent on the ex- istence of the object, is possible, therefore, only on condition that the representative faculty of the subject is affected by the object. It is, moreover, not necessary that we should limit the mode of intuition in space and time to the sensuous faculty of man. It may well be, that all finite thinking beings must neces- sarily in this respect agree with man, (though as to this we cannot decide), but sensibility does not on account of this universality cease to be sensibility, for this very reason, that it is a deduced (intuitus derivativus), and not an-original (in- tuitus originarius) , consequently not an intellectual intuition; and this intuition, as such, for reasons above mentioned, seems to belong solely to the Supreme Being, but never to a being dependent, quoad its existence, as well as its intuition (which its existence determines and limits relatively to given objects). This latter remark, however, must be taken only as au illus- tration, and not as any proof of the truth of our eesthetica] iheorv. 44 TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. § 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental JEsthetic. We have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand general problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question — How are synthetical propositions a priori possible ? That is to say, we have shown that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgment a, priori we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not dis- coverable in that conception, but is certainly found a priori in the intuition which corresponds to the conception, and can be united synthetically with it. But the judgments which these pure intuitions enable us to make, never reach farther than to objects of the senses, and are valid only for objects of possible experience. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OP ELEMENTS, PART SECOND. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. INTRODUCTION. IDEA OP A TEAtfSCEKDENTAL LOGIC. I. Of Logic in general. Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, the first of which is the faculty or power of receiving repre- sentations (receptivity for impressions) ; the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations (spon- taneity in the production of conceptions). Through the first an object is given to us ; through the second, it is, in relation to the representation (which is a mere determination of the mind), thought. Intuition and conceptions constitute, there- fore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither con- ceptions without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without conceptions, can afford us a cog- nition. Both are either pure or empirical. They are empi- rical, when sensation (which presupposes the actual presence of the object) is contained in them ; and pure, when no sen- sation is mixed with the representation. Sensations we may call the matter of sensuous cognition. Pure intuition con- sequently contains merely the form under which something is intuited, and pure conception only the form of the thought of an object. Only pure intuitions and pure conceptions are possible a priori; the empirical only a posteriori. We apply the term sensibility to the receptivity of the mind for impressions, in so far as it is in some way affected , and, on the other hand, we call the faculty of spontaneously producing representations, or the spontaneity of cognition, understanding. Our nature is so constituted, that intuition with us never can be other than sensuous, that is, it contains 46 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. only the mode in which we are affected by objects. On the other hand, the faculty of thinking the object of sensuous in- tuition, is the understanding. Neither of these faculties has a preference over the other. Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are void ; intuitions without conceptions, blind. Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions intelligible (that is, to bring them under concep- tions). Neither of these faculties can exchange its proper function. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. In no other way than from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise. But no one ought, on this account, to overlook the difference of the elements contributed by each ; we have rather great reason carefully to separate and distinguish them. We therefore distinguish the science of the laws of sensibility, that is, ^Esthetic, from the science of the laws of the understanding, that is, Logic. Now, logic in its turn may be considered as twofold, — namely, as logic of the general [universal],* or of the particular * Logic is nothing but the science of the laws of thought, as thought, It concerns itself only with the form of thought, and takes no cognizance of the matter — that is, of the infinitude of the objects to which thought is applied. Now Kant is wrong, when he divides logic into logic of the general and of the particular use of the understanding. He says the logic of the particular use of the understanding contains the laws of right thinking upon any particular set of objects. This sort of logic he calls the organon of this or that science. It is difficult to dis- cover what he means by his logic of the particular use of the understand- ing. From his description, we are left in doubt whether he means by this logic induction, that is, the organon of science in general, or the laws which regulate the objects, a science of which he seeks to establish. — In either case, the application of the term logic is inadmissible. To regard logic as the organon of science, is absurd, as indeed Kant himself afterwards shows (p. 51). It knows nothing of this or that object. The matter em- ployed in syllogisms is used for the sake of example only; all forms of syllogisms might be expressed in signs. Logicians have never been able clearly to see this. They have never been able clearly to define the ex- tent of their science, to know, in fact, what their science really treated of. They have never seen that it has to do only with the formal, and never with the material in thought. The science has broken down its proper barriers to let in contributions from metaphysics, psychology, &c. It is common enough, for example, to say that Bacon's Novum Organum entirely super- CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS, PART FIRST. TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. § 1. Introductory. In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our know- ledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear, that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them, is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable ground- work, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving re- presentations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensi- bility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions ; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions ; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensa- tion, is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined ob- ject of an empirical intuition, is called phenomenon. That which in the phsenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter ; but that which effects that the content of the phseno- menon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, can- not be itself sensation. It is then, the matter of all phseno- mena that is given to us a posteriori ; the form must lie ready a priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be re- garded separately from all sensation. 22 TKANSCENDEtfTAL ESTHETIC. I call all representations pure, in the transcendental mean- ing of the word, wherein nothing is met with that belongs to sensation. And accordingly we find existing in the mind a priori, the pure form of sensuous intuitions in general, in which all the manifold content of the phaenomenal world is arranged and viewed under certain relations. This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. Thus, if I take away from our representation of a body, all that the under- standing thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, a/visi- bility, &c, and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impe- netrability, hardness, colour, &c. ; yet there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any sensation. The science of all the principles of sensibility a priori, I call Transcendental iEsthetic* There must, then, be such a science, forming the first part of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in contradistinction to that part which contains the principles of pure thought, and which is called transcen- dental logic. In the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, we shall first isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by sepa- rating from it all that is annexed to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding, so that nothing be left but em- pirical intuition. In the next place we shall take away from this intuition all that belongs to sensation, so that nothing may remain but pure intuition, and the mere form of phae- * The Germans are the only people who at present use this word to indicate what others call the critique of taste. At the foundation of this terra lies the disappointed hope, which the eminent analyst, Baum- garten, conceived, of subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to principles of reason, and so of elevating its rules into a science. But his endeavours were vain. For the said rules or criteria are, in respect to their chief sources, merely empirical, consequently never can serve as determinate laws a priori, by which our judgment in matters of taste is to be directed. It is rather our judgment which forms the proper test as to the correct- ness of the principles. On this account it is advisable to give up the use of the term as designating the critique of taste, and to apply it solely to that doctrine, which is true science,— the science of the laws of sensibility — and thus come nearer to the language and the sense of the ancients in their well-known division of tbe objects of cognition into aloVijTa icai vor\Ta ; or to share it with speculative philosophy, and employ it partly in a tran- scendental, partly in a psychological signification. METAPHYSICAL EXPOSITION OP SPACE. 23 nomena, which is all that the sensibility can afford a 'priori. From this investigation it mil be found that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, namely, space and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed. SECTION I. OF SPACE. § 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception. Bt means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Therein alone are their shape, dimensions, and rela- tions to each other determined or determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind contemplates itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition of the soul as an object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form, under which alone the contemplation of our internal state is pos- sible, so that all which relates to the inward determinations of the mind is represented in relations of time. Of time we cannot have any external intuition, any more than we can have an internal intuition of space. What then are time and space ? Are they real existences 1 Or, are they merely relations or de- terminations of things, such however, as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition ; or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective consti- tution of the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any object ? In order to become informed on these points, we shall first give an expo- sition of the conception of space. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of that which belongs to a conception ; and an exposition is metaphysical, when it contains that which represents the conception as given a priori. 1. Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences. For, in order that certain sen- sations may relate to something without me, (that is, to something which occupies a different part of space from that in which I am) ; in like manner, in order that I may represent them not merely as without of and near to each other, but also in separate places, the representation of space must already 24 TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. exist as a foundation. Consequently, the representation of space cannot be borrowed from the relations of external pha> nomena through experience ; but, on the contrary, this ex- ternal experience is itself only possible through the said ante- cedent representation. 2. Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non- existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phaenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a repre- sentation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phasnomena. 3. Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the relations of things, but a pure intuition. For in the first place, we can only represent to ourselves one space, and when we talk of divers spaces, we mean only parts of one and the same space. Moreover these parts cannot antecede this one all-embracing space, as the component parts from which the aggregate can be made up, but can be cogitated only as existing in it. Space is essentially one, and multiplicity in it, consequently the general notion of spaces, of this or that space, depends solely upon limitations. Hence it follows that an a priori intuition (which is not empirical), lies at the root of all our conceptions of space. Thus, moreover, the principles of geometry, — for example, that "in a triangle, two sides together are greater than the third," are never deduced from general conceptions of line and triangle, but from in- tuition, and this a priori, with apodeictic certainty. 4. Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. Now every conception must indeed be considered as a representa- tion which is contained in an ■ infinite multitude of different possible representations, which, therefore, comprises these under itself; but no conception, as such, can be so conceived, as if it contained within itself an infinite multitude of representations. Nevertheless, space is so conceived of, for all parts of space are equally capable of being produced to infinity. Conse- quently, the original representation of space is an intuition % nriori, and not a conception. TEANSCENDENTAL EXPOSITION OE SPACE. 25 § 3. Transcendental exposition of the conception of Space. By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a principle, whence can be discerned the possi- bility of other synthetical a priori cognitions. For this pur- pose, it is requisite, firstly, that such cognitions do really flow from the given conception ; and, secondly, that the said cog- nitions are only possible under the presupposition of a given mode of explaining this conception. Geometry is a science which determines the properties of space synthetically, and yet a priori. What, then, must be our representation of space, in order that such a cognition of it may be possible ? It must be originally intuition, for from a mere conception, no propositions can be deduced which go out beyond the conception,* and yet this happens in geometry. (Introd. V.) But this intuition must be found in the mind a priori, that is, before any perception of objects, consequently must be pure, not empirical, intuition. For geometrical prin- ciples are always apodeictic, that is, united with the conscious- ness of their necessity, as, " Space has only three dimen- sions." But propositions of this kind cannot be empirical judgments, nor conclusions from them. (Introd. II.) Now, how can an external intuition anterior to objects themselves, and in which our conception of objects can be determined a priori, exist in the human mind? Obviously not otherwise than in so far as it has its seat in the subject only, as the formal capacity of the subject'sbeing affected by objects, and thereby of obtaining immediate representation, that is, intuition ; con- sequently, only as the form of the external sense in general. Thus it is only by means of our explanation that the pos- sibility of geometry, as a synthetical science a priori, becomes comprehensible. Every mode of explanation which does not shew us this possibility, although in appearance it may be similar to ours, can with the utmost certainty be distinguished from it by these marks. § 4. Conclusions from the foregoing conceptions, (a) Space does not represent any property of objects as * That is, the analysis of a conception only gives you what is contained in it, and does not add to your knowledge of the object of which you have a conception, but merely evolves it. — Tr. I 26 TKAKSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC. things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their rela- tions to each other ; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the ob- jects themselves, and would remain, even though all subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted. For neither abso- lute nor relative determinations of objects can be intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they belong, and therefore not a priori. (b) Space is nothing else than the form of all phaenomena of the external sense, that is, the subjective condition of the sensi- bility, under which alone external intuition is possible. Now, because the receptivity or capacity of the subject to be affected by objects necessarily antecedes all intuitions of these objects, it is easily understood how the form of all phaenomena can be given in the mind previous to all actual perceptions, there- fore d. priori, and how it, as a pure intuition, in which all objects must be determined, can contain principles of the relations of these objects prior to all experience. It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, &c. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever. This predicate [of space] is only appli- cable to things in so far as they appear to us, that is, are objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which we call sensibility, is a necessary condition of all rela- tions in which objects can be intuited- as existing without us, and when abstraction of these objects is made, is a pure intuition, to which we give the name of space. It is clear that we can- not make the special conditions of sensibility into conditions of the possibility of things, but only of the possibility of their existence as far as they are phaenomena. And so we may correctly say that space contains all which can appear to us externally, but not all things considered as things in them- selves, be they intuited or not, or by whatsoever subject one will. As to the intuitions of other thinking beings, we can- not judge whether they are or are not bound by the same conditions which limit our own intuition, and which for us are universally valid. If we join the limitation of a judgment to the conception of the subject, then the judgment will pos- OF SPACE. — CONCLUSIONS EEOM THE EOBE GOING. 27 sess unconditioned validity. For example, the proposition, "All objects are beside each other in space," is valid only under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous intuition. But if I join the condition to the con- ception, and say, "all things, as external phsenomena, are be- side each other in space," then the rule is valid universally, and without any limitation. Our expositions, consequently, teach the reality {i. e. the objective validity) of space in re- gard of all which can be presented to us externally as object, and at the same time also the ideality of space in regard to objects when they are considered by means of reason as things in themselves, that is, without reference to the constitution of our sensibility. We maintain, therefore, the empirical reality of space in regard to all possible external experience, although we must admit its transcendental ideality ; in other words, that it is nothing, so soon as we withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends, and look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves. But, with the exception of space, there is no representation, subjective and referring to something external to us, which could be called objective d priori. For there are no other subjective representations from which we can deduce syn- thetical propositions a. priori, as we can from the intuition of space. (See § 3.) Therefore, to speak accurately, no ideality whatever belongs to these, although they agree in this respect with the representation of space, that they belong merely to the subjective nature of the mode of sensuous perception; such a mode, for example, as that of sight, of hearing, and of feeling, by means of the sensations of colour, sound, and heat, but which, because they are only sensations, and not intuitions, do not of themselves give us the cognition of any object, least of all, an a priori cognition. My purpose, in the above remark, is merely this : to guard any one against illus- trating the asserted ideality of space by examples quite insuffi- cient, for example, by colour, taste, &c. ; for these must be con- templated not as properties of things, but only as changes in the subject, changes which may be different in different men. For, in such a case, that which is originally a mere phenomenon, a rose, for example, is taken by the empirical understanding for a thing in itself, though to every different eye, in respect of its colour, it may appear different. On the contrary, the 28 TRANSCEKDEtfTAL iESTHETIC. transcendental conception of phsenomena in space is a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which be- longs as a property to things ; but that objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward ob- jects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensi- bility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representa- tions, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made. SECTION II. OE TIME. § 5. Metaphysical exposition of this conception. 1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither co- existence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the re- presentation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to our- selves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession. 2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the found- ation of all our intuitions. With regard to phsenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of pheno- mena. Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is aL reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled. 3. On this necessity a priori, is also founded the possibility of apodeictic principles of the relations of time, or axioms of time in general, such as, " Time has only one dimension," " Different times are not co-existent but successive/ ' (as dif- ferent spaces are not successive but co-existent). These principles cannot be derived from experience, for it would give neither strict universality, nor apodeictic certainty. We should only be able to say, "so common experience teaches us," but not it must be so. They are valid as rules, through which, in general, experience is possible ; and they instruct us respect- ing experience, and not by means of it. TRANSCENDENTAL EXPOSITION OP TIAtE. '2 'J 4. Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general con- ception, but a pure form of the sensuous intuition. Different times are merely parts of one and the same time. But the representation which can only be given by a single object is an intuition. Besides, the proposition that different times can- not be co-existent, could not be derived from a general con- ception. For this proposition is synthetical, and therefore cannot spring out of conceptions alone. It is therefore con- tained immediately in the intuition and representation of time. 5. The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every determined quantity of time is possible only through limitations of one time lying at the foundation. Consequently, the original representation, time, must be given as unlimited. But as the determinate representation of the parts of time and of every quantity of an object can only be obtained by limitation, the complete representation of time must not be furnished by means of conceptions, for these contain only partial representations. Conceptions, on the contrary, must have immediate intuition for their basis, § 6. Transcendental exposition of the conception of time, I may here refer to what is said above (§ 5, 3), where, for the sake of brevity, I have placed under the head of metaphy- sical exposition, that which is properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time ; that if this re- presentation were not an intuition (internal) a priori, no con- ception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of contra- dictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for ex- ample, the presence of a thing in a place and the non-presence of the same thing in the same place. It is only in time, that it is possible to meet with two contradictorily opposed deter- minations in one thing, that is, after each other.* Thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much syn- * Kant's meaning is : You cannot affirm and deny the same thing of a subject, except by means of the representation, time. No other idea, intuition, or conception, or whatever other form of thought there be, can mediate the connection of such predicates. — Tr. 30 TRANSCENDENTAL .ESTHETIC. thetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful. § 7. Conclusions from the above conceptions. (a) Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination, and therefore remains, when abstraction is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of things. For in the former case, it would be something real, yet without presenting to any power of perception any real object. In the latter case, as an order or determination^ inherent in things themselves, it could not be antecedent to things, as their condition, nor discerned or intuited by means of synthetical propositions a priori. But all this is quite possible when we regard time as merely the subjective condition under which all our intuitions take place. For in that case, this form of the inward intuition can be represented prior to the objects, and consequently a priori. (6) Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is, of the intuitions of self and of our internal state. For time cannot be any determination of outward phenomena. It has to do neither with shape nor position ; on the contrary, it determines the relation of representations in our internal state. And precisely because this internal intuition presents to us no shape or form, we endeavour to supply this want by analogies, and represent the course of time by a line pro- gressing to infinity, the content of which constitutes a series which is only of one dimension ; and we conclude from the properties of this line as to all the properties of time, with this single exception, that the parts of the line are co-existent, whilst those of time are successive. From this it is clear also that the representation of time is itself an intuition, because all its relations can be expressed in an external in- tuition. (c) Time is the formal condition a priori of all phsenomena whatsoever. Space, as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition a priori to external phenomena alone. On the other hand, because all representations, whether they have or have not external things for their ob- jects, still in themselves, as determinations of the mind, belong to our internal state ; and because this internal state is subject to the formal condition of the internal intuition, that is, OF TIME. — CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FOREGOING. 31 to time, — time is a condition a priori of all phaenomena what- soever — the immediate condition of all internal, and thereby the mediate condition of all external phaenomena. If I can say a priori, " all outward phaenomena are in space, and de- termined a priori according to the relations of space," I can also, from the principle of the internal sense, affirm univer- sally, " all phaenomena in general, that is, all objects of the senses, are in time, and stand necessarily in relations of time." If we abstract our internal intuition of ourselves, and all external intuitions, possible only by virtue of this internal intuition, and presented to us by our faculty of representation, and consequently take objects as they are in themselves, then time is nothing. It is only of objective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things which we regard as ob- jects of our senses. It is no longer objective, if we make ab- straction of the sensuousness of our intuition, in other words, of that mode of representation which is peculiar to uy, and speak of things in general. Time is therefore merely a sub- active condition of our (human) intuition, (which is always sensuous, that is, so far as we are affected by objects,) and in itself, independently of the mind or subject, is nothing. Nevertheless, in respect of all phaenomena, consequently of ail things which come within the sphere of our experience, it is necessarily objective. We cannot say, "all things are in time," because in this conception of things in general, we abstract and make no mention of any sort of intuition of things. But this is the proper condition under which time belongs to our representation of objects. If we add the condition to the conception, and say, " all things, as phae- nomena, that is, objects of sensuous intuition, are in time," then the proposition has its sound objective validity and universality a priori. What we have now set forth teaches, therefore, the empirical reality of time ; that is, its objective validity in reference to all objects which can ever be presented to our senses. And as our intuition is always sensuous, no object ever can be pre- sented to us in experience, which does not come under the conditions of time. On the other hand, we deny to time all claim, to absolute reality : that is, we deny that it, without having regard to the form of our sensuous intuition, absolutely inheres in things as a condition or property. Such properties 32 TEAlSTSCENDElSrTAL AESTHETIC. as belong to objects as things in themselves, never can be presented to us through the medium of the senses. Herein consists, therefore, the transcendental ideality of time, according to which, if we abstract the subjective conditions of sensuous intuition, it is nothing, and cannot be reckoned as subsisting or inhering in objects as things in themselves, independently of its relation to our intuition. This ideality, like that of space, is not to be proved or illustrated by fallacious analogies with sensations, for this reason, — that in such arguments or illustrations, we make the presupposition that the phenomenon, in which such and such predicates inhere, has objective reality, while in this case we can only find such an objective reality as is itself empirical, that is, regards the object as a mere phenomenon. In reference to this subject, see the remark in Section I. (p. 27). §' 8. Elucidation. Against this theory, which grants empirical reality to time, but denies to it absolute and transcendental reality, I have heard from intelligent men an objection so unanimously urged, that I conclude that it must naturally present itself to every reader to whom these considerations are novel. It runs thus : " Changes are real ;" (this the continual change in our own representations demonstrates, even though the existence of all external phenomena, together with their changes, is denied). Now, changes are only possible in time, and therefore time must be something real. But there is no difficulty in answer- ing this. I grant the whole argument. Time, no doubt, is something real, that is, it is the real form of our internal intuition. It therefore has subjective reality, in reference to our internal experience, that is, I have really the representation of time, and of my determinations therein. Time, therefore, is not to be regarded as an object, but as the mode of repre- sentation of myself as an object. But if I could intuite my- self, or be intuited by another being, without this condition of sensibility, then those very determinations which we now represent to ourselves as changes, would present to us a knowledge in which the representation of time, and conse- quently of change, would not appear. The empirical reality of time, therefore, remains, as the condition of all our expe- rience. But absolute reality, according to what has been OF SPACE AND TIME. ELTJCIDATOKY BEMABKS. 33 said above, cannot be granted it. Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition.* If we take away from it the special condition of our sensibility, the conception, of time also vanishes ; and it inheres not in the objects themselves, but solely in the subject (or mind) which intuites them. But the reason why this objection is so unanimously brought against our doctrine of time, and that too by disputants who cannot start any intelligible arguments against the doc- trine of the ideality of space, is this, — they have no hope of demonstrating apodeictically the absolute reality of space, be- cause the doctrine of idealism is against them, according to which the reality of external objects is not capable of any strict proof. On the other hand, the reality of the object of our internal sense (that is, myself and my internal state) is clear immediately through consciousness. The former — exter- nal objects in space — might be a mere delusion, but the latter — the object of my internal perception — is undeniably real. They do not, however, reflect that both, without question of their reality as representations, belong only to the genus phae- nomenon, which has always two aspects, the one, the object considered as a thing in itself, without regard to the mode of intuiting it, and the nature of which remains for this very reason problematical, the other, the form of our intui- tion of the object, which must be sought not in the object as a thing in itself, but in the subject to which it appears, — which form of intuition nevertheless belongs really and neces- sarily to the pheenomenal object. Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, a priori, various synthetical cognitions can be drawn. — Of this we find a striking example in the cognitions of space and its relations, which form the foundation of pure ma- thematics. — They are the two pure forms of all intuition, and thereby make synthetical propositions a priori possible. But these sources of knowledge being merely conditions of our sensibility, do therefore, and as such, strictly determine their own range and purpose, in that they do not and cannot present * I can indeed say " my representations follow one another, or are successive" ; but this means only that we are conscious of them as in a succession, that is, according to the form of the internal sense. Time, therefore, is not a thing' in itself, nor is it any objective determination oertaining to, or inherent in things. D 34 TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. objects as things in themselves, but are applicable to them solely in so far as they are considered as sensuous phseno- mena. The sphere of phsenomena is the only sphere of their validity, and if we venture out of this, no further objective use can be made of them. For the rest, this formal reality of time and space leaves the validity of our empirical know- ledge unshaken ; for our certainty in that respect is equally firm, whether these forms necessarily inhere in the things themselves, or only in our intuitions of them. On the other hand, those who maintain the "absolute reality of time and space, whether as essentially subsisting, or only inhering, as modifications, in things, must find themselves at utter variance with the principles of experience itself. For, if they decide for the first view, and make space and time into substances, this being the side taken by mathematical natural philosophers, they must admit two self-subsisting nonentities, infinite and eternal, which exist (yet without there being any thing real) for the purpose of containing in themselves every thing that is real. If they adopt the second view of inherence, which is preferred by some metaphysical natural philosophers, and regard space and time as relations (contiguity in space or suc- cession in time), abstracted from experience, though repre- sented, confusedly in this state of separation, they find them- selves in that case necessitated to deny the validity of mathe- matical doctrines a priori in reference to real things (for example, in space), — at all events their apodeictic cer- tainty. For such certainty cannot be found in an a posteriori proposition ; and the conceptions a priori of space and time are, according to this opinion, mere creations of the ima- gination,* having their source really in experience, inasmuch as, out of relations abstracted from experience, imagination has made up something which contains, indeed, general statements of these relations, yet of which no application can be made without the restrictions attached thereto by nature. The former of these parties gains this advantage, that they keep the sphere of phaenomena free for mathematical science. On the other hand, these very conditions (space and time) embarrass them greatly, when the understanding endeavours * This word is here used, and will be hereafter always used, in its primi- tive sense. That meaning of it which denotes a poetical inventive power, in a secondary one. — Tr. INTRODUCTION. — OF LOGIC IN GKENEBAL. 47 use of the understanding. The first contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without which no use whatever of the understanding is possible, and gives laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed. The logic of the particular use of the understanding contains the laws of correct think- ing upon a particular class of objects. The former may be called elemental logic, — the latter, the organon of this or that particular science. The latter is for the most part employed in the schools, as a propaedeutic to the sciences, although, in- deed, according to the course of human reason, it is the last thing we arrive at, when the science has been already matured, and needs only the finishing touches towards its correction and completion ; for our knowledge of the objects of our attempted science must be tolerably extensive and complete before we can indicate the laws by which a science of these objects can be established. General logic is again either pure Or applied. In the for- mer, we abstract all the empirical conditions under which the understanding is exercised ; for example, the influence of the senses, the play of the phantasy or imagination, the laws of the memory, the force of habit, of inclination, &c, conse- quently also, the sources of prejudice, — in a word, we abstract all causes from which particular cognitions arise, because these causes regard the understanding under certain circum- seded the Organon of Aristotle. But the one states the laws under which a knowledge of objects is possible ; the other the subjective laws of thought. The spheres of the two are utterly distinct. Kant very properly states that pure logic is alone properly science. Strictly speaking, applied logic cannot be a division of general logic. It is more correctly applied psychology ; — psychology treating in a practical manner of the conditions under which thought is employed. It may be noted here, that what Kant calls Transcendental Logic is properly not logic at all, but a division of metaphysics. For his Categories contain matter — as regards thought at least. Take, for example, the cate- gory of Existence. These categories, no doubt, are the forms of the matter given to us by experience. They are, according to Kant, not de- rived from experience, but purely a priori. But logic is concerned ex- clusively about the form of thought, and has nothing to do with this or that conception, whether a priori or a posteriori. See Sir William Hamilton's Edition of Reid's Works, passim. It is to Sir William Hamilton, one of the greatest logicians, perhaps the greatest, since Aristotle, and certainly one of the acutest thinkers of any time, that the Translator is indebted for the above view of the subject of logic. — Tr. 48 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. stances of its application, and, to the knowledge of them ex- perience is required. Pure general logic has to do, therefore, merely with pure a priori principles, and is a canon of un- derstanding and reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be the content what it may, empirical or trans- cendental. General logic is called applied, when it is directed to the laws of the use of the understanding, under the sub- jective empirical conditions which psychology teaches us. It has therefore empirical principles, although, at the same time, it is in so far general, that it applies to the exercise of the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects. On this account, moreover, it is neither a canon of the un- derstanding in general, nor an organon of a particular science, but merely a cathartic of the human understanding. In general logic, therefore, that part which constitutes pure logic must be carefully distinguished from that which con- stitutes applied (though still general) logic. The former alone is properly science, although short and dry, as the methodical exposition of an elemental doctrine of the understanding ought to be. In this, therefore, logicians must always bear in mind two rules : — 1 . As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the cognition of the understanding, and of the difference of objects, and has to do with nothing but the mere form of thought. 2. As pure logic, it has no empirical principles, and con- sequently draws nothing (contrary to the common persuasion) from psychology, which therefore has no influence on the canon of the understanding. It is a demonstrated doctrine, and every thing in it must be certain completely a priori. What I call applied logic (contrary to the common accep- tation of this term, according to which it should contain cer- tain exercises for the scholar, for which pure logic gives the rules), is a representation of the understanding, and of the rules of its necessary employment in concreto, that is to say, under the accidental conditions of the subject, which may either hinder or promote this employment, and which are all given only empirically. Thus applied logic treats of attention, its impediments and consequences, of the origin of error, of the state of doubt, hesitation, conviction, &c, and to it is related pure general logic in the same way that rNTEODTTCTIOST. — OF TEANSCEKDENTAL LOGIC. 49 pure morality, which contains only the necessary moral laws of a free will, is related to practical ethics, which considers these laws under all the impediments of feelings, inclinations, and passions to which men are more or less subjected, and which never can furnish us with a true and demonstrated science, because it, as well as applied logic, requires empirical and psychological principles. II. Of Transcendental Logic. General logic, as we have seen, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each other, that is, the form of thought in gene- ral. But as we have both pure and empirical intuitions (as transcendental aesthetic proves), in like manner a distinction might be drawn between pure and empirical thought (of objects). In this case, there would exist a kind of logic, in which we should not make abstraction of all content of cog- nition ; for that logic which should comprise merely the laws of pure thought (of an object), would of course exclude all those cognitions which were of empirical content. This kind of logic would also examine the origin of our cognitions of ob- jects, so far as that origin cannot be ascribed to the objects themselves; while, on the contrary, general logic has nothing to do with the origin of our cognitions, but contemplates our representations, be they given primitively a priori in ourselves, or be they only of empirical origin, solely according to the laws which the understanding observes in employing them in the process of thought, in relation to each other. Conse- quently, general logic treats of the form of the understanding only, which can be applied to representations, from whatever source they may have arisen. And here I shall make a remark, which the reader must bear well in mind in the course of the followiug consider- ations, to wit, that not every cognition a priori, but only those through which we cognize that and how certain repre- sentations (intuitions or conceptions) are applied or are possible only a priori; that is to say, the a, priori possibility of cognition and the a priori use of it are transcendental. Therefore neither is space, nor any a priori geometrical H 50 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC, determination of space, a transcendental representation, but only the knowledge that such a representation is not of empirical origin, and the possibility of its relating to objects of experience, although itself a priori, can be called transcen- dental. So also, the application of space to objects in general, would be transcendental; but if it be limited to objects of sense, it is empirical. Thus, the distinction of the transcendental and empirical belongs only to the critique of cognitions, and does not concern the relation of these to their object. Accordingly, in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate a priori to objects, not as pure or sen- suous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure thought, (which are therefore conceptions, but neither of empirical nor sestheti- cal origin), — in this expectation, I say, we form to ourselves, by anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational* cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely a priori. A science of this kind, which should deter- mine the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions, must be called Transcendental Logic, because it has not, like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation to objects. III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic. The old question with which people sought to push logi- cians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this, — "What is truth?" The definition of the word truth, to wit, "the accordance of the cognition with its object," is presupposed in the ques- tion ; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition. To know what questions we may reasonably propose, is in itself a strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger— not to * Vernunfterkenntnisses. The -words reason, rational, will always be confined in this translation to the rendering of Vernunft and its deriva- tives. — Tr. INTRODUCTION. — OF ANALYTIC AND DIALECTIC. 51 mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it — of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients said) "milkmg the he-goat, and the other holding a sieve." If truth consists in the accordance of a cognition with its object, this object must be, ipso facto, distinguished from all others ; for a cognition is false if it does not accord with the object to which it relates, although it contains something which may be affirmed of other objects. Now an universal criterion of truth would be that which is valid for all cog- nitions, without distinction of their objects. But it is evident that since, in the case of such a criterion, we make abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that is, of all relation to its object), and truth relates precisely to this content, it must be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth of this content of cognition ; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and at the same time universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found. As we have already termed the content of a cogni- tion its matter, we shall say : -- Of the truth of our cog- nitions in respect of their matter, no universal test can be demanded, because such a demand is self-contradictory." On the other hand, with regard to our cognition in respect of its mere form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that logic, in so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of the understanding, must in these very laws present us with criteria of truth. Whatever contradicts these rules is false, because thereby the understanding is made to contra- dict its own universal laws of thought ; that is, to contradict itself. These criteria, however, apply solely to the form of truth, that is, of thought in general, and in so far they are per- fectly accurate, yet not sufficient. For although a cognition may be perfectly accurate as to logical form, that is, not self- contradictory, it is notwithstanding quite possible that it may not stand in agreement with its object. Consequently, the merely logical criterion of truth, namely, the accordance of a cognition with the universal and formal laws of understanding and reason, is nothing more than the conditio sine qud non, or negative condition of all truth. Farther than this logic cannot go, and the error which depends not on the form, but on the content of the cognition, it has no test to discover. e 2 52 TRANSCEJTDEK'TAL LOGIC. General logic, then, resolves the whole formal business of understanding and reason into its elements, and exhibits them as principles of all logical judging of our cognitions. This part of logic may, therefore, be called Analytic, and is at least the negative test of truth, because all cognitions must first of all be estimated and tried according to these laws before we proceed to investigate them in respect of their content, in order to discover whether they contain positive truth in regard to their object. Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predi- cate any thing of or decide concerning objects, unless he, has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this — an art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient — that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgment, has been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production of objective asser- tions, and has thus been grossly misapplied. Now general logic, in its assumed character of organon, is called Dialectic. Different as are the significations in which the ancients used this term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a logic of illusion — a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colour- ing of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic* employed to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, * The Topic (Topica) of the ancients was a division of the intellectual instruction then prevalent, with the design of setting forth the proper method of reasoning on any given proposition — according to certain dis- tinctions of the genus, the species, &c. of the subject and predicate ; of words, analogies, and the like. It of course contained also a code of laws for syllogistical disputation. It was not necessarily an aid to sophistry. — Tr. IXTEODrCTIOH". — OF TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC, &C. 53 must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their ac- cordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating ; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appear- ance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of phi losophy. For these reasons we have chosen to denominate this part of logic Dialectic, in the sense of a critique of dialectical illusion, and we wish the term to be so understood in this place. IY. • ~ Of the division of Transcendental. Logic into Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic. In transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as in transcendental aesthetic the sensibility) and select from our cognition merely that part of thought which has its origin in the understanding alone. The exercise of this pure cogni- tion, however, depends upon this as its condition, that objects to which it may be applied be given to us in intuition, for without intuition, the whole of our cognition is without objects, and is therefore quite void. That part of transcen- dental logic, then, which treats of the elements of pure cognition of the understanding, and of the principles without which no object at all can be thought, is transcen- dental analytic, and at the same time a logic of truth. For no cognition can contradict it, without losing at the same time all content, that is, losing all reference to an object, and therefore all truth. But because we are very easily seduced into employing these pure cognitions and principles of the understanding by themselves, and that even beyond the boun- daries of experience, which yet is the only source whence we can obtain matter (objects) on which those pure conceptions may be employed, — understanding runs the risk of making, by means of empty sophisms, a material and objective use of the mere formal principles of the pure understanding, and of passing judgments on objects without distinction — objects 54 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. which are not given to us, nay, perhaps cannot be given to us m any way. Now, as it ought properly to be only a canon for judging of the empirical use of the understanding, this kind of iogic is misused when we seek to employ it as an organon of the universal and unlimited exercise of the understanding, and attempt with the pure understanding alone to judge synthe- tically, affirm, and determine respecting objects in general. In this case the exercise of the pure understanding becomes dialectical. The second part of our transcendental logic must therefore be a critique of dialectical illusion, and this critique we shall term Transcendental Dialectic, — not meaning it as an art of producing dogmatically such illusion (an art which is unfortunately too current among the practitioners of metaphysical juggling), but as a critique of understanding and reason in regard to their hyperphysical use. This critique will expose the groundless nature of the pretensions of these two faculties, and invalidate their claims to the discovery and enlargement of our cognitions merely by means of trans- cendental principles, and shew that the proper employment of these faculties is to test the judgments made by the pure un- derstanding, and to guard it from sophistical delusion. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. FIRST DIVISION. TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC. § 1. Transcendental analytic is the dissection of the whole of our a 'priori knowledge into the elements of the pure cognition of the understanding. In order to effect our purpose, it is ne- cessary, 1st, That the conceptions be pure and not empirical; 2d, That they belong not to intuition and sensibility, but to thought and understanding ; 3d, That they be elementary conceptions, and as such, quite different from deduced or compound conceptions ; 4th, That our table of these ele- mentary conceptions be complete, and fill up the whole sphere of the pure understanding. Now this completeness of a science cannot be accepted with confidence on the gua- rantee of a mere estimate of its existence in an aggre* TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC OF CONCEPTIONS. 55 gate formed only by means of repeated experiments and at- tempts. The completeness which we require is possible only by means of an idea of the totality of the a priori cognition of the understanding, and through the thereby determined division of the conceptions which form the said whole ; con- sequently, only by means of their connection in a system. Pure understanding distinguishes itself not merely from every thing empirical, but also completely from all sensibility. It is a unity self-subsistent, self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any additions from without. Hence the sum of its cogni- tion constitutes a system to be determined by and comprised under an idea ; and the completeness and articulation of this system can at the same time serve as a test of the correctness and genuineness of all the parts of cognition that belong to it. The whole of this part of transcendental logic consists of two books, of which the one contains the conceptions, and the other the principles of pure understanding. TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC. BOOK I. Analytic oe Conceptions. § 2. By the term "Analytic of Conceptions," I do not under- stand the analysis of these, or the usual process in phi- losophical investigations of dissecting the conceptions which present themselves, according to their content, and so making them clear; but I mean the hitherto little attempted dissection of the faculty of understanding itself, in order to investigate the possibility of conceptions a priori, by looking for them in the understanding alone, as their birth-place, and analysing the pure use of this faculty. For this is the proper duty of a transcendental philosophy ; what remains is the logical treatment of the conceptions in philosophy in general. We shall therefore follow up the pure conceptions even to their germs and beginnings in the human understanding, in which they lie, until they are developed on occasions presented by experience, and, freed by the same understanding from the empirical conditions attaching to them, are set forth in their unalloyed purity. 56 transcendental logic. Analytic oe Conceptions. CHAPTER I. OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL CLUE TO THE DISCOVERY OF ALX PURE CONCEPTIONS OE THE UNDERSTANDING. Introductory. § 3. When we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions manifest themselves according to the different cir- cumstances, and make known this faculty, and assemble them- selves into a more or less extensive collection, according to the time or penetration that has been applied to the consider- ation of them. Where this process, conducted as it is, me- chanically, so to speak, will end, cannot be determined with certainty. Besides, the conceptions which we discover in this hap-hazard manner present themselves by no means in order and systematic unity, but are at last coupled together only according to resemblances to each other, and arranged in series, according to the quantity of their content, from the simpler to the more complex, — series which are anything but systematic, though not altogether without a certain kind of method in their construction. Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its conceptions according to a prin- ciple; because these conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an absolute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other according to one conception or idea. A connection of this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper place may be as- signed to every pure conception of the understanding, and the completeness of the system of all be determined a priori, — both which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance. TRANSCENDENTAL CLUE TO THE DISCOVERY OF ALL PURE CONCEPTIONS OE THE UNDERSTANDING. Sect. I. Of the Logical use of the Understanding in general. § 4. The understanding was defined above only negatively, at a non-sensuous faculty of cognition. Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition ; con- THE LOGICAL TJSE OF UKDEKSTAKDIFG. 57 sequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions ; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions, — not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on aiFections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions. By the word function, I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the spon- taneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the recepti- vity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no representation, except an intuition, relates immedi- ately to its object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. A judgment, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a representation of it. In every judgment there is a con- ception which applies to, and is valid for many other concep- tions, and which among these comprehends also a given repre- sentation, this last being immediately connected with an object. For example, in the judgment — " All bodies are divisible," our conception of divisible applies to various other conceptions ; among these, however, it is here particularly applied to the conception of body, and this conception of body relates tc certain phsenomena which occur to us. These objects, therefore, are mediately represented by the conception of divisibility. All judgments, accordingly, are functions of unity in our represent- ations, inasmuch as, instead of an immediate, a higher repre- sentation, which comprises this and various others, is used for our cognition of the object, and thereby many possible cogni- tions are collected into one. But we can reduce all acts of the understanding to judgments, so that understanding may be re- presented as the faculty of judging. For it is, according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought. Now thought is cognition by means of conceptions. But conceptions, as pre- dicates of possible judgments, relate to some representation of a yet undetermined object. Thus the conception of body in- dicates something — for example, metal — which can be cognized by means of that conception. It is therefore a conception, for the reason alone that other representations are contained under it, by means of which it can relate to objects. It is therefore the 58 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. predicate to a possible judgment ; for example, "Every metal is a body." All the functions of the understanding therefore can be discovered, when we can completely exhibit the func- tions of unity in judgments. And that this may be effected very easily, the following section will shew. Sect. II. — Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgments. § 5. If we abstract all the content of a judgment, and consider only the intellectual form thereof, we find that the function of thought in a judgment can be brought under four heads, of which each contains three momenta. Thes'e may be con- veniently represented in the following table : — Quantity of judgments. Universal. Particular. Singular. ii. Quality. Affirmative. Negative. Infinite. in. Relation. Categorical. Hypothetical. Disjunctive. IV. Modality. Problematical. Assertorical. Apodeictical. As this division appears to differ in some, though not essential points, from the usual technic of logicians, the following ob- servations, for the prevention of otherwise possible misunder- standing, will not be without their use. 1. Logicians say, with justice, that in the use of judgments in syllogisms, singular judgments may be treated like universal ones. For, precisely because a singular judgment has no extent at all, its predicate cannot refer to a part of that which is con- tained in the conception of the subject and be excluded from the rest. The predicate is valid for the whole conception just as if it were a general conception, and had extent, to the whole of .which the predicate applied. On the other hand, let us compare THE LOGICAL FACTION IN JUDGMENTS. 59 a singular with a general judgment, merely as a cognition, in regard to quantity. The singular judgment relates to the general one, as unity to infinity, and is therefore in itself essen- tially different. Thus, if we estimate a singular judgment (judicium singulare) not merely according to its intrinsic valid- ity as a judgment, but also as a cognition generally, according to its quantity in comparison with that of other cognitions, it is then entirely different from a general judgment (judicium commune], and in a complete table of the momenta of thought deserves a separate place, — though, indeed, this would not be necessary in a logic limited merely to the consideration of the use of judgments in reference to each other. 2. In like manner, in transcendental logic, infinite mustbe dis- tinguished from affirmative judgments, although in general logic they are rightly enough classed under affirmative. General logic abstracts allcontentof the predicate (though it be negative), and only considers whether the said predicate be affirmed or denied of the subject. But transcendental logic considers also the worth or content of this logical affirmation — an affirmation by means of a merely negative predicate, and enquires how much the sum total of our cognition gains by this affirmation. For example, if I say of the soul, " It is not mortal," — by this ne- gative judgment I should at least ward off error. Now, by the proposition, " The soul is not mortal," I have, in respect of the logical form, really affirmed, inasmuch as I thereby place the soul in the unlimited sphere of immortal beings. Now, because, of the whole sphere of possible existences, the mortal occupies one part, and the immortal the other, neither more nor less is affirmed by the proposition, than that the soul is one among the infinite multitude of things which remain over, when I take away the whole mortal part. But by this proceeding we accom- plish only this much, that the infinite sphere of all possible existences is in so far limited, that the mortal is excluded from it, and the soul is placed in the remaining part of the extent of this sphere. • But this part remains, notwithstanding this exception, infinite, and more and more parts may be taken away from the whole sphere, without in the slightest degree thereby augmenting or affirmatively determining our conception of the soul. These judgments, therefore, infinite in respect of their logical extent, are, in respect of the content of their cognition, merely limitative ; and are consequently entitled to a place in our transcendental table of all the momenta of thought in judgments, because the 63 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. function of the understanding exercised by them may perhaps be of importance in the field of its pure a priori cognition. 3. All relations of thought in judgments are those (a) of the predicate to the subject; (6) of the principle to its consequence ; (c) of the divided cognition and all the members of the division to each other. In the first of these three classes, we consider only two conceptions ; in the second, two judgments ; in the third, several judgments in relation to each other. The hypothetical proposition, " If perfect justice exists, the obstinately wicked are punished," contains properly the relation to each other of two propositions, namely, " Perfect justice exists," and " The ob- stinately wicked are punished." Whether these propositions are in themselves true, is a question not here decided. Nothing is cogitated by means of this judgment except a certain conse- quence. Finally, the disjunctive judgment contains a relation of two or more propositions to each other, — a relation not of consequence, but of logical opposition, in so far as the sphere of the one proposition excludes that of the other. But it con- tains at the same time a relation of community, in so far as all the propositions taken together fill up the sphere of the cog- nition. The disjunctive judgment contains, therefore, the rela- tion of the parts of the whole sphere of a cognition, since the sphere of each part is a complemental part of the sphere of the other, each contributing to form the sum total of the divided cognition. Take, for example, the proposition, " The world exists either through blind chance, or through internal neces- sity, or through an external cause." Each of these propo- sitions embraces a part of the sphere of our possible cognition as to the existence of a world ; all of them taken together, the whole sphere. To take the cognition out of one of these spheres, is equivalent to placing it in one of the others ; find, on the other hand, to place it in one sphere is equivalent to taking it out of the rest. There is, therefore, in a disjunctive judgment a certain community of cognitions, which consists in this, that they mutually exclude each other, yet thereby deter- mine, as a whole, the true cognition, inasmuch as, taken to- gether, they make up the complete content of a particular given cognition. And this is all that. I find necessary, for the sake of what follows, to remark in this place. 4. The modality of judgments is a quite peculiar function, with this distinguishing characteristic, that it contributes nothing to tin; content of a judgment (for besides quantity, THE LOGICAL FTJ^CTIOS E& JUDGMENTS. 61 quality, and relation, there is nothing more that constitutes the content of a judgment), but concerns itself only with the value of the copula in relation to thought in general. Pro- blematical judgments are those in which the affirmation or negation is accepted as merely possible (ad libitum). In the assertorical, we regard the proposition as real (true) ; in the apodeictical, we look on it as necessary * Thus the two judgments {antecedens et consequens), the relation of which constitutes a hypothetical judgment, likewise those (the mem- bers of the division) in whose reciprocity the disjunctive con- sists, are only problematical. In the example above given, the proposition, " There exists perfect justice," is not stated assertorically, but as an ad libitum judgment, which some one may choose to adopt, and the consequence alone is assertorical. Hence such judgments maybe obviously false, and yet, taken problematically, be conditions of our cognition of the truth. Thus the proposition, " The world exists only by blind chance," is in the disjunctive judgment of problematical import only : that is to say, one may accept it for the moment, and it helps us (like the indication of the wrong road among all the roads that one can take) to find out the true proposition. The pro- blematical proposition is, therefore, that which expresses only logical possibility (which is not objective) ; that is, it expresses a free choice to admit the validity of such a proposition, — a merely arbitrary reception of it into the understanding. The assertorical speaks of logical reality or truth ; as, for example, in a hypothetical syllogism, the antecedens presents itself in a problematical form in the major, in an assertorical form in the minor, and it shows that the proposition is in harmony with the laws of the understanding. The apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical as determined by these very laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a priori, and in this manner it expresses logical necessity. Now because all is Here gradually incorporated with the understanding, — inas- much as in the first place we judge problematically ; then accept assertorically our judgment as true ; lastly, affirm it as inseparably united with the understanding, that is, as ne- cessary and apodeictical, — we may safely reckon these three functions of modality as so many momenta of thought. * Just as if thought were in the first instance a function of the under- standing ; in the second, of judgment ; in the third of reason. A remark which will be explained in the sequel. 62 TBANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. Sect. III. — Of the pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories. §o. General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstrac- tion of all content of cognition, and expects to receive repre- sentations from some other quarter, in order, by means of ana- lysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content oi a priori sensibility, which transcendental aesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the un- derstanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations* of pure a priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind's receptivity, under which alone it can obtain repre- sentations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order after- wardsto forma cognition out of it. This process I call synthesis. By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other, and of comprehending their diversity in one cog- nition. This synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but a priori (as that in space and time). Our re- presentations must be given previously to any analysis of them ; and no conceptions can arise, quoad their content, analytically. But the synthesis of a diversity (be it given a priori or em- pirically) is the first requisite for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis, — still, synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our knowledge. Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the imagination — a blind but indis- * Kant employs the words Mannigfaltiges, Mannigfaltigke.it, indiffe- rently, for the infinitude of the possible determination of matter, of an intuition (such as that of space \ &c— Tr. THE CATEGORIES. 63 pensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious. But to reduce this synthesis to con- ceptions, is a function of the understanding, by means of which we attain to cognition, in the proper meaning of the term. Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our numeration (and this is more observable in large numbers) is a synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes place according to a common basis of unity (for example, the decade). By means of this conception, therefore, the unity in the synthesis of the manifold becomes necessary. By means of analysis different representations are brought under one conception, — an operation of which general logic treats. On the other hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations. The first thing which must be given to us in order to the a priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition ; the syn- thesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the se- cond ; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same function which gives unity to the different repre- sentations in a judgment, gives also unity to the mere syn- thesis of different representations in an intuition ; and this unity we call the pure conception of the understanding. Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgment, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a result not within the power of general * Only because this is beyond the sphere of logic proper. Kant's re- mark is unnecessary. — Tr. 64 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure concep- tions of the understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in general, as there are logical functions in all possible judgments. For there is no other function or faculty existing in the understanding besides those enumerated in that table. These conceptions we shall, with Aristotle, call categories, our purpose being originally identical with his, notwithstanding the great difference in the execution. Table of the Categories. i. ii. Of Quantity. Of Quality. Unity. Reality. Plurality. Negation. Totality. Limitation, in. Of Relation. Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens). Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect). Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient). IV. Of Modality. Possibility. — Impossibility. Existence . — Non-existen ce . Necessity. — Contingence. This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure concep- tions of the synthesis which the understanding contains a priori, and these conceptions alone entitle it to be called a pure understanding ; inasmuch as only by them it can render the manifold of intuition conceivable, in other words, think an object of intuition. This division is made systematically from a common principle, namely, the faculty of judgment (which is just the same as the power of thought), and has not arisen rhapsodical] y from a search at hap-hazard after pure concep- tions, respecting the full number of which we never could be certain, inasmuch as we employ induction alone in our search, without considering that in this way we can never understand THE CATEGORIES. 65 wherefore precisely these conceptions, and none others abide in the pure understanding. It was a design worthy of an acute thinker like Aristotle, to search for these fundamental conceptions.* Destitute, however, of any guiding principle, he picked them up just as they occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which he called categories {predicaments). Afterwards he believed that he had discovered five others, which were added under the name of post predicaments. But his catalogue still remained defective. Besides, there are to be found among them some of the modes of pure sensibility (quando, ubi, situs, also prius,simul), and likewise an empirical conception (motus), — which can by no means belong to this ge- nealogical register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are deduced conceptions (actio, passio,) enumerated among the original conceptions, and of the latter, some are entirely wanting;. With regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories, as the true primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also their pure deduced conceptions, which, in a complete system of transcendental philosophy, must by no means be * " It is a serious error to imagine that, in his Categories, Aristotle pro- posed, like Kant, ' an analysis of the elements of human reason.' The ends proposed by the two philosophers were different, even opposed. In their several Categories, Aristotle attempted a synthesis of things in their multiplicity, — a classification of objects real, but in relation to thought : Kant, an analysis of mind in its unity, — a dissection of thought, pure, but in relation to its objects. The predicaments of Aristotle are thus ob- jective, of things as understood ; those of Kant subjective, of the mind as understanding. The former are results a posteriori — the creations of abstraction and generalisation ; the latter, anticipations a priori— -the con- ditions of those acts themselves. It is true, that as the one scheme exhibits the unity of thought diverging into plurality, in appliance to its objects, and as the other exhibits the multiplicity of these objects con- verging towards unity by the collective determination of thought ; while, at the same time, language usually confounds the subjective and objective under a common term ; — it is certainly true, that some elements in the one table coincide in name with some elements in the other. This coinci- dence is, however, only equivocal. In reality, the whole Kantian cate- gories must be excluded from the Aristotelic list, as entia rationis, as notiones secundce — in short, as determinations of thought, and not genera of real things ; while the several elements would be specially excluded, as partial, privative, transcendent," &c. — Hamilton's (Sir W.) Essnys and Discussions X 66 TKANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. passed over ; though in a merely critical essay we must be contented with the simple mention of the fact. Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced con- ceptions of the understanding, the predicables* of the pure understanding, in contradistinction to predicaments. If we are in possession of the original and primitive, the deduced and subsidiary conceptions can easily be added, and the gene- alogical tree of the understanding completely delineated. As my present aim is not to set forth a complete system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this task for another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will refer to the ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of causality, for example, the predicables of force, action, passion ; to that of community, those of presence and resistance ; to the categories of modality, those of origination, extinction, change ; and so wilh the rest. The categories combined with the modes of pure sensibility, or with one another, afford a great num- ber of deduced a priori conceptions ; a complete enumeration of which would be a useful and not unpleasant, but in this place a perfectly dispensable occupation. I purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise. I shall analyze these conceptions only so far as is necessary for the doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In a system of pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice demanded of me, but to give them here would only hide from our view the main aim of out investigation, at the same time raising doubts and objections, the consideration of which, without injustice to our main pur- pose, may be very well postponed till another opportunity. Meanwhile, it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we have already said on this subject, that the formation of a complete vocabulary of pure conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite explanations, is not only a possible, but an easy undertaking. The compartments already exist; it is only necessary to fill them up ; and a systematic topic like the * The predicables of Kant are quite different from those of Aristotle and ancient and modern logicians. The, five predicables are of a logical, and not, like those of Kant, of a metaphysico-ontological import. They were enounced as a complete enumeration of all the possible modes of predica- tion. Kant's predicables, on the contrary, do not possess this merely formal and logical character, but have a real or metaphysical content. — Tr THE CATEGOBIES. 67 present, indicates with perfect precision the proper place to which each conception belongs, while it readily points out any that have not yet been filled up. § 7. Our table of the categories suggests considerations of some importance, which may perhaps have significant results in regard to the scientific form of all rational cognitions. For, that this table is useful in the theoretical part of philosophy, nay, indispensable for the sketching of the complete plan of a science, so far as that science rests upon conceptions a priori, and for dividing it mathematically, according to fixed princi- ples, is most manifest from the fact that it contains all the elementary conceptions of the understanding, nay, even the form of a system of these in the understanding itself, and consequently indicates all the momenta, and also the internal arrangement of a projected speculative science, as I have else- where shown.* Here follow some of these observations. I. This table, which contains four classes of conceptions of the understanding, may, in the first instance, be divided into two classes, the first of which relates to objects of intuition — pure as well as empirical ; the second, to the existence of these objects, either in relation to one another, or to the un- derstanding. The former of these classes of categories I would entitle the mathematical, and the latter the dynamical categories. The former, as we see, has no correlates ; these are only to be found in the second class. This difference must have a ground in the nature of the human understanding. II. The number of the categories in each class is always the same, namely, three ; — a fact which also demands some consideration, because in all other cases division a priori through conceptions is necessarily dichotomy. It is to be added, that the third category in each triad always arises from the combination of the second with the first. Thus Totality is nothing else but Plurality contemplated as Unity; Limitation is merely Keality conjoined with Ne- gation ; Community is the Causality of a Substance, recipro- cally determining, and determined by other substances ; and * In the " Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science." 68 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. finally, Necessity is nothing but Existence, which is given through the Possibility itself.* Let it not be supposed, how- ever, that the third category is merely a deduced, and not a primitive conception of the pure understanding. For the con- junction of the first and second, in order to produce the third conception, requires a particular function of the understanding, which is by no means identical with those which are exercised in the first and second. Thus, the conception of a number (which belongs to the category of Totality), is not always possible, where the conceptions of multitude and unity exist (for example, in the representation of the infinite). Or, if I conjoin the conception of a cause with that of a substance, it does not follow that the conception of influence, that is, how one substance can be the cause of something in another sub- stance, will be understood from that. Thus it is evident, that a particular act of the understanding is here necessary ; and so in the other instances. III. With respect to one category, namely, that of com- munity, which is found in the third class, it is not so easy as with the others to detect its accordance with the form of the disjunctive judgment which corresponds to it in the table of the logical functions. In order to assure ourselves of this accordance, we must observe : that in every disjunctive judgment, the sphere of the judgment (that is, the complex of all that is contained in it) is represented as a whole divided into parts ; and, since one part cannot be contained in the other, they are cogitated as co-ordinated with, not subordinated to each other, so that they do not determine each other unilaterally, as in a linear series, but reciprocally, as in an aggregate — (if one member of the division is posited, all the rest are excluded; and con- versely). Now a like connection is cogitated in a whole of things ; for one thing is not subordinated, as effect, to another as cause of its existence, but, on the contrary, is co-ordinated contemporaneously and reciprocally, as a cause in relation to the determination of the others (for example, in a body — the parts of which mutually attract and repel each other). And * Kant's meaning is ; A necessary existence is an existence whose existence is given in the very possibility of its existence.— Tr. THE C ATE GOBIES. 69 this is an entirely different kind of connection from that which we find in the mere relation of the cause to the effect (the principle to the consequence), for in such a connection the consequence does not in its turn determine the principle, and therefore does not constitute, with the latter, a whole, — just as the Creator does not with the world make up a whole. The process of understanding by which it represents to itself the sphere of a divided conception, is employed also when we think of a thing as divisible ; and, in the same manner as the members of the division in the former exclude one another, and yet are connected in one sphere, so the understanding represents to itself the parts of the latter, as having — each of them — an existence (as substances), independently of the others, and yet as united in one whole. §8. In the transcendental philosophy of the ancients, there exists one more leading division, which contains pure concep- tions of the understanding, and which, although not num- bered among the categories, ought, according to them, as con- ceptions a priori, to be valid of objects. But in this case they would augment the number of the categories ; which cannot be. These are set forth in the proposition, so renowned among the schoolmen, — " Quodlibet ens est UjSTTM, yebttm, bo^um." Now, though the inferences from this principle were mere tautological propositions, and though it is allowed only by courtesy to retain a place in modern metaphysics, yet a thought which maintained itself for such a length of time, however empty it seems to be, deserves an investigation of its origin, and justifies the conjecture that it musfbe grounded in some law of the understanding, which, as is often the case, has only been erroneously interpreted. These pretended transcendental predicates are, in fact, nothing but logical re- quisites and criteria of all cognition of objects, and they em ploy, as the basis for this cognition, the categories of Quan tity, namely, Unity, Plurality, and Totality. But these, which must be taken as material conditions, that is, as belonging to the possibility of things themselves, they employed merely in formal signification, as belonging to the logical requisites ftf all cognition, and yet most unguardedly changed these criteria of thought into properties of objects, as things in 70 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. themselves. Now, in every cognition of an object, there is unity of conception, which may be called qualitative unity, so far as by this term we understand only the unity in our connection of the manifold ; for example, unity of the theme in a play, an oration, or a story. Secondly, there is truth in respect of the deductions from it. The more true deductions we have from a given conception, the more criteria of its ob- jective reality. This we might call the qualitative plurality of characteristic marks, which belong to a conception as to a common foundation, but are not cogitated as a quantity in it. Thirdly, there is perfection, — which consists in this, that the plurality falls back upon the unity of the conception, and accords completely with that conception, and wifch no other. This we may denominate qualitative completeness. Hence it is evident that these logical criteria of the possibility of cog- nition, are merely the three categories of Quantity modified and transformed to suit an unauthorized manner of applying them. That is to say, the three categories, in which the unity in the production of the quantum must be homogeneous throughout, are transformed solely with a view to the con- nexion of heterogeneous parts of cognition in one act of con- sciousness, by means of the quality of the cognition, which is the principle of that connexion. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a conception (not of its object), is the definition of it, in which the unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception. Thus also, the criterion or test of an hypothesis is the intelligibility of the received principle of explanation, or its unity (without help from any subsidiary hypothesis), — the truth of our deduc- tions from it (consistency with each other and with experience), — and lastly, the completeness of the principle of the explanation of these deductions, which refer to neither more nor less than what was admitted in the hypothesis, restoring analytically and a posteriori, what was cogitated synthetically and a priori. By the conceptions, therefore, of Unity, Truth, and Perfection, we have made no addition to the transcendental table of the categories, which is complete without them. We have, on the contrary, merely employed the three categories of quantity, netting aside their application to objects of experience, as DEDUCTION OP THE CATEGORIES. 7 1 general logical laws of the consistency of cognition with it self.* Analytic of Conceptions. CHAPTER II. OP THE deduction op the puee conceptions op the UNDERSTANDING. Sect. I. — Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in general. § 9. Teachers of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims, distinguish in a cause the question of right (quid juris) from the question of fact (quid facti), and while they demand proof of both, they give to the proof of the former, which goes to establish right or claim in law, the name of Deduction. Now we make use of a great number of empirical conceptions, without opposition from any one ; and consider ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified in attaching to them a sense, and a supposititious signification, because we have always experience at hand to demonstrate their objective reality. There exist also, however, usurped conceptions, such as fortune, fate, which circulate with almost universal in- dulgence, and yet are occasionally challenged by the ques- tion, quid juris ? In such cases, we have great difficulty in discovering any deduction for these terms, inasmuch as we cannot produce any manifest ground of right, either from experience or from reason, on which the claim to employ them can be founded. * Kant's meaning in the foregoing chapter is this : — These three con- ceptions of unity, truth, and goodness, applied as predicates to things, are the three categories of quantity under a different form. These three categories have an immediate relation to things, as phenomena ; without them we could form no conceptions of external objects. But in the above- mentioned proposition, they are changed into logical conditions of thought, and then unwittingly transformed into properties of things in themselves. These conceptions are properly logical or formal, and not metaphysical or material. The three categories are quantitative ; these conceptions, quali- tative. They are logical conditions employed as metaphysical con- ceptions, — one of the very commonest error? in the sphere of mental science. — Tr. 7 A TKANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. Among the many conceptions, which make up the very variegated web of human cognition, some are destined for pure use a priori, independent of all experience ; and their title to be so employed always requires a deduction, inasmuch as, to justify such use of them, proofs from experience are not sufficient ; but it is necessary to know how these concep- tions can apply to objects without being derived from expe- rience. I term, therefore, an explanation of the manner in which conceptions can apply a priori to objects, the transcen- dental deduction of conceptions, and I distinguish it from the empirical deduction, which indicates the mode in which a conception is obtained through experience and reflection thereon ; consequently, does not concern itself with the right, but only with the fact of our obtaining conceptions in such and such a manner. We have already seen that we are in pos- session of two perfectly different kinds of conceptions, which nevertheless agree with each other in this, that they both apply to objects completely a priori. These are the concep- tions of space and time as forms of sensibility, and the cate- gories as pure conceptions of the understanding. To attempt an empirical deduction of either of these classes would be labour in vain, because the distinguishing characteristic of their nature consists in this, that they apply to their objects, without having borrowed anything from experience towards the representation of them. Consequently, if a deduction of these conceptions is necessary, it must always be transcen- dental. Meanwhile, with respect to these conceptions, as with respect to all our cognition, we certainly may discover in experience, if not the principle of their possibility, yet the occasioning causes * of their production. It will be found that the impressions of sense give the first occasion for bringing into action the whole faculty of cognition, and for the production of experience, which contains two very dis- similar elements, namely, a matter for cognition, given by the senses, and a certain form for the arrangement of this matter, arising out of the inner fountain of pure intuition and thought ; and these, on occasion given by sensuous impres- sions, are called into exercise and produce conceptions. Such * Gelegenheitsursachen. DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGOKIES. 73 an investigation into the first efforts of our faculty of cognition to mount from particular perceptions to general conceptions, is undoubtedly of great utility ; and we have to thank the celebrated Locke, for having first opened the way for this en- quiry. But a deduction of the pure a priori conceptions of course never can be made in this way, seeing that, in regard to their future employment, which must be entirely inde- pendent of experience, they must have a far different certificate of birth to show from that of a descent from experience. This attempted physiological derivation, which cannot properly be called deduction, because it relates merely to a qxicestio facti, I shall entitle an explanation of the possession of a pure cog- nition. It is therefore manifest that there can only be a tran- scendental deduction of these conceptions, and by no means an empirical one ; also, that all attempts at an empirical de- duction, in regard to pure a priori conceptions, are vain, and can only be made by one who does not understand the alto- gether peculiar nature of these cognitions. But although it is admitted that the only possible deduction of pure a priori cognition is a transcendental deduction, it is not, for that reason, perfectly manifest that such a deduction is absolutely necessary. We have already traced to their sources the conceptions of space and time, by means of a transcen- dental deduction, and we have explained and determined their objective validity a priori. Geometry, nevertheless, advances steadily and securely in the province of pure a priori cogni- tions, without needing to ask from Philosophy any certificate as to the pure and legitimate origin of its fundamental concep- tion of space. But the use of the conception in this science extends only to the external world of sense, the pure form of the intuition of which is space ; and in this world, therefore, all geometrical cognition, because it is founded upon a priori intuition, posesses immediate evidence, and the objects of this cognition are given a priori (as regards their form) in intuition by and through the cognition itself.* With the pure concep- tions of Understanding, on the contrary, commences the ab- * Kant's meaning is : The objects of cognition in Geometry, — angles, lines, figures, and the like, — are not different from the act of cognition which produces them, except in thought. The object does not exist but while we think it — does not exist apart from our thinking it. The act of thinking aud the object of thinking, are but one thing regarded from two different points of view. — Tr. 74 TKAFSCENDENTAL LOGIC. solute necessity of seeking a transcendental deduction, not only of these conceptions themselves, but likewise of space, because, inasmuch as they make affirmations* concerning objects not by means of the predicates of intuition and sen- sibility, but of pure thought a priori, they apply to objects without any of the conditions of sensibility. Besides, not being founded on experience, they are not presented with any object in a priori intuition upon which, antecedently to expe- rience, they might base their synthesis. Hence results, not only doubt as to the objective validity and proper limits of their use, but that even our conception of space is rendered equivocal; inasmuch as we are very ready with the aid of the categories, to carry the use of this conception beyond the conditions of sensuous intuition ; — and for this reason, we have already found a transcendental deduction of it needful. The reader, then, must be quite convinced of the absolute neces- sity of a transcendental deduction, before taking a single step in the field of pure reason ; because otherwise he goes to work blindly, and after he has wandered about in all directions, returns to the state of utter ignorance from which he started. He ought, moreover, clearly to recognize beforehand, the un- * I have been compelled to adopt a conjectural reading here. All the editions of the Critik der reinen Vernunft, both those published during Kant's lifetime, and those published by various editors after his death, have sie. . von Gegenstdnden. . . . redet. But it is quite plain that the sie is the pronoun for die reine Verstandesbegriffe ; and we ought, there- fore, to read reden. In the same sentence, all the editions (except Har- tenstein's) insert die after the first und, which makes nonsense. In page 75 also, sentence beginning "For that objects," I have altered "syn- thetischen Einsicht des Denkens" into " synthetischen Einheit" And in page 77, sentence beginning, " But it is evident," we find "die erste Bedingung liegen." Some such word as muss is plainly to be understood. Indeed, I have not found a single edition of the Critique trust- worthy. Kant must not have been very careful in his correction of the press. Those published by editors after Kant's death seem in most cases to follow Kant's own editions closely. That by Rosencrantz is perhaps the best; and he has corrected a number of Kant's errors. But although I have adopted several uncommon and also conjectural readings, I have not done so hastily or lightly. It is only after diligent comparison of all the editions I could gain access to, that I have altered the common reading ; while a conjectural reading has been adopted only when it was quite clear that the reading of every edition was a misprint. Other errors, occurring previously to those mentioned above, have been, and others after them will be. corrected in silence. — Tr. DEDUCTION OP THE CATEGOKIES, 75 avoidable difficulties in his undertaking, so that he may not afterwards complain of the obscurity in which the subject itself is deeply involved, or become too soon impatient of the obstacles in his path ; — because we have a choice of only two things — either at once to give up all pretensions to know- ledge beyond the limits of possible experience, or to bring this critical investigation to completion. We have been able, with very little trouble, to make it com- prehensible how the conceptions of space and time, although a priori cognitions, must necessarily apply to external ob- jects, and render a synthetical cognition of these possible, independently of all experience. For inasmuch as only by means of such pure form of sensibility an object can appear to us, that is, be an object of empirical intuition, space and time are pure intuitions, which contain a priori the con- dition of the possibility of objects as phsenomena, and an a priori synthesis in these intuitions possesses objective validity. On the other hand, the categories of the understanding do not represent the conditions under which objects are given to us in intuition ; objects can consequently appear to us without necessarily connecting themselves with these, and consequently without any necessity binding on the under- standing to contain a priori the conditions of these objects. Thus we find ourselves involved in a difficulty which did not present itself in the sphere of sensibility, that is to say, we cannot discover how the subjective conditions of thought can have objective validity, in other words, can become con- ditions of the possibility of all cognition of objects ; — for phsenomena may certainly be given to us in intuition without any help from the functions of the understanding. Let us take, for example, the conception of cause, which indicates a peculiar kind of synthesis, namely, that with something, A, something entirely different, B, is connected according to a law. It is not a priori manifest why phaenomena should contain anything of this kind (we are of course debarred from appealing for proof to experience, for the objective validity of this conception must be demonstrated a priori), and it hence remains doubtful a priori, whether such a con- ception be not quite void, and without any corresponding object among phsenomena. For that objects of sensuous 76 TEANSCEKDENTAL LOGIC. intuition must correspond to the formal conditions of sen sibility existing a priori in the mind, is quite evident, from the fact, that without these they could not be objects for us ; but that they must also correspond to the conditions which understanding requires for the synthetical unity or thought, is an assertion, the grounds for which are not so easily to be discovered. For phsenomena might be so con- stituted, as not to correspond to the conditions of the unity of thought ; and all things might lie in such confusion, that, for example, nothing could be met with in the sphere of phsenomena to suggest a law of synthesis, and so cor- respond to the conception of cause and effect ; so that this conception would be quite void, null, and without significance. Phsenomena would nevertheless continue to present objects to our intuition ; for mere intuition does not in any respect stand in need of the functions of thought. If we thought to free ourselves from the labour of these investigations by saying, " Experience is constantly offering us examples of the relation of cause and effect in phseno- mena, and presents us with abundant opportunity of ab- stracting the conception of cause, and so at the same time of corroborating the objective validity of this conception ;" — we should in this case be overlooking the fact, that the concep- tion of cause cannot arise in this way at all ; that, on the con- trary, it must either have an a priori basis in the understand- ing, or be rejected as a mere chimsera. For this conception demands that something, A, should be of such a nature, that something else, B, should follow from it necessarily, and ac- cording to an absolutely universal law. We may certainly collect from phaenomena a law, according to which this or that usually happens, but the element of necessity is not tc be found in it. Hence it is evident that to the synthesis of cause and effect belongs a dignity, which is utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis ; for it is no mere mechanical syn- thesis, by means of addition, but a dynamical one, that is to say, the effect is not to be cogitated as merely annexed to the cause, but as posited by and through the cause, and resulting from it. The strict universality of this law never can be a characteristic of empirical laws, which obtain through in- duction only a comparative universality, that is, an extended range of practical application. But the pure conceptions ol DEDUCTION 01' THE CATEGORIES. /, the understanding would entirely lose all their peculiar cha- racter, if we treated them merely as the productions of ex- perience. Transition to the Transcendental Deduction oe the Categories. § 10. There are only two possible ways in which synthetical re- presentation and its objects can coincide with and relate necessarily to each other, and, as it were, meet together. Either the object alone makes the representation possible, or the representation alone makes the object possible. In the former case, the relation between them is only empirical, and an a priori representation is impossible. And this is the case with phsenomena, as regards that in them which is refer- able to mere sensation. In the latter case — although repre- sentation alone (for of its causality, by means of the will, we do not here speak,) does not produce the object as to its ex- istence, it must nevertheless be a priori determinative in re- gard to the object, if it is only by means of the represent- ation that we can cognize any thing as an object. Now there are only two conditions of the possibility of a cognition of objects ; firstly, Intuition, by means of which the object, though only as phaenomenon, is given; secondly, Conception, by means of which the object which corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is evident from what has been said on aes- thetic, that the first condition, under which alone objects can be intuited, must in fact exist, as a formal basis for them, a priori in the mind. With this formal condition of sensi- bility, therefore, all phaenomena necessarily correspond, because it is only through it that they can be phaenomena at all ; that is, can be empirically intuited and given. Now the question is, whether there do not exist a priori in the mind, conceptions of understanding also, as conditions under which alone something, if not intuited, is yet thought as object. If this question be answered in the affirmative, it follows that all empirical cogni- tion of objects is necessarily conformable to such conceptions, since, if they are not presupposed, it is impossible that anything can be an object of experience. Now all experience contains, besides the intuition of the senses, through which an object is 78 TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. given, a conception also of an object that is given in intuition. Accordingly, conceptions of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at the foundation of all empirical cognition; and con- sequently, the objective validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will rest upon this, that experience (as far as re- gards the form of thought) is possible only hy their means. For in that case they apply necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, because only through them can an object of ex- perience be thought. The whole aim of the transcendental deduction of all a priori conceptions is to show that these conceptions are a priori conditions of the possibility of all experience. Conceptions which afford us the objective foundation of the possibility of experience, are for that very reason necessary. But the analysis of the experiences in which they are met with is not deduction, but only an illustration of them, because from experience they could never derive the attribute of necessity. Without their original applicability and relation to all pos- sible experience, in which all objects of cognition present themselves, the relation of the categories to objects, of what- ever nature, would be quite incomprehensible. The celebrated Locke, for want of due reflection on these points, and because he met with pure conceptions of the un- derstanding in experience, sought also to deduce them from experience, and yet proceeded so inconsequently as to attempt, with their aid, to arrive at cognitions which lie far beyond the limits of all experience. David Hume perceived that, to render this possible, it was necessary that the conceptions should have an a priori origin. But as he could not explain how it was possible that conceptions which are not connected with each other in the understanding, must nevertheless be thought as necessarily connected in the object, — and it never occurred to him that the understanding itself might, perhaps, by means of these conceptions, be the author of the experi- ence in which its objects were presented to it, — he was forced to derive these conceptions from experience, that is from a subjective necessity arising from repeated association of experiences erroneously considered to be objective, — in one word, from " habit." But he proceeded with perfect con- sequence, and declared it to be impossible with such con- DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGOEIES. 79 ceptions and the principles arising from them, to overstep the limits of experience. The empirical derivation, however, which both of these philosophers attributed to these concep- tions, cannot possibly be reconciled with the fact that we d