*

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. Problematical 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 members of the division) in whose reciprocity the disjunctive consists, 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 may be 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 problematical 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 à priori, and in this manner it expresses logical necessity. Now because all is here gradually incorporated with the understanding,―inasmuch 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 necessary 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 understanding; in the second, of judgment; in the third of reason. A remark which will be explained in the sequel.

SECT. III. Of the pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories.

§ 6.

General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility, which transcendental æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, 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 à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind's receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations 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 afterwards to form a 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 cognition. This synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but à 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 à priori or empirically) 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, Mannigfaltigkeit, indifferently, for the infinitude of the possible determination of matter. of an tuition (such as that of space), &c.-Tr.

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 conceptions, 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 à priori synthetica. 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 à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; 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 representations in a judgment, gives also unity to the mere synthesis 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 à priori to objects, a result not within the power of general logic.*

* Only because this is beyond the sphere of logic proper. Kant's remark is unnecessary.-7'r.

In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure concep tions of the understanding, applying à 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.

Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens).
Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect).
Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient).

This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure concep tions of the synthesis which the understanding contains à 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 rhapsodically from a search at hap-hazard after pure conceptions, 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

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 fundamenta. 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 genealogical 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 proposed, 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 objective, of things as understood; those of Kant subjective, of the mind as understanding. The former are results à posteriori-the creations of abstraction and generalisation; the latter, anticipations à priori-the conditions 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 converging 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 coincidence is, however, only equivocal. In reality, the whole Kantian categories must be excluded from the Aristotelic list, as entia rationis, as notiones secundæ 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 IV.) Essays and Discussions

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