TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC.
SS I.
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 necessary: (1)
That the conceptions be pure and not empirical; (2) That they belong
not to intuition and sensibility, but to thought and understanding;
(3) That they be elementary conceptions, and as such, quite
different from deduced or compound conceptions; (4) That our table
of these elementary 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 guarantee of a mere estimate
of its existence in an aggregate
formed only by means of repeated
experiments and attempts. 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
work of the conceptions which form the said whole; consequently,
only by means of their connection in a system. Pure understanding
distinguishes itself not merely from everything 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 cognition 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.
