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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 aesthetic cannot contain any more

than these two elements- space and time, is sufficiently obvious

from the fact that all other conceptions appertaining to

sensibility, even that of motion, which unites in itself both

elements, presuppose something empirical. Motion, for example,

presupposes the perception of something movable. But space

considered in itself contains nothing movable, consequently motion

must be something which is found in space only through experience-

in other words, an empirical datum. In like manner, transcendental

aesthetic 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.

SS 9 General Remarks on Transcendental Aesthetic.

I. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite,

in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what

our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our

sensuous cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all

our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; 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

that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in

us. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in

themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility

is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our mode of

perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which, though not of

necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human

race. With this alone we have to do. Space and time are the pure forms

thereof; sensation the matter. The former alone can we cognize a

priori, that is, antecedent to all actual perception; and for this

reason such cognition is called pure intuition. The latter is that

in our cognition which is called cognition a posteriori, that is,

empirical intuition. The former appertain absolutely and necessarily

to our sensibility, of whatsoever kind our sensations may be; the

latter may be of very diversified character. Supposing that we

should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree

of clearness, we should not thereby advance one step nearer to a

knowledge of the constitution of objects as things in themselves.

For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition of our

own mode of intuition, that is of our sensibility, and this always

under the conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely,

the conditions of space and time; while the question: "What are

objects considered as things in themselves?" remains unanswerable even

after the most thorough examination of the phenomenal world.

To say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the confused

representation of things containing exclusively that which belongs

to them as things in themselves, and this under an accumulation of

characteristic marks and partial representations which we cannot

distinguish in consciousness, is a falsification of the conception

of sensibility and phenomenization, which renders our whole doctrine

thereof empty and useless. The difference between a confused and a

clear representation is merely logical and has nothing to do with

content. No doubt the conception of right, as employed by a sound

understanding, contains all that the most subtle investigation could

unfold from it, although, in the ordinary practical use of the word,

we are not conscious of the manifold representations comprised in

the conception. But we cannot for this reason assert that the ordinary

conception is a sensuous one, containing a mere phenomenon, for

right cannot appear as a phenomenon; but the conception of it lies

in the understanding, and represents a property (the moral property)

of actions, which 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

phenomenon 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 caelo different from

the cognition of an object 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 investigations

into the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards

the distinction between the sensuous and the intellectual as merely

logical, whereas it is plainly transcendental, 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 intuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this

subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a

phenomenon.

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 organization of this or that

sense. Accordingly, we are accustomed to say that the former is a

cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the latter

presents only a particular appearance or phenomenon thereof. This

distinction, however, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is

usual), and do not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere

phenomenon (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

themselves, 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 phenomena. Thus, we call the rainbow a mere

appearance of phenomenon 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 experience, and under whatever conditions of

sensuous perception, is known in intuition to be so and so determined,

and not otherwise. But if we consider this empirical datum

generally, and inquire, 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 phenomena, 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 aesthetic is that it does not

obtain favour merely as a plausible hypothesis, but possess as

undoubted a character of certainty as can be demanded 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 SS 3.

Suppose, then, that space and time are in themselves objective,

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

apodeictic 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, I inquire: 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 a posteriori. The latter,

namely, empirical conceptions, together with the empirical intuition

on which they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical

proposition, except such as is itself also empirical, that is, a

proposition of experience. But an empirical proposition cannot possess

the qualities of necessity and absolute 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 conceptions or intuitions a priori, it is quite clear

that from mere conceptions 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 empirical

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 anything 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 a priori,

under which alone things can become external objects for you, and

without which subjective conditions the objects are in themselves

nothing, you could not construct any synthetical proposition

whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore not 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 phenomena, and not

things in themselves, presented to us in this particular manner. And

for this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said

a priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the

foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to say anything.

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 phenomena, 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 relations, 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 present in this or that place, or any operation going on,

or result 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