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so far as it is requisite that objects be represented as coexistent

and connected, in so far must they reciprocally determine the position

in time of each other and thereby constitute a whole. If this

subjective community is to rest upon an objective basis, or to be

applied to substances as phenomena, the perception of one substance

must render possible the perception of another, and conversely. For

otherwise succession, which is always found in perceptions as

apprehensions, would be predicated of external objects, and their

representation of their coexistence be thus impossible. But this is

a reciprocal influence, that is to say, a real community

(commercium) of substances, without which therefore the empirical

relation of coexistence would be a notion beyond the reach of our

minds. By virtue of this commercium, phenomena, in so far as they

are apart from, and nevertheless in connection with each other,

constitute a compositum reale. Such composita are possible in many

different ways. The three dynamical relations then, from which all

others spring, are those of inherence, consequence, and composition.

These, then, are the three analogies of experience. They are nothing

more than principles of the determination of the existence of

phenomena in time, according to the three modi of this

determination; to wit, the relation to time itself as a quantity

(the quantity of existence, that is, duration), the relation in time

as a series or succession, finally, the relation in time as the

complex of all existence (simultaneity). This unity of determination

in regard to time is thoroughly dynamical; that is to say, time is not

considered as that in which experience determines immediately to every

existence its position; for this is impossible, inasmuch as absolute

time is not an object of perception, by means of which phenomena can

be connected with each other. On the contrary, the rule of the

understanding, through which alone the existence of phenomena can

receive synthetical unity as regards relations of time, determines for

every phenomenon its position in time, and consequently a priori,

and with validity for all and every time.

By nature, in the empirical sense of the word, we understand the

totality of phenomena connected, in respect of their existence,

according to necessary rules, that is, laws. There are therefore

certain laws (which are moreover a priori) which make nature possible;

and all empirical laws can exist only by means of experience, and by

virtue of those primitive laws through which experience itself becomes

possible. The purpose of the analogies is therefore to represent to us

the unity of nature in the connection of all phenomena under certain

exponents, the only business of which is to express the relation of

time (in so far as it contains all existence in itself) to the unity

of apperception, which can exist in synthesis only according to rules.

The combined expression of all is this: "All phenomena exist in one

nature, and must so exist, inasmuch as without this a priori unity, no

unity of experience, and consequently no determination of objects in

experience, is possible."

As regards the mode of proof which we have employed in treating of

these transcendental laws of nature, and the peculiar character of

we must make one remark, which will at the same time be important as a

guide in every other attempt to demonstrate the truth of

intellectual and likewise synthetical propositions a priori. Had we

endeavoured to prove these analogies dogmatically, that is, from

conceptions; that is to say, had we employed this method in attempting

to show that everything which exists, exists only in that which is

permanent- that every thing or event presupposes the existence of

something in a preceding state, upon which it follows in conformity

with a rule- lastly, that in the manifold, which is coexistent, the

states coexist in connection with each other according to a rule-

all our labour would have been utterly in vain. For more conceptions

of things, analyse them as we may, cannot enable us to conclude from

the existence of one object to the existence of another. What other

course was left for us to pursue? This only, to demonstrate the

possibility of experience as a cognition in which at last all

objects must be capable of being presented to us, if the

representation of them is to possess any objective reality. Now in

this third, this mediating term, the essential form of which

consists in the synthetical unity of the apperception of all

phenomena, we found a priori conditions of the universal and necessary

determination as to time of all existences in the world of

phenomena, without which the empirical determination thereof as to

time would itself be impossible, and we also discovered rules of

synthetical unity a priori, by means of which we could anticipate

experience. For want of this method, and from the fancy that it was

possible to discover a dogmatical proof of the synthetical

propositions which are requisite in the empirical employment of the

understanding, has it happened that a proof of the principle of

sufficient reason has been so often attempted, and always in vain. The

other two analogies nobody has ever thought of, although they have

always been silently employed by the mind,* because the guiding thread

furnished by the categories was wanting, the guide which alone can

enable us to discover every hiatus, both in the system of

conceptions and of principles.

*The unity of the universe, in which all phenomena to be

connected, is evidently a mere consequence of the admitted principle

of the community of all substances which are coexistent. For were

substances isolated, they could not as parts constitute a whole, and

were their connection (reciprocal action of the manifold) not

necessary from the very fact of coexistence, we could not conclude

from the fact of the latter as a merely ideal relation to the former

as a real one. We have, however, shown in its place that community

is the proper ground of the possibility of an empirical cognition of

coexistence, and that we may therefore properly reason from the latter

to the former as its condition.

4. THE POSTULATES OF EMPIRICAL THOUGHT.

1. That which agrees with the formal conditions (intuition and

conception) of experience, is possible.

2. That which coheres with the material conditions of experience

(sensation), is real.

3. That whose coherence with the real is determined according to

universal conditions of experience is (exists) necessary.

Explanation.

The categories of modality possess this peculiarity, that they do

not in the least determine the object, or enlarge the conception to

which they are annexed as predicates, but only express its relation to

the faculty of cognition. Though my conception of a thing is in itself

complete, I am still entitled to ask whether the object of it is

merely possible, or whether it is also real, or, if the latter,

whether it is also necessary. But hereby the object itself is not more

definitely determined in thought, but the question is only in what

relation it, including all its determinations, stands to the

understanding and its employment in experience, to the empirical

faculty of judgement, and to the reason of its application to

experience.

For this very reason, too, the categories of modality are nothing

more than explanations of the conceptions of possibility, reality, and

necessity, as employed in experience, and at the same time,

restrictions of all the categories to empirical use alone, not

authorizing the transcendental employment of them. For if they are

to have something more than a merely logical significance, and to be

something more than a mere analytical expression of the form of

thought, and to have a relation to things and their possibility,

reality, or necessity, they must concern possible experience and its

synthetical unity, in which alone objects of cognition can be given.

The postulate of the possibility of things requires also, that the

conception of the things agree with the formal conditions of our

experience in general. But this, that is to say, the objective form of

experience, contains all the kinds of synthesis which are requisite

for the cognition of objects. A conception which contains a

synthesis must be regarded as empty and, without reference to an

object, if its synthesis does not belong to experience- either as

borrowed from it, and in this case it is called an empirical

conception, or such as is the ground and a priori condition of

experience (its form), and in this case it is a pure conception, a

conception which nevertheless belongs to experience, inasmuch as its

object can be found in this alone. For where shall we find the

criterion or character of the possibility of an object which is

cogitated by means of an a priori synthetical conception, if not in

the synthesis which constitutes the form of empirical cognition of

objects? That in such a conception no contradiction exists is indeed a

necessary logical condition, but very far from being sufficient to

establish the objective reality of the conception, that is, the

possibility of such an object as is thought in the conception. Thus,

in the conception of a figure which is contained within two straight

lines, there is no contradiction, for the conceptions of two

straight lines and of their junction contain no negation of a

figure. The impossibility in such a case does not rest upon the

conception in itself, but upon the construction of it in space, that

is to say, upon the conditions of space and its determinations. But

these have themselves objective reality, that is, they apply to

possible things, because they contain a priori the form of

experience in general.

And now we shall proceed to point out the extensive utility and

influence of this postulate of possibility. When I represent to myself

a thing that is permanent, so that everything in it which changes

belongs merely to its state or condition, from such a conception alone

I never can cognize that such a thing is possible. Or, if I

represent to myself something which is so constituted that, when it is

posited, something else follows always and infallibly, my thought

contains no self-contradiction; but whether such a property as

causality is to be found in any possible thing, my thought alone

affords no means of judging. Finally, I can represent to myself

different things (substances) which are so constituted that the

state or condition of one causes a change in the state of the other,

and reciprocally; but whether such a relation is a property of

things cannot be perceived from these conceptions, which contain a

merely arbitrary synthesis. Only from the fact, therefore, that

these conceptions express a priori the relations of perceptions in

every experience, do we know that they possess objective reality, that

is, transcendental truth; and that independent of experience, though

not independent of all relation to form of an experience in general

and its synthetical unity, in which alone objects can be empirically

cognized.

But when we fashion to ourselves new conceptions of substances,

forces, action, and reaction, from the material presented to us by

perception, without following the example of experience in their

connection, we create mere chimeras, of the possibility of which we

cannot discover any criterion, because we have not taken experience

for our instructress, though we have borrowed the conceptions from

her. Such fictitious conceptions derive their character of possibility

not, like the categories, a priori, as conceptions on which all

experience depends, but only, a posteriori, as conceptions given by

means of experience itself, and their possibility must either be

cognized a posteriori and empirically, or it cannot be cognized at

all. A substance which is permanently present in space, yet without

filling it (like that tertium quid between matter and the thinking

subject which some have tried to introduce into metaphysics), or a

peculiar fundamental power of the mind of intuiting the future by

anticipation (instead of merely inferring from past and present

events), or, finally, a power of the mind to place itself in community

of thought with other men, however distant they may be- these are

conceptions the possibility of which has no ground to rest upon. For

they are not based upon experience and its known laws; and, without

experience, they are a merely arbitrary conjunction of thoughts,

which, though containing no internal contradiction, has no claim to

objective reality, neither, consequently, to the possibility of such

an object as is thought in these conceptions. As far as concerns

reality, it is self-evident that we cannot cogitate such a possibility

in concreto without the aid of experience; because reality is

concerned only with sensation, as the matter of experience, and not

with the form of thought, with which we can no doubt indulge in

shaping fancies.

But I pass by everything which derives its possibility from

reality in experience, and I purpose treating here merely of the

possibility of things by means of a priori conceptions. I maintain,

then, that the possibility of things is not derived from such

conceptions per se, but only when considered as formal and objective

conditions of an experience in general.

It seems, indeed, as if the possibility of a triangle could be

cognized from the conception of it alone (which is certainly

independent of experience); for we can certainly give to the

conception a corresponding object completely a priori, that is to say,

we can construct it. But as a triangle is only the form of an

object, it must remain a mere product of the imagination, and the

possibility of the existence of an object corresponding to it must

remain doubtful, unless we can discover some other ground, unless we

know that the figure can be cogitated under the conditions upon

which all objects of experience rest. Now, the facts that space is a