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most perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of

all phenomenal existences.

Without rising to these speculative heights, we are bound to confess

that human reason contains not only ideas, but ideals, which

possess, not, like those of Plato, creative, but certainly practical

power- as regulative principles, and form the basis of the

perfectibility of certain actions. Moral conceptions are not perfectly

pure conceptions of reason, because an empirical element- of

pleasure or pain- lies at the foundation of them. In relation,

however, to the principle, whereby reason sets bounds to a freedom

which is in itself without law, and consequently when we attend merely

to their form, they may be considered as pure conceptions of reason.

Virtue and wisdom in their perfect purity are ideas. But the wise

man of the Stoics is an ideal, that is to say, a human being

existing only in thought and in complete conformity with the idea of

wisdom. As the idea provides a rule, so the ideal serves as an

archetype for the perfect and complete determination of the copy. Thus

the conduct of this wise and divine man serves us as a standard of

action, with which we may compare and judge ourselves, which may

help us to reform ourselves, although the perfection it demands can

never be attained by us. Although we cannot concede objective

reality to these ideals, they are not to be considered as chimeras; on

the contrary, they provide reason with a standard, which enables it to

estimate, by comparison, the degree of incompleteness in the objects

presented to it. But to aim at realizing the ideal in an example in

the world of experience- to describe, for instance, the character of

the perfectly wise man in a romance- is impracticable. Nay more, there

is something absurd in the attempt; and the result must be little

edifying, as the natural limitations, which are continually breaking

in upon the perfection and completeness of the idea, destroy the

illusion in the story and throw an air of suspicion even on what is

good in the idea, which hence appears fictitious and unreal.

Such is the constitution of the ideal of reason, which is always

based upon determinate conceptions, and serves as a rule and a model

for limitation or of criticism. Very different is the nature of the

ideals of the imagination. Of these it is impossible to present an

intelligible conception; they are a kind of monogram, drawn

according to no determinate rule, and forming rather a vague

picture- the production of many diverse experiences- than a

determinate image. Such are the ideals which painters and

physiognomists profess to have in their minds, and which can serve

neither as a model for production nor as a standard for

appreciation. They may be termed, though improperly, sensuous

ideals, as they are declared to be models of certain possible

empirical intuitions. They cannot, however, furnish rules or standards

for explanation or examination with

In its ideals, reason aims at complete and perfect determination

according to a priori rules; and hence it cogitates an object, which

must be completely determinable in conformity with principles,

although all empirical conditions are absent, and the conception of

the object is on this account transcendent.

SECTION II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon

Trancendentale).

Every conception is, in relation to that which is not contained in

it, undetermined and subject to the principle of determinability. This

principle is that, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates,

only one can belong to a conception. It is a purely logical principle,

itself based upon the principle of contradiction; inasmuch as it makes

complete abstraction of the content and attends merely to the

logical form of the cognition.

But again, everything, as regards its possibility, is also subject

to the principle of complete determination, according to which one

of all the possible contradictory predicates of things must belong

to it. This principle is not based merely upon that of

contradiction; for, in addition to the relation between two

contradictory predicates, it regards everything as standing in a

relation to the sum of possibilities, as the sum total of all

predicates of things, and, while presupposing this sum as an a

priori condition, presents to the mind everything as receiving the

possibility of its individual existence from the relation it bears to,

and the share it possesses in, the aforesaid sum of possibilities.*

The principle of complete determination relates the content and not to

the logical form. It is the principle of the synthesis of all the

predicates which are required to constitute the complete conception of

a thing, and not a mere principle analytical representation, which

enounces that one of two contradictory predicates must belong to a

conception. It contains, moreover, a transcendental presupposition-

that, namely, of the material for all possibility, which must

contain a priori the data for this or that particular possibility.

*Thus this principle declares everything to possess a relation to

a common correlate- the sum-total of possibility, which, if discovered

to exist in the idea of one individual thing, would establish the

affinity of all possible things, from the identity of the ground of

their complete determination. The determinability of every

conception is subordinate to the universality (Allgemeinheit,

universalitas) of the principle of excluded middle; the

determination of a thing to the totality (Allheit, universitas) of all

possible predicates.

The proposition, Everything which exists is completely determined,

means not only that one of every pair of given contradictory

attributes, but that one of all possible attributes, is always

predicable of the thing; in it the predicates are not merely

compared logically with each other, but the thing itself is

transcendentally compared with the sum-total of all possible

predicates. The proposition is equivalent to saying: "To attain to a

complete knowledge of a thing, it is necessary to possess a

knowledge of everything that is possible, and to determine it

thereby in a positive or negative manner." The conception of

complete determination is consequently a conception which cannot be

presented in its totality in concreto, and is therefore based upon

an idea, which has its seat in the reason- the faculty which

prescribes to the understanding the laws of its harmonious and perfect

exercise relates

Now, although this idea of the sum-total of all possibility, in so

far as it forms the condition of the complete determination of

everything, is itself undetermined in relation to the predicates which

may constitute this sum-total, and we cogitate in it merely the

sum-total of all possible predicates- we nevertheless find, upon

closer examination, that this idea, as a primitive conception of the

mind, excludes a large number of predicates- those deduced and those

irreconcilable with others, and that it is evolved as a conception

completely determined a priori. Thus it becomes the conception of an

individual object, which is completely determined by and through the

mere idea, and must consequently be termed an ideal of pure reason.

When we consider all possible predicates, not merely logically,

but transcendentally, that is to say, with reference to the content

which may be cogitated as existing in them a priori, we shall find

that some indicate a being, others merely a non-being. The logical

negation expressed in the word not does not properly belong to a

conception, but only to the relation of one conception to another in a

judgement, and is consequently quite insufficient to present to the

mind the content of a conception. The expression not mortal does not

indicate that a non-being is cogitated in the object; it does not

concern the content at all. A transcendental negation, on the

contrary, indicates non-being in itself, and is opposed to

transcendental affirmation, the conception of which of itself

expresses a being. Hence this affirmation indicates a reality, because

in and through it objects are considered to be something- to be

things; while the opposite negation, on the other band, indicates a

mere want, or privation, or absence, and, where such negations alone

are attached to a representation, the non-existence of anything

corresponding to the representation.

Now a negation cannot be cogitated as determined, without cogitating

at the same time the opposite affirmation. The man born blind has

not the least notion of darkness, because he has none of light; the

vagabond knows nothing of poverty, because he has never known what

it is to be in comfort;* the ignorant man has no conception of his

ignorance, because he has no conception of knowledge. All

conceptions of negatives are accordingly derived or deduced

conceptions; and realities contain the data, and, so to speak, the

material or transcendental content of the possibility and complete

determination of all things.

*The investigations and calculations of astronomers have taught us

much that is wonderful; but the most important lesson we have received

from them is the discovery of the abyss of our ignorance in relation

to the universe- an ignorance the magnitude of which reason, without

the information thus derived, could never have conceived. This

discovery of our deficiencies must produce a great change in the

determination of the aims of human reason.

If, therefore, a transcendental substratum lies at the foundation of

the complete determination of things- a substratum which is to form

the fund from which all possible predicates of things are to be

supplied, this substratum cannot be anything else than the idea of a

sum-total of reality (omnitudo realitatis). In this view, negations

are nothing but limitations- a term which could not, with propriety,

be applied to them, if the unlimited (the all) did not form the true

basis of our conception.

This conception of a sum-total of reality is the conception of a

thing in itself, regarded as completely determined; and the conception

of an ens realissimum is the conception of an individual being,

inasmuch as it is determined by that predicate of all possible

contradictory predicates, which indicates and belongs to being. It is,

therefore, a transcendental ideal which forms the basis of the

complete determination of everything that exists, and is the highest

material condition of its possibility- a condition on which must

rest the cogitation of all objects with respect to their content. Nay,

more, this ideal is the only proper ideal of which the human mind is

capable; because in this case alone a general conception of a thing is

completely determined by and through itself, and cognized as the

representation of an individuum.

The logical determination of a conception is based upon a

disjunctive syllogism, the major of which contains the logical

division of the extent of a general conception, the minor limits

this extent to a certain part, while the conclusion determines the

conception by this part. The general conception of a reality cannot be

divided a priori, because, without the aid of experience, we cannot

know any determinate kinds of reality, standing under the former as

the genus. The transcendental principle of the complete

determination of all things is therefore merely the representation

of the sum-total of all reality; it is not a conception which is the

genus of all predicates under itself, but one which comprehends them

all within itself. The complete determination of a thing is

consequently based upon the limitation of this total of reality, so

much being predicated of the thing, while all that remains over is

excluded- a procedure which is in exact agreement with that of the

disjunctive syllogism and the determination of the objects in the

conclusion by one of the members of the division. It follows that

reason, in laying the transcendental ideal at the foundation of its

determination of all possible things, takes a course in exact

analogy with that which it pursues in disjunctive syllogisms- a

proposition which formed the basis of the systematic division of all

transcendental ideas, according to which they are produced in complete

parallelism with the three modes of syllogistic reasoning employed

by the human mind.

It is self-evident that reason, in cogitating the necessary complete

determination of things, does not presuppose the existence of a

being corresponding to its ideal, but merely the idea of the ideal-

for the purpose of deducing from the unconditional totality of

complete determination, The ideal is therefore the prototype of all

things, which, as defective copies (ectypa), receive from it the

material of their possibility, and approximate to it more or less,

though it is impossible that they can ever attain to its perfection.

The possibility of things must therefore be regarded as derived-

except that of the thing which contains in itself all reality, which

must be considered to be primitive and original. For all negations-

and they are the only predicates by means of which all other things

can be distinguished from the ens realissimum- are mere limitations of

a greater and a higher- nay, the highest reality; and they

consequently presuppose this reality, and are, as regards their

content, derived from it. The manifold nature of things is only an

infinitely various mode of limiting the conception of the highest

reality, which is their common substratum; just as all figures are

possible only as different modes of limiting infinite space. The

object of the ideal of reason- an object existing only in reason

itself- is also termed the primal being (ens originarium); as having

no existence superior to him, the supreme being (ens summum); and as

being the condition of all other beings, which rank under it, the

being of all beings (ens entium). But none of these terms indicate the

objective relation of an actually existing object to other things, but