Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller

absolutely unconditioned might possibly exist, but empirical representations only, which always must have their condition in intuition, whereby they are determined in space and time. The principle of reason is therefore properly a rule only, which in the series of con- [p. 509] ditions of given phenomena postulates a regressus which is never allowed to stop at anything absolutely unconditioned.

It is therefore no principle of the possibility of experience and of the empirical knowledge of the objects of the senses, and not therefore a principle of the understanding, because every experience is (according to a given intuition) within its limits ; nor is it a constitutive principle of reason, enabling us to extend the concept of the world of sense beyond all possible experience, but it is merely a principle of the greatest possible continuation and extension of our experience, allowing no empirical limit to be taken as an absolute limit.

It is therefore a principle of reason, which, as a ;7//^, postulates what we ought to do in the regressus, but does not anticipate what may be given in the object, before such regressus.

I therefore call it a regulative principle of reason, while, on the contrary, the principle of the absolute totality of the series of conditions, as given in the object (the phenomena) by itself, would be a constitutive cosmological principle, the hollowness of which I have tried to indicate by this very distinction, thus preventing what otherwise would have inevitably happened (through a transcendental surreptitious proceeding), namely, an idea, which is to serve as a rule only, being invested with objective reality.

In order properly to determine the meaning of this rule of pure reason it should be remarked, first of all, that it cannot tell us what the object is, but only Jiow [p. 510]

Transcendental Dialectic ■ 415

the empirical regressus is to be carried out, in order to arrive at the complete concept of the object. If we attempted the first, it would become a constitutive principle, such as pure reason can never supply. It cannot therefore be our intention to say through this principle, that a series of conditions of something, given as conditioned, is by itself either finite or infinite ; for in that case a mere idea of absolute totality, produced in itself only, would represent in thought an object such as can never be given in experience, and an objective reality, independent of empirical synthesis, would have been attributed to a series of phenomena. This idea of reason can therefore do no more than prescribe a rule to the regressive synthesis in the series of conditions, according to which that synthesis is to advance from the conditioned, through all subordinate conditions, towards the unconditioned, though it can never reach it, for the absolutely unconditioned can never be met with in experience.

To this end it is necessary, first of all, to define accurately the synthesis of a series, so far as it never is complete. People are in the habit of using for this purpose two expressions which are meant to establish a difference, though they are unable clearly to define the ground of the distinction. Mathematicians speak only of a progressus in infinitum. Those who enquire into concepts (philosophers) will admit instead the expression of a [p. 511] progressus in indefinitum only. Without losing any time in the examination of the reasons which may have suggested such a distinction, and of its useful or useless application, I shall at once endeavour to define these concepts accurately for my own purpose.

Of a straight line it can be said correctly that it may be

4i6 Transcendental Dialectic produced to infinity ; and here the distinction between an infinite and an indefinite progress {progressiis in indejinitum) would be mere subtilty. No doubt, if we are told to carry on a line, it would be more correct to add /;/ indefinitum, than in irifinitnni^ because the former means no more than, produce it as far as yoiL wish, but the second, yon^ shall never cease producing it (which can never be intended). Nevertheless, if we speak only of what is possible, the former expression is quite correct, because we can always make it longer, if we like, without end. The same applies in all cases where we speak only of the progressus, that is, of our proceeding from the condition to the conditioned, for such progress proceeds in the series of phenomena without end. From a given pair of parents we may, in the descending line of generation, proceed without end, and conceive quite well that that line should so continue in the world. For here reason never requires an absolute totality of the series, [p. 512] because it is not presupposed as a condition, and as it were given {datnm), but only as something conditioned, that is, capable only of being given (dabile), and can be added to without end.