Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (F. Max Müller). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
530 Transcendental Dialectic
That highest standpoint is reached by the law of homogeneousness, and all the lower standpoints in their greatest variety, by the law of specification. As in this way there is no void in the whole extent of all possible concepts, and as nothing can be met with outside it, there arises from the presupposition of that universal horizon and its complete division, the principle of non datiir vacinnn forinarinn. According to this principle there are no different original and first genera, as it were isolated and separated from each other (by an intervening void), but all diverse genera are divisions only of one supreme and general gemis. From that principle springs its immediate consequence, datiir continimm formarnni ; that is, all the diversities of species touch each other and admit of no transition from one to another per saltiiniy but only by small degrees of difference, by which from one we arrive at the other. In one word, there are neither species nor sub-species, which (in the view of reason) are the nearest possible to each other, but there always remain possible intermediate species, differing from the first and the second by [p. 660] smaller degrees than those by which these differ from each other.
The first law, therefore, keeps us from admitting an extravagant variety of different original genera, and recommends attention to homogeneousness. The second, on the contrary, checks that tendency to unity, and prescribes distinction of sub-species before applying any general concept to individuals. The third unites both, by prescribing, even with the utmost variety, homogeneousness, through the gradual transition from the one species to another : thus indicating a kind of relationTranscendental Dialectic 531 ship of the different branches, as having all sprung from the same stem.
This logical law, however, of the continuum specierum {formarum logicarum) presupposes a transcendental law {lex continui in naturd)^ without which the understanding would only be misled by following, it may be, a path contrary to nature. That law must therefore rest on purely transcendental, and not on empirical grounds. For in the latter case, it would come later than the systems, while in fact the systematical character of our knowledge of nature is produced by it. Nor are these laws intended only for tests to be carried out experimentally by their aid, although such a connection, if it is found in nature, forms a powerful argument in support [p. 661] of that unity which was conceived as hypothetical only. These laws have therefore a certain utility in this respect also, yet it is easily seen that they regard the parsimony of causes, the manifoldness of effects, and an affinity between the parts of nature arising from thence, as both rational and natural, so that these principles carry their recommendation direct, and not only as aids towards a proper method of studying nature.
It is easy to see, however, that this continuity of forms is a mere idea, and that no object corresponding to it can be pointed out in experience, not only because the species in nature are actually divided, and must form, each by itself, a quantum discretum, while, if the gradual progression of their affinity were continuous, nature would contain a real infinity of intermediate links between every two given species, which is impossible ; but also, because we cannot make any definite empirical use of that law, considering that not the smallest criterion of affinity is
532 Transcendental Dialectic
If we now arrange these principles of systematical nnity in the order required for their e'>npirical employ- [p. 662] ment, they might stand thus : manifoldnesSy variety, and 7cnityy each of them as ideas taken in the highest degree of their completeness. Reason presupposes the cognitions of the understanding in their direct relation to experience, and looks for their unity according to ideas which go far beyond the possibility of experience. The affinity of the manifold, in spite of its diversity, under one principle of unity, refers not only to things, but even more to the qualities and powers of things. Thus if, for example, our imperfect experience represents to us the orbits of the planets as circular, and we find deviations from that course, we look for them in that which is able to change the circle according to a fixed law, through infinite intervening degrees, into one of these deviating courses ; that is, we suppose that the movements of the planets which are not circular will approximate more or less to the properties of a circle, and thus are led on to the ellipse. The comets display a still greater deviation in their courses, because, so far as our experience goes, they do not return in a circle, and we then conjecture a parabolic course which, at all events, is allied to the ellipse, and if its longer axis is widely extended, cannot be distinguished from it in our observations. We thus arrive, [p. 663] under the guidance of these principles, at a unity of the different genera or kinds in the forms of these orbits, and, proceeding still further, at a unity of the cause of all the laws of their movements, namely, gravitation. Here
Transcendental Dialectic 533
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.