PREFACE We may call the faculty of cognition from principles _a priori_, _pure Reason_, and the inquiry into its possibility and bounds generally the Critique of pure Reason, although by this faculty we only understand Reason in its theoretical employment, as it appears under that name in the former work; without wishing to inquire into its faculty, as practical Reason, according to its special principles. That [Critique] goes merely into our faculty of knowing things _a priori_, and busies itself therefore only with the _cognitive faculty_ to the exclusion of the feeling of pleasure and pain and the faculty of desire; and of the cognitive faculties it only concerns itself with _Understanding_, according to its principles _a priori_, to the exclusion of _Judgement_ and _Reason_ (as faculties alike belonging to theoretical cognition), because it is found in the sequel that no other cognitive faculty but the Understanding can furnish constitutive principles of cognition _a priori_. The Critique, then, which sifts them all, as regards the share which each of the other faculties might pretend to have in the clear possession of knowledge from its own peculiar root, leaves nothing but what the _Understanding_ prescribes _a priori_ as law for nature as the complex of phenomena (whose form also is given _a priori_). It relegates all other pure concepts under Ideas, which are transcendent for our theoretical faculty of cognition, but are not therefore useless or to be dispensed with. For they serve as regulative principles; partly to check the dangerous pretensions of Understanding, as if (because it can furnish _a priori_ the conditions of the possibility of all things which it can know) it had thereby confined within these bounds the possibility of all things in general; and partly to lead it to the consideration of nature according to a principle of completeness, although it can never attain to this, and thus to further the final design of all knowledge.
It was then properly the _Understanding_ which has its special realm in the _cognitive faculty_, so far as it contains constitutive principles of cognition _a priori_, which by the Critique, comprehensively called the Critique of pure Reason, was to be placed in certain and sole possession[8] against all other competitors. And so also to _Reason_, which contains constitutive principles _a priori_ nowhere except simply in respect of the _faculty of desire_, should be assigned its place in the Critique of practical Reason.
Whether now the _Judgement_, which in the order of our cognitive faculties forms a mediating link between Understanding and Reason, has also principles _a priori_ for itself; whether these are constitutive or merely regulative (thus indicating no special realm); and whether they give a rule _a priori_ to the feeling of pleasure and pain, as the mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire (just as the Understanding prescribes laws _a priori_ to the first, Reason to the second); these are the questions with which the present Critique of Judgement is concerned.
A Critique of pure Reason, _i.e._ of our faculty of judging _a priori_ according to principles, would be incomplete, if the Judgement, which as a cognitive faculty also makes claim to such principles, were not treated as a particular part of it; although its principles in a system of pure Philosophy need form no particular part between the theoretical and the practical, but can be annexed when needful to one or both as occasion requires. For if such a system is one day to be completed under the general name of Metaphysic (which it is possible to achieve quite completely, and which is supremely important for the use of Reason in every reference), the soil for the edifice must be explored by Criticism as deep down as the foundation of the faculty of principles independent of experience, in order that it may sink in no part, for this would inevitably bring about the downfall of the whole.
We can easily infer from the nature of the Judgement (whose right use is so necessarily and so universally requisite, that by the name of sound Understanding nothing else but this faculty is meant), that it must be attended with great difficulties to find a principle peculiar to it; (some such it must contain _a priori_ in itself, for otherwise it would not be set apart by the commonest Criticism as a special cognitive faculty). This principle must not be derived _a priori_ from concepts, for these belong to the Understanding, and Judgement is only concerned with their application. It must, therefore, furnish of itself a concept, through which, properly speaking, no thing is cognised, but which only serves as a rule, though not an objective one to which it can adapt its judgement; because for this latter another faculty of Judgement would be requisite, in order to be able to distinguish whether [any given case] is or is not the case for the rule.
This perplexity about a principle (whether it is subjective or objective) presents itself mainly in those judgements that we call aesthetical, which concern the Beautiful and the Sublime of Nature or of Art. And, nevertheless, the critical investigation of a principle of Judgement in these is the most important part in a Critique of this faculty. For although they do not by themselves contribute to the knowledge of things, yet they belong to the cognitive faculty alone, and point to an immediate reference of this faculty to the feeling of pleasure or pain according to some principle _a priori_; without confusing this with what may be the determining ground of the faculty of desire, which has its principles _a priori_ in concepts of Reason.--In the logical judging of nature, experience exhibits a conformity to law in things, to the understanding or to the explanation of which the general concept of the sensible does not attain; here the Judgement can only derive from itself a principle of the reference of the natural thing to the unknowable supersensible (a principle which it must only use from its own point of view for the cognition of nature).
And so, though in this case such a principle _a priori_ can and must be applied to the _cognition_ of the beings of the world, and opens out at the same time prospects which are advantageous for the practical Reason, yet it has no immediate reference to the feeling of pleasure and pain. But this reference is precisely the puzzle in the principle of Judgement, which renders a special section for this faculty necessary in the Critique; since the logical judging according to concepts (from which an immediate inference can never be drawn to the feeling of pleasure and pain) along with their critical limitation, has at all events been capable of being appended to the theoretical part of Philosophy.
The examination of the faculty of taste, as the aesthetical Judgement, is not here planned in reference to the formation or the culture of taste (for this will take its course in the future as in the past without any such investigations), but merely in a transcendental point of view. Hence, I trust that as regards the deficiency of the former purpose it will be judged with indulgence, though in the latter point of view it must be prepared for the severest scrutiny. But I hope that the great difficulty of solving a problem so involved by nature may serve as excuse for some hardly avoidable obscurity in its solution, if only it be clearly established that the principle is correctly stated.
I grant that the mode of deriving the phenomena of the Judgement from it has not all the clearness which might be rightly demanded elsewhere, viz. in the case of cognition according to concepts; but I believe that I have attained to it in the second part of this work.
Here then I end my whole critical undertaking. I shall proceed without delay to the doctrinal [part] in order to profit, as far as is possible, by the more favourable moments of my increasing years. It is obvious that in this [part] there will be no special section for the Judgement, because in respect of this faculty Criticism serves instead of Theory; but, according to the division of Philosophy (and also of pure Philosophy) into theoretical and practical, the Metaphysic of Nature and of Morals will complete the undertaking.
INTRODUCTION I. OF THE DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY We proceed quite correctly if, as usual, we divide Philosophy, as containing the principles of the rational cognition of things by means of concepts (not merely, as logic does, principles of the form of thought in general without distinction of Objects), into _theoretical_ and _practical_. But then the concepts, which furnish their Object to the principles of this rational cognition, must be specifically distinct; otherwise they would not justify a division, which always presupposes a contrast between the principles of the rational cognition belonging to the different parts of a science.
Now there are only two kinds of concepts, and these admit as many distinct principles of the possibility of their objects, viz. _natural concepts_ and the _concept of freedom_. The former render possible _theoretical_ cognition according to principles _a priori_; the latter in respect of this theoretical cognition only supplies in itself a negative principle (that of mere contrast), but on the other hand it furnishes fundamental propositions which extend the sphere of the determination of the will and are therefore called practical. Thus Philosophy is correctly divided into two parts, quite distinct in their principles; the theoretical part or _Natural Philosophy_, and the practical part or _Moral Philosophy_ (for that is the name given to the practical legislation of Reason in accordance with the concept of freedom). But up to the present a gross misuse of these expressions has prevailed, both in the division of the different principles and consequently also of Philosophy itself. For what is practical according to natural concepts has been identified with the practical according to the concept of freedom; and so with the like titles, ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ Philosophy, a division has been made, by which in fact nothing has been divided (for both parts might in such case have principles of the same kind).
The will, regarded as the faculty of desire, is (in this view) one of the many natural causes in the world, viz. that cause which acts in accordance with concepts. All that is represented as possible (or necessary) by means of a will is called practically possible (or necessary); as distinguished from the physical possibility or necessity of an effect, whose cause is not determined to causality by concepts (but in lifeless matter by mechanism and in animals by instinct).
Here, in respect of the practical, it is left undetermined whether the concept which gives the rule to the causality of the will, is a natural concept or a concept of freedom.
But the last distinction is essential. For if the concept which determines the causality is a natural concept, then the principles are _technically practical_; whereas, if it is a concept of freedom they are _morally practical_. And as the division of a rational science depends on the distinction between objects whose cognition needs distinct principles, the former will belong to theoretical Philosophy (doctrine of Nature), but the latter alone will constitute the second part, viz. practical Philosophy (doctrine of Morals).
All technically practical rules (_i.e._ the rules of art and skill generally, or of prudence regarded as skill in exercising an influence over men and their wills), so far as their principles rest on concepts, must be reckoned only as corollaries to theoretical Philosophy. For they concern only the possibility of things according to natural concepts, to which belong not only the means which are to be met with in nature, but also the will itself (as a faculty of desire and consequently a natural faculty), so far as it can be determined conformably to these rules by natural motives. However, practical rules of this kind are not called laws (like physical laws), but only precepts; because the will does not stand merely under the natural concept, but also under the concept of freedom, in relation to which its principles are called laws. These with their consequences alone constitute the second or practical part of Philosophy.
The solution of the problems of pure geometry does not belong to a particular part of the science; mensuration does not deserve the name of practical, in contrast to pure, geometry, as a second part of geometry in general; and just as little ought the mechanical or chemical art of experiment or observation to be reckoned as a practical part of the doctrine of Nature. Just as little, in fine, ought housekeeping, farming, statesmanship, the art of conversation, the prescribing of diet, the universal doctrine of happiness itself, or the curbing of the inclinations and checking of the affections for the sake of happiness, to be reckoned as practical Philosophy, or taken to constitute the second part of Philosophy in general.
For all these contain only rules of skill (and are consequently only technically practical) for bringing about an effect that is possible according to the natural concepts of causes and effects, which, since they belong to theoretical Philosophy, are subject to those precepts as mere corollaries from it (viz. natural science), and can therefore claim no place in a special Philosophy called practical. On the other hand, the morally practical precepts, which are altogether based on the concept of freedom to the complete exclusion of the natural determining grounds of the will, constitute a quite special class. These, like the rules which nature obeys, are called simply laws, but they do not, like them, rest on sensuous conditions but on a supersensible principle; and accordingly they require for themselves a quite different part of Philosophy, called practical, corresponding to its theoretical part.
We hence see that a complex of practical precepts given by Philosophy does not constitute a distinct part of Philosophy, as opposed to the theoretical part, because these precepts are practical; for they might be that, even if their principles were derived altogether from the theoretical cognition of nature (as technically practical rules). [A distinct branch of Philosophy is constituted only] if their principle, as it is not borrowed from the natural concept, which is always sensuously conditioned, rests on the supersensible, which alone makes the concept of freedom cognisable by formal laws. These precepts are then morally practical, _i.e._ not merely precepts or rules in this or that aspect, but, without any preceding reference to purposes and designs, are laws.
II. OF THE REALM OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL So far as our concepts have _a priori_ application, so far extends the use of our cognitive faculty according to principles, and with it Philosophy.
But the complex of all objects, to which those concepts are referred, in order to bring about a knowledge of them where it is possible, may be subdivided according to the adequacy or inadequacy of our [cognitive] faculty to this design.
Concepts, so far as they are referred to objects, independently of the possibility or impossibility of the cognition of these objects, have their field which is determined merely according to the relation that their Object has to our cognitive faculty in general. The part of this field in which knowledge is possible for us is a ground or territory (_territorium_) for these concepts and the requisite cognitive faculty.
The part of this territory, where they are legislative, is the realm (_ditio_) of these concepts and of the corresponding cognitive faculties. Empirical concepts have, therefore, their territory in nature, as the complex of all objects of sense, but no realm, only a dwelling-place (_domicilium_); for though they are produced in conformity to law they are not legislative, but the rules based on them are empirical and consequently contingent.
Our whole cognitive faculty has two realms, that of natural concepts and that of the concept of freedom; for through both it is legislative _a priori_. In accordance with this, Philosophy is divided into theoretical and practical. But the territory to which its realm extends and in which its legislation is _exercised_, is always only the complex of objects of all possible experience, so long as they are taken for nothing more than mere phenomena; for otherwise no legislation of the Understanding in respect of them is conceivable.
Legislation through natural concepts is carried on by means of the Understanding and is theoretical. Legislation through the concept of freedom is carried on by the Reason and is merely practical. It is only in the practical [sphere] that the Reason can be legislative; in respect of theoretical cognition (of nature) it can merely (as acquainted with law by the Understanding) deduce from given laws consequences which always remain within [the limits of] nature. But on the other hand, Reason is not always therefore _legislative_, where there are practical rules, for they may be only technically practical.
Understanding and Reason exercise, therefore, two distinct legislations in regard to one and the same territory of experience, without prejudice to each other. The concept of freedom as little disturbs the legislation of nature, as the natural concept influences the legislation through the former.--The possibility of at least thinking without contradiction the co-existence of both legislations, and of the corresponding faculties in the same subject, has been shown in the Critique of pure Reason; for it annulled the objections on the other side by exposing the dialectical illusion which they contain.
These two different realms then do not limit each other in their legislation, though they perpetually do so in the world of sense.
That they do not constitute _one_ realm, arises from this, that the natural concept represents its objects in intuition, not as things in themselves, but as mere phenomena; the concept of freedom, on the other hand, represents in its Object a thing in itself, but not in intuition. Hence, neither of them can furnish a theoretical knowledge of its Object (or even of the thinking subject) as a thing in itself; this would be the supersensible, the Idea of which we must indeed make the basis of the possibility of all these objects of experience, but which we can never extend or elevate into a cognition.
There is, then, an unbounded but also inaccessible field for our whole cognitive faculty--the field of the supersensible--wherein we find no territory, and, therefore, can have in it, for theoretical cognition, no realm either for concepts of Understanding or Reason. This field we must indeed occupy with Ideas on behalf of the theoretical as well as the practical use of Reason, but we can supply to them in reference to the laws [arising] from the concept of freedom no other than practical reality, by which our theoretical cognition is not extended in the slightest degree towards the supersensible.
Now even if an immeasurable gulf is fixed between the sensible realm of the concept of nature and the supersensible realm of the concept of freedom, so that no transition is possible from the first to the second (by means of the theoretical use of Reason), just as if they were two different worlds of which the first could have no influence upon the second, yet the second is _meant_ to have an influence upon the first.
The concept of freedom is meant to actualise in the world of sense the purpose proposed by its laws, and consequently nature must be so thought that the conformity to law of its form, at least harmonises with the possibility of the purposes to be effected in it according to laws of freedom.--There must, therefore, be a ground of the _unity_ of the supersensible, which lies at the basis of nature, with that which the concept of freedom practically contains; and the concept of this ground, although it does not attain either theoretically or practically to a knowledge of the same, and hence has no peculiar realm, nevertheless makes possible the transition from the mode of thought according to the principles of the one to that according to the principles of the other.
III. OF THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT AS A MEANS OF COMBINING THE TWO PARTS OF PHILOSOPHY INTO A WHOLE.
The Critique of the cognitive faculties, as regards what they can furnish _a priori_, has properly speaking no realm in respect of Objects, because it is not a doctrine, but only has to investigate whether and how, in accordance with the state of these faculties, a doctrine is possible by their means. Its field extends to all their pretensions, in order to confine them within their legitimate bounds.
But what cannot enter into the division of Philosophy may yet enter, as a chief part, into the Critique of the pure faculty of cognition in general, viz. if it contains principles which are available neither for theoretical nor for practical use.
The natural concepts, which contain the ground of all theoretical knowledge _a priori_, rest on the legislation of the Understanding.--The concept of freedom, which contains the ground of all sensuously-unconditioned practical precepts _a priori_, rests on the legislation of the Reason. Both faculties, therefore, besides being capable of application as regards their logical form to principles of whatever origin, have also as regards their content, their special legislations above which there is no other (_a priori_); and hence the division of Philosophy into theoretical and practical is justified.
But in the family of the higher cognitive faculties there is a middle term between the Understanding and the Reason. This is the _Judgement_, of which we have cause for supposing according to analogy that it may contain in itself, if not a special legislation, yet a special principle of its own to be sought according to laws, though merely subjective _a priori_. This principle, even if it have no field of objects as its realm, yet may have somewhere a territory with a certain character, for which no other principle can be valid.
But besides (to judge by analogy) there is a new ground for bringing the Judgement into connexion with another arrangement of our representative faculties, which seems to be of even greater importance than that of its relationship with the family of the cognitive faculties. For all faculties or capacities of the soul can be reduced to three, which cannot be any further derived from one common ground: the _faculty of knowledge_, the _feeling of pleasure and pain_, and the _faculty of desire_.[9] For the faculty of knowledge the Understanding is alone legislative, if (as must happen when it is considered by itself without confusion with the faculty of desire) this faculty is referred to nature as the faculty of _theoretical knowledge_; for in respect of nature (as phenomenon) it is alone possible for us to give laws by means of natural concepts _a priori_, _i.e._ by pure concepts of Understanding.--For the faculty of desire, as a higher faculty according to the concept of freedom, the Reason (in which alone this concept has a place) is alone _a priori_ legislative.--Now between the faculties of knowledge and desire there is the feeling of pleasure, just as the Judgement is intermediate between the Understanding and the Reason. We may therefore suppose provisionally that the Judgement likewise contains in itself an _a priori_ principle. And as pleasure or pain is necessarily combined with the faculty of desire (either preceding this principle as in the lower desires, or following it as in the higher, when the desire is determined by the moral law), we may also suppose that the Judgement will bring about a transition from the pure faculty of knowledge, the realm of natural concepts, to the realm of the concept of freedom, just as in its logical use it makes possible the transition from Understanding to Reason.
Although, then, Philosophy can be divided only into two main parts, the theoretical and the practical, and although all that we may be able to say of the special principles of Judgement must be counted as belonging in it to the theoretical part, _i.e._ to rational cognition in accordance with natural concepts; yet the Critique of pure Reason, which must decide all this, as regards the possibility of the system before undertaking it, consists of three parts; the Critique of pure Understanding, of pure Judgement, and of pure Reason, which faculties are called pure because they are legislative _a priori_.
IV. OF JUDGEMENT AS A FACULTY LEGISLATING _A PRIORI_ Judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the Universal. If the universal (the rule, the principle, the law) be given, the Judgement which subsumes the particular under it (even if, as transcendental Judgement, it furnishes _a priori_, the conditions in conformity with which subsumption under that universal is alone possible) is _determinant_. But if only the particular be given for which the universal has to be found, the Judgement is merely _reflective_.
The determinant Judgement only subsumes under universal transcendental laws given by the Understanding; the law is marked out for it, _a priori_, and it has therefore no need to seek a law for itself in order to be able to subordinate the particular in nature to the universal.--But the forms of nature are so manifold, and there are so many modifications of the universal transcendental natural concepts left undetermined by the laws given, _a priori_, by the pure Understanding,--because these only concern the possibility of a nature in general (as an object of sense),--that there must be laws for these [forms] also. These, as empirical, may be contingent from the point of view of _our_ Understanding, and yet, if they are to be called laws (as the concept of a nature requires), they must be regarded as necessary in virtue of a principle of the unity of the manifold, though it be unknown to us.--The reflective Judgement, which is obliged to ascend from the particular in nature to the universal, requires on that account a principle that it cannot borrow from experience, because its function is to establish the unity of all empirical principles under higher ones, and hence to establish the possibility of their systematic subordination. Such a transcendental principle, then, the reflective Judgement can only give as a law from and to itself. It cannot derive it from outside (because then it would be the determinant Judgement); nor can it prescribe it to nature, because reflection upon the laws of nature adjusts itself by nature, and not nature by the conditions according to which we attempt to arrive at a concept of it which is quite contingent in respect of these.
This principle can be no other than the following: As universal laws of nature have their ground in our Understanding, which prescribes them to nature (although only according to the universal concept of it as nature); so particular empirical laws, in respect of what is in them left undetermined by these universal laws, must be considered in accordance with such a unity as they would have if an Understanding (although not our Understanding) had furnished them to our cognitive faculties, so as to make possible a system of experience according to particular laws of nature. Not as if, in this way, such an Understanding must be assumed as actual (for it is only our reflective Judgement to which this Idea serves as a principle--for reflecting, not for determining); but this faculty thus gives a law only to itself and not to nature.
Now the concept of an Object, so far as it contains the ground of the actuality of this Object, is the _purpose_; and the agreement of a thing with that constitution of things, which is only possible according to purposes, is called the _purposiveness_ of its form. Thus the principle of Judgement, in respect of the form of things of nature under empirical laws generally, is the _purposiveness of nature_ in its manifoldness. That is, nature is represented by means of this concept, as if an Understanding contained the ground of the unity of the manifold of its empirical laws.
The purposiveness of nature is therefore a particular concept, _a priori_, which has its origin solely in the reflective Judgement. For we cannot ascribe to natural products anything like a reference of nature in them to purposes; we can only use this concept to reflect upon such products in respect of the connexion of phenomena which is given in nature according to empirical laws. This concept is also quite different from practical purposiveness (in human art or in morals), though it is certainly thought according to the analogy of these last.
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORMAL PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE IS A TRANSCENDENTAL PRINCIPLE OF JUDGEMENT.
A transcendental principle is one by means of which is represented, _a priori_, the universal condition under which alone things can be in general Objects of our cognition. On the other hand, a principle is called metaphysical if it represents the _a priori_ condition under which alone Objects, whose concept must be empirically given, can be further determined _a priori_. Thus the principle of the cognition of bodies as substances, and as changeable substances, is transcendental, if thereby it is asserted that their changes must have a cause; it is metaphysical if it asserts that their changes must have an _external_ cause. For in the former case bodies need only be thought by means of ontological predicates (pure concepts of Understanding), _e.g._ substance, in order to cognise the proposition _a priori_; but in the latter case the empirical concept of a body (as a movable thing in space) must lie at the basis of the proposition, although once this basis has been laid down, it may be seen completely _a priori_ that this latter predicate (motion only by external causes) belongs to body.--Thus, as I shall presently show, the principle of the purposiveness of nature (in the manifoldness of its empirical laws) is a transcendental principle. For the concept of Objects, so far as they are thought as standing under this principle, is only the pure concept of objects of possible empirical cognition in general and contains nothing empirical. On the other hand, the principle of practical purposiveness, which must be thought in the Idea of the _determination_ of a free _will_, is a metaphysical principle; because the concept of a faculty of desire as a will must be given empirically (_i.e._ does not belong to transcendental predicates). Both principles are, however, not empirical, but _a priori_; because for the combination of the predicate with the empirical concept of the subject of their judgements no further experience is needed, but it can be apprehended completely _a priori_.
That the concept of a purposiveness of nature belongs to transcendental principles can be sufficiently seen from the maxims of the Judgement, which lie at the basis of the investigation of nature _a priori_, and yet do not go further than the possibility of experience, and consequently of the cognition of nature--not indeed nature in general, but nature as determined through a variety of particular laws. These maxims present themselves in the course of this science often enough, though in a scattered way, as sentences of metaphysical wisdom, whose necessity we cannot demonstrate from concepts. “Nature takes the shortest way (_lex parsimoniae_); at the same time it makes no leaps, either in the course of its changes or in the juxtaposition of specifically different forms (_lex continui in natura_); its great variety in empirical laws is yet unity under a few principles (_principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda_),” etc.
If we propose to set forth the origin of these fundamental propositions and try to do so by the psychological method, we violate their sense.
For they do not tell us what happens, _i.e._ by what rule our cognitive powers actually operate, and how we judge, but how we ought to judge; and this logical objective necessity does not emerge if the principles are merely empirical. Hence that purposiveness of nature for our cognitive faculties and their use, which is plainly apparent from them, is a transcendental principle of judgements, and needs therefore also a Transcendental Deduction, by means of which the ground for so judging must be sought in the sources of cognition _a priori_.
We find in the grounds of the possibility of an experience in the very first place something necessary, viz. the universal laws without which nature in general (as an object of sense) cannot be thought; and these rest upon the Categories, applied to the formal conditions of all intuition possible for us, so far as it is also given _a priori_. Now under these laws the Judgement is determinant, for it has nothing to do but to subsume under given laws. For example, the Understanding says that every change has its cause (universal law of nature); the transcendental Judgement has nothing further to do than to supply _a priori_ the condition of subsumption under the concept of the Understanding placed before it, _i.e._ the succession [in time] of the determinations of one and the same thing. For nature in general (as an object of possible experience) that law is cognised as absolutely necessary.--But now the objects of empirical cognition are determined in many other ways than by that formal time-condition, or, at least as far as we can judge _a priori_, are determinable.
Hence specifically different natures can be causes in an infinite variety of ways, as well as in virtue of what they have in common as belonging to nature in general; and each of these modes must (in accordance with the concept of a cause in general) have its rule, which is a law and therefore brings necessity with it, although we do not at all comprehend this necessity, in virtue of the constitution and the limitations of our cognitive faculties. We must therefore think in nature, in respect of its merely empirical laws, a possibility of infinitely various empirical laws, which are, as far as our insight goes, contingent (cannot be cognised _a priori_), and in respect of which we judge nature, according to empirical laws and the possibility of the unity of experience (as a system according to empirical laws), to be contingent. But such a unity must be necessarily presupposed and assumed, for otherwise there would be no thoroughgoing connexion of empirical cognitions in a whole of experience. The universal laws of nature no doubt furnish such a connexion of things according to their kind as things of nature in general, but not specifically, as such particular beings of nature. Hence the Judgement must assume for its special use this principle _a priori_, that what in the particular (empirical) laws of nature is from the human point of view contingent, yet contains a unity of law in the combination of its manifold into an experience possible in itself--a unity not indeed to be fathomed by us, but yet thinkable. Consequently as the unity of law in a combination, which we cognise as contingent in itself, although in conformity with a necessary design (a need) of Understanding, is represented as the purposiveness of Objects (here of nature); so must the Judgement, which in respect of things under possible (not yet discovered) empirical laws is merely reflection, think of nature in respect of the latter