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
according to _a principle of purposiveness_ for our cognitive faculty,
which then is expressed in the above maxims of the Judgement. This
transcendental concept of a purposiveness of nature is neither a
natural concept nor a concept of freedom, because it ascribes nothing
to the Object (of nature), but only represents the peculiar way in
which we must proceed in reflection upon the objects of nature in
reference to a thoroughly connected experience, and is consequently a
subjective principle (maxim) of the Judgement. Hence, as if it were a
lucky chance favouring our design, we are rejoiced (properly speaking,
relieved of a want), if we meet with such systematic unity under merely
empirical laws; although we must necessarily assume that there is such
a unity without our comprehending it or being able to prove it.
In order to convince ourselves of the correctness of this Deduction
of the concept before us, and the necessity of assuming it as a
transcendental principle of cognition, just consider the magnitude of
the problem. The problem, which lies _a priori_ in our Understanding,
is to make a connected experience out of given perceptions of a nature
containing at all events an infinite variety of empirical laws. The
Understanding is, no doubt, in possession _a priori_ of universal laws
of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience;
but it needs in addition a certain order of nature in its particular
rules, which can only be empirically known and which are, as regards
the Understanding, contingent. These rules, without which we could
not proceed from the universal analogy of a possible experience in
general to the particular, must be thought by it as laws (_i.e._ as
necessary), for otherwise they would not constitute an order of nature;
although their necessity can never be cognised or comprehended by
it. Although, therefore, the Understanding can determine nothing _a
priori_ in respect of Objects, it must, in order to trace out these
empirical so-called laws, place at the basis of all reflection upon
Objects an _a priori_ principle, viz. that a cognisable order of nature
is possible in accordance with these laws. The following propositions
express some such principle. There is in nature a subordination of
genera and species comprehensible by us. Each one approximates to some
other according to a common principle, so that a transition from one to
another and so on to a higher genus may be possible. Though it seems at
the outset unavoidable for our Understanding to assume different kinds
of causality for the specific differences of natural operations, yet
these different kinds may stand under a small number of principles,
with the investigation of which we have to busy ourselves. This harmony
of nature with our cognitive faculty is presupposed _a priori_ by the
Judgement, on behalf of its reflection upon nature in accordance with
its empirical laws; whilst the Understanding at the same time cognises
it objectively as contingent, and it is only the Judgement that
ascribes it to nature as a trancendental purposiveness (in relation to
the cognitive faculty of the subject). For without this presupposition
we should have no order of nature in accordance with empirical laws,
and consequently no guiding thread for an experience ordered by these
in all their variety, or for an investigation of them.
For it might easily be thought that, in spite of all the uniformity of
natural things according to the universal laws, without which we should
not have the form of an empirical cognition in general, the specific
variety of the empirical laws of nature including their effects might
yet be so great, that it would be impossible for our Understanding, to
detect in nature a comprehensible order; to divide its products into
genera and species, so as to use the principles which explain and make
intelligible one for the explanation and comprehension of another; or
out of such confused material (strictly we should say, so infinitely
various and not to be measured by our faculty of comprehension) to make
a connected experience.
The Judgement has therefore also in itself a principle _a priori_ of
the possibility of nature, but only in a subjective aspect; by which
it prescribes, not to nature (autonomy), but to itself (heautonomy)
a law for its reflection upon nature. This we might call the _law of
the specification of nature_ in respect of its empirical laws. The
Judgement does not cognise this _a priori_ in nature, but assumes it
on behalf of a natural order cognisable by our Understanding in the
division which it makes of the universal laws of nature when it wishes
to subordinate to these the variety of particular laws. If then we say
that nature specifies its universal laws according to the principles of
purposiveness for our cognitive faculty, _i.e._ in accordance with the
necessary business of the human Understanding of finding the universal
for the particular which perception offers it, and again of finding
connexion for the diverse (which however is a universal for each
species) in the unity of a principle,--we thus neither prescribe to
nature a law, nor do we learn one from it by observation (although such
a principle may be confirmed by this means). For it is not a principle
of the determinant but merely of the reflective Judgement. We only
require that, be nature disposed as it may as regards its universal
laws, investigation into its empirical laws may be carried on in
accordance with that principle and the maxims founded thereon, because
it is only so far as that holds that we can make any progress with the
use of our Understanding in experience, or gain knowledge.
VI. OF THE COMBINATION OF THE FEELING OF PLEASURE WITH THE CONCEPT OF
THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE.
The thought harmony of nature in the variety of its particular laws
with our need of finding universality of principles for it, must
be judged as contingent in respect of our insight, but yet at the
same time as indispensable for the needs of our Understanding, and
consequently as a purposiveness by which nature is harmonised with our
design, which, however, has only knowledge for its aim. The universal
laws of the Understanding, which are at the same time laws of nature,
are just as necessary (although arising from spontaneity) as the
material laws of motion. Their production presupposes no design on the
part of our cognitive faculty, because it is only by means of them
that we, in the first place, attain a concept of what the cognition
of things (of nature) is, and attribute them necessarily to nature as
Object of our cognition in general. But, so far as we can see, it is
contingent that the order of nature according to its particular laws,
in all its variety and heterogeneity possibly at least transcending
our comprehension, should be actually conformable to these [laws]. The
discovery of this [order] is the business of the Understanding which
is designedly borne towards a necessary purpose, viz. the bringing of
unity of principles into nature, which purpose then the Judgement must
ascribe to nature, because the Understanding cannot here prescribe any
law to it.
The attainment of that design is bound up with the feeling of pleasure,
and since the condition of this attainment is a representation
_a priori_,--as here a principle for the reflective Judgement in
general,--therefore the feeling of pleasure is determined by a ground
_a priori_ and valid for every man, and that merely by the reference of
the Object to the cognitive faculty, the concept of purposiveness here
not having the least reference to the faculty of desire. It is thus
quite distinguished from all practical purposiveness of nature.
In fact, although from the agreement of perceptions with laws in
accordance with universal natural concepts (the categories), we do not
and cannot find in ourselves the slightest effect upon the feeling of
pleasure, because the Understanding necessarily proceeds according to
its nature without any design; yet, on the other hand, the discovery
that two or more empirical heterogeneous laws of nature may be combined
under one principle comprehending them both, is the ground of a very
marked pleasure, often even of an admiration, which does not cease,
though we may be already quite familiar with the objects of it. We no
longer find, it is true, any marked pleasure in the comprehensibility
of nature and in the unity of its divisions into genera and species,
whereby are possible all empirical concepts, through which we cognise
it according to its particular laws. But this pleasure has certainly
been present at one time, and it is only because the commonest
experience would be impossible without it that it is gradually
confounded with mere cognition and no longer arrests particular
attention. There is then something in our judgements upon nature which
makes us attentive to its purposiveness for our Understanding--an
endeavour to bring, where possible, its dissimilar laws under higher
ones, though still always empirical--and thus, if successful, makes
us feel pleasure in that harmony of these with our cognitive faculty,
which harmony we regard as merely contingent. On the other hand, a
representation of nature would altogether displease, by which it
should be foretold to us that in the smallest investigation beyond the
commonest experience we should meet with a heterogeneity of its laws,
which would make the union of its particular laws under universal
empirical laws impossible for our Understanding. For this would
contradict the principle of the subjectively-purposive specification of
nature in its genera, and also of our reflective Judgement in respect
of such principle.
This presupposition of the Judgement is, however, at the same time so
indeterminate as to how far that ideal purposiveness of nature for
our cognitive faculty should be extended, that if we were told that
a deeper or wider knowledge of nature derived from observation must
lead at last to a variety of laws, which no human Understanding could
reduce to a principle, we should at once acquiesce. But still we more
gladly listen to one who offers hope that the more we know nature
internally, and can compare it with external members now unknown to
us, the more simple shall we find it in its principles, and that the
further our experience reaches the more uniform shall we find it amid
the apparent heterogeneity of its empirical laws. For it is a mandate
of our Judgement to proceed according to the principle of the harmony
of nature with our cognitive faculty so far as that reaches, without
deciding (because it is not the determinant Judgement which gives us
this rule) whether or not it is bounded anywhere. For although in
respect of the rational use of our cognitive faculty we can determine
such bounds, this is not possible in the empirical field.
VII. OF THE AESTHETICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE.
That which in the representation of an Object is merely subjective,
_i.e._ which decides its reference to the subject, not to the object,
is its aesthetical character; but that which serves or can be used
for the determination of the object (for cognition), is its logical
validity. In the cognition of an object of sense both references
present themselves. In the sense-representation of external things
the quality of space wherein we intuite them is the merely subjective
[element] of my representation (by which it remains undecided what
they may be in themselves as Objects), on account of which reference
the object is thought thereby merely as phenomenon. But space,
notwithstanding its merely subjective quality, is at the same time
an ingredient in the cognition of things as phenomena. _Sensation_,
again (_i.e._ external sensation), expresses the merely subjective
[element] of our representations of external things, but it is also the
proper material (reale) of them (by which something existing is given),
just as space is the mere form _a priori_ of the possibility of their
intuition. Nevertheless, however, sensation is also employed in the
cognition of external Objects.
But the subjective [element] in a representation _which cannot be
an ingredient of cognition_, is the _pleasure_ or _pain_ which is
bound up with it; for through it I cognise nothing in the object of
the representation, although it may be the effect of some cognition.
Now the purposiveness of a thing, so far as it is represented in
perception, is no characteristic of the Object itself (for such cannot
be perceived), although it may be inferred from a cognition of things.
The purposiveness, therefore, which precedes the cognition of an
Object, and which, even without our wishing to use the representation
of it for cognition, is, at the same time, immediately bound up
with it, is that subjective [element] which cannot be an ingredient
in cognition. Hence the object is only called purposive, when its
representation is immediately combined with the feeling of pleasure;
and this very representation is an aesthetical representation of
purposiveness.--The only question is whether there is, in general, such
a representation of purposiveness.
If pleasure is bound up with the mere apprehension (_apprehensio_) of
the form of an object of intuition, without reference to a concept for
a definite cognition, then the representation is thereby not referred
to the Object, but simply to the subject; and the pleasure can express
nothing else than its harmony with the cognitive faculties which come
into play in the reflective Judgement, and so far as they are in play;
and hence can only express a subjective formal purposiveness of the
Object. For that apprehension of forms in the Imagination can never
take place without the reflective Judgement, though undesignedly,
at least comparing them with its faculty of referring intuitions to
concepts. If now in this comparison the Imagination (as the faculty of
_a priori_ intuitions) is placed by means of a given representation
undesignedly in agreement with the Understanding, as the faculty of
concepts, and thus a feeling of pleasure is aroused, the object must
then be regarded as purposive for the reflective Judgement. Such a
judgement is an aesthetical judgement upon the purposiveness of the
Object, which does not base itself upon any present concept of the
object, nor does it furnish any such. In the case of an object whose
form (not the matter of its representation, as sensation), in the mere
reflection upon it (without reference to any concept to be obtained
of it), is judged as the ground of a pleasure in the representation
of such an Object, this pleasure is judged as bound up with the
representation necessarily; and, consequently, not only for the subject
which apprehends this form, but for every judging being in general. The
object is then called beautiful; and the faculty of judging by means
of such a pleasure (and, consequently, with universal validity) is
called Taste. For since the ground of the pleasure is placed merely in
the form of the object for reflection in general--and, consequently,
in no sensation of the object, and also without reference to any
concept which anywhere involves design--it is only the conformity
to law in the empirical use of the Judgement in general (unity of
the Imagination with the Understanding) in the subject, with which
the representation of the Object in reflection, whose conditions are
universally valid _a priori_, harmonises. And since this harmony of the
object with the faculties of the subject is contingent, it brings about
the representation of its purposiveness in respect of the cognitive
faculties of the subject.
Here now is a pleasure, which, like all pleasure or pain that is not
produced through the concept of freedom (_i.e._ through the preceding
determination of the higher faculties of desire by pure Reason), can
never be comprehended from concepts, as necessarily bound up with the
representation of an object. It must always be cognised as combined
with this only by means of reflective perception; and, consequently,
like all empirical judgements, it can declare no objective necessity
and lay claim to no _a priori_ validity. But the judgement of taste
also claims, as every other empirical judgement does, to be valid
for every one; and in spite of its inner contingency this is always
possible. The strange and irregular thing is that it is not an
empirical concept, but a feeling of pleasure (consequently not a
concept at all), which by the judgement of taste is attributed to every
one,--just as if it were a predicate bound up with the cognition of the
Object--and which is connected with the representation thereof.
A singular judgement of experience, _e.g._, when we perceive a moveable
drop of water in an ice-crystal, may justly claim that every one
else should find it the same; because we have formed this judgement,
according to the universal conditions of the determinant faculty of
Judgement, under the laws of a possible experience in general. Just
in the same way he who feels pleasure in the mere reflection upon
the form of an object without respect to any concept, although this
judgement be empirical and singular, justly claims the agreement
of every one; because the ground of this pleasure is found in the
universal, although subjective, condition of reflective judgements,
viz., the purposive harmony of an object (whether a product of nature
or of art) with the mutual relations of the cognitive faculties (the
Imagination and the Understanding), a harmony which is requisite for
every empirical cognition. The pleasure, therefore, in the judgement
of taste is dependent on an empirical representation, and cannot be
bound up _a priori_ with any concept (we cannot determine _a priori_
what object is or is not according to taste; that we must find out
by experiment). But the pleasure is the determining ground of this
judgement only because we are conscious that it rests merely on
reflection and on the universal though only subjective conditions
of the harmony of that reflection with the cognition of Objects in
general, for which the form of the Object is purposive.
Thus the reason why judgements of taste according to their possibility
are subjected to a Critique is that they presuppose a principle _a
priori_, although this principle is neither one of cognition for the
Understanding nor of practice for the Will, and therefore is not in any
way determinant _a priori_.
Susceptibility to pleasure from reflection upon the forms of things (of
Nature as well as of Art), indicates not only a purposiveness of the
Objects in relation to the reflective Judgement, conformably to the
concept of nature in the subject; but also conversely a purposiveness
of the subject in respect of the objects according to their form or
even their formlessness, in virtue of the concept of freedom. Hence
the aesthetical judgement is not only related as a judgement of taste
to the beautiful, but also as springing from a spiritual feeling is
related to the _sublime_; and thus the Critique of the aesthetical
Judgement must be divided into two corresponding sections.
VIII. OF THE LOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PURPOSIVENESS OF NATURE