THE GENESIS OF "TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS."
It must now be easy to see that mind, in its general form, is
three-in-one--a triad. It is a self-reflexive, self-related unit, of three
phases. The first phase is automatic "apprehension." The second is
conscious "understanding." The third, which we touch here, is "reason." In
reason, mind is still the general cosmic principle of awareness, with the
function of synthesis, or conjunction. As intuition, it has perceived
things. As conception, it has classified them. As a last synthetical unity
of awareness, it must include, or "comprehend" them--must relate them to
its conjunctive unity in their full scope, which means simply in the
ultimate reflexes, or forms, of its own nature and action. As process,
this can only be done by referring all things to pure synthesis, or
connective identity, as _final cause_.
_Seeing_ things, and then _thinking_ them, we always end by asking,
"_Why?_" They _are_, each and all so and so; but what is the "_reason_"
for it? The pure _form_ of answer, apart from all contents, is
"_because_"--on account of _cause_. Thus reason forms its synthesis of
comprehension by referring the particular to the general for a cause--a
process that can never stop short of including all things in ultimate
unities of cause. It is evident that ultimate unities of cause must
contain all subordinate causes or conditions under them. There can be just
three such ultimate unities; for there are just three possible kinds of
being and conditions that relate to their universals: subjective being and
conditions to subjective unity of them; objective being and conditions to
objective unity of them; and all being and conditions, both subjective and
objective, to the universal unity of being and conditions. These final
unities, again, _as_ final--as totalities of conditions with none
beyond--are themselves "unconditioned."
Reason, then, as an _a-priori_ synthetical unity, necessarily refers all
conditions of things to their final or absolute unities, which are in
reality nothing but conceptional reflexes of Reason's _own constructive_
synthetical identity. To _be_ an identity of mind, for instance, to the
conditions of subjectivity, reason must receive _them_ into _its_ unity,
which thus becomes _their_ totality. Now what is the objective
re-presentation, the rational conception of the totality of subjective
conditions? It is simply the "transcendental idea" of pure subjectiveness,
or Soul. In the same way the totality of objective phenomenal conditions,
is the idea of the Universe; while the totality of _all_ conditions, both
subjective and objective, is the idea of that in which all mind and all
matter are related as their final cause or reason--God.