| We have thus before us a pretended science, raised upon the single proposition, "I think," whose foundation or want of foundation we may very properly, and agreeably with the nature of a transcendental philosophy, here examine. |
| It ought not to be objected that in this proposition, which expresses the perception of one's self, an internal experience is asserted, and that consequently the rational doctrine of the soul which is founded upon it, is not pure, but partly founded upon an empirical principle. |
| For this internal perception is nothing more than the mere apperception, "I think," which in fact renders all transcendental conceptions possible, in which we say, "I think substance, cause, etc." For internal experience in general and its possibility, or perception in general, and its relation to other perceptions, unless some particular distinction or determination thereof is empirically given, cannot be regarded as empirical cognition, but as cognition of the empirical, and belongs to the investigation of the possibility of every experience, which is certainly transcendental. |
| The smallest object of experience (for example, only pleasure or pain), that should be included in the general representation of self-consciousness, would immediately change the rational into an empirical psychology. |
| I think is therefore the only text of rational psychology, from which it must develop its whole system. |
| It is manifest that this thought, when applied to an object (myself), can contain nothing but transcendental predicates thereof; because the least empirical predicate would destroy the purity of the science and its independence of all experience. |
| But we shall have to follow here the guidance of the categories- only, as in the present case a thing, "I," as thinking being, is at first given, we shall--not indeed change the order of the categories as it stands in the table--but begin at the category of substance, by which at the a thing a thing is represented and proceeds backwards through the series. |
| The topic of the rational doctrine of the soul, from which everything else it may contain must be deduced, is accordingly as follows: |
| 1 2 The Soul is SUBSTANCE As regards its quality it is SIMPLE |
| 3 As regards the different times in which it exists, it is numerically identical, that is UNITY, not Plurality. |
| 4 It is in relation to possible objects in space* |
| [*Footnote; The reader, who may not so easily perceive the psychological sense of these expressions, taken here in their transcendental abstraction, and cannot guess why the latter attribute of the soul belongs to the category of existence, will find the expressions sufficiently explained and justified in the sequel. |
| I have, moreover, to apologize for the Latin terms which have been employed, instead of their German synonyms, contrary to the rules of correct writing. |
| But I judged it better to sacrifice elegance to perspicuity.] |
| From these elements originate all the conceptions of pure psychology, by combination alone, without the aid of any other principle. |
| This substance, merely as an object of the internal sense, gives the conception of Immateriality; as simple substance, that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance, gives the conception of Personality; all these three together, Spirituality. |
| Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception of connection (commercium) with bodies. |
| Thus it represents thinking substance as the principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul (anima), and as the ground of Animality; and this, limited and determined by the conception of spirituality, gives us that of Immortality. |
| Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason. |
| touching the nature of our thinking being. |
| We can, however, lay at the foundation of this science nothing but the simple and in itself perfectly contentless representation "I" which cannot even be called a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all conceptions. |