| Its internal conditions are its parts, and the parts of parts its remote conditions; so that in this case we find a regressive synthesis, the absolute totality of which is a demand of reason. |
| But this cannot be obtained otherwise than by a complete division of parts, whereby the real in matter becomes either nothing or that which is not matter, that is to say, the simple. |
| Consequently we find here also a series of conditions and a progress to the unconditioned. |
| Thirdly, as regards the categories of a real relation between phenomena, the category of substance and its accidents is not suitable for the formation of a transcendental idea; that is to say, reason has no ground, in regard to it, to proceed regressively with conditions. |
| For accidents (in so far as they inhere in a substance) are co-ordinated with each other, and do not constitute a series. |
| And, in relation to substance, they are not properly subordinated to it, but are the mode of existence of the substance itself. |
| The conception of the substantial might nevertheless seem to be an idea of the transcendental reason. |
| But, as this signifies nothing more than the conception of an object in general, which subsists in so far as we cogitate in it merely a transcendental subject without any predicates; and as the question here is of an unconditioned in the series of phenomena--it is clear that the substantial can form no member thereof. |
| The same holds good of substances in community, which are mere aggregates and do not form a series. |
| For they are not subordinated to each other as conditions of the possibility of each other; which, however, may be affirmed of spaces, the limits of which are never determined in themselves, but always by some other space. |
| It is, therefore, only in the category of causality that we can find a series of causes to a given effect, and in which we ascend from the latter, as the conditioned, to the former as the conditions, and thus answer the question of reason. |
| Fourthly, the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary do not conduct us to any series--excepting only in so far as the contingent in existence must always be regarded as conditioned, and as indicating, according to a law of the understanding, a condition, under which it is necessary to rise to a higher, till in the totality of the series, reason arrives at unconditioned necessity. |
| There are, accordingly, only four cosmological ideas, corresponding with the four titles of the categories. |
| For we can select only such as necessarily furnish us with a series in the synthesis of the manifold. |
| 1 The absolute Completeness of the COMPOSITION of the given totality of all phenomena. |
| 2 The absolute Completeness of the DIVISION of given totality in a phenomenon. |
| 3 The absolute Completeness of the ORIGINATION of a phenomenon. |
| 4 The absolute Completeness of the DEPENDENCE of the EXISTENCE of what is changeable in a phenomenon. |
| We must here remark, in the first place, that the idea of absolute totality relates to nothing but the exposition of phenomena, and therefore not to the pure conception of a totality of things. |
| Phenomena are here, therefore, regarded as given, and reason requires the absolute completeness of the conditions of their possibility, in so far as these conditions constitute a series- consequently an absolutely (that is, in every respect) complete synthesis, whereby a phenomenon can be explained according to the laws of the understanding. |
| Secondly, it is properly the unconditioned alone that reason seeks in this serially and regressively conducted synthesis of conditions. |