| 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. |
| It wishes, to speak in another way, to attain to completeness in the series of premisses, so as to render it unnecessary to presuppose others. |
| This unconditioned is always contained in the absolute totality of the series, when we endeavour to form a representation of it in thought. |
| But this absolutely complete synthesis is itself but an idea; for it is impossible, at least before hand, to know whether any such synthesis is possible in the case of phenomena. |
| When we represent all existence in thought by means of pure conceptions of the understanding, without any conditions of sensuous intuition, we may say with justice that for a given conditioned the whole series of conditions subordinated to each other is also given; for the former is only given through the latter. |
| But we find in the case of phenomena a particular limitation of the mode in which conditions are given, that is, through the successive synthesis of the manifold of intuition, which must be complete in the regress. |
| Now whether this completeness is sensuously possible, is a problem. |
| But the idea of it lies in the reason--be it possible or impossible to connect with the idea adequate empirical conceptions. |
| Therefore, as in the absolute totality of the regressive synthesis of the manifold in a phenomenon (following the guidance of the categories, which represent it as a series of conditions to a given conditioned) the unconditioned is necessarily contained--it being still left unascertained whether and how this totality exists; reason sets out from the idea of totality, although its proper and final aim is the unconditioned--of the whole series, or of a part thereof. |
| This unconditioned may be cogitated--either as existing only in the entire series, all the members of which therefore would be without exception conditioned and only the totality absolutely unconditioned--and in this case the regressus is called infinite; or the absolutely unconditioned is only a part of the series, to which the other members are subordinated, but which Is not itself submitted to any other condition.* In the former case the series is a parte priori unlimited (without beginning), that is, infinite, and nevertheless completely given. |
| But the regress in it is never completed, and can only be called potentially infinite. |
| In the second case there exists a first in the series. |
| This first is called, in relation to past time, the beginning of the world; in relation to space, the limit of the world; in relation to the parts of a given limited whole, the simple; in relation to causes, absolute spontaneity (liberty); and in relation to the existence of changeable things, absolute physical necessity. |
| [*Footnote; The absolute totality of the series of conditions to a given conditioned is always unconditioned; because beyond it there exist no other conditions, on which it might depend. |
| But the absolute totality of such a series is only an idea, or rather a problematical conception, the possibility of which must be investigated- particularly in relation to the mode in which the unconditioned, as the transcendental idea which is the real subject of inquiry, may be contained therein.] |
| We possess two expressions, world and nature, which are generally interchanged. |
| The first denotes the mathematical total of all phenomena and the totality of their synthesis--in its progress by means of composition, as well as by division. |
| And the world is termed nature,* when it is regarded as a dynamical whole--when our attention is not directed to the aggregation in space and time, for the purpose of cogitating it as a quantity, but to the unity in the existence of phenomena. |
| In this case the condition of that which happens is called a cause; the unconditioned causality of the cause in a phenomenon is termed liberty; the conditioned cause is called in a more limited sense a natural cause. |