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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
nal world and even my own body, as far as I regard it from without, are known to me only as mediate objects: It is only through the medium of these nerve irritations that I come in contact with them. Thus all data by which I attain to a knowledge of the external world, are restricted to these affections of the nerves which are given as immediate objects. They are the only thing which comes to my intellect from without, that is, independent of itself. Consequently all else, all that distinguishes wide-spreading nature with its immeasurable riches from those scanty affections of the nerves, must come from within, that is, must originate in my intellect itself. If we compare the perceptual world, which is our representation, to a textile fabric in which subjective and objective threads intersect as warp and woof, then all that is objective, independent of myself. given a posteriori is limited to those affections of the nerves and may be compared to the thin, isolated threads of the shuttle The warp, on the contrary, which is previously, that is, a priori, stretched out to receive little by little these interweaving threads and work them into a fabric, is the natural, innate form of the subject, the totality of which forms just that which we call Understanding or brain. The task of metaphysics consists in finding out what things are in themselves, that is, independent of our intellect. We must, therfore, first of all, deduet from things that which our intellect contributes to them, namely, those forms which inhere in it originally, that is, a priori, and in which it ranges all materials furnished from without so as to weave them into experience. The following six criteria may serve to distinguish these a priori elements of knowledge or innate functions of the Understanding from those which come to it a posteriori, or through preception. They are to us what reagents are to the chemist. They may also be regarded as six magnets, by means of which we extract the iron of our a priori knowledge from the mixed ore of experience. (1) Whatever is necessary to transform perception, given as affection, into perceptual representation, and, consequently, precedes all experience as a condition of its possibility, cannot orginate in experience, but only within ourselves. (2) Whatever comes to the intellect from without, has the character of contingency, it might be otherwise, or it might even be not at all; that is, I can imagine it as non-existent. Now, in my representation there are certain elements which cannot be thought away like every thing else, from which it follows that they do not belong to that which exists inde
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