Page:Critique of Pure Reason 1855 Meiklejohn tr.djvu/169

all anticipated. On the other hand, we might very well term the pure determinations in space and time, as well in regard to figure as to Quantity, anticipations of phænomena, because they represent à priori that which may always be given à posteriori in experience. But suppose that in every sensation, as sensation in general, without any particular sensation being thought of, there existed something which could be cognized à priori, this would deserve to be called anticipation in a special sense—special, because it may seem surprising to forestall experience, in that which concerns the matter of experience, and which we can only derive from itself. Yet such really is the case here.

Apprehension,^[1] by means of sensation alone, fills only one moment, that is, if I do not take into consideration a succession of many sensations. As that in the phænomenon, the apprehension of which is not a successive synthesis advancing from parts to an entire representation, sensation has therefore no extensive quantity; the want of sensation in a moment of time would represent it as empty, consequently = 0. That which in the empirical intuition corresponds to sensation is reality (realitas phænomenon), that which corresponds to the absence of it, negation = 0. Now every sensation is capable of a diminution, so that it can decrease, and thus gradually disappear. Therefore, between reality in a phænomenon and negation, there exists a continuous concatenation of many possible intermediate sensations, the difference of which from each other is always smaller than that between the given sensation and zero, or complete negation. That is to say, the real in a phænomenon has always a quantity, which however is not discoverable in Apprehension, inasmuch as Apprehension takes place by means of mere sensation in one instant, and not by the successive synthesis of many sensations, and therefore does not progress from parts to the whole. Consequently, it has a quantity, but not an extensive quantity.

Now that quantity which is apprehended only as unity, and in which plurality can be represented only by approximation to negation = 0, I term intensive quantity. Consequently, reality in a phænomenon has intensive quantity, that is, a degree.