Now a transcendental determination of time is so far homogeneous
with the category, which constitutes the unity thereof, that it is
universal and rests upon a rule a priori. On the other hand, it is
so far homogeneous with the phenomenon, inasmuch as time is
contained in every empirical representation of the manifold. Thus an
application of the category to phenomena becomes possible, by means of
the transcendental determination of time, which, as the schema of
the conceptions of the understanding, mediates the subsumption of
the latter under the former.
After what has been proved in our deduction of the categories, no
one, it is to be hoped, can hesitate as to the proper decision of
the question, whether the employment of these pure conceptions of
the understanding ought to be merely empirical or also transcendental;
in other words, whether the categories, as conditions of a possible
experience, relate a priori solely to phenomena, or whether, as
conditions of the possibility of things in general, their
application can be extended to objects as things in themselves. For we
have there seen that conceptions are quite impossible, and utterly
without signification, unless either to them, or at least to the
elements of which they consist, an object be given; and that,
consequently, they cannot possibly apply to objects as things in
themselves without regard to the question whether and how these may be
given to us; and, further, that the only manner in which objects can
be given to us is by means of the modification of our sensibility;
and, finally, that pure a priori conceptions, in addition to the
function of the understanding in the category, must contain a priori
formal conditions of sensibility (of the internal sense, namely),
which again contain the general condition under which alone the
category can be applied to any object.
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