In this manner, the appointment of the
position which must be taken by each conception according to the
difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place
to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental
topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the
surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions
which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty
of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception,
every title, under which many cognitions rank together, may be
called a logical place. Upon this is based the logical topic of
Aristotle, of which teachers and rhetoricians could avail
themselves, in order, under certain titles of thought, to observe what
would best suit the matter they had to treat, and thus enable
themselves to quibble and talk with fluency and an appearance of
profundity.
Transcendental topic, on the contrary, contains nothing more than
the above-mentioned four titles of all comparison and distinction,
which differ from categories in this respect, that they do not
represent the object according to that which constitutes its
conception (quantity, reality), but set forth merely the comparison of
representations, which precedes our conceptions of things.
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