Thus we have gained nothing as regards the cognition of myself as
object, by the analysis of the consciousness of my Self in thought.
The logical exposition of thought in general is mistaken for a
metaphysical determination of the object.
Our Critique would be an investigation utterly superfluous, if there
existed a possibility of proving a priori, that all thinking beings
are in themselves simple substances, as such, therefore, possess the
inseparable attribute of personality, and are conscious of their
existence apart from and unconnected with matter. For we should thus
have taken a step beyond the world of sense, and have penetrated
into the sphere of noumena; and in this case the right could not be
denied us of extending our knowledge in this sphere, of establishing
ourselves, and, under a favouring star, appropriating to ourselves
possessions in it. For the proposition: "Every thinking being, as
such, is simple substance," is an a priori synthetical proposition;
because in the first place it goes beyond the conception which is
the subject of it, and adds to the mere notion of a thinking being the
mode of its existence, and in the second place annexes a predicate
(that of simplicity) to the latter conception- a predicate which it
could not have discovered in the sphere of experience.
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