For, were there no lower conceptions, neither could
there be any higher. Now the understanding cognizes only by means of
conceptions; consequently, how far soever it may proceed in
division, never by mere intuition, but always by lower and lower
conceptions. The cognition of phenomena in their complete
determination (which is possible only by means of the understanding)
requires an unceasingly continued specification of conceptions, and
a progression to ever smaller differences, of which abstraction bad
been made in the conception of the species, and still more in that
of the genus.
This law of specification cannot be deduced from experience; it
can never present us with a principle of so universal an
application. Empirical specification very soon stops in its
distinction of diversities, and requires the guidance of the
transcendental law, as a principle of the reason- a law which
imposes on us the necessity of never ceasing in our search for
differences, even although these may not present themselves to the
senses. That absorbent earths are of different kinds could only be
discovered by obeying the anticipatory law of reason, which imposes
upon the understanding the task of discovering the differences
existing between these earths, and supposes that nature is richer in
substances than our senses would indicate.
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