1790
THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
by Immanuel Kant
translated by James Creed Meredith
PREFACE
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1790.

The faculty of knowledge from a priori principles may be called pure
reason, and the general investigation into its possibility and
bounds the Critique of Pure Reason. This is permissible although "pure
reason," as was the case with the same use of terms in our first work,
is only intended to denote reason in its theoretical employment, and
although there is no desire to bring under review its faculty as
practical reason and its special principles as such. That Critique is,
then, an investigation addressed simply to our faculty of knowing
things a priori. Hence it makes our cognitive faculties its sole
concern, to the exclusion of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure
and the faculty of desire; and among the cognitive faculties it
confines its attention to understanding and its a priori principles,
to the exclusion of judgement and reason, (faculties that also
belong to theoretical cognition,) because it turns out in the sequel
that there is no cognitive faculty other than understanding capable of
affording constitutive a priori principles of knowledge. Accordingly
the critique which sifts these faculties one and all, so as to try the
possible claims of each of the other faculties to a share in the clear
possession of knowledge from roots of its own, retains nothing but
what understanding prescribes a priori as a law for nature as the
complex of phenomena-the form of these being similarly furnished a
priori. All other pure concepts it relegates to the rank of ideas,*
which for our faculty of theoretical cognition are transcendent;
though they are not without their use nor redundant, but discharge
certain functions as regulative principles.** For these concepts serve
partly to restrain the officious pretentions of understanding,
which, presuming on its ability to supply a priori the conditions of
the possibility of all things which it is capable of knowing,
behaves as if it had thus determined these bounds as those of the
possibility of all things generally, and partly also to lead
understanding, in its study of nature, according to a principle of
completeness, unattainable as this remains for it, and so to promote
the ultimate aim of all knowledge.

*[The word is defined in SS 17 & SS 57 Remark I. See Critique of
Pure Reason, "Of the Conceptions of Pure Reason" - Section 1 & 2:
"I understand by idea a necessary conception of reason, to which no
corresponding object can be discovered in the world of sense."
(Ibid., Section 2.) "They contain a certain perfection, attainable
by no possible empirical cognition; and they give to reason a
systematic unity, to which the unity of experience attempts to
approximate, but can never completely attain." (Ibid., "Ideal of
Pure Reason").
**[Cf. Critique of Pure Reason, Appendix.]

Properly, therefore, it was understanding which, so far as it
contains constitutive a priori cognitive principles, has its special
realm, and one, moreover, in our faculty of knowledge that the
Critique, called in a general way that of pure reason was intended
to establish in secure but particular possession against all other
competitors. In the same way reason, which contains constitutive a
priori principles solely in respect of the faculty of desire, gets its
holding assigned to it by The Critique of Practical Reason.
But now comes judgement, which in the order of our cognitive
faculties forms a middle term between understanding and reason. Has it
also got independent a priori principles? If so, are they
constitutive, or are they merely regulative, thus indicating no
special realm? And do they give a rule a priori to the feeling of
pleasure and displeasure, as the middle term between the faculties
of cognition and desire, just as understanding prescribes laws a
priori for the former and reason for the latter? This is the topic
to which the present Critique is devoted.
A critique of pure reason, i.e., of our faculty of judging on a
priori principles, would be incomplete if the critical examination
of judgement, which is a faculty of knowledge, and as such lays
claim to independent principles, were not dealt with separately.
Still, however, its principles cannot, in a system of pure philosophy,
form a separate constituent part intermediate between the
theoretical and practical divisions, but may when needful be annexed
to one or other as occasion requires. For if such a system is some day
worked out under the general name of metaphysic-and its full and
complete execution is both possible and of the utmost importance for
the employment of reason in all departments of its activity-the
critical examination of the ground for this edifice must have been
previously carried down to the very depths of the foundations of the
faculty of principles independent of experience, lest in some
quarter it might give way, and sinking, inevitably bring with it the
ruin of all.
We may readily gather, however, from the nature of the faculty of
judgement (whose correct employment is so necessary and universally
requisite that it is just this faculty that is intended when we
speak of sound understanding) that the discovery of a peculiar
principle belonging to it-and some such it must contain in itself a
priori, for otherwise it would not be a cognitive faculty the
distinctive character of which is obvious to the most commonplace
criticism-must be a task involving considerable difficulties. For this
principle is one which must not be derived from a priori concepts,
seeing that these are the property of understanding, and judgement
is only directed to their application. It has, therefore, itself to
furnish a concept, and one from which, properly, we get no cognition
of a thing, but which it can itself employ as a rule only-but not as
an objective rule to which it can adapt its judgement, because, for
that, another faculty of judgement would again be required to enable
us to decide whether the case was one for the application of the
rule or not.
It is chiefly in those estimates that are called aesthetic, and
which relate to the beautiful and sublime, whether of nature or of
art, that one meets with the above difficulty about a principle (be it
subjective or objective). And yet the critical search for a
principle of judgement in their case is the most important item in a
critique of this faculty. For, although they do not of themselves
contribute a whit to the knowledge of things, they still belong wholly
to the faculty of knowledge, and evidence an immediate bearing of this
faculty upon the feeling of pleasure or displeasure according to
some a priori principle, and do so without confusing this principle
with what is capable of being a determining ground of the faculty of
desire, for the latter has its principles a priori in concepts of
reason. Logical estimates of nature, however, stand on a different
footing. They deal with cases in which experience presents a
conformity to law in things, which the understanding's general concept
of the sensible is no longer adequate to render intelligible or
explicable, and in which judgement may have recourse to itself for a
principle of the reference of the natural thing to the unknowable
supersensible and, indeed, must employ some such principle, though
with a regard only to itself and the knowledge of nature. For in these
cases the application of such an a priori principle for the
cognition of what is in the world is both possible and necessary,
and withal opens out prospects which are profitable for practical
reason. But here there is no immediate reference to the feeling of
pleasure or displeasure. But this is precisely the riddle in the
principle of judgement that necessitates a separate division for
this faculty in the critique-for there was nothing to prevent the
formation of logical estimates according to concepts (from which no
immediate conclusion can ever be drawn to the feeling of pleasure or
displeasure) having been treated, with a critical statement of its
limitations, in an appendage to the theoretical part of philosophy.
The present investigation of taste, as a faculty of aesthetic
judgement, not being undertaken with a view to the formation or
culture of taste (which will pursue its course in the future, as in
the past, independently of such inquiries), but being merely
directed to its transcendental aspects, I feel assured of its
indulgent criticism in respect of any shortcomings on that score.
But in all that is relevant to the transcendental aspect it must be
prepared to stand the test of the most rigorous examination. Yet
even here I venture to hope that the difficulty of unravelling a
problem so involved in its nature may serve as an excuse for a certain
amount of hardly avoidable obscurity in its solution, provided that
the accuracy of our statement of the principle is proved with all
requisite clearness. I admit that the mode of deriving the phenomena
of judgement from that principle has not all the lucidity that is
rightly demanded elsewhere, where the subject is cognition by
concepts, and that I believe I have in fact attained in the second
part of this work.
With this, then, I bring my entire critical undertaking to a
close. I shall hasten to the doctrinal part, in order, as far as
possible, to snatch from my advancing years what time may yet be
favourable to the task. It is obvious that no separate division of
doctrine is reserved for the faculty of judgement, seeing that, with
judgement, critique takes the place of theory; but, following the
division of philosophy into theoretical and practical, and of pure
philosophy in the same way, the whole ground will be covered by the
metaphysics of nature and of morals.

INTRO
INTRODUCTION.
I. Division of Philosophy.

Philosophy may be said to contain the principles of the rational
cognition that concepts afford us of things (not merely, as with
logic, the principles of the form of thought in general irrespective
of the objects), and, thus interpreted, the course, usually adopted,
of dividing it into theoretical and practical is perfectly sound.
But this makes imperative a specific distinction on the part of the
concepts by which the principles of this rational cognition get
their object assigned to them, for if the concepts are not distinct
they fail to justify a division, which always presupposes that the
principles belonging to the rational cognition of the several parts of
the science in question are themselves mutually exclusive.
Now there are but two kinds of concepts, and these yield a
corresponding number of distinct principles of the possibility of
their objects. The concepts referred to are those of nature and that
of freedom. By the first of these, a theoretical cognition from a
priori principles becomes possible. In respect of such cognition,
however, the second, by its very concept, imports no more than a
negative principle (that of simple antithesis), while for the
determination of the will, on the other hand, it establishes
fundamental principles which enlarge the scope of its activity, and
which on that account are called practical. Hence the division of
philosophy falls properly into two parts, quite distinct in their
principles-a theoretical, as philosophy of nature, and a practical, as
philosophy of morals (for this is what the practical legislation of
reason by the concept of freedom is called). Hitherto, however, in the
application of these expressions to the division of the different
principles, and with them to the division of philosophy, a gross
misuse of the terms has prevailed; for what is practical according
to concepts of nature bas been taken as identical with what is
practical according to the concept of freedom, with the result that
a division has been made under these heads of theoretical and
practical, by which, in effect, there has been no division at all
(seeing that both parts might have similar principles).
The will-for this is what is said-is the faculty of desire and, as
such, is just one of the many natural causes in the world, the one,
namely, which acts by concepts; and whatever is represented as
possible (or necessary) through the efficacy of will is called
practically possible (or necessary): the intention being to
distinguish its possibility (or necessity) from the physical
possibility or necessity of an effect the causality of whose cause
is not determined to its production by concepts (but rather, as with
lifeless matter, by mechanism, and, as with the lower animals, by
instinct). Now, the question in respect of the practical faculty:
whether, that is to say, the concept, by which the causality of the
will gets its rule, is a concept of nature or of freedom, is here left
quite open.
The latter distinction, however, is essential. For, let the
concept determining the causality be a concept of nature, and then the
principles are technically-practical; but, let it be a concept of
freedom, and they are morally-practical. Now, in the division of a
rational science the difference between objects that require different
principles for their cognition is the difference on which everything
turns. Hence technically-practical principles belong to theoretical
philosophy (natural science), whereas those morally-practical alone
form the second part, that is, practical philosophy (ethical science).
All technically-practical rules (i.e., those of art and skill
generally, or even of prudence, as a skill in exercising an
influence over men and their wills) must, so far as their principles
rest upon concepts, be reckoned only as corollaries to theoretical
philosophy. For they only touch the possibility of things according to
concepts of nature, and this embraces, not alone the means
discoverable in nature for the purpose, but even the will itself (as a
faculty of desire, and consequently a natural faculty), so far as it
is determinable on these rules by natural motives. Still these
practical rules are not called laws (like physical laws), but only
precepts. This is due to the fact that the will does not stand
simply under the natural concept, but also under the concept of
freedom. In the latter connection its principles are called laws,
and these principles, with the addition of what follows them, alone
constitute the second at practical part of philosophy.
The solution of the problems of pure geometry is not allocated to
a special part of that science, nor does the art of land-surveying
merit the name of practical, in contradistinction to pure, as a second
part of the general science of geometry, and with equally little, or
perhaps less, right can the mechanical or chemical art of experiment
or of observation be ranked as a practical part of the science of
nature, or, in fine, domestic, agricultural, or political economy, the
art of social intercourse, the principles of dietetics, or even
general instruction as to the attainment of happiness, or as much as
the control of the inclinations or the restraining of the affections
with a view thereto, be denominated practical philosophy-not to
mention forming these latter in a second part of philosophy in
general. For, between them all, the above contain nothing more than
rules of skill, which are thus only technically practical-the skill
being directed to producing an effect which is possible according to
natural concepts of causes and effects. As these concepts belong to
theoretical philosophy, they are subject to those precepts as mere
corollaries of theoretical philosophy (i.e., as corollaries of natural
science), and so cannot claim any place in any special philosophy
called practical. On the other hand, the morally practical precepts,
which are founded entirely on the concept of freedom, to the
complete exclusion of grounds taken from nature for the
determination of the will, form quite a special kind of precepts.
These, too, like the rules obeyed by nature, are, without
qualification, called laws-though they do not, like the latter, rest
on sensible conditions, but upon a supersensible principle-and they
must needs have a separate part of philosophy allotted to them as
their own, corresponding to the theoretical part, and termed practical
philosophy capable
Hence it is evident that a complex of practical precepts furnished
by philosophy does not form a special part of philosophy,
co-ordinate with the theoretical, by reason of its precepts being
practical-for that they might be, notwithstanding that their
principles were derived wholly from the theoretical knowledge of
nature (as technically-practical rules). But an adequate reason only
exists where their principle, being in no way borrowed from the
concept of nature, which is always sensibly conditioned, rests
consequently on the supersensible, which the concept of freedom
alone makes cognizable by means of its formal laws, and where,
therefore, they are morally-practical, i. e., not merely precepts
and its and rules in this or that interest, but laws independent of
all antecedent reference to ends or aims.

II. The Realm of Philosophy in General.

The employment of our faculty of cognition from principles, and with
it philosophy, is coextensive with the applicability of a priori
concepts.
Now a division of the complex of all the objects to which those
concepts are referred for the purpose, where possible, of compassing
their knowledge, may be made according to the varied competence or
incompetence of our faculty in that connection.
Concepts, so far as they are referred to objects apart from the
question of whether knowledge of them is possible or not, have their
field, which is determined simply by the relation in which their
object stands to our faculty of cognition in general. The part of this
field in which knowledge is possible for us is a territory
(territorium) for these concepts and the requisite cognitive
faculty. The part of the territory over which they exercise
legislative authority is the realm (ditio) of these concepts, and
their appropriate cognitive faculty. Empirical concepts have,
therefore, their territory, doubtless, in nature as the complex of all
sensible objects, but they have no realm (only a dwelling-place,
domicilium), for, although they are formed according to law, they
are not themselves legislative, but the rules founded on them are
empirical and, consequently, contingent.
Our entire faculty of cognition has two realms, that of natural
concepts and that of the concept of freedom, for through both it
prescribes laws a priori. In accordance with this distinction, then,
philosophy is divisible into theoretical and practical. But the
territory upon which its realm is established, and over which it
exercises its legislative authority, is still always confined to the
complex of the objects of all possible experience, taken as no more
than mere phenomena, for otherwise legislation by the understanding in
respect of them is unthinkable.
The function of prescribing laws by means of concepts of nature is
discharged by understanding and is theoretical. That of prescribing
laws by means of the concept of freedom is discharged by reason and is
merely practical. It is only in the practical sphere that reason can
prescribe laws; in respect of theoretical knowledge (of nature) it can
only (as by the understanding advised in the law) deduce from given
logical consequences, which still always remain restricted to
nature. But we cannot reverse this and say that where rules are
practical reason is then and there legislative, since the rules
might be technically practical.
Understanding and reason, therefore, have two distinct jurisdictions
over one and the same territory of experience. But neither can
interfere with the other. For the concept of freedom just as little
disturbs the legislation of nature, as the concept of nature
influences legislation through the concept of freedom. That it is
possible for us at least to think without contradiction of both
these jurisdictions, and their appropriate faculties, as co-existing
in the same subject, was shown by the Critique of Pure Reason, since
it disposed of the objections on the other side by detecting their
dialectical illusion.
Still, how does it happen that these two different realms do not
form one realm, seeing that, while they do not limit each other in
their legislation, they continually do so in their effects in the
sensible world? The explanation lies in the fact that the concept of
nature represents its objects in intuition doubtless, yet not as
things in-themselves, but as mere phenomena, whereas the concept of
freedom represents in its object what is no doubt a thing-in-itself,
but it does not make it intuitable, and further that neither the one
nor the other is capable, therefore, of furnishing a theoretical
cognition of its object (or even of the thinking subject) as a
thing-in-itself, or, as this would be, of the supersensible idea of
which has certainly to be introduced as the basis of the possibility
of all those objects of experience, although it cannot itself ever
be elevated or extended into a cognition.
Our entire cognitive faculty is, therefore, presented with an
unbounded, but, also, inaccessible field-the field of the
supersensible-in which we seek in vain for a territory, and on
which, therefore, we can have no realm for theoretical cognition, be
it for concepts of understanding or of reason. This field we must
indeed occupy with ideas in the interest as well of the theoretical as
the practical employment of reason, but, in connection with the laws
arising from the concept of freedom, we cannot procure for these ideas
any but practical reality, which, accordingly, fails to advance our
theoretical cognition one step towards the supersensible.
Albeit, then, between the realm of the natural concept, as the
sensible, and the realm of the concept of freedom, as the
supersensible, there is a great gulf fixed, so that it is not possible
to pass from the to the latter (by means of the theoretical employment
of reason), just as if they were so many separate worlds, the first of
which is powerless to exercise influence on the second: still the
latter is meant to influence the former-that is to say, the concept of
freedom is meant to actualize in the sensible world the end proposed
by its laws; and nature must consequently also be capable of being
regarded in such a way that in the conformity to law of its form it at
least harmonizes with the possibility of the ends to be effectuated in
it according to the laws of freedom. There must, therefore, be a
ground of the unity of the supersensible that lies at the basis of
nature, with what the concept of freedom contains in a practical
way, and although the concept of this ground neither theoretically nor
practically attains to a knowledge of it, and so has no peculiar realm
of its own, still it renders possible the transition from the mode
of thought according to the principles of the one to that according to
the principles of the other.

III. The Critique of Judgement as a means of
connecting the two Parts of Philosophy
in a whole.

The critique which deals with what our cognitive faculties are
capable of yielding a priori has properly speaking no realm in respect
of objects; for it is not a doctrine, its sole business being to
investigate whether, having regard to the general bearings of our
faculties, a doctrine is possible by their means, and if so, how.
Its field extends to all their pretentions, with a view to confining
them within their legitimate bounds. But what is shut out of the
division of philosophy may still be admitted as a principal part
into the general critique of our faculty of pure cognition, in the
event, namely, of its containing principles which are not in
themselves available either for theoretical or practical employment.
Concepts of nature contain the ground of all theoretical cognition a
priori and rest, as we saw, upon the legislative authority of
understanding. The concept of freedom contains the ground of all
sensuously unconditioned practical precepts a priori, and rests upon
that of reason. Both faculties, therefore, besides their application
in point of logical form to principles of whatever origin, have, in
addition, their own peculiar jurisdiction in the matter of their
content, and so, there being no further (a priori) jurisdiction
above them, the division of philosophy into theoretical and
practical is justified.
But there is still further in the family of our higher cognitive
faculties a middle term between understanding and reason. This is
judgement, of which we may reasonably presume by analogy that it may
likewise contain, if not a special authority to prescribe laws,
still a principle peculiar to itself upon which laws are sought,
although one merely subjective a priori. This principle, even if it
has no field of objects appropriate to it as its realm, may still have
some territory or other with a certain character, for which just
this very principle alone may be valid.
But in addition to the above considerations there is yet (to judge
by analogy) a further ground, upon which judgement may be brought into
line with another arrangement of our powers of representation, and one
that appears to be of even greater importance than that of its kinship
with the family of cognitive faculties. For all faculties of the soul,
or capacities, are reducible to three, which do not admit of any
further derivation from a common ground: the faculty of knowledge, the
feeling of pleasure or displeasure, and the faculty of desire.* For
the faculty of cognition understanding alone is legislative, if (as
must be the case where it is considered on its own account free of
confusion with the faculty of desire) this faculty, as that of
theoretical cognition, is referred to nature, in respect of which
alone (as phenomenon) it is possible for us to prescribe laws by means
of a priori concepts of nature, which are properly pure concepts of
understanding. For the faculty of desire, as a higher faculty
operating under the concept of freedom, only reason (in which alone
this concept has a place) prescribes laws a priori. Now between the
faculties of knowledge and desire stands the feeling of pleasure, just
as judgement is intermediate between understanding and reason. Hence
we may, provisionally at least, assume that judgement likewise
contains an a priori principle of its own, and that, since pleasure or
displeasure is necessarily combined with the faculty of desire (be
it antecedent to its principle, as with the lower desires, or, as with
the higher, only supervening upon its determination by the moral law),
it will effect a transition from the faculty of pure knowledge,
i.e., from the realm of concepts of nature, to that of the concept
of freedom, just as i its logical employment it makes possible the
transition from understanding to reason.

*Where one has reason to suppose that a relation subsists between
concepts that are used as empirical principles and the faculty of pure
cognition a priori, it is worth while attempting, in consideration
of this connection, to give them a transcendental definition-a
definition, that is, by pure categories, so far as these by themselves
adequately indicate the distinction of the concept in question from
others. This course follows that of the mathematician, who leaves
the empirical data of his problem indeterminate, and only brings their
relation in pure synthesis under the concepts of pure arithmetic,
and thus generalizes his solution.-I have been taken to task for
adopting a similar procedure and fault had been found with my
definition of the faculty of desire as a faculty which by means of its
representations is the cause of the cause of the actuality of the
objects of those representations: for mere wishes would still be
desires, and yet in their case every one is ready to abandon all claim
to being able by means of them alone to call their object into
existence. -But this proves no more than the presence of desires in
man by which he is in contradiction with himself. For in such a case
he seeks the production of the object by means of his representation
alone, without any hope of its being effectual, since he is
conscious that his mechanical powers (if I may so call those which are
not psychological), which would have to be determined by that
representation, are either unequal to the task of realizing the object
(by the intervention of means, therefore) or else are addressed to
what is quite impossible, as, for example, to undo the past (O mihi
praeteritos, etc.) or, to be able to annihilate the interval that,
with intolerable delay, divides us from the wished for moment. -Now,
conscious as we are in such fantastic desires of the inefficiency of
our representations (or even of their futility), as causes of their
objects, there is still involved in every wish a reference of the same
as cause, and therefore the representation of its causality, and
this is especially discernible where the wish, as longing, is an
affection. For such affections, since they dilate the heart and render
it inert and thus exhaust its powers, show that a strain is kept on
being exerted and re-exerted on these powers by the representations,
but that the mind is allowed continually to relapse and get languid
upon recognition of the impossibility before it. Even prayers for
the aversion of great, and, so far as we can see, inevitable evils,
and many superstitious means for attaining ends impossible of
attainment by natural means, prove the causal reference of
representations to their objects-a causality which not even the
consciousness of inefficiency for producing the effect can deter
from straining towards it. But why our nature should be furnished with
a propensity to consciously vain desires is a teleological problem
of anthropology. It would seem that were we not to be determined to
the exertion of our power before we had assured ourselves of the
efficiency of our faculty for producing an object, our power would
remain to a large extent unused. For as a rule we only first learn
to know our powers by making trial of them. This deceit of vain
desires is therefore only the result of a beneficent disposition in
our nature.

Hence, despite the fact of philosophy being only divisible into
two principal parts, the theoretical and the practical, and despite
the fact of all that we may have to say of the special principles of
judgement having to be assigned to its theoretical part, i.e., to
rational cognition according to concepts of nature: still the Critique
of Pure Reason, which must settle this whole question before the above
system is taken in hand, so as to substantiate its possibility,
consists of three parts: the Critique of pure understanding, of pure
judgement, and of pure reason, which faculties are called pure on
the ground of their being legislative a priori.

IV. Judgement as a Faculty by which Laws are
prescribed a priori.

Judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as
contained under the universal. If the universal (the rule,
principle, or law) is given, then the judgement which subsumes the
particular under it is determinant. This is so even where such a
judgement is transcendental and, as such, provides the conditions a
priori in conformity with which alone subsumption under that universal
can be effected. If, however, only the particular is given and the
universal has to be found for it, then the judgement is simply
reflective.
The determinant judgement determines under universal
transcendental laws furnished by understanding and is subsumptive
only; the law is marked out for it a priori, and it has no need to
devise a law for its own guidance to enable it to subordinate the
particular in nature to the universal. But there are such manifold
forms of nature, so many modifications, as it were, of the universal
transcendental concepts of nature, left undetermined by the laws
furnished by pure understanding a priori as above mentioned, and for
the reason that these laws only touch the general possibility of a
nature (as an object of sense), that there must needs also be laws
in this behalf. These laws, being empirical, may be contingent as
far as the light of our understanding goes, but still, if they are
to be called laws (as the concept of a nature requires), they must
be regarded as necessary on a principle, unknown though it be to us,
of the unity of the manifold. The reflective judgement which is
compelled to ascend from the particular in nature to the universal
stands, therefore, in need of a principle. This principle it cannot
borrow from experience, because what it has to do is to establish just
the unity of all empirical principles under higher, though likewise
empirical, principles, and thence the possibility of the systematic
subordination of higher and lower. Such a transcendental principle,
therefore, the reflective judgement can only give as a law from and to
itself. It cannot derive it from any other quarter (as it would then
be a determinant judgement). Nor can it prescribe it to nature, for
reflection on the laws of nature adjusts itself to nature, and not
nature to the conditions according to which we strive to obtain a
concept of it-a concept that is quite contingent in respect of these
conditions.
Now the principle sought can only be this: as universal laws of
nature have their ground in our understanding, which prescribes them
to nature (though only according to the universal concept of it as
nature), particular empirical laws must be regarded, in respect of
that which is left undetermined in them by these universal laws,
according to a unity such as they would have if an understanding
(though it be not ours) had supplied them for the benefit of our
cognitive faculties, so as to render possible a system of experience
according to particular natural laws. This is not to be taken as
implying that such an understanding must be actually assumed (for it
is only the reflective judgement which avails itself of this idea as a
principle for the purpose of reflection and not for determining
anything); but this faculty rather gives by this means a law to itself
alone and not to nature.
Now the concept of an object, so far as it contains at the same time
the ground of the actuality of this object, is called its end, and the
agreement of a thing with that constitution of things which is only
possible according to ends, is called the finality of its form.
Accordingly the principle of judgement, in respect of the form of
the things of nature under empirical laws generally, is the finality
of nature in its multiplicity. In other words, by this concept
nature is represented as if an understanding contained the ground of
the unity of the manifold of its empirical laws.
The finality of nature is, therefore, a particular a priori concept,
which bas its origin solely in the reflective judgement. For we cannot
ascribe to the products of nature anything like a reference of
nature in them to ends, but we can only make use of this concept to
reflect upon them in respect of the nexus of phenomena in nature-a
nexus given according to empirical laws. Furthermore, this concept
is entirely different from practical finality (in human art or even
morals), though it is doubtless thought after this analogy.

V. The Principle of the formal finality of Nature is a
transcendental Principle of Judgement.

A transcendental principle is one through which we represent a
priori the universal condition under which alone things can become
objects of our cognition generally. A principle, on the other band, is
called metaphysical where it represents a priori the condition under
which alone objects whose concept has to be given empirically may
become further determined a priori. Thus the principle of the
cognition of bodies as substances, and as changeable substances, is
transcendental where the statement is that their change must have a
cause: but it is metaphysical where it asserts that their change
must have an external cause. For, in the first case, bodies need
only be thought through ontological predicates (pure concepts of
understanding) e.g., as substance, to enable the proposition to be
cognized a priori; whereas, in the second case, the empirical
concept of a body (as a movable thing in space) must be introduced
to support the proposition, although, once this is done, it may be
seen quite a priori that the latter predicate (movement only by
means of an external cause) applies to body. In this way, as I shall
show presently, the principle of the finality of nature (in the
multiplicity of its empirical laws) is a transcendental principle. For
the concept of objects, regarded as standing under this principle,
is only the pure concept of objects of possible empirical cognition
generally, and involves nothing empirical. On the other band, the
principle of practical finality, implied in the idea of the
determination of a free will, would be a metaphysical principle,
because the concept of a faculty of desire, as will, has to be given
empirically, i.e., is not included among transcendental predicates.
But both these principles are, none the less, not empirical, but a
priori principles; because no further experience is required for the
synthesis of the predicate with the empirical concept of the subject
of their judgements, but it may be apprehended quite a priori.
That the concept of a finality of nature belongs to transcendental
principles is abundantly evident from the maxims of judgement upon
which we rely a priori in the investigation of nature, and which yet
have to do with no more than the possibility of experience, and
consequently of the knowledge of nature-but of nature not merely in
a general way, but as determined by a manifold of particular laws.
These maxims crop up frequently enough in the course of this
science, though only in a scattered way. They are aphorisms of
metaphysical wisdom, making their appearance in a number of rules
the necessity of which cannot be demonstrated from concepts. "Nature
takes the shortest way (lex parsimoniae); yet it makes no leap, either
in the sequence of its changes, or in the juxtaposition of
specifically different forms (lex continui in natura); its vast
variety in empirical laws is for all that, unity under a few
principles (principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda)";
and so forth.
If we propose to assign the origin of these elementary rules, and
attempt to do so on psychological lines, we go straight in the teeth
of their sense. For they tell us, not what happens, i.e., according to
what rule our powers of judgement actually discharge their
functions, and how we judge, but how we ought to judge; and we
cannot get this logical objective necessity where the principles are
merely empirical. Hence the finality of nature for our cognitive
faculties and their employment, which manifestly radiates from them,
is a transcendental principle of judgements, and so needs also a
transcendental deduction, by means of which the ground for this mode
of judging must be traced to the a priori sources of knowledge.
Now, looking at the grounds of the possibility of an experience, the
first thing, of course, that meets us is something necessary-namely,
the universal laws apart from which nature in general (as an object of
sense) cannot be thought. These rest on the categories, applied to the
formal conditions of all intuition possible for us, so far as it is
also given a priori. Under these laws, judgement is determinant; for
it bas nothing else to do than to subsume under given laws. For
instance, understanding says: all change has its cause (universal
law of nature); transcendental judgement has nothing further to do
than to furnish a priori the condition of subsumption under the
concept of understanding placed before it: this we get in the
succession of the determinations of one and the same thing. Now for
nature in general, as an object of possible experience, that law is
cognized as absolutely necessary. But besides this formal
time-condition, the objects of empirical cognition are determined, or,
so far as we can judge a priori, are determinable, in divers ways,
so that specifically differentiated natures, over and above what
they have in common as things of nature in general, are further
capable of being causes in an infinite variety of ways; and each of
these modes must, on the concept of a cause in general, have its rule,
which is a law, and, consequently, imports necessity: although owing
to the constitution and limitations of our faculties of cognition we
may entirely fail to see this necessity. Accordingly, in respect of
nature's merely empirical laws, we must think in nature a
possibility of an endless multiplicity of empirical laws, which yet
are contingent so far as our insight goes, i.e., cannot be cognized
a priori. In respect of these we estimate the unity of nature
according to empirical laws, and the possibility of the unity of
experience, as a system according to empirical laws, to be contingent.
But, now, such a unity is one which must be necessarily presupposed
and assumed, as otherwise we should not have a thoroughgoing
connection of empirical cognition in a whole of experience. For the
universal laws of nature, while providing, certainly, for such a
connection among things generically, as things of nature in general,
do not do so for them specifically as such particular things of
nature. Hence judgement is compelled, for its own guidance, to adopt
it as an a priori principle, that what is for human insight contingent
in the particular (empirical) laws of nature contains nevertheless
unity of law in the synthesis of its manifold in an intrinsically
possible experience-unfathomable, though still thinkable, as such
unity may, no doubt, be for us. Consequently, as the unity of law in a
synthesis, which is cognized by us in obedience to a necessary aim
(a need of understanding), though recognized at the same time as
contingent, is represented as a finality of objects (here of
nature), so judgement, which, in respect of things under possible (yet
to be discovered) empirical laws, is merely reflective, must regard
nature in respect of the latter according to a principle of finality
for our cognitive faculty, which then finds expression in the above
maxims of judgement. Now this transcendental concept of a finality
of nature is neither a concept of nature nor of freedom, since it
attributes nothing at all to the object, i.e., to nature, but only
represents the unique mode in which we must proceed in our
reflection upon the objects of nature with a view to getting a
thoroughly interconnected whole of experience, and so is a
subjective principle, i.e., maxim, of judgement. For this reason, too,
just as if it were a lucky chance that favoured us, we are rejoiced
(properly speaking, relieved of a want) where we meet with such
systematic unity under merely empirical laws: although we must
necessarily assume the presence of such a unity, apart from any
ability on our part to apprehend or prove its existence.
In order to convince ourselves of the correctness of this
deduction of the concept before us, and the necessity of assuming it
as a transcendental principle of cognition, let us just bethink
ourselves of the magnitude of the task. We have to form a connected
experience from given perceptions of a nature containing a maybe
endless multiplicity of empirical laws, and this problem has its
seat a priori in our understanding. This understanding is no doubt a
priori in possession of universal laws of nature, apart from which
nature would be incapable of being an object of experience at all. But
over and above this it needs a certain order of nature in its
particular rules which are only capable of being brought to its
knowledge empirically, and which, so far as it is concerned are
contingent. These rules, without which we would have no means of
advance from the universal analogy of a possible experience in general
to a particular, must be regarded by understanding as laws, i.e., as
necessary-for otherwise they would not form an order of
nature-though it be unable to cognize or ever get an insight into
their necessity. Albeit, then, it can determine nothing a priori in
respect of these (objects), it must, in pursuit of such empirical
so-called laws, lay at the basis of all reflection upon them an a
priori principle, to the effect, namely, that a cognizable order of
nature is possible according to them. A principle of this kind is
expressed in the following propositions. There is in nature a
subordination of genera and species comprehensible by us: Each of
these genera again approximates to the others on a common principle,
so that a transition may be possible from one to the other, and
thereby to a higher genus: While it seems at outset unavoidable for
our understanding to assume for the specific variety of natural
operations a like number of various kinds of causality, yet these
may all be reduced to a small number of principles, the quest for
which is our business; and so forth. This adaptation of nature to
our cognitive faculties is presupposed a priori by judgement on behalf
of its reflection upon it according to empirical laws. But
understanding all the while recognizes it objectively as contingent,
and it is merely judgement that attributes it to nature as
transcendental finality, i.e., a finality in respect of the
subject's faculty of cognition. For, were it not for this
presupposition, we should have no order of nature in accordance with
empirical laws, and, consequently, no guiding-thread for an experience
that has to be brought to bear upon these in all their variety, or for
an investigation of them.
For it is quite conceivable that, despite all the uniformity of
the things of nature according to universal laws, without which we
would not have the form of general empirical knowledge at all, the
specific variety of the empirical laws of nature, with their
effects, might still be so great as to make it impossible for our
understanding to discover in nature an intelligible order, to divide
its products into genera and species so as to avail ourselves of the
principles of explanation and comprehension of one for explaining
and interpreting another, and out of material coming to hand in such
confusion (properly speaking only infinitely multiform and ill-adapted
to our power-of apprehension) to make a consistent context of
experience.
Thus judgement, also, is equipped with an a priori principle for the
possibility of nature, but only in a subjective respect. By means of
this it prescribes a law, not to nature (as autonomy), but to itself
(as heautonomy), to guide its reflection upon nature. This law may
be called the law of the specification of nature in respect of its
empirical laws. It is not one cognized a priori in nature, but
judgement adopts it in the interests of a natural order, cognizable by
our understanding, in the division which it makes of nature's
universal laws when it seeks to subordinate to them a variety of
particular laws. So when it is said that nature specifies its
universal laws on a principle of finality for our cognitive faculties,
i.e., of suitability for the human understanding and its necessary
function of finding the universal for the particular presented to it
by perception, and again for varieties (which are, of course, common
for each species) connection in the unity of principle, we do not
thereby either prescribe a law to nature, or learn one from it by
observation-although the principle in question may be confirmed by
this means. For it is not a principle of the determinant but merely of
the reflective judgement. All that is intended is that, no matter what
is the order and disposition of nature in respect of its universal
laws, we must investigate its empirical laws throughout on that
principle and the maxims founded thereon, because only so far as
that principle applies can we make any headway in the employment of
our understanding in experience, or gain knowledge.

VI. The Association of the Feeling of Pleasure
with the Concept of the Finality of Nature.

The conceived harmony of nature in the manifold of its particular
laws with our need of finding universality of principles for it
must, so far as our insight goes, be deemed contingent, but withal
indispensable for the requirements of our understanding, and,
consequently, a finality by which nature is in accord with our aim,
but only so far as this is directed to knowledge. The universal laws
of understanding, which are equally laws of nature, are, although
arising from spontaneity, just as necessary for nature as the laws
of motion applicable to matter. Their origin does not presuppose any
regard to our cognitive faculties, seeing that it is only by their
means that we first come by any conception of the meaning of a
knowledge of things (of nature), and they of necessity apply to nature
as object of our cognition in general. But it is contingent, so far as
we can see, that the order of nature in its particular laws, with
their wealth of at least possible variety and heterogeneity
transcending all our powers of comprehension, should still in actual
fact be commensurate with these powers. To find out this order is an
undertaking on the part of our understanding, which pursues it with
a regard to a necessary end of its own, that, namely, of introducing
into nature unity of principle. This end must, then, be attributed
to nature by judgement, since no law can be here prescribed to it by
understanding.
The attainment of every aim is coupled with a feeling of pleasure.
Now where such attainment has for its condition a representation a
priori-as here a principle for the reflective judgement in general-the
feeling of pleasure also is determined by a ground which is a priori
and valid for all men: and that, too, merely by virtue of the
reference of the object to our faculty of cognition. As the concept of
finality here takes no cognizance whatever of the faculty of desire,
it differs entirely from all practical finality of nature.
As a matter of fact, we do not, and cannot, find in ourselves the
slightest effect on the feeling of pleasure from the coincidence of
perceptions with the laws in accordance with the universal concepts of
nature (the categories), since in their case understanding necessarily
follows the bent of its own nature without ulterior aim. But, while
this is so, the discovery, on the other hand, that two or more
empirical heterogeneous laws of nature are allied under one
principle that embraces them both, is the ground of a very appreciable
pleasure, often even of admiration, and such, too, as does not wear
off even though we are already familiar enough with its object. It
is true that we no longer notice any decided pleasure in the
comprehensibility of nature, or in the unity of its divisions into
genera and species, without which the empirical concepts, that
afford us our knowledge of nature in its particular laws, would not be
possible. Still it is certain that the pleasure appeared in due
course, and only by reason of the most ordinary experience being
impossible without it, bas it become gradually fused with simple
cognition, and no longer arrests particular attention. Something,
then, that makes us attentive in our estimate of nature to its
finality for our understanding-an endeavour to bring, where
possible, its heterogeneous laws under higher, though still always
empirical, laws-is required, in order that, on meeting with success,
pleasure may be felt in this their accord with our cognitive
faculty, which accord is regarded by us as purely contingent. As
against this, a representation of nature would be altogether
displeasing to us, were we to be forewarned by it that, on the least
investigation carried beyond the commonest experience, we should
come in contact with such a heterogeneity of its laws as would make
the union of its particular laws under universal empirical laws
impossible for our understanding. For this would conflict with the
principle of the subjectively final specification of nature in its
genera, and with our own reflective judgement in respect thereof.
Yet this presupposition of judgement is so indeterminate on the
question of the extent of the prevalence of that ideal finality of
nature for our cognitive faculties, that if we are told that a more
searching or enlarged knowledge of nature, derived from observation,
must eventually bring us into contact with a multiplicity of laws that
no human understanding could reduce to a principle, we can reconcile
ourselves to the thought. But still we listen more gladly to others
who hold out to us the hope that the more intimately we come to know
the secrets of nature, or the better we are able to compare it with
external members as yet unknown to us, the more simple shall we find
it in its principles, and the further our experience advances the more
harmonious shall we find it in the apparent heterogeneity of its
empirical laws. For our judgement makes it imperative upon us to
proceed on the principle of the conformity of nature to our faculty of
cognition, so far as that principle extends, without deciding-for
the rule is not given to us by a determinant judgement-whether
bounds are anywhere set to it or not. For, while in respect of the
rational employment of our cognitive faculty, bounds may be definitely
determined, in the empirical field no such determination of bounds
is possible.

VII. The Aesthetic Representation of the
Finality of Nature.

That which is purely subjective in the representation of an
object, i.e., what constitutes its reference to the subject, not to
the object, is its aesthetic quality. On the other hand, that which in
such a representation serves, or is available, for the determination
of the object (for or purpose of knowledge), is its logical
validity. In the cognition of an object of sense, both sides are
presented conjointly. In the sense-representation of external
things, the quality of space in which we intuite them is the merely
subjective side of my representation of them (by which what the things
are in themselves as objects is left quite open), and it is on account
of that reference that the object in being intuited in space is also
thought merely as phenomenon. But despite its purely subjective
quality, space is still a constituent of the knowledge of things as
phenomena. Sensation (here external) also agrees in expressing a
merely subjective side of our representations of external things,
but one which is properly their matter (through which we are given
something with real existence), just as space is the mere a priori
form of the possibility of their intuition; and so sensation is,
none the less, also employed in the cognition of external objects.
But that subjective side of a representation which is incapable of
becoming an element of cognition, is the pleasure or displeasure
connected with it; for through it I cognize nothing in the object of
the representation, although it may easily be the result of the
operation of some cognition or other. Now the finality of a thing,
so far as represented in our perception of it, is in no way a
quality of the object itself (for a quality of this kind is not one
that can be perceived), although it may be inferred from a cognition
of things. In the finality, therefore, which is prior to the cognition
of an object, and which, even apart from any desire to make use of the
representation of it for the purpose of a cognition, is yet
immediately connected with it, we have the subjective quality
belonging to it that is incapable of becoming a constituent of
knowledge. Hence we only apply the term final to the object on account
of its representation being immediately coupled with the feeling of
pleasure: and this representation itself is an aesthetic
representation of the finality. The only question is whether such a
representation of finality exists at all.
If pleasure is connected with the mere apprehension (apprehensio) of
the form of an object of intuition, apart from any reference it may
have to a concept for the purpose of a definite cognition, this does
not make the representation referable to the object, but solely to the
subject. In such a case, the pleasure can express nothing but the
conformity of the object to the cognitive faculties brought into
play in the reflective judgement, and so far as they are in play,
and hence merely a subjective formal finality of the object. For
that apprehension of forms in the imagination can never take place
without the reflective judgement, even when it has no intention of
so doing, comparing them at least with its faculty of referring
intuitions to concepts. If, now, in this comparison, imagination (as
the faculty of intuitions a priori) is undesignedly brought into
accord with understanding (as the faculty of concepts), by means of
a given representation, and a feeling of pleasure is thereby
aroused, then the object must be regarded as final for the
reflective judgement. A judgement of this kind is an aesthetic
judgement upon the finality of the object, which does not depend
upon any present concept of the object, and does not provide one. When
the form of an object (as opposed to the matter of its representation,
as sensation) is, in the mere act of reflecting upon it, without
regard to any concept to be obtained from it, estimated as the
ground of a pleasure in the representation of such an object, then
this pleasure is also judged to be combined necessarily with the
representation of it, and so not merely for the subject apprehending
this form, but for all in general who pass judgement. The object is
then called beautiful; and the faculty of judging by means of such a
pleasure (and so also with universal validity) is called taste. For
since the ground of the pleasure is made to reside merely in the
form of the object for reflection generally, consequently not in any
sensation of the object, and without any reference, either, to any
concept that might have something or other in view, it is with the
conformity to law in the empirical employment of judgement generally
(unity of imagination and understanding) in the subject, and with this
alone, that the representation of the object in reflection, the
conditions of which are universally valid a priori, accords. And, as
this accordance of the object with the faculties of the subject is
contingent, it gives rise to a representation of a finality on the
part of the object in respect of the cognitive faculties of the
subject.
Here, now, is a pleasure which-as is the case with all pleasure or
displeasure that is not brought about through the agency of the
concept of freedom (i.e., through the antecedent determination of
the higher faculty of desire by means of pure reason)-no concepts
could ever enable us to regard as necessarily connected with the
representation of an object. It must always be only through reflective
perception that it is cognized as conjoined with this
representation. As with all empirical judgements, it is, consequently,
unable to announce objective necessity or lay claim to a priori
validity. But, then, the judgement of taste in fact only lays claim,
like every other empirical judgement, to be valid for every one,
and, despite its inner contingency this is always possible. The only
point that is strange or out of the way about it is that it is not
an empirical concept, but a feeling of pleasure (and so not a
concept at all), that is yet exacted from every one by the judgement
of taste, just as if it were a predicate united to the cognition of
the object, and that is meant to be conjoined with its representation.
A singular empirical judgement, as for example, the judgement of one
who perceives a movable drop of water in a rock-crystal, rightly looks
to every one finding the fact as stated, since the judgement has
been formed according to the universal conditions of the determinant
judgement under the laws of a possible experience generally. In the
same way, one who feels pleasure in simple reflection on the form of
an object, without having any concept in mind, rightly lays claim to
the agreement of every one, although this judgement is empirical and a
singular judgement. For the ground of this pleasure is found in the
universal, though subjective, condition of reflective judgements,
namely the final harmony of an object (be it a product of nature or of
art) with the mutual relation of the faculties of cognition
(imagination and understanding), which are requisite for every
empirical cognition. The pleasure in judgements of taste is,
therefore, dependent doubtless on an empirical representation, and
cannot be united a priori to any concept (one cannot determine a
priori what object will be in accordance with taste or not-one must
find out the object that is so); but then it is only made the
determining ground of this judgement by virtue of our consciousness of
its resting simply upon reflection and the universal, though only
subjective, conditions of the harmony of that reflection with the
knowledge of objects generally, for which the form of the object is
final.
This is why judgements of taste are subjected to a critique in
respect of their possibility. For their possibility presupposes an a
priori principle, although that principle is neither a cognitive
principle for understanding nor a practical principle for the will,
and is thus in no way determinant a priori.
Susceptibility to pleasure arising from reflection on the forms of
things (whether of nature or of art) betokens, however, not only a
finality on the part of objects in their relation to the reflective
judgement in the subject, in accordance with the concept of nature,
but also, conversely, a finality on the part of the subject, answering
to the concept of freedom, in respect of the form, or even
formlessness of objects. The result is that the aesthetic judgement
refers not merely, as a judgement of taste, to the beautiful, but
also, as springing from a higher intellectual feeling, to the sublime.
Hence the above-mentioned Critique of Aesthetic judgement must be
divided on these lines into two main parts.

VIII. The Logical Representation of the
Finality of Nature.

There are two ways in which finality may be represented in an object
given in experience. It may be made to turn on what is purely
subjective. In this case the object is considered in respect of its
form as present in apprehension (apprehensio) prior to any concept;
and the harmony of this form with the cognitive faculties, promoting
the combination of the intuition with concepts for cognition
generally, is represented as a finality of the form of the object. Or,
on the other hand, the representation of finality may be made to
turn on what is objective, in which case it is represented as the
harmony of the form of the object with the possibility of the thing
itself according to an antecedent concept of it containing the
ground of this form. We have seen that the representation of the
former kind of finality rests on the pleasure immediately felt in mere
reflection on the form of the object. But that of the latter kind of
finality, as it refers the form of the object, not to the subject's
cognitive faculties engaged in its apprehension, but to a definite
cognition of the object under a given concept, bas nothing to do
with a feeling of pleasure in things, but only understanding and its
estimate of them. Where the concept of an object is given, the
function of judgement, in its employment of that concept for
cognition, consists in presentation (exhibitio), i. e., in placing
beside the concept an intuition corresponding to it. Here it may be
that our own imagination is the agent employed, as in the case of art,
where we realize a preconceived concept of an object which we set
before ourselves as an end. Or the agent may be nature in its
technic (as in the case of organic bodies), when we read into it our
own concept of an end to assist our estimate of its product. In this
case what is represented is not a mere finality of nature in the
form of the thing, but this very product as a natural end. Although
our concept that nature, in its empirical laws, is subjectively
final in its forms is in no way a concept of the object, but only a
principle of judgement for providing itself with concepts in the
vast multiplicity of nature, so that it may be able to take its
bearings, yet, on the analogy of an end, as it were a regard to our
cognitive faculties is here attributed to nature. Natural beauty
may, therefore, be looked on as the presentation of the concept of
formal, i. e., merely subjective, finality and natural ends as the
presentation of the concept of a real, i.e., objective, finality.
The former of these we estimate by taste (aesthetically by means of
the feeling of pleasure), the latter by understanding and reason
(logically according to concepts).
On these considerations is based the division of the Critique of
judgement into that of the aesthetic and the teleological judgement.
By the first is meant the faculty of estimating formal finality
(otherwise called subjective) by the feeling of pleasure or
displeasure, by the second, the faculty of estimating the real
finality (objective) of nature by understanding and, reason.
In a Critique of judgement the part dealing with aesthetic judgement
is essentially relevant, as it alone contains a principle introduced
by judgement completely a priori as the basis of its reflection upon
nature. This is the principle of nature's formal finality for our
cognitive faculties in its particular (empirical) laws-a principle
without which understanding could not feel itself at home in nature:
whereas no reason is assignable a priori, nor is so much as the
possibility of one apparent from the concept of nature as an object of
experience, whether in its universal or in its particular aspects, why
there should be objective ends of nature, i. e., things only
possible as natural ends. But it is only judgement that, without being
itself possessed a priori of a principle in that behalf, in actually
occurring cases (of certain products) contains the rule for making use
of the concept of ends in the interest of reason, after that the above
transcendental principle has already prepared understanding to apply
to nature the concept of an end (at least in respect of its form).
But the transcendental principle by which a finality of nature in
its subjective reference to our cognitive faculties, is represented in
the form of a thing as a principle of its estimation, leaves quite
undetermined the question of where and in what cases we have to make
our estimate of the object as a product according to a principle of
finality, instead of simply according to universal laws of nature.
It resigns to the aesthetic judgement the task of deciding the
conformity of this product (in its form) to our cognitive faculties as
a question of taste (a matter which the aesthetic judgement decides,
not by any harmony with concepts, but by feeling). On the other
hand, judgement as teleologically employed assigns the determinate
conditions under which something (e. g., an organized body) is to be
estimated after the idea of an end of nature. But it can adduce no
principle from the concept of nature, as an object of experience, to
give it its authority to ascribe a priori to nature a reference to
ends, or even only indeterminately to assume them from actual
experience in the case of such products. The reason of this is that,
in order to be able merely empirically to cognize objective finality
in a certain object, many particular experiences must be collected and
reviewed under the unity of their principle. Aesthetic judgement is,
therefore, a special faculty of estimating according to a rule, but
not according to concepts. The teleological is not a special
faculty, but only general reflective judgement proceeding, as it
always does in theoretical cognition, according to concepts, but in
respect of certain objects of nature, following special
principles-those, namely, of a judgement that is merely reflective and
does not determine objects. Hence, as regards its application, it
belongs to the theoretical part of philosophy, and on account of its
special principles, which are not determinant, as principles belonging
to doctrine have to be, it must also form a special part of the
Critique. On the other hand, the aesthetic judgement contributes
nothing to the cognition of its objects. Hence it must only be
allocated to the Critique of the judging subject and of its
faculties of knowledge so far as these are capable of possessing a
priori principles, be their use (theoretical or practical) otherwise
what it may-a Critique which is the propaedeutic of all philosophy.

IX. Joinder of the Legislations of Understanding and
Reason by means of Judgement.

Understanding prescribes laws a priori for nature as an object of
sense, so that we may have a theoretical knowledge of it in a possible
experience. Reason prescribes laws a priori for freedom and its
peculiar causality as the supersensible in the subject, so that we may
have a purely practical knowledge. The realm of the concept of
nature under the one legislation, and that of the concept of freedom
under the other, are completely cut off from all reciprocal influence,
that they might severally (each according to its own principles) exert
upon the other, by the broad gulf that divides the supersensible
from phenomena. The concept of freedom determines nothing in respect
of the theoretical cognition of nature; and the concept of nature
likewise nothing in respect of the practical laws of freedom. To
that extent, then, it is not possible to throw a bridge from the one
realm to the other. Yet although the determining grounds of
causality according to the concept of freedom (and the practical
rule that this contains) have no place in nature, and the sensible
cannot determine the supersensible in the subject; still the
converse is possible (not, it is true, in respect of the knowledge
of nature, but of the consequences arising from the supersensible
and bearing on the sensible). So much indeed is implied in the concept
of a causality by freedom, the operation of which, in conformity
with the formal laws of freedom, is to take effect in the word. The
word cause, however, in its application to the supersensible only
signifies the ground that determines the causality of things of nature
to an effect in conformity with their appropriate natural laws, but at
the same time also in unison with the formal principle of the laws
of reason-a ground which, while its possibility is impenetrable, may
still be completely cleared of the charge of contradiction that it
is alleged to involve.* The effect in accordance with the concept of
freedom is the final end which (or the manifestation of which in the
sensible world) is to exist, and this presupposes the condition of the
possibility of that end in nature (i. e., in the nature of the subject
as a being of the sensible world, namely, as man). It is so
presupposed a priori, and without regard to the practical, by
judgement. This faculty, with its concept of a finality of nature,
provides us with the mediating concept between concepts of nature
and the concept of freedom-a concept that makes possible the
transition from the pure theoretical [legislation of understanding] to
the pure practical [legislation of reason] and from conformity to
law in accordance with the former to final ends according to the
latter. For through that concept we cognize the possibility of the
final end that can only be actualized in nature and in harmony with
its laws.

*One of the various supposed contradictions in this complete
distinction of the causality of nature from that through freedom is
expressed in the objection that when I speak of hindrances opposed
by nature to causality according to laws of freedom (moral laws) or of
assistance lent to it by nature, I am all the time admitting an
influence of the former upon the latter. But the misinterpretation
is easily avoided, if attention is only paid to the meaning of the
statement. The resistance or furtherance is not between nature and
freedom, but between the former as phenomenon and the effects of the
latter as phenomena in the world of sense. Even the causality of
freedom (of pure and practical reason) is the causality of a natural
cause subordinated to freedom (a causality of the subject regarded
as man, and consequently as a phenomenon), and one, the ground of
whose determination is contained in the intelligible, that is
thought under freedom, in a manner that is not further or otherwise
explicable (just as in the case of that intelligible that forms the
supersensible substrate of nature.)

Understanding, by the possibility of its supplying a priori laws for
nature, furnishes a proof of the fact that nature is cognized by us
only as phenomenon, and in so doing points to its having a
supersensible substrate; but this substrate it leaves quite
undetermined. judgement by the a priori principle of its estimation of
nature according to its possible particular laws provides this
supersensible substrate (within as well as without us) with
determinability through the intellectual faculty. But reason gives
determination to the same a priori by its practical law. Thus
judgement makes possible the transition from the realm of the
concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom.
In respect of the faculties of the soul generally, regarded as
higher faculties, i.e., as faculties containing an autonomy,
understanding is the one that contains the constitutive a priori
principles for the faculty of cognition (the theoretical knowledge
of nature). The feeling pleasure and displeasure is provided for by
the judgement in its independence from concepts and from sensations
that refer to the determination of the faculty of desire and would
thus be capable of being immediately practical. For the faculty of
desire there is reason, which is practical without mediation of any
pleasure of whatsoever origin, and which determines for it, as a
higher faculty, the final end that is attended at the same time with
pure intellectual delight in the object. judgement's concept of a
finality of nature falls, besides, under the head of natural concepts,
but only as a regulative principle of the cognitive faculties-although
the aesthetic judgement on certain objects (of nature or of art) which
occasions that concept, is a constitutive principle in respect of
the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. The spontaneity in the play of
the cognitive faculties whose harmonious accord contains the ground of
this pleasure, makes the concept in question, in its consequences, a
suitable mediating link connecting the realm of the concept of
nature with that of the concept of freedom, as this accord at the same
time promotes the sensibility of the mind for or moral feeling. The
following table may facilitate the review of all the above faculties
in their systematic unity.*

*It has been thought somewhat suspicious that my divisions in pure
philosophy should almost always come out threefold. But it is due to
the nature of the case. If a division is to be a priori it must be
either analytic, according to the law of contradiction-and then it
is always twofold (quodlibet ens est aut A aut non A)-Or else it is
synthetic. If it is to be derived in the latter case from a priori
concepts (not, as in mathematics, from the a priori intuition
corresponding to the concept), then, to meet the requirements of
synthetic unity in general, namely (1) a condition, (2) a conditioned,
(3) the concept arising from the union of the conditioned with its
condition, the division must of necessity be trichotomous.

List of Mental Faculties Cognitive Faculties
Cognitive faculties Understanding
Feeling of pleasure Judgement
and displeasure Reason
Faculty of desire

A priori Principles Application
Conformity to law Nature
Finality Art
Final End Freedom

SEC1|BK1
FIRST PART CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT
SECTION I. ANALYTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT.
BOOK I. Analytic of the Beautiful.

FIRST MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste*:
Moment of Quality.

*The definition of taste here relied upon is that it is the
faculty of estimating the beautiful. But the discovery of what is
required for calling an object beautiful must be reserved for the
analysis of judgements of taste. In my search for the moments to which
attention is paid by this judgement in its reflection, I have followed
the guidance of the logical functions of judging (for a judgement of
taste always involves a reference to understanding). I have brought
the moment of quality first under review, because this is what the
aesthetic judgement on the beautiful looks to in the first instance.

SS 1. The judgement of taste is aesthetic.

If we wish to discern whether anything is beautiful or not, we do
not refer the representation of it to the object by means of
understanding with a view to cognition, but by means of the
imagination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding) we
refer the representation to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or
displeasure. The judgement of taste, therefore, is not a cognitive
judgement, and so not logical, but is aesthetic-which means that it is
one whose determining ground cannot be other than subjective. Every
reference of representations is capable of being objective, even
that of sensations (in which case it signifies the real in an
empirical representation). The one exception to this is the feeling of
pleasure or displeasure. This denotes nothing in the object, but is
a feeling which the subject has of itself and of the manner in which
it is affected by the representation.
To apprehend a regular and appropriate building with one's cognitive
faculties, be the mode of representation clear or confused, is quite a
different thing from being conscious of this representation with an
accompanying sensation of delight. Here the representation is referred
wholly to the subject, and what is more to its feeling of life-under
the name of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure-and this forms
the basis of a quite separate faculty of discriminating and
estimating, that contributes nothing to knowledge. All it does is to
compare the given representation in the subject with the entire
faculty of representations of which the mind is conscious in the
feeling of its state. Given representations in a judgement may be
empirical, and so aesthetic; but the judgement which is pronounced
by their means is logical, provided it refers them to the object.
Conversely, be the given representations even rational, but referred
in a judgement solely to the subject (to its feeling), they are always
to that extent aesthetic.

SS 2. The delight which determines the judgement of
taste is independent of all interest.

The delight which we connect with the representation of the real
existence of an object is called interest. Such a delight,
therefore, always involves a reference to the faculty of desire,
either as its determining ground, or else as necessarily implicated
with its determining ground. Now, where the question is whether
something is beautiful, we do not want to know, whether we, or any one
else, are, or even could be, concerned in the real existence of the
thing, but rather what estimate we form of it on mere contemplation
(intuition or reflection). If any one asks me whether I consider
that the palace I see before me is beautiful, I may, perhaps, reply
that I do not care for things of that sort that are merely made to
be gaped at. Or I may reply in the same strain as that Iroquois sachem
who said that nothing in Paris pleased him better than the
eating-houses. I may even go a step further and inveigh with the
vigour of a Rousseau against the vigour of a great against the
vanity of the of the people on such superfluous things. Or, in fine, I
may quite easily persuade myself that if I found myself on an
uninhabited island, without hope of ever again coming among men, and
could conjure such a palace into existence by a mere wish, I should
still not trouble to do so, so long as I had a hut there that was
comfortable enough for me. All this may be admitted and approved; only
it is not the point now at issue. All one wants to know is whether the
mere representation of the object is to my liking, no matter how
indifferent I may be to the real existence of the object of this
representation. It is quite plain that in order to say that the object
is beautiful, and to show that I have taste, everything turns on the
meaning which I can give to this representation, and not on any factor
which makes me dependent on the real existence of the object. Every
one must allow that a judgement on the beautiful which is tinged
with the slightest interest, is very partial and not a pure
judgement of taste. One must not be in the least prepossessed in
favour of the real existence of the thing, but must preserve
complete indifference in this respect, in order to play the part of
judge in matters of taste.
This proposition, which is of the utmost importance, cannot be
better explained than by contrasting the pure disinterested* delight
which appears in the judgement of taste with that allied to an
interest-especially if we can also assure ourselves that there are
no other kinds of interest beyond those presently to be mentioned.

*A judgement upon an object of our delight may be wholly
disinterested but withal very interesting, i.e., it relies on no
interest, but it produces one. Of this kind are all pure moral
judgements. But, of themselves judgements of taste do not even set
up any interest whatsoever. Only in society is it interesting to
have taste-a point which will be explained in the sequel.

SS 3. Delight in the agreeable is coupled with interest.

That is agreeable which the senses find pleasing in sensation.
This at once affords a convenient opportunity for condemning and
directing particular attention to a prevalent confusion of the
double meaning of which the word sensation is capable. All delight (as
is said or thought) is itself sensation (of a pleasure).
Consequently everything that pleases, and for the very reason that
it pleases, is agreeable-and according to its different degrees, or
its relations to other agreeable sensations, is attractive,
charming, delicious, enjoyable, etc. But if this is conceded, then
impressions of sense, which determine inclination, or principles of
reason, which determine the will, or mere contemplated forms of
intuition, which determine judgement, are all on a par in everything
relevant to their effect upon the feeling of pleasure, for this
would be agreeableness in the sensation of one's state; and since,
in the last resort, all the elaborate work of our faculties must issue
in and unite in the practical as its goal, we could credit our
faculties with no other appreciation of things and the worth of
things, than that consisting in the gratification which they
promise. How this is attained is in the end immaterial; and, as the
choice of the means is here the only thing that can make a difference,
men might indeed blame one another for folly or imprudence, but
never for baseness or wickedness; for they are all, each according
to his own way of looking at things, pursuing one goal, which for each
is the gratification in question.
When a modification of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure is
termed sensation, this expression is given quite a different meaning
to that which it bears when I call the representation of a thing
(through sense as a receptivity pertaining to the faculty of
knowledge) sensation. For in the latter case the representation is
referred to the object, but in the former it is referred solely to the
subject and is not available for any cognition, not even for that by
which the subject cognizes itself.
Now in the above definition the word sensation is used to denote
an objective representation of sense; and, to avoid continually
running the risk of misinterpretation, we shall call that which must
always remain purely subjective, and is absolutely incapable of
forming a representation of an object, by the familiar name of
feeling. The green colour of the meadows belongs to objective
sensation, as the perception of an object of sense; but its
agreeableness to subjective sensation, by which no object is
represented; i.e., to feeling, through which the object is regarded as
an object of delight (which involves no cognition of the object).
Now, that a judgement on an object by which its agreeableness is
affirmed, expresses an interest in it, is evident from the fact that
through sensation it provokes a desire for similar objects,
consequently the delight presupposes, not the simple judgement about
it, but the bearing its real existence has upon my state so far as
affected by such an object. Hence we do not merely say of the
agreeable that it pleases, but that it gratifies. I do not accord it a
simple approval, but inclination is aroused by it, and where
agreeableness is of the liveliest type a judgement on the character of
the object is so entirely out of place that those who are always
intent only on enjoyment (for that is the word used to denote
intensity of gratification) would fain dispense with all judgement.

SS 4. Delight in the good is coupled with interest.

That is good which by means of reason commends itself by its mere
concept. We call that good for something which only pleases as a
means; but that which pleases on its own account we call good in
itself. In both cases the concept of an end is implied, and
consequently the relation of reason to (at least possible) willing,
and thus a delight in the existence of an object or action, i.e., some
interest or other.
To deem something good, I must always know what sort of a thing
the object is intended to be, i. e., I must have a concept of it. That
is not necessary to enable me to see beauty in a thing. Flowers,
free patterns, lines aimlessly intertwining-technically termed
foliage-have no signification, depend upon no definite concept, and
yet please. Delight in the beautiful must depend upon the reflection
on an object precursory to some (not definitely determined) concept.
It is thus also differentiated from the agreeable, which rests
entirely upon sensation.
In many cases, no doubt, the agreeable and the good seem convertible
terms. Thus it is commonly said that all (especially lasting)
gratification is of itself good; which is almost equivalent to
saying that to be permanently agreeable and to be good are
identical. But it is readily apparent that this is merely a vicious
confusion of words, for the concepts appropriate to these
expressions are far from interchangeable. The agreeable, which, as
such, represents the object solely in relation to sense, must in the
first instance be brought under principles of reason through the
concept of an end, to be, as an object of will, called good. But
that the reference to delight is wholly different where what gratifies
is at the same time called good, is evident from the fact that with
the good the question always is whether it is mediately or immediately
good, i. e., useful or good in itself; whereas with the agreeable this
point can never arise, since the word always means what pleases
immediately-and it is just the same with what I call beautiful.
Even in everyday parlance, a distinction is drawn between the
agreeable and the good. We do not scruple to say of a dish that
stimulates the palate with spices and other condiments that it is
agreeable owning all the while that it is not good: because, while
it immediately satisfies the senses, it is mediately displeasing, i.
e., in the eye of reason that looks ahead to the consequences. Even in
our estimate of health, this same distinction may be traced. To all
that possess it, it is immediately agreeable-at least negatively, i.
e., as remoteness of all bodily pains. But, if we are to say that it
is good, we must further apply to reason to direct it to ends, that
is, we must regard it as a state that puts us in a congenial mood
for all we have to do. Finally, in respect of happiness every one
believes that the greatest aggregate of the pleasures of life,
taking duration as well as number into account, merits the name of a
true, nay even of the highest, good. But reason sets its face
against this too. Agreeableness is enjoyment. But if this is all
that we are bent on, it would be foolish to be scrupulous about the
means that procure it for us-whether it be obtained passively by the
bounty of nature or actively and by the work of our own hands. But
that there is any intrinsic worth in the real existence of a man who
merely lives for enjoyment, however busy he may be in this respect,
even when in so doing he serves others-all equally with himself intent
only on enjoyment-as an excellent means to that one end, and does
so, moreover, because through sympathy he shares all their
gratifications-this is a view to which reason will never let itself be
brought round. Only by what a man does heedless of enjoyment, in
complete freedom, and independently of what he can procure passively
from the hand of nature, does be give to his existence, as the real
existence of a person, an absolute worth. Happiness, with all its
plethora of pleasures, is far from being an unconditioned good.*

*An obligation to enjoyment is a patent absurdity. And the same,
then, must also be said of a supposed obligation to actions that
have merely enjoyment for their aim, no matter how spiritually this
enjoyment may be refined in thought (or embellished), and even if it
be a mystical, so-called heavenly, enjoyment.

But, despite all this difference between the agreeable and the good,
they both agree in being invariably coupled with an interest in
their object. This is true, not alone of the agreeable, SS 3, and of
the mediately good, i, e., the useful, which pleases as a means to
some pleasure, but also of that which is good absolutely and from
every point of view, namely the moral good which carries with it the
highest interest. For the good is the object of will, i. e., of a
rationally determined faculty of desire). But to will something, and
to take a delight in its existence, i.e., to take an interest in it,
are identical.

SS 5. Comparison of the three specifically different
kinds of delight.

Both the agreeable and the good involve a reference to the faculty
of desire, and are thus attended, the former with a delight
pathologically conditioned (by stimuli), the latter with a pure
practical delight. Such delight is determined not merely by the
representation of the object, but also by the represented bond of
connection between the subject and the real existence of the object.
It is not merely the object, but also its real existence, that
pleases. On the other hand, the judgement of taste is simply
contemplative, i. e., it is a judgement which is indifferent as to the
existence of an object, and only decides how its character stands with
the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. But not even is this
contemplation itself directed to concepts; for the judgement of
taste is not a cognitive judgement (neither a theoretical one nor a
practical), and hence, also, is not grounded on concepts, nor yet
intentionally directed to them.
The agreeable, the beautiful, and the good thus denote three
different relations of representations to the feeling of pleasure
and displeasure, as a feeling in respect of which we distinguish
different objects or modes of representation. Also, the
corresponding expressions which indicate our satisfaction in them
are different The agreeable is what GRATIFIES a man; the beautiful
what simply PLEASES him; the good what is ESTEEMED (approved), i.e.,
that on which he sets an objective worth. Agreeableness is a
significant factor even with irrational animals; beauty has purport
and significance only for human beings, i.e., for beings at once
animal and rational (but not merely for them as rational-intelligent
beings-but only for them as at once animal and rational); whereas
the good is good for every rational being in general-a proposition
which can only receive its complete justification and explanation in
the sequel. Of all these three kinds of delight, that of taste in
the beautiful may be said to be the one and only disinterested and
free delight; for, with it, no interest, whether of sense or reason,
extorts approval. And so we may say that delight, in the three cases
mentioned, is related to inclination, to favour, or to respect. For
FAVOUR is the only free liking. An object of inclination, and one
which a law of reason imposes upon our desire, leaves us no freedom to
turn anything into an object of pleasure. All interest presupposes a
want, or calls one forth; and, being a ground determining approval,
deprives the judgement on the object of its freedom.
So far as the interest of inclination in the case of the agreeable
goes, every one says "Hunger is the best sauce; and people with a
healthy appetite relish everything, so long as it is something they
can eat." Such delight, consequently, gives no indication of taste
having anything to say to the choice. Only when men have got all
they want can we tell who among the crowd has taste or not.
Similarly there may be correct habits (conduct) without virtue,
politeness without good-will, propriety without honour, etc. For where
the moral law dictates, there is, objectively, no room left for free
choice as to what one has to do; and to show taste in the way one
carries out these dictates, or in estimating the way others do so,
is a totally different matter from displaying the moral frame of one's
mind. For the latter involves a command and produces a need of
something, whereas moral taste only plays with the objects of
delight without devoting itself sincerely to any.

Definition of the Beautiful derived from the First Moment.

Taste is the faculty of estimating an object or a mode of
representation by means of a delight or aversion apart from any
interest. The object of such a delight is called beautiful.

SECOND MOMENT. Of the Judgement of Taste:
Moment of Quantity.

SS 6. The beautiful is that which, apart from
concepts, is represented as the Object
of a universal delight.

This definition of the beautiful is deducible from the foregoing
definition of it as an object of delight apart from any interest.
For where any one is conscious that his delight in an object is with
him independent of interest, it is inevitable that he should look on
the object as one containing a ground of delight for all men. For,
since the delight is not based on any inclination of the subject (or
on any other deliberate interest), but the subject feels himself
completely free in respect of the liking which he accords to the
object, he can find as reason for his delight no personal conditions
to which his own subjective self might alone be party. Hence he must
regard it as resting on what he may also presuppose in every other
person; and therefore he must believe that he has reason for demanding
a similar delight from every one. Accordingly he will speak of the
beautiful as if beauty were a quality of the object and the
judgement logical (forming a cognition of the object by concepts of
it); although it is only aesthetic, and contains merely a reference of
the representation of the object to the subject; because it still
bears this resemblance to the logical judgement, that it may be
presupposed to be valid for all men. But this universality cannot
spring from concepts. For from concepts there is no transition to
the feeling of pleasure or displeasure (save in the case of pure
practical laws, which, however, carry an interest with them; and
such an interest does not attach to the pure judgement of taste).
The result is that the judgement of taste, with its attendant
consciousness of detachment from all interest, must involve a claim to
validity for all men, and must do so apart from universality
attached to objects, i.e., there must be coupled with it a claim to
subjective universality.

SS 7. Comparison of the beautiful with the agreeable
and the good by means of the above characteristic.

As regards the agreeable, every one concedes that his judgement,
which he bases on a private feeling, and in which he declares that
an object pleases him, is restricted merely to himself personally.
Thus he does not take it amiss if, when he says that Canary-wine is
agreeable, another corrects the expression and reminds him that he
ought to say: "It is agreeable to me." This applies not only to the
taste of the tongue, the palate, and the throat, but to what may
with any one be agreeable to eye or ear. A violet colour is to one
soft and lovely: to another dull and faded. One man likes the tone
of wind instruments, another prefers that of string instruments. To
quarrel over such points with the idea of condemning another's
judgement as incorrect when it differs from our own, as if the
opposition between the two judgements were logical, would be folly.
With the agreeable, therefore, the axiom holds good: Every one has his
own taste (that of sense).
The beautiful stands on quite a different footing. It would, on
the contrary, be ridiculous if any one who plumed himself on his taste
were to think of justifying himself by saying: "This object (the
building we see, the dress that person has on, the concert we hear,
the poem submitted to our criticism) is beautiful for me." For if it
merely pleases him, be must not call it beautiful. Many things may for
him possess charm and agreeableness-no one cares about that; but
when he puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he
demands the same delight from others. He judges not merely for
himself, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were a
property of things. Thus he says the thing is beautiful; and it is not
as if he counted on others agreeing in his judgement of liking owing
to his having found them in such agreement on a number of occasions,
but he demands this agreement of them. He blames them if they judge
differently, and denies them taste, which he still requires of them as
something they ought to have; and to this extent it is not open to men
to say: "Every one has his own taste." This would be equivalent to
saying that there is no such thing at all as taste, i. e., no
aesthetic judgement capable of making a rightful claim upon the assent
of all men.
Yet even in the case of the agreeable, we find that the estimates
men form do betray a prevalent agreement among them, which leads to
our crediting some with taste and denying it to others, and that, too,
not as an organic sense but as a critical faculty in respect of the
agreeable generally. So of one who knows how to entertain his guests
with pleasures (of enjoyment through all the senses) in such a way
that one and all are pleased, we say that he has taste. But the
universality here is only understood in a comparative sense; and the
rules that apply are, like all empirical rules, general only, not
universal, the latter being what the judgement of taste upon the
beautiful deals or claims to deal in. It is a judgement in respect
of sociability so far as resting on empirical rules. In respect of the
good, it is true that judgements also rightly assert a claim to
validity for every one; but the good is only represented as an
object of universal delight by means of a concept, which is the case
neither with the agreeable nor the beautiful.

SS 8. In a judgement of taste the universality of
delight is only represented as subjective.

This particular form of the universality of an aesthetic
judgement, which is to be met in a judgement of taste, is a
significant feature, not for the logician certainly, but for the
transcendental philosopher. It calls for no small effort on his part
to discover its origin, but in return it brings to light a property of
our cognitive faculty which, without this analysis, would have
remained unknown.
First, one must get firmly into one's mind that by the judgement
of taste (upon the beautiful) the delight in an object is imputed to
every one, yet without being founded on a concept (for then it would
be the good), and that this claim to universality is such an essential
factor of a judgement by which we describe anything as beautiful, that
were it not for its being present to the mind it would never enter
into any one's head to use this expression, but everything that
pleased without a concept would be ranked as agreeable. For in respect
of the agreeable, every one is allowed to have his own opinion, and no
one insists upon others agreeing with his judgement of taste, which is
what is invariably done in the judgement of taste about beauty. The
first of these I may call the taste of sense, the second, the taste of
reflection: the first laying down judgements merely private, the
second, on the other hand, judgements ostensibly of general validity
(public), but both alike being aesthetic (not practical) judgements
about an object merely in respect of the bearings of its
representation on the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Now it
does seem strange that while with the taste of sense it is not alone
experience that shows that its judgement (of pleasure or displeasure
in something) is not universally valid, but every one willingly