show on another occasion, this is really not the fact), it would
seem that, in the present instance, I had allowed myself to enounce
a mere opinion, and that the reader must therefore be at liberty to
hold a different opinion. But I beg to remind him that, if my
subjective deduction does not produce in his mind the conviction of
its certitude at which I aimed, the objective deduction, with which
alone the present work is properly concerned, is in every respect
satisfactory.
As regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first
place, discursive or logical clearness, that is, on the basis of
conceptions, and, secondly, intuitive or aesthetic clearness, by means
of intuitions, that is, by examples or other modes of illustration
in concreto. I have done what I could for the first kind of
intelligibility. This was essential to my purpose; and it thus
became the accidental cause of my inability to do complete justice
to the second requirement. I have been almost always at a loss, during
the progress of this work, how to settle this question. Examples and
illustrations always appeared to me necessary, and, in the first
sketch of the Critique, naturally fell into their proper places. But I
very soon became aware of the magnitude of my task, and the numerous
problems with which I should be engaged; and, as I perceived that this
critical investigation would, even if delivered in the driest
scholastic manner, be far from being brief, I found it unadvisable
to enlarge it still more with examples and explanations, which are
necessary only from a popular point of view. I was induced to take
this course from the consideration also that the present work is not
intended for popular use, that those devoted to science do not require
such helps, although they are always acceptable, and that they would
have materially interfered with my present purpose. Abbe Terrasson
remarks with great justice that, if we estimate the size of a work,
not from the number of its pages, but from the time which we require
to make ourselves master of it, it may be said of many a book that
it would be much shorter, if it were not so short. On the other
hand, as regards the comprehensibility of a system of speculative
cognition, connected under a single principle, we may say with equal
justice: many a book would have been much clearer, if it had not
been intended to be so very clear. For explanations and examples,
and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of
parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power
of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear
conception of the whole; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey
of the system, and the colouring and embellishments bestowed upon it
prevent his observing its articulation or organization- which is the
most important consideration with him, when he comes to judge of its
unity and stability.
The reader must naturally have a strong inducement to co-operate
with the present author, if he has formed the intention of erecting
a complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science, according to the
plan now laid before him. Metaphysics, as here represented, is the
only science which admits of completion- and with little labour, if it
