Nevertheless the teleological act of judgement is rightly brought to
bear, at least problematically, upon the investigation of nature;
but only in order to bring it under principles of observation and
inquiry according to the _analogy_ with the causality of purpose,
without any pretence to _explain_ it thereby. It belongs therefore to
the reflective and not to the determinant judgement. The concept of
combinations and forms of nature in accordance with purposes is then
at least _one principle more_ for bringing its phenomena under rules
where the laws of simply mechanical causality do not suffice. For we
bring in a teleological ground, where we attribute causality in respect
of an Object to the concept of an Object, as if it were to be found in
nature (not in ourselves); or rather when we represent to ourselves the
possibility of the Object after the analogy of that causality which
we experience in ourselves, and consequently think nature technically
as through a special faculty. If we did not ascribe to it such a
method of action, its causality would have to be represented as blind
mechanism. If, on the contrary, we supply to nature causes acting
_designedly_, and consequently place at its basis teleology, not merely
as a _regulative_ principle for the mere _judging_ of phenomena, to
which nature can be thought as subject in its particular laws, but as a
_constitutive_ principle of the _derivation_ of its products from their
causes; then would the concept of a natural purpose no longer belong
to the reflective but to the determinant Judgement. Then, in fact, it
would not belong specially to the Judgement (like the concept of beauty
regarded as formal subjective purposiveness), but as a rational concept
it would introduce into natural science a new causality, which we only
borrow from ourselves and ascribe to other beings, without meaning to
assume them to be of the same kind with ourselves.
FIRST DIVISION
ANALYTIC OF THE TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT
§ 62. _Of the objective purposiveness which is merely formal as
distinguished from that which is material_
All geometrical figures drawn on a principle display a manifold,
oft admired, objective purposiveness; _i.e._ in reference to
their usefulness for the solution of several problems by a single
principle, or of the same problem in an infinite variety of ways. The
purposiveness is here obviously objective and intellectual, not merely
subjective and aesthetical. For it expresses the suitability of the
figure for the production of many intended figures, and is cognised
through Reason. But this purposiveness does not make the concept of the
object itself possible, _i.e._ it is not regarded as possible merely
with reference to this use.
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