But this efficacy of the _a priori_ synthesis remained obscure to its discoverer (and most obscure to his orthodox followers). To such an extent was this the case, that even to Kant the category did not seem to be immanent in the real and to be the thinking of its reality, but an extrinsic, though necessary adjunct, an inevitable alteration introduced into reality to make it thinkable, an anticipatory renunciation of the knowledge of genuine reality. Reality itself lay outside every category and judgment, a _thing in itself._ Even in Kant, the _a priori_ synthesis was confused with simple analysis and with simple synthesis. These being manipulations of the real, extrinsic and not intrinsic, practical and not logical, useful, but without truth, so the _a priori_ synthesis appeared to him to be an expedient to which man has recourse and cannot but have recourse, but which constitutes, not his power, but his weakness. Kant, too, dreamed of an ideal of knowledge, which was not _a priori_ synthesis, but the _intellectual intuition,_ the perfect adequacy of thought to reality, unattainable by the human spirit. He did not perceive that the intellectual intuition, which he longed for as an impossible ideal, was precisely the continuous operation of the _a priori_ synthesis, nor did he think that what is necessary and insuperable cannot be defective. He never knew that the _a priori_ synthesis, which he had discovered, is alone the true concept and the true judgment, and, therefore, operates in an altogether different way from simple analysis and simple synthesis, which are neither concept nor judgment; nor finally that if these last postulate a _thing in itself,_ the _a priori_ synthesis cannot postulate it, because it has _it in itself._ To understand all the richness of the _a priori_ synthesis is to pay honour to the genius of Emmanuel Kant; but it is also to recognize that the systematic construction of Kant showed itself altogether unequal to the great principle he laid down, but whose value he insufficiently estimated. [Footnote 1: See above, Sect. I. Chap. VI.] III LOGIC AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE CATEGORIES [Sidenote: _The demand for a complete table of the categories._] When the definition of the _a priori_ synthesis and of the category has been attained, it is usual to demand of logical Science (and this will be demanded also of our exposition) that it should say how many and of what sort are the categories, how they are connected among themselves, _i.e._ that it should draw up a _table_ of them. [Sidenote: _A request extraneous to Logic. Logical and real categories._]