The first sentence states the thesis of the argument: _space is not an empirical concept abstracted from outer experiences_. The use of the term _Begriff_ in the title of the section, and also in this sentence, is an instance of the looseness with which Kant employs his terms. It is here synonymous with the term representation (_Vorstellung_), which covers intuitions as well as general or discursive concepts. Consequently, the contradiction is only verbal, not real, when Kant proceeds to prove that the concept of space is an intuition, not a concept. But this double employment of the term is none the less misleading. When Kant employs it in a strict sense, it signifies solely the general class concept.[425] All true concepts are for Kant of that single type. He has not re-defined the term concept in any manner which would render it applicable to the relational categories. For unfortunately, and very strangely, he never seems to have raised the question whether categories are not also concepts. The application to the forms of understanding of the separate title categories seems to have contented him. Much that is obscure and even contradictory in his teaching might have been prevented had he recognised that the term concept is a generic title which includes, as its sub-species, both general notions and relational categories. Kant’s limitation of the term concept to the merely generic,[426] and his consequent equating of the categorical proposition with the assertion of the substance-attribute relation,[427] would seem in large part to be traceable to his desire to preserve for himself, in the pioneer labours of his Critical enquiries, the guiding clues of the distinctions drawn in the traditional logic. Kant insists on holding to them, at least in outward appearance, at whatever sacrifice of strict consistency. Critical doctrine is made to conform to the exigencies of an artificial framework, with which its own tenets are only in very imperfect harmony. Appreciation of the ramifying influence, and, as regards the detail of exposition, of the far-reaching consequences, of this desire to conform to the time-honoured rubrics, is indeed an indispensable preliminary to any adequate estimate whether of the strength or of the defects of the Critical doctrines. As a separate and ever-present influence in the determining of Kant’s teaching, this factor may conveniently and compendiously be entitled Kant’s logical _architectonic_.[428] We shall have frequent occasion to observe its effects.[429]