Such an argument does of course represent a valuable truth; and it alone harmonises with much in Kant’s maturer teaching;[437] but we must not therefore conclude that it is also the teaching of the _Aesthetic_. The _Critique_ contains too great a variety of tendencies, too rich a complexity of issues, to allow of such simplification. It loses more than it gains by such rigorous pruning of the luxuriant secondary tendencies of its exposition and thought. And above all, this procedure involves the adoption by the commentator of impossible responsibilities, those of deciding what is essential and valuable in Kant’s thought and what is irrelevant. The value and suggestiveness of Kant’s philosophy largely consist in his sincere appreciation of conflicting tendencies, and in his persistent attempt to reduce them to unity with the least possible sacrifice. But in any case the logical interpretation misrepresents this particular argument. Kant is not here distinguishing between space in general and its specific modifications. He is maintaining that no space relation can be revealed in sensation. It is not only that the apprehension of any limited space presupposes the representation of space as a whole. Both partial and infinite space are of mental origin; sensation, as such, is non-spatial, purely subjective. And lastly, the fact that Kant means to assert that space is not only logically presupposed but is subjectively generated, is sufficiently borne out by his frequent employment elsewhere in the _Aesthetic_ of such phrases as “the subjective condition of sensibility,” “lying ready in our minds,” and “necessarily preceding [as the form of the subject’s receptivity] all intuitions of objects.” =Second Argument.=--Having proved by the first argument that the representation of space is not of empirical origin, Kant in the second argument proceeds to establish the positive conclusion that it is _a priori_.[438] The proof, when all its assumptions are rendered explicit, runs as follows. _Thesis_: Space is a necessary representation, and consequently is _a priori_. _Proof_: It is impossible to imagine the absence of space, though it is possible to imagine it as existing without objects to fill it. A representation which it is impossible for the mind to be without is a necessary representation. But necessity is one of the two criteria of the _a priori_. The proof of the necessary character of space is therefore also a proof of its being _a priori_.