“In former times dialectic was studied with great diligence. This art presented false principles in the semblance of truth, and sought, in accordance with these, to maintain things in semblance. Amongst the Greeks the dialecticians were advocates and rhetoricians who could lead the populace wherever they chose, because the populace lets itself be deluded with semblance. Dialectic was therefore at that time the art of semblance. In logic, also, it was for a long time treated under the name of the _art of disputation_, and during that period all logic and philosophy was the cultivation by certain chatterboxes of the art of semblance. But nothing can be more unworthy of a philosopher than the cultivation of such an art. Dialectic in this form, therefore, must be altogether suppressed, and instead of it there must be introduced into logic a critical examination of this semblance. “We should then have two parts of logic: the _analytic_, which will treat of the formal criteria of truth, and the _dialectic_, which will contain the marks and rules by which we can know that something does not agree with the formal criteria of truth, although it seems to agree with them. Dialectic in this form would have its use as a _cathartic_ of the understanding.” Dialectic is thus interpreted in a merely negative sense. It is, Kant says, a catharticon. So far from being an organon, it is not even a canon. It is merely a discipline.[664] By this manner of defining dialectic Kant causes some confusion. It does not do justice to the scope and purpose of that section of the _Critique_ to which it gives its name.[665] =IV. Concerning the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic.=--The term object[666] is used throughout this section in two quite distinct senses. In the second and third sentences it is employed in its wider meaning as equivalent to content or matter. In the fourth sentence it is used in the narrower and stricter sense, more proper to the term, namely, as meaning ‘thing.’ Again, in the fifth sentence content (_Inhalt_) would seem to be identified with object in the narrower sense, while in the sixth sentence matter (_Materie_, a synonym for content) appears to be identified with object in the wider sense. _Transcendental Dialectic_, in accordance with the above account of its logical correlate, is defined in a manner which does justice only to the negative side of its teaching. Its function is viewed as merely that of protecting the pure understanding against sophistical illusions.[667] THE TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC DIVISION I THE TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC