The chief point of this section[668] lies in its insistence that, as the _Analytic_ is concerned only with the pure understanding, the _a priori_ concepts with which it deals must form a unity or system. Understanding is viewed as a separate faculty, and virtually hypostatised. As a separate faculty, it must, it is implied, be an independent unity, self-containing and complete. Its concepts are determined in number, constitution, and interrelation, by its inherent character. They originate independently of all differences in the material which they are employed to organise. BOOK I THE ANALYTIC OF CONCEPTS =Introductory Paragraph.=--Kant’s view of the understanding as a separate faculty is in evidence again in this paragraph.[669] The _Analytic_ is a “dissection of the faculty of the understanding.” _A priori_ concepts are to be sought nowhere but in the understanding itself, as their birthplace. There “they lie ready till at last, on the occasion of experience, they become developed.” But such statements fail to do justice to Kant’s real teaching. They would seem to reveal the persisting influence of the pre-Critical standpoint of the _Dissertation_. CHAPTER I THE CLUE TO THE DISCOVERY OF ALL PURE CONCEPTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING That the understanding is “an absolute unity” is repeated. From this assertion, thus dogmatically made, without even an attempt at argument, Kant deduces the important conclusion that the pure concepts, originating from such a source, “must be connected with each other according to _one_ concept or idea (_Begriff oder Idee_).” And he adds the equally unproved assertion: “But such a connection supplies a rule by which we are enabled to assign its proper place to each pure concept of the understanding and by which we can determine in an _a priori_ manner their systematic completeness. Otherwise we should be dependent in these matters on our own discretionary judgment or merely on chance.” In the next section he sets himself to discover from an examination of analytic thinking what this rule or principle actually is, and in so doing he for the first time discloses, in any degree at all adequate, the real nature of the position which he is seeking to develop. He connects the required principle with the nature of the act of judging, considered as a function of unity.