=First edition Subjective and Objective Deductions.=--In dealing with the transcendental deduction, as given in the first edition, we can make use of the masterly and convincing analysis which Vaihinger[752] (building upon Adickes’ previous results, but developing an independent and quite original interpretation) has given of its inconsecutive and strangely bewildering argumentation. Vaihinger’s analysis is an excellent example of detective genius in the field of scholarship. From internal evidence, circumstantially supported by the _Reflexionen_ and _Lose Blätter_, he is able to prove that the deduction is composed of manuscripts, externally pieced together, and representing no less than four distinct stages in the slow and gradual development of Kant’s views. Like geological deposits, they remain to record the processes by which the final result has come to be. Though they do not in their present setting represent the correct chronological order, that may be determined once the proper clues to their disentanglement have been duly discovered. That discovery is itself, however, no easy task; for the unexpected, while lending colour and incident to the commentator’s enterprise, baffles his natural expectations at every turn. The first stage is one in which Kant _dispenses_ with the categories, and in which, when they are referred to, they are taken as applying _to things in themselves_. The last stage, worked out, as there is ground for believing, in the haste and excitement of the final revision, is not represented in the _Prolegomena_ or in the second edition of the _Critique_, the author retracing his steps and resuming the standpoint of the stage which preceded it. The fortunate accident of Kant’s having jotted down upon the back of a dated paper the record of his passing thought (one of the few _Lose Blätter_ that are thus datable) is the culminating incident in this philosophical drama. It felicitously serves as a keystone in the body of evidence supported by general reasoning. Before becoming acquainted with Vaihinger’s analysis I had observed Kant’s ascription to empirical concepts of the functions elsewhere allotted to the categories, but had been hopelessly puzzled as to how such teaching could be fitted into his general system. Vaihinger’s view of it as a pre-Critical survival would seem to be the only possible satisfactory solution. For the view which I have taken of Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental object as also pre-Critical, and for its employment as a clue to the dating of passages, I am myself alone responsible. The order of my exposition will be as follows:[753] I. Enumeration, in chronological order, of the four stages which compose the deduction of the first edition, and citation of the passages which represent each separate stage. II. Detailed analysis, again in chronological order, of each successive stage, with exposition of the views which it embodies.