unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be immediately
deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has been thus
deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of the whole
conception. Thus also, the criterion or test of an hypothesis is the
intelligibility of the received principle of explanation, or its unity
(without help from any subsidiary hypothesis)—the truth of our
deductions from it (consistency with each other and with
experience)—and lastly, the completeness of the principle of the
explanation of these deductions, which refer to neither more nor less
than what was admitted in the hypothesis, restoring analytically and à
posteriori, what was cogitated synthetically and à priori. By the
conceptions, therefore, of unity, truth, and perfection, we have made
no addition to the transcendental table of the categories, which is
complete without them. We have, on the contrary, merely employed the
three categories of quantity, setting aside their application to
objects of experience, as general logical laws of the consistency of
cognition with itself.
Chapter II. Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the
Understanding
Section I. Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in general §
9
Teachers of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims,
distinguish in a cause the question of right (quid juris) from the
question of fact (quid facti), and while they demand proof of both,
they give to the proof of the former, which goes to establish right or
claim in law, the name of deduction. Now we make use of a great number
of empirical conceptions, without opposition from any one; and consider
ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified in
attaching to them a sense, and a supposititious signification, because
we have always experience at hand to demonstrate their objective
reality. There exist also, however, usurped conceptions, such as
fortune, fate, which circulate with almost universal indulgence, and
yet are occasionally challenged by the question, “quid juris?” In such
cases, we have great difficulty in discovering any deduction for these
terms, inasmuch as we cannot produce any manifest ground of right,
either from experience or from reason, on which the claim to employ
them can be founded.