send it wandering among chimeras of unthinkable natural faculties; just
as a mere teleological mode of explanation which takes no account of
natural mechanism makes it visionary.
In the same natural thing both principles cannot be connected as
fundamental propositions of explanation (deduction) of one by the
other, _i.e._ they do not unite for the determinant Judgement as
dogmatical and constitutive principles of insight into nature. If I
choose, _e.g._ to regard a maggot as the product of the mere mechanism
of nature (of the new formation that it produces of itself, when
its elements are set free by corruption), I cannot derive the same
product from the same matter as from a causality that acts according
to purposes. Conversely, if I regard the same product as a natural
purpose, I cannot count on any mechanical mode of its production and
regard this as the constitutive principle of my judgement upon its
possibility, and so unite both principles. One method of explanation
excludes the other; even supposing that objectively both grounds of
the possibility of such a product rested on a single ground, to which
we did not pay attention. The principle which should render possible
the compatibility of both in judging of nature must be placed in
that which lies outside both (and consequently outside the possible
empirical representation of nature), but yet contains their ground,
_i.e._ in the supersensible; and each of the two methods of explanation
must be referred thereto. Now of this we can have no concept but the
indeterminate concept of a ground, which makes the judging of nature
by empirical laws possible, but which we cannot determine more nearly
by any predicate. Hence the union of both principles cannot rest upon
a ground of _explanation_ of the possibility of a product according to
given laws, for the _determinant_ Judgement, but only upon a ground
of its _exposition_ for the _reflective_ Judgement.--To explain is to
derive from a principle, which therefore we must clearly know and of
which we can give an account. No doubt the principle of the mechanism
of nature and that of its causality in one and the same natural product
must coalesce in a single higher principle, which is their common
source, because otherwise they could not subsist side by side in the
observation of nature. But if this principle, objectively common to
the two, which therefore warrants the association of the maxims of
natural investigation depending on both, be such that, though it
can be pointed to, it cannot be determinately known nor clearly put
forward for use in cases which arise, then from such a principle we
can draw no explanation, _i.e._ no clear and determinate derivation
of the possibility of a natural product in accordance with those
two heterogeneous principles. But now the principle common to the
mechanical and teleological derivations is the _supersensible_, which
we must place at the basis of nature, regarded as phenomenon. And of