When we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions
manifest themselves according to the different circumstances, and make
known this faculty, and assemble themselves into a more or less
extensive collection, according to the time or penetration that has
been applied to the consideration of them. Where this process,
conducted as it is mechanically, so to speak, will end, cannot be
determined with certainty. Besides, the conceptions which we discover
in this haphazard manner present themselves by no means in order and
systematic unity, but are at last coupled together only according to
resemblances to each other, and arranged in series, according to the
quantity of their content, from the simpler to the more complex—series
which are anything but systematic, though not altogether without a
certain kind of method in their construction.
Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of
searching for its conceptions according to a principle; because these
conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an
absolute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other
according to one conception or idea. A connection of this kind,
however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper
place may be assigned to every pure conception of the understanding,
and the completeness of the system of all be determined à priori—both
which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.
Section I. Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General § 4