Now, as all those cases in which the principle of sufficient reason finds its application cannot therefore be reduced to logical reason and consequence and to cause and effect, the law of specification cannot have been sufficiently attended to in this classification. The law of homogeneity, however, obliges us to assume, that these cases cannot differ to infinity, but that they may be reduced to certain species. Now, before attempting this classification, it will be necessary to determine what is peculiar to the principle of sufficient reason in all cases, as its special characteristic; because the conception of the genus must always be determined before the conception of the species. § 16. _The Roots of the Principle of Sufficient Reason._ _Our knowing consciousness, which manifests itself as outer and inner Sensibility_ (or receptivity) _and as Understanding and Reason, subdivides itself into Subject and Object and contains nothing else. To be Object for the Subject and to be our representation, are the same thing. All our representations stand towards one another in a regulated connection, which may be determined_ À PRIORI, _and on account of which, nothing existing separately and independently, nothing single or detached, can become an Object for us_. It is this connection which is expressed by the Principle of Sufficient Reason in its generality. Now, although, as may be gathered from what has gone before, this connection assumes different forms according to the different kinds of objects, which forms are differently expressed by the Principle of Sufficient Reason; still the connection retains what is common to all these forms, and this is expressed in a general and abstract way by our principle. The relations upon which it is founded, and which will be more closely indicated in this treatise, are what I call the Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now, on closer inspection, according to the laws of homogeneity and of specification, these relations separate into distinct species, which differ widely from each other. Their number, however, may be reduced to _four_, according to the _four_ classes into which everything that can become an object for us--that is to say, all our representations--may be divided. These classes will be stated and considered in the following four chapters. We shall see the Principle of Sufficient Reason appear under a different form in each of them; but it will also show itself under all as the same principle and as derived from the said root, precisely because it admits of being expressed as above. CHAPTER IV. ON THE FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT. § 17. _General Account of this Class of Objects._