experience, as a system according to empirical laws, to be contingent.
But, now, such a unity is one which must be necessarily presupposed
and assumed, as otherwise we should not have a thoroughgoing
connection of empirical cognition in a whole of experience. For the
universal laws of nature, while providing, certainly, for such a
connection among things generically, as things of nature in general,
do not do so for them specifically as such particular things of
nature. Hence judgement is compelled, for its own guidance, to adopt
it as an a priori principle, that what is for human insight contingent
in the particular (empirical) laws of nature contains nevertheless
unity of law in the synthesis of its manifold in an intrinsically
possible experience-unfathomable, though still thinkable, as such
unity may, no doubt, be for us. Consequently, as the unity of law in a
synthesis, which is cognized by us in obedience to a necessary aim
(a need of understanding), though recognized at the same time as
contingent, is represented as a finality of objects (here of
nature), so judgement, which, in respect of things under possible (yet
to be discovered) empirical laws, is merely reflective, must regard
nature in respect of the latter according to a principle of finality
for our cognitive faculty, which then finds expression in the above
maxims of judgement. Now this transcendental concept of a finality
of nature is neither a concept of nature nor of freedom, since it
attributes nothing at all to the object, i.e., to nature, but only
represents the unique mode in which we must proceed in our
reflection upon the objects of nature with a view to getting a
thoroughly interconnected whole of experience, and so is a
subjective principle, i.e., maxim, of judgement. For this reason, too,
just as if it were a lucky chance that favoured us, we are rejoiced
(properly speaking, relieved of a want) where we meet with such
systematic unity under merely empirical laws: although we must
necessarily assume the presence of such a unity, apart from any
ability on our part to apprehend or prove its existence.

  In order to convince ourselves of the correctness of this
deduction of the concept before us, and the necessity of assuming it
as a transcendental principle of cognition, let us just bethink
ourselves of the magnitude of the task. We have to form a connected
experience from given perceptions of a nature containing a maybe
endless multiplicity of empirical laws, and this problem has its
seat a priori in our understanding. This understanding is no doubt a
priori in possession of universal laws of nature, apart from which
nature would be incapable of being an object of experience at all. But
over and above this it needs a certain order of nature in its
particular rules which are only capable of being brought to its
knowledge empirically, and which, so far as it is concerned are
contingent. These rules, without which we would have no means of
advance from the universal analogy of a possible experience in general
to a particular, must be regarded by understanding as laws, i.e., as
necessary-for otherwise they would not form an order of
nature-though it be unable to cognize or ever get an insight into
their necessity. Albeit, then, it can determine nothing a priori in
respect of these (objects), it must, in pursuit of such empirical
so-called laws, lay at the basis of all reflection upon them an a
priori principle, to the effect, namely, that a cognizable order of
nature is possible according to them. A principle of this kind is
expressed in the following propositions. There is in nature a
subordination of genera and species comprehensible by us: Each of
these genera again approximates to the others on a common principle,
so that a transition may be possible from one to the other, and
thereby to a higher genus: While it seems at outset unavoidable for
our understanding to assume for the specific variety of natural
operations a like number of various kinds of causality, yet these
may all be reduced to a small number of principles, the quest for
which is our business; and so forth. This adaptation of nature to
our cognitive faculties is presupposed a priori by judgement on behalf
of its reflection upon it according to empirical laws. But
understanding all the while recognizes it objectively as contingent,
and it is merely judgement that attributes it to nature as
transcendental finality, i.e., a finality in respect of the
subject's faculty of cognition. For, were it not for this
presupposition, we should have no order of nature in accordance with
empirical laws, and, consequently, no guiding-thread for an experience
that has to be brought to bear upon these in all their variety, or for
an investigation of them.

  For it is quite conceivable that, despite all the uniformity of
the things of nature according to universal laws, without which we
would not have the form of general empirical knowledge at all, the
specific variety of the empirical laws of nature, with their
effects, might still be so great as to make it impossible for our
understanding to discover in nature an intelligible order, to divide
its products into genera and species so as to avail ourselves of the
principles of explanation and comprehension of one for explaining
and interpreting another, and out of material coming to hand in such
confusion (properly speaking only infinitely multiform and ill-adapted
to our power-of apprehension) to make a consistent context of
experience.

  Thus judgement, also, is equipped with an a priori principle for the
possibility of nature, but only in a subjective respect. By means of
this it prescribes a law, not to nature (as autonomy), but to itself
(as heautonomy), to guide its reflection upon nature. This law may
be called the law of the specification of nature in respect of its
empirical laws. It is not one cognized a priori in nature, but
judgement adopts it in the interests of a natural order, cognizable by
our understanding, in the division which it makes of nature's
universal laws when it seeks to subordinate to them a variety of
particular laws. So when it is said that nature specifies its
universal laws on a principle of finality for our cognitive faculties,
i.e., of suitability for the human understanding and its necessary