of experience.

We may and must, therefore, regard the attempts hitherto made to
establish metaphysical science dogmatically as non-existent. For
what of analysis, that is, mere dissection of conceptions, is
contained in one or other, is not the aim of, but only a preparation
for metaphysics proper, which has for its object the extension, by
means of synthesis, of our a priori knowledge. And for this purpose,
mere analysis is of course useless, because it only shows what is
contained in these conceptions, but not how we arrive, a priori, at
them; and this it is her duty to show, in order to be able
afterwards to determine their valid use in regard to all objects of
experience, to all knowledge in general. But little self-denial,
indeed, is needed to give up these pretensions, seeing the undeniable,
and in the dogmatic mode of procedure, inevitable contradictions of
Reason with herself, have long since ruined the reputation of every
system of metaphysics that has appeared up to this time. It will
require more firmness to remain undeterred by difficulty from
within, and opposition from without, from endeavouring, by a method
quite opposed to all those hitherto followed, to further the growth
and fruitfulness of a science indispensable to human reason--a science
from which every branch it has borne may be cut away, but whose
roots remain indestructible.



VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the
Name of a Critique of Pure Reason.

From all that has been said, there results the idea of a