upon that of contradiction; for, in addition to the relation between two contradictory predicates, it regards everything as standing in a relation to the sum of possibilities, as the sumtotal of all predicates of things, and, while presupposing this sum as an à priori condition, presents to the mind everything as receiving the possibility of its individual existence from the relation it bears to, and the share it possesses in the aforesaid sum of possibilities.[1] The principle of complete determination relates therefore to the content and not. to the logical form. It is the principle of the synthesis of all the predicates which are required to constitute the complete conception of a thing, and not a mere principle of analytical representation, which anounces that one of two contradictory predicates must belong to a conception. It contains, moreover, a transcendental presupposition—that, namely, of the material for all possibility, which must contain à priori the data for this or that particular possibility.
The proposition, everything which exists is completely determined, means not only that one of every pair of given contradictory attributes, but that one of all possible attributes, is always predicable of the thing; in it the predicates are not merely compared logically with each other, but the thing itself is transcendentally compared with the sum-total of all possible predicates. The proposition is equivalent to saying:—to attain to a complete knowledge of a thing, it is necessary to possess a knowledge of everything that is possible, and to determine it thereby, in a positive or negative manner. The conception of complete determination is consequently a conception which cannot be presented in its totality in concreto, and is therefore based upon an idea, which has its seat in the reason—the faculty which prescribes to the understanding the laws of its harmonious and perfect exercise.
Now, although this idea of the sum-total of all possibility, in so far as it forms the condition of the complete determina-
- ↑ Thus this principle declares everything to possess a relation to a common correlate—the sum-total of possibility, which, if discovered to exist in the idea of one individual thing, would establish the affinity of all possible things, from the identity of the ground of their complete determination. The determinability of every conception is subordinate to the universality (Allgemeinheit universalitas) of the principle of excluded middle; the determination of a thing to the totality (Allheit, universitas) of all possible predicates.
