§ 23. _Arguments against Kant's Proof of the_ à priority _of the conception of Causality_.
One of the chief objects of the "Critique of Pure Reason" is to show the universal validity, for all experience, of the causal law, its _à priority_, and, as a necessary consequence of this, its restriction to possible experience. Nevertheless, I cannot assent to the proof there given of the _à priority_ of the principle, which is substantially this:--"The _synthesis_ of the manifold by the imagination, which is necessary for all empirical knowledge, gives succession, but not yet determinate succession: that is, it leaves undetermined which of two states perceived was the first, not only in my imagination, but in the object itself. But definite order in this succession--through which alone what we perceive becomes experience, or, in other words, authorizes us to form objectively valid judgments--is first brought into it by the purely intellectual conception of cause and effect. Thus the principle of causal relation is the condition which renders experience possible, and, as such, it is given us _à priori_."[98]
[98] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 201; 5th edition, p. 246. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 176.) This is, however, not a literal quotation. (Tr.'s note.)