METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS 363 



has arrived just at that point in space where I expected 

 to find it ; contingent Givenness, though broken by an 

 interval in its immediateness, is one. " I ' am not 

 responsible for it, nor are the " categories " responsible. 1 



Therefore, to put it briefly : the contingency of the 

 immediately given phenomena, as far as their non-aprioristic 

 part, that is to say, as far as " sensations " or " presentations " 

 come into account, combined with the immanent coherence 

 of this contingency in itself, tends to prove absolute- 

 ness with regard to the " It." " It " is now here and 

 now there, now one thing and now another. This is all 

 with respect to the Ego, it is true ; but not by or from the 

 Ego. 



Our third class of facts that show us absoluteness in 

 general now calls for a further short analysis before we 

 resume from a new point of view our study of universal 

 teleology. 



ft. THE " POSTULATE ' 



Immediate sensible Givenness is the material the 

 categorical system has to work with ; categories establish 

 axioms with regard to this material and thus render it a 

 system itself. In the first place, it must now be added 

 that the Ego is not content with axioms with regard to 

 Givenness, but from the very beginning also forms some 

 postulates concerning it. That is to say : the Ego forms 

 some most general notions, which are by no means absolutely 



1 A complete theory of the Absolute would have to consider in this 

 connexion what are generally called "constants " of nature, expressed in the 

 form of quantitative relations ; say the sizes of electrons and atoms. Tlu-sc 

 constants are "contingent" with regard to the reasoning mind ; a theory of 

 matter might reduce them to one or two constants. 



