123. This a priori construction cannot be referred to a type existing in our imagination; since, as this type would then be the sensible representation itself, it would not need to be constructed. How then is it possible to form a representation of which we have not already the image? It is not enough to possess the elements, that is, figurable extension, since with them infinite figures may be constructed; something else then is needed, something to serve as a rule, in order that the desired representation may result.
For the better understanding of this, I would observe that sensible intuitions are allied to general conceptions, by whose aid they may be reconstructed. Although, in reality, no sensible representation is offered to us, of any figure whatsoever, for example, a regular hexagon; the conception formed of the ideas, six, line, equality of angles, is all that we need to produce in our interior the sensible representation of the hexagon, and to construct it within us, if we require it.
This shows us that the free activity producing determinate sensible representations is based upon general conceptions, which, though independent of sensibility, refer to it in an indeterminate manner. Hence, also, it follows, that the understanding may, if it observe the conditions to which the elements furnished by sensibility in their respective cases, are subject, conceive the sensible indeterminately, without the intellectual act being referred to any determinate intuition.
124. If we analyze the object of these general conceptions, referred to sensible intuition, also considered in general, the understanding, while occupied in them, seems to be taken up with things not distinctly offered to it, but retained only by certain signs; confident, however, that it can develop whatever they involve, and contemplate it with perfect clearness.
[CHAPTER XX.]
INTERMEDIATE REPRESENTATIONS BETWEEN SENSIBLE INTUITION AND THE INTELLECTUAL ACT.
125. The question now occurs, whether the understanding, in order to perceive the geometrical relations offered in sensible intuition, does or does not need some intermediate representations which bring it into contact with the sensible order?[10] Such a necessity would, at first sight, seem to exist, since, as the understanding is a non-sensible faculty, sensible elements cannot be its immediate object. But on maturer examination, it seems more probable that there is no necessity of any thing intermediate, except some sign to connect the sensible elements, and to show the point where they must unite, and the conditions to which they are subject. As this sign may, however, be a word, or something else, susceptible of a sensible representation, its mediation will not at all solve the difficulty; since the question will always recur: How is the understanding placed in communication with the sensible sign?