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I did not consider it expedient to extend it still further through examples and ilhirations required for popular purposes only. this work can never satisfy the popular taste, and the few who know, do not require that help which, though it is always welcome, yet might here have defeated its very purpose. the abbé terrhion1 writes indeed that, if we measured the greatness of a book, not by the number of its pages, but by the time we require for mastering it, many a book might be said to be much shorter, if it were not so short. But, on the other hand, if we ask how a complicated, yet in principle coherent whole of speculative thought can best be rendered intelligible, we might be equally justified in saying that many a book would have been more intelligible, if it had not tried to be so very intelligible. For the helps to clearness, though they may be missed2 with regard to details, often distract with regard to the whole. The reader does not arrive quickly enough at a survey of the whole, because the bright colours [xxv] of ilhirations hide and distort the articulation and concatenation of the whole system, which, after all, if we want to judge of its unity and sufficiency, are more important than anything else. Surely it should be an attraction to the reader if he is asked to join his own efforts with those of the author in order to carry out a great and important work, according to the plan here proposed, in a complete and lasting manner. Metaphysic, according to the definitions here given, is the only one of all sciences which, through a small but united effort, may count on such completeness in a short time, so that nothing will remain for posterity but to arrange everything according to its own views for didactic purposes, without being able to add anything to the subject itself. For it is in reality nothing but an inventory of all our possessions acquired through Pure Reason, systematically arranged. Nothing can escape us, because whatever reason produces entirely out of itself, cannot hide itself, but is brought to light by reason itself, so soon as the common principle has been discovered. This absolute completeness is rendered not only possible, but necessary, through the perfect unity of this kindof knowledge, all derived from pure concepts, without any influencefrom experience, or from special intuitions leading to a definite kind of experience, that might serve to enlarge and increase it. Tecum habita et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex (Persius, Sat. iv. 52). Such a system of pure (speculative) reason I hope myself to produce under the title of 'Metaphysicof Nature.' It will not be half so large, yetinfinitely richer than this Critique of Pure Reason, which has, first of all, to discover its source, nay, the conditions of its possibility, [xxvi] in fact, to clear and level a soil quite overgrown with weeds. Here I expect from my readersthe patience and impartiality of a judge, there the goodwill and aid of afellow-worker. For however completely all the principles of the system have been propounded in my Critique, the completeness of the whole system requires also that no derivative concepts should be omitted, such as cannot be found out by an estimate a priori, but have to be discovered step by step. There the synthesis of concepts has been exhausted, here it will be requisite to do the same for their analysis, a task which is easy and an amusement rather than a labour. I have only a few words to add with respect to the printing of my book. As the beginning had been delayed, I was not able to see the clean sheets of .