" If the receptivity of our mind, its power of receiving representations
in so far as it is in any wise affected, is to be entitled sensibiiity,
then the mind's power of producing representations from itself, the
spontaneity of knowledge, should be called the understanding. Our nature is
so constituted that our intuition can never be other than sensible; that
is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The
faculty, on the other hand, which enables us to think the object of
sensible intuition is the understanding. To neither of these powers may a
preference be given over the other. Without sensibility no object would be
given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts
without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is,
therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add
the object to them in intuition, as to make our intuitions intelligible,
that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers or capacities
cannot exchange their functions. The understanding can intuit nothing, the
senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise."
BB