 Psychic life is not constructed synthetically from discrete elements, but is always already a continuum that is constantly differentiating itself from within. By describing and analyzing this continuum Dilthey brings out the breadth and depth of its scope and articulates it as a structural nexus. And as he considers the temporal development of this nexus, he further defines its purposiveness. Although the cognitive and volitional subsystems of mental life may posit external ends, the affective and overall psychic nexus displays what Kant called a purposiveness without a determinant purpose. The overall acquired psychic nexus exhibits a teleology that does not posit any final telos to which all previous stages are to be subsumed. The purposiveness of mental life is immanent and adaptive rather than external and predetermined. Each stage of our life can be understood as an epoch with its distinctive value.