Reg"u*la*tive (r?g"?*l?*t?v), a.
1.
Tending to regulate; regulating.
Whewell.
2. Metaph.
Necessarily assumed by the mind as fundamental to all other knowledge; furnishing fundamental principles; as, the regulative principles, or principles a priori; the regulative faculty.
Sir W. Hamilton.
⇒ These terms are borrowed from Kant, and suggest the thought, allowed by Kant, that possibly these principles are only true for the human mind, the operations and belief of which they regulate.
© Webster 1913.