CHAPTER VIII.GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS.§ 46.The Systematic Order.The order of succession in which I have stated the various forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in this treatise, is not systematic; it has been chosen for the sake of greater clearness, in order first to present what is better known and least presupposes the rest. In this I have followed Aristotle's rule: καὶ μαθήσεως οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου, καὶ τῆς τοῦ πράγματος ἀρχῆς ἐνίοτε ἀρκτέον, ἀλλ' ὅθεν ῥᾷστ' ἂν μάθοι (et doctrina non a primo, ac rei principio aliquando inchoanda est, sed unde quis facilius discat).[156]But the systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, nay, as being the prototype of all finitude. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediaterepresentations, whereas this last class refers to representations derived from other representations.The truth expressed above, that Time is the simple schema which merely contains the essential part of all the forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, explains the absolutely perfect clearness and precision of Arithmetic, a point in which no other science can compete with it. For all sciences, being throughout combinations of reasons and consequences, are based upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now, the series of numbers is the simple and only series of reasons and consequences of Being in Time; on account of this perfect simplicity—nothing being omitted, no indefinite relations left—this series leaves nothing to be desired as regards accuracy, apodeictic certainty and clearness. All the other sciences yield precedence in this respect to Arithmetic; even Geometry: because so many relations arise out of the three dimensions of Space, that a comprehensive synopsis of them becomes too difficult, not only for pure, but even for empirical intuition; complicated geometrical problems are therefore only solved by calculation; that is, Geometry is quick to resolve itself into Arithmetic. It is not necessary to point out the existence of sundry elements of obscurity in the other sciences.§ 47.Relation in Time between Reason and Consequence.According to the laws of causality and of motivation, a reason must precede its consequence in Time. That this is absolutely essential, I have shown in my chief work, to which I here refer my readers[157]in order to avoid repeating myself. Therefore, if we only bear in mind that it is not one thing which is the cause of another thing, but one state which is the cause of another state, we shall notallow ourselves to be misled by examples like that given by Kant,[158]that the stove, which is the cause of the warmth of the room, is simultaneous with its effect. The state of the stove: that is, its being warmer than its surrounding medium, must precede the communication of its surplus caloric to that medium; now, as each layer of air on becoming warm makes way for a cooler layer rushing in, the first state, the cause, and consequently also the second, the effect, are renewed until at last the temperature of stove and room become equalized. Here therefore we have no permanent cause (the stove) and permanent effect (the warmth of the room) as simultaneous things, but a chain of changes; that is, a constant renewing of two states, one of which is the effect of the other. From this example, however, it is obvious that even Kant's conception of Causality was far from clear.On the other hand, the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing conveys with it no relation in Time, but merely a relation for our Reason: here therefore,beforeandafterhave no meaning.In the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being, so far as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in Time, but only a relation in Space, of which we might say that all things were co-existent, if here the words co-existence and succession had any meaning. In Arithmetic, on the contrary, the Reason of Being is nothing else but precisely the relation of Time itself.§ 48.Reciprocity of Reasons.Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, asindeed every hypothetical judgment is ultimately based upon that principle, and here the laws of hypothetical conclusions always hold good: that is to say, it is right to infer the existence of the consequence from the existence of the reason, and the non-existence of the reason from the non-existence of the consequence; but it is wrong to infer the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason, and the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence. Now it is singular that in Geometry we are nevertheless nearly always able to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, and the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason. This proceeds, as I have shown in § 37, from the fact that, as each line determines the position of the rest, it is quite indifferent which we begin at: that is, which we consider as the reason, and which as the consequence. We may easily convince ourselves of this by going through the whole of the geometrical theorems. It is only where we have to do not only with figures,i.e., with the positions of lines, but with planes independently of figures, that we find it in most cases impossible to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, or, in other words, to convert the propositions by making the condition the conditioned. The following theorem gives an instance of this: Triangles whose lengths and bases are equal, include equal areas. This cannot be converted as follows: Triangles whose areas are equal, have likewise equal bases and lengths; for the lengths may stand in inverse proportion to the bases.In § 20 it has already been shown, that the law of causality does not admit of reciprocity, since the effect never can be the cause of its cause; therefore the conception of reciprocity is, in its right sense, inadmissible. Reciprocity, according to the Principle of Sufficient Reasonof knowing, would only be possible between equivalent conceptions, since the spheres of these alone cover each other mutually. Apart from these, it only gives rise to a vicious circle.§ 49.Necessity.The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. Fornecessityhas no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity isconditioned: absolute,i.e., unconditioned, necessity therefore is acontradicto in adjecto. Forto be necessarycan never mean anything but to result from a given reason. By defining it as "what cannot not be," on the other hand, we give a mere verbal definition, and screen ourselves behind an extremely abstract conception to avoid giving a definition of the thing. But it is not difficult to drive us from this refuge by inquiring how the non-existence of anything can be possible or even conceivable, since all existence is only given empirically. It then comes out, that it is only possible so far as somereasonor other is posited or present, from which it follows. To be necessary and to follow from a given reason, are thus convertible conceptions, and may always, as such, be substituted one for the other. The conception of an "ABSOLUTELYnecessary Being" which finds so much favour with pseudo-philosophers, contains therefore a contradiction: it annuls by the predicate "absolute" (i.e., "unconditioned by anything else") the only determination which makes the "necessary" conceivable. Here again we have an instance of theimproper use of abstract conceptionsto play off a metaphysical artifice such as those I have already pointed out in the conceptions "immaterial substance," "cause in general," "absolute reason,"&c. &c.[159]I can never insist too much upon all abstract conceptions being checked byperception.There exists accordingly afourfoldnecessity, in conformity with thefourforms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason:—1o.Logical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, in virtue of which, when once we have admitted the premisses, we must absolutely admit the conclusion.2o.Physical necessity, according to the law of causality, in virtue of which, as soon as the cause presents itself, the effect must infallibly follow.3o.Mathematical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of being, in virtue of which, every relation which is stated in a true geometrical theorem, is as that theorem affirms it to be, and every correct calculation remains irrefutable.4o.Moral necessity, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, iscompelled, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many greatthinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others.§ 50.Series of Reasons and Consequences.According to the law of causality, the condition is itself always conditioned, and, moreover, conditioned in the same way; therefore, there arises a seriesin infinitum a parte ante. It is just the same with the Reason of Being in Space: each relative space is a figure; it has its limits, by which it is connected with another relative space, and which themselves condition the figure of this other, and so on throughout all dimensionsin infinitum. But when we examine a single figure in itself, the series of reasons of being has an end, because we start from a given relation, just as the series of causes comes to an end if we stop at pleasure at any particular cause. In Time, the series of reasons of being has infinite extension botha parte ante, anda parte post, since each moment is conditioned by a preceding one, and necessarily gives rise to the following. Time has therefore neither beginning nor end. On the other hand, the series of reasons of knowledge—that is, a series of judgments, each of which gives logical truth to the other—always ends somewhere,i.e., either in an empirical, a transcendental, or a metalogical truth. If the reason of the major to which we have been led is an empirical truth, and we still continue askingwhy, it is no longer a reason of knowledge that is asked for, but a cause—in other words, the series of reasons of knowing passes over into the series of reasons of becoming. But if we do the contrary, that is, if we allow the series of reasons of becoming to pass over into the series of reasons of knowing, in order to bring it to an end, this is never broughtabout by the nature of the thing, but always by a special purpose: it is therefore a trick, and this is the sophism known by the name of the Ontological Proof. For when a cause, at which it seems desirable to stop short in order to make it thefirstcause, has been reached by means of the Cosmological Proof, we find out that the law of causality is not so easily brought to a standstill, and still persists in askingwhy: so it is simply set aside and the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, which from a distance resembles it, is substituted in its stead; and thus a reason of knowledge is given in the place of the cause which had been asked for—a reason of knowledge derived from the conception itself which has to be demonstrated, the reality of which is therefore still problematical: and this reason, as after all it is one, now has to figure as a cause. Of course the conception itself has been previously arranged for this purpose, and reality slightly covered with a few husks just for decency's sake has been placed within it, so as to give the delightful surprise of finding it there—as has been shown in Section 7. On the other hand, if a chain of judgments ultimately rests upon a principle of transcendental or of metalogical truth, and we still continue to askwhy, we receive no answer at all, because the question has no meaning,i.e., it does not know what kind of reason it is asking for.For the Principle of Sufficient Reason is theprinciple of all explanation: to explain a thingmeans, to reduce its given existence or connection to some form or other of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, in accordance with which form that existence or connection necessarily is that which it is. The Principle of Sufficient Reason itself,i.e., the connection expressed by it in any of its forms, cannot therefore be further explained; because there exists no principle by which to explain the source of all explanation: just as the eye is unable to see itself, though it sees everythingelse. There are of course series of motives, since the resolve to attain an end becomes the motive for the resolve to use a whole series of means; still this series invariably endsà parte prioriin a representation belonging to one of our two first classes, in which lies the motive which originally had the power to set this individual will in motion. The fact that it was able to do this, is a datum for knowing the empirical character here given, but it is impossible to answer the question why that particular motive acts upon that particular character; because the intelligible character lies outside Time and never becomes an Object. Therefore the series of motives, as such, finds its termination in some such final motive and, according to the nature of its last link, passes into the series of causes, or that of reasons of knowledge: that is to say, into the former, when that last link is a real object; into the latter, when it is a mere conception.§ 51.Each Science has for its Guiding Thread one of the Forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in preference to the others.As the questionwhyalways demands a sufficient reason, and as it is the connection of its notions according to the principle of sufficient reason which distinguishes science from a mere aggregate of notions, we have called thatwhythe parent of all science (§ 4). In each science, moreover, we find one of the forms of that principle predominating over the others as its guiding-thread. Thus in pure Mathematics the reason of being is the chief guiding-thread (although the exposition of the proofs proceeds according to the reason of knowing only); in applied Mathematics the law of causality appears together with it, but in Physics, Chemistry, Geology, &c., that law entirely predominates. The principle of sufficientreason in knowing finds vigorous application throughout all the sciences, for in all of them the particular is known through the general; but in Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, and other classifying sciences, it is the chief guide and predominates absolutely. The law of motives (motivation) is the chief guide in History, Politics, Pragmatic Psychology, &c. &c., when we consider all motives and maxims, whatever they may be, as data for explaining actions—but when we make those motives and maxims the object-matter of investigation from the point of view of their value and origin, the law of motives becomes the guide to Ethics. In my chief work will be found the highest classification of the sciences according to this principle.[160]§ 52.Two principal Results.I have endeavoured in this treatise to show that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is a common expression for four completely different relations, each of which is founded upon a particular law givenà priori(the principle of sufficient reason being a syntheticalà prioriprinciple). Now, according to the principle ofhomogeneity, we are compelled to assume that these four laws, discovered according to the principle of specification, as they agree in being expressed by one and the same term, must necessarily spring from one and the same original quality of our whole cognitive faculty as their common root, which we should accordingly have to look upon as the innermost germ of all dependence, relativeness, instability and limitation of the objects of our consciousness—itself limited to Sensibility, Understanding, Reason, Subject and Object—or of that world, which the divine Plato repeatedly degrades to the ἀεὶ γιγνόμενον μὲνκαὶ ἀπολλύμενον, ὄντως δὲ οὐδέποτε ὄν (ever arising and perishing, but in fact never existing), the knowledge of which is merely a δόξα μετ' αἰσθήσεως ἀλόγου, and which Christendom, with a correct instinct, callstemporal, after that form of our principle (Time) which I have defined as its simplest schema and the prototype of all limitation. The general meaning of the Principle of Sufficient Reason may, in the main, be brought back to this: that every thing existing no matter when or where, existsby reason of something else. Now, the Principle of Sufficient Reason is neverthelessà prioriin all its forms: that is, it has its root in our intellect, therefore it must not be applied to the totality of existent things, the Universe, including that intellect in which it presents itself. For a world like this, which presents itself in virtue ofà prioriforms, is just on that account mere phenomenon; consequently that which holds good with reference to it as the result of these forms, cannot be applied to the world itself,i.e.to the thing in itself, representing itself in that world. Therefore we cannot say, "the world and all things in it exist by reason of something else;" and this proposition is precisely the Cosmological Proof.If, by the present treatise, I have succeeded in deducing the result just expressed, it seems to me that every speculative philosopher who founds a conclusion upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason or indeed talks of a reason at all, is bound to specify which kind of reason he means. One might suppose that wherever there was any question of a reason, this would be done as a matter of course, and that all confusion would thus be impossible. Only too often, however, do we still find either the terms reason and cause confounded in indiscriminate use; or do we hear basis and what is based, condition and what is conditioned,principiaandprincipiatatalked about in quite ageneralway without any nearer determination, perhaps because there is a secretconsciousness that these conceptions are being used in an unauthorized way. Thus even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as thereason[161]of the phenomenon, and also of agroundof thepossibilityof all phenomena,[162]of anintelligible causeof phenomena, of anunknown groundof the possibility of the sensuous series in general, of atranscendental object[163]as thegroundof all phenomena and of thereasonwhy our sensibility should have this rather than all other supreme conditions, and so on in several places. Now all this does not seem to me to tally with those weighty, profound, nay immortal words of his,[164]"the contingency[165]of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena."That since Kant the conceptions reason and consequence,principiumandprincipiatum, &c. &c., have been and still are used in a yet more indefinite and even quite transcendent sense, everyone must know who is acquainted with the more recent works on philosophy.The following is my objection against this promiscuous employment of the wordground(reason) and, with it, of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in general; it is likewise the second result, intimately connected with the first, which the present treatise gives concerning its subject-matter proper. The four laws of our cognitive faculty, of which the Principleof Sufficient Reason is the common expression, by their common character as well as by the fact that all Objects for the Subject are divided amongst them, proclaim themselves to be posited by one and the same primary quality and inner peculiarity of our knowing faculty, which faculty manifests itself as Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. Therefore, even if we imagined it to be possible for a new Fifth Class of Objects to come about, we should in that case likewise have to assume that the Principle of Sufficient Reason would appear in this class also under a different form. Notwithstanding all this, we still have no right to talk of anabsolute reason(ground), nor does areason in general, any more than atriangle in general, exist otherwise than as a conception derived by means of discursive reflection, nor is this conception, as a representation drawn from other representations, anything more than a means of thinking several things in one. Now, just as every triangle must be either acute-angled, right-angled, or obtuse-angled, and either equilateral, isosceles or scalene, so also must every reason belong to one or other of the four possible kinds of reasons I have pointed out. Moreover, since we have only four well-distinguished Classes of Objects, every reason must also belong to one or other of these four, and no further Class being possible, Reason itself is forced to rank it within them; for as soon as we employ a reason, we presuppose the Four Classes as well as the faculty of representing (i.e.the whole world), and must hold ourselves within these bounds, never transcending them. Should others, however, see this in a different light and opine that areason in generalis anything but a conception, derived from the four kinds of reasons, which expresses what they all have in common, we might revive the controversy of the Realists and Nominalists, and then I should side with the latter.
The order of succession in which I have stated the various forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in this treatise, is not systematic; it has been chosen for the sake of greater clearness, in order first to present what is better known and least presupposes the rest. In this I have followed Aristotle's rule: καὶ μαθήσεως οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου, καὶ τῆς τοῦ πράγματος ἀρχῆς ἐνίοτε ἀρκτέον, ἀλλ' ὅθεν ῥᾷστ' ἂν μάθοι (et doctrina non a primo, ac rei principio aliquando inchoanda est, sed unde quis facilius discat).[156]But the systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, nay, as being the prototype of all finitude. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediaterepresentations, whereas this last class refers to representations derived from other representations.
The truth expressed above, that Time is the simple schema which merely contains the essential part of all the forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, explains the absolutely perfect clearness and precision of Arithmetic, a point in which no other science can compete with it. For all sciences, being throughout combinations of reasons and consequences, are based upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now, the series of numbers is the simple and only series of reasons and consequences of Being in Time; on account of this perfect simplicity—nothing being omitted, no indefinite relations left—this series leaves nothing to be desired as regards accuracy, apodeictic certainty and clearness. All the other sciences yield precedence in this respect to Arithmetic; even Geometry: because so many relations arise out of the three dimensions of Space, that a comprehensive synopsis of them becomes too difficult, not only for pure, but even for empirical intuition; complicated geometrical problems are therefore only solved by calculation; that is, Geometry is quick to resolve itself into Arithmetic. It is not necessary to point out the existence of sundry elements of obscurity in the other sciences.
According to the laws of causality and of motivation, a reason must precede its consequence in Time. That this is absolutely essential, I have shown in my chief work, to which I here refer my readers[157]in order to avoid repeating myself. Therefore, if we only bear in mind that it is not one thing which is the cause of another thing, but one state which is the cause of another state, we shall notallow ourselves to be misled by examples like that given by Kant,[158]that the stove, which is the cause of the warmth of the room, is simultaneous with its effect. The state of the stove: that is, its being warmer than its surrounding medium, must precede the communication of its surplus caloric to that medium; now, as each layer of air on becoming warm makes way for a cooler layer rushing in, the first state, the cause, and consequently also the second, the effect, are renewed until at last the temperature of stove and room become equalized. Here therefore we have no permanent cause (the stove) and permanent effect (the warmth of the room) as simultaneous things, but a chain of changes; that is, a constant renewing of two states, one of which is the effect of the other. From this example, however, it is obvious that even Kant's conception of Causality was far from clear.
On the other hand, the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing conveys with it no relation in Time, but merely a relation for our Reason: here therefore,beforeandafterhave no meaning.
In the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being, so far as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in Time, but only a relation in Space, of which we might say that all things were co-existent, if here the words co-existence and succession had any meaning. In Arithmetic, on the contrary, the Reason of Being is nothing else but precisely the relation of Time itself.
Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, asindeed every hypothetical judgment is ultimately based upon that principle, and here the laws of hypothetical conclusions always hold good: that is to say, it is right to infer the existence of the consequence from the existence of the reason, and the non-existence of the reason from the non-existence of the consequence; but it is wrong to infer the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason, and the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence. Now it is singular that in Geometry we are nevertheless nearly always able to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, and the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason. This proceeds, as I have shown in § 37, from the fact that, as each line determines the position of the rest, it is quite indifferent which we begin at: that is, which we consider as the reason, and which as the consequence. We may easily convince ourselves of this by going through the whole of the geometrical theorems. It is only where we have to do not only with figures,i.e., with the positions of lines, but with planes independently of figures, that we find it in most cases impossible to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, or, in other words, to convert the propositions by making the condition the conditioned. The following theorem gives an instance of this: Triangles whose lengths and bases are equal, include equal areas. This cannot be converted as follows: Triangles whose areas are equal, have likewise equal bases and lengths; for the lengths may stand in inverse proportion to the bases.
In § 20 it has already been shown, that the law of causality does not admit of reciprocity, since the effect never can be the cause of its cause; therefore the conception of reciprocity is, in its right sense, inadmissible. Reciprocity, according to the Principle of Sufficient Reasonof knowing, would only be possible between equivalent conceptions, since the spheres of these alone cover each other mutually. Apart from these, it only gives rise to a vicious circle.
The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. Fornecessityhas no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity isconditioned: absolute,i.e., unconditioned, necessity therefore is acontradicto in adjecto. Forto be necessarycan never mean anything but to result from a given reason. By defining it as "what cannot not be," on the other hand, we give a mere verbal definition, and screen ourselves behind an extremely abstract conception to avoid giving a definition of the thing. But it is not difficult to drive us from this refuge by inquiring how the non-existence of anything can be possible or even conceivable, since all existence is only given empirically. It then comes out, that it is only possible so far as somereasonor other is posited or present, from which it follows. To be necessary and to follow from a given reason, are thus convertible conceptions, and may always, as such, be substituted one for the other. The conception of an "ABSOLUTELYnecessary Being" which finds so much favour with pseudo-philosophers, contains therefore a contradiction: it annuls by the predicate "absolute" (i.e., "unconditioned by anything else") the only determination which makes the "necessary" conceivable. Here again we have an instance of theimproper use of abstract conceptionsto play off a metaphysical artifice such as those I have already pointed out in the conceptions "immaterial substance," "cause in general," "absolute reason,"&c. &c.[159]I can never insist too much upon all abstract conceptions being checked byperception.
There exists accordingly afourfoldnecessity, in conformity with thefourforms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason:—
1o.Logical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, in virtue of which, when once we have admitted the premisses, we must absolutely admit the conclusion.
2o.Physical necessity, according to the law of causality, in virtue of which, as soon as the cause presents itself, the effect must infallibly follow.
3o.Mathematical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of being, in virtue of which, every relation which is stated in a true geometrical theorem, is as that theorem affirms it to be, and every correct calculation remains irrefutable.
4o.Moral necessity, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, iscompelled, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many greatthinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others.
According to the law of causality, the condition is itself always conditioned, and, moreover, conditioned in the same way; therefore, there arises a seriesin infinitum a parte ante. It is just the same with the Reason of Being in Space: each relative space is a figure; it has its limits, by which it is connected with another relative space, and which themselves condition the figure of this other, and so on throughout all dimensionsin infinitum. But when we examine a single figure in itself, the series of reasons of being has an end, because we start from a given relation, just as the series of causes comes to an end if we stop at pleasure at any particular cause. In Time, the series of reasons of being has infinite extension botha parte ante, anda parte post, since each moment is conditioned by a preceding one, and necessarily gives rise to the following. Time has therefore neither beginning nor end. On the other hand, the series of reasons of knowledge—that is, a series of judgments, each of which gives logical truth to the other—always ends somewhere,i.e., either in an empirical, a transcendental, or a metalogical truth. If the reason of the major to which we have been led is an empirical truth, and we still continue askingwhy, it is no longer a reason of knowledge that is asked for, but a cause—in other words, the series of reasons of knowing passes over into the series of reasons of becoming. But if we do the contrary, that is, if we allow the series of reasons of becoming to pass over into the series of reasons of knowing, in order to bring it to an end, this is never broughtabout by the nature of the thing, but always by a special purpose: it is therefore a trick, and this is the sophism known by the name of the Ontological Proof. For when a cause, at which it seems desirable to stop short in order to make it thefirstcause, has been reached by means of the Cosmological Proof, we find out that the law of causality is not so easily brought to a standstill, and still persists in askingwhy: so it is simply set aside and the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, which from a distance resembles it, is substituted in its stead; and thus a reason of knowledge is given in the place of the cause which had been asked for—a reason of knowledge derived from the conception itself which has to be demonstrated, the reality of which is therefore still problematical: and this reason, as after all it is one, now has to figure as a cause. Of course the conception itself has been previously arranged for this purpose, and reality slightly covered with a few husks just for decency's sake has been placed within it, so as to give the delightful surprise of finding it there—as has been shown in Section 7. On the other hand, if a chain of judgments ultimately rests upon a principle of transcendental or of metalogical truth, and we still continue to askwhy, we receive no answer at all, because the question has no meaning,i.e., it does not know what kind of reason it is asking for.
For the Principle of Sufficient Reason is theprinciple of all explanation: to explain a thingmeans, to reduce its given existence or connection to some form or other of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, in accordance with which form that existence or connection necessarily is that which it is. The Principle of Sufficient Reason itself,i.e., the connection expressed by it in any of its forms, cannot therefore be further explained; because there exists no principle by which to explain the source of all explanation: just as the eye is unable to see itself, though it sees everythingelse. There are of course series of motives, since the resolve to attain an end becomes the motive for the resolve to use a whole series of means; still this series invariably endsà parte prioriin a representation belonging to one of our two first classes, in which lies the motive which originally had the power to set this individual will in motion. The fact that it was able to do this, is a datum for knowing the empirical character here given, but it is impossible to answer the question why that particular motive acts upon that particular character; because the intelligible character lies outside Time and never becomes an Object. Therefore the series of motives, as such, finds its termination in some such final motive and, according to the nature of its last link, passes into the series of causes, or that of reasons of knowledge: that is to say, into the former, when that last link is a real object; into the latter, when it is a mere conception.
As the questionwhyalways demands a sufficient reason, and as it is the connection of its notions according to the principle of sufficient reason which distinguishes science from a mere aggregate of notions, we have called thatwhythe parent of all science (§ 4). In each science, moreover, we find one of the forms of that principle predominating over the others as its guiding-thread. Thus in pure Mathematics the reason of being is the chief guiding-thread (although the exposition of the proofs proceeds according to the reason of knowing only); in applied Mathematics the law of causality appears together with it, but in Physics, Chemistry, Geology, &c., that law entirely predominates. The principle of sufficientreason in knowing finds vigorous application throughout all the sciences, for in all of them the particular is known through the general; but in Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, and other classifying sciences, it is the chief guide and predominates absolutely. The law of motives (motivation) is the chief guide in History, Politics, Pragmatic Psychology, &c. &c., when we consider all motives and maxims, whatever they may be, as data for explaining actions—but when we make those motives and maxims the object-matter of investigation from the point of view of their value and origin, the law of motives becomes the guide to Ethics. In my chief work will be found the highest classification of the sciences according to this principle.[160]
I have endeavoured in this treatise to show that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is a common expression for four completely different relations, each of which is founded upon a particular law givenà priori(the principle of sufficient reason being a syntheticalà prioriprinciple). Now, according to the principle ofhomogeneity, we are compelled to assume that these four laws, discovered according to the principle of specification, as they agree in being expressed by one and the same term, must necessarily spring from one and the same original quality of our whole cognitive faculty as their common root, which we should accordingly have to look upon as the innermost germ of all dependence, relativeness, instability and limitation of the objects of our consciousness—itself limited to Sensibility, Understanding, Reason, Subject and Object—or of that world, which the divine Plato repeatedly degrades to the ἀεὶ γιγνόμενον μὲνκαὶ ἀπολλύμενον, ὄντως δὲ οὐδέποτε ὄν (ever arising and perishing, but in fact never existing), the knowledge of which is merely a δόξα μετ' αἰσθήσεως ἀλόγου, and which Christendom, with a correct instinct, callstemporal, after that form of our principle (Time) which I have defined as its simplest schema and the prototype of all limitation. The general meaning of the Principle of Sufficient Reason may, in the main, be brought back to this: that every thing existing no matter when or where, existsby reason of something else. Now, the Principle of Sufficient Reason is neverthelessà prioriin all its forms: that is, it has its root in our intellect, therefore it must not be applied to the totality of existent things, the Universe, including that intellect in which it presents itself. For a world like this, which presents itself in virtue ofà prioriforms, is just on that account mere phenomenon; consequently that which holds good with reference to it as the result of these forms, cannot be applied to the world itself,i.e.to the thing in itself, representing itself in that world. Therefore we cannot say, "the world and all things in it exist by reason of something else;" and this proposition is precisely the Cosmological Proof.
If, by the present treatise, I have succeeded in deducing the result just expressed, it seems to me that every speculative philosopher who founds a conclusion upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason or indeed talks of a reason at all, is bound to specify which kind of reason he means. One might suppose that wherever there was any question of a reason, this would be done as a matter of course, and that all confusion would thus be impossible. Only too often, however, do we still find either the terms reason and cause confounded in indiscriminate use; or do we hear basis and what is based, condition and what is conditioned,principiaandprincipiatatalked about in quite ageneralway without any nearer determination, perhaps because there is a secretconsciousness that these conceptions are being used in an unauthorized way. Thus even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as thereason[161]of the phenomenon, and also of agroundof thepossibilityof all phenomena,[162]of anintelligible causeof phenomena, of anunknown groundof the possibility of the sensuous series in general, of atranscendental object[163]as thegroundof all phenomena and of thereasonwhy our sensibility should have this rather than all other supreme conditions, and so on in several places. Now all this does not seem to me to tally with those weighty, profound, nay immortal words of his,[164]"the contingency[165]of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena."
That since Kant the conceptions reason and consequence,principiumandprincipiatum, &c. &c., have been and still are used in a yet more indefinite and even quite transcendent sense, everyone must know who is acquainted with the more recent works on philosophy.
The following is my objection against this promiscuous employment of the wordground(reason) and, with it, of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in general; it is likewise the second result, intimately connected with the first, which the present treatise gives concerning its subject-matter proper. The four laws of our cognitive faculty, of which the Principleof Sufficient Reason is the common expression, by their common character as well as by the fact that all Objects for the Subject are divided amongst them, proclaim themselves to be posited by one and the same primary quality and inner peculiarity of our knowing faculty, which faculty manifests itself as Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. Therefore, even if we imagined it to be possible for a new Fifth Class of Objects to come about, we should in that case likewise have to assume that the Principle of Sufficient Reason would appear in this class also under a different form. Notwithstanding all this, we still have no right to talk of anabsolute reason(ground), nor does areason in general, any more than atriangle in general, exist otherwise than as a conception derived by means of discursive reflection, nor is this conception, as a representation drawn from other representations, anything more than a means of thinking several things in one. Now, just as every triangle must be either acute-angled, right-angled, or obtuse-angled, and either equilateral, isosceles or scalene, so also must every reason belong to one or other of the four possible kinds of reasons I have pointed out. Moreover, since we have only four well-distinguished Classes of Objects, every reason must also belong to one or other of these four, and no further Class being possible, Reason itself is forced to rank it within them; for as soon as we employ a reason, we presuppose the Four Classes as well as the faculty of representing (i.e.the whole world), and must hold ourselves within these bounds, never transcending them. Should others, however, see this in a different light and opine that areason in generalis anything but a conception, derived from the four kinds of reasons, which expresses what they all have in common, we might revive the controversy of the Realists and Nominalists, and then I should side with the latter.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE CORROBORATIONS RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR'S PHILOSOPHYSINCE ITS FIRST APPEARANCEFROM THE EMPIRICAL SCIENCES.
BY
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
Translated from the Fourth Edition published byJulius Frauenstädt.
Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου,Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν·Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος.Æsch.
Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου,Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν·Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος.Æsch.
Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου,Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν·Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος.Æsch.
Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου,
Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν·
Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος.
Æsch.