Elsewhere Kant asserts, that a representation only shows reality (which, I conclude, means that it is distinguished from a mere mental image) by our recognising its necessary connection with other representations subject to rule (the causal law) and its place in a determined order of the time-relations of our representations. But of how few representations are we able to know the place assigned to them by the law of causality in the chain of causes and effects! Yet we are never embarrassed to distinguish objective from subjective representations: real, from imaginary objects. When asleep, we are unable to make this distinction, for our brain is then isolated from the peripherical nervous system, and thereby from external influences. In our dreams therefore, we take imaginary forreal things, and it is only when we awaken: that is, when our nervous sensibility, and through this the outer world, once more comes within our consciousness, that we become aware of our mistake; still, even in our dreams, so long as they last, the causal law holds good, only an impossible material is often substituted for the usual one. We might almost think that Kant was influenced by Leibnitz in writing the passage we have quoted, however much he differs from him in all the rest of his philosophy; especially if we consider that Leibnitz expresses precisely similar views, when, for instance, he says: "La vérité des choses sensibles ne consiste que dans la liaison des phénomènes, qui doit avoir sa raison, et c'est ce qui les distingue des songes. —— Le vrai Critérion, en matière des objets des sens, est la liaison des phénomènes, qui garantit les vérités de fait, à l'egard des choses sensibles hors de nous."[101]It is clear that in proving theà priorityand the necessity of the causal law by the fact that the objective succession of changes is known to us only by means of that law, and that, in so far, causality is a condition for all experience, Kant fell into a very singular error, and one which is indeed so palpable, that the only way we can account for it is, by supposing him to have become so absorbed in theà prioripart of our knowledge, that he lost sight of what would have been evident to anyone else. The only correct demonstration of theà priorityof the causal law is given by me in § 21 of the present work. Thatà priorityfinds its confirmation every moment in the infallible security with which we expect experience to tally with the causal law: that is to say, in the apodeictic certainty we ascribe to it, a certainty which differs from every other founded on induction—the certainty, for instance,of empirically known laws of Nature—in that we can conceive no exception to the causal law anywhere within the world of experience. We can, for instance,conceivethat in an exceptional case the law of gravitation might cease to act, but not that this could happen without a cause.Kant and Hume have fallen into opposite errors in their proofs. Hume asserts that allconsequenceis meresequence; whereas Kant affirms that allsequencemust necessarily beconsequence. Pure Understanding, it is true, can only conceiveconsequence(causal result), and is no more able to conceive meresequencethan to conceive the difference between right and left, which, like sequence, is only to be grasped by means of pure Sensibility. Empirical knowledge of the following of events in Time is, indeed, just as possible as empirical knowledge of juxtaposition of things in Space (this Kant denies elsewhere), butthe way in whichthings followuponone another in general in Time can no more be explained, than the way in which one thing followsfromanother (as the effect of a cause): the former knowledge is given and conditioned by pure Sensibility; the latter, by pure Understanding. But in asserting that knowledge of the objective succession of phenomena can only be attained by means of the causal law, Kant commits the same error with which he reproaches Leibnitz:[102]that of "intellectualising the forms of Sensibility."—My view of succession is the following one. We derive our knowledge of the barepossibilityof succession from the form of Time, which belongs to pure Sensibility. The succession of real objects, whose form is precisely Time, we know empirically, consequently asactual. But it is through the Understanding alone, by means of Causality, that we gain knowledge of thenecessityof a succession oftwo states: that is, of a change; and even the fact that we are able to conceive the necessity of a succession at all, proves already that the causal law is not known to us empirically, but given usà priori. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the general expression for the fundamental form of the necessary connection between all our objects,i.e.representations, which lies in the innermost depths of our cognitive faculty: it is the form common to all representations, and the only source of the conception ofnecessity, which contains absolutely nothing else in it and no other import, than that of the following of the consequence, when its reason has been established. Now, the reason why this principle determines the order of succession in Time in the class of representations we are now investigating, in which it figures as the law of causality, is, that Time is the form of these representations, therefore the necessary connection appears here as the rule of succession. In other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the necessary connection it always demands will appear under quite different forms from that of Time, therefore not as succession; still it always retains the character of a necessary connection, by which the identity of the principle under all its forms, or rather the unity of the root of all the laws of which that principle is the common expression, reveals itself.If Kant's assertion were correct, which I dispute, our only way of knowing the reality of succession would be through its necessity; but this would presuppose an Understanding that embraced all the series of causes and effects at once, consequently an omniscient Understanding. Kant has burdened the Understanding with an impossibility, merely in order to have less need of Sensibility.How can we reconcile Kant's assertion that our only means of knowing the objective reality of succession is bythe necessity with which effect follows cause, with his other assertion[103]that succession in Time is our only empirical criterion for determining which of two states is cause, and which effect. Who does not see the most obvious circle here?If we knew objectiveness of succession through Causality, we should never be able to think it otherwise than as Causality, and then it would be nothing else than Causality. For, if it were anything else, it would have other distinctive signs by which to be recognised; now this is just what Kant denies. Accordingly, if Kant were right, we could not say: "This state is the effect of that one, wherefore it follows it;" for following and being an effect, would be one and the same thing, and this proposition a tautology. Besides, if we do away with all distinction between followinguponand followingfrom, we once more yield the point to Hume, who declared all consequence to be mere sequence and therefore denied that distinction likewise.Kant's proof would, consequently, be reduced to this: that, empirically, we only knowactualityof succession; but as besides we recognisenecessityof succession in certain series of occurrences, and even know before all experience that every possible occurrence must have a fixed place in some one of these series, the reality and theà priorityof the causal law follow as a matter of course, the only correct proof of the latter being the one I have given in § 21 of this work.Parallel with the Kantian theory: that the causal nexus alone renders objective succession and our knowledge of it possible, there runs another: that coexistence and our knowledge of it are only possible through reciprocity. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" they are presented underthe title: "Third Analogy of Experience." Here Kant goes so far as to say that "the co-existence of phenomena, which exercise no reciprocal action on one another, but are separated by a perfectly empty space, could never become an object of possible perception"[104](which, by the way, would be a proofà priorithat there is no empty space between the fixed stars), and that "the light whichplays betweenour eyes and celestial bodies"—an expression conveying surreptitiously the thought, that this starlight not only acts upon our eyes, but is acted upon by them also—"produces an intercommunity between us and them, and proves the co-existence of the latter." Now, even empirically, this last assertion is false; since the sight of a fixed star by no means proves its coexistence simultaneously with its spectator, but, at most, its existence some years, nay even some centuries before. Besides, this second Kantian theory stands and falls with the first, only it is far more easily detected; and the nullity of the whole conception of reciprocity has been shown in § 20.The arguments I have brought forward against Kant's proof may be compared with two previous attacks made on it by Feder,[105]and by G. E. Schulze.[106]Not without considerable hesitation did I thus venture (in 1813) to attack a theory which had been universally received as a demonstrated truth, is repeated even now in the latest publications,[107]and forms a chief point in the doctrine of one for whose profound wisdom I have the greatest reverence and admiration; one to whom, indeed, I owe somuch, that his spirit might truly say to me, in the words of Homer:Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]§ 24.Of the Misapplication of the Law of Causality.From the foregoing exposition it follows, that the application of the causal law to anything butchangesin the material, empirically given world, is an abuse of it. For instance, it is a misapplication to make use of it with reference to physical forces, without which no changes could take place; or to Matter,onwhich they take place; or to the world, to which we must in that case attribute an absolutely objective existence independently of our intellect; indeed in many other cases besides. I refer the reader to what I have said on this subject in my chief work.[109]Such misapplications always arise, partly, through our taking the conception of cause, like many other metaphysical and ethical conceptions, in fartoo widea sense; partly, through our forgetting that the causal law is certainly a presupposition which we bring with us into the world, by which the perception of things outside us becomes possible; but that, just on that account, we are not authorized in extending beyond the range and independently of our cognitive faculty a principle, which has its origin in the equipment of that faculty, nor in assuming it to hold good as the everlasting order of the universe and of all that exists.§ 25.The Time in which a Change takes place.As the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming is exclusively applicable tochanges, we must not omit to mention here, that the ancient philosophers had already raised the question as to the time in which a change takes place, there being no possibility of it taking place during the existence of the preceding state nor after the new one has supervened. Yet, if we assign a special time to it between both states, a body would, during this time, be neither in the first nor in the second state: a dying man, for instance, would be neither alive nor dead; a body neither at rest nor in movement: which would be absurd. The scruples and sophistic subtleties which this question has evoked, may be found collected together in Sextus Empiricus "Adv. Mathem." lib. ix. 267-271, and "Hypat." iii. c. 14; the subject is likewise dealt with by Gellius, l. vi. c. 13—Plato[110]had disposed somewhat cavalierly of this knotty point, by maintaining that changes take placesuddenlyand occupyno time at all; they occur, he says, in the ἐξαίφνης (in repentino), which he calls an ἄτοπος φύσις, ἐν χρόνῳ οὐδὲν οὖσα; a strange, timeless existence (which nevertheless comes within Time).It was accordingly reserved for the perspicacity of Aristotle to clear up this difficult point, which he has done profoundly and exhaustively in the sixth Book of Physics, chap. i.-viii. His proof that no change takes place suddenly (in Plato's ἐξαίφνης), but that each occurs only gradually and therefore occupies a certain time, is based entirely upon the pure,à prioriintuition of Time and of Space; but it is also very subtle. The pith of this very lengthy demonstration may, however, be reduced to the following propositions. When we say of objects that theylimit each other, we mean, that both have their extreme ends in common; therefore only two extended things can be conterminous, never two indivisible ones, for then they would beone—i.e.only lines, but not mere points, can be conterminous. He then transfers this from Space to Time. As there always remains a line between two points, so there always remains a time between twonows; this is the time in which a change takes place—i.e.whenonestate is in the first, andanotherin the second,now. This time, like every other, is divisible to infinity; consequently, whatever is changing passes through an infinite number of degrees within that time, through which the second state gradually grows out of thatfirstone.—The process may perhaps be made more intelligible by the following explanation. Between two consecutive states the difference of which is perceptible to our senses, there are always several intermediate states, the difference between which is not perceptible to us; because, in order to be sensuously perceptible, the newly arising state must have reached a certain degree of intensity or of magnitude: it is therefore preceded by degrees of lesser intensity or extension, in passing through which it gradually arises. Taken collectively, these are comprised under the name ofchange, and the time occupied by them is calledthe time of change. Now, if we apply this to a body being propelled, the first effect is a certain vibration of its inner parts, which, after communicating the impulse to other parts, breaks out into external motion.—Aristotle infers quite rightly from the infinite divisibility of Time, that everything which fills it, therefore every change,i.e.every passage from one state to another, must likewise be susceptible of endless subdivision, so that all that arises, does so in fact by the concourse of an infinite multitude of parts; accordingly its genesis is always gradual, never sudden. From these principles and the consequent gradual arising of each movement, hedraws the weighty inference in the last chapter of this Book, that nothing indivisible, no merepointcan move. And with this conclusion Kant's definition of Matter, as "that which moves in Space," completely harmonizes.This law of the continuity and gradual taking place of all changes which Aristotle was thus the first to lay down and prove, we find stated three times by Kant: in his "Dissertatio de mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma," § 14, in the "Critique of Pure Reason,"[111]and finally in his "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science."[112]In all three places his exposition is brief, but also less thorough than that of Aristotle; still, in the main, both entirely agree. We can therefore hardly doubt that, directly or indirectly, Kant must have derived these ideas from Aristotle, though he does not mention him. Aristotle's proposition—οὐκ ἔστι ἀλλήλων ἐχόμενα τὰ νῦν ("the moments of the present are not continuous")—we here find expressed as follows: "between two moments there is always a time," to which may be objected that "even between two centuries there is none; because in Time as in Space, there must always be a pure limit."—Thus Kant, instead of mentioning Aristotle, endeavours in the first and earliest of his three statements to identify the theory he is advancing with Leibnitz'lex continuitatis. If they really were the same, Leibnitz must have derived his from Aristotle. Now Leibnitz[113]first stated thisLoi de la continuitéin a letter to Bayle.[114]There, however, he calls itPrincipe de l'ordre général, and gives under this name a very general, vague, chiefly geometrical argumentation, having no direct bearing on the time of change, which he does not even mention.
Elsewhere Kant asserts, that a representation only shows reality (which, I conclude, means that it is distinguished from a mere mental image) by our recognising its necessary connection with other representations subject to rule (the causal law) and its place in a determined order of the time-relations of our representations. But of how few representations are we able to know the place assigned to them by the law of causality in the chain of causes and effects! Yet we are never embarrassed to distinguish objective from subjective representations: real, from imaginary objects. When asleep, we are unable to make this distinction, for our brain is then isolated from the peripherical nervous system, and thereby from external influences. In our dreams therefore, we take imaginary forreal things, and it is only when we awaken: that is, when our nervous sensibility, and through this the outer world, once more comes within our consciousness, that we become aware of our mistake; still, even in our dreams, so long as they last, the causal law holds good, only an impossible material is often substituted for the usual one. We might almost think that Kant was influenced by Leibnitz in writing the passage we have quoted, however much he differs from him in all the rest of his philosophy; especially if we consider that Leibnitz expresses precisely similar views, when, for instance, he says: "La vérité des choses sensibles ne consiste que dans la liaison des phénomènes, qui doit avoir sa raison, et c'est ce qui les distingue des songes. —— Le vrai Critérion, en matière des objets des sens, est la liaison des phénomènes, qui garantit les vérités de fait, à l'egard des choses sensibles hors de nous."[101]
It is clear that in proving theà priorityand the necessity of the causal law by the fact that the objective succession of changes is known to us only by means of that law, and that, in so far, causality is a condition for all experience, Kant fell into a very singular error, and one which is indeed so palpable, that the only way we can account for it is, by supposing him to have become so absorbed in theà prioripart of our knowledge, that he lost sight of what would have been evident to anyone else. The only correct demonstration of theà priorityof the causal law is given by me in § 21 of the present work. Thatà priorityfinds its confirmation every moment in the infallible security with which we expect experience to tally with the causal law: that is to say, in the apodeictic certainty we ascribe to it, a certainty which differs from every other founded on induction—the certainty, for instance,of empirically known laws of Nature—in that we can conceive no exception to the causal law anywhere within the world of experience. We can, for instance,conceivethat in an exceptional case the law of gravitation might cease to act, but not that this could happen without a cause.
Kant and Hume have fallen into opposite errors in their proofs. Hume asserts that allconsequenceis meresequence; whereas Kant affirms that allsequencemust necessarily beconsequence. Pure Understanding, it is true, can only conceiveconsequence(causal result), and is no more able to conceive meresequencethan to conceive the difference between right and left, which, like sequence, is only to be grasped by means of pure Sensibility. Empirical knowledge of the following of events in Time is, indeed, just as possible as empirical knowledge of juxtaposition of things in Space (this Kant denies elsewhere), butthe way in whichthings followuponone another in general in Time can no more be explained, than the way in which one thing followsfromanother (as the effect of a cause): the former knowledge is given and conditioned by pure Sensibility; the latter, by pure Understanding. But in asserting that knowledge of the objective succession of phenomena can only be attained by means of the causal law, Kant commits the same error with which he reproaches Leibnitz:[102]that of "intellectualising the forms of Sensibility."—My view of succession is the following one. We derive our knowledge of the barepossibilityof succession from the form of Time, which belongs to pure Sensibility. The succession of real objects, whose form is precisely Time, we know empirically, consequently asactual. But it is through the Understanding alone, by means of Causality, that we gain knowledge of thenecessityof a succession oftwo states: that is, of a change; and even the fact that we are able to conceive the necessity of a succession at all, proves already that the causal law is not known to us empirically, but given usà priori. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the general expression for the fundamental form of the necessary connection between all our objects,i.e.representations, which lies in the innermost depths of our cognitive faculty: it is the form common to all representations, and the only source of the conception ofnecessity, which contains absolutely nothing else in it and no other import, than that of the following of the consequence, when its reason has been established. Now, the reason why this principle determines the order of succession in Time in the class of representations we are now investigating, in which it figures as the law of causality, is, that Time is the form of these representations, therefore the necessary connection appears here as the rule of succession. In other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the necessary connection it always demands will appear under quite different forms from that of Time, therefore not as succession; still it always retains the character of a necessary connection, by which the identity of the principle under all its forms, or rather the unity of the root of all the laws of which that principle is the common expression, reveals itself.
If Kant's assertion were correct, which I dispute, our only way of knowing the reality of succession would be through its necessity; but this would presuppose an Understanding that embraced all the series of causes and effects at once, consequently an omniscient Understanding. Kant has burdened the Understanding with an impossibility, merely in order to have less need of Sensibility.
How can we reconcile Kant's assertion that our only means of knowing the objective reality of succession is bythe necessity with which effect follows cause, with his other assertion[103]that succession in Time is our only empirical criterion for determining which of two states is cause, and which effect. Who does not see the most obvious circle here?
If we knew objectiveness of succession through Causality, we should never be able to think it otherwise than as Causality, and then it would be nothing else than Causality. For, if it were anything else, it would have other distinctive signs by which to be recognised; now this is just what Kant denies. Accordingly, if Kant were right, we could not say: "This state is the effect of that one, wherefore it follows it;" for following and being an effect, would be one and the same thing, and this proposition a tautology. Besides, if we do away with all distinction between followinguponand followingfrom, we once more yield the point to Hume, who declared all consequence to be mere sequence and therefore denied that distinction likewise.
Kant's proof would, consequently, be reduced to this: that, empirically, we only knowactualityof succession; but as besides we recognisenecessityof succession in certain series of occurrences, and even know before all experience that every possible occurrence must have a fixed place in some one of these series, the reality and theà priorityof the causal law follow as a matter of course, the only correct proof of the latter being the one I have given in § 21 of this work.
Parallel with the Kantian theory: that the causal nexus alone renders objective succession and our knowledge of it possible, there runs another: that coexistence and our knowledge of it are only possible through reciprocity. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" they are presented underthe title: "Third Analogy of Experience." Here Kant goes so far as to say that "the co-existence of phenomena, which exercise no reciprocal action on one another, but are separated by a perfectly empty space, could never become an object of possible perception"[104](which, by the way, would be a proofà priorithat there is no empty space between the fixed stars), and that "the light whichplays betweenour eyes and celestial bodies"—an expression conveying surreptitiously the thought, that this starlight not only acts upon our eyes, but is acted upon by them also—"produces an intercommunity between us and them, and proves the co-existence of the latter." Now, even empirically, this last assertion is false; since the sight of a fixed star by no means proves its coexistence simultaneously with its spectator, but, at most, its existence some years, nay even some centuries before. Besides, this second Kantian theory stands and falls with the first, only it is far more easily detected; and the nullity of the whole conception of reciprocity has been shown in § 20.
The arguments I have brought forward against Kant's proof may be compared with two previous attacks made on it by Feder,[105]and by G. E. Schulze.[106]
Not without considerable hesitation did I thus venture (in 1813) to attack a theory which had been universally received as a demonstrated truth, is repeated even now in the latest publications,[107]and forms a chief point in the doctrine of one for whose profound wisdom I have the greatest reverence and admiration; one to whom, indeed, I owe somuch, that his spirit might truly say to me, in the words of Homer:
Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]
Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]
Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]
Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]
From the foregoing exposition it follows, that the application of the causal law to anything butchangesin the material, empirically given world, is an abuse of it. For instance, it is a misapplication to make use of it with reference to physical forces, without which no changes could take place; or to Matter,onwhich they take place; or to the world, to which we must in that case attribute an absolutely objective existence independently of our intellect; indeed in many other cases besides. I refer the reader to what I have said on this subject in my chief work.[109]Such misapplications always arise, partly, through our taking the conception of cause, like many other metaphysical and ethical conceptions, in fartoo widea sense; partly, through our forgetting that the causal law is certainly a presupposition which we bring with us into the world, by which the perception of things outside us becomes possible; but that, just on that account, we are not authorized in extending beyond the range and independently of our cognitive faculty a principle, which has its origin in the equipment of that faculty, nor in assuming it to hold good as the everlasting order of the universe and of all that exists.
As the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming is exclusively applicable tochanges, we must not omit to mention here, that the ancient philosophers had already raised the question as to the time in which a change takes place, there being no possibility of it taking place during the existence of the preceding state nor after the new one has supervened. Yet, if we assign a special time to it between both states, a body would, during this time, be neither in the first nor in the second state: a dying man, for instance, would be neither alive nor dead; a body neither at rest nor in movement: which would be absurd. The scruples and sophistic subtleties which this question has evoked, may be found collected together in Sextus Empiricus "Adv. Mathem." lib. ix. 267-271, and "Hypat." iii. c. 14; the subject is likewise dealt with by Gellius, l. vi. c. 13—Plato[110]had disposed somewhat cavalierly of this knotty point, by maintaining that changes take placesuddenlyand occupyno time at all; they occur, he says, in the ἐξαίφνης (in repentino), which he calls an ἄτοπος φύσις, ἐν χρόνῳ οὐδὲν οὖσα; a strange, timeless existence (which nevertheless comes within Time).
It was accordingly reserved for the perspicacity of Aristotle to clear up this difficult point, which he has done profoundly and exhaustively in the sixth Book of Physics, chap. i.-viii. His proof that no change takes place suddenly (in Plato's ἐξαίφνης), but that each occurs only gradually and therefore occupies a certain time, is based entirely upon the pure,à prioriintuition of Time and of Space; but it is also very subtle. The pith of this very lengthy demonstration may, however, be reduced to the following propositions. When we say of objects that theylimit each other, we mean, that both have their extreme ends in common; therefore only two extended things can be conterminous, never two indivisible ones, for then they would beone—i.e.only lines, but not mere points, can be conterminous. He then transfers this from Space to Time. As there always remains a line between two points, so there always remains a time between twonows; this is the time in which a change takes place—i.e.whenonestate is in the first, andanotherin the second,now. This time, like every other, is divisible to infinity; consequently, whatever is changing passes through an infinite number of degrees within that time, through which the second state gradually grows out of thatfirstone.—The process may perhaps be made more intelligible by the following explanation. Between two consecutive states the difference of which is perceptible to our senses, there are always several intermediate states, the difference between which is not perceptible to us; because, in order to be sensuously perceptible, the newly arising state must have reached a certain degree of intensity or of magnitude: it is therefore preceded by degrees of lesser intensity or extension, in passing through which it gradually arises. Taken collectively, these are comprised under the name ofchange, and the time occupied by them is calledthe time of change. Now, if we apply this to a body being propelled, the first effect is a certain vibration of its inner parts, which, after communicating the impulse to other parts, breaks out into external motion.—Aristotle infers quite rightly from the infinite divisibility of Time, that everything which fills it, therefore every change,i.e.every passage from one state to another, must likewise be susceptible of endless subdivision, so that all that arises, does so in fact by the concourse of an infinite multitude of parts; accordingly its genesis is always gradual, never sudden. From these principles and the consequent gradual arising of each movement, hedraws the weighty inference in the last chapter of this Book, that nothing indivisible, no merepointcan move. And with this conclusion Kant's definition of Matter, as "that which moves in Space," completely harmonizes.
This law of the continuity and gradual taking place of all changes which Aristotle was thus the first to lay down and prove, we find stated three times by Kant: in his "Dissertatio de mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma," § 14, in the "Critique of Pure Reason,"[111]and finally in his "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science."[112]In all three places his exposition is brief, but also less thorough than that of Aristotle; still, in the main, both entirely agree. We can therefore hardly doubt that, directly or indirectly, Kant must have derived these ideas from Aristotle, though he does not mention him. Aristotle's proposition—οὐκ ἔστι ἀλλήλων ἐχόμενα τὰ νῦν ("the moments of the present are not continuous")—we here find expressed as follows: "between two moments there is always a time," to which may be objected that "even between two centuries there is none; because in Time as in Space, there must always be a pure limit."—Thus Kant, instead of mentioning Aristotle, endeavours in the first and earliest of his three statements to identify the theory he is advancing with Leibnitz'lex continuitatis. If they really were the same, Leibnitz must have derived his from Aristotle. Now Leibnitz[113]first stated thisLoi de la continuitéin a letter to Bayle.[114]There, however, he calls itPrincipe de l'ordre général, and gives under this name a very general, vague, chiefly geometrical argumentation, having no direct bearing on the time of change, which he does not even mention.