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supposing that this state contains no quality which previously existed

in the phenomenon, is a fact of itself demanding inquiry. Such an

event, as has been shown in No. A, does not concern substance (for

substance does not thus originate), but its condition or state. It

is therefore only change, and not origin from nothing. If this

origin be regarded as the effect of a foreign cause, it is termed

creation, which cannot be admitted as an event among phenomena,

because the very possibility of it would annihilate the unity of

experience. If, however, I regard all things not as phenomena, but

as things in themselves and objects of understanding alone, they,

although substances, may be considered as dependent, in respect of

their existence, on a foreign cause. But this would require a very

different meaning in the words, a meaning which could not apply to

phenomena as objects of possible experience.

How a thing can be changed, how it is possible that upon one state

existing in one point of time, an opposite state should follow in

another point of time- of this we have not the smallest conception a

priori. There is requisite for this the knowledge of real powers,

which can only be given empirically; for example, knowledge of

moving forces, or, in other words, of certain successive phenomena (as

movements) which indicate the presence of such forces. But the form of

every change, the condition under which alone it can take place as the

coming into existence of another state (be the content of the

change, that is, the state which is changed, what it may), and

consequently the succession of the states themselves can very well

be considered a priori, in relation to the law of causality and the

conditions of time.*

*It must be remarked that I do not speak of the change of certain

relations, but of the change of the state. Thus, when a body moves

in a uniform manner, it does not change its state (of motion); but

only when all motion increases or decreases.

When a substance passes from one state, a, into another state, b,

the point of time in which the latter exists is different from, and

subsequent to that in which the former existed. In like manner, the

second state, as reality (in the phenomenon), differs from the

first, in which the reality of the second did not exist, as b from

zero. That is to say, if the state, b, differs from the state, a, only

in respect to quantity, the change is a coming into existence of b -

a, which in the former state did not exist, and in relation to which

that state is = O.

Now the question arises how a thing passes from one state = a,

into another state = b. Between two moments there is always a

certain time, and between two states existing in these moments there

is always a difference having a certain quantity (for all parts of

phenomena are in their turn quantities). Consequently, every

transition from one state into another is always effected in a time

contained between two moments, of which the first determines the state

which leaves, and the second determines the state into the thing

passes. the thing leaves, and the second determines the state into

which the thing Both moments, then, are limitations of the time of a

change, consequently of the intermediate state between both, and as

such they belong to the total of the change. Now every change has a

cause, which evidences its causality in the whole time during which

the charge takes place. The cause, therefore, does not produce the

change all at once or in one moment, but in a time, so that, as the

time gradually increases from the commencing instant, a, to its

completion at b, in like manner also, the quantity of the reality

(b - a) is generated through the lesser degrees which are contained

between the first and last. All change is therefore possible only

through a continuous action of the causality, which, in so far as it

is uniform, we call a momentum. The change does not consist of these

momenta, but is generated or produced by them as their effect.

Such is the law of the continuity of all change, the ground of which

is that neither time itself nor any phenomenon in time consists of

parts which are the smallest possible, but that, notwithstanding,

the state of a thing passes in the process of a change through all

these parts, as elements, to its second state. There is no smallest

degree of reality in a phenomenon, just as there is no smallest degree

in the quantity of time; and so the new state of reality grows up

out of the former state, through all the infinite degrees thereof, the

differences of which one from another, taken all together, are less

than the difference between o and a.

It is not our business to inquire here into the utility of this

principle in the investigation of nature. But how such a

proposition, which appears so greatly to extend our knowledge of

nature, is possible completely a priori, is indeed a question which

deserves investigation, although the first view seems to demonstrate

the truth and reality of the principle, and the question, how it is

possible, may be considered superfluous. For there are so many

groundless pretensions to the enlargement of our knowledge by pure

reason that we must take it as a general rule to be mistrustful of all

such, and without a thoroughgoing and radical deduction, to believe

nothing of the sort even on the clearest dogmatical evidence.

Every addition to our empirical knowledge, and every advance made in

the exercise of our perception, is nothing more than an extension of

the determination of the internal sense, that is to say, a progression

in time, be objects themselves what they may, phenomena, or pure

intuitions. This progression in time determines everything, and is

itself determined by nothing else. That is to say, the parts of the

progression exist only in time, and by means of the synthesis thereof,

and are not given antecedently to it. For this reason, every

transition in perception to anything which follows upon another in

time, is a determination of time by means of the production of this

perception. And as this determination of time is, always and in all

its parts, a quantity, the perception produced is to be considered

as a quantity which proceeds through all its degrees- no one of

which is the smallest possible- from zero up to its determined degree.

From this we perceive the possibility of cognizing a priori a law of

changes- a law, however, which concerns their form merely. We merely

anticipate our own apprehension, the formal condition of which,

inasmuch as it is itself to be found in the mind antecedently to all

given phenomena, must certainly be capable of being cognized a priori.

Thus, as time contains the sensuous condition a priori of the

possibility of a continuous progression of that which exists to that

which follows it, the understanding, by virtue of the unity of

apperception, contains the condition a priori of the possibility of

a continuous determination of the position in time of all phenomena,

and this by means of the series of causes and effects, the former of

which necessitate the sequence of the latter, and thereby render

universally and for all time, and by consequence, objectively, valid

the empirical cognition of the relations of time.

C. THIRD ANALOGY.

Principle of Coexistence, According to the Law

of Reciprocity or Community.

All substances, in so far as they can be perceived in space

at the same time, exist in a state of complete reciprocity

of action.

PROOF.

Things are coexistent, when in empirical intuition the perception of

the one can follow upon the perception of the other, and vice versa-

which cannot occur in the succession of phenomena, as we have shown in

the explanation of the second principle. Thus I can perceive the

moon and then the earth, or conversely, first the earth and then the

moon; and for the reason that my perceptions of these objects can

reciprocally follow each other, I say, they exist contemporaneously.

Now coexistence is the existence of the manifold in the same time. But

time itself is not an object of perception; and therefore we cannot

conclude from the fact that things are placed in the same time, the

other fact, that the perception of these things can follow each

other reciprocally. The synthesis of the imagination in apprehension

would only present to us each of these perceptions as present in the

subject when the other is not present, and contrariwise; but would not

show that the objects are coexistent, that is to say, that, if the one

exists, the other also exists in the same time, and that this is

necessarily so, in order that the perceptions may be capable of

following each other reciprocally. It follows that a conception of the

understanding or category of the reciprocal sequence of the

determinations of phenomena (existing, as they do, apart from each

other, and yet contemporaneously), is requisite to justify us in

saying that the reciprocal succession of perceptions has its

foundation in the object, and to enable us to represent coexistence as

objective. But that relation of substances in which the one contains

determinations the ground of which is in the other substance, is the

relation of influence. And, when this influence is reciprocal, it is

the relation of community or reciprocity. Consequently the coexistence

of substances in space cannot be cognized in experience otherwise than

under the precondition of their reciprocal action. This is therefore

the condition of the possibility of things themselves as objects of

experience.

Things are coexistent, in so far as they exist in one and the same

time. But how can we know that they exist in one and the same time?

Only by observing that the order in the synthesis of apprehension of

the manifold is arbitrary and a matter of indifference, that is to

say, that it can proceed from A, through B, C, D, to E, or

contrariwise from E to A. For if they were successive in time (and

in the order, let us suppose, which begins with A), it is quite

impossible for the apprehension in perception to begin with E and go

backwards to A, inasmuch as A belongs to past time and, therefore,

cannot be an object of apprehension.

Let us assume that in a number of substances considered as phenomena

each is completely isolated, that is, that no one acts upon another.

Then I say that the coexistence of these cannot be an object of

possible perception and that the existence of one cannot, by any

mode of empirical synthesis, lead us to the existence of another.

For we imagine them in this case to be separated by a completely

void space, and thus perception, which proceeds from the one to the

other in time, would indeed determine their existence by means of a

following perception, but would be quite unable to distinguish whether

the one phenomenon follows objectively upon the first, or is

coexistent with it.

Besides the mere fact of existence, then, there must be something by

means of which A determines the position of B in time and, conversely,

B the position of A; because only under this condition can

substances be empirically represented as existing contemporaneously.

Now that alone determines the position of another thing in time

which is the cause of it or of its determinations. Consequently

every substance (inasmuch as it can have succession predicated of it

only in respect of its determinations) must contain the causality of

certain determinations in another substance, and at the same time

the effects of the causality of the other in itself. That is to say,

substances must stand (mediately or immediately) in dynamical

community with each other, if coexistence is to be cognized in any

possible experience. But, in regard to objects of experience, that

is absolutely necessary without which the experience of these

objects would itself be impossible. Consequently it is absolutely

necessary that all substances in the world of phenomena, in so far

as they are coexistent, stand in a relation of complete community of

reciprocal action to each other.

The word community has in our language* two meanings, and contains

the two notions conveyed in the Latin communio and commercium. We

employ it in this place in the latter sense- that of a dynamical

community, without which even the community of place (communio spatii)

could not be empirically cognized. In our experiences it is easy to

observe that it is only the continuous influences in all parts of

space that can conduct our senses from one object to another; that the

light which plays between our eyes and the heavenly bodies produces

a mediating community between them and us, and thereby evidences their

coexistence with us; that we cannot empirically change our position

(perceive this change), unless the existence of matter throughout

the whole of space rendered possible the perception of the positions

we occupy; and that this perception can prove the contemporaneous

existence of these places only through their reciprocal influence, and

thereby also the coexistence of even the most remote objects- although

in this case the proof is only mediate. Without community, every

perception (of a phenomenon in space) is separated from every other

and isolated, and the chain of empirical representations, that is,

of experience, must, with the appearance of a new object, begin

entirely de novo, without the least connection with preceding

representations, and without standing towards these even in the

relation of time. My intention here is by no means to combat the

notion of empty space; for it may exist where our perceptions cannot

exist, inasmuch as they cannot reach thereto, and where, therefore, no

empirical perception of coexistence takes place. But in this case it

is not an object of possible experience.

*German.

The following remarks may be useful in the way of explanation. In

the mind, all phenomena, as contents of a possible experience, must

exist in community (communio) of apperception or consciousness, and in