第 37 页

conception), in order to be able to determine it in a certain

manner. Hence, in a conception of the pure understanding, the matter

precedes the form, and for this reason Leibnitz first assumed the

existence of things (monads) and of an internal power of

representation in them, in order to found upon this their external

relation and the community their state (that is, of their

representations). Hence, with him, space and time were possible- the

former through the relation of substances, the latter through the

connection of their determinations with each other, as causes and

effects. And so would it really be, if the pure understanding were

capable of an immediate application to objects, and if space and

time were determinations of things in themselves. But being merely

sensuous intuitions, in which we determine all objects solely as

phenomena, the form of intuition (as a subjective property of

sensibility) must antecede all matter (sensations), consequently space

and time must antecede all phenomena and all data of experience, and

rather make experience itself possible. But the intellectual

philosopher could not endure that the form should precede the things

themselves and determine their possibility; an objection perfectly

correct, if we assume that we intuite things as they are, although

with confused representation. But as sensuous intuition is a

peculiar subjective condition, which is a priori at the foundation

of all perception, and the form of which is primitive, the form must

be given per se, and so far from matter (or the things themselves

which appear) lying at the foundation of experience (as we must

conclude, if we judge by mere conceptions), the very possibility of

itself presupposes, on the contrary, a given formal intuition (space

and time).

REMARK ON THE AMPHIBOLY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF REFLECTION.

Let me be allowed to term the position which we assign to a

conception either in the sensibility or in the pure understanding, the

transcendental place. In this manner, the appointment of the

position which must be taken by each conception according to the

difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place

to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental

topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the

surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions

which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty

of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception,

every title, under which many cognitions rank together, may be

called a logical place. Upon this is based the logical topic of

Aristotle, of which teachers and rhetoricians could avail

themselves, in order, under certain titles of thought, to observe what

would best suit the matter they had to treat, and thus enable

themselves to quibble and talk with fluency and an appearance of

profundity.

Transcendental topic, on the contrary, contains nothing more than

the above-mentioned four titles of all comparison and distinction,

which differ from categories in this respect, that they do not

represent the object according to that which constitutes its

conception (quantity, reality), but set forth merely the comparison of

representations, which precedes our conceptions of things. But this

comparison requires a previous reflection, that is, a determination of

the place to which the representations of the things which are

compared belong, whether, to wit, they are cogitated by the pure

understanding, or given by sensibility.

Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of

inquiring to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to

the understanding, or as phenomena, to sensibility. If, however, we

wish to employ these conceptions in respect of objects, previous

transcendental reflection is necessary. Without this reflection I

should make a very unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct

pretended synthetical propositions which critical reason cannot

acknowledge and which are based solely upon a transcendental

amphiboly, that is, upon a substitution of an object of pure

understanding for a phenomenon.

For want of this doctrine of transcendental topic, and

consequently deceived by the amphiboly of the conceptions of

reflection, the celebrated Leibnitz constructed an intellectual system

of the world, or rather, believed himself competent to cognize the

internal nature of things, by comparing all objects merely with the

understanding and the abstract formal conceptions of thought. Our

table of the conceptions of reflection gives us the unexpected

advantage of being able to exhibit the distinctive peculiarities of

his system in all its parts, and at the same time of exposing the

fundamental principle of this peculiar mode of thought, which rested

upon naught but a misconception. He compared all things with each

other merely by means of conceptions, and naturally found no other

differences than those by which the understanding distinguishes its

pure conceptions one from another. The conditions of sensuous

intuition, which contain in themselves their own means of distinction,

he did not look upon as primitive, because sensibility was to him

but a confused mode of representation and not any particular source of

representations. A phenomenon was for him the representation of the

thing in itself, although distinguished from cognition by the

understanding only in respect of the logical form- the former with its

usual want of analysis containing, according to him, a certain mixture

of collateral representations in its conception of a thing, which it

is the duty of the understanding to separate and distinguish. In one

word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his

system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such

expressions), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that

is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract

conceptions of reflection. Instead of seeking in the understanding and

sensibility two different sources of representations, which,

however, can present us with objective judgements of things only in

conjunction, each of these great men recognized but one of these

faculties, which, in their opinion, applied immediately to things in

themselves, the other having no duty but that of confusing or

arranging the representations of the former.

Accordingly, the objects of sense were compared by Leibnitz as

things in general merely in the understanding.

1st. He compares them in regard to their identity or difference-

as judged by the understanding. As, therefore, he considered merely

the conceptions of objects, and not their position in intuition, in

which alone objects can be given, and left quite out of sight the

transcendental locale of these conceptions- whether, that is, their

object ought to be classed among phenomena, or among things in

themselves, it was to be expected that he should extend the

application of the principle of indiscernibles, which is valid

solely of conceptions of things in general, to objects of sense

(mundus phaenomenon), and that he should believe that he had thereby

contributed in no small degree to extend our knowledge of nature. In

truth, if I cognize in all its inner determinations a drop of water as

a thing in itself, I cannot look upon one drop as different from

another, if the conception of the one is completely identical with

that of the other. But if it is a phenomenon in space, it has a

place not merely in the understanding (among conceptions), but also in

sensuous external intuition (in space), and in this case, the physical

locale is a matter of indifference in regard to the internal

determinations of things, and one place, B, may contain a thing

which is perfectly similar and equal to another in a place, A, just as

well as if the two things were in every respect different from each

other. Difference of place without any other conditions, makes the

plurality and distinction of objects as phenomena, not only possible

in itself, but even necessary. Consequently, the above so-called law

is not a law of nature. It is merely an analytical rule for the

comparison of things by means of mere conceptions.

2nd. The principle: "Realities (as simple affirmations) never

logically contradict each other," is a proposition perfectly true

respecting the relation of conceptions, but, whether as regards

nature, or things in themselves (of which we have not the slightest

conception), is without any the least meaning. For real opposition, in

which A - B is = 0, exists everywhere, an opposition, that is, in

which one reality united with another in the same subject

annihilates the effects of the other- a fact which is constantly

brought before our eyes by the different antagonistic actions and

operations in nature, which, nevertheless, as depending on real

forces, must be called realitates phaenomena. General mechanics can

even present us with the empirical condition of this opposition in

an a priori rule, as it directs its attention to the opposition in the

direction of forces- a condition of which the transcendental

conception of reality can tell us nothing. Although M. Leibnitz did

not announce this proposition with precisely the pomp of a new

principle, he yet employed it for the establishment of new

propositions, and his followers introduced it into their

Leibnitzio-Wolfian system of philosophy. According to this

principle, for example, all evils are but consequences of the

limited nature of created beings, that is, negations, because these

are the only opposite of reality. (In the mere conception of a thing

in general this is really the case, but not in things as phenomena.)

In like manner, the upholders of this system deem it not only

possible, but natural also, to connect and unite all reality in one

being, because they acknowledge no other sort of opposition than

that of contradiction (by which the conception itself of a thing is

annihilated), and find themselves unable to conceive an opposition

of reciprocal destruction, so to speak, in which one real cause

destroys the effect of another, and the conditions of whose

representation we meet with only in sensibility.

3rd. The Leibnitzian monadology has really no better foundation than

on this philosopher's mode of falsely representing the difference of

the internal and external solely in relation to the understanding.

Substances, in general, must have something inward, which is therefore

free from external relations, consequently from that of composition

also. The simple- that which can be represented by a unit- is

therefore the foundation of that which is internal in things in

themselves. The internal state of substances cannot therefore

consist in place, shape, contact, or motion, determinations which

are all external relations, and we can ascribe to them no other than

that whereby we internally determine our faculty of sense itself, that

is to say, the state of representation. Thus, then, were constructed

the monads, which were to form the elements of the universe, the

active force of which consists in representation, the effects of

this force being thus entirely confined to themselves.

For the same reason, his view of the possible community of

substances could not represent it but as a predetermined harmony,

and by no means as a physical influence. For inasmuch as everything is

occupied only internally, that is, with its own representations, the

state of the representations of one substance could not stand in

active and living connection with that of another, but some third

cause operating on all without exception was necessary to make the

different states correspond with one another. And this did not

happen by means of assistance applied in each particular case (systema

assistentiae), but through the unity of the idea of a cause occupied

and connected with all substances, in which they necessarily

receive, according to the Leibnitzian school, their existence and

permanence, consequently also reciprocal correspondence, according

to universal laws.

4th. This philosopher's celebrated doctrine of space and time, in

which he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, originated in

the same delusion of transcendental reflection. If I attempt to

represent by the mere understanding, the external relations of things,

I can do so only by employing the conception of their reciprocal

action, and if I wish to connect one state of the same thing with

another state, I must avail myself of the notion of the order of cause

and effect. And thus Leibnitz regarded space as a certain order in the

community of substances, and time as the dynamical sequence of their

states. That which space and time possess proper to themselves and

independent of things, he ascribed to a necessary confusion in our

conceptions of them, whereby that which is a mere form of dynamical

relations is held to be a self-existent intuition, antecedent even

to things themselves. Thus space and time were the intelligible form

of the connection of things (substances and their states) in

themselves. But things were intelligible substances (substantiae

noumena). At the same time, he made these conceptions valid of

phenomena, because he did not allow to sensibility a peculiar mode

of intuition, but sought all, even the empirical representation of

objects, in the understanding, and left to sense naught but the

despicable task of confusing and disarranging the representations of

the former.

But even if we could frame any synthetical proposition concerning

things in themselves by means of the pure understanding (which is

impossible), it could not apply to phenomena, which do not represent

things in themselves. In such a case I should be obliged in

transcendental reflection to compare my conceptions only under the

conditions of sensibility, and so space and time would not be

determinations of things in themselves, but of phenomena. What

things may be in themselves, I know not and need not know, because a