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the present case it is employed to help us beyond the limits of its

sphere. 2. "From the impossibility of an infinite ascending series

of causes in the world of sense a first cause is inferred"; a

conclusion which the principles of the employment of reason do not

justify even in the sphere of experience, and still less when an

attempt is made to pass the limits of this sphere. 3. Reason allows

itself to be satisfied upon insufficient grounds, with regard to the

completion of this series. It removes all conditions (without which,

however, no conception of Necessity can take place); and, as after

this it is beyond our power to form any other conceptions, it

accepts this as a completion of the conception it wishes to form of

the series. 4. The logical possibility of a conception of the total of

reality (the criterion of this possibility being the absence of

contradiction) is confound. ed with the transcendental, which requires

a principle of the practicability of such a synthesis- a principle

which again refers us to the world of experience. And so on.

The aim of the cosmological argument is to avoid the necessity of

proving the existence of a necessary being priori from mere

conceptions- a proof which must be ontological, and of which we feel

ourselves quite incapable. With this purpose, we reason from an actual

existence- an experience in general, to an absolutely necessary

condition of that existence. It is in this case unnecessary to

demonstrate its possibility. For after having proved that it exists,

the question regarding its possibility is superfluous. Now, when we

wish to define more strictly the nature of this necessary being, we do

not look out for some being the conception of which would enable us to

comprehend the necessity of its being- for if we could do this, an

empirical presupposition would be unnecessary; no, we try to

discover merely the negative condition (conditio sine qua non),

without which a being would not be absolutely necessary. Now this

would be perfectly admissible in every sort of reasoning, from a

consequence to its principle; but in the present case it unfortunately

happens that the condition of absolute necessity can be discovered

in but a single being, the conception of which must consequently

contain all that is requisite for demonstrating the presence of

absolute necessity, and thus entitle me to infer this absolute

necessity a priori. That is, it must be possible to reason conversely,

and say: The thing, to which the conception of the highest reality

belongs, is absolutely necessary. But if I cannot reason thus- and I

cannot, unless I believe in the sufficiency of the ontological

argument- I find insurmountable obstacles in my new path, and am

really no farther than the point from which I set out. The

conception of a Supreme Being satisfies all questions a priori

regarding the internal determinations of a thing, and is for this

reason an ideal without equal or parallel, the general conception of

it indicating it as at the same time an ens individuum among all

possible things. But the conception does not satisfy the question

regarding its existence- which was the purpose of all our inquiries;

and, although the existence of a necessary being were admitted, we

should find it impossible to answer the question: What of all things

in the world must be regarded as such?

It is certainly allowable to admit the existence of an

all-sufficient being- a cause of all possible effects- for the purpose

of enabling reason to introduce unity into its mode and grounds of

explanation with regard to phenomena. But to assert that such a

being necessarily exists, is no longer the modest enunciation of an

admissible hypothesis, but the boldest declaration of an apodeictic

certainty; for the cognition of that which is absolutely necessary

must itself possess that character.

The aim of the transcendental ideal formed by the mind is either

to discover a conception which shall harmonize with the idea of

absolute necessity, or a conception which shall contain that idea.

If the one is possible, so is the other; for reason recognizes that

alone as absolutely necessary which is necessary from its

conception. But both attempts are equally beyond our power- we find it

impossible to satisfy the understanding upon this point, and as

impossible to induce it to remain at rest in relation to this

incapacity.

Unconditioned necessity, which, as the ultimate support and stay

of all existing things, is an indispensable requirement of the mind,

is an abyss on the verge of which human reason trembles in dismay.

Even the idea of eternity, terrible and sublime as it is, as

depicted by Haller, does not produce upon the mental vision such a

feeling of awe and terror; for, although it measures the duration of

things, it does not support them. We cannot bear, nor can we rid

ourselves of the thought that a being, which we regard as the greatest

of all possible existences, should say to himself: I am from

eternity to eternity; beside me there is nothing, except that which

exists by my will; whence then am I? Here all sinks away from under

us; and the greatest, as the smallest, perfection, hovers without stay

or footing in presence of the speculative reason, which finds it as

easy to part with the one as with the other.

Many physical powers, which evidence their existence by their

effects, are perfectly inscrutable in their nature; they elude all our

powers of observation. The transcendental object which forms the basis

of phenomena, and, in connection with it, the reason why our

sensibility possesses this rather than that particular kind of

conditions, are and must ever remain hidden from our mental vision;

the fact is there, the reason of the fact we cannot see. But an

ideal of pure reason cannot be termed mysterious or inscrutable,

because the only credential of its reality is the need of it felt by

reason, for the purpose of giving completeness to the world of

synthetical unity. An ideal is not even given as a cogitable object,

and therefore cannot be inscrutable; on the contrary, it must, as a

mere idea, be based on the constitution of reason itself, and on

this account must be capable of explanation and solution. For the very

essence of reason consists in its ability to give an account, of all

our conceptions, opinions, and assertions- upon objective, or, when

they happen to be illusory and fallacious, upon subjective grounds.

Detection and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in

all Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of a

Necessary Being.

Both of the above arguments are transcendental; in other words, they

do not proceed upon empirical principles. For, although the

cosmological argument professed to lay a basis of experience for its

edifice of reasoning, it did not ground its procedure upon the

peculiar constitution of experience, but upon pure principles of

reason- in relation to an existence given by empirical

consciousness; utterly abandoning its guidance, however, for the

purpose of supporting its assertions entirely upon pure conceptions.

Now what is the cause, in these transcendental arguments, of the

dialectical, but natural, illusion, which connects the conceptions

of necessity and supreme reality, and hypostatizes that which cannot

be anything but an idea? What is the cause of this unavoidable step on

the part of reason, of admitting that some one among all existing

things must be necessary, while it falls back from the assertion of

the existence of such a being as from an abyss? And how does reason

proceed to explain this anomaly to itself, and from the wavering

condition of a timid and reluctant approbation- always again

withdrawn- arrive at a calm and settled insight into its cause?

It is something very remarkable that, on the supposition that

something exists, I cannot avoid the inference that something exists

necessarily. Upon this perfectly natural- but not on that account

reliable- inference does the cosmological argument rest. But, let me

form any conception whatever of a thing, I find that I cannot cogitate

the existence of the thing as absolutely necessary, and that nothing

prevents me- be the thing or being what it may- from cogitating its

non-existence. I may thus be obliged to admit that all existing things

have a necessary basis, while I cannot cogitate any single or

individual thing as necessary. In other words, I can never complete

the regress through the conditions of existence, without admitting the

existence of a necessary being; but, on the other hand, I cannot

make a commencement from this being.

If I must cogitate something as existing necessarily as the basis of

existing things, and yet am not permitted to cogitate any individual

thing as in itself necessary, the inevitable inference is that

necessity and contingency are not properties of things themselves-

otherwise an internal contradiction would result; that consequently

neither of these principles are objective, but merely subjective

principles of reason- the one requiring us to seek for a necessary

ground for everything that exists, that is, to be satisfied with no

other explanation than that which is complete a priori, the other

forbidding us ever to hope for the attainment of this completeness,

that is, to regard no member of the empirical world as

unconditioned. In this mode of viewing them, both principles, in their

purely heuristic and regulative character, and as concerning merely

the formal interest of reason, are quite consistent with each other.

The one says: "You must philosophize upon nature," as if there existed

a necessary primal basis of all existing things, solely for the

purpose of introducing systematic unity into your knowledge, by

pursuing an idea of this character- a foundation which is

arbitrarily admitted to be ultimate; while the other warns you to

consider no individual determination, concerning the existence of

things, as such an ultimate foundation, that is, as absolutely

necessary, but to keep the way always open for further progress in the

deduction, and to treat every determination as determined by some

other. But if all that we perceive must be regarded as conditionally

necessary, it is impossible that anything which is empirically given

should be absolutely necessary.

It follows from this that you must accept the absolutely necessary

as out of and beyond the world, inasmuch as it is useful only as a

principle of the highest possible unity in experience, and you

cannot discover any such necessary existence in the would, the

second rule requiring you to regard all empirical causes of unity as

themselves deduced.

The philosophers of antiquity regarded all the forms of nature as

contingent; while matter was considered by them, in accordance with

the judgement of the common reason of mankind, as primal and

necessary. But if they had regarded matter, not relatively- as the

substratum of phenomena, but absolutely and in itself- as an

independent existence, this idea of absolute necessity would have

immediately disappeared. For there is nothing absolutely connecting

reason with such an existence; on the contrary, it can annihilate it

in thought, always and without self-contradiction. But in thought

alone lay the idea of absolute necessity. A regulative principle must,

therefore, have been at the foundation of this opinion. In fact,

extension and impenetrability- which together constitute our

conception of matter- form the supreme empirical principle of the

unity of phenomena, and this principle, in so far as it is empirically

unconditioned, possesses the property of a regulative principle.

But, as every determination of matter which constitutes what is real

in it- and consequently impenetrability- is an effect, which must have

a cause, and is for this reason always derived, the notion of matter

cannot harmonize with the idea of a necessary being, in its

character of the principle of all derived unity. For every one of

its real properties, being derived, must be only conditionally

necessary, and can therefore be annihilated in thought; and thus the

whole existence of matter can be so annihilated or suppressed. If this

were not the case, we should have found in the world of phenomena

the highest ground or condition of unity- which is impossible,

according to the second regulative principle. It follows that

matter, and, in general, all that forms part of the world of sense,

cannot be a necessary primal being, nor even a principle of

empirical unity, but that this being or principle must have its

place assigned without the world. And, in this way, we can proceed

in perfect confidence to deduce the phenomena of the world and their

existence from other phenomena, just as if there existed no

necessary being; and we can at the same time, strive without ceasing

towards the attainment of completeness for our deduction, just as if

such a being- the supreme condition of all existences- were

presupposed by the mind.

These remarks will have made it evident to the reader that the ideal

of the Supreme Being, far from being an enouncement of the existence

of a being in itself necessary, is nothing more than a regulative

principle of reason, requiring us to regard all connection existing

between phenomena as if it had its origin from an all-sufficient

necessary cause, and basing upon this the rule of a systematic and

necessary unity in the explanation of phenomena. We cannot, at the

same time, avoid regarding, by a transcendental subreptio, this formal

principle as constitutive, and hypostatizing this unity. Precisely

similar is the case with our notion of space. Space is the primal

condition of all forms, which are properly just so many different

limitations of it; and thus, although it is merely a principle of

sensibility, we cannot help regarding it as an absolutely necessary

and self-subsistent thing- as an object given a priori in itself. In

the same way, it is quite natural that, as the systematic unity of

nature cannot be established as a principle for the empirical