Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
Substances (in the world of phenomena) are the substratum of all
determinations of time. The beginning of some, and the ceasing to be of
other substances, would utterly do away with the only condition of the
empirical unity of time; and in that case phenomena would relate to two
different times, in which, side by side, existence would pass; which is
absurd. For there is only one time in which all different times must be
placed, not as coexistent, but as successive.
Accordingly, permanence is a necessary condition under which alone
phenomena, as things or objects, are determinable in a possible
experience. But as regards the empirical criterion of this necessary
permanence, and with it of the substantiality of phenomena, we shall
find sufficient opportunity to speak in the sequel.
B. SECOND ANALOGY.
Principle of the Succession of Time According to the Law of Causality.
All changes take place according to the law of the connection of Cause
and Effect.
PROOF.
(That all phenomena in the succession of time are only changes, that
is, a successive being and non-being of the determinations of
substance, which is permanent; consequently that a being of substance
itself which follows on the non-being thereof, or a non-being of
substance which follows on the being thereof, in other words, that the
origin or extinction of substance itself, is impossible—all this has
been fully established in treating of the foregoing principle. This
principle might have been expressed as follows: “All alteration
(succession) of phenomena is merely change”; for the changes of
substance are not origin or extinction, because the conception of
change presupposes the same subject as existing with two opposite
determinations, and consequently as permanent. After this premonition,
we shall proceed to the proof.)
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