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 of _necessity_, 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. [102] Kant, "Kritik d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 275; 5th edition, p. 331. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 236.) 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 by the 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? [103] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." vol. i. p. 203 of the 1st edition; p. 249 of the 5th edition. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 178.) 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 following _upon_ and following _from_, we once more yield the point to Hume, who declared all consequence to be mere sequence and therefore denied that distinction likewise.