occur in knowledge of perception (with which alone we are here concerned)
are time, space, and causality. The whole of pure mathematics and pure
natural science _a priori_ is based entirely upon these. Therefore it is
only in these sciences that knowledge finds no obscurity, does not rest
upon what is incomprehensible (groundless, _i.e._, will), upon what cannot
be further deduced. It is on this account that Kant wanted, as we have
said, to apply the name science specially and even exclusively to these
branches of knowledge together with logic. But, on the other hand, these
branches of knowledge show us nothing more than mere connections,
relations of one idea to another, form devoid of all content. All content
which they receive, every phenomenon which fills these forms, contains
something which is no longer completely knowable in its whole nature,
something which can no longer be entirely explained through something
else, something then which is groundless, through which consequently the
knowledge loses its evidence and ceases to be completely lucid. This that
withholds itself from investigation, however, is the thing-in-itself, is
that which is essentially not idea, not object of knowledge, but has only
become knowable by entering that form. The form is originally foreign to
it, and the thing-in-itself can never become entirely one with it, can
never be referred to mere form, and, since this form is the principle of
sufficient reason, can never be completely explained. If therefore all
mathematics affords us an exhaustive knowledge of that which in the
phenomena is quantity, position, number, in a word, spatial and temporal
relations; if all etiology gives us a complete account of the regular
conditions under which phenomena, with all their determinations, appear in
time and space, but, with it all, teaches us nothing more than why in each
case this particular phenomenon must appear just at this time here, and at
this place now; it is clear that with their assistance we can never
penetrate to the inner nature of things. There always remains something
which no explanation can venture to attack, but which it always
presupposes; the forces of nature, the definite mode of operation of
things, the quality and character of every phenomenon, that which is
without ground, that which does not depend upon the form of the
phenomenal, the principle of sufficient reason, but is something to which
this form in itself is foreign, something which has yet entered this form,
and now appears according to its law, a law, however, which only
determines the appearance, not that which appears, only the how, not the
what, only the form, not the content. Mechanics, physics, and chemistry
teach the rules and laws according to which the forces of impenetrability,
gravitation, rigidity, fluidity, cohesion, elasticity, heat, light,
affinity, magnetism, electricity, &c., operate; that is to say, the law,