On the Antithesis.
The assertor of the all—sufficiency of nature in regard to causality
(transcendental Physiocracy), in opposition to the doctrine of
freedom, would defend his view of the question somewhat in the
following manner. He would say, in answer to the sophistical arguments
of the opposite party: If you do not accept a mathematical first, in
relation to time, you have no need to seek a dynamical first, in
regard to
causality. Who compelled you to imagine an absolutely primal
condition of the world, and therewith an absolute beginning of the
gradually progressing successions of phenomena— and, as some
foundation for this fancy of yours, to set bounds to unlimited nature?
Inasmuch as the substances in the world have always existed— at
least the unity of experience renders such a supposition quite
necessary— there is no difficulty in believing also, that the
changes in the conditions of these substances have always existed;
and, consequently, that a first beginning, mathematical or
dynamical, is by no means required. The possibility of such an
infinite derivation, without any initial member from which all the
others result, is certainly quite incomprehensible. But, if you are
rash enough to deny the enigmatical secrets of nature for this reason,
you will find yourselves obliged to deny also the existence of many
fundamental properties of natural objects (such as fundamental
forces), which you can just as little comprehend; and even the
possibility of so simple a conception as that of change must present
to you insuperable difficulties.
For if experience did not teach you
that it was real, you never could conceive
a priori the possibility of
this ceaseless sequence of being and non—being.
But if the existence of a transcendental faculty of freedom is
granted— a faculty of originating changes in the world— this faculty
must at least exist out of and apart from the world; although it is
certainly a bold assumption, that, over and above the complete content
of all possible intuitions, there still exists an object which
cannot be presented in any possible perception. But, to attribute to
substances in the world itself such a faculty, is quite
inadmissible; for, in this case; the connection of phenomena
reciprocally determining and determined according to general laws,
which is termed nature, and along with it the criteria of empirical
truth, which enable us to distinguish experience from mere visionary
dreaming, would almost entirely disappear. In proximity with such a
lawless faculty of freedom, a system of nature is hardly cogitable;
for the laws of the latter would be continually subject to the
intrusive influences of the former, and the course of
phenomena, which
would otherwise proceed regularly and uniformly, would become
thereby confused and disconnected.