PROOF.
The world of sense, as the sum total of all phenomena, contains a
series of changes. For, without such a series, the mental
representation of the series of time itself, as the condition of the
possibility of the sensuous world, could not be presented to us.*
But every change stands under its condition, which precedes it in time
and renders it necessary. Now the existence of a given condition
presupposes a complete series of conditions up to the absolutely
unconditioned, which alone is absolutely necessary. It follows that
something that is absolutely necessary must exist, if change exists as
its consequence. But this necessary
thing itself belongs to the
sensuous world. For suppose it to exist out of and apart from it,
the series of cosmical changes would receive from it a beginning,
and yet this necessary cause would not itself belong to the world of
sense. But this is impossible. For, as the beginning of a series in
time is determined only by that which precedes it in time, the supreme
condition of the beginning of a series of changes must exist in the
time in which this series itself did not exist; for a beginning
supposes a time preceding, in which the thing that begins to be was
not in existence. The causality of the necessary cause of changes, and
consequently the cause itself, must for these reasons belong to
time— and to phenomena, time being possible only as the form of
phenomena. Consequently, it cannot be cogitated as separated from
the world of sense— the sum total of all phenomena. There is,
therefore, contained in the world, something that is absolutely
necessary— whether it be the whole cosmical series itself, or only a
part of it.
[*]
Objectively, time, as the formal condition of the possibility of
change, precedes all changes; but subjectively, and in
consciousness, the representation of time, like every other, is
given solely by occasion of perception.
