OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOURTH ANTINOMY.
On the Thesis.
To demonstrate the existence of a necessary being, I cannot be
permitted in this place to employ any other than the cosmological
argument, which ascends from the conditioned in phenomena to the
unconditioned in conception— the unconditioned being considered the
necessary condition of the absolute totality of the series. The proof,
from the mere idea of a supreme being, belongs to another principle of
reason and requires separate discussion.
The pure cosmological proof demonstrates the existence of a
necessary being, but at the same time leaves it quite unsettled,
whether this being is the world itself, or quite distinct from it.
To establish the truth of the latter view, principles are requisite,
which are not cosmological and do not proceed in the series of
phenomena. We should require to introduce into our proof conceptions
of contingent beings— regarded merely as objects of the understanding,
and also a principle which enables us to connect these, by means of
mere conceptions, with a necessary being. But
the proper place for all
such arguments is a
transcendent philosophy, which has unhappily not
yet been established.
But, if we begin our proof cosmologically, by laying at the
foundation of it the series of phenomena, and the regress in it
according to empirical laws of causality, we are not at liberty to
break off from this mode of demonstration and to pass over to
something which is not itself a member of the series. The condition
must be taken in exactly the same signification as the relation of the
conditioned to its condition in the series has been taken, for the
series must conduct us in an unbroken regress to this supreme
condition. But if this relation is sensuous, and belongs to the
possible empirical employment of understanding, the supreme
condition or cause must close the regressive series according to the
laws of sensibility and consequently, must belong to the series of
time. It follows that this necessary existence must be regarded as the
highest member of the cosmical series.
Certain philosophers have, nevertheless, allowed themselves the
liberty of making such a saltus (metabasis eis allo gonos). From the
changes
in the world they have concluded their empirical
contingency, that is, their dependence on empirically—determined
causes, and they thus admitted an ascending series of empirical
conditions: and in this they are quite right. But as they could not
find in this series any primal beginning or any highest member, they
passed suddenly from the empirical conception of contingency to the
pure category, which presents us with a series— not sensuous, but
intellectual— whose completeness does certainly rest upon the
existence of an absolutely necessary cause. Nay, more, this
intellectual series is not tied to any sensuous conditions; and is
therefore free from the condition of time, which requires it
spontaneously to begin its causality in time. But such a procedure
is perfectly inadmissible, as will be made plain from what follows.
In the pure sense of the categories, that is contingent the
contradictory opposite of which is possible. Now we cannot reason from
empirical contingency to intellectual. The opposite of that which is
changed— the opposite of its state— is actual at another time, and
is therefore possible. Consequently, it is not the
contradictory
opposite of the former state. To be that, it is necessary that, in the
same time in which the preceding state existed, its opposite could
have existed in its place; but such a cognition is not given us in the
mere phenomenon of change. A body that was in motion = A, comes into a
state of rest = non—A. Now it cannot be concluded from the fact that a
state opposite to the state A follows it, that the contradictory
opposite of A is possible; and that A is therefore contingent. To
prove this, we should require to know that the state of rest could
have existed in the very same time in which the motion took place. Now
we know nothing more than that the state of rest was actual in the
time that followed the state of motion; consequently, that it was also
possible. But motion at one time, and rest at another time, are not
contradictorily opposed to each other. It follows from what has been
said that the succession of opposite determinations, that is,
change, does not demonstrate the fact of contingency as represented in
the conceptions of the pure understanding; and that it cannot,
therefore, conduct us to the fact of the existence of a necessary
being. Change proves
merely empirical contingency, that is to say,
that the new state could not have existed without a cause, which
belongs to the preceding time. This cause— even although it is
regarded as absolutely necessary— must be presented to us in time, and
must belong to the series of phenomena.
On the Antithesis.
The difficulties which meet us, in our attempt to rise through the
series of phenomena to the existence of an absolutely necessary
supreme cause, must not originate from our inability to establish
the truth of our mere conceptions of the necessary existence of a
thing. That is to say, our objections not be ontological, but must
be directed against the causal connection with a series of phenomena
of a condition which is itself unconditioned. In one word, they must
be cosmological and relate to empirical laws. We must show that the
regress in the series of causes (in the world of sense) cannot
conclude with an empirically unconditioned condition, and that the
cosmological argument from the contingency of the cosmical state— a
contingency alleged to arise from change— does not justify us in
accepting a first cause, that is, a prime originator of the cosmical
series.
The reader will observe in this antinomy a very remarkable contrast.
The very same grounds of proof which established in the thesis the
existence of a supreme
being, demonstrated in the antithesis— and with
equal strictness— the non—existence of such a being. We found,
first, that
a necessary being exists, because the whole time past
contains the series of all conditions, and with it, therefore, the
unconditioned (the necessary); secondly, that
there does not exist any
necessary being, for the same reason, that the whole time past
contains the series of all conditions— which are themselves,
therefore, in the aggregate, conditioned. The cause of this seeming
incongruity is as follows. We attend, in the first argument, solely to
the
absolute totality of the series of conditions, the one of which
determines the other in time, and thus arrive at a necessary
unconditioned. In the second, we consider, on the contrary, the
contingency of everything that is determined in the
series of time —
for every event is preceded by a time, in which the condition itself
must be determined as conditioned— and thus everything that is
unconditioned or absolutely necessary disappears. In both, the mode of
proof is quite in accordance with the common procedure of human
reason, which often falls into discord with itself, from considering
an object from two different points of view. Herr von Mairan
regarded the controversy between two celebrated astronomers, which
arose from a similar difficulty as to the choice of a proper
standpoint, as a phenomenon of sufficient importance to warrant a
separate treatise on the subject. The one concluded:
the moon revolves
on its own axis, because it constantly presents the same side to the
earth; the other declared that the moon does not revolve on its own
axis, for the same reason. Both conclusions were perfectly correct,
according to the point of view from which the motions of the moon were
considered.
