| [*Footnote; 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.] |
| ANTITHESIS. |
| An absolutely necessary being does not exist, either in the world, or out of it--as its cause. |
| PROOF. |
| Grant that either the world itself is necessary, or that there is contained in it a necessary existence. |
| Two cases are possible. |
| First, there must either be in the series of cosmical changes a beginning, which is unconditionally necessary, and therefore uncaused- which is at variance with the dynamical law of the determination of all phenomena in time; or, secondly, the series itself is without beginning, and, although contingent and conditioned in all its parts, is nevertheless absolutely necessary and unconditioned as a whole--which is self-contradictory. |
| For the existence of an aggregate cannot be necessary, if no single part of it possesses necessary existence. |
| Grant, on the other band, that an absolutely necessary cause exists out of and apart from the world. |
| This cause, as the highest member in the series of the causes of cosmical changes, must originate or begin* the existence of the latter and their series. |
| In this case it must also begin to act, and its causality would therefore belong to time, and consequently to the sum total of phenomena, that is, to the world. |
| It follows that the cause cannot be out of the world; which is contradictory to the hypothesis. |
| Therefore, neither in the world, nor out of it (but in causal connection with it), does there exist any absolutely necessary being. |
| [*Footnote; The word begin is taken in two senses. |
| The first is active-- the cause being regarded as beginning a series of conditions as its effect (infit). |
| The second is passive--the causality in the cause itself beginning to operate (fit). |
| I reason here from the first to the second.] |
| 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. |