| 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. |
| 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. |