406 KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

that is to say, a certain degree of alteration does not come about through the accretion of many simple alterations. Our inference from the composite to the simple applies only to self-subsisting things. Accidents of the state [of a thing] are not self-subsisting. Thus the proof of the necessity of the simple, as the constitutive parts of the substantially composite, can easily be upset (and therewith the thesis as a whole), if it be extended too far and in the absence of a limiting qualification be made to apply to everything composite — as has frequently happened.

Moreover I am here speaking only of the simple in so far as it is necessarily given in the composite — the latter being resolvable into the simple, as its constituent

A 442) parts. The word monas, in the B47oJ r . - '

strict sense in which it is employed by Leibniz, should refer only to the simple which is immediately given as simple substance (e.g. in self-consciousness), and not to an element of the composite. This latter is better entitled atomus.1 As I am seeking to prove the [existence of] simple substances only as elements in the composite, I

1 [den Atomus. This use of the term

simple, and yet as having the distinguishing characteristic of being able, as parts of space, to fill space through their mere aggregation. Without repeating the many familiar and conclusive refutations of this absurdity — it being quite futile to attempt to reason away by sophistical manipulation of purely discursive concepts the evident demonstrated truth of mathematics-— I make only one observation, that when philosophy here plays tricks with {3 wjg mathematics, it does so because it forgets that in this discussion we are concerned only with appearances and their condition. Here it is not sufficient to find for the pure concept of the composite formed by the understanding the concept of the simple; what has to be found is an intuition of the simple for the intuition of the composite (matter). But by the laws of sensibility, and therefore in objects of the senses, this is quite impossible. Though it may be true that when a whole, made up of substances, is thought by the pure understanding alone, we must, prior to all composition of it, have the simple, this does not hold of the

as a masculine is peculiar to Kant.]

SECOND ANTINOMY

407

might entitle the thesis1 of the second antinomy, transcendental atomistic. But as this word has long been appropriated to signify a particular mode of explaining bodily appearances (moleculae), and therefore presupposes empirical concepts, the thesis may more suitably be entitled the dialectical principle of monadology.

[Reading, with Mellin and

totum substantiate phaenomenon which, as empirical intuition in space, carries with it the necessary characteristic that no part of it is simple, because no part of space is simple. The monadists have, indeed, been sufficiently acute to seek escape from this difficulty by refusing to treat space as a condition of the possibility of the objects of outer intuition (bodies), and by taking instead these and the dynamical relation of substances as the condition of the possibility of space. But we have a concept of bodies only as appearances; and as such they necessarily presuppose space as the condition of the possibility of all outer appearance. This evasion of the issue is therefore futile, and has already been sufficiently disposed of in the Transcendental Aesthetic. The argument of the monadists would indeed be valid if bodies were things in themselves.

The second dialectical assertion has this peculiarity, that over against it stands a dogmatic assertion which is the only one of all the pseudo-rational assertions that undertakes to afford manifest evidence, in an empirical

Valentiner, These for Antithese.}

410 KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

had always existed, its consequence also would have always existed, and would not have only just arisen. The causality of the cause through which something takes place is itself, therefore, something that has taken place^ which again presupposes, in accordance with the law of nature, a preceding state and its causality, and this in similar manner a still earlier state, and so on. If, therefore, everything takes place solely in accordance with laws of nature, there will always be only a relative1 B 474} an^ never a first beginning, and consequently no completeness of the series on the side of the causes that arise the one from the other. But the law of nature is just this, that nothing takes place without a cause sufficiently determined a priori. The proposition that no causality is possible save in accordance with laws of nature, when taken in unlimited universality, is therefore self -contradictory; and this cannot, therefore, be regarded as the sole kind of causality.

We must, then, assume a causality through which something takes place, the cause of which is not itself deter-

in this spontaneity, but that the very determination of this spontaneity to originate the series, that is to say, the causality itself, will have an absolute beginning; there will be no antecedent through which this act, in taking place, is determined in accordance with fixed laws. But every beginning of action presupposes a state of the not yet acting cause; and a dynamical beginning of the action, if it is also a first beginning, presupposes a state which has no causal connection with the preceding state of the cause, that is to say, in nowise follows from it. Transcendental freedom thus stands opposed to the law of causality; and the kind of connection which it assumes as holding between the |g £47 successive states of the active causes renders all unity of experience impossible. It is not to be met with in any experience, and is therefore an empty thought-entity.

In nature alone, therefore, [not in freedom], must we seek for the connection and order of cosmical events. Freedom (independence) from the laws of nature is no doubt a liberation from compulsion, but also from the guidance

[subalternen.]

THIRD ANTINOMY

411

mined, in accordance with necessary laws, by another cause antecedent to it, that is to say, an absolute spontaneity of the cause, whereby a series of appearances, which proceeds in accordance with laws of nature, begins of itself. This is transcendental freedom, without which, even in the [ordinary] course of nature, the series of appearances on the side of the causes can never be complete.

of all rules. For it is not permissible to say that the laws of freedom enter into the causality exhibited in the course of nature, and so take the place of natural laws. If freedom were determined in accordance with laws, it would not be freedom; it would simply be nature under another name. Nature and transcendental freedom differ as do conformity to law and lawlessness. Nature does indeed impose upon the understanding the exacting task of always seeking the origin of events ever higher in the series of causes, their causality being always conditioned. But in compensation it holds out the promise of thoroughgoing unity of experience in accordance with laws. The illusion of freedom, on the other hand, offers a point of rest to the enquiring understanding in the chain of causes, conducting it to an unconditioned causality which begins to act of itself. This causality is, however, blind, and abrogates those rules through which alone a completely coherent experience is possible.