Chapter 4 Part I The World as Representation §4

Whoever knows this constitutive form of the law of sufficient reason, which appears as this law in pure time and at the root of all counting and calculation, knows precisely through it the whole of time. Nature.Time is nothing else, but only this constitutional form of the principle of sufficient reason, and has no other attributes."Jiqi" successively is the form of the law of ground in time, and "Jiqi" is the whole essence of time.Furthermore, whoever realizes how the principle of sufficientity rules in purely intuitive space, in this way he exhausts the whole essence of space; Possibilities of determination, that is, positions.The detailed examination of this aspect and the results produced therefrom, precipitated into abstract concepts and more convenient to apply, that is the content of all geometry. —In the same way, whoever knows another constitutional form of the principle of sufficient reason, who knows that it controls the content (of time and space) of the above-mentioned forms, controls the "perceptibility" of these forms, that is, controls matter, and knows the law of causality; and thereby he also recognizes matter as the whole essence of matter.For matter, from first to last, is nothing but causality; and this is immediately intelligible to every one, if he only thinks about it.The existence of matter is its function. It is impossible to imagine that matter has other existences.Matter fills space and time only because of its function.The action of matter on an immediate object (which is itself matter) is the condition of "intuition," in which it alone exists; the effect of every other material object's action on another The immediate object has its existence only in that which is known by successively playing different roles.Cause and effect are therefore the whole essence of matter; its being is its action (see §21 p. 77 of the treatise on the Law of Sufficient Reason).It can thus be seen that in German the name Wirklichkeit for the sum total of all material things is extremely pertinent; this word is much more expressive than the word Reality.Matter acts, and what is acted on is still matter.Its entire existence and essence are only in regular changes, and the changes are caused by one part of matter in other parts. Therefore, its entire existence and essence are also completely relative. The relations valid within the bounds of matter are relative, and so [in this respect] just as with time, just as with space.

However, if time and space are viewed independently, they can be represented intuitively even without matter: matter cannot exist without time and space.Matter is inseparable from its shape, and any shape is predicated on space.The whole existence of matter is in its action, and action always means a change, that is, a determination of time.However, time and space are not only the premise of matter separately, but the unity of the two constitutes its essence; precisely because this essence, as mentioned above, exists in action and in causality.If all conceivable and innumerable phenomena and situations can be juxtaposed without crowding each other in infinite space, or can follow one another without confusion in endless time; There would be no need for a necessary relation between them; and the rules governing these phenomena and cases according to this relation would be unnecessary, or even impossible to apply.The result is that despite all juxtapositions in space and all changes in time, as long as these two forms are independent of each other and do not have their substance and process in their mutual relationship, there is still no causality; That which is the true essence of matter; therefore, without causality there is no matter. —But the law of causality acquires its meaning and inevitability only because the essence of change consists not merely in the change of the situation itself, but rather in the same place in space, now a situation and a subsequent situation; in the same particular In time, here is a situation and there is another situation; only the mutual constraints of time and space can make a rule, the rule according to which changes take place, meaningful and necessary at the same time.Thus, what the law of causality prescribes is not the succession of circumstances in time alone, but the succession with respect to a definite space; at this location.Change, that is, change according to the law of causality, always involves a certain part of space and a certain part of time simultaneously and uniformly.Causality thus unifies space and time.Moreover, since we have discovered that the whole essence of matter is in its action, that is, in causality, then, in matter, space and time must also be unified, that is, no matter how their respective attributes are mutually related. To chisel, matter must provoke the attributes of both sides: what cannot be unified when the two sides are independent must be unified in matter, that is, the insubstantial erratic of time and the rigid and unchangeable permanence of space Unity; as for the infinite divisibility, matter is obtained from both sides of time and space.Accordingly, we see that simultaneous existence is first brought about by matter, which can neither be in an isolated time without juxtaposition, nor in an isolated space where there is no before, no future, no present.But it is the simultaneous existence of many situations that really constitutes the essence of reality, because continuity is made possible by virtue of simultaneous existence.And continuity consists in the fact that it is seen only in a certain change, in a change of what is present at the same time as that which lasts; Acquiring the characteristic of change, that is, the characteristic that while the substance, that is, matter, remains, its nature and form change.If it were only in space, the world would be rigid and static, without succession, change, or function; and without function, the appearance of matter would also be cancelled.If it is only in time, then everything is too ethereal and easy to disappear, so there will be no permanence, no juxtaposition, and therefore no simultaneity, and thus no duration, so there will be no substance.Because of the unity of time and space, matter is born, which is the possibility of simultaneous existence, and from this there is the possibility of persistence; and because of this latter possibility, then there is the possibility of entity permanence while the situation changes. possibility.As matter has its essence in the unity of time and space, it is always imprinted with both.Matter traces its origin from space, partly by virtue of its shape, which is inseparable from it; Its permanence (substance); and the transcendental definiteness of "permanent existence" is entirely derived from the a priori definiteness of space.The origin of matter in time is manifested in its physicality (accidental attribute); without physicality, it can never appear; and physicality is almost always causality, always an action on other substances, so it is change (a time concept). ).But the regularity of this action always concerns both space and time, and has meaning only therefrom.The determination of what must happen here and now is the sole jurisdiction of causal legislation.Based on the basic rules of matter are derived from those forms that we are aware of a priori, and we innately endow matter with certain properties: that is, space filling, that is, impenetrability, that is, actionability; Prolongation, endless divisibility, permanence, that is, indestructibility; and lastly, mobility.The difference is that gravity, although it is universal and without exception, is to be counted as an acquired knowledge; although Kant puts forward When it comes to gravity, it is regarded as something that can be known innately.

Just as objects at all exist for the subject only as representations of the subject, so each particular kind of representation exists only for a corresponding particular determination in the subject; each such determination is called a cognitive faculty, Kant called the subjective counterpart of time and space themselves as empty forms pure sensibility; this is not quite right, since matter is presupposed when mentioning sensibility; .Matter or causality are but one thing, and its subjective counterpart is understanding.Comprehension is just this counterpart, nothing else.Recognizing causality is its only function, its only ability; and this is a huge, broadly encompassing ability; it can be applied in many ways, and all the functions it expresses have an undeniable identity.Conversely, all causality, i.e. all matter, and thus all reality, exists only for the understanding, through the understanding, and only in the understanding.The first and simplest, self-existing function of the performance of the understanding is the intuition of the real world.This is always to recognize the cause from the effect, so all intuitions are rational.But this intuition cannot be reached without a certain effect which is directly recognized as the point of departure.Such an effect, however, is an effect on the animal body, which, to this extent, is the immediate object of the subject through which the intuition of all other objects has to pass.The changes undergone by every animal body are immediately known, that is, felt; and as soon as the effect is connected to its cause, there arises the intuition of the cause, of an object.This connection is not the result of inferences in abstract concepts, unreflective thinking, not arbitrary; but immediate, necessary, proper.It is the mode of knowledge of the pure understanding; without the understanding there is no intuition, but only a dull, vegetative awareness of immediate object changes which, unless they have some meaning for the will as pain or pleasure, remains. If not, it can only be completely meaningless and alternate with each other.But just as the sun rises to give rise to this visible world, so the understanding, by virtue of its single and simple function, transforms in a single stroke that dull, indifferent sensation into intuition.What the eyes, ears, and hands feel is not intuition, it's just a feeling.It is only when the understanding passes from effect to cause that there is this world, as an intuition unfolding in space, changing in form, and subsisting materially through all time, because the understanding unites space and time in one In the appearance of matter, this is the function of causality.This world as representation exists only for the understanding, just as it exists only for the understanding.I have analyzed in the first chapter of my treatise "Sight and Colours" how the understanding forms intuitions from those provided by the senses, how the child learns intuitions by comparing the impressions received by the different senses on the same object, how only Only in this way have many sensory phenomena [mysteries] been debunked: for example, when two eyes are used to see a single object, but when squinting at one object, overlapping double shadows appear; Seeing objects with different front and rear distances, as well as all illusions caused by sudden changes in sensory organs, etc.I have dealt more fully and thoroughly with this important subject in §21 of the second edition of my treatise on the Law of Reason.What was said there should have had its place here, and should be repeated here; but I have almost as much aversion to copying my own as to copying others; to make a better explanation; therefore, rather than repeating it here, I will just point out there for reference, and assume that what is said there is also well known.

[All these phenomena, such as] the visual learning of congenitally blind persons and young children who have been cured by surgery; the perception of the two eyes is only a single vision; the sense of touch; the upright and vertical image of the object appears as a reflection on the retina; the transfer of color, which was only an internal function, the polarization of eye movements, to the external object; finally there is the stereoscope;—these Everything is firmly and irrefutably proved that all intuitions are not only sensuous but intellectual, that is, pure cognition in which the understanding recognizes a cause from an effect, and thus also presupposes the law of causality.All intuitions and all experiences, from their initial and total possibility, depend on the knowledge of the law of causality, not vice versa, saying that the knowledge of the law of causality depends on experience.This latter statement, Hume's skepticism, is refuted here for the first time.It turns out that the cognition of causality does not depend on all experience, that is, the a priori nature of this cognition can only be explained from the cognition that all experience depends on causality; The passages to which we refer show the way in which the cognition of causality is already contained in intuition, and that all experience is in the sphere of intuition: that is, from the side of experience, cognition of causality is entirely A priori, experience assumes it rather than it presupposes it. [This is the only way to prove that it is true,] But this cannot be proved in the way that Kant tried it and I criticized it in the essay § 23 of the Law of Reason.