empirical determinations of time must be subject to rules of the general determination of time; and the analogies of experience, of which we are now going to treat, are exactly rules of this kind. These principles have this peculiarity, that they do not refer to phenomena and the synthesis of their empirical intuition, but only to the existence of phenomena and their mutual relation with regard to their existence. The manner in which something is apprehended as a phenomenon may be so determined a priori that the rule of its synthesis may give at the same time this intuition a priori in any empirical case, nay, may really render it possible. But the existence of phenomena can never be known a priori, and though we might be led in this way to infer some kind of existence, we should never be able to know it definitely, or to anticipate that by which the empirical intuition of one differs from that of others. A. First Analogy. Principle of the Permanence of Substance. In all changes of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantum is neither increased or diminished in nature. PROOF Our apprehension of the manifold of phenomena is always successive, and therefore always changing. By it alone therefore we can never determine whether the manifold, as an object of experience, is coexistent or successive, unless there is something in it which exists always, that is, something constant and permanent, while change and succession are nothing but so many kinds (modi) of time in which the permanent exists. Relations of time are therefore possible in the permanent only (coexistence and succession being the only relations of time) so that the permanent is the substratum of the empirical representation of time itself, and in it alone all determination of time is possible. Permanence expresses time as the constant correlative of all existence of phenomena, of all change and concomitancy. For change does not affect time itself, but only phenomena in time (nor is coexistence a mode of time itself, because in it no parts can be coexistent, but successive only). If we were to ascribe a succession to time itself, it would be necessary to admit another time in which such succession should be possible. Only through the permanent does existence in different parts of a series of time assume a quantity which we call duration. For in mere succession existence always comes and goes, and never assumes the slightest quantity. Without something permanent therefore no relation of time is possible. Time, by itself, however, cannot be perceived, and it is therefore the permanent in phenomena that forms the substratum for all determination of time, and at the same time the condition of the possibility of all synthetical unity of perceptions, that is, of experience; while with regard to that permanent all existence and all change in time can only be taken as a mode of existence of what is permanent. In all phenomena therefore the permanent is the object itself, that is, the substance (phenomenon), while all that changes or can change belongs only to the mode in which substance or substances exist, therefore to their determinations. B. Second Analogy. Principle of the Succession of Time. All changes take place according to the law of connection of cause and effect. PROOF This rule, by which we determine everything according to the succession of time, is this: the condition under which an event follows at all times (necessarily) is to be found in what precedes. All possible experience therefore, that is, all objective knowledge of phenomena with regard to their relation in the succession of time, depends on "the principle of sufficient reason." The proof of this principle rests entirely on the following considerations. All empirical knowledge requires synthesis of the manifold by imagination, which is always successive, one representation following upon the other. That succession, however, in the imagination is not at all determined with regard to the order in which something precedes and something follows, and the series of successive representations may be taken as retrogressive as well as progressive. If that synthesis, however, is a synthesis of apperception (of the manifold in a given phenomenon), then the order is determined in the object, or, to speak more accurately, there is then in it an order of successive synthesis which determines the object, and according to which something must necessarily precede, and, when it is once there, something else must necessarily follow. If therefore my perception is to contain the knowledge of an event, or something that really happens, it must consist of an empirical judgment, by which the succession is supposed to be determined, so that the event presupposes another phenomenon in time on which it follows necessarily and according to a rule. If it were different, if the antecedent phenomenon were there, and the event did not follow on it necessarily, it would become to me a mere play of my subjective imaginations, or if I thought it to be objective, I should call it a dream. It is therefore the relation of phenomena (as possible perceptions) according to which the existence of the subsequent (what happens) is determined in time by something antecedent necessarily and by rule, or, in other words, the relation of cause and effect, which forms the condition of the objective validity of our empirical judgments with regard to the series of perceptions, and therefore also the condition of the empirical truth of them, and of experience. The principle of the causal relation in the succession of phenomena is valid therefore for all objects of experience, also (under the conditions of succession), because that principle is itself the ground of the possibility of such experience. C. Third Analogy. Principle of Community. All substances in so far as they can be perceived as coexistent in space, are always affecting each other reciprocally. PROOF Things are coexistent in so far as they exist at one and the same time. But how can we know that they exist at one and the same time? Only if the order in the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold is indifferent, that is, if I may advance from A through B, C, D, to E, or contrariwise from E to A. For, if the synthesis were successive in time (in the order beginning with A and ending with E), it would be impossible to begin the apprehension with the perception of E and to go backwards to A, because A belongs to past time, and can no longer be an object of apprehension. If we supposed it possible that in a number of substances, as phenomena, each were perfectly isolated, so that none influenced another or received influences from another, then the coexistence of them could never become an object of possible perception, nor could the existence of the one through any process of empirical synthesis lead us on to the existence of another. For if we imagined that they were separated by a perfectly empty space, a perception, proceeding from the one in time to the other might no doubt determine the existence of it by means of a subsequent perception, but would never be able to determine whether that phenomenon followed objectively on the other or was coexistent with it. There must therefore be something besides their mere existence by which A determines its place in time for B, and B for A, because thus only can these two substances be represented empirically as coexistent. Nothing, however, can determine the place of anything else in time, except that which is its cause or the cause of its determinations. Therefore every substance (since it can be effect with regard to its determinations only) must contain in itself the causality of certain determinations in another substance, and, at the same time, the effects of the causality of that other substance, that is, substances must stand in dynamical communion, immediately or mediately, with each other, if their coexistence is to be known in any possible experience. Everything without which the experience of any objects would be impossible, may be said to be necessary with reference to such objects of experience; from which it follows that it is necessary for all substances, so far as they are coexistent as phenomena, to stand in a complete communion of reciprocity with each other. These are the three analogies of experience. They are nothing but principles for determining the existence of phenomena in time, according to its three modes. First, the relation of time itself, as to a quantity (quantity of existence, that is duration). Secondly, the relation in time, as in a series (successively). And thirdly, likewise in time, as the whole of all existence (simultaneously). This unity in the determination of time is dynamical only, that is, time is not looked upon as that in which experience assigns immediately its place to every existence, for this would be impossible; because absolute time is no object of perception. by which phenomena could be held together; but the rule of the understanding through which alone the existence of phenomena can receive synthetical unity in time determines the place of each of them in time, therefore a priori and as valid for all time. By nature (in the empirical sense of the word) we mean the coherence of phenomena in their existence, according to necessary rules, that is, laws. There are therefore certain laws, and they exist a priori, which themselves make nature possible, while the empirical laws exist and are discovered through experience, but in accordance with those original laws which first render experience possible. Our analogies therefore represent the unity of nature in the coherence of all phenomena, under certain exponents, which express the relation of time (as comprehending all existence) to the unity of apperception, which apperception can only take place in the synthesis according to rules. The three analogies, therefore, simply say, that all phenomena exist in one nature, and must so exist because, without such unity a priori no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of objects in experience, would be possible. IV. POSTULATES OF ALL EMPIRICAL THOUGHT 1. What agrees with the formal conditions of experience (in intuition and in concepts) is possible. 2. What is connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation) is real. |