• Chapter 8. General observations and results
  • § 46. The Systematic Order.
  • § 47. Relation in Time between Reason and Consequence.
  • § 48. Reciprocity of Reasons.
  • § 49. Necessity.
  • § 50. Series of Reasons and Consequences.
  • § 51. Each Science has for its Guiding Thread one of the Forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in preference to the others.
  • § 52. Two principal Results.

Chapter 8. General observations and results

§ 46. The Systematic Order.

The systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediate [178]representations, whereas this last class refers to representations derived from other representations.

§ 47. Relation in Time between Reason and Consequence.

According to the laws of causality and of motivation, a reason must precede its consequence in Time.

On the other hand, the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing conveys with it no relation in Time, but merely a relation for our Reason: here therefore, before and after have no meaning.

In the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being, so far as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in Time, but only a relation in Space.

§ 48. Reciprocity of Reasons.

Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, as [180]indeed every hypothetical judgment is ultimately based upon that principle, and here the laws of hypothetical conclusions always hold good: that is to say, it is right to infer the existence of the consequence from the existence of the reason, and the non-existence of the reason from the non-existence of the consequence; but it is wrong to infer the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason, and the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence.

§ 49. Necessity.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For necessity has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is conditioned: absolute, i.e., unconditioned, necessity therefore is a contradicto in adjecto. For to be necessary can never mean anything but to result from a given reason.

The conception of an “ABSOLUTELY necessary Being” which finds so much favour with pseudo-philosophers, contains therefore a contradiction: it annuls by the predicate “absolute” (i.e., “unconditioned by anything else”) the only determination which makes the “necessary” conceivable.

There exists accordingly a fourfold necessity, in conformity with the four forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason:—

• Logical necessity
• Physical necessity
• Mathematical necessity
• Moral necessity

§ 50. Series of Reasons and Consequences.

According to the law of causality, the condition is itself always conditioned, and, moreover, conditioned in the same way; therefore, there arises a series in infinitum a parte ante.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the principle of all explanation: to explain a thing means, to reduce its given existence or connection to some form or other of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, in accordance with which form that existence or connection necessarily is that which it is. The Principle of Sufficient Reason itself, i.e., the connection expressed by it in any of its forms, cannot therefore be further explained; because there exists no principle by which to explain the source of all explanation: just as the eye is unable to see itself, though it sees everything else.

There are of course series of motives, since the resolve to attain an end becomes the motive for the resolve to use a whole series of means; still this series invariably ends à parte priori in a representation belonging to one of our two first classes, in which lies the motive which originally had the power to set this individual will in motion. The fact that it was able to do this, is a datum for knowing the empirical character here given, but it is impossible to answer the question why that particular motive acts upon that particular character; because the intelligible character lies outside Time and never becomes an Object.

§ 51. Each Science has for its Guiding Thread one of the Forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in preference to the others.

As the question why always demands a sufficient reason, and as it is the connection of its notions according to the principle of sufficient reason which distinguishes science from a mere aggregate of notions, we have called that why the parent of all science.

§ 52. Two principal Results.

I have endeavoured in this treatise to show that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is a common expression for four completely different relations, each of which is founded upon a particular law given à priori. Now, according to the principle of homogeneity, we are compelled to assume that these four laws, discovered according to the principle of specification, as they agree in being expressed by one and the same term, must necessarily spring from one and the same original quality of our whole cognitive faculty as their common root.

The general meaning of the Principle of Sufficient Reason may be brought back by: that every thing existing no matter when or where, exists by reason of something else. Now, the Principle of Sufficient Reason is nevertheless à priori in all its forms: that is, it has its root in our intellect, therefore it must not be applied to the totality of existent things, the Universe, including that intellect in which it presents itself. Therefore we cannot say, “the world and all things in it exist by reason of something else;” and this proposition is precisely the Cosmological Proof. Even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as the reason of the phenomenon and also of a ground of the possibility of all phenomena, the contingency of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena.”

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