Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller
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The translator’s English as printed (F. Max Müller). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
is inseparably connected with the necessity to have been always, and the expression may therefore stand, [p. 186] Gigni de nihilo niJiil^ in nihilum nil posse reverti^ were two propositions which the ancients never separated, but which at present are sometimes parted, because people imagine that they refer to things by themselves, and that the former might contradict the dependence of the world on a Supreme Cause (even with regard to its substance), an apprehension entirely needless, as we are only speaking here of phenomena in the sphere of experience, the unity of which would never be possible, if we allowed that new things (new in substance) could ever arise. For in that case we should lose that which alone can represent the unity of time, namely, the identity of the substratum, in which alone all change retains complete unity. This permanence, however, is nothing but the manner in which we represent the existence of things (as phenomenal).
The different determinations of a substance, which are nothing but particular modes in which it exists, are called accidents. They are always real, because they concern the existence of a substance (negations are nothing but determinations which express the non-existence of something in the substance). If we want to ascribe a particular kind of existence to these real determinations of the substance, as, for instance, to motion, as an accident of matter, we call it inherence^ in order to distinguish it from the existence of substance, which ^ we call subsistence. This, however, has given rise to many misunderstand- [p. 187] ings, and we shall express ourselves better and more correctly, if we define the accident through the manner only,
^ Read das man.
Transcendental Analytic 153
in which the existence of a substance is positively determined. It is inevitable, however, according to the conditions of the logical use of our understanding, to separate, as it were, whatever can change in the existence of a substance, while the substance itself remains unchanged, and to consider it in its relation to that which is radical and truly permanent. Hence a place has been assigned to this category under the title of relations, not so much because it contains itself a relation, as because it contains their condition.
On this permanence depends also the right understanding of the concept of change. To arise and to perish are not changes of that which arises or perishes. Change is a mode of existence, which follows another mode of existence of the same object. Hence whatever changes is permanent, and its condition only changes. As this alteration refers only to determinations which may have an end or a beginning, we may use an expression that seems somewhat paradoxical and say : the permanent only (substance) is changed, the changing itself suffers no change, but only an alteration, certain determinations ceasing to exist, while others begin.
It is therefore in substances only that change [p. 188] can be perceived. Arising or perishing absolutely, and not referring merely to a determination of the permanent can never become a possible perception, because it is the permanent only which renders the representations of a transition from one state to another, from not being to being, possible, which (changes) consequently can only be known empirically, as alternating determinations of what is permanent. If you suppose that something has an absolute beginning, you must have a moment of time in
154 Transcendental Analytic which it was not. But with what can you connect that moment, if not with that which already exists ? An empty antecedent time cannot be an object of perception. But if you connect this beginning with things which existed already and continue to exist till the beginning of something new, then the latter is only a determination of the former, as of the permanent. The same holds good with regard to perishing, for this would presuppose the empirical representation of a time in which a phenomenon exists no longer.
Substances therefore (as phenomena) are the true substrata of all determinations of time. If some substances could arise and others perish, the only condition of the empirical unity of time would be removed, and phenomena would then be referred to two different times, in which existence would pass side by side, which is absurd. For there is but one time in which all different times [p. 189] must be placed, not as simultaneous, but as successive.
Permanence, therefore, is a necessary condition under which alone phenomena, as things or objects, can be determined in a possible experience. What the empirical criterion of this necessary permanence, or of the substantiality of phenomena may be, we shall have to explain in the sequel.
Transcendental Afialytic 155
\Second Analogy
Principle of Production'^
Everything that happens (begins to be), presupposes something on which it follows according to a rule]
Proof
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