The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

in boundless space, without limiting each other, or might be succes^siye in endless time without interfering with each other : thus a necessary relation of these phenomena to ench other, and a law wliich should regulate them according to such a relation, is by no means needful, would not, indeed, bo applicable : it therefoic follows that in the case of all co-existence in space and change in time, so long each of these forms preserves for itself its cor^^lition and its course without any connection with the other, there can be no causation^ and since^ causation constitutes the essential nature of matter, there can be no matter.

But the law of causation receives its meaning and necessity only from this, that the essence of change does not consist simply in the mere variation of things, but rather in the fact that at the same ;part qf space there is now one thing and then another^ and at OTie and the same point of time there is here one thing and there another: only this reciprocal limitation of space and time by each other gives meaning, and at the same time necessity, to a law, according to which change must take place.

What is determined by the law of causality is therefore not merely a succession of things in time, but this succession with reference to a definite space, and not merely existence of things in a particular place, but iiTIhS place at a different point of time. Change, ix.y variation which takes place according to the law of causj^ty, iinjDlies idways a determined part of space and a determined part of time together and in union.

Thus causality unites space with time.

But we found that the whole essence of matter consisted in action, i.c., in causation, consequently space and time must also be united in mattei^that is to say, matter must take to itself at once the distinguishing qualities both of space and time, however much these may be opposed to each other, and must unite in itself what is impossible for each of these independently, that is, the fleeting course of time, with the rigid unchangeable perdiiratioh of 3space ; infinite divisibility it receives from both. It is for this reason that we find that co-existence, which could neither be in time alone, for time has no contiguity, nor in space alone, for space has no before, after, or now, is first established through matter.

But the co-existence of many things constitutes, ijajact, the .essence of reality, for through it permanence first becomes possible ; for permanence is only knowable in the change of something wliich is present along with what is permanent, while on the other hand it is only because something permanent is present along with what changes, that the latter gains the special character of change, i.e., the mutation of quality and form in the permanence of substance, that is to say, in matter.^ If the world were in space alone, it would be rigid and immovable, without succession, without change, without action ; but we know that with action, the idea of matter first appears.

Again, if the world were in time alone, all would be fleeting, without persistence, without contiguity, hence without coexistence, and consequently without permanence ; so that in this case also there would be no matter.

Only through the union of space and time do we reach matter, and matter is the possibility of co-existence, and, through that, of permanence ; through permanence again matter is the possibility of the persistence of substance in the change of its states.^ As matter consists in the union of space and time, it bears throughout the stamp of both.

It manifests its origin in space, partly through the form which is inseparable from it, but especially through its persistence (substance), the a priori certainty of which is therefore wholly deducible from that of space® (for variation belongs to time alone, but in it alone and for itself nothing is persistent). Matter shows that it springs