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

ground and root of such necessity out of account, overlooked the relativity of all necessity which follows from it, and thereby made the quite unthinkable fiction of an absolute necessity, i.e., of something the existence of which would be as inevitable as the consequent of a reason, but which yet was not the consequent of a reason, and therefore depended upon nothing; an addition which is an absurd petitio, for it conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Now, starting from this fiction, it explained, in diametrical opposition to the truth, all that is established by a reason as contingent, because it looked at the relative nature of its necessity and compared thia with that entirely imaginary absolute necessity, which is self-contradictory in its conception.1 Now Kant adheres to this fundamentally perverse definition of the contingent and gives it as explanation. (Critique of Pure Reason, V. p. 289-291 , 243. V. 301 , 419. V. 447, 486, 488.) He falls indeed into the most evident contradiction with himself upon this point, for on p. 301 he says: "Everything contingent has a cause," and adds, M That is contingent which might possibly not be." But whatever has a cause cannot possibly not be : thus it is necessary. For the rest, the source of the whole of this false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is to be found in Aristotle in "De Generatione et Corruption^ lib. ii c. 9 et 11, where the necessary is explained as that which cannot possibly not be : there stands in opposi1 Cf. Christian Wolf's "Verniin- matical truths. The reason be ftige Gedankcn von Gott, Well und signs for this is, that only the lav

Sede," § 577-579. It is strange of causality gives infinite series, that he only explains as contingent while the other kinds of groundf 2what is necessary according to the give only finite series. Yet this i> principle of sufficient reason of be- by no means the case with the form coming, i.e., what takes place from of the principle of sufficient reasoi causes, and on the contrary recog- in pure space and time, but onl;

nises an necessary that which is so holds good of the logical ground o according to the other forms of the knowledge ; but he held mathe principle of sufficient reason ; for matical necessity to be such alsc example, what follows from the Compare the essay on the prinoH essentia (definition), thus analytical of sufficient reason, § 50. judgments, and further also matheCRITICISM p. 71tion to it that which cannot possibly be, and between these two lies that which can both be and not be, — thus that which comes into being and passes away, and this would then be the contingent. In accordance with what has been said above, it is clear that this explanation, like so many of Aristotle's, has resulted from sticking to abstract conceptions without going back to the concrete and perceptible, in which, however, the source of all abstract conceptions lies, and by which therefore they must always be controlled. "Something which cannot possibly not be " can certainly be thought in the abstract, but if we go with it to the concrete, the real, the perceptible, we find nothing to support the thought, even as possible, — as even .merely the asserted consequent of a given reason, whose necessity is yet relative and conditioned.