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

and therefore also the unconditioned, through which alone that totality becomes complete.

We become most vividly aware of the apparent truth of this proposition if we imagine the conditions and the conditioned as the links of a suspended chain, the upper end of which, however, is not visible, so that it might extend ad infinitum; since, however, the chain does not fall, but hangs, there must be above one link which is the first, and in some way is fixed.

Or, more briefly : the reason desires to have a point of attachment for the causal chain which reaches back to infinity ; it would be convenient for it. But we will examine the proposition, not in figures, but in itself. Synthetic it certainly is ; for, analytically, nothing more follows from the conception of the conditioned than that of the condition.

It has not, however, a priori truth, nor even a posteriori, but it surreptitiously obtains its appearance of truth in a very subtle way, which I must now point out. Immediately, and a priori, we have the knowledge which the principle of sufficient reason in its four forms expresses.

From this immediate knowledge all abstract expressions of the principle of sufficient reason are derived, and they are thus indirect ; still more, however, is this the case with inferences or corollaries from them.

I have already explained above how abstract knowledge often unites a variety of intuitive cognitions in one form or one concept in such a way that they can no longer be distinguished ; therefore abstract knowledge stands to intuitive knowledge as the shadow to the real objects, the great multiplicity of which it presents through one outline comprehending them all Now the pretended principle of the reason makes use of this shadow.

In order to deduce from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which directly contradicts it, it prudently abandons the immediate concrete knowledge of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in its particular forms, and only makes use of abstract concepts which are derived from it, and have value and significance only through it, in order to smuggle 2its unconditioned somehow or other into the wide sphere of those concepts. Its procedure becomes most distinct when clothed in dialectical form ; for example, thus : " If the conditioned exists, its condition must also be given, and indeed all given, thus completely, thus the totality of its conditions ; consequently, if they constitute a series, the whole series, consequently also its first beginning, thus the unconditioned.

Here it is false that the conditions of a conditioned can constitute a series. Rather must the totality of the conditions of everything conditioned be contained in its nearest ground or reason from which it directly proceeds, and which is only thus a sufficient ground or reason. For example, the different determinations of the state which is the cause, all of which must be present together before the effect can take place.

But the series, for example, the chain of causes, arises merely from the fact that we regard what immediately before was the condition as now a conditioned ; but then at once the whole operation begins again from the beginning, and the principle of sufficient reason appears anew with its claim.

But there can never be for a conditioned a properly successive series of conditions, which exist merely as such, and on account of that which is at last conditioned ; it ie always an alternating series of conditioneds and conditions ; as eacli link is laid aside the ciiain is broken, and the claim of the principle of sufficient reason entirely satisfied, it arises anew because the condition become! the conditioned.

Thus the principle of sufficient reasoc always demands only the completeness of the immcdiat* or next condition, never the completeness of a series. Bw just this conception of the completeness of the conditio! leaves it undetermined whether this completeness shoult be simultaneous or successive; and since the latter |i chosen, the demand now arises for a complete series e> conditions following each other.

Only through an ejflj trary abstraction is a series of causes and effects regarded as a series of causes alone, which exists merely on accosj 3of the last effect, and is therefore demanded as its sufficient \ reason. From closer and more intelligent consideration, and by rising from the indefinite generality of abstraction to the particular definite reality, it appears, on the contrary, that the demand for a sufficient reason extends only to the completeness of the determinations of the immediate cause, not to the completeness of a series.

The demand of the principle of sufficient reason is completely extinguished in each sufficient reason given. It arises, however, immediately anew, because this reason is again regarded as a consequent ; but it never demands directly a series of reasons. If, on the other hand, instead of going to the thing itself, we confine ourselves to the abstract concepts, these distinctions vanish.

Then a chain of alternating causes and effects, or of alternating logical reasons and consequents, is given out as simply a chain of causes of ' the last effect, or reasons of the last consequent, and the completeness of the conditions, through which alone a reason becomes sufficient, appears as the completeness of that assumed series of reasons alone, which only exist on account of the last consequent.

There then appears the abstract principle of the reason very boldly with its demand for the unconditioned.

But, in order to recognise the invalidity of this claim, there is no need of a critique of reason by means of antinomies and their solution, but only of a critique of reason understood in my sense, an examination of the relation of abstract knowledge to direct intuitive knowledge, by means of ascending from the indefinite generality of the former to the fixed defmiteness of the latter.

From such a critique, then, it here appears that the nature of the reason by no means consists in the demand for an unconditioned ; for, whenever it proceeds with full deliberation, it must itself find that an unconditioned is an absurdity. The reason as a faculty of knowledge can always have to do only with objects ; but every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably subordinated to the principle of sufficient