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

starting-point what Kant gives as the solution of the conflict, the assertion of the antithesis follows exactly from it. Thus : if the world is not an unconditioned whole and does not exist absolutely but only in the idea, and if its series of reasons and consequents do not exist before the regressus of the ideas of them but only through this regressus, then the. world cannot contain determined and finite series, because their determination and limitation would necessarily be independent of the idea, which would then only come afterwards ; but all its series must be infinite, i.e., inexhaustible by any idea.

On p. 506 ; V. 534, Kant tries to prove from the falseness of both sides the transcendental ideality of the phenomenon, and begins, " If the world is a whole existing by itself, it is either finite or infinite." But this is false ; a whole existing of itself cannot possibly be infinite. That ideality may rather be concluded from the infinity of the series in the world in the following manner: — If the series of reasons and consequents in the world are absolutely without end, the world cannot be a given whole independent of the idea; for such a world always presupposes definite limits, just as on the contrary infinite series presuppose an infinite regressus. Therefore, the presupposed infinity of the series must be determined through the form of reason and consequent, and this again through the form of knowledge of the subject ; thus the world as it is known must exist only in the idea of the subject.

Now whether Kant himself was aware or not that hi* critical solution of the problem is really a decision ii favour of the antithesis, I am unable to decide. For i depends upon whether what Schelling has somewher* very happily called Kant's system of accommodatioi extended so far; or whether Kant's mind was her already involved in an unconscious accommodation t the influence of his time and surroundings.

p. 117

The solution of the third antinomy, the subject of which was the Idea of freedom, deserves a special consideration, because it is for us very well worth notice that it is just here in connection with the Idea of freedom that Kant is obliged to speak more fully of the thing in itself, which was hitherto only seen in the background. This is very explicable to us since we have recognised the thing in itself as the vrill.

Speaking generally, this is the point at which the Kantian philosophy leads to mine, or at which mine springs out of his as its parent stem. One will be convinced of this if one reads with attention pp. 536 and 537; V.

564 and 565, of the "Critique of Pure Eeason," and, further, compares these passages with the introduction to the " Critique of Judgment," pp. xviii. and xix. of the third edition, or p. 13 of Ilosenkranz's edition, where indeed it is said : " The conception of freedom can in its object (that is then the will) present to the mind a thing in itself, but not in perception; the conception of nature, on the other hand, can present its object to the mind in perception, but not as a thing in itself.

But specially let any one read concerning the solution of the antinomies the fifty-third paragraph of the Prolegomena, and then honestly answer the question whether all that is said there does not sound like a riddle to which my doctrine is the answer. Kant never completed his thought ; I have merely carried out his work.

Accordingly, what Kant says o^y of the human phenomenon I have extended to all piienomena in general, as differing from the human phenomenon only in degree, that their true being is something absolutely free, i.e., a will. It appears from my work how fruitful this insight is in connection with Kant's doctrine of the ideality of space, time, and causality.