GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIEWS HITHERTO HELD CONCERNING
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON.
§ 6. _First Statement of the Principle and Distinction between Two of
its Meanings._
A more or less accurately defined, abstract expression for so
fundamental a principle of all knowledge must have been found at a
very early age; it would, therefore, be difficult, and besides of no
great interest, to determine where it first appeared. Neither Plato nor
Aristotle have formally stated it as a leading fundamental principle,
although both often speak of it as a self-evident truth. Thus, with a
_naïveté_ which savours of the state of innocence as opposed to that
of the knowledge of good and of evil, when compared with the critical
researches of our own times, Plato says: ἀναγκαῖον, πάντα τὰ γιγνόμενα
διά τινα αἰτίαν γίγνεσθαι· πῶς γὰρ ἂν χωρὶς τούτων γίγνοιτο;[16]
(_necesse est, quæcunque fiunt, per aliquam causam fieri: quomodo
enim absque ea fierent?_) and then again: πᾶν δὲ τὸ γιγνόμενον ὑπ'
αἰτίου τινὸς ἐξ ἀνάγκης γίγνεσθαι· παντὶ γὰρ ἀδύνατον χωρὶς αἰτίου
γένεσιν σχεῖν[17] (_quidquid gignitur, ex aliqua causa necessario
gignitur: sine causa enim oriri quidquam, impossibile est_). At the end
of his book "De fato," Plutarch cites the following among the chief
propositions of the Stoics: μάλιστα μὲν καὶ πρῶτον εἶναι δόξειε, τὸ
μηδὲν ἀναιτίως γίγνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ κατὰ προηγουμένας αἰτίας[18] (_maxime
id primum esse videbitur, nihil fieri sine causa, sed omnia causis
antegressis_).
[16] Platon, "Phileb." p. 240, ed Bip. "It is necessary that all
which arises, should arise by some cause; for how could it arise
otherwise?" [Tr.'s add.]
[17] _Ibid._ "Timæus," p. 302. "All that arises, arises necessarily
from some cause; for it is impossible for anything to come into
being without cause." [Tr.'s add.]
[18] "This especially would seem to be the first principle: that
nothing arises without cause, but [everything] according to
preceding causes." [Tr.'s add.]
In the "Analyt. post." i. 2, Aristotle states the principle of
sufficient reason to a certain degree when he says: ἐπίστασθαι δὲ
οἰόμεθα ἕκαστον ἁπλῶς, ὅταν τὴν τ' αἰτίαν οἰόμεθα γινώσκειν, δι' ἣν τὸ
πρᾶγμα ἔστιν, ὅτι ἐκείνου αἰτία ἐστίν, καὶ μὴ ἐνδέχεσθαι τοῦτο ἄλλως
εἶναι. (_Scire autem putamus unamquamque rem simpliciter, quum putamus
causam cognoscere, propter quum res est, ejusque rei causam esse, nec
posse eam aliter se habere._)[19] In his "Metaphysics," moreover, he
already divides causes, or rather principles, ἀρχαί, into different
kinds,[20] of which he admits eight; but this division is neither
profound nor precise enough. He is, nevertheless, quite right in
saying, πασῶν μὲν οὖν κοινὸν τῶν ἀρχῶν, τὸ πρῶτον εἶναι, ὅθεν ἢ ἔστιν,
ἢ γίνεται, ἢ γιγνώσκεται.[21] (_Omnibus igitur principiis commune est,
esse primum, unde aut est, aut fit, aut cognoscitur._) In the following
chapter he distinguishes several kinds of causes, although somewhat
superficially and confusedly. In the "Analyt. post." ii. 11, he
states four kinds of causes in a more satisfactory manner: αἰτίαι δὲ
τέσσαρες· μία μὲν τό τι ἦν εἶναι· μία δὲ τὸ τινῶν ὄντων, ἀνάγκη τοῦτο
εἶναι· ἑτέρα δὲ, ἥ τι πρῶτον ἐκίνησε· τετάρτη δὲ, τὸ τίνος ἕνεκα.[22]
(_Causæ autem quatuor sunt: una quæ explicat quid res sit; altera,
quam, si quædam sint, necesse est esse; tertia, quæ quid primum movit;
quarta id, cujus gratia._) Now this is the origin of the division
of the _causæ_ universally adopted by the Scholastic Philosophers,
into _causæ materiales, formales, efficientes et finales_, as may be
seen in "Suarii disputationes metaphysicæ"[23]--a real compendium of
Scholasticism. Even Hobbes still quotes and explains this division.[24]
It is also to be found in another passage of Aristotle, this time
somewhat more clearly and fully developed ("Metaph." i. 3.) and it
is again briefly noticed in the book "De somno et vigilia," c. 2. As
for the vitally important distinction between _reason_ and _cause_,
however, Aristotle no doubt betrays something like a conception of it
in the "Analyt. post." i. 13, where he shows at considerable length
that knowing and proving _that_ a thing exists is a very different
thing from knowing and proving _why_ it exists: what he represents as
the latter, being knowledge of the _cause_; as the former, knowledge
of the _reason_. If, however, he had quite clearly recognized the
difference between them, he would never have lost sight of it, but
would have adhered to it throughout his writings. Now this is not the
case; for even when he endeavours to distinguish the various kinds of
causes from one another, as in the passages I have mentioned above, the
essential difference mooted in the chapter just alluded to, never seems
to occur to him again. Besides he uses the term αἴτιον indiscriminately
for every kind of cause, often indeed calling reasons of knowledge,
and sometimes even the premisses of a conclusion, αἰτίας, as, for
instance, in his "Metaph." iv. 18; "Rhet." ii. 2; "De plantis." p. 816
(_ed. Berol._), but more especially "Analyt. post." i. 2, where he
calls the premisses to a conclusion simply αἰτίαι τοῦ συμπεράσματος
(causes of the conclusion). Now, using the same word to express two
closely connected conceptions, is a sure sign that their difference
has not been recognised, or at any rate not been firmly grasped; for a
mere accidental homonymous designation of two widely differing things
is quite another matter. Nowhere, however, does this error appear
more conspicuously than in his definition of the sophism _non causæ
ut causa_, παρὰ τὸ μὴ αἴτιον ὡς αἴτιον, (reasoning from what is not
cause as if it were cause), in the book "De sophisticis elenchis," c.
5. By αἴτιον he here understands absolutely nothing but the argument,
the premisses, consequently a reason of knowledge; for this sophism
consists in correctly proving the impossibility of something, while the
proof has no bearing whatever upon the proposition in dispute, which
it is nevertheless supposed to refute. Here, therefore, there is no
question at all of physical causes. Still the use of the word αἴτιον
has had so much weight with modern logicians, that they hold to it
exclusively in their accounts of the _fallacia extra dictionem_, and
explain the _fallacia non causæ ut causa_ as designating a physical
cause, which is not the case. Reimarus, for instance, does so, and
G. E. Schultze and Fries--all indeed of whom I have any knowledge.
The first work in which I find a correct definition of this sophism,
is Twesten's Logic. Moreover, in all other scientific works and
controversies the charge of a _fallacia non causæ ut causa_ usually
denotes the interpolation of a wrong cause.
[19] "We think we understand a thing perfectly, whenever we
think we know the cause by which the thing is, that it is really
the cause of that thing, and that the thing cannot possibly be
otherwise." [Tr.'s add.]
[20] Lib. iv. c. 1.
[21] "Now it is common to all principles, that they are the first
thing through which [anything] is, or arises, or is understood."
[Tr.'s add.]
[22] "There are four causes: first, the essence of a thing itself;
second, the _sine qua non_ of a thing; third, what first put
a thing in motion; fourth, to what purpose or end a thing is
tending." [Tr.'s add.]
[23] "Suarii disputationes metaph." Disp. 12, sect. 2 et 3.
[24] Hobbes, "De corpore," P. ii. c. 10, § 7.
Sextus Empiricus presents another forcible instance of the way in which
the Ancients were wont universally to confound the logical law of the
reason of knowledge with the transcendental law of cause and effect
in Nature, persistently mistaking one for the other. In the 9th Book
"Adversus Mathematicos," that is, the Book "Adversus Physicos," § 204,
he undertakes to prove the law of causality, and says: "He who asserts
that there is no cause (αἰτία), either has no cause (αἰτία) for his
assertion, or has one. In the former case there is not more truth in
his assertion than in its contradiction; in the latter, his assertion
itself proves the existence of a cause."
By this we see that the Ancients had not yet arrived at a clear
distinction between requiring a reason as the ground of a conclusion,
and asking for a cause for the occurrence of a real event. As for the
Scholastic Philosophers of later times, the law of causality was in
their eyes an axiom above investigation: "_non inquirimus an causa sit,
quia nihil est per se notius_," says Suarez.[25] At the same time they
held fast to the above quoted Aristotelian classification; but, as far
as I know at least, they equally failed to arrive at a clear idea of
the necessary distinction of which we are here speaking.
[25] Suarez, "Disp." 12, sect. 1.
§ 7. _Descartes._
For we find even the excellent Descartes, who gave the first impulse
to subjective reflection and thereby became the father of modern
philosophy, still entangled in confusions for which it is difficult
to account; and we shall soon see to what serious and deplorable
consequences these confusions have led with regard to Metaphysics.
In the "_Responsio ad secundas objectiones in meditationes de prima
philosophia_," _axioma i._ he says: _Nulla res existit, de qua non
possit quæri, quænam sit causa, cur existat. Hoc enim de ipso Deo quæri
potest, non quod indigeat ulla causa ut existat, sed quia ipsa ejus
naturæ immensitas est_ CAUSA, SIVE RATIO, _propter quam nulla causa
indiget ad existendum_. He ought to have said: The immensity of God
is a logical reason from which it follows, that God needs no cause;
whereas he confounds the two together and obviously has no clear
consciousness of the difference between reason and cause. Properly
speaking however, it is his intention which mars his insight. For
here, where the law of causality demands a _cause_, he substitutes a
_reason_ instead of it, because the latter, unlike the former, does
not immediately lead to something beyond it; and thus, by means of
this very axiom, he clears the way to the _Ontological Proof_ of
the existence of God, which was really his invention, for Anselm
had only indicated it in a general manner. Immediately after these
axioms, of which I have just quoted the first, there comes a formal,
quite serious statement of the Ontological Proof, which, in fact,
already lies within that axiom, as the chicken does within the egg
that has been long brooded over. Thus, while everything else stands
in need of a cause for its existence, the _immensitas_ implied in the
conception of the Deity--who is introduced to us upon the ladder of the
Cosmological Proof--suffices in lieu of a cause or, as the proof itself
expresses it: _in conceptu entis summe perfecti existentia necessaria
continetur_. This, then, is the sleight-of-hand trick, for the sake of
which the confusion, familiar even to Aristotle, of the two principal
meanings of the principle of sufficient reason, has been used directly
_in majorem Dei gloriam_.
Considered by daylight, however, and without prejudice, this famous
Ontological Proof is really a charming joke. On some occasion or
other, some one excogitates a conception, composed out of all sorts
of predicates, among which however he takes care to include the
predicate actuality or existence, either openly stated or wrapped
up for decency's sake in some other predicate, such as _perfectio_,
_immensitas_, or something of the kind. Now, it is well known,--that,
from a given conception, those predicates which are essential to
it--_i.e._, without which it cannot be thought--and likewise the
predicates which are essential to those predicates themselves, may be
extracted by means of purely logical analyses, and consequently have
_logical_ truth: that is, they have their reason of knowledge in the
given conception. Accordingly the predicate reality or existence is
now extracted from this arbitrarily thought conception, and an object
corresponding to it is forthwith presumed to have real existence
independently of the conception.
"Wär' der Gedank' nicht so verwünscht gescheut,
Man wär' versucht ihn herzlich dumm zu nennen."[26]
[26]
"Were not the thought so cursedly acute,
One might be tempted to declare it silly."
SCHILLER, "Wallenstein-Trilogie. Piccolomini," Act ii. Sc. 7.
After all, the simplest answer to such ontological demonstrations
is: "All depends upon the source whence you have derived your
conception: if it be taken from experience, all well and good, for
in this case its object exists and needs no further proof; if, on
the contrary, it has been hatched in your own _sinciput_, all its
predicates are of no avail, for it is a mere phantasm." But we form
an unfavourable prejudice against the pretensions of a theology which
needed to have recourse to such proofs as this in order to gain a
footing on the territory of philosophy, to which it is quite foreign,
but on which it longs to trespass. But oh! for the prophetic wisdom of
Aristotle! He had never even heard of the Ontological Proof; yet as
though he could detect this piece of scholastic jugglery through the
shades of coming darkness and were anxious to bar the road to it, he
carefully shows[27] that defining a thing and proving its existence are
two different matters, separate to all eternity; since by the one we
learn _what_ it is that is meant, and by the other _that_ such a thing
exists. Like an oracle of the future, he pronounces the sentence: τὸ
δ' εἶναι οὐκ οὐσία οὐδενί· οὐ γὰρ γένος τὸ ὄν: (ESSE _autem nullius
rei essentia, est, quandoquidem ens non est genus_) which means:
"Existence never can belong to the essence of a thing." On the other
hand, we may see how great was Herr von Schelling's veneration for
the Ontological Proof in a long note, p. 152, of the 1st vol. of his
"Philosophische Schriften" of 1809. We may even see in it something
still more instructive, _i.e._, how easily Germans allow sand to be
thrown in their eyes by impudence and blustering swagger. But for so
thoroughly pitiable a creature as Hegel, whose whole pseudo-philosophy
is but a monstrous amplification of the Ontological Proof, to have
undertaken its defence against Kant, is indeed an alliance of which
the Ontological Proof itself might be ashamed, however little it may
in general be given to blushing. How can I be expected to speak with
deference of men, who have brought philosophy into contempt?
[27] Aristot., "Analyt. post." c. 7.
§ 8. _Spinoza._
Although Spinoza's philosophy mainly consists in the negation of the
double dualism between God and the world and between soul and body,
which his teacher, Descartes, had set up, he nevertheless remained true
to his master in confounding and interchanging the relation between
reason and consequence with that between cause and effect; he even
endeavoured to draw from it a still greater advantage for his own
metaphysics than Descartes for his, for he made this confusion the
foundation of his whole Pantheism.
A conception contains _implicite_ all its essential predicates, so that
they may be developed out of it _explicite_ by means of mere analytical
judgments: the sum total of them being its definition. This definition
therefore differs from the conception itself merely in form and not in
content; for it consists of judgments which are all contained within
that conception, and therefore have their reason in it, in as far as
they show its essence. We may accordingly look upon these judgments as
the consequences of that conception, considered as their reason. Now
this relation between a conception and the judgments founded upon it
and susceptible of being developed out of it by analysis, is precisely
the relation between Spinoza's so-called God and the world, or rather
between the one and only substance and its numberless accidents
(_Deus, sive substantia constans infinitis attributis_[28]--_Deus,
sive omnia Dei attributa_). It is therefore the relation in knowledge
of the _reason_ to its consequent; whereas true Theism (Spinoza's
Theism is merely nominal) assumes the relation of the _cause_ to its
effect, in which the cause remains different and separate from the
consequence, not only in the way in which we consider them, but really
and essentially, therefore in themselves to all eternity. For the word
God, honestly used, means a cause such as this of the world, with
the addition of personality. An impersonal God is, on the contrary,
a _contradictio in adjecto_. Now as nevertheless, even in the case
as stated by him, Spinoza desired to retain the word God to express
substance, and explicitly called this the _cause_ of the world, he
could find no other way to do it than by completely intermingling the
two relations, and confounding the principle of the reason of knowledge
with the principle of causality. I call attention to the following
passages in corroboration of this statement. _Notandum, dari necessario
unius cujusque rei existentis certam aliquam_ CAUSAM, _propter quam
existit. Et notandum, hanc causam, propter quart aliqua res existit,
vel debere contineri in ipsa natura et_ DEFINITIONE _rei existentis_
(_nimirum quod ad ipsius naturam pertinet existere_), _vel debere_
EXTRA _ipsam dari._[29] In the last case he means an efficient cause,
as appears from what follows, whereas in the first he means a mere
reason of knowledge; yet he identifies both, and by this means prepares
the way for identifying God with the world, which is his intention.
This is the artifice of which he always makes use, and which he has
learnt from Descartes. He substitutes a cause acting from without, for
a reason of knowledge lying within, a given conception. _Ex necessitate
divinæ naturæ omnia, quæ sub intellectum infinitum cadere possunt,
sequi debent._[30] At the same time he calls God everywhere the cause
of the world. _Quidquid existit Dei potentiam, quæ omnium rerum_
CAUSA _est, exprimit._[31]--_Deus est omnium rerum_ CAUSA _immanens,
non vero transiens._[32]--_Deus non tantam est_ CAUSA EFFICIENS
_rerum existentiæ, sed etiam essentiæ._[33]--_Ex data quacunque_
IDEA _aliquis_ EFFECTUS _necessario sequi debat._[34]--And: _Nulla
res nisi a causa externa potest destrui._[35]--Demonstr. DEFINITIO
_cujuscunque rei, ipsius essentiam_ (essence, nature, as differing from
existentia, existence), _affirmat, sed non negat; sive rei essentiam
ponit, sed non tollit. Dum itaque ad rem ipsam tantum, non autem ad
causas externas attendimus, nihil in eadem poterimus invenire, quod
ipsam possit destruere._ This means, that as no conception can contain
anything which contradicts its definition, _i.e._, the sum total of
its predicates, neither can an existence contain anything which might
become a cause of its destruction. This view, however, is brought to
a climax in the somewhat lengthy second demonstration of the 11th
Proposition, in which he confounds a cause capable of destroying or
annihilating a being, with a contradiction contained in its definition
and therefore destroying that definition. His need of confounding cause
with reason here becomes so urgent, that he can never say _causa_ or
_ratio_ alone, but always finds it necessary to put _ratio seu causa_.
Accordingly, this occurs as many as eight times in the same page, in
order to conceal the subterfuge. Descartes had done the same in the
above-mentioned axiom.
[28] Spinoza, "Eth." i. prop. 11.
[29] Spinoza, "Eth." P. 1. prop. 8, schol. 2.
[30] _Ibid._ Prop. 16.
[31] _Ibid._ Prop. 36, demonstr.
[32] _Ibid._ Prop. 18.
[33] _Ibid._ Prop. 25.
[34] "Eth." P. iii. prop. 1, demonstr.
[35] _Ibid._ Prop. 4.
Thus, properly speaking, Spinoza's Pantheism is merely the
_realisation_ of Descartes' Ontological Proof. First, he adopts
Descartes' ontotheological proposition, to which we have alluded above,
_ipsa naturæ Dei immensitas est_ CAUSA SIVE RATIO, _propter quam nulla
causa indiget ad existendum_, always saying _substantia_ instead of
_Deus_ (in the beginning); and then he finishes by _substantiæ essentia
necessario involvit existentiam, ergo erit substantia_ CAUSA SUI.[36]
Therefore the very same argument which Descartes had used to prove
the existence of God, is used by Spinoza to prove the existence of
the world,--which consequently needs no God. He does this still more
distinctly in the 2nd Scholium to the 8th Proposition: _Quoniam ad
naturam substantia pertinet existere, debet ejus definitio necessariam
existentiam involvere, et consequenter ex sola ejus definitione debet
ipsius existentia concludi_. But this substance is, as we know, the
world. The demonstration to Proposition 24 says in the same sense: _Id,
cujus natura in se considerata_ (_i.e._, in its definition) _involvit
existentiam, est_ CAUSA SUI.
[36] "Eth." P. i. prop. 7.
For what Descartes had stated in an exclusively _ideal_ and
_subjective_ sense, _i.e._, only for us, for _cognitive purposes_--in
this instance for the sake of proving the existence of God--Spinoza
took in a _real_ and _objective_ sense, as the actual relation of
God to the world. According to Descartes, the existence of God is
contained in the _conception_ of God, therefore it becomes an
argument for his actual being: according to Spinoza, God is himself
contained in the world. Thus what, with Descartes, was only reason
of knowledge, becomes, with Spinoza, reason of fact. If the former,
in his Ontological Proof, taught that the _existentia_ of God is a
consequence of the _essentia_ of God, the latter turns this into _causa
sui_, and boldly opens his Ethics with: _per causam sui intelligo id,
cujus essentia_ (conception) _involvit existentiam_, remaining deaf to
Aristotle's warning cry, τὸ δ' εἶναι οὐκ οὐσία οὐδενί! Now, this is the
most palpable confusion of _reason_ and _cause_. And if Neo-Spinozans
(Schellingites, Hegelians, &c.), with whom words are wont to pass for
thoughts, often indulge in pompous, solemn admiration for this _causa
sui_, for my own part I see nothing but a _contradictio in adjecto_ in
this same _causa sui_, a _before_ that is _after_, an audacious command
to us, to sever arbitrarily the eternal causal chain--something, in
short, very like the proceeding of that Austrian, who finding himself
unable to reach high enough to fasten the clasp on his tightly-strapped
shako, got upon a chair. The right emblem for _causa sui_ is Baron
Münchhausen, sinking on horseback into the water, clinging by the legs
to his horse and pulling both himself and the animal out by his own
pigtail, with the motto underneath: _Causa sui_.
Let us finally cast a look at the 16th proposition of the 1st book
of the Ethics. Here we find Spinoza concluding from the proposition,
_ex data cujuscunque rei definitione plures proprietates intellectus
concludit, quæ revera ex eadem necessario sequuntur, that ex
necessitate divinæ, naturæ_ (_i.e._, taken as a reality), _infinita
infinitis modis sequi debent_: this God therefore unquestionably stands
in the same relation to the world as a conception to its definition.
The corollary, _Deum omnium rerum esse_ CAUSAM EFFICIENTEM, is
nevertheless immediately connected with it. It is impossible to carry
the confusion between reason and cause farther, nor could it lead to
graver consequences than here. But this shows the importance of the
subject of the present treatise.
In endeavouring to add a third step to the climax in question, Herr
von Schelling has contributed a small afterpiece to these errors,
into which two mighty intellects of the past had fallen owing to
insufficient clearness in thinking. If Descartes met the demands of the
inexorable law of causality, which reduced his God to the last straits,
by substituting a reason instead of the cause required, in order thus
to set the matter at rest; and if Spinoza made a real cause out of this
reason, _i.e._, _causa sui_, his God thereby becoming the world itself:
Schelling now made reason and consequent separate in God himself.[37]
He thus gave the thing still greater consistency by elevating it to a
real, substantial hypostasis of reason and consequent, and introducing
us to something "in God, which is not himself, but his reason, as a
primary reason, or rather reason beyond reason (abyss)." _Hoc quidem
vere palmarium est._--It is now known that Schelling had taken the
whole fable from Jacob Böhme's "Full account of the terrestrial and
celestial mystery;" but what appears to me to be less well known, is
the source from which Jacob Böhme himself had taken it, and the real
birth-place of this so-called _abyss_, wherefore I now take the liberty
to mention it. It is the βυθός, i.e. _abyssus, vorago_, bottomless
pit, reason beyond reason of the Valentinians (a heretical sect of the
second century) which, in silence--co-essential with itself--engendered
intelligence and the world, as Irenæus[38] relates in the following
terms: λέγουσι γάρ τινα εἶναι ἐν ἀοράτοις, καὶ ἀκατονομάστοις ὑψώμασι
τέλειον Αἰῶνα προόντα· τοῦτον δὲ καὶ προαρχήν, καὶ προπάτορα, καὶ
+βυθὸν+ καλοῦσιν.--Ὑπάρχοντα δὲ αὐτὸν ἀχώρητον καὶ ἀόρατον,
ἀΐδιόν τε καὶ ἀγέννητον, ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ καὶ ἠρεμίᾳ πολλῇ γεγονέναι ἐν
ἀπείροις αἰῶσι χρόνων. Συνυπάρχειν δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ Ἔννοιαν, ἣν δὲ καὶ
Χάριν, καὶ Σιγὴν ὀνομάζουσι· καὶ ἐννοηθῆναί ποτε ἀφ' ἑαυτοῦ προβαλέσθαι
τὸν +βυθὸν+ τοῦτον ἀρχὴν τῶν πάντων, καὶ καθάπερ σπέρμα τὴν
προβολὴν ταύτην (ἣν προβαλέσθαι ἐνενοήθη) καθέσθαι, ὡς ἐν μήτρᾳ, τῇ
συνυπαρχούσῃ, ἑαυτῷ Σιγῇ. Ταύτην δὲ, ὑποδηξαμένην τὸ σπέρμα τοῦτο, καὶ
ἐγκύμονα γενομένην, ἀποκυῆσαι Νοῦν, ὅμοιόν τε καὶ ἴσον τῷ προβαλόντι,
καὶ μόνον χωροῦντα τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ Πατρός. Τὸν δὲ νοῦν τοῦτον καὶ
μονογενῆ καλοῦσι, καὶ ἀρχὴν τῶν πάντων.[39] (_Dicunt enim esse quendam
in sublimitatibus illis, quæ nec oculis cerni, nec nominari possunt,
perfectum Æonem præexistentem, quem et proarchen, et propatorem, et_
Bythum _vocant. Eum autem, quum incomprehensibilis et invisibilis,
sempiternus idem, et ingenitus esset, infinitis temporum seculis in
summa quiete ac tranquillitate fuisse. Unâ etiam cum eo Cogitationem
exstitisse, quam et Gratiam et Silentium (Sigen) nuncupant. Hunc
porro_ Bythum _in animum, aliquando induxisse, rerum omnium initium
proferre, atque hanc, quam in animum induxerat, productionem, in Sigen
(silentium) quæ unâ cum eo erat, non secus atque in vulvam demisisse.
Hanc vero, suscepto hoc semine, prægnantem effectam peperisse
Intellectum, parenti suo parem et æqualem, atque ita comparatum, ut
solus paternæ magnitudinis capax esset. Atque hunc Intellectum et
Monogenem et Patrem et principum omnium rerum appellant._)
[37] Schelling, "Abhandlung von der menschlichen Freiheit."
[38] Irenæus, "Contr. hæres." lib. i. c. 1.
[39] "For they say that in those unseen heights which have no
name there is a pre-existing, perfect Æon; this they also call
fore-rule, forefather and the depth.--They say, that being
incomprehensible and invisible, eternal and unborn, he has existed
during endless Æons in the deepest calmness and tranquillity; and
that coexisting with him was Thought, which they also call Grace
and Silence. This Depth once bethought him to put forth from
himself the beginning of all things and to lay that offshoot--which
he had resolved to put forth--like a sperm into the coexisting
Silence, as it were into a womb. Now this Silence, being thus
impregnated and having conceived, gave birth to Intellect, a
being which was like and equal to its Creator, and alone able to
comprehend the greatness of its father. This Intellect also they
call the Only-begotten and the Beginning of all things." [Tr.'s
add.]
Somehow or other this must have come to Jacob Böhme's hearing from the
History of Heresy, and Herr von Schelling must have received it from
him in all faith.
§ 9. _Leibnitz._
It was Leibnitz who first formally stated the Principle of Sufficient
Reason as a main principle of all knowledge and of all science. He
proclaims it very pompously in various passages of his works, giving
himself great airs, as though he had been the first to invent it; yet
all he finds to say about it is, that everything must have a sufficient
reason for being as it is, and not otherwise: and this the world had
probably found out before him. True, he makes casual allusions to the
distinction between its two chief significations, without, however,
laying any particular stress upon it, or explaining it clearly anywhere
else. The principal reference to it is in his "Principia Philosophiæ,"
§ 32, and a little more satisfactorily in the French version, entitled
"Monadologie": _En vertu du principe de la raison suffisante, nous
considérons qu'aucun fait ne sauroit se trouver vrai ou existant,
aucune énonciation véritable, sans qu'il y ait une raison suffisante,
pourquoi il en soit ainsi et non pas autrement_.[40]
[40] Compare with this § 44 of his "Theodicée," and his 5th letter
to Clarke, § 125.
§ 10. _Wolf._
The first writer who explicitly separated the two chief significations
of our principle, and stated the difference between them in detail,
was therefore Wolf. Wolf, however, does not place the principle of
sufficient reason in Logic, as is now the custom, but in Ontology.
True, in § 71 he urges the necessity of not confounding the principle
of sufficient reason of knowing with that of cause and effect; still
he does not clearly determine here wherein the difference consists.
Indeed, he himself mistakes the one for the other; for he quotes
instances of cause and effect in confirmation of the _principium
rationis sufficientis_ in this very chapter, _de ratione sufficiente_,
§§ 70, 74, 75, 77, which, had he really wished to preserve that
distinction, ought rather to have been quoted in the chapter _de
causis_ of the same work. In said chapter he again brings forward
precisely similar instances, and once more enunciates the _principium
cognoscendi_ (§ 876), which does not certainly belong to it, having
been already discussed, yet which serves to introduce the immediately
following clear and definite distinction between this principle and
the law of causality, §§ 881-884. _Principium_, he continues, _dicitur
id, quod in se continet rationem alterius_; and he distinguishes
_three_ kinds: 1. PRINCIPIUM FIENDI (_causa_), which he defines as
_ratio actualitatis alterius_, e.g., _si lapis calescit, ignis aut
radii solares sunt rationes, cur calor lapidi insit_.--2. PRINCIPIUM
ESSENDI, which he defines as _ratio possibilitatis alterius; in eodem,
exemplo, ratio possibilitatis, cur lapis calorem recipere possit, est
in essentia seu modo compositionis lapidis_. This last conception seems
to me inadmissible. If it has any meaning at all, possibility means
correspondence with the general conditions of experience known to us _à
priori_, as Kant has sufficiently shown. From these conditions we know,
with respect to Wolf's instance of the stone, that changes are possible
as effects proceeding from causes: we know, that is, that one state can
succeed another, if the former contains the conditions for the latter.
In this case we find, as effect, the state of being warm in the stone;
as cause, the preceding state of a limited capacity for warmth in the
stone and its contact with free heat. Now, Wolf's naming the first
mentioned property of this state _principium essendi_, and the second,
_principium fiendi_, rests upon a delusion caused by the fact that, so
far as the stone is concerned, the conditions are more lasting and can
therefore wait longer for the others. That the stone should be as it
is: that is, that it should be chemically so constituted as to bring
with it a particular degree of specific heat, consequently a capacity
for heat which stands in inverse proportion to its specific heat; that
besides it should, on the other hand, come into contact with free
heat, is the consequence of a whole chain of antecedent causes, all of
them _principia fiendi_; but it is the coincidence of circumstances
on both sides which primarily constitutes that condition, upon which,
as cause, the becoming warm depends, as effect. All this leaves no
room for Wolf's _principium essendi_, which I therefore do not admit,
and concerning which I have here entered somewhat into detail, partly
because I mean to use the word myself later on in a totally different
sense; partly also, because this explanation contributes to facilitate
the comprehension of the law of causality.--3. Wolf, as we have said,
distinguishes a PRINCIPIUM COGNOSCENDI, and refers also under _causa_
to a _causa impulsiva, sive ratio voluntatem determinans_.
§ 11. _Philosophers between Wolf and Kant._
Baumgarten repeats the Wolfian distinctions in his "Metaphysica," §§
20-24, and §§ 306-313.
Reimarus, in his "Vernunftlehre,"[41] § 81, distinguishes 1. _Inward
reason_, of which his explanation agrees with Wolf's _ratio essendi_,
and might even be applicable to the _ratio cognoscendi_, if he did
not transfer to things what only applies to conceptions; 2. _Outward
reason_, i.e. _causa_.--§ 120 _et seqq._, he rightly defines the
_ratio cognoscendi_ as a condition of the proposition; but in an
example, § 125, he nevertheless confounds it with cause.
[41] Doctrine of Reason.
Lambert, in the new Organon, does not mention Wolf's distinctions;
he shows, however, that he recognizes a difference between reason
of knowledge and cause;[42] for he says that God is the _principium
essendi_ of truths, and that truths are the _principia cognoscendi_ of
God.
[42] Lambert, "New Organon," vol. i. § 572.
Plattner, in his Aphorisms, § 868, says: "What is called reason
and conclusion within our knowledge (_principium cognoscendi,
ratio--rationatum_), is in reality cause and effect (_causa
efficiens--effectus_). Every cause is a reason, every effect a
conclusion." He is therefore of opinion that cause and effect, in
reality, correspond to the conceptions reason and consequence in our
thought; that the former stand in a similar relation with respect
to the latter as substance and accident, for instance, to subject
and predicate, or the quality of the object to our sensation of that
quality, &c. &c. I think it useless to refute this opinion, for it is
easy to see that premisses and conclusion in judgments stand in an
entirely different relation to one another from a knowledge of cause
and effect; although in individual cases even knowledge of a cause, as
such, may be the reason of a judgment which enunciates the effect.[43]
[43] Compare § 36. of this treatise.
§ 12. _Hume._
No one before this serious thinker had ever doubted what follows.
First, and before all things in heaven and on earth, is the Principle
of Sufficient Reason in the form of the Law of Causality. For it is a
_veritas æterna_: _i.e._ it is in and by itself above Gods and Fate;
whereas everything else, the understanding, for instance, which thinks
that principle, and no less the whole world and whatever may be its
cause--atoms, motion, a Creator, _et cætera_--is what it is only in
accordance with, and by virtue of, that principle. Hume was the first
to whom it occurred to inquire whence this law of causality derives its
authority, and to demand its credentials. Everyone knows the result
at which he arrives: that causality is nothing beyond the empirically
perceived succession of things and states in Time, with which habit has
made us familiar. The fallacy of this result is felt at once, nor is
it difficult to refute. The merit lies in the question itself; for it
became the impulse and starting-point for Kant's profound researches,
and by their means led to an incomparably deeper and more thorough
view of Idealism than the one which had hitherto existed, and which
was chiefly Berkeley's. It led to transcendental Idealism, from which
arises the conviction, that the world is as dependent upon us, as a
whole, as we are dependent upon it in detail. For, by pointing out the
existence of those transcendental principles, as such, which enable us
to determine _à priori_, _i.e._ before all experience, certain points
concerning objects and their possibility, he proved that these things
could not exist, as they present themselves to us, independently of our
knowledge. The resemblance between a world such as this and a dream, is
obvious.
§ 13. _Kant and his School._
Kant's chief passage on the Principle of Sufficient Reason is in
a little work entitled "On a discovery, which is to permit us to
dispense with all Criticism of Pure Reason."[44] Section I., _lit._ A.
Here he strongly urges the distinction between "the logical (formal)
principle of cognition 'every proposition must have its reason,' and
the transcendental (material) principle 'every thing must have its
cause,'" in his controversy with Eberhard, who had identified them as
one and the same.--I intend myself to criticize Kant's proof of the
_à priori_ and consequently transcendental character of the law of
causality further on in a separate paragraph, after having given the
only true proof.
[44] "Ueber eine Entdeckung, nach der alle Kritik der reinen
Vernunft entbehrlich gemacht werden soll."
With these precedents to guide them, the several writers on Logic
belonging to Kant's school; Hofbauer, Maass, Jakob, Kiesewetter
and others, have defined pretty accurately the distinction between
reason and cause. Kiesewetter, more especially, gives it thus quite
satisfactorily:[45] "Reason of knowledge is not to be confounded with
reason of fact (cause). The Principle of Sufficient Reason belongs
to Logic, that of Causality to Metaphysics.[46] The former is the
fundamental principle of thought; the latter that of experience.
Cause refers to real things, logical reason has only to do with
representations."
[45] Kiesewetter, "Logik," vol. i. p. 16.
[46] _Ibid._ p. 60.
Kant's adversaries urge this distinction still more strongly. G. E.
Schultze[47] complains that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is
confounded with that of Causality. Salomon Maimon[48] regrets that so
much should be said about the sufficient reason without an explanation
of what is meant by it, while he blames Kant[49] for deriving the
principle of causality from the logical form of hypothetical judgments.
[47] G. E. Schultze, "Logik," § 19, Anmerkung 1, und § 63.
[48] Sal. Maimon, "Logik," p. 20, 21.
[49] _Ibid._ "Vorrede," p. xxiv.
F. H. Jacobi[50] says, that by the confounding of the two conceptions,
reason and cause, an illusion is produced, which has given rise to
various false speculations; and he points out the distinction between
them after his own fashion. Here, however, as is usual with him,
we find a good deal more of self-complacent phrase-jugglery than of
serious philosophy.
[50] Jacobi, "Briefe über die Lehre des Spinoza," Beilage 7, p. 414.
How Herr von Schelling finally distinguishes reason from cause, may be
seen in his "Aphorisms introductory to the Philosophy of Nature,"[51]
§ 184, which open the first book of the first volume of Marcus and
Schelling's "Annals of Medecine." Here we are taught that gravity is
the _reason_ and light the _cause_ of all things. This I merely quote
as a curiosity; for such random talk would not otherwise deserve a
place among the opinions of serious and honest inquirers.
[51] "Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie."
§ 14. _On the Proofs of the Principle._
We have still to record various fruitless attempts which have been
made to prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason, mostly without
clearly defining in which sense it was taken: Wolf's, for instance,
in his Ontology, § 70, repeated by Baumgarten in his "Metaphysics,"
§ 20. It is useless to repeat and refute it here, as it obviously
rests on a verbal quibble. Plattner[52] and Jakob[53] have tried other
proofs, in which, however, the circle is easily detected. I purpose
dealing with those of Kant further on, as I have already said. Since
I hope, in the course of this treatise, to point out the different
laws of our cognitive faculties, of which the principle of sufficient
reason is the common expression, it will result as a matter of course,
that this principle cannot be proved, and that, on the contrary,
Aristotle's remark:[54] λόγον ζητοῦσι ὧν οὐκ ἔστι λόγος. ἀποδείξεως
γὰρ ἀρχὴ οὐκ ἀπόδειξίς ἐστι (_rationem eorum quærant, quorum non est
ratio: demonstrationis enim principium non est demonstratio_) may be
applied with equal propriety to all these proofs. For every proof is a
reference to something already recognised; and if we continue requiring
a proof again for this something, whatever it be, we at last arrive at
certain propositions which express the forms and laws, therefore the
conditions, of all thought and of all knowledge, in the application
of which consequently all thought and all knowledge consists: so that
certainty is nothing but correspondence with those conditions, forms,
and laws, therefore their own certainty cannot again be ascertained by
means of other propositions. In the fifth chapter I mean to discuss the
kind of truth which belongs to propositions such as these.
[52] Plattner, "Aphorismen," § 828.
[53] Jakob, "Logik und Metaphysik," p. 38 (1794).
[54] Aristotle, "Metaph." iii. 6. "They seek a reason for that
which has no reason; for the principle of demonstration is not
demonstration." [Tr.'s add.] Compare with this citation "Analyt.
post." i. 2.
To seek a proof for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, is, moreover,
an especially flagrant absurdity, which shows a want of reflection.
Every proof is a demonstration of the reason for a judgment which has
been pronounced, and which receives the predicate _true_ in virtue
precisely of that demonstration. This necessity for a reason is exactly
what the Principle of Sufficient Reason expresses. Now if we require
a proof of it, or, in other words, a demonstration of its reason,
we thereby already assume it to be true, nay, we found our demand
precisely upon that assumption, and thus we find ourselves involved in
the circle of exacting a proof of our right to exact a proof.