by no means identical; and a theologian may hold the former as true, while rejecting the latter as a pernicious error.

sons.

The above remarks concerning the meaning of words may perhaps seem censurable to some per"Why," they may exclaim, "grovel in the region of logic, and busy ourselves about terms, notions, conceptions, and ideas, when the main thing needed is to emancipate ourselves entirely from these, and to put ourselves in immediate and vital contact with that which is ?" So long, however, as we are dealing with language, we cannot get out of the region of logic-λoyzn-nor disembarrass ourselves of notions, conceptions, intellections, ideas-functions indispensable to the use of language. Kant has endeavoured to communicate truth to our minds by means of language-by characters written in a book; and if we are to profit by his instructions, it is indispensable that we should understand the meaning which he has attached to his terms.

CHAPTER IV.

WHEN we understand the meaning of the word "bedingung" as used by Kant, we shall not have difficulty in understanding his doctrine concerning Reason, asserting that it endeavours to find or attain "das Unbedingte."

When a person endowed with Reason looks at the various phenomena of Nature, he is not satisfied with simply observing them as isolated data, but he desires to grasp the data together in a system to ascertain the laws of their connection. Accordingly when he perceives a phenomenon, he desires to know its "bedingungen" or conditions. And supposing him to have discovered these, by the same impulse of curiosity he desires to learn the conditions of these phenomena, the conditions of the conditions. Now it is supposable that in thus ascending from conditioned to condition we may ultimately reach a condition that is unconditioned, something of which nothing else is a sine quâ non, which does not stand to any thing in

it

the relation of "bedingtes" to "bedingung." Or may be that the regressus from conditioned to condition admits of no termination; in which case, Kant tells us, though each member of the series is conditioned, the totality of the series is unconditioned, since there exist no conditions beyond it on which it can depend. Thus, then, according to Kant, that insatiable curiosity of Reason which prompts it always to inquire for the cause of phenomena, which led Epicurus to ask, "And Chaos whence?" is a nisus to reach "das Unbedingte."

Evidently this is very different from a search after a meaningless abstraction.

As we have seen, according to Kant, an infinite series of conditioned events, and an uncaused first term, are both "unbedingt"-unconditioned. If we call an uncaused first term absolute, then, according to this doctrine, an infinite causal series, and an absolute commencement of such a series, are both "unbedingt"-unconditioned.

In a chain of demonstration, where one proposition is said to follow from another, Kant considers a like connection (viz. that of "bedingtes" to "bedingung") as existing between the propositions; and the search for the unconditioned is here the search for a first principle,―for a proposition whose truth does not depend on the truth of some anterior proposition.

Time is considered by Kant as a series, in which all past time is the "bedingung" (condition) of the

present moment. He says: "I can consider the present moment in relation to past time only as 'bedingt' (conditioned) since this moment comes into existence only through the past time, or rather through the passing of the past time." According to this view a totality of time, whether infinite or finite, would be "unbedingt"-unconditioned, since there would be no preceding time by which it would be "bedingt" or conditioned. So that in considering time, there is again, according to Kant, a series of conditions, and a search for the unconditioned-" das Unbedingte."

With respect to space, Kant points out that in apprehending it we measure it, and that this process is successive, takes place in time, and contains a series. In this series each portion of space successively added in thought is the "bedingung" of the limits of those previously thought; and thus the measurement of a space is to be viewed as a synthesis of a series of "bedingungen" or conditions. Accordingly a totality of space, whether infinite or finite, would be "unbedingt"-unconditioned, as in the case of time. And thus here again we find a series of conditions, and a search for the unconditioned.

A terminated space, beyond which there is no space, may be called an absolute space; and in like manner a terminated time, beyond which there is no time, may be called an absolute time.* If we adopt this phraseology, then, conformably with

* This phraseology is employed by Hamilton.

Kant's view, we may say that infinite space and absolute space, infinite time and absolute time, are both "unbedingt"-unconditioned.

When we consider the acts or volitions of a person, here again the relation of "bedingtes" to "bedingung" comes under discussion. On the one side it is held that the acts and volitions of a person called free are in reality "bedingt"-conditioned; that they depend on antecedents in such a way that, given the antecedents, the act or volition cannot but follow. On the other side it is held that a free act or volition does not stand to antecedents in the relation of "bedingtes" to "bedingung;" that the antecedents in two cases being precisely the same, the act or volition may be different. According to this latter view of the subject, the free acts or volitions of a person are "unbedingt"-unconditioned.

We have thus four principal topics in reference to which the relation of "bedingtes" to "bedingung" may be, considered. It may be considered in reference to physical phenomena, to propositions to space and time, and to volitions or voluntary acts. These four cases are discussed at length by Schopenhauer in his treatise Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde. He points out that to these four different cases there correspond four different kinds of necessity, viz. 1. Physical necessity.

2. Logical necessity.

3. Mathematical necessity.