These sophistical assertions of dialectic open, as it were, a battle-field, where that side obtains the victory which has been permitted to make the attack, and he is compelled to yield who has been unfortunately obliged to stand on the defensive.And hence, champions of ability, whether on the right or on the wrong side, are certain to carry away the crown of victory, if they only take care to have the right to make the last attack, and are not obliged to sustain another onset from their opponent.We can easily believe that this arena has been often trampled by the feet of combatants, that many victories have been obtained on both sides, but that the last victory, decisive of the affair between the contending parties, was won by him who fought for the right, only if his adversary was forbidden to continue the tourney.As impartial umpires, we must lay aside entirely the consideration whether the combatants are fighting for the right or for the wrong side, for the true or for the false, and allow the combat to be first decided.Perhaps, after they have wearied more than injured each other, they will discover the nothingness of their cause of quarrel and part good friends.
This method of watching, or rather of originating, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of finally deciding in favour of either side, but to discover whether the object of the struggle is not a mere illusion, which each strives in vain to reach, but which would be no gain even when reached- this procedure, I say, may be termed the sceptical method.It is thoroughly distinct from scepticism- the principle of a technical and scientific ignorance, which undermines the foundations of all knowledge, in order, if possible, to destroy our belief and confidence therein.For the sceptical method aims at certainty, by endeavouring to discover in a conflict of this kind, conducted honestly and intelligently on both sides, the point of misunderstanding; just as wise legislators derive, from the embarrassment of judges in lawsuits, information in regard to the defective and ill-defined parts of their statutes.The antinomy which reveals itself in the application of laws, is for our limited wisdom the best criterion of legislation.For the attention of reason, which in abstract speculation does not easily become conscious of its errors, is thus roused to the momenta in the determination of its principles.
But this sceptical method is essentially peculiar to transcendental philosophy, and can perhaps be dispensed with in every other field of investigation.In mathematics its use would be absurd; because in it no false assertions can long remain hidden, inasmuch as its demonstrations must always proceed under the guidance of pure intuition, and by means of an always evident synthesis.In experimental philosophy, doubt and delay may be very useful; but no misunderstanding is possible, which cannot be easily removed; and in experience means of solving the difficulty and putting an end to the dissension must at last be found, whether sooner or later.Moral philosophy can always exhibit its principles, with their practical consequences, in concreto- at least in possible experiences, and thus escape the mistakes and ambiguities of abstraction.But transcendental propositions, which lay claim to insight beyond the region of possible experience, cannot, on the one hand, exhibit their abstract synthesis in any a priori intuition, nor, on the other, expose a lurking error by the help of experience.
Transcendental reason, therefore, presents us with no other criterion than that of an attempt to reconcile such assertions, and for this purpose to permit a free and unrestrained conflict between them.And this we now proceed to arrange.**The antinomies stand in the order of the four transcendental ideas above detailed.
FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS.
The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space.
PROOF.
Granted that the world has no beginning in time; up to every given moment of time, an eternity must have elapsed, and therewith passed away an infinite series of successive conditions or states of things in the world.Now the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it never can be completed by means of a successive synthesis.It follows that an infinite series already elapsed is impossible and that, consequently, a beginning of the world is a necessary condition of its existence.And this was the first thing to be proved.
As regards the second, let us take the opposite for granted.In this case, the world must be an infinite given total of coexistent things.Now we cannot cogitate the dimensions of a quantity, which is not given within certain limits of an intuition,* in any other way than by means of the synthesis of its parts, and the total of such a quantity only by means of a completed synthesis, or the repeated addition of unity to itself.Accordingly, to cogitate the world, which fills all spaces, as a whole, the successive synthesis of the parts of an infinite world must be looked upon as completed, that is to say, an infinite time must be regarded as having elapsed in the enumeration of all co-existing things; which is impossible.For this reason an infinite aggregate of actual things cannot be considered as a given whole, consequently, not as a contemporaneously given whole.The world is consequently, as regards extension in space, not infinite, but enclosed in limits.And this was the second thing to be proved.
*We may consider an undetermined quantity as a whole, when it is enclosed within limits, although we cannot construct or ascertain its totality by measurement, that is, by the successive synthesis of its parts.For its limits of themselves determine its completeness as a whole.
ANTITHESIS.
The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation both to time and space, infinite.
PROOF.
