In conformity with this rule, then, it is necessary that in that which antecedes an event there be found the condition of a rule, according to which in this event follows always and necessarily; but Icannot reverse this and go back from the event, and determine (by apprehension) that which antecedes it.For no phenomenon goes back from the succeeding point of time to the preceding point, although it does certainly relate to a preceding point of time; from a given time, on the other hand, there is always a necessary progression to the determined succeeding time.Therefore, because there certainly is something that follows, I must of necessity connect it with something else, which antecedes, and upon which it follows, in conformity with a rule, that is necessarily, so that the event, as conditioned, affords certain indication of a condition, and this condition determines the event.
Let us suppose that nothing precedes an event, upon which this event must follow in conformity with a rule.All sequence of perception would then exist only in apprehension, that is to say, would be merely subjective, and it could not thereby be objectively determined what thing ought to precede, and what ought to follow in perception.In such a case, we should have nothing but a play of representations, which would possess no application to any object.That is to say, it would not be possible through perception to distinguish one phenomenon from another, as regards relations of time; because the succession in the act of apprehension would always be of the same sort, and therefore there would be nothing in the phenomenon to determine the succession, and to render a certain sequence objectively necessary.
And, in this case, I cannot say that two states in a phenomenon follow one upon the other, but only that one apprehension follows upon another.But this is merely subjective, and does not determine an object, and consequently cannot be held to be cognition of an object- not even in the phenomenal world.
Accordingly, when we know in experience that something happens, we always presuppose that something precedes, whereupon it follows in conformity with a rule.For otherwise I could not say of the object that it follows; because the mere succession in my apprehension, if it be not determined by a rule in relation to something preceding, does not authorize succession in the object.Only, therefore, in reference to a rule, according to which phenomena are determined in their sequence, that is, as they happen, by the preceding state, can Imake my subjective synthesis (of apprehension) objective, and it is only under this presupposition that even the experience of an event is possible.
No doubt it appears as if this were in thorough contradiction to all the notions which people have hitherto entertained in regard to the procedure of the human understanding.According to these opinions, it is by means of the perception and comparison of similar consequences following upon certain antecedent phenomena that the understanding is led to the discovery of a rule, according to which certain events always follow certain phenomena, and it is only by this process that we attain to the conception of cause.Upon such a basis, it is clear that this conception must be merely empirical, and the rule which it furnishes us with- "Everything that happens must have a cause"- would be just as contingent as experience itself.The universality and necessity of the rule or law would be perfectly spurious attributes of it.Indeed, it could not possess universal validity, inasmuch as it would not in this case be a priori, but founded on deduction.But the same is the case with this law as with other pure a priori representations (e.g., space and time), which we can draw in perfect clearness and completeness from experience, only because we had already placed them therein, and by that means, and by that alone, had rendered experience possible.Indeed, the logical clearness of this representation of a rule, determining the series of events, is possible only when we have made use thereof in experience.Nevertheless, the recognition of this rule, as a condition of the synthetical unity of phenomena in time, was the ground of experience itself and consequently preceded it a priori.
It is now our duty to show by an example that we never, even in experience, attribute to an object the notion of succession or effect (of an event- that is, the happening of something that did not exist before), and distinguish it from the subjective succession of apprehension, unless when a rule lies at the foundation, which compels us to observe this order of perception in preference to any other, and that, indeed, it is this necessity which first renders possible the representation of a succession in the object.
