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154 THE FOTJBFOLD BOOT. [CHAP. VI.
an object for our faculty of representation, nor have we
consciousness of it, until it is connected with what is
material in our knowledge.
36. Principle of the Sufficient Reason of Being. .
Space and Time are so constituted, that all their parts
stand in mutual relation, so that each of them conditions
and is conditioned by another. We call this relation in
Space, position ; in Time, succession. These relations are
peculiar ones, differing entirely from all other possible
relations of our representations ; neither the Understand
ing nor the Reason are therefore able to grasp them by
means of mere conceptions, and pure intuition a priori
alone makes them intelligible to us ; for it is impossible
by mere conceptions to explain clearly what is meant by
above and below, right and left, behind and before, before
and after. Kant rightly confirms this by the assertion,
that the distinction between our right and left glove can
not be made intelligible in any other way than by intui
tion. Now, the law by which the divisions of Space and
of Time determine one another reciprocally with reference
to these relations (position and succession) is what I call
the Principle of the Sufficient Reason of Being, principium
rationis sufficientis essendi. I have already given an example
of this relation in 15, by which I have shown, through
the connection between the sides and angles of a triangle,
that this relation is not only quite different from that
between cause and effect, but also from that between
reason of knowledge and consequent ;
wherefore here the
condition may be called Reason of Being, ratio essendi.
The insight into such a reason of being can, of course, be
into the law
come a reason of knowing : just as the insight
of causality and its application to a particular case is the
reason of knowledge of the effect ; but this in no way