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GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS. 179
allow ourselves to be misled by examples like that given
by Kant, 1
that the stove, which is the cause of the
warmth of the room, is simultaneous with its effect. The
state of the stove : that is, its being warmer than its sur
rounding medium, must precede the communication of its
surplus caloric to that medium ; now, as each layer of air
on becoming warm makes way for a cooler layer rushing
in, the first state, the cause, and consequently also the
second, the effect, are renewed until at last the temperature
of stove and room become equalized. Here therefore we
have no permanent cause (the stove) and permanent effect
(the warmth of the room) as simultaneous things, but a
chain of changes that ;
is, a constant renewing of two states,
one of which is the effect of the other. From this example,
however, it is obvious that even Kant s conception of
Causality was far from clear.
On the other hand, the Principle of Sufficient Eeason of
Knowing conveys with it no relation in Time, but merely
a relation for our Eeason : here therefore, before and after
have no meaning.
In the Principle of Sufficient Eeason of Being, so far
as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in
Time, but only a relation in Space, of which we might say
that all things were co-existent, if here the words co
existence and succession had any meaning. In Arithmetic,
on the contrary, the Eeason of Being is nothing else but
precisely the relation of Time itself.
48. Reciprocity of Reasons.
Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the
Principle of Sufficient Eeason in each of its significations, as
1
Kant, Krit. d. r. Vern.," 1st edition, p. 202 5th j edition, p. 248
(English translation by M. Muller, p. 177.)