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XX111
without it ; lie likewise overlooked the fact, that all deri
vation a priori, nay, all demonstration whatsoever, rests
upon a necessity, and that all necessity itself rests entirely
and exclusively on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, be
cause to be necessary, and to result from a given reason,
are convertible terms ; that the Principle of Sufficient
Reason is still nothing but the common form of the
Object as such : therefore that it always presupposes the
Object and does not, as valid before and independently of
it, first introduce it, and cannot make the Object arise in
conformity with its own legislation. Thus this starting
from the Object and the above-mentioned starting from
the Subject have in common, that both presuppose what
they pretend to derive : i.e., the necessary correlate of their
starting-point."
This last assertion" that the Principle of Sufficient Reason
already presupposes the Object, but does not, as valid before
and independently of it, first introduce it, and cannot make
the Object arise in conformity with its own legislation,"
seemed to me so far to clash with the proof given by
Schopenhauer in 21 of the "Fourfold Root," as, accord
s under
ing to the latter, it is ike function of the Subject
standing which primarily creates the objective world out
of the subjective feelings of the sensuous organs by the
application of the Principle of Sufficient Reason ; so that
all that is Object, as such, after all comes into being only
in conformity with the Principle of Sufficient Reason, conse
quently that this principle cannot, as Schopenhauer asserted
in his polemic against Fichte, already presuppose the Object.
In 1852, therefore, I wrote as follows to Schopenhauer :
" In
your arguments against Fichte, where you say that
the Principle of Sufficient Reason already presupposes the
Object, and cannot, as valid before and independently of it,
first introduce it, the objection occurred to me anew, that
in your
"
Fourfold Root
"
you had made the Object of per-