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24 THE FOURFOLD BOOT. [CHAP. II.
that principle, and no less the whole world and whatever
may be its cause atoms, motion, a Creator, ei ccetera is
what it is only in accordance with, and by virtue of, that
principle. Hume was the first to whom it occurred to
inquire whence this law of causality derives its authority,
and to demand its credentials. Everyone knows the result
at which he arrives : that causality is nothing beyond the
empirically perceived succession of things and states in
Time, with which habit has made us familiar. The fallacy
of this result is felt at once, nor is it difficult to refute. The
merit lies in the question itself ;
for it became the impulse
and starting-point for Kant s profound researches, and by
their means led to an incomparably deeper and more
thorough view of Idealism than the one which had hitherto
existed, and which was s. chiefly Berkeley It led to transcen
dental Idealism, from which arises the conviction, that the
world is as dependent upon us, as a whole, as we are depen
dent upon it in detail. For, by pointing out the existence of
those transcendental principles, as such, which enable us to
determine a priori, i.e. before all experience, certain points
concerning objects and their possibility, he proved that
these things could not exist, as they present themselves to
us, independently of our knowledge. The resemblanco
between a world such as this and a dream, is obvious.
13. Kant and his School.
Kant s chief passage on the Principle of Sufficient Reason
is in a little work entitled
" On a discovery, which is to
permit us to dispense
with all Criticism of Pure Reason." 1
Section I., lit. A. Here he strongly urges the distinction
between "the logical (formal) principle of cognition
every proposition must have its reason, and the transcen-
1 " Ueber eine Entdeckung, nach der alle Kritik der reinen Vernunft
entbehrlich gemacht werden soil."