Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

26 THE FOURFOLD BOOT. [CHAP. II.
fashion. Here, however, as is usual with him, we find a
good deal more of self-complacent phrase-jugglery than of
serious philosophy.
How Herr von Schelling finally distinguishes reason
"
from cause, may be seen in his Aphorisms introductory
l
to the Philosophy of Nature,"
184, which open the first
" book of the first volume of Marcus and Schelling s Annals
of Medecine." Here we are taught that gravity is the
reason and light the cause of all things. This I merely
quote as a curiosity; for such random talk would not
otherwise deserve a place among the opinions of
and honest inquirers.
serious
14. On the Proofs of the Principle.
We have still to record various fruitless attempts which
have been made to prove the Principle of Sufficient Eeason,
mostly without clearly defining in which sense it was
taken : Wolf s, for instance, in his Ontology, 70, repeated
by Baumgarten in his
"
Metaphysics," 20. It is useless
to repeat and refute it here, as it obviously rests on a
verbal quibble. Plattner 2 and Jakob 3
have tried other
proofs, in which, however, the circle is easily detected. I
purpose dealing with those of Kant further on, as I have
already said. Since I hope, in the course of this treatise,
to point out the different laws of our cognitive faculties,
of which the principle of sufficient reason is the common
expression, it will result as a matter of course, that this
principle cannot be proved, and that, on the contrary,
4
Aristotle s remark :
1 *
\6yov fyTovai <Lv
OVK
Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie."
828.
t<m \oyog.
2 "
Plattner, Aphorismen,"
3 "
Jakob, Logik und Metaphysik," p. 38 (1794).
4 "
Aristotle,
iii.
Metaph."
6.
"
They seek a reason for that which
has no reason ; for the principle of demonstration is not demonstration."
[Tr. s add.] Compare with this citation
"
Analyt. i. 2.
post."