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FIRST CLASS OP OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT. 37
of it. When, however, he wanted to determine more closely
the essence of these things existing objectively in them
selves, he found himself obliged to declare the Objects in
themselves to be Subjects (monades), and by doing so he
furnished the most striking proof of the inability of our
consciousness, in as far as it is merely cognitive, to find
within the limits of the intellect i.e. of the apparatus by
means of which we represent the world anything beyond
the representer and the represented.
Subject and Object ;
Therefore, if we abstract from the objectivity of an Object,
or in other words, from its being represented (Vorgestellt-
werden), if we annul it in its quality as an Object, yet still
wish to retain something, we can meet with nothing but
the Subject. Conversely, if we desire to abstract from the
subjectivity of the Subject, yet to have something over,
the contrary takes place, and this leads to Materialism.
Spinoza, who never thoroughly sifted the matter, and
never therefore acquired a clear notion of it, nevertheless
quite understood the necessary correlation between Subject
and Object as so essential, that they are inconceivable
without it ; consequently he defined it as an identity in the
Substance (which alone exists) of that which knows, with
that which has extension.
OBSERVATION. With reference to the chief argument of this para
graph, I take the opportunity to remark that if, in the course of this
treatise, for the sake of brevity and in order to be more easily under
stood, I at any time use the term real objects, I mean by it nothing
but the intuitive representations that are united to form the complex of
empirical reality, which reality in itself always remains ideal.
20. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming.
In the Class of Objects for the Subject just described, the
principle of sufficient reason figures as the Law of Causality,
and, as such, I call it the Principle of Sufficient Reason
of Becoming, principium rationis sufficients fiendi. By it,