Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

50 THE FOURFOLD BOOT. [CHAP. IV.
cerebral phenomenon. Even the most universal among
the non-transcendental laws of Nature and the one least
liable to exception the law of gravitation is of empirical
origin, consequently without guarantee as to its absolute
wherefore it is still from time to time called
universality ;
in question, and doubts occasionally arise as to its validity
beyond our solar system ; and astronomers carefully call
attention to any indications corroborative of its doubtful
ness with which they may happen to meet, thereby show
ing that they regard it as merely empirical.
The question
may of course be raised, whether gravitation takes effect
between bodies which are separated by an absolute vacuum,
or whether its action within a solar system may not be
mediated by some sort of ether, and may not cease alto
but these questions only admit
gether between fixed stars ;
of an empirical solution, and this proves that here we have
not to do with a knowledge a priori. If, on the other hand,
we admit with Kant and Laplace the hypothesis, as the
most probable one, that each solar system has developed
out of an original nebula by a gradual process of condensa
tion, we still cannot for a moment conceive the possibility
of that original substance having sprung into being
out of nothing : we are forced to assume the anterior
existence of its particles somewhere or other, as well as
their having been brought together somehow or other,
precisely because of the transcendental nature of the prin
ciple of the permanence of Substance. In my Critique
of Kantian Philosophy, 1
I have shown at length, that
Substance is but another word for Matter, the conception of
substance not being realisable excepting in Matter, and
therefore deriving its
specially pointed
origin from Matter, and I have also
out how that conception was formed
solely to serve a surreptitious purpose. Like many other
1
edition.
Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. i. p. 550 of 2nd, and 580 of 3rd