Page:Kant's Prolegomena etc (1883).djvu/321



If we review all [our] discussions on the above, we shall observe that the following things have been taken into consideration: Firstly, the real in space (otherwise called the solid) in its filling through the force of repulsion; Secondly, what, in respect of the first, as the proper object of our external perception, is, namely, the force of attraction, by which, so far as may be, all space is penetrated, [or], in other words, the solid, is wholly abolished; Thirdly, the of the first force by the second, and the thence resulting determination of the degree of a filling of space; [we shall observe] therefore that the quality of matter has been thoroughly dealt with, under the heads of reality, negation, and limitation, in so far as they belong to a metaphysical dynamics.

The universal principle of the Dynamics of material nature, that all [that is] real in the objects of our external sense, that, namely, which is not mere determination of space (place, extension and figure), must be regarded as moving force; by which, therefore, the so-called solid, or absolute impenetrability, is banished from natural science as an empty conception, and in its stead a repulsive force is posited; while the true and immediate attraction is defended against all the sophistries of a metaphysics that misunderstands itself, and is explained as a fundamental force necessary even to the possibility of the conception of matter. Now from this the consequence arises, that space, should it be found necessary, could be assumed as throughout, and at the same time in different degrees, filled even without distributing empty mediate spaces within the matter. For according to the originally varying degree of the repulsive forces on which is founded the first property of matter, namely, that of filling a space, its relation to the original attraction (whether of each matter for itself, or to the united attraction of all matter in the universe) is conceived as infinitely diverse, inasmuch as attraction rests on the mass of matter in a given space,