Page:Kant's Prolegomena etc (1883).djvu/358

 [motion]) a continuous change of the rectilinear, and as this is itself a continuous change of relation in respect of external space, the circular motion is a change of the change of these external relations in space, and consequently a continuous arising of new motions; since, now, according to the law of inertia, a motion, in so far as it arises, must have an external cause, while the body, in every point of this circle, is endeavouring, according to the same law, to proceed in the straight line touching the circle, which motion works against the above external cause, every body in circular motion demonstrates by its motion a moving force. Now the motion of the space as distinguished from that of the body is merely phoronomic, and has no moving force. As a consequence, the judgment, that here, either the body or the space is moved in an opposite direction, is a disjunctive judgment, by which, if the one member, the motion of the body, be posited, the other, namely, that of the space, is excluded. Hence the circular motion of the body, as distinguished from the motion of the space, is a real motion, and consequently the latter, even though as phenomenon it coincide with the former, nevertheless, in the complex of all phenomena, that is, of possible experience, contradicts it, and hence is nothing but mere illusion.

Observation.

This proposition determines the modality of motion in respect of Dynamics; for a motion, which cannot take place without the influence of a continuously active external moving force, proves indirectly or directly original moving forces of matter, either of attraction or repulsion. For the rest, Newton's scholium to the definitions with which he introduces his Princ. Philos. Nat. Math., towards the end, may be referred to, on the present subject, from which it will appear, that the circular motion of two bodies round a common centre (hence, also the motion of the earth on its axis), even in empty space, and thus without any comparison being possible through experience, with external space, may nevertheless be cognised by means of experience, in short, that a motion which is a change of external relation in space