Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/137

 real things, and it is only when we awaken : that is, when our nervous sensibility, and through this the outer world, once more comes within our consciousness, that we become aware of our mistake ; still, even in our dreams, so long as they last, the causal law holds good, only an impossible material is often substituted for the usual one. We might almost think that Kant was influenced by Leibnitz in writing the passage we have quoted, however much he differs from him in all the rest of his philosophy ; especially if we consider that Leibnitz expresses precisely similar views, when, for instance, he says : "La vérité des choses sensibles ne consiste que dans la liaison des phénomènes, qui doit avoir sa raison, et c'est ce qui les distingue des songes. — — — — Le vrai Critérion, en matière des objets des sens, est la liaison des phénomènes, qui garantit les vérités de fait, à l'egard des choses sensibles hors de nous."

It is clear that in proving the à priority and the necessity of the causal law by the fact that the objective succession of changes is known to us only by means of that law, and that, in so far, causality is a condition for all experience, Kant fell into a very singular error, and one which is indeed so palpable, that the only way we can account for it is, by supposing him to have become so absorbed in the à priori part of our knowledge, that he lost sight of what would have been evident to anyone else. The only correct demonstration of the à priority of the causal law is given by me in § 21 of the present work. That à priority finds its confirmation every moment in the infallible security with which we expect experience to tally with the causal law : that is to say, in the apodeictic certainty we ascribe to it, a certainty which differs from every other founded on induction—the certainty, for instance,