Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/209

 46. The Systematic Order.=====

THE order of succession in which I have stated the various forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in this treatise, is not systematic; it has been chosen for the sake of greater clearness, in order first to present what is better known and least presupposes the rest. In this I have followed Aristotle's rule: καί μαθήσεως ούκ ἀπὸ τού πρώτον, καί τῆς τού πράγματος ἀρχῆς ένίοτε ἀρκτέον, ἀλλ' όθεν ρᾶστ' ᾶν μάθοι (et doctrina non a primo, ac rei principio aliquando inchoanda est, sed unde quis facilius discat). But the systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, nay, as being the prototype of all finitude. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediate