CHAPTER XIV.

FUNDAMENTAL EXPLANATION OF THE OBJECTIVE POSSIBILITY AND OF THE NECESSITY OF THE IDEA OF TIME.

103. Things in themselves, abstracted from our intuition, are susceptible of change. Where there is change, there is succession, and where there is succession, there is a certain order in the things which succeed,--an order which is really in the things themselves, although it does not subsist by itself, separated from them.

Kant might object to this, that perhaps the changes are not in things, but in the phenomena, or the manner in which they are presented to our intuition. But he cannot deny, that whether these changes are in the reality, or not, they are, at least, possible, independently of the phenomena. Therefore, he asserts, without reason, that time in the things is nothing, and that it is only the form of our internal sense. If he admits the possibility of real changes, he must also admit the possibility of a real time; if he denies that it is possible for the things in themselves to be really changed, we would ask him how he came to know this impossibility,--he, who limits all our knowledge to the purely phenomenal order. We cannot know that a thing is impossible in an order, if we know nothing of this order; if Kant maintains that we know nothing of things in themselves, he cannot prove that we know the impossibility of their really changing.

104. It is then demonstrated that time, or a real order in things, is, at least, possible. Therefore, we cannot say that time is a purely subjective condition, to which nothing can correspond in the reality.

105. Admitting the possibility of an objective value of the idea of time, not only in reference to the purely phenomenal order, but also to the transcendental, or rather to things considered in themselves, and abstracted from our intuition; we shall see how the objectiveness of the idea of time and its relations to experience can be shown, without destroying the intrinsic necessity which makes it one of the principal elements of the exact sciences.

106. Time, considered in things, is the order of their being, and their not-being. The idea of time is the perception of this order in its greatest generality and abstracted from the objects which are contained in it. As our understanding evidently can consider a purely possible order of things, the idea of time extends to the possibility as well as the reality. This is why we conceive time before and after the present world, similar to the space which we imagine beyond the limits of the universe. The idea of being, elevated to a purely possible region, in which it is abstracted from all individual phenomena, is freed from the instability to which the objects of our experience are subject: it can then be an absolutely necessary element of science; for it expresses a relation which is not affected by any thing contingent. These observations are a solution of all difficulties.