[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>>>>> found, but is not necessary; for the concept of causality (whereby   
   >>>>>> through one thing, something completely different from it is   
   >>>>>> posited) at least does not require it.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> If the objects of the sensible world were taken for things in   
   >>>>>> themselves, and the previously stated natural laws for laws of   
   >>>>>> things in themselves, contradiction would be inevitable. In the   
   >>>>>> same way, if the subject of freedom were represented, like the   
   >>>>>> other objects, as a mere appearance, contradiction could again not   
   >>>>>> be avoided, for the same thing would be simultaneously affirmed   
   >>>>>> and denied of the same object in the same sense. But if natural   
   >>>>>> necessity is referred only to appearances and freedom only to   
   >>>>>> things in themselves, then no contradiction arises if both kinds   
   >>>>>> of causality are assumed or conceded equally, however difficult or   
   >>>>>> impossible it may be to make causality of the latter kind   
   >>>>>> conceivable.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Within appearance, every effect is an event, or something that   
   >>>>>> happens in time; the effect must, in accordance with the universal   
   >>>>>> law of nature, be preceded by a determination of the causality of   
   >>>>>> its cause (a state of the cause), from which the effect follows in   
   >>>>>> accordance with a constant law. But this determination of the   
   >>>>>> cause to causality must also be something that occurs or takes   
   >>>>>> place; the cause must have begun to act, for otherwise no sequence   
   >>>>>> in time could be thought between it and the effect. [IDEA #344]   
   >>>>>> Both the effect and the causality of the cause would have always   
   >>>>>> existed. Therefore the determination of the cause to act must also   
   >>>>>> have arisen among the appearances, and so it must, like its   
   >>>>>> effect, be an event, which again must have its cause, and so on,   
   >>>>>> and hence natural necessity must be the condition in accordance   
   >>>>>> with which efficient causes are determined. Should, by contrast,   
   >>>>>> freedom be a property of certain causes of appearances, then that   
   >>>>>> freedom must, in relation to the appearances as events, be a   
   >>>>>> faculty of starting those events from itself (sponte -   
   >>>>>> spontaneous), i.e., without the causality of the cause itself   
   >>>>>> having to begin, and hence without need for any other ground to   
   >>>>>> determine its beginning. But then the cause, as to its causality,   
   >>>>>> would not have to be subject to temporal determinations of its   
   >>>>>> state, i.e., would not have to be appearance at all, i.e., would   
   >>>>>> have to be taken for a thing in itself, and only the effects would   
   >>>>>> have to be taken for appearances.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> NOTE: The idea of freedom has its place solely in the relation of   
   >>>>>> the *INTELLECTUAL* (des Intellektuellen), as cause, to the   
   >>>>>> appearance, as effect. Therefore we cannot bestow freedom upon   
   >>>>>> matter, in consideration of the unceasing activity by which it   
   >>>>>> fills its space, even though this activity occurs through an inner   
   >>>>>> principle. We can just as little find any concept of freedom to   
   >>>>>> fit a purely intelligible being, e.g., God, insofar as his action   
   >>>>>> is immanent. For his action, although independent of causes   
   >>>>>> determining it from outside, nevertheless is determined in his   
   >>>>>> eternal reason, hence in the divine nature. Only if something   
   >>>>>> should begin through an action, hence the effect be found in the   
   >>>>>> time series, and so in the sensible world (e.g., the beginning of   
   >>>>>> the world), does the question arise of whether the causality of   
   >>>>>> the cause must itself also have a beginning, or whether the cause   
   >>>>>> can originate an effect without its causality itself having a   
   >>>>>> beginning. In the first case the concept of this causality is a   
   >>>>>> concept of natural necessity, in the second of freedom. From this   
   >>>>>> the reader will see that, since I have explained freedom as the   
   >>>>>> faculty to begin an event by oneself, I have exactly hit that   
   >>>>>> concept which is the problem of metaphysics.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> If this sort of influence of intelligible beings on appearances   
   >>>>>> can be thought without contradiction, then natural necessity will   
   >>>>>> indeed attach to every connection of cause and effect in the   
   >>>>>> sensible world, and yet that cause which is itself not an   
   >>>>>> appearance (though it underlies appearance) will still be entitled   
   >>>>>> to freedom, and therefore nature and freedom will be attributable   
   >>>>>> without contradiction to the very same thing, but in different   
   >>>>>> respects, in the one case as appearance, in the other as a thing   
   >>>>>> in itself. We have in us a faculty that not only stands in   
   >>>>>> connection with its subjectively determining grounds, which are   
   >>>>>> the natural causes of its [IDEA #345] actions – and thus far is   
   >>>>>> the faculty of a being which itself belongs to appearances – but   
   >>>>>> that also is related to objective grounds that are mere ideas,   
   >>>>>> insofar as these ideas can determine this faculty, a connection   
   >>>>>> that is expressed by ought.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> This faculty is called reason, and insofar as we are considering a   
   >>>>>> being (the human being) solely as regards this objectively   
   >>>>>> determinable reason, this being cannot be considered as a being of   
   >>>>>> the senses; rather, the aforesaid property is the property of a   
   >>>>>> thing in itself, and the possibility of that property – namely,   
   >>>>>> how the ought, which has never yet happened, can determine the   
   >>>>>> activity of this being and can be the cause of actions whose   
   >>>>>> effect is an appearance in the sensible world – we cannot   
   >>>>>> comprehend at all. Yet the causality of reason with respect to   
   >>>>>> effects in the sensible world would nonetheless be freedom,   
   >>>>>> insofar as objective grounds, which are themselves ideas, are   
   >>>>>> taken to be determining with respect to that causality. For the   
   >>>>>> action of that causality would in that case not depend on any   
   >>>>>> subjective, hence also not on any temporal conditions, and would   
   >>>>>> therefore also not depend on the natural law that serves to   
   >>>>>> determine those conditions, because grounds of reason provide the   
   >>>>>> rule for actions universally, from principles, without influence   
   >>>>>> from the circumstances of time or place.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> What I adduce here counts only as an example, for intelligibility,   
   >>>>>> and does not belong necessarily to our question, which must be   
   >>>>>> decided from mere concepts independently of properties that we   
   >>>>>> find in the actual world.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> I can now say without contradiction: all actions of rational   
   >>>>>> beings, insofar as they are appearances (are encountered in some   
   >>>>>> experience or other), are subject to natural necessity; but the   
   >>>>>> very same actions, with respect only to the rational subject and   
   >>>>>> its faculty of acting in accordance with bare reason, are free.   
   >>>>>> What, then, is required for natural necessity? Nothing more than   
   >>>>>> the determinability of every event in the sensible world according   
   >>>>>> to constant laws, and therefore a relation to a cause within   
   >>>>>> appearance; whereby the underlying thing in itself and its   
   >>>>>> causality remain unknown. But I say: the law of nature remains,   
   >>>>>> whether the rational being be a cause of effects in the sensible   
      
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