[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>>>>>> 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   
   >>>>>>> world through reason and hence through freedom, or whether that   
   >>>>>>> being does not determine such effects through rational grounds.   
   >>>>>>> For if the first is the case, the action takes place according to   
   >>>>>>> maxims whose effect within appearance will always conform to   
   >>>>>>> constant laws; if the second is the case, and the action does not   
   >>>>>>> take [IDEA #346] place according to principles of reason, then it   
   >>>>>>> is subject to the empirical laws of sensibility, and in both   
   >>>>>>> cases the effects are connected according to constant laws; but   
      
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