Page:Critique of Pure Reason 1855 Meiklejohn tr.djvu/327

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FOURTH ANTINOMY.

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gin^[1] the existence of the latter and their series. In this case it must also begin to act, and its causality would therefore belong to time, and consequently to the sum-total of phænomena, that is, to the world. It follows that the cause cannot be out of the world; which is contradictory to the hypothesis. Therefore, neither in the world, nor out of it (but in causal connection with it), does there exist any absolutely necessary being.

↑ The word begin is taken in two senses. The first is active—the cause being regarded as beginning a series of conditions as its effect (infit).^[2] The second is passive—the causality in the cause itself beginning to operate (fit). I reason here from the first to the second.
↑ It may be doubted whether there is any passage to be found in the Latin Classics where infit is employed in any other than a neuter sense, as in Plautus, “Infit me percontarier.” The second signification of begin (anfangen) we should rather term neuter.—Tr.

[dummy-1] The word begin is taken in two senses. The first is active—the cause being regarded as beginning a series of conditions as its effect (infit).^[2] The second is passive—the causality in the cause itself beginning to operate (fit). I reason here from the first to the second.

[2] It may be doubted whether there is any passage to be found in the Latin Classics where infit is employed in any other than a neuter sense, as in Plautus, “Infit me percontarier.” The second signification of begin (anfangen) we should rather term neuter.—Tr.

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