cerebral phenomenon. Even the most universal among the non-transcendental laws of Nature and the one least liable to exception — the law of gravitation — is of empirical origin, consequently without guarantee as to its absolute universality; wherefore it is still from time to time called in question, and doubts occasionally arise as to its validity beyond our solar system; and astronomers carefully call attention to any indications corroborative of its doubtfulness with which they may happen to meet, thereby showing that they regard it as merely empirical. The question may of course be raised, whether gravitation takes effect between bodies which are separated by an absolute vacuum, or whether its action within a solar system may not be mediated by some sort of ether, and may not cease altogether between fixed stars; but these questions only admit of an empirical solution, and this proves that here we have not to do with a knowledge à priori. If, on the other hand, we admit with Kant and Laplace the hypothesis, as the most probable one, that each solar system has developed out of an original nebula by a gradual process of condensation, we still cannot for a moment conceive the possibility of that original substance having sprung into being out of nothing: we are forced to assume the anterior existence of its particles somewhere or other, as well as their having been brought together somehow or other, precisely because of the transcendental nature of the principle of the permanence of Substance. In my Critique of Kantian Philosophy,[1] I have shown at length, that Substance is but another word for Matter, the conception of substance not being realisable excepting in Matter, and therefore deriving its origin from Matter, and I have also specially pointed out how that conception was formed solely to serve a surreptitious purpose. Like many other
- ↑ Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. i. p. 550 of 2nd, and 580 of 3rd edition.
