ogia transcendentalis_). It is the glory of transcendental
idealism that by it the mind ascends in the series of conditions till
it reaches the unconditioned, that is, the principles. We thus progress
from our knowledge of self to a knowledge of the world, and through it
to a knowledge of the Supreme Being.

_III.--The Antinomies of Pure Reason_

Transcendental reason attempts to reconcile conflicting assertions.
There are four of these antinomies, or conflicts.

FIRST ANTINOMY. Thesis. The world has a beginning in time, and is also
limited in regard to space. Proof. Were the world without a
time-beginning we should have to ascribe a present limit to that which
can have no limit, which is absurd. Again, were the world not limited in
regard to space, it must be conceived as an infinite whole, yet it is
impossible thus to conceive it.

Antithesis. The world has neither beginning in time, nor limit in space,
but in both regards is infinite. Proof. The world must have existed from
eternity, or it could never exist at all. If we imagine it had a
beginning, we must imagine an anterior time when nothing was. But in
such time the origin of anything is impossible. At no moment could any
cause for such a beginning exist.

SECOND ANTINOMY. Thesis. Every composite substance in the world is
composed of simple parts. This thesis seems scarcely to require proof.
No one can deny that a composite substance consists of parts, and that
these parts, if themselves composite, must consist of others less
composite, till at length we come, by compulsion of thought, to the
conception of the absolutely simple as that wherein the substantial
consists.

Antithesis. No composite thing in the world consists of simple parts,
and nothing simple exists anywhere in the world. Proof. Each simple part
implied in the thesis must be in space. But this condition is a
positive disproof of their possibility. A simple substance would have
to occupy a simple portion of space; but space has no simple parts. The
supposition of such a part is the supposition, not of space, but of the
negation of space. A simple substance, in existing and occupying any
portion of space, must contain a real multiplicity of parts external to
each other, _i.e._, it must contradict its own nature, which is absurd.

THIRD ANTINOMY. Thesis. The causality of natural law is insufficient for
the explanation of all the phenomena of the universe. For this end
another kind of causalit