of perceptions to
the apprehension of objects perceived, involves a [Greek: hysteron
proteron]. As Kant himself in effect urges in the _Refutation of
Idealism_,[47] self-consciousness, in the sense of the consciousness
of the successive process in which we apprehend the world, is plainly
only attained by reflecting upon our apprehension of the world. We
first apprehend the world and only by subsequent reflection become
aware of our activity in apprehending it. Even if consciousness of
the world must lead to, and so is in a sense inseparable from,
self-consciousness, it is none the less its presupposition.

[47] Cf. p. 320.

In the second place, it seems that the true vindication of causality,
like that of the first analogy, lies in the dogmatic method which Kant
rejects. It consists in insight into the fact that it is of the very
nature of a physical event to be an element in a process of change
undergone by a system of substances in space, this process being
through and through necessary in the sense that any event (i. e. the
attainment of any state by a substance) is the outcome of certain
preceding events (i. e. the previous attainment of certain states by
it and other substances), and is similarly the condition of certain
subsequent events.[48] To attain this insight, we have only to reflect
upon what we really mean by a 'physical event'. The vindication can
also be expressed in the form that the very _thought_ of a physical
event presupposes the _thought_ of it as an element in a necessary
process of change--provided, however, that no distinction is implied
between the nature of a thing and what we think its nature to be. But
to vindicate causality in this way is to pursue the dogmatic method;
it is to argue from the nature, or, to use Kant's phrase, from the
conception, of a physical event. On the other hand, it seems that the
method of arguing transcendentally, or from the possibility of
perceiving events, must be doomed to failure in principle. For if, as
has been argued to be the case,[49] apprehension is essentially the
apprehension of a reality as it exists independently of the
apprehension of it, only those characteristics can be attributed to
it, as characteristics which it must have if it is to be apprehended,
which belong to it in its own nature or in virtue of its being what it
is. It can only be because we think that a thing has some
characteristic in virtue of its own nature, and so think
'dogm