e must have had a beginning somewhere, and all the
distinctions and complexities of nature which succeed each other must
similarly have had an origin. This must indisputably have existed from
eternity, but such an idea would be excluded if time consisted of real
parts and was not arbitrarily divided to accommodate the possibilities
of our understanding. It is different with time, self regarded, but
the facts and phenomena of which time is made up being capable of
differentiation can be enumerated. Let us conceive of a condition in
which no change occurs and which undergoes no alteration in its stable
identity; the time concept then becomes transformed into the general
notion of existence. What is the result of piling up an empty duration
of time is not discoverable. So far, Herr Duehring writes and he is
not a little edified concerning the significance of these discoveries.
He hopes that "it is perceived as a not insignificant truth," and
later on says, "One should note the very simple phrases by which we
have helped the concept of immortality and the criticism of it to a
point at present unknown, through the sharpening and deepening of the
simple elements of the universal conception of time and space."

We have helped! This deepening and sharpening! Who are we? In what are
we manifest? Who deepens and who sharpens?

"Thesis--the world has a beginning in time and is bounded by space.
Proof--If one suppose that the world has no beginning in time he is
bound to grant infinity to each point of time, and so an infinite
succession of things has passed away in the universe. But infinity of
a series consists in the impossibility of its completion by successive
syntheses. Therefore an eternal progression of the world is
impossible. Hence a beginning of the world is a necessary condition of
its existence, which was to be proved. Let us take the other concept.
The world now appears as an eternal given whole consisting of things
which have a simultaneous existence. Now we can conceive of the mass
of a quantity, which can only be regarded under certain conditions, in
no other way than by means of the synthesis of its parts, and we
conceive the totality of the quantity by means of the completed
synthesis or repeated additions of the unity to itself. Thus, in order
to conceive of the universe as a whole which fills all space, the
successive syntheses of the parts of an infinite universe must be
regarded as being completed, that is a