| Here I shall add that the conception of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this representation were not an intuition (internal) a priori, no conception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of contradictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for example, the presence of a thing in a place and the non-presence of the same thing in the same place. |
| It is only in time that it is possible to meet with two contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing, that is, after each other. |
| thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful. |
| SS 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions. |
| (a) Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination, and therefore remains, when abstraction is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of things. |
| For in the former case, it would be something real, yet without presenting to any power of perception any real object. |
| In the latter case, as an order or determination inherent in things themselves, it could not be antecedent to things, as their condition, nor discerned or intuited by means of synthetical propositions a priorI. But all this is quite possible when we regard time as merely the subjective condition under which all our intuitions take place. |
| For in that case, this form of the inward intuition can be represented prior to the objects, and consequently a priorI. (b) Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is, of the intuitions of self and of our internal state. |
| For time cannot be any determination of outward phenomena. |
| It has to do neither with shape nor position; on the contrary, it determines the relation of representations in our internal state. |
| And precisely because this internal intuition presents to us no shape or form, we endeavour to supply this want by analogies, and represent the course of time by a line progressing to infinity, the content of which constitutes a series which is only of one dimension; and we conclude from the properties of this line as to all the properties of time, with this single exception, that the parts of the line are coexistent, whilst those of time are successive. |
| From this it is clear also that the representation of time is itself an intuition, because all its relations can be expressed in an external intuition. |
| (c) Time is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever. |
| Space, as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition a priori to external phenomena alone. |
| On the other hand, because all representations, whether they have or have not external things for their objects, still in themselves, as determinations of the mind, belong to our internal state; and because this internal state is subject to the formal condition of the internal intuition, that is, to time--time is a condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever--the immediate condition of all internal, and thereby the mediate condition of all external phenomena. |
| If I can say a priori, "All outward phenomena are in space, and determined a priori according to the relations of space," I can also, from the principle of the internal sense, affirm universally, "All phenomena in general, that is, all objects of the senses, are in time and stand necessarily in relations of time." |
| If we abstract our internal intuition of ourselves and all external intuitions, possible only by virtue of this internal intuition and presented to us by our faculty of representation, and consequently take objects as they are in themselves, then time is nothing. |
| It is only of objective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things which we regard as objects of our senses. |
| It no longer objective we, make abstraction of the sensuousness of our intuition, in other words, of that mode of representation which is peculiar to us, and speak of things in general. |
| Time is therefore merely a subjective condition of our (human) intuition (which is always sensuous, that is, so far as we are affected by objects), and in itself, independently of the mind or subject, is nothing. |
| Nevertheless, in respect of all phenomena, consequently of all things which come within the sphere of our experience, it is necessarily objective. |