II.
But things change—something new begins and something old ceases; but, still, in each case, the first principle must apply, and the new thing—like the old—be so “because necessitated by the totality of conditions.”
Remark.—The reader will notice that with the conception of change there enters a second stage of mediation. First, we have simple mediation in which the ground and grounded are both real. Secondly, we have the passage of a potentiality into a reality, and vice versa. Therefore, with the consideration of change we have encountered a contradiction which becomes apparent upon further attempt to adjust the idea of necessity to it.
III.
If the same totality of conditions necessitates both states of the thing—the new and the old—it follows that this totality of conditions is adapted to both, and hence is indifferent to either, i. e. it allows either, and hence cannot be said to necessitate one to the exclusion of the other, for it allows one to pass over into the other, thereby demonstrating that it did not restrict or confine the first to be what it was. Hence it now appears that chance or contingency participated in the state of the thing.
IV.
But the states of the thing belong to the totality, and hence when the thing changes the totality also changes, and we are forced to admit two different totalities as the conditions of the two different states of the thing.
Remark.—Here we have returned to our starting-point, and carried back our contradiction with us. In our zeal to relieve the thing from the difficulty presented—that of changing spontaneously—we have posited duality in the original totality, and pushed our change into it. But it is the same contradiction as before, and we must continue to repeat the same process forever in the foolish endeavor to go round a circle until we arrive at its end, or, what is the same, its beginning.
V.
If it requires a different totality of conditions to render possible the change of a thing from one state to another, then if a somewhat changes the totality changes. But there is nothing outside of the totality to necessitate it, and it therefore must necessitate itself.