Because antinomy, immediately it is
misunderstood, leads inevitably to contradiction, these have been
mistaken for each other, especially among the French, who like to
judge everything by its effects. But neither contradiction nor
antinomy, which analysis discovers at the bottom of every simple
idea, is the principle of truth. Contradiction is always
synonymous with nullity; as for antinomy, sometimes called by
the same name, it is indeed the forerunner of truth, the material
of which, so to speak, it supplies; but it is not truth, and,
considered in itself, it is the efficient cause of disorder, the
characteristic form of delusion and evil.
An antinomy is made up of two terms, necessary to each other, but
always opposed, and tending to mutual destruction. I hardly dare
to add, as I must, that the first of these terms has received the
name thesis, position, and the second the name anti-thesis,
counter-position. This method of thought is now so well-known
that it will soon figure, I hope, in the text-books of the
primary schools.
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