Oyonale - 3D art and graphic experiments
ThinkSpam
Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.
.
Thus, we cognize the existence of a magnetic matter penetrating all bodies from the perception of the attraction of the steel-filings by the magnet, although the constitution of our organs renders an immediate perception of this matter impossible for us. It is true that we cannot infer from this that what does not contain in itself the supreme and complete condition--the condition of all other things--must possess only a conditioned existence; but as little can we assert the contrary, for this supposed being does not possess the only characteristic which can enable reason to cognize by means of an a priori conception the unconditioned and necessary nature of its existence. If we admit the existence of some one thing, whatever it may be, we must also admit that there is something which exists necessarily. And, in relation to substance, they are not properly subordinated to it, but are the mode of existence of the substance itself. I maintain, then, that the physico-theological argument is insufficient of itself to prove the existence of a Supreme Being, that it must entrust this to the ontological argument--to which it serves merely as an introduction, and that, consequently, this argument contains the only possible ground of proof (possessed by speculative reason) for the existence of this being. There are only three modes of proving the existence of a Deity, on the grounds of speculative reason. But with what right can we do this if we make them forms of objects as things in themselves, and such, moreover, as would continue to exist as a priori conditions of the existence of things, even though the things themselves were annihilated? thing that is real in the soul, and has a degree--consequently its entire existence--has been halved, a particular substance would arise out of the soul.