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Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.
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Now, I may admit the existence of an incomprehensible being of this nature--the object of a mere idea, relatively to the world of sense; although I have no ground to admit its existence absolutely and in itself. If the question regarded an object of sense merely, it would be impossible for me to confound the conception with the existence of a thing. All this is best effected, nay, cannot be effected otherwise than by means of such a schema, which requires us to regard this ideal thing as an actual existence. But the conception does not satisfy the question regarding its existence--which was the purpose of all our inquiries; and, although the existence of a necessary being were admitted, we should find it impossible to answer the question; What of all things in the world must be regarded as such? A miser receives delight from his money; that is, from the power it affords him of procuring all the pleasures and conveniences of life, though he knows he has enjoyed his riches for forty years without ever employing them; and consequently cannot conclude by any species of reasoning, that the real existence of these pleasures is nearer, than if he were entirely deprived of all his possessions. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that we are not justified in leaping from some member of an empirical series beyond the world of sense, as if empirical representations were things in themselves, existing apart from their transcendental ground in the human mind, and the cause of whose existence may be sought out of the empirical series.