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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.

It follows that an infinite series already elapsed is impossible and that, consequently, a beginning of the world is a necessary condition of its existence.

Now it is evident, one of the best relicks a devotee coued procure, would be the handywork of a saint; and if his cloaths and furniture are ever to be considered in this light, it is because they were once at his disposal, and were moved and affected by him; in which respect they are to be considered as imperfect effects, and as connected with him by a shorter chain of consequences than any of those, from which we learn the reality of his existence.

Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass. Reason affords no good grounds for admitting the existence of intelligible beings, or of intelligible properties of sensuous things, although--as we have no conception either of their possibility or of their impossibility--it will always be out of our power to affirm dogmatically that they do not exist. If we define a cause to be an object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the farmer are placed in a like relation of .priority and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the latter; we may easily conceive, that there is no absolute nor metaphysical necessity, that every beginning of existence should be attended with such an object. Meanwhile, by reason of the conditions of the logical exercise of our understanding, it is impossible to avoid separating, as it were, that which in the existence of a substance is subject to change, whilst the substance remains, and regarding it in relation to that which is properly permanent and radical. But the only existence cognized, under the condition of other given phenomena, as necessary, is the existence of effects from given causes in conformity with the laws of causality. The objects of experience then are not things in themselves, but are given only in experience, and have no existence apart from and independently of experience.