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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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From all this it may be infered, that no other faculty is required, beside the senses, to convince us of the external existence of body. SECT. VI. OF THE IDEA OF EXISTENCE, AND OF EXTERNAL EXISTENCE. What I have termed an ideal was in Plato's philosophy an idea of the divine mind--an individual object present to its pure intuition, the most perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of all phenomenal existences. Thus to resume what I have said concerning the senses; they give us no notion of continued existence, because they cannot operate beyond the extent, in which they really operate. Thirdly, Account for that propensity, which this illusion gives, to unite these broken appearances by a continued existence. It is therefore from the intermediate situation of the mind, that this opinion arises, and from such an adherence to these two contrary principles, as makes us seek some pretext to justify our receiving both; which happily at last is found in the system of a double existence. First, We in reality affirm, that there is no such thing in the universe as a cause or productive principle, not even the deity himself; since our idea of that supreme Being is derived from particular impressions, none of which contain any efficacy, nor seem to have any connexion with any other existence. For as this idea is not here considered, as the representation of any absent object, but as a real perception in the mind, of which we are intimately conscious, it must be able to bestow on whatever is related to it the same quality, call it firmness, or solidity, or force, or vivacity, with which the mind reflects upon it, and is assured of its present existence. According to this way of thinking, we ought not to receive as reasoning any of the observations we may make concerning identity, and the relations of time and .place; since in none of them the mind can go beyond what is immediately present to the senses, either to discover the real existence or the relations of objects.