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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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Betwixt unity and number there can be no medium; no more than betwixt existence and nonexistence. For, although I do not discover the element of the unconditioned in the conception of such a being--an element which is manifestly existent in the sum-total of all conditions--I am not entitled to conclude that its existence is therefore conditioned; just as I am not entitled to affirm, in a hypothetical syllogism, that where a certain condition does not exist (in the present, completeness, as far as pure conceptions are concerned), the conditioned does not exist either. There remains only to take notice of a pretty remarkable phaenomenon of this passion; which is, that the communicated passion of sympathy sometimes acquires strength from the weakness of its original, and even arises by a transition from affections, which have no existence. But there are other considerations which compel reason to seek out some resting place in the regress from the conditioned to the unconditioned, which is not given as an actual existence from the mere conception of it, although it alone can give completeness to the series of conditions. For, as regards the subterfuge adopted by those who endeavour to evade the consequence--that, if the world is limited as to space and time, the infinite void must determine the existence of actual things in regard to their dimensions--it arises solely from the fact that instead of a sensuous world, an intelligible world--of which nothing is known--is cogitated; instead of a real beginning (an existence, which is preceded by a period in which nothing exists), an existence which presupposes no other condition than that of time; and, instead of limits of extension, boundaries of the universe. We can never demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every new existence, or new modification of existence, without shewing at the same time the impossibility there is, that any thing can ever begin to exist without some productive principle; and where the latter proposition cannot be proved, we must despair of ever being able to prove the former. The imagination tells us, that our resembling perceptions have a continued and uninterrupted existence, and are not annihilated by their absence. PLACE YOUR ORDER FOR THESE REPORTS NOW :