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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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It is not in the least more difficult to conceive how the laws of the phenomena of nature must harmonize with the understanding and with its a priori form--that is, its faculty of conjoining the manifold-- than it is to understand how the phenomena themselves must correspond with the a priori form of our sensuous intuition. It is a will or choice, that determines a man to kill his parent; and they are the laws of matter and motion, that determine a sapling to destroy the oak, from which it sprung. All real is possible; from this follows naturally, according to the logical laws of conversion, the particular proposition; "Some possible is real." Now this seems to be equivalent to; "Much is possible that is not real." No doubt it does seem as if we ought to consider the sum of the possible to be greater than that of the real, from the fact that something must be added to the former to constitute the latter. This connection can be hoped for only on the assumption that the cause of nature is a supreme reason, which governs according to moral laws. This is a kind of superstitious practice in civil laws, and in the laws of nature, resembling the Roman catholic superstitions in religion. Hence we are not entitled to regard them as accidental and derived from the mere will of the ruler, especially as we have no conception of such a will, except as formed in accordance with these laws. For in this sphere action is absolutely necessary, that is, I must act in obedience to the moral law in all points. For if, in relation to this law, I have nothing more than opinion, my judgement is but a play of the imagination, without the least relation to truth.