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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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This conclusion from a general view of human nature, we may confirm by particular instances, wherein the force of sympathy is very remarkable. If we prefer examples, which are real, to such as are feigned, we may consider the following one, which is to be met with In almost every writer, that has treated of the laws of nature. In like manner, I am persuaded, there might be several useful discoveries made from a criticism of the fictions of the antient philosophy, concerning substances, and substantial form, and accidents, and occult qualities; which, however unreasonable and capricious, have a very intimate connexion with the principles of human nature. One might think It were entirely superfluous to prove this, if a late author [William Wollaston, THE RELIGION OF NATURE DELINEATED (London 1722)], who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation, had not seriously affirmed, that such a falshood is the foundation of all guilt and moral deformity. And thus the most abstract speculations concerning human nature, however cold and unentertaining, become subservient to practical morality; and may render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more persuasive in its exhortations. The proposition therefore--if all causality is possible only in accordance with the laws of nature--is, when stated in this unlimited and general manner, self-contradictory.