Oyonale - 3D art and graphic experiments
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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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For these reasons the former qualities are esteemed virtues, and the latter regarded as vices. But if we are called upon to explain what we mean by substance, and wish to avoid the vice of reasoning in a circle, the answer is by no means so easy. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. The next question is, Of what nature are these impressions, and after what manner do they operate upon us? Here we cannot remain long in suspense, but must pronounce the impression arising from virtue, to be agreeable, and that proceding from vice to be uneasy. In saying, then, that the sentiments of vice and virtue are natural in this sense, we make no very extraordinary discovery. We come now to the examination of such virtues and vices as are entirely natural, and have no dependance on the artifice and contrivance of men. To continue the experiment, I change anew the relation of ideas, and suppose the vice to belong to myself. Being fully convinced of the influence of this relation, I try the effects of the other; and by changing virtue for vice, convert the pleasant impression, which arises from the former, into the disagreeable one, which proceeds from the latter. As to the good or ill desert of virtue or vice, it is an evident consequence of the sentiments of pleasure or uneasiness.