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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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Either the belief is some new idea, such as that of reality or existence, which we join to the simple conception of an object, or it is merely a peculiar feeling or sentiment. The conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that of necessity in existence, have no significance out of the sphere of empirical cognition, and cannot, beyond that sphere, determine any object. Now as we cannot cognize completely a priori the existence of any object of sense, though we can do so comparatively a priori, that is, relatively to some other previously given existence--a cognition, however, which can only be of such an existence as must be contained in the complex of experience, of which the previously given perception is a part--the necessity of existence can never be cognized from conceptions, but always, on the contrary, from its connection with that which is an object of perception. This conception must be regarded as in some degree satisfactory, if we admit the existence of a necessary being, and consider that there exists a necessity for a definite and final answer to these questions. MORE SUCCESS Grant that either the world itself is necessary, or that there is contained in it a necessary existence.