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Cliquer sur les phrases pour les voir dans leur contexte. Les textes de Immanuel Kant et David Hume sont disponibles auprès du Projet Gutenberg.
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And, in this way, we can proceed in perfect confidence to deduce the phenomena of the world and their existence from other phenomena, just as if there existed no necessary being; and we can at the same time, strive without ceasing towards the attainment of completeness for our deduction, just as if such a being--the supreme condition of all existences--were presupposed by the mind. The proposition, "I think," is, in the present case, understood in a problematical sense, not in so far as it contains a perception of an existence (like the Cartesian "Cogito, ergo sum"),[Footnote; "I think, therefore I am."] but in regard to its mere possibility--for the purpose of discovering what properties may be inferred from so simple a proposition and predicated of the subject of it. We cannot bear, nor can we rid ourselves of the thought that a being, which we regard as the greatest of all possible existences, should say to himself; I am from eternity to eternity; beside me there is nothing, except that which exists by my will; whence then am I? We are not discussing the above-mentioned assertions regarding the immaterial unity of the soul and the existence of a Supreme Being as dogmata, which certain philosophers profess to demonstrate a priori, but purely as hypotheses. The reader must be careful to remark that my intention in the above remarks has not been to prove the actual existence of freedom, as a faculty in which resides the cause of certain sensuous phenomena. From the mere conception of a thing it is impossible to conclude its existence. For the real object--the dollars--is not analytically contained in my conception, but forms a synthetical addition to my conception (which is merely a determination of my mental state), although this objective reality--this existence--apart from my conceptions, does not in the least degree increase the aforesaid hundred dollars. Moreover, as nothing happens in this subject--for it is a noumenon, and there does not consequently exist in it any change, demanding the dynamical determination of time, and for the same reason no connection with phenomena as causes--this active existence must in its actions be free from and independent of natural necessity, for or necessity exists only in the world of phenomena. Our opportunity is the only business of its kind right now. An impossibility of being annihilated cannot exist, and can never be conceived to exist, by itself: but necessarily requires some object or real existence, to which it may belong.