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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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But with this we have not to do; our concern is only with the law of progression in experience, in which objects, that is, phenomena, are given. I know also, to a certainty, that no one can be acquainted with any other conditions which conduct to the same unity of ends under the moral law. On the other hand, we have seen in our discussion of transcendental logic, that, although we can never proceed immediately beyond the content of the conception which is given us, we can always cognize completely a priori--in relation, however, to a third term, namely, possible experience--the law of its connection with other things. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good-manners. Such are the moral laws; and these alone belong to the sphere of the practical exercise of reason, and admit of a canon. The interest of a nation requires, that the succession to the crown should be fixed one way or other; but it is the same thing to its interest in what way it be fixed: So that if the relation of blood had not an effect independent of public interest, it would never have been regarded, without a positive law; and it would have been impossible, that so many positive laws of different nations coued ever have concured precisely in the same views and intentions. For then honour, and custom, and civil laws supply the place of natural conscience, and produce, in some degree, the same effects. But the law of nature is that nothing can happen without a sufficient a priori determined cause. The steps of this ladder, as they appear in experience, are too far apart from each other, and the so-called petty differences between different kinds of animals are in nature commonly so wide separations that no confidence can be placed in such views (particularly when we reflect on the great variety of things, and the ease with which we can discover resemblances), and no faith in the laws which are said to express the aims and purposes of nature.