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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 so inconsistent are men with themselves, that though they often assert, that necessity utterly destroys all merit and demerit either towards mankind or superior powers, yet they continue still to reason upon these very principles of necessity in all their judgments concerning this matter. The first step in regard to the subjects of pure reason, and which marks the infancy of that faculty, is that of dogmatism. The strife of dialectic is a necessity of reason, and we cannot but wish that it had been conducted long ere this with that perfect freedom which ought to be its essential condition. I shall not here eulogize philosophy for the benefits which the laborious efforts of its criticism have conferred on human reason- even granting that its merit should turn out in the end to be only negative--for on this point something more will be said in the next section. If we employ our reason not merely in the application of the principles of the understanding to objects of experience, but venture with it beyond these boundaries, there arise certain sophistical propositions or theorems. The unity of reason is therefore not the unity of a possible experience, but is essentially different from this unity, which is that of the understanding. The fundamental idea of a philosophy of pure reason of necessity dictates this division; it is, therefore, architectonical--in accordance with the highest aims of reason, and not merely technical, or according to certain accidentally-observed similarities existing between the different parts of the whole science. In order to shew the fallacy of all this philosophy, I shall endeavour to prove first, that reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will; and secondly, that it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will.