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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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When a substance passes from one state, a, into another state, b, the point of time in which the latter exists is different from, and subsequent to that in which the former existed. For as the future will sometime be present, so the past was once present. it does not make its appearance at a certain time, for the purpose of producing an effect. Men are unwilling to leave property in suspense, even for the shortest time, or open the least door to violence and disorder. In this case, then, I really connect together two perceptions in time. Here we must make a distinction betwixt those actions of animals, which are of a vulgar nature, and seem to be on a level with their common capacities, and those more extraordinary instances of sagacity, which they sometimes discover for their own preservation, and the propagation of their species. In this case, then, there is no succession as regards time, between cause and effect, but they are simultaneous; and still the law holds good. thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful. I cannot say, "The regress from a given perception to everything limited either in space or time, proceeds in infinitum," for this presupposes an infinite cosmical quantity; neither can I say, "It is finite," for an absolute limit is likewise impossible in experience.