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Page 22 - Thought cannot transcend consciousness ; consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought, known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other ; while, independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal.
Page xxxiii - The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.
Page 21 - For, as the greyhound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he is supported ; so the mind cannot transcend that sphere of limitation, within and through which exclusively the possibility of thought is realized.
Page 65 - We have here a remarkable conflict between two contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side stand all the vulgar, who are unpractised in philosophical researches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side, stand all the Philosophers ancient and modern; every man without exception who reflects. In this division, to my great humiliation, I find myself classed with the vulgar.
Page 99 - But these lead you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object. Do you disclaim this principle, in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of something external? You here depart from your natural propensities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove, that the perceptions are connected with any external objects.
Page 22 - To think that God is, as we can think him to be, is blasphemy.
Page 586 - ... merely the worthless links in an adamantine series of effects and causes. It appears to me, that it is only on such a doctrine, that we can philosophically vindicate the liberty of the human will — that we can rationally assert to man —
Page 64 - The vulgar are firmly persuaded, that the very identical objects which they perceive continue to exist when they do not perceive them ; and are no less firmly persuaded, that when ten men look at the sun or the moon they all see the same individual object.
Page 22 - The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions subversive of each other, as equally possible ; but only, as unable to understand as possible, either of two extremes ; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true.
Page 21 - As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the conditioned) is thus the only possible object of knowledge and of positive thought — thought necessarily supposes conditions. To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought.