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And this the French socialists, misled by a priori notions, attempted to do, on the theory of the Contrat-Social, as if they had a tabula rasa, without regarding the existing constituents of society, or traditions, or historical growths. Equality, as a phrase, having done duty as a dissolvent, was pressed into service as a constructor.
We may often apply an a priori principle: if the fact was of such a nature that it could only be observed or reported by a single observer, then all the accounts of it must be derived from a single observation. These principles enable us to recognise many cases of different observations, and still more numerous cases of observations being reproduced.
Its writers are now making strenuous efforts to display in the strongest light, the most glorious and interesting facts of its history, the most peculiar and picturesque phases of its manners and customs. Chopin, differing from them in having formed no premeditated design, surpasses them all in originality. He did not determine upon, he did not seek such a result; he created no ideal a priori.
Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that such causes must produce such effects that the well-known occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now and then, to premature interments apart from this consideration, we have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that a vast number of such interments have actually taken place.
A stone or piece of metal raised into the air, and left without any support, immediately falls: but to consider the matter a priori, is there anything we discover in this situation which can beget the idea of a downward, rather than an upward, or any other motion, in the stone or metal?
It is harder to believe of the doctrines of this science than of any other, either that they are not truths a priori, but experimental truths, or that their peculiar certainty is owing to their being not absolute but only conditional truths.
On the contrary, I have preserved an impression that judges of small local courts succumb more easily to strong party influences than do administrative officials; nor need we invent any psychological reason for the fact that, given equal culture, the latter should a priori be considered less just and conscientious in their official decisions than the former.
Instead of the vague notions, uncertain hopes, and a priori conceptions, that have hitherto confused the investigator, methods of observation have been formulated, suitable for the attainment of definite results, the general nature of which is already known. To my mind the real value of the discovery of the mutability of the evening-primrose lies in its usefulness as a guide for further work.
And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in consequence of which, if I were nothing else, all my actions would always conform to the autonomy of the will; but as I at the same time intuite myself as a member of the world of sense, they ought so to conform, and this categorical "ought" implies a synthetic a priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will but as belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and practical of itself, which contains the supreme condition according to reason of the former will; precisely as to the intuitions of sense there are added concepts of the understanding which of themselves signify nothing but regular form in general and in this way synthetic a priori propositions become possible, on which all knowledge of physical nature rests.
We merely anticipate our own apprehension, the formal condition of which, inasmuch as it is itself to be found in the mind antecedently to all given phenomena, must certainly be capable of being cognized a priori.
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