Note (return) — Chapter XIV

The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation. To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming, but never really is;" it is never in two successive moments the same. 890 All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions given in thought, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed. 891