It has been shown in the Critique of Pure Reason that in theoretical
principles a priori, an intuitional perception a priori must be
supplied in connection with any given conception; and, consequently,
were it a question of a purely theoretical principle, something
would have to be added to the conception of the possession of an
object to make it real. But in respect of the practical principle
under consideration, the procedure is just the converse of the
theoretical process; so that all the conditions of perception which
form the foundation of empirical possession must be abstracted or
taken away in order to extend the range of the juridical conception
beyond the empirical sphere, and in order to be able to apply the
postulate, that every external object of the free activity of my will,
so far as I have it in my power, although not in the possession of it,
may be reckoned as juridically mine.
The possibility of such a possession, with consequent deduction of
the conception of a nonempirical possession, is founded upon the
juridical postulate of the practical reason, that "It is a juridical
duty so to act towards others that what is external and useable may
come into the possession or become the property of some one." And this
postulate is conjoined with the exposition of the conception that what
is externally one's own is founded upon a possession, that is not
physical.
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