This thinking self (the soul) may however, as the ultimate subject of thought, which cannot be conceived as the predi- cate of another thing, be called substance; but this conception remains wholly barren, and void of all results, if perma- nence, which makes the conception of substances in experience fruitful, cannot be proved of it.
But permanence can never be proved from the conception of a substance, as a thing in itself, but only for the purposes of experience. The above has been fully explained in the first analogy of experience (in the CPR), and, if this demon- stration be not accepted, the attempt need only be made as to whether it is possible to prove, from the conception of a subject, not existing as the predicate of some other thing, that its existence is thoroughly permanent, and that neither in itself, nor through any natural cause, can it arise or pass away. Such synthetic propositions apriorican never be proved in themselves, but only with reference to things as objects of possible experience.
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