The ought expresses a kind of necessity, a kind of connection of actions with their grounds or reasons, such as is to be found nowhere else in the whole natural world. For of the natural world our understanding can know nothing except what is, what has been, or what will be. We cannot say that anything in it ought to be other than it actually was, is, or will be. In fact, so long as we are considering the course of nature, the ought has no meaning whatever. We can as little inquire what ought to happen in nature as we can inquire what properties a circle ought to have.
Immanuel Kant.
The first quotation (from the Kritik of Practical Reason) appears to be the same passage that is often rendered in such words as these: “Two things fill my soul with awe—the starry heavens in the still night, and the sense of duty in man.”
The whole earth
The beauty wore of promise—that which sets
The budding rose above the rose full-blown.
W. Wordsworth (The Prelude, Bk. XI).
(——) is one of those men who go far to shake my faith in a future state of existence; I mean, on account of the difficulty of knowing where to place him. I could not bear to roast him; he is not so bad as that comes to: but then, on the other hand, to have to sit down with such a fellow in the very lowest pothouse of heaven is utterly inconsistent with the belief of that place being a place of happiness for me.