Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/159

 utters it trusting to luck, and blindly echoing another philosophy whose tenet in this matter it does not venture to dispute. If it should want to make good its claim to knowledge, it would have to proceed, not from duality as an undisputed fact (which its dictum, against which there is no appeal, does away with only to leave in full sway) but, on the contrary, from unity. From this unity it would have to be capable of deducing duality, and with it all manifoldness, in a clear and intelligible fashion. For this, however, thought is needed, and reflection consummated and perfected in itself. The philosophy we are referring to has, for one thing, never learnt the art of thinking in this way and is indeed incapable of it, having only the power to indulge in reverie. Besides, it is hostile to this way of thinking and has no inclination whatever to attempt it; for, if it did, it would be disturbed in the illusion that it holds so dear.

This, then, is the essential thing in which our philosophy deliberately opposes that philosophy; and on this occasion it has been our purpose, once for all, to enunciate and establish this as definitely as possible.