Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/109



Philosophy, which on account of its self-conceit exposes itself to all sorts of empty questions, finds itself often in awkward embarrassment in view of certain stories, parts of which it cannot doubt without suffering for it, nor believe without being laughed at. Both difficulties we find to a certain degree united in the current accounts of spirit visions, the first in listening to him who avouches their truth, the second in communicating them to others. In fact, there is no reproach more bitter to the philosopher than that of credulity, and of yielding to common fancies. And as those who know how to appear wise with little effort sneer at all those things which equalise, so to speak, the wise and the ignorant, in being incomprehensible to both of them, it is not astonishing that the apparitions, so