Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/155

 gatur), —made a strong impression upon the thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who therefore frequently and emphatically repeat what he says. Pico della Mirandola, for instance, says : Necesse est, eum, quiratiocinatur et intelligit, phantasmata speculari; —Melanchthon says : Oportet intelligentem phantasmata speculari; —and Jord. Brunus says, dicit Aristoteles: oportet scire volentem, phantasmata speculari. Pomponatius expresses himself in the same sense.—On the whole, all that can be affirmed is, that every true and primary notion, every genuine philosophic theorem even, must have some sort of intuitive view for its innermost kernel or root. This, though something momentary and single, subsequently imparts life and spirit to the whole analysis, however exhaustive it may be,—just as one drop of the right reagent suffices to tinge a whole solution with the colour of the precipitate which it causes. When an analysis has a kernel of this sort, it is like a bank note issued by a firm which has ready money wherewith to back it ; whereas every other analysis proceeding from mere combinations of abstract conceptions, resembles a bank note which is issued by a firm which has nothing but other paper obligations to back it with. All mere rational talk thus renders the result of given conceptions clearer, but does not, strictly speaking, bring anything new to light. It might therefore be left to each individual to do himself, instead of filling whole volumes every day.

§ 29. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing.
But, even in a narrower sense, thinking does not consist in the bare presence of abstract conceptions in our consciousness,