Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/238

 source. They like to place him in a line with, nay above, Kant, having at times the assurance to call him the greatest of all German philosophers. Now, compared with Kant, Leibniz is a poor rushlight. Kant is a master mind, to whom mankind is indebted for the discovery of never-to-be-forgotten truths. One of his chief merits is precisely, to have delivered us from Leibniz and his humbug, from pre-established harmonies, monads and identitas indiscernibilium. Kant has made philosophy serious and I am keeping it so. That these gentlemen should think differently is easily explained. Indeed, has not Leibniz a Central Monad and a Théodiceé, also, with which to deck it out? Now this is quite to the taste of my gentlemen of the philosophical trade. It does not stand in the way of earning a honest livelihood; it allows one to subsist; whereas such a thing as Kant's "Critique of all Speculative Theology" makes one's hair stand on end. Kant is consequently a wrong-headed man and one to be set aside. Vivat Leibniz! Vivat the 'philosophical trade!' Vivat old women's philosophy ! These gentlemen really imagine that, according to the standard of their own petty aims, they can obscure what is good, disparage what is great, and accredit what is false. They may perhaps succeed in doing so for a time, but certainly not in the long run, nor with impunity. Notwithstanding all their machinations and spiteful ignoring of me for forty years, have not even I at last made my way? During those forty years however I have learnt to appreciate Chamfort's words: "En examinant la ligue des sots contre les gens d'esprit, on croirait voir une conspiration de valets pour écarter les maîtres."

We do not care to have much to do with those whom we dislike. One of the consequences of this antipathy for Kant, therefore, has been an incredible ignorance of his doctrines. I can scarcely believe my eyes at times, when