Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/76

 is, and pique themselves upon that knowledge. But you yourself must come forward disguised, in the form of an enthymeme. Be sure and leave behind you all those pro-syllogisms and premisses, by which you used to drag us wearily up the long climax, for everyone knows how utterly useless they are. Come forward with a bold face and a self-sufficient, supercilious air, like a man of few words, and at one bound you will reach the goal. Exclaim (and we will chime in), 'The Absolute, confound it! that must exist, or there would be nothing at all!' Here, strike the table with your fist. Whence does the Absolute come? 'What a silly question! Did not I tell you it was the Absolute?' — That will do, forsooth! That will do! Germans are accustomed to content themselves with words instead of thoughts. Do we not train them to it from their cradle? Only look at Hegelianism! What is it but empty, hollow, nauseous twaddle! Yet how brilliant a career was that of this philosophical time-server! A few mercenary individuals had only to strike up a laudation of this stuff, and they at once found an echo to their voices in the empty hollow of a thousand numskulls— an echo which still continues to resound, and to extend — and behold! an ordinary intellect, a common impostor soon became a sublime thinker. Take heart, therefore! Besides, our friend and patron, we will also second you in other ways, for how, indeed, are we to get a living without you? So that carping old faultfinder, Kant, has been criticizing Reason, and clipping her wings, has he? Well, then, we will invent a new sort of Reason, such as has never been heard of — a Reason that does not think, but which has direct intuition — a Reason which sees Ideas (a high-flown word, made to mystify), sees them bodily; or which apprehends directly that which you and others seek to prove; or, again, a Reason which has forebodings of all this — this last for the benefit of those