Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/79

 definite for or against can ever be made out, at least with geometrical certainty ; and this notwithstanding that a vague feeling, difficult to analyze, only too surely reminds us that all is vanity. I and myself. I feel myselfthese are two distinct things. Our false philosophy is incorporated in our whole language ; we cannot reason without, so to speak, reasoning wrongly. We overlook the fact that speaking, no matter of what, is itself a philosophy. Contrive what manner of viewing things exterior to the mind we may, it will and must invariably have some trace of the subjective mind in it. It seems to me an extremely unphilosophical idea to conceive of the soul as a thing merely passive; no, it too is a factor in the case. Hence it may be that not a single being in the world really recognizes things as they are. This I should like to call the affinities of the spiritual and corporeal worlds; and I can very well imagine that there might be creatures to whom the universe would be a melody for them to dance to, with Heaven playing the accompaniment. What am I? What ought I to do? What may I hope and believe? To this everything in philosophy may be reduced. It were to he wished that other things might be thus simplified; at least we ought to try whether everything that we intend to treat of in a book cannot at once be so epitomized.