Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/80

 We cannot sufficiently take the fact to heart that the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the like, are merely conceivable, but not cognizable ideas. They are the permutations and the play of thought, to which nothing objective need correspond. The Wolfian philosophy made a great mistake in extending the principle of contradiction to the case of what is cognizable ; for as a matter of fact it concerns only what is conceivable. If you consider idealism in relation to the various stages of life, its course is commonly as follows : In our youth we begin by smiling at the absurdity of it. A little later we find the theory pretty, clever, and excusable, and we like to argue about it with people who by reason of their age or position are still at the first stage. In mature years we regard it as ingenious enough, indeed, to tease ourselves and others with, but on the whole as hardly worth refuting and contrary to Nature. We don’t think it worth while to reflect on it any longer, for we are convinced that we have reflected on it enough already. A few years later, with earnest meditation and a closer knowledge of human affairs, the theory gains an altogether irresistible hold. For we have only to consider that, even granting the existence of objects exterior to ourselves, we cannot in the last resort know anything about their objective reality. Let things be what they may, we are and remain simple idealists, nay, we have absolutely no choice in the matter. For nothing can be transmitted to us but by the medium of our ideas. To think that