Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/87

 to the laws laid down by reason. “God exists” can, in my opinion, imply nothing but that, with all our freedom of will, we feel an obligation to do right. And beyond this for what does one need a God? that is the question. Were we to develop this view of things, we should light, I fancy, upon Kant’s ethical principle. Upon the whole, our heart recognizes a Supreme Being; but to make this clear to reason is, indeed, difficult if not quite impossible. Nay, it is a question whether, without the heart, pure reason would ever have conceived of a Deity at all. When the heart had first taken cognizance of its God, reason set out on the search too. After all is said I now positively believe that the question as to the objective reality of the exterior world is irrational. Of certain objects of consciousness we are compelled by our nature to say that they are exterior to ourselves; there is no option but to do so. The question is almost as absurd as asking whether the colour “blue” is itself really blue. It is impossible for us so to transcend the case. I say that things are exterior to me because I am obliged to recognize them as such, no matter how it may stand with this being-exterior-to-me in other respects; for on that we cannot pronounce.

I was once reading an English book and shortly afterwards a French one on a kindred topic. Some little time after, it struck me most forcibly that I had