Sun-Clear Statement/6

I see, dear reader, you look surprised. Is it nothing more than this? you seem to say: '"What! I merely get a picture of actual life which is of no service to me in any manner, a mere sketch in shadowy colors, and of diminished size, of what I have every day clear before me in nature without labor or study on my part. Why should I undergo a tedious course of study and weary exercises for such a purpose? Your art seems to me not much more important than that of the well-known man who threw grains of corn through the eye of a needle, which surely cost him, also, considerable trouble. I have no need of your science and prefer to cling to life."

Very well; follow your resolution without hesitation, and cling right closely to life. Stand firmly and fixedly upon this your resolution; allow no philosophy to shake you in it, or to make it appear suspicious to you. Even thus shall I have attained the greatest part of the end I had in view.

But lest you might fall into the danger of dissuading others from the study of a system which we do not advise you, and which nothing urges you, to undertake, or of lowering and speaking ill of it to others, let me now tell you what influence and use this study may, nevertheless, exercise.

The science of mathematics, and particularly that branch of this science which excites contemplation CONTEMPLATION AND INTUITION.—The use of the word Contemplation, instead of Intuition, for the German word Anschauung, in these translations, has been objected to. This objection would be valid, if the words Contemplation and Intuition were equivalent and exchangeable terms in the English language, and if the word Intuition were the scientific philosophical term for the (vulgar) word Contemplation. But if there is a distinction between those two words in the English language, and a translator chooses the one in preference to the other, the presumption should justly be, that he made his choice for a reason, and for the sake of that distinction; and, instead of objecting to the term chosen, critics should rather endeavor to ascertain the distinctive act of the mind which it is to designate.

My reason for translating the word Anschauung, whenever it occurs in the writings of Fichte—and I have no hesitation to extend the same remark to Kant's writings—by Contemplation instead of Intuition, is in short this: the word Intuition stands as designation for an act of the mind altogether different from that which is designated by Anschauung; and the word Contemplation, of all other words in the English language, best designates that act of the mind which Fichte calls Anschauung. It is true that mystics have used the word Contemplation, as expressive of their wrapt ecstasy. But this is also, to some extent, true of the German word; and, moreover, Fichte often enough points out that in the term Intellectual Contemplation, the latter word is to describe precisely the same act of mind which occurs in sensuous contemplation. The act is, in short, one of looking on, exclusive of all conception or effort to comprehend. It is elaborately described by Fichte in his Second Introduction, published in this Journal under the head of Criticisms of Philosophical Systems. (See particularly IV. of that article.) It is completely deduced as a distinctive of the Ego in the Science of Knowledge. (See pages 197-200.) Had I translated it by Intuition, I should have caused readers to entertain an utterly wrong conception; and I venture to affirm, that one of the many reasons why Kant has been so abominably misunderstood by the English is precisely because to such words in his writings as Anschauung his translators have given a quite different meaning.— A.E. Kroeger. in the most immediate manner—namely, geometry—has always been recommended as a means to exercise the mind, and has often been studied with this end alone in view, and with no intention of making practical use of it. That science is, moreover, well worthy of this recommendation; although the authority which if enjoys, and which is based upon its age and its peculiar standpoint midway between contemplation and perception, has made it possible to get a knowledge of it historically, instead of getting it, as should be done, by reinventing it; or to accept it on trust, instead of convincing one's self of its evidence. Hence, the scientific culture which if was intended to effect is no longer produced, and the conclusion that a much-knowing mathematician is also a scientific mind, has become very unsafe in these present days; for in the actual use of that science in daily life, or even in the progression in that science, it is immaterial whether its propositions have been really comprehended, or whether they have been accepted merely upon trust.

Even in this respect the Science of Knowledge has more to recommend it. For this science cannot be apprehended, at least as it is taught now, in any manner except through actually rising into the region of contemplation, and thus of that science; and centuries may elapse before it will be taught in any manner which will make it possible to learn it by committing to memory; and, unless I am much mistaken, it can never be applied or used as a means to produce another knowledge, unless itself has been scientifically grasped. Moreover, from the facts already stated, that the Science of Knowledge has no aid, no substrate of its contemplation, except that contemplation itself, it can elevate the human mind to a higher degree than any geometry can do. It gives to the mind not only attentiveness, ability and firmness, but at the same time absolute self-reliance, by forcing it to be alone with itself, and to live and rule within itself. All other mental labor is comparatively an infinitely easy task; and he who has practice in that science, finds no task difficult. Add to this, that by penetrating all objects of human knowledge into their very centre, it accustoms the eye to seize the true central point in everything which may occur to it, and steadily to pursue this point. Hence, for a practised teacher of the Science of Knowledge, there is nothing difficult, confused or dark, provided he knows the object under consideration. It is always an easy task for him to build up everything anew and from the very beginning, carrying as he does within him the outlines for every scientific structure, and an easy task to get a clear view of the most intricate science. Add to this the confidence and trust in his judgment which he has acquired in possessing the Science of Knowledge, as a guide of all reasoning, and the unshaken calmness with which he regards all deviations from the well known path, and all paradoxes. Human affairs would be in quite a different stage of progress if men could only resolve to believe their eyes. But as matters stand, men go to their neighbors or to their remote ancestors to inquire what they actually do see; and this distrust in themselves perpetuates their errors. The teacher of the Science of Knowledge is protected against this distrust for ever. In one word, through the Science of Knowledge the mind of man comes back to itself, and henceforth reposes upon itself, without foreign assistance, getting itself thoroughly under control as the dancer has his feet, or the fencer his hands under control.

Unless the friends of the Science of Knowledge are mistaken, having had too little chance as yet to try its effects, this self-reliance of the mind also leads to self-reliance of character, a disposition for which is inversely a necessary condition of the comprehending of this science. True, the Science of Knowledge is just as impotent as any other knowledge to make man honest and virtuous; but it at least removes, unless we are much mistaken, the chief obstacle to honesty. Whosoever has in his thinking torn himself loose from all foreign influence, and has built up himself out of himself in this respect, will, doubtless, not go to get the principles of his actions from where he refused to get the principles of his knowing. His views respecting fortune and misfortune, honor and disgrace, will undoubtedly not be formed any more through the invisible influence of the universe and its secret power; but he will influence himself, and will look for and generate the fundamental motives of this influence in himself.

Such will be the influence of this study, if we look merely at its scientific form, and when its content is supposed to have no significance or purpose at all.

But let us now look at this content! The system of the Science of Knowledge exhausts all possible knowledge of the finite mind in its fundamental elements, and fixes these elements for all eternity. These elements can be divided again and recomposed in infinitely different ways, and in this infinite recomposition thereof the finite enters and has its playroom, but nothing new can be added to them. That which is not in its elements involved in their description, is most surely irrational. This the Science of Knowledge shows in supreme clearness to all whose eyes it has opened. Hence, from the moment when this science shall begin to rule—i.e. when all those shall possess it who lead the great masses of the people that cannot possess it—absolutely no transcending of reason, no imaginations, no superstition will any longer be possible. All this will have been attacked and rooted out in its fundamental grounds.

Every one who has assisted in that general survey of finite reason, can at every moment state the point where the irrational transcends the limits of reason and contradicts it. He knows also how to make clear this contradiction at once to every one who has a. sound mind, and who has the desire to be rational. It is thus with the judgments of common life; it is so likewise in regard to that kind of philosophy which has been current amongst us, exciting attention and creating innumerable confusions. All these confusions are at an end as soon as the Science of Knowledge is recognized. Hitherto philosophy has desired to be, and desired to be something, only not knowing what; nay, this was even one of the chief points concerning which it disputed. But a complete survey of the whole field of finite thinking and knowing, establishes what part of this field belongs to philosophy, and what to all other sciences. Nor is any dispute possible concerning particular points and propositions, since all that is thinkable has been proved and determined in a scientific series of contemplation. Error is impossible; for contemplation never errs. The Science which liberates all the other sciences from their dreams, is not itself enveloped in dreams.

The Science of Knowledge exhausts all human knowledge in its fundamental principles, as I said; divides it, and distinguishes these fundamental characteristics. Hence the object of every possible science is involved in it. The manner in which such object must be treated appears likewise in the Science of Knowledge from its connection with the whole system of the human mind and from the laws which are valid in tins region. The Science of Knowledge tells each co-operator in science what he can know, and what he cannot know; tells him the inquiries he may and should raise; furnishes him with the series of investigations to be explored, and teaches him how he has to undertake them and how to establish their proof. Hence the Science of Knowledge also puts a stop to the blind groping about, which now pervades all sciences. Each investigation which is undertaken decides for ever, since it can be certainly known whether the investigation has been undertaken correctly. Through all this the Science of Knowledge secures culture by removing it from the ride of blind chance, and bringing it under the control of rules and self-consciousness.

This is the result which the Science of Knowledge has in relation to those sciences which influence actual fife; and hence mediately also in relation to actual life.

But the Science of Knowledge has, moreover, an immediate influence upon life. Although not in and for itself the correct practical mode of thinking, since it lacks the vitality of experience, it yet furnishes a complete picture of it. Whoever really possesses the Science of Knowledge, but otherwise has not and does not act in actual life according to the mode of thinking which it establishes as the only rational one, is at least not in error concerning himself whenever he compares his actual with his philosophical thinking. He knows that he is a fool, and cannot but call himself one. He likewise has also at all times the power to discover the true principles of his badness, and the true means to reform himself. The least reflection concerning himself will show him what habits he must abolish, and what practices he ought, on the other hand, to undertake. If he does not at once become a wise man as well as a philosopher, the fault lies altogether in his will and his laziness; for no philosophy has the power to give strength to the will.

This is the relation of the Science of Knowledge to those who are personally in possession of it. Those who cannot so possess it, it influences through their governments and teachers.

Whenever the Science of Know ledge shall have been understood and accepted, the science of state government and all other sciences will cease to be a blind groping about and experimentalizing. That Science will become a science of fixed rules and principles; for these principles the Science of Knowledge establishes. True, it cannot infuse those who govern with the good will or the courage to carry out its principles; but it can at least take away from them the excuse that it is not their fault if human affairs are in a wretched condition. Every one who possesses that science will be able to tell them what they must do in order to improve human affairs; and if they still persist in not doing it, they will stand publicly convicted of lacking good intentions. It will therefore be possible from that moment to bring human affairs into such a condition, that it shall not only be easily possible, but almost necessary, for men to be orderly and honest citizens.

Not until this problem shall have been solved can teachers and educators hope to work successfully. The external condition of the end they have in view, and which condition does not depend upon them, will have been furnished. The ability to attain it lies in themselves; for their profession also will have been relieved by the Science of Knowledge from all superstitious and traditionary rules, and will have been reduced to fixed principles. They will know clearly from what point they must start, and how they must proceed.

In one word, through the adoption and general spreading of the Science of Knowledge amongst those for whom it is written, the whole human race will have been rid of the rule of blind chance, and fate will have been annihilated. Mankind will henceforth control itself under the rule of its own conception, and will henceforth make out of itself with absolute freedom all that can be made out of it.

All this which I have just asserted is strictly provable, and is involved in the mere conception of the Science of Knowledge as established in this work. The only possible question is, therefore, whether this conception can be realized; and this question can be decided, and decided only by those who actually do realize it, and who construe for themselves and re-invent that Science of Knowledge whereof we claim that it has already existence. But the success of what we have prophesied of it depends upon the fact whether the Science of Knowledge will come into the possession of the men who stand above the people either as men of science, or as teachers of the people. Whether this will be so, future ages must decide. In the present age, the Science of Knowledge has no other hopes and pretensions than that it may not be thrown aside and forgotten altogether, but may pass into at least a few, who can transmit it to a better age. If it attains this end, then the object of this work, and of the former and future works of the author, will have been accomplished.

It is true, this work is not written for you; nevertheless it will come into your hands, and, according to your previous practice, you will doubtless neither understand, nor indeed really read, but will at any rate review it. Unless the business is very urgent, I would ask you, before you proceed to this reviewing, to read at least these final words, written expressly for you, and which will have been written in vain unless you read them.

"The difference between conflicting opinions is not so very great; let, then, the parties in dispute each cede something to the other and make a compromise!" This is one of the favorite expressions of our humane age, and has been used also with reference to the dispute between you and me when people were yet somewhat calm. Now even if you have merely turned over the leaves of this work (as is sufficient for a review), you cannot have failed to perceive that the difference between you and me is indeed very great, and that it may be very true, what I have often enough told you and what you never wanted to accept seriously, namely, that there is absolutely not one common point between you and me concerning which or from which we might arrive at an understanding. In turning over these leaves, the reason why this should be so, or the real ground which separates our minds, may have become apparent to you.

But since it is equally possible that it may not have become apparent to you, I will state this point once more for your benefit—historically, of course, as such things can only be stated for you.

I propose to seize Science—not only the external systematic form, but the Interior of a knowing, that which is the sole ground that there is such a thing as knowledge, as conviction, or as certitude of consciousness—in its original source. You, on the contrary, however clever arguers you may be according to logical form—a glory which I will cheerfully grant to each of you in whatsoever degree he may be able to maintain it—have not even the slightest suspicion of this Interior of knowing. The whole depth of your being does not reach so far, and reaches no farther than historical acceptance, your business being to further analyze the traditions of this historical faith by means of argument. You have never in your life known, and hence do not know at all, how a man feels who knows. You remember how you used to laugh when intellectual contemplation was spoken of. If you had ever known, or known of knowing, you would not have laughed at this contemplation.

But not only have you no suspicion of that Interior of a knowing; you have, moreover, received in some dark tradition a shadow of that Unknown, which has led you to consider it as the worst of all stray paths, and as the most enormous aberration to which the human mind can become subject. You call it "Imaginary nonsense, word-quibbles, scholastic smoke, miserable sophistries!" etc. You skip this, wherever you find it, so that you may speedily get hold of the—results (i.e. propositions which may be historically seized and committed to memory), or, as some of your representatives say, that you may get at things which interest the mind and heart. The puffed-up, enlightened culture and humanity of the present philosophical age consists precisely in what you have got rid of—those antiquated pedantries of former ages.

Now I esteem, and with all my energies strive precisely after that which you hold in contempt and fly away from. Our views as to what is proper, decent, and praiseworthy, are utter opposites; and if this opposition has not broken out before, it is simply because you had the benevolent opinion that my scholasticism was but a temporary aberration, and that my final object was, after all, the same as yours—namely, a popular and edifying everyday philosophy. You have spoken, it is true, of the signs of the times, and have said that some persons are endeavoring to restore that old barbarism—which I, to be sure, call the old thoroughness;—and you have complained that the enlightenment and fine literature of the Germans—which I call the emptiness and frivolity of the Germans—which had been so nicely set a-going, are now in danger of coming to an untimely end; which complaint you probably made with a view to avert this untimely end. There is no question that it will appear more and more how wretched the tendency of the Science of Knowledge is in this respect, and that, if it had full sway, that old barbarism would certainly be restored, and our beautiful enlightenment would certainly be completely destroyed.

Your nature, therefore, extends to historical faith, and no further. First of all, you have belonging to it your own life, in the existence whereof you believe firmly, merely because others believe in it; for if you were only so far advanced as to know that you live, things would stand quite differently in regard to you. Next, there floats in the current of time a lot of broken up fragments of previous sciences. You have heard it said that these pieces are valuable, and hence you try to catch as many of them as you can, and to exhibit them to the curious. You are very careful in handling these old pieces, lest they might get broken or crushed, or might otherwise lose their form in some manner; in which case you could not bequeath them to your heirs and assignees, nor they exhibit them again to the curious of posterity. At the very utmost, you once in a while varnish or dust them a little.

I have come among you, and you have done me the honor to consider me one of your own. You have sought to render me collegial services, to take me into your councils, to warn me and to advise me. In this you have had the following luck, and you will always have the same luck unless you give up the business altogether:

Firstly, you have taken that which I taught, to be history. At first you took it to be crumbs from the Kantian table, and then you hastened to compare them with your own collection; and when you did not succeed in this, you took them to be at least crumbs from empirical life. Whatever I may say, assure, and protest, you cannot cease to turn my scientific propositions into propositions of empirical life, my contemplations into perceptions, my philosophy into psychology. This has happened to one of your own set even in regard to my second book on the Destination of Man, wherein I surely thought I had spoken clearly enough. That gentleman, in a review in the Erlanger Literatur Zeitung, reproves the spirit of speculation which I introduce in that book as speaking, because it asks after the consciousness of our hearing, seeing, &c. In that mere question the reviewer discovers already the deception. He, for his own person, knows through hearing, seeing. &c., without knowing of hearing, seeing, &c.; and the man is very correct from his standpoint.

I know very well that this must happen so to you people, and I also know the reason of it. You have not contemplation and cannot rise to it; hence only perception remains to you; and if that is denied to you, nothing remains in your hand. But this is precisely what I wish—namely, that nothing shall remain to you—as I shall immediately still further explain to you.

Secondly, you have taken even bite of those crumbs to be a complete for-itself-existing bite, such as your other collections contain; and have believed that all you had to do was to carry away such bite; that these bites could be singly taken away and stored up in memory. You have tried the experiment. But the single pieces, as you picked them up, would not fit together, and now you cried: Contradiction! This happened to you because you have no conception of a synthetical, systematic science, but know only collations of the sayings of wise men. Each science is to you a sand-pile, whereof each grain is existing and complete in itself, and comprehensible even as a grain of sand. But you know nothing of a science as an organic and self-organizing body. You tear a piece out of the organic body, show the pieces which hang flapping all around, and cry out: Is this smooth and complete?

This is precisely what happened to that reviewer with my books. Know, then—or, rather, know not you, but the popular reader, who perchance may read also these final pages—that my science proceeds, as all scientific work should proceed, from the most Undetermined; and that it further determines this before the eyes of the reader. Hence, in the progress of that science, the objects of that science have quite other predicates attached to them than at first; hence also this science often establishes and develops propositions which it finally refutes, proceeding as it does from antithesis to synthesis. The completely determined, final result, which is the ultimate and that which is to remain, is shown only at the end. You, of course, seek only this result, and the way of finding it does not exist for you. To write for you, we ought to state in the concisest possible manner what one means, so that you might quickly reflect and see whether you mean so likewise. If Euclid were an author of our day, how you would have shown up to him the contradictions, which are innumerable, in his book.—"Each triangle has three angles." Very good; we will keep that in mind. "The content of the three angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles." What a contradiction! you would cry out. On this page he says, "three angles in general, the content whereof can surely result in various sums"; and on the other, "only three such angles, the sum whereof is equal to two right angles.

You have improved my expressions and have taught me how to speak; for, being my judges, it is a matter of course that you should know better than I how to speak. The only theory you have forgotten is this: that we cannot properly advise another person how he shall speak until we know what he intends to speak. You have shown yourself anxious for the welfare of my readers; you have complained that I do not write plainly, and have often prophesied that the public, for whom I had written a work, would not be able to understand it; and if you follow your usual practice, you will assert the same thing of the present book. But this you have believed only because you did not understand those books yourselves, and you assumed that the public at large had much less sense than you, who are learned men and philosophers; but in this presupposition you have made a great mistake. I have had much conversation respecting philosophy these many years, not only with young students, but also with grown-up persons, of various occupations in life, and belonging to the more cultured classes, and I have never in my life heard such nonsense in these conversations as you write down every day to be printed.

From this radical difference of our minds arise all the diverse phenomena which are witnessed every day. Thus when I say something which to me appears very easy, natural and self-evident, you consider it to be a terrible paradox which you cannot possibly make clear to yourselves; and in like manner, that which you presuppose as uncommonly plain and well known, against which no one could possibly object, often appears to me so full of confusion that it would require days to point it all out. These plain propositions of yours have floated down to you in the current of tradition, and you believe that you understand and know them because you have so often heard and uttered them yourselves without being contradicted.

The present work again is undoubtedly, in your estimation, full of such paradoxes, which you can quench with a single one of your plain propositions. Let me cite, as an example, only one, the very first one I lay hold of. "That which is attained through a mere word-explanation, is in the Science of Knowledge never the correct, but quite surely the incorrect,"—I have stated above. If you follow your usual practice, you will quote this proposition as a clear proof how far nonsense can possibly go. "For how in all the world can we arrive at any understanding except through a correct explanation of the words used?" Then you will commence to be witty in your manner—to congratulate the enlightened persons who desire to rise to this sense beyond the words by means of the Fichtean contemplation; to assure the public that you have no such desire; and whatever else your wit may suggest. At the same time, if you would attend to yourselves when merely reading a political newspaper, you would discover that you do not understand even it. if you merely seize and analyze the words, hut that you must cause your imagination to produce before you a picture of the event narrated, and let this picture pass before your mind; in other words, that you must construct the whole event if you wish to understand it; nay, still more, that you have done and do this all your lifetime, as sure as you ever understood or understand at present your newspaper. Only you did not observe it before, and I very much fear that you will fail to remark it now, although I call your attention to it; for the very blindness of this internal eye of your imagination is what I have always charged you with. But even if you had observed or did now observe it, it would not seem to you to be applicable at all to science. You always have believed that science need only be committed to memory, and it has never occurred to you, that, like the event narrated in the newspaper, it ought to be constructed in the mind. From this ground, now sufficiently exposed, you have hitherto so little understood the Science of Knowledge, that not a single one of you has perceived even the basis whereupon it is built. Now, when I tell you this, you get angry. But why should you get angry? Must I not say it? For if the public were to believe that the Science of Knowledge had been comprehended by you, and that it ought to be comprehended as you have comprehended it, it is just as if the Science of Knowledge had never had existence, for it would be the same as to kill it off in the quietest manner possible. Now, you cannot fairly presume that I should allow this to occur merely in order to prevent suspicions getting afloat concerning your powers of comprehension.

But neither will you understand the Science of Knowledge in the future. Apart from the fact, that some of you have rendered themselves very suspicious by the curious means employed to bring our science into bad repute, being inspired by other passions than a zeal for philosophy: apart from this, and abandoning that suspicion as unfounded, there might be perhaps some hope yet of you had you not already declared your standpoint and your heart's opinion so very loudly and publicly. But this, alas! you have done; and now you are asked all at once to change your whole nature, and to enter a light wherein things, of which you have hitherto spoken in your off-hand way, and your whole spiritual condition, will appear to you I cannot express how pitiful! Perhaps all men who have risen to higher culture through quiet self-education have discovered that while at one time they stood firmly rooted in their convictions, they at some later time looked back with a melancholy smile upon their past errors. But it happens very rarely that men who have made the whole public witnesses of their errors, and who every day write, review, and lecture, without stopping, recognize and retract them.

Since this is all so, as you cannot but confess—if not publicly, at least in some secret nook of your souls when you are calm—the only thing you can do is henceforth to keep utterly silent in regard to every thing which concerns the Science of Knowledge and philosophy in general.

You can choose this course; for you can never persuade me that your organs of speech form the words which you utter, of themselves, or that your pens put themselves in motion and write down upon the paper those things which are afterwards printed with or without your name. I always shall believe that you move tongue and pen through your will alone.

Since you can do it, therefore, why should you not will it? I have reflected upon and considered the subject maturely, and I can absolutely discover no ground why you should not follow this advice, or why you should get angry at me for giving it to you.

You cannot plead your zeal for truth; for since you do not know at all—as your own conscience will tell you, if you ask it properly—what the Science of Knowledge really does teach, and since the whole region wherein it moves does not really exist for you at all, you cannot possibly know whether that which this science reports of those regions is truth or error. Leave this business, therefore, quietly to the persons whose proper business it is, upon their own responsibility; just as we allow the kings to rule their states and to conclude war and peace on their own responsibility, without offering our advice. Hitherto you have only stood in the way of an impartial investigation, have confused that which was simple, darkened that which was clear, and turned everything topsy turvy. Why do you absolutely persist in being in the way?

Or do you believe that your honor will be damaged if you, who have hitherto been the great leaders, suddenly become silent? You surely do not care for the opinion of the stupid! But sensible people will only think all the more of you.

Thus it is stated that Professor Jacob at Halle has utterly abandoned speculative philosophy, and devoted himself altogether to political economy, a branch of science wherein many excellent attainments may be expected from his praiseworthy accuracy and industry. He has shown himself a wise man by ceasing to be a philosopher; and I herewith publicly express my esteem for him on that account, and hope that every sensible man who knows what speculation is will share this esteem. Would that all the others would also abandon a science which they have abundantly tortured themselves to grasp, and for which they have discovered that they are not made. Let them turn to some other useful occupation—grinding glasses, making verses, writing novels, and studying agriculture or game-keeping; let them take service in the detective police, study medicine, raise cattle, or write devotional reflections on death for every day in the year,—and no one will refuse them his esteem.

But since, nevertheless, I cannot be sure that they and the like of them will follow good advice, I add the following in order that they can not plead that I did not tell them what would happen:

This is the third time that I make a report concerning the nature of the Science of Knowledge. I should not like to be compelled to do so a fourth time, and I am tired of seeing my words passing from mouth to mouth disfigured in such a terrible manner that I scarcely recognize them. Hence I shall presuppose that many of our modern literary men and philosophers will not even understand this third report. I also presuppose, because I know it, that absolutely every man can know whether he does or does not understand something, and that no one is forced to speak of a matter he is conscious of not understanding. Hence I shall no more leave this work to its fate than all my future scientific works, but shall strictly watch over the expressions it may excite, and comment upon them in a periodical. If it does not reform these gossips, it may at least teach the public what sort of people have undertaken, and still undertake, to direct its opinion.


 * Berlin, 1801.