764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



still more sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occu- 

 pation, but has not unf requently disputed my proper work-time 

 with my liege lady. Natural Science. In this way I have found it 

 possible to cover a good deal of ground in the territory of phi- 

 losophy ; and all the more easily that I have never cared much 

 about A's or B's opinions, but have rather sought to know what 

 answer he had to give to the questions I had to put to him — that 

 of the limitation of possible knowledge being the chief. The 

 ordinary examiner, with his " State the views of So-and-so," would 

 have floored me at any time. If he had said, "What do you think 

 about any given j)roblem ? " I might have got on fairly well. 



The reader who has had the patience to follow the enforced, 

 but unwilling, egotism of this veritable history (especially if his 

 studies have led him in the same direction), will now see why my 

 mind steadily gravitated toward the conclusions of Hume and 

 Kant, so well stated by the latter in a sentence, which I have 

 quoted elsewhere : 



" The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of 

 pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an 

 organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline 

 for its delimitation ; and, instead of discovering truth, has only 

 the modest merit of preventing error." * 



When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself 

 whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist ; a materialist or 

 an idealist ; a Christian or a freethinker — I found that the more 

 I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer ; until, at 

 last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with 

 any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in 

 which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in 

 which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had at- 

 tained a certain " gnosis " — had, more or less successfully, solved 

 the problem of existence ; while I was quite sure I had not, and 

 had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. 

 And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself 

 presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion. Like Dante — 



" Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita 

 Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura," t 



but, unlike Dante, I can not add — 



" Che la diritta via era smarrita." | 



On the contrary, I had, and have, the firmest conviction that I 

 never left the " verace via " — the straight road ; and that this road 



* " Kritik der reinen Vernunft." Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256. 

 f [In the midway of this our mortal life 



I found me in a gloomy wood astray.] 

 X [Gone from the path direct.] 



