VII AGNOSTICISM 237 



or B's opinion's, 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 exam- 

 iner, 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 problem, 

 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 towards the conclusions 

 of Hume and Kant, so well stated by the 

 latter in a sentence, which I have quoted else- 

 where. 



" 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." l 



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 conclu- 



1 Kritik der reinen Pernunft. Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256. 



