mob is a necessary condition of the existence of modern philosophy and its knights of the woful countenance. Scientific philosophy wearies for a new Cervantes who will put a stop to its paving the way to truth by dint of argument. All opinions have a right to exist, and if we speak of privilege, then preference should be given to such as are most run down to-day; namely, to such opinions as cannot be verified and which are, for that self-same reason, universal. Once, long ago "man invented speech in order to express his real relation to the universe." So he may be heard, even though the relation he wishes to express be unique, not to verified by any other individual. To attempt to verify it by observations and experiments is strictly forbidden. If the habit of "objective verification" has destroyed your native receptivity to such an extent that your eyes and ears are gone, and you must rely only on the evidence of instruments or objects not subject to your will, then, of course, nothing is left you but to stick to the belief that science is perfect knowledge. But if your eyes live and your ear is sensitive--throw away instruments and apparatuses, forget methodology and scientific Don-Quixotism, and try to trust yourself. What harm is there in not having universal judgments or truths? How will it hurt you to see sheep as sheep? It is a step forward. You will learn not to see with everybody's eyes, but to see as none other sees. You will learn not to meditate, but to conjure up and call forth with words alien to all but yourself an unknown beauty and an unheard-of power. Not for nothing, I repeat, did astrologers and alchemists scorn the experimental method--which, by the way, far from being anything new or particularly modern, is as old as the hills. Animals experiment, though they do not compose treatises on inductive logic or pride themselves on their reasoning powers. A cow who has burnt her mouth in her trough will come up cautiously next time to feed. Every experimenter is the same--only he systematises. But animals can often trust to instinct when experience is lacking. And have we humans got sufficient experience? Can experience give us what we want most? If so, let science and craftsmanship serve our everyday need, let even philosophy, also eager to serve, go on finding universal truths. But beyond craft, science, and philosophy there is another region of knowledge. Through all the ages men, each one at his own risk, have sought to penetrate into this region. Shall we, men of the twentieth century, voluntarily renounce our supreme powers and rights, and because public opinion demands it, occupy ourselves exclusively with discovering useful information? Or, in order not to appear mean or poverty-stricken in our own eyes, shall we accept in place of the philosopher's stone our modern metaphysics, which muffles her dread of actuality in postulates, absolutes, and such-like apparently transcendental paraphernalia? 45