The effort to _understand_ people, life, the universe prevents us from getting to know them at all. Since "to know" and "to understand" are two concepts which are not only non-identical, but just the opposite of one another in meaning; in spite of their being in constant use as synonyms. We think we have understood a phenomenon if we have included it in a list of others, previously known to us. And, since all our mental aspiration reduces itself to understanding the universe, we refuse to know a great deal which will not adapt itself to the plane surface of the contemporary world-conceptions. For instance the Leibnitz question, put by Kant into the basis of the critique of reason: "How can we know a thing outside us, if it does not enter into us?" It is non-understandable; that is, it does not agree with our notion of understanding. Hence it follows that it must be squeezed out of the field of view--which is exactly what Kant attempted to do. To us it seems, on the contrary, that in the interests of _knowing_ we should sacrifice, and gladly, understanding, since understanding in any case is a secondary affair.-_Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben_!... PART II _Nur für Schwindelfreie_. (From _Alpine Recollections_.) 1 Light reveals to us beauty--but also ugliness. Throw vitriol in the face of a beautiful woman, and the beauty is gone, no power on earth will enable us to look upon her with the same rapture as before. Could even the sincerest, deepest love endure the change? True, the idealists will hasten to say that love overcomes all things. But idealism needs be prompt, for if she leaves us one single moment in which to _see_, we shall see such things as are not easily explained away. That is why idealists stick so tight so logic. In the twinkling of an eye logic will convey us to the remotest conclusions and forecasts. Reality could never overtake her. Love is eternal, and consequently a disfigured face will seem as lovely to us as a fresh one. This is, of course, a lie, but it helps to preserve old tastes and obscures danger. Real danger, however, was never dispelled by words. In spite of Schiller and eternal love, in the long run vitriol triumphs, and the agreeable young man is forced to abandon his beloved and acknowledge himself a fraud. Light, the source of his life and hope, has now destroyed hope and life for him. He will not return to idealism, and he will hate logic: light, that seemed to him so beautiful, will have become hideous. He will turn to darkness, where logic and its binding conclusions have no power, but where the fancy is free for all her vagaries. Without light we should never have known that vitriol ruins beauty. No science, nor any art can give us what darkness gives. It is true, in our young days when all was new, light brought us great happiness and joy. Let us, therefore, remember it with gratitude, as a benefactor we no longer need. Do after