“The chief aim of Kant’s metaphysics,” proceeds Noiré, “is to fix a limit to the circle that can be embraced by man’s reason. ‘We resemble,’ he says, ‘fish in a pond, who can see, just to the edge of the water, the banks that imprison them, but are perfectly ignorant of all that is beyond.’ Schopenhauer goes farther than Kant. ‘True,’ he says, ‘we can only see the world from outside, and as a phenomenon, but there is one little loophole left open to us by which we can get a peep at substantial realities, and this loophole is each individual “Myself,” revealed to us as “Will,” which gives us the key to the “Transcendent.” You say, dear colleague, that you are incurably Platonic; are you not then aware Schopenhauer constantly refers to the ‘divine’ Plato, and to the incomparable, the prodigious, _der erstaunliche_ Kant. His great merit is to have defended idealism against all the wild beasts which Dante met with in the dark forest, _nella selva oscura’_ into which he had strayed—materialism and sensualism, and their worthy offspring selfishness and bestiality. Nothing can be more false or dangerous than physics without metaphysics, and yet this truth proclaimed at the present day by great men merely provokes a laugh. The notion of duty is based on metaphysics. Nothing in Nature teaches it, and physics are silent on the subject. Nature is pitiless; brute force triumphs there. The better armed destroys and devours his less favored brother. Where then is right and justice? Materialists adopt as their motto the words which Frenchmen falsely accuse our Chancellor of having uttered, ‘Might is Right.’ Schopenhauer’s ‘Pity,’ Christian ‘Charity,’ the philosopher’s and jurist’s ‘Justice,’ are diametrically opposed to instinct and the voice of Nature, which urge us to sacrifice everything to the satisfaction of animal appetites. Read the eloquent conclusion of the book of Lange, ‘Geschichte des Materialismus.’ If materialism be not vanquished while it is yet time, all the law courts, prisons, bayonets and grape-shot in the world will not suffice to prevent the downfall of the social edifice. This pernicious doctrine must be banished from the brains of learned men, where it now reigns supreme. It has started from thence, and has gradually obtained a hold on the public mind. It is the duty of true philosophy to save the world.” “But,” I replied, “Schopenhauer’s philosophy will never be comprehended but by a small minority; for myself, I humbly confess I have never read but fragments translated.”