These principles represent the apostasy from objective truth, and, at the same time, the apostasy from the _principles of true science_: their first demand, the proper understanding of truth, is perverted into its very opposite. A necessary quality of scientific research is exactness; exactness, however, demands most conscientious cleaving to truth; scale and measure are its instruments. The reverse of exactness is to cast away scale and measure, to turn eye and ear, not toward reality, but toward one’s self, so as to observe personal wishes and inclinations, and then shape the results of the “research” accordingly. This may be a method of freedom, but it cannot be the method of science. The very thing that true research would eliminate in the first place, viz., to have the decision influenced by hobbies and moods, is most important in the method of individualism; objectiveness, deemed by true science the highest requirement, is to that method the least one: what true science first of all insists on, namely, to prove that which is claimed, this method knows but little of. It recalls the method of the gourmet who selects that which gratifies his taste: it may be likened to the dandy picking frock-coat and trousers that suit his whim. True research, with a firm hand at the helm, aims to direct its craft so as to discover new coasts, or at least a new island; the exploring done by liberal research is like casting off the rudder to be tossed by the waves, for its task is only to hold to the course which the waving billows of individual life give to it. True science, finally, seeks for serious results, able to withstand criticism: the research by individualism produces results which, as individualism itself confesses, must not be taken seriously. They are the subjective achievements of amateurs, creations of fashion, cut to the pattern of the ruling principle: _nihil nisi quod modernum est_. A science that professes such a method is beyond a doubt unfit to play a beneficial part in the endeavour of mankind. Do not say: but it is not claimed that religion and view of life are matters of scientific research: on the contrary, they are always distinguished from science. It is true, this is not infrequently claimed. But it is also known how energetically just these matters are appropriated by science. Is it not exactly this sphere in which free research is to be active? Is it not its aim to construct a “scientific view of the world,” as opposed to the Christian belief? Is there not the conviction that science has already carried much light and enlightenment into this very sphere, that it has upset the old tenets of faith?