“We confess that we do not know whether there are for mankind as a whole, and for the individual, tasks and goals that extend beyond this earthly existence” (_Jodl_). “There is no scientific philosophy of generally recognized standard, but only in the form of various experiments for the purpose of defining and expressing the harmony and the idea of the active principle; consequently there cannot be a final philosophy, it must be ready at all times to revise any point that previously seemed to have been established” (_Paulsen_). “Only to dogmatism,” says another, “are the various theories of the world contradictory; to science they are hypotheses of equal value, which, as they are all limited, may exist side by side, the theistic as well as the atheistic, the dualistic, the monistic, and whatever their names may be. Man, who conceives these hypotheses, is master over them all and makes use of them, here of one, there of another, according to the kind of the problem he is occupied with at the time. Thus, he is independent of any view of the world” (_L. von Sybel_). Again we are told: “There has been formulated a free variety of metaphysical systems, none of them demonstrable.... Is it our task, perhaps, to select the true one? This would be an odd superstition; this metaphysical anarchy is teaching, as obviously as possible, the relativity of all metaphysical systems” (_W. Dilthey_). Therefore, nothing but impressions and opinions, and not the truth; indeed, for the cognition of transcendental, metaphysical truths, they often have only words of disdain. “The fact should be emphasized,” says _G. Spicker_, “that philosophy really is devoid of any higher ideal; that, through its doubt of the objective cognizability of things above us, outside and inside of us, it has fallen prey to scepticism, even if philosophers do not admit it and try to evade the issue with the phrase ‘theory of cognition.’ ” A science cannot sink to a lower level than by the admission that it has nothing to offer and nothing to accomplish. It is tantamount to bankruptcy. This science undertakes to nourish the human mind, but offers stones instead of bread; it wants to uplift and to instruct, and confesses that it has nothing to tell. _Amphora coepit institui, currente rota urceus exit._ In the beginning a proud consciousness and the promise to be everything to mankind; at the end mental pauperism and scepticism, a caricature of science.