that state which it took so much trouble to bring about, as man's final and most serious claim to self-appreciation (rightly so, in point of fact, for he who despises is always "one who has not forgotten how to appreciate"). But does all this involve any real effort to _counteract_ the ascetic ideal? Is it really seriously suggested that Kant's _victory_ over the theological dogmatism about "God," "Soul," "Freedom," "Immortality," has damaged that ideal in any way (as the theologians have imagined to be the case for a long time past)?–– And in this connection it does not concern us for a single minute, if Kant himself intended any such consummation. It is certain that from the time of Kant every type of transcendentalist is playing a winning game––they are emancipated from the theologians; what luck!––he has revealed to them that secret art, by which they can now pursue their "heart's desire" on their own responsibility, and with all the respectability of science. Similarly, who can grumble at the agnostics, reverers, as they are, of the unknown and the absolute mystery, if they now worship _their very query_ as God? (Xaver Doudan talks somewhere of the _ravages_ which _l'habitude d'admirer l'inintelligible au lieu de rester tout simplement dans l'inconnu_ has produced––the ancients, he thinks, must have been exempt from those ravages.) Supposing that everything, "known" to man, fails to satisfy his desires, and on the contrary contradicts and horrifies them, what a divine way out of all this to be able to look for the responsibility, not in the "desiring" but in "knowing"!––"There is no knowledge. _Consequently_––there is a God"; what a novel _elegantia syllogism_i! what a triumph for the ascetic ideal! 26.