From this interest the various passions are explicable, which mix generally with the defence of these philosophical systems. The dogmatist is in danger of losing his Self when his system is attacked; and yet he is not armed against this attack, because there is something within him which takes part with the aggressor; hence, he defends himself with bitterness and heat. The idealist, on the contrary, cannot well refrain from looking down upon his opponent with a certain carelessness, since the latter can tell him nothing which he has not known long ago and has cast away as useless. The dogmatist gets angry, misconstrues, and would persecute, if he had the power; the idealist is cold and in danger of ridiculing his antagonist. Hence, what philosophy a man chooses depends entirely upon what kind of man he is; for a philosophical system is not a piece of dead household furniture, which you may use or not use, but is animated by the soul of the man who has it. Men of a naturally weak-minded character, or who have become weak-minded and crooked through intellectual slavery, scholarly luxury and vanity, will never elevate themselves to idealism. You can show the dogmatist the insufficiency and inconsequence of his system, of which we shall speak directly; you can confuse and terrify him from all sides; but you cannot _convince_ him, because he is unable to listen to and examine with calmness what he cannot tolerate. If Idealism should prove to be the only real Philosophy, it will also appear that a man must be born a philosopher, be educated to be one, and educate himself to be one; but that no human art (no external force) can make a philosopher out of him. Hence, this Science expects few proselytes from men who have already formed their character; if our Philosophy has any hopes at all, it entertains them rather from the young generation, the natural vigor of which has not yet been submerged in the weak-mindedness of the age. VI. But dogmatism is totally incapable of explaining what it should explain, and this is decisive in regard to its insufficiency. It is to explain the representation of things, and proposes to explain them as an effect of the Things. Now, the dogmatist cannot deny what immediate consciousness asserts of this representation. What, then, does it assert thereof? It is not my purpose here to put in a conception what can only be gathered in immediate contemplation, nor to exhaust that which forms a great portion of the Science of Knowledge. I will merely recall to memory what every one, who has but firmly looked within himself, must long since have discovered.