toward natural, historical, and even artistic knowledge, so far as they are true, but, on the contrary, in a spirit of animosity, attempt to circumscribe and set negative limits to them, if not absolutely to reject them as worthless and profane--then, when they least wish it, they really sink into a party no less than the other two. And thus, while they might occupy a far higher position, they fall to the level of the rest, and contribute, on their part, an element to the intellectual strife, and tend to promote and perpetuate it. The three parties, then, which by their ruling ideas divide life and age, are the rational thinkers, the worshipers of nature, and those who, in all controverted questions, appeal absolutely to a higher and divine authority; for inasmuch as the sentence of the latter is only of a negative import, it is therefore insufficient to meet all the requisitions of life. Thus, then, have I led your consideration to four different points, in order to seize and exhibit, in as many different forms and spheres, this great fact of the dissension in man’s consciousness, as it exists at present. In a similar manner, too, a fourfold attempt has been made to remedy its hereditary disease, which has been inherent in it since the original darkening of the soul at the Fall, and, by appeasing the discord which, as it is all-pervading and universal, assumes manifold shapes and forms, to make the first step of return and approximation toward the original harmonic unity. Having considered the matter in these four special points of view, it will not, I hope, appear premature if I now propose the question in a more general point of view, which will embrace the whole human consciousness itself; but, at the same time, limit our consideration of it exclusively to its psychological aspect.