_Conscientiousness in small things,_ the self-control of the religious man, was a preparatory school for the scientific character, as was also, in a very pre-eminent sense, the attitude of mind which makes a man _take problems seriously,_ irrespective of what personal advantage he may derive from them.... _(b)_ The Starting-point of Epistemology. 470. Profound disinclination to halt once and for all at any collective view of the world. The charm of the opposite point of view: the refusal to relinquish the stimulus residing in the enigmatical. 471. The hypothesis that, at bottom, things proceed in such a moral fashion that _human reason must be right,_ is a mere piece of good-natured and simple-minded trustfulness, the result of the belief in Divine truthfulness--God regarded as the Creator of all things.--These concepts are our inheritance from a former existence in a Beyond. 472. The contradiction of the so-called "facts of consciousness." Observation a thousand times more difficult, error is perhaps the absolute _condition_ of observation. 473. The intellect cannot criticise itself, simply because it can be compared with no other kind of intellect, and also because its ability to know would only reveal itself in the presence of "actual reality"; that is to say, because, in order to criticise the intellect, we should have to be higher creatures with "absolute knowledge." This would presuppose the existence of _something,_ a "thing-in-itself," apart from all the perspective kinds of observation and senso-spiritual perception. But the psychological origin of the belief in _things,_ forbids our speaking of "things in themselves." 474. The idea that a sort of adequate relation exists between _subject_ and _object,_ that the object is something which _when seen from inside_ would be a subject, is a well-meant invention which, I believe, has seen its best days. The measure of that which we are conscious of, is perforce entirely dependent upon the coarse utility of the function of consciousness: how could this little garret-prospect of consciousness warrant our asserting anything in regard to "subject" and "object," which would bear any relation to reality! 475. Criticism of modern philosophy: erroneous starting-point, as if there were such things as "facts of consciousness"--and no _phenomenalism_ in _introspection._ 476. "Consciousness"--to what extent is the idea which is thought of, the idea of will, or the idea of a feeling (_which is known by us alone_), quite superficial? Our _inner_ world is also "appearance." 477.