On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)
Schopenhauer · en
of the "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science;" though
to be sure, this would be rather extraordinary for a professor of
philosophy. Now-a-days however we must not be surprised at anything.
For all knowledge of Critical Philosophy has died out, in spite of its
being the latest true philosophy that has appeared, and a doctrine
withal, that has made a revolution and epoch in human knowledge and
thought. Now therefore, since it has overthrown all previous systems,
and since the knowledge of it has died out, philosophising no longer
proceeds on the basis of any of the doctrines propounded by the great
minds of the past, but becomes a mere random untutored process, having
an ordinary education and the catechism for its foundation. Now that
I have startled them however, our professors may perhaps take to
studying Kant's works again. Still Lichtenberg says: "Past a certain
age, I think it as impossible to learn Kantian Philosophy as to learn
rope-dancing."
[179] Another instance of Michelet's ignorance is to be found in
Schopenhauer's posthumous writings, see "Aus Arthur Schopenhauer's
handschriftlichem Nachlass," Leipzig, A. Brockhaus, 1864, p. 327.
[Editor's note.]
[180] The same reviewer (Von Reuchlin-Meldegg) when be expounds
the doctrines of the philosophers concerning God in the August
number of the Heidelberg Annals (1855), p. 579, says: "In Kant,
God is a thing in itself which cannot be known." In his review of
Frauenstädt's "Letters" in the Heidelberg Annals of May and June
(1855) he says that there is no knowledge _à priori_. [Add. to 3rd
ed.]
[181] C. 1. p. 899.
[182] p. 908.
I should certainly not have condescended to record the sins of these
sinners had not the interests of truth required that I should do so,
in order to show the state of degradation at which German Philosophy
has arrived fifty years after Kant's death in consequence of the
machinations of the gentlemen 'of the trade,' and also to show what
would result, if these puny minds, who know nothing but their own ends,
were to be suffered without hindrance to check the influence of the
great geniuses who have illumined the world. I cannot look on at this
in silence; it is rather a case to which Göthe's exhortation applies:
"Du Kräftiger, sei nicht so still,
Wenn auch sich Andre scheuen:
Wer den Teufel erschrecken will,
Der muss laut schreien."
Dr. Martin Luther thought so also.