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138 THE FOURFOLD BOOT. [CHAP. V.
the help of experience. They are invariably based upon
principles which have transcendental or metalogical truth.
A Eeason, on the other hand, which supplies material
knowledge primarily out of its own resources and conveys
positive information transcending the sphere of possible
experience ; a Reason which, in order to do this, must
necessarily contain innate ideas, is a pure fiction, in
vented by our professional philosophers and a product
of the terror with which Kant s Critique of Pure Eeason
has inspired them. I wonder now, whether these gentle
men know a certain Locke and whether they have ever
read his works? Perhaps they may have done so in
times long gone by, cursorily and superficially, while look
ing down complacently on this great thinker from the
heights of their own conscious superiority : may be, too, in
some inferior German translation ; for I do not yet see that
the knowledge of modern languages has increased in pro
portion to the deplorable decrease in that of ancient ones.
How could time besides be found for such old croakers as
Locke, when even a real, thorough knowledge
of Kant s
Philosophy at present hardly exists excepting in a very few,
very old heads ? The youth of the generation now at its
maturity had of course to be spent in the study of
"Hegel s gigantic mind," of the "sublime Schleiermacher,"
"
and of the acute Herbart." Alas ! alas ! the great mis
chief in academical hero-worship of this sort, and in the
glorification of university celebrities by worthy colleagues
in office or hopeful aspirants to it, is precisely, that
ordinary intellects Nature s mere manufactured ware
are presented to honest credulous youths of immature
judgment, as master minds, exceptions and ornaments of
mankind. The students forthwith throw all their energies
into the barren study of the endless, insipid scribblings of
such mediocrities, thus wasting the short, invaluable period
allotted to them for higher education, instead of using it