Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 209
"
Past a certain age, I think it as impossible to learn
Kantian Philosophy as to learn rope-dancing."
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 G-othe s exhortation
applies :
" Du Kraftiger, sei nicht so still,
Wenn auch sich Andre scheuen :
Wer den Teufel erschreeken will,
Der muss laut schreien."
Dr. Martin Luther thought so also.
Hatred against Kant, hatred against me, hatred against
truth, all however in majorem Dei gloriam, is what inspires
these worthies who live on philosophy. Who can be so
blind as not to see that University philosophy is the enemy
of all true, serious philosophy, whose progress it feels
bound to withstand ? For a philosophy which deserves the
name, is pure service of truth, therefore the most sub
lime of all human endeavours ; but, as such, it is not
adapted for a trade. Least of all can it have its seat in
Universities, where a theological Faculty predominates
and things are irrevocably decided beforehand ere philo
sophy comes to them. With Scholasticism, from which
University philosophy descends, it was quite a different
thing. Scholasticism was avowedly the ancilla
theologies,
so that here the name corresponded to the thing. Our
University philosophy of to-day, on the contrary, disclaims