Let us admire the sincerity of this searching confession. Virtue itself, if it relied on self-consciousness for its philosophy, could not justify itself on other grounds. If the difference between virtue and vice is hereby obliterated, that only proves that the difference is not founded on self-consciousness but on the circumstances and powers under which we live. What self-consciousness can disclose is not the basis of anything. All will is the expression of some animal I body, frail and mortal, but teachable and rich in resource. The environment in which this will finds itself controls and rewards its various movements, and establishes within it the difference between virtue and vice, wisdom and folly.
The whole transcendental philosophy, if made ultimate, is false, and nothing but a private perspective. The will is absolute neither in the individual nor in humanity. Nature is not a product ofthe mind, but on the contrary there is an external world, ages prior to any idea of it, which the mind recognises and feeds upon. There is a steady human nature within us, which our moods and passions may wrong but cannot annul. There is no categorical imperative but only the operation of instincts and interests more or less subject to discipline and mutual adjustment. Our whole life is a compromise, an incipient loose harmony between the passions of the soul and the forces of nature, forces which likewise generate and protect the souls of other creatures, endowing them with powers of expression and self-assertion comparable with our own, and with aims no less sweet and worthy in their own eyes; so that the quick and honest mind cannot but practise courtesy in the universe, exercising its will without vehemence or forced assurance, judging with serenity, and in everything discarding the word absolute as the most false and the most odious of words. As Montaigne observes, "He who sets before him, as in a picture, this vast image of our mother Nature in her entire majesty; who reads in her aspect such universal and continual variety; who discerns himself therein, and not himself only but a whole kingdom, to be but a most delicate dot—he alone esteems things according to the just measure of their greatness."
INDEXAlexander the Great, a model for German idealists,80,81Aristotle,120,124Belief in God, disproved pragmatically,134Bull-psychology,148,153Burckhardt,47Byron,48,49Cæsar Borgia, a superman,138Calvinism, in Kant,57; in Fichte,25,77; in Hegel,111Categorical imperative, its origin,56; its prerogatives,62;its dangers,63Chancellor, the German, his chivalrous after-thought about Belgium,50Christianity, foreign to Germany,11;undermined by German philosophy,104,105;patronised by Goethe,46;abandoned by romantic individualists,107;denounced by Nietzsche,130-132;has one element in common with egotism,106Classicism, romantic in Goethe,46;missed by Nietzsche,139-142;when truly vital,48Conquest, a sublime duty,80,81Contraries, alleged to be inseparable,89,90Criticism, historical, has a transcendental basis,29Critique of Pure Reason, its agnosticism,14;its sophistical foundation,20Durer,27Egotism, defined,6;distinguished from selfishness,95-97,100-102,118;based on error,167;implicit in the Kantian imperative and postulates,62-64;implies integrity, force, self-complacency,163-166;is odious in pedants,142Emerson,24,49; quoted,119England, judged by Fichte,76Evil, justified,123,132-134Faith, German conception of it,13,27;corroborated only by itself,31,68Faust, typical egotist,13,14;prefigures the evolution of Germany,50,51,157;improves on Saint John,52Fichte,65-83Gemüth, why self-conscious,160German ethics, its faults,103German language, its merits,75German nation, its purity,75;its mission,78,79;in what sense the chosen people,73,74;necessary to the continued existence of God,68;and of history,79; its fortunes,158-160German philosophy, not all philosophy in Germany,11;primitive,27; subjective,12;in what senses idealistic,15;in what sense not so,16;ambiguous,17,18;a revelation,22;must continually be proved afresh,26;is a work of genius,155Gobineau,77Goethe,43-53; quoted,159,165Good and evil above right and wrong,124Gospel, amended by Faust,52;glossed by Hegelians,105Happiness, not for the egotist,14,15;he despises it,152;not abstract nor absolute,110,111;attainable,118; its nature,152,153Heathenism, use of the word,144;contrast with paganism,145,146;its modern form,147,148Hegel,84-98Human nature,117,118Idealism, meanings of the word,15,16;fosters practical materialism,5,69-72,78,81,82;should be imposed on the young,80;its mystical issue,38-40Ideals, when captious, when solid,137Infinity, evaded by Hegel,88,89;recognised again by Schopenhauer,108,109Kant,54-64;25,34,35,42Knowledge, assumed to be impossible,15;abuse of the term,39,60Leibniz, anticipates transcendentalism,33;his insidious theology,104Lessing, on truth,129Locke, sets the ball rolling,32Luther,135,157Max Stirner,99-103; quoted,73Montaigne, quoted,168Music,16,161Musset,49Mysticism, in knowledge,38-40; in morals,123Nietzsche,114-143Optimism, egotistical,25,111,114,116,118,119Passion, not naturally egotistical,101;may become so,95,98;dull in egotists,165,166Paulsen,42Perception, terminates in things not in ideas,19Pessimism, inherits disregard of intrinsic values,109;reacts against optimism,25,111;is arbitrary,116Pier Gynt, typical egotist,13,14Plato, his idealism contrasted with the German,16;his oppressive politics,81;on inspiration,141Postulates of practical reason, equivocal,58-64Power, divers meanings of the word,125-127Preservation, no law of nature,115Progress, when illusory,17; when real,112Protestantism,21-31,151Religion in German philosophy,7,13,75,76,82,83Rome and German genius,150Schopenhauer,108-122Selfishness, distinguished from egotism,95,97,100-102,118Society, its alleged consciousness,17,18; a "spook,"99Socrates,146Spinoza, religious feeling transferred to nature,24;his mysticism in ethics,123Spirit, its meanings,37; its mystic unity,38State, the absolute, an idol,96-98Substance, egotistical use of the term,17,92Superman,136-143Tender minds, how attracted to German philosophy,24Transcendentalism,32-42Truth, a figment of the will,28;made in Germany,88;less valuable than illusion,14,128-130;not the strong point of philosophies,154Understanding, hostility of Hegel to the,90,91Wagner,136,150War, a boon,96; how it should be started,79;is to rage for two hundred years,115Wilhelm Meister,44Will, used metaphorically,36,114;should be disinterested,67;may be fulfilled in defeat,66,67;is unstable and indeterminate,156-158;may be denied,119,120Winkelmann,140, note