Metaphysics will never put forth it's full powers so long as
it is expected to accommodate itself to dogma. The various
religions have taken possession of the metaphysical tendency of
mankind, partly by paralyzing it through imprinting their dogmas upon
it in the earliest years, partly by forbidding and proscribing all
free and uninhibited expression of it: so that free investigation of
mans most important and interesting concern,
of his existence itself has been in part subjectively
impossible by the paralysis referred to; and in this
way his most sublime tendency has been put in chains.
The discovery of truth is prevented most effectively, not by
the false appearance things present and which mislead into error,
nor directly into weakness of the reasoning powers, but by
preconceived opinion, by prejudice, which as a pseudo
a priori stands in the path of truth and is then like a contrary wind driving
a ship away from land, so that the sail and rubber labour in vain
What light is to the outer world intellect is to the inner world of
consciousness for intellect is related to will regarded objectively,
in approximately the same way as light is to a combustible
body and the oxygen in combination with which it ignites.
And as light is the purer the less it is involved with the smoked of
the burning body, so also is intelligent the purer the more
completely it is separated from the will which engendered it.
In a bod metaphor one could even say; life is known to be a process of combustion;
intellect is the light produced by this process
Every general truth is related to specific truths
As gold is to silver, in as much as it can be converted
into a considerable number of specific truths which
follow from it in the same way as a gold coin can be converted into small change