[Introduction]

If any science has been an object of contradictions, and yet amid these stones and earthen clods that have been cast at it an object of reverence, then it is exalted philosophy [Weltweisheit]. Since its beginning it had constantly been a source of annoyance to the one party, a corner-stone of truth to the other; and this so peculiar phenomenon of contradiction has not merely been a mark of distinction and a shibboleth, so to speak, among whole ages, peoples, and sects, but philosophy has had to survive this metamorphosis of judgment at one time and among one people, indeed often in different phases of one and the same person. This is indeed as remarkable a phenomenon of the human understanding for a person who is not a scholar as it is a remarkable thing for a person who is not a politician when people conflict with people. Philosophy has become a Proteus among the nations. Where it was victorious, behold, it generally built its throne on the ruins of mathematics and experiences from physics; but commonly it remained an ally of philology, with which it also commonly associated too intimately; whereas one can say that mathematics and philology hardly ever took root together.

Since in the defenses, the offensive wars, and the defensive wars over metaphysics [Metaphysik] the most patent sectarianisms, partisanships, have certainly been the banner, one ought not to be surprised that the raging heat of the battle and the fog of which each person accused the other left no party's eyes free but only their hands, and that no one lost the blindfold of the fact that he was fighting with specters, and perhaps with his own shadow.