A Priori

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