In this book I have hardly noted any but facts that have been verified in myself and by myself. It is true that I suppose that every reflective reader is capable of finding them and tracing them out in his own personal experience. Those who are able and wishful to re-read my book in themselves, and thus verify my a.n.a.lyses, may perhaps draw some profit from it. Those who read me otherwise will not only lose their time and pains--they will misunderstand at every step the meaning of my phrases and the direction of my ideas. Beneath my reasonings or my images they will put other ideas and other intentions than mine, and they may afterwards, with an apparent good conscience, deduce from them the most terrible consequences.... Philosophical language lends itself to all and permits all; and the mischief of it is that it would be useless to desire to prevent these quarrels. New explanations only give rise to new misunderstandings, and simply serve to perpetuate a dispute without interest and without fruit. We can only repeat the saying of the ancient sages of Arabia: _Magna est veritas et praevalebit_.
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