glad to reject what would not go into my head, but there was no way out. On this doctrine is reared,—or with it, at least, is insolubly connected,—that one knowledge of the meaning of life which has been revealed to me. However strange this may be for my old, settled head, this is the one hope of salvation. I must carefully, attentively analyze it, in order that I may understand it,—not as I understand a statement of science,—that I am not looking for, nor can I look for it, knowing the peculiarity of the knowledge of faith. I am not going to look for an explanation of everything. I know that the explanation of everything must, like the beginning of everything, be lost in infinity. But I want to understand in such a way as to be brought to what is inevitably inexplicable; I want everything which is inexplicable to be such, not because the demands of my reason are incorrect (they are correct, and outside of them I cannot understand anything), but because I see the limitations of my mind. I want to comprehend in such a way that every inexplicable statement may present itself to me as a necessity of my reason and not as an obligation to believe.
That in the teaching there is truth, there can be no doubt for me; but it is equally certain to me that it also contains the lie, and I must find the truth and the lie and separate one from the other. And to this I proceed. What I have found in this teaching that is false, what truth I have found in it, and to what conclusions I have been drawn, forms the following parts of a work which, if it deserves it and anybody needs it, will no doubt be printed somewhere at some future time.
1879.
