All this was a dubious method of consolation, and yet Dr. Schrotter,
or rather Paul Haber, decided that though further contact with
Barinskoi must be avoided, he was an object of increasing interest
to Wilhelm. Barinskoi had many ideas in sympathy with his, which he
did not find in others, and their views of society and practical
maxims of life were so much in common that Wilhelm was often puzzled
by this question: "How is it possible that people can draw such
completely different conclusions from the same suppositions by the
same logical arguments? Where is the fatal point where one's ideas
separate--ideas which have so far traveled together?"
Barinskoi thought as Wilhelm did, that the world and its machinery
were mere outward phenomena, a deception of the senses, whose
influence acted as in a delirium. All existing forms of the common
life of humanity, all ordinances of the State or society appeared to
him as foolish or criminal, and at any rate objectionable. He
considered that the object of the spiritual and moral development of
the individual was the deliverance from the restraint, and the
complete contempt of all outward authority.
So far his opinions agreed with Wilhelm's, and then he disclosed the
laws of morality which he had evolved from them.
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