You conjecture that the thing is so situated, but
you are not in a condition to prove it; and if I deny it, you have
no means of compelling me to believe, as I can compell you to
believe that twice two makes four. No, no; nothing can come of these
metaphysical speculations. The whole philosophy is not worth
psychological treatment. We are no further to-day than the old
Greeks, whose knowledge led to the formula, 'Know thyself.' "We can
hope to know ourselves some day, to know what goes on in our brains.
I hardly believe, however, that science will ever arrive at it."
"The study of natural science has brought me to the same
conclusion," said Wilhelm. "We know nothing to-day of the nature of
phenomena--we knew nothing yesterday, and we shall know nothing to-
morrow. The great advance in thought has only brought us to the
point of no more self-deception, and exactly knowing what we do
know, whereas yesterday men deceived themselves, and imagined that
the fables of religion and metaphysics were positive knowledge. The
history of physical science is in this respect very interesting. It
teaches that every step forward does not consist of a new
explanation, but rather goes to prove, that the earlier explanations
were untrustworthy.
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