[924W-{3-7/78} Public and Popularity: PW Vol. VI, p. 74-76]
[P. 74] {anti-FEUER/NIET} “But the dauntless judge of all things human and divine, the latest product of the Historical school of applied philosophy, will never touch an archive not first subjected to the tests of Chemistry or [P. 75] Physics in general. Here all necessity for a metaphysical explanation of those phenomena in the life of the universe which remain a little unintelligible to purely physical apprehension is rejected with the bitterest scorn. So far as I can understand the doctrines of the pundits, the upright, cautious Darwin, who pretended to little more than an hypothesis, would seem to have given the most decisive impetus to the reckless claims of that historical school by the results of his researches in the province of biology. (…) The gravest defects I deem the banishment from the new world-system of the term spontaneous, of spontaneity itself … . For we now are told that, as no change has ever taken place without sufficient ground, so the most astonishing phenomena – of which the work of ‘genius’ forms the most important instance – result from various causes, very many and not quite ascertained as yet, ‘tis true, but which we shall find it uncommonly easy to get at when Chemistry has once laid hold on Logic. Meanwhile however, the chain of logical deductions not stretching quite so far as an explanation of the work of Genius, inferior nature-forces generally regarded as faults of temperament, such as impetuousity of will, one-sided energy and stubbornness, are called in to keep the thing as much as possible upon the realm of Physics.
{anti-FEUER/NIET} As the progress of the Natural Sciences thus involves the exposure of every mystery of Being as mere imaginary secrets after all, the sole concern must henceforth be the act of knowing; but intuitive knowledge appears to be entirely excluded, since it might lead to metaphysical vagaries, namely to the cognisance of relations which are rightly withheld from abstract scientific comprehension until such time as Logic shall have settled them upon the evidence of Chemistry.
[P. 76] {anti-FEUER/NIET} Though we have only superficially described the issue of the newer, so-called ‘historical’ method of Science (as is unavoidable by men outside the esoteric pale), I believe we are justified in concluding that the purely comprehending Subject, enthroned on the cathedra, is left with sole right to existence. A worthy close to the world-tragedy! (…) … to Art – which the Goliath of Knowledge more and more regards as a mere rudiment from the earliest stage of human reason, not unlike the os coccyx we still retain from the animal tail – he only pays attention when it offers archaeologic prospects of his launching some Historical thesis … .” [924W-{3-7/78} Public and Popularity: PW Vol. VI, p. 74-76]
[925W-{3-7/78} Public and Popularity: PW Vol. VI, p. 77]
[P. 77] {anti-FEUER/NIET} “ … the Folk gets its learning on a diametrically opposite path to that of the historic-scientific Comprehender, i.e. in his sense it learns nothing. Though it does not reason (erkennt), still it knows (kennt): it knows the great men, and loves the Genius those others hate; and finally, to them an abomination, it honours the Divine. To act upon the Folk, then, of all the academic faculties there would remain but that of Theology.” [925W-{3-7/78} Public and Popularity: PW Vol. VI, p. 77]
