It was the time when I had my own favourite ideals justifying my own caprices,and I was trying to devise a theory which would allow one to consider my caprices as the law of humanity.But as soon as the question of life arose in my soul in full clearness that reply at once few to dust.And I understood that as in the experimental sciences there are real sciences,and semi-sciences which try to give answers to questions beyond their competence,so in this sphere there is a whole series of most diffused sciences which try to reply to irrelevant questions.Semi-sciences of that kind,the juridical and the social-historical,endeavour to solve the questions of a man's life by pretending to decide each in its own way,the question of the life of all humanity.
But as in the sphere of man's experimental knowledge one who sincerely inquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with the reply--"Study in endless space the mutations,infinite in time and in complexity,of innumerable atoms,and then you will understand your life"--so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied with the reply:"Study the whole life of humanity of which we cannot know either the beginning or the end,of which we do not even know a small part,and then you will understand your own life."And like the experimental semi-sciences,so these other semi-sciences are the more filled with obscurities,inexactitudes,stupidities,and contradictions,the further they diverge from the real problems.The problem of experimental science is the sequence of cause and effect in material phenomena.It is only necessary for experimental science to introduce the question of a final cause for it to become nonsensical.The problem of abstract science is the recognition of the primordial essence of life.It is only necessary to introduce the investigation of consequential phenomena (such as social and historical phenomena)and it also becomes nonsensical.
Experimental science only then gives positive knowledge and displays the greatness of the human mind when it does not introduce into its investigations the question of an ultimate cause.And,on the contrary,abstract science is only then science and displays the greatness of the human mind when it puts quite aside questions relating to the consequential causes of phenomena and regards man solely in relation to an ultimate cause.Such in this realm of science--forming the pole of the sphere--is metaphysics or philosophy.That science states the question clearly:"What am I,and what is the universe?And why do I exist,and why does the universe exist?"And since it has existed it has always replied in the same way.Whether the philosopher calls the essence of life existing within me,and in all that exists,by the name of "idea",or "substance",or "spirit",or "will",he says one and the same thing:that this essence exists and that I am of that same essence;but why it is he does not know,and does not say,if he is an exact thinker.I ask:"Why should this essence exist?What results from the fact that it is and will be?"...And philosophy not merely does not reply,but is itself only asking that question.
And if it is real philosophy all its labour lies merely in trying to put that question clearly.And if it keeps firmly to its task it cannot reply to the question otherwise than thus:"What am I,and what is the universe?""All and nothing";and to the question "Why?"by "I do not know".
So that however I may turn these replies of philosophy,I can never obtain anything like an answer--and not because,as in the clear experimental sphere,the reply does not relate to my question,but because here,though all the mental work is directed just to my question,there is no answer,but instead of an answer one gets the same question,only in a complex form.
