subject is then a necessary supposition. No reason is possible if the contradiction of being and not-being be possible; all reason, then, supposes the principle of contradiction to be true. When we examine reason it is reason that examines; it needs rules, light; all examination, then, supposes this light, the evidence and the legitimacy of its criterion. Man does not make himself, he finds himself already made; it is not he who imposes the conditions of his being; he finds them already imposed. These conditions are the laws of his being, and why contend against them? "Besides factitious prejudices," says Schelling, "man has others
primordial, placed in him not by education, but by
nature herself, which in
all men hold the place of principles of cognition, and are a
shoal to the free-thinker." For my own part I do not seek to be more than
all men; if I cannot be a philosopher without ceasing to be a man, I renounce philosophy and adhere to humanity.
