The Elements of Metaphysics - Being a Guide for Lectures and Private Use

Originally published in 1894. With the closest possible adherence to the thoughts of immortal teachers such as Kant and Schopenhauer, without renouncing independence of judgement, this book aims at separating the imperishable substance of religious and philosophical teaching from its temporal and individual husk, and at exhibiting it for use in school and life, as systematically, clearly, and shortly as the profundity of the subject will allow. Author: Dr. Paul Deussen Language: English Keywords: Philosophy Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Excerpt From Text: ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS A GUIDE FOR LECTURES AND PRIVATE USE BY DR. PAUL DEUSSEX PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THE nature of things as it reveals itself to the searching eye, immeasurable around, and unfathomable within, us is one and at harmony with itself. Therefore truth also, as the reflection of that which is in the mirror of the human mind, must be for all times and countries one and the same and whatever the great teachers of mankind in ancient and modern time have gathered from the immediate contemplation of nature anJ revealed in the form either of religion or philosophy, that must apart from errors, xsJhich as a ri touch only what is specific ar essentially concordant, howc ntitAvard hues and forms from the civilisations and traditions of different ages. If, therefore, we but succeed in gaining the point of view from which the, essence of things is dissolved without residuum in understanding, we may expect that, regarded from this point, all revelations of the past also will inwardly harmonise and be reconciled. This STANDPOINT OF THE RECONCILIATION OF ALL CONTRADICTIONS has been attained in the main, we believe, by mankind in the Idealism founded by Kant and wrought out to perfection by his disciple Schopenhauer For the truth of this Idealism is the more indubitably confirmed, the more deeply we penetrate into it, by the threefold harmony which we meet in it, harmony with itself, harmony with nature, and harmony with the thoughts of sttf1Moreover it is the between phenomena and did this distinction alone, possible to give full freedom of action to the natural sciences in their tendency to complete materialism, and yet, by way of the most convincing proofs, to attain to a philosophical view of things in which all essential saving truths of religion are obtained from the mere analysis of the facts of inner experience, and which will in course of time be acknowledged for what it actually isa regenerated and purified Christianity, constructed on an indisputably scientific foundation.