About four years ago I made the first attempt to collect my remarks in this way. The result was unsatisfactory and I made various further attempts. Until, two years later, I arrived at the conclusion that it was all in vain and I ought to give up any such attempt. It became clear to me that the best I ever could write would just be philosophical remarks; that my thoughts soon grew lame if, against their natural inclination, I forced them
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along a single track.– This, however, was not unconnected with the nature of the subject itself. This subject compels us to travel through the field of thought in all directions by a host of different routes. And thus the thoughts do not naturally form a simple sequence but a complicated network.