cisely that very same object is immaterial; and, moreover, if this science should really thus turn out to be a science, it would doubtless very justly discard a name which it has hitherto borne from a surely not over great modesty, namely, that of a Dilettanteism. The nation which shall discover this science is well worthy of giving it a name from its own language, and might name it simply Science, or the Science of Knowledge. What has been heretofore called philosophy would thus be the science of science generally.
§ 2. —EXPLANATION OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
It is not allowable to draw conclusions from definitions. This rule signifies: from the fact that it is possible to think a certain characteristic in the description of a thing, which thing exists altogether independently of such a description, it is not allowable to conclude that this characteristic is therefore really discoverable in the thing ; or, when we produce a thing after a conception formed of it, which conception expresses the purposes of the thing, it is not allowable to conclude from the thinkability of the purpose that it is actually realized. On no account, however, can the above rule signify that we must have no well-defined purpose in our bodily or mental labors, but must leave it to our fancy or to our fingers what the result of our labor shall be. The inventor of the aerostatic balls was perfectly
