to say; just as we now say, it thunders. To say cogito is too much, if you translate this into “I think.” Still, to assume or postulate this “I” is a practical necessity.
Might not a good deal of what Kant teaches, and more especially what has to do with the moral law, be the result of old age, when passion and prejudice have lost their force, and reason alone remains? Supposing human creatures died, say, at forty, in full maturity, what in the world would be the effect? The calm wisdom of old age gives rise to much that is curious. I wonder whether there will ever be a state where they despatch people on attaining their forty-fifth year.
After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility ?
Is it, then, quite so certain that human reason can have absolutely no knowledge of what transcends the senses? Might not man be capable of weaving his ideas about God just as appropriately as the spider its web for catching flies? Or in other words, might there not be beings who as much marvel at us, on account of our theories about God and immortality, as we at the spider and the silkworm?
It is a contention of mine, which I occasionally even debate with my son, that particularly in the case of mathematical genius precocity is not prejudicial to staying power. Nor is this, it seems
