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insisted upon; and the very dogmatic opinions asserted; must be examined。 At no time so much as
in our own; have such general principles and notions been advanced; or with greater assurance。 If
in days gone by; history seems to present itself as a struggle of passions; in our time — though
displays of passion are not wanting — it exhibits partly a predominance of the struggle of notions
assuming the authority of principles; partly that of passions and interests essentially subjective; but
under the mask of such higher sanctions。 The pretensions thus contended for as legitimate in the
name of that which has been stated as the ultimate aim of Reason; pass accordingly; for absolute
aims; — to the same extent as Religion; Morals; Ethics。 Nothing; as before remarked; is now more
mon than the plaint that the ideals which imagination sets up are not realised — that these
glorious dreams are destroyed by cold actuality。 These Ideals — which in the voyage of life
founder on the rocks of hard reality — may be in the first instance only subjective; and belong to
the idiosyncrasy of the individual; imagining himself the highest and wisest。 Such do not properly
belong to this category。 For the fancies which the individual in his isolation indulges; cannot be the
model for universal reality; just as universal law is not designed for the units of the mass。 These as
such may; in fact; find t