90
DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER.
And now I lay aside this whole matter of spirits, a remote part of metaphysics, since I have finished and am done with it.[1] In future it does not concern me any more. By thus making the plan of my investigation more concentrated, and sparing myself some entirely useless inquiries, I hope to be able to apply to better advantage my small reasoning power upon other subjects. It is generally vain to try to extend the little strength one has over a wide range of undertakings. It is therefore a matter of policy, in this as other cases, to fit the pattern of one's plans to one's powers, and if one cannot obtain the great, to restrict one's self to the mediocre.
- ↑ 47 (p. 90).—How far from being "done with" this subject of a Spiritual World Kant really was, appears from his choosing the subject of the Two Worlds as that of his Inaugural Dissertation in 1770, as well as from the Lectures on Metaphysics, where he dwellsat length on the arguments for the existence of a spiritual world and on the nature of the life after death. See the Introductory Essay for the present work, p. 28.
