But if I should be permitted peace
and time to follow out my ideas, I have hopes. Perhaps it is
a weakness to confide to you embryo designs, which never may
glow into life, or mock me by their failure.'
* * * * *
'I have long had a suspicion that no mind can systematize its
knowledge, and carry on the concentrating processes, without
some fixed opinion on the subject of metaphysics. But that
indisposition, or even dread of the study, which you may
remember, has kept me from meddling with it, till lately, in
meditating on the life of Goethe, I thought I must get some
idea of the history of philosophical opinion in Germany, that
I might be able to judge of the influence it exercised upon
his mind. I think I can comprehend him every other way, and
probably interpret him satisfactorily to others,--if I can get
the proper materials. When I was in Cambridge, I got Fichte
and Jacobi; I was much interrupted, but some time and earnest
thought I devoted. Fichte I could not understand at all;
though the treatise which I read was one intended to be
popular, and which he says must compel (_bezwingen_) to
conviction.
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