27 February, Yasnaya Polyana Novum organum together with a translation.1
There is a language of philosophy, but I won’t use it. I will use ordinary language. Interest in philosophy is common to all people and all people are judges of it.
Philosophical language was invented to counter objections. I’m not afraid of objections. I am a seeker. I don’t belong to any camp. And I ask my readers not to. This is the first prerequisite for philosophy. I must object to the materialists in my foreword. They say that there is nothing except life on earth. I must object, because if that were so, there would be nothing for me to write about. Having lived for close on fifty years, I am convinced that life on earth has nothing to give, and that the clever man who looks at life on earth seriously, its labours, fears, reproaches, struggles – what for? for madness sake? – such a man would shoot himself at once, and Hartmann and Schopenhauer are right. But Schopenhauer gave people to feel that there is something, which stopped him from shooting himself. What that something is is the purpose of my book.2 What do we live by? Religion.