But now I was determined to give expression to the thought which a moment before had flashed through my mind.
"That's not so easily disposed of as you think, Herr Eichelkatz. We know as little as you say, and yet we know so much! When the inscrutable fails to yield us anything positive, when the exact sciences can tell us no more, then comes the work of hypothesis, of thought."
He looked at me with great, astonished eyes. A light of comprehension spread over his face, although he softly said:
"That's too much for me, Herr Kreisphysikus, what you are saying—I mean the way you say it—I think I can understand your meaning; and as for the exact sciences, I can imagine what that means, I have heard the words before. But the other word, poth—pothe—it can't come from apothecary? What you mean is that when we don't know about something, others come and try to explain it from what they have thought over the matter for themselves."
"That is called philosophy," I said.
"I know the word," he murmured under his breath.
"And the greatest minds of all times have occupied themselves with it."
"And has anything ever come of it?" he said, an ironical smile flitting about the corners of his sunken mouth.
"Why, yes! For if thinking, interpreting, and reasoning did not make the things of this earth clear to us and throw a moral light upon them, there would be only one course left to us; we should be driven to desperation."
He was obviously trying to adjust the meaning of my words in his mind, for it was after a few minutes' pause that he said: