I. Certain attributes are found to belong to an object, and are not affected by a certain process. (For example, divisibility as a process in space does not affect the continuity of space, which makes that process possible. Or again, the process of limiting space does not interfere with its continuity, for space will not permit any limit except space itself.)
II. When the untutored reflection endeavors to apprehend a relation of this nature, it seizes one side of the dualism and is hurled to the other. (It bisects space, and then finds itself before two objects identical in nature with the first; it has effected nothing; it repeats the process, and, by and by getting exhausted, wonders whether it could meet a different result if its powers of endurance were greater. Or else suspecting the true case, says; “no other result would happen if I went on forever.”)
III. Pure thought, however, grasps this process as a totality, and sees that it only arises through a self-relation. The “progress” is nothing but a return to itself, the same monotonous round. It would be a similar attempt to seek the end of a circle by travelling round it, and one might make the profound remark: “If my powers were equal to the task, I should doubtless come to the end.” This difficulty vanishes as soon as the experience is made that the line returns into itself. “It is the same thing whether said once or repeated forever,” says Simplicius, treating of this paradox.
The “Infinite Progress” is the most stubborn fortress of Scepticism. By it our negative writers establish the impotency of Reason for various ulterior purposes. Some wish to use it as a lubricating fluid upon certain religious dogmas that cannot otherwise be swallowed. Others wish to save themselves the trouble of thinking out the solutions to the Problem of Life. But the Sphinx devours him who does not faithfully grapple with, and solve her enigmas.
Mephistopheles (a good authority on this subject) says of Faust, whom he finds grumbling at the littleness of man’s mind:
“Verachte nur Vernunft und Wissenchaft,
Des Menschen allerhöchste Kraft!
Und hätt’er sich auch nicht dem Teufel übergeben,
Er müsste doch zu Grunde gehen.”
Only prove that there is a large field of the unknowable and one has at once the vade mecum for stupidity. Crude reflection can pour in its distinctions into a subject, and save itself from the consequences by pronouncing the basis incomprehensible. It also removes all possibility of Theology, or of the Piety of the Intellect, and leaves a very narrow margin for religious sentiment, or the Piety of the Heart.