CHAPTER VIII
A pedestrian soon joined me, who begged, after he had walked for some
time by the side of my horse, that, as we went the same way, he might
be allowed to lay a cloak which he carried, on the steed behind me.
I permitted it in silence. He thanked me with easy politeness for the
trifling service; praised my horse; and thence took occasion to extol
the happiness and power of the rich, and let himself, I know not how,
fall into a kind of monologue, in which he had me now merely for a
listener.
He unfolded his views of life and of the world, and came very soon
upon metaphysics, whose task is to discover the Word that should solve
all riddles. He stated his thesis with great clearness and proceeded
onward to the proofs.
Thou knowest, my friend, that I have clearly discovered, since I have
run through the schools of the philosophers, that I have by no means a
turn for philosophical speculations, and that I have totally
renounced for myself this field. Since then I have left many things
to themselves; abandoned the desire to know and to comprehend many
things; and as thou thyself advised me, have, trusting to my common
sense, followed as far as I was able the voice within me in my own
way. Now this rhetorician seemed to me to raise with great talent
a firmly constructed fabric, which was at once self-based and
self-supported, and stood as by an innate necessity.
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