Note 21 — Chapter I · CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF THINKING

It is difficult to calculate how great is the seductive influence of the primitive word-meaning upon a thought. “Anything which has even been in consciousness remains as an affective moment in the unconscious,” says Hermann Paul (“Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte,” 4th ed., 1909, p. 25). The old word-meanings have an after-effect, chiefly imperceptible, “within the dark chamber of the unconscious in the Soul” (Paul). J. G. Hamann, mentioned above, expresses himself unequivocably: “Metaphysics reduces all catchwords and all figures of speech of our empirical knowledge to empty hieroglyphics and types of ideal relations.” It is said that Kant learned some things from Hamann.