One should not wrongly reify 'cause' and 'effect,' as the natural scientists do (and whoever, like them, now 'naturalizes' in his thinking), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it 'effects' its end; one should use 'cause' and 'effect' only as pure concepts, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication-not for explanation.
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The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'
A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.
Against that positivism which stops at phenomena, saying 'there are only facts,' I would say: No, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.
If you wish to understand a philosopher, do not ask what he says, but find out what he wants.
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