iverse has "just as well as that of
universal knowledge its general principles and simple elements." Moral
principles are beyond history and the national distinctions of to-day
... the various truths from which in the course of development the
fuller moral consciousness, and, so to speak, conscience itself is
derived, can, as far as their origin is investigated, claim a similar
acceptation and extent to that of mathematics and its applications.
Real truths are immutable and it is folly to conceive of correct
knowledge as liable to the attacks of time or of change in material
conditions. "Hence the certainty of sound knowledge and the
sufficiency of general acceptation forbid to doubt the absolute
correctness of the fundamental principles of knowledge.... Continual
doubt is in itself an evidence of weakness and is merely the
expression of a barren condition of confusion, which although
conscious of possessing nothing still seeks to maintain the appearance
of holding on to something. Regarding morals, it denies universal
principles with respect to the manifold variations in moral ideas
owing to geographical and historical conditions, and thinks that with
the admission of the unavoidable necessity of evil and wickedness
there is no need for it to acknowledge the truth and efficiency of
moral impulses. This mordant scepticism which is not directed against
any false doctrine in particular, but against human capacity to
recognise morality resolves itself finally into nothingness, it is no
more than mere nihilism. It flatters itself that it can attain
supremacy and give free rein to unprincipled pleasures by destroying
moral ideas and creating chaos. It is greatly deceived, however, if
merely pointing at the inevitable fate of the intellect with respect
to error and truth is sufficient to show by analogy that natural
liability to error does not exclude the arriving at a correct decision
but rather tends to that end."

Up to now we have not commented upon Herr Duehring's pompous opinions
on final truths of the last instance, sovereignty of the will,
absolute certainty of knowledge, and so forth, until the matter could
first be brought to an issue. Up to this point the investigation has
been useful to show how far the separate assertions of the philosophy
of realism had "sovereign validity" and "unrestricted claim to truth"
but we now come to the question if any and what product of human
knowledge can have in particular "sovere