For it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to
such inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity.
Besides, these pretended indifferentists, however much they may try to
disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by
changes on the language of the schools, unavoidably fall into
metaphysical declarations and propositions, which they profess to
regard with so much contempt. At the same time, this indifference,
which has arisen in the world of science, and which relates to that
kind of knowledge which we should wish to see destroyed the last, is a
phenomenon that well deserves our attention and reflection. It is
plainly not the effect of the levity, but of the matured judgement* of
the age, which refuses to be any longer entertained with illusory
knowledge, It is, in fact, a call to reason, again to undertake the
most laborious of all tasks- that of self-examination- and to
establish a tribunal, which may secure it in its well-grounded claims,
while it pronounces against all baseless assumptions and
pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according to its own
eternal and unchangeable laws.
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