Here a new phenomenon of human reason shows itself, namely a wholly natural antithetic, for which one does not need to ponder or to lay artificial snares, but rather into which reason falls of itself and even unavoidably; and thus it guards reason against the slumber of an imag ined conviction, such as a merely one sided illusion produces, but at the same time leads reason into the temptation either to surrender itself to a skeptical hopelessness or else to assume an attitude of dogmatic stub bornness, setting its mind rigidly to certain assertions without giving a fair hearing to the grounds for the opposite.