Preface.

attainment of my science. This is not said to the detriment of Brentano's friends, and if possible, even less to the favor of Brentano's enemies: but just as it is an impersonal goal that has hitherto been set for my life's work and will remain set for it in the future, so certainly do I have a right to the lively wish to encounter no other than factual difficulties or obstacles in doing so.

Thus, may what the present writing brings also be received impersonally and tested for its usefulness against the facts whose knowledge it is intended to contribute to. To my knowledge, the subject treated here, which I consider to be still entirely unworked, at least ex professo professedly/in a professional capacity, does not have a genuine literature: on the other hand, the quantity of that which is co-affected by the assumptions naturally corresponds to the quantity of literature that is relevant, so that to wish to cite this with any completeness would have been an entirely hopeless undertaking. Only, let it not be concluded from the small number of works that appear expressly considered in the following that I owe profit for our topic only to these works, or that I assign value only to them. That it was particularly obvious for me to refer to publications by authors whose teacher I was in the happy position of being some time ago, I can, of course, not deny. But it is simply a fact that it was precisely they whose agreement or contradiction has above all promoted the progress of my work thus far.

Graz, October 1901.

The Author.