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It is here that the beautiful balance of philosophy rejects at one and the same time two opposing ways which appear in the history of mysticism. The one would, through oversystematization and burdensome detail, turn its methods into rigid frozen complicated mechanisms, as if the inner being were a piece of engineering rather than a living thing to be nourished and warmed. The other would, through vague foundations, the pretext of freedom, and excessive individualism, turn its teachings into an anarchy of conflicting ideas and personal phantasies or an arena for contending personal ambitions.

-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1 : Toward Defining Philosophy > # 496