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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Literature, by Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Literature
+
+Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSAYS
+
+OF
+
+ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+THE ART OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  PREFACE
+  ON AUTHORSHIP
+  ON STYLE
+  ON THE STUDY OF LATIN
+  ON MEN OF LEARNING
+  ON THINKING FOR ONESELF
+  ON SOME FORMS OF LITERATURE
+  ON CRITICISM
+  ON REPUTATION
+  ON GENIUS
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+The contents of this, as of the other volumes in the series, have been
+drawn from Schopenhauer's _Parerga_, and amongst the various subjects
+dealt with in that famous collection of essays, Literature holds an
+important place. Nor can Schopenhauer's opinions fail to be of special
+value when he treats of literary form and method. For, quite apart
+from his philosophical pretensions, he claims recognition as a great
+writer; he is, indeed, one of the best of the few really excellent
+prose-writers of whom Germany can boast. While he is thus particularly
+qualified to speak of Literature as an Art, he has also something to
+say upon those influences which, outside of his own merits, contribute
+so much to an author's success, and are so often undervalued when he
+obtains immediate popularity. Schopenhauer's own sore experiences in
+the matter of reputation lend an interest to his remarks upon that
+subject, although it is too much to ask of human nature that he should
+approach it in any dispassionate spirit.
+
+In the following pages we have observations upon style by one who
+was a stylist in the best sense of the word, not affected, nor yet a
+phrasemonger; on thinking for oneself by a philosopher who never did
+anything else; on criticism by a writer who suffered much from the
+inability of others to understand him; on reputation by a candidate
+who, during the greater part of his life, deserved without obtaining
+it; and on genius by one who was incontestably of the privileged
+order himself. And whatever may be thought of some of his opinions
+on matters of detail--on anonymity, for instance, or on the question
+whether good work is never done for money--there can be no doubt that
+his general view of literature, and the conditions under which it
+flourishes, is perfectly sound.
+
+It might be thought, perhaps, that remarks which were meant to apply
+to the German language would have but little bearing upon one so
+different from it as English. This would be a just objection if
+Schopenhauer treated literature in a petty spirit, and confined
+himself to pedantic inquiries into matters of grammar and etymology,
+or mere niceties of phrase. But this is not so. He deals with his
+subject broadly, and takes large and general views; nor can anyone
+who knows anything of the philosopher suppose this to mean that he is
+vague and feeble. It is true that now and again in the course of these
+essays he makes remarks which are obviously meant to apply to the
+failings of certain writers of his own age and country; but in such a
+case I have generally given his sentences a turn, which, while keeping
+them faithful to the spirit of the original, secures for them a less
+restricted range, and makes Schopenhauer a critic of similar faults in
+whatever age or country they may appear. This has been done in spite
+of a sharp word on page seventeen of this volume, addressed to
+translators who dare to revise their author; but the change is one
+with which not even Schopenhauer could quarrel.
+
+It is thus a significant fact--a testimony to the depth of his
+insight and, in the main, the justice of his opinions--that views of
+literature which appealed to his own immediate contemporaries, should
+be found to hold good elsewhere and at a distance of fifty years.
+It means that what he had to say was worth saying; and since it is
+adapted thus equally to diverse times and audiences, it is probably of
+permanent interest.
+
+The intelligent reader will observe that much of the charm of
+Schopenhauer's writing comes from its strongly personal character, and
+that here he has to do, not with a mere maker of books, but with a
+man who thinks for himself and has no false scruples in putting his
+meaning plainly upon the page, or in unmasking sham wherever he finds
+it. This is nowhere so true as when he deals with literature; and just
+as in his treatment of life, he is no flatterer to men in general, so
+here he is free and outspoken on the peculiar failings of authors. At
+the same time he gives them good advice. He is particularly happy in
+recommending restraint in regard to reading the works of others, and
+the cultivation of independent thought; and herein he recalls a saying
+attributed to Hobbes, who was not less distinguished as a writer than
+as a philosopher, to the effect that "_if he had read as much as other
+men, he should have been as ignorant as they_."
+
+Schopenhauer also utters a warning, which we shall do well to take to
+heart in these days, against mingling the pursuit of literature with
+vulgar aims. If we follow him here, we shall carefully distinguish
+between literature as an object of life and literature as a means of
+living, between the real love of truth and beauty, and that detestable
+false love which looks to the price it will fetch in the market. I am
+not referring to those who, while they follow a useful and honorable
+calling in bringing literature before the public, are content to be
+known as men of business. If, by the help of some second witch
+of Endor, we could raise the ghost of Schopenhauer, it would be
+interesting to hear his opinion of a certain kind of literary
+enterprise which has come into vogue since his day, and now receives
+an amount of attention very much beyond its due. We may hazard a guess
+at the direction his opinion would take. He would doubtless show us
+how this enterprise, which is carried on by self-styled _literary
+men_, ends by making literature into a form of merchandise, and
+treating it as though it were so much goods to be bought and sold at a
+profit, and most likely to produce quick returns if the maker's name
+is well known. Nor would it be the ghost of the real Schopenhauer
+unless we heard a vigorous denunciation of men who claim a connection
+with literature by a servile flattery of successful living
+authors--the dead cannot be made to pay--in the hope of appearing to
+advantage in their reflected light and turning that advantage into
+money.
+
+In order to present the contents of this book in a convenient form, I
+have not scrupled to make an arrangement with the chapters somewhat
+different from that which exists in the original; so that two or more
+subjects which are there dealt with successively in one and the same
+chapter, here stand by themselves. In consequence of this, some of
+the titles of the sections are not to be found in the original. I may
+state, however, that the essays on _Authorship_ and _Style_ and the
+latter part of that on _Criticism_ are taken direct from the chapter
+headed _Ueber Schriftstellerei und Stil_; and that the remainder of
+the essay on _Criticism_, with that of _Reputation_, is supplied by
+the remarks _Ueber Urtheil, Kritik, Beifall und Ruhm_. The essays on
+_The Study of Latin_, on _Men of Learning_, and on _Some Forms
+of Literature_, are taken chiefly from the four sections _Ueber
+Gelehrsamkeit und Gelehrte, Ueber Sprache und Worte, Ueber Lesen
+und Bücher: Anhang_, and _Zur Metaphysik des Schönen_. The essay on
+_Thinking for Oneself_ is a rendering of certain remarks under the
+heading _Selbstdenken. Genius_ was a favorite subject of speculation
+with Schopenhauer, and he often touches upon it in the course of his
+works; always, however, to put forth the same theory in regard to it
+as may be found in the concluding section of this volume. Though the
+essay has little or nothing to do with literary method, the subject of
+which it treats is the most needful element of success in literature;
+and I have introduced it on that ground. It forms part of a chapter in
+the _Parerga_ entitled _Den Intellekt überhaupt und in jeder Beziehung
+betreffende Gedanken: Anhang verwandter Stellen._
+
+It has also been part of my duty to invent a title for this volume;
+and I am well aware that objection may be made to the one I have
+chosen, on the ground that in common language it is unusual to speak
+of literature as an art, and that to do so is unduly to narrow its
+meaning and to leave out of sight its main function as the record of
+thought. But there is no reason why the word _Literature_ should
+not be employed in that double sense which is allowed to attach to
+_Painting, Music, Sculpture_, as signifying either the objective
+outcome of a certain mental activity, seeking to express itself in
+outward form; or else the particular kind of mental activity in
+question, and the methods it follows. And we do, in fact, use it in
+this latter sense, when we say of a writer that he pursues literature
+as a calling. If, then, literature can be taken to mean a process as
+well as a result of mental activity, there can be no error in speaking
+of it as Art. I use that term in its broad sense, as meaning skill in
+the display of thought; or, more fully, a right use of the rules
+of applying to the practical exhibition of thought, with whatever
+material it may deal. In connection with literature, this is a
+sense and an application of the term which have been sufficiently
+established by the example of the great writers of antiquity.
+
+It may be asked, of course, whether the true thinker, who will always
+form the soul of the true author, will not be so much occupied with
+what he has to say, that it will appear to him a trivial thing to
+spend great effort on embellishing the form in which he delivers it.
+Literature, to be worthy of the name, must, it is true, deal with
+noble matter--the riddle of our existence, the great facts of life,
+the changing passions of the human heart, the discernment of some deep
+moral truth. It is easy to lay too much stress upon the mere garment
+of thought; to be too precise; to give to the arrangement of words an
+attention that should rather be paid to the promotion of fresh ideas.
+A writer who makes this mistake is like a fop who spends his little
+mind in adorning his person. In short, it may be charged against the
+view of literature which is taken in calling it an Art, that, instead
+of making truth and insight the author's aim, it favors sciolism and a
+fantastic and affected style. There is, no doubt, some justice in the
+objection; nor have we in our own day, and especially amongst younger
+men, any lack of writers who endeavor to win confidence, not by adding
+to the stock of ideas in the world, but by despising the use of plain
+language. Their faults are not new in the history of literature; and
+it is a pleasing sign of Schopenhauer's insight that a merciless
+exposure of them, as they existed half a century ago, is still quite
+applicable to their modern form.
+
+And since these writers, who may, in the slang of the hour, be called
+"impressionists" in literature, follow their own bad taste in the
+manufacture of dainty phrases, devoid of all nerve, and generally
+with some quite commonplace meaning, it is all the more necessary to
+discriminate carefully between artifice and art.
+
+But although they may learn something from Schopenhauer's advice, it
+is not chiefly to them that it is offered. It is to that great mass of
+writers, whose business is to fill the columns of the newspapers and
+the pages of the review, and to produce the ton of novels that appear
+every year. Now that almost everyone who can hold a pen aspires to be
+called an author, it is well to emphasize the fact that literature is
+an art in some respects more important than any other. The problem of
+this art is the discovery of those qualities of style and treatment
+which entitled any work to be called good literature.
+
+It will be safe to warn the reader at the very outset that, if he
+wishes to avoid being led astray, he should in his search for these
+qualities turn to books that have stood the test of time.
+
+For such an amount of hasty writing is done in these days that it is
+really difficult for anyone who reads much of it to avoid contracting
+its faults, and thus gradually coming to terms of dangerous
+familiarity with bad methods. This advice will be especially needful
+if things that have little or no claim to be called literature at
+all--the newspapers, the monthly magazine, and the last new tale of
+intrigue or adventure--fill a large measure, if not the whole, of the
+time given to reading. Nor are those who are sincerely anxious to have
+the best thought in the best language quite free from danger if they
+give too much attention to the contemporary authors, even though these
+seem to think and write excellently. For one generation alone is
+incompetent to decide upon the merits of any author whatever; and as
+literature, like all art, is a thing of human invention, so it can be
+pronounced good only if it obtains lasting admiration, by establishing
+a permanent appeal to mankind's deepest feeling for truth and beauty.
+
+It is in this sense that Schopenhauer is perfectly right in holding
+that neglect of the ancient classics, which are the best of all models
+in the art of writing, will infallibly lead to a degeneration of
+literature.
+
+And the method of discovering the best qualities of style, and of
+forming a theory of writing, is not to follow some trick or mannerism
+that happens to please for the moment, but to study the way in which
+great authors have done their best work.
+
+It will be said that Schopenhauer tells us nothing we did not know
+before. Perhaps so; as he himself says, the best things are seldom
+new. But he puts the old truths in a fresh and forcible way; and no
+one who knows anything of good literature will deny that these truths
+are just now of very fit application.
+
+It was probably to meet a real want that, a year or two ago, an
+ingenious person succeeded in drawing a great number of English and
+American writers into a confession of their literary creed and the art
+they adopted in authorship; and the interesting volume in which he
+gave these confessions to the world contained some very good advice,
+although most of it had been said before in different forms. More
+recently a new departure, of very doubtful use, has taken place; and
+two books have been issued, which aim, the one at being an author's
+manual, the other at giving hints on essays and how to write them.
+
+A glance at these books will probably show that their authors have
+still something to learn.
+
+Both of these ventures seem, unhappily, to be popular; and, although
+they may claim a position next-door to that of the present volume I
+beg to say that it has no connection with them whatever. Schopenhauer
+does not attempt to teach the art of making bricks without straw.
+
+I wish to take this opportunity of tendering my thanks to a large
+number of reviewers for the very gratifying reception given to
+the earlier volumes of this series. And I have great pleasure in
+expressing my obligations to my friend Mr. W.G. Collingwood, who has
+looked over most of my proofs and often given me excellent advice in
+my effort to turn Schopenhauer into readable English.
+
+T.B.S.
+
+
+
+
+ON AUTHORSHIP.
+
+
+There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the
+subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the
+one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth
+communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money.
+Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be
+recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the
+greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their
+thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating;
+again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight
+out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing
+is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before
+they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover
+paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for
+example, with Lessing in his _Dramaturgie_, and even in many of Jean
+Paul's romances. As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw
+the book away; for time is precious. The truth is that when an author
+begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the
+reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to
+say.
+
+Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the
+ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing,
+unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an
+inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there
+were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen, as
+long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money
+lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins
+to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works
+of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for
+nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds
+good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the
+same purse--_honora y provecho no caben en un saco_. The reason why
+Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that
+people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down
+and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The
+secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.
+
+A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish
+mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just been
+printed,--journalists, I mean. Truly, a most appropriate name. In
+plain language it is _journeymen, day-laborers_!
+
+Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First
+come those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory,
+from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's
+books. This class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their
+thinking whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and
+there is no lack of them. Last of all come those authors who think
+before they begin to write. They are rare.
+
+Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they
+come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is
+not likely to bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author
+of the third or rare class writes, it is like a _battue_. Here the
+game has been previously captured and shut up within a very small
+space; from which it is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into
+another space, also confined. The game cannot possibly escape the
+sportsman; he has nothing to do but aim and fire--in other words,
+write down his thoughts. This is a kind of sport from which a man has
+something to show.
+
+But even though the number of those who really think seriously before
+they begin to write is small, extremely few of them think about _the
+subject itself_: the remainder think only about the books that have
+been written on the subject, and what has been said by others. In
+order to think at all, such writers need the more direct and powerful
+stimulus of having other people's thoughts before them. These become
+their immediate theme; and the result is that they are always under
+their influence, and so never, in any real sense of the word, are
+original. But the former are roused to thought by the subject itself,
+to which their thinking is thus immediately directed. This is the only
+class that produces writers of abiding fame.
+
+It must, of course, be understood that I am speaking here of writers
+who treat of great subjects; not of writers on the art of making
+brandy.
+
+Unless an author takes the material on which he writes out of his
+own head, that is to say, from his own observation, he is not
+worth reading. Book-manufacturers, compilers, the common run of
+history-writers, and many others of the same class, take their
+material immediately out of books; and the material goes straight
+to their finger-tips without even paying freight or undergoing
+examination as it passes through their heads, to say nothing of
+elaboration or revision. How very learned many a man would be if he
+knew everything that was in his own books! The consequence of this is
+that these writers talk in such a loose and vague manner, that the
+reader puzzles his brain in vain to understand what it is of which
+they are really thinking. They are thinking of nothing. It may now and
+then be the case that the book from which they copy has been composed
+exactly in the same way: so that writing of this sort is like a
+plaster cast of a cast; and in the end, the bare outline of the face,
+and that, too, hardly recognizable, is all that is left to your
+Antinous. Let compilations be read as seldom as possible. It is
+difficult to avoid them altogether; since compilations also include
+those text-books which contain in a small space the accumulated
+knowledge of centuries.
+
+There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last work is
+always the more correct; that what is written later on is in every
+case an improvement on what was written before; and that change always
+means progress. Real thinkers, men of right judgment, people who are
+in earnest with their subject,--these are all exceptions only. Vermin
+is the rule everywhere in the world: it is always on the alert, taking
+the mature opinions of the thinkers, and industriously seeking to
+improve upon them (save the mark!) in its own peculiar way.
+
+If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of rushing
+to the newest books upon it, and confining his attention to them
+alone, under the notion that science is always advancing, and that the
+old books have been drawn upon in the writing of the new. They have
+been drawn upon, it is true; but how? The writer of the new book often
+does not understand the old books thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling
+to take their exact words; so he bungles them, and says in his own bad
+way that which has been said very much better and more clearly by the
+old writers, who wrote from their own lively knowledge of the subject.
+The new writer frequently omits the best things they say, their most
+striking illustrations, their happiest remarks; because he does not
+see their value or feel how pregnant they are. The only thing that
+appeals to him is what is shallow and insipid.
+
+It often happens that an old and excellent book is ousted by new
+and bad ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great
+pretension and much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man
+tries to make his mark by bringing out something fresh. This often
+means nothing more than that he attacks some received theory which
+is quite correct, in order to make room for his own false notions.
+Sometimes the effort is successful for a time; and then a return is
+made to the old and true theory. These innovators are serious about
+nothing but their own precious self: it is this that they want to put
+forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they think, is to start a
+paradox. Their sterile heads take naturally to the path of negation;
+so they begin to deny truths that have long been admitted--the vital
+power, for example, the sympathetic nervous system, _generatio
+equivoca_, Bichat's distinction between the working of the passions
+and the working of intelligence; or else they want us to return to
+crass atomism, and the like. Hence it frequently happens that _the
+course of science is retrogressive._
+
+To this class of writers belong those translators who not only
+translate their author but also correct and revise him; a proceeding
+which always seems to me impertinent. To such writers I say: Write
+books yourself which are worth translating, and leave other people's
+works as they are!
+
+The reader should study, if he can, the real authors, the men who
+have founded and discovered things; or, at any rate, those who are
+recognized as the great masters in every branch of knowledge. Let him
+buy second-hand books rather than read their contents in new ones. To
+be sure, it is easy to add to any new discovery--_inventis aliquid
+addere facile est_; and, therefore, the student, after well mastering
+the rudiments of his subject, will have to make himself acquainted
+with the more recent additions to the knowledge of it. And, in
+general, the following rule may be laid down here as elsewhere: if a
+thing is new, it is seldom good; because if it is good, it is only for
+a short time new.
+
+What the address is to a letter, the title should be to a book; in
+other words, its main object should be to bring the book to those
+amongst the public who will take an interest in its contents. It
+should, therefore, be expressive; and since by its very nature it must
+be short, it should be concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible
+give the contents in one word. A prolix title is bad; and so is one
+that says nothing, or is obscure and ambiguous, or even, it may be,
+false and misleading; this last may possibly involve the book in the
+same fate as overtakes a wrongly addressed letter. The worst titles
+of all are those which have been stolen, those, I mean, which have
+already been borne by other books; for they are in the first place a
+plagiarism, and secondly the most convincing proof of a total lack of
+originality in the author. A man who has not enough originality to
+invent a new title for his book, will be still less able to give it
+new contents. Akin to these stolen titles are those which have been
+imitated, that is to say, stolen to the extent of one half; for
+instance, long after I had produced my treatise _On Will in Nature_,
+Oersted wrote a book entitled _On Mind in Nature_.
+
+A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's
+thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in _the matter about
+which he has thought_, or in the _form_ which his thoughts take, in
+other words, _what it is that he has thought about it._
+
+The matter of books is most various; and various also are the several
+excellences attaching to books on the score of their matter. By matter
+I mean everything that comes within the domain of actual experience;
+that is to say, the facts of history and the facts of nature, taken in
+and by themselves and in their widest sense. Here it is the _thing_
+treated of, which gives its peculiar character to the book; so that a
+book can be important, whoever it was that wrote it.
+
+But in regard to the form, the peculiar character of a book depends
+upon the _person_ who wrote it. It may treat of matters which are
+accessible to everyone and well known; but it is the way in which they
+are treated, what it is that is thought about them, that gives the
+book its value; and this comes from its author. If, then, from this
+point of view a book is excellent and beyond comparison, so is its
+author. It follows that if a writer is worth reading, his merit rises
+just in proportion as he owes little to his matter; therefore, the
+better known and the more hackneyed this is, the greater he will be.
+The three great tragedians of Greece, for example, all worked at the
+same subject-matter.
+
+So when a book is celebrated, care should be taken to note whether it
+is so on account of its matter or its form; and a distinction should
+be made accordingly.
+
+Books of great importance on account of their matter may proceed from
+very ordinary and shallow people, by the fact that they alone have had
+access to this matter; books, for instance, which describe journeys in
+distant lands, rare natural phenomena, or experiments; or historical
+occurrences of which the writers were witnesses, or in connection
+with which they have spent much time and trouble in the research and
+special study of original documents.
+
+On the other hand, where the matter is accessible to everyone or very
+well known, everything will depend upon the form; and what it is
+that is thought about the matter will give the book all the value
+it possesses. Here only a really distinguished man will be able to
+produce anything worth reading; for the others will think nothing but
+what anyone else can think. They will just produce an impress of
+their own minds; but this is a print of which everyone possesses the
+original.
+
+However, the public is very much more concerned to have matter than
+form; and for this very reason it is deficient in any high degree of
+culture. The public shows its preference in this respect in the most
+laughable way when it comes to deal with poetry; for there it devotes
+much trouble to the task of tracking out the actual events or personal
+circumstances in the life of the poet which served as the occasion of
+his various works; nay, these events and circumstances come in the end
+to be of greater importance than the works themselves; and rather than
+read Goethe himself, people prefer to read what has been written about
+him, and to study the legend of Faust more industriously than the
+drama of that name. And when Bürger declared that "people would write
+learned disquisitions on the question, Who Leonora really was," we
+find this literally fulfilled in Goethe's case; for we now possess a
+great many learned disquisitions on Faust and the legend attaching to
+him. Study of this kind is, and remains, devoted to the material of
+the drama alone. To give such preference to the matter over the form,
+is as though a man were to take a fine Etruscan vase, not to admire
+its shape or coloring, but to make a chemical analysis of the clay and
+paint of which it is composed.
+
+The attempt to produce an effect by means of the material employed--an
+attempt which panders to this evil tendency of the public--is most to
+be condemned in branches of literature where any merit there may be
+lies expressly in the form; I mean, in poetical work. For all that, it
+is not rare to find bad dramatists trying to fill the house by means
+of the matter about which they write. For example, authors of this
+kind do not shrink from putting on the stage any man who is in any way
+celebrated, no matter whether his life may have been entirely devoid
+of dramatic incident; and sometimes, even, they do not wait until the
+persons immediately connected with him are dead.
+
+The distinction between matter and form to which I am here alluding
+also holds good of conversation. The chief qualities which enable a
+man to converse well are intelligence, discernment, wit and vivacity:
+these supply the form of conversation. But it is not long before
+attention has to be paid to the matter of which he speaks; in other
+words, the subjects about which it is possible to converse with
+him--his knowledge. If this is very small, his conversation will
+not be worth anything, unless he possesses the above-named formal
+qualities in a very exceptional degree; for he will have nothing to
+talk about but those facts of life and nature which everybody knows.
+It will be just the opposite, however, if a man is deficient in these
+formal qualities, but has an amount of knowledge which lends value to
+what he says. This value will then depend entirely upon the matter of
+his conversation; for, as the Spanish proverb has it, _mas sabe el
+necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena_--a fool knows more of his
+own business than a wise man does of others.
+
+
+
+
+ON STYLE.
+
+
+Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character
+than the face. To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask,
+which, be it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and
+abhorrence, because it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living
+face is better. Hence those who write in Latin and copy the manner of
+ancient authors, may be said to speak through a mask; the reader, it
+is true, hears what they say, but he cannot observe their physiognomy
+too; he cannot see their _style_. With the Latin works of writers
+who think for themselves, the case is different, and their style is
+visible; writers, I mean, who have not condescended to any sort
+of imitation, such as Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes,
+Spinoza, and many others. An affectation in style is like making
+grimaces. Further, the language in which a man writes is the
+physiognomy of the nation to which he belongs; and here there are many
+hard and fast differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks,
+down to that of the Caribbean islanders.
+
+To form a provincial estimate of the value of a writer's productions,
+it is not directly necessary to know the subject on which he has
+thought, or what it is that he has said about it; that would imply
+a perusal of all his works. It will be enough, in the main, to know
+_how_ he has thought. This, which means the essential temper or
+general quality of his mind, may be precisely determined by his style.
+A man's style shows the _formal_ nature of all his thoughts--the
+formal nature which can never change, be the subject or the character
+of his thoughts what it may: it is, as it were, the dough out of which
+all the contents of his mind are kneaded. When Eulenspiegel was asked
+how long it would take to walk to the next village, he gave the
+seemingly incongruous answer: _Walk_. He wanted to find out by the
+man's pace the distance he would cover in a given time. In the same
+way, when I have read a few pages of an author, I know fairly well how
+far he can bring me.
+
+Every mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style, because in
+his heart he knows the truth of what I am saying. He is thus forced,
+at the outset, to give up any attempt at being frank or naïve--a
+privilege which is thereby reserved for superior minds, conscious of
+their own worth, and therefore sure of themselves. What I mean is that
+these everyday writers are absolutely unable to resolve upon writing
+just as they think; because they have a notion that, were they to do
+so, their work might possibly look very childish and simple. For
+all that, it would not be without its value. If they would only go
+honestly to work, and say, quite simply, the things they have really
+thought, and just as they have thought them, these writers would be
+readable and, within their own proper sphere, even instructive.
+
+But instead of that, they try to make the reader believe that their
+thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case.
+They say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a
+forced and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods
+which go round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of
+disguise. They tremble between the two separate aims of communicating
+what they want to say and of concealing it. Their object is to dress
+it up so that it may look learned or deep, in order to give people
+the impression that there is very much more in it than for the moment
+meets the eye. They either jot down their thoughts bit by bit, in
+short, ambiguous, and paradoxical sentences, which apparently mean
+much more than they say,--of this kind of writing Schelling's
+treatises on natural philosophy are a splendid instance; or else
+they hold forth with a deluge of words and the most intolerable
+diffusiveness, as though no end of fuss were necessary to make the
+reader understand the deep meaning of their sentences, whereas it is
+some quite simple if not actually trivial idea,--examples of which
+may be found in plenty in the popular works of Fichte, and the
+philosophical manuals of a hundred other miserable dunces not worth
+mentioning; or, again, they try to write in some particular style
+which they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style,
+for example, _par excellence_ profound and scientific, where the
+reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun
+periods without a single idea in them,--such as are furnished in
+a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the
+Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
+striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
+altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
+off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
+creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it
+difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too,
+they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching
+any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will
+get sense out of them.
+
+[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbücher der
+wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]
+
+And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort
+to sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always
+trying to make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd
+expressions, turns of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether
+new or used in a new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in
+order to make up for the very painfully felt lack of it.
+
+It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
+first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting
+on the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
+inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with
+no life in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another.
+Such an author will at one moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as
+though he were tipsy; at another, nay, on the very next page, he will
+be pompous, severe, profoundly learned and prolix, stumbling on in the
+most cumbrous way and chopping up everything very small; like the late
+Christian Wolf, only in a modern dress. Longest of all lasts the mask
+of unintelligibility; but this is only in Germany, whither it was
+introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and carried to its
+highest pitch in Hegel--always with the best results.
+
+And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
+just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep
+things in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All
+the arts and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if
+the author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself
+as he is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is
+the source and origin of good style:
+
+  _Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_.
+
+But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who
+try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold--the only
+metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there
+is nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than
+the manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has;
+because this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little;
+since it is always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever
+it may be, it is just there that he is deficient.
+
+That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naïve_; it
+means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
+speaking, to be _naïve_ is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness
+is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every
+really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly,
+definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to
+be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its
+beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the
+thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is
+nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad
+style means a dull or confused brain.
+
+The first rule, then, for a good style is that _the author should
+have something to say_; nay, this is in itself almost all that is
+necessary. Ah, how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a
+fundamental trait in the philosophical writing, and, in fact, in
+all the reflective literature, of my country, more especially since
+Fichte. These writers all let it be seen that they want to appear as
+though they had something to say; whereas they have nothing to say.
+Writing of this kind was brought in by the pseudo-philosophers at the
+Universities, and now it is current everywhere, even among the first
+literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of that strained
+and vague style, where there seem to be two or even more meanings in
+the sentence; also of that prolix and cumbrous manner of expression,
+called _le stile empesé_; again, of that mere waste of words which
+consists in pouring them out like a flood; finally, of that trick
+of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a farrago of
+never-ending chatter, which clacks away like a windmill and quite
+stupefies one--stuff which a man may read for hours together without
+getting hold of a single clearly expressed and definite idea.[1]
+However, people are easy-going, and they have formed the habit of
+reading page upon page of all sorts of such verbiage, without having
+any particular idea of what the author really means. They fancy it is
+all as it should be, and fail to discover that he is writing simply
+for writing's sake.
+
+[Footnote 1: Select examples of the art of writing in this style are
+to be found almost _passim_ in the _Jahrbücher_ published at Halle,
+afterwards called the _Deutschen Jahrbücher_.]
+
+On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon wins his
+reader's confidence that, when he writes, he has really and truly
+_something to say_; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to
+follow him with attention. Such an author, just because he really has
+something to say, will never fail to express himself in the simplest
+and most straightforward manner; because his object is to awake the
+very same thought in the reader that he has in himself, and no other.
+So he will be able to affirm with Boileau that his thoughts are
+everywhere open to the light of the day, and that his verse always
+says something, whether it says it well or ill:
+
+  _Ma pensée au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose,
+  Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose_:
+
+while of the writers previously described it may be asserted, in the
+words of the same poet, that they talk much and never say anything at
+all--_quiparlant beaucoup ne disent jamais rien_.
+
+Another characteristic of such writers is that they always avoid a
+positive assertion wherever they can possibly do so, in order to leave
+a loophole for escape in case of need. Hence they never fail to choose
+the more _abstract_ way of expressing themselves; whereas intelligent
+people use the more _concrete_; because the latter brings things more
+within the range of actual demonstration, which is the source of all
+evidence.
+
+There are many examples proving this preference for abstract
+expression; and a particularly ridiculous one is afforded by the use
+of the verb _to condition_ in the sense of _to cause_ or _to produce_.
+People say _to condition something_ instead of _to cause it_, because
+being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that _A_ cannot
+happen without _B_, instead of that _A_ is caused by _B_. A back door
+is always left open; and this suits people whose secret knowledge of
+their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of all
+positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
+that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad
+in life is immediately imitated--a fact proved in either case by the
+rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
+what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of
+which this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence
+of this state of things is that the word _cause_ has of late almost
+disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only
+of _condition_. The fact is worth mentioning because it is so
+characteristically ridiculous.
+
+The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
+half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
+dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are
+only half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand
+the meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and
+commit them to memory. Hence when they write, it is not so much words
+as whole phrases that they put together--_phrases banales_. This is
+the explanation of that palpable lack of clearly-expressed thought in
+what they say. The fact is that they do not possess the die to give
+this stamp to their writing; clear thought of their own is just
+what they have not got. And what do we find in its place?--a vague,
+enigmatical intermixture of words, current phrases, hackneyed terms,
+and fashionable expressions. The result is that the foggy stuff they
+write is like a page printed with very old type.
+
+On the other hand, an intelligent author really speaks to us when he
+writes, and that is why he is able to rouse our interest and commune
+with us. It is the intelligent author alone who puts individual words
+together with a full consciousness of their meaning, and chooses them
+with deliberate design. Consequently, his discourse stands to that of
+the writer described above, much as a picture that has been really
+painted, to one that has been produced by the use of a stencil. In the
+one case, every word, every touch of the brush, has a special purpose;
+in the other, all is done mechanically. The same distinction may be
+observed in music. For just as Lichtenberg says that Garrick's soul
+seemed to be in every muscle in his body, so it is the omnipresence of
+intellect that always and everywhere characterizes the work of genius.
+
+I have alluded to the tediousness which marks the works of these
+writers; and in this connection it is to be observed, generally, that
+tediousness is of two kinds; objective and subjective. A work is
+objectively tedious when it contains the defect in question; that is
+to say, when its author has no perfectly clear thought or knowledge to
+communicate. For if a man has any clear thought or knowledge in him,
+his aim will be to communicate it, and he will direct his energies
+to this end; so that the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly
+expressed. The result is that he is neither diffuse, nor unmeaning,
+nor confused, and consequently not tedious. In such a case, even
+though the author is at bottom in error, the error is at any rate
+clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it is at least
+formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the work. But
+for the same reason a work that is objectively tedious is at all times
+devoid of any value whatever.
+
+The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a
+work dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it,
+and this means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may,
+therefore, be tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or
+that particular person; just as, contrarity, the worst work may be
+subjectively engrossing to this or that particular person who has an
+interest in the question treated of, or in the writer of the book.
+
+It would generally serve writers in good stead if they would see that,
+whilst a man should, if possible, think like a great genius, he should
+talk the same language as everyone else. Authors should use common
+words to say uncommon things. But they do just the opposite. We find
+them trying to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words, and to clothe
+their very ordinary thoughts in the most extraordinary phrases, the
+most far-fetched, unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their
+sentences perpetually stalk about on stilts. They take so much
+pleasure in bombast, and write in such a high-flown, bloated,
+affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style that their prototype is
+Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once impatiently told to say
+what he had to say _like a man of this world._[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _King Henry IV_., Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.]
+
+There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
+French _stile empesé_; but the thing itself exists all the more often.
+When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption
+of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally
+intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as
+an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.
+
+An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses
+himself up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level
+with a mob--a risk never run by the _gentleman_, even in his worst
+clothes. The plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire
+and a wish to have everything spick and span; and in the same way, the
+commonplace person is betrayed by his style.
+
+Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write
+exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a
+certain trace of kinship with the _epigraphic_ or _monumental_ style,
+which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write
+as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak
+as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at
+the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
+
+An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a
+very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from
+vagueness of thought; and this again almost always means that there is
+something radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself--in
+a word, that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the
+mind, it strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for
+clear thought easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of
+thinking anything at all, he is also always able to express it
+in clear, intelligible, and unambiguous terms. Those writers who
+construct difficult, obscure, involved, and equivocal sentences, most
+certainly do not know aright what it is that they want to say: they
+have only a dull consciousness of it, which is still in the stage of
+struggle to shape itself as thought. Often, indeed, their desire is to
+conceal from themselves and others that they really have nothing at
+all to say. They wish to appear to know what they do not know, to
+think what they do not think, to say what they do not say. If a
+man has some real communication to make, which will he choose--an
+indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian
+remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often
+easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated
+a man is, the more obscurely he will write--_plerumque accidit ut
+faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo
+quoque dicuntur_.... _Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior_.
+
+An author should avoid enigmatical phrases; he should know whether he
+wants to say a thing or does not want to say it. It is this indecision
+of style that makes so many writers insipid. The only case that offers
+an exception to this rule arises when it is necessary to make a remark
+that is in some way improper.
+
+As exaggeration generally produces an effect the opposite of
+that aimed at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought
+intelligible--but only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up
+beyond it, the thought becomes more and more obscure again. To find
+where the point lies is the problem of style, and the business of the
+critical faculty; for a word too much always defeats its purpose. This
+is what Voltaire means when he says that _the adjective is the enemy
+of the substantive_. But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal
+their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.
+
+Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
+remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
+make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as
+to lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful
+study, and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to
+omit something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all.
+This is the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu
+pantos][1]--the half is more than the whole. _Le secret pour
+être ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire_. Therefore, if possible, the
+quintessence only! mere leading thoughts! nothing that the reader
+would think for himself. To use many words to communicate few thoughts
+is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much
+thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 40.]
+
+Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep
+in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly
+because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole
+soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also,
+because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the
+arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from
+the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity of
+human existence could ever be more telling than the words of Job? _Man
+that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
+misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
+were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay_.
+
+For the same reason Goethe's naïve poetry is incomparably greater than
+Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs
+so affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be
+avoided, so in the art of literature a writer must guard against all
+rhetorical finery, all useless amplification, and all superfluity of
+expression in general; in a word, he must strive after _chastity_ of
+style. Every word that can be spared is hurtful if it remains. The law
+of simplicity and naïveté holds good of all fine art; for it is quite
+possible to be at once simple and sublime.
+
+True brevity of expression consists in everywhere saying only what
+is worth saying, and in avoiding tedious detail about things which
+everyone can supply for himself. This involves correct discrimination
+between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should
+never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being
+grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the
+expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the
+sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor
+of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by
+leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It
+is not only that such writers spare a word by making a single verb or
+adjective do duty for several different periods, so that the reader,
+as it were, has to grope his way through them in the dark; they also
+practice, in many other respects, an unseemingly economy of speech,
+in the effort to effect what they foolishly take to be brevity of
+expression and conciseness of style. By omitting something that might
+have thrown a light over the whole sentence, they turn it into a
+conundrum, which the reader tries to solve by going over it again and
+again.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--In the original, Schopenhauer here
+enters upon a lengthy examination of certain common errors in the
+writing and speaking of German. His remarks are addressed to his own
+countrymen, and would lose all point, even if they were intelligible,
+in an English translation. But for those who practice their German by
+conversing or corresponding with Germans, let me recommend what he
+there says as a useful corrective to a slipshod style, such as can
+easily be contracted if it is assumed that the natives of a country
+always know their own language perfectly.]
+
+It is wealth and weight of thought, and nothing else, that gives
+brevity to style, and makes it concise and pregnant. If a writer's
+ideas are important, luminous, and generally worth communicating, they
+will necessarily furnish matter and substance enough to fill out the
+periods which give them expression, and make these in all their parts
+both grammatically and verbally complete; and so much will this be
+the case that no one will ever find them hollow, empty or feeble. The
+diction will everywhere be brief and pregnant, and allow the thought
+to find intelligible and easy expression, and even unfold and move
+about with grace.
+
+Therefore instead of contracting his words and forms of speech, let a
+writer enlarge his thoughts. If a man has been thinned by illness and
+finds his clothes too big, it is not by cutting them down, but by
+recovering his usual bodily condition, that he ought to make them fit
+him again.
+
+Let me here mention an error of style, very prevalent nowadays,
+and, in the degraded state of literature and the neglect of ancient
+languages, always on the increase; I mean _subjectivity_. A writer
+commits this error when he thinks it enough if he himself knows what
+he means and wants to say, and takes no thought for the reader, who is
+left to get at the bottom of it as best he can. This is as though the
+author were holding a monologue; whereas, it ought to be a dialogue;
+and a dialogue, too, in which he must express himself all the more
+clearly inasmuch as he cannot hear the questions of his interlocutor.
+
+Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but
+_objective_; and it will not be objective unless the words are so set
+down that they directly force the reader to think precisely the same
+thing as the author thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result
+be obtained unless the author has always been careful to remember that
+thought so far follows the law of gravity that it travels from head to
+paper much more easily than from paper to head; so that he must assist
+the latter passage by every means in his power. If he does this, a
+writer's words will have a purely objective effect, like that of a
+finished picture in oils; whilst the subjective style is not much more
+certain in its working than spots on the wall, which look like figures
+only to one whose phantasy has been accidentally aroused by them;
+other people see nothing but spots and blurs. The difference in
+question applies to literary method as a whole; but it is often
+established also in particular instances. For example, in a recently
+published work I found the following sentence: _I have not written in
+order to increase the number of existing books._ This means just the
+opposite of what the writer wanted to say, and is nonsense as well.
+
+He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he
+does not attach much importance to his own thoughts. For it is only
+where a man is convinced of the truth and importance of his thoughts,
+that he feels the enthusiasm necessary for an untiring and assiduous
+effort to find the clearest, finest, and strongest expression for
+them,--just as for sacred relics or priceless works of art there are
+provided silvern or golden receptacles. It was this feeling that led
+ancient authors, whose thoughts, expressed in their own words, have
+lived thousands of years, and therefore bear the honored title of
+_classics_, always to write with care. Plato, indeed, is said to
+have written the introduction to his _Republic_ seven times over in
+different ways.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--It is a fact worth mentioning that
+the first twelve words of the _Republic_ are placed in the exact order
+which would be natural in English.]
+
+As neglect of dress betrays want of respect for the company a man
+meets, so a hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of
+regard for the reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to
+read the book. It is especially amusing to see reviewers criticising
+the works of others in their own most careless style--the style of
+a hireling. It is as though a judge were to come into court in
+dressing-gown and slippers! If I see a man badly and dirtily dressed,
+I feel some hesitation, at first, in entering into conversation
+with him: and when, on taking up a book, I am struck at once by the
+negligence of its style, I put it away.
+
+Good writing should be governed by the rule that a man can think only
+one thing clearly at a time; and, therefore, that he should not be
+expected to think two or even more things in one and the same moment.
+But this is what is done when a writer breaks up his principal
+sentence into little pieces, for the purpose of pushing into the gaps
+thus made two or three other thoughts by way of parenthesis; thereby
+unnecessarily and wantonly confusing the reader. And here it is again
+my own countrymen who are chiefly in fault. That German lends itself
+to this way of writing, makes the thing possible, but does not justify
+it. No prose reads more easily or pleasantly than French, because, as
+a rule, it is free from the error in question. The Frenchman strings
+his thoughts together, as far as he can, in the most logical and
+natural order, and so lays them before his reader one after the other
+for convenient deliberation, so that every one of them may receive
+undivided attention. The German, on the other hand, weaves them
+together into a sentence which he twists and crosses, and crosses and
+twists again; because he wants to say six things all at once, instead
+of advancing them one by one. His aim should be to attract and hold
+the reader's attention; but, above and beyond neglect of this aim, he
+demands from the reader that he shall set the above mentioned rule at
+defiance, and think three or four different thoughts at one and the
+same time; or since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall
+succeed each other as quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way
+an author lays the foundation of his _stile empesé_, which is then
+carried to perfection by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to
+communicate the simplest things, and other artifices of the same kind.
+
+In those long sentences rich in involved parenthesis, like a box of
+boxes one within another, and padded out like roast geese stuffed with
+apples, it is really the _memory_ that is chiefly taxed; while it is
+the understanding and the judgment which should be called into play,
+instead of having their activity thereby actually hindered and
+weakened.[1] This kind of sentence furnishes the reader with mere
+half-phrases, which he is then called upon to collect carefully and
+store up in his memory, as though they were the pieces of a torn
+letter, afterwards to be completed and made sense of by the other
+halves to which they respectively belong. He is expected to go on
+reading for a little without exercising any thought, nay, exerting
+only his memory, in the hope that, when he comes to the end of the
+sentence, he may see its meaning and so receive something to think
+about; and he is thus given a great deal to learn by heart before
+obtaining anything to understand. This is manifestly wrong and an
+abuse of the reader's patience.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--This sentence in the original is
+obviously meant to illustrate the fault of which it speaks. It does
+so by the use of a construction very common in German, but happily
+unknown in English; where, however, the fault itself exists none the
+less, though in different form.]
+
+The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this
+style, because it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in
+understanding that which he would have understood in a moment without
+it; and this makes it look as though the writer had more depth and
+intelligence than the reader. This is, indeed, one of those artifices
+referred to above, by means of which mediocre authors unconsciously,
+and as it were by instinct, strive to conceal their poverty of thought
+and give an appearance of the opposite. Their ingenuity in this
+respect is really astounding.
+
+It is manifestly against all sound reason to put one thought obliquely
+on top of another, as though both together formed a wooden cross. But
+this is what is done where a writer interrupts what he has begun
+to say, for the purpose of inserting some quite alien matter; thus
+depositing with the reader a meaningless half-sentence, and bidding
+him keep it until the completion comes. It is much as though a man
+were to treat his guests by handing them an empty plate, in the hope
+of something appearing upon it. And commas used for a similar purpose
+belong to the same family as notes at the foot of the page and
+parenthesis in the middle of the text; nay, all three differ only in
+degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero occasionally inserted words by ways
+of parenthesis, they would have done better to have refrained.
+
+But this style of writing becomes the height of absurdity when the
+parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but
+wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an
+impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it
+is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless,
+and hasty authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their
+eyes, use this style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in
+it. It consists in--it is advisable to give rule and example together,
+wherever it is possible--breaking up one phrase in order to glue in
+another. Nor is it merely out of laziness that they write thus. They
+do it out of stupidity; they think there is a charming _légèreté_
+about it; that it gives life to what they say. No doubt there are a
+few rare cases where such a form of sentence may be pardonable.
+
+Few write in the way in which an architect builds; who, before he
+sets to work, sketches out his plan, and thinks it over down to its
+smallest details. Nay, most people write only as though they were
+playing dominoes; and, as in this game, the pieces are arranged half
+by design, half by chance, so it is with the sequence and connection
+of their sentences. They only have an idea of what the general shape
+of their work will be, and of the aim they set before themselves.
+Many are ignorant even of this, and write as the coral-insects build;
+period joins to period, and the Lord only knows what the author means.
+
+Life now-a-days goes at a gallop; and the way in which this affects
+literature is to make it extremely superficial and slovenly.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE STUDY OF LATIN.
+
+
+The abolition of Latin as the universal language of learned men,
+together with the rise of that provincialism which attaches to
+national literatures, has been a real misfortune for the cause of
+knowledge in Europe. For it was chiefly through the medium of the
+Latin language that a learned public existed in Europe at all--a
+public to which every book as it came out directly appealed. The
+number of minds in the whole of Europe that are capable of thinking
+and judging is small, as it is; but when the audience is broken up and
+severed by differences of language, the good these minds can do is
+very much weakened. This is a great disadvantage; but a second and
+worse one will follow, namely, that the ancient languages will cease
+to be taught at all. The neglect of them is rapidly gaining ground
+both in France and Germany.
+
+If it should really come to this, then farewell, humanity! farewell,
+noble taste and high thinking! The age of barbarism will return, in
+spite of railways, telegraphs and balloons. We shall thus in the end
+lose one more advantage possessed by all our ancestors. For Latin is
+not only a key to the knowledge of Roman antiquity; its also directly
+opens up to us the Middle Age in every country in Europe, and modern
+times as well, down to about the year 1750. Erigena, for example, in
+the ninth century, John of Salisbury in the twelfth, Raimond Lully in
+the thirteenth, with a hundred others, speak straight to us in the
+very language that they naturally adopted in thinking of learned
+matters.
+
+They thus come quite close to us even at this distance of time: we are
+in direct contact with them, and really come to know them. How would
+it have been if every one of them spoke in the language that was
+peculiar to his time and country? We should not understand even the
+half of what they said. A real intellectual contact with them would be
+impossible. We should see them like shadows on the farthest horizon,
+or, may be, through the translator's telescope.
+
+It was with an eye to the advantage of writing in Latin that Bacon, as
+he himself expressly states, proceeded to translate his _Essays_ into
+that language, under the title _Sermones fideles_; at which work
+Hobbes assisted him.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cf. Thomae Hobbes vita: _Carolopoli apud Eleutherium
+Anglicum_, 1681, p. 22.]
+
+Here let me observe, by way of parenthesis, that when patriotism tries
+to urge its claims in the domain of knowledge, it commits an offence
+which should not be tolerated. For in those purely human questions
+which interest all men alike, where truth, insight, beauty, should be
+of sole account, what can be more impertinent than to let preference
+for the nation to which a man's precious self happens to belong,
+affect the balance of judgment, and thus supply a reason for doing
+violence to truth and being unjust to the great minds of a foreign
+country in order to make much of the smaller minds of one's own!
+Still, there are writers in every nation in Europe, who afford
+examples of this vulgar feeling. It is this which led Yriarte to
+caricature them in the thirty-third of his charming _Literary
+Fables_.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--Tomas de Yriarte (1750-91), a
+Spanish poet, and keeper of archives in the War Office at Madrid. His
+two best known works are a didactic poem, entitled _La Musica_, and
+the _Fables_ here quoted, which satirize the peculiar foibles of
+literary men. They have been translated into many languages; into
+English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question
+describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to
+which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The
+praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in
+turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary.
+Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one
+could discover the reason for this mutual compliment. Was it because
+both were such uncouth beasts, or had such long necks, or were neither
+of them particularly clever or beautiful? or was it because each had a
+hump? _No_! said the fox, _you are all wrong. Don't you see they are
+both foreigners_? Cannot the same be said of many men of learning?]
+
+In learning a language, the chief difficulty consists in making
+acquaintance with every idea which it expresses, even though it should
+use words for which there is no exact equivalent in the mother tongue;
+and this often happens. In learning a new language a man has, as it
+were, to mark out in his mind the boundaries of quite new spheres of
+ideas, with the result that spheres of ideas arise where none were
+before. Thus he not only learns words, he gains ideas too.
+
+This is nowhere so much the case as in learning ancient languages, for
+the differences they present in their mode of expression as compared
+with modern languages is greater than can be found amongst modern
+languages as compared with one another. This is shown by the fact that
+in translating into Latin, recourse must be had to quite other turns
+of phrase than are used in the original. The thought that is to be
+translated has to be melted down and recast; in other words, it must
+be analyzed and then recomposed. It is just this process which makes
+the study of the ancient languages contribute so much to the education
+of the mind.
+
+It follows from this that a man's thought varies according to the
+language in which he speaks. His ideas undergo a fresh modification,
+a different shading, as it were, in the study of every new language.
+Hence an acquaintance with many languages is not only of much indirect
+advantage, but it is also a direct means of mental culture, in that it
+corrects and matures ideas by giving prominence to their many-sided
+nature and their different varieties of meaning, as also that it
+increases dexterity of thought; for in the process of learning many
+languages, ideas become more and more independent of words. The
+ancient languages effect this to a greater degree than the modern, in
+virtue of the difference to which I have alluded.
+
+From what I have said, it is obvious that to imitate the style of the
+ancients in their own language, which is so very much superior to ours
+in point of grammatical perfection, is the best way of preparing for a
+skillful and finished expression of thought in the mother-tongue. Nay,
+if a man wants to be a great writer, he must not omit to do this: just
+as, in the case of sculpture or painting, the student must educate
+himself by copying the great masterpieces of the past, before
+proceeding to original work. It is only by learning to write Latin
+that a man comes to treat diction as an art. The material in this art
+is language, which must therefore be handled with the greatest care
+and delicacy.
+
+The result of such study is that a writer will pay keen attention to
+the meaning and value of words, their order and connection, their
+grammatical forms. He will learn how to weigh them with precision, and
+so become an expert in the use of that precious instrument which is
+meant not only to express valuable thought, but to preserve it as
+well. Further, he will learn to feel respect for the language in
+which he writes and thus be saved from any attempt to remodel it by
+arbitrary and capricious treatment. Without this schooling, a man's
+writing may easily degenerate into mere chatter.
+
+To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine
+country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can
+be seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond,
+everything is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view,
+embracing modern times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental
+horizon is still further enlarged if he studies Greek or even
+Sanscrit.
+
+If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be
+a great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of
+hydrofluoric acid in his crucible.
+
+There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the
+ancient classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only
+for half an hour, and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved,
+purified, ennobled, strengthened; just as though you had quenched your
+thirst at some pure spring. Is this the effect of the old language
+and its perfect expression, or is it the greatness of the minds whose
+works remain unharmed and unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years?
+Perhaps both together. But this I know. If the threatened calamity
+should ever come, and the ancient languages cease to be taught, a new
+literature will arise, of such barbarous, shallow and worthless stuff
+as never was seen before.
+
+
+
+
+ON MEN OF LEARNING.
+
+
+When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist
+for the purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and
+masters, one might fancy the human race to be very much concerned
+about truth and wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The
+masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom,
+but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not
+for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and
+give themselves airs. Every thirty years a new race comes into the
+world--a youngster that knows nothing about anything, and after
+summarily devouring in all haste the results of human knowledge as
+they have been accumulated for thousands of years, aspires to be
+thought cleverer than the whole of the past. For this purpose he goes
+to the University, and takes to reading books--new books, as being of
+his own age and standing. Everything he reads must be briefly put,
+must be new! he is new himself. Then he falls to and criticises. And
+here I am not taking the slightest account of studies pursued for the
+sole object of making a living.
+
+Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as
+a rule at acquiring _information_ rather than insight. They pique
+themselves upon knowing about everything--stones, plants, battles,
+experiments, and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them
+that information is only a means of insight, and in itself of little
+or no value; that it is his way of _thinking_ that makes a man a
+philosopher. When I hear of these portents of learning and their
+imposing erudition, I sometimes say to myself: Ah, how little they
+must have had to think about, to have been able to read so much!
+And when I actually find it reported of the elder Pliny that he was
+continually reading or being read to, at table, on a journey, or in
+his bath, the question forces itself upon my mind, whether the man
+was so very lacking in thought of his own that he had to have
+alien thought incessantly instilled into him; as though he were a
+consumptive patient taking jellies to keep himself alive. And neither
+his undiscerning credulity nor his inexpressibly repulsive and barely
+intelligible style--which seems like of a man taking notes, and very
+economical of paper--is of a kind to give me a high opinion of his
+power of independent thought.
+
+We have seen that much reading and learning is prejudicial to thinking
+for oneself; and, in the same way, through much writing and teaching,
+a man loses the habit of being quite clear, and therefore thorough, in
+regard to the things he knows and understands; simply because he has
+left himself no time to acquire clearness or thoroughness. And so,
+when clear knowledge fails him in his utterances, he is forced to fill
+out the gaps with words and phrases. It is this, and not the dryness
+of the subject-matter, that makes most books such tedious reading.
+There is a saying that a good cook can make a palatable dish even
+out of an old shoe; and a good writer can make the dryest things
+interesting.
+
+With by far the largest number of learned men, knowledge is a means,
+not an end. That is why they will never achieve any great work;
+because, to do that, he who pursues knowledge must pursue it as an
+end, and treat everything else, even existence itself, as only a
+means. For everything which a man fails to pursue for its own sake is
+but half-pursued; and true excellence, no matter in what sphere, can
+be attained only where the work has been produced for its own sake
+alone, and not as a means to further ends.
+
+And so, too, no one will ever succeed in doing anything really great
+and original in the way of thought, who does not seek to acquire
+knowledge for himself, and, making this the immediate object of his
+studies, decline to trouble himself about the knowledge of others. But
+the average man of learning studies for the purpose of being able to
+teach and write. His head is like a stomach and intestines which let
+the food pass through them undigested. That is just why his teaching
+and writing is of so little use. For it is not upon undigested refuse
+that people can be nourished, but solely upon the milk which secretes
+from the very blood itself.
+
+The wig is the appropriate symbol of the man of learning, pure and
+simple. It adorns the head with a copious quantity of false hair, in
+lack of one's own: just as erudition means endowing it with a great
+mass of alien thought. This, to be sure, does not clothe the head so
+well and naturally, nor is it so generally useful, nor so suited for
+all purposes, nor so firmly rooted; nor when alien thought is used up,
+can it be immediately replaced by more from the same source, as is
+the case with that which springs from soil of one's own. So we find
+Sterne, in his _Tristram Shandy_, boldly asserting that _an ounce of a
+man's own wit is worth a ton of other people's_.
+
+And in fact the most profound erudition is no more akin to genius than
+a collection of dried plants in like Nature, with its constant flow
+of new life, ever fresh, ever young, ever changing. There are no two
+things more opposed than the childish naïveté of an ancient author and
+the learning of his commentator.
+
+_Dilettanti, dilettanti!_ This is the slighting way in which those who
+pursue any branch of art or learning for the love and enjoyment of the
+thing,--_per il loro diletto_, are spoken of by those who have taken
+it up for the sake of gain, attracted solely by the prospect of money.
+This contempt of theirs comes from the base belief that no man will
+seriously devote himself to a subject, unless he is spurred on to it
+by want, hunger, or else some form of greed. The public is of the same
+way of thinking; and hence its general respect for professionals and
+its distrust of _dilettanti_. But the truth is that the _dilettante_
+treats his subject as an end, whereas the professional, pure and
+simple, treats it merely as a means. He alone will be really in
+earnest about a matter, who has a direct interest therein, takes to it
+because he likes it, and pursues it _con amore_. It is these, and not
+hirelings, that have always done the greatest work.
+
+In the republic of letters it is as in other republics; favor is shown
+to the plain man--he who goes his way in silence and does not set up
+to be cleverer than others. But the abnormal man is looked upon as
+threatening danger; people band together against him, and have, oh!
+such a majority on their side.
+
+The condition of this republic is much like that of a small State in
+America, where every man is intent only upon his own advantage, and
+seeks reputation and power for himself, quite heedless of the general
+weal, which then goes to ruin. So it is in the republic of letters;
+it is himself, and himself alone, that a man puts forward, because he
+wants to gain fame. The only thing in which all agree is in trying to
+keep down a really eminent man, if he should chance to show himself,
+as one who would be a common peril. From this it is easy to see how it
+fares with knowledge as a whole.
+
+Between professors and independent men of learning there has always
+been from of old a certain antagonism, which may perhaps be likened
+to that existing been dogs and wolves. In virtue of their position,
+professors enjoy great facilities for becoming known to their
+contemporaries. Contrarily, independent men of learning enjoy, by
+their position, great facilities for becoming known to posterity; to
+which it is necessary that, amongst other and much rarer gifts, a man
+should have a certain leisure and freedom. As mankind takes a long
+time in finding out on whom to bestow its attention, they may both
+work together side by side.
+
+He who holds a professorship may be said to receive his food in the
+stall; and this is the best way with ruminant animals. But he who
+finds his food for himself at the hands of Nature is better off in the
+open field.
+
+Of human knowledge as a whole and in every branch of it, by far the
+largest part exists nowhere but on paper,--I mean, in books, that
+paper memory of mankind. Only a small part of it is at any given
+period really active in the minds of particular persons. This is due,
+in the main, to the brevity and uncertainty of life; but it also comes
+from the fact that men are lazy and bent on pleasure. Every generation
+attains, on its hasty passage through existence, just so much of human
+knowledge as it needs, and then soon disappears. Most men of learning
+are very superficial. Then follows a new generation, full of hope, but
+ignorant, and with everything to learn from the beginning. It seizes,
+in its turn, just so much as it can grasp or find useful on its brief
+journey and then too goes its way. How badly it would fare with human
+knowledge if it were not for the art of writing and printing! This it
+is that makes libraries the only sure and lasting memory of the human
+race, for its individual members have all of them but a very limited
+and imperfect one. Hence most men of learning as are loth to have
+their knowledge examined as merchants to lay bare their books.
+
+Human knowledge extends on all sides farther than the eye can reach;
+and of that which would be generally worth knowing, no one man can
+possess even the thousandth part.
+
+All branches of learning have thus been so much enlarged that he
+who would "do something" has to pursue no more than one subject and
+disregard all others. In his own subject he will then, it is true, be
+superior to the vulgar; but in all else he will belong to it. If we
+add to this that neglect of the ancient languages, which is now-a-days
+on the increase and is doing away with all general education in the
+humanities--for a mere smattering of Latin and Greek is of no use--we
+shall come to have men of learning who outside their own subject
+display an ignorance truly bovine.
+
+An exclusive specialist of this kind stands on a par with a workman in
+a factory, whose whole life is spent in making one particular kind of
+screw, or catch, or handle, for some particular instrument or machine,
+in which, indeed, he attains incredible dexterity. The specialist may
+also be likened to a man who lives in his own house and never leaves
+it. There he is perfectly familiar with everything, every little step,
+corner, or board; much as Quasimodo in Victor Hugo's _Nôtre Dame_
+knows the cathedral; but outside it, all is strange and unknown.
+
+For true culture in the humanities it is absolutely necessary that
+a man should be many-sided and take large views; and for a man of
+learning in the higher sense of the word, an extensive acquaintance
+with history is needful. He, however, who wishes to be a complete
+philosopher, must gather into his head the remotest ends of human
+knowledge: for where else could they ever come together?
+
+It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be
+specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence
+their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of
+them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation. For he alone
+can deserve the name of genius who takes the All, the Essential, the
+Universal, for the theme of his achievements; not he who spends his
+life in explaining some special relation of things one to another.
+
+
+
+
+ON THINKING FOR ONESELF.
+
+
+A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so
+useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man
+may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up
+by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far
+smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered. For it is only when a
+man looks at his knowledge from all sides, and combines the things he
+knows by comparing truth with truth, that he obtains a complete hold
+over it and gets it into his power. A man cannot turn over anything in
+his mind unless he knows it; he should, therefore, learn something;
+but it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know
+it.
+
+Reading and learning are things that anyone can do of his own free
+will; but not so _thinking_. Thinking must be kindled, like a fire
+by a draught; it must be sustained by some interest in the matter
+in hand. This interest may be of purely objective kind, or merely
+subjective. The latter comes into play only in things that concern
+us personally. Objective interest is confined to heads that think by
+nature; to whom thinking is as natural as breathing; and they are very
+rare. This is why most men of learning show so little of it.
+
+It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind
+by thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and
+intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which
+leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that
+reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind--thoughts which are as
+foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as
+the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is
+thus entirely under compulsion from without; it is driven to think
+this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest
+impulse or inclination to do so.
+
+But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his
+own mind, which is determined for him at the time, either by his
+environment or some particular recollection. The visible world of
+a man's surroundings does not, as reading does, impress a _single_
+definite thought upon his mind, but merely gives the matter and
+occasion which lead him to think what is appropriate to his nature and
+present temper. So it is, that much reading deprives the mind of all
+elasticity; it is like keeping a spring continually under pressure.
+The safest way of having no thoughts of one's own is to take up a book
+every moment one has nothing else to do. It is this practice which
+explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and silly than they
+are by nature, and prevents their writings obtaining any measure of
+success. They remain, in Pope's words:
+
+  _For ever reading, never to be read!_[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dunciad_, iii, 194.]
+
+Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of
+a book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight
+to the book of Nature; it is they who have enlightened the world and
+carried humanity further on its way. If a man's thoughts are to have
+truth and life in them, they must, after all, be his own fundamental
+thoughts; for these are the only ones that he can fully and wholly
+understand. To read another's thoughts is like taking the leavings of
+a meal to which we have not been invited, or putting on the clothes
+which some unknown visitor has laid aside. The thought we read
+is related to the thought which springs up in ourselves, as the
+fossil-impress of some prehistoric plant to a plant as it buds forth
+in spring-time.
+
+Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own. It
+means putting the mind into leading-strings. The multitude of books
+serves only to show how many false paths there are, and how widely
+astray a man may wander if he follows any of them. But he who
+is guided by his genius, he who thinks for himself, who thinks
+spontaneously and exactly, possesses the only compass by which he can
+steer aright. A man should read only when his own thoughts stagnate
+at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of
+minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring
+away one's own original thoughts is sin against the Holy Spirit. It is
+like running away from Nature to look at a museum of dried plants or
+gaze at a landscape in copperplate.
+
+A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after
+spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for
+himself and adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen
+that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared
+himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable
+if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only
+when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral
+part, a living member, into the whole system of our thought; that it
+stands in complete and firm relation with what we know; that it is
+understood with all that underlies it and follows from it; that it
+wears the color, the precise shade, the distinguishing mark, of our
+own way of thinking; that it comes exactly at the right time, just
+as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast and cannot be
+forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation,
+of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves so that we
+may really possess it:
+
+  _Was due ererbt von deinen Välern hast,
+  Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen._[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Faust_, I. 329.]
+
+The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the
+authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen
+his belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts
+from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their
+opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an
+automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who
+thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by Nature.
+For the work comes into being as a man does; the thinking mind is
+impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child.
+
+Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false
+tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh;
+it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by
+thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs
+to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the
+mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks
+for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are
+correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is
+true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the
+mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of
+colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of
+harmony, connection and meaning.
+
+Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own. To
+think with one's own head is always to aim at developing a coherent
+whole--a system, even though it be not a strictly complete one; and
+nothing hinders this so much as too strong a current of others'
+thoughts, such as comes of continual reading. These thoughts,
+springing every one of them from different minds, belonging to
+different systems, and tinged with different colors, never of
+themselves flow together into an intellectual whole; they never form a
+unity of knowledge, or insight, or conviction; but, rather, fill
+the head with a Babylonian confusion of tongues. The mind that is
+over-loaded with alien thought is thus deprived of all clear insight,
+and is well-nigh disorganized. This is a state of things observable
+in many men of learning; and it makes them inferior in sound sense,
+correct judgment and practical tact, to many illiterate persons,
+who, after obtaining a little knowledge from without, by means of
+experience, intercourse with others, and a small amount of reading,
+have always subordinated it to, and embodied it with, their own
+thought.
+
+The really scientific _thinker_ does the same thing as these
+illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need
+of much knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is
+nevertheless strong enough to master it all, to assimilate and
+incorporate it with the system of his thoughts, and so to make it
+fit in with the organic unity of his insight, which, though vast, is
+always growing. And in the process, his own thought, like the bass in
+an organ, always dominates everything and is never drowned by other
+tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore;
+where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle confusedly,
+and no fundamental note is heard at all.
+
+Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom
+from books, are like people who have obtained precise information
+about a country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such
+people can tell a great deal about it; but, after all, they have no
+connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But
+those who have spent their lives in thinking, resemble the travellers
+themselves; they alone really know what they are talking about; they
+are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home
+in the subject.
+
+The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary
+book-philosopher as an eye-witness does to the historian; he speaks
+from direct knowledge of his own. That is why all those who think
+for themselves come, at bottom, to much the same conclusion. The
+differences they present are due to their different points of view;
+and when these do not affect the matter, they all speak alike. They
+merely express the result of their own objective perception of things.
+There are many passages in my works which I have given to the public
+only after some hesitation, because of their paradoxical nature; and
+afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise in finding the same
+opinion recorded in the works of great men who lived long ago.
+
+The book-philosopher merely reports what one person has said and
+another meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He
+compares different opinions, ponders, criticises, and tries to get at
+the truth of the matter; herein on a par with the critical historian.
+For instance, he will set out to inquire whether Leibnitz was not for
+some time a follower of Spinoza, and questions of a like nature. The
+curious student of such matters may find conspicuous examples of what
+I mean in Herbart's _Analytical Elucidation of Morality and Natural
+Right_, and in the same author's _Letters on Freedom_. Surprise may
+be felt that a man of the kind should put himself to so much trouble;
+for, on the face of it, if he would only examine the matter for
+himself, he would speedily attain his object by the exercise of a
+little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way. It does
+not depend upon his own will. A man can always sit down and read, but
+not--think. It is with thoughts as with men; they cannot always be
+summoned at pleasure; we must wait for them to come. Thought about a
+subject must appear of itself, by a happy and harmonious combination
+of external stimulus with mental temper and attention; and it is just
+that which never seems to come to these people.
+
+This truth may be illustrated by what happens in the case of matters
+affecting our own personal interest. When it is necessary to come to
+some resolution in a matter of that kind, we cannot well sit down at
+any given moment and think over the merits of the case and make up our
+mind; for, if we try to do so, we often find ourselves unable, at that
+particular moment, to keep our mind fixed upon the subject; it wanders
+off to other things. Aversion to the matter in question is sometimes
+to blame for this. In such a case we should not use force, but wait
+for the proper frame of mind to come of itself. It often comes
+unexpectedly and returns again and again; and the variety of temper in
+which we approach it at different moments puts the matter always in a
+fresh light. It is this long process which is understood by the term
+_a ripe resolution._ For the work of coming to a resolution must be
+distributed; and in the process much that is overlooked at one moment
+occurs to us at another; and the repugnance vanishes when we find, as
+we usually do, on a closer inspection, that things are not so bad as
+they seemed.
+
+This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters
+of practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the
+greatest mind is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a
+great mind does well to spend its leisure in reading, which, as I have
+said, is a substitute for thought; it brings stuff to the mind by
+letting another person do the thinking; although that is always done
+in a manner not our own. Therefore, a man should not read too much, in
+order that his mind may not become accustomed to the substitute and
+thereby forget the reality; that it may not form the habit of walking
+in well-worn paths; nor by following an alien course of thought grow a
+stranger to its own. Least of all should a man quite withdraw his gaze
+from the real world for the mere sake of reading; as the impulse and
+the temper which prompt to thought of one's own come far oftener from
+the world of reality than from the world of books. The real life that
+a man sees before him is the natural subject of thought; and in its
+strength as the primary element of existence, it can more easily than
+anything else rouse and influence the thinking mind.
+
+After these considerations, it will not be matter for surprise that
+a man who thinks for himself can easily be distinguished from the
+book-philosopher by the very way in which he talks, by his marked
+earnestness, and the originality, directness, and personal conviction
+that stamp all his thoughts and expressions. The book-philosopher, on
+the other hand, lets it be seen that everything he has is second-hand;
+that his ideas are like the number and trash of an old furniture-shop,
+collected together from all quarters. Mentally, he is dull and
+pointless--a copy of a copy. His literary style is made up of
+conventional, nay, vulgar phrases, and terms that happen to be
+current; in this respect much like a small State where all the money
+that circulates is foreign, because it has no coinage of its own.
+
+Mere experience can as little as reading supply the place of thought.
+It stands to thinking in the same relation in which eating stands
+to digestion and assimilation. When experience boasts that to its
+discoveries alone is due the advancement of the human race, it is as
+though the mouth were to claim the whole credit of maintaining the
+body in health.
+
+The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished by a character
+of _decision_ and _definiteness_, which means they are clear and free
+from obscurity. A truly capable mind always knows definitely and
+clearly what it is that it wants to express, whether its medium is
+prose, verse, or music. Other minds are not decisive and not definite;
+and by this they may be known for what they are.
+
+The characteristic sign of a mind of the highest order is that it
+always judges at first hand. Everything it advances is the result of
+thinking for itself; and this is everywhere evident by the way in
+which it gives its thoughts utterance. Such a mind is like a Prince.
+In the realm of intellect its authority is imperial, whereas the
+authority of minds of a lower order is delegated only; as may be seen
+in their style, which has no independent stamp of its own.
+
+Every one who really thinks for himself is so far like a monarch.
+His position is undelegated and supreme. His judgments, like royal
+decrees, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from
+himself. He acknowledges authority as little as a monarch admits a
+command; he subscribes to nothing but what he has himself authorized.
+The multitude of common minds, laboring under all sorts of current
+opinions, authorities, prejudices, is like the people, which silently
+obeys the law and accepts orders from above.
+
+Those who are so zealous and eager to settle debated questions by
+citing authorities, are really glad when they are able to put the
+understanding and the insight of others into the field in place of
+their own, which are wanting. Their number is legion. For, as
+Seneca says, there is no man but prefers belief to the exercise
+of judgment--_unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare_. In their
+controversies such people make a promiscuous use of the weapon of
+authority, and strike out at one another with it. If any one chances
+to become involved in such a contest, he will do well not to try
+reason and argument as a mode of defence; for against a weapon of that
+kind these people are like Siegfrieds, with a skin of horn, and dipped
+in the flood of incapacity for thinking and judging. They will meet
+his attack by bringing up their authorities as a way of abashing
+him--_argumentum ad verecundiam_, and then cry out that they have won
+the battle.
+
+In the real world, be it never so fair, favorable and pleasant,
+we always live subject to the law of gravity which we have to
+be constantly overcoming. But in the world of intellect we are
+disembodied spirits, held in bondage to no such law, and free from
+penury and distress. Thus it is that there exists no happiness on
+earth like that which, at the auspicious moment, a fine and fruitful
+mind finds in itself.
+
+The presence of a thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We
+fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the
+dear one. But out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the
+risk of being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and
+the darling of being deserted if we do not marry her.
+
+There are plenty of thoughts which are valuable to the man who thinks
+them; but only few of them which have enough strength to produce
+repercussive or reflect action--I mean, to win the reader's sympathy
+after they have been put on paper.
+
+But still it must not be forgotten that a true value attaches only
+to what a man has thought in the first instance _for his own case_.
+Thinkers may be classed according as they think chiefly for their own
+case or for that of others. The former are the genuine independent
+thinkers; they really think and are really independent; they are the
+true _philosophers_; they alone are in earnest. The pleasure and the
+happiness of their existence consists in thinking. The others are the
+_sophists_; they want to seem that which they are not, and seek their
+happiness in what they hope to get from the world. They are in earnest
+about nothing else. To which of these two classes a man belongs may be
+seen by his whole style and manner. Lichtenberg is an example for the
+former class; Herder, there can be no doubt, belongs to the second.
+
+When one considers how vast and how close to us is _the problem of
+existence_--this equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like existence
+of ours--so vast and so close that a man no sooner discovers it than
+it overshadows and obscures all other problems and aims; and when
+one sees how all men, with few and rare exceptions, have no clear
+consciousness of the problem, nay, seem to be quite unaware of its
+presence, but busy themselves with everything rather than with this,
+and live on, taking no thought but for the passing day and the hardly
+longer span of their own personal future, either expressly discarding
+the problem or else over-ready to come to terms with it by adopting
+some system of popular metaphysics and letting it satisfy them; when,
+I say, one takes all this to heart, one may come to the opinion that
+man may be said to be _a thinking being_ only in a very remote
+sense, and henceforth feel no special surprise at any trait of human
+thoughtlessness or folly; but know, rather, that the normal man's
+intellectual range of vision does indeed extend beyond that of the
+brute, whose whole existence is, as it were, a continual present,
+with no consciousness of the past or the future, but not such an
+immeasurable distance as is generally supposed.
+
+This is, in fact, corroborated by the way in which most men converse;
+where their thoughts are found to be chopped up fine, like chaff, so
+that for them to spin out a discourse of any length is impossible.
+
+If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, it could not be
+that noise of every kind would be allowed such generous limits, as is
+the case with the most horrible and at the same time aimless form of
+it.[1] If Nature had meant man to think, she would not have given him
+ears; or, at any rate, she would have furnished them with airtight
+flaps, such as are the enviable possession of the bat. But, in truth,
+man is a poor animal like the rest, and his powers are meant only to
+maintain him in the struggle for existence; so he must need keep his
+ears always open, to announce of themselves, by night as by day, the
+approach of the pursuer.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer refers to the cracking
+of whips. See the Essay _On Noise_ in _Studies in Pessimism_.]
+
+In the drama, which is the most perfect reflection of human existence,
+there are three stages in the presentation of the subject, with a
+corresponding variety in the design and scope of the piece.
+
+At the first, which is also the most common, stage, the drama is
+never anything more than merely _interesting_. The persons gain our
+attention by following their own aims, which resemble ours; the action
+advances by means of intrigue and the play of character and incident;
+while wit and raillery season the whole.
+
+At the second stage, the drama becomes _sentimental_. Sympathy is
+roused with the hero and, indirectly, with ourselves. The action takes
+a pathetic turn; but the end is peaceful and satisfactory.
+
+The climax is reached with the third stage, which is the most
+difficult. There the drama aims at being _tragic_. We are brought face
+to face with great suffering and the storm and stress of existence;
+and the outcome of it is to show the vanity of all human effort.
+Deeply moved, we are either directly prompted to disengage our will
+from the struggle of life, or else a chord is struck in us which
+echoes a similar feeling.
+
+The beginning, it is said, is always difficult. In the drama it is
+just the contrary; for these the difficulty always lies in the end.
+This is proved by countless plays which promise very well for
+the first act or two, and then become muddled, stick or
+falter--notoriously so in the fourth act--and finally conclude in a
+way that is either forced or unsatisfactory or else long foreseen by
+every one. Sometimes, too, the end is positively revolting, as in
+Lessing's _Emilia Galotti_, which sends the spectators home in a
+temper.
+
+This difficulty in regard to the end of a play arises partly because
+it is everywhere easier to get things into a tangle than to get them
+out again; partly also because at the beginning we give the author
+_carte blanche_ to do as he likes, but, at the end, make certain
+definite demands upon him. Thus we ask for a conclusion that shall be
+either quite happy or else quite tragic; whereas human affairs do not
+easily take so decided a turn; and then we expect that it shall be
+natural, fit and proper, unlabored, and at the same time foreseen by
+no one.
+
+These remarks are also applicable to an epic and to a novel; but the
+more compact nature of the drama makes the difficulty plainer by
+increasing it.
+
+_E nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing can come from nothing is a maxim
+true in fine art as elsewhere. In composing an historical picture, a
+good artist will use living men as a model, and take the groundwork
+of the faces from life; and then proceed to idealize them in point of
+beauty or expression. A similar method, I fancy, is adopted by good
+novelists. In drawing a character they take a general outline of it
+from some real person of their acquaintance, and then idealize and
+complete it to suit their purpose.
+
+A novel will be of a high and noble order, the more it represents
+of inner, and the less it represents of outer, life; and the ratio
+between the two will supply a means of judging any novel, of whatever
+kind, from _Tristram Shandy_ down to the crudest and most sensational
+tale of knight or robber. _Tristram Shandy_ has, indeed, as good as
+no action at all; and there is not much in _La Nouvelle Heloïse_ and
+_Wilhelm Meister_. Even _Don Quixote_ has relatively little; and what
+there is, very unimportant, and introduced merely for the sake of fun.
+And these four are the best of all existing novels.
+
+Consider, further, the wonderful romances of Jean Paul, and how much
+inner life is shown on the narrowest basis of actual event. Even in
+Walter Scott's novels there is a great preponderance of inner over
+outer life, and incident is never brought in except for the purpose of
+giving play to thought and emotion; whereas, in bad novels, incident
+is there on its own account. Skill consists in setting the inner life
+in motion with the smallest possible array of circumstance; for it is
+this inner life that really excites our interest.
+
+The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to
+make small ones interesting.
+
+History, which I like to think of as the contrary of poetry [Greek:
+istoroumenon--pepoiaemenon], is for time what geography is for space;
+and it is no more to be called a science, in any strict sense of the
+word, than is geography, because it does not deal with universal
+truths, but only with particular details. History has always been the
+favorite study of those who wish to learn something, without having to
+face the effort demanded by any branch of real knowledge, which taxes
+the intelligence. In our time history is a favorite pursuit; as
+witness the numerous books upon the subject which appear every year.
+
+If the reader cannot help thinking, with me, that history is merely
+the constant recurrence of similar things, just as in a kaleidoscope
+the same bits of glass are represented, but in different combinations,
+he will not be able to share all this lively interest; nor, however,
+will he censure it. But there is a ridiculous and absurd claim, made
+by many people, to regard history as a part of philosophy, nay, as
+philosophy itself; they imagine that history can take its place.
+
+The preference shown for history by the greater public in all ages may
+be illustrated by the kind of conversation which is so much in vogue
+everywhere in society. It generally consists in one person relating
+something and then another person relating something else; so that in
+this way everyone is sure of receiving attention. Both here and in the
+case of history it is plain that the mind is occupied with particular
+details. But as in science, so also in every worthy conversation, the
+mind rises to the consideration of some general truth.
+
+This objection does not, however, deprive history of its value. Human
+life is short and fleeting, and many millions of individuals share in
+it, who are swallowed by that monster of oblivion which is waiting for
+them with ever-open jaws. It is thus a very thankworthy task to try to
+rescue something--the memory of interesting and important events, or
+the leading features and personages of some epoch--from the general
+shipwreck of the world.
+
+From another point of view, we might look upon history as the sequel
+to zoology; for while with all other animals it is enough to observe
+the species, with man individuals, and therefore individual events
+have to be studied; because every man possesses a character as an
+individual. And since individuals and events are without number or
+end, an essential imperfection attaches to history. In the study of
+it, all that a man learns never contributes to lessen that which he
+has still to learn. With any real science, a perfection of knowledge
+is, at any rate, conceivable.
+
+When we gain access to the histories of China and of India, the
+endlessness of the subject-matter will reveal to us the defects in the
+study, and force our historians to see that the object of science is
+to recognize the many in the one, to perceive the rules in any given
+example, and to apply to the life of nations a knowledge of mankind;
+not to go on counting up facts _ad infinitum_.
+
+There are two kinds of history; the history of politics and the
+history of literature and art. The one is the history of the will;
+the other, that of the intellect. The first is a tale of woe, even of
+terror: it is a record of agony, struggle, fraud, and horrible murder
+_en masse_. The second is everywhere pleasing and serene, like the
+intellect when left to itself, even though its path be one of error.
+Its chief branch is the history of philosophy. This is, in fact, its
+fundamental bass, and the notes of it are heard even in the other
+kind of history. These deep tones guide the formation of opinion, and
+opinion rules the world. Hence philosophy, rightly understood, is a
+material force of the most powerful kind, though very slow in its
+working. The philosophy of a period is thus the fundamental bass of
+its history.
+
+The NEWSPAPER, is the second-hand in the clock of history; and it is
+not only made of baser metal than those which point to the minute and
+the hour, but it seldom goes right.
+
+The so-called leading article is the chorus to the drama of passing
+events.
+
+Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to
+the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go
+as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very
+nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving
+interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs; if
+anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.
+
+Therefore, let us carefully regulate the attention to be paid to this
+trumpet of danger, so that it may not disturb our digestion. Let us
+recognize that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying-glass, and very
+often merely a shadow on the wall.
+
+The _pen_ is to thought what the stick is to walking; but you walk
+most easily when you have no stick, and you think with the greatest
+perfection when you have no pen in your hand. It is only when a man
+begins to be old that he likes to use a stick and is glad to take up
+his pen.
+
+When an _hypothesis_ has once come to birth in the mind, or gained a
+footing there, it leads a life so far comparable with the life of an
+organism, as that it assimilates matter from the outer world only when
+it is like in kind with it and beneficial; and when, contrarily, such
+matter is not like in kind but hurtful, the hypothesis, equally with
+the organism, throws it off, or, if forced to take it, gets rid of it
+again entire.
+
+To gain _immortality_ an author must possess so many excellences that
+while it will not be easy to find anyone to understand and appreciate
+them all, there will be men in every age who are able to recognize
+and value some of them. In this way the credit of his book will be
+maintained throughout the long course of centuries, in spite of the
+fact that human interests are always changing.
+
+An author like this, who has a claim to the continuance of his life
+even with posterity, can only be a man who, over the wide earth, will
+seek his like in vain, and offer a palpable contrast with everyone
+else in virtue of his unmistakable distinction. Nay, more: were he,
+like the wandering Jew, to live through several generations, he would
+still remain in the same superior position. If this were not so, it
+would be difficult to see why his thoughts should not perish like
+those of other men.
+
+_Metaphors_ and _similes_ are of great value, in so far as they
+explain an unknown relation by a known one. Even the more detailed
+simile which grows into a parable or an allegory, is nothing more than
+the exhibition of some relation in its simplest, most visible and
+palpable form. The growth of ideas rests, at bottom, upon similes;
+because ideas arise by a process of combining the similarities and
+neglecting the differences between things. Further, intelligence, in
+the strict sense of the word, ultimately consists in a seizing of
+relations; and a clear and pure grasp of relations is all the more
+often attained when the comparison is made between cases that lie wide
+apart from one another, and between things of quite different nature.
+As long as a relation is known to me as existing only in a single
+case, I have but an _individual_ idea of it--in other words, only an
+intuitive knowledge of it; but as soon as I see the same relation in
+two different cases, I have a _general_ idea of its whole nature, and
+this is a deeper and more perfect knowledge.
+
+Since, then, similes and metaphors are such a powerful engine of
+knowledge, it is a sign of great intelligence in a writer if his
+similes are unusual and, at the same time, to the point. Aristotle
+also observes that by far the most important thing to a writer is
+to have this power of metaphor; for it is a gift which cannot be
+acquired, and it is a mark of genius.
+
+As regards _reading_, to require that a man shall retain everything he
+has ever read, is like asking him to carry about with him all he has
+ever eaten. The one kind of food has given him bodily, and the other
+mental, nourishment; and it is through these two means that he has
+grown to be what he is. The body assimilates only that which is like
+it; and so a man retains in his mind only that which interests him, in
+other words, that which suits his system of thought or his purposes in
+life.
+
+If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding
+bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
+
+_Repetitio est mater studiorum_. Any book that is at all important
+ought to be at once read through twice; partly because, on a second
+reading, the connection of the different portions of the book will be
+better understood, and the beginning comprehended only when the end
+is known; and partly because we are not in the same temper and
+disposition on both readings. On the second perusal we get a new view
+of every passage and a different impression of the whole book, which
+then appears in another light.
+
+A man's works are the quintessence of his mind, and even though he may
+possess very great capacity, they will always be incomparably more
+valuable than his conversation. Nay, in all essential matters his
+works will not only make up for the lack of personal intercourse with
+him, but they will far surpass it in solid advantages. The writings
+even of a man of moderate genius may be edifying, worth reading and
+instructive, because they are his quintessence--the result and fruit
+of all his thought and study; whilst conversation with him may be
+unsatisfactory.
+
+So it is that we can read books by men in whose company we find
+nothing to please, and that a high degree of culture leads us to seek
+entertainment almost wholly from books and not from men.
+
+
+
+
+ON CRITICISM.
+
+
+The following brief remarks on the critical faculty are chiefly
+intended to show that, for the most part, there is no such thing.
+It is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the phoenix, which
+appears only once in five hundred years.
+
+When we speak of _taste_--an expression not chosen with any regard for
+it--we mean the discovery, or, it may be only the recognition, of what
+is _right aesthetically_, apart from the guidance of any rule; and
+this, either because no rule has as yet been extended to the matter in
+question, or else because, if existing, it is unknown to the artist,
+or the critic, as the case may be. Instead of _taste_, we might use
+the expression _aesthetic sense_, if this were not tautological.
+
+The perceptive critical taste is, so to speak, the female analogue
+to the male quality of productive talent or genius. Not capable
+of _begetting_ great work itself, it consists in a capacity of
+_reception_, that is to say, of recognizing as such what is right,
+fit, beautiful, or the reverse; in other words, of discriminating
+the good from the bad, of discovering and appreciating the one and
+condemning the other.
+
+In appreciating a genius, criticism should not deal with the errors in
+his productions or with the poorer of his works, and then proceed to
+rate him low; it should attend only to the qualities in which he most
+excels. For in the sphere of intellect, as in other spheres, weakness
+and perversity cleave so firmly to human nature that even the most
+brilliant mind is not wholly and at all times free from them. Hence
+the great errors to be found even in the works of the greatest men; or
+as Horace puts it, _quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus_.
+
+That which distinguishes genius, and should be the standard for
+judging it, is the height to which it is able to soar when it is in
+the proper mood and finds a fitting occasion--a height always out
+of the reach of ordinary talent. And, in like manner, it is a very
+dangerous thing to compare two great men of the same class; for
+instance, two great poets, or musicians, or philosophers, or artists;
+because injustice to the one or the other, at least for the moment,
+can hardly be avoided. For in making a comparison of the kind the
+critic looks to some particular merit of the one and at once discovers
+that it is absent in the other, who is thereby disparaged. And then
+if the process is reversed, and the critic begins with the latter and
+discovers his peculiar merit, which is quite of a different order from
+that presented by the former, with whom it may be looked for in vain,
+the result is that both of them suffer undue depreciation.
+
+There are critics who severally think that it rests with each one of
+them what shall be accounted good, and what bad. They all mistake
+their own toy-trumpets for the trombones of fame.
+
+A drug does not effect its purpose if the dose is too large; and it
+is the same with censure and adverse criticism when it exceeds the
+measure of justice.
+
+The disastrous thing for intellectual merit is that it must wait for
+those to praise the good who have themselves produced nothing but what
+is bad; nay, it is a primary misfortune that it has to receive its
+crown at the hands of the critical power of mankind--a quality of
+which most men possess only the weak and impotent semblance, so that
+the reality may be numbered amongst the rarest gifts of nature. Hence
+La Bruyère's remark is, unhappily, as true as it is neat. _Après
+l'esprit de discernement_, he says, _ce qu'il y a au monde de plus
+rare, ce sont les diamans et les perles_. The spirit of discernment!
+the critical faculty! it is these that are lacking. Men do not know
+how to distinguish the genuine from the false, the corn from the
+chaff, gold from copper; or to perceive the wide gulf that separates
+a genius from an ordinary man. Thus we have that bad state of things
+described in an old-fashioned verse, which gives it as the lot of the
+great ones here on earth to be recognized only when they are gone:
+
+  _Es ist nun das Geschick der Grossen fiier auf Erden,
+  Erst wann sie nicht mehr sind; von uns erkannt zu werden._
+
+When any genuine and excellent work makes its appearance, the chief
+difficulty in its way is the amount of bad work it finds already in
+possession of the field, and accepted as though it were good. And
+then if, after a long time, the new comer really succeeds, by a hard
+struggle, in vindicating his place for himself and winning reputation,
+he will soon encounter fresh difficulty from some affected, dull,
+awkward imitator, whom people drag in, with the object of calmly
+setting him up on the altar beside the genius; not seeing the
+difference and really thinking that here they have to do with another
+great man. This is what Yriarte means by the first lines of his
+twenty-eighth Fable, where he declares that the ignorant rabble always
+sets equal value on the good and the bad:
+
+  _Siempre acostumbra hacer el vulgo necio
+  De lo bueno y lo malo igual aprecio_.
+
+So even Shakespeare's dramas had, immediately after his death, to give
+place to those of Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and to
+yield the supremacy for a hundred years. So Kant's serious philosophy
+was crowded out by the nonsense of Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Hegel.
+And even in a sphere accessible to all, we have seen unworthy
+imitators quickly diverting public attention from the incomparable
+Walter Scott. For, say what you will, the public has no sense for
+excellence, and therefore no notion how very rare it is to find men
+really capable of doing anything great in poetry, philosophy, or art,
+or that their works are alone worthy of exclusive attention. The
+dabblers, whether in verse or in any other high sphere, should be
+every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods, nor men, nor
+booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity:
+
+      _mediocribus esse poetis
+  Non homines, non Dî, non concessere columnae_.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 372.]
+
+Are they not the weeds that prevent the corn coming up, so that they
+may cover all the ground themselves? And then there happens that which
+has been well and freshly described by the lamented Feuchtersleben,[1]
+who died so young: how people cry out in their haste that nothing
+is being done, while all the while great work is quietly growing to
+maturity; and then, when it appears, it is not seen or heard in the
+clamor, but goes its way silently, in modest grief:
+
+  "_Ist doch"--rufen sie vermessen--
+  Nichts im Werke, nichts gethan!"
+  Und das Grosse, reift indessen
+  Still heran_.
+
+  _Es ersheint nun: niemand sieht es,
+  Niemand hört es im Geschrei
+  Mit bescheid'ner Trauer zieht es
+  Still vorbei_.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersleben
+(1806-49), an Austrian physician, philosopher, and poet, and a
+specialist in medical psychology. The best known of his songs is that
+beginning "_Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath_" to which Mendelssohn
+composed one of his finest melodies.]
+
+This lamentable death of the critical faculty is not less obvious in
+the case of science, as is shown by the tenacious life of false and
+disproved theories. If they are once accepted, they may go on bidding
+defiance to truth for fifty or even a hundred years and more, as
+stable as an iron pier in the midst of the waves. The Ptolemaic system
+was still held a century after Copernicus had promulgated his theory.
+Bacon, Descartes and Locke made their way extremely slowly and only
+after a long time; as the reader may see by d'Alembert's celebrated
+Preface to the _Encyclopedia_. Newton was not more successful; and
+this is sufficiently proved by the bitterness and contempt with which
+Leibnitz attacked his theory of gravitation in the controversy with
+Clarke.[1] Although Newton lived for almost forty years after the
+appearance of the _Principia_, his teaching was, when he died, only
+to some extent accepted in his own country, whilst outside England he
+counted scarcely twenty adherents; if we may believe the introductory
+note to Voltaire's exposition of his theory. It was, indeed, chiefly
+owing to this treatise of Voltaire's that the system became known in
+France nearly twenty years after Newton's death. Until then a firm,
+resolute, and patriotic stand was made by the Cartesian _Vortices_;
+whilst only forty years previously, this same Cartesian philosophy had
+been forbidden in the French schools; and now in turn d'Agnesseau, the
+Chancellor, refused Voltaire the _Imprimatur_ for his treatise on the
+Newtonian doctrine. On the other hand, in our day Newton's absurd
+theory of color still completely holds the field, forty years after
+the publication of Goethe's. Hume, too, was disregarded up to his
+fiftieth year, though he began very early and wrote in a thoroughly
+popular style. And Kant, in spite of having written and talked all his
+life long, did not become a famous man until he was sixty.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially §§ 35, 113, 118, 120, 122, 128.]
+
+Artists and poets have, to be sure, more chance than thinkers, because
+their public is at least a hundred times as large. Still, what was
+thought of Beethoven and Mozart during their lives? what of Dante?
+what even of Shakespeare? If the latter's contemporaries had in any
+way recognized his worth, at least one good and accredited portrait of
+him would have come down to us from an age when the art of painting
+flourished; whereas we possess only some very doubtful pictures, a
+bad copperplate, and a still worse bust on his tomb.[1] And in like
+manner, if he had been duly honored, specimens of his handwriting
+would have been preserved to us by the hundred, instead of being
+confined, as is the case, to the signatures to a few legal documents.
+The Portuguese are still proud of their only poet Camoëns. He lived,
+however, on alms collected every evening in the street by a black
+slave whom he had brought with him from the Indies. In time, no doubt,
+justice will be done everyone; _tempo è galant uomo_; but it is
+as late and slow in arriving as in a court of law, and the secret
+condition of it is that the recipient shall be no longer alive. The
+precept of Jesus the son of Sirach is faithfully followed: _Judge none
+blessed before his death._[2] He, then, who has produced immortal
+works, must find comfort by applying to them the words of the Indian
+myth, that the minutes of life amongst the immortals seem like years
+of earthly existence; and so, too, that years upon earth are only as
+the minutes of the immortals.
+
+[Footnote 1: A. Wivell: _An Inquiry into the History, Authenticity,
+and Characteristics of Shakespeare's Portraits_; with 21 engravings.
+London, 1836.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ecclesiasticus_, xi. 28.]
+
+This lack of critical insight is also shown by the fact that, while
+in every century the excellent work of earlier time is held in honor,
+that of its own is misunderstood, and the attention which is its due
+is given to bad work, such as every decade carries with it only to be
+the sport of the next. That men are slow to recognize genuine merit
+when it appears in their own age, also proves that they do not
+understand or enjoy or really value the long-acknowledged works of
+genius, which they honor only on the score of authority. The crucial
+test is the fact that bad work--Fichte's philosophy, for example--if
+it wins any reputation, also maintains it for one or two generations;
+and only when its public is very large does its fall follow sooner.
+
+Now, just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees
+it, nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all
+masterly work in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and
+capacity of the mind to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as
+this that possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits
+that lie hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is
+a sealed cabinet of mystery,--an unfamiliar musical instrument from
+which the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none
+but confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good
+light, as compared with some dark corner! Just in the same way, the
+impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind
+to understand it.
+
+A fine work, then, requires a mind sensitive to its beauty; a
+thoughtful work, a mind that can really think, if it is to exist and
+live at all. But alas! it may happen only too often that he who gives
+a fine work to the world afterwards feels like a maker of fireworks,
+who displays with enthusiasm the wonders that have taken him so much
+time and trouble to prepare, and then learns that he has come to the
+wrong place, and that the fancied spectators were one and all inmates
+of an asylum for the blind. Still even that is better than if his
+public had consisted entirely of men who made fireworks themselves; as
+in this case, if his display had been extraordinarily good, it might
+possibly have cost him his head.
+
+The source of all pleasure and delight is the feeling of kinship. Even
+with the sense of beauty it is unquestionably our own species in the
+animal world, and then again our own race, that appears to us the
+fairest. So, too, in intercourse with others, every man shows a
+decided preference for those who resemble him; and a blockhead will
+find the society of another blockhead incomparably more pleasant
+than that of any number of great minds put together. Every man must
+necessarily take his chief pleasure in his own work, because it is the
+mirror of his own mind, the echo of his own thought; and next in order
+will come the work of people like him; that is to say, a dull, shallow
+and perverse man, a dealer in mere words, will give his sincere and
+hearty applause only to that which is dull, shallow, perverse or
+merely verbose. On the other hand, he will allow merit to the work of
+great minds only on the score of authority, in other words, because
+he is ashamed to speak his opinion; for in reality they give him no
+pleasure at all. They do not appeal to him; nay, they repel him; and
+he will not confess this even to himself. The works of genius cannot
+be fully enjoyed except by those who are themselves of the privileged
+order. The first recognition of them, however, when they exist without
+authority to support them, demands considerable superiority of mind.
+
+When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should be
+surprised, not that great work is so late in winning reputation, but
+that it wins it at all. And as a matter of fact, fame comes only by a
+slow and complex process. The stupid person is by degrees forced, and
+as it were, tamed, into recognizing the superiority of one who stands
+immediately above him; this one in his turn bows before some one else;
+and so it goes on until the weight of the votes gradually prevail over
+their number; and this is just the condition of all genuine, in other
+words, deserved fame. But until then, the greatest genius, even after
+he has passed his time of trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of
+his own subjects, who do not know him by sight and therefore will not
+do his behests; unless, indeed, his chief ministers of state are in
+his train. For no subordinate official can be the direct recipient of
+the royal commands, as he knows only the signature of his immediate
+superior; and this is repeated all the way up into the highest ranks,
+where the under-secretary attests the minister's signature, and the
+minister that of the king. There are analogous stages to be passed
+before a genius can attain widespread fame. This is why his reputation
+most easily comes to a standstill at the very outset; because the
+highest authorities, of whom there can be but few, are most frequently
+not to be found; but the further down he goes in the scale the more
+numerous are those who take the word from above, so that his fame is
+no more arrested.
+
+We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflecting that
+it is really fortunate that the greater number of men do not form a
+judgment on their own responsibility, but merely take it on authority.
+For what sort of criticism should we have on Plato and Kant, Homer,
+Shakespeare and Goethe, if every man were to form his opinion by what
+he really has and enjoys of these writers, instead of being forced by
+authority to speak of them in a fit and proper way, however little
+he may really feel what he says. Unless something of this kind took
+place, it would be impossible for true merit, in any high sphere, to
+attain fame at all. At the same time it is also fortunate that every
+man has just so much critical power of his own as is necessary for
+recognizing the superiority of those who are placed immediately over
+him, and for following their lead. This means that the many come in
+the end to submit to the authority of the few; and there results that
+hierarchy of critical judgments on which is based the possibility of a
+steady, and eventually wide-reaching, fame.
+
+The lowest class in the community is quite impervious to the merits
+of a great genius; and for these people there is nothing left but the
+monument raised to him, which, by the impression it produces on their
+senses, awakes in them a dim idea of the man's greatness.
+
+Literary journals should be a dam against the unconscionable
+scribbling of the age, and the ever-increasing deluge of bad and
+useless books. Their judgments should be uncorrupted, just and
+rigorous; and every piece of bad work done by an incapable person;
+every device by which the empty head tries to come to the assistance
+of the empty purse, that is to say, about nine-tenths of all existing
+books, should be mercilessly scourged. Literary journals would then
+perform their duty, which is to keep down the craving for writing and
+put a check upon the deception of the public, instead of furthering
+these evils by a miserable toleration, which plays into the hands of
+author and publisher, and robs the reader of his time and his money.
+
+If there were such a paper as I mean, every bad writer, every
+brainless compiler, every plagiarist from other's books, every hollow
+and incapable place-hunter, every sham-philosopher, every vain and
+languishing poetaster, would shudder at the prospect of the pillory
+in which his bad work would inevitably have to stand soon after
+publication. This would paralyze his twitching fingers, to the true
+welfare of literature, in which what is bad is not only useless but
+positively pernicious. Now, most books are bad and ought to have
+remained unwritten. Consequently praise should be as rare as is now
+the case with blame, which is withheld under the influence of personal
+considerations, coupled with the maxim _accedas socius, laudes
+lauderis ut absens_.
+
+It is quite wrong to try to introduce into literature the same
+toleration as must necessarily prevail in society towards those
+stupid, brainless people who everywhere swarm in it. In literature
+such people are impudent intruders; and to disparage the bad is here
+duty towards the good; for he who thinks nothing bad will think
+nothing good either. Politeness, which has its source in social
+relations, is in literature an alien, and often injurious, element;
+because it exacts that bad work shall be called good. In this way the
+very aim of science and art is directly frustrated.
+
+The ideal journal could, to be sure, be written only by people who
+joined incorruptible honesty with rare knowledge and still rarer power
+of judgment; so that perhaps there could, at the very most, be one,
+and even hardly one, in the whole country; but there it would stand,
+like a just Aeropagus, every member of which would have to be elected
+by all the others. Under the system that prevails at present, literary
+journals are carried on by a clique, and secretly perhaps also by
+booksellers for the good of the trade; and they are often nothing but
+coalitions of bad heads to prevent the good ones succeeding. As
+Goethe once remarked to me, nowhere is there so much dishonesty as in
+literature.
+
+But, above all, anonymity, that shield of all literary rascality,
+would have to disappear. It was introduced under the pretext of
+protecting the honest critic, who warned the public, against the
+resentment of the author and his friends. But where there is one case
+of this sort, there will be a hundred where it merely serves to take
+all responsibility from the man who cannot stand by what he has said,
+or possibly to conceal the shame of one who has been cowardly and base
+enough to recommend a book to the public for the purpose of putting
+money into his own pocket. Often enough it is only a cloak for
+covering the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the critic.
+It is incredible what impudence these fellows will show, and what
+literary trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they know
+they are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a
+general _Anti-criticism_, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a
+stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or blames
+the good: _Rascal! your name_! For a man to wrap himself up and draw
+his hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about
+without any disguise--this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the
+part of a scoundrel and a knave.
+
+An anonymous review has no more authority than an anonymous letter;
+and one should be received with the same mistrust as the other. Or
+shall we take the name of the man who consents to preside over what
+is, in the strict sense of the word, _une société anonyme_ as a
+guarantee for the veracity of his colleagues?
+
+Even Rousseau, in the preface to the _Nouvelle Heloïse_, declares
+_tout honnête homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public_; which in
+plain language means that every honorable man ought to sign his
+articles, and that no one is honorable who does not do so. How much
+truer this is of polemical writing, which is the general character
+of reviews! Riemer was quite right in the opinion he gives in his
+_Reminiscences of Goethe:[1] An overt enemy_, he says, _an enemy
+who meets you face to face, is an honorable man, who will treat you
+fairly, and with whom you can come to terms and be reconciled: but an
+enemy who conceals himself_ is a base, cowardly scoundrel, _who has
+not courage enough to avow his own judgment; it is not his opinion
+that he cares about, but only the secret pleasures of wreaking his
+anger without being found out or punished._ This will also have been
+Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from which Riemer
+drew his observations. And, indeed, Rousseau's maxim applies to
+every line that is printed. Would a man in a mask ever be allowed to
+harangue a mob, or speak in any assembly; and that, too, when he was
+going to attack others and overwhelm them with abuse?
+
+[Footnote 1: Preface, p. xxix.]
+
+Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality.
+It is a practice which must be completely stopped. Every article, even
+in a newspaper, should be accompanied by the name of its author; and
+the editor should be made strictly responsible for the accuracy of the
+signature. The freedom of the press should be thus far restricted; so
+that when a man publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of
+the newspaper, he should be answerable for it, at any rate with his
+honor, if he has any; and if he has none, let his name neutralize the
+effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person is
+known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would be to
+put an end to two-thirds of the newspaper lies, and to restrain the
+audacity of many a poisonous tongue.
+
+
+
+
+ON REPUTATION.
+
+
+Writers may be classified as meteors, planets and fixed stars. A
+meteor makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry
+_There!_ and it is gone for ever. Planets and wandering stars last
+a much longer time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are
+confounded with them by the inexperienced; but this only because they
+are near. It is not long before they must yield their place; nay, the
+light they give is reflected only, and the sphere of their influence
+is confined to their own orbit--their contemporaries. Their path is
+one of change and movement, and with the circuit of a few years their
+tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones that are constant; their
+position in the firmament is secure; they shine with a light of their
+own; their effect to-day is the same as it was yesterday, because,
+having no parallax, their appearance does not alter with a difference
+in our standpoint. They belong not to _one_ system, _one_ nation only,
+but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is
+usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of
+this earth.
+
+We have seen in the previous chapter that where a man's merits are of
+a high order, it is difficult for him to win reputation, because the
+public is uncritical and lacks discernment. But another and no less
+serious hindrance to fame comes from the envy it has to encounter. For
+even in the lowest kinds of work, envy balks even the beginnings of a
+reputation, and never ceases to cleave to it up to the last. How great
+a part is played by envy in the wicked ways of the world! Ariosto is
+right in saying that the dark side of our mortal life predominates, so
+full it is of this evil:
+
+    _questa assai più oscura che serena
+  Vita mortal, tutta d'invidia piena_.
+
+For envy is the moving spirit of that secret and informal, though
+flourishing, alliance everywhere made by mediocrity against individual
+eminence, no matter of what kind. In his own sphere of work no one
+will allow another to be distinguished: he is an intruder who cannot
+be tolerated. _Si quelq'un excelle parmi nous, qu'il aille exceller
+ailleurs_! this is the universal password of the second-rate. In
+addition, then, to the rarity of true merit and the difficulty it has
+in being understood and recognized, there is the envy of thousands to
+be reckoned with, all of them bent on suppressing, nay, on smothering
+it altogether. No one is taken for what he is, but for what others
+make of him; and this is the handle used by mediocrity to keep down
+distinction, by not letting it come up as long as that can possibly be
+prevented.
+
+There are two ways of behaving in regard to merit: either to have some
+of one's own, or to refuse any to others. The latter method is more
+convenient, and so it is generally adopted. As envy is a mere sign
+of deficiency, so to envy merit argues the lack of it. My excellent
+Balthazar Gracian has given a very fine account of this relation
+between envy and merit in a lengthy fable, which may be found in his
+_Discreto_ under the heading _Hombre de ostentacion_. He describes
+all the birds as meeting together and conspiring against the peacock,
+because of his magnificent feathers. _If_, said the magpie, _we could
+only manage to put a stop to the cursed parading of his tail, there
+would soon be an end of his beauty; for what is not seen is as good as
+what does not exist_.
+
+This explains how modesty came to be a virtue. It was invented only as
+a protection against envy. That there have always been rascals to urge
+this virtue, and to rejoice heartily over the bashfulness of a man of
+merit, has been shown at length in my chief work.[1] In Lichtenberg's
+_Miscellaneous Writings_ I find this sentence quoted: _Modesty should
+be the virtue of those who possess no other_. Goethe has a well-known
+saying, which offends many people: _It is only knaves who are
+modest_!--_Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden_! but it has its prototype
+in Cervantes, who includes in his _Journey up Parnassus_ certain rules
+of conduct for poets, and amongst them the following: _Everyone whose
+verse shows him to be a poet should have a high opinion of himself,
+relying on the proverb that he is a knave who thinks himself one_.
+And Shakespeare, in many of his Sonnets, which gave him the only
+opportunity he had of speaking of himself, declares, with a confidence
+equal to his ingenuousness, that what he writes is immortal.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Welt als Wille_, Vol. II. c. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Collier, one of his critical editors, in his Introduction
+to the Sonettes, remarks upon this point: "In many of them are to be
+found most remarkable indications of self-confidence and of assurance
+in the immortality of his verses, and in this respect the author's
+opinion was constant and uniform. He never scruples to express it,...
+and perhaps there is no writer of ancient or modern times who, for the
+quantity of such writings left behind him, has so frequently or so
+strongly declared that what he had produced in this department of
+poetry 'the world would not willingly let die.'"]
+
+A method of underrating good work often used by envy--in reality,
+however, only the obverse side of it--consists in the dishonorable and
+unscrupulous laudation of the bad; for no sooner does bad work gain
+currency than it draws attention from the good. But however effective
+this method may be for a while, especially if it is applied on a large
+scale, the day of reckoning comes at last, and the fleeting credit
+given to bad work is paid off by the lasting discredit which overtakes
+those who abjectly praised it. Hence these critics prefer to remain
+anonymous.
+
+A like fate threatens, though more remotely, those who depreciate and
+censure good work; and consequently many are too prudent to attempt
+it. But there is another way; and when a man of eminent merit appears,
+the first effect he produces is often only to pique all his rivals,
+just as the peacock's tail offended the birds. This reduces them to
+a deep silence; and their silence is so unanimous that it savors of
+preconcertion. Their tongues are all paralyzed. It is the _silentium
+livoris_ described by Seneca. This malicious silence, which is
+technically known as _ignoring_, may for a long time interfere with
+the growth of reputation; if, as happens in the higher walks of
+learning, where a man's immediate audience is wholly composed of rival
+workers and professed students, who then form the channel of his fame,
+the greater public is obliged to use its suffrage without being able
+to examine the matter for itself. And if, in the end, that malicious
+silence is broken in upon by the voice of praise, it will be but
+seldom that this happens entirely apart from some ulterior aim,
+pursued by those who thus manipulate justice. For, as Goethe says in
+the _West-östlicher Divan_, a man can get no recognition, either from
+many persons or from only one, unless it is to publish abroad the
+critic's own discernment:
+
+  _Denn es ist kein Anerkenen,
+  Weder Vieler, noch des Einen,
+  Wenn es nicht am Tage fördert,
+  Wo man selbst was möchte scheinen_.
+
+The credit you allow to another man engaged in work similar to your
+own or akin to it, must at bottom be withdrawn from yourself; and you
+can praise him only at the expense of your own claims.
+
+Accordingly, mankind is in itself not at all inclined to award praise
+and reputation; it is more disposed to blame and find fault, whereby
+it indirectly praises itself. If, notwithstanding this, praise is
+won from mankind, some extraneous motive must prevail. I am not here
+referring to the disgraceful way in which mutual friends will puff one
+another into a reputation; outside of that, an effectual motive is
+supplied by the feeling that next to the merit of doing something
+oneself, comes that of correctly appreciating and recognizing what
+others have done. This accords with the threefold division of heads
+drawn up by Hesiod[1] and afterwards by Machiavelli[2] _There are_,
+says the latter, _in the capacities of mankind, three varieties:
+one man will understand a thing by himself; another so far as it is
+explained to him; a third, neither of himself nor when it is put
+clearly before him_. He, then, who abandons hope of making good his
+claims to the first class, will be glad to seize the opportunity of
+taking a place in the second. It is almost wholly owing to this state
+of things that merit may always rest assured of ultimately meeting
+with recognition.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 293.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Prince_, ch. 22.]
+
+To this also is due the fact that when the value of a work has once
+been recognized and may no longer be concealed or denied, all men vie
+in praising and honoring it; simply because they are conscious
+of thereby doing themselves an honor. They act in the spirit of
+Xenophon's remark: _he must be a wise man who knows what is wise_.
+So when they see that the prize of original merit is for ever out of
+their reach, they hasten to possess themselves of that which comes
+second best--the correct appreciation of it. Here it happens as with
+an army which has been forced to yield; when, just as previously every
+man wanted to be foremost in the fight, so now every man tries to
+be foremost in running away. They all hurry forward to offer their
+applause to one who is now recognized to be worthy of praise, in
+virtue of a recognition, as a rule unconscious, of that law of
+homogeneity which I mentioned in the last chapter; so that it may seem
+as though their way of thinking and looking at things were homogeneous
+with that of the celebrated man, and that they may at least save the
+honor of their literary taste, since nothing else is left them.
+
+From this it is plain that, whereas it is very difficult to win
+fame, it is not hard to keep it when once attained; and also that a
+reputation which comes quickly does not last very long; for here
+too, _quod cito fit, cito perit_. It is obvious that if the ordinary
+average man can easily recognize, and the rival workers willingly
+acknowledge, the value of any performance, it will not stand very much
+above the capacity of either of them to achieve it for themselves.
+_Tantum quisque laudat, quantum se posse sperat imitari_--a man will
+praise a thing only so far as he hopes to be able to imitate it
+himself. Further, it is a suspicious sign if a reputation comes
+quickly; for an application of the laws of homogeneity will show that
+such a reputation is nothing but the direct applause of the multitude.
+What this means may be seen by a remark once made by Phocion, when he
+was interrupted in a speech by the loud cheers of the mob. Turning
+to his friends who were standing close by, he asked: _Have I made a
+mistake and said something stupid?_[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _Apophthegms_.]
+
+Contrarily, a reputation that is to last a long time must be slow
+in maturing, and the centuries of its duration have generally to be
+bought at the cost of contemporary praise. For that which is to keep
+its position so long, must be of a perfection difficult to attain; and
+even to recognize this perfection requires men who are not always to
+be found, and never in numbers sufficiently great to make themselves
+heard; whereas envy is always on the watch and doing its best to
+smother their voice. But with moderate talent, which soon meets with
+recognition, there is the danger that those who possess it will
+outlive both it and themselves; so that a youth of fame may be
+followed by an old age of obscurity. In the case of great merit, on
+the other hand, a man may remain unknown for many years, but make up
+for it later on by attaining a brilliant reputation. And if it should
+be that this comes only after he is no more, well! he is to be
+reckoned amongst those of whom Jean Paul says that extreme unction is
+their baptism. He may console himself by thinking of the Saints, who
+also are canonized only after they are dead.
+
+Thus what Mahlmann[1] has said so well in _Herodes_ holds good; in
+this world truly great work never pleases at once, and the god set up
+by the multitude keeps his place on the altar but a short time:
+
+  _Ich denke, das wahre Grosse in der Welt
+  Ist immer nur Das was nicht gleich gefällt
+  Und wen der Pöbel zum Gotte weiht,
+  Der steht auf dem Altar nur kurze Zeit_.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--August Mahlmann (1771-1826),
+journalist, poet and story-writer. His _Herodes vor Bethlehem_ is a
+parody of Kotzebue's _Hussiten vor Naumburg_.]
+
+It is worth mention that this rule is most directly confirmed in the
+case of pictures, where, as connoisseurs well know, the greatest
+masterpieces are not the first to attract attention. If they make
+a deep impression, it is not after one, but only after repeated,
+inspection; but then they excite more and more admiration every time
+they are seen.
+
+Moreover, the chances that any given work will be quickly and rightly
+appreciated, depend upon two conditions: firstly, the character of
+the work, whether high or low, in other words, easy or difficult to
+understand; and, secondly, the kind of public it attracts, whether
+large or small. This latter condition is, no doubt, in most instances
+a, corollary of the former; but it also partly depends upon whether
+the work in question admits, like books and musical compositions, of
+being produced in great numbers. By the compound action of these two
+conditions, achievements which serve no materially useful end--and
+these alone are under consideration here--will vary in regard to
+the chances they have of meeting with timely recognition and due
+appreciation; and the order of precedence, beginning with those who
+have the greatest chance, will be somewhat as follows: acrobats,
+circus riders, ballet-dancers, jugglers, actors, singers, musicians,
+composers, poets (both the last on account of the multiplication of
+their works), architects, painters, sculptors, philosophers.
+
+The last place of all is unquestionably taken by philosophers because
+their works are meant not for entertainment, but for instruction, and
+because they presume some knowledge on the part of the reader, and
+require him to make an effort of his own to understand them. This
+makes their public extremely small, and causes their fame to be more
+remarkable for its length than for its breadth. And, in general, it
+may be said that the possibility of a man's fame lasting a long time,
+stands in almost inverse ratio with the chance that it will be early
+in making its appearance; so that, as regards length of fame, the
+above order of precedence may be reversed. But, then, the poet and
+the composer will come in the end to stand on the same level as the
+philosopher; since, when once a work is committed to writing, it is
+possible to preserve it to all time. However, the first place still
+belongs by right to the philosopher, because of the much greater
+scarcity of good work in this sphere, and the high importance of it;
+and also because of the possibility it offers of an almost perfect
+translation into any language. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that a
+philosopher's fame outlives even his works themselves; as has happened
+with Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Democritus, Parmenides, Epicurus
+and many others.
+
+My remarks are, as I have said, confined to achievements that are not
+of any material use. Work that serves some practical end, or ministers
+directly to some pleasure of the senses, will never have any
+difficulty in being duly appreciated. No first-rate pastry-cook could
+long remain obscure in any town, to say nothing of having to appeal to
+posterity.
+
+Under fame of rapid growth is also to be reckoned fame of a false
+and artificial kind; where, for instance, a book is worked into a
+reputation by means of unjust praise, the help of friends, corrupt
+criticism, prompting from above and collusion from below. All this
+tells upon the multitude, which is rightly presumed to have no power
+of judging for itself. This sort of fame is like a swimming bladder,
+by its aid a heavy body may keep afloat. It bears up for a certain
+time, long or short according as the bladder is well sewed up and
+blown; but still the air comes out gradually, and the body sinks. This
+is the inevitable fate of all works which are famous by reason of
+something outside of themselves. False praise dies away; collusion
+comes to an end; critics declare the reputation ungrounded; it
+vanishes, and is replaced by so much the greater contempt. Contrarily,
+a genuine work, which, having the source of its fame in itself,
+can kindle admiration afresh in every age, resembles a body of low
+specific gravity, which always keeps up of its own accord, and so goes
+floating down the stream of time.
+
+Men of great genius, whether their work be in poetry, philosophy or
+art, stand in all ages like isolated heroes, keeping up single-handed
+a desperate struggling against the onslaught of an army of
+opponents.[1] Is not this characteristic of the miserable nature of
+mankind? The dullness, grossness, perversity, silliness and brutality
+of by far the greater part of the race, are always an obstacle to the
+efforts of the genius, whatever be the method of his art; they so form
+that hostile army to which at last he has to succumb. Let the isolated
+champion achieve what he may: it is slow to be acknowledged; it is
+late in being appreciated, and then only on the score of authority;
+it may easily fall into neglect again, at any rate for a while. Ever
+afresh it finds itself opposed by false, shallow, and insipid ideas,
+which are better suited to that large majority, that so generally hold
+the field. Though the critic may step forth and say, like Hamlet when
+he held up the two portraits to his wretched mother, _Have you eyes?
+Have you eyes_? alas! they have none. When I watch the behavior of a
+crowd of people in the presence of some great master's work, and mark
+the manner of their applause, they often remind me of trained monkeys
+in a show. The monkey's gestures are, no doubt, much like those of
+men; but now and again they betray that the real inward spirit of
+these gestures is not in them. Their irrational nature peeps out.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--At this point Schopenhauer
+interrupts the thread of his discourse to speak at length upon an
+example of false fame. Those who are at all acquainted with the
+philosopher's views will not be surprised to find that the writer thus
+held up to scorn is Hegel; and readers of the other volumes in this
+series will, with the translator, have had by now quite enough of the
+subject. The passage is therefore omitted.]
+
+It is often said of a man that _he is in advance of his age_; and it
+follows from the above remarks that this must be taken to mean that
+he is in advance of humanity in general. Just because of this fact,
+a genius makes no direct appeal except to those who are too rare to
+allow of their ever forming a numerous body at any one period. If he
+is in this respect not particularly favored by fortune, he will
+be _misunderstood by his own age_; in other words, he will remain
+unaccepted until time gradually brings together the voices of those
+few persons who are capable of judging a work of such high character.
+Then posterity will say: _This man was in advance of his age_, instead
+of _in advance of humanity_; because humanity will be glad to lay the
+burden of its own faults upon a single epoch.
+
+Hence, if a man has been superior to his own age, he would also have
+been superior to any other; provided that, in that age, by some rare
+and happy chance, a few just men, capable of judging in the sphere of
+his achievements, had been born at the same time with him; just as
+when, according to a beautiful Indian myth, Vischnu becomes incarnate
+as a hero, so, too, Brahma at the same time appears as the singer of
+his deeds; and hence Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are incarnations of
+Brahma.
+
+In this sense, then, it may be said that every immortal work puts its
+age to the proof, whether or no it will be able to recognize the merit
+of it. As a rule, the men of any age stand such a test no better than
+the neighbors of Philemon and Baucis, who expelled the deities they
+failed to recognize. Accordingly, the right standard for judging the
+intellectual worth of any generation is supplied, not by the great
+minds that make their appearance in it--for their capacities are the
+work of Nature, and the possibility of cultivating them a matter of
+chance circumstance--but by the way in which contemporaries receive
+their works; whether, I mean, they give their applause soon and with
+a will, or late and in niggardly fashion, or leave it to be bestowed
+altogether by posterity.
+
+This last fate will be especially reserved for works of a high
+character. For the happy chance mentioned above will be all the more
+certain not to come, in proportion as there are few to appreciate
+the kind of work done by great minds. Herein lies the immeasurable
+advantage possessed by poets in respect of reputation; because their
+work is accessible to almost everyone. If it had been possible for Sir
+Walter Scott to be read and criticised by only some hundred persons,
+perhaps in his life-time any common scribbler would have been
+preferred to him; and afterwards, when he had taken his proper place,
+it would also have been said in his honor that he was _in advance of
+his age_. But if envy, dishonesty and the pursuit of personal aims are
+added to the incapacity of those hundred persons who, in the name of
+their generation, are called upon to pass judgment on a work, then
+indeed it meets with the same sad fate as attends a suitor who pleads
+before a tribunal of judges one and all corrupt.
+
+In corroboration of this, we find that the history of literature
+generally shows all those who made knowledge and insight their goal
+to have remained unrecognized and neglected, whilst those who
+paraded with the vain show of it received the admiration of their
+contemporaries, together with the emoluments.
+
+The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the
+reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts,
+by the operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this
+reputation is quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a
+worthy writer may come by it very slowly and tardily. The former
+possess friends to help them; for the rabble is always a numerous body
+which holds well together. The latter has nothing but enemies; because
+intellectual superiority is everywhere and under all circumstances the
+most hateful thing in the world, and especially to bunglers in the
+same line of work, who want to pass for something themselves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: If the professors of philosophy should chance to think
+that I am here hinting at them and the tactics they have for more than
+thirty years pursued toward my works, they have hit the nail upon the
+head.]
+
+This being so, it is a prime condition for doing any great work--any
+work which is to outlive its own age, that a man pay no heed to his
+contemporaries, their views and opinions, and the praise or blame
+which they bestow. This condition is, however, fulfilled of itself
+when a man really does anything great, and it is fortunate that it is
+so. For if, in producing such a work, he were to look to the general
+opinion or the judgment of his colleagues, they would lead him astray
+at every step. Hence, if a man wants to go down to posterity, he must
+withdraw from the influence of his own age. This will, of course,
+generally mean that he must also renounce any influence upon it, and
+be ready to buy centuries of fame by foregoing the applause of his
+contemporaries.
+
+For when any new and wide-reaching truth comes into the world--and if
+it is new, it must be paradoxical--an obstinate stand will be made
+against it as long as possible; nay, people will continue to deny it
+even after they slacken their opposition and are almost convinced of
+its truth. Meanwhile it goes on quietly working its way, and, like an
+acid, undermining everything around it. From time to time a crash is
+heard; the old error comes tottering to the ground, and suddenly the
+new fabric of thought stands revealed, as though it were a monument
+just uncovered. Everyone recognizes and admires it. To be sure, this
+all comes to pass for the most part very slowly. As a rule, people
+discover a man to be worth listening to only after he is gone; their
+_hear, hear_, resounds when the orator has left the platform.
+
+Works of the ordinary type meet with a better fate. Arising as they
+do in the course of, and in connection with, the general advance in
+contemporary culture, they are in close alliance with the spirit of
+their age--in other words, just those opinions which happen to be
+prevalent at the time. They aim at suiting the needs of the moment. If
+they have any merit, it is soon recognized; and they gain currency as
+books which reflect the latest ideas. Justice, nay, more than justice,
+is done to them. They afford little scope for envy; since, as was said
+above, a man will praise a thing only so far as he hopes to be able to
+imitate it himself.
+
+But those rare works which are destined to become the property of all
+mankind and to live for centuries, are, at their origin, too far in
+advance of the point at which culture happens to stand, and on that
+very account foreign to it and the spirit of their own time. They
+neither belong to it nor are they in any connection with it, and hence
+they excite no interest in those who are dominated by it. They belong
+to another, a higher stage of culture, and a time that is still far
+off. Their course is related to that of ordinary works as the orbit
+of Uranus to the orbit of Mercury. For the moment they get no justice
+done to them. People are at a loss how to treat them; so they leave
+them alone, and go their own snail's pace for themselves. Does the
+worm see the eagle as it soars aloft?
+
+Of the number of books written in any language about one in 100,000
+forms a part of its real and permanent literature. What a fate this
+one book has to endure before it outstrips those 100,000 and gains its
+due place of honor! Such a book is the work of an extraordinary and
+eminent mind, and therefore it is specifically different from the
+others; a fact which sooner or later becomes manifest.
+
+Let no one fancy that things will ever improve in this respect. No!
+the miserable constitution of humanity never changes, though it may,
+to be sure, take somewhat varying forms with every generation. A
+distinguished mind seldom has its full effect in the life-time of
+its possessor; because, at bottom, it is completely and properly
+understood only by minds already akin to it.
+
+As it is a rare thing for even one man out of many millions to tread
+the path that leads to immortality, he must of necessity be very
+lonely. The journey to posterity lies through a horribly dreary
+region, like the Lybian desert, of which, as is well known, no one has
+any idea who has not seen it for himself. Meanwhile let me before
+all things recommend the traveler to take light baggage with him;
+otherwise he will have to throw away too much on the road. Let him
+never forget the words of Balthazar Gracian: _lo bueno si breve, dos
+vezes bueno_--good work is doubly good if it is short. This advice is
+specially applicable to my own countrymen.
+
+Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect
+are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size
+of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor,
+for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated
+while he lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it
+and wishes him back again.
+
+If the perishable son of time has produced an imperishable work, how
+short his own life seems compared with that of his child! He is like
+Semela or Maia--a mortal mother who gave birth to an immortal son; or,
+contrarily, he is like Achilles in regard to Thetis. What a contrast
+there is between what is fleeting and what is permanent! The short
+span of a man's life, his necessitous, afflicted, unstable existence,
+will seldom allow of his seeing even the beginning of his immortal
+child's brilliant career; nor will the father himself be taken for
+that which he really is. It may be said, indeed, that a man whose fame
+comes after him is the reverse of a nobleman, who is preceded by it.
+
+However, the only difference that it ultimately makes to a man to
+receive his fame at the hands of contemporaries rather than from
+posterity is that, in the former case, his admirers are separated
+from him by space, and in the latter by time. For even in the case
+of contemporary fame, a man does not, as a rule, see his admirers
+actually before him. Reverence cannot endure close proximity; it
+almost always dwells at some distance from its object; and in the
+presence of the person revered it melts like butter in the sun.
+Accordingly, if a man is celebrated with his contemporaries,
+nine-tenths of those amongst whom he lives will let their esteem be
+guided by his rank and fortune; and the remaining tenth may perhaps
+have a dull consciousness of his high qualities, because they have
+heard about him from remote quarters. There is a fine Latin letter of
+Petrarch's on this incompatibility between reverence and the presence
+of the person, and between fame and life. It comes second in his
+_Epistolae familiares?_[1] and it is addressed to Thomas Messanensis.
+He there observes, amongst other things, that the learned men of his
+age all made it a rule to think little of a man's writings if they had
+even once seen him.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the Venetian edition of 1492.]
+
+Since distance, then, is essential if a famous man is to be recognized
+and revered, it does not matter whether it is distance of space or of
+time. It is true that he may sometimes hear of his fame in the one
+case, but never in the other; but still, genuine and great merit may
+make up for this by confidently anticipating its posthumous fame.
+Nay, he who produces some really great thought is conscious of his
+connection with coming generations at the very moment he conceives it;
+so that he feels the extension of his existence through centuries
+and thus lives _with_ posterity as well as _for_ it. And when, after
+enjoying a great man's work, we are seized with admiration for him,
+and wish him back, so that we might see and speak with him, and have
+him in our possession, this desire of ours is not unrequited; for
+he, too, has had his longing for that posterity which will grant
+the recognition, honor, gratitude and love denied by envious
+contemporaries.
+
+If intellectual works of the highest order are not allowed their due
+until they come before the tribunal of posterity, a contrary fate
+is prepared for certain brilliant errors which proceed from men of
+talent, and appear with an air of being well grounded. These errors
+are defended with so much acumen and learning that they actually
+become famous with their own age, and maintain their position at least
+during their author's lifetime. Of this sort are many false theories
+and wrong criticisms; also poems and works of art, which exhibit some
+false taste or mannerism favored by contemporary prejudice. They gain
+reputation and currency simply because no one is yet forthcoming who
+knows how to refute them or otherwise prove their falsity; and when
+he appears, as he usually does, in the next generation, the glory of
+these works is brought to an end. Posthumous judges, be their decision
+favorable to the appellant or not, form the proper court for quashing
+the verdict of contemporaries. That is why it is so difficult and so
+rare to be victorious alike in both tribunals.
+
+The unfailing tendency of time to correct knowledge and judgment
+should always be kept in view as a means of allaying anxiety, whenever
+any grievous error appears, whether in art, or science, or practical
+life, and gains ground; or when some false and thoroughly perverse
+policy of movement is undertaken and receives applause at the hands of
+men. No one should be angry, or, still less, despondent; but simply
+imagine that the world has already abandoned the error in question,
+and now only requires time and experience to recognize of its own
+accord that which a clear vision detected at the first glance.
+
+When the facts themselves are eloquent of a truth, there is no need to
+rush to its aid with words: for time will give it a thousand tongues.
+How long it may be before they speak, will of course depend upon the
+difficulty of the subject and the plausibility of the error; but come
+they will, and often it would be of no avail to try to anticipate
+them. In the worst cases it will happen with theories as it happens
+with affairs in practical life; where sham and deception, emboldened
+by success, advance to greater and greater lengths, until discovery is
+made almost inevitable. It is just so with theories; through the blind
+confidence of the blockheads who broach them, their absurdity reaches
+such a pitch that at last it is obvious even to the dullest eye. We
+may thus say to such people: _the wilder your statements, the better_.
+
+There is also some comfort to be found in reflecting upon all the
+whims and crotchets which had their day and have now utterly vanished.
+In style, in grammar, in spelling, there are false notions of this
+sort which last only three or four years. But when the errors are on
+a large scale, while we lament the brevity of human life, we shall
+in any case, do well to lag behind our own age when we see it on a
+downward path. For there are two ways of not keeping on a level with
+the times. A man may be below it; or he may be above it.
+
+
+
+
+ON GENIUS.
+
+
+No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf
+that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the
+service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument
+of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage
+to say: No! it is too good for that; my head shall be active only in
+its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied
+spectacle of this world, and then reproduce it in some form, whether
+as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an
+individual. These are the truly noble, the real _noblesse_ of the
+world. The others are serfs and go with the soil--_glebae adscripti_.
+Of course, I am here referring to those who have not only the courage,
+but also the call, and therefore the right, to order the head to quit
+the service of the will; with a result that proves the sacrifice to
+have been worth the making. In the case of those to whom all this can
+only partially apply, the gulf is not so wide; but even though their
+talent be small, so long as it is real, there will always be a sharp
+line of demarcation between them and the millions.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The correct scale for adjusting the hierarchy of
+intelligences is furnished by the degree in which the mind takes
+merely individual or approaches universal views of things. The brute
+recognizes only the individual as such: its comprehension does not
+extend beyond the limits of the individual. But man reduces the
+individual to the general; herein lies the exercise of his reason; and
+the higher his intelligence reaches, the nearer do his general ideas
+approach the point at which they become universal.]
+
+The works of fine art, poetry and philosophy produced by a nation are
+the outcome of the superfluous intellect existing in it.
+
+For him who can understand aright--_cum grano salis_--the relation
+between the genius and the normal man may, perhaps, be best expressed
+as follows: A genius has a double intellect, one for himself and the
+service of his will; the other for the world, of which he becomes the
+mirror, in virtue of his purely objective attitude towards it. The
+work of art or poetry or philosophy produced by the genius is
+simply the result, or quintessence, of this contemplative attitude,
+elaborated according to certain technical rules.
+
+The normal man, on the other hand, has only a single intellect, which
+may be called _subjective_ by contrast with the _objective_ intellect
+of genius. However acute this subjective intellect may be--and it
+exists in very various degrees of perfection--it is never on the same
+level with the double intellect of genius; just as the open chest
+notes of the human voice, however high, are essentially different from
+the falsetto notes. These, like the two upper octaves of the flute
+and the harmonics of the violin, are produced by the column of air
+dividing itself into two vibrating halves, with a node between them;
+while the open chest notes of the human voice and the lower octave of
+the flute are produced by the undivided column of air vibrating as
+a whole. This illustration may help the reader to understand that
+specific peculiarity of genius which is unmistakably stamped on the
+works, and even on the physiognomy, of him who is gifted with it. At
+the same time it is obvious that a double intellect like this must, as
+a rule, obstruct the service of the will; and this explains the poor
+capacity often shown by genius in the conduct of life. And what
+specially characterizes genius is that it has none of that sobriety of
+temper which is always to be found in the ordinary simple intellect,
+be it acute or dull.
+
+The brain may be likened to a parasite which is nourished as a part of
+the human frame without contributing directly to its inner economy;
+it is securely housed in the topmost story, and there leads a
+self-sufficient and independent life. In the same way it may be said
+that a man endowed with great mental gifts leads, apart from the
+individual life common to all, a second life, purely of the intellect.
+He devotes himself to the constant increase, rectification and
+extension, not of mere learning, but of real systematic knowledge
+and insight; and remains untouched by the fate that overtakes him
+personally, so long as it does not disturb him in his work. It is thus
+a life which raises a man and sets him above fate and its changes.
+Always thinking, learning, experimenting, practicing his knowledge,
+the man soon comes to look upon this second life as the chief mode
+of existence, and his merely personal life as something subordinate,
+serving only to advance ends higher than itself.
+
+An example of this independent, separate existence is furnished by
+Goethe. During the war in the Champagne, and amid all the bustle of
+the camp, he made observations for his theory of color; and as soon as
+the numberless calamities of that war allowed of his retiring for a
+short time to the fortress of Luxembourg, he took up the manuscript of
+his _Farbenlehre_. This is an example which we, the salt of the earth,
+should endeavor to follow, by never letting anything disturb us in the
+pursuit of our intellectual life, however much the storm of the world
+may invade and agitate our personal environment; always remembering
+that we are the sons, not of the bondwoman, but of the free. As our
+emblem and coat of arms, I propose a tree mightily shaken by the wind,
+but still bearing its ruddy fruit on every branch; with the motto _Dum
+convellor mitescunt_, or _Conquassata sed ferax._
+
+That purely intellectual life of the individual has its counterpart in
+humanity as a whole. For there, too, the real life is the life of the
+_will_, both in the empirical and in the transcendental meaning of the
+word. The purely intellectual life of humanity lies in its effort to
+increase knowledge by means of the sciences, and its desire to perfect
+the arts. Both science and art thus advance slowly from one generation
+to another, and grow with the centuries, every race as it hurries by
+furnishing its contribution. This intellectual life, like some gift
+from heaven, hovers over the stir and movement of the world; or it
+is, as it were, a sweet-scented air developed out of the ferment
+itself--the real life of mankind, dominated by will; and side by side
+with the history of nations, the history of philosophy, science and
+art takes its innocent and bloodless way.
+
+The difference between the genius and the ordinary man is, no doubt, a
+_quantitative_ one, in so far as it is a difference of degree; but I
+am tempted to regard it also as _qualitative_, in view of the fact
+that ordinary minds, notwithstanding individual variation, have a
+certain tendency to think alike. Thus on similar occasions their
+thoughts at once all take a similar direction, and run on the same
+lines; and this explains why their judgments constantly agree--not,
+however, because they are based on truth. To such lengths does this go
+that certain fundamental views obtain amongst mankind at all times,
+and are always being repeated and brought forward anew, whilst the
+great minds of all ages are in open or secret opposition to them.
+
+A genius is a man in whose mind the world is presented as an object
+is presented in a mirror, but with a degree more of clearness and a
+greater distinction of outline than is attained by ordinary people.
+It is from him that humanity may look for most instruction; for the
+deepest insight into the most important matters is to be acquired, not
+by an observant attention to detail, but by a close study of things as
+a whole. And if his mind reaches maturity, the instruction he gives
+will be conveyed now in one form, now in another. Thus genius may be
+defined as an eminently clear consciousness of things in general, and
+therefore, also of that which is opposed to them, namely, one's own
+self.
+
+The world looks up to a man thus endowed, and expects to learn
+something about life and its real nature. But several highly favorable
+circumstances must combine to produce genius, and this is a very rare
+event. It happens only now and then, let us say once in a century,
+that a man is born whose intellect so perceptibly surpasses the
+normal measure as to amount to that second faculty which seems to be
+accidental, as it is out of all relation to the will. He may remain
+a long time without being recognized or appreciated, stupidity
+preventing the one and envy the other. But should this once come to
+pass, mankind will crowd round him and his works, in the hope that he
+may be able to enlighten some of the darkness of their existence or
+inform them about it. His message is, to some extent, a revelation,
+and he himself a higher being, even though he may be but little above
+the ordinary standard.
+
+Like the ordinary man, the genius is what he is chiefly for himself.
+This is essential to his nature: a fact which can neither be avoided
+nor altered, he may be for others remains a matter of chance and of
+secondary importance. In no case can people receive from his mind
+more than a reflection, and then only when he joins with them in the
+attempt to get his thought into their heads; where, however, it is
+never anything but an exotic plant, stunted and frail.
+
+In order to have original, uncommon, and perhaps even immortal
+thoughts, it is enough to estrange oneself so fully from the world of
+things for a few moments, that the most ordinary objects and events
+appear quite new and unfamiliar. In this way their true nature is
+disclosed. What is here demanded cannot, perhaps, be said to be
+difficult; it is not in our power at all, but is just the province of
+genius.
+
+By itself, genius can produce original thoughts just as little as a
+woman by herself can bear children. Outward circumstances must come to
+fructify genius, and be, as it were, a father to its progeny.
+
+The mind of genius is among other minds what the carbuncle is among
+precious stones: it sends forth light of its own, while the others
+reflect only that which they have received. The relation of the
+genius to the ordinary mind may also be described as that of
+an idio-electrical body to one which merely is a conductor of
+electricity.
+
+The mere man of learning, who spends his life in teaching what he
+has learned, is not strictly to be called a man of genius; just as
+idio-electrical bodies are not conductors. Nay, genius stands to mere
+learning as the words to the music in a song. A man of learning is a
+man who has learned a great deal; a man of genius, one from whom we
+learn something which the genius has learned from nobody. Great minds,
+of which there is scarcely one in a hundred millions, are thus the
+lighthouses of humanity; and without them mankind would lose itself in
+the boundless sea of monstrous error and bewilderment.
+
+And so the simple man of learning, in the strict sense of the
+word--the ordinary professor, for instance--looks upon the genius much
+as we look upon a hare, which is good to eat after it has been killed
+and dressed up. So long as it is alive, it is only good to shoot at.
+
+He who wishes to experience gratitude from his contemporaries, must
+adjust his pace to theirs. But great things are never produced in
+this way. And he who wants to do great things must direct his gaze
+to posterity, and in firm confidence elaborate his work for coming
+generations. No doubt, the result may be that he will remain quite
+unknown to his contemporaries, and comparable to a man who, compelled
+to spend his life upon a lonely island, with great effort sets up a
+monument there, to transmit to future sea-farers the knowledge of his
+existence. If he thinks it a hard fate, let him console himself with
+the reflection that the ordinary man who lives for practical aims
+only, often suffers a like fate, without having any compensation to
+hope for; inasmuch as he may, under favorable conditions, spend a life
+of material production, earning, buying, building, fertilizing,
+laying out, founding, establishing, beautifying with daily effort
+and unflagging zeal, and all the time think that he is working for
+himself; and yet in the end it is his descendants who reap the benefit
+of it all, and sometimes not even his descendants. It is the same with
+the man of genius; he, too, hopes for his reward and for honor at
+least; and at last finds that he has worked for posterity alone. Both,
+to be sure, have inherited a great deal from their ancestors.
+
+The compensation I have mentioned as the privilege of genius lies, not
+in what it is to others, but in what it is to itself. What man has in
+any real sense lived more than he whose moments of thought make their
+echoes heard through the tumult of centuries? Perhaps, after all, it
+would be the best thing for a genius to attain undisturbed possession
+of himself, by spending his life in enjoying the pleasure of his own
+thoughts, his own works, and by admitting the world only as the heir
+of his ample existence. Then the world would find the mark of his
+existence only after his death, as it finds that of the Ichnolith.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--For an illustration of this feeling
+in poetry, Schopenhauer refers the reader to Byron's _Prophecy of
+Dante_: introd. to C. 4.]
+
+It is not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius
+surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple
+and agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even
+with comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for
+which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises
+it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not
+only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also
+betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others
+can also perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man
+of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could
+never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will
+show his greatness; but as knowledge and thought form a mode of
+activity natural and easy to him, he will also delight himself in them
+at all times, and so apprehend small matters which are within the
+range of other minds, more easily, quickly and correctly than they.
+Thus he will take a direct and lively pleasure in every increase of
+Knowledge, every problem solved, every witty thought, whether of his
+own or another's; and so his mind will have no further aim than to be
+constantly active. This will be an inexhaustible spring of delight;
+and boredom, that spectre which haunts the ordinary man, can never
+come near him.
+
+Then, too, the masterpieces of past and contemporary men of genius
+exist in their fullness for him alone. If a great product of genius
+is recommended to the ordinary, simple mind, it will take as much
+pleasure in it as the victim of gout receives in being invited to a
+ball. The one goes for the sake of formality, and the other reads the
+book so as not to be in arrear. For La Bruyère was quite right when he
+said: _All the wit in the world is lost upon him who has none_. The
+whole range of thought of a man of talent, or of a genius, compared
+with the thoughts of the common man, is, even when directed to objects
+essentially the same, like a brilliant oil-painting, full of life,
+compared with a mere outline or a weak sketch in water-color.
+
+All this is part of the reward of genius, and compensates him for a
+lonely existence in a world with which he has nothing in common and
+no sympathies. But since size is relative, it comes to the same thing
+whether I say, Caius was a great man, or Caius has to live amongst
+wretchedly small people: for Brobdingnack and Lilliput vary only
+in the point from which they start. However great, then, however
+admirable or instructive, a long posterity may think the author
+of immortal works, during his lifetime he will appear to his
+contemporaries small, wretched, and insipid in proportion. This is
+what I mean by saying that as there are three hundred degrees from the
+base of a tower to the summit, so there are exactly three hundred
+from the summit to the base. Great minds thus owe little ones some
+indulgence; for it is only in virtue of these little minds that they
+themselves are great.
+
+Let us, then, not be surprised if we find men of genius generally
+unsociable and repellent. It is not their want of sociability that is
+to blame. Their path through the world is like that of a man who goes
+for a walk on a bright summer morning. He gazes with delight on the
+beauty and freshness of nature, but he has to rely wholly on that for
+entertainment; for he can find no society but the peasants as they
+bend over the earth and cultivate the soil. It is often the case that
+a great mind prefers soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in this
+world. If he condescends to it now and then, the hollowness of it may
+possibly drive him back to his soliloquy; for in forgetfulness of his
+interlocutor, or caring little whether he understands or not, he talks
+to him as a child talks to a doll.
+
+Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world;
+but, unluckily, it is a _contradictio in adjecto_. It would compel a
+genius to give the thoughts and opinions, nay, even the method and
+style, of the million preference over his own; to set a higher value
+upon them; and, wide apart as they are, to bring his views into
+harmony with theirs, or even suppress them altogether, so as to let
+the others hold the field. In that case, however, he would either
+produce nothing at all, or else his achievements would be just upon a
+level with theirs. Great, genuine and extraordinary work can be done
+only in so far as its author disregards the method, the thoughts, the
+opinions of his contemporaries, and quietly works on, in spite of
+their criticism, on his side despising what they praise. No one
+becomes great without arrogance of this sort. Should his life and work
+fall upon a time which cannot recognize and appreciate him, he is at
+any rate true to himself; like some noble traveler forced to pass the
+night in a miserable inn; when morning comes, he contentedly goes his
+way.
+
+A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it
+only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor
+with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his
+vocation without having to think about other people.
+
+For the brain to be a mere laborer in the service of the belly, is
+indeed the common lot of almost all those who do not live on the work
+of their hands; and they are far from being discontented with
+their lot. But it strikes despair into a man of great mind, whose
+brain-power goes beyond the measure necessary for the service of
+the will; and he prefers, if need be, to live in the narrowest
+circumstances, so long as they afford him the free use of his time for
+the development and application of his faculties; in other words, if
+they give him the leisure which is invaluable to him.
+
+It is otherwise with ordinary people: for them leisure has no value in
+itself, nor is it, indeed, without its dangers, as these people
+seem to know. The technical work of our time, which is done to an
+unprecedented perfection, has, by increasing and multiplying objects
+of luxury, given the favorites of fortune a choice between more
+leisure and culture upon the one side, and additional luxury and good
+living, but with increased activity, upon the other; and, true to
+their character, they choose the latter, and prefer champagne to
+freedom. And they are consistent in their choice; for, to them, every
+exertion of the mind which does not serve the aims of the will is
+folly. Intellectual effort for its own sake, they call eccentricity.
+Therefore, persistence in the aims of the will and the belly will be
+concentricity; and, to be sure, the will is the centre, the kernel of
+the world.
+
+But in general it is very seldom that any such alternative is
+presented. For as with money, most men have no superfluity, but only
+just enough for their needs, so with intelligence; they possess just
+what will suffice for the service of the will, that is, for the
+carrying on of their business. Having made their fortune, they are
+content to gape or to indulge in sensual pleasures or childish
+amusements, cards or dice; or they will talk in the dullest way, or
+dress up and make obeisance to one another. And how few are those who
+have even a little superfluity of intellectual power! Like the others
+they too make themselves a pleasure; but it is a pleasure of the
+intellect. Either they will pursue some liberal study which brings
+them in nothing, or they will practice some art; and in general, they
+will be capable of taking an objective interest in things, so that
+it will be possible to converse with them. But with the others it is
+better not to enter into any relations at all; for, except when they
+tell the results of their own experience or give an account of their
+special vocation, or at any rate impart what they have learned from
+some one else, their conversation will not be worth listening to; and
+if anything is said to them, they will rarely grasp or understand it
+aright, and it will in most cases be opposed to their own opinions.
+Balthazar Gracian describes them very strikingly as men who are not
+men--_hombres che non lo son_. And Giordano Bruno _says_ the same
+thing: _What a difference there is in having to do with men compared
+with those who are only made in their image and likeness_![1] And how
+wonderfully this passage agrees with that remark in the Kurral: _The
+common people look like men but I have never seen anything quite like
+them_. If the reader will consider the extent to which these ideas
+agree in thought and even in expression, and in the wide difference
+between them in point of date and nationality, he cannot doubt but
+that they are at one with the facts of life. It was certainly not
+under the influence of those passages that, about twenty years ago, I
+tried to get a snuff-box made, the lid of which should have two fine
+chestnuts represented upon it, if possible in mosaic; together with a
+leaf which was to show that they were horse-chestnuts. This symbol was
+meant to keep the thought constantly before my mind. If anyone wishes
+for entertainment, such as will prevent him feeling solitary even when
+he is alone, let me recommend the company of dogs, whose moral and
+intellectual qualities may almost afford delight and gratification.
+
+[Footnote 1: Opera: ed. Wagner, 1. 224.]
+
+Still, we should always be careful to avoid being unjust. I am often
+surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my
+dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind. Countless times,
+in indignation at their incapacity, their total lack of discernment,
+their bestiality, I have been forced to echo the old complaint that
+folly is the mother and the nurse of the human race:
+
+  _Humani generis mater nutrixque profecto
+  Stultitia est_.
+
+But at other times I have been astounded that from such a race there
+could have gone forth so many arts and sciences, abounding in so much
+use and beauty, even though it has always been the few that produce
+them. Yet these arts and sciences have struck root, established and
+perfected themselves: and the race has with persistent fidelity
+preserved Homer, Plato, Horace and others for thousands of years, by
+copying and treasuring their writings, thus saving them from oblivion,
+in spite of all the evils and atrocities that have happened in the
+world. Thus the race has proved that it appreciates the value of these
+things, and at the same time it can form a correct view of special
+achievements or estimate signs of judgment and intelligence. When this
+takes place amongst those who belong to the great multitude, it is by
+a kind of inspiration. Sometimes a correct opinion will be formed by
+the multitude itself; but this is only when the chorus of praise
+has grown full and complete. It is then like the sound of untrained
+voices; where there are enough of them, it is always harmonious.
+
+Those who emerge from the multitude, those who are called men of
+genius, are merely the _lucida intervalla_ of the whole human race.
+They achieve that which others could not possibly achieve. Their
+originality is so great that not only is their divergence from others
+obvious, but their individuality is expressed with such force, that
+all the men of genius who have ever existed show, every one of them,
+peculiarities of character and mind; so that the gift of his works is
+one which he alone of all men could ever have presented to the world.
+This is what makes that simile of Ariosto's so true and so justly
+celebrated: _Natura lo fece e poi ruppe lo stampo._ After Nature
+stamps a man of genius, she breaks the die.
+
+But there is always a limit to human capacity; and no one can be a
+great genius without having some decidedly weak side, it may even be,
+some intellectual narrowness. In other words, there will foe some
+faculty in which he is now and then inferior to men of moderate
+endowments. It will be a faculty which, if strong, might have been an
+obstacle to the exercise of the qualities in which he excels. What
+this weak point is, it will always be hard to define with any accuracy
+even in a given case. It may be better expressed indirectly; thus
+Plato's weak point is exactly that in which Aristotle is strong, and
+_vice versa_; and so, too, Kant is deficient just where Goethe is
+great.
+
+Now, mankind is fond of venerating something; but its veneration is
+generally directed to the wrong object, and it remains so directed
+until posterity comes to set it right. But the educated public is
+no sooner set right in this, than the honor which is due to genius
+degenerates; just as the honor which the faithful pay to their saints
+easily passes into a frivolous worship of relics. Thousands of
+Christians adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are
+unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more
+in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel
+that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the
+Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and
+faithful practice of his high teaching. Petrarch's house in Arqua;
+Tasso's supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare's house in Stratford,
+with his chair; Goethe's house in Weimar, with its furniture; Kant's
+old hat; the autographs of great men; these things are gaped at with
+interest and awe by many who have never read their works. They cannot
+do anything more than just gape.
+
+The intelligent amongst them are moved by the wish to see the objects
+which the great man habitually had before his eyes; and by a strange
+illusion, these produce the mistaken notion that with the objects they
+are bringing back the man himself, or that something of him must
+cling to them. Akin to such people are those who earnestly strive to
+acquaint themselves with the subject-matter of a poet's works, or to
+unravel the personal circumstances and events in his life which have
+suggested particular passages. This is as though the audience in a
+theatre were to admire a fine scene and then rush upon the stage to
+look at the scaffolding that supports it. There are in our day enough
+instances of these critical investigators, and they prove the truth of
+the saying that mankind is interested, not in the _form_ of a work,
+that is, in its manner of treatment, but in its actual matter. All it
+cares for is the theme. To read a philosopher's biography, instead of
+studying his thoughts, is like neglecting a picture and attending only
+to the style of its frame, debating whether it is carved well or ill,
+and how much it cost to gild it.
+
+This is all very well. However, there is another class of
+persons whose interest is also directed to material and personal
+considerations, but they go much further and carry it to a point where
+it becomes absolutely futile. Because a great man has opened up to
+them the treasures of his inmost being, and, by a supreme effort
+of his faculties, produced works which not only redound to their
+elevation and enlightenment, but will also benefit their posterity to
+the tenth and twentieth generation; because he has presented mankind
+with a matchless gift, these varlets think themselves justified in
+sitting in judgment upon his personal morality, and trying if they
+cannot discover here or there some spot in him which will soothe the
+pain they feel at the sight of so great a mind, compared with the
+overwhelming feeling of their own nothingness.
+
+This is the real source of all those prolix discussions, carried on in
+countless books and reviews, on the moral aspect of Goethe's life, and
+whether he ought not to have married one or other of the girls with
+whom he fell in love in his young days; whether, again, instead of
+honestly devoting himself to the service of his master, he should not
+have been a man of the people, a German patriot, worthy of a seat in
+the _Paulskirche_, and so on. Such crying ingratitude and malicious
+detraction prove that these self-constituted judges are as great
+knaves morally as they are intellectually, which is saying a great
+deal.
+
+A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring
+that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to
+name. Wealth is seldom its reward. Nor is it reputation or glory; only
+a Frenchman could mean that. Glory is such an uncertain thing, and,
+if you look at it closely, of so little value. Besides it never
+corresponds to the effort you have made:
+
+  _Responsura tuo nunquam est par fama labori._
+
+Nor, again, is it exactly the pleasure it gives you; for this is
+almost outweighed by the greatness of the effort. It is rather a
+peculiar kind of instinct, which drives the man of genius to give
+permanent form to what he sees and feels, without being conscious of
+any further motive. It works, in the main, by a necessity similar to
+that which makes a tree bear its fruit; and no external condition is
+needed but the ground upon which it is to thrive.
+
+On a closer examination, it seems as though, in the case of a genius,
+the will to live, which is the spirit of the human species, were
+conscious of having, by some rare chance, and for a brief period,
+attained a greater clearness of vision, and were now trying to secure
+it, or at least the outcome of it, for the whole species, to which the
+individual genius in his inmost being belongs; so that the light which
+he sheds about him may pierce the darkness and dullness of ordinary
+human consciousness and there produce some good effect.
+
+Arising in some such way, this instinct drives the genius to carry
+his work to completion, without thinking of reward or applause or
+sympathy; to leave all care for his own personal welfare; to make his
+life one of industrious solitude, and to strain his faculties to
+the utmost. He thus comes to think more about posterity than about
+contemporaries; because, while the latter can only lead him astray,
+posterity forms the majority of the species, and time will gradually
+bring the discerning few who can appreciate him. Meanwhile it is with
+him as with the artist described by Goethe; he has no princely patron
+to prize his talents, no friend to rejoice with him:
+
+  _Ein Fürst der die Talente schätzt,
+  Ein Freund, der sich mit mir ergötzt,
+  Die haben leider mir gefehlt_.
+
+His work is, as it were, a sacred object and the true fruit of his
+life, and his aim in storing it away for a more discerning posterity
+will be to make it the property of mankind. An aim like this far
+surpasses all others, and for it he wears the crown of thorns which
+is one day to bloom into a wreath of laurel. All his powers are
+concentrated in the effort to complete and secure his work; just as
+the insect, in the last stage of its development, uses its whole
+strength on behalf of a brood it will never live to see; it puts its
+eggs in some place of safety, where, as it well knows, the young will
+one day find life and nourishment, and then dies in confidence.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Art of Literature, by Arthur Schopenhauer
+
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+      The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Literature, by Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Literature
+
+Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10714]
+Last Updated: December 9, 2018
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
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+Distributed Proofreading Team.
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+HTML file produced by David Widger
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+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      Arthur Schopenhauer
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Translated By T. Bailey Saunders
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE ART OF LITERATURE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> ON AUTHORSHIP. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> ON STYLE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> ON THE STUDY OF LATIN. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> ON MEN OF LEARNING. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> ON THINKING FOR ONESELF. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> ON CRITICISM. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> ON REPUTATION. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> ON GENIUS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE ART OF LITERATURE.
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The contents of this, as of the other volumes in the series, have been
+      drawn from Schopenhauer's <i>Parerga</i>, and amongst the various subjects
+      dealt with in that famous collection of essays, Literature holds an
+      important place. Nor can Schopenhauer's opinions fail to be of special
+      value when he treats of literary form and method. For, quite apart from
+      his philosophical pretensions, he claims recognition as a great writer; he
+      is, indeed, one of the best of the few really excellent prose-writers of
+      whom Germany can boast. While he is thus particularly qualified to speak
+      of Literature as an Art, he has also something to say upon those
+      influences which, outside of his own merits, contribute so much to an
+      author's success, and are so often undervalued when he obtains immediate
+      popularity. Schopenhauer's own sore experiences in the matter of
+      reputation lend an interest to his remarks upon that subject, although it
+      is too much to ask of human nature that he should approach it in any
+      dispassionate spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the following pages we have observations upon style by one who was a
+      stylist in the best sense of the word, not affected, nor yet a
+      phrasemonger; on thinking for oneself by a philosopher who never did
+      anything else; on criticism by a writer who suffered much from the
+      inability of others to understand him; on reputation by a candidate who,
+      during the greater part of his life, deserved without obtaining it; and on
+      genius by one who was incontestably of the privileged order himself. And
+      whatever may be thought of some of his opinions on matters of detail&mdash;on
+      anonymity, for instance, or on the question whether good work is never
+      done for money&mdash;there can be no doubt that his general view of
+      literature, and the conditions under which it flourishes, is perfectly
+      sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might be thought, perhaps, that remarks which were meant to apply to
+      the German language would have but little bearing upon one so different
+      from it as English. This would be a just objection if Schopenhauer treated
+      literature in a petty spirit, and confined himself to pedantic inquiries
+      into matters of grammar and etymology, or mere niceties of phrase. But
+      this is not so. He deals with his subject broadly, and takes large and
+      general views; nor can anyone who knows anything of the philosopher
+      suppose this to mean that he is vague and feeble. It is true that now and
+      again in the course of these essays he makes remarks which are obviously
+      meant to apply to the failings of certain writers of his own age and
+      country; but in such a case I have generally given his sentences a turn,
+      which, while keeping them faithful to the spirit of the original, secures
+      for them a less restricted range, and makes Schopenhauer a critic of
+      similar faults in whatever age or country they may appear. This has been
+      done in spite of a sharp word on page seventeen of this volume, addressed
+      to translators who dare to revise their author; but the change is one with
+      which not even Schopenhauer could quarrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is thus a significant fact&mdash;a testimony to the depth of his
+      insight and, in the main, the justice of his opinions&mdash;that views of
+      literature which appealed to his own immediate contemporaries, should be
+      found to hold good elsewhere and at a distance of fifty years. It means
+      that what he had to say was worth saying; and since it is adapted thus
+      equally to diverse times and audiences, it is probably of permanent
+      interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intelligent reader will observe that much of the charm of
+      Schopenhauer's writing comes from its strongly personal character, and
+      that here he has to do, not with a mere maker of books, but with a man who
+      thinks for himself and has no false scruples in putting his meaning
+      plainly upon the page, or in unmasking sham wherever he finds it. This is
+      nowhere so true as when he deals with literature; and just as in his
+      treatment of life, he is no flatterer to men in general, so here he is
+      free and outspoken on the peculiar failings of authors. At the same time
+      he gives them good advice. He is particularly happy in recommending
+      restraint in regard to reading the works of others, and the cultivation of
+      independent thought; and herein he recalls a saying attributed to Hobbes,
+      who was not less distinguished as a writer than as a philosopher, to the
+      effect that "<i>if he had read as much as other men, he should have been
+      as ignorant as they</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schopenhauer also utters a warning, which we shall do well to take to
+      heart in these days, against mingling the pursuit of literature with
+      vulgar aims. If we follow him here, we shall carefully distinguish between
+      literature as an object of life and literature as a means of living,
+      between the real love of truth and beauty, and that detestable false love
+      which looks to the price it will fetch in the market. I am not referring
+      to those who, while they follow a useful and honorable calling in bringing
+      literature before the public, are content to be known as men of business.
+      If, by the help of some second witch of Endor, we could raise the ghost of
+      Schopenhauer, it would be interesting to hear his opinion of a certain
+      kind of literary enterprise which has come into vogue since his day, and
+      now receives an amount of attention very much beyond its due. We may
+      hazard a guess at the direction his opinion would take. He would doubtless
+      show us how this enterprise, which is carried on by self-styled <i>literary
+      men</i>, ends by making literature into a form of merchandise, and
+      treating it as though it were so much goods to be bought and sold at a
+      profit, and most likely to produce quick returns if the maker's name is
+      well known. Nor would it be the ghost of the real Schopenhauer unless we
+      heard a vigorous denunciation of men who claim a connection with
+      literature by a servile flattery of successful living authors&mdash;the
+      dead cannot be made to pay&mdash;in the hope of appearing to advantage in
+      their reflected light and turning that advantage into money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to present the contents of this book in a convenient form, I have
+      not scrupled to make an arrangement with the chapters somewhat different
+      from that which exists in the original; so that two or more subjects which
+      are there dealt with successively in one and the same chapter, here stand
+      by themselves. In consequence of this, some of the titles of the sections
+      are not to be found in the original. I may state, however, that the essays
+      on <i>Authorship</i> and <i>Style</i> and the latter part of that on <i>Criticism</i>
+      are taken direct from the chapter headed <i>Ueber Schriftstellerei und
+      Stil</i>; and that the remainder of the essay on <i>Criticism</i>, with
+      that of <i>Reputation</i>, is supplied by the remarks <i>Ueber Urtheil,
+      Kritik, Beifall und Ruhm</i>. The essays on <i>The Study of Latin</i>, on
+      <i>Men of Learning</i>, and on <i>Some Forms of Literature</i>, are taken
+      chiefly from the four sections <i>Ueber Gelehrsamkeit und Gelehrte, Ueber
+      Sprache und Worte, Ueber Lesen und Bücher: Anhang</i>, and <i>Zur
+      Metaphysik des Schönen</i>. The essay on <i>Thinking for Oneself</i> is a
+      rendering of certain remarks under the heading <i>Selbstdenken. Genius</i>
+      was a favorite subject of speculation with Schopenhauer, and he often
+      touches upon it in the course of his works; always, however, to put forth
+      the same theory in regard to it as may be found in the concluding section
+      of this volume. Though the essay has little or nothing to do with literary
+      method, the subject of which it treats is the most needful element of
+      success in literature; and I have introduced it on that ground. It forms
+      part of a chapter in the <i>Parerga</i> entitled <i>Den Intellekt
+      überhaupt und in jeder Beziehung betreffende Gedanken: Anhang verwandter
+      Stellen.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has also been part of my duty to invent a title for this volume; and I
+      am well aware that objection may be made to the one I have chosen, on the
+      ground that in common language it is unusual to speak of literature as an
+      art, and that to do so is unduly to narrow its meaning and to leave out of
+      sight its main function as the record of thought. But there is no reason
+      why the word <i>Literature</i> should not be employed in that double sense
+      which is allowed to attach to <i>Painting, Music, Sculpture</i>, as
+      signifying either the objective outcome of a certain mental activity,
+      seeking to express itself in outward form; or else the particular kind of
+      mental activity in question, and the methods it follows. And we do, in
+      fact, use it in this latter sense, when we say of a writer that he pursues
+      literature as a calling. If, then, literature can be taken to mean a
+      process as well as a result of mental activity, there can be no error in
+      speaking of it as Art. I use that term in its broad sense, as meaning
+      skill in the display of thought; or, more fully, a right use of the rules
+      of applying to the practical exhibition of thought, with whatever material
+      it may deal. In connection with literature, this is a sense and an
+      application of the term which have been sufficiently established by the
+      example of the great writers of antiquity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be asked, of course, whether the true thinker, who will always form
+      the soul of the true author, will not be so much occupied with what he has
+      to say, that it will appear to him a trivial thing to spend great effort
+      on embellishing the form in which he delivers it. Literature, to be worthy
+      of the name, must, it is true, deal with noble matter&mdash;the riddle of
+      our existence, the great facts of life, the changing passions of the human
+      heart, the discernment of some deep moral truth. It is easy to lay too
+      much stress upon the mere garment of thought; to be too precise; to give
+      to the arrangement of words an attention that should rather be paid to the
+      promotion of fresh ideas. A writer who makes this mistake is like a fop
+      who spends his little mind in adorning his person. In short, it may be
+      charged against the view of literature which is taken in calling it an
+      Art, that, instead of making truth and insight the author's aim, it favors
+      sciolism and a fantastic and affected style. There is, no doubt, some
+      justice in the objection; nor have we in our own day, and especially
+      amongst younger men, any lack of writers who endeavor to win confidence,
+      not by adding to the stock of ideas in the world, but by despising the use
+      of plain language. Their faults are not new in the history of literature;
+      and it is a pleasing sign of Schopenhauer's insight that a merciless
+      exposure of them, as they existed half a century ago, is still quite
+      applicable to their modern form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And since these writers, who may, in the slang of the hour, be called
+      "impressionists" in literature, follow their own bad taste in the
+      manufacture of dainty phrases, devoid of all nerve, and generally with
+      some quite commonplace meaning, it is all the more necessary to
+      discriminate carefully between artifice and art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But although they may learn something from Schopenhauer's advice, it is
+      not chiefly to them that it is offered. It is to that great mass of
+      writers, whose business is to fill the columns of the newspapers and the
+      pages of the review, and to produce the ton of novels that appear every
+      year. Now that almost everyone who can hold a pen aspires to be called an
+      author, it is well to emphasize the fact that literature is an art in some
+      respects more important than any other. The problem of this art is the
+      discovery of those qualities of style and treatment which entitled any
+      work to be called good literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be safe to warn the reader at the very outset that, if he wishes
+      to avoid being led astray, he should in his search for these qualities
+      turn to books that have stood the test of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For such an amount of hasty writing is done in these days that it is
+      really difficult for anyone who reads much of it to avoid contracting its
+      faults, and thus gradually coming to terms of dangerous familiarity with
+      bad methods. This advice will be especially needful if things that have
+      little or no claim to be called literature at all&mdash;the newspapers,
+      the monthly magazine, and the last new tale of intrigue or adventure&mdash;fill
+      a large measure, if not the whole, of the time given to reading. Nor are
+      those who are sincerely anxious to have the best thought in the best
+      language quite free from danger if they give too much attention to the
+      contemporary authors, even though these seem to think and write
+      excellently. For one generation alone is incompetent to decide upon the
+      merits of any author whatever; and as literature, like all art, is a thing
+      of human invention, so it can be pronounced good only if it obtains
+      lasting admiration, by establishing a permanent appeal to mankind's
+      deepest feeling for truth and beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is in this sense that Schopenhauer is perfectly right in holding that
+      neglect of the ancient classics, which are the best of all models in the
+      art of writing, will infallibly lead to a degeneration of literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the method of discovering the best qualities of style, and of forming
+      a theory of writing, is not to follow some trick or mannerism that happens
+      to please for the moment, but to study the way in which great authors have
+      done their best work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be said that Schopenhauer tells us nothing we did not know before.
+      Perhaps so; as he himself says, the best things are seldom new. But he
+      puts the old truths in a fresh and forcible way; and no one who knows
+      anything of good literature will deny that these truths are just now of
+      very fit application.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was probably to meet a real want that, a year or two ago, an ingenious
+      person succeeded in drawing a great number of English and American writers
+      into a confession of their literary creed and the art they adopted in
+      authorship; and the interesting volume in which he gave these confessions
+      to the world contained some very good advice, although most of it had been
+      said before in different forms. More recently a new departure, of very
+      doubtful use, has taken place; and two books have been issued, which aim,
+      the one at being an author's manual, the other at giving hints on essays
+      and how to write them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A glance at these books will probably show that their authors have still
+      something to learn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both of these ventures seem, unhappily, to be popular; and, although they
+      may claim a position next-door to that of the present volume I beg to say
+      that it has no connection with them whatever. Schopenhauer does not
+      attempt to teach the art of making bricks without straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish to take this opportunity of tendering my thanks to a large number
+      of reviewers for the very gratifying reception given to the earlier
+      volumes of this series. And I have great pleasure in expressing my
+      obligations to my friend Mr. W.G. Collingwood, who has looked over most of
+      my proofs and often given me excellent advice in my effort to turn
+      Schopenhauer into readable English.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      T.B.S.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON AUTHORSHIP.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the
+      subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the one have
+      had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the
+      others want money; and so they write, for money. Their thinking is part of
+      the business of writing. They may be recognized by the way in which they
+      spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible length; then, too, by the
+      very nature of their thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced,
+      vacillating; again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything
+      straight out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their
+      writing is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long
+      before they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover
+      paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for
+      example, with Lessing in his <i>Dramaturgie</i>, and even in many of Jean
+      Paul's romances. As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw the
+      book away; for time is precious. The truth is that when an author begins
+      to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader;
+      because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of
+      literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes
+      entirely for the sake of his subject. What an inestimable boon it would
+      be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but
+      those excellent! This can never happen, as long as money is to be made by
+      writing. It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author
+      degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in any way for the
+      sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time
+      when they had to write for nothing or for very little. And here, too, that
+      Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honor and money are not to
+      be found in the same purse&mdash;<i>honora y provecho no caben en un saco</i>.
+      The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and
+      solely that people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits
+      down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The
+      secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish mania of
+      the public for reading nothing but what has just been printed,&mdash;journalists,
+      I mean. Truly, a most appropriate name. In plain language it is <i>journeymen,
+      day-laborers</i>!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First come
+      those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory, from
+      reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's books. This
+      class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their thinking whilst
+      they are writing. They think in order to write; and there is no lack of
+      them. Last of all come those authors who think before they begin to write.
+      They are rare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they come to
+      write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is not likely to
+      bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author of the third or
+      rare class writes, it is like a <i>battue</i>. Here the game has been
+      previously captured and shut up within a very small space; from which it
+      is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into another space, also
+      confined. The game cannot possibly escape the sportsman; he has nothing to
+      do but aim and fire&mdash;in other words, write down his thoughts. This is
+      a kind of sport from which a man has something to show.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even though the number of those who really think seriously before they
+      begin to write is small, extremely few of them think about <i>the subject
+      itself</i>: the remainder think only about the books that have been
+      written on the subject, and what has been said by others. In order to
+      think at all, such writers need the more direct and powerful stimulus of
+      having other people's thoughts before them. These become their immediate
+      theme; and the result is that they are always under their influence, and
+      so never, in any real sense of the word, are original. But the former are
+      roused to thought by the subject itself, to which their thinking is thus
+      immediately directed. This is the only class that produces writers of
+      abiding fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must, of course, be understood that I am speaking here of writers who
+      treat of great subjects; not of writers on the art of making brandy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unless an author takes the material on which he writes out of his own
+      head, that is to say, from his own observation, he is not worth reading.
+      Book-manufacturers, compilers, the common run of history-writers, and many
+      others of the same class, take their material immediately out of books;
+      and the material goes straight to their finger-tips without even paying
+      freight or undergoing examination as it passes through their heads, to say
+      nothing of elaboration or revision. How very learned many a man would be
+      if he knew everything that was in his own books! The consequence of this
+      is that these writers talk in such a loose and vague manner, that the
+      reader puzzles his brain in vain to understand what it is of which they
+      are really thinking. They are thinking of nothing. It may now and then be
+      the case that the book from which they copy has been composed exactly in
+      the same way: so that writing of this sort is like a plaster cast of a
+      cast; and in the end, the bare outline of the face, and that, too, hardly
+      recognizable, is all that is left to your Antinous. Let compilations be
+      read as seldom as possible. It is difficult to avoid them altogether;
+      since compilations also include those text-books which contain in a small
+      space the accumulated knowledge of centuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last work is always
+      the more correct; that what is written later on is in every case an
+      improvement on what was written before; and that change always means
+      progress. Real thinkers, men of right judgment, people who are in earnest
+      with their subject,&mdash;these are all exceptions only. Vermin is the
+      rule everywhere in the world: it is always on the alert, taking the mature
+      opinions of the thinkers, and industriously seeking to improve upon them
+      (save the mark!) in its own peculiar way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of rushing to
+      the newest books upon it, and confining his attention to them alone, under
+      the notion that science is always advancing, and that the old books have
+      been drawn upon in the writing of the new. They have been drawn upon, it
+      is true; but how? The writer of the new book often does not understand the
+      old books thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling to take their exact words;
+      so he bungles them, and says in his own bad way that which has been said
+      very much better and more clearly by the old writers, who wrote from their
+      own lively knowledge of the subject. The new writer frequently omits the
+      best things they say, their most striking illustrations, their happiest
+      remarks; because he does not see their value or feel how pregnant they
+      are. The only thing that appeals to him is what is shallow and insipid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It often happens that an old and excellent book is ousted by new and bad
+      ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great pretension and
+      much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man tries to make his
+      mark by bringing out something fresh. This often means nothing more than
+      that he attacks some received theory which is quite correct, in order to
+      make room for his own false notions. Sometimes the effort is successful
+      for a time; and then a return is made to the old and true theory. These
+      innovators are serious about nothing but their own precious self: it is
+      this that they want to put forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they
+      think, is to start a paradox. Their sterile heads take naturally to the
+      path of negation; so they begin to deny truths that have long been
+      admitted&mdash;the vital power, for example, the sympathetic nervous
+      system, <i>generatio equivoca</i>, Bichat's distinction between the
+      working of the passions and the working of intelligence; or else they want
+      us to return to crass atomism, and the like. Hence it frequently happens
+      that <i>the course of science is retrogressive.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this class of writers belong those translators who not only translate
+      their author but also correct and revise him; a proceeding which always
+      seems to me impertinent. To such writers I say: Write books yourself which
+      are worth translating, and leave other people's works as they are!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reader should study, if he can, the real authors, the men who have
+      founded and discovered things; or, at any rate, those who are recognized
+      as the great masters in every branch of knowledge. Let him buy second-hand
+      books rather than read their contents in new ones. To be sure, it is easy
+      to add to any new discovery&mdash;<i>inventis aliquid addere facile est</i>;
+      and, therefore, the student, after well mastering the rudiments of his
+      subject, will have to make himself acquainted with the more recent
+      additions to the knowledge of it. And, in general, the following rule may
+      be laid down here as elsewhere: if a thing is new, it is seldom good;
+      because if it is good, it is only for a short time new.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the address is to a letter, the title should be to a book; in other
+      words, its main object should be to bring the book to those amongst the
+      public who will take an interest in its contents. It should, therefore, be
+      expressive; and since by its very nature it must be short, it should be
+      concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible give the contents in one word.
+      A prolix title is bad; and so is one that says nothing, or is obscure and
+      ambiguous, or even, it may be, false and misleading; this last may
+      possibly involve the book in the same fate as overtakes a wrongly
+      addressed letter. The worst titles of all are those which have been
+      stolen, those, I mean, which have already been borne by other books; for
+      they are in the first place a plagiarism, and secondly the most convincing
+      proof of a total lack of originality in the author. A man who has not
+      enough originality to invent a new title for his book, will be still less
+      able to give it new contents. Akin to these stolen titles are those which
+      have been imitated, that is to say, stolen to the extent of one half; for
+      instance, long after I had produced my treatise <i>On Will in Nature</i>,
+      Oersted wrote a book entitled <i>On Mind in Nature</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's
+      thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in <i>the matter about
+      which he has thought</i>, or in the <i>form</i> which his thoughts take,
+      in other words, <i>what it is that he has thought about it.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The matter of books is most various; and various also are the several
+      excellences attaching to books on the score of their matter. By matter I
+      mean everything that comes within the domain of actual experience; that is
+      to say, the facts of history and the facts of nature, taken in and by
+      themselves and in their widest sense. Here it is the <i>thing</i> treated
+      of, which gives its peculiar character to the book; so that a book can be
+      important, whoever it was that wrote it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in regard to the form, the peculiar character of a book depends upon
+      the <i>person</i> who wrote it. It may treat of matters which are
+      accessible to everyone and well known; but it is the way in which they are
+      treated, what it is that is thought about them, that gives the book its
+      value; and this comes from its author. If, then, from this point of view a
+      book is excellent and beyond comparison, so is its author. It follows that
+      if a writer is worth reading, his merit rises just in proportion as he
+      owes little to his matter; therefore, the better known and the more
+      hackneyed this is, the greater he will be. The three great tragedians of
+      Greece, for example, all worked at the same subject-matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So when a book is celebrated, care should be taken to note whether it is
+      so on account of its matter or its form; and a distinction should be made
+      accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Books of great importance on account of their matter may proceed from very
+      ordinary and shallow people, by the fact that they alone have had access
+      to this matter; books, for instance, which describe journeys in distant
+      lands, rare natural phenomena, or experiments; or historical occurrences
+      of which the writers were witnesses, or in connection with which they have
+      spent much time and trouble in the research and special study of original
+      documents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, where the matter is accessible to everyone or very well
+      known, everything will depend upon the form; and what it is that is
+      thought about the matter will give the book all the value it possesses.
+      Here only a really distinguished man will be able to produce anything
+      worth reading; for the others will think nothing but what anyone else can
+      think. They will just produce an impress of their own minds; but this is a
+      print of which everyone possesses the original.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the public is very much more concerned to have matter than form;
+      and for this very reason it is deficient in any high degree of culture.
+      The public shows its preference in this respect in the most laughable way
+      when it comes to deal with poetry; for there it devotes much trouble to
+      the task of tracking out the actual events or personal circumstances in
+      the life of the poet which served as the occasion of his various works;
+      nay, these events and circumstances come in the end to be of greater
+      importance than the works themselves; and rather than read Goethe himself,
+      people prefer to read what has been written about him, and to study the
+      legend of Faust more industriously than the drama of that name. And when
+      Bürger declared that "people would write learned disquisitions on the
+      question, Who Leonora really was," we find this literally fulfilled in
+      Goethe's case; for we now possess a great many learned disquisitions on
+      Faust and the legend attaching to him. Study of this kind is, and remains,
+      devoted to the material of the drama alone. To give such preference to the
+      matter over the form, is as though a man were to take a fine Etruscan
+      vase, not to admire its shape or coloring, but to make a chemical analysis
+      of the clay and paint of which it is composed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attempt to produce an effect by means of the material employed&mdash;an
+      attempt which panders to this evil tendency of the public&mdash;is most to
+      be condemned in branches of literature where any merit there may be lies
+      expressly in the form; I mean, in poetical work. For all that, it is not
+      rare to find bad dramatists trying to fill the house by means of the
+      matter about which they write. For example, authors of this kind do not
+      shrink from putting on the stage any man who is in any way celebrated, no
+      matter whether his life may have been entirely devoid of dramatic
+      incident; and sometimes, even, they do not wait until the persons
+      immediately connected with him are dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distinction between matter and form to which I am here alluding also
+      holds good of conversation. The chief qualities which enable a man to
+      converse well are intelligence, discernment, wit and vivacity: these
+      supply the form of conversation. But it is not long before attention has
+      to be paid to the matter of which he speaks; in other words, the subjects
+      about which it is possible to converse with him&mdash;his knowledge. If
+      this is very small, his conversation will not be worth anything, unless he
+      possesses the above-named formal qualities in a very exceptional degree;
+      for he will have nothing to talk about but those facts of life and nature
+      which everybody knows. It will be just the opposite, however, if a man is
+      deficient in these formal qualities, but has an amount of knowledge which
+      lends value to what he says. This value will then depend entirely upon the
+      matter of his conversation; for, as the Spanish proverb has it, <i>mas
+      sabe el necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena</i>&mdash;a fool knows
+      more of his own business than a wise man does of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON STYLE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character than
+      the face. To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask, which, be
+      it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and abhorrence, because
+      it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living face is better. Hence
+      those who write in Latin and copy the manner of ancient authors, may be
+      said to speak through a mask; the reader, it is true, hears what they say,
+      but he cannot observe their physiognomy too; he cannot see their <i>style</i>.
+      With the Latin works of writers who think for themselves, the case is
+      different, and their style is visible; writers, I mean, who have not
+      condescended to any sort of imitation, such as Scotus Erigena, Petrarch,
+      Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, and many others. An affectation in style is
+      like making grimaces. Further, the language in which a man writes is the
+      physiognomy of the nation to which he belongs; and here there are many
+      hard and fast differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks, down
+      to that of the Caribbean islanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To form a provincial estimate of the value of a writer's productions, it
+      is not directly necessary to know the subject on which he has thought, or
+      what it is that he has said about it; that would imply a perusal of all
+      his works. It will be enough, in the main, to know <i>how</i> he has
+      thought. This, which means the essential temper or general quality of his
+      mind, may be precisely determined by his style. A man's style shows the <i>formal</i>
+      nature of all his thoughts&mdash;the formal nature which can never change,
+      be the subject or the character of his thoughts what it may: it is, as it
+      were, the dough out of which all the contents of his mind are kneaded.
+      When Eulenspiegel was asked how long it would take to walk to the next
+      village, he gave the seemingly incongruous answer: <i>Walk</i>. He wanted
+      to find out by the man's pace the distance he would cover in a given time.
+      In the same way, when I have read a few pages of an author, I know fairly
+      well how far he can bring me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style, because in his
+      heart he knows the truth of what I am saying. He is thus forced, at the
+      outset, to give up any attempt at being frank or naïve&mdash;a privilege
+      which is thereby reserved for superior minds, conscious of their own
+      worth, and therefore sure of themselves. What I mean is that these
+      everyday writers are absolutely unable to resolve upon writing just as
+      they think; because they have a notion that, were they to do so, their
+      work might possibly look very childish and simple. For all that, it would
+      not be without its value. If they would only go honestly to work, and say,
+      quite simply, the things they have really thought, and just as they have
+      thought them, these writers would be readable and, within their own proper
+      sphere, even instructive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But instead of that, they try to make the reader believe that their
+      thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case. They
+      say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a forced
+      and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods which go
+      round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of disguise. They
+      tremble between the two separate aims of communicating what they want to
+      say and of concealing it. Their object is to dress it up so that it may
+      look learned or deep, in order to give people the impression that there is
+      very much more in it than for the moment meets the eye. They either jot
+      down their thoughts bit by bit, in short, ambiguous, and paradoxical
+      sentences, which apparently mean much more than they say,&mdash;of this
+      kind of writing Schelling's treatises on natural philosophy are a splendid
+      instance; or else they hold forth with a deluge of words and the most
+      intolerable diffusiveness, as though no end of fuss were necessary to make
+      the reader understand the deep meaning of their sentences, whereas it is
+      some quite simple if not actually trivial idea,&mdash;examples of which
+      may be found in plenty in the popular works of Fichte, and the
+      philosophical manuals of a hundred other miserable dunces not worth
+      mentioning; or, again, they try to write in some particular style which
+      they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style, for
+      example, <i>par excellence</i> profound and scientific, where the reader
+      is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun periods without a
+      single idea in them,&mdash;such as are furnished in a special measure by
+      those most impudent of all mortals, the Hegelians<a href="#linknote-1"
+      name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a>; or it may be
+      that it is an intellectual style they have striven after, where it seems
+      as though their object were to go crazy altogether; and so on in many
+      other cases. All these endeavors to put off the <i>nascetur ridiculus mus</i>&mdash;to
+      avoid showing the funny little creature that is born after such mighty
+      throes&mdash;often make it difficult to know what it is that they really
+      mean. And then, too, they write down words, nay, even whole sentences,
+      without attaching any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that
+      someone else will get sense out of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ In their Hegel-gazette,
+      commonly known as <i>Jahrbücher der wissenschaftlichen Literatur</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort to
+      sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always trying to
+      make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd expressions, turns of
+      phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether new or used in a new
+      sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in order to make up for the
+      very painfully felt lack of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
+      first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting on the
+      mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the inexperienced for a
+      while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with no life in it at all; it
+      is then laughed at and exchanged for another. Such an author will at one
+      moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as though he were tipsy; at another,
+      nay, on the very next page, he will be pompous, severe, profoundly learned
+      and prolix, stumbling on in the most cumbrous way and chopping up
+      everything very small; like the late Christian Wolf, only in a modern
+      dress. Longest of all lasts the mask of unintelligibility; but this is
+      only in Germany, whither it was introduced by Fichte, perfected by
+      Schelling, and carried to its highest pitch in Hegel&mdash;always with the
+      best results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
+      just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep things
+      in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All the arts and
+      tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if the author
+      really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself as he is, and
+      confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is the source and
+      origin of good style:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who try
+      a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold&mdash;the only
+      metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there is
+      nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than the
+      manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has; because
+      this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little; since it is
+      always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever it may be, it is
+      just there that he is deficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is <i>naïve</i>; it
+      means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
+      speaking, to be <i>naïve</i> is to be attractive; while lack of
+      naturalness is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that
+      every really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely,
+      clearly, definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been
+      held to be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives
+      its beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the
+      thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing
+      but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad style means a
+      dull or confused brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first rule, then, for a good style is that <i>the author should have
+      something to say</i>; nay, this is in itself almost all that is necessary.
+      Ah, how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a fundamental trait in
+      the philosophical writing, and, in fact, in all the reflective literature,
+      of my country, more especially since Fichte. These writers all let it be
+      seen that they want to appear as though they had something to say; whereas
+      they have nothing to say. Writing of this kind was brought in by the
+      pseudo-philosophers at the Universities, and now it is current everywhere,
+      even among the first literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of
+      that strained and vague style, where there seem to be two or even more
+      meanings in the sentence; also of that prolix and cumbrous manner of
+      expression, called <i>le stile empesé</i>; again, of that mere waste of
+      words which consists in pouring them out like a flood; finally, of that
+      trick of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a farrago of
+      never-ending chatter, which clacks away like a windmill and quite
+      stupefies one&mdash;stuff which a man may read for hours together without
+      getting hold of a single clearly expressed and definite idea.<a
+      href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2"><small>2</small></a>
+      However, people are easy-going, and they have formed the habit of reading
+      page upon page of all sorts of such verbiage, without having any
+      particular idea of what the author really means. They fancy it is all as
+      it should be, and fail to discover that he is writing simply for writing's
+      sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br /> [ Select examples of the art
+      of writing in this style are to be found almost <i>passim</i> in the <i>Jahrbücher</i>
+      published at Halle, afterwards called the <i>Deutschen Jahrbücher</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon wins his reader's
+      confidence that, when he writes, he has really and truly <i>something to
+      say</i>; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to follow him with
+      attention. Such an author, just because he really has something to say,
+      will never fail to express himself in the simplest and most
+      straightforward manner; because his object is to awake the very same
+      thought in the reader that he has in himself, and no other. So he will be
+      able to affirm with Boileau that his thoughts are everywhere open to the
+      light of the day, and that his verse always says something, whether it
+      says it well or ill:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Ma pensée au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose,
+  Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose</i>:
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      while of the writers previously described it may be asserted, in the words
+      of the same poet, that they talk much and never say anything at all&mdash;<i>quiparlant
+      beaucoup ne disent jamais rien</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another characteristic of such writers is that they always avoid a
+      positive assertion wherever they can possibly do so, in order to leave a
+      loophole for escape in case of need. Hence they never fail to choose the
+      more <i>abstract</i> way of expressing themselves; whereas intelligent
+      people use the more <i>concrete</i>; because the latter brings things more
+      within the range of actual demonstration, which is the source of all
+      evidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are many examples proving this preference for abstract expression;
+      and a particularly ridiculous one is afforded by the use of the verb <i>to
+      condition</i> in the sense of <i>to cause</i> or <i>to produce</i>. People
+      say <i>to condition something</i> instead of <i>to cause it</i>, because
+      being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that <i>A</i>
+      cannot happen without <i>B</i>, instead of that <i>A</i> is caused by <i>B</i>.
+      A back door is always left open; and this suits people whose secret
+      knowledge of their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of
+      all positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
+      that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad in
+      life is immediately imitated&mdash;a fact proved in either case by the
+      rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
+      what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of which
+      this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence of this
+      state of things is that the word <i>cause</i> has of late almost
+      disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only of <i>condition</i>.
+      The fact is worth mentioning because it is so characteristically
+      ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
+      half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
+      dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are only
+      half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand the
+      meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and commit them
+      to memory. Hence when they write, it is not so much words as whole phrases
+      that they put together&mdash;<i>phrases banales</i>. This is the
+      explanation of that palpable lack of clearly-expressed thought in what
+      they say. The fact is that they do not possess the die to give this stamp
+      to their writing; clear thought of their own is just what they have not
+      got. And what do we find in its place?&mdash;a vague, enigmatical
+      intermixture of words, current phrases, hackneyed terms, and fashionable
+      expressions. The result is that the foggy stuff they write is like a page
+      printed with very old type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, an intelligent author really speaks to us when he
+      writes, and that is why he is able to rouse our interest and commune with
+      us. It is the intelligent author alone who puts individual words together
+      with a full consciousness of their meaning, and chooses them with
+      deliberate design. Consequently, his discourse stands to that of the
+      writer described above, much as a picture that has been really painted, to
+      one that has been produced by the use of a stencil. In the one case, every
+      word, every touch of the brush, has a special purpose; in the other, all
+      is done mechanically. The same distinction may be observed in music. For
+      just as Lichtenberg says that Garrick's soul seemed to be in every muscle
+      in his body, so it is the omnipresence of intellect that always and
+      everywhere characterizes the work of genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have alluded to the tediousness which marks the works of these writers;
+      and in this connection it is to be observed, generally, that tediousness
+      is of two kinds; objective and subjective. A work is objectively tedious
+      when it contains the defect in question; that is to say, when its author
+      has no perfectly clear thought or knowledge to communicate. For if a man
+      has any clear thought or knowledge in him, his aim will be to communicate
+      it, and he will direct his energies to this end; so that the ideas he
+      furnishes are everywhere clearly expressed. The result is that he is
+      neither diffuse, nor unmeaning, nor confused, and consequently not
+      tedious. In such a case, even though the author is at bottom in error, the
+      error is at any rate clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it
+      is at least formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the
+      work. But for the same reason a work that is objectively tedious is at all
+      times devoid of any value whatever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a work
+      dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it, and this
+      means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may, therefore, be
+      tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or that particular person;
+      just as, contrarity, the worst work may be subjectively engrossing to this
+      or that particular person who has an interest in the question treated of,
+      or in the writer of the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would generally serve writers in good stead if they would see that,
+      whilst a man should, if possible, think like a great genius, he should
+      talk the same language as everyone else. Authors should use common words
+      to say uncommon things. But they do just the opposite. We find them trying
+      to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words, and to clothe their very ordinary
+      thoughts in the most extraordinary phrases, the most far-fetched,
+      unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their sentences perpetually
+      stalk about on stilts. They take so much pleasure in bombast, and write in
+      such a high-flown, bloated, affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style
+      that their prototype is Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once
+      impatiently told to say what he had to say <i>like a man of this world.</i><a
+      href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" id="linknoteref-3"><small>3</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>King Henry IV</i>., Part
+      II. Act v. Sc. 3.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
+      French <i>stile empesé</i>; but the thing itself exists all the more
+      often. When associated with affectation, it is in literature what
+      assumption of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and
+      equally intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just
+      as an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses himself
+      up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level with a mob&mdash;a
+      risk never run by the <i>gentleman</i>, even in his worst clothes. The
+      plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire and a wish to have
+      everything spick and span; and in the same way, the commonplace person is
+      betrayed by his style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write exactly
+      as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a certain trace
+      of kinship with the <i>epigraphic</i> or <i>monumental</i> style, which
+      is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write as he
+      speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he
+      writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same
+      time makes him hardly intelligible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a very
+      bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from vagueness of
+      thought; and this again almost always means that there is something
+      radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself&mdash;in a word,
+      that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the mind, it
+      strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for clear thought
+      easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of thinking anything at
+      all, he is also always able to express it in clear, intelligible, and
+      unambiguous terms. Those writers who construct difficult, obscure,
+      involved, and equivocal sentences, most certainly do not know aright what
+      it is that they want to say: they have only a dull consciousness of it,
+      which is still in the stage of struggle to shape itself as thought. Often,
+      indeed, their desire is to conceal from themselves and others that they
+      really have nothing at all to say. They wish to appear to know what they
+      do not know, to think what they do not think, to say what they do not say.
+      If a man has some real communication to make, which will he choose&mdash;an
+      indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian remarks
+      that things which are said by a highly educated man are often easier to
+      understand and much clearer; and that the less educated a man is, the more
+      obscurely he will write&mdash;<i>plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad
+      intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo quoque dicuntur</i>....
+      <i>Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An author should avoid enigmatical phrases; he should know whether he
+      wants to say a thing or does not want to say it. It is this indecision of
+      style that makes so many writers insipid. The only case that offers an
+      exception to this rule arises when it is necessary to make a remark that
+      is in some way improper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As exaggeration generally produces an effect the opposite of that aimed
+      at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought intelligible&mdash;but
+      only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up beyond it, the thought
+      becomes more and more obscure again. To find where the point lies is the
+      problem of style, and the business of the critical faculty; for a word too
+      much always defeats its purpose. This is what Voltaire means when he says
+      that <i>the adjective is the enemy of the substantive</i>. But, as we have
+      seen, many people try to conceal their poverty of thought under a flood of
+      verbiage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
+      remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
+      make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as to
+      lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful study,
+      and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to omit
+      something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all. This is
+      the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu pantos]<a
+      href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4"><small>4</small></a>&mdash;the
+      half is more than the whole. <i>Le secret pour être ennuyeux, c'est de
+      tout dire</i>. Therefore, if possible, the quintessence only! mere leading
+      thoughts! nothing that the reader would think for himself. To use many
+      words to communicate few thoughts is everywhere the unmistakable sign of
+      mediocrity. To gather much thought into few words stamps the man of
+      genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Works and Days</i>, 40.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep in
+      proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly because
+      it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole soul, and
+      leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also, because he feels
+      that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the arts of rhetoric,
+      but that all the effect of what is said comes from the thing itself. For
+      instance, what declamation on the vanity of human existence could ever be
+      more telling than the words of Job? <i>Man that is born of a woman hath
+      but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut
+      down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth
+      in one stay</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the same reason Goethe's naïve poetry is incomparably greater than
+      Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs so
+      affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be avoided, so
+      in the art of literature a writer must guard against all rhetorical
+      finery, all useless amplification, and all superfluity of expression in
+      general; in a word, he must strive after <i>chastity</i> of style. Every
+      word that can be spared is hurtful if it remains. The law of simplicity
+      and naïveté holds good of all fine art; for it is quite possible to be at
+      once simple and sublime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True brevity of expression consists in everywhere saying only what is
+      worth saying, and in avoiding tedious detail about things which everyone
+      can supply for himself. This involves correct discrimination between what
+      it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should never be brief at
+      the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being grammatical. It shows
+      lamentable want of judgment to weaken the expression of a thought, or to
+      stunt the meaning of a period for the sake of using a few words less. But
+      this is the precise endeavor of that false brevity nowadays so much in
+      vogue, which proceeds by leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing
+      grammar and logic. It is not only that such writers spare a word by making
+      a single verb or adjective do duty for several different periods, so that
+      the reader, as it were, has to grope his way through them in the dark;
+      they also practice, in many other respects, an unseemingly economy of
+      speech, in the effort to effect what they foolishly take to be brevity of
+      expression and conciseness of style. By omitting something that might have
+      thrown a light over the whole sentence, they turn it into a conundrum,
+      which the reader tries to solve by going over it again and again.<a
+      href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="linknoteref-5"><small>5</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note.</i>&mdash;In
+      the original, Schopenhauer here enters upon a lengthy examination of
+      certain common errors in the writing and speaking of German. His remarks
+      are addressed to his own countrymen, and would lose all point, even if
+      they were intelligible, in an English translation. But for those who
+      practice their German by conversing or corresponding with Germans, let me
+      recommend what he there says as a useful corrective to a slipshod style,
+      such as can easily be contracted if it is assumed that the natives of a
+      country always know their own language perfectly.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is wealth and weight of thought, and nothing else, that gives brevity
+      to style, and makes it concise and pregnant. If a writer's ideas are
+      important, luminous, and generally worth communicating, they will
+      necessarily furnish matter and substance enough to fill out the periods
+      which give them expression, and make these in all their parts both
+      grammatically and verbally complete; and so much will this be the case
+      that no one will ever find them hollow, empty or feeble. The diction will
+      everywhere be brief and pregnant, and allow the thought to find
+      intelligible and easy expression, and even unfold and move about with
+      grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore instead of contracting his words and forms of speech, let a
+      writer enlarge his thoughts. If a man has been thinned by illness and
+      finds his clothes too big, it is not by cutting them down, but by
+      recovering his usual bodily condition, that he ought to make them fit him
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me here mention an error of style, very prevalent nowadays, and, in
+      the degraded state of literature and the neglect of ancient languages,
+      always on the increase; I mean <i>subjectivity</i>. A writer commits this
+      error when he thinks it enough if he himself knows what he means and wants
+      to say, and takes no thought for the reader, who is left to get at the
+      bottom of it as best he can. This is as though the author were holding a
+      monologue; whereas, it ought to be a dialogue; and a dialogue, too, in
+      which he must express himself all the more clearly inasmuch as he cannot
+      hear the questions of his interlocutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but <i>objective</i>;
+      and it will not be objective unless the words are so set down that they
+      directly force the reader to think precisely the same thing as the author
+      thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result be obtained unless the
+      author has always been careful to remember that thought so far follows the
+      law of gravity that it travels from head to paper much more easily than
+      from paper to head; so that he must assist the latter passage by every
+      means in his power. If he does this, a writer's words will have a purely
+      objective effect, like that of a finished picture in oils; whilst the
+      subjective style is not much more certain in its working than spots on the
+      wall, which look like figures only to one whose phantasy has been
+      accidentally aroused by them; other people see nothing but spots and
+      blurs. The difference in question applies to literary method as a whole;
+      but it is often established also in particular instances. For example, in
+      a recently published work I found the following sentence: <i>I have not
+      written in order to increase the number of existing books.</i> This means
+      just the opposite of what the writer wanted to say, and is nonsense as
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does
+      not attach much importance to his own thoughts. For it is only where a man
+      is convinced of the truth and importance of his thoughts, that he feels
+      the enthusiasm necessary for an untiring and assiduous effort to find the
+      clearest, finest, and strongest expression for them,&mdash;just as for
+      sacred relics or priceless works of art there are provided silvern or
+      golden receptacles. It was this feeling that led ancient authors, whose
+      thoughts, expressed in their own words, have lived thousands of years, and
+      therefore bear the honored title of <i>classics</i>, always to write with
+      care. Plato, indeed, is said to have written the introduction to his <i>Republic</i>
+      seven times over in different ways.<a href="#linknote-6"
+      name="linknoteref-6" id="linknoteref-6"><small>6</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-6" id="linknote-6"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note.</i>&mdash;It
+      is a fact worth mentioning that the first twelve words of the <i>Republic</i>
+      are placed in the exact order which would be natural in English.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As neglect of dress betrays want of respect for the company a man meets,
+      so a hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of regard for the
+      reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to read the book. It is
+      especially amusing to see reviewers criticising the works of others in
+      their own most careless style&mdash;the style of a hireling. It is as
+      though a judge were to come into court in dressing-gown and slippers! If I
+      see a man badly and dirtily dressed, I feel some hesitation, at first, in
+      entering into conversation with him: and when, on taking up a book, I am
+      struck at once by the negligence of its style, I put it away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good writing should be governed by the rule that a man can think only one
+      thing clearly at a time; and, therefore, that he should not be expected to
+      think two or even more things in one and the same moment. But this is what
+      is done when a writer breaks up his principal sentence into little pieces,
+      for the purpose of pushing into the gaps thus made two or three other
+      thoughts by way of parenthesis; thereby unnecessarily and wantonly
+      confusing the reader. And here it is again my own countrymen who are
+      chiefly in fault. That German lends itself to this way of writing, makes
+      the thing possible, but does not justify it. No prose reads more easily or
+      pleasantly than French, because, as a rule, it is free from the error in
+      question. The Frenchman strings his thoughts together, as far as he can,
+      in the most logical and natural order, and so lays them before his reader
+      one after the other for convenient deliberation, so that every one of them
+      may receive undivided attention. The German, on the other hand, weaves
+      them together into a sentence which he twists and crosses, and crosses and
+      twists again; because he wants to say six things all at once, instead of
+      advancing them one by one. His aim should be to attract and hold the
+      reader's attention; but, above and beyond neglect of this aim, he demands
+      from the reader that he shall set the above mentioned rule at defiance,
+      and think three or four different thoughts at one and the same time; or
+      since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall succeed each other as
+      quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way an author lays the
+      foundation of his <i>stile empesé</i>, which is then carried to perfection
+      by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to communicate the simplest
+      things, and other artifices of the same kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those long sentences rich in involved parenthesis, like a box of boxes
+      one within another, and padded out like roast geese stuffed with apples,
+      it is really the <i>memory</i> that is chiefly taxed; while it is the
+      understanding and the judgment which should be called into play, instead
+      of having their activity thereby actually hindered and weakened.<a
+      href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="linknoteref-7"><small>7</small></a>
+      This kind of sentence furnishes the reader with mere half-phrases, which
+      he is then called upon to collect carefully and store up in his memory, as
+      though they were the pieces of a torn letter, afterwards to be completed
+      and made sense of by the other halves to which they respectively belong.
+      He is expected to go on reading for a little without exercising any
+      thought, nay, exerting only his memory, in the hope that, when he comes to
+      the end of the sentence, he may see its meaning and so receive something
+      to think about; and he is thus given a great deal to learn by heart before
+      obtaining anything to understand. This is manifestly wrong and an abuse of
+      the reader's patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note.</i>&mdash;This
+      sentence in the original is obviously meant to illustrate the fault of
+      which it speaks. It does so by the use of a construction very common in
+      German, but happily unknown in English; where, however, the fault itself
+      exists none the less, though in different form.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this style, because
+      it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in understanding that which
+      he would have understood in a moment without it; and this makes it look as
+      though the writer had more depth and intelligence than the reader. This
+      is, indeed, one of those artifices referred to above, by means of which
+      mediocre authors unconsciously, and as it were by instinct, strive to
+      conceal their poverty of thought and give an appearance of the opposite.
+      Their ingenuity in this respect is really astounding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is manifestly against all sound reason to put one thought obliquely on
+      top of another, as though both together formed a wooden cross. But this is
+      what is done where a writer interrupts what he has begun to say, for the
+      purpose of inserting some quite alien matter; thus depositing with the
+      reader a meaningless half-sentence, and bidding him keep it until the
+      completion comes. It is much as though a man were to treat his guests by
+      handing them an empty plate, in the hope of something appearing upon it.
+      And commas used for a similar purpose belong to the same family as notes
+      at the foot of the page and parenthesis in the middle of the text; nay,
+      all three differ only in degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero occasionally
+      inserted words by ways of parenthesis, they would have done better to have
+      refrained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this style of writing becomes the height of absurdity when the
+      parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but wedged
+      in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an impertinent
+      thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it is no less
+      impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless, and hasty
+      authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their eyes, use this
+      style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in it. It consists in&mdash;it
+      is advisable to give rule and example together, wherever it is possible&mdash;breaking
+      up one phrase in order to glue in another. Nor is it merely out of
+      laziness that they write thus. They do it out of stupidity; they think
+      there is a charming <i>légèreté</i> about it; that it gives life to what
+      they say. No doubt there are a few rare cases where such a form of
+      sentence may be pardonable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few write in the way in which an architect builds; who, before he sets to
+      work, sketches out his plan, and thinks it over down to its smallest
+      details. Nay, most people write only as though they were playing dominoes;
+      and, as in this game, the pieces are arranged half by design, half by
+      chance, so it is with the sequence and connection of their sentences. They
+      only have an idea of what the general shape of their work will be, and of
+      the aim they set before themselves. Many are ignorant even of this, and
+      write as the coral-insects build; period joins to period, and the Lord
+      only knows what the author means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life now-a-days goes at a gallop; and the way in which this affects
+      literature is to make it extremely superficial and slovenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON THE STUDY OF LATIN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The abolition of Latin as the universal language of learned men, together
+      with the rise of that provincialism which attaches to national
+      literatures, has been a real misfortune for the cause of knowledge in
+      Europe. For it was chiefly through the medium of the Latin language that a
+      learned public existed in Europe at all&mdash;a public to which every book
+      as it came out directly appealed. The number of minds in the whole of
+      Europe that are capable of thinking and judging is small, as it is; but
+      when the audience is broken up and severed by differences of language, the
+      good these minds can do is very much weakened. This is a great
+      disadvantage; but a second and worse one will follow, namely, that the
+      ancient languages will cease to be taught at all. The neglect of them is
+      rapidly gaining ground both in France and Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it should really come to this, then farewell, humanity! farewell, noble
+      taste and high thinking! The age of barbarism will return, in spite of
+      railways, telegraphs and balloons. We shall thus in the end lose one more
+      advantage possessed by all our ancestors. For Latin is not only a key to
+      the knowledge of Roman antiquity; its also directly opens up to us the
+      Middle Age in every country in Europe, and modern times as well, down to
+      about the year 1750. Erigena, for example, in the ninth century, John of
+      Salisbury in the twelfth, Raimond Lully in the thirteenth, with a hundred
+      others, speak straight to us in the very language that they naturally
+      adopted in thinking of learned matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They thus come quite close to us even at this distance of time: we are in
+      direct contact with them, and really come to know them. How would it have
+      been if every one of them spoke in the language that was peculiar to his
+      time and country? We should not understand even the half of what they
+      said. A real intellectual contact with them would be impossible. We should
+      see them like shadows on the farthest horizon, or, may be, through the
+      translator's telescope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with an eye to the advantage of writing in Latin that Bacon, as he
+      himself expressly states, proceeded to translate his <i>Essays</i> into
+      that language, under the title <i>Sermones fideles</i>; at which work
+      Hobbes assisted him.<a href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8"
+      id="linknoteref-8"><small>8</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>)<br /> [ Cf. Thomae Hobbes vita: <i>Carolopoli
+      apud Eleutherium Anglicum</i>, 1681, p. 22.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here let me observe, by way of parenthesis, that when patriotism tries to
+      urge its claims in the domain of knowledge, it commits an offence which
+      should not be tolerated. For in those purely human questions which
+      interest all men alike, where truth, insight, beauty, should be of sole
+      account, what can be more impertinent than to let preference for the
+      nation to which a man's precious self happens to belong, affect the
+      balance of judgment, and thus supply a reason for doing violence to truth
+      and being unjust to the great minds of a foreign country in order to make
+      much of the smaller minds of one's own! Still, there are writers in every
+      nation in Europe, who afford examples of this vulgar feeling. It is this
+      which led Yriarte to caricature them in the thirty-third of his charming
+      <i>Literary Fables</i>.<a href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9"
+      id="linknoteref-9"><small>9</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-9" id="linknote-9"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note.</i>&mdash;Tomas
+      de Yriarte (1750-91), a Spanish poet, and keeper of archives in the War
+      Office at Madrid. His two best known works are a didactic poem, entitled
+      <i>La Musica</i>, and the <i>Fables</i> here quoted, which satirize the
+      peculiar foibles of literary men. They have been translated into many
+      languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in
+      question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as
+      to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The
+      praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn;
+      but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon
+      the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one could discover
+      the reason for this mutual compliment. Was it because both were such
+      uncouth beasts, or had such long necks, or were neither of them
+      particularly clever or beautiful? or was it because each had a hump? <i>No</i>!
+      said the fox, <i>you are all wrong. Don't you see they are both foreigners</i>?
+      Cannot the same be said of many men of learning?]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In learning a language, the chief difficulty consists in making
+      acquaintance with every idea which it expresses, even though it should use
+      words for which there is no exact equivalent in the mother tongue; and
+      this often happens. In learning a new language a man has, as it were, to
+      mark out in his mind the boundaries of quite new spheres of ideas, with
+      the result that spheres of ideas arise where none were before. Thus he not
+      only learns words, he gains ideas too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is nowhere so much the case as in learning ancient languages, for the
+      differences they present in their mode of expression as compared with
+      modern languages is greater than can be found amongst modern languages as
+      compared with one another. This is shown by the fact that in translating
+      into Latin, recourse must be had to quite other turns of phrase than are
+      used in the original. The thought that is to be translated has to be
+      melted down and recast; in other words, it must be analyzed and then
+      recomposed. It is just this process which makes the study of the ancient
+      languages contribute so much to the education of the mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It follows from this that a man's thought varies according to the language
+      in which he speaks. His ideas undergo a fresh modification, a different
+      shading, as it were, in the study of every new language. Hence an
+      acquaintance with many languages is not only of much indirect advantage,
+      but it is also a direct means of mental culture, in that it corrects and
+      matures ideas by giving prominence to their many-sided nature and their
+      different varieties of meaning, as also that it increases dexterity of
+      thought; for in the process of learning many languages, ideas become more
+      and more independent of words. The ancient languages effect this to a
+      greater degree than the modern, in virtue of the difference to which I
+      have alluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From what I have said, it is obvious that to imitate the style of the
+      ancients in their own language, which is so very much superior to ours in
+      point of grammatical perfection, is the best way of preparing for a
+      skillful and finished expression of thought in the mother-tongue. Nay, if
+      a man wants to be a great writer, he must not omit to do this: just as, in
+      the case of sculpture or painting, the student must educate himself by
+      copying the great masterpieces of the past, before proceeding to original
+      work. It is only by learning to write Latin that a man comes to treat
+      diction as an art. The material in this art is language, which must
+      therefore be handled with the greatest care and delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of such study is that a writer will pay keen attention to the
+      meaning and value of words, their order and connection, their grammatical
+      forms. He will learn how to weigh them with precision, and so become an
+      expert in the use of that precious instrument which is meant not only to
+      express valuable thought, but to preserve it as well. Further, he will
+      learn to feel respect for the language in which he writes and thus be
+      saved from any attempt to remodel it by arbitrary and capricious
+      treatment. Without this schooling, a man's writing may easily degenerate
+      into mere chatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine
+      country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can be
+      seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond,
+      everything is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view,
+      embracing modern times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental
+      horizon is still further enlarged if he studies Greek or even Sanscrit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be a
+      great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of hydrofluoric
+      acid in his crucible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the ancient
+      classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only for half an
+      hour, and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved, purified, ennobled,
+      strengthened; just as though you had quenched your thirst at some pure
+      spring. Is this the effect of the old language and its perfect expression,
+      or is it the greatness of the minds whose works remain unharmed and
+      unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years? Perhaps both together. But
+      this I know. If the threatened calamity should ever come, and the ancient
+      languages cease to be taught, a new literature will arise, of such
+      barbarous, shallow and worthless stuff as never was seen before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON MEN OF LEARNING.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist for the
+      purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and masters, one
+      might fancy the human race to be very much concerned about truth and
+      wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The masters teach in
+      order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom, but the outward show
+      and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not for the sake of
+      knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and give themselves airs.
+      Every thirty years a new race comes into the world&mdash;a youngster that
+      knows nothing about anything, and after summarily devouring in all haste
+      the results of human knowledge as they have been accumulated for thousands
+      of years, aspires to be thought cleverer than the whole of the past. For
+      this purpose he goes to the University, and takes to reading books&mdash;new
+      books, as being of his own age and standing. Everything he reads must be
+      briefly put, must be new! he is new himself. Then he falls to and
+      criticises. And here I am not taking the slightest account of studies
+      pursued for the sole object of making a living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as a rule at
+      acquiring <i>information</i> rather than insight. They pique themselves
+      upon knowing about everything&mdash;stones, plants, battles, experiments,
+      and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them that information
+      is only a means of insight, and in itself of little or no value; that it
+      is his way of <i>thinking</i> that makes a man a philosopher. When I hear
+      of these portents of learning and their imposing erudition, I sometimes
+      say to myself: Ah, how little they must have had to think about, to have
+      been able to read so much! And when I actually find it reported of the
+      elder Pliny that he was continually reading or being read to, at table, on
+      a journey, or in his bath, the question forces itself upon my mind,
+      whether the man was so very lacking in thought of his own that he had to
+      have alien thought incessantly instilled into him; as though he were a
+      consumptive patient taking jellies to keep himself alive. And neither his
+      undiscerning credulity nor his inexpressibly repulsive and barely
+      intelligible style&mdash;which seems like of a man taking notes, and very
+      economical of paper&mdash;is of a kind to give me a high opinion of his
+      power of independent thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have seen that much reading and learning is prejudicial to thinking for
+      oneself; and, in the same way, through much writing and teaching, a man
+      loses the habit of being quite clear, and therefore thorough, in regard to
+      the things he knows and understands; simply because he has left himself no
+      time to acquire clearness or thoroughness. And so, when clear knowledge
+      fails him in his utterances, he is forced to fill out the gaps with words
+      and phrases. It is this, and not the dryness of the subject-matter, that
+      makes most books such tedious reading. There is a saying that a good cook
+      can make a palatable dish even out of an old shoe; and a good writer can
+      make the dryest things interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With by far the largest number of learned men, knowledge is a means, not
+      an end. That is why they will never achieve any great work; because, to do
+      that, he who pursues knowledge must pursue it as an end, and treat
+      everything else, even existence itself, as only a means. For everything
+      which a man fails to pursue for its own sake is but half-pursued; and true
+      excellence, no matter in what sphere, can be attained only where the work
+      has been produced for its own sake alone, and not as a means to further
+      ends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, too, no one will ever succeed in doing anything really great and
+      original in the way of thought, who does not seek to acquire knowledge for
+      himself, and, making this the immediate object of his studies, decline to
+      trouble himself about the knowledge of others. But the average man of
+      learning studies for the purpose of being able to teach and write. His
+      head is like a stomach and intestines which let the food pass through them
+      undigested. That is just why his teaching and writing is of so little use.
+      For it is not upon undigested refuse that people can be nourished, but
+      solely upon the milk which secretes from the very blood itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wig is the appropriate symbol of the man of learning, pure and simple.
+      It adorns the head with a copious quantity of false hair, in lack of one's
+      own: just as erudition means endowing it with a great mass of alien
+      thought. This, to be sure, does not clothe the head so well and naturally,
+      nor is it so generally useful, nor so suited for all purposes, nor so
+      firmly rooted; nor when alien thought is used up, can it be immediately
+      replaced by more from the same source, as is the case with that which
+      springs from soil of one's own. So we find Sterne, in his <i>Tristram
+      Shandy</i>, boldly asserting that <i>an ounce of a man's own wit is worth
+      a ton of other people's</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in fact the most profound erudition is no more akin to genius than a
+      collection of dried plants in like Nature, with its constant flow of new
+      life, ever fresh, ever young, ever changing. There are no two things more
+      opposed than the childish naïveté of an ancient author and the learning of
+      his commentator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Dilettanti, dilettanti!</i> This is the slighting way in which those
+      who pursue any branch of art or learning for the love and enjoyment of the
+      thing,&mdash;<i>per il loro diletto</i>, are spoken of by those who have
+      taken it up for the sake of gain, attracted solely by the prospect of
+      money. This contempt of theirs comes from the base belief that no man will
+      seriously devote himself to a subject, unless he is spurred on to it by
+      want, hunger, or else some form of greed. The public is of the same way of
+      thinking; and hence its general respect for professionals and its distrust
+      of <i>dilettanti</i>. But the truth is that the <i>dilettante</i> treats
+      his subject as an end, whereas the professional, pure and simple, treats
+      it merely as a means. He alone will be really in earnest about a matter,
+      who has a direct interest therein, takes to it because he likes it, and
+      pursues it <i>con amore</i>. It is these, and not hirelings, that have
+      always done the greatest work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the republic of letters it is as in other republics; favor is shown to
+      the plain man&mdash;he who goes his way in silence and does not set up to
+      be cleverer than others. But the abnormal man is looked upon as
+      threatening danger; people band together against him, and have, oh! such a
+      majority on their side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The condition of this republic is much like that of a small State in
+      America, where every man is intent only upon his own advantage, and seeks
+      reputation and power for himself, quite heedless of the general weal,
+      which then goes to ruin. So it is in the republic of letters; it is
+      himself, and himself alone, that a man puts forward, because he wants to
+      gain fame. The only thing in which all agree is in trying to keep down a
+      really eminent man, if he should chance to show himself, as one who would
+      be a common peril. From this it is easy to see how it fares with knowledge
+      as a whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between professors and independent men of learning there has always been
+      from of old a certain antagonism, which may perhaps be likened to that
+      existing been dogs and wolves. In virtue of their position, professors
+      enjoy great facilities for becoming known to their contemporaries.
+      Contrarily, independent men of learning enjoy, by their position, great
+      facilities for becoming known to posterity; to which it is necessary that,
+      amongst other and much rarer gifts, a man should have a certain leisure
+      and freedom. As mankind takes a long time in finding out on whom to bestow
+      its attention, they may both work together side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who holds a professorship may be said to receive his food in the stall;
+      and this is the best way with ruminant animals. But he who finds his food
+      for himself at the hands of Nature is better off in the open field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of human knowledge as a whole and in every branch of it, by far the
+      largest part exists nowhere but on paper,&mdash;I mean, in books, that
+      paper memory of mankind. Only a small part of it is at any given period
+      really active in the minds of particular persons. This is due, in the
+      main, to the brevity and uncertainty of life; but it also comes from the
+      fact that men are lazy and bent on pleasure. Every generation attains, on
+      its hasty passage through existence, just so much of human knowledge as it
+      needs, and then soon disappears. Most men of learning are very
+      superficial. Then follows a new generation, full of hope, but ignorant,
+      and with everything to learn from the beginning. It seizes, in its turn,
+      just so much as it can grasp or find useful on its brief journey and then
+      too goes its way. How badly it would fare with human knowledge if it were
+      not for the art of writing and printing! This it is that makes libraries
+      the only sure and lasting memory of the human race, for its individual
+      members have all of them but a very limited and imperfect one. Hence most
+      men of learning as are loth to have their knowledge examined as merchants
+      to lay bare their books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Human knowledge extends on all sides farther than the eye can reach; and
+      of that which would be generally worth knowing, no one man can possess
+      even the thousandth part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All branches of learning have thus been so much enlarged that he who would
+      "do something" has to pursue no more than one subject and disregard all
+      others. In his own subject he will then, it is true, be superior to the
+      vulgar; but in all else he will belong to it. If we add to this that
+      neglect of the ancient languages, which is now-a-days on the increase and
+      is doing away with all general education in the humanities&mdash;for a
+      mere smattering of Latin and Greek is of no use&mdash;we shall come to
+      have men of learning who outside their own subject display an ignorance
+      truly bovine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An exclusive specialist of this kind stands on a par with a workman in a
+      factory, whose whole life is spent in making one particular kind of screw,
+      or catch, or handle, for some particular instrument or machine, in which,
+      indeed, he attains incredible dexterity. The specialist may also be
+      likened to a man who lives in his own house and never leaves it. There he
+      is perfectly familiar with everything, every little step, corner, or
+      board; much as Quasimodo in Victor Hugo's <i>Nôtre Dame</i> knows the
+      cathedral; but outside it, all is strange and unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For true culture in the humanities it is absolutely necessary that a man
+      should be many-sided and take large views; and for a man of learning in
+      the higher sense of the word, an extensive acquaintance with history is
+      needful. He, however, who wishes to be a complete philosopher, must gather
+      into his head the remotest ends of human knowledge: for where else could
+      they ever come together?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists.
+      For their very nature is to make the whole of existence their problem; and
+      this is a subject upon which they will every one of them in some form
+      provide mankind with a new revelation. For he alone can deserve the name
+      of genius who takes the All, the Essential, the Universal, for the theme
+      of his achievements; not he who spends his life in explaining some special
+      relation of things one to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON THINKING FOR ONESELF.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so useful
+      as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man may have a
+      great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it
+      over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which
+      he has thoroughly pondered. For it is only when a man looks at his
+      knowledge from all sides, and combines the things he knows by comparing
+      truth with truth, that he obtains a complete hold over it and gets it into
+      his power. A man cannot turn over anything in his mind unless he knows it;
+      he should, therefore, learn something; but it is only when he has turned
+      it over that he can be said to know it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading and learning are things that anyone can do of his own free will;
+      but not so <i>thinking</i>. Thinking must be kindled, like a fire by a
+      draught; it must be sustained by some interest in the matter in hand. This
+      interest may be of purely objective kind, or merely subjective. The latter
+      comes into play only in things that concern us personally. Objective
+      interest is confined to heads that think by nature; to whom thinking is as
+      natural as breathing; and they are very rare. This is why most men of
+      learning show so little of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind by
+      thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and
+      intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which
+      leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that reading
+      forces alien thoughts upon the mind&mdash;thoughts which are as foreign to
+      the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to
+      the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is thus entirely under
+      compulsion from without; it is driven to think this or that, though for
+      the moment it may not have the slightest impulse or inclination to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his own mind,
+      which is determined for him at the time, either by his environment or some
+      particular recollection. The visible world of a man's surroundings does
+      not, as reading does, impress a <i>single</i> definite thought upon his
+      mind, but merely gives the matter and occasion which lead him to think
+      what is appropriate to his nature and present temper. So it is, that much
+      reading deprives the mind of all elasticity; it is like keeping a spring
+      continually under pressure. The safest way of having no thoughts of one's
+      own is to take up a book every moment one has nothing else to do. It is
+      this practice which explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and
+      silly than they are by nature, and prevents their writings obtaining any
+      measure of success. They remain, in Pope's words:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>For ever reading, never to be read!</i><a href="#linknote-10"
+      name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10">10</a>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Dunciad</i>, iii,
+      194.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of a
+      book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight to the
+      book of Nature; it is they who have enlightened the world and carried
+      humanity further on its way. If a man's thoughts are to have truth and
+      life in them, they must, after all, be his own fundamental thoughts; for
+      these are the only ones that he can fully and wholly understand. To read
+      another's thoughts is like taking the leavings of a meal to which we have
+      not been invited, or putting on the clothes which some unknown visitor has
+      laid aside. The thought we read is related to the thought which springs up
+      in ourselves, as the fossil-impress of some prehistoric plant to a plant
+      as it buds forth in spring-time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own. It
+      means putting the mind into leading-strings. The multitude of books serves
+      only to show how many false paths there are, and how widely astray a man
+      may wander if he follows any of them. But he who is guided by his genius,
+      he who thinks for himself, who thinks spontaneously and exactly, possesses
+      the only compass by which he can steer aright. A man should read only when
+      his own thoughts stagnate at their source, which will happen often enough
+      even with the best of minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the
+      purpose of scaring away one's own original thoughts is sin against the
+      Holy Spirit. It is like running away from Nature to look at a museum of
+      dried plants or gaze at a landscape in copperplate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after spending
+      a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for himself and
+      adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen that he could have
+      found it all ready to hand in a book and spared himself the trouble. But
+      even so, it is a hundred times more valuable if he has acquired it by
+      thinking it out for himself. For it is only when we gain our knowledge in
+      this way that it enters as an integral part, a living member, into the
+      whole system of our thought; that it stands in complete and firm relation
+      with what we know; that it is understood with all that underlies it and
+      follows from it; that it wears the color, the precise shade, the
+      distinguishing mark, of our own way of thinking; that it comes exactly at
+      the right time, just as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast
+      and cannot be forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the
+      interpretation, of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves
+      so that we may really possess it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Was due ererbt von deinen Välern hast,
+  Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen.</i><a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11"
+      id="linknoteref-11">11</a>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Faust</i>, I. 329.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the
+      authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen his
+      belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts from the
+      authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their opinions, and
+      so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an automaton made up of
+      anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who thinks for himself
+      creates a work like a living man as made by Nature. For the work comes
+      into being as a man does; the thinking mind is impregnated from without,
+      and it then forms and bears its child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false
+      tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it
+      adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of
+      our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the
+      fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning.
+      The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a
+      fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained,
+      the color perfectly harmonized; it is true to life. On the other hand, the
+      intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large
+      palette, full of all sorts of colors, which at most are systematically
+      arranged, but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own. To
+      think with one's own head is always to aim at developing a coherent whole&mdash;a
+      system, even though it be not a strictly complete one; and nothing hinders
+      this so much as too strong a current of others' thoughts, such as comes of
+      continual reading. These thoughts, springing every one of them from
+      different minds, belonging to different systems, and tinged with different
+      colors, never of themselves flow together into an intellectual whole; they
+      never form a unity of knowledge, or insight, or conviction; but, rather,
+      fill the head with a Babylonian confusion of tongues. The mind that is
+      over-loaded with alien thought is thus deprived of all clear insight, and
+      is well-nigh disorganized. This is a state of things observable in many
+      men of learning; and it makes them inferior in sound sense, correct
+      judgment and practical tact, to many illiterate persons, who, after
+      obtaining a little knowledge from without, by means of experience,
+      intercourse with others, and a small amount of reading, have always
+      subordinated it to, and embodied it with, their own thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The really scientific <i>thinker</i> does the same thing as these
+      illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need of much
+      knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is nevertheless strong
+      enough to master it all, to assimilate and incorporate it with the system
+      of his thoughts, and so to make it fit in with the organic unity of his
+      insight, which, though vast, is always growing. And in the process, his
+      own thought, like the bass in an organ, always dominates everything and is
+      never drowned by other tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere
+      antiquarian lore; where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle
+      confusedly, and no fundamental note is heard at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom from
+      books, are like people who have obtained precise information about a
+      country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such people can tell a
+      great deal about it; but, after all, they have no connected, clear, and
+      profound knowledge of its real condition. But those who have spent their
+      lives in thinking, resemble the travellers themselves; they alone really
+      know what they are talking about; they are acquainted with the actual
+      state of affairs, and are quite at home in the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary book-philosopher
+      as an eye-witness does to the historian; he speaks from direct knowledge
+      of his own. That is why all those who think for themselves come, at
+      bottom, to much the same conclusion. The differences they present are due
+      to their different points of view; and when these do not affect the
+      matter, they all speak alike. They merely express the result of their own
+      objective perception of things. There are many passages in my works which
+      I have given to the public only after some hesitation, because of their
+      paradoxical nature; and afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise
+      in finding the same opinion recorded in the works of great men who lived
+      long ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The book-philosopher merely reports what one person has said and another
+      meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He compares
+      different opinions, ponders, criticises, and tries to get at the truth of
+      the matter; herein on a par with the critical historian. For instance, he
+      will set out to inquire whether Leibnitz was not for some time a follower
+      of Spinoza, and questions of a like nature. The curious student of such
+      matters may find conspicuous examples of what I mean in Herbart's <i>Analytical
+      Elucidation of Morality and Natural Right</i>, and in the same author's <i>Letters
+      on Freedom</i>. Surprise may be felt that a man of the kind should put
+      himself to so much trouble; for, on the face of it, if he would only
+      examine the matter for himself, he would speedily attain his object by the
+      exercise of a little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way.
+      It does not depend upon his own will. A man can always sit down and read,
+      but not&mdash;think. It is with thoughts as with men; they cannot always
+      be summoned at pleasure; we must wait for them to come. Thought about a
+      subject must appear of itself, by a happy and harmonious combination of
+      external stimulus with mental temper and attention; and it is just that
+      which never seems to come to these people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This truth may be illustrated by what happens in the case of matters
+      affecting our own personal interest. When it is necessary to come to some
+      resolution in a matter of that kind, we cannot well sit down at any given
+      moment and think over the merits of the case and make up our mind; for, if
+      we try to do so, we often find ourselves unable, at that particular
+      moment, to keep our mind fixed upon the subject; it wanders off to other
+      things. Aversion to the matter in question is sometimes to blame for this.
+      In such a case we should not use force, but wait for the proper frame of
+      mind to come of itself. It often comes unexpectedly and returns again and
+      again; and the variety of temper in which we approach it at different
+      moments puts the matter always in a fresh light. It is this long process
+      which is understood by the term <i>a ripe resolution.</i> For the work of
+      coming to a resolution must be distributed; and in the process much that
+      is overlooked at one moment occurs to us at another; and the repugnance
+      vanishes when we find, as we usually do, on a closer inspection, that
+      things are not so bad as they seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters of
+      practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the greatest mind
+      is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a great mind does
+      well to spend its leisure in reading, which, as I have said, is a
+      substitute for thought; it brings stuff to the mind by letting another
+      person do the thinking; although that is always done in a manner not our
+      own. Therefore, a man should not read too much, in order that his mind may
+      not become accustomed to the substitute and thereby forget the reality;
+      that it may not form the habit of walking in well-worn paths; nor by
+      following an alien course of thought grow a stranger to its own. Least of
+      all should a man quite withdraw his gaze from the real world for the mere
+      sake of reading; as the impulse and the temper which prompt to thought of
+      one's own come far oftener from the world of reality than from the world
+      of books. The real life that a man sees before him is the natural subject
+      of thought; and in its strength as the primary element of existence, it
+      can more easily than anything else rouse and influence the thinking mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After these considerations, it will not be matter for surprise that a man
+      who thinks for himself can easily be distinguished from the
+      book-philosopher by the very way in which he talks, by his marked
+      earnestness, and the originality, directness, and personal conviction that
+      stamp all his thoughts and expressions. The book-philosopher, on the other
+      hand, lets it be seen that everything he has is second-hand; that his
+      ideas are like the number and trash of an old furniture-shop, collected
+      together from all quarters. Mentally, he is dull and pointless&mdash;a
+      copy of a copy. His literary style is made up of conventional, nay, vulgar
+      phrases, and terms that happen to be current; in this respect much like a
+      small State where all the money that circulates is foreign, because it has
+      no coinage of its own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mere experience can as little as reading supply the place of thought. It
+      stands to thinking in the same relation in which eating stands to
+      digestion and assimilation. When experience boasts that to its discoveries
+      alone is due the advancement of the human race, it is as though the mouth
+      were to claim the whole credit of maintaining the body in health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished by a character of
+      <i>decision</i> and <i>definiteness</i>, which means they are clear and
+      free from obscurity. A truly capable mind always knows definitely and
+      clearly what it is that it wants to express, whether its medium is prose,
+      verse, or music. Other minds are not decisive and not definite; and by
+      this they may be known for what they are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The characteristic sign of a mind of the highest order is that it always
+      judges at first hand. Everything it advances is the result of thinking for
+      itself; and this is everywhere evident by the way in which it gives its
+      thoughts utterance. Such a mind is like a Prince. In the realm of
+      intellect its authority is imperial, whereas the authority of minds of a
+      lower order is delegated only; as may be seen in their style, which has no
+      independent stamp of its own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one who really thinks for himself is so far like a monarch. His
+      position is undelegated and supreme. His judgments, like royal decrees,
+      spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He
+      acknowledges authority as little as a monarch admits a command; he
+      subscribes to nothing but what he has himself authorized. The multitude of
+      common minds, laboring under all sorts of current opinions, authorities,
+      prejudices, is like the people, which silently obeys the law and accepts
+      orders from above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who are so zealous and eager to settle debated questions by citing
+      authorities, are really glad when they are able to put the understanding
+      and the insight of others into the field in place of their own, which are
+      wanting. Their number is legion. For, as Seneca says, there is no man but
+      prefers belief to the exercise of judgment&mdash;<i>unusquisque mavult
+      credere quam judicare</i>. In their controversies such people make a
+      promiscuous use of the weapon of authority, and strike out at one another
+      with it. If any one chances to become involved in such a contest, he will
+      do well not to try reason and argument as a mode of defence; for against a
+      weapon of that kind these people are like Siegfrieds, with a skin of horn,
+      and dipped in the flood of incapacity for thinking and judging. They will
+      meet his attack by bringing up their authorities as a way of abashing him&mdash;<i>argumentum
+      ad verecundiam</i>, and then cry out that they have won the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the real world, be it never so fair, favorable and pleasant, we always
+      live subject to the law of gravity which we have to be constantly
+      overcoming. But in the world of intellect we are disembodied spirits, held
+      in bondage to no such law, and free from penury and distress. Thus it is
+      that there exists no happiness on earth like that which, at the auspicious
+      moment, a fine and fruitful mind finds in itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of a thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We
+      fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the dear
+      one. But out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the risk of
+      being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and the darling of
+      being deserted if we do not marry her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are plenty of thoughts which are valuable to the man who thinks
+      them; but only few of them which have enough strength to produce
+      repercussive or reflect action&mdash;I mean, to win the reader's sympathy
+      after they have been put on paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still it must not be forgotten that a true value attaches only to what
+      a man has thought in the first instance <i>for his own case</i>. Thinkers
+      may be classed according as they think chiefly for their own case or for
+      that of others. The former are the genuine independent thinkers; they
+      really think and are really independent; they are the true <i>philosophers</i>;
+      they alone are in earnest. The pleasure and the happiness of their
+      existence consists in thinking. The others are the <i>sophists</i>; they
+      want to seem that which they are not, and seek their happiness in what
+      they hope to get from the world. They are in earnest about nothing else.
+      To which of these two classes a man belongs may be seen by his whole style
+      and manner. Lichtenberg is an example for the former class; Herder, there
+      can be no doubt, belongs to the second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one considers how vast and how close to us is <i>the problem of
+      existence</i>&mdash;this equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like
+      existence of ours&mdash;so vast and so close that a man no sooner
+      discovers it than it overshadows and obscures all other problems and aims;
+      and when one sees how all men, with few and rare exceptions, have no clear
+      consciousness of the problem, nay, seem to be quite unaware of its
+      presence, but busy themselves with everything rather than with this, and
+      live on, taking no thought but for the passing day and the hardly longer
+      span of their own personal future, either expressly discarding the problem
+      or else over-ready to come to terms with it by adopting some system of
+      popular metaphysics and letting it satisfy them; when, I say, one takes
+      all this to heart, one may come to the opinion that man may be said to be
+      <i>a thinking being</i> only in a very remote sense, and henceforth feel
+      no special surprise at any trait of human thoughtlessness or folly; but
+      know, rather, that the normal man's intellectual range of vision does
+      indeed extend beyond that of the brute, whose whole existence is, as it
+      were, a continual present, with no consciousness of the past or the
+      future, but not such an immeasurable distance as is generally supposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is, in fact, corroborated by the way in which most men converse;
+      where their thoughts are found to be chopped up fine, like chaff, so that
+      for them to spin out a discourse of any length is impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, it could not be that
+      noise of every kind would be allowed such generous limits, as is the case
+      with the most horrible and at the same time aimless form of it.<a
+      href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12" id="linknoteref-12"><small>12</small></a>
+      If Nature had meant man to think, she would not have given him ears; or,
+      at any rate, she would have furnished them with airtight flaps, such as
+      are the enviable possession of the bat. But, in truth, man is a poor
+      animal like the rest, and his powers are meant only to maintain him in the
+      struggle for existence; so he must need keep his ears always open, to
+      announce of themselves, by night as by day, the approach of the pursuer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-12" id="linknote-12"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      12 (<a href="#linknoteref-12">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note</i>.&mdash;Schopenhauer
+      refers to the cracking of whips. See the Essay <i>On Noise</i> in <i>Studies
+      in Pessimism</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the drama, which is the most perfect reflection of human existence,
+      there are three stages in the presentation of the subject, with a
+      corresponding variety in the design and scope of the piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first, which is also the most common, stage, the drama is never
+      anything more than merely <i>interesting</i>. The persons gain our
+      attention by following their own aims, which resemble ours; the action
+      advances by means of intrigue and the play of character and incident;
+      while wit and raillery season the whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the second stage, the drama becomes <i>sentimental</i>. Sympathy is
+      roused with the hero and, indirectly, with ourselves. The action takes a
+      pathetic turn; but the end is peaceful and satisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The climax is reached with the third stage, which is the most difficult.
+      There the drama aims at being <i>tragic</i>. We are brought face to face
+      with great suffering and the storm and stress of existence; and the
+      outcome of it is to show the vanity of all human effort. Deeply moved, we
+      are either directly prompted to disengage our will from the struggle of
+      life, or else a chord is struck in us which echoes a similar feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beginning, it is said, is always difficult. In the drama it is just
+      the contrary; for these the difficulty always lies in the end. This is
+      proved by countless plays which promise very well for the first act or
+      two, and then become muddled, stick or falter&mdash;notoriously so in the
+      fourth act&mdash;and finally conclude in a way that is either forced or
+      unsatisfactory or else long foreseen by every one. Sometimes, too, the end
+      is positively revolting, as in Lessing's <i>Emilia Galotti</i>, which
+      sends the spectators home in a temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This difficulty in regard to the end of a play arises partly because it is
+      everywhere easier to get things into a tangle than to get them out again;
+      partly also because at the beginning we give the author <i>carte blanche</i>
+      to do as he likes, but, at the end, make certain definite demands upon
+      him. Thus we ask for a conclusion that shall be either quite happy or else
+      quite tragic; whereas human affairs do not easily take so decided a turn;
+      and then we expect that it shall be natural, fit and proper, unlabored,
+      and at the same time foreseen by no one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These remarks are also applicable to an epic and to a novel; but the more
+      compact nature of the drama makes the difficulty plainer by increasing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>E nihilo nihil fit</i>. That nothing can come from nothing is a maxim
+      true in fine art as elsewhere. In composing an historical picture, a good
+      artist will use living men as a model, and take the groundwork of the
+      faces from life; and then proceed to idealize them in point of beauty or
+      expression. A similar method, I fancy, is adopted by good novelists. In
+      drawing a character they take a general outline of it from some real
+      person of their acquaintance, and then idealize and complete it to suit
+      their purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A novel will be of a high and noble order, the more it represents of
+      inner, and the less it represents of outer, life; and the ratio between
+      the two will supply a means of judging any novel, of whatever kind, from
+      <i>Tristram Shandy</i> down to the crudest and most sensational tale of
+      knight or robber. <i>Tristram Shandy</i> has, indeed, as good as no action
+      at all; and there is not much in <i>La Nouvelle Heloïse</i> and <i>Wilhelm
+      Meister</i>. Even <i>Don Quixote</i> has relatively little; and what there
+      is, very unimportant, and introduced merely for the sake of fun. And these
+      four are the best of all existing novels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Consider, further, the wonderful romances of Jean Paul, and how much inner
+      life is shown on the narrowest basis of actual event. Even in Walter
+      Scott's novels there is a great preponderance of inner over outer life,
+      and incident is never brought in except for the purpose of giving play to
+      thought and emotion; whereas, in bad novels, incident is there on its own
+      account. Skill consists in setting the inner life in motion with the
+      smallest possible array of circumstance; for it is this inner life that
+      really excites our interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make
+      small ones interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      History, which I like to think of as the contrary of poetry [Greek:
+      istoroumenon&mdash;pepoiaemenon], is for time what geography is for space;
+      and it is no more to be called a science, in any strict sense of the word,
+      than is geography, because it does not deal with universal truths, but
+      only with particular details. History has always been the favorite study
+      of those who wish to learn something, without having to face the effort
+      demanded by any branch of real knowledge, which taxes the intelligence. In
+      our time history is a favorite pursuit; as witness the numerous books upon
+      the subject which appear every year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the reader cannot help thinking, with me, that history is merely the
+      constant recurrence of similar things, just as in a kaleidoscope the same
+      bits of glass are represented, but in different combinations, he will not
+      be able to share all this lively interest; nor, however, will he censure
+      it. But there is a ridiculous and absurd claim, made by many people, to
+      regard history as a part of philosophy, nay, as philosophy itself; they
+      imagine that history can take its place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The preference shown for history by the greater public in all ages may be
+      illustrated by the kind of conversation which is so much in vogue
+      everywhere in society. It generally consists in one person relating
+      something and then another person relating something else; so that in this
+      way everyone is sure of receiving attention. Both here and in the case of
+      history it is plain that the mind is occupied with particular details. But
+      as in science, so also in every worthy conversation, the mind rises to the
+      consideration of some general truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This objection does not, however, deprive history of its value. Human life
+      is short and fleeting, and many millions of individuals share in it, who
+      are swallowed by that monster of oblivion which is waiting for them with
+      ever-open jaws. It is thus a very thankworthy task to try to rescue
+      something&mdash;the memory of interesting and important events, or the
+      leading features and personages of some epoch&mdash;from the general
+      shipwreck of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From another point of view, we might look upon history as the sequel to
+      zoology; for while with all other animals it is enough to observe the
+      species, with man individuals, and therefore individual events have to be
+      studied; because every man possesses a character as an individual. And
+      since individuals and events are without number or end, an essential
+      imperfection attaches to history. In the study of it, all that a man
+      learns never contributes to lessen that which he has still to learn. With
+      any real science, a perfection of knowledge is, at any rate, conceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we gain access to the histories of China and of India, the
+      endlessness of the subject-matter will reveal to us the defects in the
+      study, and force our historians to see that the object of science is to
+      recognize the many in the one, to perceive the rules in any given example,
+      and to apply to the life of nations a knowledge of mankind; not to go on
+      counting up facts <i>ad infinitum</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are two kinds of history; the history of politics and the history of
+      literature and art. The one is the history of the will; the other, that of
+      the intellect. The first is a tale of woe, even of terror: it is a record
+      of agony, struggle, fraud, and horrible murder <i>en masse</i>. The second
+      is everywhere pleasing and serene, like the intellect when left to itself,
+      even though its path be one of error. Its chief branch is the history of
+      philosophy. This is, in fact, its fundamental bass, and the notes of it
+      are heard even in the other kind of history. These deep tones guide the
+      formation of opinion, and opinion rules the world. Hence philosophy,
+      rightly understood, is a material force of the most powerful kind, though
+      very slow in its working. The philosophy of a period is thus the
+      fundamental bass of its history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The NEWSPAPER, is the second-hand in the clock of history; and it is not
+      only made of baser metal than those which point to the minute and the
+      hour, but it seldom goes right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The so-called leading article is the chorus to the drama of passing
+      events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the
+      dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as
+      possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their
+      calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving interest to what they
+      write. Herein they are like little dogs; if anything stirs, they
+      immediately set up a shrill bark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, let us carefully regulate the attention to be paid to this
+      trumpet of danger, so that it may not disturb our digestion. Let us
+      recognize that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying-glass, and very
+      often merely a shadow on the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>pen</i> is to thought what the stick is to walking; but you walk
+      most easily when you have no stick, and you think with the greatest
+      perfection when you have no pen in your hand. It is only when a man begins
+      to be old that he likes to use a stick and is glad to take up his pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When an <i>hypothesis</i> has once come to birth in the mind, or gained a
+      footing there, it leads a life so far comparable with the life of an
+      organism, as that it assimilates matter from the outer world only when it
+      is like in kind with it and beneficial; and when, contrarily, such matter
+      is not like in kind but hurtful, the hypothesis, equally with the
+      organism, throws it off, or, if forced to take it, gets rid of it again
+      entire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To gain <i>immortality</i> an author must possess so many excellences that
+      while it will not be easy to find anyone to understand and appreciate them
+      all, there will be men in every age who are able to recognize and value
+      some of them. In this way the credit of his book will be maintained
+      throughout the long course of centuries, in spite of the fact that human
+      interests are always changing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An author like this, who has a claim to the continuance of his life even
+      with posterity, can only be a man who, over the wide earth, will seek his
+      like in vain, and offer a palpable contrast with everyone else in virtue
+      of his unmistakable distinction. Nay, more: were he, like the wandering
+      Jew, to live through several generations, he would still remain in the
+      same superior position. If this were not so, it would be difficult to see
+      why his thoughts should not perish like those of other men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Metaphors</i> and <i>similes</i> are of great value, in so far as they
+      explain an unknown relation by a known one. Even the more detailed simile
+      which grows into a parable or an allegory, is nothing more than the
+      exhibition of some relation in its simplest, most visible and palpable
+      form. The growth of ideas rests, at bottom, upon similes; because ideas
+      arise by a process of combining the similarities and neglecting the
+      differences between things. Further, intelligence, in the strict sense of
+      the word, ultimately consists in a seizing of relations; and a clear and
+      pure grasp of relations is all the more often attained when the comparison
+      is made between cases that lie wide apart from one another, and between
+      things of quite different nature. As long as a relation is known to me as
+      existing only in a single case, I have but an <i>individual</i> idea of it&mdash;in
+      other words, only an intuitive knowledge of it; but as soon as I see the
+      same relation in two different cases, I have a <i>general</i> idea of its
+      whole nature, and this is a deeper and more perfect knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since, then, similes and metaphors are such a powerful engine of
+      knowledge, it is a sign of great intelligence in a writer if his similes
+      are unusual and, at the same time, to the point. Aristotle also observes
+      that by far the most important thing to a writer is to have this power of
+      metaphor; for it is a gift which cannot be acquired, and it is a mark of
+      genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As regards <i>reading</i>, to require that a man shall retain everything
+      he has ever read, is like asking him to carry about with him all he has
+      ever eaten. The one kind of food has given him bodily, and the other
+      mental, nourishment; and it is through these two means that he has grown
+      to be what he is. The body assimilates only that which is like it; and so
+      a man retains in his mind only that which interests him, in other words,
+      that which suits his system of thought or his purposes in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad
+      ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Repetitio est mater studiorum</i>. Any book that is at all important
+      ought to be at once read through twice; partly because, on a second
+      reading, the connection of the different portions of the book will be
+      better understood, and the beginning comprehended only when the end is
+      known; and partly because we are not in the same temper and disposition on
+      both readings. On the second perusal we get a new view of every passage
+      and a different impression of the whole book, which then appears in
+      another light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man's works are the quintessence of his mind, and even though he may
+      possess very great capacity, they will always be incomparably more
+      valuable than his conversation. Nay, in all essential matters his works
+      will not only make up for the lack of personal intercourse with him, but
+      they will far surpass it in solid advantages. The writings even of a man
+      of moderate genius may be edifying, worth reading and instructive, because
+      they are his quintessence&mdash;the result and fruit of all his thought
+      and study; whilst conversation with him may be unsatisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it is that we can read books by men in whose company we find nothing to
+      please, and that a high degree of culture leads us to seek entertainment
+      almost wholly from books and not from men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON CRITICISM.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The following brief remarks on the critical faculty are chiefly intended
+      to show that, for the most part, there is no such thing. It is a <i>rara
+      avis</i>; almost as rare, indeed, as the phoenix, which appears only once
+      in five hundred years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we speak of <i>taste</i>&mdash;an expression not chosen with any
+      regard for it&mdash;we mean the discovery, or, it may be only the
+      recognition, of what is <i>right aesthetically</i>, apart from the
+      guidance of any rule; and this, either because no rule has as yet been
+      extended to the matter in question, or else because, if existing, it is
+      unknown to the artist, or the critic, as the case may be. Instead of <i>taste</i>,
+      we might use the expression <i>aesthetic sense</i>, if this were not
+      tautological.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The perceptive critical taste is, so to speak, the female analogue to the
+      male quality of productive talent or genius. Not capable of <i>begetting</i>
+      great work itself, it consists in a capacity of <i>reception</i>, that is
+      to say, of recognizing as such what is right, fit, beautiful, or the
+      reverse; in other words, of discriminating the good from the bad, of
+      discovering and appreciating the one and condemning the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In appreciating a genius, criticism should not deal with the errors in his
+      productions or with the poorer of his works, and then proceed to rate him
+      low; it should attend only to the qualities in which he most excels. For
+      in the sphere of intellect, as in other spheres, weakness and perversity
+      cleave so firmly to human nature that even the most brilliant mind is not
+      wholly and at all times free from them. Hence the great errors to be found
+      even in the works of the greatest men; or as Horace puts it, <i>quandoque
+      bonus dormitat Homerus</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That which distinguishes genius, and should be the standard for judging
+      it, is the height to which it is able to soar when it is in the proper
+      mood and finds a fitting occasion&mdash;a height always out of the reach
+      of ordinary talent. And, in like manner, it is a very dangerous thing to
+      compare two great men of the same class; for instance, two great poets, or
+      musicians, or philosophers, or artists; because injustice to the one or
+      the other, at least for the moment, can hardly be avoided. For in making a
+      comparison of the kind the critic looks to some particular merit of the
+      one and at once discovers that it is absent in the other, who is thereby
+      disparaged. And then if the process is reversed, and the critic begins
+      with the latter and discovers his peculiar merit, which is quite of a
+      different order from that presented by the former, with whom it may be
+      looked for in vain, the result is that both of them suffer undue
+      depreciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are critics who severally think that it rests with each one of them
+      what shall be accounted good, and what bad. They all mistake their own
+      toy-trumpets for the trombones of fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A drug does not effect its purpose if the dose is too large; and it is the
+      same with censure and adverse criticism when it exceeds the measure of
+      justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disastrous thing for intellectual merit is that it must wait for those
+      to praise the good who have themselves produced nothing but what is bad;
+      nay, it is a primary misfortune that it has to receive its crown at the
+      hands of the critical power of mankind&mdash;a quality of which most men
+      possess only the weak and impotent semblance, so that the reality may be
+      numbered amongst the rarest gifts of nature. Hence La Bruyère's remark is,
+      unhappily, as true as it is neat. <i>Après l'esprit de discernement</i>,
+      he says, <i>ce qu'il y a au monde de plus rare, ce sont les diamans et les
+      perles</i>. The spirit of discernment! the critical faculty! it is these
+      that are lacking. Men do not know how to distinguish the genuine from the
+      false, the corn from the chaff, gold from copper; or to perceive the wide
+      gulf that separates a genius from an ordinary man. Thus we have that bad
+      state of things described in an old-fashioned verse, which gives it as the
+      lot of the great ones here on earth to be recognized only when they are
+      gone:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Es ist nun das Geschick der Grossen fiier auf Erden,
+  Erst wann sie nicht mehr sind; von uns erkannt zu werden.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When any genuine and excellent work makes its appearance, the chief
+      difficulty in its way is the amount of bad work it finds already in
+      possession of the field, and accepted as though it were good. And then if,
+      after a long time, the new comer really succeeds, by a hard struggle, in
+      vindicating his place for himself and winning reputation, he will soon
+      encounter fresh difficulty from some affected, dull, awkward imitator,
+      whom people drag in, with the object of calmly setting him up on the altar
+      beside the genius; not seeing the difference and really thinking that here
+      they have to do with another great man. This is what Yriarte means by the
+      first lines of his twenty-eighth Fable, where he declares that the
+      ignorant rabble always sets equal value on the good and the bad:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Siempre acostumbra hacer el vulgo necio
+  De lo bueno y lo malo igual aprecio</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      So even Shakespeare's dramas had, immediately after his death, to give
+      place to those of Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and to
+      yield the supremacy for a hundred years. So Kant's serious philosophy was
+      crowded out by the nonsense of Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Hegel. And even
+      in a sphere accessible to all, we have seen unworthy imitators quickly
+      diverting public attention from the incomparable Walter Scott. For, say
+      what you will, the public has no sense for excellence, and therefore no
+      notion how very rare it is to find men really capable of doing anything
+      great in poetry, philosophy, or art, or that their works are alone worthy
+      of exclusive attention. The dabblers, whether in verse or in any other
+      high sphere, should be every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods,
+      nor men, nor booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      <i>mediocribus esse poetis
+  Non homines, non Dî, non concessere columnae</i>.<a href="#linknote-13"
+      name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13">13</a>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>)<br /> [ Horace, <i>Ars Poetica</i>,
+      372.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are they not the weeds that prevent the corn coming up, so that they may
+      cover all the ground themselves? And then there happens that which has
+      been well and freshly described by the lamented Feuchtersleben,<a
+      href="#linknote-14" name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14"><small>14</small></a>
+      who died so young: how people cry out in their haste that nothing is being
+      done, while all the while great work is quietly growing to maturity; and
+      then, when it appears, it is not seen or heard in the clamor, but goes its
+      way silently, in modest grief:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "<i>Ist doch"&mdash;rufen sie vermessen&mdash;
+  Nichts im Werke, nichts gethan!"
+  Und das Grosse, reift indessen
+  Still heran</i>.
+
+  <i>Es ersheint nun: niemand sieht es,
+  Niemand hört es im Geschrei
+  Mit bescheid'ner Trauer zieht es
+  Still vorbei</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-14" id="linknote-14"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note</i>.&mdash;Ernst
+      Freiherr von Feuchtersleben (1806-49), an Austrian physician, philosopher,
+      and poet, and a specialist in medical psychology. The best known of his
+      songs is that beginning "<i>Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath</i>" to which
+      Mendelssohn composed one of his finest melodies.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This lamentable death of the critical faculty is not less obvious in the
+      case of science, as is shown by the tenacious life of false and disproved
+      theories. If they are once accepted, they may go on bidding defiance to
+      truth for fifty or even a hundred years and more, as stable as an iron
+      pier in the midst of the waves. The Ptolemaic system was still held a
+      century after Copernicus had promulgated his theory. Bacon, Descartes and
+      Locke made their way extremely slowly and only after a long time; as the
+      reader may see by d'Alembert's celebrated Preface to the <i>Encyclopedia</i>.
+      Newton was not more successful; and this is sufficiently proved by the
+      bitterness and contempt with which Leibnitz attacked his theory of
+      gravitation in the controversy with Clarke.<a href="#linknote-15"
+      name="linknoteref-15" id="linknoteref-15"><small>15</small></a> Although
+      Newton lived for almost forty years after the appearance of the <i>Principia</i>,
+      his teaching was, when he died, only to some extent accepted in his own
+      country, whilst outside England he counted scarcely twenty adherents; if
+      we may believe the introductory note to Voltaire's exposition of his
+      theory. It was, indeed, chiefly owing to this treatise of Voltaire's that
+      the system became known in France nearly twenty years after Newton's
+      death. Until then a firm, resolute, and patriotic stand was made by the
+      Cartesian <i>Vortices</i>; whilst only forty years previously, this same
+      Cartesian philosophy had been forbidden in the French schools; and now in
+      turn d'Agnesseau, the Chancellor, refused Voltaire the <i>Imprimatur</i>
+      for his treatise on the Newtonian doctrine. On the other hand, in our day
+      Newton's absurd theory of color still completely holds the field, forty
+      years after the publication of Goethe's. Hume, too, was disregarded up to
+      his fiftieth year, though he began very early and wrote in a thoroughly
+      popular style. And Kant, in spite of having written and talked all his
+      life long, did not become a famous man until he was sixty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>)<br /> [ See especially §§ 35,
+      113, 118, 120, 122, 128.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artists and poets have, to be sure, more chance than thinkers, because
+      their public is at least a hundred times as large. Still, what was thought
+      of Beethoven and Mozart during their lives? what of Dante? what even of
+      Shakespeare? If the latter's contemporaries had in any way recognized his
+      worth, at least one good and accredited portrait of him would have come
+      down to us from an age when the art of painting flourished; whereas we
+      possess only some very doubtful pictures, a bad copperplate, and a still
+      worse bust on his tomb.<a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16"
+      id="linknoteref-16"><small>16</small></a> And in like manner, if he had
+      been duly honored, specimens of his handwriting would have been preserved
+      to us by the hundred, instead of being confined, as is the case, to the
+      signatures to a few legal documents. The Portuguese are still proud of
+      their only poet Camoëns. He lived, however, on alms collected every
+      evening in the street by a black slave whom he had brought with him from
+      the Indies. In time, no doubt, justice will be done everyone; <i>tempo è
+      galant uomo</i>; but it is as late and slow in arriving as in a court of
+      law, and the secret condition of it is that the recipient shall be no
+      longer alive. The precept of Jesus the son of Sirach is faithfully
+      followed: <i>Judge none blessed before his death.</i><a href="#linknote-17"
+      name="linknoteref-17" id="linknoteref-17"><small>17</small></a> He, then,
+      who has produced immortal works, must find comfort by applying to them the
+      words of the Indian myth, that the minutes of life amongst the immortals
+      seem like years of earthly existence; and so, too, that years upon earth
+      are only as the minutes of the immortals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-16" id="linknote-16"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>)<br /> [ A. Wivell: <i>An Inquiry
+      into the History, Authenticity, and Characteristics of Shakespeare's
+      Portraits</i>; with 21 engravings. London, 1836.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-17" id="linknote-17"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      17 (<a href="#linknoteref-17">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Ecclesiasticus</i>,
+      xi. 28.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This lack of critical insight is also shown by the fact that, while in
+      every century the excellent work of earlier time is held in honor, that of
+      its own is misunderstood, and the attention which is its due is given to
+      bad work, such as every decade carries with it only to be the sport of the
+      next. That men are slow to recognize genuine merit when it appears in
+      their own age, also proves that they do not understand or enjoy or really
+      value the long-acknowledged works of genius, which they honor only on the
+      score of authority. The crucial test is the fact that bad work&mdash;Fichte's
+      philosophy, for example&mdash;if it wins any reputation, also maintains it
+      for one or two generations; and only when its public is very large does
+      its fall follow sooner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees it,
+      nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all masterly work
+      in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and capacity of the mind
+      to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as this that possesses the
+      magic word to stir and call forth the spirits that lie hidden in great
+      work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is a sealed cabinet of mystery,&mdash;an
+      unfamiliar musical instrument from which the player, however much he may
+      flatter himself, can draw none but confused tones. How different a
+      painting looks when seen in a good light, as compared with some dark
+      corner! Just in the same way, the impression made by a masterpiece varies
+      with the capacity of the mind to understand it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fine work, then, requires a mind sensitive to its beauty; a thoughtful
+      work, a mind that can really think, if it is to exist and live at all. But
+      alas! it may happen only too often that he who gives a fine work to the
+      world afterwards feels like a maker of fireworks, who displays with
+      enthusiasm the wonders that have taken him so much time and trouble to
+      prepare, and then learns that he has come to the wrong place, and that the
+      fancied spectators were one and all inmates of an asylum for the blind.
+      Still even that is better than if his public had consisted entirely of men
+      who made fireworks themselves; as in this case, if his display had been
+      extraordinarily good, it might possibly have cost him his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The source of all pleasure and delight is the feeling of kinship. Even
+      with the sense of beauty it is unquestionably our own species in the
+      animal world, and then again our own race, that appears to us the fairest.
+      So, too, in intercourse with others, every man shows a decided preference
+      for those who resemble him; and a blockhead will find the society of
+      another blockhead incomparably more pleasant than that of any number of
+      great minds put together. Every man must necessarily take his chief
+      pleasure in his own work, because it is the mirror of his own mind, the
+      echo of his own thought; and next in order will come the work of people
+      like him; that is to say, a dull, shallow and perverse man, a dealer in
+      mere words, will give his sincere and hearty applause only to that which
+      is dull, shallow, perverse or merely verbose. On the other hand, he will
+      allow merit to the work of great minds only on the score of authority, in
+      other words, because he is ashamed to speak his opinion; for in reality
+      they give him no pleasure at all. They do not appeal to him; nay, they
+      repel him; and he will not confess this even to himself. The works of
+      genius cannot be fully enjoyed except by those who are themselves of the
+      privileged order. The first recognition of them, however, when they exist
+      without authority to support them, demands considerable superiority of
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should be surprised,
+      not that great work is so late in winning reputation, but that it wins it
+      at all. And as a matter of fact, fame comes only by a slow and complex
+      process. The stupid person is by degrees forced, and as it were, tamed,
+      into recognizing the superiority of one who stands immediately above him;
+      this one in his turn bows before some one else; and so it goes on until
+      the weight of the votes gradually prevail over their number; and this is
+      just the condition of all genuine, in other words, deserved fame. But
+      until then, the greatest genius, even after he has passed his time of
+      trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of his own subjects, who do not
+      know him by sight and therefore will not do his behests; unless, indeed,
+      his chief ministers of state are in his train. For no subordinate official
+      can be the direct recipient of the royal commands, as he knows only the
+      signature of his immediate superior; and this is repeated all the way up
+      into the highest ranks, where the under-secretary attests the minister's
+      signature, and the minister that of the king. There are analogous stages
+      to be passed before a genius can attain widespread fame. This is why his
+      reputation most easily comes to a standstill at the very outset; because
+      the highest authorities, of whom there can be but few, are most frequently
+      not to be found; but the further down he goes in the scale the more
+      numerous are those who take the word from above, so that his fame is no
+      more arrested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflecting that it
+      is really fortunate that the greater number of men do not form a judgment
+      on their own responsibility, but merely take it on authority. For what
+      sort of criticism should we have on Plato and Kant, Homer, Shakespeare and
+      Goethe, if every man were to form his opinion by what he really has and
+      enjoys of these writers, instead of being forced by authority to speak of
+      them in a fit and proper way, however little he may really feel what he
+      says. Unless something of this kind took place, it would be impossible for
+      true merit, in any high sphere, to attain fame at all. At the same time it
+      is also fortunate that every man has just so much critical power of his
+      own as is necessary for recognizing the superiority of those who are
+      placed immediately over him, and for following their lead. This means that
+      the many come in the end to submit to the authority of the few; and there
+      results that hierarchy of critical judgments on which is based the
+      possibility of a steady, and eventually wide-reaching, fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lowest class in the community is quite impervious to the merits of a
+      great genius; and for these people there is nothing left but the monument
+      raised to him, which, by the impression it produces on their senses,
+      awakes in them a dim idea of the man's greatness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Literary journals should be a dam against the unconscionable scribbling of
+      the age, and the ever-increasing deluge of bad and useless books. Their
+      judgments should be uncorrupted, just and rigorous; and every piece of bad
+      work done by an incapable person; every device by which the empty head
+      tries to come to the assistance of the empty purse, that is to say, about
+      nine-tenths of all existing books, should be mercilessly scourged.
+      Literary journals would then perform their duty, which is to keep down the
+      craving for writing and put a check upon the deception of the public,
+      instead of furthering these evils by a miserable toleration, which plays
+      into the hands of author and publisher, and robs the reader of his time
+      and his money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there were such a paper as I mean, every bad writer, every brainless
+      compiler, every plagiarist from other's books, every hollow and incapable
+      place-hunter, every sham-philosopher, every vain and languishing
+      poetaster, would shudder at the prospect of the pillory in which his bad
+      work would inevitably have to stand soon after publication. This would
+      paralyze his twitching fingers, to the true welfare of literature, in
+      which what is bad is not only useless but positively pernicious. Now, most
+      books are bad and ought to have remained unwritten. Consequently praise
+      should be as rare as is now the case with blame, which is withheld under
+      the influence of personal considerations, coupled with the maxim <i>accedas
+      socius, laudes lauderis ut absens</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is quite wrong to try to introduce into literature the same toleration
+      as must necessarily prevail in society towards those stupid, brainless
+      people who everywhere swarm in it. In literature such people are impudent
+      intruders; and to disparage the bad is here duty towards the good; for he
+      who thinks nothing bad will think nothing good either. Politeness, which
+      has its source in social relations, is in literature an alien, and often
+      injurious, element; because it exacts that bad work shall be called good.
+      In this way the very aim of science and art is directly frustrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ideal journal could, to be sure, be written only by people who joined
+      incorruptible honesty with rare knowledge and still rarer power of
+      judgment; so that perhaps there could, at the very most, be one, and even
+      hardly one, in the whole country; but there it would stand, like a just
+      Aeropagus, every member of which would have to be elected by all the
+      others. Under the system that prevails at present, literary journals are
+      carried on by a clique, and secretly perhaps also by booksellers for the
+      good of the trade; and they are often nothing but coalitions of bad heads
+      to prevent the good ones succeeding. As Goethe once remarked to me,
+      nowhere is there so much dishonesty as in literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, above all, anonymity, that shield of all literary rascality, would
+      have to disappear. It was introduced under the pretext of protecting the
+      honest critic, who warned the public, against the resentment of the author
+      and his friends. But where there is one case of this sort, there will be a
+      hundred where it merely serves to take all responsibility from the man who
+      cannot stand by what he has said, or possibly to conceal the shame of one
+      who has been cowardly and base enough to recommend a book to the public
+      for the purpose of putting money into his own pocket. Often enough it is
+      only a cloak for covering the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance
+      of the critic. It is incredible what impudence these fellows will show,
+      and what literary trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they
+      know they are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a
+      general <i>Anti-criticism</i>, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a
+      stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or blames the
+      good: <i>Rascal! your name</i>! For a man to wrap himself up and draw his
+      hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about without
+      any disguise&mdash;this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the part of
+      a scoundrel and a knave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An anonymous review has no more authority than an anonymous letter; and
+      one should be received with the same mistrust as the other. Or shall we
+      take the name of the man who consents to preside over what is, in the
+      strict sense of the word, <i>une société anonyme</i> as a guarantee for
+      the veracity of his colleagues?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even Rousseau, in the preface to the <i>Nouvelle Heloïse</i>, declares <i>tout
+      honnête homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public</i>; which in plain
+      language means that every honorable man ought to sign his articles, and
+      that no one is honorable who does not do so. How much truer this is of
+      polemical writing, which is the general character of reviews! Riemer was
+      quite right in the opinion he gives in his <i>Reminiscences of Goethe:<a
+      href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="linknoteref-18"><small>18</small></a>
+      An overt enemy</i>, he says, <i>an enemy who meets you face to face, is an
+      honorable man, who will treat you fairly, and with whom you can come to
+      terms and be reconciled: but an enemy who conceals himself</i> is a base,
+      cowardly scoundrel, <i>who has not courage enough to avow his own
+      judgment; it is not his opinion that he cares about, but only the secret
+      pleasures of wreaking his anger without being found out or punished.</i>
+      This will also have been Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source
+      from which Riemer drew his observations. And, indeed, Rousseau's maxim
+      applies to every line that is printed. Would a man in a mask ever be
+      allowed to harangue a mob, or speak in any assembly; and that, too, when
+      he was going to attack others and overwhelm them with abuse?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-18" id="linknote-18"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      18 (<a href="#linknoteref-18">return</a>)<br /> [ Preface, p. xxix.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality. It is
+      a practice which must be completely stopped. Every article, even in a
+      newspaper, should be accompanied by the name of its author; and the editor
+      should be made strictly responsible for the accuracy of the signature. The
+      freedom of the press should be thus far restricted; so that when a man
+      publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the newspaper, he
+      should be answerable for it, at any rate with his honor, if he has any;
+      and if he has none, let his name neutralize the effect of his words. And
+      since even the most insignificant person is known in his own circle, the
+      result of such a measure would be to put an end to two-thirds of the
+      newspaper lies, and to restrain the audacity of many a poisonous tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON REPUTATION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Writers may be classified as meteors, planets and fixed stars. A meteor
+      makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry <i>There!</i>
+      and it is gone for ever. Planets and wandering stars last a much longer
+      time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are confounded with them by
+      the inexperienced; but this only because they are near. It is not long
+      before they must yield their place; nay, the light they give is reflected
+      only, and the sphere of their influence is confined to their own orbit&mdash;their
+      contemporaries. Their path is one of change and movement, and with the
+      circuit of a few years their tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones
+      that are constant; their position in the firmament is secure; they shine
+      with a light of their own; their effect to-day is the same as it was
+      yesterday, because, having no parallax, their appearance does not alter
+      with a difference in our standpoint. They belong not to <i>one</i> system,
+      <i>one</i> nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so
+      very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to
+      the inhabitants of this earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have seen in the previous chapter that where a man's merits are of a
+      high order, it is difficult for him to win reputation, because the public
+      is uncritical and lacks discernment. But another and no less serious
+      hindrance to fame comes from the envy it has to encounter. For even in the
+      lowest kinds of work, envy balks even the beginnings of a reputation, and
+      never ceases to cleave to it up to the last. How great a part is played by
+      envy in the wicked ways of the world! Ariosto is right in saying that the
+      dark side of our mortal life predominates, so full it is of this evil:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    <i>questa assai più oscura che serena
+  Vita mortal, tutta d'invidia piena</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For envy is the moving spirit of that secret and informal, though
+      flourishing, alliance everywhere made by mediocrity against individual
+      eminence, no matter of what kind. In his own sphere of work no one will
+      allow another to be distinguished: he is an intruder who cannot be
+      tolerated. <i>Si quelq'un excelle parmi nous, qu'il aille exceller
+      ailleurs</i>! this is the universal password of the second-rate. In
+      addition, then, to the rarity of true merit and the difficulty it has in
+      being understood and recognized, there is the envy of thousands to be
+      reckoned with, all of them bent on suppressing, nay, on smothering it
+      altogether. No one is taken for what he is, but for what others make of
+      him; and this is the handle used by mediocrity to keep down distinction,
+      by not letting it come up as long as that can possibly be prevented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are two ways of behaving in regard to merit: either to have some of
+      one's own, or to refuse any to others. The latter method is more
+      convenient, and so it is generally adopted. As envy is a mere sign of
+      deficiency, so to envy merit argues the lack of it. My excellent Balthazar
+      Gracian has given a very fine account of this relation between envy and
+      merit in a lengthy fable, which may be found in his <i>Discreto</i> under
+      the heading <i>Hombre de ostentacion</i>. He describes all the birds as
+      meeting together and conspiring against the peacock, because of his
+      magnificent feathers. <i>If</i>, said the magpie, <i>we could only manage
+      to put a stop to the cursed parading of his tail, there would soon be an
+      end of his beauty; for what is not seen is as good as what does not exist</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This explains how modesty came to be a virtue. It was invented only as a
+      protection against envy. That there have always been rascals to urge this
+      virtue, and to rejoice heartily over the bashfulness of a man of merit,
+      has been shown at length in my chief work.<a href="#linknote-19"
+      name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19"><small>19</small></a> In
+      Lichtenberg's <i>Miscellaneous Writings</i> I find this sentence quoted:
+      <i>Modesty should be the virtue of those who possess no other</i>. Goethe
+      has a well-known saying, which offends many people: <i>It is only knaves
+      who are modest</i>!&mdash;<i>Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden</i>! but it
+      has its prototype in Cervantes, who includes in his <i>Journey up
+      Parnassus</i> certain rules of conduct for poets, and amongst them the
+      following: <i>Everyone whose verse shows him to be a poet should have a
+      high opinion of himself, relying on the proverb that he is a knave who
+      thinks himself one</i>. And Shakespeare, in many of his Sonnets, which
+      gave him the only opportunity he had of speaking of himself, declares,
+      with a confidence equal to his ingenuousness, that what he writes is
+      immortal.<a href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20"><small>20</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Welt als Wille</i>,
+      Vol. II. c. 37.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>)<br /> [ Collier, one of his
+      critical editors, in his Introduction to the Sonettes, remarks upon this
+      point: "In many of them are to be found most remarkable indications of
+      self-confidence and of assurance in the immortality of his verses, and in
+      this respect the author's opinion was constant and uniform. He never
+      scruples to express it,... and perhaps there is no writer of ancient or
+      modern times who, for the quantity of such writings left behind him, has
+      so frequently or so strongly declared that what he had produced in this
+      department of poetry 'the world would not willingly let die.'"]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A method of underrating good work often used by envy&mdash;in reality,
+      however, only the obverse side of it&mdash;consists in the dishonorable
+      and unscrupulous laudation of the bad; for no sooner does bad work gain
+      currency than it draws attention from the good. But however effective this
+      method may be for a while, especially if it is applied on a large scale,
+      the day of reckoning comes at last, and the fleeting credit given to bad
+      work is paid off by the lasting discredit which overtakes those who
+      abjectly praised it. Hence these critics prefer to remain anonymous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A like fate threatens, though more remotely, those who depreciate and
+      censure good work; and consequently many are too prudent to attempt it.
+      But there is another way; and when a man of eminent merit appears, the
+      first effect he produces is often only to pique all his rivals, just as
+      the peacock's tail offended the birds. This reduces them to a deep
+      silence; and their silence is so unanimous that it savors of
+      preconcertion. Their tongues are all paralyzed. It is the <i>silentium
+      livoris</i> described by Seneca. This malicious silence, which is
+      technically known as <i>ignoring</i>, may for a long time interfere with
+      the growth of reputation; if, as happens in the higher walks of learning,
+      where a man's immediate audience is wholly composed of rival workers and
+      professed students, who then form the channel of his fame, the greater
+      public is obliged to use its suffrage without being able to examine the
+      matter for itself. And if, in the end, that malicious silence is broken in
+      upon by the voice of praise, it will be but seldom that this happens
+      entirely apart from some ulterior aim, pursued by those who thus
+      manipulate justice. For, as Goethe says in the <i>West-östlicher Divan</i>,
+      a man can get no recognition, either from many persons or from only one,
+      unless it is to publish abroad the critic's own discernment:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Denn es ist kein Anerkenen,
+  Weder Vieler, noch des Einen,
+  Wenn es nicht am Tage fördert,
+  Wo man selbst was möchte scheinen</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The credit you allow to another man engaged in work similar to your own or
+      akin to it, must at bottom be withdrawn from yourself; and you can praise
+      him only at the expense of your own claims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, mankind is in itself not at all inclined to award praise and
+      reputation; it is more disposed to blame and find fault, whereby it
+      indirectly praises itself. If, notwithstanding this, praise is won from
+      mankind, some extraneous motive must prevail. I am not here referring to
+      the disgraceful way in which mutual friends will puff one another into a
+      reputation; outside of that, an effectual motive is supplied by the
+      feeling that next to the merit of doing something oneself, comes that of
+      correctly appreciating and recognizing what others have done. This accords
+      with the threefold division of heads drawn up by Hesiod<a
+      href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21"><small>21</small></a>
+      and afterwards by Machiavelli<a href="#linknote-22" name="linknoteref-22"
+      id="linknoteref-22"><small>22</small></a> <i>There are</i>, says the
+      latter, <i>in the capacities of mankind, three varieties: one man will
+      understand a thing by himself; another so far as it is explained to him; a
+      third, neither of himself nor when it is put clearly before him</i>. He,
+      then, who abandons hope of making good his claims to the first class, will
+      be glad to seize the opportunity of taking a place in the second. It is
+      almost wholly owing to this state of things that merit may always rest
+      assured of ultimately meeting with recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Works and Days</i>,
+      293.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-22" id="linknote-22"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      22 (<a href="#linknoteref-22">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>The Prince</i>, ch.
+      22.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this also is due the fact that when the value of a work has once been
+      recognized and may no longer be concealed or denied, all men vie in
+      praising and honoring it; simply because they are conscious of thereby
+      doing themselves an honor. They act in the spirit of Xenophon's remark: <i>he
+      must be a wise man who knows what is wise</i>. So when they see that the
+      prize of original merit is for ever out of their reach, they hasten to
+      possess themselves of that which comes second best&mdash;the correct
+      appreciation of it. Here it happens as with an army which has been forced
+      to yield; when, just as previously every man wanted to be foremost in the
+      fight, so now every man tries to be foremost in running away. They all
+      hurry forward to offer their applause to one who is now recognized to be
+      worthy of praise, in virtue of a recognition, as a rule unconscious, of
+      that law of homogeneity which I mentioned in the last chapter; so that it
+      may seem as though their way of thinking and looking at things were
+      homogeneous with that of the celebrated man, and that they may at least
+      save the honor of their literary taste, since nothing else is left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this it is plain that, whereas it is very difficult to win fame, it
+      is not hard to keep it when once attained; and also that a reputation
+      which comes quickly does not last very long; for here too, <i>quod cito
+      fit, cito perit</i>. It is obvious that if the ordinary average man can
+      easily recognize, and the rival workers willingly acknowledge, the value
+      of any performance, it will not stand very much above the capacity of
+      either of them to achieve it for themselves. <i>Tantum quisque laudat,
+      quantum se posse sperat imitari</i>&mdash;a man will praise a thing only
+      so far as he hopes to be able to imitate it himself. Further, it is a
+      suspicious sign if a reputation comes quickly; for an application of the
+      laws of homogeneity will show that such a reputation is nothing but the
+      direct applause of the multitude. What this means may be seen by a remark
+      once made by Phocion, when he was interrupted in a speech by the loud
+      cheers of the mob. Turning to his friends who were standing close by, he
+      asked: <i>Have I made a mistake and said something stupid?</i><a
+      href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23"><small>23</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      23 (<a href="#linknoteref-23">return</a>)<br /> [ Plutarch, <i>Apophthegms</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Contrarily, a reputation that is to last a long time must be slow in
+      maturing, and the centuries of its duration have generally to be bought at
+      the cost of contemporary praise. For that which is to keep its position so
+      long, must be of a perfection difficult to attain; and even to recognize
+      this perfection requires men who are not always to be found, and never in
+      numbers sufficiently great to make themselves heard; whereas envy is
+      always on the watch and doing its best to smother their voice. But with
+      moderate talent, which soon meets with recognition, there is the danger
+      that those who possess it will outlive both it and themselves; so that a
+      youth of fame may be followed by an old age of obscurity. In the case of
+      great merit, on the other hand, a man may remain unknown for many years,
+      but make up for it later on by attaining a brilliant reputation. And if it
+      should be that this comes only after he is no more, well! he is to be
+      reckoned amongst those of whom Jean Paul says that extreme unction is
+      their baptism. He may console himself by thinking of the Saints, who also
+      are canonized only after they are dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus what Mahlmann<a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24"
+      id="linknoteref-24"><small>24</small></a> has said so well in <i>Herodes</i>
+      holds good; in this world truly great work never pleases at once, and the
+      god set up by the multitude keeps his place on the altar but a short time:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Ich denke, das wahre Grosse in der Welt
+  Ist immer nur Das was nicht gleich gefällt
+  Und wen der Pöbel zum Gotte weiht,
+  Der steht auf dem Altar nur kurze Zeit</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      24 (<a href="#linknoteref-24">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note</i>.&mdash;August
+      Mahlmann (1771-1826), journalist, poet and story-writer. His <i>Herodes
+      vor Bethlehem</i> is a parody of Kotzebue's <i>Hussiten vor Naumburg</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is worth mention that this rule is most directly confirmed in the case
+      of pictures, where, as connoisseurs well know, the greatest masterpieces
+      are not the first to attract attention. If they make a deep impression, it
+      is not after one, but only after repeated, inspection; but then they
+      excite more and more admiration every time they are seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, the chances that any given work will be quickly and rightly
+      appreciated, depend upon two conditions: firstly, the character of the
+      work, whether high or low, in other words, easy or difficult to
+      understand; and, secondly, the kind of public it attracts, whether large
+      or small. This latter condition is, no doubt, in most instances a,
+      corollary of the former; but it also partly depends upon whether the work
+      in question admits, like books and musical compositions, of being produced
+      in great numbers. By the compound action of these two conditions,
+      achievements which serve no materially useful end&mdash;and these alone
+      are under consideration here&mdash;will vary in regard to the chances they
+      have of meeting with timely recognition and due appreciation; and the
+      order of precedence, beginning with those who have the greatest chance,
+      will be somewhat as follows: acrobats, circus riders, ballet-dancers,
+      jugglers, actors, singers, musicians, composers, poets (both the last on
+      account of the multiplication of their works), architects, painters,
+      sculptors, philosophers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last place of all is unquestionably taken by philosophers because
+      their works are meant not for entertainment, but for instruction, and
+      because they presume some knowledge on the part of the reader, and require
+      him to make an effort of his own to understand them. This makes their
+      public extremely small, and causes their fame to be more remarkable for
+      its length than for its breadth. And, in general, it may be said that the
+      possibility of a man's fame lasting a long time, stands in almost inverse
+      ratio with the chance that it will be early in making its appearance; so
+      that, as regards length of fame, the above order of precedence may be
+      reversed. But, then, the poet and the composer will come in the end to
+      stand on the same level as the philosopher; since, when once a work is
+      committed to writing, it is possible to preserve it to all time. However,
+      the first place still belongs by right to the philosopher, because of the
+      much greater scarcity of good work in this sphere, and the high importance
+      of it; and also because of the possibility it offers of an almost perfect
+      translation into any language. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that a
+      philosopher's fame outlives even his works themselves; as has happened
+      with Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Democritus, Parmenides, Epicurus and
+      many others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My remarks are, as I have said, confined to achievements that are not of
+      any material use. Work that serves some practical end, or ministers
+      directly to some pleasure of the senses, will never have any difficulty in
+      being duly appreciated. No first-rate pastry-cook could long remain
+      obscure in any town, to say nothing of having to appeal to posterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under fame of rapid growth is also to be reckoned fame of a false and
+      artificial kind; where, for instance, a book is worked into a reputation
+      by means of unjust praise, the help of friends, corrupt criticism,
+      prompting from above and collusion from below. All this tells upon the
+      multitude, which is rightly presumed to have no power of judging for
+      itself. This sort of fame is like a swimming bladder, by its aid a heavy
+      body may keep afloat. It bears up for a certain time, long or short
+      according as the bladder is well sewed up and blown; but still the air
+      comes out gradually, and the body sinks. This is the inevitable fate of
+      all works which are famous by reason of something outside of themselves.
+      False praise dies away; collusion comes to an end; critics declare the
+      reputation ungrounded; it vanishes, and is replaced by so much the greater
+      contempt. Contrarily, a genuine work, which, having the source of its fame
+      in itself, can kindle admiration afresh in every age, resembles a body of
+      low specific gravity, which always keeps up of its own accord, and so goes
+      floating down the stream of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men of great genius, whether their work be in poetry, philosophy or art,
+      stand in all ages like isolated heroes, keeping up single-handed a
+      desperate struggling against the onslaught of an army of opponents.<a
+      href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25"><small>25</small></a>
+      Is not this characteristic of the miserable nature of mankind? The
+      dullness, grossness, perversity, silliness and brutality of by far the
+      greater part of the race, are always an obstacle to the efforts of the
+      genius, whatever be the method of his art; they so form that hostile army
+      to which at last he has to succumb. Let the isolated champion achieve what
+      he may: it is slow to be acknowledged; it is late in being appreciated,
+      and then only on the score of authority; it may easily fall into neglect
+      again, at any rate for a while. Ever afresh it finds itself opposed by
+      false, shallow, and insipid ideas, which are better suited to that large
+      majority, that so generally hold the field. Though the critic may step
+      forth and say, like Hamlet when he held up the two portraits to his
+      wretched mother, <i>Have you eyes? Have you eyes</i>? alas! they have
+      none. When I watch the behavior of a crowd of people in the presence of
+      some great master's work, and mark the manner of their applause, they
+      often remind me of trained monkeys in a show. The monkey's gestures are,
+      no doubt, much like those of men; but now and again they betray that the
+      real inward spirit of these gestures is not in them. Their irrational
+      nature peeps out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-25" id="linknote-25"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      25 (<a href="#linknoteref-25">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note</i>.&mdash;At
+      this point Schopenhauer interrupts the thread of his discourse to speak at
+      length upon an example of false fame. Those who are at all acquainted with
+      the philosopher's views will not be surprised to find that the writer thus
+      held up to scorn is Hegel; and readers of the other volumes in this series
+      will, with the translator, have had by now quite enough of the subject.
+      The passage is therefore omitted.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is often said of a man that <i>he is in advance of his age</i>; and it
+      follows from the above remarks that this must be taken to mean that he is
+      in advance of humanity in general. Just because of this fact, a genius
+      makes no direct appeal except to those who are too rare to allow of their
+      ever forming a numerous body at any one period. If he is in this respect
+      not particularly favored by fortune, he will be <i>misunderstood by his
+      own age</i>; in other words, he will remain unaccepted until time
+      gradually brings together the voices of those few persons who are capable
+      of judging a work of such high character. Then posterity will say: <i>This
+      man was in advance of his age</i>, instead of <i>in advance of humanity</i>;
+      because humanity will be glad to lay the burden of its own faults upon a
+      single epoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence, if a man has been superior to his own age, he would also have been
+      superior to any other; provided that, in that age, by some rare and happy
+      chance, a few just men, capable of judging in the sphere of his
+      achievements, had been born at the same time with him; just as when,
+      according to a beautiful Indian myth, Vischnu becomes incarnate as a hero,
+      so, too, Brahma at the same time appears as the singer of his deeds; and
+      hence Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are incarnations of Brahma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this sense, then, it may be said that every immortal work puts its age
+      to the proof, whether or no it will be able to recognize the merit of it.
+      As a rule, the men of any age stand such a test no better than the
+      neighbors of Philemon and Baucis, who expelled the deities they failed to
+      recognize. Accordingly, the right standard for judging the intellectual
+      worth of any generation is supplied, not by the great minds that make
+      their appearance in it&mdash;for their capacities are the work of Nature,
+      and the possibility of cultivating them a matter of chance circumstance&mdash;but
+      by the way in which contemporaries receive their works; whether, I mean,
+      they give their applause soon and with a will, or late and in niggardly
+      fashion, or leave it to be bestowed altogether by posterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This last fate will be especially reserved for works of a high character.
+      For the happy chance mentioned above will be all the more certain not to
+      come, in proportion as there are few to appreciate the kind of work done
+      by great minds. Herein lies the immeasurable advantage possessed by poets
+      in respect of reputation; because their work is accessible to almost
+      everyone. If it had been possible for Sir Walter Scott to be read and
+      criticised by only some hundred persons, perhaps in his life-time any
+      common scribbler would have been preferred to him; and afterwards, when he
+      had taken his proper place, it would also have been said in his honor that
+      he was <i>in advance of his age</i>. But if envy, dishonesty and the
+      pursuit of personal aims are added to the incapacity of those hundred
+      persons who, in the name of their generation, are called upon to pass
+      judgment on a work, then indeed it meets with the same sad fate as attends
+      a suitor who pleads before a tribunal of judges one and all corrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In corroboration of this, we find that the history of literature generally
+      shows all those who made knowledge and insight their goal to have remained
+      unrecognized and neglected, whilst those who paraded with the vain show of
+      it received the admiration of their contemporaries, together with the
+      emoluments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the
+      reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts, by the
+      operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this reputation is
+      quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a worthy writer may come
+      by it very slowly and tardily. The former possess friends to help them;
+      for the rabble is always a numerous body which holds well together. The
+      latter has nothing but enemies; because intellectual superiority is
+      everywhere and under all circumstances the most hateful thing in the
+      world, and especially to bunglers in the same line of work, who want to
+      pass for something themselves.<a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26"
+      id="linknoteref-26"><small>26</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      26 (<a href="#linknoteref-26">return</a>)<br /> [ If the professors of
+      philosophy should chance to think that I am here hinting at them and the
+      tactics they have for more than thirty years pursued toward my works, they
+      have hit the nail upon the head.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This being so, it is a prime condition for doing any great work&mdash;any
+      work which is to outlive its own age, that a man pay no heed to his
+      contemporaries, their views and opinions, and the praise or blame which
+      they bestow. This condition is, however, fulfilled of itself when a man
+      really does anything great, and it is fortunate that it is so. For if, in
+      producing such a work, he were to look to the general opinion or the
+      judgment of his colleagues, they would lead him astray at every step.
+      Hence, if a man wants to go down to posterity, he must withdraw from the
+      influence of his own age. This will, of course, generally mean that he
+      must also renounce any influence upon it, and be ready to buy centuries of
+      fame by foregoing the applause of his contemporaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For when any new and wide-reaching truth comes into the world&mdash;and if
+      it is new, it must be paradoxical&mdash;an obstinate stand will be made
+      against it as long as possible; nay, people will continue to deny it even
+      after they slacken their opposition and are almost convinced of its truth.
+      Meanwhile it goes on quietly working its way, and, like an acid,
+      undermining everything around it. From time to time a crash is heard; the
+      old error comes tottering to the ground, and suddenly the new fabric of
+      thought stands revealed, as though it were a monument just uncovered.
+      Everyone recognizes and admires it. To be sure, this all comes to pass for
+      the most part very slowly. As a rule, people discover a man to be worth
+      listening to only after he is gone; their <i>hear, hear</i>, resounds when
+      the orator has left the platform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Works of the ordinary type meet with a better fate. Arising as they do in
+      the course of, and in connection with, the general advance in contemporary
+      culture, they are in close alliance with the spirit of their age&mdash;in
+      other words, just those opinions which happen to be prevalent at the time.
+      They aim at suiting the needs of the moment. If they have any merit, it is
+      soon recognized; and they gain currency as books which reflect the latest
+      ideas. Justice, nay, more than justice, is done to them. They afford
+      little scope for envy; since, as was said above, a man will praise a thing
+      only so far as he hopes to be able to imitate it himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But those rare works which are destined to become the property of all
+      mankind and to live for centuries, are, at their origin, too far in
+      advance of the point at which culture happens to stand, and on that very
+      account foreign to it and the spirit of their own time. They neither
+      belong to it nor are they in any connection with it, and hence they excite
+      no interest in those who are dominated by it. They belong to another, a
+      higher stage of culture, and a time that is still far off. Their course is
+      related to that of ordinary works as the orbit of Uranus to the orbit of
+      Mercury. For the moment they get no justice done to them. People are at a
+      loss how to treat them; so they leave them alone, and go their own snail's
+      pace for themselves. Does the worm see the eagle as it soars aloft?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the number of books written in any language about one in 100,000 forms
+      a part of its real and permanent literature. What a fate this one book has
+      to endure before it outstrips those 100,000 and gains its due place of
+      honor! Such a book is the work of an extraordinary and eminent mind, and
+      therefore it is specifically different from the others; a fact which
+      sooner or later becomes manifest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let no one fancy that things will ever improve in this respect. No! the
+      miserable constitution of humanity never changes, though it may, to be
+      sure, take somewhat varying forms with every generation. A distinguished
+      mind seldom has its full effect in the life-time of its possessor;
+      because, at bottom, it is completely and properly understood only by minds
+      already akin to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it is a rare thing for even one man out of many millions to tread the
+      path that leads to immortality, he must of necessity be very lonely. The
+      journey to posterity lies through a horribly dreary region, like the
+      Lybian desert, of which, as is well known, no one has any idea who has not
+      seen it for himself. Meanwhile let me before all things recommend the
+      traveler to take light baggage with him; otherwise he will have to throw
+      away too much on the road. Let him never forget the words of Balthazar
+      Gracian: <i>lo bueno si breve, dos vezes bueno</i>&mdash;good work is
+      doubly good if it is short. This advice is specially applicable to my own
+      countrymen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect are
+      like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the
+      building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an
+      analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he
+      lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes
+      him back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the perishable son of time has produced an imperishable work, how short
+      his own life seems compared with that of his child! He is like Semela or
+      Maia&mdash;a mortal mother who gave birth to an immortal son; or,
+      contrarily, he is like Achilles in regard to Thetis. What a contrast there
+      is between what is fleeting and what is permanent! The short span of a
+      man's life, his necessitous, afflicted, unstable existence, will seldom
+      allow of his seeing even the beginning of his immortal child's brilliant
+      career; nor will the father himself be taken for that which he really is.
+      It may be said, indeed, that a man whose fame comes after him is the
+      reverse of a nobleman, who is preceded by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the only difference that it ultimately makes to a man to receive
+      his fame at the hands of contemporaries rather than from posterity is
+      that, in the former case, his admirers are separated from him by space,
+      and in the latter by time. For even in the case of contemporary fame, a
+      man does not, as a rule, see his admirers actually before him. Reverence
+      cannot endure close proximity; it almost always dwells at some distance
+      from its object; and in the presence of the person revered it melts like
+      butter in the sun. Accordingly, if a man is celebrated with his
+      contemporaries, nine-tenths of those amongst whom he lives will let their
+      esteem be guided by his rank and fortune; and the remaining tenth may
+      perhaps have a dull consciousness of his high qualities, because they have
+      heard about him from remote quarters. There is a fine Latin letter of
+      Petrarch's on this incompatibility between reverence and the presence of
+      the person, and between fame and life. It comes second in his <i>Epistolae
+      familiares?</i><a href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27"
+      id="linknoteref-27"><small>27</small></a> and it is addressed to Thomas
+      Messanensis. He there observes, amongst other things, that the learned men
+      of his age all made it a rule to think little of a man's writings if they
+      had even once seen him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-27" id="linknote-27"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      27 (<a href="#linknoteref-27">return</a>)<br /> [ In the Venetian edition
+      of 1492.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since distance, then, is essential if a famous man is to be recognized and
+      revered, it does not matter whether it is distance of space or of time. It
+      is true that he may sometimes hear of his fame in the one case, but never
+      in the other; but still, genuine and great merit may make up for this by
+      confidently anticipating its posthumous fame. Nay, he who produces some
+      really great thought is conscious of his connection with coming
+      generations at the very moment he conceives it; so that he feels the
+      extension of his existence through centuries and thus lives <i>with</i>
+      posterity as well as <i>for</i> it. And when, after enjoying a great man's
+      work, we are seized with admiration for him, and wish him back, so that we
+      might see and speak with him, and have him in our possession, this desire
+      of ours is not unrequited; for he, too, has had his longing for that
+      posterity which will grant the recognition, honor, gratitude and love
+      denied by envious contemporaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If intellectual works of the highest order are not allowed their due until
+      they come before the tribunal of posterity, a contrary fate is prepared
+      for certain brilliant errors which proceed from men of talent, and appear
+      with an air of being well grounded. These errors are defended with so much
+      acumen and learning that they actually become famous with their own age,
+      and maintain their position at least during their author's lifetime. Of
+      this sort are many false theories and wrong criticisms; also poems and
+      works of art, which exhibit some false taste or mannerism favored by
+      contemporary prejudice. They gain reputation and currency simply because
+      no one is yet forthcoming who knows how to refute them or otherwise prove
+      their falsity; and when he appears, as he usually does, in the next
+      generation, the glory of these works is brought to an end. Posthumous
+      judges, be their decision favorable to the appellant or not, form the
+      proper court for quashing the verdict of contemporaries. That is why it is
+      so difficult and so rare to be victorious alike in both tribunals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unfailing tendency of time to correct knowledge and judgment should
+      always be kept in view as a means of allaying anxiety, whenever any
+      grievous error appears, whether in art, or science, or practical life, and
+      gains ground; or when some false and thoroughly perverse policy of
+      movement is undertaken and receives applause at the hands of men. No one
+      should be angry, or, still less, despondent; but simply imagine that the
+      world has already abandoned the error in question, and now only requires
+      time and experience to recognize of its own accord that which a clear
+      vision detected at the first glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the facts themselves are eloquent of a truth, there is no need to
+      rush to its aid with words: for time will give it a thousand tongues. How
+      long it may be before they speak, will of course depend upon the
+      difficulty of the subject and the plausibility of the error; but come they
+      will, and often it would be of no avail to try to anticipate them. In the
+      worst cases it will happen with theories as it happens with affairs in
+      practical life; where sham and deception, emboldened by success, advance
+      to greater and greater lengths, until discovery is made almost inevitable.
+      It is just so with theories; through the blind confidence of the
+      blockheads who broach them, their absurdity reaches such a pitch that at
+      last it is obvious even to the dullest eye. We may thus say to such
+      people: <i>the wilder your statements, the better</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is also some comfort to be found in reflecting upon all the whims
+      and crotchets which had their day and have now utterly vanished. In style,
+      in grammar, in spelling, there are false notions of this sort which last
+      only three or four years. But when the errors are on a large scale, while
+      we lament the brevity of human life, we shall in any case, do well to lag
+      behind our own age when we see it on a downward path. For there are two
+      ways of not keeping on a level with the times. A man may be below it; or
+      he may be above it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ON GENIUS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that
+      separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of
+      their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will,
+      and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! it is
+      too good for that; my head shall be active only in its own service; it
+      shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world,
+      and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that
+      may answer to my character as an individual. These are the truly noble,
+      the real <i>noblesse</i> of the world. The others are serfs and go with
+      the soil&mdash;<i>glebae adscripti</i>. Of course, I am here referring to
+      those who have not only the courage, but also the call, and therefore the
+      right, to order the head to quit the service of the will; with a result
+      that proves the sacrifice to have been worth the making. In the case of
+      those to whom all this can only partially apply, the gulf is not so wide;
+      but even though their talent be small, so long as it is real, there will
+      always be a sharp line of demarcation between them and the millions.<a
+      href="#linknote-28" name="linknoteref-28" id="linknoteref-28"><small>28</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-28" id="linknote-28"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      28 (<a href="#linknoteref-28">return</a>)<br /> [ The correct scale for
+      adjusting the hierarchy of intelligences is furnished by the degree in
+      which the mind takes merely individual or approaches universal views of
+      things. The brute recognizes only the individual as such: its
+      comprehension does not extend beyond the limits of the individual. But man
+      reduces the individual to the general; herein lies the exercise of his
+      reason; and the higher his intelligence reaches, the nearer do his general
+      ideas approach the point at which they become universal.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The works of fine art, poetry and philosophy produced by a nation are the
+      outcome of the superfluous intellect existing in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For him who can understand aright&mdash;<i>cum grano salis</i>&mdash;the
+      relation between the genius and the normal man may, perhaps, be best
+      expressed as follows: A genius has a double intellect, one for himself and
+      the service of his will; the other for the world, of which he becomes the
+      mirror, in virtue of his purely objective attitude towards it. The work of
+      art or poetry or philosophy produced by the genius is simply the result,
+      or quintessence, of this contemplative attitude, elaborated according to
+      certain technical rules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The normal man, on the other hand, has only a single intellect, which may
+      be called <i>subjective</i> by contrast with the <i>objective</i>
+      intellect of genius. However acute this subjective intellect may be&mdash;and
+      it exists in very various degrees of perfection&mdash;it is never on the
+      same level with the double intellect of genius; just as the open chest
+      notes of the human voice, however high, are essentially different from the
+      falsetto notes. These, like the two upper octaves of the flute and the
+      harmonics of the violin, are produced by the column of air dividing itself
+      into two vibrating halves, with a node between them; while the open chest
+      notes of the human voice and the lower octave of the flute are produced by
+      the undivided column of air vibrating as a whole. This illustration may
+      help the reader to understand that specific peculiarity of genius which is
+      unmistakably stamped on the works, and even on the physiognomy, of him who
+      is gifted with it. At the same time it is obvious that a double intellect
+      like this must, as a rule, obstruct the service of the will; and this
+      explains the poor capacity often shown by genius in the conduct of life.
+      And what specially characterizes genius is that it has none of that
+      sobriety of temper which is always to be found in the ordinary simple
+      intellect, be it acute or dull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brain may be likened to a parasite which is nourished as a part of the
+      human frame without contributing directly to its inner economy; it is
+      securely housed in the topmost story, and there leads a self-sufficient
+      and independent life. In the same way it may be said that a man endowed
+      with great mental gifts leads, apart from the individual life common to
+      all, a second life, purely of the intellect. He devotes himself to the
+      constant increase, rectification and extension, not of mere learning, but
+      of real systematic knowledge and insight; and remains untouched by the
+      fate that overtakes him personally, so long as it does not disturb him in
+      his work. It is thus a life which raises a man and sets him above fate and
+      its changes. Always thinking, learning, experimenting, practicing his
+      knowledge, the man soon comes to look upon this second life as the chief
+      mode of existence, and his merely personal life as something subordinate,
+      serving only to advance ends higher than itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An example of this independent, separate existence is furnished by Goethe.
+      During the war in the Champagne, and amid all the bustle of the camp, he
+      made observations for his theory of color; and as soon as the numberless
+      calamities of that war allowed of his retiring for a short time to the
+      fortress of Luxembourg, he took up the manuscript of his <i>Farbenlehre</i>.
+      This is an example which we, the salt of the earth, should endeavor to
+      follow, by never letting anything disturb us in the pursuit of our
+      intellectual life, however much the storm of the world may invade and
+      agitate our personal environment; always remembering that we are the sons,
+      not of the bondwoman, but of the free. As our emblem and coat of arms, I
+      propose a tree mightily shaken by the wind, but still bearing its ruddy
+      fruit on every branch; with the motto <i>Dum convellor mitescunt</i>, or
+      <i>Conquassata sed ferax.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That purely intellectual life of the individual has its counterpart in
+      humanity as a whole. For there, too, the real life is the life of the <i>will</i>,
+      both in the empirical and in the transcendental meaning of the word. The
+      purely intellectual life of humanity lies in its effort to increase
+      knowledge by means of the sciences, and its desire to perfect the arts.
+      Both science and art thus advance slowly from one generation to another,
+      and grow with the centuries, every race as it hurries by furnishing its
+      contribution. This intellectual life, like some gift from heaven, hovers
+      over the stir and movement of the world; or it is, as it were, a
+      sweet-scented air developed out of the ferment itself&mdash;the real life
+      of mankind, dominated by will; and side by side with the history of
+      nations, the history of philosophy, science and art takes its innocent and
+      bloodless way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difference between the genius and the ordinary man is, no doubt, a <i>quantitative</i>
+      one, in so far as it is a difference of degree; but I am tempted to regard
+      it also as <i>qualitative</i>, in view of the fact that ordinary minds,
+      notwithstanding individual variation, have a certain tendency to think
+      alike. Thus on similar occasions their thoughts at once all take a similar
+      direction, and run on the same lines; and this explains why their
+      judgments constantly agree&mdash;not, however, because they are based on
+      truth. To such lengths does this go that certain fundamental views obtain
+      amongst mankind at all times, and are always being repeated and brought
+      forward anew, whilst the great minds of all ages are in open or secret
+      opposition to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A genius is a man in whose mind the world is presented as an object is
+      presented in a mirror, but with a degree more of clearness and a greater
+      distinction of outline than is attained by ordinary people. It is from him
+      that humanity may look for most instruction; for the deepest insight into
+      the most important matters is to be acquired, not by an observant
+      attention to detail, but by a close study of things as a whole. And if his
+      mind reaches maturity, the instruction he gives will be conveyed now in
+      one form, now in another. Thus genius may be defined as an eminently clear
+      consciousness of things in general, and therefore, also of that which is
+      opposed to them, namely, one's own self.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The world looks up to a man thus endowed, and expects to learn something
+      about life and its real nature. But several highly favorable circumstances
+      must combine to produce genius, and this is a very rare event. It happens
+      only now and then, let us say once in a century, that a man is born whose
+      intellect so perceptibly surpasses the normal measure as to amount to that
+      second faculty which seems to be accidental, as it is out of all relation
+      to the will. He may remain a long time without being recognized or
+      appreciated, stupidity preventing the one and envy the other. But should
+      this once come to pass, mankind will crowd round him and his works, in the
+      hope that he may be able to enlighten some of the darkness of their
+      existence or inform them about it. His message is, to some extent, a
+      revelation, and he himself a higher being, even though he may be but
+      little above the ordinary standard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like the ordinary man, the genius is what he is chiefly for himself. This
+      is essential to his nature: a fact which can neither be avoided nor
+      altered, he may be for others remains a matter of chance and of secondary
+      importance. In no case can people receive from his mind more than a
+      reflection, and then only when he joins with them in the attempt to get
+      his thought into their heads; where, however, it is never anything but an
+      exotic plant, stunted and frail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to have original, uncommon, and perhaps even immortal thoughts,
+      it is enough to estrange oneself so fully from the world of things for a
+      few moments, that the most ordinary objects and events appear quite new
+      and unfamiliar. In this way their true nature is disclosed. What is here
+      demanded cannot, perhaps, be said to be difficult; it is not in our power
+      at all, but is just the province of genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By itself, genius can produce original thoughts just as little as a woman
+      by herself can bear children. Outward circumstances must come to fructify
+      genius, and be, as it were, a father to its progeny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mind of genius is among other minds what the carbuncle is among
+      precious stones: it sends forth light of its own, while the others reflect
+      only that which they have received. The relation of the genius to the
+      ordinary mind may also be described as that of an idio-electrical body to
+      one which merely is a conductor of electricity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mere man of learning, who spends his life in teaching what he has
+      learned, is not strictly to be called a man of genius; just as
+      idio-electrical bodies are not conductors. Nay, genius stands to mere
+      learning as the words to the music in a song. A man of learning is a man
+      who has learned a great deal; a man of genius, one from whom we learn
+      something which the genius has learned from nobody. Great minds, of which
+      there is scarcely one in a hundred millions, are thus the lighthouses of
+      humanity; and without them mankind would lose itself in the boundless sea
+      of monstrous error and bewilderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so the simple man of learning, in the strict sense of the word&mdash;the
+      ordinary professor, for instance&mdash;looks upon the genius much as we
+      look upon a hare, which is good to eat after it has been killed and
+      dressed up. So long as it is alive, it is only good to shoot at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who wishes to experience gratitude from his contemporaries, must adjust
+      his pace to theirs. But great things are never produced in this way. And
+      he who wants to do great things must direct his gaze to posterity, and in
+      firm confidence elaborate his work for coming generations. No doubt, the
+      result may be that he will remain quite unknown to his contemporaries, and
+      comparable to a man who, compelled to spend his life upon a lonely island,
+      with great effort sets up a monument there, to transmit to future
+      sea-farers the knowledge of his existence. If he thinks it a hard fate,
+      let him console himself with the reflection that the ordinary man who
+      lives for practical aims only, often suffers a like fate, without having
+      any compensation to hope for; inasmuch as he may, under favorable
+      conditions, spend a life of material production, earning, buying,
+      building, fertilizing, laying out, founding, establishing, beautifying
+      with daily effort and unflagging zeal, and all the time think that he is
+      working for himself; and yet in the end it is his descendants who reap the
+      benefit of it all, and sometimes not even his descendants. It is the same
+      with the man of genius; he, too, hopes for his reward and for honor at
+      least; and at last finds that he has worked for posterity alone. Both, to
+      be sure, have inherited a great deal from their ancestors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The compensation I have mentioned as the privilege of genius lies, not in
+      what it is to others, but in what it is to itself. What man has in any
+      real sense lived more than he whose moments of thought make their echoes
+      heard through the tumult of centuries? Perhaps, after all, it would be the
+      best thing for a genius to attain undisturbed possession of himself, by
+      spending his life in enjoying the pleasure of his own thoughts, his own
+      works, and by admitting the world only as the heir of his ample existence.
+      Then the world would find the mark of his existence only after his death,
+      as it finds that of the Ichnolith.<a href="#linknote-29"
+      name="linknoteref-29" id="linknoteref-29"><small>29</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-29" id="linknote-29"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      29 (<a href="#linknoteref-29">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Translator's Note.</i>&mdash;For
+      an illustration of this feeling in poetry, Schopenhauer refers the reader
+      to Byron's <i>Prophecy of Dante</i>: introd. to C. 4.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius
+      surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple and
+      agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even with
+      comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for which he is
+      particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises it without any
+      object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not only does he take
+      leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also betrays rare
+      elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others can also
+      perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man of superior
+      mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could never have come
+      from another; it will not be here alone that he will show his greatness;
+      but as knowledge and thought form a mode of activity natural and easy to
+      him, he will also delight himself in them at all times, and so apprehend
+      small matters which are within the range of other minds, more easily,
+      quickly and correctly than they. Thus he will take a direct and lively
+      pleasure in every increase of Knowledge, every problem solved, every witty
+      thought, whether of his own or another's; and so his mind will have no
+      further aim than to be constantly active. This will be an inexhaustible
+      spring of delight; and boredom, that spectre which haunts the ordinary
+      man, can never come near him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, too, the masterpieces of past and contemporary men of genius exist
+      in their fullness for him alone. If a great product of genius is
+      recommended to the ordinary, simple mind, it will take as much pleasure in
+      it as the victim of gout receives in being invited to a ball. The one goes
+      for the sake of formality, and the other reads the book so as not to be in
+      arrear. For La Bruyère was quite right when he said: <i>All the wit in the
+      world is lost upon him who has none</i>. The whole range of thought of a
+      man of talent, or of a genius, compared with the thoughts of the common
+      man, is, even when directed to objects essentially the same, like a
+      brilliant oil-painting, full of life, compared with a mere outline or a
+      weak sketch in water-color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this is part of the reward of genius, and compensates him for a lonely
+      existence in a world with which he has nothing in common and no
+      sympathies. But since size is relative, it comes to the same thing whether
+      I say, Caius was a great man, or Caius has to live amongst wretchedly
+      small people: for Brobdingnack and Lilliput vary only in the point from
+      which they start. However great, then, however admirable or instructive, a
+      long posterity may think the author of immortal works, during his lifetime
+      he will appear to his contemporaries small, wretched, and insipid in
+      proportion. This is what I mean by saying that as there are three hundred
+      degrees from the base of a tower to the summit, so there are exactly three
+      hundred from the summit to the base. Great minds thus owe little ones some
+      indulgence; for it is only in virtue of these little minds that they
+      themselves are great.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us, then, not be surprised if we find men of genius generally
+      unsociable and repellent. It is not their want of sociability that is to
+      blame. Their path through the world is like that of a man who goes for a
+      walk on a bright summer morning. He gazes with delight on the beauty and
+      freshness of nature, but he has to rely wholly on that for entertainment;
+      for he can find no society but the peasants as they bend over the earth
+      and cultivate the soil. It is often the case that a great mind prefers
+      soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in this world. If he condescends to
+      it now and then, the hollowness of it may possibly drive him back to his
+      soliloquy; for in forgetfulness of his interlocutor, or caring little
+      whether he understands or not, he talks to him as a child talks to a doll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world; but,
+      unluckily, it is a <i>contradictio in adjecto</i>. It would compel a
+      genius to give the thoughts and opinions, nay, even the method and style,
+      of the million preference over his own; to set a higher value upon them;
+      and, wide apart as they are, to bring his views into harmony with theirs,
+      or even suppress them altogether, so as to let the others hold the field.
+      In that case, however, he would either produce nothing at all, or else his
+      achievements would be just upon a level with theirs. Great, genuine and
+      extraordinary work can be done only in so far as its author disregards the
+      method, the thoughts, the opinions of his contemporaries, and quietly
+      works on, in spite of their criticism, on his side despising what they
+      praise. No one becomes great without arrogance of this sort. Should his
+      life and work fall upon a time which cannot recognize and appreciate him,
+      he is at any rate true to himself; like some noble traveler forced to pass
+      the night in a miserable inn; when morning comes, he contentedly goes his
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only
+      permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his
+      fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation
+      without having to think about other people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the brain to be a mere laborer in the service of the belly, is indeed
+      the common lot of almost all those who do not live on the work of their
+      hands; and they are far from being discontented with their lot. But it
+      strikes despair into a man of great mind, whose brain-power goes beyond
+      the measure necessary for the service of the will; and he prefers, if need
+      be, to live in the narrowest circumstances, so long as they afford him the
+      free use of his time for the development and application of his faculties;
+      in other words, if they give him the leisure which is invaluable to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is otherwise with ordinary people: for them leisure has no value in
+      itself, nor is it, indeed, without its dangers, as these people seem to
+      know. The technical work of our time, which is done to an unprecedented
+      perfection, has, by increasing and multiplying objects of luxury, given
+      the favorites of fortune a choice between more leisure and culture upon
+      the one side, and additional luxury and good living, but with increased
+      activity, upon the other; and, true to their character, they choose the
+      latter, and prefer champagne to freedom. And they are consistent in their
+      choice; for, to them, every exertion of the mind which does not serve the
+      aims of the will is folly. Intellectual effort for its own sake, they call
+      eccentricity. Therefore, persistence in the aims of the will and the belly
+      will be concentricity; and, to be sure, the will is the centre, the kernel
+      of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in general it is very seldom that any such alternative is presented.
+      For as with money, most men have no superfluity, but only just enough for
+      their needs, so with intelligence; they possess just what will suffice for
+      the service of the will, that is, for the carrying on of their business.
+      Having made their fortune, they are content to gape or to indulge in
+      sensual pleasures or childish amusements, cards or dice; or they will talk
+      in the dullest way, or dress up and make obeisance to one another. And how
+      few are those who have even a little superfluity of intellectual power!
+      Like the others they too make themselves a pleasure; but it is a pleasure
+      of the intellect. Either they will pursue some liberal study which brings
+      them in nothing, or they will practice some art; and in general, they will
+      be capable of taking an objective interest in things, so that it will be
+      possible to converse with them. But with the others it is better not to
+      enter into any relations at all; for, except when they tell the results of
+      their own experience or give an account of their special vocation, or at
+      any rate impart what they have learned from some one else, their
+      conversation will not be worth listening to; and if anything is said to
+      them, they will rarely grasp or understand it aright, and it will in most
+      cases be opposed to their own opinions. Balthazar Gracian describes them
+      very strikingly as men who are not men&mdash;<i>hombres che non lo son</i>.
+      And Giordano Bruno <i>says</i> the same thing: <i>What a difference there
+      is in having to do with men compared with those who are only made in their
+      image and likeness</i>!<a href="#linknote-30" name="linknoteref-30"
+      id="linknoteref-30"><small>30</small></a> And how wonderfully this passage
+      agrees with that remark in the Kurral: <i>The common people look like men
+      but I have never seen anything quite like them</i>. If the reader will
+      consider the extent to which these ideas agree in thought and even in
+      expression, and in the wide difference between them in point of date and
+      nationality, he cannot doubt but that they are at one with the facts of
+      life. It was certainly not under the influence of those passages that,
+      about twenty years ago, I tried to get a snuff-box made, the lid of which
+      should have two fine chestnuts represented upon it, if possible in mosaic;
+      together with a leaf which was to show that they were horse-chestnuts.
+      This symbol was meant to keep the thought constantly before my mind. If
+      anyone wishes for entertainment, such as will prevent him feeling solitary
+      even when he is alone, let me recommend the company of dogs, whose moral
+      and intellectual qualities may almost afford delight and gratification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-30" id="linknote-30"> Note--></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      30 (<a href="#linknoteref-30">return</a>)<br /> [ Opera: ed. Wagner, 1.
+      224.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, we should always be careful to avoid being unjust. I am often
+      surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my dog;
+      and I have similar experiences with mankind. Countless times, in
+      indignation at their incapacity, their total lack of discernment, their
+      bestiality, I have been forced to echo the old complaint that folly is the
+      mother and the nurse of the human race:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Humani generis mater nutrixque profecto
+  Stultitia est</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But at other times I have been astounded that from such a race there could
+      have gone forth so many arts and sciences, abounding in so much use and
+      beauty, even though it has always been the few that produce them. Yet
+      these arts and sciences have struck root, established and perfected
+      themselves: and the race has with persistent fidelity preserved Homer,
+      Plato, Horace and others for thousands of years, by copying and treasuring
+      their writings, thus saving them from oblivion, in spite of all the evils
+      and atrocities that have happened in the world. Thus the race has proved
+      that it appreciates the value of these things, and at the same time it can
+      form a correct view of special achievements or estimate signs of judgment
+      and intelligence. When this takes place amongst those who belong to the
+      great multitude, it is by a kind of inspiration. Sometimes a correct
+      opinion will be formed by the multitude itself; but this is only when the
+      chorus of praise has grown full and complete. It is then like the sound of
+      untrained voices; where there are enough of them, it is always harmonious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who emerge from the multitude, those who are called men of genius,
+      are merely the <i>lucida intervalla</i> of the whole human race. They
+      achieve that which others could not possibly achieve. Their originality is
+      so great that not only is their divergence from others obvious, but their
+      individuality is expressed with such force, that all the men of genius who
+      have ever existed show, every one of them, peculiarities of character and
+      mind; so that the gift of his works is one which he alone of all men could
+      ever have presented to the world. This is what makes that simile of
+      Ariosto's so true and so justly celebrated: <i>Natura lo fece e poi ruppe
+      lo stampo.</i> After Nature stamps a man of genius, she breaks the die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is always a limit to human capacity; and no one can be a great
+      genius without having some decidedly weak side, it may even be, some
+      intellectual narrowness. In other words, there will foe some faculty in
+      which he is now and then inferior to men of moderate endowments. It will
+      be a faculty which, if strong, might have been an obstacle to the exercise
+      of the qualities in which he excels. What this weak point is, it will
+      always be hard to define with any accuracy even in a given case. It may be
+      better expressed indirectly; thus Plato's weak point is exactly that in
+      which Aristotle is strong, and <i>vice versa</i>; and so, too, Kant is
+      deficient just where Goethe is great.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, mankind is fond of venerating something; but its veneration is
+      generally directed to the wrong object, and it remains so directed until
+      posterity comes to set it right. But the educated public is no sooner set
+      right in this, than the honor which is due to genius degenerates; just as
+      the honor which the faithful pay to their saints easily passes into a
+      frivolous worship of relics. Thousands of Christians adore the relics of a
+      saint whose life and doctrine are unknown to them; and the religion of
+      thousands of Buddhists lies more in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some
+      such object, or the vessel that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the
+      fossil footstep, or the Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the
+      thorough knowledge and faithful practice of his high teaching. Petrarch's
+      house in Arqua; Tasso's supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare's house in
+      Stratford, with his chair; Goethe's house in Weimar, with its furniture;
+      Kant's old hat; the autographs of great men; these things are gaped at
+      with interest and awe by many who have never read their works. They cannot
+      do anything more than just gape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intelligent amongst them are moved by the wish to see the objects
+      which the great man habitually had before his eyes; and by a strange
+      illusion, these produce the mistaken notion that with the objects they are
+      bringing back the man himself, or that something of him must cling to
+      them. Akin to such people are those who earnestly strive to acquaint
+      themselves with the subject-matter of a poet's works, or to unravel the
+      personal circumstances and events in his life which have suggested
+      particular passages. This is as though the audience in a theatre were to
+      admire a fine scene and then rush upon the stage to look at the
+      scaffolding that supports it. There are in our day enough instances of
+      these critical investigators, and they prove the truth of the saying that
+      mankind is interested, not in the <i>form</i> of a work, that is, in its
+      manner of treatment, but in its actual matter. All it cares for is the
+      theme. To read a philosopher's biography, instead of studying his
+      thoughts, is like neglecting a picture and attending only to the style of
+      its frame, debating whether it is carved well or ill, and how much it cost
+      to gild it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is all very well. However, there is another class of persons whose
+      interest is also directed to material and personal considerations, but
+      they go much further and carry it to a point where it becomes absolutely
+      futile. Because a great man has opened up to them the treasures of his
+      inmost being, and, by a supreme effort of his faculties, produced works
+      which not only redound to their elevation and enlightenment, but will also
+      benefit their posterity to the tenth and twentieth generation; because he
+      has presented mankind with a matchless gift, these varlets think
+      themselves justified in sitting in judgment upon his personal morality,
+      and trying if they cannot discover here or there some spot in him which
+      will soothe the pain they feel at the sight of so great a mind, compared
+      with the overwhelming feeling of their own nothingness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the real source of all those prolix discussions, carried on in
+      countless books and reviews, on the moral aspect of Goethe's life, and
+      whether he ought not to have married one or other of the girls with whom
+      he fell in love in his young days; whether, again, instead of honestly
+      devoting himself to the service of his master, he should not have been a
+      man of the people, a German patriot, worthy of a seat in the <i>Paulskirche</i>,
+      and so on. Such crying ingratitude and malicious detraction prove that
+      these self-constituted judges are as great knaves morally as they are
+      intellectually, which is saying a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that
+      moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name. Wealth
+      is seldom its reward. Nor is it reputation or glory; only a Frenchman
+      could mean that. Glory is such an uncertain thing, and, if you look at it
+      closely, of so little value. Besides it never corresponds to the effort
+      you have made:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Responsura tuo nunquam est par fama labori.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nor, again, is it exactly the pleasure it gives you; for this is almost
+      outweighed by the greatness of the effort. It is rather a peculiar kind of
+      instinct, which drives the man of genius to give permanent form to what he
+      sees and feels, without being conscious of any further motive. It works,
+      in the main, by a necessity similar to that which makes a tree bear its
+      fruit; and no external condition is needed but the ground upon which it is
+      to thrive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a closer examination, it seems as though, in the case of a genius, the
+      will to live, which is the spirit of the human species, were conscious of
+      having, by some rare chance, and for a brief period, attained a greater
+      clearness of vision, and were now trying to secure it, or at least the
+      outcome of it, for the whole species, to which the individual genius in
+      his inmost being belongs; so that the light which he sheds about him may
+      pierce the darkness and dullness of ordinary human consciousness and there
+      produce some good effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arising in some such way, this instinct drives the genius to carry his
+      work to completion, without thinking of reward or applause or sympathy; to
+      leave all care for his own personal welfare; to make his life one of
+      industrious solitude, and to strain his faculties to the utmost. He thus
+      comes to think more about posterity than about contemporaries; because,
+      while the latter can only lead him astray, posterity forms the majority of
+      the species, and time will gradually bring the discerning few who can
+      appreciate him. Meanwhile it is with him as with the artist described by
+      Goethe; he has no princely patron to prize his talents, no friend to
+      rejoice with him:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  <i>Ein Fürst der die Talente schätzt,
+  Ein Freund, der sich mit mir ergötzt,
+  Die haben leider mir gefehlt</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His work is, as it were, a sacred object and the true fruit of his life,
+      and his aim in storing it away for a more discerning posterity will be to
+      make it the property of mankind. An aim like this far surpasses all
+      others, and for it he wears the crown of thorns which is one day to bloom
+      into a wreath of laurel. All his powers are concentrated in the effort to
+      complete and secure his work; just as the insect, in the last stage of its
+      development, uses its whole strength on behalf of a brood it will never
+      live to see; it puts its eggs in some place of safety, where, as it well
+      knows, the young will one day find life and nourishment, and then dies in
+      confidence.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Literature, by Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Literature
+
+Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF LITERATURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSAYS
+
+OF
+
+ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.
+
+
+
+
+THE ART OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  PREFACE
+  ON AUTHORSHIP
+  ON STYLE
+  ON THE STUDY OF LATIN
+  ON MEN OF LEARNING
+  ON THINKING FOR ONESELF
+  ON SOME FORMS OF LITERATURE
+  ON CRITICISM
+  ON REPUTATION
+  ON GENIUS
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+The contents of this, as of the other volumes in the series, have been
+drawn from Schopenhauer's _Parerga_, and amongst the various subjects
+dealt with in that famous collection of essays, Literature holds an
+important place. Nor can Schopenhauer's opinions fail to be of special
+value when he treats of literary form and method. For, quite apart
+from his philosophical pretensions, he claims recognition as a great
+writer; he is, indeed, one of the best of the few really excellent
+prose-writers of whom Germany can boast. While he is thus particularly
+qualified to speak of Literature as an Art, he has also something to
+say upon those influences which, outside of his own merits, contribute
+so much to an author's success, and are so often undervalued when he
+obtains immediate popularity. Schopenhauer's own sore experiences in
+the matter of reputation lend an interest to his remarks upon that
+subject, although it is too much to ask of human nature that he should
+approach it in any dispassionate spirit.
+
+In the following pages we have observations upon style by one who
+was a stylist in the best sense of the word, not affected, nor yet a
+phrasemonger; on thinking for oneself by a philosopher who never did
+anything else; on criticism by a writer who suffered much from the
+inability of others to understand him; on reputation by a candidate
+who, during the greater part of his life, deserved without obtaining
+it; and on genius by one who was incontestably of the privileged
+order himself. And whatever may be thought of some of his opinions
+on matters of detail--on anonymity, for instance, or on the question
+whether good work is never done for money--there can be no doubt that
+his general view of literature, and the conditions under which it
+flourishes, is perfectly sound.
+
+It might be thought, perhaps, that remarks which were meant to apply
+to the German language would have but little bearing upon one so
+different from it as English. This would be a just objection if
+Schopenhauer treated literature in a petty spirit, and confined
+himself to pedantic inquiries into matters of grammar and etymology,
+or mere niceties of phrase. But this is not so. He deals with his
+subject broadly, and takes large and general views; nor can anyone
+who knows anything of the philosopher suppose this to mean that he is
+vague and feeble. It is true that now and again in the course of these
+essays he makes remarks which are obviously meant to apply to the
+failings of certain writers of his own age and country; but in such a
+case I have generally given his sentences a turn, which, while keeping
+them faithful to the spirit of the original, secures for them a less
+restricted range, and makes Schopenhauer a critic of similar faults in
+whatever age or country they may appear. This has been done in spite
+of a sharp word on page seventeen of this volume, addressed to
+translators who dare to revise their author; but the change is one
+with which not even Schopenhauer could quarrel.
+
+It is thus a significant fact--a testimony to the depth of his
+insight and, in the main, the justice of his opinions--that views of
+literature which appealed to his own immediate contemporaries, should
+be found to hold good elsewhere and at a distance of fifty years.
+It means that what he had to say was worth saying; and since it is
+adapted thus equally to diverse times and audiences, it is probably of
+permanent interest.
+
+The intelligent reader will observe that much of the charm of
+Schopenhauer's writing comes from its strongly personal character, and
+that here he has to do, not with a mere maker of books, but with a
+man who thinks for himself and has no false scruples in putting his
+meaning plainly upon the page, or in unmasking sham wherever he finds
+it. This is nowhere so true as when he deals with literature; and just
+as in his treatment of life, he is no flatterer to men in general, so
+here he is free and outspoken on the peculiar failings of authors. At
+the same time he gives them good advice. He is particularly happy in
+recommending restraint in regard to reading the works of others, and
+the cultivation of independent thought; and herein he recalls a saying
+attributed to Hobbes, who was not less distinguished as a writer than
+as a philosopher, to the effect that "_if he had read as much as other
+men, he should have been as ignorant as they_."
+
+Schopenhauer also utters a warning, which we shall do well to take to
+heart in these days, against mingling the pursuit of literature with
+vulgar aims. If we follow him here, we shall carefully distinguish
+between literature as an object of life and literature as a means of
+living, between the real love of truth and beauty, and that detestable
+false love which looks to the price it will fetch in the market. I am
+not referring to those who, while they follow a useful and honorable
+calling in bringing literature before the public, are content to be
+known as men of business. If, by the help of some second witch
+of Endor, we could raise the ghost of Schopenhauer, it would be
+interesting to hear his opinion of a certain kind of literary
+enterprise which has come into vogue since his day, and now receives
+an amount of attention very much beyond its due. We may hazard a guess
+at the direction his opinion would take. He would doubtless show us
+how this enterprise, which is carried on by self-styled _literary
+men_, ends by making literature into a form of merchandise, and
+treating it as though it were so much goods to be bought and sold at a
+profit, and most likely to produce quick returns if the maker's name
+is well known. Nor would it be the ghost of the real Schopenhauer
+unless we heard a vigorous denunciation of men who claim a connection
+with literature by a servile flattery of successful living
+authors--the dead cannot be made to pay--in the hope of appearing to
+advantage in their reflected light and turning that advantage into
+money.
+
+In order to present the contents of this book in a convenient form, I
+have not scrupled to make an arrangement with the chapters somewhat
+different from that which exists in the original; so that two or more
+subjects which are there dealt with successively in one and the same
+chapter, here stand by themselves. In consequence of this, some of
+the titles of the sections are not to be found in the original. I may
+state, however, that the essays on _Authorship_ and _Style_ and the
+latter part of that on _Criticism_ are taken direct from the chapter
+headed _Ueber Schriftstellerei und Stil_; and that the remainder of
+the essay on _Criticism_, with that of _Reputation_, is supplied by
+the remarks _Ueber Urtheil, Kritik, Beifall und Ruhm_. The essays on
+_The Study of Latin_, on _Men of Learning_, and on _Some Forms
+of Literature_, are taken chiefly from the four sections _Ueber
+Gelehrsamkeit und Gelehrte, Ueber Sprache und Worte, Ueber Lesen
+und Buecher: Anhang_, and _Zur Metaphysik des Schoenen_. The essay on
+_Thinking for Oneself_ is a rendering of certain remarks under the
+heading _Selbstdenken. Genius_ was a favorite subject of speculation
+with Schopenhauer, and he often touches upon it in the course of his
+works; always, however, to put forth the same theory in regard to it
+as may be found in the concluding section of this volume. Though the
+essay has little or nothing to do with literary method, the subject of
+which it treats is the most needful element of success in literature;
+and I have introduced it on that ground. It forms part of a chapter in
+the _Parerga_ entitled _Den Intellekt ueberhaupt und in jeder Beziehung
+betreffende Gedanken: Anhang verwandter Stellen._
+
+It has also been part of my duty to invent a title for this volume;
+and I am well aware that objection may be made to the one I have
+chosen, on the ground that in common language it is unusual to speak
+of literature as an art, and that to do so is unduly to narrow its
+meaning and to leave out of sight its main function as the record of
+thought. But there is no reason why the word _Literature_ should
+not be employed in that double sense which is allowed to attach to
+_Painting, Music, Sculpture_, as signifying either the objective
+outcome of a certain mental activity, seeking to express itself in
+outward form; or else the particular kind of mental activity in
+question, and the methods it follows. And we do, in fact, use it in
+this latter sense, when we say of a writer that he pursues literature
+as a calling. If, then, literature can be taken to mean a process as
+well as a result of mental activity, there can be no error in speaking
+of it as Art. I use that term in its broad sense, as meaning skill in
+the display of thought; or, more fully, a right use of the rules
+of applying to the practical exhibition of thought, with whatever
+material it may deal. In connection with literature, this is a
+sense and an application of the term which have been sufficiently
+established by the example of the great writers of antiquity.
+
+It may be asked, of course, whether the true thinker, who will always
+form the soul of the true author, will not be so much occupied with
+what he has to say, that it will appear to him a trivial thing to
+spend great effort on embellishing the form in which he delivers it.
+Literature, to be worthy of the name, must, it is true, deal with
+noble matter--the riddle of our existence, the great facts of life,
+the changing passions of the human heart, the discernment of some deep
+moral truth. It is easy to lay too much stress upon the mere garment
+of thought; to be too precise; to give to the arrangement of words an
+attention that should rather be paid to the promotion of fresh ideas.
+A writer who makes this mistake is like a fop who spends his little
+mind in adorning his person. In short, it may be charged against the
+view of literature which is taken in calling it an Art, that, instead
+of making truth and insight the author's aim, it favors sciolism and a
+fantastic and affected style. There is, no doubt, some justice in the
+objection; nor have we in our own day, and especially amongst younger
+men, any lack of writers who endeavor to win confidence, not by adding
+to the stock of ideas in the world, but by despising the use of plain
+language. Their faults are not new in the history of literature; and
+it is a pleasing sign of Schopenhauer's insight that a merciless
+exposure of them, as they existed half a century ago, is still quite
+applicable to their modern form.
+
+And since these writers, who may, in the slang of the hour, be called
+"impressionists" in literature, follow their own bad taste in the
+manufacture of dainty phrases, devoid of all nerve, and generally
+with some quite commonplace meaning, it is all the more necessary to
+discriminate carefully between artifice and art.
+
+But although they may learn something from Schopenhauer's advice, it
+is not chiefly to them that it is offered. It is to that great mass of
+writers, whose business is to fill the columns of the newspapers and
+the pages of the review, and to produce the ton of novels that appear
+every year. Now that almost everyone who can hold a pen aspires to be
+called an author, it is well to emphasize the fact that literature is
+an art in some respects more important than any other. The problem of
+this art is the discovery of those qualities of style and treatment
+which entitled any work to be called good literature.
+
+It will be safe to warn the reader at the very outset that, if he
+wishes to avoid being led astray, he should in his search for these
+qualities turn to books that have stood the test of time.
+
+For such an amount of hasty writing is done in these days that it is
+really difficult for anyone who reads much of it to avoid contracting
+its faults, and thus gradually coming to terms of dangerous
+familiarity with bad methods. This advice will be especially needful
+if things that have little or no claim to be called literature at
+all--the newspapers, the monthly magazine, and the last new tale of
+intrigue or adventure--fill a large measure, if not the whole, of the
+time given to reading. Nor are those who are sincerely anxious to have
+the best thought in the best language quite free from danger if they
+give too much attention to the contemporary authors, even though these
+seem to think and write excellently. For one generation alone is
+incompetent to decide upon the merits of any author whatever; and as
+literature, like all art, is a thing of human invention, so it can be
+pronounced good only if it obtains lasting admiration, by establishing
+a permanent appeal to mankind's deepest feeling for truth and beauty.
+
+It is in this sense that Schopenhauer is perfectly right in holding
+that neglect of the ancient classics, which are the best of all models
+in the art of writing, will infallibly lead to a degeneration of
+literature.
+
+And the method of discovering the best qualities of style, and of
+forming a theory of writing, is not to follow some trick or mannerism
+that happens to please for the moment, but to study the way in which
+great authors have done their best work.
+
+It will be said that Schopenhauer tells us nothing we did not know
+before. Perhaps so; as he himself says, the best things are seldom
+new. But he puts the old truths in a fresh and forcible way; and no
+one who knows anything of good literature will deny that these truths
+are just now of very fit application.
+
+It was probably to meet a real want that, a year or two ago, an
+ingenious person succeeded in drawing a great number of English and
+American writers into a confession of their literary creed and the art
+they adopted in authorship; and the interesting volume in which he
+gave these confessions to the world contained some very good advice,
+although most of it had been said before in different forms. More
+recently a new departure, of very doubtful use, has taken place; and
+two books have been issued, which aim, the one at being an author's
+manual, the other at giving hints on essays and how to write them.
+
+A glance at these books will probably show that their authors have
+still something to learn.
+
+Both of these ventures seem, unhappily, to be popular; and, although
+they may claim a position next-door to that of the present volume I
+beg to say that it has no connection with them whatever. Schopenhauer
+does not attempt to teach the art of making bricks without straw.
+
+I wish to take this opportunity of tendering my thanks to a large
+number of reviewers for the very gratifying reception given to
+the earlier volumes of this series. And I have great pleasure in
+expressing my obligations to my friend Mr. W.G. Collingwood, who has
+looked over most of my proofs and often given me excellent advice in
+my effort to turn Schopenhauer into readable English.
+
+T.B.S.
+
+
+
+
+ON AUTHORSHIP.
+
+
+There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the
+subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the
+one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth
+communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money.
+Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be
+recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the
+greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their
+thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating;
+again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight
+out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing
+is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before
+they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover
+paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for
+example, with Lessing in his _Dramaturgie_, and even in many of Jean
+Paul's romances. As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw
+the book away; for time is precious. The truth is that when an author
+begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the
+reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to
+say.
+
+Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the
+ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing,
+unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an
+inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there
+were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen, as
+long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money
+lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins
+to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works
+of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for
+nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds
+good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the
+same purse--_honora y provecho no caben en un saco_. The reason why
+Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that
+people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down
+and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The
+secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.
+
+A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish
+mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just been
+printed,--journalists, I mean. Truly, a most appropriate name. In
+plain language it is _journeymen, day-laborers_!
+
+Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First
+come those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory,
+from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's
+books. This class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their
+thinking whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and
+there is no lack of them. Last of all come those authors who think
+before they begin to write. They are rare.
+
+Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they
+come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is
+not likely to bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author
+of the third or rare class writes, it is like a _battue_. Here the
+game has been previously captured and shut up within a very small
+space; from which it is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into
+another space, also confined. The game cannot possibly escape the
+sportsman; he has nothing to do but aim and fire--in other words,
+write down his thoughts. This is a kind of sport from which a man has
+something to show.
+
+But even though the number of those who really think seriously before
+they begin to write is small, extremely few of them think about _the
+subject itself_: the remainder think only about the books that have
+been written on the subject, and what has been said by others. In
+order to think at all, such writers need the more direct and powerful
+stimulus of having other people's thoughts before them. These become
+their immediate theme; and the result is that they are always under
+their influence, and so never, in any real sense of the word, are
+original. But the former are roused to thought by the subject itself,
+to which their thinking is thus immediately directed. This is the only
+class that produces writers of abiding fame.
+
+It must, of course, be understood that I am speaking here of writers
+who treat of great subjects; not of writers on the art of making
+brandy.
+
+Unless an author takes the material on which he writes out of his
+own head, that is to say, from his own observation, he is not
+worth reading. Book-manufacturers, compilers, the common run of
+history-writers, and many others of the same class, take their
+material immediately out of books; and the material goes straight
+to their finger-tips without even paying freight or undergoing
+examination as it passes through their heads, to say nothing of
+elaboration or revision. How very learned many a man would be if he
+knew everything that was in his own books! The consequence of this is
+that these writers talk in such a loose and vague manner, that the
+reader puzzles his brain in vain to understand what it is of which
+they are really thinking. They are thinking of nothing. It may now and
+then be the case that the book from which they copy has been composed
+exactly in the same way: so that writing of this sort is like a
+plaster cast of a cast; and in the end, the bare outline of the face,
+and that, too, hardly recognizable, is all that is left to your
+Antinous. Let compilations be read as seldom as possible. It is
+difficult to avoid them altogether; since compilations also include
+those text-books which contain in a small space the accumulated
+knowledge of centuries.
+
+There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the last work is
+always the more correct; that what is written later on is in every
+case an improvement on what was written before; and that change always
+means progress. Real thinkers, men of right judgment, people who are
+in earnest with their subject,--these are all exceptions only. Vermin
+is the rule everywhere in the world: it is always on the alert, taking
+the mature opinions of the thinkers, and industriously seeking to
+improve upon them (save the mark!) in its own peculiar way.
+
+If the reader wishes to study any subject, let him beware of rushing
+to the newest books upon it, and confining his attention to them
+alone, under the notion that science is always advancing, and that the
+old books have been drawn upon in the writing of the new. They have
+been drawn upon, it is true; but how? The writer of the new book often
+does not understand the old books thoroughly, and yet he is unwilling
+to take their exact words; so he bungles them, and says in his own bad
+way that which has been said very much better and more clearly by the
+old writers, who wrote from their own lively knowledge of the subject.
+The new writer frequently omits the best things they say, their most
+striking illustrations, their happiest remarks; because he does not
+see their value or feel how pregnant they are. The only thing that
+appeals to him is what is shallow and insipid.
+
+It often happens that an old and excellent book is ousted by new
+and bad ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great
+pretension and much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man
+tries to make his mark by bringing out something fresh. This often
+means nothing more than that he attacks some received theory which
+is quite correct, in order to make room for his own false notions.
+Sometimes the effort is successful for a time; and then a return is
+made to the old and true theory. These innovators are serious about
+nothing but their own precious self: it is this that they want to put
+forward, and the quick way of doing so, as they think, is to start a
+paradox. Their sterile heads take naturally to the path of negation;
+so they begin to deny truths that have long been admitted--the vital
+power, for example, the sympathetic nervous system, _generatio
+equivoca_, Bichat's distinction between the working of the passions
+and the working of intelligence; or else they want us to return to
+crass atomism, and the like. Hence it frequently happens that _the
+course of science is retrogressive._
+
+To this class of writers belong those translators who not only
+translate their author but also correct and revise him; a proceeding
+which always seems to me impertinent. To such writers I say: Write
+books yourself which are worth translating, and leave other people's
+works as they are!
+
+The reader should study, if he can, the real authors, the men who
+have founded and discovered things; or, at any rate, those who are
+recognized as the great masters in every branch of knowledge. Let him
+buy second-hand books rather than read their contents in new ones. To
+be sure, it is easy to add to any new discovery--_inventis aliquid
+addere facile est_; and, therefore, the student, after well mastering
+the rudiments of his subject, will have to make himself acquainted
+with the more recent additions to the knowledge of it. And, in
+general, the following rule may be laid down here as elsewhere: if a
+thing is new, it is seldom good; because if it is good, it is only for
+a short time new.
+
+What the address is to a letter, the title should be to a book; in
+other words, its main object should be to bring the book to those
+amongst the public who will take an interest in its contents. It
+should, therefore, be expressive; and since by its very nature it must
+be short, it should be concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible
+give the contents in one word. A prolix title is bad; and so is one
+that says nothing, or is obscure and ambiguous, or even, it may be,
+false and misleading; this last may possibly involve the book in the
+same fate as overtakes a wrongly addressed letter. The worst titles
+of all are those which have been stolen, those, I mean, which have
+already been borne by other books; for they are in the first place a
+plagiarism, and secondly the most convincing proof of a total lack of
+originality in the author. A man who has not enough originality to
+invent a new title for his book, will be still less able to give it
+new contents. Akin to these stolen titles are those which have been
+imitated, that is to say, stolen to the extent of one half; for
+instance, long after I had produced my treatise _On Will in Nature_,
+Oersted wrote a book entitled _On Mind in Nature_.
+
+A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's
+thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in _the matter about
+which he has thought_, or in the _form_ which his thoughts take, in
+other words, _what it is that he has thought about it._
+
+The matter of books is most various; and various also are the several
+excellences attaching to books on the score of their matter. By matter
+I mean everything that comes within the domain of actual experience;
+that is to say, the facts of history and the facts of nature, taken in
+and by themselves and in their widest sense. Here it is the _thing_
+treated of, which gives its peculiar character to the book; so that a
+book can be important, whoever it was that wrote it.
+
+But in regard to the form, the peculiar character of a book depends
+upon the _person_ who wrote it. It may treat of matters which are
+accessible to everyone and well known; but it is the way in which they
+are treated, what it is that is thought about them, that gives the
+book its value; and this comes from its author. If, then, from this
+point of view a book is excellent and beyond comparison, so is its
+author. It follows that if a writer is worth reading, his merit rises
+just in proportion as he owes little to his matter; therefore, the
+better known and the more hackneyed this is, the greater he will be.
+The three great tragedians of Greece, for example, all worked at the
+same subject-matter.
+
+So when a book is celebrated, care should be taken to note whether it
+is so on account of its matter or its form; and a distinction should
+be made accordingly.
+
+Books of great importance on account of their matter may proceed from
+very ordinary and shallow people, by the fact that they alone have had
+access to this matter; books, for instance, which describe journeys in
+distant lands, rare natural phenomena, or experiments; or historical
+occurrences of which the writers were witnesses, or in connection
+with which they have spent much time and trouble in the research and
+special study of original documents.
+
+On the other hand, where the matter is accessible to everyone or very
+well known, everything will depend upon the form; and what it is
+that is thought about the matter will give the book all the value
+it possesses. Here only a really distinguished man will be able to
+produce anything worth reading; for the others will think nothing but
+what anyone else can think. They will just produce an impress of
+their own minds; but this is a print of which everyone possesses the
+original.
+
+However, the public is very much more concerned to have matter than
+form; and for this very reason it is deficient in any high degree of
+culture. The public shows its preference in this respect in the most
+laughable way when it comes to deal with poetry; for there it devotes
+much trouble to the task of tracking out the actual events or personal
+circumstances in the life of the poet which served as the occasion of
+his various works; nay, these events and circumstances come in the end
+to be of greater importance than the works themselves; and rather than
+read Goethe himself, people prefer to read what has been written about
+him, and to study the legend of Faust more industriously than the
+drama of that name. And when Buerger declared that "people would write
+learned disquisitions on the question, Who Leonora really was," we
+find this literally fulfilled in Goethe's case; for we now possess a
+great many learned disquisitions on Faust and the legend attaching to
+him. Study of this kind is, and remains, devoted to the material of
+the drama alone. To give such preference to the matter over the form,
+is as though a man were to take a fine Etruscan vase, not to admire
+its shape or coloring, but to make a chemical analysis of the clay and
+paint of which it is composed.
+
+The attempt to produce an effect by means of the material employed--an
+attempt which panders to this evil tendency of the public--is most to
+be condemned in branches of literature where any merit there may be
+lies expressly in the form; I mean, in poetical work. For all that, it
+is not rare to find bad dramatists trying to fill the house by means
+of the matter about which they write. For example, authors of this
+kind do not shrink from putting on the stage any man who is in any way
+celebrated, no matter whether his life may have been entirely devoid
+of dramatic incident; and sometimes, even, they do not wait until the
+persons immediately connected with him are dead.
+
+The distinction between matter and form to which I am here alluding
+also holds good of conversation. The chief qualities which enable a
+man to converse well are intelligence, discernment, wit and vivacity:
+these supply the form of conversation. But it is not long before
+attention has to be paid to the matter of which he speaks; in other
+words, the subjects about which it is possible to converse with
+him--his knowledge. If this is very small, his conversation will
+not be worth anything, unless he possesses the above-named formal
+qualities in a very exceptional degree; for he will have nothing to
+talk about but those facts of life and nature which everybody knows.
+It will be just the opposite, however, if a man is deficient in these
+formal qualities, but has an amount of knowledge which lends value to
+what he says. This value will then depend entirely upon the matter of
+his conversation; for, as the Spanish proverb has it, _mas sabe el
+necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena_--a fool knows more of his
+own business than a wise man does of others.
+
+
+
+
+ON STYLE.
+
+
+Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character
+than the face. To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask,
+which, be it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and
+abhorrence, because it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living
+face is better. Hence those who write in Latin and copy the manner of
+ancient authors, may be said to speak through a mask; the reader, it
+is true, hears what they say, but he cannot observe their physiognomy
+too; he cannot see their _style_. With the Latin works of writers
+who think for themselves, the case is different, and their style is
+visible; writers, I mean, who have not condescended to any sort
+of imitation, such as Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes,
+Spinoza, and many others. An affectation in style is like making
+grimaces. Further, the language in which a man writes is the
+physiognomy of the nation to which he belongs; and here there are many
+hard and fast differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks,
+down to that of the Caribbean islanders.
+
+To form a provincial estimate of the value of a writer's productions,
+it is not directly necessary to know the subject on which he has
+thought, or what it is that he has said about it; that would imply
+a perusal of all his works. It will be enough, in the main, to know
+_how_ he has thought. This, which means the essential temper or
+general quality of his mind, may be precisely determined by his style.
+A man's style shows the _formal_ nature of all his thoughts--the
+formal nature which can never change, be the subject or the character
+of his thoughts what it may: it is, as it were, the dough out of which
+all the contents of his mind are kneaded. When Eulenspiegel was asked
+how long it would take to walk to the next village, he gave the
+seemingly incongruous answer: _Walk_. He wanted to find out by the
+man's pace the distance he would cover in a given time. In the same
+way, when I have read a few pages of an author, I know fairly well how
+far he can bring me.
+
+Every mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style, because in
+his heart he knows the truth of what I am saying. He is thus forced,
+at the outset, to give up any attempt at being frank or naive--a
+privilege which is thereby reserved for superior minds, conscious of
+their own worth, and therefore sure of themselves. What I mean is that
+these everyday writers are absolutely unable to resolve upon writing
+just as they think; because they have a notion that, were they to do
+so, their work might possibly look very childish and simple. For
+all that, it would not be without its value. If they would only go
+honestly to work, and say, quite simply, the things they have really
+thought, and just as they have thought them, these writers would be
+readable and, within their own proper sphere, even instructive.
+
+But instead of that, they try to make the reader believe that their
+thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case.
+They say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a
+forced and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods
+which go round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of
+disguise. They tremble between the two separate aims of communicating
+what they want to say and of concealing it. Their object is to dress
+it up so that it may look learned or deep, in order to give people
+the impression that there is very much more in it than for the moment
+meets the eye. They either jot down their thoughts bit by bit, in
+short, ambiguous, and paradoxical sentences, which apparently mean
+much more than they say,--of this kind of writing Schelling's
+treatises on natural philosophy are a splendid instance; or else
+they hold forth with a deluge of words and the most intolerable
+diffusiveness, as though no end of fuss were necessary to make the
+reader understand the deep meaning of their sentences, whereas it is
+some quite simple if not actually trivial idea,--examples of which
+may be found in plenty in the popular works of Fichte, and the
+philosophical manuals of a hundred other miserable dunces not worth
+mentioning; or, again, they try to write in some particular style
+which they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style,
+for example, _par excellence_ profound and scientific, where the
+reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun
+periods without a single idea in them,--such as are furnished in
+a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the
+Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
+striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
+altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
+off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
+creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it
+difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too,
+they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching
+any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will
+get sense out of them.
+
+[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbuecher der
+wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]
+
+And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort
+to sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always
+trying to make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd
+expressions, turns of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether
+new or used in a new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in
+order to make up for the very painfully felt lack of it.
+
+It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
+first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting
+on the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
+inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with
+no life in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another.
+Such an author will at one moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as
+though he were tipsy; at another, nay, on the very next page, he will
+be pompous, severe, profoundly learned and prolix, stumbling on in the
+most cumbrous way and chopping up everything very small; like the late
+Christian Wolf, only in a modern dress. Longest of all lasts the mask
+of unintelligibility; but this is only in Germany, whither it was
+introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and carried to its
+highest pitch in Hegel--always with the best results.
+
+And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
+just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep
+things in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All
+the arts and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if
+the author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself
+as he is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is
+the source and origin of good style:
+
+  _Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_.
+
+But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who
+try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold--the only
+metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there
+is nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than
+the manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has;
+because this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little;
+since it is always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever
+it may be, it is just there that he is deficient.
+
+That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naive_; it
+means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
+speaking, to be _naive_ is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness
+is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every
+really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly,
+definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to
+be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its
+beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the
+thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is
+nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad
+style means a dull or confused brain.
+
+The first rule, then, for a good style is that _the author should
+have something to say_; nay, this is in itself almost all that is
+necessary. Ah, how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a
+fundamental trait in the philosophical writing, and, in fact, in
+all the reflective literature, of my country, more especially since
+Fichte. These writers all let it be seen that they want to appear as
+though they had something to say; whereas they have nothing to say.
+Writing of this kind was brought in by the pseudo-philosophers at the
+Universities, and now it is current everywhere, even among the first
+literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of that strained
+and vague style, where there seem to be two or even more meanings in
+the sentence; also of that prolix and cumbrous manner of expression,
+called _le stile empese_; again, of that mere waste of words which
+consists in pouring them out like a flood; finally, of that trick
+of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a farrago of
+never-ending chatter, which clacks away like a windmill and quite
+stupefies one--stuff which a man may read for hours together without
+getting hold of a single clearly expressed and definite idea.[1]
+However, people are easy-going, and they have formed the habit of
+reading page upon page of all sorts of such verbiage, without having
+any particular idea of what the author really means. They fancy it is
+all as it should be, and fail to discover that he is writing simply
+for writing's sake.
+
+[Footnote 1: Select examples of the art of writing in this style are
+to be found almost _passim_ in the _Jahrbuecher_ published at Halle,
+afterwards called the _Deutschen Jahrbuecher_.]
+
+On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon wins his
+reader's confidence that, when he writes, he has really and truly
+_something to say_; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to
+follow him with attention. Such an author, just because he really has
+something to say, will never fail to express himself in the simplest
+and most straightforward manner; because his object is to awake the
+very same thought in the reader that he has in himself, and no other.
+So he will be able to affirm with Boileau that his thoughts are
+everywhere open to the light of the day, and that his verse always
+says something, whether it says it well or ill:
+
+  _Ma pensee au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose,
+  Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose_:
+
+while of the writers previously described it may be asserted, in the
+words of the same poet, that they talk much and never say anything at
+all--_quiparlant beaucoup ne disent jamais rien_.
+
+Another characteristic of such writers is that they always avoid a
+positive assertion wherever they can possibly do so, in order to leave
+a loophole for escape in case of need. Hence they never fail to choose
+the more _abstract_ way of expressing themselves; whereas intelligent
+people use the more _concrete_; because the latter brings things more
+within the range of actual demonstration, which is the source of all
+evidence.
+
+There are many examples proving this preference for abstract
+expression; and a particularly ridiculous one is afforded by the use
+of the verb _to condition_ in the sense of _to cause_ or _to produce_.
+People say _to condition something_ instead of _to cause it_, because
+being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that _A_ cannot
+happen without _B_, instead of that _A_ is caused by _B_. A back door
+is always left open; and this suits people whose secret knowledge of
+their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of all
+positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
+that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad
+in life is immediately imitated--a fact proved in either case by the
+rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
+what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of
+which this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence
+of this state of things is that the word _cause_ has of late almost
+disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only
+of _condition_. The fact is worth mentioning because it is so
+characteristically ridiculous.
+
+The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
+half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
+dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are
+only half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand
+the meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and
+commit them to memory. Hence when they write, it is not so much words
+as whole phrases that they put together--_phrases banales_. This is
+the explanation of that palpable lack of clearly-expressed thought in
+what they say. The fact is that they do not possess the die to give
+this stamp to their writing; clear thought of their own is just
+what they have not got. And what do we find in its place?--a vague,
+enigmatical intermixture of words, current phrases, hackneyed terms,
+and fashionable expressions. The result is that the foggy stuff they
+write is like a page printed with very old type.
+
+On the other hand, an intelligent author really speaks to us when he
+writes, and that is why he is able to rouse our interest and commune
+with us. It is the intelligent author alone who puts individual words
+together with a full consciousness of their meaning, and chooses them
+with deliberate design. Consequently, his discourse stands to that of
+the writer described above, much as a picture that has been really
+painted, to one that has been produced by the use of a stencil. In the
+one case, every word, every touch of the brush, has a special purpose;
+in the other, all is done mechanically. The same distinction may be
+observed in music. For just as Lichtenberg says that Garrick's soul
+seemed to be in every muscle in his body, so it is the omnipresence of
+intellect that always and everywhere characterizes the work of genius.
+
+I have alluded to the tediousness which marks the works of these
+writers; and in this connection it is to be observed, generally, that
+tediousness is of two kinds; objective and subjective. A work is
+objectively tedious when it contains the defect in question; that is
+to say, when its author has no perfectly clear thought or knowledge to
+communicate. For if a man has any clear thought or knowledge in him,
+his aim will be to communicate it, and he will direct his energies
+to this end; so that the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly
+expressed. The result is that he is neither diffuse, nor unmeaning,
+nor confused, and consequently not tedious. In such a case, even
+though the author is at bottom in error, the error is at any rate
+clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it is at least
+formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the work. But
+for the same reason a work that is objectively tedious is at all times
+devoid of any value whatever.
+
+The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a
+work dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it,
+and this means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may,
+therefore, be tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or
+that particular person; just as, contrarity, the worst work may be
+subjectively engrossing to this or that particular person who has an
+interest in the question treated of, or in the writer of the book.
+
+It would generally serve writers in good stead if they would see that,
+whilst a man should, if possible, think like a great genius, he should
+talk the same language as everyone else. Authors should use common
+words to say uncommon things. But they do just the opposite. We find
+them trying to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words, and to clothe
+their very ordinary thoughts in the most extraordinary phrases, the
+most far-fetched, unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their
+sentences perpetually stalk about on stilts. They take so much
+pleasure in bombast, and write in such a high-flown, bloated,
+affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style that their prototype is
+Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once impatiently told to say
+what he had to say _like a man of this world._[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _King Henry IV_., Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.]
+
+There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
+French _stile empese_; but the thing itself exists all the more often.
+When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption
+of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally
+intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as
+an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.
+
+An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses
+himself up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level
+with a mob--a risk never run by the _gentleman_, even in his worst
+clothes. The plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire
+and a wish to have everything spick and span; and in the same way, the
+commonplace person is betrayed by his style.
+
+Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write
+exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a
+certain trace of kinship with the _epigraphic_ or _monumental_ style,
+which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write
+as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak
+as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at
+the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
+
+An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a
+very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from
+vagueness of thought; and this again almost always means that there is
+something radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself--in
+a word, that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the
+mind, it strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for
+clear thought easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of
+thinking anything at all, he is also always able to express it
+in clear, intelligible, and unambiguous terms. Those writers who
+construct difficult, obscure, involved, and equivocal sentences, most
+certainly do not know aright what it is that they want to say: they
+have only a dull consciousness of it, which is still in the stage of
+struggle to shape itself as thought. Often, indeed, their desire is to
+conceal from themselves and others that they really have nothing at
+all to say. They wish to appear to know what they do not know, to
+think what they do not think, to say what they do not say. If a
+man has some real communication to make, which will he choose--an
+indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian
+remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often
+easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated
+a man is, the more obscurely he will write--_plerumque accidit ut
+faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo
+quoque dicuntur_.... _Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior_.
+
+An author should avoid enigmatical phrases; he should know whether he
+wants to say a thing or does not want to say it. It is this indecision
+of style that makes so many writers insipid. The only case that offers
+an exception to this rule arises when it is necessary to make a remark
+that is in some way improper.
+
+As exaggeration generally produces an effect the opposite of
+that aimed at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought
+intelligible--but only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up
+beyond it, the thought becomes more and more obscure again. To find
+where the point lies is the problem of style, and the business of the
+critical faculty; for a word too much always defeats its purpose. This
+is what Voltaire means when he says that _the adjective is the enemy
+of the substantive_. But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal
+their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.
+
+Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
+remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
+make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as
+to lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful
+study, and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to
+omit something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all.
+This is the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu
+pantos][1]--the half is more than the whole. _Le secret pour
+etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire_. Therefore, if possible, the
+quintessence only! mere leading thoughts! nothing that the reader
+would think for himself. To use many words to communicate few thoughts
+is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much
+thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 40.]
+
+Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep
+in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly
+because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole
+soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also,
+because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the
+arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from
+the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity of
+human existence could ever be more telling than the words of Job? _Man
+that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
+misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
+were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay_.
+
+For the same reason Goethe's naive poetry is incomparably greater than
+Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs
+so affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be
+avoided, so in the art of literature a writer must guard against all
+rhetorical finery, all useless amplification, and all superfluity of
+expression in general; in a word, he must strive after _chastity_ of
+style. Every word that can be spared is hurtful if it remains. The law
+of simplicity and naivete holds good of all fine art; for it is quite
+possible to be at once simple and sublime.
+
+True brevity of expression consists in everywhere saying only what
+is worth saying, and in avoiding tedious detail about things which
+everyone can supply for himself. This involves correct discrimination
+between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should
+never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being
+grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the
+expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the
+sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor
+of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by
+leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It
+is not only that such writers spare a word by making a single verb or
+adjective do duty for several different periods, so that the reader,
+as it were, has to grope his way through them in the dark; they also
+practice, in many other respects, an unseemingly economy of speech,
+in the effort to effect what they foolishly take to be brevity of
+expression and conciseness of style. By omitting something that might
+have thrown a light over the whole sentence, they turn it into a
+conundrum, which the reader tries to solve by going over it again and
+again.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--In the original, Schopenhauer here
+enters upon a lengthy examination of certain common errors in the
+writing and speaking of German. His remarks are addressed to his own
+countrymen, and would lose all point, even if they were intelligible,
+in an English translation. But for those who practice their German by
+conversing or corresponding with Germans, let me recommend what he
+there says as a useful corrective to a slipshod style, such as can
+easily be contracted if it is assumed that the natives of a country
+always know their own language perfectly.]
+
+It is wealth and weight of thought, and nothing else, that gives
+brevity to style, and makes it concise and pregnant. If a writer's
+ideas are important, luminous, and generally worth communicating, they
+will necessarily furnish matter and substance enough to fill out the
+periods which give them expression, and make these in all their parts
+both grammatically and verbally complete; and so much will this be
+the case that no one will ever find them hollow, empty or feeble. The
+diction will everywhere be brief and pregnant, and allow the thought
+to find intelligible and easy expression, and even unfold and move
+about with grace.
+
+Therefore instead of contracting his words and forms of speech, let a
+writer enlarge his thoughts. If a man has been thinned by illness and
+finds his clothes too big, it is not by cutting them down, but by
+recovering his usual bodily condition, that he ought to make them fit
+him again.
+
+Let me here mention an error of style, very prevalent nowadays,
+and, in the degraded state of literature and the neglect of ancient
+languages, always on the increase; I mean _subjectivity_. A writer
+commits this error when he thinks it enough if he himself knows what
+he means and wants to say, and takes no thought for the reader, who is
+left to get at the bottom of it as best he can. This is as though the
+author were holding a monologue; whereas, it ought to be a dialogue;
+and a dialogue, too, in which he must express himself all the more
+clearly inasmuch as he cannot hear the questions of his interlocutor.
+
+Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but
+_objective_; and it will not be objective unless the words are so set
+down that they directly force the reader to think precisely the same
+thing as the author thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result
+be obtained unless the author has always been careful to remember that
+thought so far follows the law of gravity that it travels from head to
+paper much more easily than from paper to head; so that he must assist
+the latter passage by every means in his power. If he does this, a
+writer's words will have a purely objective effect, like that of a
+finished picture in oils; whilst the subjective style is not much more
+certain in its working than spots on the wall, which look like figures
+only to one whose phantasy has been accidentally aroused by them;
+other people see nothing but spots and blurs. The difference in
+question applies to literary method as a whole; but it is often
+established also in particular instances. For example, in a recently
+published work I found the following sentence: _I have not written in
+order to increase the number of existing books._ This means just the
+opposite of what the writer wanted to say, and is nonsense as well.
+
+He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he
+does not attach much importance to his own thoughts. For it is only
+where a man is convinced of the truth and importance of his thoughts,
+that he feels the enthusiasm necessary for an untiring and assiduous
+effort to find the clearest, finest, and strongest expression for
+them,--just as for sacred relics or priceless works of art there are
+provided silvern or golden receptacles. It was this feeling that led
+ancient authors, whose thoughts, expressed in their own words, have
+lived thousands of years, and therefore bear the honored title of
+_classics_, always to write with care. Plato, indeed, is said to
+have written the introduction to his _Republic_ seven times over in
+different ways.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--It is a fact worth mentioning that
+the first twelve words of the _Republic_ are placed in the exact order
+which would be natural in English.]
+
+As neglect of dress betrays want of respect for the company a man
+meets, so a hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of
+regard for the reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to
+read the book. It is especially amusing to see reviewers criticising
+the works of others in their own most careless style--the style of
+a hireling. It is as though a judge were to come into court in
+dressing-gown and slippers! If I see a man badly and dirtily dressed,
+I feel some hesitation, at first, in entering into conversation
+with him: and when, on taking up a book, I am struck at once by the
+negligence of its style, I put it away.
+
+Good writing should be governed by the rule that a man can think only
+one thing clearly at a time; and, therefore, that he should not be
+expected to think two or even more things in one and the same moment.
+But this is what is done when a writer breaks up his principal
+sentence into little pieces, for the purpose of pushing into the gaps
+thus made two or three other thoughts by way of parenthesis; thereby
+unnecessarily and wantonly confusing the reader. And here it is again
+my own countrymen who are chiefly in fault. That German lends itself
+to this way of writing, makes the thing possible, but does not justify
+it. No prose reads more easily or pleasantly than French, because, as
+a rule, it is free from the error in question. The Frenchman strings
+his thoughts together, as far as he can, in the most logical and
+natural order, and so lays them before his reader one after the other
+for convenient deliberation, so that every one of them may receive
+undivided attention. The German, on the other hand, weaves them
+together into a sentence which he twists and crosses, and crosses and
+twists again; because he wants to say six things all at once, instead
+of advancing them one by one. His aim should be to attract and hold
+the reader's attention; but, above and beyond neglect of this aim, he
+demands from the reader that he shall set the above mentioned rule at
+defiance, and think three or four different thoughts at one and the
+same time; or since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall
+succeed each other as quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way
+an author lays the foundation of his _stile empese_, which is then
+carried to perfection by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to
+communicate the simplest things, and other artifices of the same kind.
+
+In those long sentences rich in involved parenthesis, like a box of
+boxes one within another, and padded out like roast geese stuffed with
+apples, it is really the _memory_ that is chiefly taxed; while it is
+the understanding and the judgment which should be called into play,
+instead of having their activity thereby actually hindered and
+weakened.[1] This kind of sentence furnishes the reader with mere
+half-phrases, which he is then called upon to collect carefully and
+store up in his memory, as though they were the pieces of a torn
+letter, afterwards to be completed and made sense of by the other
+halves to which they respectively belong. He is expected to go on
+reading for a little without exercising any thought, nay, exerting
+only his memory, in the hope that, when he comes to the end of the
+sentence, he may see its meaning and so receive something to think
+about; and he is thus given a great deal to learn by heart before
+obtaining anything to understand. This is manifestly wrong and an
+abuse of the reader's patience.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--This sentence in the original is
+obviously meant to illustrate the fault of which it speaks. It does
+so by the use of a construction very common in German, but happily
+unknown in English; where, however, the fault itself exists none the
+less, though in different form.]
+
+The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this
+style, because it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in
+understanding that which he would have understood in a moment without
+it; and this makes it look as though the writer had more depth and
+intelligence than the reader. This is, indeed, one of those artifices
+referred to above, by means of which mediocre authors unconsciously,
+and as it were by instinct, strive to conceal their poverty of thought
+and give an appearance of the opposite. Their ingenuity in this
+respect is really astounding.
+
+It is manifestly against all sound reason to put one thought obliquely
+on top of another, as though both together formed a wooden cross. But
+this is what is done where a writer interrupts what he has begun
+to say, for the purpose of inserting some quite alien matter; thus
+depositing with the reader a meaningless half-sentence, and bidding
+him keep it until the completion comes. It is much as though a man
+were to treat his guests by handing them an empty plate, in the hope
+of something appearing upon it. And commas used for a similar purpose
+belong to the same family as notes at the foot of the page and
+parenthesis in the middle of the text; nay, all three differ only in
+degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero occasionally inserted words by ways
+of parenthesis, they would have done better to have refrained.
+
+But this style of writing becomes the height of absurdity when the
+parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but
+wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an
+impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it
+is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless,
+and hasty authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their
+eyes, use this style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in
+it. It consists in--it is advisable to give rule and example together,
+wherever it is possible--breaking up one phrase in order to glue in
+another. Nor is it merely out of laziness that they write thus. They
+do it out of stupidity; they think there is a charming _legerete_
+about it; that it gives life to what they say. No doubt there are a
+few rare cases where such a form of sentence may be pardonable.
+
+Few write in the way in which an architect builds; who, before he
+sets to work, sketches out his plan, and thinks it over down to its
+smallest details. Nay, most people write only as though they were
+playing dominoes; and, as in this game, the pieces are arranged half
+by design, half by chance, so it is with the sequence and connection
+of their sentences. They only have an idea of what the general shape
+of their work will be, and of the aim they set before themselves.
+Many are ignorant even of this, and write as the coral-insects build;
+period joins to period, and the Lord only knows what the author means.
+
+Life now-a-days goes at a gallop; and the way in which this affects
+literature is to make it extremely superficial and slovenly.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE STUDY OF LATIN.
+
+
+The abolition of Latin as the universal language of learned men,
+together with the rise of that provincialism which attaches to
+national literatures, has been a real misfortune for the cause of
+knowledge in Europe. For it was chiefly through the medium of the
+Latin language that a learned public existed in Europe at all--a
+public to which every book as it came out directly appealed. The
+number of minds in the whole of Europe that are capable of thinking
+and judging is small, as it is; but when the audience is broken up and
+severed by differences of language, the good these minds can do is
+very much weakened. This is a great disadvantage; but a second and
+worse one will follow, namely, that the ancient languages will cease
+to be taught at all. The neglect of them is rapidly gaining ground
+both in France and Germany.
+
+If it should really come to this, then farewell, humanity! farewell,
+noble taste and high thinking! The age of barbarism will return, in
+spite of railways, telegraphs and balloons. We shall thus in the end
+lose one more advantage possessed by all our ancestors. For Latin is
+not only a key to the knowledge of Roman antiquity; its also directly
+opens up to us the Middle Age in every country in Europe, and modern
+times as well, down to about the year 1750. Erigena, for example, in
+the ninth century, John of Salisbury in the twelfth, Raimond Lully in
+the thirteenth, with a hundred others, speak straight to us in the
+very language that they naturally adopted in thinking of learned
+matters.
+
+They thus come quite close to us even at this distance of time: we are
+in direct contact with them, and really come to know them. How would
+it have been if every one of them spoke in the language that was
+peculiar to his time and country? We should not understand even the
+half of what they said. A real intellectual contact with them would be
+impossible. We should see them like shadows on the farthest horizon,
+or, may be, through the translator's telescope.
+
+It was with an eye to the advantage of writing in Latin that Bacon, as
+he himself expressly states, proceeded to translate his _Essays_ into
+that language, under the title _Sermones fideles_; at which work
+Hobbes assisted him.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cf. Thomae Hobbes vita: _Carolopoli apud Eleutherium
+Anglicum_, 1681, p. 22.]
+
+Here let me observe, by way of parenthesis, that when patriotism tries
+to urge its claims in the domain of knowledge, it commits an offence
+which should not be tolerated. For in those purely human questions
+which interest all men alike, where truth, insight, beauty, should be
+of sole account, what can be more impertinent than to let preference
+for the nation to which a man's precious self happens to belong,
+affect the balance of judgment, and thus supply a reason for doing
+violence to truth and being unjust to the great minds of a foreign
+country in order to make much of the smaller minds of one's own!
+Still, there are writers in every nation in Europe, who afford
+examples of this vulgar feeling. It is this which led Yriarte to
+caricature them in the thirty-third of his charming _Literary
+Fables_.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--Tomas de Yriarte (1750-91), a
+Spanish poet, and keeper of archives in the War Office at Madrid. His
+two best known works are a didactic poem, entitled _La Musica_, and
+the _Fables_ here quoted, which satirize the peculiar foibles of
+literary men. They have been translated into many languages; into
+English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question
+describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to
+which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The
+praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in
+turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary.
+Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one
+could discover the reason for this mutual compliment. Was it because
+both were such uncouth beasts, or had such long necks, or were neither
+of them particularly clever or beautiful? or was it because each had a
+hump? _No_! said the fox, _you are all wrong. Don't you see they are
+both foreigners_? Cannot the same be said of many men of learning?]
+
+In learning a language, the chief difficulty consists in making
+acquaintance with every idea which it expresses, even though it should
+use words for which there is no exact equivalent in the mother tongue;
+and this often happens. In learning a new language a man has, as it
+were, to mark out in his mind the boundaries of quite new spheres of
+ideas, with the result that spheres of ideas arise where none were
+before. Thus he not only learns words, he gains ideas too.
+
+This is nowhere so much the case as in learning ancient languages, for
+the differences they present in their mode of expression as compared
+with modern languages is greater than can be found amongst modern
+languages as compared with one another. This is shown by the fact that
+in translating into Latin, recourse must be had to quite other turns
+of phrase than are used in the original. The thought that is to be
+translated has to be melted down and recast; in other words, it must
+be analyzed and then recomposed. It is just this process which makes
+the study of the ancient languages contribute so much to the education
+of the mind.
+
+It follows from this that a man's thought varies according to the
+language in which he speaks. His ideas undergo a fresh modification,
+a different shading, as it were, in the study of every new language.
+Hence an acquaintance with many languages is not only of much indirect
+advantage, but it is also a direct means of mental culture, in that it
+corrects and matures ideas by giving prominence to their many-sided
+nature and their different varieties of meaning, as also that it
+increases dexterity of thought; for in the process of learning many
+languages, ideas become more and more independent of words. The
+ancient languages effect this to a greater degree than the modern, in
+virtue of the difference to which I have alluded.
+
+From what I have said, it is obvious that to imitate the style of the
+ancients in their own language, which is so very much superior to ours
+in point of grammatical perfection, is the best way of preparing for a
+skillful and finished expression of thought in the mother-tongue. Nay,
+if a man wants to be a great writer, he must not omit to do this: just
+as, in the case of sculpture or painting, the student must educate
+himself by copying the great masterpieces of the past, before
+proceeding to original work. It is only by learning to write Latin
+that a man comes to treat diction as an art. The material in this art
+is language, which must therefore be handled with the greatest care
+and delicacy.
+
+The result of such study is that a writer will pay keen attention to
+the meaning and value of words, their order and connection, their
+grammatical forms. He will learn how to weigh them with precision, and
+so become an expert in the use of that precious instrument which is
+meant not only to express valuable thought, but to preserve it as
+well. Further, he will learn to feel respect for the language in
+which he writes and thus be saved from any attempt to remodel it by
+arbitrary and capricious treatment. Without this schooling, a man's
+writing may easily degenerate into mere chatter.
+
+To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine
+country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can
+be seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond,
+everything is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view,
+embracing modern times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental
+horizon is still further enlarged if he studies Greek or even
+Sanscrit.
+
+If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be
+a great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of
+hydrofluoric acid in his crucible.
+
+There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the
+ancient classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only
+for half an hour, and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved,
+purified, ennobled, strengthened; just as though you had quenched your
+thirst at some pure spring. Is this the effect of the old language
+and its perfect expression, or is it the greatness of the minds whose
+works remain unharmed and unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years?
+Perhaps both together. But this I know. If the threatened calamity
+should ever come, and the ancient languages cease to be taught, a new
+literature will arise, of such barbarous, shallow and worthless stuff
+as never was seen before.
+
+
+
+
+ON MEN OF LEARNING.
+
+
+When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist
+for the purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and
+masters, one might fancy the human race to be very much concerned
+about truth and wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The
+masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom,
+but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not
+for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and
+give themselves airs. Every thirty years a new race comes into the
+world--a youngster that knows nothing about anything, and after
+summarily devouring in all haste the results of human knowledge as
+they have been accumulated for thousands of years, aspires to be
+thought cleverer than the whole of the past. For this purpose he goes
+to the University, and takes to reading books--new books, as being of
+his own age and standing. Everything he reads must be briefly put,
+must be new! he is new himself. Then he falls to and criticises. And
+here I am not taking the slightest account of studies pursued for the
+sole object of making a living.
+
+Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as
+a rule at acquiring _information_ rather than insight. They pique
+themselves upon knowing about everything--stones, plants, battles,
+experiments, and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them
+that information is only a means of insight, and in itself of little
+or no value; that it is his way of _thinking_ that makes a man a
+philosopher. When I hear of these portents of learning and their
+imposing erudition, I sometimes say to myself: Ah, how little they
+must have had to think about, to have been able to read so much!
+And when I actually find it reported of the elder Pliny that he was
+continually reading or being read to, at table, on a journey, or in
+his bath, the question forces itself upon my mind, whether the man
+was so very lacking in thought of his own that he had to have
+alien thought incessantly instilled into him; as though he were a
+consumptive patient taking jellies to keep himself alive. And neither
+his undiscerning credulity nor his inexpressibly repulsive and barely
+intelligible style--which seems like of a man taking notes, and very
+economical of paper--is of a kind to give me a high opinion of his
+power of independent thought.
+
+We have seen that much reading and learning is prejudicial to thinking
+for oneself; and, in the same way, through much writing and teaching,
+a man loses the habit of being quite clear, and therefore thorough, in
+regard to the things he knows and understands; simply because he has
+left himself no time to acquire clearness or thoroughness. And so,
+when clear knowledge fails him in his utterances, he is forced to fill
+out the gaps with words and phrases. It is this, and not the dryness
+of the subject-matter, that makes most books such tedious reading.
+There is a saying that a good cook can make a palatable dish even
+out of an old shoe; and a good writer can make the dryest things
+interesting.
+
+With by far the largest number of learned men, knowledge is a means,
+not an end. That is why they will never achieve any great work;
+because, to do that, he who pursues knowledge must pursue it as an
+end, and treat everything else, even existence itself, as only a
+means. For everything which a man fails to pursue for its own sake is
+but half-pursued; and true excellence, no matter in what sphere, can
+be attained only where the work has been produced for its own sake
+alone, and not as a means to further ends.
+
+And so, too, no one will ever succeed in doing anything really great
+and original in the way of thought, who does not seek to acquire
+knowledge for himself, and, making this the immediate object of his
+studies, decline to trouble himself about the knowledge of others. But
+the average man of learning studies for the purpose of being able to
+teach and write. His head is like a stomach and intestines which let
+the food pass through them undigested. That is just why his teaching
+and writing is of so little use. For it is not upon undigested refuse
+that people can be nourished, but solely upon the milk which secretes
+from the very blood itself.
+
+The wig is the appropriate symbol of the man of learning, pure and
+simple. It adorns the head with a copious quantity of false hair, in
+lack of one's own: just as erudition means endowing it with a great
+mass of alien thought. This, to be sure, does not clothe the head so
+well and naturally, nor is it so generally useful, nor so suited for
+all purposes, nor so firmly rooted; nor when alien thought is used up,
+can it be immediately replaced by more from the same source, as is
+the case with that which springs from soil of one's own. So we find
+Sterne, in his _Tristram Shandy_, boldly asserting that _an ounce of a
+man's own wit is worth a ton of other people's_.
+
+And in fact the most profound erudition is no more akin to genius than
+a collection of dried plants in like Nature, with its constant flow
+of new life, ever fresh, ever young, ever changing. There are no two
+things more opposed than the childish naivete of an ancient author and
+the learning of his commentator.
+
+_Dilettanti, dilettanti!_ This is the slighting way in which those who
+pursue any branch of art or learning for the love and enjoyment of the
+thing,--_per il loro diletto_, are spoken of by those who have taken
+it up for the sake of gain, attracted solely by the prospect of money.
+This contempt of theirs comes from the base belief that no man will
+seriously devote himself to a subject, unless he is spurred on to it
+by want, hunger, or else some form of greed. The public is of the same
+way of thinking; and hence its general respect for professionals and
+its distrust of _dilettanti_. But the truth is that the _dilettante_
+treats his subject as an end, whereas the professional, pure and
+simple, treats it merely as a means. He alone will be really in
+earnest about a matter, who has a direct interest therein, takes to it
+because he likes it, and pursues it _con amore_. It is these, and not
+hirelings, that have always done the greatest work.
+
+In the republic of letters it is as in other republics; favor is shown
+to the plain man--he who goes his way in silence and does not set up
+to be cleverer than others. But the abnormal man is looked upon as
+threatening danger; people band together against him, and have, oh!
+such a majority on their side.
+
+The condition of this republic is much like that of a small State in
+America, where every man is intent only upon his own advantage, and
+seeks reputation and power for himself, quite heedless of the general
+weal, which then goes to ruin. So it is in the republic of letters;
+it is himself, and himself alone, that a man puts forward, because he
+wants to gain fame. The only thing in which all agree is in trying to
+keep down a really eminent man, if he should chance to show himself,
+as one who would be a common peril. From this it is easy to see how it
+fares with knowledge as a whole.
+
+Between professors and independent men of learning there has always
+been from of old a certain antagonism, which may perhaps be likened
+to that existing been dogs and wolves. In virtue of their position,
+professors enjoy great facilities for becoming known to their
+contemporaries. Contrarily, independent men of learning enjoy, by
+their position, great facilities for becoming known to posterity; to
+which it is necessary that, amongst other and much rarer gifts, a man
+should have a certain leisure and freedom. As mankind takes a long
+time in finding out on whom to bestow its attention, they may both
+work together side by side.
+
+He who holds a professorship may be said to receive his food in the
+stall; and this is the best way with ruminant animals. But he who
+finds his food for himself at the hands of Nature is better off in the
+open field.
+
+Of human knowledge as a whole and in every branch of it, by far the
+largest part exists nowhere but on paper,--I mean, in books, that
+paper memory of mankind. Only a small part of it is at any given
+period really active in the minds of particular persons. This is due,
+in the main, to the brevity and uncertainty of life; but it also comes
+from the fact that men are lazy and bent on pleasure. Every generation
+attains, on its hasty passage through existence, just so much of human
+knowledge as it needs, and then soon disappears. Most men of learning
+are very superficial. Then follows a new generation, full of hope, but
+ignorant, and with everything to learn from the beginning. It seizes,
+in its turn, just so much as it can grasp or find useful on its brief
+journey and then too goes its way. How badly it would fare with human
+knowledge if it were not for the art of writing and printing! This it
+is that makes libraries the only sure and lasting memory of the human
+race, for its individual members have all of them but a very limited
+and imperfect one. Hence most men of learning as are loth to have
+their knowledge examined as merchants to lay bare their books.
+
+Human knowledge extends on all sides farther than the eye can reach;
+and of that which would be generally worth knowing, no one man can
+possess even the thousandth part.
+
+All branches of learning have thus been so much enlarged that he
+who would "do something" has to pursue no more than one subject and
+disregard all others. In his own subject he will then, it is true, be
+superior to the vulgar; but in all else he will belong to it. If we
+add to this that neglect of the ancient languages, which is now-a-days
+on the increase and is doing away with all general education in the
+humanities--for a mere smattering of Latin and Greek is of no use--we
+shall come to have men of learning who outside their own subject
+display an ignorance truly bovine.
+
+An exclusive specialist of this kind stands on a par with a workman in
+a factory, whose whole life is spent in making one particular kind of
+screw, or catch, or handle, for some particular instrument or machine,
+in which, indeed, he attains incredible dexterity. The specialist may
+also be likened to a man who lives in his own house and never leaves
+it. There he is perfectly familiar with everything, every little step,
+corner, or board; much as Quasimodo in Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame_
+knows the cathedral; but outside it, all is strange and unknown.
+
+For true culture in the humanities it is absolutely necessary that
+a man should be many-sided and take large views; and for a man of
+learning in the higher sense of the word, an extensive acquaintance
+with history is needful. He, however, who wishes to be a complete
+philosopher, must gather into his head the remotest ends of human
+knowledge: for where else could they ever come together?
+
+It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be
+specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence
+their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of
+them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation. For he alone
+can deserve the name of genius who takes the All, the Essential, the
+Universal, for the theme of his achievements; not he who spends his
+life in explaining some special relation of things one to another.
+
+
+
+
+ON THINKING FOR ONESELF.
+
+
+A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so
+useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man
+may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up
+by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far
+smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered. For it is only when a
+man looks at his knowledge from all sides, and combines the things he
+knows by comparing truth with truth, that he obtains a complete hold
+over it and gets it into his power. A man cannot turn over anything in
+his mind unless he knows it; he should, therefore, learn something;
+but it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know
+it.
+
+Reading and learning are things that anyone can do of his own free
+will; but not so _thinking_. Thinking must be kindled, like a fire
+by a draught; it must be sustained by some interest in the matter
+in hand. This interest may be of purely objective kind, or merely
+subjective. The latter comes into play only in things that concern
+us personally. Objective interest is confined to heads that think by
+nature; to whom thinking is as natural as breathing; and they are very
+rare. This is why most men of learning show so little of it.
+
+It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind
+by thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and
+intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which
+leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that
+reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind--thoughts which are as
+foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as
+the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is
+thus entirely under compulsion from without; it is driven to think
+this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest
+impulse or inclination to do so.
+
+But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his
+own mind, which is determined for him at the time, either by his
+environment or some particular recollection. The visible world of
+a man's surroundings does not, as reading does, impress a _single_
+definite thought upon his mind, but merely gives the matter and
+occasion which lead him to think what is appropriate to his nature and
+present temper. So it is, that much reading deprives the mind of all
+elasticity; it is like keeping a spring continually under pressure.
+The safest way of having no thoughts of one's own is to take up a book
+every moment one has nothing else to do. It is this practice which
+explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and silly than they
+are by nature, and prevents their writings obtaining any measure of
+success. They remain, in Pope's words:
+
+  _For ever reading, never to be read!_[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Dunciad_, iii, 194.]
+
+Men of learning are those who have done their reading in the pages of
+a book. Thinkers and men of genius are those who have gone straight
+to the book of Nature; it is they who have enlightened the world and
+carried humanity further on its way. If a man's thoughts are to have
+truth and life in them, they must, after all, be his own fundamental
+thoughts; for these are the only ones that he can fully and wholly
+understand. To read another's thoughts is like taking the leavings of
+a meal to which we have not been invited, or putting on the clothes
+which some unknown visitor has laid aside. The thought we read
+is related to the thought which springs up in ourselves, as the
+fossil-impress of some prehistoric plant to a plant as it buds forth
+in spring-time.
+
+Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own. It
+means putting the mind into leading-strings. The multitude of books
+serves only to show how many false paths there are, and how widely
+astray a man may wander if he follows any of them. But he who
+is guided by his genius, he who thinks for himself, who thinks
+spontaneously and exactly, possesses the only compass by which he can
+steer aright. A man should read only when his own thoughts stagnate
+at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of
+minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring
+away one's own original thoughts is sin against the Holy Spirit. It is
+like running away from Nature to look at a museum of dried plants or
+gaze at a landscape in copperplate.
+
+A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after
+spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for
+himself and adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen
+that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared
+himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable
+if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only
+when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral
+part, a living member, into the whole system of our thought; that it
+stands in complete and firm relation with what we know; that it is
+understood with all that underlies it and follows from it; that it
+wears the color, the precise shade, the distinguishing mark, of our
+own way of thinking; that it comes exactly at the right time, just
+as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast and cannot be
+forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation,
+of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves so that we
+may really possess it:
+
+  _Was due ererbt von deinen Vaelern hast,
+  Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen._[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Faust_, I. 329.]
+
+The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the
+authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen
+his belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts
+from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their
+opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an
+automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who
+thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by Nature.
+For the work comes into being as a man does; the thinking mind is
+impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child.
+
+Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false
+tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh;
+it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by
+thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs
+to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the
+mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks
+for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are
+correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is
+true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the
+mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of
+colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid of
+harmony, connection and meaning.
+
+Reading is thinking with some one else's head instead of one's own. To
+think with one's own head is always to aim at developing a coherent
+whole--a system, even though it be not a strictly complete one; and
+nothing hinders this so much as too strong a current of others'
+thoughts, such as comes of continual reading. These thoughts,
+springing every one of them from different minds, belonging to
+different systems, and tinged with different colors, never of
+themselves flow together into an intellectual whole; they never form a
+unity of knowledge, or insight, or conviction; but, rather, fill
+the head with a Babylonian confusion of tongues. The mind that is
+over-loaded with alien thought is thus deprived of all clear insight,
+and is well-nigh disorganized. This is a state of things observable
+in many men of learning; and it makes them inferior in sound sense,
+correct judgment and practical tact, to many illiterate persons,
+who, after obtaining a little knowledge from without, by means of
+experience, intercourse with others, and a small amount of reading,
+have always subordinated it to, and embodied it with, their own
+thought.
+
+The really scientific _thinker_ does the same thing as these
+illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need
+of much knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is
+nevertheless strong enough to master it all, to assimilate and
+incorporate it with the system of his thoughts, and so to make it
+fit in with the organic unity of his insight, which, though vast, is
+always growing. And in the process, his own thought, like the bass in
+an organ, always dominates everything and is never drowned by other
+tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore;
+where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle confusedly,
+and no fundamental note is heard at all.
+
+Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom
+from books, are like people who have obtained precise information
+about a country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such
+people can tell a great deal about it; but, after all, they have no
+connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But
+those who have spent their lives in thinking, resemble the travellers
+themselves; they alone really know what they are talking about; they
+are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home
+in the subject.
+
+The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary
+book-philosopher as an eye-witness does to the historian; he speaks
+from direct knowledge of his own. That is why all those who think
+for themselves come, at bottom, to much the same conclusion. The
+differences they present are due to their different points of view;
+and when these do not affect the matter, they all speak alike. They
+merely express the result of their own objective perception of things.
+There are many passages in my works which I have given to the public
+only after some hesitation, because of their paradoxical nature; and
+afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise in finding the same
+opinion recorded in the works of great men who lived long ago.
+
+The book-philosopher merely reports what one person has said and
+another meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He
+compares different opinions, ponders, criticises, and tries to get at
+the truth of the matter; herein on a par with the critical historian.
+For instance, he will set out to inquire whether Leibnitz was not for
+some time a follower of Spinoza, and questions of a like nature. The
+curious student of such matters may find conspicuous examples of what
+I mean in Herbart's _Analytical Elucidation of Morality and Natural
+Right_, and in the same author's _Letters on Freedom_. Surprise may
+be felt that a man of the kind should put himself to so much trouble;
+for, on the face of it, if he would only examine the matter for
+himself, he would speedily attain his object by the exercise of a
+little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way. It does
+not depend upon his own will. A man can always sit down and read, but
+not--think. It is with thoughts as with men; they cannot always be
+summoned at pleasure; we must wait for them to come. Thought about a
+subject must appear of itself, by a happy and harmonious combination
+of external stimulus with mental temper and attention; and it is just
+that which never seems to come to these people.
+
+This truth may be illustrated by what happens in the case of matters
+affecting our own personal interest. When it is necessary to come to
+some resolution in a matter of that kind, we cannot well sit down at
+any given moment and think over the merits of the case and make up our
+mind; for, if we try to do so, we often find ourselves unable, at that
+particular moment, to keep our mind fixed upon the subject; it wanders
+off to other things. Aversion to the matter in question is sometimes
+to blame for this. In such a case we should not use force, but wait
+for the proper frame of mind to come of itself. It often comes
+unexpectedly and returns again and again; and the variety of temper in
+which we approach it at different moments puts the matter always in a
+fresh light. It is this long process which is understood by the term
+_a ripe resolution._ For the work of coming to a resolution must be
+distributed; and in the process much that is overlooked at one moment
+occurs to us at another; and the repugnance vanishes when we find, as
+we usually do, on a closer inspection, that things are not so bad as
+they seemed.
+
+This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters
+of practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the
+greatest mind is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a
+great mind does well to spend its leisure in reading, which, as I have
+said, is a substitute for thought; it brings stuff to the mind by
+letting another person do the thinking; although that is always done
+in a manner not our own. Therefore, a man should not read too much, in
+order that his mind may not become accustomed to the substitute and
+thereby forget the reality; that it may not form the habit of walking
+in well-worn paths; nor by following an alien course of thought grow a
+stranger to its own. Least of all should a man quite withdraw his gaze
+from the real world for the mere sake of reading; as the impulse and
+the temper which prompt to thought of one's own come far oftener from
+the world of reality than from the world of books. The real life that
+a man sees before him is the natural subject of thought; and in its
+strength as the primary element of existence, it can more easily than
+anything else rouse and influence the thinking mind.
+
+After these considerations, it will not be matter for surprise that
+a man who thinks for himself can easily be distinguished from the
+book-philosopher by the very way in which he talks, by his marked
+earnestness, and the originality, directness, and personal conviction
+that stamp all his thoughts and expressions. The book-philosopher, on
+the other hand, lets it be seen that everything he has is second-hand;
+that his ideas are like the number and trash of an old furniture-shop,
+collected together from all quarters. Mentally, he is dull and
+pointless--a copy of a copy. His literary style is made up of
+conventional, nay, vulgar phrases, and terms that happen to be
+current; in this respect much like a small State where all the money
+that circulates is foreign, because it has no coinage of its own.
+
+Mere experience can as little as reading supply the place of thought.
+It stands to thinking in the same relation in which eating stands
+to digestion and assimilation. When experience boasts that to its
+discoveries alone is due the advancement of the human race, it is as
+though the mouth were to claim the whole credit of maintaining the
+body in health.
+
+The works of all truly capable minds are distinguished by a character
+of _decision_ and _definiteness_, which means they are clear and free
+from obscurity. A truly capable mind always knows definitely and
+clearly what it is that it wants to express, whether its medium is
+prose, verse, or music. Other minds are not decisive and not definite;
+and by this they may be known for what they are.
+
+The characteristic sign of a mind of the highest order is that it
+always judges at first hand. Everything it advances is the result of
+thinking for itself; and this is everywhere evident by the way in
+which it gives its thoughts utterance. Such a mind is like a Prince.
+In the realm of intellect its authority is imperial, whereas the
+authority of minds of a lower order is delegated only; as may be seen
+in their style, which has no independent stamp of its own.
+
+Every one who really thinks for himself is so far like a monarch.
+His position is undelegated and supreme. His judgments, like royal
+decrees, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from
+himself. He acknowledges authority as little as a monarch admits a
+command; he subscribes to nothing but what he has himself authorized.
+The multitude of common minds, laboring under all sorts of current
+opinions, authorities, prejudices, is like the people, which silently
+obeys the law and accepts orders from above.
+
+Those who are so zealous and eager to settle debated questions by
+citing authorities, are really glad when they are able to put the
+understanding and the insight of others into the field in place of
+their own, which are wanting. Their number is legion. For, as
+Seneca says, there is no man but prefers belief to the exercise
+of judgment--_unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare_. In their
+controversies such people make a promiscuous use of the weapon of
+authority, and strike out at one another with it. If any one chances
+to become involved in such a contest, he will do well not to try
+reason and argument as a mode of defence; for against a weapon of that
+kind these people are like Siegfrieds, with a skin of horn, and dipped
+in the flood of incapacity for thinking and judging. They will meet
+his attack by bringing up their authorities as a way of abashing
+him--_argumentum ad verecundiam_, and then cry out that they have won
+the battle.
+
+In the real world, be it never so fair, favorable and pleasant,
+we always live subject to the law of gravity which we have to
+be constantly overcoming. But in the world of intellect we are
+disembodied spirits, held in bondage to no such law, and free from
+penury and distress. Thus it is that there exists no happiness on
+earth like that which, at the auspicious moment, a fine and fruitful
+mind finds in itself.
+
+The presence of a thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We
+fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the
+dear one. But out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the
+risk of being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and
+the darling of being deserted if we do not marry her.
+
+There are plenty of thoughts which are valuable to the man who thinks
+them; but only few of them which have enough strength to produce
+repercussive or reflect action--I mean, to win the reader's sympathy
+after they have been put on paper.
+
+But still it must not be forgotten that a true value attaches only
+to what a man has thought in the first instance _for his own case_.
+Thinkers may be classed according as they think chiefly for their own
+case or for that of others. The former are the genuine independent
+thinkers; they really think and are really independent; they are the
+true _philosophers_; they alone are in earnest. The pleasure and the
+happiness of their existence consists in thinking. The others are the
+_sophists_; they want to seem that which they are not, and seek their
+happiness in what they hope to get from the world. They are in earnest
+about nothing else. To which of these two classes a man belongs may be
+seen by his whole style and manner. Lichtenberg is an example for the
+former class; Herder, there can be no doubt, belongs to the second.
+
+When one considers how vast and how close to us is _the problem of
+existence_--this equivocal, tortured, fleeting, dream-like existence
+of ours--so vast and so close that a man no sooner discovers it than
+it overshadows and obscures all other problems and aims; and when
+one sees how all men, with few and rare exceptions, have no clear
+consciousness of the problem, nay, seem to be quite unaware of its
+presence, but busy themselves with everything rather than with this,
+and live on, taking no thought but for the passing day and the hardly
+longer span of their own personal future, either expressly discarding
+the problem or else over-ready to come to terms with it by adopting
+some system of popular metaphysics and letting it satisfy them; when,
+I say, one takes all this to heart, one may come to the opinion that
+man may be said to be _a thinking being_ only in a very remote
+sense, and henceforth feel no special surprise at any trait of human
+thoughtlessness or folly; but know, rather, that the normal man's
+intellectual range of vision does indeed extend beyond that of the
+brute, whose whole existence is, as it were, a continual present,
+with no consciousness of the past or the future, but not such an
+immeasurable distance as is generally supposed.
+
+This is, in fact, corroborated by the way in which most men converse;
+where their thoughts are found to be chopped up fine, like chaff, so
+that for them to spin out a discourse of any length is impossible.
+
+If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, it could not be
+that noise of every kind would be allowed such generous limits, as is
+the case with the most horrible and at the same time aimless form of
+it.[1] If Nature had meant man to think, she would not have given him
+ears; or, at any rate, she would have furnished them with airtight
+flaps, such as are the enviable possession of the bat. But, in truth,
+man is a poor animal like the rest, and his powers are meant only to
+maintain him in the struggle for existence; so he must need keep his
+ears always open, to announce of themselves, by night as by day, the
+approach of the pursuer.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer refers to the cracking
+of whips. See the Essay _On Noise_ in _Studies in Pessimism_.]
+
+In the drama, which is the most perfect reflection of human existence,
+there are three stages in the presentation of the subject, with a
+corresponding variety in the design and scope of the piece.
+
+At the first, which is also the most common, stage, the drama is
+never anything more than merely _interesting_. The persons gain our
+attention by following their own aims, which resemble ours; the action
+advances by means of intrigue and the play of character and incident;
+while wit and raillery season the whole.
+
+At the second stage, the drama becomes _sentimental_. Sympathy is
+roused with the hero and, indirectly, with ourselves. The action takes
+a pathetic turn; but the end is peaceful and satisfactory.
+
+The climax is reached with the third stage, which is the most
+difficult. There the drama aims at being _tragic_. We are brought face
+to face with great suffering and the storm and stress of existence;
+and the outcome of it is to show the vanity of all human effort.
+Deeply moved, we are either directly prompted to disengage our will
+from the struggle of life, or else a chord is struck in us which
+echoes a similar feeling.
+
+The beginning, it is said, is always difficult. In the drama it is
+just the contrary; for these the difficulty always lies in the end.
+This is proved by countless plays which promise very well for
+the first act or two, and then become muddled, stick or
+falter--notoriously so in the fourth act--and finally conclude in a
+way that is either forced or unsatisfactory or else long foreseen by
+every one. Sometimes, too, the end is positively revolting, as in
+Lessing's _Emilia Galotti_, which sends the spectators home in a
+temper.
+
+This difficulty in regard to the end of a play arises partly because
+it is everywhere easier to get things into a tangle than to get them
+out again; partly also because at the beginning we give the author
+_carte blanche_ to do as he likes, but, at the end, make certain
+definite demands upon him. Thus we ask for a conclusion that shall be
+either quite happy or else quite tragic; whereas human affairs do not
+easily take so decided a turn; and then we expect that it shall be
+natural, fit and proper, unlabored, and at the same time foreseen by
+no one.
+
+These remarks are also applicable to an epic and to a novel; but the
+more compact nature of the drama makes the difficulty plainer by
+increasing it.
+
+_E nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing can come from nothing is a maxim
+true in fine art as elsewhere. In composing an historical picture, a
+good artist will use living men as a model, and take the groundwork
+of the faces from life; and then proceed to idealize them in point of
+beauty or expression. A similar method, I fancy, is adopted by good
+novelists. In drawing a character they take a general outline of it
+from some real person of their acquaintance, and then idealize and
+complete it to suit their purpose.
+
+A novel will be of a high and noble order, the more it represents
+of inner, and the less it represents of outer, life; and the ratio
+between the two will supply a means of judging any novel, of whatever
+kind, from _Tristram Shandy_ down to the crudest and most sensational
+tale of knight or robber. _Tristram Shandy_ has, indeed, as good as
+no action at all; and there is not much in _La Nouvelle Heloise_ and
+_Wilhelm Meister_. Even _Don Quixote_ has relatively little; and what
+there is, very unimportant, and introduced merely for the sake of fun.
+And these four are the best of all existing novels.
+
+Consider, further, the wonderful romances of Jean Paul, and how much
+inner life is shown on the narrowest basis of actual event. Even in
+Walter Scott's novels there is a great preponderance of inner over
+outer life, and incident is never brought in except for the purpose of
+giving play to thought and emotion; whereas, in bad novels, incident
+is there on its own account. Skill consists in setting the inner life
+in motion with the smallest possible array of circumstance; for it is
+this inner life that really excites our interest.
+
+The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to
+make small ones interesting.
+
+History, which I like to think of as the contrary of poetry [Greek:
+istoroumenon--pepoiaemenon], is for time what geography is for space;
+and it is no more to be called a science, in any strict sense of the
+word, than is geography, because it does not deal with universal
+truths, but only with particular details. History has always been the
+favorite study of those who wish to learn something, without having to
+face the effort demanded by any branch of real knowledge, which taxes
+the intelligence. In our time history is a favorite pursuit; as
+witness the numerous books upon the subject which appear every year.
+
+If the reader cannot help thinking, with me, that history is merely
+the constant recurrence of similar things, just as in a kaleidoscope
+the same bits of glass are represented, but in different combinations,
+he will not be able to share all this lively interest; nor, however,
+will he censure it. But there is a ridiculous and absurd claim, made
+by many people, to regard history as a part of philosophy, nay, as
+philosophy itself; they imagine that history can take its place.
+
+The preference shown for history by the greater public in all ages may
+be illustrated by the kind of conversation which is so much in vogue
+everywhere in society. It generally consists in one person relating
+something and then another person relating something else; so that in
+this way everyone is sure of receiving attention. Both here and in the
+case of history it is plain that the mind is occupied with particular
+details. But as in science, so also in every worthy conversation, the
+mind rises to the consideration of some general truth.
+
+This objection does not, however, deprive history of its value. Human
+life is short and fleeting, and many millions of individuals share in
+it, who are swallowed by that monster of oblivion which is waiting for
+them with ever-open jaws. It is thus a very thankworthy task to try to
+rescue something--the memory of interesting and important events, or
+the leading features and personages of some epoch--from the general
+shipwreck of the world.
+
+From another point of view, we might look upon history as the sequel
+to zoology; for while with all other animals it is enough to observe
+the species, with man individuals, and therefore individual events
+have to be studied; because every man possesses a character as an
+individual. And since individuals and events are without number or
+end, an essential imperfection attaches to history. In the study of
+it, all that a man learns never contributes to lessen that which he
+has still to learn. With any real science, a perfection of knowledge
+is, at any rate, conceivable.
+
+When we gain access to the histories of China and of India, the
+endlessness of the subject-matter will reveal to us the defects in the
+study, and force our historians to see that the object of science is
+to recognize the many in the one, to perceive the rules in any given
+example, and to apply to the life of nations a knowledge of mankind;
+not to go on counting up facts _ad infinitum_.
+
+There are two kinds of history; the history of politics and the
+history of literature and art. The one is the history of the will;
+the other, that of the intellect. The first is a tale of woe, even of
+terror: it is a record of agony, struggle, fraud, and horrible murder
+_en masse_. The second is everywhere pleasing and serene, like the
+intellect when left to itself, even though its path be one of error.
+Its chief branch is the history of philosophy. This is, in fact, its
+fundamental bass, and the notes of it are heard even in the other
+kind of history. These deep tones guide the formation of opinion, and
+opinion rules the world. Hence philosophy, rightly understood, is a
+material force of the most powerful kind, though very slow in its
+working. The philosophy of a period is thus the fundamental bass of
+its history.
+
+The NEWSPAPER, is the second-hand in the clock of history; and it is
+not only made of baser metal than those which point to the minute and
+the hour, but it seldom goes right.
+
+The so-called leading article is the chorus to the drama of passing
+events.
+
+Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to
+the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go
+as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very
+nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving
+interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs; if
+anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.
+
+Therefore, let us carefully regulate the attention to be paid to this
+trumpet of danger, so that it may not disturb our digestion. Let us
+recognize that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying-glass, and very
+often merely a shadow on the wall.
+
+The _pen_ is to thought what the stick is to walking; but you walk
+most easily when you have no stick, and you think with the greatest
+perfection when you have no pen in your hand. It is only when a man
+begins to be old that he likes to use a stick and is glad to take up
+his pen.
+
+When an _hypothesis_ has once come to birth in the mind, or gained a
+footing there, it leads a life so far comparable with the life of an
+organism, as that it assimilates matter from the outer world only when
+it is like in kind with it and beneficial; and when, contrarily, such
+matter is not like in kind but hurtful, the hypothesis, equally with
+the organism, throws it off, or, if forced to take it, gets rid of it
+again entire.
+
+To gain _immortality_ an author must possess so many excellences that
+while it will not be easy to find anyone to understand and appreciate
+them all, there will be men in every age who are able to recognize
+and value some of them. In this way the credit of his book will be
+maintained throughout the long course of centuries, in spite of the
+fact that human interests are always changing.
+
+An author like this, who has a claim to the continuance of his life
+even with posterity, can only be a man who, over the wide earth, will
+seek his like in vain, and offer a palpable contrast with everyone
+else in virtue of his unmistakable distinction. Nay, more: were he,
+like the wandering Jew, to live through several generations, he would
+still remain in the same superior position. If this were not so, it
+would be difficult to see why his thoughts should not perish like
+those of other men.
+
+_Metaphors_ and _similes_ are of great value, in so far as they
+explain an unknown relation by a known one. Even the more detailed
+simile which grows into a parable or an allegory, is nothing more than
+the exhibition of some relation in its simplest, most visible and
+palpable form. The growth of ideas rests, at bottom, upon similes;
+because ideas arise by a process of combining the similarities and
+neglecting the differences between things. Further, intelligence, in
+the strict sense of the word, ultimately consists in a seizing of
+relations; and a clear and pure grasp of relations is all the more
+often attained when the comparison is made between cases that lie wide
+apart from one another, and between things of quite different nature.
+As long as a relation is known to me as existing only in a single
+case, I have but an _individual_ idea of it--in other words, only an
+intuitive knowledge of it; but as soon as I see the same relation in
+two different cases, I have a _general_ idea of its whole nature, and
+this is a deeper and more perfect knowledge.
+
+Since, then, similes and metaphors are such a powerful engine of
+knowledge, it is a sign of great intelligence in a writer if his
+similes are unusual and, at the same time, to the point. Aristotle
+also observes that by far the most important thing to a writer is
+to have this power of metaphor; for it is a gift which cannot be
+acquired, and it is a mark of genius.
+
+As regards _reading_, to require that a man shall retain everything he
+has ever read, is like asking him to carry about with him all he has
+ever eaten. The one kind of food has given him bodily, and the other
+mental, nourishment; and it is through these two means that he has
+grown to be what he is. The body assimilates only that which is like
+it; and so a man retains in his mind only that which interests him, in
+other words, that which suits his system of thought or his purposes in
+life.
+
+If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding
+bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.
+
+_Repetitio est mater studiorum_. Any book that is at all important
+ought to be at once read through twice; partly because, on a second
+reading, the connection of the different portions of the book will be
+better understood, and the beginning comprehended only when the end
+is known; and partly because we are not in the same temper and
+disposition on both readings. On the second perusal we get a new view
+of every passage and a different impression of the whole book, which
+then appears in another light.
+
+A man's works are the quintessence of his mind, and even though he may
+possess very great capacity, they will always be incomparably more
+valuable than his conversation. Nay, in all essential matters his
+works will not only make up for the lack of personal intercourse with
+him, but they will far surpass it in solid advantages. The writings
+even of a man of moderate genius may be edifying, worth reading and
+instructive, because they are his quintessence--the result and fruit
+of all his thought and study; whilst conversation with him may be
+unsatisfactory.
+
+So it is that we can read books by men in whose company we find
+nothing to please, and that a high degree of culture leads us to seek
+entertainment almost wholly from books and not from men.
+
+
+
+
+ON CRITICISM.
+
+
+The following brief remarks on the critical faculty are chiefly
+intended to show that, for the most part, there is no such thing.
+It is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the phoenix, which
+appears only once in five hundred years.
+
+When we speak of _taste_--an expression not chosen with any regard for
+it--we mean the discovery, or, it may be only the recognition, of what
+is _right aesthetically_, apart from the guidance of any rule; and
+this, either because no rule has as yet been extended to the matter in
+question, or else because, if existing, it is unknown to the artist,
+or the critic, as the case may be. Instead of _taste_, we might use
+the expression _aesthetic sense_, if this were not tautological.
+
+The perceptive critical taste is, so to speak, the female analogue
+to the male quality of productive talent or genius. Not capable
+of _begetting_ great work itself, it consists in a capacity of
+_reception_, that is to say, of recognizing as such what is right,
+fit, beautiful, or the reverse; in other words, of discriminating
+the good from the bad, of discovering and appreciating the one and
+condemning the other.
+
+In appreciating a genius, criticism should not deal with the errors in
+his productions or with the poorer of his works, and then proceed to
+rate him low; it should attend only to the qualities in which he most
+excels. For in the sphere of intellect, as in other spheres, weakness
+and perversity cleave so firmly to human nature that even the most
+brilliant mind is not wholly and at all times free from them. Hence
+the great errors to be found even in the works of the greatest men; or
+as Horace puts it, _quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus_.
+
+That which distinguishes genius, and should be the standard for
+judging it, is the height to which it is able to soar when it is in
+the proper mood and finds a fitting occasion--a height always out
+of the reach of ordinary talent. And, in like manner, it is a very
+dangerous thing to compare two great men of the same class; for
+instance, two great poets, or musicians, or philosophers, or artists;
+because injustice to the one or the other, at least for the moment,
+can hardly be avoided. For in making a comparison of the kind the
+critic looks to some particular merit of the one and at once discovers
+that it is absent in the other, who is thereby disparaged. And then
+if the process is reversed, and the critic begins with the latter and
+discovers his peculiar merit, which is quite of a different order from
+that presented by the former, with whom it may be looked for in vain,
+the result is that both of them suffer undue depreciation.
+
+There are critics who severally think that it rests with each one of
+them what shall be accounted good, and what bad. They all mistake
+their own toy-trumpets for the trombones of fame.
+
+A drug does not effect its purpose if the dose is too large; and it
+is the same with censure and adverse criticism when it exceeds the
+measure of justice.
+
+The disastrous thing for intellectual merit is that it must wait for
+those to praise the good who have themselves produced nothing but what
+is bad; nay, it is a primary misfortune that it has to receive its
+crown at the hands of the critical power of mankind--a quality of
+which most men possess only the weak and impotent semblance, so that
+the reality may be numbered amongst the rarest gifts of nature. Hence
+La Bruyere's remark is, unhappily, as true as it is neat. _Apres
+l'esprit de discernement_, he says, _ce qu'il y a au monde de plus
+rare, ce sont les diamans et les perles_. The spirit of discernment!
+the critical faculty! it is these that are lacking. Men do not know
+how to distinguish the genuine from the false, the corn from the
+chaff, gold from copper; or to perceive the wide gulf that separates
+a genius from an ordinary man. Thus we have that bad state of things
+described in an old-fashioned verse, which gives it as the lot of the
+great ones here on earth to be recognized only when they are gone:
+
+  _Es ist nun das Geschick der Grossen fiier auf Erden,
+  Erst wann sie nicht mehr sind; von uns erkannt zu werden._
+
+When any genuine and excellent work makes its appearance, the chief
+difficulty in its way is the amount of bad work it finds already in
+possession of the field, and accepted as though it were good. And
+then if, after a long time, the new comer really succeeds, by a hard
+struggle, in vindicating his place for himself and winning reputation,
+he will soon encounter fresh difficulty from some affected, dull,
+awkward imitator, whom people drag in, with the object of calmly
+setting him up on the altar beside the genius; not seeing the
+difference and really thinking that here they have to do with another
+great man. This is what Yriarte means by the first lines of his
+twenty-eighth Fable, where he declares that the ignorant rabble always
+sets equal value on the good and the bad:
+
+  _Siempre acostumbra hacer el vulgo necio
+  De lo bueno y lo malo igual aprecio_.
+
+So even Shakespeare's dramas had, immediately after his death, to give
+place to those of Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and to
+yield the supremacy for a hundred years. So Kant's serious philosophy
+was crowded out by the nonsense of Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Hegel.
+And even in a sphere accessible to all, we have seen unworthy
+imitators quickly diverting public attention from the incomparable
+Walter Scott. For, say what you will, the public has no sense for
+excellence, and therefore no notion how very rare it is to find men
+really capable of doing anything great in poetry, philosophy, or art,
+or that their works are alone worthy of exclusive attention. The
+dabblers, whether in verse or in any other high sphere, should be
+every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods, nor men, nor
+booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity:
+
+      _mediocribus esse poetis
+  Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae_.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 372.]
+
+Are they not the weeds that prevent the corn coming up, so that they
+may cover all the ground themselves? And then there happens that which
+has been well and freshly described by the lamented Feuchtersleben,[1]
+who died so young: how people cry out in their haste that nothing
+is being done, while all the while great work is quietly growing to
+maturity; and then, when it appears, it is not seen or heard in the
+clamor, but goes its way silently, in modest grief:
+
+  "_Ist doch"--rufen sie vermessen--
+  Nichts im Werke, nichts gethan!"
+  Und das Grosse, reift indessen
+  Still heran_.
+
+  _Es ersheint nun: niemand sieht es,
+  Niemand hoert es im Geschrei
+  Mit bescheid'ner Trauer zieht es
+  Still vorbei_.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersleben
+(1806-49), an Austrian physician, philosopher, and poet, and a
+specialist in medical psychology. The best known of his songs is that
+beginning "_Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath_" to which Mendelssohn
+composed one of his finest melodies.]
+
+This lamentable death of the critical faculty is not less obvious in
+the case of science, as is shown by the tenacious life of false and
+disproved theories. If they are once accepted, they may go on bidding
+defiance to truth for fifty or even a hundred years and more, as
+stable as an iron pier in the midst of the waves. The Ptolemaic system
+was still held a century after Copernicus had promulgated his theory.
+Bacon, Descartes and Locke made their way extremely slowly and only
+after a long time; as the reader may see by d'Alembert's celebrated
+Preface to the _Encyclopedia_. Newton was not more successful; and
+this is sufficiently proved by the bitterness and contempt with which
+Leibnitz attacked his theory of gravitation in the controversy with
+Clarke.[1] Although Newton lived for almost forty years after the
+appearance of the _Principia_, his teaching was, when he died, only
+to some extent accepted in his own country, whilst outside England he
+counted scarcely twenty adherents; if we may believe the introductory
+note to Voltaire's exposition of his theory. It was, indeed, chiefly
+owing to this treatise of Voltaire's that the system became known in
+France nearly twenty years after Newton's death. Until then a firm,
+resolute, and patriotic stand was made by the Cartesian _Vortices_;
+whilst only forty years previously, this same Cartesian philosophy had
+been forbidden in the French schools; and now in turn d'Agnesseau, the
+Chancellor, refused Voltaire the _Imprimatur_ for his treatise on the
+Newtonian doctrine. On the other hand, in our day Newton's absurd
+theory of color still completely holds the field, forty years after
+the publication of Goethe's. Hume, too, was disregarded up to his
+fiftieth year, though he began very early and wrote in a thoroughly
+popular style. And Kant, in spite of having written and talked all his
+life long, did not become a famous man until he was sixty.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially Sec.Sec. 35, 113, 118, 120, 122, 128.]
+
+Artists and poets have, to be sure, more chance than thinkers, because
+their public is at least a hundred times as large. Still, what was
+thought of Beethoven and Mozart during their lives? what of Dante?
+what even of Shakespeare? If the latter's contemporaries had in any
+way recognized his worth, at least one good and accredited portrait of
+him would have come down to us from an age when the art of painting
+flourished; whereas we possess only some very doubtful pictures, a
+bad copperplate, and a still worse bust on his tomb.[1] And in like
+manner, if he had been duly honored, specimens of his handwriting
+would have been preserved to us by the hundred, instead of being
+confined, as is the case, to the signatures to a few legal documents.
+The Portuguese are still proud of their only poet Camoens. He lived,
+however, on alms collected every evening in the street by a black
+slave whom he had brought with him from the Indies. In time, no doubt,
+justice will be done everyone; _tempo e galant uomo_; but it is
+as late and slow in arriving as in a court of law, and the secret
+condition of it is that the recipient shall be no longer alive. The
+precept of Jesus the son of Sirach is faithfully followed: _Judge none
+blessed before his death._[2] He, then, who has produced immortal
+works, must find comfort by applying to them the words of the Indian
+myth, that the minutes of life amongst the immortals seem like years
+of earthly existence; and so, too, that years upon earth are only as
+the minutes of the immortals.
+
+[Footnote 1: A. Wivell: _An Inquiry into the History, Authenticity,
+and Characteristics of Shakespeare's Portraits_; with 21 engravings.
+London, 1836.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Ecclesiasticus_, xi. 28.]
+
+This lack of critical insight is also shown by the fact that, while
+in every century the excellent work of earlier time is held in honor,
+that of its own is misunderstood, and the attention which is its due
+is given to bad work, such as every decade carries with it only to be
+the sport of the next. That men are slow to recognize genuine merit
+when it appears in their own age, also proves that they do not
+understand or enjoy or really value the long-acknowledged works of
+genius, which they honor only on the score of authority. The crucial
+test is the fact that bad work--Fichte's philosophy, for example--if
+it wins any reputation, also maintains it for one or two generations;
+and only when its public is very large does its fall follow sooner.
+
+Now, just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees
+it, nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all
+masterly work in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and
+capacity of the mind to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as
+this that possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits
+that lie hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is
+a sealed cabinet of mystery,--an unfamiliar musical instrument from
+which the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none
+but confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good
+light, as compared with some dark corner! Just in the same way, the
+impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind
+to understand it.
+
+A fine work, then, requires a mind sensitive to its beauty; a
+thoughtful work, a mind that can really think, if it is to exist and
+live at all. But alas! it may happen only too often that he who gives
+a fine work to the world afterwards feels like a maker of fireworks,
+who displays with enthusiasm the wonders that have taken him so much
+time and trouble to prepare, and then learns that he has come to the
+wrong place, and that the fancied spectators were one and all inmates
+of an asylum for the blind. Still even that is better than if his
+public had consisted entirely of men who made fireworks themselves; as
+in this case, if his display had been extraordinarily good, it might
+possibly have cost him his head.
+
+The source of all pleasure and delight is the feeling of kinship. Even
+with the sense of beauty it is unquestionably our own species in the
+animal world, and then again our own race, that appears to us the
+fairest. So, too, in intercourse with others, every man shows a
+decided preference for those who resemble him; and a blockhead will
+find the society of another blockhead incomparably more pleasant
+than that of any number of great minds put together. Every man must
+necessarily take his chief pleasure in his own work, because it is the
+mirror of his own mind, the echo of his own thought; and next in order
+will come the work of people like him; that is to say, a dull, shallow
+and perverse man, a dealer in mere words, will give his sincere and
+hearty applause only to that which is dull, shallow, perverse or
+merely verbose. On the other hand, he will allow merit to the work of
+great minds only on the score of authority, in other words, because
+he is ashamed to speak his opinion; for in reality they give him no
+pleasure at all. They do not appeal to him; nay, they repel him; and
+he will not confess this even to himself. The works of genius cannot
+be fully enjoyed except by those who are themselves of the privileged
+order. The first recognition of them, however, when they exist without
+authority to support them, demands considerable superiority of mind.
+
+When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should be
+surprised, not that great work is so late in winning reputation, but
+that it wins it at all. And as a matter of fact, fame comes only by a
+slow and complex process. The stupid person is by degrees forced, and
+as it were, tamed, into recognizing the superiority of one who stands
+immediately above him; this one in his turn bows before some one else;
+and so it goes on until the weight of the votes gradually prevail over
+their number; and this is just the condition of all genuine, in other
+words, deserved fame. But until then, the greatest genius, even after
+he has passed his time of trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of
+his own subjects, who do not know him by sight and therefore will not
+do his behests; unless, indeed, his chief ministers of state are in
+his train. For no subordinate official can be the direct recipient of
+the royal commands, as he knows only the signature of his immediate
+superior; and this is repeated all the way up into the highest ranks,
+where the under-secretary attests the minister's signature, and the
+minister that of the king. There are analogous stages to be passed
+before a genius can attain widespread fame. This is why his reputation
+most easily comes to a standstill at the very outset; because the
+highest authorities, of whom there can be but few, are most frequently
+not to be found; but the further down he goes in the scale the more
+numerous are those who take the word from above, so that his fame is
+no more arrested.
+
+We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflecting that
+it is really fortunate that the greater number of men do not form a
+judgment on their own responsibility, but merely take it on authority.
+For what sort of criticism should we have on Plato and Kant, Homer,
+Shakespeare and Goethe, if every man were to form his opinion by what
+he really has and enjoys of these writers, instead of being forced by
+authority to speak of them in a fit and proper way, however little
+he may really feel what he says. Unless something of this kind took
+place, it would be impossible for true merit, in any high sphere, to
+attain fame at all. At the same time it is also fortunate that every
+man has just so much critical power of his own as is necessary for
+recognizing the superiority of those who are placed immediately over
+him, and for following their lead. This means that the many come in
+the end to submit to the authority of the few; and there results that
+hierarchy of critical judgments on which is based the possibility of a
+steady, and eventually wide-reaching, fame.
+
+The lowest class in the community is quite impervious to the merits
+of a great genius; and for these people there is nothing left but the
+monument raised to him, which, by the impression it produces on their
+senses, awakes in them a dim idea of the man's greatness.
+
+Literary journals should be a dam against the unconscionable
+scribbling of the age, and the ever-increasing deluge of bad and
+useless books. Their judgments should be uncorrupted, just and
+rigorous; and every piece of bad work done by an incapable person;
+every device by which the empty head tries to come to the assistance
+of the empty purse, that is to say, about nine-tenths of all existing
+books, should be mercilessly scourged. Literary journals would then
+perform their duty, which is to keep down the craving for writing and
+put a check upon the deception of the public, instead of furthering
+these evils by a miserable toleration, which plays into the hands of
+author and publisher, and robs the reader of his time and his money.
+
+If there were such a paper as I mean, every bad writer, every
+brainless compiler, every plagiarist from other's books, every hollow
+and incapable place-hunter, every sham-philosopher, every vain and
+languishing poetaster, would shudder at the prospect of the pillory
+in which his bad work would inevitably have to stand soon after
+publication. This would paralyze his twitching fingers, to the true
+welfare of literature, in which what is bad is not only useless but
+positively pernicious. Now, most books are bad and ought to have
+remained unwritten. Consequently praise should be as rare as is now
+the case with blame, which is withheld under the influence of personal
+considerations, coupled with the maxim _accedas socius, laudes
+lauderis ut absens_.
+
+It is quite wrong to try to introduce into literature the same
+toleration as must necessarily prevail in society towards those
+stupid, brainless people who everywhere swarm in it. In literature
+such people are impudent intruders; and to disparage the bad is here
+duty towards the good; for he who thinks nothing bad will think
+nothing good either. Politeness, which has its source in social
+relations, is in literature an alien, and often injurious, element;
+because it exacts that bad work shall be called good. In this way the
+very aim of science and art is directly frustrated.
+
+The ideal journal could, to be sure, be written only by people who
+joined incorruptible honesty with rare knowledge and still rarer power
+of judgment; so that perhaps there could, at the very most, be one,
+and even hardly one, in the whole country; but there it would stand,
+like a just Aeropagus, every member of which would have to be elected
+by all the others. Under the system that prevails at present, literary
+journals are carried on by a clique, and secretly perhaps also by
+booksellers for the good of the trade; and they are often nothing but
+coalitions of bad heads to prevent the good ones succeeding. As
+Goethe once remarked to me, nowhere is there so much dishonesty as in
+literature.
+
+But, above all, anonymity, that shield of all literary rascality,
+would have to disappear. It was introduced under the pretext of
+protecting the honest critic, who warned the public, against the
+resentment of the author and his friends. But where there is one case
+of this sort, there will be a hundred where it merely serves to take
+all responsibility from the man who cannot stand by what he has said,
+or possibly to conceal the shame of one who has been cowardly and base
+enough to recommend a book to the public for the purpose of putting
+money into his own pocket. Often enough it is only a cloak for
+covering the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the critic.
+It is incredible what impudence these fellows will show, and what
+literary trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they know
+they are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a
+general _Anti-criticism_, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a
+stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or blames
+the good: _Rascal! your name_! For a man to wrap himself up and draw
+his hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about
+without any disguise--this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the
+part of a scoundrel and a knave.
+
+An anonymous review has no more authority than an anonymous letter;
+and one should be received with the same mistrust as the other. Or
+shall we take the name of the man who consents to preside over what
+is, in the strict sense of the word, _une societe anonyme_ as a
+guarantee for the veracity of his colleagues?
+
+Even Rousseau, in the preface to the _Nouvelle Heloise_, declares
+_tout honnete homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public_; which in
+plain language means that every honorable man ought to sign his
+articles, and that no one is honorable who does not do so. How much
+truer this is of polemical writing, which is the general character
+of reviews! Riemer was quite right in the opinion he gives in his
+_Reminiscences of Goethe:[1] An overt enemy_, he says, _an enemy
+who meets you face to face, is an honorable man, who will treat you
+fairly, and with whom you can come to terms and be reconciled: but an
+enemy who conceals himself_ is a base, cowardly scoundrel, _who has
+not courage enough to avow his own judgment; it is not his opinion
+that he cares about, but only the secret pleasures of wreaking his
+anger without being found out or punished._ This will also have been
+Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from which Riemer
+drew his observations. And, indeed, Rousseau's maxim applies to
+every line that is printed. Would a man in a mask ever be allowed to
+harangue a mob, or speak in any assembly; and that, too, when he was
+going to attack others and overwhelm them with abuse?
+
+[Footnote 1: Preface, p. xxix.]
+
+Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality.
+It is a practice which must be completely stopped. Every article, even
+in a newspaper, should be accompanied by the name of its author; and
+the editor should be made strictly responsible for the accuracy of the
+signature. The freedom of the press should be thus far restricted; so
+that when a man publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of
+the newspaper, he should be answerable for it, at any rate with his
+honor, if he has any; and if he has none, let his name neutralize the
+effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person is
+known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would be to
+put an end to two-thirds of the newspaper lies, and to restrain the
+audacity of many a poisonous tongue.
+
+
+
+
+ON REPUTATION.
+
+
+Writers may be classified as meteors, planets and fixed stars. A
+meteor makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry
+_There!_ and it is gone for ever. Planets and wandering stars last
+a much longer time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are
+confounded with them by the inexperienced; but this only because they
+are near. It is not long before they must yield their place; nay, the
+light they give is reflected only, and the sphere of their influence
+is confined to their own orbit--their contemporaries. Their path is
+one of change and movement, and with the circuit of a few years their
+tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones that are constant; their
+position in the firmament is secure; they shine with a light of their
+own; their effect to-day is the same as it was yesterday, because,
+having no parallax, their appearance does not alter with a difference
+in our standpoint. They belong not to _one_ system, _one_ nation only,
+but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is
+usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of
+this earth.
+
+We have seen in the previous chapter that where a man's merits are of
+a high order, it is difficult for him to win reputation, because the
+public is uncritical and lacks discernment. But another and no less
+serious hindrance to fame comes from the envy it has to encounter. For
+even in the lowest kinds of work, envy balks even the beginnings of a
+reputation, and never ceases to cleave to it up to the last. How great
+a part is played by envy in the wicked ways of the world! Ariosto is
+right in saying that the dark side of our mortal life predominates, so
+full it is of this evil:
+
+    _questa assai piu oscura che serena
+  Vita mortal, tutta d'invidia piena_.
+
+For envy is the moving spirit of that secret and informal, though
+flourishing, alliance everywhere made by mediocrity against individual
+eminence, no matter of what kind. In his own sphere of work no one
+will allow another to be distinguished: he is an intruder who cannot
+be tolerated. _Si quelq'un excelle parmi nous, qu'il aille exceller
+ailleurs_! this is the universal password of the second-rate. In
+addition, then, to the rarity of true merit and the difficulty it has
+in being understood and recognized, there is the envy of thousands to
+be reckoned with, all of them bent on suppressing, nay, on smothering
+it altogether. No one is taken for what he is, but for what others
+make of him; and this is the handle used by mediocrity to keep down
+distinction, by not letting it come up as long as that can possibly be
+prevented.
+
+There are two ways of behaving in regard to merit: either to have some
+of one's own, or to refuse any to others. The latter method is more
+convenient, and so it is generally adopted. As envy is a mere sign
+of deficiency, so to envy merit argues the lack of it. My excellent
+Balthazar Gracian has given a very fine account of this relation
+between envy and merit in a lengthy fable, which may be found in his
+_Discreto_ under the heading _Hombre de ostentacion_. He describes
+all the birds as meeting together and conspiring against the peacock,
+because of his magnificent feathers. _If_, said the magpie, _we could
+only manage to put a stop to the cursed parading of his tail, there
+would soon be an end of his beauty; for what is not seen is as good as
+what does not exist_.
+
+This explains how modesty came to be a virtue. It was invented only as
+a protection against envy. That there have always been rascals to urge
+this virtue, and to rejoice heartily over the bashfulness of a man of
+merit, has been shown at length in my chief work.[1] In Lichtenberg's
+_Miscellaneous Writings_ I find this sentence quoted: _Modesty should
+be the virtue of those who possess no other_. Goethe has a well-known
+saying, which offends many people: _It is only knaves who are
+modest_!--_Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden_! but it has its prototype
+in Cervantes, who includes in his _Journey up Parnassus_ certain rules
+of conduct for poets, and amongst them the following: _Everyone whose
+verse shows him to be a poet should have a high opinion of himself,
+relying on the proverb that he is a knave who thinks himself one_.
+And Shakespeare, in many of his Sonnets, which gave him the only
+opportunity he had of speaking of himself, declares, with a confidence
+equal to his ingenuousness, that what he writes is immortal.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Welt als Wille_, Vol. II. c. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Collier, one of his critical editors, in his Introduction
+to the Sonettes, remarks upon this point: "In many of them are to be
+found most remarkable indications of self-confidence and of assurance
+in the immortality of his verses, and in this respect the author's
+opinion was constant and uniform. He never scruples to express it,...
+and perhaps there is no writer of ancient or modern times who, for the
+quantity of such writings left behind him, has so frequently or so
+strongly declared that what he had produced in this department of
+poetry 'the world would not willingly let die.'"]
+
+A method of underrating good work often used by envy--in reality,
+however, only the obverse side of it--consists in the dishonorable and
+unscrupulous laudation of the bad; for no sooner does bad work gain
+currency than it draws attention from the good. But however effective
+this method may be for a while, especially if it is applied on a large
+scale, the day of reckoning comes at last, and the fleeting credit
+given to bad work is paid off by the lasting discredit which overtakes
+those who abjectly praised it. Hence these critics prefer to remain
+anonymous.
+
+A like fate threatens, though more remotely, those who depreciate and
+censure good work; and consequently many are too prudent to attempt
+it. But there is another way; and when a man of eminent merit appears,
+the first effect he produces is often only to pique all his rivals,
+just as the peacock's tail offended the birds. This reduces them to
+a deep silence; and their silence is so unanimous that it savors of
+preconcertion. Their tongues are all paralyzed. It is the _silentium
+livoris_ described by Seneca. This malicious silence, which is
+technically known as _ignoring_, may for a long time interfere with
+the growth of reputation; if, as happens in the higher walks of
+learning, where a man's immediate audience is wholly composed of rival
+workers and professed students, who then form the channel of his fame,
+the greater public is obliged to use its suffrage without being able
+to examine the matter for itself. And if, in the end, that malicious
+silence is broken in upon by the voice of praise, it will be but
+seldom that this happens entirely apart from some ulterior aim,
+pursued by those who thus manipulate justice. For, as Goethe says in
+the _West-oestlicher Divan_, a man can get no recognition, either from
+many persons or from only one, unless it is to publish abroad the
+critic's own discernment:
+
+  _Denn es ist kein Anerkenen,
+  Weder Vieler, noch des Einen,
+  Wenn es nicht am Tage foerdert,
+  Wo man selbst was moechte scheinen_.
+
+The credit you allow to another man engaged in work similar to your
+own or akin to it, must at bottom be withdrawn from yourself; and you
+can praise him only at the expense of your own claims.
+
+Accordingly, mankind is in itself not at all inclined to award praise
+and reputation; it is more disposed to blame and find fault, whereby
+it indirectly praises itself. If, notwithstanding this, praise is
+won from mankind, some extraneous motive must prevail. I am not here
+referring to the disgraceful way in which mutual friends will puff one
+another into a reputation; outside of that, an effectual motive is
+supplied by the feeling that next to the merit of doing something
+oneself, comes that of correctly appreciating and recognizing what
+others have done. This accords with the threefold division of heads
+drawn up by Hesiod[1] and afterwards by Machiavelli[2] _There are_,
+says the latter, _in the capacities of mankind, three varieties:
+one man will understand a thing by himself; another so far as it is
+explained to him; a third, neither of himself nor when it is put
+clearly before him_. He, then, who abandons hope of making good his
+claims to the first class, will be glad to seize the opportunity of
+taking a place in the second. It is almost wholly owing to this state
+of things that merit may always rest assured of ultimately meeting
+with recognition.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 293.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _The Prince_, ch. 22.]
+
+To this also is due the fact that when the value of a work has once
+been recognized and may no longer be concealed or denied, all men vie
+in praising and honoring it; simply because they are conscious
+of thereby doing themselves an honor. They act in the spirit of
+Xenophon's remark: _he must be a wise man who knows what is wise_.
+So when they see that the prize of original merit is for ever out of
+their reach, they hasten to possess themselves of that which comes
+second best--the correct appreciation of it. Here it happens as with
+an army which has been forced to yield; when, just as previously every
+man wanted to be foremost in the fight, so now every man tries to
+be foremost in running away. They all hurry forward to offer their
+applause to one who is now recognized to be worthy of praise, in
+virtue of a recognition, as a rule unconscious, of that law of
+homogeneity which I mentioned in the last chapter; so that it may seem
+as though their way of thinking and looking at things were homogeneous
+with that of the celebrated man, and that they may at least save the
+honor of their literary taste, since nothing else is left them.
+
+From this it is plain that, whereas it is very difficult to win
+fame, it is not hard to keep it when once attained; and also that a
+reputation which comes quickly does not last very long; for here
+too, _quod cito fit, cito perit_. It is obvious that if the ordinary
+average man can easily recognize, and the rival workers willingly
+acknowledge, the value of any performance, it will not stand very much
+above the capacity of either of them to achieve it for themselves.
+_Tantum quisque laudat, quantum se posse sperat imitari_--a man will
+praise a thing only so far as he hopes to be able to imitate it
+himself. Further, it is a suspicious sign if a reputation comes
+quickly; for an application of the laws of homogeneity will show that
+such a reputation is nothing but the direct applause of the multitude.
+What this means may be seen by a remark once made by Phocion, when he
+was interrupted in a speech by the loud cheers of the mob. Turning
+to his friends who were standing close by, he asked: _Have I made a
+mistake and said something stupid?_[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _Apophthegms_.]
+
+Contrarily, a reputation that is to last a long time must be slow
+in maturing, and the centuries of its duration have generally to be
+bought at the cost of contemporary praise. For that which is to keep
+its position so long, must be of a perfection difficult to attain; and
+even to recognize this perfection requires men who are not always to
+be found, and never in numbers sufficiently great to make themselves
+heard; whereas envy is always on the watch and doing its best to
+smother their voice. But with moderate talent, which soon meets with
+recognition, there is the danger that those who possess it will
+outlive both it and themselves; so that a youth of fame may be
+followed by an old age of obscurity. In the case of great merit, on
+the other hand, a man may remain unknown for many years, but make up
+for it later on by attaining a brilliant reputation. And if it should
+be that this comes only after he is no more, well! he is to be
+reckoned amongst those of whom Jean Paul says that extreme unction is
+their baptism. He may console himself by thinking of the Saints, who
+also are canonized only after they are dead.
+
+Thus what Mahlmann[1] has said so well in _Herodes_ holds good; in
+this world truly great work never pleases at once, and the god set up
+by the multitude keeps his place on the altar but a short time:
+
+  _Ich denke, das wahre Grosse in der Welt
+  Ist immer nur Das was nicht gleich gefaellt
+  Und wen der Poebel zum Gotte weiht,
+  Der steht auf dem Altar nur kurze Zeit_.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--August Mahlmann (1771-1826),
+journalist, poet and story-writer. His _Herodes vor Bethlehem_ is a
+parody of Kotzebue's _Hussiten vor Naumburg_.]
+
+It is worth mention that this rule is most directly confirmed in the
+case of pictures, where, as connoisseurs well know, the greatest
+masterpieces are not the first to attract attention. If they make
+a deep impression, it is not after one, but only after repeated,
+inspection; but then they excite more and more admiration every time
+they are seen.
+
+Moreover, the chances that any given work will be quickly and rightly
+appreciated, depend upon two conditions: firstly, the character of
+the work, whether high or low, in other words, easy or difficult to
+understand; and, secondly, the kind of public it attracts, whether
+large or small. This latter condition is, no doubt, in most instances
+a, corollary of the former; but it also partly depends upon whether
+the work in question admits, like books and musical compositions, of
+being produced in great numbers. By the compound action of these two
+conditions, achievements which serve no materially useful end--and
+these alone are under consideration here--will vary in regard to
+the chances they have of meeting with timely recognition and due
+appreciation; and the order of precedence, beginning with those who
+have the greatest chance, will be somewhat as follows: acrobats,
+circus riders, ballet-dancers, jugglers, actors, singers, musicians,
+composers, poets (both the last on account of the multiplication of
+their works), architects, painters, sculptors, philosophers.
+
+The last place of all is unquestionably taken by philosophers because
+their works are meant not for entertainment, but for instruction, and
+because they presume some knowledge on the part of the reader, and
+require him to make an effort of his own to understand them. This
+makes their public extremely small, and causes their fame to be more
+remarkable for its length than for its breadth. And, in general, it
+may be said that the possibility of a man's fame lasting a long time,
+stands in almost inverse ratio with the chance that it will be early
+in making its appearance; so that, as regards length of fame, the
+above order of precedence may be reversed. But, then, the poet and
+the composer will come in the end to stand on the same level as the
+philosopher; since, when once a work is committed to writing, it is
+possible to preserve it to all time. However, the first place still
+belongs by right to the philosopher, because of the much greater
+scarcity of good work in this sphere, and the high importance of it;
+and also because of the possibility it offers of an almost perfect
+translation into any language. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that a
+philosopher's fame outlives even his works themselves; as has happened
+with Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Democritus, Parmenides, Epicurus
+and many others.
+
+My remarks are, as I have said, confined to achievements that are not
+of any material use. Work that serves some practical end, or ministers
+directly to some pleasure of the senses, will never have any
+difficulty in being duly appreciated. No first-rate pastry-cook could
+long remain obscure in any town, to say nothing of having to appeal to
+posterity.
+
+Under fame of rapid growth is also to be reckoned fame of a false
+and artificial kind; where, for instance, a book is worked into a
+reputation by means of unjust praise, the help of friends, corrupt
+criticism, prompting from above and collusion from below. All this
+tells upon the multitude, which is rightly presumed to have no power
+of judging for itself. This sort of fame is like a swimming bladder,
+by its aid a heavy body may keep afloat. It bears up for a certain
+time, long or short according as the bladder is well sewed up and
+blown; but still the air comes out gradually, and the body sinks. This
+is the inevitable fate of all works which are famous by reason of
+something outside of themselves. False praise dies away; collusion
+comes to an end; critics declare the reputation ungrounded; it
+vanishes, and is replaced by so much the greater contempt. Contrarily,
+a genuine work, which, having the source of its fame in itself,
+can kindle admiration afresh in every age, resembles a body of low
+specific gravity, which always keeps up of its own accord, and so goes
+floating down the stream of time.
+
+Men of great genius, whether their work be in poetry, philosophy or
+art, stand in all ages like isolated heroes, keeping up single-handed
+a desperate struggling against the onslaught of an army of
+opponents.[1] Is not this characteristic of the miserable nature of
+mankind? The dullness, grossness, perversity, silliness and brutality
+of by far the greater part of the race, are always an obstacle to the
+efforts of the genius, whatever be the method of his art; they so form
+that hostile army to which at last he has to succumb. Let the isolated
+champion achieve what he may: it is slow to be acknowledged; it is
+late in being appreciated, and then only on the score of authority;
+it may easily fall into neglect again, at any rate for a while. Ever
+afresh it finds itself opposed by false, shallow, and insipid ideas,
+which are better suited to that large majority, that so generally hold
+the field. Though the critic may step forth and say, like Hamlet when
+he held up the two portraits to his wretched mother, _Have you eyes?
+Have you eyes_? alas! they have none. When I watch the behavior of a
+crowd of people in the presence of some great master's work, and mark
+the manner of their applause, they often remind me of trained monkeys
+in a show. The monkey's gestures are, no doubt, much like those of
+men; but now and again they betray that the real inward spirit of
+these gestures is not in them. Their irrational nature peeps out.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--At this point Schopenhauer
+interrupts the thread of his discourse to speak at length upon an
+example of false fame. Those who are at all acquainted with the
+philosopher's views will not be surprised to find that the writer thus
+held up to scorn is Hegel; and readers of the other volumes in this
+series will, with the translator, have had by now quite enough of the
+subject. The passage is therefore omitted.]
+
+It is often said of a man that _he is in advance of his age_; and it
+follows from the above remarks that this must be taken to mean that
+he is in advance of humanity in general. Just because of this fact,
+a genius makes no direct appeal except to those who are too rare to
+allow of their ever forming a numerous body at any one period. If he
+is in this respect not particularly favored by fortune, he will
+be _misunderstood by his own age_; in other words, he will remain
+unaccepted until time gradually brings together the voices of those
+few persons who are capable of judging a work of such high character.
+Then posterity will say: _This man was in advance of his age_, instead
+of _in advance of humanity_; because humanity will be glad to lay the
+burden of its own faults upon a single epoch.
+
+Hence, if a man has been superior to his own age, he would also have
+been superior to any other; provided that, in that age, by some rare
+and happy chance, a few just men, capable of judging in the sphere of
+his achievements, had been born at the same time with him; just as
+when, according to a beautiful Indian myth, Vischnu becomes incarnate
+as a hero, so, too, Brahma at the same time appears as the singer of
+his deeds; and hence Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are incarnations of
+Brahma.
+
+In this sense, then, it may be said that every immortal work puts its
+age to the proof, whether or no it will be able to recognize the merit
+of it. As a rule, the men of any age stand such a test no better than
+the neighbors of Philemon and Baucis, who expelled the deities they
+failed to recognize. Accordingly, the right standard for judging the
+intellectual worth of any generation is supplied, not by the great
+minds that make their appearance in it--for their capacities are the
+work of Nature, and the possibility of cultivating them a matter of
+chance circumstance--but by the way in which contemporaries receive
+their works; whether, I mean, they give their applause soon and with
+a will, or late and in niggardly fashion, or leave it to be bestowed
+altogether by posterity.
+
+This last fate will be especially reserved for works of a high
+character. For the happy chance mentioned above will be all the more
+certain not to come, in proportion as there are few to appreciate
+the kind of work done by great minds. Herein lies the immeasurable
+advantage possessed by poets in respect of reputation; because their
+work is accessible to almost everyone. If it had been possible for Sir
+Walter Scott to be read and criticised by only some hundred persons,
+perhaps in his life-time any common scribbler would have been
+preferred to him; and afterwards, when he had taken his proper place,
+it would also have been said in his honor that he was _in advance of
+his age_. But if envy, dishonesty and the pursuit of personal aims are
+added to the incapacity of those hundred persons who, in the name of
+their generation, are called upon to pass judgment on a work, then
+indeed it meets with the same sad fate as attends a suitor who pleads
+before a tribunal of judges one and all corrupt.
+
+In corroboration of this, we find that the history of literature
+generally shows all those who made knowledge and insight their goal
+to have remained unrecognized and neglected, whilst those who
+paraded with the vain show of it received the admiration of their
+contemporaries, together with the emoluments.
+
+The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the
+reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts,
+by the operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this
+reputation is quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a
+worthy writer may come by it very slowly and tardily. The former
+possess friends to help them; for the rabble is always a numerous body
+which holds well together. The latter has nothing but enemies; because
+intellectual superiority is everywhere and under all circumstances the
+most hateful thing in the world, and especially to bunglers in the
+same line of work, who want to pass for something themselves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: If the professors of philosophy should chance to think
+that I am here hinting at them and the tactics they have for more than
+thirty years pursued toward my works, they have hit the nail upon the
+head.]
+
+This being so, it is a prime condition for doing any great work--any
+work which is to outlive its own age, that a man pay no heed to his
+contemporaries, their views and opinions, and the praise or blame
+which they bestow. This condition is, however, fulfilled of itself
+when a man really does anything great, and it is fortunate that it is
+so. For if, in producing such a work, he were to look to the general
+opinion or the judgment of his colleagues, they would lead him astray
+at every step. Hence, if a man wants to go down to posterity, he must
+withdraw from the influence of his own age. This will, of course,
+generally mean that he must also renounce any influence upon it, and
+be ready to buy centuries of fame by foregoing the applause of his
+contemporaries.
+
+For when any new and wide-reaching truth comes into the world--and if
+it is new, it must be paradoxical--an obstinate stand will be made
+against it as long as possible; nay, people will continue to deny it
+even after they slacken their opposition and are almost convinced of
+its truth. Meanwhile it goes on quietly working its way, and, like an
+acid, undermining everything around it. From time to time a crash is
+heard; the old error comes tottering to the ground, and suddenly the
+new fabric of thought stands revealed, as though it were a monument
+just uncovered. Everyone recognizes and admires it. To be sure, this
+all comes to pass for the most part very slowly. As a rule, people
+discover a man to be worth listening to only after he is gone; their
+_hear, hear_, resounds when the orator has left the platform.
+
+Works of the ordinary type meet with a better fate. Arising as they
+do in the course of, and in connection with, the general advance in
+contemporary culture, they are in close alliance with the spirit of
+their age--in other words, just those opinions which happen to be
+prevalent at the time. They aim at suiting the needs of the moment. If
+they have any merit, it is soon recognized; and they gain currency as
+books which reflect the latest ideas. Justice, nay, more than justice,
+is done to them. They afford little scope for envy; since, as was said
+above, a man will praise a thing only so far as he hopes to be able to
+imitate it himself.
+
+But those rare works which are destined to become the property of all
+mankind and to live for centuries, are, at their origin, too far in
+advance of the point at which culture happens to stand, and on that
+very account foreign to it and the spirit of their own time. They
+neither belong to it nor are they in any connection with it, and hence
+they excite no interest in those who are dominated by it. They belong
+to another, a higher stage of culture, and a time that is still far
+off. Their course is related to that of ordinary works as the orbit
+of Uranus to the orbit of Mercury. For the moment they get no justice
+done to them. People are at a loss how to treat them; so they leave
+them alone, and go their own snail's pace for themselves. Does the
+worm see the eagle as it soars aloft?
+
+Of the number of books written in any language about one in 100,000
+forms a part of its real and permanent literature. What a fate this
+one book has to endure before it outstrips those 100,000 and gains its
+due place of honor! Such a book is the work of an extraordinary and
+eminent mind, and therefore it is specifically different from the
+others; a fact which sooner or later becomes manifest.
+
+Let no one fancy that things will ever improve in this respect. No!
+the miserable constitution of humanity never changes, though it may,
+to be sure, take somewhat varying forms with every generation. A
+distinguished mind seldom has its full effect in the life-time of
+its possessor; because, at bottom, it is completely and properly
+understood only by minds already akin to it.
+
+As it is a rare thing for even one man out of many millions to tread
+the path that leads to immortality, he must of necessity be very
+lonely. The journey to posterity lies through a horribly dreary
+region, like the Lybian desert, of which, as is well known, no one has
+any idea who has not seen it for himself. Meanwhile let me before
+all things recommend the traveler to take light baggage with him;
+otherwise he will have to throw away too much on the road. Let him
+never forget the words of Balthazar Gracian: _lo bueno si breve, dos
+vezes bueno_--good work is doubly good if it is short. This advice is
+specially applicable to my own countrymen.
+
+Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect
+are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size
+of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor,
+for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated
+while he lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it
+and wishes him back again.
+
+If the perishable son of time has produced an imperishable work, how
+short his own life seems compared with that of his child! He is like
+Semela or Maia--a mortal mother who gave birth to an immortal son; or,
+contrarily, he is like Achilles in regard to Thetis. What a contrast
+there is between what is fleeting and what is permanent! The short
+span of a man's life, his necessitous, afflicted, unstable existence,
+will seldom allow of his seeing even the beginning of his immortal
+child's brilliant career; nor will the father himself be taken for
+that which he really is. It may be said, indeed, that a man whose fame
+comes after him is the reverse of a nobleman, who is preceded by it.
+
+However, the only difference that it ultimately makes to a man to
+receive his fame at the hands of contemporaries rather than from
+posterity is that, in the former case, his admirers are separated
+from him by space, and in the latter by time. For even in the case
+of contemporary fame, a man does not, as a rule, see his admirers
+actually before him. Reverence cannot endure close proximity; it
+almost always dwells at some distance from its object; and in the
+presence of the person revered it melts like butter in the sun.
+Accordingly, if a man is celebrated with his contemporaries,
+nine-tenths of those amongst whom he lives will let their esteem be
+guided by his rank and fortune; and the remaining tenth may perhaps
+have a dull consciousness of his high qualities, because they have
+heard about him from remote quarters. There is a fine Latin letter of
+Petrarch's on this incompatibility between reverence and the presence
+of the person, and between fame and life. It comes second in his
+_Epistolae familiares?_[1] and it is addressed to Thomas Messanensis.
+He there observes, amongst other things, that the learned men of his
+age all made it a rule to think little of a man's writings if they had
+even once seen him.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the Venetian edition of 1492.]
+
+Since distance, then, is essential if a famous man is to be recognized
+and revered, it does not matter whether it is distance of space or of
+time. It is true that he may sometimes hear of his fame in the one
+case, but never in the other; but still, genuine and great merit may
+make up for this by confidently anticipating its posthumous fame.
+Nay, he who produces some really great thought is conscious of his
+connection with coming generations at the very moment he conceives it;
+so that he feels the extension of his existence through centuries
+and thus lives _with_ posterity as well as _for_ it. And when, after
+enjoying a great man's work, we are seized with admiration for him,
+and wish him back, so that we might see and speak with him, and have
+him in our possession, this desire of ours is not unrequited; for
+he, too, has had his longing for that posterity which will grant
+the recognition, honor, gratitude and love denied by envious
+contemporaries.
+
+If intellectual works of the highest order are not allowed their due
+until they come before the tribunal of posterity, a contrary fate
+is prepared for certain brilliant errors which proceed from men of
+talent, and appear with an air of being well grounded. These errors
+are defended with so much acumen and learning that they actually
+become famous with their own age, and maintain their position at least
+during their author's lifetime. Of this sort are many false theories
+and wrong criticisms; also poems and works of art, which exhibit some
+false taste or mannerism favored by contemporary prejudice. They gain
+reputation and currency simply because no one is yet forthcoming who
+knows how to refute them or otherwise prove their falsity; and when
+he appears, as he usually does, in the next generation, the glory of
+these works is brought to an end. Posthumous judges, be their decision
+favorable to the appellant or not, form the proper court for quashing
+the verdict of contemporaries. That is why it is so difficult and so
+rare to be victorious alike in both tribunals.
+
+The unfailing tendency of time to correct knowledge and judgment
+should always be kept in view as a means of allaying anxiety, whenever
+any grievous error appears, whether in art, or science, or practical
+life, and gains ground; or when some false and thoroughly perverse
+policy of movement is undertaken and receives applause at the hands of
+men. No one should be angry, or, still less, despondent; but simply
+imagine that the world has already abandoned the error in question,
+and now only requires time and experience to recognize of its own
+accord that which a clear vision detected at the first glance.
+
+When the facts themselves are eloquent of a truth, there is no need to
+rush to its aid with words: for time will give it a thousand tongues.
+How long it may be before they speak, will of course depend upon the
+difficulty of the subject and the plausibility of the error; but come
+they will, and often it would be of no avail to try to anticipate
+them. In the worst cases it will happen with theories as it happens
+with affairs in practical life; where sham and deception, emboldened
+by success, advance to greater and greater lengths, until discovery is
+made almost inevitable. It is just so with theories; through the blind
+confidence of the blockheads who broach them, their absurdity reaches
+such a pitch that at last it is obvious even to the dullest eye. We
+may thus say to such people: _the wilder your statements, the better_.
+
+There is also some comfort to be found in reflecting upon all the
+whims and crotchets which had their day and have now utterly vanished.
+In style, in grammar, in spelling, there are false notions of this
+sort which last only three or four years. But when the errors are on
+a large scale, while we lament the brevity of human life, we shall
+in any case, do well to lag behind our own age when we see it on a
+downward path. For there are two ways of not keeping on a level with
+the times. A man may be below it; or he may be above it.
+
+
+
+
+ON GENIUS.
+
+
+No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf
+that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the
+service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument
+of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage
+to say: No! it is too good for that; my head shall be active only in
+its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied
+spectacle of this world, and then reproduce it in some form, whether
+as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an
+individual. These are the truly noble, the real _noblesse_ of the
+world. The others are serfs and go with the soil--_glebae adscripti_.
+Of course, I am here referring to those who have not only the courage,
+but also the call, and therefore the right, to order the head to quit
+the service of the will; with a result that proves the sacrifice to
+have been worth the making. In the case of those to whom all this can
+only partially apply, the gulf is not so wide; but even though their
+talent be small, so long as it is real, there will always be a sharp
+line of demarcation between them and the millions.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The correct scale for adjusting the hierarchy of
+intelligences is furnished by the degree in which the mind takes
+merely individual or approaches universal views of things. The brute
+recognizes only the individual as such: its comprehension does not
+extend beyond the limits of the individual. But man reduces the
+individual to the general; herein lies the exercise of his reason; and
+the higher his intelligence reaches, the nearer do his general ideas
+approach the point at which they become universal.]
+
+The works of fine art, poetry and philosophy produced by a nation are
+the outcome of the superfluous intellect existing in it.
+
+For him who can understand aright--_cum grano salis_--the relation
+between the genius and the normal man may, perhaps, be best expressed
+as follows: A genius has a double intellect, one for himself and the
+service of his will; the other for the world, of which he becomes the
+mirror, in virtue of his purely objective attitude towards it. The
+work of art or poetry or philosophy produced by the genius is
+simply the result, or quintessence, of this contemplative attitude,
+elaborated according to certain technical rules.
+
+The normal man, on the other hand, has only a single intellect, which
+may be called _subjective_ by contrast with the _objective_ intellect
+of genius. However acute this subjective intellect may be--and it
+exists in very various degrees of perfection--it is never on the same
+level with the double intellect of genius; just as the open chest
+notes of the human voice, however high, are essentially different from
+the falsetto notes. These, like the two upper octaves of the flute
+and the harmonics of the violin, are produced by the column of air
+dividing itself into two vibrating halves, with a node between them;
+while the open chest notes of the human voice and the lower octave of
+the flute are produced by the undivided column of air vibrating as
+a whole. This illustration may help the reader to understand that
+specific peculiarity of genius which is unmistakably stamped on the
+works, and even on the physiognomy, of him who is gifted with it. At
+the same time it is obvious that a double intellect like this must, as
+a rule, obstruct the service of the will; and this explains the poor
+capacity often shown by genius in the conduct of life. And what
+specially characterizes genius is that it has none of that sobriety of
+temper which is always to be found in the ordinary simple intellect,
+be it acute or dull.
+
+The brain may be likened to a parasite which is nourished as a part of
+the human frame without contributing directly to its inner economy;
+it is securely housed in the topmost story, and there leads a
+self-sufficient and independent life. In the same way it may be said
+that a man endowed with great mental gifts leads, apart from the
+individual life common to all, a second life, purely of the intellect.
+He devotes himself to the constant increase, rectification and
+extension, not of mere learning, but of real systematic knowledge
+and insight; and remains untouched by the fate that overtakes him
+personally, so long as it does not disturb him in his work. It is thus
+a life which raises a man and sets him above fate and its changes.
+Always thinking, learning, experimenting, practicing his knowledge,
+the man soon comes to look upon this second life as the chief mode
+of existence, and his merely personal life as something subordinate,
+serving only to advance ends higher than itself.
+
+An example of this independent, separate existence is furnished by
+Goethe. During the war in the Champagne, and amid all the bustle of
+the camp, he made observations for his theory of color; and as soon as
+the numberless calamities of that war allowed of his retiring for a
+short time to the fortress of Luxembourg, he took up the manuscript of
+his _Farbenlehre_. This is an example which we, the salt of the earth,
+should endeavor to follow, by never letting anything disturb us in the
+pursuit of our intellectual life, however much the storm of the world
+may invade and agitate our personal environment; always remembering
+that we are the sons, not of the bondwoman, but of the free. As our
+emblem and coat of arms, I propose a tree mightily shaken by the wind,
+but still bearing its ruddy fruit on every branch; with the motto _Dum
+convellor mitescunt_, or _Conquassata sed ferax._
+
+That purely intellectual life of the individual has its counterpart in
+humanity as a whole. For there, too, the real life is the life of the
+_will_, both in the empirical and in the transcendental meaning of the
+word. The purely intellectual life of humanity lies in its effort to
+increase knowledge by means of the sciences, and its desire to perfect
+the arts. Both science and art thus advance slowly from one generation
+to another, and grow with the centuries, every race as it hurries by
+furnishing its contribution. This intellectual life, like some gift
+from heaven, hovers over the stir and movement of the world; or it
+is, as it were, a sweet-scented air developed out of the ferment
+itself--the real life of mankind, dominated by will; and side by side
+with the history of nations, the history of philosophy, science and
+art takes its innocent and bloodless way.
+
+The difference between the genius and the ordinary man is, no doubt, a
+_quantitative_ one, in so far as it is a difference of degree; but I
+am tempted to regard it also as _qualitative_, in view of the fact
+that ordinary minds, notwithstanding individual variation, have a
+certain tendency to think alike. Thus on similar occasions their
+thoughts at once all take a similar direction, and run on the same
+lines; and this explains why their judgments constantly agree--not,
+however, because they are based on truth. To such lengths does this go
+that certain fundamental views obtain amongst mankind at all times,
+and are always being repeated and brought forward anew, whilst the
+great minds of all ages are in open or secret opposition to them.
+
+A genius is a man in whose mind the world is presented as an object
+is presented in a mirror, but with a degree more of clearness and a
+greater distinction of outline than is attained by ordinary people.
+It is from him that humanity may look for most instruction; for the
+deepest insight into the most important matters is to be acquired, not
+by an observant attention to detail, but by a close study of things as
+a whole. And if his mind reaches maturity, the instruction he gives
+will be conveyed now in one form, now in another. Thus genius may be
+defined as an eminently clear consciousness of things in general, and
+therefore, also of that which is opposed to them, namely, one's own
+self.
+
+The world looks up to a man thus endowed, and expects to learn
+something about life and its real nature. But several highly favorable
+circumstances must combine to produce genius, and this is a very rare
+event. It happens only now and then, let us say once in a century,
+that a man is born whose intellect so perceptibly surpasses the
+normal measure as to amount to that second faculty which seems to be
+accidental, as it is out of all relation to the will. He may remain
+a long time without being recognized or appreciated, stupidity
+preventing the one and envy the other. But should this once come to
+pass, mankind will crowd round him and his works, in the hope that he
+may be able to enlighten some of the darkness of their existence or
+inform them about it. His message is, to some extent, a revelation,
+and he himself a higher being, even though he may be but little above
+the ordinary standard.
+
+Like the ordinary man, the genius is what he is chiefly for himself.
+This is essential to his nature: a fact which can neither be avoided
+nor altered, he may be for others remains a matter of chance and of
+secondary importance. In no case can people receive from his mind
+more than a reflection, and then only when he joins with them in the
+attempt to get his thought into their heads; where, however, it is
+never anything but an exotic plant, stunted and frail.
+
+In order to have original, uncommon, and perhaps even immortal
+thoughts, it is enough to estrange oneself so fully from the world of
+things for a few moments, that the most ordinary objects and events
+appear quite new and unfamiliar. In this way their true nature is
+disclosed. What is here demanded cannot, perhaps, be said to be
+difficult; it is not in our power at all, but is just the province of
+genius.
+
+By itself, genius can produce original thoughts just as little as a
+woman by herself can bear children. Outward circumstances must come to
+fructify genius, and be, as it were, a father to its progeny.
+
+The mind of genius is among other minds what the carbuncle is among
+precious stones: it sends forth light of its own, while the others
+reflect only that which they have received. The relation of the
+genius to the ordinary mind may also be described as that of
+an idio-electrical body to one which merely is a conductor of
+electricity.
+
+The mere man of learning, who spends his life in teaching what he
+has learned, is not strictly to be called a man of genius; just as
+idio-electrical bodies are not conductors. Nay, genius stands to mere
+learning as the words to the music in a song. A man of learning is a
+man who has learned a great deal; a man of genius, one from whom we
+learn something which the genius has learned from nobody. Great minds,
+of which there is scarcely one in a hundred millions, are thus the
+lighthouses of humanity; and without them mankind would lose itself in
+the boundless sea of monstrous error and bewilderment.
+
+And so the simple man of learning, in the strict sense of the
+word--the ordinary professor, for instance--looks upon the genius much
+as we look upon a hare, which is good to eat after it has been killed
+and dressed up. So long as it is alive, it is only good to shoot at.
+
+He who wishes to experience gratitude from his contemporaries, must
+adjust his pace to theirs. But great things are never produced in
+this way. And he who wants to do great things must direct his gaze
+to posterity, and in firm confidence elaborate his work for coming
+generations. No doubt, the result may be that he will remain quite
+unknown to his contemporaries, and comparable to a man who, compelled
+to spend his life upon a lonely island, with great effort sets up a
+monument there, to transmit to future sea-farers the knowledge of his
+existence. If he thinks it a hard fate, let him console himself with
+the reflection that the ordinary man who lives for practical aims
+only, often suffers a like fate, without having any compensation to
+hope for; inasmuch as he may, under favorable conditions, spend a life
+of material production, earning, buying, building, fertilizing,
+laying out, founding, establishing, beautifying with daily effort
+and unflagging zeal, and all the time think that he is working for
+himself; and yet in the end it is his descendants who reap the benefit
+of it all, and sometimes not even his descendants. It is the same with
+the man of genius; he, too, hopes for his reward and for honor at
+least; and at last finds that he has worked for posterity alone. Both,
+to be sure, have inherited a great deal from their ancestors.
+
+The compensation I have mentioned as the privilege of genius lies, not
+in what it is to others, but in what it is to itself. What man has in
+any real sense lived more than he whose moments of thought make their
+echoes heard through the tumult of centuries? Perhaps, after all, it
+would be the best thing for a genius to attain undisturbed possession
+of himself, by spending his life in enjoying the pleasure of his own
+thoughts, his own works, and by admitting the world only as the heir
+of his ample existence. Then the world would find the mark of his
+existence only after his death, as it finds that of the Ichnolith.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--For an illustration of this feeling
+in poetry, Schopenhauer refers the reader to Byron's _Prophecy of
+Dante_: introd. to C. 4.]
+
+It is not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius
+surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple
+and agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even
+with comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for
+which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises
+it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not
+only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also
+betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others
+can also perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man
+of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could
+never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will
+show his greatness; but as knowledge and thought form a mode of
+activity natural and easy to him, he will also delight himself in them
+at all times, and so apprehend small matters which are within the
+range of other minds, more easily, quickly and correctly than they.
+Thus he will take a direct and lively pleasure in every increase of
+Knowledge, every problem solved, every witty thought, whether of his
+own or another's; and so his mind will have no further aim than to be
+constantly active. This will be an inexhaustible spring of delight;
+and boredom, that spectre which haunts the ordinary man, can never
+come near him.
+
+Then, too, the masterpieces of past and contemporary men of genius
+exist in their fullness for him alone. If a great product of genius
+is recommended to the ordinary, simple mind, it will take as much
+pleasure in it as the victim of gout receives in being invited to a
+ball. The one goes for the sake of formality, and the other reads the
+book so as not to be in arrear. For La Bruyere was quite right when he
+said: _All the wit in the world is lost upon him who has none_. The
+whole range of thought of a man of talent, or of a genius, compared
+with the thoughts of the common man, is, even when directed to objects
+essentially the same, like a brilliant oil-painting, full of life,
+compared with a mere outline or a weak sketch in water-color.
+
+All this is part of the reward of genius, and compensates him for a
+lonely existence in a world with which he has nothing in common and
+no sympathies. But since size is relative, it comes to the same thing
+whether I say, Caius was a great man, or Caius has to live amongst
+wretchedly small people: for Brobdingnack and Lilliput vary only
+in the point from which they start. However great, then, however
+admirable or instructive, a long posterity may think the author
+of immortal works, during his lifetime he will appear to his
+contemporaries small, wretched, and insipid in proportion. This is
+what I mean by saying that as there are three hundred degrees from the
+base of a tower to the summit, so there are exactly three hundred
+from the summit to the base. Great minds thus owe little ones some
+indulgence; for it is only in virtue of these little minds that they
+themselves are great.
+
+Let us, then, not be surprised if we find men of genius generally
+unsociable and repellent. It is not their want of sociability that is
+to blame. Their path through the world is like that of a man who goes
+for a walk on a bright summer morning. He gazes with delight on the
+beauty and freshness of nature, but he has to rely wholly on that for
+entertainment; for he can find no society but the peasants as they
+bend over the earth and cultivate the soil. It is often the case that
+a great mind prefers soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in this
+world. If he condescends to it now and then, the hollowness of it may
+possibly drive him back to his soliloquy; for in forgetfulness of his
+interlocutor, or caring little whether he understands or not, he talks
+to him as a child talks to a doll.
+
+Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world;
+but, unluckily, it is a _contradictio in adjecto_. It would compel a
+genius to give the thoughts and opinions, nay, even the method and
+style, of the million preference over his own; to set a higher value
+upon them; and, wide apart as they are, to bring his views into
+harmony with theirs, or even suppress them altogether, so as to let
+the others hold the field. In that case, however, he would either
+produce nothing at all, or else his achievements would be just upon a
+level with theirs. Great, genuine and extraordinary work can be done
+only in so far as its author disregards the method, the thoughts, the
+opinions of his contemporaries, and quietly works on, in spite of
+their criticism, on his side despising what they praise. No one
+becomes great without arrogance of this sort. Should his life and work
+fall upon a time which cannot recognize and appreciate him, he is at
+any rate true to himself; like some noble traveler forced to pass the
+night in a miserable inn; when morning comes, he contentedly goes his
+way.
+
+A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it
+only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor
+with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his
+vocation without having to think about other people.
+
+For the brain to be a mere laborer in the service of the belly, is
+indeed the common lot of almost all those who do not live on the work
+of their hands; and they are far from being discontented with
+their lot. But it strikes despair into a man of great mind, whose
+brain-power goes beyond the measure necessary for the service of
+the will; and he prefers, if need be, to live in the narrowest
+circumstances, so long as they afford him the free use of his time for
+the development and application of his faculties; in other words, if
+they give him the leisure which is invaluable to him.
+
+It is otherwise with ordinary people: for them leisure has no value in
+itself, nor is it, indeed, without its dangers, as these people
+seem to know. The technical work of our time, which is done to an
+unprecedented perfection, has, by increasing and multiplying objects
+of luxury, given the favorites of fortune a choice between more
+leisure and culture upon the one side, and additional luxury and good
+living, but with increased activity, upon the other; and, true to
+their character, they choose the latter, and prefer champagne to
+freedom. And they are consistent in their choice; for, to them, every
+exertion of the mind which does not serve the aims of the will is
+folly. Intellectual effort for its own sake, they call eccentricity.
+Therefore, persistence in the aims of the will and the belly will be
+concentricity; and, to be sure, the will is the centre, the kernel of
+the world.
+
+But in general it is very seldom that any such alternative is
+presented. For as with money, most men have no superfluity, but only
+just enough for their needs, so with intelligence; they possess just
+what will suffice for the service of the will, that is, for the
+carrying on of their business. Having made their fortune, they are
+content to gape or to indulge in sensual pleasures or childish
+amusements, cards or dice; or they will talk in the dullest way, or
+dress up and make obeisance to one another. And how few are those who
+have even a little superfluity of intellectual power! Like the others
+they too make themselves a pleasure; but it is a pleasure of the
+intellect. Either they will pursue some liberal study which brings
+them in nothing, or they will practice some art; and in general, they
+will be capable of taking an objective interest in things, so that
+it will be possible to converse with them. But with the others it is
+better not to enter into any relations at all; for, except when they
+tell the results of their own experience or give an account of their
+special vocation, or at any rate impart what they have learned from
+some one else, their conversation will not be worth listening to; and
+if anything is said to them, they will rarely grasp or understand it
+aright, and it will in most cases be opposed to their own opinions.
+Balthazar Gracian describes them very strikingly as men who are not
+men--_hombres che non lo son_. And Giordano Bruno _says_ the same
+thing: _What a difference there is in having to do with men compared
+with those who are only made in their image and likeness_![1] And how
+wonderfully this passage agrees with that remark in the Kurral: _The
+common people look like men but I have never seen anything quite like
+them_. If the reader will consider the extent to which these ideas
+agree in thought and even in expression, and in the wide difference
+between them in point of date and nationality, he cannot doubt but
+that they are at one with the facts of life. It was certainly not
+under the influence of those passages that, about twenty years ago, I
+tried to get a snuff-box made, the lid of which should have two fine
+chestnuts represented upon it, if possible in mosaic; together with a
+leaf which was to show that they were horse-chestnuts. This symbol was
+meant to keep the thought constantly before my mind. If anyone wishes
+for entertainment, such as will prevent him feeling solitary even when
+he is alone, let me recommend the company of dogs, whose moral and
+intellectual qualities may almost afford delight and gratification.
+
+[Footnote 1: Opera: ed. Wagner, 1. 224.]
+
+Still, we should always be careful to avoid being unjust. I am often
+surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my
+dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind. Countless times,
+in indignation at their incapacity, their total lack of discernment,
+their bestiality, I have been forced to echo the old complaint that
+folly is the mother and the nurse of the human race:
+
+  _Humani generis mater nutrixque profecto
+  Stultitia est_.
+
+But at other times I have been astounded that from such a race there
+could have gone forth so many arts and sciences, abounding in so much
+use and beauty, even though it has always been the few that produce
+them. Yet these arts and sciences have struck root, established and
+perfected themselves: and the race has with persistent fidelity
+preserved Homer, Plato, Horace and others for thousands of years, by
+copying and treasuring their writings, thus saving them from oblivion,
+in spite of all the evils and atrocities that have happened in the
+world. Thus the race has proved that it appreciates the value of these
+things, and at the same time it can form a correct view of special
+achievements or estimate signs of judgment and intelligence. When this
+takes place amongst those who belong to the great multitude, it is by
+a kind of inspiration. Sometimes a correct opinion will be formed by
+the multitude itself; but this is only when the chorus of praise
+has grown full and complete. It is then like the sound of untrained
+voices; where there are enough of them, it is always harmonious.
+
+Those who emerge from the multitude, those who are called men of
+genius, are merely the _lucida intervalla_ of the whole human race.
+They achieve that which others could not possibly achieve. Their
+originality is so great that not only is their divergence from others
+obvious, but their individuality is expressed with such force, that
+all the men of genius who have ever existed show, every one of them,
+peculiarities of character and mind; so that the gift of his works is
+one which he alone of all men could ever have presented to the world.
+This is what makes that simile of Ariosto's so true and so justly
+celebrated: _Natura lo fece e poi ruppe lo stampo._ After Nature
+stamps a man of genius, she breaks the die.
+
+But there is always a limit to human capacity; and no one can be a
+great genius without having some decidedly weak side, it may even be,
+some intellectual narrowness. In other words, there will foe some
+faculty in which he is now and then inferior to men of moderate
+endowments. It will be a faculty which, if strong, might have been an
+obstacle to the exercise of the qualities in which he excels. What
+this weak point is, it will always be hard to define with any accuracy
+even in a given case. It may be better expressed indirectly; thus
+Plato's weak point is exactly that in which Aristotle is strong, and
+_vice versa_; and so, too, Kant is deficient just where Goethe is
+great.
+
+Now, mankind is fond of venerating something; but its veneration is
+generally directed to the wrong object, and it remains so directed
+until posterity comes to set it right. But the educated public is
+no sooner set right in this, than the honor which is due to genius
+degenerates; just as the honor which the faithful pay to their saints
+easily passes into a frivolous worship of relics. Thousands of
+Christians adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are
+unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more
+in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel
+that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the
+Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and
+faithful practice of his high teaching. Petrarch's house in Arqua;
+Tasso's supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare's house in Stratford,
+with his chair; Goethe's house in Weimar, with its furniture; Kant's
+old hat; the autographs of great men; these things are gaped at with
+interest and awe by many who have never read their works. They cannot
+do anything more than just gape.
+
+The intelligent amongst them are moved by the wish to see the objects
+which the great man habitually had before his eyes; and by a strange
+illusion, these produce the mistaken notion that with the objects they
+are bringing back the man himself, or that something of him must
+cling to them. Akin to such people are those who earnestly strive to
+acquaint themselves with the subject-matter of a poet's works, or to
+unravel the personal circumstances and events in his life which have
+suggested particular passages. This is as though the audience in a
+theatre were to admire a fine scene and then rush upon the stage to
+look at the scaffolding that supports it. There are in our day enough
+instances of these critical investigators, and they prove the truth of
+the saying that mankind is interested, not in the _form_ of a work,
+that is, in its manner of treatment, but in its actual matter. All it
+cares for is the theme. To read a philosopher's biography, instead of
+studying his thoughts, is like neglecting a picture and attending only
+to the style of its frame, debating whether it is carved well or ill,
+and how much it cost to gild it.
+
+This is all very well. However, there is another class of
+persons whose interest is also directed to material and personal
+considerations, but they go much further and carry it to a point where
+it becomes absolutely futile. Because a great man has opened up to
+them the treasures of his inmost being, and, by a supreme effort
+of his faculties, produced works which not only redound to their
+elevation and enlightenment, but will also benefit their posterity to
+the tenth and twentieth generation; because he has presented mankind
+with a matchless gift, these varlets think themselves justified in
+sitting in judgment upon his personal morality, and trying if they
+cannot discover here or there some spot in him which will soothe the
+pain they feel at the sight of so great a mind, compared with the
+overwhelming feeling of their own nothingness.
+
+This is the real source of all those prolix discussions, carried on in
+countless books and reviews, on the moral aspect of Goethe's life, and
+whether he ought not to have married one or other of the girls with
+whom he fell in love in his young days; whether, again, instead of
+honestly devoting himself to the service of his master, he should not
+have been a man of the people, a German patriot, worthy of a seat in
+the _Paulskirche_, and so on. Such crying ingratitude and malicious
+detraction prove that these self-constituted judges are as great
+knaves morally as they are intellectually, which is saying a great
+deal.
+
+A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring
+that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to
+name. Wealth is seldom its reward. Nor is it reputation or glory; only
+a Frenchman could mean that. Glory is such an uncertain thing, and,
+if you look at it closely, of so little value. Besides it never
+corresponds to the effort you have made:
+
+  _Responsura tuo nunquam est par fama labori._
+
+Nor, again, is it exactly the pleasure it gives you; for this is
+almost outweighed by the greatness of the effort. It is rather a
+peculiar kind of instinct, which drives the man of genius to give
+permanent form to what he sees and feels, without being conscious of
+any further motive. It works, in the main, by a necessity similar to
+that which makes a tree bear its fruit; and no external condition is
+needed but the ground upon which it is to thrive.
+
+On a closer examination, it seems as though, in the case of a genius,
+the will to live, which is the spirit of the human species, were
+conscious of having, by some rare chance, and for a brief period,
+attained a greater clearness of vision, and were now trying to secure
+it, or at least the outcome of it, for the whole species, to which the
+individual genius in his inmost being belongs; so that the light which
+he sheds about him may pierce the darkness and dullness of ordinary
+human consciousness and there produce some good effect.
+
+Arising in some such way, this instinct drives the genius to carry
+his work to completion, without thinking of reward or applause or
+sympathy; to leave all care for his own personal welfare; to make his
+life one of industrious solitude, and to strain his faculties to
+the utmost. He thus comes to think more about posterity than about
+contemporaries; because, while the latter can only lead him astray,
+posterity forms the majority of the species, and time will gradually
+bring the discerning few who can appreciate him. Meanwhile it is with
+him as with the artist described by Goethe; he has no princely patron
+to prize his talents, no friend to rejoice with him:
+
+  _Ein Fuerst der die Talente schaetzt,
+  Ein Freund, der sich mit mir ergoetzt,
+  Die haben leider mir gefehlt_.
+
+His work is, as it were, a sacred object and the true fruit of his
+life, and his aim in storing it away for a more discerning posterity
+will be to make it the property of mankind. An aim like this far
+surpasses all others, and for it he wears the crown of thorns which
+is one day to bloom into a wreath of laurel. All his powers are
+concentrated in the effort to complete and secure his work; just as
+the insect, in the last stage of its development, uses its whole
+strength on behalf of a brood it will never live to see; it puts its
+eggs in some place of safety, where, as it well knows, the young will
+one day find life and nourishment, and then dies in confidence.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Art of Literature, by Arthur Schopenhauer
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