{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Schopenhauer_as_Educator/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Schopenhauer_as_Educator","id":"wikisource_Schopenhauer_as_Educator","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Schopenhauer_as_Educator","summary":null,"tags":["PD-US","PD-old","Pages_with_translator","Philosophy","Undated_works"],"text":"1\n\nWHEN the traveller, who had seen many countries\nand nations and continents, was asked what common\nattribute he had found everywhere existing among\nmen, he answered, \"They have a tendency to sloth.\"\nMany may think that the fuller truth would have\nbeen, \"They are all timid.\" They hide themselves\nbehind \"manners\" and \"opinions.\" At bottom\nevery man knows well enough that he is a unique\nbeing, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary\nchance will such a marvellously picturesque\npiece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put\ntogether a second time. He knows this, but hides\nit like an evil conscience;\u2014and why? From fear\nof his neighbour, who looks for the latest\nconventionalities in him, and is wrapped up in them\nhimself. But what is it that forces the man to\nfear his neighbour, to think and act with his herd,\nand not seek his own joy? Shyness perhaps, in\na few rare cases, but in the majority it is idleness,\nthe \"taking things easily,\" in a word the \"tendency\nto sloth,\" of which the traveller spoke. He was\nright; men are more slothful than timid, and their\ngreatest fear is of the burdens that an\nuncompromising honesty and nakedness of speech and\naction would lay on them. It is only the artists\nwho hate this lazy wandering in borrowed manners\nand ill-fitting opinions, and discover the secret of\nthe evil conscience, the truth that each human\nbeing is a unique marvel. They show us, how in\nevery little movement of his muscles the man is\nan individual self, and further\u2014as an analytical\ndeduction from his individuality\u2014a beautiful and\ninteresting object, a new and incredible phenomenon\n(as is every work of nature), that can never become\ntedious. If the great thinker despise mankind, it\nis for their laziness; they seem mere indifferent\nbits of pottery, not worth any commerce or\nimprovement. The man who will not belong to the\ngeneral mass, has only to stop \"taking himself\neasily\"; to follow his conscience, which cries out\nto him, \"Be thyself! all that thou doest and\nthinkest and desirest, is not thyself!\"\n\nEvery youthful soul hears this cry day and night,\nand quivers to hear it: for she divines the sum\nof happiness that has been from eternity destined\nfor her, if she think of her true deliverance; and\ntowards this happiness she can in no wise be\nhelped, so long as she lies in the chains of Opinion\nand of Fear. And how comfortless and unmeaning\nmay life become without this deliverance! There\nis no more desolate or Ishmaelitish creature in nature\nthan the man who has broken away from his true\ngenius, and does nothing but peer aimlessly about\nhim. There is no reason to attack such a man at\nall, for he is a mere husk without a kernel, a\npainted cloth, tattered and sagging, a scarecrow\nghost, that can rouse no fear, and certainly no pity.\nAnd though one be right in saying of a sluggard\nthat he is \"killing time\" yet in respect of an age\nthat rests its salvation on public opinion,\u2014that is,\non private laziness,\u2014one must be quite determined\nthat such a time shall be \"killed,\" once and for all:\nI mean that it shall be blotted from life's true\nHistory of Liberty. Later generations will be\ngreatly disgusted, when they come to treat the\nmovements of a period in which no living men ruled,\nbut shadow-men on the screen of public opinion;\nand to some far posterity our age may well be\nthe darkest chapter of history, the most unknown\nbecause the least human. I have walked through\nthe new streets of our cities, and thought how of\nall the dreadful houses that these gentlemen with\ntheir public opinion have built for themselves, not\na stone will remain in a hundred years, and that\nthe opinions of these busy masons may well have\nfallen with them. But how full of hope should\nthey all be who feel that they are no citizens of\nthis age! If they were, they would have to help\non the work of \"killing their time,\" and of\nperishing with it,\u2014when they wish rather to quicken the\ntime to life, and in that life themselves to live.\n\nBut even if the future leave us nothing to hope\nfor, the wonderful fact of our existing at this\npresent moment of time gives us the greatest\nencouragement to live after our own rule and measure;\nso inexplicable is it, that we should be living just\nto-day, though there have been an infinity of time\nwherein we might have arisen; that we own\nnothing but a span's length of it, this \"to-day\"\nand must show in it wherefore and whereunto we\nhave arisen. We have to answer for our existence\nto ourselves; and will therefore be our own true\npilots, and not admit that our being resembles a\nblind fortuity. One must take a rather impudent\nand reckless way with the riddle; especially as the\nkey is apt to be lost, however things turn out. Why\ncling to your bit of earth, or your little business,\nor listen to what your neighbour says? It is so\nprovincial to bind oneself to views which are no\nlonger binding a couple of hundred miles away.\nEast and West are signs that somebody chalks up\nin front of us to fool such cowards as we are. \"I\nwill make the attempt to gain freedom,\" says the\nyouthful soul; and will be hindered, just because\ntwo nations happen to hate each other and go to\nwar, or because there is a sea between two parts\nof the earth, or a religion is taught in the vicinity,\nwhich did not exist two thousand years ago. \"And\nthis is not\u2014thyself,\" the soul says. \"No one can\nbuild thee the bridge, over which thou must cross\nthe river of life, save thyself alone. There are paths\nand bridges and demi-gods without number, that\nwill gladly carry thee over, but only at the price\nof thine own self: thy self wouldst thou have to\ngive in pawn, and then lose it. There is in the\nworld one road whereon none may go, except thou:\nask not whither it lead, but go forward. Who was\nit that spake that true word\u2014'A man has never\nrisen higher than when he knoweth not whither his\nroad may yet lead him'?\"\n\nBut how can we \"find ourselves\" again, and how\ncan man \"know himself\"? He is a thing obscure\nand veiled: if the hare have seven skins, man can\ncast from him seventy times seven, and yet will\nnot be able to say \"Here art thou in very truth;\nthis is outer shell no more.\" Also this digging\ninto one's self, this straight, violent descent into the\npit of one's being, is a troublesome and dangerous\nbusiness to start. A man may easily take such\nhurt, that no physician can heal him. And again,\nwhat were the use, since everything bears witness\nto our essence,\u2014our friendships and enmities, our\nlooks and greetings, our memories and forgetfulnesses,\nour books and our writing! This is the\nmost effective way: to let the youthful soul look\nback on life with the question, \"What hast thou\nup to now truly loved, what has drawn thy soul\nupward, mastered it and blessed it too?\" Set up\nthese things that thou hast honoured before thee,\nand, maybe, they will show thee, in their being\nand their order, a law which is the fundamental\nlaw of thine own self. Compare these objects,\nconsider how one completes and broadens and\ntranscends and explains another, how they form\na ladder on which thou hast all the time been\nclimbing to thy self: for thy true being lies not\ndeeply hidden in thee, but an infinite height above\nthee, or at least above that which thou dost\ncommonly take to be thyself. The true educators\nand moulders reveal to thee the real groundwork\nand import of thy being, something that in itself\ncannot be moulded or educated, but is anyhow\ndifficult of approach, bound and crippled: thy\neducators can be nothing but thy deliverers. And\nthat is the secret of all culture: it does not give\nartificial limbs, wax noses, or spectacles for the\neyes\u2014a thing that could buy such gifts is but\nthe base coin of education. But it is rather a\nliberation, a removal of all the weeds and rubbish and\nvermin that attack the delicate shoots, the streaming\nforth of light and warmth, the tender dropping\nof the night rain; it is the following and the\nadoring of Nature when she is pitifully-minded as\na mother;\u2014her completion, when it bends before\nher fierce and ruthless blasts and turns them to\ngood, and draws a veil over all expression of her\ntragic unreason\u2014for she is a step-mother too, sometimes.\n\nThere are other means of \"finding ourselves,\" of\ncoming to ourselves out of the confusion wherein\nwe all wander as in a dreary cloud; but I know\nnone better than to think on our educators. So\nI will to-day take as my theme the hard teacher\nArthur Schopenhauer, and speak of others later.\n\n2\n\nIn order to describe properly what an event my\nfirst look into Schopenhauer's writings was for me, I\nmust dwell for a minute on an idea, that recurred\nmore constantly in my youth, and touched me more\nnearly, than any other. I wandered then as I\npleased in a world of wishes, and thought that\ndestiny would relieve me of the dreadful and\nwearisome duty of educating myself: some\nphilosopher would come at the right moment to do it\nfor me,\u2014some true philosopher, who could be\nobeyed without further question, as he would be\ntrusted more than one's self. Then I said within\nme: \"What would be the principles, on which he\nmight teach thee? \"And I pondered in my mind\nwhat he would say to the two maxims of education\nthat hold the field in our time. The first demands\nthat the teacher should find out at once the strong\npoint in his pupil, and then direct all his skill and\nwill, all the moisture and all the sunshine, to bring\nthe fruit of that single virtue to maturity. The\nsecond requires him to raise to a higher power all\nthe qualities that already exist, cherish them and\nbring them into a harmonious relation. But, we\nmay ask, should one who has a decided talent for\nworking in gold be made for that reason to learn\nmusic? And can we admit that Benvenuto Cellini's\nfather was right in continually forcing\nhim back to the \"dear little horn\"\u2014the \"cursed\npiping,\" as his son called it? We cannot think so\nin the case of such a strong and clearly marked\ntalent as his, and it may well be that this maxim\nof harmonious development applies only to weaker\nnatures, in which there is a whole swarm of desires\nand inclinations, though they may not amount to\nvery much, singly or together. On the other hand,\nwhere do we find such a blending of harmonious\nvoices\u2014nay, the soul of harmony itself\u2014as we\nsee in natures like Cellini's, where\neverything\u2014knowledge, desire, love and hate\u2014tends towards a\nsingle point, the root of all, and a harmonious\nsystem, the resultant of the various forces, is built\nup through the irresistible domination of this vital\ncentre? And so perhaps the two maxims are not\ncontrary at all: the one merely saying that man\nmust have a centre, the other, a circumference as\nwell. The philosophic teacher of my dream would\nnot only discover the central force, but would know\nhow to prevent its being destructive of the other\npowers: his task, I thought, would be the welding\nof the whole man into a solar system with life and\nmovement, and the discovery of its paraphysical\nlaws.\n\nIn the meantime I could not find my philosopher,\nhowever I tried; I saw how badly we moderns\ncompare with the Greeks and Romans, even in the\nserious study of educational problems. You can\ngo through all Germany, and especially all the\nuniversities, with this need in your heart, and will\nnot find what you seek; many humbler wishes\nthan that are still unfulfilled there. For example,\nif a German seriously wish to make himself an\norator, or to enter a \"school for authors,\" he will\nfind neither master nor school: no one yet seems\nto have thought that speaking and writing are arts\nwhich cannot be learnt without the most careful\nmethod and untiring application. But, to their\nshame, nothing shows more clearly the insolent\nself-satisfaction of our people than the lack of\ndemand for educators; it comes partly from\nmeanness, partly from want of thought. Anything will\ndo as a so-called \"family tutor,\" even among our\nmost eminent and cultured people: and what a\nmenagerie of crazy heads and mouldy devices\nmostly go to make up the belauded Gymnasium!\nAnd consider what we are satisfied with in our\nfinishing schools,\u2014our universities. Look at our\nprofessors and their institutions! And compare\nthe difficulty of the task of educating a man to be\na man! Above all, the wonderful way in which\nthe German savants fall to their dish of knowledge,\nshows that they are thinking more of Science than\nmankind; and they are trained to lead a forlorn\nhope in her service, in order to encourage ever\nnew generations to the same sacrifice. If their\ntraffic with knowledge be not limited and controlled\nby any more general principles of education, but\nallowed to run on indefinitely,\u2014\"the more the\nbetter,\"\u2014it is as harmful to learning as the\neconomic theory of laisser faire to common\nmorality. No one recognises now that the\neducation of the professors is an exceedingly difficult\nproblem, if their humanity is not to be sacrificed\nor shrivelled up:\u2014this difficulty can be actually\nseen in countless examples of natures warped and\ntwisted by their reckless and premature devotion to\nscience. There is a still more important testimony\nto the complete absence of higher education,\npointing to a greater and more universal danger.\nIt is clear at once why an orator or writer cannot\nnow be educated,\u2014because there are no teachers;\nand why a savant must be a distorted and perverted\nthing,\u2014because he will have been trained by the\ninhuman abstraction, science. This being so, let a\nman ask himself: \"Where are now the types of\nmoral excellence and fame for all our\ngeneration\u2014learned and unlearned, high and low\u2014the visible\nabstract of constructive ethics for this age? Where\nhas vanished all the reflection on moral questions\nthat has occupied every great developed society at\nall epochs?\" There is no fame for that now, and\nthere are none to reflect: we are really drawing on\nthe inherited moral capital which our predecessors\naccumulated for us, and which we do not know\nhow to increase, but only to squander. Such things\nare either not mentioned in our society, or, if at all,\nwith a naive want of personal experience that\nmakes one disgusted. It comes to this, that our\nschools and professors simply turn aside from any\nmoral instruction or content themselves with\nformulae; virtue is a word and nothing more, on\nboth sides, an old-fashioned word that they laugh\nat\u2014and it is worse when they do not laugh, for\nthen they are hypocrites.\n\nAn explanation of this faint-heartedness and\nebbing of all moral strength would be difficult and\ncomplex: but whoever is considering the influence\nof Christianity in its hour of victory on the\nmorality of the mediaeval world, must not forget\nthat it reacts also in its defeat, which is apparently\nits position to-day. By its lofty ideal, Christianity\nhas outbidden the ancient Systems of Ethics and\ntheir invariable naturalism, with which men came\nto feel a dull disgust: and afterwards when they\ndid reach the knowledge of what was better and\nhigher, they found they had no longer the power,\nfor all their desire, to return to its embodiment in\nthe antique virtues. And so the life of the modern\nman is passed in see-sawing between Christianity\nand Paganism, between a furtive or hypocritical\napproach to Christian morality, and an equally shy\nand spiritless dallying with the antique: and he\ndoes not thrive under it. His inherited fear of\nnaturalism, and its more recent attraction for him,\nhis desire to come to rest somewhere, while in the\nimpotence of his intellect he swings backwards and\nforwards between the \"good\" and the \"better\"\ncourse\u2014all this argues an instability in the modern\nmind that condemns it to be without joy or fruit.\nNever were moral teachers more necessary and never\nwere they more unlikely to be found: physicians\nare most in danger themselves in times when they\nare most needed and many men are sick. For\nwhere are our modern physicians who are strong\nand sure-footed enough to hold up another or lead\nhim by the hand? There lies a certain heavy\ngloom on the best men of our time, an eternal\nloathing for the battle that is fought in their hearts\nbetween honesty and lies, a wavering of trust in\nthemselves, which makes them quite incapable of\nshowing to others the way they must go.\n\nSo I was right in speaking of my \"wandering in\na world of wishes\" when I dreamt of finding a\ntrue philosopher who could lift me from the slough\nof insufficiency, and teach me again simply and\nhonestly\u2014to be in my thoughts and life, in the\ndeepest sense of the word, \"out of season\"; simply\nand honestly for men have now become such\ncomplicated machines that they must be dishonest,\nif they speak at all, or wish to act on their words.\n\nWith such needs and desires within me did I\ncome to know Schopenhauer.\n\nI belong to those readers of Schopenhauer who\nknow perfectly well, after they have turned the\nfirst page, that they will read all the others, and\nlisten to every word that he has spoken. My trust\nin him sprang to life at once, and has been the same\nfor nine years. I understood him as though he\nhad written for me (this is the most intelligible,\nthough a rather foolish and conceited way of\nexpressing it). Hence I never found a paradox\nin him, though occasionally some small errors:\nfor paradoxes are only assertions that carry no\nconviction, because the author has made them\nhimself without any conviction, wishing to appear\nbrilliant, or to mislead, or, above all, to pose.\nSchopenhauer never poses: he writes for himself,\nand no one likes to be deceived\u2014least of all a\nphilosopher who has set this up as his law:\n\"deceive nobody, not even thyself,\" neither with\nthe \"white lies\" of all social intercourse, which\nwriters almost unconsciously imitate, still less\nwith the more conscious deceits of the platform,\nand the artificial methods of rhetoric.\nSchopenhauer's speeches are to himself alone; or if you\nlike to imagine an auditor, let it be a son whom\nthe father is instructing. It is a rough, honest,\ngood-humoured talk to one who \"hears and loves.\"\nSuch writers are rare. His strength and sanity\nsurround us at the first sound of his voice: it is\nlike entering the heights of the forest, where we\nbreathe deep and are well again. We feel a\nbracing air everywhere, a certain candour and\nnaturalness of his own, that belongs to men who\nare at home with themselves, and masters of a\nvery rich home indeed: he is quite different from\nthe writers who are surprised at themselves if they\nhave said something intelligent, and whose\npronouncements for that reason have something\nnervous and unnatural about them. We are just\nas little reminded in Schopenhauer of the\nprofessor with his stiff joints worse for want of\nexercise, his narrow chest and scraggy figure, his\nslinking or strutting gait. And again his rough\nand rather grim soul leads us not so much to\nmiss as to despise the suppleness and courtly\ngrace of the excellent Frenchmen; and no one\nwill find in him the gilded imitations of\npseudo-gallicism that our German writers prize so highly.\nHis style in places reminds me a little of Goethe,\nbut is not otherwise on any German model. For\nhe knows how to be profound with simplicity,\nstriking without rhetoric, and severely logical\nwithout pedantry: and of what German could he\nhave learnt that? He also keeps free from the\nhair-splitting, jerky and (with all respect) rather\nun-German manner of Lessing: no small merit\nin him, for Lessing is the most tempting of all\nmodels for prose style. The highest praise I can\ngive his manner of presentation is to apply his\nown phrase to himself:\u2014\"A philosopher must be\nvery honest to avail himself of no aid from poetry\nor rhetoric.\" That honesty is something, and even\na virtue, is one of those private opinions which are\nforbidden in this age of public opinion; and so I\nshall not be praising Schopenhauer, but only giving\nhim a distinguishing mark, when I repeat that he\nis honest, even as a writer: so few of them are\nthat we are apt to mistrust every one who writes\nat all. I only know a single author that I can\nrank with Schopenhauer, or even above him, in\nthe matter of honesty; and that is Montaigne.\nThe joy of living on this earth is increased by the\nexistence of such a man. The effect on myself,\nat any rate, since my first acquaintance with that\nstrong and masterful spirit, has been, that I can\nsay of him as he of Plutarch\u2014\"As soon as I open\nhim, I seem to grow a pair of wings.\" If I had\nthe task of making myself at home on the earth,\nI would choose him as my companion.\n\nSchopenhauer has a second characteristic in\ncommon with Montaigne, besides honesty; a joy\nthat really makes others joyful. \"Aliis laetus, sibi sapiens.\"\nThere are two very different kinds\nof joyfulness. The true thinker always communicates\njoy and life, whether he is showing his serious\nor comic side, his human insight or his godlike\nforbearance: without surly looks or trembling\nhands or watery eyes, but simply and truly, with\nfearlessness and strength, a little cavalierly perhaps,\nand sternly, but always as a conqueror: and it is\nthis that brings the deepest and intensest joy, to\nsee the conquering god with all the monsters that\nhe has fought. But the joyfulness one finds here\nand there in the mediocre writers and limited\nthinkers makes some of us miserable; I felt this,\nfor example, with the \"joyfulness\" of David Strauss.\nWe are generally ashamed of such a quality in our\ncontemporaries, because they show the nakedness\nof our time, and of the men in it, to posterity.\nSuch fils de joie do not see the sufferings and\nthe monsters, that they pretend, as philosophers,\nto see and fight; and so their joy deceives us, and\nwe hate it; it tempts to the false belief that they\nhave gained some victory. At bottom there is\nonly joy where there is victory: and this applies\nto true philosophy as much as to any work of art.\nThe contents may be forbidding and serious, as\nthe problem of existence always is; the work will\nonly prove tiresome and oppressive, if the slipshod\nthinker and the dilettante have spread the mist of\ntheir insufficiency over it: while nothing happier\nor better can come to man's lot than to be near\none of those conquering spirits whose profound\nthought has made them love what is most vital,\nand whose wisdom has found its goal in beauty.\nThey really speak: they are no stammerers or\nbabblers; they live and move, and have no part\nin the danse macabre of the rest of humanity.\nAnd so in their company one feels a natural man\nagain, and could cry out with Goethe\u2014\"What a\nwondrous and priceless thing is a living creature!\nHow fitted to his surroundings, how true, and real!\"\n\nI have been describing nothing but the first,\nalmost physiological, impression made upon me\nby Schopenhauer, the magical emanation of inner\nforce from one plant of Nature to another, that\nfollows the slightest contact. Analysing it, I find\nthat this influence of Schopenhauer has three\nelements, his honesty, his joy, and his consistency.\nHe is honest, as speaking and writing for himself\nalone; joyful, because his thought has conquered\nthe greatest difficulties; consistent, because he\ncannot help being so. His strength rises like a\nflame in the calm air, straight up, without a\ntremor or deviation. He finds his way, without\nour noticing that he has been seeking it: so surely\nand cleverly and inevitably does he run his course,\nas if by some law of gravitation. If any one have\nfelt what it means to find, in our present world of\nCentaurs and Chimaeras, a single-hearted\nand unaffected child of nature who moves unconstrained\non his own road, he will understand my joy and\nsurprise in discovering Schopenhauer: I knew in\nhim the educator and philosopher I had so long\ndesired. Only, however, in his writings: which\nwas a great loss. All the more did I exert myself\nto see behind the book the living man whose\ntestament it was, and who promised his inheritance\nto such as could, and would, be more than his\nreaders\u2014his pupils and his sons.\n\n3\n\nI get profit from a philosopher, just so far as he\ncan be an example to me. There is no doubt that\na man can draw whole nations after him by his\nexample; as is shown by Indian history, which is\npractically the history of Indian philosophy. But\nthis example must exist in his outward life, not\nmerely in his books\u00a0; it must follow the way of the\nGrecian philosophers, whose doctrine was in their\ndress and bearing and general manner of life rather\nthan in their speech or writing. We have nothing\nyet of this \"breathing testimony\" in German\nphilosophical life; the spirit has, apparently, long\ncompleted its emancipation, while the flesh has hardly\nbegun; yet it is foolish to think that the spirit can\nbe really free and independent when this victory\nover limitation\u2014which is ultimately a formative\nlimiting of one's self\u2014is not embodied anew in\nevery look and movement. Kant held to his\nuniversity, submitted to its regulations, and\nbelonged, as his colleagues and students thought, to\na definite religious faith: and naturally his example\nhas produced, above all, University professors of\nphilosophy. Schopenhauer makes small account\nof the learned tribe, keeps himself exclusive, and\ncultivates an independence from state and society\nas his ideal, to escape the chains of circumstance\nhere\u00a0: that is his value to us. Many steps in the\nenfranchisement of the philosopher are unknown\nin Germany; they cannot always remain so. Our\nartists live more bravely and honourably than our\nphilosophers; and Richard Wagner, the best\nexample of all, shows how genius need not fear a\nfight to the death with the established forms and\nordinances, if we wish to bring the higher truth\nand order, that lives in him, to the light. The\n\"truth,\" however, of which we hear so much from\nour professors, seems to be a far more modest\nbeing, and no kind of disturbance is to be feared\nfrom her; she is an easy-going and pleasant\ncreature, who is continually assuring the powers\nthat be that no one need fear any trouble from\nher quarter: for man is only \"pure reason.\" And\ntherefore I will say, that philosophy in Germany\nhas more and more to learn not to be \"pure\nreason\": and it may well take as its model\n\"Schopenhauer the man.\"\n\nIt is no less than a marvel that he should have\ncome to be this human kind of example: for he\nwas beset, within and without, by the most frightful\ndangers, that would have crushed and broken a\nweaker nature. I think there was a strong\nlikelihood of Schopenhauer the man going under, and\nleaving at best a residue of \"pure reason\": and\nonly \"at best\"\u2014it was more probable that neither\nman nor reason would survive.\n\nA modern Englishman sketches the most usual\ndanger to extraordinary men who live in a society\nthat worships the ordinary, in this manner:\u2014\"Such\nuncommon characters are first cowed, then become\nsick and melancholy, and then die. A Shelley\ncould never have lived in England: a race of\nShelleys would have been impossible.\" Our\nH\u00f6lderlins and Kleists\nwere undone by their unconventionality, and were not strong enough for\nthe climate of the so-called German culture; and\nonly iron natures like Beethoven, Goethe, Schopenhauer\nand Wagner could hold out against it. Even\nin them the effect of this weary toiling and\nmoiling is seen in many lines and wrinkles; their\nbreathing is harder and their voice is forced. The\nold diplomatist who had only just seen and spoken\nto Goethe, said to a friend\u2014\"Voil\u00e0 un homme qui a eu de grands chagrins!\"\nwhich Goethe translated to mean \"That is a man who has taken great pains\nin his life.\" And he adds, \"If the trace of the\nsorrow and activity we have gone through cannot\nbe wiped from our features, it is no wonder that\nall that survives of us and our struggles should\nbear the same impress.\" And this is the Goethe\nto whom our cultured Philistines point as the\nhappiest of Germans, that they may prove their\nthesis, that it must be possible to be happy among\nthem\u2014with the unexpressed corollary that no one\ncan be pardoned for feeling unhappy and lonely\namong them. Hence they push their doctrine, in\npractice, to its merciless conclusion, that there is\nalways a secret guilt in isolation. Poor\nSchopenhauer had this secret guilt too in his heart, the\nguilt of cherishing his philosophy more than his\nfellow-men; and he was so unhappy as to have\nlearnt from Goethe that he must defend his\nphilosophy at all costs from the neglect of his\ncontemporaries, to save its very existence: for there is a\nkind of Grand Inquisitor's Censure in which the\nGermans, according to Goethe, are great adepts:\nit is called\u2014inviolable silence. This much at least\nwas accomplished by it; the greater part of the\nfirst edition of Schopenhauer's masterpiece had to\nbe turned into waste paper. The imminent risk that\nhis great work would be undone, merely by neglect,\nbred in him a state of unrest\u2014perilous and\nuncontrollable;\u2014for no single adherent of any note\npresented himself. It is tragic to watch his search\nfor any evidence of recognition: and his piercing\ncry of triumph at last, that he would now really be\nread (legor et legar), touches us with a thrill of\npain. All the traits in which we do not see the\ngreat philosopher show us the suffering man,\nanxious for his noblest possessions; he was tortured\nby the fear of losing his little property, and perhaps\nof no longer being able to maintain in its purity\nhis truly antique attitude towards philosophy. He\noften chose falsely in his desire to find real trust\nand compassion in men, only to return with a heavy\nheart to his faithful dog again. He was absolutely\nalone, with no single friend of his own kind to\ncomfort him; and between one and none there lies\nan infinity\u2014as ever between something and\nnothing. No one who has true friends knows what\nreal loneliness means, though he may have the\nwhole world in antagonism round him. Ah, I see\nwell ye do not know what isolation is! Whenever\nthere are great societies with governments and\nreligions and public opinions where there is a\ntyranny, in short, there will the lonely philosopher\nbe hated: for philosophy offers an asylum to\nmankind where no tyranny can penetrate, the inner\nsanctuary, the centre of the heart's labyrinth: and\nthe tyrants are galled at it. Here do the lonely\nmen lie hid: but here too lurks their greatest\ndanger. These men who have saved their inner\nfreedom, must also live and be seen in the outer\nworld: they stand in countless human relations by\ntheir birth, position, education and country, their\nown circumstances and the importunity of others:\nand so they are presumed to hold an immense\nnumber of opinions, simply because these happen\nto prevail: every look that is not a denial counts\nas an assent, every motion of the hand that does\nnot destroy is regarded as an aid. These free and\nlonely men know that they perpetually seem other\nthan they are. While they wish for nothing but\ntruth and honesty, they are in a net of\nmisunderstanding; and that ardent desire cannot prevent\na mist of false opinions, of adaptations and wrong\nconclusions, of partial misapprehension and\nintentional reticence, from gathering round their\nactions, And there settles a cloud of melancholy\non their brows\u00a0: for such natures hate the necessity\nof pretence worse than death\u00a0: and the continual\nbitterness gives them a threatening and volcanic\ncharacter. They take revenge from time to time\nfor their forced concealment and self-restraint:\nthey issue from their dens with lowering looks:\ntheir words and deeds are explosive, and may lead\nto their own destruction. Schopenhauer lived\namid dangers of this sort. Such lonely men need\nlove, and friends, to whom they can be as open and\nsincere as to themselves, and in whose presence the\ndeadening silence and hypocrisy may cease. Take\ntheir friends away, and there is left an increasing\nperil; Heinrich von Kleist was broken by the lack\nof love, and the most terrible weapon against\nunusual men is to drive them into themselves;\nand then their issuing forth again is a volcanic\neruption. Yet there are always some demi-gods\nwho can bear life under these fearful conditions\nand can be their conquerors: and if you would hear\ntheir lonely chant, listen to the music of Beethoven.\n\nSo the first danger in whose shadow Schopenhauer\nlived was\u2014isolation. The second is called\u2014doubting\nof the truth. To this every thinker is\nliable who sets out from the philosophy of Kant,\nprovided he be strong and sincere in his sorrows\nand his desires, and not a mere tinkling\nthought-box or calculating machine. We all know the\nshameful state of things implied by this last\nreservation, and I believe it is only a very few men\nthat Kant has so vitally affected as to change the\ncurrent of their blood. To judge from what one\nreads, there must have been a revolution in every\ndomain of thought since the work of this unobtrusive\nprofessor: I cannot believe it myself. For\nI see men, though darkly, as themselves needing\nto be revolutionised, before any \"domains of\nthought\" can be so. In fact, we find the first\nmark of any influence Kant may have had on the\npopular mind, in a corrosive scepticism and\nrelativity. But it is only in noble and active\nspirits who could never rest in doubt that the\nshattering despair of truth itself could take the\nplace of doubt. This was, for example, the effect\nof the Kantian philosophy on Heinrich von Kleist.\n\"It was only a short time ago,\" he writes in his\npoignant way, \"that I became acquainted with the\nKantian philosophy; and I will tell you my\nthought, though I cannot fear that it will rack you\nto your inmost soul, as it did me.\u2014We cannot\ndecide, whether what we call truth is really truth,\nor whether it only seems so to us. If the latter,\nthe truth that we amass here does not exist after\ndeath, and all our struggle to gain a possession\nthat may follow us even to the grave is in vain.\nIf the blade of this thought do not cut your heart,\nyet laugh not at another who feels himself wounded\nby it in his Holy of Holies. My one highest aim\nhas vanished, and I have no more.\" Yes, when\nwill men feel again deeply as Kleist did, and learn\nto measure a philosophy by what it means to the\n\"Holy of Holies\"? And yet we must make this\nestimate of what Schopenhauer can mean to us,\nafter Kant, as the first pioneer to bring us from\nthe heights of sceptical disillusionment or \"critical\"\nrenunciation, to the greater height of tragic\ncontemplation, the nocturnal heaven with its endless\ncrown of stars. His greatness is that he can stand\nopposite the picture of life, and interpret it to us\nas a whole: while all the clever people cannot\nescape the error of thinking one comes nearer to\nthe interpretation by a laborious analysis of the\ncolours and material of the picture\u00a0; with the\nconfession, probably, that the texture of the canvas\nis very complicated, and the chemical composition\nof the colours undiscoverable. Schopenhauer knew\nthat one must guess the painter in order to\nunderstand the picture. But now the whole learned\nfraternity is engaged on understanding the colours\nand canvas, and not the picture: and only he who\nhas kept the universal panorama of life and being\nfirmly before his eyes, will use the individual\nsciences without harm to himself; for, without\nthis general view as a norm, they are threads that\nlead nowhere and only confuse still more the maze\nof our existence. Here we see, as I said, the\ngreatness of Schopenhauer, that he follows up\nevery idea, as Hamlet follows the Ghost, without\nallowing himself to turn aside for a learned\ndigression, or be drawn away by the scholastic\nabstractions of a rabid dialectic. The study of\nthe minute philosophers is only interesting for the\nrecognition that they have reached those stages\nin the great edifice of philosophy where learned\ndisquisitions for and against, where hair-splitting\nobjections and counter-objections are the rule:\nand for that reason they evade the demand of\nevery great philosophy to speak\nsub specie aeternitatis\u2014\"this is the picture of the whole of\nlife: learn thence the meaning of thine own life.\"\nAnd the converse: \"read thine own life, and\nunderstand thence the hieroglyphs of the universal\nlife.\" In this way must Schopenhauer's philosophy\nalways be interpreted\u00a0; as an individualist\nphilosophy, starting from the single man, in his\nown nature, to gain an insight into his personal\nmiseries, and needs, and limitations, and find out\nthe remedies that will console them: namely, the\nsacrifice of the ego, and its submission to the\nnobler ends, especially those of justice and mercy.\nHe teaches us to distinguish between the true and\nthe apparent furtherance of man's happiness: how\nneither the attainment of riches, nor honour, nor\nlearning, can raise the individual from his deep\ndespair at his unworthiness; and how the quest\nfor these good things can only have meaning\nthrough a universal end that transcends and\nexplains them;\u2014the gaining of power to aid our\nphysical nature by them and, as far as may be,\ncorrect its folly and awkwardness. For one's self\nonly, in the first instance: and finally, through\none's self, for all. It is a task that leads to\nscepticism: for there is so much to be made better yet,\nin one and all!\n\nApplying this to Schopenhauer himself, we\ncome to the third and most intimate danger in\nwhich he lived, and which lay deep in the marrow\nof his being. Every one is apt to discover a\nlimitation in himself, in his gifts of intellect as well\nas his moral will, that fills him with yearning and\nmelancholy; and as he strives after holiness\nthrough a consciousness of sin, so, as an intellectual\nbeing, he has a deep longing after the \"genius\"\nin himself. This is the root of all true culture;\nand if we say this means the aspiration of man to\nbe \"born again\" as saint and genius, I know that\none need not be a Buddhist to understand the\nmyth. We feel a strong loathing when we find\ntalent without such aspiration, in the circle of the\nlearned, or among the so-called educated; for we\nsee that such men, with all their cleverness, are no\naid but a hindrance to the beginnings of culture\nand the blossoming of genius, the aim of all\nculture. There is a rigidity in them, parallel to\nthe cold arrogance of conventional virtue, which\nalso remains at the opposite pole to true holiness.\nSchopenhauer's nature contained an extraordinarily\ndangerous dualism. Few thinkers have felt\nas he did the complete and unmistakable certainty\nof genius within them; and his genius made him\nthe highest of all promises,\u2014that there could be no\ndeeper furrow than that which he was ploughing\nin the ground of the modern world. He knew one\nhalf of his being to be fulfilled according to its\nstrength, with no other need; and he followed\nwith greatness and dignity his vocation of\nconsolidating his victory. In the other half there was\na gnawing aspiration, which we can understand,\nwhen we hear that he turned away with a sad look\nfrom the picture of Ranc\u00e9,\nthe founder of the Trappists, with the words: \"That is a matter of\ngrace.\" For genius evermore yearns after holiness\nas it sees further and more clearly from its\nwatch-tower than other men, deep into the reconciliation\nof Thought and Being, the kingdom of peace and\nthe denial of the will, and up to that other shore,\nof which the Indians speak. The wonder is, that\nSchopenhauer's nature should have been so\ninconceivably stable and unshakable that it could\nneither be destroyed nor petrified by this yearning.\nEvery one will understand this after the measure\nof his own character and greatness: none of us will\nunderstand it in the fulness of its meaning.\n\nThe more one considers these three dangers, the\nmore extraordinary will appear his vigour in\nopposing them and his safety after the battle.\nTrue, he gained many scars and open wounds:\nand a cast of mind that may seem somewhat too\nbitter and pugnacious. But his single ideal\ntranscends the highest humanity in him. Schopenhauer\nstands as a pattern to men, in spite of all those\nscars and scratches. We may even say, that what\nwas imperfect and \"all too human\" in him, brings\nus nearer to him as a man, for we see a sufferer\nand a kinsman to suffering, not merely a dweller\non the unattainable heights of genius.\n\nThese three constitutional dangers that\nthreatened Schopenhauer, threaten us all. Each one\nof us bears a creative solitude within himself,\nand his consciousness of it forms an exotic aura of\nstrangeness round him. Most men cannot endure\nit, because they are slothful, as I said, and because\ntheir solitude hangs round them a chain of troubles\nand burdens. No doubt, for the man with this\nheavy chain, life loses almost everything that one\ndesires from it in youth\u2014joy, safety, honour: his\nfellow-men pay him his due of\u2014isolation! The\nwilderness and the cave are about him, wherever\nhe may live. He must look to it that he be not\nenslaved and oppressed, and become melancholy\nthereby. And let him surround himself with the\npictures of good and brave fighters such as\nSchopenhauer.\n\nThe second danger, too, is not rare. Here and\nthere we find one dowered by nature with a keen\nvision\u00a0; his thoughts dance gladly in the witches'\nSabbath of dialectic; and if he uncautiously give\nhis talent the rein, it is easy to lose all humanity\nand live a ghostly life in the realm of \"pure\nreason\": or through the constant search for the\n\"pros and cons\" of things, he may go astray from\nthe truth and live without courage or confidence,\nin doubt, denial and discontent, and the slender\nhope that waits on disillusion: \"No dog could live\nlong thus!\"\n\nThe third danger is a moral or intellectual\nhardening: man breaks the bond that united him\nto his ideal: he ceases to be fruitful and reproduce\nhimself in this or that province, and becomes an\nenemy or a parasite of culture. The solitude of\nhis being has become an indivisible, unrelated\natom, an icy stone. And one can perish of this\nsolitude as well as of the fear of it, of one's self as\nwell as one's self-sacrifice, of both aspiration and\npetrifaction: and to live is ever to be in danger.\n\nBeside these dangers to which Schopenhauer\nwould have been constitutionally liable, in whatever\ncentury he had lived, there were also some produced\nby his own time; and it is essential to distinguish\nbetween these two kinds, in order to grasp the\ntypical and formative elements in his nature. The\nphilosopher casts his eye over existence, and wishes\nto give it a new standard value; for it has been\nthe peculiar task of all great thinkers to be\nlaw-givers for the weight and stamp in the mint of\nreality. And his task will be hindered if the men\nhe sees near him be a weakly and worm-eaten\ngrowth. To be correct in his calculation of\nexistence, the unworthiness of the present time\nmust be a very small item in the addition. The\nstudy of ancient or foreign history is valuable, if\nat all, for a correct judgment on the whole destiny\nof man; which must be drawn not only from an\naverage estimate but from a comparison of the\nhighest destinies that can befall individuals or\nnations. The present is too much with us; it\ndirects the vision even against the philosopher's\nwill: and it will inevitably be reckoned too high\nin the final sum. And so he must put a low figure\non his own time as against others, and suppress\nthe present in his picture of life, as well as in\nhimself; must put it into the background or paint\nit over; a difficult, and almost impossible task.\nThe judgment of the ancient Greek philosophers\non the value of existence means so much more\nthan our own, because they had the full bloom of\nlife itself before them, and their vision was\nuntroubled by any felt dualism between their wish\nfor freedom and beauty on the grand scale, and\ntheir search after truth, with its single question\n\"What is the real worth of life? \"Empedocles lived\nwhen Greek culture was full to overflowing with\nthe joy of life, and all ages may take profit from\nhis words; especially as no other great philosopher\nof that great time ventured to contradict them.\nEmpedocles is only the clearest voice among\nthem\u2014they all say the same thing, if a man will but\nopen his ears. A modern thinker is always in the\nthroes of an unfulfilled desire; he is looking for\nlife,\u2014warm, red life,\u2014that he may pass judgment\non it: at any rate he will think it necessary to be\na living man himself, before he can believe in his\npower of judging. And this is the title of the\nmodern philosophers to sit among the great aiders\nof Life (or rather of the will to live), and the reason\nwhy they can look from their own out-wearied\ntime and aspire to a truer culture, and a clearer\nexplanation. Their yearning is, however, their\ndanger; the reformer in them struggles with the\ncritical philosopher. And whichever way the\nvictory incline, it also implies a defeat. How was\nSchopenhauer to escape this danger\u00a0?\n\nWe like to consider the great man as the noble\nchild of his age, who feels its defects more strongly\nand intimately than the smaller men: and therefore\nthe struggle of the great man against his age is\napparently nothing but a mad fight to the death\nwith himself. Only apparently, however: he only\nfights the elements in his time that hinder his own\ngreatness, in other words his own freedom and\nsincerity. And so, at bottom, he is only an enemy\nto that element which is not truly himself, the\nirreconcilable antagonism of the temporal and\neternal in him. The supposed \"child of his age\"\nproves to be but a step-child. From boyhood\nSchopenhauer strove with his time, a false and\nunworthy mother to him, and as soon as he had\nbanished her, he could bring back his being to its\nnative health and purity. For this very reason we\ncan use his writings as mirrors of his time; it is no\nfault of the mirror if everything contemporary\nappear in it stricken by a ravaging disease, pale\nand thin, with tired looks and hollow eyes,\u2014the\nstep-child's sorrow made visible. The yearning\nfor natural strength, for a healthy and simple\nhumanity, was a yearning for himself: and as soon\nas he had conquered his time within him, he was\nface to face with his own genius. The secret of\nnature's being and his own lay open, the\nstep-mother's plot to conceal his genius from him was\nfoiled. And now he could turn a fearless eye\ntowards the question, \"What is the real worth of\nlife?\" without having any more to weigh a\nbloodless and chaotic age of doubt and hypocrisy. He\nknew that there was something higher and purer\nto be won on this earth than the life of his time,\nand a man does bitter wrong to existence who\nonly knows it and criticises it in this hateful form.\nGenius, itself the highest product of life, is now\nsummoned to justify life, if it can: the noble\ncreative soul must answer the question:\u2014\"Dost\nthou in thy heart say 'Yea!' unto this existence?\nIs it enough for thee? Wilt thou be its advocate\nand its redeemer? One true 'Yea' from thy lips,\nand the sorely accused life shall go free.\" How\nshall he answer? In the words of Empedocles.\n\n4\n\nThe last hint may well remain obscure for a\ntime: I have something more easy to explain,\nnamely how Schopenhauer can help us to educate\nourselves in opposition to our age, since we have\nthe advantage of really knowing our age, through\nhim;\u2014if it be an advantage! It may be no longer\npossible in a couple, of hundred years. I\nsometimes amuse myself with the idea that men may\nsoon grow tired of books and their authors, and\nthe savant of to-morrow come to leave directions\nin his will that his body be burned in the midst of\nhis books, including of course his own writings.\nAnd in the gradual clearing of the forests, might\nnot our libraries be very reasonably used for straw\nand brushwood? Most books are born from the\nsmoke and vapour of the brain: and to vapour and\nsmoke may they well return. For having no fire\nwithin themselves, they shall be visited with fire.\nAnd possibly to a later century our own may count\nas the \"Dark age,\" because our productions heated\nthe furnace hotter and more continuously than\never before. We are anyhow happy that we can\nlearn to know our time; and if there be any sense\nin busying ourselves with our time at all, we may\nas well do it as thoroughly as we can, so that no\none may have any doubt about it. The possibility\nof this we owe to Schopenhauer.\n\nOur happiness would of course be infinitely\ngreater, if our inquiry showed that nothing so\nhopeful and splendid as our present epoch had\never existed. There are simple people in some\ncorner of the earth to-day\u2014perhaps in Germany\u2014who\nare disposed to believe in all seriousness that\nthe world was put right two years ago,\nand that all stern and gloomy views of life are now\ncontradicted by \"facts.\" The foundation of the New\nGerman Empire is, to them, the decisive blow that\nannihilates all the \"pessimistic\" philosophers,\u2014no\ndoubt of it. To judge the philosopher's\nsignificance in our time, as an educator, we must oppose\na widespread view like this, especially common in\nour universities. We must say, it is a shameful\nthing that such abominable flattery of the\nTime-Fetish should be uttered by a herd of so-called\nreflective and honourable men; it is a proof that\nwe no longer see how far the seriousness of\nphilosophy is removed from that of a newspaper.\nSuch men have lost the last remnant of feeling, not\nonly for philosophy, but also for religion, and have\nput in its place a spirit not so much of optimism as\nof journalism, the evil spirit that broods over the\nday\u2014and the daily paper. Every philosophy that\nbelieves the problem of existence to be shelved,\nor even solved, by a political event, is a sham\nphilosophy. There have been innumerable states\nfounded since the beginning of the world; that is\nan old story. How should a political innovation\nmanage once and for all to make a contented race\nof the dwellers on this earth? If any one believe\nin his heart that this is possible, he should report\nhimself to our authorities\u00a0: he really deserves to be\nProfessor of Philosophy in a German university,\nlike Harms in Berlin, J\u00fcrgen Meyer in Bonn, and\nCarriere in Munich.\n\nWe are feeling the consequences of the doctrine,\npreached lately from all the housetops, that the\nstate is the highest end of man and there is no\nhigher duty than to serve it: I regard this not a\nrelapse into paganism, but into stupidity. A man\nwho thinks state-service to be his highest duty,\nvery possibly knows no higher one; yet there are\nboth men and duties in a region beyond,\u2014and one\nof these duties, that seems to me at least of higher\nvalue than state-service, is to destroy stupidity in\nall its forms\u2014and this particular stupidity among\nthem. And I have to do with a class of men\nwhose teleological conceptions extend further than\nthe well-being of a state, I mean with philosophers\u2014and\nonly with them in their relation to the world\nof culture, which is again almost independent of the\n\"good of the state.\" Of the many links that make\nup the twisted chain of humanity, some are of gold\nand others of pewter.\n\nHow does the philosopher of our time regard\nculture? Quite differently, I assure you, from the\nprofessors who are so content with their new state.\nHe seems to see the symptoms of an absolute\nuprooting of culture in the increasing rush and\nhurry of life, and the decay of all reflection and\nsimplicity. The waters of religion are ebbing, and\nleaving swamps or stagnant pools\u00a0: the nations are\ndrawing away in enmity again, and long to tear\neach other in pieces. The sciences, blindly driving\nalong, on a laisser faire system, without a\ncommon standard, are splitting up, and losing hold\nof every firm principle. The educated classes are\nbeing swept along in the contemptible struggle for\nwealth. Never was the world more worldly, never\npoorer in goodness and love. Men of learning are\nno longer beacons or sanctuaries in the midst of\nthis turmoil of worldliness; they themselves are\ndaily becoming more restless, thoughtless, loveless.\nEverything bows before the coming barbarism, art\nand science included. The educated men have\ndegenerated into the greatest foes of education, for\nthey will deny the universal sickness and hinder\nthe physician. They become peevish, these poor\nnerveless creatures, if one speak of their weakness\nand combat the shameful spirit of lies in them.\nThey would gladly make one believe that they\nhave outstripped all the centuries, and they walk\nwith a pretence of happiness which has something\npathetic about it, because their happiness is so\ninconceivable. One would not even ask them, as\nTannh\u00e4user did Biterolf, \"What hast thou, poor\nwretch, enjoyed!\" For, alas! we know far better\nourselves, in another way. There is a wintry sky\nover us, and we dwell on a high mountain, in\ndanger and in need. Short-lived is all our joy,\nand the sun's rays strike palely on our white\nmountains. Music is heard; an old man grinds\nan organ, and the dancers whirl round, and the\nheart of the wanderer is shaken within him to see\nit: everything is so disordered, so drab, so\nhopeless. Even now there is a sound of joy, of clear\nthoughtless joy! but soon the mist of evening\ncloses round, the note dies away, and the wanderer's\nfootsteps are heard on the gravel; as far as his\neye can reach there is nothing but the grim and\ndesolate face of nature.\n\nIt may be one-sided, to insist only on the blurred\nlines and the dull colours in the picture of modern\nlife: yet the other side is no more encouraging,\nit is only more disturbing. There is certainly\nstrength there, enormous strength; but it is wild,\nprimitive and merciless. One looks on with a\nchill expectancy, as though into the caldron of a\nwitch's kitchen; every moment there may arise\nsparks and vapour, to herald some fearful\napparition. For a century we have been ready for a\nworld-shaking convulsion; and though we have\nlately been trying to set the conservative strength\nof the so-called national state against the great\nmodern tendency to volcanic destructiveness, it\nwill only be, for a long time yet, an aggravation\nof the universal unrest that hangs over us. We\nneed not be deceived by individuals behaving as if\nthey knew nothing of all this anxiety: their own\nrestlessness shows how well they know it. They\nthink more exclusively of themselves than men\never thought before; they plant and build for their\nlittle day, and the chase for happiness is never\ngreater than when the quarry must be caught\nto-day or to-morrow: the next day perhaps there is\nno more hunting. We live in the Atomic Age, or\nrather in the Atomic Chaos. The opposing forces\nwere practically held together in mediaeval times\nby the Church, and in some measure assimilated\nby the strong pressure which she exerted. When\nthe common tie broke and the pressure relaxed,\nthey rose once more against each other. The\nReformation taught that many things were\n\"adiaphora\"\u2014departments that needed no guidance\nfrom religion: this was the price paid for its\nown existence. Christianity paid a similar one to\nguard itself against the far more religious antiquity:\nand laid the seeds of discord at once. Everything\nnowadays is directed by the fools and the knaves,\nthe selfishness of the money-makers and the brute\nforces of militarism. The state in their hands\nmakes a good show of reorganising everything,\nand of becoming the bond that unites the warring\nelements; in other words, it wishes for the same\nidolatry from mankind as they showed to the\nChurch.\n\nAnd we shall yet feel the consequences. We\nare even now on the ice-floes in the stream of the\nMiddle Ages\u00a0: they are thawing fast, and their\nmovement is ominous\u00a0: the banks are flooded, and\ngiving way. The revolution, the atomistic\nrevolution, is inevitable: but what are those smallest\nindivisible elements of human society?\n\nThere is surely far more danger to mankind in\ntransitional periods like these than in the actual\ntime of revolution and chaos; they are tortured\nby waiting, and snatch greedily at every moment;\nand this breeds all kinds of cowardice and\nselfishness in them: whereas the true feeling of a great\nand universal need ever inspires men, and makes\nthem better. In the midst of such dangers, who\nwill provide the guardians and champions for\nHumanity, for the holy and inviolate treasure that\nhas been laid up in the temples, little by little, by\ncountless generations? Who will set up again\nthe Image of Man, when men in their selfishness\nand terror see nothing but the trail of the serpent\nor the cur in them, and have fallen from their high\nestate to that of the brute or the automaton?\n\nThere are three Images of Man fashioned by our\nmodern time, which for a long while yet will urge\nmortal men to transfigure their own lives; they\nare the men of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schopenhauer.\nThe first has the greatest fire, and is most\ncalculated to impress the people: the second is\nonly for the few, for those contemplative natures\n\"in the grand style\" who are misunderstood by\nthe crowd. The third demands the highest activity\nin those who will follow it: only such men will\nlook on that image without harm, for it breaks\nthe spirit of that merely contemplative man, and\nthe rabble shudder at it. From the first has come\nforth a strength that led and still leads to fearful\nrevolution: for in all socialistic upheavals it is ever\nRousseau's man who is the Typhoeus under the\nEtna. Oppressed and half crushed to death by\nthe pride of caste and the pitilessness of wealth,\nspoilt by priests and bad education, a laughing-stock\neven to himself, man cries in his need on\n\"holy mother Nature,\" and feels suddenly that she\nis as far from him as any god of the Epicureans.\nHis prayers do not reach her; so deeply sunk is\nhe in the Chaos of the unnatural. He contemptuously\nthrows aside all the finery that seemed his\ntruest humanity a little while ago\u2014all his arts\nand sciences, all the refinements of his life,\u2014he\nbeats with his fists against the walls, in whose\nshadow he has degenerated, and goes forth to seek\nthe light and the sun, the forest and the crag.\nAnd crying out, \"Nature alone is good, the natural\nman alone is human,\" he despises himself and\naspires beyond himself: a state wherein the soul\nis ready for a fearful resolve, but calls the noble\nand the rare as well from their utter depths.\n\nGoethe's man is no such threatening force; in\na certain sense he is a corrective and a sedative to\nthose dangerous agitations of which Rousseau's\nman is a prey. Goethe himself in his youth\nfollowed the \"gospel of kindly Nature\" with all\nthe ardour of his soul: his Faust was the highest\nand boldest picture of Rousseau's man, so far at\nany rate as his hunger for life, his discontent and\nyearning, his intercourse with the demons of the\nheart could be represented. But what comes from\nthese congregated storm-clouds? Not a single\nlightning flash! And here begins the new Image\nof man the man according to Goethe. One\nmight have thought that Faust would have lived\na continual life of suffering, as a revolutionary and\na deliverer, as the negative force that proceeds\nfrom goodness, as the genius of ruin, alike religious\nand daemonic, in opposition to his utterly\nun-daemonic companion\u00a0; though of course he could\nnot be free of this companion, and had at once to\nuse and despise his evil and destructive scepticism\u2014which\nis the tragic destiny of all revolutionary\ndeliverers. One is wrong, however, to expect\nanything of the sort: Goethe's man here parts\ncompany with Rousseau's; for he hates all violence,\nall sudden transition that is, all action: and the\nuniversal deliverer becomes merely the universal\ntraveller. All the riches of life and nature, all\nantiquity\u2014arts, mythologies and sciences\u2014pass\nbefore his eager eyes, his deepest desires are\naroused and satisfied, Helen herself can hold him\nno more and the moment must come for which\nhis mocking companion is waiting. At a fair spot\non the earth, his flight comes to an end: his pinions\ndrop, and Mephistopheles is at his side. When\nthe German ceases to be Faust, there is no danger\ngreater than of becoming a Philistine and falling\ninto the hands of the devil\u2014heavenly powers alone\ncan save him. Goethe's man is, as I said, the\ncontemplative man in the grand style, who is only\nkept from dying of ennui by feeding on all the\ngreat and memorable things that have ever existed,\nand by living from desire to desire. He is not the\nactive man; and when he does take a place among\nactive men, as things are, you may be sure that no\ngood will come of it (think, for example, of the zeal\nwith which Goethe wrote for the stage!); and\nfurther, you may be sure that \"things as they are\"\nwill suffer no change. Goethe's man is a\nconciliatory and conservative spirit, though in danger\nof degenerating into a Philistine, just as Rousseau's\nman may easily become a Catiline. All his virtues\nwould be the better by the addition of a little brute\nforce and elemental passion. Goethe appears to\nhave seen where the weakness and danger of his\ncreation lay, as is clear from Jarno's word to\nWilhelm Meister: \"You are bitter and ill-tempered\u2014which\nis quite an excellent thing: if you could\nonce become really angry, it would be still better.\"\nTo speak plainly, it is necessary to become really\nangry in order that things may be better. The\npicture of Schopenhauer's man can help us here.\nSchopenhauer's man voluntarily takes upon himself the pain of telling the truth:\nthis pain serves to quench his individual will and make him ready for\nthe complete transformation of his being, which it\nis the inner meaning of life to realise. This openness\nin him appears to other men to be an effect\nof malice, for they think the preservation of their\nshifts and pretences to be the first duty of humanity,\nand any one who destroys their playthings to be\nmerely malicious. They are tempted to cry out to\nsuch a man, in Faust's words to Mephistopheles:\u2014\n\n\"So to the active and eternal\nCreative force, in cold disdain\nYou now oppose the fist infernal\"\u2014\nand he who would live according to Schopenhauer\nwould seem to be more like a Mephistopheles than\na Faust\u2014that is, to our weak modern eyes, which\nalways discover signs of malice in any negation.\nBut there is a kind of denial and destruction that\nis the effect of that strong aspiration after holiness\nand deliverance, which Schopenhauer was the first\nphilosopher to teach our profane and worldly\ngeneration. Everything that can be denied, deserves to\nbe denied; and real sincerity means the belief in\na state of things which cannot be denied, or in\nwhich there is no lie. The sincere man feels that\nhis activity has a metaphysical meaning. It can\nonly be explained by the laws of a different and\na higher life; it is in the deepest sense an\naffirmation: even if everything that he does seem utterly\nopposed to the laws of our present life. It must\nlead therefore to constant suffering; but he knows,\nas Meister Eckhard did, that \"the quickest beast\nthat will carry you to perfection is suffering.\"\nEvery one, I should think, who has such an ideal\nbefore him, must feel a wider sympathy; and he\nwill have a burning desire to become a\n\"Schopenhauer man\";\u2014pure and wonderfully patient, on\nhis intellectual side full of a devouring fire, and\nfar removed from the cold and contemptuous\n\"neutrality\" of the so-called scientific man; so\nhigh above any warped and morose outlook on\nlife as to offer himself as the first victim of the\ntruth he has won, with a deep consciousness of the\nsufferings that must spring from his sincerity.\nHis courage will destroy his happiness on earth,\nhe must be an enemy to the men he loves and\nthe institutions in which he grew up, he must spare\nneither person nor thing, however it may hurt him,\nhe will be misunderstood and thought an ally of\nforces that he abhors, in his search for righteousness\nhe will seem unrighteous by human standards:\nbut he must comfort himself with the words that\nhis teacher Schopenhauer once used: \"A happy\nlife is impossible, the highest thing that man can\naspire to is a heroic life; such as a man lives, who\nis always fighting against unequal odds for the\ngood of others; and wins in the end without any\nthanks. After the battle is over, he stands like\nthe Prince in the re corvo of Gozzi, with dignity\nand nobility in his eyes, but turned to stone. His\nmemory remains, and will be reverenced as a\nhero's; his will, that has been mortified all his life\nby toiling and struggling, by evil payment and\ningratitude, is absorbed into Nirvana.\" Such a\nheroic life, with its full \"mortification\"\u2014corresponds\nvery little to the paltry ideas of the people\nwho talk most about it, and make festivals in\nmemory of great men, in the belief that a great\nman is great in the sense that they are small,\neither through exercise of his gifts to please himself\nor by a blind mechanical obedience to this inner\nforce\u00a0; so that the man who does not possess the\ngift or feel the compulsion has the same right to\nbe small as the other to be great. But \"gift\" and\n\"compulsion\" are contemptible words, mere means\nof escape from an inner voice, a slander on him\nwho has listened to the voice\u2014the great man; he\nleast of all will allow himself to be given or\ncompelled to anything: for he knows as well as any\nsmaller man how easily life can be taken and how\nsoft the bed whereon he might lie if he went the\npleasant and conventional way with himself and\nhis fellow-creatures: all the regulations of mankind\nare turned to the end that the intense feeling of\nlife may be lost in continual distractions. Now\nwhy will he so strongly choose the opposite, and\ntry to feel life, which is the same as to suffer from\nlife? Because he sees that men will tempt him to\nbetray himself, and that there is a kind of agreement\nto draw him from his den. He will prick\nup his ears and gather himself together, and say,\n\"I will remain mine own.\" He gradually comes\nto understand what a fearful decision it is. For\nhe must go down into the depths of being, with a\nstring of curious questions on his lips\u2014\"Why am\nI alive? what lesson have I to learn from life?\nhow have I become what I am, and why do I\nsuffer in this existence?\" He is troubled, and\nsees that no one is troubled in the same way; but\nrather that the hands of his fellow-men are\npassionately stretched out towards the fantastic drama of\nthe political theatre, or they themselves are\ntreading the boards under many disguises, youths, men\nand graybeards, fathers, citizens, priests, merchants\nand officials,\u2014busy with the comedy they are all\nplaying, and never thinking of their own selves.\nTo the question \"To what end dost thou live?\"\nthey would all immediately answer, with pride,\n\"To become a good citizen or professor or\nstatesman,\"\u2014and yet they are something which can\nnever be changed: and why are they just\u2014this?\nAh, and why nothing better? The man who only\nregards his life as a moment in the evolution of a\nrace or a state or a science, and will belong merely\nto a history of \"becoming,\" has not understood\nthe lesson of existence, and must learn it over\nagain. This eternal \"becoming something\" is a\nlying puppet-show, in which man has forgot himself;\nit is the force that scatters individuality to\nthe four winds, the eternal childish game that the\nbig baby time is playing in front of us\u2014and with\nus. The heroism of sincerity lies in ceasing to be\nthe plaything of time. Everything in the process\nof \"becoming\" is a hollow sham, contemptible and\nshallow: man can only find the solution of his\nriddle in \"being\" something definite and\nunchangeable. He begins to test how deep both \"becoming\"\nand \"being\" are rooted in him\u2014and a fearful task\nis before his soul; to destroy the first, and bring\nall the falsity of things to the light. He wishes to\nknow everything, not to feed a delicate taste, like\nGoethe's man, to take delight, from a safe place,\nin the multiplicity of existence: but he himself is\nthe first sacrifice that he brings. The heroic man\ndoes not think of his happiness or misery, his\nvirtues or his vices, or of his being the measure of\nthings; he has no further hopes of himself and\nwill accept the utter consequences of his\nhopelessness. His strength lies in his self-forgetfulness:\nif he have a thought for himself, it is only to\nmeasure the vast distance between himself and his\naim, and to view what he has left behind him as\nso much dross. The old philosophers sought for\nhappiness and truth, with all their strength: and\nthere is an evil principle in nature that not one\nshall find that which he cannot help seeking. But\nthe man who looks for a lie in everything, and\nbecomes a willing friend to unhappiness, shall have\na marvellous disillusioning: there hovers near him\nsomething unutterable, of which truth and happiness\nare but idolatrous images born of the night; the\nearth loses her dragging weight, the events and\npowers of earth become as a dream, and a gradual\nclearness widens round him like a summer evening.\nIt is as though the beholder of these things began\nto wake, and it had only been the clouds of a\npassing dream that had been weaving about him.\nThey will at some time disappear: and then will\nit be day.\n\n5\n\nBut I have promised to speak of Schopenhauer,\nas far as my experience goes, as an educator and\nit is far from being sufficient to paint the ideal\nhumanity which is the \"Platonic idea\" in\nSchopenhauer; especially as my representation is an\nimperfect one. The most difficult task remains; to\nsay how a new circle of duties may spring from\nthis ideal, and how one can reconcile such a\ntranscendent aim with ordinary action; to prove, in\nshort, that the ideal is educative. One might otherwise\nthink it to be merely the blissful or intoxicating\nvision of a few rare moments, that leaves us\nafterwards the prey of a deeper disappointment. It is\ncertain that the ideal begins to affect us in this\nway when we come suddenly to distinguish light\nand darkness, bliss and abhorrence; this is an\nexperience that is as old as ideals themselves. But\nwe ought not to stand in the doorway for long; we\nshould soon leave the first stages, and ask the\nquestion, seriously and definitely, \"Is it possible to\nbring that incredibly high aim so near us, that it\nshould educate us, or 'lead us out' as well as lead\nus upward?\"\u2014in order that the great words of\nGoethe be not fulfilled in our case\u2014\"Man is born\nto a state of limitation: he can understand ends\nthat are simple, present and definite, and is\naccustomed to make use of means that are near to\nhis hand; but as soon as he comes into the open,\nhe knows neither what he wishes nor what he ought\nto do, and it is all one whether he be confused by\nthe multitude of objects or set beside himself by\ntheir greatness and importance. It is always his\nmisfortune to be led to strive after something which\nhe cannot attain by any ordinary activity of his\nown.\" The objection can be made with apparent\nreason against Schopenhauer's man, that his\ngreatness and dignity can only turn our heads, and put\nus beyond all community with the active men of\nthe world: the common round of duties, the\nnoiseless tenor of life has disappeared. One man may\npossibly get accustomed to living in a reluctant\ndualism, that is, in a contradiction with\nhimself;\u2014becoming unstable, daily weaker and less\nproductive:\u2014while another will renounce all action\non principle, and scarcely endure to see others\nactive. The danger is always great when a man\nis too heavy-laden, and cannot really accomplish\nany duties. Stronger natures may be broken by\nit; the weaker, which are the majority, sink into\na speculative laziness, and at last, from their\nlaziness, lose even the power of speculation.\n\nWith regard to such objections, I will admit that\nour work has hardly begun, and so far as I know,\nI only see one thing clearly and definitely\u2014that it\nis possible for that ideal picture to provide you and\nme with a chain of duties that may be accomplished;\nand some of us already feel its pressure.\nIn order, however, to be able to speak in plain\nlanguage of the formula under which I may gather\nthe new circle of duties, I must begin with the\nfollowing considerations.\n\nThe deeper minds of all ages have had pity for\nanimals, because they suffer from life and have\nnot the power to turn the sting of the suffering\nagainst themselves, and understand their being\nmetaphysically. The sight of blind suffering is\nthe spring of the deepest emotion. And in many\nquarters of the earth men have supposed that the\nsouls of the guilty have entered into beasts, and\nthat the blind suffering which at first sight calls\nfor such pity has a clear meaning and purpose to\nthe divine justice,\u2014of punishment and atonement:\nand a heavy punishment it is, to be condemned to\nlive in hunger and need, in the shape of a beast,\nand to reach no consciousness of one's self in this\nlife. I can think of no harder lot than the wild\nbeast's; he is driven to the forest by the fierce\npang of hunger, that seldom leaves him at peace;\nand peace is itself a torment, the surfeit after horrid\nfood, won, maybe, by a deadly fight with other\nanimals. To cling to life, blindly and madly, with\nno other aim, to be ignorant of the reason, or even\nthe fact, of one's punishment, nay, to thirst after\nit as if it were a pleasure, with all the perverted\ndesire of a fool\u2014this is what it means to be an\nanimal. If universal nature leads up to man, it is\nto show us that he is necessary to redeem her from\nthe curse of the beast's life, and that in him\nexistence can find a mirror of itself wherein life appears,\nno longer blind, but in its real metaphysical\nsignificance. But we should consider where the beast\nends and the man begins\u2014the man, the one concern\nof Nature. As long as any one desires life as a\npleasure in itself, he has not raised his eyes above\nthe horizon of the beast; he only desires more\nconsciously what the beast seeks by a blind impulse.\nIt is so with us all, for the greater part of our lives.\nWe do not shake off the beast, but are beasts\nourselves, suffering we know not what.\n\nBut there are moments when we do know; and\nthen the clouds break, and we see how, with the\nrest of nature, we are straining towards the man,\nas to something that stands high above us. We\nlook round and behind us, and fear the sudden\nrush of light; the beasts are transfigured, and\nourselves with them. The enormous migrations of\nmankind in the wildernesses of the world, the cities\nthey found and the wars they wage, their ceaseless\ngatherings and dispersions and fusions, the doctrines\nthey blindly follow, their mutual frauds and deceits,\nthe cry of distress, the shriek of victory\u2014are all a\ncontinuation of the beast in us: as if the education\nof man has been intentionally set back, and his\npromise of self-consciousness frustrated; as if, in\nfact, after yearning for man so long, and at last\nreaching him by her labour, Nature should now\nrecoil from him and wish to return to a state\nof unconscious instinct. Ah! she has need of\nknowledge, and shrinks before the very knowledge\nshe needs: the flame flickers unsteadily and fears\nits own brightness, and takes hold of a thousand\nthings before the one thing for which knowledge\nis necessary. There are moments when we all\nknow that our most elaborate arrangements are\nonly designed to give us refuge from our real\ntask in life; we wish to hide our heads somewhere,\nas if our Argus-eyed conscience could not find us\nout; we are quick to send our hearts on\nstate-service, or money-making, or social duties, or\nscientific work, in order to possess them no longer\nourselves; we are more willing and instinctive\nslaves of the hard day's work than mere living\nrequires, because it seems to us more necessary not\nto be in a position to think. The hurry is universal,\nbecause every one is fleeing before himself;\nits concealment is just as universal, as we wish to seem\ncontented and hide our wretchedness from the\nkeener eyes; and so there is a common need for\na new carillon of words to hang in the temple of\nlife, and peal for its noisy festival. We all know\nthe curious way in which unpleasant memories\nsuddenly throng on us, and how we do our best\nby loud talk and violent gestures to put them out\nof our minds; but the gestures and the talk of our\nordinary life make one think we are all in this\ncondition, frightened of any memory or any inward\ngaze. What is it that is always troubling us? what\nis the gnat that will not let us sleep\u00a0? There are\nspirits all about us, each moment of life has\nsomething to say to us, but we will not listen to the\nspirit-voices. When we are quiet and alone, we\nfear that something will be whispered in our ears,\nand so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in\nsociety.\n\nWe understand this sometimes, as I say, and\nstand amazed at the whirl and the rush and the\nanxiety and all the dream that we call our life; we\nseem to fear the awakening, and our dreams too\nbecome vivid and restless, as the awakening draws\nnear. But we feel as well that we are too weak to\nendure long those intimate moments, and that we\nare not the men to whom universal nature looks as\nher redeemers. It is something to be able to raise\nour heads but for a moment and see the stream in\nwhich we are sunk so deep. We cannot gain even\nthis transitory moment of awakening by our own\nstrength; we must be lifted up\u2014and who are they\nthat will uplift us?\n\nThe sincere men who have cast out the beast,\nthe philosophers, artists and saints.\nNature\u2014qu\u00e6 nunquam facit saltum\u2014has made her one\nleap in creating them; a leap of joy, as she feels\nherself for the first time at her goal, where she\nbegins to see that she must learn not to have goals\nabove her, and that she has played the game of\ntransition too long. The knowledge transfigures\nher, and there rests on her face the gentle weariness\nof evening that men call \"beauty.\" Her words\nafter this transfiguration are as a great light shed\nover existence: and the highest wish that mortals\ncan reach is to listen continually to her voice with\nears that hear. If a man think of all that\nSchopenhauer, for example, must have heard in his life,\nhe may well say to himself\u2014\"The deaf ears, the\nfeeble understanding and shrunken heart,\neverything that I call mine, how I despise them! Not\nto be able to fly but only to flutter one's wings!\nTo look above one's self and have no power to\nrise! To know the road that leads to the wide\nvision of the philosopher, and to reel back after\na few steps! Were there but one day when the\ngreat wish might be fulfilled, how gladly would\nwe pay for it with the rest of life! To rise as high\nas any thinker yet into the pure icy air of the\nmountain, where there are no mists and veils, and\nthe inner constitution of things is shown in a\nstark and piercing clarity! Even by thinking of\nthis the soul becomes infinitely alone; but were\nits wish fulfilled, did its glance once fall straight as\na ray of light on the things below, were shame and\nanxiety and desire gone for ever\u2014one could find\nno words for its state then, for the mystic and\ntranquil emotion with which, like the soul of\nSchopenhauer, it would look down on the\nmonstrous hieroglyphics of existence and the\npetrified doctrines of \"becoming\"; not as the\nbrooding night, but as the red and glowing day\nthat streams over the earth. And what a destiny\nit is only to know enough of the fixity and\nhappiness of the philosopher to feel the complete\nunfixity and unhappiness of the false philosopher,\n'who without hope lives in desire': to know one's\nself to be the fruit of a tree that is too much in the\nshade ever to ripen, and to see a world of sunshine\nin front, where one may not go!\"\n\nThere were sorrow enough here, if ever, to make\nsuch a man envious and spiteful: but he will turn\naside, that he may not destroy his soul by a vain\naspiration; and will discover a new circle of duties.\n\nI can now give an answer to the question whether\nit be possible to approach the great ideal of\nSchopenhauer's man \"by any ordinary activity of our own.\"\nIn the first place, the new duties are certainly not\nthose of a hermit; they imply rather a vast community,\nheld together not by external forms but\nby a fundamental idea, namely that of culture;\nthough only so far as it can put a single task\nbefore each of us\u2014to bring the philosopher, the\nartist and the saint, within and without us, to the\nlight, and to strive thereby for the completion of\nNature. For Nature needs the artist, as she needs\nthe philosopher, for a metaphysical end, the\nexplanation of herself, whereby she may have a\nclear and sharp picture of what she only saw\ndimly in the troubled period of transition,\u2014and\nso may reach self-consciousness. Goethe, in an\narrogant yet profound phrase, showed how all\nNature's attempts only have value in so far as the\nartist interprets her stammering words, meets her\nhalf-way, and speaks aloud what she really means.\n\"I have often said, and will often repeat,\" he\nexclaims in one place, \"the causa finalis of natural\nand human activity is dramatic poetry. Otherwise the stuff is of no use at all.\"\n\nFinally, Nature needs the saint. In him the\nego has melted away, and the suffering of his life\nis, practically, no longer felt as individual, but as\nthe spring of the deepest sympathy and intimacy\nwith all living creatures: he sees the wonderful\ntransformation scene that the comedy of \"becoming\"\nnever reaches, the attainment, at length, of\nthe high state of man after which all nature is\nstriving, that she may be delivered from herself.\nWithout doubt, we all stand in close relation to\nhim, as well as to the philosopher and the artist:\nthere are moments, sparks from the clear fire of\nlove, in whose light we understand the word \"I\"\nno longer; there is something beyond our being\nthat comes, for those moments, to the hither side\nof it: and this is why we long in our hearts for a\nbridge from here to there. In our ordinary state\nwe can do nothing towards the production of the\nnew redeemer, and so we hate ourselves in this\nstate with a hatred that is the root of the pessimism\nwhich Schopenhauer had to teach again to our age,\nthough it is as old as the aspiration after\nculture.\u2014Its root, not its flower; the foundation, not the\nsummit; the beginning of the road, not the end:\nfor we have to learn at some time to hate something\nelse, more universal than our own personality\nwith its wretched limitation, its change and its\nunrest\u2014and this will be when we shall learn to love\nsomething else than we can love now. When we\nare ourselves received into that high order of\nphilosophers, artists and saints, in this life or a\nreincarnation of it, a new object for our love and hate will\nalso rise before us. As it is, we have our task and\nour circle of duties, our hates and our loves. For\nwe know that culture requires us to make ready\nfor the coming of the Schopenhauer man;\u2014and\nthis is the \"use\" we are to make of him;\u2014we must\nknow what obstacles there are and strike them\nfrom our path\u2014in fact, wage unceasing war against\neverything that hindered our fulfilment, and prevented\nus from becoming Schopenhauer's men ourselves.\n\n6\n\nIt is sometimes harder to agree to a thing than\nto understand it; many will feel this when they\nconsider the proposition\u2014\"Mankind must toil\nunceasingly to bring forth individual great men:\nthis and nothing else is its task.\" One would like\nto apply to society and its ends a fact that holds\nuniversally in the animal and vegetable world;\nwhere progress depends only on the higher\nindividual types, which are rarer, yet more\npersistent, complex and productive. But traditional\nnotions of what the end of society is, absolutely\nbar the way. We can easily understand how in\nthe natural world, where one species passes at\nsome point into a higher one, the aim of their\nevolution cannot be held to lie in the high level\nattained by the mass, or in the latest types\ndeveloped;\u2014but rather in what seem accidental\nbeings produced here and there by favourable\ncircumstances. It should be just as easy to\nunderstand that it is the duty of mankind to\nprovide the circumstances favourable to the birth\nof the new redeemer, simply because men can\nhave a consciousness of their object. But there\nis always something to prevent them. They find\ntheir ultimate aim in the happiness of all, or the\ngreatest number, or in the expansion of a great\ncommonwealth. A man will very readily decide\nto sacrifice his life for the state; he will be much\nslower to respond if an individual, and not a state,\nask for the sacrifice. It seems to be out of reason\nthat one man should exist for the sake of another\u00a0:\n\"Let it be rather for the sake of every other, or,\nat any rate, of as many as possible!\" O upright\njudge! As if it were more in reason to let the\nmajority decide a question of value and\nsignificance! For the problem is\u2014\"In what way may\nyour life, the individual life, retain the highest\nvalue and the deepest significance? and how may\nit least be squandered? \"Only by your living for\nthe good of the rarest and most valuable types,\nnot for that of the majority,\u2014who are the most\nworthless types, taken as individuals. This way\nof thinking should be implanted and fostered in\nevery young man's mind: he should regard himself\nboth as a failure of Nature's handiwork and a\ntestimony to her larger ideas. \"She has succeeded\nbadly,\" he should say; \"but I will do honour to\nher great idea by being a means to its better success.\"\n\nWith these thoughts he will enter the circle\nof culture, which is the child of every man's\nself-knowledge and dissatisfaction. He will approach\nand say aloud: \"I see something above me, higher\nand more human than I: let all help me to reach\nit, as I will help all who know and suffer as I do,\nthat the man may arise at last who feels his\nknowledge and love, vision and power, to be\ncomplete and boundless, who in his universality\nis one with nature, the critic and judge of existence.\"\nIt is difficult to give any one this courageous\nself-consciousness, because it is impossible to teach\nlove; from love alone the soul gains, not only the\nclear vision that leads to self-contempt, but also\nthe desire to look to a higher self which is yet\nhidden, and strive upward to it with all its strength.\nAnd so he who rests his hope on a future great\nman, receives his first \"initiation into culture.\"\nThe sign of this is shame or vexation at one's self,\na hatred of one's own narrowness, a sympathy with\nthe genius that ever raises its head again from our\nmisty wastes, a feeling for all that is struggling\ninto life, the conviction that Nature must be helped\nin her hour of need to press forward to the man,\nhowever ill she seem to prosper, whatever success\nmay attend her marvellous forms and projects\u00a0:\nso that the men with whom we live are like the\ndebris of some precious sculptures, which cry\nout\u2014\"Come and help us! Put us together, for we long\nto become complete.\"\n\nI called this inward condition the \"first\ninitiation into culture.\" I have now to describe the\neffects of the \"second initiation,\" a task of greater\ndifficulty. It is the passage from the inner life to\nthe criticism of the outer life. The eye must be\nturned to find in the great world of movement the\ndesire for culture that is known from the immediate\nexperience of the individual; who must use his\nown strivings and aspirations as the alphabet to\ninterpret those of humanity. He cannot rest here\neither, but must go higher. Culture demands from\nhim not only that inner experience, not only the\ncriticism of the outer world surrounding him, but\naction too to crown them all, the fight for culture\nagainst the influences and conventions and institutions\nwhere he cannot find his own aim,\u2014the production of genius.\n\nAny one who can reach the second step, will\nsee how extremely rare and imperceptible the\nknowledge of that end is, though all men busy\nthemselves with culture and expend vast labour\nin her service. He asks himself in amazement\u2014\"Is\nnot such knowledge, after all, absolutely\nnecessary? Can Nature be said to attain her\nend, if men have a false idea of the aim of their\nown labour?\" And any one who thinks a great\ndeal of Nature's unconscious adaptation of means\nto ends, will probably answer at once: \"Yes, men\nmay think and speak what they like about their\nultimate end, their blind instinct will tell them the\nright road.\" It requires some experience of life\nto be able to contradict this: but let a man be\nconvinced of the real aim of culture\u2014the\nproduction of the true man and nothing else; let\nhim consider that amid all the pageantry and\nostentation of culture at the present time the\nconditions for his production are nothing but a\ncontinual \"battle of the beasts\": and he will see\nthat there is great need for a conscious will to take\nthe place of that blind instinct. There is another\nreason also;\u2014to prevent the possibility of turning\nthis obscure impulse to quite different ends, in a\ndirection where our highest aim can no longer be\nattained. For we must beware of a certain kind\nof misapplied and parasitical culture; the powers\nat present most active in its propagation have\nother casts of thought that prevent their relation\nto culture from being pure and disinterested.\n\nThe first of these is the self-interest of the\nbusiness men. This needs the help of culture,\nand helps her in return, though at the price of\nprescribing her ends and limits. And their favourite\nsorites is: \"We must have as much knowledge\nand education as possible; this implies as great\na need as possible for it, this again as much\nproduction, this again as much material wealth and\nhappiness as possible.\"\u2014This is the seductive\nformula. Its preachers would define education as\nthe insight that makes man through and through\na \"child of his age\" in his desires and their\nsatisfaction, and gives him command over the\nbest means of making money. Its aim would\nbe to make \"current\" men, in the same sense as\none speaks of the \"currency\" in money\u00a0; and in\ntheir view, the more \"current\" men there are,\nthe happier the people. The object of modern\neducational systems is therefore to make each\nman as \"current\" as his nature will allow him,\nand to give him the opportunity for the greatest\namount of success and happiness that can be got\nfrom his particular stock of knowledge. He is\nrequired to have just so much idea of his own\nvalue (through his liberal education) as to know\nwhat he can ask of life; and he is assured that\na natural and necessary connection between\n\"intelligence and property\" not only exists, but\nis also a moral necessity. All education is\ndetested that makes for loneliness, and has an aim\nabove money-making, and requires a long time:\nmen look askance on such serious education, as\nmere \"refined egoism\" or \"immoral Epicureanism.\"\nThe converse of course holds, according\nto the ordinary morality, that education must be\nsoon over to allow the pursuit of money to be\nsoon begun, and should be just thorough enough\nto allow of much money being made. The amount of\neducation is determined by commercial interests. In\nshort, \"man has a necessary claim to worldly happiness;\nonly for that reason is education necessary.\"\n\nThere is, secondly, the self-interest of the state,\nwhich requires the greatest possible breadth and\nuniversality of culture, and has the most effective\nweapons to carry out its wishes. If it be firmly\nenough established not only to initiate but control\neducation and bear its whole weight, such breadth\nwill merely profit the competition of the state with\nother states. A \"highly civilised state \"generally\nimplies, at the present time, the task of setting\nfree the spiritual forces of a generation just so far as\nthey may be of use to the existing institutions,\u2014as\na mountain stream is split up by embankments\nand channels, and its diminished power made to\ndrive mill-wheels, its full strength being more\ndangerous than useful to the mills. And thus\n\"setting free\" comes to mean rather \"chaining\nup.\" Compare, for example, what the self-interest\nof the state has done for Christianity. Christianity\nis one of the purest manifestations of the impulse\ntowards culture and the production of the saint:\nbut being used in countless ways to turn the mills\nof the state authorities, it gradually became sick\nat heart, hypocritical and degenerate, and in\nantagonism with its original aim. Its last phase,\nthe German Reformation, would have been nothing\nbut a sudden flickering of its dying flame, had it\nnot taken new strength and light from the clash\nand conflagration of states.\n\nIn the third place, culture will be favoured by\nall those people who know their own character to\nbe offensive or tiresome, and wish to draw a veil\nof so-called \"good form\" over them. Words,\ngestures, dress, etiquette, and such external things,\nare meant to produce a false impression, the inner\nside to be judged from the outer. I sometimes\nthink that modern men are eternally bored with\neach other and look to the arts to make them\ninteresting. They let their artists make savoury\nand inviting dishes of them; they steep themselves\nin the spices of the East and West, and have a\nvery interesting aroma after it all. They are ready\nto suit all palates: and every one will be served,\nwhether he want something with a good or bad\ntaste, something sublime or coarse, Greek or\nChinese, tragedy or gutter-drama. The most\ncelebrated chefs among the moderns who wish to\ninterest and be interested at any price, are the\nFrench the worst are the Germans. This is\nreally more comforting for the latter, and we have\nno reason to mind the French despising us for our\nwant of interest, elegance and politeness, and being\nreminded of the Indian who longs for a ring\nthrough his nose, and then proceeds to tattoo himself.\n\nHere I must digress a little. Many things in\nGermany have evidently been altered since the\nlate war with France, and new requirements for\nGerman culture brought over. The war was for\nmany their first venture into the more elegant half\nof the world: and what an admirable simplicity\nthe conqueror shows in not scorning to learn\nsomething of culture from the conquered! The applied\narts especially will be reformed to emulate our more\nrefined neighbours, the German house furnished\nlike the French, a \"sound taste\" applied to the\nGerman language by means of an Academy on the\nFrench model, to shake off the doubtful influence\nof Goethe\u2014this is the judgment of our new Berlin\nAcademician, Dubois-Raymond. Our\ntheatres have been gradually moving, in a dignified way,\ntowards the same goal, even the elegant German\nsavant is now discovered\u2014and we must now\nexpect everything that does not conform to this\nlaw of elegance, our music, tragedy and philosophy\nto be thrust aside as un-German. But there were\nno need to raise a ringer for German culture, did\nGerman culture (which the Germans have yet to\nfind) mean nothing but the little amenities that\nmake life more decorative\u2014including the arts of\nthe dancing-master and the upholsterer;\u2014or were\nthey merely interested in academic rules of\nlanguage and a general atmosphere of politeness.\nThe late war and the self-comparison with the\nFrench do not seem to have aroused any further\ndesires, and I suspect that the German has a strong\nwish for the moment to be free of the old obligations\nlaid on him by his wonderful gifts of seriousness\nand profundity. He would much rather play\nthe buffoon and the monkey, and learn the arts\nthat make life amusing. But the German spirit\ncannot be more dishonoured than by being treated\nas wax for any elegant mould.\n\nAnd if, unfortunately, a good many Germans will\nallow themselves to be thus moulded, one must\ncontinually say to them, till at last they listen:\u2014\"The\nold German way is no longer yours: it was\nhard, rough, and full of resistance; but it is still\nthe most valuable material\u2014one which only the\ngreatest modellers can work with, for they alone\nare worthy to use it, What you have in you now\nis a soft pulpy stuff: make what you will out of\nit,\u2014elegant dolls and interesting idols\u2014Richard\nWagner's phrase will still hold good, 'The German\nis awkward and ungainly when he wishes to be\npolite; he is high above all others, when he begins\nto take fire.'\" All the elegant people have reason to\nbeware of this German fire; it may one day devour\nthem with all their wax dolls and idols. The\nprevailing love of \"good form\" in Germany may\nhave a deeper cause in the breathless seizing at\nwhat the moment can give, the haste that plucks\nthe fruit too green, the race and the struggle that\ncut the furrows in men's brows and stamp the same\nmark on all their actions. As if there were a\npoison in them that would not let them breathe,\nthey rush about in disorder, anxious slaves of the\n\"three m's,\" the moment, the mode and the mob:\nthey see too well their want of dignity and fitness,\nand need a false elegance to hide their galloping\nconsumption. The fashionable desire of \"good\nform\" is bound up with a loathing of man's inner\nnature\u00a0: the one is to conceal, the other to be\nconcealed. Education means now the concealment\nof man's misery and wickedness, his wild-beast\nquarrels, his eternal greed, his shamelessness in\nfruition. In pointing out the absence of a German\nculture, I have often had the reproach flung at me:\n\"This absence is quite natural, for the Germans\nhave been too poor and modest up to now. Once\nrich and conscious of themselves, our people will\nhave a culture too.\" Faith may often produce\nhappiness, yet this particular faith makes me\nunhappy, for I feel that the culture whose future\nraises such hopes\u2014the culture of riches, politeness,\nand elegant concealments\u2014is the bitterest foe of\nthat German culture in which I believe. Every\none who has to live among Germans suffers from\nthe dreadful grayness and apathy of their lives,\ntheir formlessness, torpor and clumsiness, still\nmore their envy, secretiveness and impurity: he is\ntroubled by their innate love of the false and the\nignoble, their wretched mimicry and translation of\na good foreign thing into a bad German one. But\nnow that the feverish unrest, the quest of gain and\nsuccess, the intense prizing of the moment, is added\nto it all, it makes one furious to think that all this\nsickness can never be cured, but only painted over,\nby such a \"cult of the interesting.\" And this\namong a people that has produced a Schopenhauer\nand a Wagner! and will produce others, unless we\nare blindly deceiving ourselves; for should not\ntheir very existence be a guarantee that such forces\nare even now potential in the German spirit? Or\nwill they be exceptions, the last inheritors of the\nqualities that were once called German? I can\nsee nothing to help me here, and return to my\nmain argument again, from which my doubts and\nanxieties have made me digress. I have not yet\nenumerated all the forces that help culture without\nrecognising its end, the production of genius.\nThree have been named; the self-interest of\nbusiness, of the state, and of those who draw the\ncloak of \"good form\" over them. There is\nfourthly the self-interest of science, and the\npeculiar nature of her servants\u2014the learned.\n\nScience has the same relation to wisdom as\ncurrent morality to holiness: she is cold and dry,\nloveless, and ignorant of any deep feeling of\ndissatisfaction and yearning. She injures her servants\nin helping herself, for she impresses her own\ncharacter on them and dries up their humanity.\nAs long as we actually mean by culture the\nprogress of science, she will pass by the great\nsuffering man and harden her heart, for science\nonly sees the problems of knowledge, and suffering\nis something alien and unintelligible to her\nworld\u2014though no less a problem for that!\n\nIf one accustom himself to put down every\nexperience in a dialectical form of question and\nanswer, and translate it into the language of \"pure\nreason,\" he will soon wither up and rattle his bones\nlike a skeleton. We all know it: and why is it\nthat the young do not shudder at these skeletons\nof men, but give themselves blindly to science\nwithout motive or measure? It cannot be the\nso-called \"impulse to truth\": for how could there\nbe an impulse towards a pure, cold and objectless\nknowledge? The unprejudiced eye can see the\nreal driving forces only too plainly. The vivisection\nof the professor has much to recommend it, as he\nhimself is accustomed to finger and analyse all\nthings\u2014even the worthiest! To speak honestly,\nthe savant is a complex of very various impulses\nand attractive forces he is a base metal throughout.\n\nTake first a strong and increasing desire for\nintellectual adventure, the attraction of the new\nand rare as against the old and tedious. Add\nto that a certain joy in nosing the trail of dialectic,\nand beating the cover where the old fox, Thought,\nlies hid; the desire is not so much for truth as the\nchase of truth, and the chief pleasure is in surrounding\nand artistically killing it. Add thirdly a love\nof contradiction whereby the personality is able to\nassert itself against all others: the battle's the\nthing, and the personal victory its aim,\u2014truth only\nits pretext. The impulse to discover \"particular\ntruths\" plays a great part in the professor, coming\nfrom his submission to definite ruling persons,\nclasses, opinions, churches, governments, for he\nfeels it a profit to himself to bring truth to their side.\n\nThe following characteristics of the savant are\nless common, but still found.\u2014Firstly, downrightness\nand a feeling for simplicity, very valuable if\nmore than a mere awkwardness and inability to\ndeceive, deception requiring some\nmother-wit.\u2014(Actually, we may be on our guard against too\nobvious cleverness and resource, and doubt the\nman's sincerity.)\u2014Otherwise this downrightness\nis generally of little value, and rarely of any use\nto knowledge, as it follows tradition and speaks\nthe truth only in \"adiaphora\"; it being lazier to\nspeak the truth here than ignore it. Everything\nnew means something to be unlearnt, and your\ndownright man will respect the ancient dogmas\nand accuse the new evangelist of failing in the\nsensus recti. There was a similar opposition, with\nprobability and custom on its side, to the theory\nof Copernicus. The professor's frequent hatred of\nphilosophy is principally a hatred of the long\ntrains of reasoning and artificiality of the proofs.\nUltimately the savants of every age have a fixed\nlimit; beyond which ingenuity is not allowed, and\neverything suspected as a conspirator against honesty.\n\nSecondly, a clear vision of near objects, combined\nwith great shortsightedness for the distant and\nuniversal. The professor's range is generally very\nsmall, and his eye must be kept close to the object.\nTo pass from a point already considered to another,\nhe has to move his whole optical apparatus. He\ncuts a picture into small sections, like a man using\nan opera-glass in the theatre, and sees now a head,\nnow a bit of the dress, but nothing as a whole.\nThe single sections are never combined for him,\nhe only infers their connection, and consequently\nhas no strong general impression. He judges a\nliterary work, for example, by certain paragraphs\nor sentences or errors, as he can do nothing more;\nhe will be driven to see in an oil painting nothing\nbut a mass of daubs.\n\nThirdly, a sober conventionality in his likes and\ndislikes. Thus he especially delights in history\nbecause he can put his own motives into the\nactions of the past. A mole is most comfortable\nin a mole-hill. He is on his guard against all\ningenious and extravagant hypotheses; but digs\nup industriously all the commonplace motives of\nthe past, because he feels in sympathy with them.\nHe is generally quite incapable of understanding\nand valuing the rare or the uncommon, the great\nor the real.\n\nFourthly, a lack of feeling, which makes him\ncapable of vivisection. He knows nothing of the\nsuffering that brings knowledge, and does not fear\nto tread where other men shudder. He is cold\nand may easily appear cruel. He is thought\ncourageous, but he is not,\u2014any more than the\nmule who does not feel giddiness.\n\nFifthly, diffidence, or a low estimate of himself.\nThough he live in a miserable alley of the world,\nhe has no sense of sacrifice or surrender; he appears\noften to know in his inmost heart that he is not\na flying but a crawling creature. And this makes\nhim seem even pathetic.\n\nSixthly, loyalty to his teachers and leaders.\nFrom his heart he wishes to help them, and knows\nhe can do it best with the truth. He has a grateful\ndisposition, for he has only gained admittance\nthrough them to the high hall of science; he would\nnever have entered by his own road. Any man\nto-day who can throw open a new province where\nhis lesser disciples can work to some purpose, is\nfamous at once; so great is the crowd that presses\nafter him. These grateful pupils are certainly a\nmisfortune to their teacher, as they all imitate him;\nhis faults are exaggerated in their small persons,\nhis virtues correspondingly diminished.\n\nSeventhly, he will follow the usual road of all\nthe professors, where a feeling for truth springs\nfrom a lack of ideas, and the wheel once started\ngoes on. Such natures become compilers,\ncommentators, makers of indices and herbaria; they\nrummage about one special department because\nthey have never thought there are others. Their\nindustry has something of the monstrous stupidity\nof gravitation; and so they can often bring their\nlabours to an end.\n\nEighthly, a dread of ennui. While the true\nthinker desires nothing more than leisure, the\nprofessor fears it, not knowing how it is to be\nused. Books are his comfort; he listens to everybody's\ndifferent thoughts and keeps himself amused\nall day. He especially chooses books with a\npersonal relation to himself, that make him feel some\nemotion of like or dislike; books that have to do\nwith himself or his position, his political, aesthetic,\nor even grammatical doctrines; if he have mastered\neven one branch of knowledge, the means to flap\naway the flies of ennui will not fail him.\n\nNinthly, the motive of the bread-winner, the\n\"cry of the empty stomach,\" in fact. Truth is\nused as a direct means of preferment, when she\ncan be attained; or as a way to the good graces\nof the fountains of honour\u2014and bread. Only,\nhowever, in the sense of the \"particular truth\":\nthere is a gulf between the profitable truths that\nmany serve, and the unprofitable truths to which\nonly those few people devote themselves whose\nmotto is not ingenii largitor venter.\n\nTenthly, a reverence for their fellow-professors\nand a fear of their displeasure\u2014a higher and rarer\nmotive than the last, though not uncommon. All\nthe members of the guild are jealously on guard,\nthat the truth which means so much bread and\nhonour and position may really be baptized in the\nname of its discoverer. The one pays the other\nreverence for the truth he has found, in order to\nexact the toll again if he should find one himself.\nThe Untruth, the Error is loudly exploded, that the\nworkers may not be too many; here and there\nthe real truth will be exploded to let a few bold\nand stiff-necked errors be on show for a time; there\nis never a lack of \"moral idiosyncrasies,\"\u2014formerly\ncalled rascalities.\n\nEleventhly, the \"savant for vanity,\" now rather\nrare. He will get a department for himself somehow,\nand investigate curiosities, especially if they\ndemand unusual expenditure, travel, research, or\ncommunication with all parts of the world. He is\nquite satisfied with the honour of being regarded\nas a curiosity himself, and never dreams of earning\na living by his erudite studies.\n\nTwelfthly, the \"savant for amusement.\" He\nloves to look for knots in knowledge and to untie\nthem; not too energetically however, lest he lose\nthe spirit of the game. Thus he does not penetrate\nthe depths, though he often observes something\nthat the microscopic eyes of the bread-and-butter\nscientist never see.\n\nIf I speak, lastly, of the \"impulse towards\njustice\" as a further motive of the savant, I may\nbe answered that this noble impulse, being metaphysical\nin its nature, is too indistinguishable from\nthe rest, and really incomprehensible to mortal\nmind; and so I leave the thirteenth heading with\nthe pious wish that the impulse may be less rare\nin the professor than it seems. For a spark in his\nsoul from the fire of justice is sufficient to irradiate\nand purify it, so that he can rest no more and is\ndriven for ever from the cold or lukewarm condition\nin which most of his fellows do their daily work.\n\nAll these elements, or a part of them, must be\nregarded as fused and pounded together, to form\nthe Servant of Truth. For the sake of an absolutely\ninhuman thing\u2014mere purposeless, and therefore\nmotiveless, knowledge\u2014a mass of very human\nlittle motives have been chemically combined, and\nas the result we have the professor,\u2014so transfigured\nin the light of that pure unearthly object that the\nmixing and pounding which went to form him are\nall forgotten! It is very curious. Yet there are\nmoments when they must be remembered,\u2014when\nwe have to think of the professor's significance to\nculture. Any one with observation can see that he\nis in his essence and by his origin unproductive,\nand has a natural hatred of the productive; and\nthus there is an endless feud between the genius\nand the savant in idea and practice. The latter\nwishes to kill Nature by analysing and comprehending\nit, the former to increase it by a new living\nNature. The happy age does not need or know\nthe savant; the sick and sluggish time ranks him\nas its highest and worthiest.\n\nWho were physician enough to know the health\nor sickness of our time? It is clear that the\nprofessor is valued too highly, with evil consequences\nfor the future genius, for whom he has no compassion,\nmerely a cold, contemptuous criticism, a\nshrug of the shoulders, as if at something strange and\nperverted for which he has neither time nor\ninclination. And so he too knows nothing of the\naim of culture.\n\nIn fact, all these considerations go to prove that\nthe aim of culture is most unknown precisely where\nthe interest in it seems liveliest. The state may\ntrumpet as it will its services to culture, it merely\nhelps culture in order to help itself, and does not\ncomprehend an aim that stands higher than its own\nwell-being or even existence. The business men\nin their continual demand for education merely\nwish for\u2014business. When the pioneers of \"good\nform\" pretend to be the real helpers of culture,\nimagining that all art, for example, is merely to serve\ntheir own needs, they are clearly affirming themselves\nin affirming culture. Of the savant enough has\nalready been said. All four are emulously thinking\nhow they can benefit themselves with the help of\nculture, but have no thoughts at all when their own\ninterests are not engaged. And so they have\ndone nothing to improve the conditions for the\nbirth of genius in modern times; and the\nopposition to original men has grown so far that no\nSocrates could ever live among us, and certainly\ncould never reach the age of seventy.\n\nI remember saying in the third chapter that our\nwhole modern world was not so stable that one\ncould prophesy an eternal life to its conception of\nculture. It is likely that the next millennium may\nreach two or three new ideas that might well make\nthe hair of our present generation stand on end.\nThe belief in the metaphysical significance of\nculture would not be such a horrifying thing, but\nits effects on educational methods might be so.\n\nIt requires a totally new attitude of mind to be\nable to, look away from the present educational\ninstitutions to the strangely different ones that will\nbe necessary for the second or third generation,\nAt present the labours of higher education produce\nmerely the savant or the official or the business\nman or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture\nof all four; and the future institutions will have a\nharder task;\u2014not in itself harder, as it is really\nmore natural, and so easier; and further, could\nanything be harder than to make a youth into a savant\nagainst nature, as now happens?\u2014But the difficulty\nlies in unlearning what we know and setting up a\nnew aim; it will be an endless trouble to change\nthe fundamental idea of our present educational\nsystem, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and\nregards the mediaeval savant as the ideal type of\nculture. It is already time to put these objects\nbefore us; for some generation must begin the\nbattle, of which a later generation will reap the\nvictory. The solitary man who has understood\nthe new fundamental idea of culture is at the\nparting of the ways; on the one he will be\nwelcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be\nhis, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have\nas many in sympathy behind him as in front, and\nwhen the leader speaks the word of deliverance,\nit will echo through all the ranks. The first duty\nis to \"fight in line,\" the second to treat as foes all\nwho will not \"fall in.\" On the other way he will\nfind fewer companions; it is steeper and more\ntortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh\nat him, as his way is the more troublesome and\ndangerous; and they try to entice him over. If\nthe two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or\nleft alone. What significance has any particular\nform of culture for these several travellers? The\nenormous throng that press to their end on the\nfirst road, understand by it the laws and institutions\nthat enable them to go forward in regular fashion\nand rule out all the solitary and obstinate people\nwho look towards higher and remoter objects. To\nthe small company on the other road it has quite\na different office: they wish to guard themselves,\nby means of a strong organisation, from being\nswept away by the throng, to prevent their\nindividual members from fainting on the way or\nturning in spirit from their great task. These\nsolitary men must finish their work; that is why\nthey should all hold together; and those who have\ntheir part in the scheme will take thought to prepare\nthemselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for\nthe birth of the genius, and ensure that the time\nbe ripe for him. Many are destined to help on\nthe labour, even among the second-rate talents,\nand it is only in submission to such a destiny that\nthey can feel they are living for a duty, and have\na meaning and an object in their lives. But at\npresent these talents are being turned from the\nroad their instinct has chosen by the seductive\ntones of the \"fashionable culture,\" that plays on\ntheir selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses;\nand the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its\nflattering counsel:\u2014\"Follow me and go not thither!\nThere you are only servants and tools,\novershadowed by higher natures with no scope for\nyour own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,\nslaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy\nyour true personality, and be masters, your talents\nmay shine with their own light, and yourselves\nstand in the front ranks with an immense following\nround you; and the acclamation of public opinion\nwill rejoice you more than a wandering breath of\napproval sent down from the cold ethereal heights\nof genius.\" Even the best men are snared by such\nallurements, and the ultimate difference comes not\nso much from the rarity and power of their talent,\nas the influence of a certain heroic disposition at\nthe base of them, and an inner feeling of kinship\nwith genius. For there are men who feel it as\ntheir own misery when they see the genius in\npainful toil and struggle, in danger of self-destruction,\nor neglected by the short-sighted selfishness\nof the state, the superficiality of the business men,\nand the cold arrogance of the professors; and I\nhope there may be some to understand what I\nmean by my sketch of Schopenhauer's destiny,\nand to what end Schopenhauer can really educate.\n\n7\n\nBut setting aside all thoughts of any educational\nrevolution in the distant future;\u2014what provision\nis required now, that our future philosopher\nmay have the best chance of opening his eyes to a\nlife like Schopenhauer's\u2014hard as it is, yet still\nlivable? What, further, must be discovered that\nmay make his influence on his contemporaries\nmore certain? And what obstacles must be removed\nbefore his example can have its full effect\nand the philosopher train another philosopher?\nHere we descend to be practical.\n\nNature always desires the greatest utility, but\ndoes not understand how to find the best and\nhandiest means to her end; that is her great sorrow,\nand the cause of her melancholy. The impulse\ntowards her own redemption shows clearly her wish\nto give men a significant existence by the generation\nof the philosopher and the artist: but how unclear\nand weak is the effect she generally obtains with\nher artists and philosophers, and how seldom is\nthere any effect at all\u00a0! She is especially perplexed\nin her efforts to make the philosopher useful; her\nmethods are casual and tentative, her failures\ninnumerable; most of her philosophers never touch\nthe common good of mankind at all. Her actions\nseem those of a spendthrift; but the cause lies in\nno prodigal luxury, but in her inexperience. Were\nshe human, she would probably never cease to be\ndissatisfied with herself and her bungling. Nature\nshoots the philosopher at mankind like an arrow;\nshe. does not aim, but hopes that the arrow will\nstick somewhere. She makes countless mistakes,\nthat give her pain. She is as extravagant in the\nsphere of culture as in her planting and sowing. She\nfulfils her ends in a large and clumsy fashion, using\nup far too much of her strength. The artist has\nthe same relation to the connoisseurs and lovers of\nhis art as a piece of heavy artillery to a flock of\nsparrows. It is a fool's part to use a great avalanche\nto sweep away a little snow, to kill a man in order\nto strike the fly on his nose. The artist and the\nphilosopher are witnesses against Nature's\nadaptation of her means, however well they may show the\nwisdom of her ends. They only reach a few and\nshould reach all\u2014and even these few are not struck\nwith the strength they used when they shot. It is\nsad to have to value art so differently as cause and\neffect; how huge in its inception, how faint the\necho afterwards! The artist does his work as\nNature bids him, for the benefit of other men no\ndoubt of it; but he knows that none of those men\nwill understand and love his work as he understands\nand loves it himself. That lonely height of love\nand understanding is necessary, by Nature's clumsy\nlaw, to produce a lower type; the great and noble\nare used as the means to the small and ignoble.\nNature is a bad manager; her expenses are far\ngreater than her profits: for all her riches she must\none day go bankrupt. She would have acted more\nreasonably to make the rule of her household\u2014small\nexpense and hundredfold profit; if there had\nbeen, for example, only a few artists with moderate\npowers, but an immense number of hearers to\nappreciate them, stronger and more powerful\ncharacters than the artists themselves; then the effect\nof the art-work, in comparison with the cause, might\nbe a hundred-tongued echo. One might at least\nexpect cause and effect to be of equal power; but\nNature lags infinitely behind this consummation.\nAn artist, and especially a philosopher, seems often\nto have dropped by chance into his age, as a\nwandering hermit or straggler cut off from the main\nbody. Think how utterly great Schopenhauer is,\nand what a small and absurd effect he has had!\nAn honest man can feel no greater shame at the\npresent time than at the thought of the casual\ntreatment Schopenhauer has received and the evil powers\nthat have up to now killed his effect among men.\nFirst there was the want of readers,\u2014to the eternal\nshame of our cultivated age;\u2014then the inadequacy\nof his first public adherents, as soon as he had any;\nfurther, I think, the crassness of the modern man\ntowards books, which he will no longer take\nseriously. As an outcome of many attempts to\nadapt Schopenhauer to this enervated age, the new\ndanger has gradually arisen of regarding him as an\nodd kind of pungent herb, of taking him in grains,\nas a sort of metaphysical pepper. In this way he\nhas gradually become famous, and I should think\nmore have heard his name than Hegel's; and, for\nall that, he is still a solitary being, who has failed\nof his effect.\u2014Though the honour of causing the\nfailure belongs least of all to the barking of his\nliterary antagonists; first because there are few\nmen with the patience to read them, and secondly,\nbecause any one who does, is sent immediately to\nSchopenhauer himself; for who will let a donkey-driver\nprevent him from mounting a fine horse, however much he praise his donkey?\n\nWhoever has recognised Nature's unreason in our\ntime, will have to consider some means to help her;\nhis task will be to bring the free spirits and the\nsufferers from this age to know Schopenhauer;\nand make them tributaries to the flood that is to\noverbear all the clumsy uses to which Nature even\nnow is accustomed to put her philosophers. Such\nmen will see that the identical obstacles hinder the\neffect of a great philosophy and the production of\nthe great philosopher; and so will direct their aims\nto prepare the regeneration of Schopenhauer, which\nmeans that of the philosophical genius. The real\nopposition to the further spread of his doctrine in\nthe past, and the regeneration of the philosopher in\nthe future, is the perversity of human nature as it\nis; and all the great men that are to be must spend\ninfinite pains in freeing themselves from it. The\nworld they enter is plastered over with\npretence\u2014including not merely religious dogmas, but such\njuggling conceptions as \"progress,\" \"universal\neducation,\" \"nationalism,\" \"the modern state\"\u00a0;\npractically all our general terms have an artificial\nveneer over them that will bring a clearer-sighted\nposterity to reproach our age bitterly for its warped\nand stunted growth, however loudly we may boast\nof our \"health.\" The beauty of the antique vases,\nsays Schopenhauer, lies in the simplicity with which\nthey express their meaning and object; it is so\nwith all the ancient implements; if Nature produced\namphorae, lamps, tables, chairs, helmets, shields,\nbreastplates and the like, they would resemble\nthese. And, as a corollary, whoever considers how\nwe all manage our art, politics, religion and\neducation\u2014to say nothing of our vases!\u2014will find in\nthem a barbaric exaggeration and arbitrariness of\nexpression. Nothing is more unfavourable to the\nrise of genius than such monstrosities. They are\nunseen and undiscoverable, the leaden weights on\nhis hand when he will set it to the plough; the\nweights are only shaken off with violence, and his\nhighest work must to an extent always bear the\nmark of it.\n\nIn considering the conditions that, at best, keep\nthe born philosopher from being oppressed by the\nperversity of the age, I am surprised to find they\nare partly those in which Schopenhauer himself\ngrew up. True, there was no lack of opposing\ninfluences; the evil time drew perilously near him in\nthe person of a vain and pretentious mother. But\nthe proud republican character of his father rescued\nhim from her and gave him the first quality of a\nphilosopher\u2014a rude and strong virility. His father\nwas neither an official nor a savant; he travelled\nmuch abroad with his son,\u2014a great help to one\nwho must know men rather than books, and worship\ntruth before the state. In time he got accustomed\nto national peculiarities: he made England, France\nand Italy equally his home, and felt no little\nsympathy with the Spanish character. On the whole,\nhe did not think it an honour to be born in Germany,\nand I am not sure that the new political conditions\nwould have made him change his mind. He held\nquite openly the opinion that the state's one object\nwas to give protection at home and abroad, and\neven protection against its \"protectors,\" and to\nattribute any other object to it was to endanger its\ntrue end. And so, to the consternation of all the\nso-called liberals, he left his property to the survivors\nof the Prussian soldiers who fell in 1848 in the fight\nfor order. To understand the state and its duties\nin this single sense may seem more and more henceforth\nthe sign of intellectual superiority; for the man\nwith the furor philosophicus in him will no longer\nhave time for the furor politicus and will wisely\nkeep from reading the newspapers or serving a\nparty; though he will not hesitate a moment to\ntake his place in the ranks if his country be in real\nneed. All states are badly managed, when other\nmen than politicians busy themselves with politics;\nand they deserve to be ruined by their political\namateurs.\n\nSchopenhauer had another great advantage\u2014that\nhe had never been educated for a professor,\nbut worked for some time (though against his will)\nas a merchant's clerk, and through all his early\nyears breathed the freer air of a great commercial\nhouse. A savant can never become a philosopher:\nKant himself could not, but remained in a chrysalis\nstage to the end, in spite of the innate force of his\ngenius. Any one who thinks I do Kant wrong in\nsaying this does not know what a philosopher is\u2014not\nonly a great thinker, but also a real man; and\nhow could a real man have sprung from a savant?\nHe who lets conceptions, opinions, events, books\ncome between himself and things, and is born for\nhistory (in the widest sense), will never see anything\nat once, and never be himself a thing to be \"seen\nat once\"; though both these powers should be\nin the philosopher, as he must take most of his\ndoctrine from himself and be himself the copy\nand compendium of the whole world. If a man\nlook at himself through a veil of other people's\nopinions, no wonder he sees nothing but\u2014those\nopinions. And it is thus that the professors see\nand live. But Schopenhauer had the rare happiness\nof seeing the genius not only in himself, but also\noutside himself\u2014in Goethe; and this double reflection\ntaught him everything about the aims and\nculture of the learned. He knew by this experience\nhow the free strong man, to whom all artistic culture\nwas looking, must come to be born; and could he,\nafter this vision, have much desire to busy himself\nwith the so-called \"art,\" in the learned, hypocritical\nmanner of the moderns? He had seen something\nhigher than that\u2014an awful unearthly judgment-scene\nin which all life, even the highest and completest,\nwas weighed and found too light; he had\nbeheld the saint as the judge of existence. We\ncannot tell how early Schopenhauer reached this\nview of life, and came to hold it with such intensity\nas to make all his writings an attempt to mirror it;\nwe know that the youth had this great vision, and\ncan well believe it of the child. Everything that\nhe gained later from life and books, from all the\nrealms of knowledge, was only a means of colour\nand expression to him\u00a0; the Kantian philosophy\nitself was to him an extraordinary rhetorical\ninstrument for making the utterance of his vision, as he\nthought, clearer; the Buddhist and Christian\nmythologies occasionally served the same end. He\nhad one task and a thousand means to execute it;\none meaning, and innumerable hieroglyphs to\nexpress it.\n\nIt was one of the high conditions of his existence\nthat he really could live for such a task\u2014according\nto his motto vitam impendere vero\u2014and none\nof life's material needs could shake his resolution;\nand we know the splendid return he made his father\nfor this. The contemplative man in Germany\nusually pursues his scientific studies to the\ndetriment of his sincerity, as a \"considerate fool,\" in\nsearch of place and honour, circumspect and\nobsequious, and fawning on his influential superiors.\nNothing offended the savants more than Schopenhauer's unlikeness to them.\n\n8\n\nThese are a few of the conditions under which\nthe philosophical genius can at least come to light\nin our time, in spite of all thwarting influences;\u2014a\nvirility of character, an early knowledge of\nmankind, an absence of learned education and\nnarrow patriotism, of compulsion to earn his\nlivelihood or depend on the state,\u2014freedom in\nfact, and again freedom; the same marvellous and\ndangerous element in which the Greek philosophers\ngrew up. The man who will reproach him, as\nNiebuhr did Plato,\nwith being a bad citizen, may\ndo so, and be himself a good one; so he and\nPlato will be right together! Another may call\nthis great freedom presumption; he is also right,\nas he could not himself use the freedom properly\nif he desired it, and would certainly presume too\nfar with it. This freedom is really a grave burden\nof guilt; and can only be expiated by great\nactions. Every ordinary son of earth has the\nright of looking askance on such endowments;\nand may Providence keep him from being so\nendowed\u2014burdened, that is, with such terrible\nduties! His freedom and his loneliness would be\nhis ruin, and ennui would turn him into a fool, and\na mischievous fool at that.\n\nA father may possibly learn something from\nthis that he may use for his son's private education,\nthough one must not expect fathers to have only\nphilosophers for their sons. It is possible that\nthey will always oppose their sons becoming\nphilosophers, and call it mere perversity; Socrates\nwas sacrificed to the fathers' anger, for \"corrupting\nthe youth,' and Plato even thought a new ideal\nstate necessary to prevent the philosophers' growth\nfrom being dependent on the fathers' folly. It\nlooks at present as though Plato had really\naccomplished something; for the modern state counts\nthe encouragement of philosophy as one of its\nduties and tries to secure for a number of men\nat a time the sort of freedom that conditions the\nphilosopher. But, historically, Plato has been\nvery unlucky; as soon as a structure has risen\ncorresponding actually to his proposals, it has\nalways turned, on a closer view, into a goblin-child,\na monstrous changeling; compare the ecclesiastical\nstate of the Middle Ages with the government of\nthe \"God-born king\" of which Plato dreamed!\nThe modern state is furthest removed from the\nidea of the Philosopher-king (Thank Heaven for\nthat\u00a0! the Christian will say); but we must think\nwhether it takes that very \"encouragement of\nphilosophy\" in a Platonic sense, I mean as seriously\nand honestly as if its highest object were to\nproduce more Platos. If the philosopher seem, as\nusual, an accident of his time, does the state make\nit its conscious business to turn the accidental into\nthe necessary and help Nature here also?\n\nExperience teaches us a better way\u2014or a worse:\nit says that nothing so stands in the way of the\nbirth and growth of Nature's philosopher as the\nbad philosophers made \"by order.\" A poor\nobstacle, isn't it? and the same that Schopenhauer\npointed out in his famous essay on University\nphilosophy. I return to this point, as men must\nbe forced to take it seriously, to be driven to\nactivity by it; and I think all writing is useless\nthat does not contain such a stimulus to activity.\nAnd anyhow it is a good thing to apply Schopenhauer's\neternal theories once more to our own\ncontemporaries, as some kindly soul might think\nthat everything has changed for the better in\nGermany since his fierce diatribes. Unfortunately\nhis work is incomplete on this side as well,\nunimportant as the side may be.\n\nThe \"freedom\" that the state, as I said, bestows\non certain men for the sake of philosophy is,\nproperly speaking, no freedom at all, but an\noffice that maintains its holder. The\n\"encouragement of philosophy\" means that there are to-day\na number of men whom the state enables to make\ntheir living out of philosophy; whereas the old\nsages of Greece were not paid by the state, but at\nbest were presented, as Zeno was, with a golden\ncrown and a monument in the Ceramicus. I\ncannot say generally whether truth is served by\nshowing the way to live by her, since everything\ndepends on the character of the individual who\nshows the way. I can imagine a degree of pride\nin a man saying to his fellow-men, \"take care of\nme, as I have something better to do\u2014namely to\ntake care of you.\" We should not be angry at\nsuch a heightened mode of expression in Plato\nand Schopenhauer; and so they might properly\nhave been University philosophers,\u2014as Plato, for\nexample, was a court philosopher for a while\nwithout lowering the dignity of philosophy. But\nin Kant we have the usual submissive professor,\nwithout any nobility in his relations with the\nstate; and thus he could not justify the University\nphilosophy when it was once assailed. If there be\nnatures like Schopenhauer's and Plato's, which can\njustify it, I fear they will never have the chance, as\nthe state would never venture to give such men\nthese positions, for the simple reason that every\nstate fears them, and will only favour philosophers\nit does not fear. The state obviously has a special\nfear of philosophy, and will try to attract more\nphilosophers, to create the impression that it has\nphilosophy on its side,\u2014because it has those men\non its side who have the title without the power.\nBut if there should come one who really proposes\nto cut everything to the quick, the state included,\nwith the knife of truth, the state, that affirms its\nown existence above all, is justified in banishing\nhim as an enemy, just as it bans a religion that\nexalts itself to be its judge. The man who\nconsents to be a state philosopher, must also consent\nto be regarded as renouncing the search for truth\nin all its secret retreats. At any rate, so long as\nhe enjoys his position, he must recognise\nsomething higher than truth the state. And not only\nthe state, but everything required by it for existence\u2014a\ndefinite form of religion, a social system, a\nstanding army; a noli me tangere is written\nabove all these things. Can a University\nphilosopher ever keep clearly before him the\nwhole round of these duties and limitations? I\ndo not know. The man who has done so and\nremains a state-official, is a false friend to truth;\nif he has not,\u2014I think he is no friend to truth either.\nBut general considerations like these are always\nthe weakest in their influence on mankind. Most\npeople will find it enough to shrug their shoulders\nand say, \"As if anything great and pure has ever\nbeen able to maintain itself on this earth without\nsome concession to human vulgarity! Would you\nrather the state persecuted philosophers than paid\nthem for official services? \"Without answering\nthis last question, I will merely say that these\n\"concessions\" of philosophy to the state go rather\nfar at present. In the first place, the state chooses\nits own philosophical servants, as many as its\ninstitutions require; it therefore pretends to be\nable to distinguish the good and the bad\nphilosophers, and even assumes there must be\na sufficient supply of good ones to fill all the\nchairs. The state is the authority not only for\ntheir goodness but their numbers. Secondly, it\nconfines those it has chosen to a definite place and\na definite activity among particular men; they\nmust instruct every undergraduate who wants\ninstruction, daily, at stated hours. The question\nis whether a philosopher can bind himself, with a\ngood conscience, to have something to teach every\nday, to any one who wishes to listen. Must he not\nappear to know more than he does, and speak,\nbefore an unknown audience, of things that he\ncould mention without risk only to his most\nintimate friends? And above all, does he not\nsurrender the precious freedom of following his\ngenius when and wherever it call him, by the mere\nfact of being bound to think at stated times on a\nfixed subject? And before young men, too! Is\nnot such thinking in its nature emasculate? And\nsuppose he felt some day that he had no ideas just\nthen\u2014and yet must be in his place and appear to\nbe thinking What then?\n\n\"But,\" one will say, \"he is not a thinker but\nmainly a depository of thought, a man of great\nlearning in all previous philosophies. Of these\nhe can always say something that his scholars\ndo not know.\" This is actually the third, and the\nmost dangerous, concession made by philosophy\nto the state, when it is compelled to appear in the\nform of erudition, as the knowledge (more\nspecifically) of the history of philosophy. The genius\nlooks purely and lovingly on existence, like a poet,\nand cannot dive too deep into it;\u2014and nothing is\nmore abhorrent to him than to burrow among the\ninnumerable strange and wrong-headed opinions.\nThe learned history of the past was never a true\nphilosopher's business, in India or Greece; and\na professor of philosophy who busies himself with\nsuch matters must be, at best, content to hear it\nsaid of him, \"He is an able scholar, antiquary,\nphilologist, historian,\"\u2014but never, \"He is a\nphilosopher.\" I said, \"at best\": for a scholar\nfeels that most of the learned works written by\nUniversity philosophers are badly done, without\nany real scientific power, and generally are dread-\nfully tedious. Who will blow aside, for example,\nthe Lethean vapour with which the history of\nGreek philosophy has been enveloped by the dull\nthough not very scientific works of Ritter, Brandis\nand Zeller? I, at any rate, would rather read\nDiogenes Laertius than\nZeller, because at least the\nspirit of the old philosophers lives in Diogenes,\nbut neither that nor any other spirit in Zeller.\nAnd, after all, what does the history of philosophy\nmatter to our young men Are they to be\ndiscouraged by the welter of opinions from having\nany of their own; or taught to join the chorus\nthat approves the vastness of our progress? Are\nthey to learn to hate or perhaps despise philosophy?\nOne might expect the last, knowing the torture\nthe students endure for their philosophical\nexaminations, in having to get into their unfortunate\nheads the maddest efforts of the human mind as\nwell as the greatest and profoundest. The only\nmethod of criticising a philosophy that is possible\nand proves anything at all\u2014namely to see whether\none can live by it\u2014has never been taught at the\nuniversities; only the criticism of words, and\nagain words, is taught there. Imagine a young\nhead, without much experience of life, being stuffed\nwith fifty systems (in the form of words) and fifty\ncriticisms of them, all mixed up together,\u2014what\nan overgrown wilderness he will come to be, what\ncontempt he will feel for a philosophical education!\nIt is, of course, not an education in philosophy\nat all, but in the art of passing a philosophical\nexamination: the usual result being the pious\nejaculation of the wearied examinee, \"Thank God\nI am no philosopher, but a Christian and a good\ncitizen!\"\n\nWhat if this cry were the ultimate object of the\nstate, and the \"education\" or leading to philosophy\nwere merely a leading from philosophy? We may\nwell ask.\u2014But if so, there is one thing to fear\u2014that\nthe youth may some day find out to what\nend philosophy is thus mis-handled. \"Is the\nhighest thing of all, the production of the\nphilosophical genius, nothing but a pretext, and\nthe main object perhaps to hinder his production?\nAnd is Reason turned to Unreason?\" Then woe\nto the whole machinery of political and professorial\ntrickery!\n\nWill it soon become notorious? I do not know;\nbut anyhow university philosophy has fallen into\na general state of doubting and despair. The\ncause lies partly in the feebleness of those who\nhold the chairs at present: and if Schopenhauer\nhad to write his treatise on university philosophy\nto-day, he would find the club no longer necessary,\nbut could conquer with a bulrush. They are the\nheirs and successors of those slip-shod thinkers\nwhose crazy heads Schopenhauer struck at: their\nchildish natures and dwarfish frames remind one of\nthe Indian proverb: \" men are born according to\ntheir deeds, deaf, dumb, misshapen.\" Those fathers\ndeserved such sons, \"according to their deeds,\" as\nthe proverb says. Hence the students will, no\ndoubt, soon get on without the philosophy taught\nat their university, just as those who are not\nuniversity men manage to do without it already.\nThis can be tested from one's own experience:\nin my student-days, for example, I found the\nuniversity philosophers very ordinary men indeed,\nwho had collected together a few conclusions from\nthe other sciences, and in their leisure hours read\nthe newspapers and went to concerts; they were\ntreated by their academic colleagues with politely\nveiled contempt. They had the reputation of\nknowing very little, but of never being at a loss for\nobscure expressions to conceal their ignorance.\nThey had a preference for those obscure regions\nwhere a man could not walk long with clear\nvision. One said of the natural sciences, \"Not\none of them can fully explain to me the origin of\nmatter; then what do I care about them all?\"\u2014\nAnother said of history, \"It tells nothing new to\nthe man with ideas\": in fact, they always found\nreasons for its being more philosophical to know\nnothing than to learn anything. If they let\nthemselves be drawn to learn, a secret instinct made\nthem fly from the actual sciences and found a dim\nkingdom amid their gaps and uncertainties. They\n\"led the way\" in the sciences in the sense that the\nquarry \"leads the way\" for the hunters who are\nbehind him. Recently they have amused themselves\nwith asserting they are merely the watchers\non the frontier of the sciences. The Kantian\ndoctrine is of use to them here, and they\nindustriously build up an empty scepticism on it, of which\nin a short time nobody will take any more notice.\nHere and there one will rise to a little metaphysic\nof his own, with the general accompaniment of\nheadaches and giddiness and bleeding at the nose\nAfter the usual ill-success of their voyages into the\nclouds and the mist, some hard-headed young\nstudent of the real sciences will pluck them down\nby the skirts, and their faces will assume the\nexpression now habitual to them, of offended\ndignity at being found out. They have lost their\nhappy confidence, and not one of them will venture\na step further for the sake of his philosophy. Some\nused to believe they could find out new religions\nor reinstate old ones by their systems. They\nhave given up such pretensions now, and have\nbecome mostly mild, muddled folk, with no\nLucretian boldness, but merely some spiteful\ncomplaints of the \"dead weight that lies on the\nintellects of mankind\"! No one can even learn\nlogic from them now, and their obvious knowledge\nof their own powers has made them discontinue\nthe dialectical disputations common in the old\ndays. There is much more care and modesty,\nlogic and inventiveness, in a word, more\nphilosophical method in the work of the special sciences\nthan in the so-called \"philosophy,\" and every one\nwill agree with the temperate words of\nBagehot\non the present system builders: \"Unproved abstract\nprinciples without number have been eagerly caught\nup by sanguine men, and then carefully spun out\ninto books and theories, which were to explain the\nwhole world. But the world goes clear against\nthese abstractions, and it must do so, as they\nrequire it to go in antagonistic directions. The\nmass of a system attracts the young and impresses\nthe unwary; but cultivated people are very\ndubious about it. They are ready to receive hints\nand suggestions, and the smallest real truth is\never welcome. But a large book of deductive\nphilosophy is much to be suspected. Who is not\nalmost sure beforehand that the premises will\ncontain a strange mixture of truth and error, and\ntherefore that it will not be worth while to spend\nlife in reasoning over their consequences?\" The\nphilosophers, especially in Germany, used to sink\ninto such a state of abstraction that they were in\ncontinual danger of running their heads against\na beam; but there is a whole herd of Laputan\nflappers about them to give them in time a gentle\nstroke on their eyes or anywhere else. Sometimes\nthe blows are too hard; and then these scorners of\nearth forget themselves and strike back, but the\nvictim always escapes them. \" Fool, you do not\nsee the beam,\" says the flapper; and often the\nphilosopher does see the beam, and calms down.\nThese flappers are the natural sciences and history;\nlittle by little they have so overawed the German\ndream-craft which has long taken the place of\nphilosophy, that the dreamer would be only too\nglad to give up the attempt to run alone: but\nwhen they unexpectedly fall into the others' arms,\nor try to put leading-strings on them that they may\nbe led themselves, those others flap as terribly as\nthey can, as if they would say, \"This is all that is\nwanting,\u2014that a philosophaster like this should lay\nhis impure hands on us, the natural sciences and\nhistory! Away with him!\" Then they start\nback, knowing not where to turn or to ask the way.\nThey wanted to have a little physical knowledge\nat their back, possibly in the form of empirical\npsychology (like the Herbartians),\nor perhaps a little history; and then they could at least make a\npublic show of behaving scientifically, although in\ntheir hearts they may wish all philosophy and all\nscience at the devil.\n\nBut granted that this herd of bad philosophers is\nridiculous\u2014and who will deny it?\u2014how far are\nthey also harmful? They are harmful just because\nthey make philosophy ridiculous. As long as this\nimitation-thinking continues to be recognised by\nthe state, the lasting effect of a true philosophy\nwill be destroyed, or at any rate circumscribed;\nnothing does this so well as the curse of ridicule\nthat the representatives of the great cause have\ndrawn on them, for it attacks that cause itself.\nAnd so I think it will encourage culture to deprive\nphilosophy of its political and academic standing,\nand relieve state and university of the task,\nimpossible for them, of deciding between true and\nfalse philosophy. Let the philosophers run wild,\nforbid them any thoughts of office or civic position,\nhold them out no more bribes,\u2014nay, rather persecute\nthem and treat them ill,\u2014you will see a wonderful\nresult. They will flee in terror and seek a roof\nwhere they can, these poor phantasms; one will\nbecome a parson, another a schoolmaster, another\nwill creep into an editorship, another write\nschool-books for young ladies' colleges, the wisest of them\nwill plough the fields, the vainest go to court.\nEverything will be left suddenly empty, the birds\nflown: for it is easy to get rid of bad\nphilosophers,\u2014one only has to cease paying them. And that\nis a better plan than the open patronage of any\nphilosophy, whatever it be, for state reasons.\n\nThe state has never any concern with truth, but\nonly with the truth useful to it, or rather, with\nanything that is useful to it, be it truth, half-truth,\nor error. A coalition between state and philosophy\nhas only meaning when the latter can promise to\nbe unconditionally useful to the state, to put its\nwell-being higher than truth. It would certainly\nbe a noble thing for the state to have truth as a\npaid servant; but it knows well enough that it is\nthe essence of truth to be paid nothing and serve\nnothing. So the state's servant turns out to be\nmerely \"false truth,\" a masked actor who cannot\nperform the office required from the real truth\u2014the\naffirmation of the state's worth and sanctity.\nWhen a mediaeval prince wished to be crowned\nby the Pope, but could not get him to consent,\nhe appointed an antipope to do the business for\nhim. This may serve up to a certain point\u00a0; but\nnot when the modern state appoints an \"anti-philosophy\"\nto legitimise it; for it has true\nphilosophy against it just as much as before, or\neven more so. I believe in all seriousness that it\nis to the state's advantage to have nothing further\nto do with philosophy, to demand nothing from it,\nand let it go its own way as much as possible.\nWithout this indifferent attitude, philosophy may\nbecome dangerous and oppressive, and will have\nto be persecuted.\u2014The only interest the state can\nhave in the university lies in the training of\nobedient and useful citizens; and it should hesitate\nto put this obedience and usefulness in doubt by\ndemanding an examination in philosophy from the\nyoung men. To make a bogey of philosophy may\nbe an excellent way to frighten the idle and\nincompetent from its study; but this advantage is\nnot enough to counterbalance the danger that this\nkind of compulsion may arouse from the side of\nthe more reckless and turbulent spirits. They\nlearn to know about forbidden books, begin to\ncriticise their teachers, and finally come to\nunderstand the object of university philosophy and its\nexaminations; not to speak of the doubts that\nmay be fostered in the minds of young theologians,\nas a consequence of which they are beginning to\nbe extinct in Germany, like the ibexes in the Tyrol.\n\nI know the objections that the state could bring\nagainst all this, as long as the lovely Hegel-corn\nwas yellowing in all the fields; but now that hail\nhas destroyed the crop and all men's hopes of it,\nnow that nothing has been fulfilled and all the\nbarns are empty,\u2014there are no more objections\nto be made, but rather rejections of philosophy\nitself. The state has now the power of rejection;\nin Hegel's time it only wished to have it\u2014and\nthat makes a great difference. The state needs\nno more the sanction of philosophy, and\nphilosophy has thus become superfluous to it. It\nwill find advantage in ceasing to maintain its\nprofessors, or (as I think will soon happen) in\nmerely pretending to maintain them; but it is of\nstill greater importance that the university should\nsee the benefit of this as well. At least I believe\nthe real sciences must see that their interest lies\nin freeing themselves from all contact with sham\nscience. And further, the reputation of the\nuniversities hangs too much in the balance for\nthem not to welcome a severance from methods\nthat are thought little of even in academic circles.\nThe outer world has good reason for its wide-spread\ncontempt of universities; they are reproached\nwith being cowardly, the small fearing\nthe great, and the great fearing public opinion; it\nis said that they do not lead the higher thought\nof the age but hobble slowly behind it, and cleave\nno longer to the fundamental ideas of the\nrecognised sciences. Grammar, for example, is\nstudied more diligently than ever without any one\nseeing the necessity of a rigorous training in speech\nand writing. The gates of Indian antiquity are\nbeing opened, and the scholars have no more idea\nof the most imperishable works of the Indians\u2014their\nphilosophies\u2014than a beast has of playing\nthe harp; though Schopenhauer thinks that the\nacquaintance with Indian philosophy is one of the\ngreatest advantages possessed by our century.\nClassical antiquity is the favourite playground\nnowadays, and its effect is no longer classical and\nformative; as is shown by the students, who are\ncertainly no models for imitation. Where is now\nthe spirit of Friedrich August Wolf to be found,\nof whom Franz Passow could say that he seemed\na loyal and humanistic spirit with force enough\nto set half the world aflame? Instead of that a\njournalistic spirit is arising in the university, often\nunder the name of philosophy; the smooth\ndelivery\u2014the very cosmetics of speech\u2014with\nFaust and Nathan the Wise for ever on the lips,\nthe accent and the outlook of our worst literary\nmagazines and, more recently, much chatter\nabout our holy German music, and the demand\nfor lectures on Schiller and Goethe,\u2014all this is a\nsign that the university spirit is beginning to be\nconfused with the Spirit of the Age. Thus the\nestablishment of a higher tribunal, outside the\nuniversities, to protect and criticise them with\nregard to culture, would seem a most valuable\nthing, and as soon as philosophy can sever itself\nfrom the universities and be purified from every\nunworthy motive or hypocrisy, it will be able to\nbecome such a tribunal. It will do its work with-\nout state help in money or honours, free from the\nspirit of the age as well as from any fear of it\u00a0; being\nin fact the judge, as Schopenhauer was, of the\nso-called culture surrounding it And in this way\nthe philosopher can also be useful to the university,\nby refusing to be a part of it, but criticising it\nfrom afar. Distance will lend dignity.\n\nBut, after all, what does the life of a state or the\nprogress of universities matter in comparison with\nthe life of philosophy on earth! For, to say quite\nfrankly what I mean, it is infinitely more important\nthat a philosopher should arise on the earth than\nthat a state or a university should continue. The\ndignity of philosophy may rise in proportion as\nthe submission to public opinion and the danger\nto liberty increase; it was at its highest during the\nconvulsions marking the fall of the Roman\nRepublic, and in the time of the Empire, when the\nnames of both philosophy and history became\ningrata principibus nomina. Brutus shows its\ndignity better than Plato; his was a time when\nethics cease to have commonplaces. Philosophy\nis not much regarded now, and we may well ask\nwhy no great soldier or statesman has taken it up;\nand the answer is that a thin phantom has met him,\nunder the name of philosophy, the cautious wisdom\nof the learned professor; and philosophy has soon\ncome to seem ridiculous to him. It ought to have\nseemed terrible; and men who are called to\nauthority should know the heroic power that has\nits source there. An American may tell them\nwhat a centre of mighty forces a great thinker can\nprove on this earth. \"Beware when the great God\nlets loose a thinker on this planet,\" says\nEmerson.\n\"Then all things are at risk. It is as when a\nconflagration has broken out in a great city, and no\nman knows what is safe, or where it will end.\nThere is not a piece of science, but its flank may\nbe turned to-morrow; there is not any literary\nreputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame,\nthat may not be revised and condemned. . . . The\nthings which are dear to men at this hour are so\non account of the ideas which have emerged on\ntheir mental horizon, and which cause the present\norder of things as a tree bears its apples. A new\ndegree of culture would instantly revolutionise the\nentire system of human pursuits.\" If such thinkers\nare dangerous, it is clear why our university\nthinkers are not dangerous; for their thoughts\nbloom as peacefully in the shade of tradition \"as\never tree bore its apples.\" They do not frighten;\nthey carry away no gates of Gaza; and to all their\nlittle contemplations one can make the answer of\nDiogenes when a certain philosopher was praised:\n\"What great result has he to show, who has\nso long practised philosophy and yet has hurt\nnobody?\" Yes, the university philosophy should\nhave on its monument, \"It has hurt nobody.\" But\nthis is rather the praise one gives to an old woman\nthan \"to a goddess of truth; and it is not surprising\nthat those who know the goddess only as an old\nwoman are the less men for that, and are naturally\nneglected by the real men of power.\n\nIf this be the case in our time, the dignity of\nphilosophy is trodden in the mire\u00a0; and she seems\nherself to have become ridiculous or insignificant.\nAll her true friends are bound to bear witness\nagainst this transformation, at least to show that\nit is merely her false servants in philosopher's\nclothing who are so. Or better, they must prove\nby their own deed that the love of truth has itself\nawe and power.\n\nSchopenhauer proved this and will continue to\nprove it, more and more.\n\nNotes\n\n\u2007This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.\n\nOriginal:\n\nThis work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.\n\nPublic domainPublic domainfalsefalse\n\nTranslation:\n\nThis work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1931.\n\nThis work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.\n\nPublic domainPublic domainfalsefalse","title":"Schopenhauer as Educator","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":27428}