We Philologists, Volume 8 | Page 5

question · What is science to us? not . what are we to science? People

really make life too easy for themselves when they look upon
themselves from such a simple historical point of view, and make
humble servants of themselves. "Your own salvation above
everything"--that is what you should say; and there are no institutions
which you should prize more highly than your own soul.--Now,
however, man learns to know himself: he finds himself miserable,
despises himself, and is pleased to find something worthy of respect
outside himself. Therefore he gets rid of himself, so to speak, makes
himself subservient to a cause, does his duty strictly, and atones for his
existence. He knows that he does not work for himself alone; he wishes
to help those who are daring enough to exist on account of themselves,
like Socrates. The majority of men are as it were suspended in the air
like toy balloons; every breath of wind moves them.--As a consequence
the savant must be such out of self-knowledge, that is to say, out of
contempt for himself--in other words he must recognise himself to be
merely the servant of some higher being who comes after him.
Otherwise he is simply a sheep.
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It is the duty of the free man to live for his own sake, and not for others.
It was on this account that the Greeks looked upon handicrafts as
unseemly.
As a complete entity Greek antiquity has not yet been fully valued · I
am convinced that if it had not been surrounded by its traditional
glorification, the men of the present day would shrink from it horror
stricken. This glorification, then, is spurious; gold-paper.
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The false enthusiasm for antiquity in which many philologists live.
When antiquity suddenly comes upon us in our youth, it appears to us
to be composed of innumerable trivialities; in particular we believe
ourselves to be above its ethics. And Homer and Walter Scott--who
carries off the palm? Let us be honest! If this enthusiasm were really
felt, people could scarcely seek their life's calling in it. I mean that what
we can obtain from the Greeks only begins to dawn upon us in later

years: only after we have undergone many experiences, and thought a
great deal.
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People in general think that philology is at an end--while I believe that
it has not yet begun.
The greatest events in philology are the appearance of Goethe,
Schopenhauer, and Wagner; standing on their shoulders we look far
into the distance. The fifth and sixth centuries have still to be
discovered.
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Where do we see the effect of antiquity? Not in language, not in the
imitation of something or other, and not in perversity and waywardness,
to which uses the French have turned it. Our museums are gradually
becoming filled up: I always experience a sensation of disgust when I
see naked statues in the Greek style in the presence of this thoughtless
philistinism which would fain devour everything.
PLANS AND THOUGHTS RELATING TO A WORK ON
PHILOLOGY
(1875)
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Of all sciences philology at present is the most favoured · its progress
having been furthered for centuries by the greatest number of scholars
in every nation who have had charge of the noblest pupils. Philology
has thus had one of the best of all opportunities to be propagated from
generation to generation, and to make itself respected. How has it
acquired this power?
Calculations of the different prejudices in its favour.
How then if these were to be frankly recognised as prejudices? Would

not philology be superfluous if we reckoned up the interests of a
position in life or the earning of a livelihood? What if the truth were
told about antiquity, and its qualifications for training people to live in
the present?
In order that the questions set forth above may be answered let us
consider the training of the philologist, his genesis: he no longer comes
into being where these interests are lacking.
If the world in general came to know what an unseasonable thing for us
antiquity really is, philologists would no longer be called in as the
educators of our youth.
Effect of antiquity on the non-philologist likewise nothing. If they
showed themselves to be imperative and contradictory, oh, with what
hatred would they be pursued! But they always humble themselves.
Philology now derives its power only from the union between the
philologists who will not, or cannot, understand antiquity and public
opinion, which is misled by prejudices in regard to it.
The real Greeks, and their "watering down" through the philologists.
The future commanding philologist sceptical in regard to our entire
culture, and therefore also the destroyer of philology as a profession.
THE PREFERENCE FOR ANTIQUITY
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If a man approves of the investigation