No More Learning

Take first a strong and increasing desire for
intellectual adventure, the attraction of the new
and rare as against the old and tedious. Add


## p. 167 (#255) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 167
to that a certain joy in nosing the trail of dialectic,
and beating the cover where the old fox, Thought,
lies hid; the desire is not so much for truth as the
chase of truth, and the chief pleasure is in surround-
ing and artistically killing it. Add thirdly a love
of contradiction whereby the personality is able to
assert itself against all others: the battle's the
thing, and the personal victory its aim,—truth only
its pretext. The impulse to discover "particular
truths " plays a great part in the professor, coming
from his submission to definite ruling persons,
classes, opinions, churches, governments, for he
feels it a profit to himself to bring truth to their
side.
The following characteristics of the savant are
less common, but still found. —Firstly, downright-
ness and a feeling for simplicity, very valuable if
more than a mere awkwardness and inability to
deceive, deception requiring some mother-wit. —
(Actually, we may be on our guard against too
obvious cleverness and resource, and doubt the
man's sincerity. ) — Otherwise this downrightness
is generally of little value, and rarely of any use
to knowledge, as it follows tradition and speaks
the truth only in "adiaphora "; it being lazier to
speak the truth here than ignore it. Everything
new means something to be unlearnt, and your
downright man will respect the ancient dogmas
and accuse the new evangelist of failing in the
sensus recti. There was a similar opposition, with
probability and custom on its side, to the theory
of Copernicus. The professor's frequent hatred of
philosophy is principally a hatred of the long


## p. 168 (#256) ############################################

168 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
trains of reasoning and artificiality of the proofs.
Ultimately the savants of every age have a fixed
limit; beyond which ingenuity is not allowed, and
everything suspected as a conspirator against
honesty.
Secondly, a clear vision of near objects, com-
bined with great shortsightedness for the distant and
universal. The professor's range is generally very
small, and his eye must be kept close to the object.
To pass from a point already considered to another,
he has to move his whole optical apparatus. He
cuts a picture into small sections, like a man using
an opera-glass in the theatre, and sees now a head,
now a bit of the dress, but nothing as a whole.
The single sections are never combined for him,
he only infers their connection, and consequently
has no strong general impression. He judges a
literary work, for example, by certain paragraphs
or sentences or errors, as he can do nothing more;
he will be driven to see in an oil painting nothing
but a mass of daubs.
Thirdly, a sober conventionality in his likes and
dislikes. Thus he especially delights in history
because he can put his own motives into the
actions of the past. A mole is most comfortable
in a mole-hill. He is on his guard against all
ingenious and extravagant hypotheses; but digs
up industriously all the commonplace motives of
the past, because he feels in sympathy with them.
He is generally quite incapable of understanding
and valuing the rare or the uncommon, the great
or the real.
Fourthly, a lack of feeling, which makes him


## p. 169 (#257) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 169
capable of vivisection. He knows nothing of the
suffering that brings knowledge, and does not fear
to tread where other men shudder. He is cold
and may easily appear cruel. He is thought
courageous, but he is not,—any more than the
mule who does not feel giddiness.
Fifthly, diffidence, or a low estimate of himself.
Though he live in a miserable alley of the world,
he has no sense of sacrifice or surrender; he appears
often to know in his inmost heart that he is not
a flying but a crawling creature. And this makes
him seem even pathetic.
Sixthly, loyalty to his teachers and leaders.
From his heart he wishes to help them, and knows
he can do it best with the truth. He has a grate-
ful disposition, for he has only gained admittance
through them to the high hall of science; he would
never have entered by his own road. Any man
to-day who can throw open a new province where
his lesser disciples can work to some purpose, is
famous at once; so great is the crowd that presses
after him. These grateful pupils are certainly a
misfortune to their teacher, as they all imitate him;
his faults are exaggerated in their small persons,
his virtues correspondingly diminished.
Seventhly, he will follow the usual road of all
the professors, where a feeling for truth springs
from a lack of ideas, and the wheel once started
goes on. Such natures become compilers, com-
mentators, makers of indices and herbaria; they
rummage about one special department because
they have never thought there are others. Their
industry has something of the monstrous stupidity


## p. 170 (#258) ############################################

lyo THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
of gravitation; and so they can often bring their
labours to an end.
Eighthly, a dread of ennui. While the true
thinker desires nothing more than leisure, the
professor fears it, not knowing how it is to be
used. Books are his comfort; he listens to every-
body's different thoughts and keeps himself amused
all day. He especially chooses books with a per-
sonal relation to himself, that make him feel some
emotion of like or dislike; books that have to do
with himself or his position, his political, aesthetic,
or even grammatical doctrines; if he have mastered
even one branch of knowledge, the means to flap
away the flies of ennui will not fail him.
Ninthly, the motive of the bread-winner, the
"cry of the empty stomach," in fact. Truth is
used as a direct means of preferment, when she
can be attained; or as a way to the good graces
of the fountains of honour — and bread. Only,
however, in the sense of the "particular truth":
there is a gulf between the profitable truths that
many serve, and the unprofitable truths to which
only those few people devote themselves whose
motto is not ingenii largitor venter.
Tenthly, a reverence for their fellow-professors
and a fear of their displeasure—a higher and rarer
motive than the last, though not uncommon. All
the members of the guild are jealously on guard,
that the truth which means so much bread and
honour and position may really be baptized in the
name of its discoverer. The one pays the other
reverence for the truth he has found, in order to
exact the toll again if he should find one himself.


## p. 171 (#259) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 171
The Untruth, the Error is loudly exploded, that the
workers may not be too many; here and there
the real truth will be exploded to let a few bold
and stiff-necked errors be on show for a time; there
is never a lack of " moral idiosyncrasies,"—formerly
called rascalities.
Eleventhly, the "savant for vanity," now rather
rare. He will get a department for himself some-
how, and investigate curiosities, especially if they
demand unusual expenditure, travel, research, or
communication with all parts of the world. He is
quite satisfied with the honour of being regarded
as a curiosity himself, and never dreams of earning
a living by his erudite studies.
Twelfthly, the "savant for amusement. " He
loves to look for knots in knowledge and to untie
them; not too energetically however, lest he lose
the spirit of the game. Thus he does not penetrate
the depths, though he often observes something
that the microscopic eyes of the bread-and-butter
scientist never see.
If I speak, lastly, of the "impulse towards
justice" as a further motive of the savant, I may
be answered that this noble impulse, being meta-
physical in its nature, is too indistinguishable from
the rest, and really incomprehensible to mortal
mind; and so I leave the thirteenth heading with
the pious wish that the impulse may be less rare
in the professor than it seems. For a spark in his
soul from the fire of justice is sufficient to irradiate
and purify it, so that he can rest no more and is
driven for ever from the cold or lukewarm condition
in which most of his fellows do their daily work.


## p. 171 (#260) ############################################

170
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
of gravitation; and so they can often bring their
labours to an end.
Eighthly, a dread of ennui. While the true
thinker desires nothing more than leisure, the
professor fears it, not knowing how it is to be
used. Books are his comfort; he listens to every-
body's different thoughts and keeps himself amused
all day. He especially chooses books with a per-
sonal relation to himself, that make him feel some
emotion of like or dislike; books that have to do
with himself or his position, his political, æsthetic,
or even grammatical doctrines; if he have mastered
even one branch of knowledge, the means to flap
away the Aies of ennui will not fail him.
Ninthly, the motive of the bread-winner, the
“cry of the empty stomach,” in fact. Truth is
used as a direct means of preferment, when she
can be attained; or as a way to the good graces
of the fountains of honour -- and bread. Only,
however, in the sense of the “particular truth":
there is a gulf between the profitable truths that
many serve, and the unprofitable truths to which
only those few people devote themselves whose
motto is not ingenii largitor venter.
Tenthly, a reverence for their fellow-professors
and a fear of their displeasure—a higher and rarer
motive than the last, though not uncommon. All
the members of the guild are jealously on guard,
that the truth which means so much bread and
honour and position may really be baptized in the
name of its discoverer. The one pays the other
reverence for the truth he has found, in order to
exact the toll again if he should find one himself.


## p. 171 (#261) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
171
The Untruth, the Error is loudly exploded, that the
workers may not be too many; here and there
the real truth will be exploded to let a few bold
and stiff-necked errors be on show for a time; there
is never a lack of “moral idiosyncrasies,"—formerly
called rascalities.
Eleventhly, the “savant for vanity," now rather
rare. He will get a department for himself some-
how, and investigate curiosities, especially if they
demand unusual expenditure, travel, research, or
communication with all parts of the world. He is
quite satisfied with the honour of being regarded
as a curiosity himself, and never dreams of earning
a living by his erudite studies.
Twelfthly, the “savant for amusement. ” He
loves to look for knots in knowledge and to untie
them; not too energetically however, lest he lose
the spirit of the game. Thus he does not penetrate
the depths, though he often observes something
that the microscopic eyes of the bread-and-butter
scientist never see.
If I speak, lastly, of the “impulse towards
justice” as a further motive of the savant, I may
be answered that this noble impulse, being meta-
physical in its nature, is too indistinguishable from
the rest, and really incomprehensible to mortal
mind; and so I leave the thirteenth heading with
the pious wish that the impulse may be less rare
in the professor than it seems. For a spark in his
soul from the fire of justice is sufficient to irradiate
and purify it, so that he can rest no more and is
driven for ever from the cold or lukewarm condition
in which most of his fellows do their daily work.


## p. 171 (#262) ############################################

170
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
of gravitation; and so they can often bring their
labours to an end.
Eighthly, a dread of ennui. While the true
thinker desires nothing more than leisure, the
professor fears it, not knowing how it is to be
used. Books are his comfort; he listens to every-
body's different thoughts and keeps himself amused
all day. He especially chooses books with a per-
sonal relation to himself, that make him feel some
emotion of like or dislike; books that have to do
with himself or his position, his political, æsthetic,
or even grammatical doctrines; if he have mastered
even one branch of knowledge, the means to flap
away the flies of ennui will not fail him.
Ninthly, the motive of the bread-winner, the
“cry of the empty stomach,” in fact. Truth is
used as a direct means of preferment, when she
can be attained; or as a way to the good graces
of the fountains of honour — and bread. Only,
however, in the sense of the “particular truth":
there is a gulf between the profitable truths that
many serve, and the unprofitable truths to which
only those few people devote themselves whose
motto is not ingenii largitor venter.
Tenthly, a reverence for their fellow-professors
and a fear of their displeasure—a higher and rarer
motive than the last, though not uncommon. All
the members of the guild are jealously on guard,
that the truth which means so much bread and
honour and position may really be baptized in the
name of its discoverer. The one pays the other
reverence for the truth he has found, in order to
exact the toll again if he should find one himself.


## p. 171 (#263) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
171
The Untruth, the Error is loudly exploded, that the
workers may not be too many; here and there
the real truth will be exploded to let a few bold
and stiff-necked errors be on show for a time; there
is never a lack of “moral idiosyncrasies,”—formerly
called rascalities.
Eleventhly, the “savant for vanity,” now rather
rare. He will get a department for himself some-
how, and investigate curiosities, especially if they
demand unusual expenditure, travel, research, or
communication with all parts of the world. He is
quite satisfied with the honour of being regarded
as a curiosity himself, and never dreams of earning
a living by his erudite studies.
Twelfthly, the “savant for amusement. " He
loves to look for knots in knowledge and to untie
them; not too energetically however, lest he lose
the spirit of the game. Thus he does not penetrate
the depths, though he often observes something
that the microscopic eyes of the bread-and-butter
scientist never see.
If I speak, lastly, of the “impulse towards
justice” as a further motive of the savant, I may
be answered that this noble impulse, being meta-
physical in its nature, is too indistinguishable from
the rest, and really incomprehensible to mortal
mind; and so I leave the thirteenth heading with
the pious wish that the impulse may be less rare
in the professor than it seems. For a spark in his
soul from the fire of justice is sufficient to irradiate
and purify it, so that he can rest no more and is
driven for ever from the cold or lukewarm condition
in which most of his fellows do their daily work.


## p. 172 (#264) ############################################

172 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
All these elements, or a part of them, must be
regarded as fused and pounded together, to form
the Servant of Truth. For the sake of an absolutely
inhuman thing—mere purposeless, and therefore
motiveless, knowledge—a mass of very human
little motives have been chemically combined, and
as the result we have the professor,—so transfigured
in the light of that pure unearthly object that the
mixing and pounding which went to form him are
all forgotten! It is very curious. Yet there are
moments when they must be remembered,—when
we have to think of the professor's significance to
culture. Any one with observation can see that he
is in his essence and by his origin unproductive,
and has a natural hatred of the productive; and
thus there is an endless feud between the genius
and the savant in idea and practice. The latter
wishes to kill Nature by analysing and compre-
hending it, the former to increase it by a new living
Nature. The happy age does not need or know
the savant; the sick and sluggish time ranks him
as its highest and worthiest.
Who were physician enough to know the health
or sickness of our time? It is clear that the pro-
fessor is valued too highly, with evil consequences
for the future genius, for whom he has no com-
passion, merely a cold, contemptuous criticism, a
shrug of the shoulders, as if at something strange and
perverted for which he has neither time nor in-
clination. And so he too knows nothing of the
aim of culture.
In fact, all these considerations go to prove that
the aim of culture is most unknown precisely where


## p. 173 (#265) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 173
the interest in it seems liveliest. The state may
trumpet as it will its services to culture, it merely
helps culture in order to help itself, and does not
comprehend an aim that stands higher than its own
well-being or even existence. The business men
in their continual demand for education merely
wish for—business. When the pioneers of "good
form" pretend to be the real helpers of culture,
imagining that all art, for example, is merely to serve
their own needs, they are clearly affirming themselves
in affirming culture. Of the savant enough has
already been said. All four are emulously thinking
how they can benefit themselves with the help of
culture, but have no thoughts at all when their own
interests are not engaged. And so they have
done nothing to improve the conditions for the
birth of genius in modern times; and the opposi-
tion to original men has grown so far that no
Socrates could ever live among us, and certainly
could never reach the age of seventy.
I remember saying in the third chapter that our
whole modern world was not so stable that one
could prophesy an eternal life to its conception of
culture. It is likely that the next millennium may
reach two or three new ideas that might well make
the hair of 'our present generation stand on end.
The belief in the metaphysical significance of
culture would not be such a horrifying thing, but
its effects on educational methods might be so.
It requires a totally new attitude of mind to be
able to look away from the present educational
institutions to the strangely different ones that will
be necessary for the second or third generation.


## p. 174 (#266) ############################################

174 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
At present the labours of higher education produce
merely the savant or the official or the business
man or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture
of all four; and the future institutions will have a
harder task;—not in itself harder, as it is really
more natural, and so easier; and further, could any-
thing be harder than to make a youth into a savant
against nature, as now happens ? —But the difficulty
lies in unlearning what we know and setting up a
new aim; it will be an endless trouble to change
the fundamental idea of our present educational
system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and
regards the mediaeval savant as the ideal type of
culture. It is already time to put these objects
before us; for some generation must begin the
battle, of which a later generation will reap the
victory. The solitary man who has understood
the new fundamental idea of culture is at the
parting of the ways; on the one he will be
welcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be
his, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have
as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and
when the leader speaks the word of deliverance,
it will echo through all the ranks. The first duty
is to " fight in line," the second to treat as foes all
who will not "fall in. " On the other way he will
find fewer companions; it is steeper and more
tortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh
at him, as his way is the more troublesome and
dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If
the two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or
left alone. What significance has any particular
form of culture for these several travellers? The


## p. 175 (#267) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 175
enormous throng that press to their end on the
first road, understand by it the laws and institutions
that enable them to go forward in regular fashion
and rule out all the solitary and obstinate people
who look towards higher and remoter objects. To
the small company on the other road it has quite
a different office: they wish to guard themselves,
by means of a strong organisation, from being
swept away by the throng, to prevent their in-
dividual members from fainting on the way or
turning in spirit from their great task. These
solitary men must finish their work; that is why
they should all hold together; and those who have
their part in the scheme will take thought to prepare
themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for
the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time
be ripe for him. Many are destined to help on
the labour, even among the second-rate talents,
and it is only in submission to such a destiny that
they can feel they are living for a duty, and have
a meaning and an object in their lives. But at
present these talents are being turned from the
road their instinct has chosen by the seductive
tones of the "fashionable culture," that plays on
their selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses;
and the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its
flattering counsel:—" Follow me and go not thither!
There you are only servants and tools, over-
shadowed by higher natures with no scope for
your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,
slaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy
your true personality, and be masters, your talents
may shine with their own light, and yourselves


## p. 175 (#268) ############################################

174
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
At present the labours of higher education produce
merely the savant or the official or the business
man or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture
of all four; and the future institutions will have a
harder task;—not in itself harder, as it is really
more natural, and so easier; and further, could any-
thing be harder than to make a youth into a savant
against nature, as now happens ? —But the difficulty
lies in unlearning what we know and setting up a
new aim; it will be an endless trouble to change
the fundamental idea of our present educational
system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and
regards the mediæval savant as the ideal type of
culture. It is already time to put these objects
before us; for some generation must begin the
battle, of which a later generation will reap the
victory. The solitary man who has understood
the new fundamental idea of culture is at the
parting of the ways; on the one he will be
welcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be
his, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have
as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and
when the leader speaks the word of deliverance,
it will echo through all the ranks. The first duty
is to “ fight in line,” the second to treat as foes all
who will not “fall in. ” On the other way he will
find fewer companions; it is steeper and more
tortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh
at him, as his way is the more troublesome and
dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If
the two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or
left alone. What significance has any particular
form of culture for these several travellers? The


## p. 175 (#269) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
175
enormous throng that press to their end on the
first road, understand by it the laws and institutions
that enable them to go forward in regular fashion
and rule out all the solitary and obstinate people
who look towards higher and remoter objects. To
the small company on the other road it has quite
a different Office: they wish to guard themselves,
by means of a strong organisation, from being
swept away by the throng, to prevent their in-
dividual members from fainting on the way or
turning in spirit from their great task. These
solitary men must finish their work; that is why
they should all hold together; and those who have
their part in the scheme will take thought to prepare
themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for
the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time
be ripe for him. Many are destined to help on
the labour, even among the second-rate talents,
and it is only in submission to such a destiny that
they can feel they are living for a duty, and have
a meaning and an object in their lives. But at
present these talents are being turned from the
road their instinct has chosen by the seductive
tones of the “fashionable culture,” that plays on
their selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses;
and the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its
flattering counsel :-“ Follow me and go not thither!
There you are only servants and tools, over-
shadowed by higher natures with no scope for
your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,
slaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy
your true personality, and be masters, your talents
may shine with their own light, and yourselves


## p. 175 (#270) ############################################

174
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
At present the labours of higher education produce
merely the savant or the official or the business
man or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture
of all four; and the future institutions will have a
harder task;—not in itself harder, as it is really
more natural, and so easier; and further, could any-
thing be harder than to make a youth into a savant
against nature, as now happens ? —But the difficulty
lies in unlearning what we know and setting up a
new aim; it will be an endless trouble to change
the fundamental idea of our present educational
system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and
regards the mediæval savant as the ideal type of
culture. It is already time to put these objects
before us; for some generation must begin the
battle, of which a later generation will reap the
victory. The solitary man who has understood
the new fundamental idea of culture is at the
parting of the ways; on the one he will be
welcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be
his, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have
as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and
when the leader speaks the word of deliverance,
it will echo through all the ranks. The first duty
is to “ fight in line,” the second to treat as foes all
who will not “fall in. ” On the other way he will
find fewer companions; it is steeper and more
tortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh
at him, as his way is the more troublesome and
dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If
the two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or
left alone. What significance has any particular
form of culture for these several travellers? The


## p. 175 (#271) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
175
enormous throng that press to their end on the
first road, understand by it the laws and institutions
that enable them to go forward in regular fashion
and rule out all the solitary and obstinate people
who look towards higher and remoter objects. To
the small company on the other road it has quite
a different office: they wish to guard themselves,
by means of a strong organisation, from being
swept away by the throng, to prevent their in-
dividual members from fainting on the way or
turning in spirit from their great task. These
solitary men must finish their work; that is why
they should all hold together; and those who have
their part in the scheme will take thought to prepare
themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for
the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time
be ripe for him. Many are destined to help on
the labour, even among the second-rate talents,
and it is only in submission to such a destiny that
they can feel they are living for a duty, and have
a meaning and an object in their lives. But at
present these talents are being turned from the
road their instinct has chosen by the seductive
tones of the “fashionable culture,” that plays on
their selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses ;
and the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its
flattering counsel :-“ Follow me and go not thither!
There you are only servants and tools, over-
shadowed by higher natures with no scope for
your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,
slaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy
your true personality, and be masters, your talents
may shine with their own light, and yourselves


## p. 175 (#272) ############################################

174 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
At present the labours of higher education produce
merely the savant or the official or the business
man or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture
of all four; and the future institutions will have a
harder task;—not in itself harder, as it is really
more natural, and so easier; and further, could any-
thing be harder than to make a youth into a savant
against nature, as now happens ?
—But the difficulty
lies in unlearning what we know and setting up a
new aim; it will be an endless trouble to change
the fundamental idea of our present educational
system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and
regards the mediæval savant as the ideal type of
culture. It is already time to put these objects
before us; for some generation must begin the
battle, of which a later generation will reap the
victory. The solitary man who has understood
the new fundamental idea of culture is at the
parting of the ways; on the one he will be
welcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be
his, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have
as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and
when the leader speaks the word of deliverance,
it will echo through all the ranks. The first duty
is to "fight in line," the second to treat as foes all
who will not “fall in. ” On the other way he will
find fewer companions; it is steeper and more
tortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh
at him, as his way is the more troublesome and
dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If
the two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or
left alone. What significance has any particular
form of culture for these several travellers? The


## p. 175 (#273) ############################################

SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
175
enormous throng that press to their end on the
first road, understand by it the laws and institutions
that enable them to go forward in regular fashion
and rule out all the solitary and obstinate people
who look towards higher and remoter objects. To
the small company on the other road it has quite
a different office: they wish to guard themselves,
by means of a strong organisation, from being
swept away by the throng, to prevent their in-
dividual members from fainting on the way or
turning in spirit from their great task. These
solitary men must finish their work; that is why
they should all hold together; and those who have
their part in the scheme will take thought to prepare
themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for
the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time
be ripe for him. Many are destined to help on
the labour, even among the second-rate talents,
and it is only in submission to such a destiny that
they can feel they are living for a duty, and have
a meaning and an object in their lives. But at
present these talents are being turned from the
road their instinct has chosen by the seductive
tones of the “ fashionable culture,” that plays on
their selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses;
and the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its
flattering counsel :-“Follow me and go not thither!
There you are only servants and tools, over-
shadowed by higher natures with no scope for
your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,
slaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy
your true personality, and be masters, your talents
may shine with their own light, and yourselves


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174 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
At present the labours of higher education produce
merely the savant or the official or the business
man or the Philistine or, more commonly, a mixture
of all four; and the future institutions will have a
harder task;—not in itself harder, as it is really
more natural, and so easier; and further, could any-
thing be harder than to make a youth into a savant
against nature, as now happens ? —But the difficulty
lies in unlearning what we know and setting up a
new aim; it will be an endless trouble to change
the fundamental idea of our present educational
system, that has its roots in the Middle Ages and
regards the mediæval savant as the ideal type of
culture. It is already time to put these objects
before us; for some generation must begin the
battle, of which a later generation will reap the
victory. The solitary man who has understood
the new fundamental idea of culture is at the
parting of the ways; on the one he will be
welcomed by his age, laurels and rewards will be
his, powerful parties will uphold him, he will have
as many in sympathy behind him as in front, and
when the leader speaks the word of deliverance,
it will echo through all the ranks. The first duty
is to “fight in line,” the second to treat as foes all
who will not “fall in. ” On the other way he will
find fewer companions; it is steeper and more
tortuous. The travellers on the first road laugh
at him, as his way is the more troublesome and
dangerous; and they try to entice him over. If
the two ways cross, he is ill-treated, cast aside or
left alone. What significance has any particular
form of culture for these several travellers? The


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.
175
enormous throng that press to their end on the
first road, understand by it the laws and institutions
that enable them to go forward in regular fashion
and rule out all the solitary and obstinate people
who look towards higher and remoter objects. To
the small company on the other road it has quite
a different office: they wish to guard themselves,
by means of a strong organisation, from being
swept away by the throng, to prevent their in-
dividual members from fainting on the way or
turning in spirit from their great task. These
solitary men must finish their work; that is why
they should all hold together; and those who have
their part in the scheme will take thought to prepare
themselves with ever-increasing purity of aim for
the birth of the genius, and ensure that the time
be ripe for him. Many are destined to help on
the labour, even among the second-rate talents,
and it is only in submission to such a destiny that
they can feel they are living for a duty, and have
a meaning and an object in their lives. But at
present these talents are being turned from the
road their instinct has chosen by the seductive
tones of the “fashionable culture,” that plays on
their selfish side, their vanities and weaknesses;
and the time-spirit ever whispers in their ears its
flattering counsel :-“Follow me and go not thither!
There you are only servants and tools, over-
shadowed by higher natures with no scope for
your own, drawn by threads, hung with fetters,
slaves and automatons. With me you may enjoy
your true personality, and be masters, your talents
may shine with their own light, and yourselves


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176 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
stand in the front ranks with an immense following
round you; and the acclamation of public opinion
will rejoice you more than a wandering breath of
approval sent down from the cold ethereal heights
of genius. " Even the best men are snared by such
allurements, and the ultimate difference comes not
so much from the rarity and power of their talent,
as the influence of a certain heroic disposition at
the base of them, and an inner feeling of kinship
with genius. For there are men who feel it as
their own misery when they see the genius in
painful toil and struggle, in danger of self-destruc-
tion, or neglected by the short-sighted selfishness
of the state, the superficiality of the business men,
and the cold arrogance of the professors; and I
hope there may be some to understand what I
mean by my sketch of Schopenhauer's destiny,
and to what end Schopenhauer can really educate.
VII.
But setting aside all thoughts of any educa-
tional revolution in the distant future;—what pro-
vision is required now, that our future philosopher
may have the best chance of opening his eyes to a
life like Schopenhauer's—hard as it is, yet still
livable? What, further, must be discovered that
may make his influence on his contemporaries
more certain? And what obstacles must be re-
moved before his example can have its full effect
and the philosopher train another philosopher?
Here we descend to be practical.


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 177
Nature always desires the greatest utility, but
does not understand how to find the best and
handiest means to her end; that is her great sorrow,
and the cause of her melancholy. The impulse to-
wards her own redemption shows clearly her wish
to give men a significant existence by the generation
of the philosopher and the artist: but how unclear
and weak is the effect she generally obtains with
xher artists and philosophers, and how seldom is
there any effect at all! She is especially perplexed
in her efforts to make the philosopher useful; her
methods are casual and tentative, her failures in-
numerable; most of her philosophers never touch
the common good of mankind at all. Her actions
seem those of a spendthrift; but the cause lies in
no prodigal luxury, but in her inexperience. Were
she human, she would probably never cease to be
dissatisfied with herself and her bungling. Nature
shoots the philosopher at mankind like an arrow;
she does not aim, but hopes that the arrow will
stick somewhere. She makes countless mistakes,
that give her pain. She is as extravagant in the
sphere of culture as in her planting and sowing. She
fulfils her ends in a large and clumsy fashion, using
up far too much of her strength. The artist has
the same relation to the connoisseurs and lovers of
his art as a piece of heavy artillery to a flock of
sparrows. It is a fool's part to use a great avalanche
to sweep away a little snow, to kill a man in order
to strike the fly on his nose. The artist and the
philosopher are witnesses against Nature's adapta-
tion of her means, however well they may show the
wisdom of her ends. They only reach a few and
VOL. II. M


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178 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
should reach all—and even these few are not struck
with the strength they used when they shot. It is
sad to have to value art so differently as cause and
effect; how huge in its inception, how faint the
echo afterwards! The artist does his work as
Nature bids him, for the benefit of other men—no
doubt of it; but he knows that none of those men
will understand and love his work as he understands
and loves it himself. That lonely height of love
and understanding is necessary, by Nature's clumsy
law, to produce a lower type; the great and noble
are used as the means to the small and ignoble.
Nature is a bad manager; her expenses are far
greater than her profits: for all her riches she must
one day go bankrupt. She would have acted more
reasonably to make the rule of her household—
small expense and hundredfold profit; if there had
been, for example, only a few artists with moderate
powers, but an immense number of hearers to ap-
preciate them, stronger and more powerful char-
acters than the artists themselves; then the effect
of the art-work, in comparison with the cause, might
be a hundred-tongued echo. One might at least
expect cause and effect to be of equal power; but
Nature lags infinitely behind this consummation.
An artist, and especially a philosopher, seems often
to have dropped by chance into his age, as a
wandering hermit or straggler cut off from the main
body. Think how utterly great Schopenhauer is,
and what a small and absurd effect he has had!
An honest man can feel no greater shame at the
present time than at the thought of the casual treat-
ment Schopenhauer has received and the evil powers


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 179
that have up to now killed his effect among men.
First there was the want of readers,—to the eternal
shame of our cultivated age ;—then the inadequacy
of his first public adherents, as soon as he had any;
further, I think, the crassness of the modern man
towards books, which he will no longer take
seriously. As an outcome of many attempts to
adapt Schopenhauer to this enervated age, the new
danger has gradually arisen of regarding him as an
odd kind of pungent herb, of taking him in grains,
as a sort of metaphysical pepper. In this way he
has gradually become famous, and I should think
more have heard his name than Hegel's; and, for
all that, he is still a solitary being, who has failed
of his effect. —Though the honour of causing the
failure belongs least of all to the barking of his
literary antagonists; first because there are few
men with the patience to read them, and secondly,
because any one who does, is sent immediately to
Schopenhauer himself; for who will let a donkey-
driver prevent him from mounting a fine horse,
however much he praise his donkey?
Whoever has recognised Nature's unreason in our
time, will have to consider some means to help her;
his task will be to bring the free spirits and the
sufferers from this age to know Schopenhauer;
and make them tributaries to the flood that is to
overbear all the clumsy uses to which Nature even
now is accustomed to put her philosophers. Such
men will see that the identical obstacles hinder the
effect of a great philosophy and the production of
the great philosopher; and so will direct their aims
to prepare the regeneration of Schopenhauer, which


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180 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
means that of the philosophical genius. The real
opposition to the further spread of his doctrine in
the past, and the regeneration of the philosopher in
the future, is the perversity of human nature as it
is; and all the great men that are to be must spend
infinite pains in freeing themselves from it. The
world they enter is plastered over with pretence—
including not merely religious dogmas, but such
juggling conceptions as "progress," "universal
education," "nationalism," "the modern state ";
practically all our general terms have an artificial
veneer over them that will bring a clearer-sighted
posterity to reproach our age bitterly for its warped
and stunted growth, however loudly we may boast
of our "health. " The beauty of the antique vases,
says Schopenhauer, lies in the simplicity with which
they express their meaning and object; it is so
with all the ancient implements; if Nature produced
amphorae, lamps, tables, chairs, helmets, shields,
breastplates and the like, they would resemble
these. And, as a corollary, whoever considers how
we all manage our art, politics, religion and educa-
tion—to say nothing of our vases! —will find in
them a barbaric exaggeration and arbitrariness of
expression. Nothing is more unfavourable to the
rise of genius than such monstrosities. They are
unseen and undiscoverable, the leaden weights on
his hand when he will set it to the plough; the
weights are only shaken off with violence, and his
highest work must to an extent always bear the
mark of it.
In considering the conditions that, at best, keep
the born philosopher from being oppressed by the


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 181
perversity of the age, I am surprised to find they
are partly those in which Schopenhauer himself
grew up. True, there was no lack of opposing in-
fluences; the evil time drew perilously near him in
the person of a vain and pretentious mother. But
the proud republican character of his father rescued
him from her and gave him the first quality of a
philosopher—a rude and strong virility. His father
was neither an official nor a savant; he travelled
much abroad with his son,—a great help to one
who must know men rather than books, and worship
truth before the state. In time he got accustomed
to national peculiarities: he made England, France
and Italy equally his home, and felt no little sym-
pathy with the Spanish character. On the whole,
he did not think it an honour to be born in Germany,
and I am not sure that the new political conditions
would have made him change his mind. He held
quite openly the opinion that the state's one object
was to give protection at home and abroad, and
even protection against its "protectors," and to
attribute any other object to it was to endanger its
true end. And so, to the consternation of all the
so-called liberals, he left his property to the survivors
of the Prussian soldiers who fell in 1848 in the fight
for order. To understand the state and its duties
in this single sense may seem more and more hence-
forth the sign of intellectual superiority; for the man
with the furor philosophicus in him will no longer
have time for the furor politicus, and will wisely
keep from reading the newspapers or serving a
party; though he will not hesitate a moment to
take his place in the ranks if his country be in real


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182 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
need. All states are badly managed, when other
men than politicians busy themselves with politics;
and they deserve to be ruined by their political
amateurs.
Schopenhauer had another great advantage—
that he had never been educated for a professor,
but worked for some time (though against his will)
as a merchant's clerk, and through all his early
years breathed the freer air of a great commercial
house. A savant can never become a philosopher:
Kant himself could not, but remained in a chrysalis
stage to the end, in spite of the innate force of his
genius. Any one who thinks I do Kant wrong in
saying this does not know what a philosopher is—
not only a great thinker, but also a real man; and
how could a real man have sprung from a savant?
He who lets conceptions, opinions, events, books
come between himself and things, and is born for
history (in the widest sense), will never see anything
at once, and never be himself a thing to be " seen
at once"; though both these powers should be
in the philosopher, as he must take most of his
doctrine from himself and be himself the copy
and compendium of the whole world. If a man
look at himself through a veil of other people's
opinions, no wonder he sees nothing but—those
opinions. And it is thus that the professors see
and live. But Schopenhauer had the rare happiness
of seeing the genius not only in himself, but also
outside himself—in Goethe; and this double re-
flection taught him everything about the aims and
culture of the learned. He knew by this experience
how the free strong man, to whom all artistic culture


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 183
was looking, must come to be born; and could he,
after this vision, have much desire to busy himself
with the so-called "art," in the learned, hypocritical
manner of the moderns? He had seen something
higher than that—an awful unearthly judgment-
scene in which all life, even the highest and com-
pletest, was weighed and found too light; he had
beheld the saint as the judge of existence. We
cannot tell how early Schopenhauer reached this
view of life, and came to hold it with such intensity
as to make all his writings an attempt to mirror it;
we know that the youth had this great vision, and
can well believe it of the child. Everything that
he gained later from life and books, from all the
realms of knowledge, was only a means of colour
and expression to him; the Kantian philosophy
itself was to him an extraordinary rhetorical instru-
ment for making the utterance of his vision, as he
thought, clearer; the Buddhist and Christian myth-
ologies occasionally served the same end. He
had one task and a thousand means to execute it;
one meaning, and innumerable hieroglyphs to
express it.
It was one of the high conditions of his existence
that he really could live for such a task—according
to his motto vitam impendere vero — and none
of life's material needs could shake his resolution;
and we know the splendid return he made his father
for this. The contemplative man in Germany
usually pursues his scientific studies to the detri-
ment of his sincerity, as a "considerate fool," in
search of place and honour, circumspect and obse-
quious, and fawning on his influential superiors.


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184 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
Nothing offended the savants more than Schopen-
hauer's unlikeness to them.
VIII.
These are a few of the conditions under which
the philosophical genius can at least come to light
in our time, in spite of all thwarting influences;—
a virility of character, an early knowledge of
mankind, an absence of learned education and
narrow patriotism, of compulsion to earn his
livelihood or depend on the state,—freedom in
fact, and again freedom; the same marvellous and
dangerous element in which the Greek philosophers
grew up. The man who will reproach him, as
Niebuhr did Plato, with being a bad citizen, may
do so, and be himself a good one; so he and
Plato will be right together! Another may call
this great freedom presumption; he is also right,
as he could not himself use the freedom properly
if he desired it, and would certainly presume too
far with it. This freedom is really a grave burden
of guilt; and can only be expiated by great
actions. Every ordinary son of earth has the
right of looking askance on such endowments;
and may Providence keep him from being so
endowed—burdened, that is, with such terrible
duties! His freedom and his loneliness would be
his ruin, and ennui would turn him into a fool, and
a mischievous fool at that.
A father may possibly learn something from
this that he may use for his son's private education,


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 185
though one must not expect fathers to have only
philosophers for their sons. It is possible that
they will always oppose their sons becoming
philosophers, and call it mere perversity; Socrates
was sacrificed to the fathers' anger, for " corrupting
the youth," and Plato even thought a new ideal
state necessary to prevent the philosophers' growth
from being dependent on the fathers' folly. It
looks at present as though Plato had really accom-
plished something; for the modern state counts
the encouragement of philosophy as one of its
duties and tries to secure for a number of men
at a time the sort of freedom that conditions the
philosopher. But, historically, Plato has been
very unlucky; as soon as a structure has risen
corresponding actually to his proposals, it has
always turned, on a closer view, into a goblin-child,
a monstrous changeling; compare the ecclesiastical
state of the Middle Ages with the government of
the "God-born king" of which Plato dreamed!
The modern state is furthest removed from the
idea of the Philosopher-king (Thank Heaven for
that! the Christian will say); but we must think
whether it takes that very "encouragement of
philosophy " in a Platonic sense, I mean as seriously
and honestly as if its highest object were to pro-
duce more Platos. If the philosopher seem, as
usual, an accident of his time, does the state make
it its conscious business to turn the accidental into
the necessary and help Nature here also?
Experience teaches us a better way—or a worse:
it says that nothing so stands in the way of the
birth and growth of Nature's philosopher as the


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186 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
bad philosophers made "by order. " A poor
obstacle, isn't it? and the same that Schopenhauer
pointed out in his famous essay on University
philosophy. I return to this point, as men must
be forced to take it seriously, to be driven to
activity by it; and I think all writing is useless
that does not contain such a stimulus to activity.
And anyhow it is a good thing to apply Schopen-
hauer's eternal theories once more to our own
contemporaries, as some kindly soul might think
that everything has changed for the better in
Germany since his fierce diatribes. Unfortunately
his work is incomplete on this side as well,
unimportant as the side may be.
The " freedom " that the state, as I said, bestows
on certain men for the sake of philosophy is,
properly speaking, no freedom at all, but an
office that maintains its holder. The " encourage-
ment of philosophy" means that there are to-day
a number of men whom the state enables to make
their living out of philosophy; whereas the old
sages of Greece were not paid by the state, but at
best were presented, as Zeno was, with a golden
crown and a monument in the Ceramicus. I
cannot say generally whether truth is served by
showing the way to live by her, since everything
depends on the character of the individual who
shows the way. I can imagine a degree of pride
in a man saying to his fellow-men, "take care of
me, as I have something better to do—namely to
take care of you. " We should not be angry at
such a heightened mode of expression in Plato
and Schopenhauer; and so they might properly


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 187
have been University philosophers,—as Plato, for
example, was a court philosopher for a while
without lowering the dignity of philosophy. But
in Kant we have the usual submissive professor,
without any nobility in his relations with the
state; and thus he could not justify the University
philosophy when it was once assailed. If there be
natures like Schopenhauer's and Plato's, which can
justify it, I fear they will never have the chance, as
the state would never venture to give such men
these positions, for the simple reason that every
state fears them, and will only favour philosophers
it does not fear. The state obviously has a special
fear of philosophy, and will try to attract more
philosophers, to create the impression that it has
philosophy on its side,—because it has those men
on its side who have the title without the power.
But if there should come one who really proposes
to cut everything to the quick, the state included,
with the knife of truth, the state, that affirms its
own existence above all, is justified in banishing
him as an enemy, just as it bans a religion that
exalts itself to be its judge. The man who con-
sents to be a state philosopher, must also consent
to be regarded as renouncing the search for truth
in all its secret retreats. At any rate, so long as
he enjoys his position, he must recognise some-
thing higher than truth—the state. And not only
the state, but everything required by it for existence
—a definite form of religion, a social system, a
standing army; a noli me tangere is written
above all these things. Can a University
philosopher ever keep clearly before him the


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188 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
whole round of these duties and limitations? I
do not know. The man who has done so and
remains a state-official, is a false friend to truth;
if he has not,—I think he is no friend to truth either.
But general considerations like these are always
the weakest in their influence on mankind. Most
people will find it enough to shrug their shoulders
and say, " As if anything great and pure has ever
been able to maintain itself on this earth without
some concession to human vulgarity! Would you
rather the state persecuted philosophers than paid
them for official services? " Without answering
this last question, I will merely say that these
"concessions" of philosophy to the state go rather
far at present. In the first place, the state chooses
its own philosophical servants, as many as its
institutions require; it therefore pretends to be
able to distinguish the good and the bad
philosophers, and even assumes there must be
a sufficient supply of good ones to fill all the
chairs. The state is the authority not only for
their goodness but their numbers. Secondly, it
confines those it has chosen to a definite place and
a definite activity among particular men; they
must instruct every undergraduate who wants
instruction, daily, at stated hours. The question
is whether a philosopher can bind himself, with a
good conscience, to have something to teach every
day, to any one who wishes to listen. Must he not
appear to know more than he does, and speak,
before an unknown audience, of things that he
could mention without risk only to his most
intimate friends? And above all, does he not


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. 189
surrender the precious freedom of following his
genius when and wherever it call him, by the mere
fact of being bound, to think at stated times on a
fixed subject? And before young men, too! Is
not such thinking in its nature emasculate? And
suppose he felt some day that he had no ideas just
then—and yet must be in his place and appear to
be thinking! What then?
"But," one will say, "he is not a thinker but
mainly a depository of thought, a man of great
learning in all previous philosophies. Of these
he can always say something that his scholars
do not know. " This is actually the third, and the
most dangerous, concession made by philosophy
to the state, when it is compelled to appear in the
form of erudition, as the knowledge (more specific-
ally) of the history of philosophy. The genius
looks purely and lovingly on existence, like a poet,
and cannot dive too deep into it;—and nothing is
more abhorrent to him than to burrow among the
innumerable strange and wrong-headed opinions.
The learned history of the past was never a true
philosopher's business, in India or Greece; and
a professor of philosophy who busies himself with
such matters must be, at best, content to hear it
said of him, "He is an able scholar, antiquary,
philologist, historian,"—but never, "He is a
philosopher. " I said, "at best": for a scholar
feels that most of the learned works written by
University philosophers are badly done, without
any real scientific power, and generally are dread-
fully tedious. Who will blow aside, for example,
the Lethean vapour with which the history of


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190 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
Greek philosophy has been enveloped by the dull
though not very scientific works of Ritter, Brandis
and Zeller? I, at any rate, would rather read
Diogenes Laertius than Zeller, because at least the
spirit of the old philosophers lives in Diogenes,
but neither that nor any other spirit in Zeller.
And, after all, what does the history of philosophy
matter to our young men? Are they to be dis-
couraged by the welter of opinions from having
any of their own; or taught to join the chorus
that approves the vastness of our progress? Are
they to learn to hate or perhaps despise philosophy?
One might expect the last, knowing the torture
the students endure for their philosophical ex-
aminations, in having to get into their unfortunate
heads the maddest efforts of the human mind as
well as the greatest and profoundest. The only
method of criticising a philosophy that is possible
and proves anything at all—namely to see whether
one can live by it—has never been taught at the
universities; only the criticism of words, and
again words, is taught there. Imagine a young
head, without much experience of life, being stuffed
with fifty systems (in the form of words) and fifty
criticisms of them, all mixed up together,—what
an overgrown wilderness he will come to be, what
contempt he will feel for a philosophical education!
It is, of course, not an education in philosophy
at all, but in the art of passing a philosophical
examination: the usual result being the pious
ejaculation of the wearied examinee, "Thank God
I am no philosopher, but a Christian and a good
citizen! "


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SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR.