SCHOPENHAUER'S ESSAYS.1

TRANSLATED BY ERNEST Belford Bax.

[ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER: A German philosopher; born at Dantzig, February 22, 1788; died at Frankfort-on-the-Main, September 20, 1860. He studied at Göttingen, Berlin, Dresden, and Rudolstadt, and received his degree at Jena in 1813. His graduation thesis, "The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," showed the wonderful philosophical mind of the student, whose next notable work, "The World as Will and Idea" (1818), is his masterpiece. His other writings include a pamphlet on "Sight and Color" (1816), "The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics" (1841), and "Parerga and Paralipomena" (1851).]

THINKING FOR ONESELF.

As the richest library unarranged is not so useful as a very moderate one well arranged, so the greatest amount of erudition, if it has not been elaborated by one's own thought, is worth much less than a far smaller amount that has been well thought over. For it is through the combination on all sides of that which one knows, through the comparison of every truth with every other, that one assimilates one's own knowledge and gets it into one's power. One can only think out what one knows; hence one should learn something; but one only knows what one has thought out.

One can only apply oneself of set purpose to reading and learning, but not to thinking proper. The latter must, that is, be stimulated and maintained, like fire by a draught of air, by some interest in the subject itself, which may be either a purely objective or a merely subjective one. The latter is only pres

ent in the case of our personal interest, but the former only for thinking heads by nature, for which thought is as natural as breath, but which are very rare. For this reason it is so little the case with most scholars.

The distinction between the effect which thinking for oneself, and that which reading has upon the mind, is inconceivably great, hence it perpetually increases the original diversity of heads by virtue of which a man is driven to the one or to the other. Reading imposes thoughts upon the mind which are as foreign and heterogeneous to the direction and mood which it has for the moment as the seal is to the wax on which it impresses its stamp. The mind suffers thereby an entire compul1 By permission of Geo. Bell & Sons. (Price 58.)

sion from without, to think now this, now that, for which it has no desire and no capacity. In thinking for itself, on the other hand, it follows its own natural impulse, as either external circumstance or some recollection has determined it for the moment. Perceptual surroundings, namely, do not impress one definite thought upon the mind as reading does, but merely give it material and occasion to think that which is according to its nature and present disposition. Hence much reading deprives the mind of all elasticity, as a weight continually pressing upon it does a spring, and the most certain means of never having any original thoughts is to take a book in hand at once, at every spare moment. This practice is the reason why scholarship makes most men more unintelligent and stupid than they are by nature, and deprives their writings of all success; they are, as Pope says

Forever reading, never to be read.

Scholars are those who have read in books; but thinkers, geniuses, enlighteners of the world, and benefactors of the human race are those who have directly read in the book of the world.

At bottom it is only our own fundamental conceptions which have truth and life, for it is they alone that one thoroughly and correctly understands. Alien thoughts that we read are the remnants of another's meal, the cast-off clothes of a strange guest.

The alien thought arising within us is related to our own as the impression in stone of a plant of the early world is to the blooming plant of spring.

In read

Reading is a mere surrogate for original thought. ing, one allows one's own thoughts to be guided by another in leading strings. Besides, many books are only good for showing how many false paths there are, and how seriously one may miss one's way if one allows oneself to be guided by them; but he whom genius guides, he, that is, who thinks for himself, thinks of free will, thinks correctly-he has the compass to find out the right way. One should only read when the source of original thoughts fails, which is often enough the case even with the best heads. But to scare away one's own original thoughts for the sake of taking a book in the hand is a sin against the Holy Ghost. In this case, one resembles a man who

runs away from free nature in order to look at a herbarium, or to contemplate a beautiful landscape in an engraving.

Even if sometimes one may find with ease in a book a truth or an insight already given, which one has worked out slowly, and with much trouble, by one's own thinking and combining, it is yet worth a hundred times more when one has attained it through one's original thought. Only then does it become as integral part, as living member, one with the whole system of our thoughts; only then does it stand in complete and firm cohesion with them, is understood in all its grounds and consequences, bears the color, the shade, the stamp, of our whole mode of thought, and this because it has come at the precise time that the need for it was present, and therefore sits firmly, secure from dispossession. Here accordingly Goethe's verse,

What thou hast inherited from thy fathers
Acquire it, in order to possess it,

finds its most perfect application and explanation. The self-` thinker, namely, learns the authorities for his opinions afterwards, when they serve merely to confirm him in them and for his own strengthening. The book philosopher, on the other hand, starts from them, in that he constructs a whole for himself out of the alien opinions he has read up, which then resembles an automaton that has been put together of foreign material, while the former resembles a living man. For in this case it has arisen like the living man, since the outer world has impregnated the thinking mind which has carried it, and given it birth.

Truth that has only been learnt cleaves to us like a limb that has been stuck on a false tooth, a waxen nose, or at best like a genuine one of alien flesh. But that which has been acquired by original thought resembles the natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. On this rests the distinction between the thinker and the mere scholar. Hence the intellectual acquirement of the self-thinker is like a fine painting, which stands out lifelike with accurate light and shade, wellbalanced tone, and complete harmony of color. The intellectual acquirement of the mere scholar, on the contrary, resembles a large palette full of bright colors, systematically arranged indeed, but without harmony, cohesion, and significance.

Reading means thinking with an alien head, not one's own.

But to original thought, from which a coherent whole, even if not a strictly rounded-off system, seeks to develop itself, nothing is more injurious than too great an influx of foreign thoughts through continual reading. For these, each sprung from another mind, belonging to another system, bearing another color, never of themselves flow together to form a whole of thought, of knowledge, of insight, and conviction, but rather set up a Babylonian confusion of tongues in the head, and rob the mind which has been filled with them of all clear insight, and thus almost disorganize it. This state is noticeable with many scholars, and the result is that they are behind many unlearned persons in healthy understanding, accurate judgment, and practical tact, the latter having always subordinated to and incorporated with their own thought what has come to them from without, through experience, conversation, and a little reading. The scientific thinker does this in a greater degree. Although he needs much knowledge, and therefore must read much, his mind is nevertheless strong enough to master all this, to assimilate it, to incorporate it into the system of his thoughts, and so to subordinate it to the organically coherent whole of a magnificent insight, which is always growing. In this, his own thinking, like the ground bass of the organ, perpetually dominates all, and is never drowned by foreign tones, as is the case with merely polyhistorical heads, in which, as it were, musical fragments from all keys run into one another, and the fundamental note is no more to be heard.

People who have occupied their life with reading, and who have derived their wisdom from books, resemble those who have acquired a correct knowledge of a country from many descriptions of travel. Such persons can give information about much, but at bottom they have no coherent, clear, fundamental knowledge of the structure of the country. Those, on the contrary, who have occupied their life with thought, resemble persons who have themselves been in that country. They alone know, properly speaking, what is in question, since they know the things there in their connection, and are truly at home in them.

The ordinary book philosopher is related to the self-thinker as an historical investigator to an eyewitness. The latter speaks from his own direct apprehension of the matter. Hence

all self-thinkers agree in the last resort and their diversity only arises from that of their standpoint; and where this does not alter anything they all say the same. For they only put forward what they have objectively apprehended. I have often found propositions which, on account of their paradoxical nature, I only brought before the public with hesitation, to my agreeable surprise repeated in the old works of great men. The book philosopher, on the contrary, reports what this one has said, and what that one has thought, and what another has objected, etc. This he compares, weighs, criticises, and thus seeks to get at the truth of things, a point in which he strongly resembles the critical historian. Thus, for example, he will institute investigations as to whether Leibnitz had ever been for a time at any period a Spinozist, etc. Conspicuous instances of what is here said are furnished to the curious admirer in Herbart's "Analytical Explanation of Moral and Natural Right," as also in his "Letters on Freedom." One might well wonder at the considerable trouble which such a one gives himself, for it seems as though, if he would only fix his eye on the subject itself, he would soon, by a little self-thought, attain to the goal. But as to this, there is one small hindrance, namely, that it does not depend on our will. One can always sit down and read, but not always think as well. It is, namely, with thoughts as with men, one cannot always have them called up at one's pleasure, but must wait till they come. Thought on a subject must make an appearance of itself by a happy, harmonious concurrence of the outward occasion with the inward mood and interest; and it is precisely this which will never occur to the foregoing persons. The above finds its explanation even in those thoughts which concern our personal interest. under certain circumstances have to form a decision, we cannot well sit down at any time we choose, think over the reasons, and then decide; for often our reflections on the subject will then precisely not hold, but wander to other things, for which sometimes even the disinclination for the circumstance is responsible. We should not therefore attempt to force it, but wait till the mood comes of itself; it will often do so unexpectedly and repeatedly, and every different mood at a different time throws a new light on the subject. This slow procedure it is which is understood as maturity of judgment. For the thought must be distributed; much that has before been overlooked will thereby be clear to us, and the disinclination