Essays of Schopenhauer
entirely, since compendia, which contain in a small space knowledge that
has been collected in the course of several centuries, are included in
compilations.
No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been
written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on
is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change
means progress. Men who think and have correct judgment, and people who
treat their subject earnestly, are all exceptions only. Vermin is the
rule everywhere in the world: it is always at hand and busily engaged in
trying to improve in its own way upon the mature deliberations of the
thinkers. So that if a man wishes to improve himself in any subject he
must guard against immediately seizing the newest books written upon it,
in the assumption that science is always advancing and that the older
books have been made use of in the compiling of the new. They have, it
is true, been used; but how? The writer often does not thoroughly
understand the old books; he will, at the same time, not use their exact
words, so that the result is he spoils and bungles what has been said in
a much better and clearer way by the old writers; since they wrote from
their own lively knowledge of the subject. He often leaves out the best
things they have written, their most striking elucidations of the
matter, their happiest remarks, because he does not recognise their
value or feel how pregnant they are. It is only what is stupid and
shallow that appeals to him. An old and excellent book is frequently
shelved for new and bad ones; which, written for the sake of money, wear
a pretentious air and are much eulogised by the authors' friends. In
science, a man who wishes to distinguish himself brings something new to
market; this frequently consists in his denouncing some principle that
has been previously held as correct, so that he may establish a wrong
one of his own. Sometimes his attempt is successful for a short time,
when a return is made to the old and correct doctrine. These innovators
are serious about nothing else in the world than their own priceless
person, and it is this that they wish to make its mark. They bring this
quickly about by beginning a paradox; the sterility of their own heads
suggests their taking the path of negation; and truths that have long
been recognised are now denied--for instance, the vital power, the
sympathetic nervous system, _generatio equivoca_, Bichat's distinction
between the working of the passions and the working of intelligence, or
they return to crass atomism, etc., etc. Hence _the course of science is
often retrogressive_.
To this class of writers belong also those translators who, besides
translating their author, at the same time correct and alter him, a
thing that always seems to me impertinent. Write books yourself which
are worth translating and leave the books of other people as they are.
One should read, if it is possible, the real authors, the founders and
discoverers of things, or at any rate the recognised great masters in
every branch of learning, and buy second-hand _books_ rather than read
their _contents_ in new ones.
It is true that _inventis aliquid addere facile est_, therefore a man,
after having studied the principles of his subject, will have to make
himself acquainted with the more recent information written upon it. In
general, the following rule holds good here as elsewhere, namely: what
is new is seldom good; because a good thing is only new for a short
time.
What the address is to a letter the _title_ should be to a book--that
is, its immediate aim should be to bring the book to that part of the
public that will be interested in its contents. Therefore, the title
should be effective, and since it is essentially short, it should be
concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible express the contents in a
word. Therefore a title that is prolix, or means nothing at all, or that
is indirect or ambiguous, is bad; so is one that is false and
misleading: this last may prepare for the book the same fate as that
which awaits a wrongly addressed letter. The worst titles are those that
are stolen, such titles that is to say that other books already bear;
for in the first place they are a plagiarism, and in the second a most
convincing proof of an absolute want of originality. A man who has not
enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much
less capable of giving it new contents. Akin to these are those titles
which have been imitated, in other words, half stolen; for instance, a
long time after I had written "On Will in Nature," Oersted wrote "On
Mind in Nature."
* * * * *
A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author's
thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the _matter about
which_ he has thought, or in the _form_ in which he develops his
matter--that is to say, _what_ he has thought about it.
The matter of books is very various, as also are the merits conferred on
books on account of their matter. All matter that is the outcome of
experience, in other words everything that is founded on fact, whether
it be historical or physical, taken by itself and in its widest sense,
is included in the term matter. It is the _motif_ that gives its
peculiar character to the book, so that a book can be important whoever
the author may have been; while with form the peculiar character of a
book rests with the author of it. The subjects may be of such a nature
as to be accessible and well known to everybody; but the form in which
they are expounded, _what_ has been thought about them, gives the book
its value, and this depends upon the author. Therefore if a book, from
this point of view, is excellent and without a rival, so also is its
author. From this it follows that the merit of a writer worth reading is
all the greater the less he is dependent on matter--and the better known
and worn out this matter, the greater will be his merit. The three great
Grecian tragedians, for instance, all worked at the same subject.
So that when a book becomes famous one should carefully distinguish
whether it is so on account of its matter or its form.
Quite ordinary and shallow men are able to produce books of very great
importance because of their _matter_, which was accessible to them
alone. Take, for instance, books which give descriptions of foreign
countries, rare natural phenomena, experiments that have been made,
historical events of which they were witnesses, or have spent both time
and trouble in inquiring into and specially studying the authorities for
them.
On the other hand, it is on _form_ that we are dependent, where the
matter is accessible to every one or very well known; and it is what has
been thought about the matter that will give any value to the
achievement; it will only be an eminent man who will be able to write
anything that is worth reading. For the others will only think what is
possible for every other man to think. They give the impress of their
own mind; but every one already possesses the original of this
impression.
However, the public is very much more interested in matter than in form,
and it is for this very reason that it is behindhand in any high degree
of culture. It is most laughable the way the public reveals its liking
for matter in poetic works; it carefully investigates the real events or
personal circumstances of the poet's life which served to give the
_motif_ of his works; nay, finally, it finds these more interesting than
the works themselves; it reads more about Goethe than what has been
written by Goethe, and industriously studies the legend of Faust in
preference to Goethe's _Faust_ itself. And when Bürger said that "people
would make learned expositions as to who Leonora really was," we see
this literally fulfilled in Goethe's case, for we now have many learned
expositions on Faust and the Faust legend. They are and will remain of a
purely material character. This preference for matter to form is the
same as a man ignoring the shape and painting of a fine Etruscan vase in
order to make a chemical examination of the clay and colours of which it
is made. The attempt to be effective by means of the matter used,
thereby ministering to this evil propensity of the public, is absolutely
to be censured in branches of writing where the merit must lie expressly
in the form; as, for instance, in poetical writing. However, there are
numerous bad dramatic authors striving to fill the theatre by means of
the matter they are treating. For instance, they place on the stage any
kind of celebrated man, however stripped of dramatic incidents his life
may have been, nay, sometimes without waiting until the persons who
appear with him are dead.
The distinction between matter and form, of which I am here speaking, is
true also in regard to conversation. It is chiefly intelligence,
judgment, wit, and vivacity that enable a man to converse; they give
form to the conversation. However, the _matter_ of the conversation must
soon come into notice--in other words, _that_ about which one can talk
to the man, namely, his knowledge. If this is very small, it will only
be his possessing the above-named formal qualities in a quite
exceptionally high degree that will make his conversation of any value,
for his matter will be restricted to things concerning humanity and
nature, which are known generally. It is just the reverse if a man is
wanting in these formal qualities, but has, on the other hand, knowledge
of such a kind that it lends value to his conversation; this value,
however, will then entirely rest on the matter of his conversation, for,
according to the Spanish proverb, _mas sabe el necio en su casa, que el
sabio en la agena_.
A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of
words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as
everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages. Its
existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the
instant it becomes crystallised.
As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is
serious in its deepest sense.
When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a
child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence. The
poet has also said:
"Ihr müsst mich nicht durch Widerspruch verwirren!
_Sobald man spricht, beginnt man schon zu irren_."
The pen is to thought what the stick is to walking, but one walks most
easily without a stick, and thinks most perfectly when no pen is at
hand. It is only when a man begins to get old that he likes to make use
of a stick and his pen.
A hypothesis that has once gained a position in the mind, or been born
in it, leads a life resembling that of an organism, in so far as it
receives from the outer world matter only that is advantageous and
homogeneous to it; on the other hand, matter that is harmful and
heterogeneous to it is either rejected, or if it must be received, cast
off again entirely.
Abstract and indefinite terms should be employed in satire only as they
are in algebra, in place of concrete and specified quantities. Moreover,
it should be used as sparingly as the dissecting knife on the body of a
living man. At the risk of forfeiting his life it is an unsafe
experiment.
For a work to become _immortal_ it must possess so many excellences that
it will not be easy to find a man who understands and values them _all_;
so that there will be in all ages men who recognise and appreciate some
of these excellences; by this means the credit of the work will be
retained throughout the long course of centuries and ever-changing
interests, for, as it is appreciated first in this sense, then in that,