Essays of Schopenhauer
the interest is never exhausted.
An author like this, in other words, an author who has a claim to live
on in posterity, can only be a man who seeks in vain his like among his
contemporaries over the wide world, his marked distinction making him a
striking contrast to every one else. Even if he existed through several
generations, like the wandering Jew, he would still occupy the same
position; in short, he would be, as Ariosto has put it, _lo fece natura,
e poi ruppe lo stampo_. If this were not so, one would not be able to
understand why his thoughts should not perish like those of other men.
In almost every age, whether it be in literature or art, we find that if
a thoroughly wrong idea, or a fashion, or a manner is in vogue, it is
admired. Those of ordinary intelligence trouble themselves inordinately
to acquire it and put it in practice. An intelligent man sees through it
and despises it, consequently he remains out of the fashion. Some years
later the public sees through it and takes the sham for what it is
worth; it now laughs at it, and the much-admired colour of all these
works of fashion falls off like the plaster from a badly-built wall: and
they are in the same dilapidated condition. We should be glad and not
sorry when a fundamentally wrong notion of which we have been secretly
conscious for a long time finally gains a footing and is proclaimed both
loudly and openly. The falseness of it will soon be felt and eventually
proclaimed equally loudly and openly. It is as if an abscess had burst.
The man who publishes and edits an article written by an anonymous
critic should be held as immediately responsible for it as if he had
written it himself; just as one holds a manager responsible for bad work
done by his workmen. In this way the fellow would be treated as he
deserves to be--namely, without any ceremony.
An anonymous writer is a literary fraud against whom one should
immediately cry out, "Wretch, if you do not wish to admit what it is you
say against other people, hold your slanderous tongue."
An anonymous criticism carries no more weight than an anonymous letter,
and should therefore be looked upon with equal mistrust. Or do we wish
to accept the assumed name of a man, who in reality represents a
_société anonyme_, as a guarantee for the veracity of his friends?
The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the
unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others. I find
whole passages in my works wrongly quoted, and it is only in my
appendix, which is absolutely lucid, that an exception is made. The
misquotation is frequently due to carelessness, the pen of such people
has been used to write down such trivial and banal phrases that it goes
on writing them out of force of habit. Sometimes the misquotation is due
to impertinence on the part of some one who wants to improve upon my
work; but a bad motive only too often prompts the misquotation--it is
then horrid baseness and roguery, and, like a man who commits forgery,
he loses the character for being an honest man for ever.
Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is a more reliable key to
character than the physiognomy of the body. To imitate another person's
style is like wearing a mask. However fine the mask, it soon becomes
insipid and intolerable because it is without life; so that even the
ugliest living face is better. Therefore authors who write in Latin and
imitate the style of the old writers essentially wear a mask; one
certainly hears what they say, but one cannot watch their
physiognomy--that is to say their style. One observes, however, the
style in the Latin writings of men _who think for themselves_, those who
have not deigned to imitate, as, for instance, Scotus Erigena, Petrarch,
Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, etc.
Affectation in style is like making grimaces. The language in which a
man writes is the physiognomy of his nation; it establishes a great many
differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks down to that of
the Caribbean islanders.
We should seek for the faults in the style of another author's works, so
that we may avoid committing the same in our own.
In order to get a provisional estimate of the value of an author's
productions it is not exactly necessary to know the matter on which he
has thought or what it is he has thought about it,--this would compel
one to read the whole of his works,--but it will be sufficient to know
_how_ he has thought. His _style_ is an exact expression of _how_ he has
thought, of the essential state and general _quality_ of his thoughts.
It shows the _formal_ nature--which must always remain the same--of all
the thoughts of a man, whatever the subject on which he has thought or
what it is he has said about it. It is the dough out of which all his
ideas are kneaded, however various they may be. When Eulenspiegel was
asked by a man how long he would have to walk before reaching the next
place, and gave the apparently absurd answer _Walk_, his intention was
to judge from the man's walking how far he would go in a given time. And
so it is when I have read a few pages of an author, I know about how far
he can help me.
In the secret consciousness that this is the condition of things, every
mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style. This instantly
necessitates his giving up all idea of being _naïve_, a privilege which
belongs to superior minds sensible of their superiority, and therefore
sure of themselves. For instance, it is absolutely impossible for men of
ordinary intelligence to make up their minds to write as they think;
they resent the idea of their work looking too simple. It would always
be of some value, however. If they would only go honestly to work and in
a simple way express the few and ordinary ideas they have really
thought, they would be readable and even instructive in their own
sphere. But instead of that they try to appear to have thought much more
deeply than is the case. The result is, they put what they have to say
into forced and involved language, create new words and prolix periods
which go round the thought and cover it up. They hesitate between the
two attempts of communicating the thought and of concealing it. They
want to make it look grand so that it has the appearance of being
learned and profound, thereby giving one the idea that there is much
more in it than one perceives at the moment. Accordingly, they sometimes
put down their thoughts in bits, in short, equivocal, and paradoxical
sentences which appear to mean much more than they say (a splendid
example of this kind of writing is furnished by Schelling's treatises on
Natural Philosophy); sometimes they express their thoughts in a crowd of
words and the most intolerable diffuseness, as if it were necessary to
make a sensation in order to make the profound meaning of their phrases
intelligible--while it is quite a simple idea if not a trivial one
(examples without number are supplied in Fichte's popular works and in
the philosophical pamphlets of a hundred other miserable blockheads that
are not worth mentioning), or else they endeavour to use a certain style
in writing which it has pleased them to adopt--for example, a style that
is so thoroughly _Kat' e'xochae'u_ profound and scientific, where one is
tortured to death by the narcotic effect of long-spun periods that are
void of all thought (examples of this are specially supplied by those
most impertinent of all mortals, the Hegelians in their Hegel newspaper
commonly known as _Jahrbücher der wissenschaftlichen Literatur)_; or
again, they aim at an intellectual style where it seems then as if they
wish to go crazy, and so on. All such efforts whereby they try to
postpone the _nascetur ridiculus mus_ make it frequently difficult to
understand what they really mean. Moreover, they write down words, nay,
whole periods, which mean nothing in themselves, in the hope, however,
that some one else will understand something from them. Nothing else is
at the bottom of all such endeavours but the inexhaustible attempt which
is always venturing on new paths, to sell words for thoughts, and by
means of new expressions, or expressions used in a new sense, turns of
phrases and combinations of all kinds, to produce the appearance of
intellect in order to compensate for the want of it which is so
painfully felt. It is amusing to see how, with this aim in view, first
this mannerism and then that is tried; these they intend to represent
the mask of intellect: this mask may possibly deceive the inexperienced
for a while, until it is recognised as being nothing but a dead mask,
when it is laughed at and exchanged for another.
We find a writer of this kind sometimes writing in a dithyrambic style,
as if he were intoxicated; at other times, nay, on the very next page,
he will be high-sounding, severe, and deeply learned, prolix to the last
degree of dulness, and cutting everything very small, like the late
Christian Wolf, only in a modern garment. The mask of unintelligibility
holds out the longest; this is only in Germany, however, where it was
introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and attained its highest
climax finally in Hegel, always with the happiest results. And yet
nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand; on the
other hand, nothing is more difficult than to express learned ideas so
that every one must understand them. All the arts I have cited above are
superfluous if the writer really possesses any intellect, for it allows
a man to show himself as he is and verifies for all time what Horace
said: _Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_.
But this class of authors is like certain workers in metal, who try a
hundred different compositions to take the place of gold, which is the
only metal that can never have a substitute. On the contrary, there is
nothing an author should guard against more than the apparent endeavour
to show more intellect than he has; because this rouses the suspicion in
the reader that he has very little, since a man always affects
something, be its nature what it may, that he does not really possess.
And this is why it is praise to an author to call him naïve, for it
signifies that he may show himself as he is. In general, naïveté
attracts, while anything that is unnatural everywhere repels. We also
find that every true thinker endeavours to express his thoughts as
purely, clearly, definitely, and concisely as ever possible. This is why
simplicity has always been looked upon as a token, not only of truth,
but also of genius. Style receives its beauty from the thought
expressed, while with those writers who only pretend to think it is
their thoughts that are said to be fine because of their style. Style is
merely the silhouette of thought; and to write in a vague or bad style
means a stupid or confused mind.
Hence, the first rule--nay, this in itself is almost sufficient for a
good style--is this, _that the author should have something to say_. Ah!
this implies a great deal. The neglect of this rule is a fundamental
characteristic of the philosophical, and generally speaking of all the
reflective authors in Germany, especially since the time of Fichte. It
is obvious that all these writers wish _to appear_ to have something to
say, while they have nothing to say. This mannerism was introduced by
the pseudo-philosophers of the Universities and may be discerned
everywhere, even among the first literary notabilities of the age. It is
the mother of that forced and vague style which seems to have two, nay,
many meanings, as well as of that prolix and ponderous style, _le stile
empesé_; and of that no less useless bombastic style, and finally of
that mode of concealing the most awful poverty of thought under a babble