The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

II

p. 255

of our own, a new thought, is then doubly difficult. This contributes much to the want of originality on the part of scholars. Add to this that they suppose that, like other people, they must divide their time between pleasure and work. Now they regard reading as their work and special calling, and therefore they gorge themselves with it, beyond what they can digest. Then reading no longer plays the part of the mere initiator of thought, but takes its place altogether ; for they think of the subject just as long as they are reading about it, thus with the mind of another, not with their own. But when the book is laid aside entirely different things make much more lively claims upon their interest • their private affairs, and then the theatre, card-playing, skittles, the news of the day, and gossip. The man of thought is so because such things have no interest for him. He is interested only in his problems, with which therefore he is always occupied, by himself and without a book. To give ourselves this interest, if we have not got it, is impossible. This is the crucial point And upon this also depends the fact that the former always speak only of what they have read, while the latter, on the contrary, speaks of what he has thought, and that they are, as Pope says :

"For ever reading, never to be read."

The mind is naturally free, not a slave ; only what it does willingly, of its own accord, succeeds. On the other hand, the compulsory exertion of a mind in studies for which it is not qualified, or when it has become tired, or in general too continuously and invito, Minerva, dulls the brain, just as reading by moonlight dulls the eyes. This is especially the case with the straining of the immature brain in the earlier years of childhood. I believe that the learning of Latin and Greek grammar from the sixth to the twelfth year lays the foundation of the subsequent stupidity of most scholars. At any rate the mind requires the aourishment of materials from without. All that we eat is not at once incorporated in the organism, but only sop. 256 much of it as is digested ; so that ouly a small part of it is assimilated, and the remainder passes away ; and thus to eat more than we can assimilate is useless and injurious. It is precisely the same with what we read. Only so far as it gives food for thought does it increase our insight and true knowledge. Therefore Heracleitus says : " iroXv tiadia vow ov BtSao-tcei" (multiscitia non dot intdlectum). It seems, however, to me that learning may be compared to a heavy suit of armour, which certainly makes the strong man quite invincible, but to the weak man is a burden under which lie sinks altogether.

The exposition given in our third book of the knowledge of the (Platonic) Ideas, as the highest attainable by man, and at the same time entirely perceptive or intuitive knowledge, is a proof that the source of true wisdom does not lie in abstract rational knowledge, but in the clear and profound apprehension of the world in perception. Therefore wise men may live in any age, and those of the past remain wise men for all succeeding generations. Learning, on the contrary, is relative ; the learned men of the past are for the most part children as compared with us, and require indulgence.

But to him who studies in order to gain insight books and studies are only steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a round of the ladder has raised him a step, he leaves it behind him. The many, on the other hand, who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rounds of the ladder to mount by, but take them off, and load themselves with them to carry them away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain always below, because they bear what ought to have borne them.

Upon the truth set forth here, that the kernel of all knowledge is the perceptive or intuitive apprehension, depends the true and profound remark of Helvetius, that the really characteristic and original views of which a gifted individual is capable, and the working up, developCONCRETE AND ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE. 257