Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/266

 234 THE WILL IN NATURE.

my present argument. Kant taught, that man ought to use his fellow-man only as an end, never as a means: he did not think it necessary to say, that philosophy ought only to be dealt with as an end, never as a means. Time- serving may after all be excused under every garb, the cowl as well as the ermine, save only the Tribonion [plain philosopher's cloak] for he who has once assumed this, has sworn allegiance to truth, and from that moment every other consideration, no matter of what kind, becomes base treachery. Therefore it was that Socrates did not shun the hemlock, nor Bruno the stake, while for a piece of bread these men will transgress. Are they too short sighted to see posterity close at hand, with the history of philosophy at its side, recording two lines of bitter condemnation with unflinching hand and iron pen in its immortal pages? Or has this no sting for them? Well to be sure, if it comes to the worst, après moi le deluge [after me the flood] may be pronounced; but as to après moi le mépris [after me scorn], that is a more difficult matter. Therefore I fancy they will answer that austere judge as follows: " Ah, dear posterity and history of philosophy! You are quite wrong to take us in earnest; we are not philosophers at all, Heaven forbid! No, we are only professors of philosophy, mere servants of the state, mere philosophers in jest. You might as well drag puppet-knights in pasteboard armour into a real tournament." Then the judge will most likely see how matters stand, erase all their names, and confer upon them the beneficium perpetui silentii [benefit of eternal silence]. From this digression to which I had been led away eighteen years ago by the cant and time-serving I then witnessed, though they were not nearly as flourishing then as they are now, I return to that part of my doctrine which Dr. Brandis has confirmed, though he did not originate it, in order to add a few explanations with which I shall then connect some further corroborations it has since received from Physiology.