Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/411

 the favourite secretive method was ready at hand, the approved specific against merit; this much was besides soon agreed upon: that, considering the circumstances of the times, my philosophy did not possess the right qualifications for being taught professionally. Now the true, ultimate aim of all philosophy, with them, is to be taught professionally,—so much and so truly is it so, that were Truth to come down stark naked from lofty Olympus, but were what she brought with her not found to correspond to the requirements called for by the circumstances of the times, or to the purposes of their mighty superiors, these gentlemen "of the profession and trade" would verily waste no time with the indecent nymph, but would hasten to bow her out again to her Olympus, then place three fingers on their lips and return quietly to their compendia. For assuredly he who makes love to this nude beauty, to this fascinating syren, to this portionless bride, will have to forego the good fortune of becoming a Government and University professor. He may even congratulate himself if he becomes a garret-philosopher. On the other hand, his audience will consist, not of hungry undergraduates anxious to turn their learning to account, but rather of those rare, select thinkers, thinly sprinkled among the countless multitude, who arise from time to time, almost as a freak of Nature. And a grateful posterity is beckoning from afar. But they can have no idea of the beauty and loveliness of Truth, of the delight there is in pursuing her track, of the rapture in possessing her, who can imagine that anyone who has once looked her in the face can ever desert, deny, or distort her for the sake of the venal approval, of the offices, of the money or the titles of such people. Better to grind spectacle-glasses like Spinoza or draw water like Cleanthes. Henceforth they may take whatever course they like: Truth will not change her nature to accommodate "the trade." Serious philosophy has now