Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/128

 the world. The ordinary scholar pursues knowledge as a purpose, and at least in its general heading sees in advance what he does not know, which is depressing. Mayer always investigated for himself, and everything that he learnt was a necessity for him ; hence he was able to go far with his knowledge. Nowadays people do just the contrary ; they occupy themselves with integrations which they will never need, and with a host of useless, if extremely ingenious, things. A fault which the merely brilliant writer has in common with the positively bad one is that as a rule he does not actually illuminate his subject, but rather uses it as a means of drawing attention to himself. We make the acquaintance of the writer but of nothing else. Difficult as it may sometimes be to leave out a witty sentence, it must nevertheless be done if the sentence does not necessarily issue from the matter in hand. This is a discipline which gradually accustoms wit to the bridle that reason is obliged to put upon it, if both are to emerge with honour. Bad writers are mostly those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones. If they could only say what they think in appropriate words, they would always contribute something towards the common fund, and deserve attention. It is not to be expected of any philosopher that he should show himself as such everywhere in society;