[183] _Hofräthe._ A title of honour often given for literary and scientific merit in Germany, and common among University professors. [Tr.'s note.] Meanwhile my honest and kindly advice to the young generation is, not to waste any time with University philosophy, but to study Kant's works and my own instead. I promise them that there they will learn something substantial, that will bring light and order into their brains: so far at least as they may be capable of receiving them. It is not good to crowd round a wretched farthing rushlight when brilliant torches are close by; still less to run after will o' the wisps. Above all, my truth-seeking young friends, beware of letting our professors tell you what is contained in the Critique of Pure Reason. Read it yourselves, and you will find in it something very different from what they deem it advisable for you to know.--In our time a great deal too much study is generally devoted to the History of Philosophy; for this study, being adapted by its very nature to substitute knowledge for reflection, is just now cultivated downright with a view to making philosophy consist in its own history. It is not only of doubtful necessity, but even of questionable profit, to acquire a superficial half-knowledge of the opinions and systems of all the philosophers who have taught for 2,500 years; yet what more does the most honest history of philosophy give? A real knowledge of philosophers can only be acquired from their own works, and not from the distorted image of their doctrines as it is found in the commonplace head.[184] But it is really urgent that order should be brought into our heads by some sort of philosophy, and that we should at the same time learn to look at the world with a really unbiassed eye. Now no philosophy is so near to us, both as regards time and language, as that of Kant, and it is at the same time a philosophy, compared with which all those which went before are superficial. On this account it is unhesitatingly to be preferred to all others. [184] "_Potius de rebus ipsis judicare debemus, quam pro magno habere, de hominibus quid quisque senserit scire_," says St. Augustine ("_De civ. Dei_," l. 19, c. 3). Under the present mode of proceeding, however, the philosophical lecture-room becomes a sort of rag-fair for old worn out, cast-off opinions, which are brought there every six months to be aired and beaten. [Add. to 3rd ed.] But I perceive that the news of Caspar Hauser's escape has already spread among our professors of philosophy; for I see that some of them have already given vent to their feelings in bitter and venomous abuse of me in various periodicals, making up by falsehoods for their deficiency of wit.[185] Nevertheless I do not complain of all this, because I am rejoiced at the cause and amused by the effect of it, as illustrative of Göthe's verse: