fame, diffused throughout both hemispheres, can only be increased, if by anything, by the fact that wherever and whenever obscurantists show themselves, it is as their bitterest enemies--and with good reason. Literary _coteries_ and associations are formed to deal out praise and blame, and spurious merit is then trumpeted forth and extolled, while sterling merit is slandered or, as Göthe says, "_secreted, by means of an inviolable silence, in which sort of inquisitorial censure the Germans have attained great proficiency_."[195] The motives and considerations however from which all this proceeds, are of too low a nature for me to care to enumerate them in detail. But what a difference there is between periodicals such as the "Edinburgh Review," in which gentlemen of independent means are induced to write by a genuine interest in the subjects treated, and which honourably upholds its noble motto taken from Publius Syrus: _Judex damnnatur cum nocens absolvitur_, and our mean-spirited, disingenuous, German literary journals, full of considerations and intentions, that are mostly compiled for the sake of pay by hired editors, and ought properly to have for their motto: _Accedas socius laudes, lauderis, ut absens_.[196] Now, after twenty years, do I understand what Göthe said to me at Berka in 1814. As I found him reading Madame de Staël's "_De l'Allemagne_," I remarked in course of conversation that she had given too exaggerated a description of German honesty and one that might mislead foreigners. He laughed and said: "Yes, to be sure, they will not secure their baggage behind and will have it cut off." He then added in a graver tone: "But one has to know German literature in order to realise the full extent of German dishonesty."--All well and good! But the most revolting kind of dishonesty in German literature is that of the time-servers, who pass themselves off for philosophers, while in reality they are obscurantists. The word 'time-serving' no more needs explanation than the thing needs a proof; for anyone who had the face to deny it would furnish strong evidence in support of 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 philosopher's cloak (_Tribonion_); 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?