The following is one way of carrying on classical studies, and a frequent one: a man throws himself thoughtlessly, or is thrown, into some special branch or other, whence he looks to the right and left and sees a great deal that is good and new. Then, in some unguarded moment, he asks himself: "But what the devil has all this to do with me?" In the meantime he has grown old and has become accustomed to it all; and therefore he continues in his rut--just as in the case of marriage. 91 In connection with the training of the modern philologist the influence of the science of linguistics should be mentioned and judged; a philologist should rather turn aside from it: the question of the early beginnings of the Greeks and Romans should be nothing to him: how can they spoil their own subject in such a way? 92 A morbid passion often makes its appearance from time to time in connection with the oppressive uncertainty of divination, a passion for believing and feeling sure at all costs: for example, when dealing with Aristotle, or in the discovery of magic numbers, which, in Lachmann's case, is almost an illness. 93 The consistency which is prized in a savant is pedantry if applied to the Greeks. 94 (THE GREEKS AND THE PHILOLOGISTS.) THE GREEKS: THE PHILOLOGISTS are: render homage to beauty, babblers and triflers, develop the body, ugly-looking creatures, speak clearly, stammerers, are religious transfigurers filthy pedants, of everyday occurrences, are listeners and observers, quibblers and scarecrows, have an aptitude for the unfitted for the symbolical, symbolical, are in full possession of ardent slaves of the State, their freedom as men, can look innocently out Christians in disguise, into the world, are the pessimists of philistines. thought. 95 Bergk's "History of Literature": Not a spark of Greek fire or Greek sense. 96 People really do compare our own age with that of Pericles, and congratulate themselves on the reawakening of the feeling of patriotism: I remember a parody on the funeral oration of Pericles by G. Freytag,[10] in which this prim and strait-laced "poet" depicted the happiness now experienced by sixty-year-old men.--All pure and simple caricature! So this is the result! And sorrow and irony and seclusion are all that remain for him who has seen more of antiquity than this. [Footnote 10: See note on p. 149.--TR.] 97 If we change a single word of Lord Bacon's we may say: infimarum Græcorum virtutum apud philologos laus est, mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus nullus. 98 How can anyone glorify and venerate a whole people! It is the individuals that count, even in the case of the Greeks. 99