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On Reading and Books

On Reading and Books

Schopenhauer On Reading and Books

THE LOST ESSAYS SERIES gnorance is degrading only when it is choke the by giving it too much found in company with riches. Want nourishment. For the more one reads Iand penury restrain the poor man; the fewer are the traces left of what his employment takes the place of one has read; the mind is like a tablet knowledge and occupies his : that has been written over and over. while rich men who are ignorant live Hence it is impossible to reflect; and for their only, and resemble a it is only by reflection that one can beast; as may be seen daily. They are assimilate what one has read if one to be reproached also for not having reads straight ahead without ponder- used wealth and leisure for that which ing over it later, what has been read lends them their greatest . does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with When we read, another person thinks mental as with bodily food: scarcely for us: we merely repeat his mental the fifth part of what a man takes is process. It is the same as the pupil, assimilated; the remainder passes off in learning to write, following with his in evaporation, respiration, and the pen the lines that have been pencilled like. by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, “When we read, the work of thinking is, for the greater From all this it may be concluded that part, done for us. This is why we are thoughts put down on paper are noth- another person consciously relieved when we turn to ing more than footprints in the sand: reading after occupied with our one sees the road the man has taken, thinks for us: we own thoughts. But, in reading, our but in order to know what he saw on head is, however, really only the arena the way, one requires his eyes. merely repeat his of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a v mental process.” great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by No literary can be attained by spending the intervals in thoughtless reading writers who possess it: be it, diversion, gradually loses the ability to for example, persuasiveness, imag- think for himself; just as a man who ination, the gift of drawing compari- is always riding at last forgets how to sons, boldness or bitterness, brevity walk. Such, however, is the case with or grace, facility of expression or wit, many men of learning: they have read unexpected contrasts, a laconic man- themselves stupid. For to read in every ner, naïveté, and the like. But if we spare moment, and to read constantly, are already gifted with these qualities is more paralysing to the mind than — that is to say, if we possess them constant manual work, which, at any potentia — we can call them forth and rate, allows one to follow one’s own bring them to ; we can thoughts. Just as a spring, through discern to what uses they are to be the continual pressure of a foreign put; we can be strengthened in our body, at last loses its elasticity, so does inclination, nay, may have courage, to the mind if it has another person’s use them; we can judge by examples thoughts continually forced upon it. the effect of their application and so And just as one spoils the stomach by learn the correct use of them; and it overfeeding and thereby impairs the is only after we have accomplished whole body, so can one overload and

2 FARNAM STREET MEDIA INC. all this that we actu possess these They monopolise the , money, and qualities. This is the only way in which attention which really belong to reading can form writing, since it books and their noble aims; they are teaches us the use to which we can written merely with a view to making put our own natural gifts; and in order money or procuring places. They are to do this it must be taken for granted not only useless, but they do positive that these qualities are in us. Without harm. Nine-tenths of the whole of our them we learn nothing from reading present aims solely at taking but cold, dead mannerisms, and we a few shillings out of the public’s become mere imitators. pocket, and to accomplish this, author, “As the strata of publisher, and reviewer have joined the earth preserve v forces. in rows the The health officer should, in the inter- There is a more cunning and worse est of one’s eyes, see that the small- trick, albeit a profitable one. Littéra- which lived in ness of print has a fixed minimum, teurs, hack-writers, and productive which must not be exceeded. When I authors have succeeded, contrary to former , so was in in 1818, at which time good and the true culture of the the genuine Venetian chain was still age, in bringing the elegante do the shelves of a being made, a goldsmith told me that into leading-strings, so that they have those who made the catena fina turned been taught to read a tempo and all library preserve in blind at thirty. the same thing — namely, the newest books order that they may have ma- a like manner the terial for conversation in their social v errors of the past circles. Bad novels and similar pro- ductions from the pen of writers who As the strata of the earth preserve in were once famous, such as Spindler, and expositions rows the beings which lived in former Bulwer, Eugène Sue, and so on, serve times, so do the shelves of a library concerning them.” this purpose. But what can be more preserve in a like manner the errors miserable than the fate of a reading of the past and expositions concerning public of this kind, that feels always them. Like those creatures, they too impelled to read the latest writings of were full of life in their time and made extremely commonplace authors who a great deal of noise; but now they are write for money only, and therefore stiff and fossilised, and only of interest exist in numbers? And for the sake to the literary palaeontologist. of this they merely know by name the works of the rare and superior writers, v of all ages and countries.

According to Herodotus, Xerxes wept Literary newspapers, since they print at the sight of his army, which was the daily smatterings of common- too extensive for him to scan, at the place people, are especially a cunning that a hundred years hence means for robbing from the aesthetic not one of all these would be alive. public the time which should be de- Who would not weep at the thought in voted to the genuine productions of looking over a big catalogue that of all for the furtherance of culture. these books not one be in exis- tence in ten years’ time? Hence, in regard to our , the art of not reading is highly important. This It is the same in literature as in life. consists in not taking a book into one’s Wherever one goes one immediate- hand merely because it is interesting ly comes upon the incorrigible mob the great public at the time — such as of humanity. It exists everywhere in political or religious pamphlets, nov- legions; crowding, soiling everything, els, , and the like, which make like flies in summer. Hence the num- a noise and reach perhaps several berless bad books, those rank weeds editions in their first and last years of literature which extract nourish- ment from the corn and choke it.

3 FARNAM STREET MEDIA INC. of . Remember rather that ty of a public that will leave unread “One can never the man who writes for fools always writings of the noblest and rarest of read too little finds a large public: and only read for , of all times and all countries, a limited and definite time exclusively for the sake of reading the writings of of bad, or too the works of great minds, those who commonplace persons which appear surpass men of all times and daily, and breed every year in countless much of good countries, and whom the voice of fame numbers like flies; merely because points to as such. These alone really these writings have been printed to- books: bad books educate and instruct. day and are still wet from the press. It would be better if they were thrown are One can never read too little of bad, on one side and rejected the day they poison; they or too much of good books: bad books appeared, as they must be after the are intellectual poison; they destroy lapse of a few years. They will then destroy the mind.” the mind. afford material for as illus- trating the follies of a former time. In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what It is because people will only read is bad; for life is short, and both time what is the newest instead of what is and strength limited. the best of all ages, that writers re- main in the narrow circle of prevailing v , and that the age sinks deeper and deeper in its own mire. Books are written sometimes about this, sometimes about that great v thinker of former times, and the public reads these books, but not the works There are at all times two of the man himself. This is because it which, although scarcely known to wants to read only what has just been each other, side by side — printed, and because similis simili the one real, the other merely appar- gaudet, and it finds the shallow, insipid ent. The former grows into literature gossip of some stupid head of to-day that lasts. Pursued by people who live more homogeneous and agreeable for or poetry, it goes its way than the thoughts of great minds. I earnestly and quietly, but extreme- have to thank fate, however, that a ly slowly; and it produces in Europe fine epigram of A.B. Schlegel, which scarcely a dozen works in a century, has since been my guiding star, came which, however, are permanent. The before my notice as a youth: other literature is pursued by people who live on science or poetry; it goes “Leset fleizig die Alten, die wahren at a gallop amid a great noise and eigentlich Alten shouting of those taking part, and Was die Neuen davon sagen bedeutet brings yearly many thousand works nicht viel.” into the market. But after a few years one asks, Where are they? where is Oh, how like one commonplace mind is their fame, which was so great for- to another! How they are all fashioned merly? This class of literature may be in one form! How they all think alike distinguished as fleeting, the other as under similar circumstances, and nev- permanent. er differ! This is why their views are so personal and petty. And a stupid public v reads the worthless trash written by these fellows for no other reason than that it has been printed to-day, while it leaves the works of great thinkers undisturbed on the bookshelves.

Incredible are the folly and perversi-

4 FARNAM STREET MEDIA INC. It would be a good thing to buy books finding almost entirely “It would be a good if one could also buy the time to read in books, and not in men. thing to buy books them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition There is nothing that so greatly if one could also of their contents. To desire that a man recreates the mind as the works of should retain everything he has ever the old classic writers. Directly one buy the time to read, is the same as wishing him to re- has been taken up, even if it is only tain in his stomach all that he has ever for half-an-hour, one feels as quickly read them; but one eaten. He has been bodily nourished refreshed, relieved, purified, elevated, on what he has eaten, and mentally and strengthened as if one had re- usually confuses on what he has read, and through freshed oneself at a mountain stream. the purchase of them become what he is. As the body Is this due to the perfections of the old assimilates what is homogeneous to languages, or to the greatness of the books with the it, so will a man retain what interests minds whose works have remained him; in other words, what coincides unharmed and untouched for centu- acquisition of with his system of thought or suits his ries? Perhaps to both combined. This ends. Every one has aims, but very few I know, directly we stop learning the their contents. have anything approaching a system old languages (as is at present threat- of thought. This is why such people ening) a new class of literature will To desire that a do not take an objective interest in spring up, consisting of writing that is man should retain anything, and why they learn nothing more barbaric, stupid, and worthless from what they read: they remember than has ever yet existed; that, in par- everything he has nothing about it. ticular, the , which possesses some of the beauties of the ever read, is the Repetitio est mater studiorum. Any old languages, will be systematically kind of important book should imme- spoilt and stripped by these worthless same as wishing diately be read twice, partly because contemporary scribblers, until, little one grasps the in its entire- by little, it becomes impoverished, him to retain in his ty the second time, and only really crippled, and reduced to a miserable stomach all that he understands the beginning when the jargon. end is known; and partly because has ever eaten.” in reading it the second time one’s Half a century is always a considerable temper and mood are different, so that time in the history of the universe, for one gets another impression; it may the matter which forms it is always be that one sees the matter in another shifting; something is always taking light. place. But the same length of time in literature often goes for nothing, be- Works are the quintessence of a mind, cause nothing has happened; unskil- and are therefore always of by far ful attempts don’t count; so that we greater value than conversation, even are exactly where we were fifty years if it be the conversation of the great- previously. est mind. In every essential a man’s works surpass his conversation and To illustrate this: imagine the progress leave it far behind. Even the writings of knowledge among mankind in the of an ordinary man may be instructive, form of a planet’s course. The false worth reading, and entertaining, for paths the human race soon follows the simple reason that they are the after any important progress has quintessence of that man’s mind — been made represent the epicycles in that is to say, the writings are the re- the Ptolemaic system; after passing sult and fruit of his whole thought and through any one of them the planet is study; while we should be dissatisfied just where it was before it entered it. with his conversation. Accordingly, it is The great minds, however, which really possible to read books written by peo- bring the race further on its course, ple whose conversation would give us do not accompany it on the epicy- no satisfaction; so that the mind will cles which it makes every time. This only by degrees attain high culture by explains why posthumous fame is got

5 FARNAM STREET MEDIA INC. at the expense of contemporary fame, his fellows, as well as the apparent and vice versâ. We have an instance of the whole affair, rose to such of such an epicycle in the philosophy a pitch that in the end the charlatanry of Fichte and Schelling, crowned by of the thing was obvious to everybody; Hegel’s caricature of it. This epicycle and when, in consequence of certain “During that issued from the limit to which philos- revelations, the protection that had period the errors ophy had been finally brought by Kant, been given it by the upper classes where I myself took it up again later to was withdrawn, it was talked about by have increased to carry it further. In the interim the false everybody. This most miserable of all I have mentioned, and the that have ever existed such an extent that some others, passed through their ep- dragged down with it into the abyss icycle, which has just been terminated; of discredit the systems of Fichte and they fall under hence the people who accompanied Schelling, which had preceded it. So them are conscious of being exactly at that the absolute philosophical futility the weight of their the point from which they started. of the first half of the century following absurdity; while upon Kant in is obvious; and This condition of things shows why the yet the boast of their gift for at the same time scientific, literary, and artistic spirit of philosophy compared with foreigners, the age is declared bankrupt about ev- especially since an English writer, with the opposition to ery thirty years. During that period the malicious , called them a nation errors have increased to such an ex- of thinkers. them has become tent that they fall under the weight of their absurdity; while at the same time Those who want an example of the stronger.” the opposition to them has become general scheme of epicycles tak- stronger. At this point there is a crash, en from the history of art need only which is followed by an error in the look at the School of which opposite direction. To show the course flourished in the last century under that is taken in its periodical return Bernini, and especially at its further would be the true practical subject of cultivation in . This school rep- the history of literature; little notice is resented commonplace instead taken of it, however. Moreover, through of antique , and the manners the comparative shortness of such of a French minuet instead of an- periods, the data of remote times tique simplicity and grace. It became are with difficulty collected; hence bankrupt when, under Winckelmann’s the matter can be most conveniently direction, a return was made to the observed in one’s own age. antique school. Another example is supplied in the belonging to An example of this taken from physical the first quarter of this century. Art science is found in Werter’s Neptu- was regarded merely as a means and nian geology. But let me keep to the instrument of mediaeval religious example already quoted above, for it is feeling, and consequently ecclesiasti- nearest to us. In cal subjects alone were chosen for its Kant’s brilliant period was immediate- themes. These, however, were treated ly followed by another period, which by painters who were wanting in ear- aimed at being imposing rather than nestness of faith, and in their delusion convincing. Instead of being solid and they took for examples Francesco clear, it aimed at being brilliant and Francia, Pietro Perugino, Angelico da hyperbolical, and, in particular, unin- Fiesole, and others like them, even telligible; instead of seeking , it holding them in greater esteem than intrigued. Under these circumstances the truly great masters who followed. philosophy could make no progress. In view of this error, and because in Ultimately the whole school and its poetry an analogous effort had at the method became bankrupt. For the same time met with favour, Goethe audacious, sophisticated nonsense on wrote his parable Pfaffenspiel. This the one hand, and the unconsciona- school, reputedly capricious, became ble praise on the other of Hegel and bankrupt, and was followed by a return

6 FARNAM STREET MEDIA INC. to nature, which made itself known in us the endless fight which the good genre pictures and scenes of life of ev- and genuine works of all periods and ery description, even though it strayed countries have had to carry on against sometimes into vulgarity. the perverse and bad. It would depict the martyrdom of almost all those It is the same with the progress of the who truly enlightened humanity, of “But I wish some human mind in the history of litera- almost all the great masters in every one would attempt ture, which is for the most part like kind of art; it would show us how they, the catalogue of a cabinet of deformi- with few exceptions, were tormented a tragical history ties; the spirit in which they keep the without recognition, without any to longest is pigskin. We do not need to share their misery, without followers; of literature, look there for the few who have been how they existed in poverty and misery born shapely; they are still alive, and whilst fame, honour, and riches fell to showing how the we come across them in every part of the lot of the worthless; it would reveal the world, like immortals whose youth that what happened to them happened greatest writers is ever fresh. They alone form what I to Esau, who, while the deer and artists have have distinguished as real literature, for his father, was robbed of the bless- the history of which, although poor in ing by Jacob disguised in his brother’s been treated persons, we learn from our youth up coat; and how through it all the love of out of the mouths of educated people, their subject kept them up, until at last during their lives and not first of all from compilations. the trying fight of such a teacher of As a specific against the present pre- the human race is ended, the immor- by the various vailing monomania for reading literary tal laurel offered to him, and the time histories, so that one may be able to come when it can be said of him. nations which have chatter about everything without really knowing anything ... “Der schwere Panzer wird zum produced them and Flügelkleide whose proudest But I wish some one would attempt a tragical history of literature, showing Kurz ist der Schmerz, unendlich ist die Freude.” possessions they how the greatest writers and artists have been treated during their lives are.” by the various nations which have produced them and whose proudest possessions they are. It would show

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