[119] In emphasising here the weak sides of the writings of Plato and Aristotle, forced on my attention while reading them in German translations, I, of course, have no intention of underrating the great merits and the high historical importance of these two men. Their importance must not be measured by the fact that our speculative philosophy still moves to a great extent in their paths of thought. The more probable conclusion is that this branch has made very little progress in the last two thousand years. Natural science also was implicated for centuries in the meshes of the Aristotelian thought, and owes its rise mainly to having thrown off those fetters.
[120] I would not for a moment contend that we derive exactly the same profit from reading a Greek author in a translation as from reading him in the original; but the difference, the excess of gain in the second case, appears to me, and probably will to most men who are not professional philologists, to be too dearly bought with the expenditure of eight years of valuable time.
[121] "The temptation," Judge Hartwich writes, "to regard the 'taste' of the ancients as so lofty and unsurpassable appears to me to have its chief origin in the fact that the ancients were unexcelled in the representation of the nude. First, by their unremitting care of the human body they produced splendid models; and secondly, in their gymnasiums and in their athletic games they had these models constantly before their eyes. No wonder, then, that their statues still excite our admiration! For the form, the ideal of the human body has not changed in the course of the centuries. But with intellectual matters it is totally different; they change from century to century, nay, from decennium to decennium. It is very natural now, that people should unconsciously apply what is thus so easily seen, namely, the works of sculpture, as a universal criterion of the highly developed taste of the ancients—a fallacy against which people cannot, in my judgment, be too strongly warned."
[122] English: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."—Dutch: "In het begin schiep God den hemel en de aarde. De aarde nu was woest en ledig, en duisternis was op den afgrond; en de Geest Gods zwefde op de wateren."—Danish: "I Begyndelsen skabte Gud Himmelen og Jorden. Og Jorden var ode og tom, og der var morkt ovenover Afgrunden, og Guds Aand svoevede ovenover Vandene."—Swedish: "I begynnelsen skapade Gud Himmel och Jord. Och Jorden war öde och tom, och mörker war pä djupet, och Gods Ande swäfde öfwer wattnet."—German: "Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde. Und die Erde war wüst und leer, und es war finster auf der Tiefe; und der Geist Gottes schwebte auf dem Wasser."
[123] Compare Herzen's excellent remarks, De l'enseignement secondaire dans la Suisse romande, Lausanne, 1886.
[124] Geschichte der Mathematik, Leipsic, 1874.
[125] Geometrische Analyse, Ulm, 1886.
[126] In his text-books of elementary mathematics
[127] Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Mathematik, Würzburg, 1883.
[128] My idea here is an appropriate selection of readings from Galileo, Huygens, Newton, etc. The choice is so easily made that there can be no question of difficulties. The contents would be discussed with the students, and the original experiments performed with them. Those scholars alone should receive this instruction in the upper classes who did not look forward to systematical instruction in the physical sciences. I do not make this proposition of reform here for the first time. I have no doubt, moreover, that such radical changes will only be slowly introduced.