2
On inquiring into the origin of the philologist I find:
1. A young man cannot have the slightest conception of what the Greeks and Romans were.
2. He does not know whether he is fitted to investigate into them;
3. And, in particular, he does not know to what extent, in view of the knowledge he may actually possess, he is fitted to be a teacher. What then enables him to decide is not the knowledge of himself or his science; but
(a) Imitation.
(b) The convenience of carrying on the kind of work which he had begun at school.
(c) His intention of earning a living.
In short, ninety-nine philologists out of a hundred should not be philologists at all.
3
The more strict religions require that men shall look upon their activity simply as one means of carrying out a metaphysical scheme: an unfortunate choice of calling may then be explained as a test of the individual. Religions keep their eyes fixed only upon the salvation of the individual . whether he is a slave or a free man, a merchant or a scholar, his aim in life has nothing to do with his calling, so that a wrong choice is not such a very great piece of unhappiness. Let this serve as a crumb of comfort for philologists in general; but true philologists stand in need of a better understanding: what will result from a science which is "gone in for" by ninety-nine such people? The thoroughly unfitted majority draw up the rules of the science in accordance with their own capacities and inclinations; and in this way they tyrannise over the hundredth, the only capable one among them. If they have the training of others in their hands they will train them consciously or unconsciously after their own image . what then becomes of the classicism of the Greeks and Romans?
The points to be proved are—