as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast and cannot be
forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation,
of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves so that we
may really possess it:

_Was due ererbt von deinen Välern hast,
Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen._[1]

[Footnote 1: _Faust_, I. 329.]

The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the
authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen
his belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts
from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their
opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an
automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who
thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by Nature.
For the work comes into being as a man does; the thinking mind is
impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child.

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false
tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh;
it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by
thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs
to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the
mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks
for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are
correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is
true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the
mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of