tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore;
where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle confusedly,
and no fundamental note is heard at all.

Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom
from books, are like people who have obtained precise information
about a country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such
people can tell a great deal about it; but, after all, they have no
connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But
those who have spent their lives in thinking, resemble the travellers
themselves; they alone really know what they are talking about; they
are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home
in the subject.

The thinker stands in the same relation to the ordinary
book-philosopher as an eye-witness does to the historian; he speaks
from direct knowledge of his own. That is why all those who think
for themselves come, at bottom, to much the same conclusion. The
differences they present are due to their different points of view;
and when these do not affect the matter, they all speak alike. They
merely express the result of their own objective perception of things.
There are many passages in my works which I have given to the public
only after some hesitation, because of their paradoxical nature; and
afterwards I have experienced a pleasant surprise in finding the same
opinion recorded in the works of great men who lived long ago.

The book-philosopher merely reports what one person has said and
another meant, or the objections raised by a third, and so on. He
compares different opinions, ponders, criticises, and tries to get at
the truth of the matter; herein on a par with the critical historian.