enough originality to think out a new title for his book will be much
less capable of giving it new contents. Akin to these are those titles
which have been imitated, in other words, half stolen; for instance, a
long time after I had written "On Will in Nature," Oersted wrote "On
Mind in Nature."

* * * * *

A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author's
thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the _matter about
which_ he has thought, or in the _form_ in which he develops his
matter--that is to say, _what_ he has thought about it.

The matter of books is very various, as also are the merits conferred on
books on account of their matter. All matter that is the outcome of
experience, in other words everything that is founded on fact, whether
it be historical or physical, taken by itself and in its widest sense,
is included in the term matter. It is the _motif_ that gives its
peculiar character to the book, so that a book can be important whoever
the author may have been; while with form the peculiar character of a
book rests with the author of it. The subjects may be of such a nature
as to be accessible and well known to everybody; but the form in which
they are expounded, _what_ has been thought about them, gives the book
its value, and this depends upon the author. Therefore if a book, from
this point of view, is excellent and without a rival, so also is its
author. From this it follows that the merit of a writer worth reading is
all the greater the less he is dependent on matter--and the better known
and worn out this matter, the greater will be his merit. The three great
Grecian tragedians, for instance, all worked at the same subject.