antiquity. Where indeed should the impulse come from if not from this
inclination? When we observe how few philologists there actually are,
except those that have taken up philology as a means of livelihood, we
can easily decide for ourselves what is the matter with this impulse for
antiquity: it hardly exists at all, for there are no disinterested
philologists.

Our task then is to secure for philology the universally educative
results which it should bring about. The means: the limitation of the
number of those engaged in the philological profession (doubtful whether
young men should be made acquainted with philology at all). Criticism of
the philologist. The value of antiquity: it sinks with you: how deeply
you must have sunk, since its value is now so little!


8

It is a great advantage for the true philologist that a great deal of
preliminary work has been done in his science, so that he may take
possession of this inheritance if he is strong enough for it--I refer to
the valuation of the entire Hellenic mode of thinking. So long as
philologists worked simply at details, a misunderstanding of the Greeks
was the consequence. The stages of this undervaluation are · the
sophists of the second century, the philologist-poets of the
Renaissance, and the philologist as the teacher of the higher classes of
society (Goethe, Schiller).

Valuing is the most difficult of all.

In what respect is one most fitted for this valuing?