--Not, at all events, when one is trained for philology as one is now.
It should be ascertained to what extent our present means make this last
object impossible.

--Thus the philologist himself is not the aim of philology.


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Most men show clearly enough that they do not regard themselves as
individuals: their lives indicate this. The Christian command that
everyone shall steadfastly keep his eyes fixed upon his salvation, and
his alone, has as its counterpart the general life of mankind, where
every man lives merely as a point among other points--living not only as
the result of earlier generations, but living also only with an eye to
the future. There are only three forms of existence in which a man
remains an individual as a philosopher, as a Saviour, and as an artist.
But just let us consider how a scientific man bungles his life: what
has the teaching of Greek particles to do with the sense of life?--Thus
we can also observe how innumerable men merely live, as it were, a
preparation for a man, the philologist, for example, as a preparation
for the philosopher, who in his turn knows how to utilise his ant-like
work to pronounce some opinion upon the value of life. When such
ant-like work is not carried out under any special direction the greater
part of it is simply nonsense, and quite superfluous.


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