instruction is the clear expression of a predominating conception
regarding the value of antiquity, and the best methods of education. Two
propositions are contained in this statement. In the first place all
higher education must be a historical one, and secondly, Greek and Roman
history differs from all others in that it is classical. Thus the
scholar who knows this history becomes a teacher. We are not here going
into the question as to whether higher education ought to be historical
or not; but we may examine the second and ask: in how far is it classic?

On this point there are many widespread prejudices. In the first place
there is the prejudice expressed in the synonymous concept, "The study
of the humanities": antiquity is classic because it is the school of the
humane.

Secondly: "Antiquity is classic because it is enlightened----"


28

It is the task of all education to change certain conscious actions and
habits into more or less unconscious ones; and the history of mankind is
in this sense its education. The philologist now practises unconsciously
a number of such occupations and habits. It is my object to ascertain
how his power, that is, his instinctive methods of work, is the result
of activities which were formerly conscious, but which he has gradually
come to feel as such no longer: _but that consciousness consisted of
prejudices_. The present power of philologists is based upon these
prejudices, for example the value attached to the _ratio_ as in the
cases of Bentley and Hermann. Prejudices are, as Lichtenberg says, the
art impulses of men.