My words of consolation apply particularly to the single tyrannised
individual out of a hundred: such exceptional ones should simply treat
all the unenlightened majorities as their subordinates; and they should
in the same way take advantage of the prejudice, which is still
widespread, in favour of classical instruction--they need many helpers.
But they must have a clear perception of what their actual goal is.


7

Philology as the science of antiquity does not, of course, endure for
ever; its elements are not inexhaustible. What cannot be exhausted,
however, is the ever-new adaptation of one's age to antiquity; the
comparison of the two. If we make it our task to understand our own age
better by means of antiquity, then our task will be an everlasting
one.--This is the antinomy of philology: people have always endeavoured
to understand antiquity by means of the present--and shall the present
now be understood by means of antiquity? Better: people have explained
antiquity to themselves out of their own experiences; and from the
amount of antiquity thus acquired they have assessed the value of their
experiences. Experience, therefore, is certainly an essential
prerequisite for a philologist--that is, the philologist must first of
all be a man; for then only can he be productive as a philologist. It
follows from this that old men are well suited to be philologists if
they were not such during that portion of their life which was richest
in experiences.

It must be insisted, however, that it is only through a knowledge of the
present that one can acquire an inclination for the study of classical