single caste, but from mankind at large. Evidently, these true
teachers and artists and learned men, the purveyors of spiritual
nourishment, are rare. And it is not without reason that mankind
has valued and still values them so highly.

But it now appears, that all these great factors in the science and
art of the past are no longer of use to us. Nowadays, scientific
and artistic authorities can, in accordance with the law of division
of labor, be turned out by factory methods; and, in one decade, more
great men have been manufactured in art and science, than have ever
been born of such among all nations, since the foundation of the
world. Nowadays there is a guild of learned men and artists, and
they prepare, by perfected methods, all that spiritual food which
man requires. And they have prepared so much of it, that it is no
longer necessary to refer to the elder authorities, who have
preceded them,--not only to the ancients, but to those much nearer
to us. All that was the activity of the theological and
metaphysical period,--all that must be wiped out: but the true, the
rational activity began, say, fifty years ago, and in the course of
those fifty years we have made so many great men, that there are
about ten great men to every branch of science. And there have come
to be so many sciences, that, fortunately, it is easy to make them.
All that is required is to add the Greek word "logy" to the name,
and force them to conform to a set rubric, and the science is all
complete. They have created so many sciences, that not only can no
one man know them all, but not a single individual can remember all
the titles of all the existing sciences; the titles alone form a
thick lexicon, and new sciences are manufactured every day. They
have been manufactured on the pattern of that Finnish teacher who
taught the landed proprietor's children Finnish instead of French.