philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of
really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if you
will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to
knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which,
when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT
the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part
therein. The actual "interests" of the scholar, therefore, are
generally in quite another direction--in the family, perhaps, or
in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost
indifferent at what point of research his little machine is
placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good
philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not
CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on
the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above
all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as
to WHO HE IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses
of his nature stand to each other.

7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more
stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on
Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its
original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies
"Flatterers of Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and
lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say,
"They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them" (for
Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is
really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he
was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of
which Plato and his scholars were masters--of which Epicurus was
not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat