Читать книгу We Philologists - Фридрих Вильгельм Ницше - Страница 10

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.