Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1499

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With the progress of civilization, not all parts of human labor and activity in which culture is revealed, flourish equally; rather in accordance with the favorable character of persons and conditions, one necessarily surpasses the other, and thus arouses a more general interest. A certain jealous displeasure often arises in consequence, among members of a family so varied in its branches, who often are the less able to endure one another, the more closely they are related.

It is for the most part a baseless complaint, when this or that adept in science and art complains that just his branch is being neglected by contemporaries; for an able master has only to appear in order to concentrate attention upon himself. If Raphael should reappear today, we should bestow upon him a superabundance of honor and riches. An able master arouses excellent pupils and their activities extend their ramifications into the infinite.

From the earliest times philosophers especially have incurred the hatred, not only of their fellow scientists, but of men of the world and bons vivants, perhaps more by the position they assume than by their own fault. For as philosophy in accordance with her nature must make demands upon the universal and the highest, she must regard worldly objects as included in and subordinated to herself.

Nor are these pretentious demands specifically denied; every man rather believes that he has a right to take part in her discoveries, to make use of her maxims, and to appropriate whatever else she may have to offer. But as philosophy, in order to become universal, must make use of her own vocabulary of unfamiliar combinations and difficult explanations, which are in harmony neither with the life nor with the momentary needs of men of the world, she is despised by those who cannot find the handle by which she might easily be grasped.

Yet, if, on the other hand, one wished to accuse the philosophers because they do not know how to translate doctrine into life, and because they make the most mistakes exactly where all their convictions should be converted into action, thereby diminishing their own credit in the eyes of the world—no lack of examples might be found to verify such accusations.

Winckelmann often complains bitterly of the philosophers of his day and their widespread influence; but I think one can escape from every influence by limiting oneself to his own line of work. It is strange that Winckelmann did not attend the University at Leipsic, where, under the direction of Johann Friedrich Christ, he might, without troubling himself about a single philosopher in existence, have made much more comfortable progress in his favorite study.

This is perhaps the proper place for an observation which we should like to make, in view of recent events—that no scholar can afford to reject, oppose, or scorn the great philosophical movement begun by Kant, except the true investigators of antiquity, who by the peculiarity of their study seem to be especially favored above all other men. For since they are occupied with the best that the world has produced and only examine the trivial and the inferior in their relation to the most excellent, their attainments reach such fullness, their judgment such certainty, their taste such consistency, that they appear within their own circle most wonderfully, even astonishingly, cultured. Winckelmann also attained this good fortune, in which indeed he was greatly assisted by the influence of the fine arts and of life itself.