We may learn something from it, certainly; but not culture as the
word is now understood. Our present culture is based on an emasculated
and mendacious study of antiquity. In order to understand how
ineffectual this study is, just look at our philologists . they, trained
upon antiquity, should be the most cultured men. Are they?
48
Origin of the philologist. When a great work of art is exhibited there
is always some one who not only feels its influence but wishes to
perpetuate it. The same remark applies to a great state--to everything,
in short, that man produces. Philologists wish to perpetuate the
influence of antiquity and they can set about it only as imitative
artists. Why not as men who form their lives after antiquity?
49
The decline of the poet-scholars is due in great part to their own
corruption: their type is continually arising again; Goethe and
Leopardi, for example, belong to it. Behind them plod the
philologist-savants. This type has its origin in the sophisticism of the
second century.
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