The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer | Page 9

of which may be found in plenty in the
popular works of Fichte, and the philosophical manuals of a hundred
other miserable dunces not worth mentioning; or, again, they try to
write in some particular style which they have been pleased to take up
and think very grand, a style, for example, par excellence profound and
scientific, where the reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect
of longspun periods without a single idea in them,--such as are
furnished in a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals,
the Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it difficult to
know what it is that they really mean. And then, too, they write down
words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching any meaning to
them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will get sense out
of them.
[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbücher
der wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]
And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort to
sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always trying to
make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd expressions, turns
of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether new or used in a
new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in order to make up
for the very painfully felt lack of it.
It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting on
the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with no life
in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another. Such an
author will at one moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as though he

were tipsy; at another, nay, on the very next page, he will be pompous,
severe, profoundly learned and prolix, stumbling on in the most
cumbrous way and chopping up everything very small; like the late
Christian Wolf, only in a modern dress. Longest of all lasts the mask of
unintelligibility; but this is only in Germany, whither it was introduced
by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and carried to its highest pitch in
Hegel--always with the best results.
And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep things
in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All the arts
and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if the
author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself as he
is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is the
source and origin of good style:
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who
try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold--the only
metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there is
nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than the
manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has; because
this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little; since it is
always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever it may be, it is
just there that he is deficient.
That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naïve_; it means
that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
speaking, to be _naïve_ is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness is
everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every really great
writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly, definitely and
shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to be a mark of
truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its beauty from the
thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the thoughts are supposed
to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette
of thought; and an obscure or bad style means a dull or confused brain.
The first rule, then, for a good style is that _the author should have

something to say_; nay, this is in itself almost all that is necessary. Ah,
how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a fundamental trait in
the philosophical writing, and, in fact,