Thoughts Out of Season, Part II · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
VIII.
An American may tell them what a centre of mighty forces a great thinker can prove on this earth. "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet," says Emerson.[3] "Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned.... The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionise the entire system of human pursuits." If such thinkers are dangerous, it is clear why our university thinkers are not dangerous; for their thoughts bloom as peacefully in the shade of tradition "as ever tree bore its apples." They do not frighten; they carry away no gates of Gaza; and to all their little contemplations one can make the answer of Diogenes when a certain philosopher was praised: "What great result has he to show, who has so long practised philosophy and yet has _hurt_ nobody?" Yes, the university philosophy should have on its monument, "It has hurt nobody." But this is rather the praise one gives to an old woman than to a goddess of truth; and it is not surprising that those who know the goddess only as an old woman are the less men for that, and are naturally neglected by the real men of power.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.