Doctrines and Deductions
If you want to ruin a new idea—try to give it the widest possible publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely, they will cover it up with the débris of their own habitual and intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person can understand them. It is a pity to kill one’s own child, and every one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous enemies of an idea are ‘deductions’ from it, as though they followed of themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed upon it. Indeed, people very often say: ‘The idea is quite right, but it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.’ Again, how often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil’s deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what ‘deductions’ are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself, that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be answered? People could not dispute with him—try to dispute with a man who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.
The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law. People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher (in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words, they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings, Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates’ death nor the deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson. People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and therefore they continue to make ‘deductions’ as they used from every truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay our hands. Many—the vast majority—are even seriously convinced that philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence men will care much more about ‘deductions,’ theoretical and practical, from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of logic.