to look at the world with a really unbiassed eye. Now no philosophy is so near to us, both as regards time and language, as that of Kant, and it is at the same time a philosophy, compared with which all those which went before are superficial. On this account it is unhesitatingly to be preferred to all others.
But I perceive that the news of Caspar Hauser's escape has already spread among our professors of philosophy; for I see that some of them have already given vent to their feelings in bitter and venomous abuse of me in various periodicals, making up by falsehoods for their deficiency of wit.[1] Nevertheless I do not complain of all this, because I am rejoiced at the cause and amused by the effect of it, as illustrative of Goethe's verse:
"Es will der Spitz aus unserm Stall
Uns immerfort begleiten:
Doch seines Bellens lauter Schall
Beweist nur, dass wir reiten."[2]
- Arthur Schopenhauer.
Frankfurt Am Main,
- August, 1854.
- ↑ I take this opportunity urgently to request that the public will not believe unconditionally any accounts of what I am supposed to have said, even when they are given as quotations; but will first verify the existence of these quotations in my works. In this way many a falsehood will be detected, which can however only be stamped as a direct forgery when it is accompanied by quotation marks (" "). [Add. to 3rd ed.]
- ↑ Wikisource translation:
The little dog from our stall
Will always come with us:
Yet the loudness of his barking
Just shows that we are riding.
("Kläffer" (barker) in Parabolic).
