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5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully
and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they
are--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in
short, how childish and childlike they are,--but that there is not
enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and
virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in
the remotest manner. They all pose as though their real opinions had
been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure,
divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics,
who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a
prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally
their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with
arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not
wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their
prejudices, which they dub "truths,"--and VERY far from having the
conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having
the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be
understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence
and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally
stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic
by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical
imperative"--makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small
amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical
preachers. Or, still more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by
means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and
mask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," to translate the term fairly
and squarely--in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart
of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible
maiden, that Pallas Athene:--how much of personal timidity and
vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!

6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up
till now has consisted of--namely, the confession of its originator, and
a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover
that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted
the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown.
Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a
philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first
ask oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly,
I do not believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of
philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made
use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever
considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining
how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and
cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time
or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to
look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate
LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as
SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in
the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if
you will; there there may really be such a thing as an "impulse to
knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well
wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of
the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual
"interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another
direction--in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics;
it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little
machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a
good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not
CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the
contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all,
his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE
IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature
stand to each other.

7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging
than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the
Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense,
and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of
Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles;
besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS,
there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular
name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that
Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the
mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of
which Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos,
who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three
hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who
knows! Greece took a hundred years to find out who the garden-god
Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out?