When one believes—as metaphysicians often do—that one understands something one really does not, it could be called affirmative nescire.
The discovery of the most significant truths depends upon a subtle abstraction, yet our everyday life, with its competencies, habits, and routines, constantly endeavors to make us incapable of this. It is the work of philosophers to unlearn these trivial mindless abilities, which we have acquired through observation since childhood. Thus even as a child, a philosopher should already be educated differently.
To match versification to the thought is a very difficult art, the neglect of which is responsible for much ridiculous verse. Versification and thought are related to one another as in everyday life savoir-vivre is to occupation.
If we wish to create a philosophy of use to us in life or wish to give general principles for a perpetually contented life, we must certainly abstract from what introduces too much diversity in our observations—much as in mechanics we ignore friction or other similar particular properties of bodies, so our calculations are not so cumbersome, or we at least replace them with a single letter. Insignificant mishaps undeniably introduce much uncertainty into our practical principles, so we must dismiss them and attend to overcoming the significant ones. This is undoubtedly the true meaning of certain propositions in the Stoic philosophy.
Habit might be called a moral friction: something that does not allow the mind to glide easily over things but joins it to them so it cannot easily free itself.
Prejudices are, so to speak, the acquired instincts of human beings: through prejudice we can accomplish many things we would find too difficult to think through to the point of decision.
Whenever we read a good thought, we should see if something similar might be thought and said about another matter, assuming here that it has some affinity with the former. This is a kind of analysis of thought that perhaps some scholars adopt without saying.
Understanding the meaning of a word in our mother tongue often takes us many years. I also have in mind understanding the meaning tone can lend to a word. The meaning of a word is, if I may express myself mathematically, given by a formula in which the tone is the variable and the word is the constant quantity. This opens the possibility of infinitely enriching language without increasing the number of words. I have found that the phrase “It is good” is pronounced in five different ways, each time with another meaning, which is often determined by yet a third variable, namely, the facial expression.
Minds or spirits without an external world must be strange indeed; since the ground of every thought lies within it, even the most fantastic combinations of ideas would always be correct. We call people insane when the order of their concepts no longer corresponds to the sequence of events in our orderly world; thus a careful observation of nature, or even mathematics, is certainly the most effective preventative of insanity; nature is, so to speak, the guide rope by which our thoughts are lead, so they do not stray.
The conflict over meaning and being, which has done so much harm in religion, might have done more good had it been fought on other fields, for it is a common source of our misfortune that we believe things actually to be what they really only mean.
When Plato says passions and natural desires are the wings of the soul, his expression is enlightening; such comparisons illuminate the matter and are, as it were, translations of the difficult concepts of one man into a language understood by all—true definitions.
The world is a body common to all people; changes in it bring about changes in the souls of all people who are facing only a part.
Not to exist means to natural scientists, at least a certain class of them, the same as not to be perceived.
It never occurs to the peasant who believes the moon is no bigger than a plough wheel that at a distance of a few miles an entire church appears no larger than a white speck, while the moon always appears the same size. Since he possesses these ideas separately, what prevents him from connecting them? In his everyday life, he does connect ideas, perhaps in more elaborate ways than these. This reflection should grab the attention of philosophers, for in certain connections of thought they are perhaps still peasants. We think early enough in life, but we do not know that we are thinking any more than we know we are growing or digesting; among ordinary people, few ever realize this. A close observation of things outside us leads quickly back to the point of observation, that is, ourselves; conversely, anyone who once becomes fully aware of himself is readily led to the observation of the world around him. Be attentive, experience nothing in vain, measure and compare—this is the entire law of philosophy.
Whatever one sees, does, or reads, it should always be brought to such a degree of clarity that one can at least answer the most general objections against it and then it can become part of the structure of our science. To this structure nothing disputable should be added. If something generally assumed cannot be united with our system, then perhaps we are still missing foundational ideas, and discovering this is a great achievement.
Growing wiser means becoming increasingly acquainted with the errors to which our instrument of feeling and judging may be subject. Today, cautiousness in judgment is to be recommended to each and every one. If we reap but one incontestable truth every ten years from each philosopher, our harvest would be rich enough.
Rain, snow, and wind follow one another in such a way that we discern no certain law in their order. But we conceive of laws only in order to simplify our conceptions of things, just as we create races.
The Stoics deny degrees of morality; according to them, all crimes are equal when one abstracts from their damage.
Some scholars have understood truly higher or abstract reason is for man an unnatural thing, and erudition, an illness.
Things most often forgotten, places overlooked, and things accepted without question deserve most often to be investigated.
A single word might be replaced with six; we express too much with one and the same word.
To investigate what is mutable and what eternal in a matter, and at least to indicate where certainty ceases.
We know for certain how to designate the limits of error, and where doubt remains, precise inaccuracy begins.
What am I overlooking here as a result of my limited understanding?
Whenever he had to reason, he felt like someone who had always used his right hand but was now forced to do something with his left.
In recalling our past pleasures, we depart from our present physical body, transporting ourselves entirely in abstracto back to a previous time as an Arcadian being without debts, cares, or needy relatives, for we are not able to imagine for ourselves the unified effect of different impressions as easily as we can that of a single one.
We infer, perhaps too quickly, from the intelligent constitution of the instincts of animals, the existence of a supremely intelligent being; it need only be more intelligent than we are.
There are very few things we can conceive of through all five senses.
We see absolutely nothing of the soul unless it is manifested in the face. The faces of a large assembly of people might be called a history of the human soul, written in a kind of Chinese ideogram. Just as a magnet arranges iron filings, the soul arranges around itself the features of the face, and differences in the arrangement of these parts indicate differences in that which gave rise to them. The longer one observes faces, the more one will notice in so-called unremarkable faces traits that make them individual.
The thing of whose eyes and ears we see nothing and of whose nose and head we see very little—in short, our body.
He used his little stick to measure all kinds of things, physical as well as moral, and would often say, “I am not so concerned with it,” indicating on the stick with his thumb nail his degree of concern.
Who is there? Only I. This is already saying too much.
In our premature and often all too extensive reading, by which we acquire numerous materials without constructing anything from them and which accustoms our memory to keep house for sensibility and taste, a profound philosophy is often required to restore to our feelings their initial state of innocence: to extricate one's self from the detritus of alien ideas, to begin to feel for oneself, to speak for oneself, and, I might almost say, to exist for oneself.
The hypotheses of some newcomers do not yet contradict the evidence, but I fear the evidence will soon contradict them.
One can really make oneself morally heavy, just as children believe they can make their bodies heavier—one can intentionally suppress a fond desire and do what is right.
It is an open question whether it is more difficult to think or not to think. The human is compelled to think, and we all know how hard it is to suppress such a compulsion. Surely then, the small-minded really do not deserve the contempt with which they are treated in every country these days.
We could have continued to think and live without ever concerning ourselves with why or how thought occurs; indeed philosophy first investigated things outside of us before finally turning the microscope inward. A curious and observant mind asked, “How does it come about that we think?”—few, indeed not one in a million, even among professors who have explained psychology, would have posed such a question. And yet how many now ask why objects fall toward the earth? (...)
The question: should I philosophize for myself? must, I think, be answered in the same way as the question: should I shave myself? If someone were to ask me this, I would answer: if you can do it properly, it is an excellent thing. I always think that though we try to teach ourselves the latter, we do not make our first attempt on the throat. Act as the wisest before you have acted, and do not begin your philosophical exercises where an error can deliver you into the hands of the executioner.
In grasping their meaning, it was impossible for him not to disturb the words.
It is well known to any observer of man how difficult it is to explain experiences without the interference of judgment.
Is there then no difference between justice and oppression?
In perceiving something, we cannot withhold our judgment; that we do this also with people is the foundation upon which someone has built physiognomy.
Because of the plurality of our senses, we need not be so attentive with individual senses to the many features of an object. It is easier to recognize something by its appearance or smell than its color or structure.
Do you perhaps believe that your convictions owe their strength to arguments? Then you are undoubtedly mistaken, for if it were true everyone who heard them would have to be as convinced as you are. The theologians call Voltaire delusional, and he in turn calls them delusional; but since they cannot prove with certainty that they are more reasonable than he, and since he is more sophisticated and a better philosopher, the advantage is his. One can be deluded in favor of a proposition as well as against it. Reasons are often, and for the most part, only explanations of entitlements, by which we give a coloring of legitimacy and rationality to something we would have done in any case. Nature, it appears, did not wish to make such an important thing as human conviction depend on logical deductions alone, as these may easily deceive. The impulse to act, thank heavens, often takes us by surprise, before we are half finished proving its necessity and utility.
Most people merely adopt the same opinions as others. Germans go unbelievably far in this. In England, nearly everyone has his own opinion, which is not to say that each has a different one.
I too am awakened, friend, and have attained that degree of philosophical sobriety at which the love of truth is my only guide, and with the light granted me meet all I regard as error without exclaiming I regard that as error and even less that is error.
To undertake a comparison between what we think and what we say. We may say without fear of flogging that half the population would be flogged if they said openly what they think—and yet man is that which thinks, not that which speaks. Two people complementing one another would clash immediately if each knew what the other thought of him.
The inhabitants of Otaheite eat alone and cannot understand how one could eat in company, especially with women. Surprised by this, Banks asked why they eat alone: they do it because it is the right thing to do, but why it is right they would not and could not say.
What are the thoughts and ideas we have while awake if not dreams? If while awake I think of friends who are dead, the story unfolds without it occurring to me that they are dead—just as in a dream. Or I imagine that I have won a grand lottery, and in that moment I really have won it; the thought that I have not won it, I encounter only subsequently as proof to the contrary. The actual possession of something sometimes gives us no greater pleasure than merely imagining we possess it. Our dreams are made benign if we avoid eating meat in the evening, but what about these other thoughts?
Like a great philosophical chatterer, he is concerned not so much with the truth as with the sound of his prose.
In giving incomprehensible, nonsensical things a reasonable interpretation, one arrives often at excellent thoughts; thus Jacob Böhme's book might be as useful to some as the book of nature.
One could create a dietetics for the health of the understanding.
Every person has their own sphere of knowledge in which they can orient themselves better than most of our philosophers can in theirs. Within it, a person notices in a glance what is ridiculous, subtle, stupid, or superfluous. When I understand the purpose of something and have acquired familiarity with the established methods, it should be easy for me to recognize error in any new method—and how could it be otherwise? If I wished to describe to a kitchen girl a new dish and were to tell her that it is an interesting meal with an exceptional flavor and that some grain should be sprinkled on the edge of the dish, she would certainly mock me. Many authors approach their subject in this way without noticing its absurdity. If we wish to make something comprehensible to other people, we must use examples drawn from their own circle, and from this experience we may also learn what we must do to make a certain science a part our own circle.
According to Alembert, the most excellent logical systems are of use only to those who can dispense with them. With a telescope the blind see nothing.
I imagine that when we reach the limits of things set for us, or even as we only approach these limits, we gaze into the infinite, just as from the surface of the earth we gaze out into immeasurable space.
One can repeat something in a way that it has already been said, remove it from human understanding, or draw it closer. The shallow mind does the first; the enthusiast, the second; and the true philosopher, the third.
I doubt it will ever be possible to prove we are the work of a supreme being and not rather fabricated for its own amusement by a very imperfect one.
You must never think: this proposition is too difficult for me; it is only for great scholars; I will concentrate on this other one instead. This is a weakness that will degenerate easily into complete inactivity. You must not think yourself too humble for anything.
He had constructed for himself a certain system, which thereafter exercised such an influence upon his manner of thinking that onlookers always saw his judgment walking a few steps in front of his perceptions, though he himself believed it followed.
If one is to read judiciously, one must keep two aims constantly in mind: first to remember what is said and unite it with one's own system of thought, and second to appropriate for oneself how others have previously understood the matter. Everyone should thus be warned against reading books by dilettantes, particularly when they have included their own arguments and demonstrations. One can indeed learn from their compilations, but they cannot teach what for the philosopher is equally if not more important, namely, how to bring appropriate form to one's own manner of thinking.
Many know things in the way one knows the solution to a riddle after reading it or being told of it. It is an impoverished kind of knowledge and the kind least to be cultivated. One should rather cultivate the kind of knowledge that enables one to discover for oneself, when needed, what others must read or be told in order to know. Many simplicia. Here again we arrive at a thought that has been thought before.
To do exactly the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely, an imitation of its opposite.
Nobody has bad taste, but many have none at all. Most people have no ideas, says Dr. Price; they speak about things, but they do not think. I have often called this “having an opinion.”
Helvétius' Discours I. Judgment is sensation. Differences in judgment depend upon passion and ignorance; the side we see, we take to be the only one, or we do not retain in memory those things we must know in order to judge something properly. The misuse of words has led also the greatest men into error. En effet s'il faut tirer tout le parti possible de l'observation, il faut ne marcher qu'avec elle, s'arreter au moment qu'elle nous abondonne et avoir le courage d'ignorer ce qu'on ne peut encore savoir. [“Indeed (let me be allowed this reflection) if we are to avail ourselves as much as possible from observation, we must walk only by its side, stop at the very instant when it leaves us, and nobly dare to be ignorant of what is not yet to be known.” See Helvétius, De L'esprit, Or Essays on the Mind and Its Several Faculties]
Something might have been made from his ideas, had an angel arranged them for him.
In all intelligent people, one finds the inclination to express oneself succinctly, to say expeditiously what needs to be said. Languages thus give no weak indication of the character of a nation. How difficult it is to translate Tacitus into German. The English, at least their talented authors, are already more concise than we are. It is to their great advantage, in this respect, that they possess particular words for a species while we are more oblique, using the genus with a qualification. It could do no harm to count the words in every phrase and endeavor always to express it with the fewest.
Merchants and traders have a waste book (Sudelbuch, Klitterbuch in German I believe) in which they enter daily everything they purchase and sell, messily, without order. From this, it is transferred to their journal, where everything appears more systematic, and finally to a ledger, in double entry after the Italian manner of bookkeeping, where one settles accounts with each man, once as debtor and then as creditor. This deserves to be imitated by scholars. First it should be entered in a book in which I record everything as I see it or as it is given to me in my thoughts; then it may be entered in another book in which the material is more separated and ordered, and the ledger might then contain, in an ordered expression, the connections and explanations of the material that flow from it.
There is a great difference between still believing something and believing it again. Still believing that the moon influences plants reveals stupidity and superstition, but believing it again indicates philosophy and reflection.
If it were true, what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this of such great advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would not be able to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.
What? One should understand the matter if one wishes to debate it? I say it is essential to a debate that at least one party not understand the issue under discussion and that in so-called current debates, in their most perfect form, neither party understands the issue—indeed, they need not even understand what they themselves are saying. […]
I have no idea what the man means. He has got it into his head that certain words have certain meanings that they must always retain. Is this a royal decree? Who will prevent me from taking here a word and there a meaning and combining them? Obviously this is a lack of contact with the wider world, which is the only world there is.
Once people have gotten such ideas into their heads, they are not so easily removed. The best thing they can do is take a sound system of logic and go through their entire system of beliefs piece by piece until they have cleaned it up.
One of the most fruitful means of discovery, rivaled not even by the questions quid, quis, ubi, is when upon hearing something one asks, is this true? and searches for reasons for one's answer. The dictum that one should never speak or write before thinking reveals the good will of its author but no genuine reflection; to express myself provincially but forcefully, the good man did not consider that you cannot obey this law without breaking it. Indeed, many would not be able to speak at all; thus I believe exactly the opposite. Many people have said something brilliant out of desperation, having to defend something without previous consideration, and to venture claims is to do philosophy.
Truth must overcome a thousand obstacles to safely reach the page and a thousand more to travel back from the page to the mind. Liars are its most feeble enemies. The enthusiastic writer who speaks of everything and views everything as other honest people do who have had one drink too many; the sophisticated, pretentious student of human nature, who sees and intends to see his whole life reflected in every human action like angels in a monad; the worthy, pious man who believes everything out of respect, examines nothing he learned before the age of fifteen, and builds the little that he has examined upon unexamined ground—these are the enemies of truth.
A shot of reason.
If mankind suddenly became virtuous, thousands would starve.
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is unlikely to look out. We have no words for speaking about wisdom to idiots. Whoever understands the wise is wise already.
There is no art in saying something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say. When one has nothing to say, however, and yet writes a book and makes truth, with its ex nihilo nihil fit, into a liar—that I call an accomplishment.
The man who believes a compendium is a book or to record facts is to write history.
That it is true does not matter, as long as the people believe it—that is the devil.
He cannot even distinguish between active and passive reading.
Do not deride our metaphors; after the strong fabric of a language begins to fade, they are the only way to revive it and to lend the whole life and warmth. It is incredible how much our best words have lost: the word reasonable has almost entirely lost its impressiveness; we understand its meaning but no longer feel it because so many men have been called reasonable. Unreasonable is in its own way more impressive. A reasonable child is a dopey, pious, good for nothing tattler; an unreasonable child is much better. The sound of Liberty.
Fools would be better than our finest philosophers because they still believe what they see and sense, while certain English philosophers, turning their backs on nature, believe what they do not sense or perceive. Yet I am far from ridiculing this; I believe denying one's senses is a daring flight of reason, while speech, suicide, and insanity are merely the hops of a flea. This I call freedom; indeed, such enterprising souls need not return to the barracks of the earth in order to eat and drink; they have deserted the love of God entirely and live like the devil apart.
There are people who believe everything done with a solemn face is reasonable.
A good expression is as valuable as a good idea because it is nearly impossible to express oneself well without casting a favorable light on what is expressed.
I was acquainted with a few astronomers in England who altered their findings, and they were right in doing so. Should one not lend nature a hand sometimes? I do not see why not. If in wishing to connect two uncooperative propositions, I push one of them a little, what is wrong with this? People who reason this way have always the truth in view. Is a system of no importance then? The truth is not impoverished when I make of a 3 a 2, but my entire system may collapse. This is why I always enjoy it when I read from our best writers in physics the brave philosophical statement that the experiment they employed for proving some proposition was successful beyond expectation. There is something here that is more easily felt than expressed. I cannot comprehend how people could ridicule this. It brings tears of joy to my eyes.
Once we thoroughly understand nature, even a child will see that an experiment is nothing more than a compliment we pay her. It is merely a ceremony. We know in advance what her answer will be. We ask nature for her consent as great rulers ask their provincial representatives.
I am really not joking, my dear countrymen, when I confess Germans have no esprit, for the little bit of atheism found among us cannot be called esprit. A French atheist with esprit is expected to be converted only when he is severely ill and on his deathbed, while ours are usually converted every time there is a thunderstorm.
Overly subtle men are rarely great men, and their investigations are often as useless as they are precise. They distance themselves further and further from practical life when they should come closer to it. Just as the dancing or fencing instructor does not begin with the anatomy of the legs and hands, so a sound and useful philosophy can begin much higher than with such subtle musings. The foot must be positioned in this way, or you will fall down; you must believe this, for it would be absurd not to—these are very good foundations. People who wish to go further may do so, but they must not think that they are thereby doing something great, for when they are successful they discover only what the reasonable man has long known. Someone who once again proves Euclid's twelfth axiom deserves at most to be called an ingenious man, but he will make no contribution to the expansion of the limits of science that he could not have made without this discovery. And the skeptic? You will never succeed in refuting the skeptic. For what possible argument could be given to convince someone who would believe absurdities? And indeed does everyone who wishes to be refuted really deserve to be? Even the greatest fighters do not fight everyone who challenges them. These are the reasons Beattie's philosophy deserves respect; it is not an entirely new philosophy, but it begins at a higher level. It is the philosophy not of the professor, but of man.
Our philosophers listen too seldom to the voice of feeling; or rather, they rarely possess sufficient sensitivity, so that to every event in the world they respond by expressing more what they know than what they feel, which is useless. It brings us not one step nearer to true philosophy. Is what a man can know necessarily what he should know?
The enthusiasts whom I have known all had the appalling fault that when the smallest spark fell upon them they burst into flames like long primed fireworks, always in the same pattern and with the same clamor; but in the reasonable man, feeling and sensation are always proportionate to the impression. The foolish man argues coldly from the first impression, while the sensible man occasionally turns around to hear what instinct has to say.
We should follow our feelings and express in words the first impression a thing makes upon us. I say this not because I wish to save the truth in this manner but because it is the unadulterated voice of our experience, the result of our best observations, and because we too easily fall into compulsory chatter if we first reflect. In this respect, I advise one read Beattie's philosophy.
People who have read a great deal seldom make great discoveries. I do not say this to excuse laziness, for discovery requires extensive introspection and observation of things. One must see for oneself more than let oneself be told.
If people recounted their dreams honestly, their character might be read more easily from these than from the face.
The utility of systems consists not only in allowing us to think about matters in an ordered way in accordance with a particular scheme but also in allowing us to think about the matter at all; the latter utility is incontestably greater than the former.
It is an admirable observation by Herr Hartley that false judgments are corrected through differences between languages. For we think in words. It deserves to be considered to what extent the acquisition of foreign languages clarifies the concepts in our own language—an excellent question.
What effect must it have upon a people if it learns no foreign languages? Presumably an effect similar to what a complete withdrawal from all society has on an individual.
A on his lips and not-A in his heart.
The expression “I will not forget this for all eternity” is false.
In most cases, it is more difficult to make clever people believe you are what you are not than really to become what you wish to appear to be.
The welfare of many nations is decided according to the majority of votes, though everyone admits there are more evil men than good.
Experience, not reading or hearing, is important. It is not all the same whether an idea enters the soul through the eye or through the ear.
Leibniz defended the Christian religion, but to conclude straightaway from this that he was a good Christian, as the theologians do, shows very little knowledge of the world. Vanity and the desire to say things better than the professionals are, in the case of such a man as Leibniz, who held firmly to few principles, much more likely motivations for doing such a thing than religion would be. If we search more deeply into our own heart, we will discover how little we can assert of others. I would even dare say that I could demonstrate that often we believe we believe something and yet we do not believe it. Nothing is more unfathomable than the system of motivations behind our actions.
Thinking for oneself is often recommended while studying only for the purpose of distinguishing between truth and the errors of others. It is useful, but is that all? Is reading then studying? We could spare ourselves much unnecessary reading. It has been said with great truth that while printing certainly propagated learning, it also reduced its content. Much reading is harmful to thinking. Among all the scholars I have known, the greatest thinkers I have known are those who had read the least. Is enjoyment of the senses nothing at all then?
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Philosophical Writings
Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction by
Steven Tester
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