like running away from Nature to look at a museum of dried plants or
gaze at a landscape in copperplate.

A man may have discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after
spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for
himself and adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen
that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared
himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable
if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only
when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral
part, a living member, into the whole system of our thought; that it
stands in complete and firm relation with what we know; that it is
understood with all that underlies it and follows from it; that it
wears the color, the precise shade, the distinguishing mark, of our
own way of thinking; that it comes exactly at the right time, just
as we felt the necessity for it; that it stands fast and cannot be
forgotten. This is the perfect application, nay, the interpretation,
of Goethe's advice to earn our inheritance for ourselves so that we
may really possess it:

_Was due ererbt von deinen Vaelern hast,
Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen._[1]

[Footnote 1: _Faust_, I. 329.]

The man who thinks for himself, forms his own opinions and learns the
authorities for them only later on, when they serve but to strengthen
his belief in them and in himself. But the book-philosopher starts
from the authorities. He reads other people's books, collects their
opinions, and so forms a whole for himself, which resembles an
automaton made up of anything but flesh and blood. Contrarily, he who
thinks for himself creates a work like a living man as made by Nature.
For the work comes into being as a man does; the thinking mind is
impregnated from without, and it then forms and bears its child.

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false
tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh;
it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by
thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs
to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the
mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks
for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are
correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is
true to life. On the other hand, the