thing in accordance with their own desires. The desire for
classical antiquity as it is now felt should be tested, and, as it were,
taken to pieces and analysed with a view to seeing how much of this
desire is due to habit, and how much to mere love of adventure--I refer
to that inward and active desire, new and strange, which gives rise to a
productive conviction from day to day, the desire for a higher goal, and
also the means thereto . as the result of which people advance step by
step from one unfamiliar thing to another, like an Alpine climber.

What is the foundation on which the high value attached to antiquity at
the present time is based, to such an extent indeed that our whole
modern culture is founded on it? Where must we look for the origin of
this delight in antiquity, and the preference shown for it?

I think I have recognised in my examination of the question that all our
philology--that is, all its present existence and power--is based on the
same foundation as that on which our view of antiquity as the most
important of all means of training is based. Philology as a means of
instruction is the clear expression of a predominating conception
regarding the value of antiquity, and the best methods of education. Two
propositions are contained in this statement. In the first place all
higher education must be a historical one, and secondly, Greek and Roman
history differs from all others in that it is classical. Thus the
scholar who knows this history becomes a teacher. We are not here going
into the question as to whether higher education ought to be historical
or not; but we may examine the second and ask: in how far is it classic?

On this point there are many widespread prejudices. In the first place
there is the prejudice expressed in the synonymous concept, "The study
of the humanities": antiquity is classic because it is the school of the
humane.

Secondly: "Antiquity is classic because it is enlightened----"

28

It is the task of all education to change certain conscious actions and
habits into more or less unconscious ones; and the history of mankind is
in this sense its education. The philologist now practises unconsciously
a number of such occupations and habits. It is my object to ascertain
how his power, that is, his instinctive methods of work, is the result
of activities which were formerly conscious, but which he has gradually
come to feel as such no longer: _but that consciousness co