On the Study of Latin
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
The abolition of Latin as the universal language of learned men,
together with the rise of that provincialism which attaches to national
literatures, has been a real misfortune for the cause of knowledge in Europe.
For it was chiefly through the medium of the Latin language that a learned
public existed in Europe at all—a public to which every book as it came out
directly appealed. The number of minds in the whole of Europe that are
capable of thinking and judging is small, as it is; but when the audience is
broken up and severed by differences of language, the good these minds can
do is very much weakened. This is a great disadvantage; but a second and
worse one will follow, namely, that the ancient languages will cease to be
taught at all. The neglect of them is rapidly gaining ground both in France
and Germany.
If it should really come to this, then farewell, humanity! farewell, noble
taste and high thinking! The age of barbarism will return, in spite of
railways, telegraphs and balloons. We shall thus in the end lose one more
advantage possessed by all our ancestors. For Latin is not only a key to the
knowledge of Roman antiquity; its also directly opens up to us the Middle
Age in every country in Europe, and modern times as well, down to about
the year 1750. Erigena, for example, in the ninth century, John of Salisbury
in the twelfth, Raimond Lully in the thirteenth, with a hundred others, speak
straight to us in the very language that they naturally adopted in thinking of
learned matters.
They thus come quite close to us even at this distance of time: we are in
direct contact with them, and really come to know them. How would it have
been if every one of them spoke in the language that was peculiar to his
time and country? We should not understand even the half of what they
said. A real intellectual contact with them would be impossible. We should
see them like shadows on the farthest horizon, or, may be, through the
translator's telescope.
It was with an eye to the advantage of writing in Latin that Bacon, as he
himself expressly states, proceeded to translate his Essays into that
language, under the title Sermones fideles; at which work Hobbes assisted
him.
Here let me observe, by way of parenthesis, that when patriotism tries to
urge its claims in the domain of knowledge, it commits an offence which
should not be tolerated. For in those purely human questions which interest
all men alike, where truth, insight, beauty, should be of sole account, what
can be more impertinent than to let preference for the nation to which a
man's precious self happens to belong, affect the balance of judgment, and
thus supply a reason for doing violence to truth and being unjust to the great
minds of a foreign country in order to make much of the smaller minds of
one's own! Still, there are writers in every nation in Europe, who afford
examples of this vulgar feeling. It is this which led Yriarte to caricature
them in the thirty-third of his charming Literary Fables.
[ Translator's Note.—Tomas de Yriarte (1750-91), a Spanish poet, and
keeper of archives in the War Office at Madrid. His two best known works
are a didactic poem, entitled La Musica, and the Fables here quoted, which
satirize the peculiar foibles of literary men. They have been translated into
many languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in
question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to
which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of
the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the
ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon the dromedary
stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one could discover the reason for
this mutual compliment. Was it because both were such uncouth beasts, or
had such long necks, or were neither of them particularly clever or
beautiful? or was it because each had a hump? No! said the fox, you are all
wrong. Don't you see they are both foreigners? Cannot the same be said of
many men of learning?]
In learning a language, the chief difficulty consists in making
acquaintance with every idea which it expresses, even though it should use
words for which there is no exact equivalent in the mother tongue; and this
often happens. In learning a new language a man has, as it were, to mark
out in his mind the boundaries of quite new spheres of ideas, with the result
that spheres of ideas arise where none were before. Thus he not only learns
words, he gains ideas too.
This is nowhere so much the case as in learning ancient languages, for
the differences they present in their mode of expression as compared with
modern languages is greater than can be found amongst modern languages
as compared with one another. This is shown by the fact that in translating
into Latin, recourse must be had to quite other turns of phrase than are used
in the original. The thought that is to be translated has to be melted down
and recast; in other words, it must be analyzed and then recomposed. It is
just this process which makes the study of the ancient languages contribute
so much to the education of the mind.
It follows from this that a man's thought varies according to the
language in which he speaks. His ideas undergo a fresh modification, a
different shading, as it were, in the study of every new language. Hence an
acquaintance with many languages is not only of much indirect advantage,
but it is also a direct means of mental culture, in that it corrects and matures
ideas by giving prominence to their many-sided nature and their different
varieties of meaning, as also that it increases dexterity of thought; for in the
process of learning many languages, ideas become more and more
independent of words. The ancient languages effect this to a greater degree
than the modern, in virtue of the difference to which I have alluded.
From what I have said, it is obvious that to imitate the style of the
ancients in their own language, which is so very much superior to ours in
point of grammatical perfection, is the best way of preparing for a skillful
and finished expression of thought in the mother-tongue. Nay, if a man
wants to be a great writer, he must not omit to do this: just as, in the case of
sculpture or painting, the student must educate himself by copying the great
masterpieces of the past, before proceeding to original work. It is only by
learning to write Latin that a man comes to treat diction as an art. The
material in this art is language, which must therefore be handled with the
greatest care and delicacy.
The result of such study is that a writer will pay keen attention to the
meaning and value of words, their order and connection, their grammatical
forms. He will learn how to weigh them with precision, and so become an
expert in the use of that precious instrument which is meant not only to
express valuable thought, but to preserve it as well. Further, he will learn to
feel respect for the language in which he writes and thus be saved from any
attempt to remodel it by arbitrary and capricious treatment. Without this
schooling, a man's writing may easily degenerate into mere chatter.
To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine
country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can be
seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond, everything
is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view, embracing modern
times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental horizon is still further
enlarged if he studies Greek or even Sanscrit.
If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be a
great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of hydrofluoric
acid in his crucible.
There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the ancient
classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only for half an hour,
and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved, purified, ennobled,
strengthened; just as though you had quenched your thirst at some pure
spring. Is this the effect of the old language and its perfect expression, or is
it the greatness of the minds whose works remain unharmed and
unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years? Perhaps both together. But
this I know. If the threatened calamity should ever come, and the ancient
languages cease to be taught, a new literature will arise, of such barbarous,
shallow and worthless stuff as never was seen before.