503
Friendship.—The objection to a philosophic — life, viz., that it makes us unprofitable to our friends, would never have arisen in 2 modern mind: it is antique, Antiquity has deeply and fully experienced and excogitated friendship, and almost buried it in its own grave. This is its advantage over us: in return we have idealised sexual love. All great qualifications of the ancients were supported by the premise that man was standing side by side to man and that woman was not allowed to claim, being the nearest, highest, nay, sole object. of his love—as passion teaches us to feel. Perhaps our trees do not grow so high owing to the ivy and vine that cling round them.
504
To reconcile.—Should it be the task of philosophy to reconcile that which the child has learnt to that which the man has recognised? Should philosophy be indeed the tusk of youths because they stand midway between the child and the man and have the intermediate inclinations ? It almost appears to be so if we consider at what stages of life the philosophers nowadays usually draw their conceptions: when it is too late for faith and too early for knowledge.
505
The practical.—We thinkers must first establish the
