not studying Hegel, did not study any one else either. But Croce knows that the men in question spend the time saved by neglecting the Encyclopedia of Philosophic Science not at the billiard table, but in reading and in studying other books which may be as difficult and exhausting as those of Hegel—and more fruitful.
Indeed, we may well apply to philosophers what Jesus said of trees: "By their fruits ye shall know them." There are men who have spent a great part of their lives in the endeavor to read and understand Hegel. And if the writings of these men appear, as they usually do appear, to be pedantic, obscure, and meaningless, then I have reason to suspect that the reading of Hegel is no such elixir of philosophic life as it is claimed to be, and I may well prefer to study the malady in others rather than to expose myself to the infection.
William James compared Hegehanism to a mouse-trap. It reminds me rather of the fable of the sick lion who could not leave his tent to hunt other beasts, and had therefore commissioned the fox to bring the other beasts to see him, so that he might devour them at his convenience. The gracious invitation was given to the ass, among others; but when that wise creature came to the threshold of the lion's den he observed that the ground bore many prints of feet that had entered in, but none of feet that
