The really scientific _thinker_ does the same thing as these
illiterate persons, but on a larger scale. Although he has need
of much knowledge, and so must read a great deal, his mind is
nevertheless strong enough to master it all, to assimilate and
incorporate it with the system of his thoughts, and so to make it
fit in with the organic unity of his insight, which, though vast, is
always growing. And in the process, his own thought, like the bass in
an organ, always dominates everything and is never drowned by other
tones, as happens with minds which are full of mere antiquarian lore;
where shreds of music, as it were, in every key, mingle confusedly,
and no fundamental note is heard at all.
Those who have spent their lives in reading, and taken their wisdom
from books, are like people who have obtained precise information
about a country from the descriptions of many travellers. Such
people can tell a great deal about it; but, after all, they have no
connected, clear, and profound knowledge of its real condition. But
those who have spent their lives in thinking, resemble the travellers
themselves; they alone really know what they are talking about; they
are acquainted with the actual state of affairs, and are quite at home
in the subject.
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