A Word for Philologists Friedrich Nietzsche

It is thought that there are books so valuable and royal that whole generations of scholars are well employed when through their efforts these books are kept genuine and intelligible, to confirm this belief again and again is the purpose of philology. It presupposes that the rare men are not lacking (though they may not be visible), who actually know how to use such valuable books : those men perhaps who write such books themselves, or could write them. I mean to say that philology presupposes a noble belief, that for the benefit of some few who are always " to come," and are not there, a very great amount of painful, and even dirty labour has to be done beforehand : it is all labour in usum Delphinorum.