A FORGOTTEN CYNIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

A FORGOTTEN CYNIC.

Memories of a philosopher of the cynical type have been recently revived in England. In the New Age Mr. P. Selver mentions a German reprint of some of the aphorisms of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who died in 1799, a professor at Gottingen. Mr. Selver remarks that many of his aphorisms might well bo, and probably have been, attributed to Nietzsche, and ho gives us these among other specimens:— "Thu fact that preaching goes on in. churches does not make a lightning conductor any the less necessary. "Although I am aware that a good many reviewers do not read the books they criticise, I cannot see what harm it would bo if they did. "A somewhat over-pert philosopherl ' believe it was Hamlet, Prince of Donmark—said : ' There are things in heaven and on earth of which nothing is written in our Encyclopaedias.' It the simple fellow, who, as we all know, I was not all there, was having a hit at '- our Encyclopaedia of Physics, wo can '' very well answer him thus: ' Quite ' ] right, biji then on the other hand I there are quite a number of things in ' our Encyclopedia of which neither hea- ' veu nor earth is aware.' " An author who needs a monument to , immortalise him is not worth even that." ■ Finally, it would not bo 'difficult to ! fit this cap to-day: "This man has so much understanding that ho was ) scarcely of any further use in the } world." Decidedly, Lichtenberg was a modern. j {

Lichtenberg, by the way,' introduced Hogarth to Germany. His unfinished commentary on Hogarth's prints appeared in.,five volumes during his lifetime, and the work was then continued by other hands. As an interpreter he is judged to have been highly humorous on his own account, but too little concerned with Hogarth's preciso aims;. Tho descriptions ■ of , Garrick's acting which Lichtenberg wrote to/ friends in Germany are perhaps the best we have, and somo ' delightful specimens are quoted in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's life of the actor. . The professor ' once cleared a conjurer out' of Gottingen by a swift exercise' of wit and resource Why ho > objected to the conjurer giving his performance in the studious city does not appear, but . the means ho took to prevent it were effectual. In ono night he wrote, printed, and posted throughout the town an announcement of the conjurer's programme which caused that entertainer to depart without even unpacking his apparatus. Lichtenberg bad informed the public that, among other feats, these would be performed ;— " Without, leaving the room, he takes tho weather-cock off St.' James's Church and sets it on St. John's, and vice versa. After a few minutes he puts them back in their proper places. N.B.—All this without a magnet, by mere sleight of hand. "Ho takes a hatchet and knocks a gentleman on the head with it, so that he falls dead on the floor. When there lie gives a second blow, whereupon the gentleman immediately gets up as well as ever, and generally asks what music that was. " He draws three or four ladies' teeth, makes the company shake them well together in a .bag, and then puts them into .a little cannon, which he fires at the aforesaid ladies' heads, and they find their teeth white and sound in their places again. " He takes all the watches, Tings, and other ornaments of the company—and even money if they wish— gives every one a receipt for his property. He then puts them all in a trunk, and brings them off to Cassel. In a week after, each person tears his receipt, and I that moment finds whatever he gave in. his hands again. Ho has made a great deal of money by this trick."