ABSTRACT
It seems to me that anything likely to foster better communication should be welcome to philosophers, especially given that complaints are frequently heard from them that they are not understood, and complaints from their readers that they are obscure; yet doubtless both parties wish to make themselves properly understood. Or could there perhaps be periods in history in wnich intelligibility and the understanding accompanying it are dreaded and shunned? If there are, such times may well be happy in themselves; they may even be religious and virtuous. But they will never be philosophical. For the aim of philosophy is lucidity and clarity. Philosophers endeavour to resemble, not a troubled and turbid stream, but a lake in Switzerland, tranquilly possessing depth together with a clarity that renders that depth visibre. Furthermore, I believe that if a person possesses the rare quality of thoroughly understanding himself, he will oe able to make himself understood by others, provided that these in tum possess the correspondingly rare quality of wanting to understand. For aIr men possess botfi the abilities and the basic truths needed for understanding, even if the degree to which they possess them is not the same in all. Indeed there are few that possess them to an eminent degree, which explains why so few are capaole of productions in the arts or discoveries and inventions in the sciences. By contrast, all of us have the ability to some extent to receive, understand and recognise what is correct, so long as it is presented to us clearly - that is, unencumbered by side issues. For this reason, a person who creates something out of his own powers is like a musical instrument, while the rest of us are like receptacles of glass or metal. For while these latter do not themselves produce music, they do echo and propagate the sounds of the instrument.
