Of course, the thinker is never understood by his time, we know that. Or only by a few disciplines.

The thinker is a suspicious figure to all constituted powers; the thinker is reviled and cast out.

The thinker is alone but for his pupils. The thinker rides the clouds in thought, stands on Atlas’s shoulders, belongs to the starry heights – but only his pupils know that.

The thinker is the open Delphi, looking upon visions beyond mortal sight. The thinker sees beyond - so far beyond - the little figures of his contemporaries.

The thinker is a man out of joint, the insomniac of the present. The thinker is awake when others are asleep. He burns with his studies through the night. He takes down his thoughts as in letters of fire, as in holy writ ...

Myths surround him. Parables. The truth is hard to uncover, if it is uncoverable at all. No one is sure of his provenance, of his upbringing; no one can place him. He is his own law. He comesand goes, like thought itself.

The luminosity of his presence... His god-touched charisma... The mysteriousness of his pronouncements... The wonder of his signs...