24. "Before Thomasius," writes Bielfeld, "an old woman could not have

red eyes without running the risk of being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake." [1260] Schmid, pp. 493-97. Thomasius's principal writings on this theme were: Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten in Mitteldingen (1692); Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten in theologischen Streitigkeiten (1696); Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten gegen Ketzer (1697). [1261] Ec. Hist. 17 Cent. sect. ii, pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 11, 14. It is noteworthy that the Pietists at Halle did not scruple to ally themselves for a time with Thomasius, he being opposed to the orthodox party. Kahnis, Internal Hist. of Ger. Protestantism, p. 114. [1262] Pusey, as cited, p. 121. Cp. p. 113. [1263] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrh., 2te Aufl. i, 164. (This matter is not in the abridged translation.) [1264] See the furious account of him by Mosheim, 17 C. sec. ii, pt. ii, ch. i, § 33. [1265] Hagenbach, last cit. p. 169. [1266] Noack, Die Freidenker in der Religion, Th. iii, Kap. 1; Bruno Bauer, Einfluss des englischen Quäkerthums auf die deutsche Cultur und auf das englisch-russische Projekt einer Weltkirche, 1878, pp. 41-44. [1267] Pref. to French tr. of the Meditationes, 1770, pp. xii-xvii. Lau died in 1740. [1268] Tholuck, Abriss, as cited, p. 10. [1269] Trans. in English, 1750. [1270] Hagenbach, tr. pp. 35-36; Saintes, p. 61; Kahnis, as cited, p. 114. [1271] Hagenbach, pp. 37-39. It is to be observed (Tholuck, Abriss, p. 23) that the Wolffian philosophy was reinstated in Prussia by royal mandate in 1739, a year before the accession of Frederick the Great. But we know that Frederick championed him. [1272] Tholuck, Abriss, as cited, p. 5. [1273] Tholuck, Abriss, as cited, p. 6. [1274] Kahnis, p. 55. [1275] Pünjer, i, 544. Cp. Tholuck, Abriss, pp. 19-22. [1276] Tholuck, Abriss, p. 22. Schmid was for a time supposed to be the author of the Wolfenbüttel Fragments of Reimarus (below, p. 327). [1277] Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, 1699-1700, 2 tom. fol.--fuller ed. 3 tom. fol. 1740. Compare Mosheim's angry account of it with Murdock's note in defence: Reid's ed. p. 804. Bruno Bauer describes it as epoch-making (Einfluss des englischen Quäkerthums, p. 42). This history had a great influence on Goethe in his teens, leading him, he says, to the conviction that he, like so many other men, should have a religion of his own, which he goes on to describe. It was a re-hash of Gnosticism. (Wahrheit und Dichtung, B. viii; Werke, ed. 1866, xi, 344 sq.) [1278] Cp. Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 171: Pünjer, i, 279. [1279] Die Göttlichkeit der Vernunft. [1280] Noack, Th. iii, Kap. 2: Saintes, pp. 85-86; Pünjer, p. 442. It is interesting to find Edelmann supplying a formula latterly utilized by the so-called "New Theology" in England--the thesis that "the reality of everything which exists is God," and that there can therefore be no atheists, since he who recognizes the universe recognizes God. [1281] Naigeon, by altering the words of Diderot, caused him to appear one of the exceptions; but he was not. See Rosenkranz, Diderot's Leben und Werke. Vorb. p. vii. [1282] Kahnis, pp. 128-29. Edelmann's Life was written by Pratje. Historische Nachrichten von Edelmann's Leben, 1755. It gives a list of replies to his writings (p. 205 sq.). Apropos of the first issue of Strauss's Leben Jesu, a volume of Erinnerungen of Edelmann was published at Clausthal in 1839 by W. Elster; and Strauss in his Dogmatik avowed the pleasure with which he had made the acquaintance of so interesting a writer. A collection of extracts from Edelmann's works, entitled Der neu eröffnete Edelmann, was published at Bern in 1847; and the Unschuldige Wahrheiten was reprinted in 1846. His Autobiography, written in 1752, was published in 1849. [1283] Betrachtungen über die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der Religion. Another apologetic work of the period marked by rational moderation and tolerance was the Vertheidigten Glauben der Christen of the Berlin court-preacher A. W. F. Sack (1754). [1284] Art. by Wagenmann in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. [1285] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 355. [1286] Pünjer, i, 542. [1287] Kurz, Hist. of the Christian Church from the Reformation, Eng. tr. ii, 274. A Jesuit, A. Merz, wrote four replies to Jerusalem. One was entitled Frag ob durch die biblische Simplicität allein ein Freydenker oder Deist bekehret ... werden könne ("Can a Freethinker or Deist be converted by Biblical Simplicity alone?"), 1775. [1288] Cp. Hagenbach, i, 353; tr. p. 120. Jerusalem was the father of the gifted youth whose suicide (1775) moved Goethe to write The Sorrows of Werther, a false presentment of the real personality, which stirred Lessing (his affectionate friend) to publish a volume of the dead youth's essays, in vindication of his character. The father had considerable influence in purifying German style. Cp. Goethe, Wahrheit und Dichtung, Th. ii, B. vii; Werke, ed. 1866. xi, 272; and Hagenbach, i, 354. [1289] Goethe, as last cited, pp. 268-69. [1290] Lechler, Gesch. des englischen Deismus, pp. 447-52. The translations began with that of Tindal (1741), which made a great sensation. [1291] Pusey, pp. 125, 127, citing Twesten; Gostwick, German Culture and Christianity, p. 36, citing Ernesti. Thorschmid's Freidenker Bibliothek, issued in 1765-67, collected both translations and refutations. Lechler, p. 451. [1292] Lange, Gesch. des Materialismus, i. 405 (Eng. tr. ii, 146-47). [1293] Lange, i, 347, 399 (Eng. tr. ii, 76, 137). [1294] Lange, i, 396-97 (ii, 134-35). [1295] Goethe tells of having seen in his boyhood, at Frankfort, an irreligious French romance publicly burned, and of having his interest in the book thereby awakened. But this seems to have been during the French occupation. (Wahrheit und Dichtung, B. iv; Werke, xi, 146.) [1296] Id. B. iv, end. [1297] Translated into English 1780; 2nd ed. 1793. The translator claims for Haller great learning (2nd ed. p. xix). He seems in reality to have had very little, as he represents that Jesus in his day "was the only teacher who recommended chastity to men" (p. 82). [1298] Rettung der Offenbarung gegen die Einwürfe der Freigeister. Haller wrote under a similar title, 1775-76. [1299] Baur, Gesch. der christl. Kirche, iv, 599. [1300] Gostwick, p. 15. [1301] Wahrheit und Dichtung, B. viii; Werke, xi, 329. [1302] Schlosser, Hist. of Eighteenth Cent., Eng. tr. 1843. i, 150; Hagenbach, tr. p. 66. [1303] Hagenbach, tr. p. 63. [1304] Id., Kirchengeschichte, i, 232. [1305] Kahnis, p. 43; Tholuck, Abriss, p. 34. [1306] See the extracts of Büchner, Zwei gekrönte Freidenker, 1890, pp. 45-47. [1307] Thiébault, Mes Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de Séjour à Berlin, 2e édit. 1805, i, 126-28. See i, 355-56, ii, 78-82, as to the baselessness of the stories (e.g., Pusey, Histor. Inq. into Ger. Rationalism, p. 123) that Frederick changed his views in old age. Thiébault, a strict Catholic, is emphatic in his negation: "The persons who assert that [his principles] became more religious ... have either lied or been themselves mistaken." Carlyle naturally detests Thiébault. The rumour may have arisen out of the fact that in his Examen critique du Système de la Nature Frederick counter-argues d'Holbach's impeachment of Christianity. The attack on kings gave him a fellow-feeling with the Church. [1308] Cp. the argument of Faure, Hist. de Saint Louis, 1866, i, 242-43; ii, 597. [1309] Examen de l'Essai sur les préjugés, 1769. See the passage in Lévy-Bruhl, L'Allemagne depuis Leibniz, p. 89). [1310] G. Weber, Gesch. der deutschen Literatur, 11te Aufl. p. 99. [1311] Zur Gesch. der Relig. und Philos. in Deutschland--Werke, ed. 1876, iii, 63-64. Goethe's blame (W. und D., B. vii) is passed on purely literary grounds. [1312] Hagenbach, tr. pp. 103-104; Cairns, p. 177. [1313] This post he left to become secretary of the Academy of Painting. [1314] Cited by Pünjer, i, 545-46. [1315] Id. p. 546. [1316] Hagenbach, tr. pp. 100-103; Saintes, pp. 91-92; Pünjer, p. 536; Noack, Th. iii, Kap. 7. [1317] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 298, 351. [1318] Id. i, 294 sq. [1319] The book is remembered in France by reason of Eberhard's amusing mistake of treating as a serious production of the Sorbonne the skit in which Turgot derided the Sorbonne's findings against Marmontel's Bélisaire. [1320] Hagenbach, tr. p. 109. [1321] Eberhard, however, is respectfully treated by Lessing in his discussion on Leibnitz's view as to eternal punishment. [1322] Noack, Th. iii, Kap. 8. [1323] Saintes, pp. 92-93. [1324] Cp. Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 348, 363. [1325] Id. i, 367; tr. pp. 124-25; Saintes, p. 94; Kahnis, p. 45. Pusey (150-51, note) speaks of Teller and Spalding as belonging, with Nicolai, Mendelssohn, and others, to a "secret institute, whose object was to remodel religion and alter the form of government." This seems to be a fantasy. [1326] So Steffens, cited by Hagenbach, tr. p. 124. [1327] P. Gastrow, Joh. Salomo Semler, 1905, p. 45. See Pusey, 140-41, note, for Semler's account of the rigid and unreasoning orthodoxy against which he reacted. (Citing Semler's Lebenschreibung, ii, 121-61.) Semler, however, records that Baumgarten, one of the theological professors at Halle, would in expansive moods defend theism and make light of theology (Lebenschreibung, i, 103 ). Cp. Tholuck, Abriss, as cited, pp. 12, 18. Pusey notes that "many of the principal innovators had been pupils of Baumgarten" (p. 132, citing Niemeyer). [1328] Cp. Dr. G. Karo, Johann Salomo Semler, 1905, p. 25; Saintes, pp. 129-31. [1329] Cp. Gostwick, p. 51; Pünjer, i, 561. [1330] Karo, p. 44. [1331] Cp. Saintes, p. 132 sq. [1332] Cp. Karo, pp. 3, 8, 16, 28. [1333] Over a hundred and seventy in all. Pünjer, i, 560; Gastrow, p. 637. [1334] Karo, pp. 5-6. [1335] Gastrow, p. 223. [1336] Pusey, p. 142; A. S. Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Freethought, p. 313. [1337] Cp. Karo, p. 5 sq.; Stäudlin, cited by Tholuck, Abriss, p. 39. [1338] Kahnis. p. 116. [1339] Wahre Gründe wanum Gott die Offenbarung nicht mit augenscheinlichen Beweisen versehen hat. [1340] Die Göttliche Eingebung, 1771. [1341] Beweis das Gott die Menschen bereits durch seine Offenbarung in der Natur zur Seligkeit fuhre. [1342] Gostwick, p. 53; Pünjer, i, 546, note. [1343] Cp. Kahnis, pp. 132-36, as to Bahrdt's early morals. [1344] Geschichte seines Lebens, etc. 1700-91, iv, 119. [1345] See below, p. 331. [1346] Geschichte seines Lebens, Kap. 22; ii, 223 sq. [1347] Baur, Gesch. der chr. Kirche, iv. 597. [1348] Translated into English in 1789. [1349] Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, Abschn. I--Werke, 1838 p. 239 (Eng. tr. 1838, pp. 50-51); Rousseau, Contrat Social, liv, iv, ch. viii, near end; Locke, as cited above, p. 117. Cp. Bartholmèss, Hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, 1855, i, 145; Baur, as last cited. [1350] See his Werke, ed. 1866, v, 317--Aus dem Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend, 49ter Brief. [1351] If Lessing's life were sketched in the spirit in which orthodoxy has handled that of Bahrdt, it could be made unedifying enough. Even Goethe remarks that Lessing "enjoyed himself in a disorderly tavern life" (Wahrheit und Dichtung, B. vii); and all that Hagenbach maliciously charges against Basedow in the way of irregularity of study is true of him. On that and other points, usually glossed over, see the sketch in Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry, 1830, i, 332-37. All the while, Lessing is an essentially sound-hearted and estimable personality; and he would probably have been the last man to echo the tone of the orthodox towards the personal life of the freethinkers who went further in unbelief than he. [1352] E.g. his fable The Bull and the Calf (Fabeln, ii, 5), à propos of the clergy and Bayle. [1353] Sime, Life of Lessing, 1877, i, 102. [1354] E.g. his early notice of Diderot's Lettre sur les Aveugles. Sime, i, 94. [1355] Dramaturgie, Stück 7. [1356] Sime, i, 103-109. [1357] Sime, i, 73, 107; ii, 253. [1358] In his Gedanke über die Herrnhuter, written in 1750. See Adolf Stahr's Lessing, sein Leben und seine Werke, 7te Aufl. ii, 183 sq. [1359] Julian Schmidt puts the case sympathetically: "He had learned in his father's house what value the pastoral function may have for the culture of the people. He was bibelfest, instructed in the history of his church, Protestant in spirit, full of genuine reverence for Luther, full of high respect for historical Christianity, though on reading the Fathers he could say hard things of the Church." Gesch. der deutschen Litteratur von Leibniz bis auf unsere Zeit, ii (1886), 326. [1360] Taylor, as cited, p. 361. [1361] Sime, i, 73. [1362] See Lessing's rather crude comedy, Der Freigeist, and Sime's Life, i, 41-42, 72, 77. [1363] Cp. his letters to his brother of which extracts are given by Sime, ii, 191-92. [1364] Sime, ii, 188. [1365] As to the authorship see Saintes, pp. 101-102; and Sime's Life of Lessing, i, 261-62, where the counter-claim is rejected. [1366] Zur Geschichte und Literatur, aus dem 4ten Beitr.--Werke, vi. 142 sq. See also in his Theologische Streitschriften the Axiomata written against Pastor Goeze. Cp. Schwarz, Lessing als Theologe, 1854, pp. 146, 151; and Pusey, as cited, p. 51. note. [1367] Compare the regrets of Pusey (pp. 51, 153), Cairns (p. 195), Hagenbach (pp. 89-97), and Saintes (p. 100). [1368] Sämmtliche Schriften, ed. Lachmann, 1857, xi (2), 248. Sime (ii, 190) mistranslates this passage; and Schmidt (ii, 326) mutilates it by omissions. Fontanes (Le Christianisme moderne: Étude sur Lessing, 1867, p. 171) paraphrases it very loosely. [1369] Sime, ii, 190. [1370] Stahr, ii, 239; Sime, ii. 189. [1371] See Sime, ii, 222, 233: Stahr, ii, 254. Hettner, an admirer, calls the early Christianity of Reason a piece of sophistical dialectic. Litteraturgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts, ed. 1872, iii. 588-89. [1372] Stahr, ii, 243. Lessing said the report to this effect was a lie; but this and other mystifications appear to have been by way of fulfilling his promise of secrecy to the Reimarus family. Cairns, pp. 203, 209. Cp. Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Freethought, note 29. [1373] See it analysed by Bartholmèss, Hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la philos. moderne, i, 147-67; and by Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historic Jesus (trans. of Von Reimarus zu Wrede), 1910. [1374] Gostwick, p. 47; Bartholmèss, i, 166. His book was translated into English (The Principal Truths of Natural Religion Defended and Illustrated) in 1766; into Dutch in 1758; in part into French in 1768; and seven editions of the original had appeared by 1798. [1375] Stahr, ii, 241-44. [1376] Id. ii, 245. [1377] The statement that, in Lessing's age, "in north Germany men were able to think and write freely" (Conybeare, Hist. of N. T. Crit., p. 80) is thus seen to be highly misleading. [1378] Von dem Zwecke, Jesus und seiner Jünger, Braunschweig, 1778. [1379] Taylor, Histor. Survey of German Poetry, i, 365. [1380] Stahr, ii, 253-54. [1381] Cp. Introd. to Willis's trans. of Nathan. The play is sometimes attacked as being grossly unfair to Christianity. (E.g. Crouslé, Lessing, 1863, p. 206.) The answer to this complaint is given by Sime, ii, 252 sq. [1382] See Cairns, Appendix, Note I; Willis, Spinoza, pp. 149-62; Sime, ii, 299-303; and Stahr, ii, 219-30, giving the testimony of Jacobi. Cp. Pünjer, i, 564-85. But Heine laughingly adjures Moses Mendelssohn, who grieved so intensely over Lessing's Spinozism, to rest quiet in his grave: "Thy Lessing was indeed on the way to that terrible error ... but the Highest, the Father in Heaven, saved him in time by death. He died a good deist, like thee and Nicolai and Teller and the Universal German Library" (Zur Gesch. der Rel. und Philos. in Deutschland, B. ii, near end.--Werke, ed. 1876, iii. 69). [1383] See in Stahr, ii, 184-85. the various characterizations of his indefinite philosophy. Stahr's own account of him as anticipating the moral philosophy of Kant is as overstrained as the others. Gastrow, an admirer, expresses wonder (Johann Salomo Semler, p. 188) at the indifference of Lessing to the critical philosophy in general. [1384] Sime, ii, ch. xxix, gives a good survey. [1385] Letter to his brother, Feb., 1778. [1386] Strauss, Das Leben Jesu (the second) Einleitung, § 14. [1387] Hurst, History of Rationalism, 3rd ed. p. 130. "It was a popular belief, as an organ of pious opinion announced to its readers, that at his death the devil came and carried him away like a second Faust." Sime, ii, 330. [1388] Cited by Hurst, Hist. of Rationalism, 3rd ed. p. 125. Outside Berlin, however, matters went otherwise till late in the century. Kurz tells (Gesch. der deutschen Literatur, ii, 461 b) that "the indifference of the learned towards native literature was so great that even in the year 1761 Abbt could write that in Rinteln there was nobody who knew the names of Moses Mendelssohn and Lessing." [1389] Karl Hillebrand, Lectures on the Hist. of German Thought, 1880, p. 109. [1390] Deutsche Merkur, Jan. and March, 1788 (Werke, ed. 1797, xxix, 1-144; cited by Stäudlin, Gesch. der Rationalismus und Supernaturalismus, 1826, p. 233). [1391] Kurtz, Hist. of the Chr. Church, Eng. tr. 1864, ii, 224. [1392] T. C. Perthes, Das Deutsche Staatsleben vor der Revolution, 262 sq., cited by Kahnis pp. 58-59. [1393] See above, pp. 321, 328. [1394] Kant distinguishes explicitly between "rationalists," as thinkers who would not deny the possibility of a revelation, and "naturalists," who did. See the Religion innerhalb der grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Stück iv, Th. i. This was in fact the standing significance of the term in Germany for a generation. [1395] Letter to his brother, February 2, 1774. [1396] Known as Zopf-Schulz from his wearing a pigtail in the fashion then common among the laity. "An old insolent rationalist," Kurtz calls him (ii, 270). [1397] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 372; Gostwick, pp. 52, 54. [1398] Philosophische Betrachtung über Theologie und Religion überhaupt, und über die Jüdische insonderheit, 1784. [1399] Pünjer, i, 544-45. [1400] Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, ch. ix, Bohn ed. p. 71. [1401] See the details in Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte, i, 368-72; Kahnis, p. 60. [1402] Marokkanische Briefe. Aus dem Arabischen. Frankfurt and Leipzig,