124 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Lessing was not a university professor ; he moved in 

 wider literary and artistic circles at Berlin and Hamburg, 

 and at last became librarian at Wolfenbiittel. His 

 influence was not that of an academic teacher ; like 

 Leibniz before him, he did not gather around him a 

 circle of pupils. Accordingly criticism with him was 

 not reduced to a teachable method, but remained an 

 original and personal feature of his literary genius. It 

 was especially in his style that he marked an era in 

 German literature.-^ In this respect he resembled 

 Diderot in France, for whom he had the greatest 

 admiration. As for Kant, his academic activity 

 moved in the traditional courses of philosophical 

 teaching, and his peculiar method was made known 

 to the world mainly through his writings. His pupils 



^ Carlyle in his Essay (' Edin- 

 burgh Review,' 1827) on the "State 

 of German Literature," being a re- 

 view of two books on German 

 Hterature by Franz Horn, says of 

 Lessing : " It is to Lessing that an 

 EngHshman would turn with readi- 

 est affection. . . . Among all the 

 writers of the eighteenth century, 

 we will not except even Diderot 

 and David Hume, there is not one 

 of a more compact and rigid intel- 

 lectual structure who more dis- 

 tinctly knows what he is aiming at, 

 or with more gracefulness, vigour, 

 and precision sets it forth to his 

 readers. He thinks with the clear- 

 ness and piercing sharpness of the 

 most expert logician ; but a genial 

 fire pervades him, a wit, a heartiness, 

 a general richness and fineness of 

 nature, to which most logicians are 

 strangers. He is a sceptic in many 

 things, but the noblest of sceptics ; 

 a mild, manly, half-careless enthu- 

 siasm struggles through his indig- 

 nant unbelief ; he stands before us 



like a toilwom but unwearied and 

 heroic champion, earning not the 

 conquest but the battle ; as indeed 

 himself admits to us, that ' it is not 

 the finding of truth, but the honest 

 search for it, that profits.' " 



In spite of this appreciation of 

 Lessing and of his style, which ''wijl 

 be found precisely such as we of 

 England are accustomed to admire 

 most," Lessing is probably, of all 

 the German Classics, the one who 

 is least kuown, read, or written 

 about, either in France or England. 

 This is partly owing to the fact 

 that he is characteristicaJl}- German, 

 having, next to Luther, done more 

 than any other writer to create 

 modern German style, of wliich he 

 is one of the very few really great 

 representatives, but still more owing 

 to the fact that in all his critical 

 writings he was a pioneer, and that, 

 as such, his views have been either 

 largely developed or superseded by 

 those who followed him. 



