/f ■■i M.."' Cornell universiiy Liorary LC130.H23 L6 Lessing's Education of the human race, olin 3 1924 030 605 160 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030605160 Columbia XHniverstt^ Contributions to Ebucation ZTeacbers College Series No. 20 LESSING'S EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE JOHN DEARLING HANEY, M.A., LL.B. Principal P. S. 5 Bronx New York City Published by TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK 1908 > A, x-^on'iz Copyright, 1908 By TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS OP BRANDOW PRINTING COMPANY Al-BANY. N. Y. PREFACE Lessing's tractate. The Education of the Human Race, is an account of how the world received and is still receiving reve- lation that is to prepare man for the attainment of the best that is in him. This involves the notion of a racial education and a conception of the inter-dependence of all social phenomena — the unity of man with nature and the correlation of moral and political theory. Ideas of this import had engaged the minds of thinkers from the time of Plato, but found more or less imperfect expression until the time of Kant and of Comte, the founder of " sociology." The eighteenth century, spurred by the impetus of the Refor- mation and the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth century, became engrossed with the revelation of the power and destiny of man. The feeling that man was not an "accident " but the necessary complement of an otherwise incomplete system, gave an added force to the validity of man's ideas. Champions of deistic thought sprang up everywhere : in France, in England, in Germany. But England, owing to the philosophy of Locke, which led to " religious '' doubt and abnegation, proved the most prohfic source of deism. The " common sense " of Locke led to Toland's Christianity not Mysterious, Tindal's Chris- tianity) as old as the Creation, Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques, and a host of other French and English followers. The argu- ments of both the English and the French defendants were soon echoing in Germany and found as ardent supporters there. It must not be supjKJsed tha j " Ethics, Part 4. Cf. Dewey's School and Society. Most of these doc- trines will' be found summarized in his Political Treatise, especially under Ch. 2 on Natural Right. u • .u u^ u "Ch. 20. Cf. Lessing's frankness and vigor of speech in the Wolfen- biittel Fragments, Anti-Goe;:e, Nathan and the Education of the Human Race. 12 The Education of the Human Race separate province, neither can be called the handmaid of the other.''^'" " Everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and faith should be judged only by its fruits.''^^ " The natural rights of the individual are coextensive with desires and powers, and * * * no one is bound to live as another pleases but is the guardian of his own liberty."" Spinoza in Ch. 2, notes the slow growth of th€ idea of God's omniscience and omnipresence. This idea of development, the gradually perfected notion of God and all that a conception of him involves, is of the very essence of the Education of the Human Race as will be pointed out later. The essential individualism is, of course, apparent here — in- deed, so violently so that Spinoza's appeal for social helpfulness, nay, the necessity of it, is apt to be lost sight of. But it must not be forgotten that the strong humanity of The Education of the Human Race and of Nathan are vitally dependent on the conception of the interdependence of the individual and society. These two must not be regarded as mutually exclusive or antago- nistic. Similarly, Froebel pleads for a development of indi- viduality, but not the destructive individuality of Rousseau. He seeks a contained and directed individuality that finds its most fruitful field in society and social cooperation. The notion of Froebel is no more difficult to grasp than that of Spinoza and of Lessing and, indeed, does not differ in this particular from either. Leibniz: Lessing was also a profound student of Leibniz and owes much to him no doubt, but rather in method than in mat- ter. In one of his essays he gives Spinoza the credit of dis- covering the doctrine of prearranged harmony without which Leibniz would never have been able to make a connection be- tween the windowless monad, the soul, and the windowless ,,7?/^""' ^^^^^ translation, p. 9. Cf. Lessing's comments on the first WolfenoUttel Fragments, post. "Preface, ib., p. 10. Cf, Nathan's individualism. Preface, ih., p. 10. Cf. for definition of natural right, ch. 2, of A Political Treatue and note Nathan's Must to Hafi, Act I, Sc. 3, or § 2 of the Education of the Human Race, post. The Education of the Human Race 13 monad, God.^^ But Spinoza needed no prearranged harmony : his system was a harmonious whole in its very conception. Leibniz stands for an atomistic or individualistic philosophy ; for continuity of creation; for scientific induction and method; for vigor of utterance ; and for " enlightenment " or the neces- sity of ridding dark or vague ideas of their darkness and vague- ness. But his conception of the universe is much more mechani- cal and unsatisfactory than that of Spinoza, who is undoubtedly Lessing's great inspiration and philosophic teacher. It may be well to reiterate some of the points that have been evolved in the foregoing discussion, points which Lessing will exemplify in his Education of the Human Race and Nathan the Wise. They are : Rationalism ; Individualism with collectivistic or socialistic leaning; Naturalism; and Continuity or Evolution. i-B. A review of the chief epochs of Lessing's life and the ideas for which he contended. Lessing came naturally by his bent for theological discussion. His clerical ancestors extend back at least as far as Clemens Lessing (c. 1580) ; his grandfather, Theophilus, wrote, as a thesis for his Master's degree, " De Religionum Tolerantia,"™ and his father, Johann Gottfried, was a pastor of some distinc- tion, a close student despite poverty, and a writer with a literary style free from pedantry, but with a horror of Catholicism, Pietism, and Scepticism. Lessing was a precocious student and devoured classics and mathematics — subjects that later made Leibniz a congenial writer for him. In 1746, he went to Leipsic to pursue theology, but continued his classical studies and took part in philosophic discussions pre- sided over by Kastner, a professor of mathematics. It was here, too, that he began his close association with the theatre, an as- sociation that could not fail to help him toward thosie independent views that made him the black sheep of his family and one of the most distinguished poets and dramatists of Germany. Here, " Darin bin ich noch Ihrer meinung, dass es Spinoza ist, welcher Leib- nizen auf die vorherbestimmte Harmonie gebracht hat. " Sime, V. i, p. 21. 14 The Education of the Human Race too, he made a friend of Christlob Mylius, a man who had ven- tured to applaud a Kamenz rector who had published, much to the indignation of the Rev. Johann Gottfried Lessing, a work called The Theatre as a School of Eloquence. Mylius, also, edited, for a year, a paper called The Freethinker. Such was the company that the clever and socially disposed Gotthold Ephraim fell into at the outset of his career. In 1748, he went to Berlin to be a journalist and critic and to reinforce, with terseness and vigor, a style that was to make him one of the most dreaded of opponents and one of the most stimulating of essayists and thinkers. In 1 75 1 he returned to Wittenberg at the request of his family, who heard aghast of his strange ways of studying theology, and here he had a disagreement with Voltaire that led to an acrimoni- ous correspondence which, years later, prevented his getting pre- ferment from Frederick the Great. In 1752, the Wittenberg resolve not persisting, he returned to Berlin and edited a periodical called the Theatrical Library, and became known definitely as a theatrical critic of constructive ten- dencies. He entered upon the attack on Gottsched,^^ the Leipsic professor, who upheld French art as a model; wrote a keen satire on Lange, who had translated Horace ; showed his skill and penetration in his Epigrams; and composed critical letters on German literature. The Ein Vade Mecum fur den Herrn Sam. Gotth. Lange revealed his ability as a controversialist of pro- found attainments and his fame as a polemic became thoroughly established. It was to be no novice that entered the arena against Goeze twenty years later. It was during these years that he wrote Das Christ^ntum der Vernunft,"-^ which is of interest in connection with his exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity in The Education of the Human Race; and the several Theologische Resensionen aus der Ber- linischen Privilegierten Zeitung, among which is (1751) Stiick 143, a consideration of Warburton's Gottliche Sendungen Mosis,^" which hints at the origin of sections 24 and 25 of The Education of the Human Race. r-^'S^; j^""° ^'"^"'^ke's Social Forces in German Literature Art Gottsched, p. 179. "•»'■>, ^n., "Lessing's Sdmtliche Werke, v. 17, p. 23. Cotta Library. "/6. p. 38. •' The Education of the Human Race 15 In Berlin he learned to know and to admire such Jews as Mendelssohn, the original of Nathan, and Dr. Gumperz, and here he worked on a comedy. Die Juden, which had been written in 1749. Stuck 93, of 1753, in the Theologische Resensionen was a notice of Schreiben eines Juden an einen Philosophen/" in which, after reflecting on the shameful restrictions placed upon Jews, he quotes with approbation the, words of the author: Perhaps a combination of circumstances as propitious as those which revealed Peter the Great, will send a leader who will, to transcendent power, add the greatest penetration of intellect ; who will free a nation which, as noble as any other, is now languishing in poverty, ignorance, contempt, and a kind of slaver)'. Should such happen, I am convinced that reverence would believe it saw in the person of this prince, the wished-for approach of a Messiah; that eagerness would lay, at his feet, innumerable precious sacrifices ; and that gratitude would erect to him, in the memory of descendants and in Jewish history, an ever-enduring monument.' " And he adds : " Truth and reason acquit the author (the Jew) of any accusation that might be brought by bitter prejudice." This gives the attitude that is so plainly marked in Nathan the Wise and appears more or less distinctly in The Education of the Human Race. His attitude towards Deism and his essentially reverent nature are disclosed in Sttick 137,^^ for the year 1754, " True Presenta- tion of the Deistic Principles in two Conversations between a Sceptic and a Deist:' He says, in part : " The original of this small but precious work first appeared in the year 171 1 and since then has been often reprinted. It seems that its author, who has remained unknown, was moved to defend the cause of Christianity in such a remarkable way, through the writings of Toland. " He has, not a Christian, to take issue with the deist,' but a sceptic, or, rather, a man, who has enough intellect and impar- tiality to allow the Christian religion not to be offended by any false accusations, and to set forth the arguments against the latter in their true light. " This sceptic comes to the conclusion that deism is a mask and that the wearer, under it, seeks to repel abhorrent charges of atheism, or seeks the more adroitly to attack the Christian religion." " Lessing's Sdmtliche Werke, v. 17, p. S3- Cotta Library. *■/&. p. S3- i6 The Education of the Human Race His tolerant views, on the other hand, are revealed in another of the Rezensionen, dated 1754, and entitled Rettung des Hierony- mus Cardanus. The significance that this composition has for us, is its exposition of the relationship of idolatry, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. The first three of these are again expounded in The Education of the Human Race, and the relation of the last three is revealed by Nathan the Wise. Ini addition to this, Lessing's independent viewpoint is interesting as showing how early he ventured to assail the bulwarks of con- servatism. He says,^^ after commenting on Cardan's varied ca- reer, the stpry of which reads much like that -of Paracelsus : " It would have been a miracle if such a rare spirit should have escaped the suspicion of atheism. What more is needed to bring that upon one than to think independently and to challenge natural prejudices ? Seldom has anyone, indeed, been compelled, as was Cardan, to unite abhorrent propositions to a questionable life. "An apparent slander, which is still incessantly carried from one book to another, compels me to bear this suspicion in mind. It is founded, as is well known, on three things : on a book which he is said to have written against the immortality of the soul; on his astrological folly in casting a nativity of God ; and finally, on certain passages in his work De Subtilitate." Lessing waives discussion on the first two of these and con- fines himself to the last. He then states the case against Cardan in the words of one of the latter's enemies as follows : " In the eleventh book of his De Subtilitate he briefly com- pares the four chief religions (Idolatry, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism) with each other, and, after he, without deciding for any, has allowed them to contend with each other, he concludes with these careless words: igitur his arbitrio vic- toriae relictis. Which in good German means that he wishes to leave to chance the side upon which the victory may fall." After quoting Cardan on the four religions, Lessing inquires : " Why should this attitude be really condemned? Is the com- parison of the various religions in itself punishable, or is the strife merely over the manner in which Cardan has undertaken the matter? , =' Lessing's Sdmtliche Werke, v. 17, p. 63, et passim. Cotta Library. The Education of the Human Race 17 I ".To maintain the first is not to be thought of for a moment. What is more necessary, is for one to convince himself of his belief, and what is less possible than conviction without previous proof." And adds : " If the Christian is decreed to investigate only the doctrines of Christ, then the Mahometan is decreed to concern himself only with the doctrine of Mahomet. The former, it is true, would not thereby run the risk of changing a better belief for a worse, but the latter would, also, not have the opportunity of exchanging a worse, for a better. Yet why do I speak of risk? He must place a weak trust in the everlasting truths of God who fears, amidst lies, to maintain one against the other." It was during this Berlin period, too, that Lessing produced Sara Sampson, based on the Clarissa of Richardson, in which he made another attack on rococo art, and endeavored to show, as Wordsworth did, fifty years later, that the lives of the humble •contain adequate literary material. In 1755 he went back to Leipsic and there made the acquain- tance of von Kleist,^^ whose Friihling had elicited his warm ap- plause. It was about this time that he wrote, in sentences, and very much in the style of his Das Christentum der Vernunft, a few thoughts! entitled Ueber die Enstehung der geoffenbarten Religion which is of interest in connection with the notions of revealed religion that he published twenty-five years later in the Education of the Human Race. A few extracts will serve to show Lessing's position in regard to natural or positive religion and to demonstrate how much more weight he put on a man's real effort to bring out the best that was in him than on any creed. This is apropos when the chief idea of the Ring Story of Nathcm is recalled. " To acknowledge a God ; to seek to entertain of him the worthiest conceptions ; and to have respect for these conceptions in all our acts and thoughts — ^this is the most complete content of all natural religion. " To this natural religion, according to the measure of his powers, is every man pledged and bound." As this individual quality would cause insuperable individual differences, it is necessary to build up certain conventional con- ceptions which natural religious truths would inherently possess. ^'The Tellheim of Minna von Barnhelm. i8 The Education of the Human Race These conventional conceptions constitute a positive or revealed religion which receives its sanction from the fact that it is medi- ately from God. This inevitableness is the same in every positive religion, so that the inner truth of one is as great as the inner truth of the other. That, therefore, is the best revealed or positive religion which mingles with the natural religion the few- est conventionalities. These notions are contained in the following: "As, however, this measure (of the powers of the individual) would be different in each man, and the natural religion of each man also would differ, it has been thought necessary to build up a defence against the injury which this diversity might, with others, bring about; not, indeed, in the natural conception of freedom but in the condition of civic community. ^^ " That is : as soon as religion was acknowledged to make for the general good, it became necessary to unite upon certain ideas and conceptions, and to ascribe to these conventional ideas and conceptions exactly the importance and necessity which the re- ligious truths, naturally recognized, had of themselves. ^^ " That is : it was necessary to construct, out of the religion of nature which was not fit for a general similar practice among men, a positive religion, just as there had been constructed out of the law of nature, and for the same cause, a positive law. " This positive religion received its sanction through the au- thority of its founder, who announced that its conventionalities came just as certainly from God, though mediately through him (the founder), as the essential part of the religion came, imme- diately, through the reason of each individual.^ " The necessity of a positive religion, by virtue of which the natural religion in each state became modified according to the natural and accidental constitution of the latter, I call the inner truth of the religion. And this inner truth is just as great in the one case as in the other. "All positive and revealed religions are, accordingly, equally true and equally false: equally true so far as it was everywhere equally necessary for each to adjust himself to the varying ideas in order to bring consonance and unity into the revealed re- ligion ;" equally false, though not so obviously so, wherever one did adjust himself — adhered to the essential but weakened and repressed it. ^ Cf. § 7, et passim. Education of the Human Race ^Cf. §§ 36 and 37. Ibid. ^^Cf. § 4. Ihid. " Cf. § 14. Ibid. The Education of the Human Race 19 " The best revealed or positive religion is that which unites the fewest conventional additions to the natural religion: which restrains in the slightest way the beneficent operations of the natural religion." These passages, though written in 1755-1760, bear such close analogy to some of those in the Education of the Human Race and Nathan that it becomes clearer than ever that Lessing's trac- tate and play were the result of a lifetime of reflection. We see here, clearly, what Lessing means by Revelation, which is the " Education " of the tractate : we have the advantage of what amounts to a definition, and much light is shed on Revela- tion as it is to be interpreted in the Education of the Human Race. It is a divine thing, an inevitable thing, therefore it must exist in all natural religions, and when perceived cannot be gain- said. It is not merely the written word of an ill-reported chroni- cler, but it is a spiritual effluence that suffuses a religion ; it is the quintessence of religion ; it is, so to speak, the real religious element of religion. It is no surprise, after reading these sentences, to hear that in Nathan the plea is made for a tolerant consideration of the Jew and Mohammedan. Lessing, whose ideas from early to late life are remarkably consistent, simply could not have written otherwise. This view of consistency is not maintained by all critics, as may be seen from the following extract from the introduction of Goring in the 17th volume of Lessing's Sdmtliche Werke, where he says in regard to the Ueber die Entstehung der geoifenharten Religion: " It (the fragment called On the Origin of Revealed Religion) stands in essential contrast to Lessing's Education of the Human Race. In the first fragment, on the Moravians,^* Lessing is the defender of a Christianity of action ; in the second. On the Chris- tianity of Reason,^^ he appears as the speculative theologian; in the present one^" he reveals himsielf as a freethinker." And he adds : " In regard to Lessing's explanation that the inevitableness of a positive religion is its inner truth. Christian =* Gedanken iiber die Herrnhuter, ib. p. 15. "Das Christentum der Vernunft, ib. p. 23. ^ Uber die Entstehung der geoffenbarten Religion, ib. p. 112. 20 The Education of the Human Race Gross says, ' This inevitableness of the positive religion which is thus called its inner truth does not appear so just, and Lessings performance on this head resembles positive scorn.' " But enough can be shown from all three of these productions to indicate that, in the main, the ideas that Lessing put forward in his last years were merely the mature fruits that had blossomed long before. Goring himself explains the motive for the Gedanken iiber die Herrnhuter as follows : " The fundamental thought of the work declares that man is made for action, not for reasoning, and shows, in a practical ex- position of the development according to philosophy and theol- ogy, that religion is continually displaced by theology; as com- fortable theory, with the sophistry of egotism, supersedes un- pleasant fact." It is true that Lessing in the course of his exposition says:'^ " Man was created for doing and not for thinking," but he quotes Socrates with approval,^^ " Foolish mortal, what is above thee, is not for thee! Look within. In thee are labyrinthine depths within which thou couldst profitably lose thyself. Here canst thou seek the most secret signs! Here canst thou learn things weak and things sturdy, the hidden paths and the public outburst of thy passions! Here stands the domain where are thy subject and thy king! Here is to be apprehended and con- trolled the one thing that thou shouldst apprehend and control : thyself." This certainly proclaims in no equivocal way the attitude of individualism that we see in Nathan and, indeed, really in the Education of the Human Race. " The labyrinthine depths in which one can profitable lose himself," are those explored only when reason lights the way. Subtilising is imperative, despite the thesis of the article that religion fades as theology advances. Lessing draws a parallel between the fate of philosophy which declined from the simple introspection of Socrates to the empty disputes of the scholars, and the fate of religion which, from the simple days of Adam, suffered a decline not halted even in our own. Even of Abraham's descendants he says :'^ "All became "^ S'dmtUche Werke, v. 17, p. 16. Gedanken uber die Herrnhuter '" Ibid. "Ih. p. 17. The Education of the Human Race 21 unfaithful to the truth — some less than others, and the descend- ants of Abraham least. On this account, God vouchsafed to them a particular regard. But by degrees, even among them, the multitude of insignificant and self-selected customs became so great that only a few of them retained a correct conception of God. The remainder continued to cling to superficial illusions, and regarded God as a being that could not live unless they brought to him his morning and evening sacrifice."^ In section 6 of the Education, Lessing indicates that polytheism was a natural result of the early operations of the human rea- son.^* Here, he implies that the schism arose through delusion. The important idea seems to be that both views lead to the neces- sity of revelation. He continues, in the Gedanken, as follows: " ,Who could snatch the world from its gloom ? Who could help it to conquer superstition? No mortal. Qw i-iro ix-qxavtj^- " Thus Christ came. May I be permitted to venture to re- gard him here only as a God-enlightened teacher." Thus revelation is personified in Christ who is the teacher.'^ The mission of Christ, he maintains, was to place religion back in her earlier and more spiritual bounds. He resumes, quoting: " God is a spirit whom thou shouldst adore in spirit ! What does he urge more than that? and what tenet is mightier than this in binding all species of religion together?" This passage, also, more than assumes that essential unity of spirit in all religions that finds expression in Nathan. The Das Christentum der Vernunft, composed in 1753, three years after the Gedanken, is chiefly noticeable in this connection for its exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity which strongly resembles that in section 73 of the Education. Some of the paragraphs of Das Christentum der Vernunft are : 3. Conception, volition, and creation are, in God, one act. It may be said : Everything God conceives, that, he also creates. 4. God can conceive himself in only two ways: either he thinks all his perfections simultaneously and himself as the central notion of them; or, he thinks his perfections separately, ^ Cf. 6, Education of the Human Race and the Ernst and Falk. " Cf. Education of the Human Race, §§ 59, 60 and 61. 22 The Education of the Human Race each separate from the other and each, according to degrees, separated from him. 5. God conceived himself from eternity hither in all his com- pleteness: that is, God created himself, from eternity, a being to whom there was lacking no perfection that he himself pos- sessed. 6. This Being, the Writ calls God the Son, or, what might be better, the Son God: a God, because no attribute is lacking that belongs to God; a son, because, according to our notion, whatever presents something to the mind appears to have a certain antecedence to the presentation. 8. This Being may be called a picture of God but an identical picture.^" 9. The more two things have in common with each other, the greater is the harmony between them. The greatest harmony, therefore, must exist between two things which have everything in common, that is between two things which together are only one. It is this Harmony which Lessing declares is the Holy Ghost of Scripture. It is worth while noting for two reasons : first, be- cause it suggests Leibniz, as does indeed some of the rest of the exposition; and second, because it suggests the third element of the Trinity that is alluded to in the Education but there explained only in part. That is, the first two ideas are given as here, but the third is left unaccounted for. Although this composition preceded Lessing's close study of Spinoza, there is something of the spirit of that philosopher in : 13. God conceived his perfection seriatim: that is, he created beings of which each one has something of his perfection, for, to repeat, with God, every thought is a creation. 14. All these beings together are called the world. But the remaining sections indicate the influence of Leibniz, especially those immediately following, and remind one of Pope's borrowed philosophy in: "Of systems possible, if 'tis confest, that wisdom infinite must form the best."'^ 15. God might have conceived his perfections distributed in endless forms. There could, thus, have been an infinite number of worlds if God had not, all along, conceived the most perfect ""Lessing uses the same arguments in the Education, § 73. "Lessing himself, in Pope, ein Metaphysiker! shows' that the If here has no significance. ' ' The Education of the Human Race 23 and also thus among these forms conceived and thereby really- made the most complete form. He goes on to say that| the most perfect way for God to think these worlds would be 'in a continuous series. Hence § 17: They must make a series in which each member contains every- thing that the other members contain and a little more.;; But this little more never reaches the final limit. ' In this way, the continuity of the world is shown to be per- fect. 18. Such a series must be an infinite series, and, in this sense, the diuturnity of the world is incontestable. We have in these two sections the same thought that in Leibniz produced the differential calculus with its infinite series and the thought of the true perfection of the world. In the Education, Lessing is just as anxious, as he is here, to show the continuity of the world, its essential oneness.^* We have, too, the monadistic notion of Leibniz which was to lead, within a very few years, to the complete intellectual inde- pendence of Lessing. He continues by saying that God creates no absolutely separate thing, hence, § 22 : " These simple beings are like limited gods, hence, also, their perfections must be similar to the perfections of God, just as parts to a whole." This, like § 18, is a plea for the immortality of the soul, Spinozistic in aspect, but nevertheless earnest and deep-seated. The doctrine of immortality, Lessing finds, is the first chief con- tribution of Revelation.^" In § 23 he puts forward an idea already referred to and making tip § 73 of the Education where he affirms that God's perfect and necessary conception of himself is that figure of the Trinity usually known as the Son:*" To the perfections of God belong this also : That he is aware of his perfection ; and this : That he " The Education, § S4- " The Education, § 27 et post. 44, 58, &c. " Cf. also : Die Seele, sagt Spinoza, ist mit dem Leibe auf eben die Art vereiniget, als der Begriff der Seele von sich selbst mit der Seele vereiniget ist. From " Durch Spinoza ist Leibniz nur auf die Spur der vorherbestimmten Harmonie gekommen." 1763, Sdmtliche Werke, v. 19, p. 88. 24 The Education of the Human Race can act according to his perfection. Both are equally the seal of his perfections. Lastly, the note of individualism is struck again, and the neces- sary moral drawn, that makes the conception of duty fairly com- plete in § 26, where, having shown that those that are conscious of their perfections and possess the power of acting in propriety therewith, are entitled to be called " moral," i. e., capable of fol- lowing a law, he adds: "This law emanated from their own nature and can be no other than : Act according to thy individual perfections." It is instructive, in this connection, to note what he had to say of Rousseau two years later m reviewing the Discours sur I'ori- gine et les fondeme4s de l'in%aUte parmi^ les homnies,*'^' because it shows how thoroughly immersed in the Rousseau stream he was. After stating that Rousseau is as little satisfied with the condition of inequality in the world as he was, in his earlier essay, with the improvement conferred by the arts and sciences, Lessing goes on to laud the citizen of Geneva in these words : " He is, above all, still the keen philosopher, who regards no prejudice though it were never so popular, but who steadily approaches Truth without concerning himself with those appearances which, at every step, he must sacrifice in her name. His heart takes part in all his speculative efforts and he speaks, therefore, in a tone very different from that of a venal sophist whom self-interest or boasting has made a teacher of wisdom." In 1758 Lessing went back to Berlin and worked on the Litera- turbriefe and his Fabeln. In 1760 be went to Breslau and for several years divided his time between his library of 6,000 vol- umes, the study of Spinoza and the Christian Fathers, and the gaming table, around whose board he met the sprightly army officers that made up for him the zest and briskness his life craved. In 1765 he returned to Berlin and wrote the Laokoon (1766) and Minna von Barnhelm (1767): the former, a critique that showed the natural limitations of poetry and of the plastic arts ; the latter, a drama that reflected national spirit. " Samtliche Werke, v. 19, p. 45, 1755. The Education of the Human Race 25 In 1767 he betook himself to Hamburg and helped to establish a national theater. Here appeared his criticisms on dramatic art in those papers now called the Hamhurgische Dramaturgic, the object of which was to free the German stage from the fetters of French art and to direct the public attention to the works of the Greeks and of Shakspere. In 1770 he took up his abode at Wolfenbiittel as librarian and published his essay on Berengarius of Tours after finding ari MS. of that churchman in reply to Lanfranc on transubstantiation. In 1771 appeared his Epigrams and, in 1772, Emilia Galotti and essays on history and literature. From 1774 to 1778, he published as Wolfenbiittel Fragments, various extracts from one, Reimarus, whose daughter had given Lessing some of her father's MSS. Reimarus had been professor of Oriental languages at Hamburg and had written a defence of the reasonable worship of God. Lessing published this in 1777 as a " fragment by an unknown hand," and appended to it the first half of his Education of the Human Race. Goeze chose to take up cudgels in defence and very shortly the contestants were belaboring each other in doughty style. Lessing, in support of the position that the Bible was not necessary to a belief in Christianity, wrote Eine Parabel, Axiomata, and Anti- Go eze. The Parabel is interesting in connection with the Ring story of Nathan, also a parable. In the Parabel there are a number of people each of whom possesses the plan of a beautiful temple of worship. The temple is discovered to be on fire and all of the j>eople owning plans of it become much concerned lest the fane be destroyed. Instead, however, of concerting to put the fire out, each runs about with his plan, endeavoring to show thereon just what portion is being then destroyed by the flames. Finally, it is observed that the fabric is not on fire at all and that the fiery effect was given by the reflected hght of the setting sun. This stultification of the orthodox was ingenious enough to stir the religious polemics to their depths, and pamphlets be- gan to muster. Lessing's skill in this " fabulous " literature was in no small way enhanced by his earlier composition of fables, and this adroitness, coupled with his learning and masterly knowl- edge of fence, made him a redoubtable antagonist. 26 The Education of the Human Race It must not, however, be inferred that he made all of Reimarus's positions his own. He did not. He did not hesitate to criticise and to supplement : he drew a distinction between the religion of Christ and the Christian re;ligion. Reihiarus's contention was that the Old Testament was not written in order to reveal a religion since that book makes no mention of a future life. Les- sing agreed in large measure with this view but insisted that there was revelation despite the absence of teaching on immor- tality and divine unity, because there was a lesson suited to the time.*^ In 1778-9 be wrote Nathan the Wise, and, in 1780, the Edu- cation of the Human Race. From 1777 to 1780 he wrote Ernst and Falk, nominally on Freemasonry but really on broad philosophical topics. In the course of the dialogue, he discusses the question of the ideal state and shows how natural forces would tend to split up a large ag- gregate into smaller units possessing varying governments and religions. Though this result is inevitable, the inference is clear that the common origin of these varying beliefs is intended to plead for their reconciliation. That is, the world cannot be a unit unless toleration can urge it to be. A few extracts will serve to show the general nature of the exposition and to indicate the attitude of Lessing in the years just preceding the composition of the Education and of Nathan. Falk, to make his point, assumes the best possible political union, and says:*' " We shall assume the best state ; we shall assume that every- body in the world lives in this best state. Would they, therefore, all the people in the world, make only one state?" Ernst admits that probably they would not. This gives Falk his opening and he goes on to show that the parts would be, very much as at present, such as German, French, Dutch, Spanish, etc., each small state having its own interests. These various interests would collide and thus drive the parts asunder. Hence, paradoxically, that which united them would prove the strongest motive for dissolution. There would, too, be physical causes: " Cf. §§ 22 and 26 of the Education. " Zweites Gesprdch. The Education of the Human Race 27 " Many of the smaller states would have very different cli- mates, hence very different requirements and satisfactions, hence very different customs and practices, hence very different morals, hence very different religions.** * * * Then would men be. as now, Jews, Christians, Turks and the like." This being the case, differences would be bound to exist as they do to-day when different sects found laws that are foreign to a natural religion. In short, as a single state could not exist without a religion, and the chances of such a religion's having universal accept- ance, being decidedly remote, the probability that such a general state might come into existence is very distant indeed. As he adds :** " One state ; many states. Many states : many theories of state craft. Many theories of state craft : many religions." These quotations show the breadth of Lessing's view. They justify Francke in saying*^ that Lessing's productions have " mas- culine vigor and intensity because they have republican fearless- ness and monarchical discipline," " cosmopolitanism and nation- ality or freedom and discipline." That is, the vitality and sponta- neity of Rousseau are tempered with Teutonic caution and thoroughness. His boldness of resiearch^ his independence of tra- dition, his optimism gleaming through the lines of the Education of the Huma/ii Race and of Nathan, reveal the idea of personality so prominent in German thought at the close of the eighteenth century and revealed in the English romantic movement from Cowper to Burns. On the disciplinary side, he is allied to Locke, though his philosophy, unlike that of the English sage, is not static. Through the same agent, it might fairly be asserted that he was allied to Rousseau. For however individualistic the French essayist might appear to be, he would have, in his educational writings at least, his pupil Emile subjected to the inexorable discipline of " things." This conception of Lessing's allegiance, goes far towards ex- plaining the self-renunciation of Nathan and the " obedience " of the Education of the Human Race. Nor was he less Rousseau's disciple in the " republican fearless- ness " which appears so admirably in his acceptance of Spinoza " Zweites Gesprdch. Cf. also Herder : Ideen zur Philosophie der geschichte der Menschheit 11. Achtes Buck. Cotta Library. / " Kuno Francke, Social Forces in German Literature, p. 277 and 279. 28 The Education of the Human Race as against Leibniz at a time when Spinoza himself was derided even by Leibniz, so that Elwes says*^ that the first real recogni- tion of Spinoza, echoes of which appear in Goethe, Schleier- macber, Heine, Novalis, Hegel, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Shelley, came from Lessing. And his individualistic philosophy, with its collectivistic basis, the phase of thought so liberally ex- pounded in Herder and in Kant, and finding renewed expression in Froebel and Dewey in such books as The Child and the Curric- ulum, and School and Society, is in no small measure owing to his study of the Amsterdam Jew. But he advanced beyond his mentor, for Spinoza sought " peace " and argued for an attain- ' able goal, while Lessing, interested in processes rather than prod- ucts, found truth in an endless progressive endeavor to arrive at _the order of things. This shows his interest in the process of " becoming," allies him to the great Konigsberg philosopher, and accounts for his criticism and his toleration. Toleration, as can be seen from Locke's Letters Concerning Toleration, was " in the air," but it is also true, that toleration and criticism are sisters, and Lessing was a born critic.*'' " Criticism is based," says Caird,*^ " on the idea that, below all special phases of knowledge, there is a general form of knowledge, or a general ' schema,' — to borrow an expression from Kant — which we carry along with us and by which, all, even the least instructed of men, impart a kind of unity to their experience." " It is a deeper kind of scepticism which goes back to the beginning of our thought * * * jt suggests that the question at issue has certain presuppositions without the examina- tion of which, it cannot be decided." Lessing had the inestimable advantage of being an artist as well as a critic and, like Aristotle, could distinguish between the methods of art and the methods of logic.*» This made him prac- tical, and kept his criticism from becoming too airily philosophic, as were. Plato's and Cousin's, and his art from becoming stereo- typed. " Spinoza's Works, Intro, p. vii. "Francke, Social Forces in German Literature, pp. 270 and 27=; for the significance of the Laokoon and Hamburgische Dramaturgic Critical Philosophy of Kant, v. i, p. 18. "Cf. W. Basil Worsfold Principles of Criticism, p. 42. The Education of the Human Race 29 But Lessing- is not primarily a literary critic nor is it in that capacity that we are at present to judge him. He was not con- cerned, like Addison, in the midst of pseudo-classicism, for the true function of the imagination; he was not, like Bacon, con- cerned with foreshadowing the modern conception of the greater part of poetry as " thought as opposed to form ;"^'' he was not, like Arnold, a confessed discoverer of literature as a criticism of life — yet he partook, after all, of the nature of all of these. He pleaded,'^ even after praising Thomson's Seasons, that poetry has nothing to do with description; his greatest play achieved its chief distinction through its philosophic conceptions, and its criticism of life. Rather did his criticism provide him with a point of view, and its profundity proved an able forerunner of the critical philosophy that was its philosophic successor. ■" Cf. Walt Whitman. "^ Sir Robert Phillimore's Laokoon, Pref. p. 20. PART II The Education of the Human Race. I. Analysis. Hugo Goring, in the nineteenth volume of Lessing's Samtliche Werke in the Cotta Library, writes the following introduction to Lessing's tractate : ^ " The first half of this profound treatise, Lessing published in 1777 with the four Wolfenbuttel Fragments of an Unknown. (§§ 1-53)- III the summer of 1777 he wrote the second half. In 1780 the conclusion appeared. In the meantime occurred the production of the dramatic poem Nathan the Wise. " With the publication of the first 53 paragraphs, Lessing had remarked by way of self-criticism : ' The author of this work may not be, by any means, so heterodox as he, at first sight, appears to be.' He develops, in the course of his work, the re- lation of education to revelation; secures an insight into the stages of education and the progress of mankind ; founds thereon his thoughts of true toleration ; and arrives at an hypothesis of the transmigration of souls,^ upon which, to be sure, some small worth is to be laid but in which is to be discerned in a very much less degree the effective power of Lessing's conception of the world. " In regard to this, Kuno Fischer remarks : ' It needed no palingenesis to perceive in the religions the great educational stages of mankind and thence to attain that religious point of view which rises high above trammeled faiths and instigates the virtue of true toleration, the opposite of all vices." Whatever notion may be entertained of Lessing's religious at- titude it must be admitted that he stands for the following con- ceptions : 1. That there is a law in human history ; 2. That in regard to this law everyone has a right to use his reason in the most liberal way; 'Lessing's idea is rather a re-incarnation than a transmigration as this latter term is usually understood. Cf. §§ 94 and 95 of the Education. The Education of the Human Race 31 3. That education is to be conceived of genetically but as a ceaseless process ; 4. That work and effort are conditions necessary to the evolu- tion of the individual; 5. That education is fundamentally ethic and democratic; 6. That man, " nature," and society are not disparate, but essentially one. More specifically he implies : 1. No positive religion had the right to claim superiority; 2. Every historical religion has relative, if not absolute, worth ; 3. Every historical religion is the evidence of the Divine in man; 4. The doctrines of Satisfaction and Original Sin are inci- dental ; 5. This world is the " best of worlds." The elements of Reimarus's doctrines that led to these con- clusions, may be briefly stated as follows : The orthodox are in- consistent because they contemn reason, although reason is their means of demonstrating their religion ; evidence in favor of revelation fades with each succeeding generation ; no one faith can be adapted to the varying races ; such a relatively small number of people ever heard of Christianity that it cannot have been divinely ordained for all ; there are obvious defects in the truth of the narrative in the Bible; the Old Testament does not contain the most essential principles of revelation, i. e. the doc- trine of immortality; the stories of the resurrection are at such variance that the whole story sounds invented. Lessing, by no means agrees with Reimarus and takes issue with him definitely, arriving at such conclusions as : Faith and reason are disparate ; reason, having accepted revela- tion, is estopped from demanding that revelation be made " in- telligible ;" a revelation, if not for all men, may very properly be for the guidance of the largest number in the shortest time ; the Old Testament contains a revelation despite the fact that it does not teach the immortality of the soul or the unity of God; a revelation does not have to contain absolute truth. It is not improbable that something of the notion of the relation of reason to faith, and of education as a genetic process, Lessing 32 The Education of the Human Race owed to Wieland who, in his essay On the Place of Reason in Matters of Faithj says :^ " It is in the nature of things that a child, with every added year, comes to be less of a child. It has in it all that is needed to bring it to maturity, to the perfection of its individual nature ; and it is wrong for its superiors, from selfish motives, to hinder its development. If what we call people is a sort of collective child (a current conception which is not alto- gether without foundation)^ then must be true of this child what is true of all children: it must be given every opportunity to develop into intelligent manhood. What need we fear from light ? What can we hope from darkness ? If diseased eyes are not able to bear the light, well, we must try to heal them and they will certainly learn how to bear the light." Here we have what was to appear later as the " Culture Epoch Theory," made so much of by Ziller and the other disciples of Herbart, but clearly antedating them. Herder in his Ideen re- veals the same idea, and Leibniz had it. It accounts for Lessing's conception of the Jewish race as a race that was in its childhood, in a stage to be taught by primers and stories, allegories in simple style and rhythmic repetitions. It gives ground for the assertion that revelation is still coming, an assertion that, as elsewhere pointed out, serves to show his relation with Kant and the later philosophers.* The spiritual perfection which Lessing believes to be at the goal of human endeavor, is not to be won without effort. Knots and gnarls must live on friendly terms, as Nathan says in Act II, Sc. 5, and palingenesis must be accomplished by steadily in- creasing improvement. Lessing is thoroughly religious and sin- cere in this. He feels the covenant of man and the approach of an eternal gospel. He flourishes in an atmosphere that regards man as the necessary culmination of the world that will serve to make the whole a unit. ' Francke, Social Forces &c. p. 265 ' Cf. Hailmann's translation of Froebel's Education of Man, p. 18 n for the doctrine in Spencer, Comte, Froebel, Pestalozzi, Richter, Goethe Kant Hegel, Herbart. ' 'Cf. Buchner's Kant's Educational Theory, p. 58 and 60, for Kant's ■contribution to the doctrine of evolution, "racial education."' The Education of the Human Race 33 2. The Tractate. THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE. 1780. All these things are true in certain people from, the same standpoint from which, in certain other people, they are false. Augustinus. Preface of the Editor. I made public the first half of this production in my Communi- cations. I am now ready to have the remainder appear. The author, m it, has taken his station on a height whence he believes he sees rather more than the prescribed path of his own day. But he summons from the road no hastening traveler who merely wishes soon to reach his abode for the night. He does not demand that the prospect that has ravished him should delight every eye. And so, permit me to think, he might be allowed to stand and muse there where he does stand and muse ! If he only have brought out of the immeasurable distance, which a soft evening glow neither quite encloses nor quite reveals, merely a hint of that about which I have often been puzzled !^ I. What education is for the individual, revelation is for the whole human race. 2. Education is revelation that affects the individual ; revelation is education which has affected and still affects the race." " For the confusing changes in the point of view that occur in this Preface note the circumstances under which the first half of the Educa- tion appeared. Cf. ctnte, Lessing's Life from 1774-1778 and the opening. ante, of Part II. Lessing, in this Preface, is speaking as an editor of the " fragment by an unknown hand." He refers to himself, however, here and there, both in the third person, as author, and in the first person, as editor. . , , , ..,...,.. " It is already apparent that the key-note of the tractate is mdividualism 34 The Education of the Human Race 3- Whether to consider education from this point of view, can be of any value to pedagogical science, I will not now inquire. But, in theology, the conception of revelation as an education of the race may be of the utmost value and may serve to remove many difficulties. 4- Education gives to man nothing that he could not evolve from himself, but gives it to him more swiftly and less arduously. Similarly, revelation gives to the race no things which the un- aided human reason^ would not come upon by itself ; but revela- tion has bestowed and is still bestowing, somewhat earlier, the most important of these things. 5- And just as in education, since not everything can be brought to pass at once, the order of the development of the powers of man is not a matter of indifference ; so God, in his revelation, felt constrained to maintain a certain system, a certain modera- tion.* and all that that implies. But it is an individualism with social order. Cf. Nathan, Act I., Sc. 3. Nathan. Must, dervise? Dervise, must? Nay, no man must; why must a dervise then. What must he, prithee? Dervise. What is desired of him In faith and honor, and he knows is right — That, must a dervise. Nathan. There you speak the truth; Let me embrace you, man, and call you friend! Indeed, Nathan feels so strongly opposed to the unreasonable individual- ism and Rousseauism of Al Hafi, the Dervise, who scorns Saladin's virtue when it appears contrasted with that monarch's oppression of his fellow- man in religious wars, that he (Nathan) actually fails to ask Al Hafi of the whereabouts of the Templar who has just saved from death the child that the Jew cares more for than for anything else in the world. ' Cf. the keen irony in the following words of the unreasoning Patri- arch of Nathan, Act IV, Sc. 2. Patr. No man indeed should fail to use the reason That God has given him — in its proper place. ********* Who would presume to let his reason question The absolute authority of Him Who made that reason — try the eternal law Of heaven's high majesty by various rules of idle honor? 'Lessing does not disregard the omnipotence of God here. He feels, merely, that God's design was decidedly not to bestow light all at once though it was in his power. Man had to work out his salvation. Note the implication of evolution and self-activity. Cf. too, § 6 post. The Education of the Human Race 35 Even if the primal man had been immediately endowed with a conception of a single God, yet this concepti'on, imparted and not wrought out, could not possibly have endured in its integrity. As soon as the independent reason began to elaborate it, the former would subdivide the single infinite into many finites and give to each of the parts a characteristic mark." 7- Thus naturally arose polytheism and idolatry. And who knows for how many million years human reason might have blown about among these errors — notwithstanding, that everywhere and always, certain individual men knew that they were errors — if God had not pleased to give to reason, through a new impulse, a better direction.^* 8. But when he no longer could ' or would reveal himself to the individual man, he selected for his particular education an indi- vidual people, and that, the rudest and most barbarous, in order to begin with it from the beginning.^^ 9- This was the Hebrew people of whom it is not known in the least what kind of divine worship they had in Egypt, for such " Such passages as these show the influence of Leibniz, and suggest the later development of Fichte, SchelHng, Hegel, and Froebel. The inde- pendence of human reason is insisted on, and its constructive and defini- tive activity emphasized. It is assisted by God, Cf. 7, but only gradually and at those times only vjfhen it had reached the proper stage. " Only man's misconception betrays religions into subtleties and per- version, indicates Nathan in the celebrated Ring Scene, of Nathan the Wise. There is a basic unity, an ethical permanence, and we should for- bear to accuse because we are all searching for truth. Cf. Spinoza's idea that falsity is merely a " negative conception," and that general notions are universal since the latter are an infinitude of specific intersecting men- tal images too numerous for the finite mind separately to retain. Since all " adequate " ideas are true and intersecting there is truth in all " re- ligions." Note here Francke's statement. Social Forces &c., p. 292, that all the rings make the owners pleasing to God and man. " This, like § S, is no derogation from God's omnipotence but an ex- planation of how far the human reason, left to itself, might depart from the true faith and how necessary instruction was. That the time spent in the effort to work out destiny had not been wasted, Cf. 18-20. It must be admitted that, here and there, Lessing's attempt to make history fit his theory is a little forced. 36 The Education of the Human Race contemned slaves were not allowed to take part in the divine worship of the Egyptians, and the God of their fathers had be- come absolutely forgotten by them. 10. Perhaps it was that the Egyptians had expressly interdicted from them every god and all gods ; had, in order to be able to tyrannize over them with a greater show of reasonableness, forced them to the belief that they might not have either god or gods, since to have such was a prerogative only of the dominant Egyp- tians. Do Christians treat their slaves, even now, very differ- ently ? II. To this rude people, accordingly, God caused himself to be proclaimed merely as the god of their fathers, in order at first to acquaint them with a god of their own and to inspire them with confidence. 12. Through the miracles by which he led them out of Egypt and established them in Canaan, he attested himself directly after- wards as a god mightier than any other. ^'^ 13- And while he continued to manifest himself as the most power- ful of all — which, of course, only one can be — he accustomed the people gradually to the conception of a unitary God. 14- But how far, indeed, was this conception of a unitary God from the true transcendental conception of a unified God which reason so much later first learned with certainty to resolve from the conception of an infinite God. 15- To the true conception of a unitary God — even if the better part of the peop le more or less approached it— the people, as a whole, "For Lessing's attitude towards miracles, Cf. various sections passim and 8 00 n. The Education of the Human Race 37 however, could not for a long time raise themselves, and this was the only true reason why they so often abandoned their one god and thought to find the One (that is, the mightiest), in some other god of some other peoples. 16. But for what kind of moral education was such a rude people, unaccustomed to abstract thoughts, and so completely childish, fit? For no other than that suitable to the age of childhood: the education by means of immediate appeals to the senses through punishments and rewards. 17- Hence, here, too, education encounters revelation. Not as yet could God give to his people any other religion, any other law, than one through the observance or disregard of which they hoped or feared here, upon earth, to be happy or unhappy. For their vision did not penetrate beyond this life. They knew of no im- mortality of the soul : they yearned for no future life. To have revealed so early to them those things for which their reason was so immature — what would that have been in G«d other than the mistake of the conceited pedagogue who prefers, instead of firmly grounding his pupil, to hasten him along and to boast of him. 18. But, it will be asked, for what purpose was this education of such a primitive people, a people with whom God was compelled to begin absolutely from the beginning? I answer: In order, later on, to be able to use, with greater certainty, as instructors of all other peoples, several of them. He developed in them the future teachers of the human race. They were Jews : they must have been Jews ; they must have been men from a people educated in that way.^^ 19. For, when the child had grown up, amid buffetings and en- dearments, and had arrived at an age of comprehension, the " Cf . the lesson of Nathan: Toleration springing from conflict, from effort that brings self-renunciation. Kuno Fischer, in his essay on Nathan the Wise, shows by reference to this idea why the hero of Lessing's dra- matic poem was a Jew. 38 The Education of the Human Race Father thrust it at once into foreign parts and there it realized immediately the benefits it enjoyed but had not recognized in its Father's house. 20. While God, through all the degrees of a childhood education was leading his chosen people, the other nations of the earth made their way according to the light of reason. Most of them were left far behind by the chosen people, but some got ahead of it. This, too, happens in the case of children that are allowec^ to grow up by themselves: many remain absolutely rude; others develop themselves to an astonishing extent.^* 21. As, however, these more fortunate few prove nothing against the usefulness and necessity of instruction, so do the few bar- barous peoples who appeared in their conception of God to have an advantage up till then over the chosen people, prove nothing against revelation. The child of education starts with steps that are slow but sure ; it comes up late with many a more fortunately organized child of nature but it overtakes it nevertheless and is thereafter never again overtaken by it." 22. Similarly (the doctrine of the unity of God, which is found and... not found in the books of the Old Testament, being laid aside), I say, the fact that at least the doctrine of the immor- tality of the soul and the acconipanying doctrine of punishment and reward in a future life, are not found therein, is just as little proof against the divine origin of these books. Notwith- standing this,, there may be perfect truth there with all the mi- racles and prophecies therein. For, let us suppose that these doc- trines were not only incomplete but that they were not even true; let us suppose that, for man, everything was over with this life— would the existence of God be the less demonstrated thereby? W ould God appear thereby less free ? Would it thereby .f"«*"i «"« fif «°.*/' '^'''°"' ^^^^ reiterate the part of 'Teason " CI- 35, 30, 37, SS, 03, 6s &c. " Cf. § 76 n. The Education of the Human Race 39 be less seemly in God to take charge of the temporal destinies of some one people of this transitory human race? The miracles which he performed for the Jews, the prophecies which, through them, he had chronicled, were by no means merely for the few mortal Jews in whose time they had happened and had been re- corded. He had his aims, at the same time, in regard to the whole Jewish race, the whole human race, which, perhaps, may remain here upon earth forever, though every individual Jew, every individual man, were to perish irredeemably.^* 23- Again. The absence of these doctrines from the writings of the Old Testament proves nothing against their divinity. Moses, although the sanction of his law extended only to this life, was certainly sent from God. Why should it extend farther ? He was sent only to the Hebrew people, the Hebrew people of that time, and his mission was perfectly suited to the knowledge, capacities, and the inclinations of the Hebrew people then living, as well as to the destiny of the coming race. That is enough. 24. So far ought Warburton to have gone and no farther. But the learned man overstrained the bow. Not content that the absence of these doctrines was no impeachment of the divine mis- sion of Moses, he sought to evince that mission through that very absence. If he had only sought to draw his proof from the appropriateness of such a law (cf. 23) to such a people! But he sought refuge in a continuous miracle, unbroken from Moses to Christ, according to which God made every individual Jew just as happy or unhappy as he was obedient or disobedient to the law. This miracle was to be regarded as making up the lack of those doctrines without which no state could endure, and such compensation, as demonstrating what the omission, at first sight, seemed to gainsay. " Spinoza in chapter 2 of the Politico-Theological Tractate points out how limited the early Jew's idea of God was. Conceptions of omniscience and omnipresence were of slow growth. Also, note post §§ ,85 to 100. I 140 The Education of the Human Race 25- How fortunate it was that Warburton^" could not verify, could not make probable, through any means, this persisting miracle in which he placed the reality of the Jewish theocracy. For had he been able to do that, then had he really made the difficulty in- superable — to me at least. For then, that which had been in- tended to reestablish the divinity of the mission of Moses would hav^ made that matter doubtful, which God, it is true, did not intend to communicate, but which, also, he certainly did not in- tend to make difficult. 26. My explanation lies in the antitype of revelation.^' A primer for children may very well pass over in silence this or that im- portant element of the science or art that is being set forth, which element, in the judgment of the teacher, is not adapted to the capacities of the children for whom he wrote. But the primer must, under no circumstances, contain anything that will divert the' children from, nor obstruct the paths to, the withheld im- portant elements. Rather must all the avenues be left scrupu- lously free for them ; and to cause them to be directed from even a single one of these paths so that they might traverse it later, would alone serve to transform a defect of the primer into an actual fault. 27- Thus the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and future reward were properly enough left out of the writings of the Old Testament, the primers of the Israelites, a rude people un- disciplined in thought. But those writings could under no cir- cumstances contain anything that might delay in any wise the people for whom they were written, on the road to this great truth. And what would have, to say the least, impeded the people more, than to have that marvelous recompense promised in this very life, and promised by one who makes no promises that he does not execute. " Cf. The amusing and acute analysis of the theories of Warhnrtnn "the. attorney-general of God," in Leslie Stephen's, /^L°y T/ingS Thought m the Eighteenth Century. ' -^"s'"" " I. e.. Education. The Education of the Human Race 41 28. For, although the unequal distribution of the goods of this life, in which little attention seems to have been paid to Virtue and Vice, is not the strongest proof of the immortality of the soul and a future life in which that lack of discrimination will be removed, it is nevertheless certain that without that difficulty, human intelligence, for a long time, possibly never, would not have arrived at better and more convincing proofs. For what would have been able to force it to seek these stronger proofs? Mere curiosity ?^° , 29. This or that Israelite, to be sure, might have extended to each individual member, those divine promises and threats which con- cerned the pohtical aggregate and might have persisted in the firm belief that whoever was pious would also be happy, and that whoever was unhappy was bearing the punishment for his mis- deeds, which punishment would immediately transmute itself again into blessing as soon as he abandoned his transgression. Such a person appears to have written Job for the plan of it is quite in this spirit. 30. But it was impossible that daily experience should strengthen this belief, for, had it done so, all would have been over for ever, so far as the recognition and acceptance of the still unimparted truth was concerned, for ever, for the people that had such an experience. For, if the pious man was absolutely happy, and in conjunction with his happiness it was necessary that no fright- ful thoughts of death should interrupt his tranquility, that he should die old and completely satisfied with life, how could he yearn for another life ; how could he reflect upon that for which he did not yearn ? But, if the pious man did not reflect thereon, who then was to reflect? the transgressor? who felt the penalty "Lessing is a thoroughgoing disciplinarian here. Difficulties to over- come is the material of education. The idea is in accord with Lessing's words as given by Sime in his Life, vol. 2, p. 324 '• " If it was true that there was an art that made us acquainted with the future we should rather not know it; if it was also true that there was a religion which put us beyond doubt as to the next life we should rather not listen to this religion." 42 The Education of the Human Race of his evil deeds and who, if he execrated this life, gladly re- nounced that other life?^" 31- Much less did it matter that here and there an Israelite directly and explicitly denied the immortality of the soul and future re- compense, because the law did not concern itself therewith. The denial of an individual — though he were a Solomon — did not halt the progress of the general understanding and was, in and for itself, a proof that the nation had taken a great step nearer the truth. For individuals deny only what the many are be- ginning to reflect upon, and to reflect upon that which has been theretofore absolutely ignored is half way to knowledge. 32. Let us also acknowledge that it is an heroic obedience to ob- serve the laws of God merely because they are the laws of God^^ ^Lessing's conception of education as a discipline appears in Nathan, Act I, Sc. I, where Nathan, transcendently educated because he is The Wise, patiently accepts Daja's accusations, and the loss of his sons, &c. His gentle reminder, Act I., Sc. 2., But have you learned That pious ecstacies are easier far Than virtuous deeds suggests Spinoza's assertion that, as the will has no validity apart from acts of volition,, the will is coterminous with understanding, or is under- standing in another mode. A view which not only foreshadows the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the volitional psychology of Dewey, but may be conceived as basing the practical teaching of Nathan in his plea for the validity of the religions, Nathan Act III, Sc. 7. The latter are consanguineous because of the identity of intellect and will that in them must lie. Cf. Sime's Life v. I, p. 94. Lessing " over and over again returns to the principle that conduct, not belief, is the more important thing, and that mere dogmatic teaching is of no avail if dissociated from practical goodness." ^ Lessing inclines to the Kantian view that a supersensible God is demonstrable though not, of course, ex vi, termini, knowable, through ex- perience. Cf. Nathan Act III, Sc. i. All the more consoling was the lesson That faith in God depends not on the views We entertain of him. Cf. Sime's Life, Vol. i, p. 95, quoting . Lessing : "The attempt to put together a single religion before men have , been bcought to the sincere exercise of their duties is an empty fancy." The whole ground work of Nathan is self-renunciation, the effect of which is heightened by contrast with the self -centered Daja,. the grasping Patriarch and the misconceived democracy of the dervise, , Act I, Sc. 3, Act II, Sc. 9, whom Nathan in Act I, Sc. 3, rallies with: If your heart continues dervise, why " The fellow in the state " is but a cloak. The Education of the Human Race 43 and not because He has here and there promised to reward the observer of them: to observe them even though a future reward be entirely doubted and an earthly one also is not wholly certain. 33- A people trained in this heroic obedience towards God, should it not be destined, should it not be fitted, above all others, to carry out especial divine plans ? Let the soldier who offers blind obedience to his chief, become convinced also of the sagacity of his leader, and say what this leader would not dare, with him, to undertake. 34- Yet the Jewish people in their Jehovah had reverenced rather the mightiest than the wisest of all gods : had feared him as a jealous god rather than loved him. This is a proof, too, that the conceptions which they had of their most exalted, unitary god were not exactly those which we hold for true. But now the time had arrived when these conceptions of theirs were to be broadened, ennobled, rectified. To which end, God made use of a perfectly natural means,^^ of a better and more accurate meas- ure by which the nation secured opportunity to esteem him. 35- Instead of esteeming him, as till then, only in contrast to the miserable idols of the small rude neighboring tribes with whom they lived in constant jealousy, they began, in captivity under the wise Persians, to estimate him against the being of all beings, as one recognized and honored by a disciplined reason.^' Notice the reiteration of the idea of renunciation in all of the noble characters: in the Sultan's pardon of the Templar; in the Templar's effort to avoid reward; in Nathan's patience under the, loss of sons and wife. Sittah, more limited, shows it mainly toward her brother. Cf. § 80. ^ I. e. Reason, § 35. ^Lessing's attitude toward Reason, m Nathan, appears very clearly from his contemptuous portrait of the Patriarch who remarks sanctimoni- ously, Act IV, Sc. 2: There the knight may see How pride of human reason will mislead In matters spiritual. And from the words of the Templar, Act IV, Sc. 2, ib: The girl ig trained, 'tis said. In no religion, rather than his own ; And has been taught no more nor less of God Than satisfies her reason. 44 The Education of the Human Race 36. Revelation had condticted their reason ; and now reason sud- denly illuminated their revelation. 37- This was the first mutual service which they performed for each other. And such a reciprocal influence is, far from being ill-fitting to the author of them, so appropriate that without it each of them would have been useless. 38. The child, sent among strangers, saw other children who knew more and lived more fittingly, and asked himself abashed : " Why do ' I not know that too, why do I not live thus ? Ought not this to have been imparted to me, ought not I to have been re- strained in my Father's House?" Then he again seeks out his primer, which long since had become tiresome to him, in order to cast the blame upon the primer. But behold, he realizes that the blame does not lie in the books: that the blame of not long ago knowing this very thing and living this! very way, is solely his own. 39- Asi the Jews in their Jehovah by this time recognized, through the means of the purer, Persian doctrine, not merely the greatest of all national gods, but God ; as they, so much more readily could find him and point him out to others as he really was in their reproduced sacred writings ; as they evinced aversion to all sensuous representations of this conception, or were advised, at all events, in these writings to have an aversion just as great as the Persian had always had — what wonder is it that they found favor in the eyes of Cyrus with a divine worship which he recognized, it is true, as being far from pure Sabeism but still far superior to the gross idolatries which, instead of the newer conception, had taken possession of the forsaken country of the Jews. 40. Thus enlightened in regard to their own unrecognized treasures, they returned and became an entirely different people, whose The Education of the Human Race 45 first care it was to make this enlightenment among them, en- during. Soon apostasy and idolatry were no longer thought of amongst them. For, though it is possible to be unfaithful to a national god, to God, when once he has been recognized, never.-* 41. The theologians have sought variously to explain this com- plete change in the Jewish people, and one of them, who has very well pointed out the inadequacy of all these different explanations, wished, in conclusion, to advance " the apparent fulfilment of the written and oral prophecies concerning the Babylonish captivity and release from it," as the true cause of the change. But this reason, also, can be the true one only so far as it implies the now newly exalted conceptions of God. The Jews must now, for the first time, have learned that to perform miracles and to prophesy the future belongs only to God. They had formerly ascribed both of these powers also to the false gods — a policy which made even miracles and prophecies have upon them a weak and transient impression. 42. Without doubt, the Jews, under the Chaldeans and Persians, became more familiar with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. They became more familiar with it in Egypt, in the schools of the Greek philosophers. 43- But as this doctrine of immortality did not have the same status in relation to their sacred writings that it had had with the doctrine of the unity and attributes of God; as the former doctrine was crudely overlooked by this sensual people, though the latter would be sought ; as anticipatory exercises of the latter were still necessary; and as only allusions and hints had been given — belief in the immortality of the soul naturally could never become the belief of the whole nation. It was, and remained, the belief of only a certain sect of them. 44. An anticipatory exercise of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, I call, for example, the divine threat to inflict the sins ^ Cf . § 7 n. 46 The Education of the Human Race of the fathers on his children even to the third and fourth gen- eration. This accustomed the fathers to live in thought with their furthest descendants and to anticipate the misfortune which they had brought upon these innocent ones. 45- An allusion, I call that which was designed to excite curiosity and to occasion a question, such as the frequently reiterated phrase: to be gathered to his fathers, for die. 46. A hint, I call that which already contains some germ, out of which the truth, still withheld, may develop. Of this kind, was the inference of Christ from the appellation: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This hint appears to me certainly capable of being developed into a convincing proof. 47- In such anticipations, allusions, and hints, consists the positive perfection of a primer; just as the negative perfection consists in the property, previously pointed out, of not obstructing or making more difficult the path to the truths not yet imparted. 48. Add to this, moreover, the dress and the style^^ — (i. The dress, in allegories and instructive single instances, of the abstract truths which were not, too cursorily, to be passed over, and were told as if they had actually happened. Of this nature are : the creation, in the picture of an increasing day ; the origin of moral evil, in the story of the forbidden tree; the source of many tongues, in the history of the tower of Babel, etc. 49- 2. The style, sometimes plain and simple, sometimes poetical, always full of tautologies, but the style of those that think shrewdly and while they at one time appear to say something else, are really saying the same thing; at another time appear to " § so completes the sentence. The Education of the Human Race 47 say the same thing though really they imply, or can be under- stood as implying, something else.) 50- And you have all the meritorious attributes of a primer, for children as well as for a childlike nation. 51- But each primer is only for a certain age. To delay over it longer than was the intention, the child that has outgrown it, is pernicious. For, in order to do this in a way anywise profitable, more must be put into it than is in it ; more must be taken out of it than it can contain. The allusions and hints must be too much sought and fondled ; the allegories must be rattled empty ; the il- lustrations interpreted too straitly. This gives the child a narrow, skewed, meticulous understanding ; it makes him full of mystery, superstitions, full of contempt for all that is comprehensible and easy. 52- The very way^" in which the Rabbins treated their sacred books : the very character which they imparted to the spirit of their people! 53- A better teacher must come and snatch from the child's hands the spent primer. Christ came. 54- That part of the human race which God had willed to compre- hend in one, plan of education (he had, however, willed to unite in such a plan only that part which, through language and mode of action, through government and other natural and political relationships, had already united itself), was ready for tjie second great step of education. 55- That is, this part of the human race had gone so far in the exercise of its reason that it required and could utilize for its 'I. e., This (§ si) was the very way, etc. 48 The Education of the Human Race moral actions, motives nobler and worthier than were the tem- poral rewards and punishments' that had hitherto been its in- centives. The child had become a boy. ,Tid-bits and toys gave way to the growing desire to become just as free, just as hon- ored, just as happy as he saw his elder brethren were. 56. The better ones of that part" had long since been accustomed to let themselves be governed by a shndow of such nobler mo- tives. In order to be perpetuated after this life, merely in the recollection of their fellow townsmen, the Greeks and Romans did everything. 57- It was time that another, true life after this life, should win an influence over his^' actions. 58. And so Christ became the first trustworthy, practical teacher of the immortality of the soul. 59- The first trustworthy teacher — trustworthy through the prophe- cies that appeared fulfilled in him; trustworthy in the miracles which he performed ; trustworthy through his own reanimation after a death by which he had sealed his doctrines. Whether we now can prove this resurrection or these miracles, I shall ignore as I shall ignore who the person of this Christ was. All that might have been of importance at that time n the acceptance of his doctrines, is no longer of importance in me recognition of their truth. 60. The first practical teacher — for it is one thing to surmise, wish for, and believe in the immortality of the soul as a philosophic speculation; another, to formulate, in accord therewith, the in- ner and outer acts. ' I. e. the elder brethren. 'I. e. the youth's. The Education of the Human Race 49 61. And this at least Christ taught now for the first time. For, although among many nations the belief had already been intro- duced before him, that evil actions would yet be punished in that life, they were, nevertheless, only such actions as wrought injury to the civil community, and therefore already had their punish- ment in the civil community. To recommend an inner purity of heart with regard to another life was reserved alone to him. 62. His disciples have faithfuUy propagated these doctrines. And had the former no other merit than that of procuring a more general circulation among many peoples of a truth which Christ appeared to have intended for the Jews alone, they ought, for that very reason, to be considered among the fostering bene- factors of the human race. 63. How could it have been otherwise than that they should con- fuse this one great doctrine with other doctrines whose truth was less illuminating, whose use was less important. Let us not blame them for that, but rather earnestly inquire whether these very intermingled doctrines did not become a new directing im- pulse to human reason. 64. At all events, it is evident that the New Testament scriptures in which these doctrines were, after some time, preserved, pro- vided and still provide the second, better primer for the human race. 65- They, more than all other books, during the last seventeen hundred years, have exercised the human reason; more than all other books, have illumined it; were it, only through the light which the human intellect carried into them. 66. It would have been impossible for any other book to have be- come so generally known among such different peoples. And it so The Education of the Human Race is incontestable tliat the human reason has been more advanced by the fact that such totally unlike modes of thought have exer- cised themselves on this very book, than if each nation, for itself particularly, had had its own primer. 67. It was also most necessary that each nation should accept this book for some time, as the ne plus ultra of its knowledge. For in that way must the boy also first regard his primer, so that the impatience merely to be finished may not urge him on to things for which he has not yet laid the foundation. 68. And, what is still most necessary — take heed, thou better pre- pared one, thou that pausest restlessly, to fume on the last page of this primer, take heed against letting thy weaker fellow-pupil mark what thou faintly perceivest, or already beginnest to see. 69. Until they are up with thee, these weaker fellow-pupils, rather turn thyself once more to this primer and seek whether that which thou takest only for involution of method, or a temporary expedient in the teaching, is really not something more. 70. Thou h^st seen, in the childhood of the human race, in regard to the doctrine of the unity of God, that God immediately re- vealed, or permitted and brought out, mere truths of reason; that mere truths' of reason were for some time taught as imme- diately revealed truths, in order to disseminate them more rapidly and to establish them more firmly. 71- Thou experiencest the same thing in the boyhood of the human race in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The latter, in the second, better primer, is preached as revelation, not tamght as the result of human conclusions. The Education of the Human Race 51 72. Just as we can henceforth do without the Old Testament in the doctrine of the unity of God, so, by degrees, we begin to be able to do without the New Testament in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Could there not be foreshadowed, in this New Testament, other similar truths which we are to regard in astonishment until they learn to induct reason from her other evidenced truths and with them to combine? 73- For example, the doctrine of the Trinity. What if this doctrine, after endless wanderings to and fro, should only bring the human understanding finally to recognize that God cannot possibly be one in the sense in which finite things are one; that his unity must be a kind of transcendental unity which does not exclude a kind of plurality. At all events, must not God have of himself the most complete conception ; that is, a conception in which there is everything that is in him ? Should there, however, be everything that is in him if there was, of his essential reality, as well as of his other attributes, merely a conception, merely a possibility? This f>ossibility exhausts the nature of his other attributes, but does it do so for his essential reality ? I think not. Accordingly, God can have either no possibly complete conception of himself, or this complete conception is just as essentially real as he is him- self. Certainly, my image in the mirror is nothing but a mere representation of me because it has of me only that from which rays of light fall upon its surface. But if this picture had every- thing, everything without exception, which I myself have, would it then be still an empty representation, or rather a true dupli- cate of my personality ? If I believe I recognize a similar dupli- cation in God, my error may not be as great as my words are feeble, in the expression of my ideas. And so much remains un- deniable; that they that wished to make the notion of this con- ception popular, could hardly have expressed themselves more aptly or more comprehensibly than by the appellation of a Son whom God created from eternity. 52 The Education of the Human Race 74-, And the doctrine of original sin. What if everything finally persuaded us that man, when on the iirst and lowest round of his humanity, is by no means such master of his actions as to be able to follow moral laws. 75- And the doctrine of the Son's Satisfaction, What if every- thing finally compelled us to suppose that God, despite that original inability of man, nevertheless preferred to give him moral laws, and preferred to forgive him all trespasses in con- sideration of his Son (that is, in view of the self-subsisting com- pleteness of all His perfections contrasted with which and in which each imperfection of the individual disappears), than not to give him those laws and exclude him from all moral blessed- ness which, without moral laws, cannot be conceived. 76. It is not to be objected that such subtleties over the mysteries of religion are interdicted. The word " mystery " connoted in the early days of Christianity, something quite different from what we now understand by it. And the development of re- vealed truths into truths of reason is absolutely necessary if the human race is to be helped by them. When they were revealed, they were, indeed, no truths of reason ; but they were revealed in order to become so. They were like the Facit which the arith- metic master cries to his pupils s'o that they may in some wise be able to direct themselves in calculation. Were the pupils to content themselves with the announced Facit they would never learn to calculate, and the aim with which the good master gave them a clue for their work, would be defeated.^" "The cultivation of revealed truths with truths of reason is thus de- clared to be absolutely necessary. In Nathan, Lessing implies that too much weight is given by Christians to formulas and not enough to ideas Thus Sittah says. Act II, So. i, after the chess game. The name (Christianity) is all their pride. And Al Hafi m Act II, Sc. 9, says, in his over-wrought zeal • Who cannot resolve Upon the instant for himself to live. Remains forevermore the slave of others. The Education of the Human Race 53 77- And why should we not also be able to be conducted by a religion (notwithstanding that its historical truth, if you will, appears so doubtful), to more exact and better conceptions^" of the divine Being, of our nature, of our relations to God— con- ceptions to which the human reason would, of itself, never have arrived. 78. It is not true that speculations on these things ever caused harm and became noxious to the civil community. This reproach is not to be made to speculations but to the ignorance, to the tryanny that restrained these speculations, that did not permit original speculations to men that had them.^^ 79- Such speculations — let them turn out as they will individually — are as a general thing, on the contrary, incontestibly the most appropriate exercises of the human understanding so long as the human heart is, in general, capable at best of loving virtue only on account of its eternal blessed consequences.^ , 32 80. For, moreover, in this selfish state of the human heart, to incline to exercise the understanding only on those things which "" I. e., The Trinity, Original Sin, and the Son's Satisfaction, and per- haps what Edward Caird refers to in his Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte when he says in his Preface, quoting Comte, " The individual man is a mere abstraction and there is nothing real but humanity," add- ing, " The same change (of the point of view) brings with it a restora- tion of religion. The 'objective' or absolute God, the God who made all things work together for good to His creatures, has disappeared with the fictions of childhood. But his place has been taken by Humanity conceived as a great providential existence which sustains and controls the life of the individual man and in which he finds a sufficient object for all his devotions." '^ Cf. for toleration and individualism, §§ So and 87 and the very thesis of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico Politicus, that freedom of thought should be granted and may not be withheld without danger. Cf. too, ante, note to Voltaire's words, quoting Royce. "^ I.e. Such speculations would not be necessary if the human heart loved virtue for its own sake. But with the human heart benighted as it is, we must speculate beyond mere corporal needs. Cf. § 80. 54 The Education of the Human Race concern corporeal needs, would blunt it rather than whet it. It positively will be exercised on spiritual concerns if it is to attain to complete clarification and bring out that purity of heart which qualifies us to love virtue for its own sake.^' ' 8i. Or shall the human race never reach this acme of clarification and purity? Never? 82. Never ? Let me not, All-Bountiful, think such blasphemy ! Ed- ucation has its goal, not less for the race than for the individual. What is to be educated, is to be educated for something. 83- The flattering prospects which are revealed ^o the youth, the honor, the well-being, which are tieJcT^lCttering before him — what are they but means to educate him to become a man who, when these prospects of honor and well-being fade away, may be capable, even then, of doing his duty.^* 84. Human education aims at that, and shall divine education not stretch so far? What art succeeds in doing for the individual, ^ Cf. §§ 32, 83. Nathan, Act I, Sc. 9, pleads for the immanent spirit in the real, when he replies to Recha's inquiry as to whether he has not taught her to believe in God and miracles: Yes, And he loves you; and hourly, miracles For you and such as you, is viforking now — From all eternity, has worked them for you. For further indications of Spinozistic immanentalism Cf. Act I, Sc. 2 : For God rewards even here The good that here is done, and Act III, Sc. 2: Where e'er he (Moses) stood, 'twas in God's presence. The reference to Spinoza is Chapter I. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Note, too, Kant's words: "Mankind must not remain in this raw state, but must develop, progressing in the direction of reason, law, will, freedom, morality." Buchner's Educational Theory of Emanuel Kant, p. 60. And Cf. Wieland's essay On the Place of Reason in Matters of Faith quoted by Francke in Social Forces &c, p. 265. "The reiteration of this idea (§§ 32, 80) suggests the categorical im- perative, action, and will to do, of Kant's teaching. The Education of the Human Race 55 shall nature not succeed in doing for the whole? Blasphemy! Blasphemy! 85. No ! It will come, it will surely come, the time of perfection, when man — the more convinced his understanding feels of an ever better future — will not, however, have to borrow from this future, m otives for his actions ; when he will do the good because it is the good and not because there were imposed upon it arbitrary re- wards which were earlier intended merely to steady his incon- stant vision and strengthen it to recognize the inner, better re- wards.'^ 86. It' will surely come, the time of a new, eternal gospel which is promised, in the primers of the New Covenant, to us. 87. It may be that even certain visionaries of the thirteenth and fourteenth century had caught the gleam of this new, eternal gospel and erred only in announcing its dav.n as so near.^* 88. Perhaps their threefold age of the world was no mere empty vagary, and certainly they had no evil aim when they taught that the New Covenant must become just as antiquated as the Old. There remained even with them always the same economy of the same God, always — to let them use my phrase — the same plan for the universal education of the human race. 89. But they were too hasty in that they thought they could make their contemporaries, who had hardly outgrown childhood, with- ^ Cf. the buoyancy of this with Nathan's words, Act II, Sc. 5. I know a good man's motives, and I know Good men are everywhere. " Cf. Royce, " Jesus, advancing on the Stoics, placed the basis in the kinship of man as sons of God. Thus morality is not dependent on a fiat of God but on a necessary relation of God's creatures to God. Love is the basis." Religious Aspect of Philosophy: Search for a Moral Ideal, p. 39- And note the dialogue of Nathan and the Templar, Act II, Sc. S, where Nathan says : Knots and gnarls must live on friendly terms. 56 The Education of the Human Race out enlightenment, without preparation, at one stroke, mer worthy of their third age! go. And this very thing made them visionaries. The visionar often projects very true glances into the future; but he cann,c wait for this future. He wishes this future expedited, and e; pedited through him; that for which nature takes milleniums ' to mature in the instant of his life. What will he have of it that which he recognizes as the better does not become the bettt in his life time? Does he return? Does he think he will return? Wonderful only that this ecstacy amongst visionaries does not become more the custom. 91. Pursue thy secret path, everlasting Providence, only let me not, because thou art hidden, despair of thee. Let me not despair of thee even if thy steps appear to me to retreat. It is not true that the shortest line is always straight. 92. Thou hast upon thine eternal way so huge a burden, thou hast so many asides to take ! What if it were as good as proved that the great, slow wheel which brings the race nearer its per- fection, received its motion only from smaller, swifter wheels of which each furnishes its individual share. 93- It cannot be otherwise ! _The yety_path upon which the race has attained its perfection sooner or later every individual man must have travelled. " To have travelled in one and the same life? Can he have been in the self-same fife a sensual Jew and a spiritual Christian? Can he have accomplished both in the very same existence?"^' " Note the suggestion of the culture epochs. But Lessing's conception of a cyclic generation, unlike Bolingbroke's of his own time or the Herachtean notion of flux, drove him to a notion of continual betterment a pahngenesis ending in perfection. Because of the element of revelatioii he cannot allow so much genius to the race as does Herder. But Cf 76 «. The Education of the Human Race 57 94- Not, indeed, that! But why could not each individual man nave been existent on this earth more than once? 95- Is this hypothesis therefore so absurd because it is the oldest, jecause the human understanding, ere enfeebled and scattered )y sophistry, immediately hit upon it? 96. Why may not even / have already taken here all the steps toward my perfection which mere temporal punishments and rewards can make for men, and (97) why not, at another time, take all those which the prospects of everlasting rewards help us so powerfully to make? 98. Why may I not return as often as I am fit to acquire new knowledge, new skill? Do I bring away so much at once that there is not wherewith to recompense the burden of return ? 99. Is the reason that, or is it because I forget that I have already been here ? (Well for me I do forget that ! The memory of my earlier condition would permit me to make but a pernicious use of the present one. But what I must forget now, have I for- gotten forever?) 100. Or is it because too much time would thus for me be lost? Lost ? And what have I to lose ? Is not mine a whole eternity ?'" ^^ Cf. " In education lies the great secret of the perfecting of human nature * * *. It is delightful to reflect that human nature will always be growing better through education and that this can be reduced to a form that is adapted to mankind. This opens up to us the prospect of the future happiness of the human race." Kant. Uber Padagogik, Sdmmtliche Werke, T. 9 S. 373. Quoted by Lester F. Ward in Applied Sociology Ch. X. Education as Opportunity.