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 UNIVERSITY 
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 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
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 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
emmm University Library 
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MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 MOSES MENDELSOHN. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 or 
 
 MOSES MENDELSOHN, 
 
 THE 
 
 v.- 
 
 JEmSH PHILOSOPHUR ; 
 
 INCLUDIHO- 
 
 THE CELEBRATED CORRESPONDENCE, 
 
 WITH 
 
 J. C. LAVATER, MINISTER OF ZURICH. 
 
 By M. SAMUELS. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR SAINSBURY AND CO., SALISBURY SO'i;fA'il'E' ; 
 
 AND SOLD BV i.. l^\ 
 
 LONGMAN AND CO., PATERNOSTER-RO'W, 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1827. 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 It is one of the most admirable and consolatory provisions 
 of nature, that few circumstances can exist so- altogether 
 uncongenial and depressive as to wholly extinguish the fire 
 of original genius, or altogether impede, general aptitude of 
 an exalted description. Of this grateful truth a more strik- 
 ing instance can scarcely be afforded than that which is sup- 
 plied by the Memoirs of Moses Mendelsohn. Few more 
 impressive examples exist of the nurture of an elevated and 
 ■ philosophic mind amidst obstacles so utterly unfaivourable to 
 its development. Born a member of a peculiar and dis- 
 couraged people, with much to encounter from the bigotry 
 and prejudices of a portion- of his own tribe, and still more 
 from the kindred failings of those who despised', and op- 
 pressed it ; labouring under poverty and a weak > constitu- 
 tion, farther debilitated by iilcessant mental exertion, this 
 extraordinary man not only advanced himself to , general 
 respectability by the purity and eleyation of his philosophic 
 views, but to an equality and compa;nionship with the leading 
 intellectual spirits of his age and country. , In this point of 
 view the Life of Mendelsohn stands beautifully distinguished, 
 and claims the peculiar attention of all to whom the study of 
 human nature, in its more attractive varieties, is at once a 
 means of instruction and a source of pleasure. 
 
 But in addition to the value of the following pages, as 
 forming the biography of a highly-gifted and distinguished in-» 
 
iV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 dividual, it claims extraordinary attention from the light which 
 it throws upon the principles and opinions' of the more intel- 
 lectual and philosophical portion of the Jewish community. 
 Thus regarded, its composition by one whose origin and 
 sympathies have led him to a deep and feeling appreciation 
 of the high merit of the subject of his narrative, only adds to 
 the information and curiosity of the book. The included 
 reply of Mendelsohn to the celebrated and eccentric Lavater, 
 so explicit on the principles which regulate the more strict 
 and influential Jews in reference to proselytism, is also a 
 singularly Interesting document, especially as conveying a 
 due notion of the liberal opinions of the most enlightened of 
 the Jewish doctors on the spiritual condition of the virtuous 
 of other creeds. Lastly, the evidence therein afforded of the 
 existence of a rising disposition among this ancient race, to 
 participate more largely in the general progress of science 
 and information, in addition to the peculiar education sug- 
 gested by their own religion and history, is of a nature to 
 excite both interest and attention. As amusingly illustrative 
 on all these points, the Memoirs of Moses Mendelsohn 
 merit the perusal more directly due to facts and disclosures 
 which, although of a special and peculiar class, not only 
 advance the knowledge of our common nature, but tend to 
 prove how essentially man is the same being, however various 
 the guises imposed by education, custom, and social condi- 
 tion ; and consequently, how absolutely mutual toleration, 
 generalforbearance, and universal good-will, comprise the 
 ' interest as well as duty of all mankind. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Superior learning and eminent talents com- 
 mand respect under every circumstance. 
 Nor are they less estimable for having been 
 acquired in the usual routine of methodical 
 education and academic study, either afforded 
 by reputable parents, or provided by public 
 institutions, where may be found example tjo 
 imitate, well-directed ambition to inspire, 
 and hopes of honour and preferment to sup- 
 port and invigorate ; with no immediate cares 
 to damp or distract, no prejudices to check 
 or intimidate, but " with all means and ap- 
 pliances to boot/' In these cases, how- 
 ever, though we justly praise and value ex- 
 cellence as suchy we cannot discover in it 
 more than a successful result of industry 
 and perseverance, aided by propitious na- 
 tural qualities, and facilitated by auxiliary 
 advantages. Like exquisite plants, reared 
 with patience, and nurtured with care, these 
 favourfed minds are fructified by the genial- 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 rays of salutary ambition, prospective fame 
 and reward : they are highly pleasing^ but 
 by no means rare productions : but when we 
 see an individual excel in various sciences^ 
 who is the offspring of humble and indigent 
 parents, born in an obscure town, amongst 
 a scanty and poor community :* — when we 
 see him soar, eagle-lite, to the gratid lumi- 
 nary of science and knowledge, nothing 
 appalled, though living in an age that had 
 but just began to emerge from the mist of 
 bigotry and prejudice, in which so many of 
 its predecessors had been enveloped :-j-—^ 
 when we discover an eloquent writer, a 
 great philosopher, amongst a people dete- 
 riorated and paralysed by ill-treatment and 
 oppression; amongst a people cruelly neg- 
 lected,' and impolitically excluded from the 
 emporiums of polite learning and useful 
 knowledge: — when we consider that this 
 individual left his native home, a solitary ■ 
 wanderer, impatponised, unrecommended, 
 without money, decent clothing, or expect- 
 ation, without any thing on earth, indeed, 
 
 * Compare Mendelsohn's own words in the article 
 against MichaeUs's Critic, in Dohm's " Political Improve- 
 ment of the Jews," vol. ii. 
 
 t Germany, at the beginning of the 18th centuTy. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 but a firm reliance on Providence: — ^when 
 we know that he had no example to stimu- 
 late, no encouragement to solace, not even 
 an alluring probability to speculate upon ; — 
 we shall find ample cause for wonder and 
 admiration. And if it appears that this in- 
 dividual had moreover to struggle through 
 life against some of the bitterest opposers 
 of study and meditation, namely, a feeble 
 constitution, pinching want, the bereavement 
 of an only teacher, and the machinations of 
 jealousy, and nevertheless attained to an 
 almost unparalleled degree of perfection in 
 every science he applied himself to, ulti- 
 mately towering above all his competi- 
 tors : — we may, without being thought en- 
 thusiasts, hail him as the harbinger of 
 better days to a fallen— but not an irre- 
 claimable — people, and of its redemption 
 from the trammels of supineness, and the 
 spell of superstition, in which it had so long 
 previously been lingering ; as, indeed, an 
 admirable instrument in the hands of an 
 all-directing Power, to pave the way for the 
 reestablishment of this people in its natural 
 inheritance of wisdom, knowledge, and in- 
 dividual and national consideration. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 op 
 
 MOSES MENDELSOHN, Sfc. 
 
 Moses Mendelsohn was born in September^ 
 1 729, at Dessau in Germany, where his father 
 was a transcriber of the Pentateuch,* and 
 kept a Hebrew day-school ; both very humble 
 and precarious professions every where, but 
 at that time and in that town in particular,' 
 scarcely adequate to the support of their 
 follower. Yet he manag-ed to maintain his 
 son until he left the parental roof, and, even 
 then, would not part with him till he could 
 no longer withstand his incessant entreaties. 
 
 According to the then prevailing system of 
 educating Jew-boys, young Mendelsohn was 
 
 ' ^ ' * Sopfier. 
 
3 ^ MEMOIRS OP 
 
 sent to the public seminary, where children 
 were taught to prattle mechanically the Mi*Awa 
 and Gemarra concerning laws of betrothing, 
 divorce, legal damages, sacef dotal functions, 
 and other similar matters above their com- 
 prehension, before they were able to read and 
 understand a single text of Scripture correctly. 
 Mr, Dcwid Friedlatider, Moses Mendelsohn's 
 bosom friend and excellent pupil, has heard 
 him relate, that when he was only seven years 
 old, and of a very delicate constitution, his 
 father would make him rise at three or fotif 
 o'clock on winter mornings, and after giving 
 him a cup of tea, would carry him wrapped 
 in a roquelaure to the Jewish seminary. 
 Mendelsohn however was not like other chil- 
 dren ; already at that tender age, the spirit of 
 inquiry stirred within him, and he apprehended 
 that he was not pursuing the proper course 
 to arrive at solid, knowledge. Finding that 
 without knowing the Hebrew language gramj 
 matically, it would be out of his power tq see 
 his way clearly through any Commentary, it 
 being impossible to verify the rules and direc- 
 tions laid down by the later commentators. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 3 
 
 without knowing how to trace the outlines 
 tomrked by the primitive teachers ; he there- 
 fore resolved' to make Scripture' his principal 
 atudy> and to rise himself to write Hebrevir 
 with purity and elegance ; an accomplishrtient 
 which he seems not to have been long in 
 acquiring ; fot before his tenth year, he had 
 Composed Hebrew verses, which howevei-, 
 whenhie arrived at a riper age> so little pleased 
 his taste as a critic, that he would never after 
 compose another line of original poetry in that 
 language. "I have no genius for poetry/' 
 he would say. " My mind is more disposed to 
 penetrate into the deep recesses of the under- 
 standings than to roam in the lighter regions 
 of fancy." Nevertheless his metrical transla- 
 tions of the P*a//w*, and other scriptural books, 
 are splendid proofs of his eminent knowledge 
 of the art of poetry, although he himself had 
 but a mean opinion of his powers In this 
 respect; witness the letter he wrote to the 
 celebrated bard, Froies&OT Rammler, in which 
 be requested the professor to let the Psalms 
 undergo the ordfefeal of his examination before 
 they were published. Thus industrious, Mct»- 
 b2 
 
4 MEMOIRS OS 
 
 delsohn soon made himself master of the text 
 of the Talmud, under the, public tuition of 
 Rabbi David Frankel, then chief rabbi at 
 Dessan; and of Scripture, without any teacher 
 at all. And it has been asserted by a credit- 
 able person, who associated with him in his 
 youth, at Berlin, that he knew nearly the 
 whole of the Laiv and the Prophets by heart. 
 
 At that time Maimonides More nebochim, i.e. 
 the Guide of the Perplexed, fell into his hands. 
 To discover its transcendent beauties, and to 
 strain every nerve in studying it, was one and 
 the same thing with him. He meditkted on 
 it by day and by night, till he had dived into 
 the depth of its sublime thoughts ; andj to his 
 last moments, he acknowledged the benefit 
 he had derived from this work. It was the 
 fountain at which he slacked, for the first time^ 
 ' his thirst after wisdom and knowledge j it was 
 the pedfestal of his future glory. 
 
 Though soul- and body are wedded together: 
 through life, though they conjugally share all 
 the good and evil dispensations in this world, 
 yet there are times when they assume the 
 appearance of mutual hostility. The listless 
 
MOSES ME^fDELSOHN. 5 
 
 son of indolence and comfort gets portly and 
 strongs at the expense of the vigour and elas- 
 ticity of his mind. He, on the contrary, who 
 delights in study, regardless of health, and 
 defying infirmities, falls' away and becomes 
 enfeebled. The latter could not fail to be 
 the case with Mendelsohn. Incessant search 
 after knowledge, and intense study of Mai- 
 monides, at length impaired his health, and 
 brought on a nervous disorder, the neglect 
 of which produced deformity of the spine, 
 and made him a valetudinarian for the re- 
 mainder' of his life. " Maimonides," he once 
 remarked facetiously, '^'^is the cause of ntiy 
 deformity, he spoiled my figure, and ruined 
 my constitution : but still I doat on him, for 
 many hours of dejection which he has con- 
 verted into those oFrapture. And if he have, 
 unwittingly, weakened my body, has he not 
 made ample atonement, by invigorating my 
 soul with his sublime instructions ?" 
 
 Rabbi D. Frankel removing about this time 
 to Berlin, where he had been elected Chief 
 of the Congregation, Mendelsohn found, him- 
 self bereft of his only, friend and teacher, and 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 without any means of continuing his public 
 studies. To hawking and peddling, which 
 were then, much more than at present, the 
 general, indeed almost the only, resource 
 of indigent Jew4ads immediately after con- 
 firmation, Mendelsohn had, for various reasons, 
 an insurmountable aversion : he therefore pro- 
 posed to his father to let him join his late 
 teacher; and having, after much entreaty, 
 prevailed in this request, he left his native 
 place, at the age of fourteen, and proceeded 
 to Berlin. 
 
 On his arrival in the capital of Prussia, he 
 had not sufficient money to provide even a 
 single meal. In this distress he applied to 
 Rabbi Frankel to befriend him, for old ac- 
 quaintance sake ; and there he happened to 
 meet with Mr. Hymn, Bamberg, a benevolent 
 man, and encourager of aspiring young Jews, 
 who allowed him, on the rabbi's intercession, 
 an attic-room in his house to sleep in, and two 
 days' board weekly. With this benefactor, he 
 found a comfortable asylum for a considerable 
 period, continuing his study of the Talmud 
 under his former teacher, and that of philo- 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. y 
 
 sophy in his sequestered chamber, All his 
 aequaintarice were partial to him, fdr he was 
 social and engaging with every body, and 
 seldom failed to make a favourable impression 
 at first sight. Yet he was by no means com- 
 municative, as to his philosophical pursuits, nor 
 did he suffer his knowledge and sagacity to 
 transpire in mixed society, that he might avoid 
 the occasional acrimony of disputation. Enslav- 
 ed from infancy by bashfulness, the not unfre- 
 quent concomitant of modest merit, he could 
 not shake offthp clogging sensation to the day 
 of his death ; and it imbued him with such in- 
 veterate timidity, that even in discussions, 
 where he had decidedly the advantage, he 
 was never known to exult or be dictatorial, 
 but would confine himself to courteous and 
 temperate demonstration. This his traducers, 
 the ''^pestilente© which stalketh in darkness^" 
 would fain construe into sycophancy. Men- 
 delsohn, however, was no sycophant j but 
 being, by nature, the humblest and meekest 
 fif mortals, and an utter stranger to guile and 
 dissimtflaMoB, he had made it an invariable 
 rule to turB away wrath with a soft answer. 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and perhaps the only prejudice he could never 
 overcome, was that against hi^ own abilities. 
 Neither censorious as a friendj nor caustic as 
 a critic, he i gave only hints where : others 
 would chide; and never indulged in satire, 
 so long as logic would answer the purpose. 
 Indeed, through this excessive modesty, we 
 have to regret the loss of most of his juvenile 
 effusions, written at periods when his soul 
 was intenerated by trouble and affliction, and 
 when he was deaf to every friendly sugges- 
 tion to apply to his wealthy brethren for 
 assistance, to enable him to cultivate his 
 studies.-^On these occasions he would re- 
 ply, with his characteristic self-diepreciation, 
 " Who am J, and what are m^ pretensions, 
 that I should become burdensome to others, 
 because, forsooth, I have set my mind on 
 learning ? No ; I would rather live upon dry 
 brown bread."— This, in point of fact, he 
 often did, as he has many times afterwards 
 related in the circle of his friends; and that 
 when he purchased a loaf, he would notch it, 
 according to the standard of his finances, 
 into so many meals, never eating according 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 9 
 
 to his appetite, but to his finances. Amidstj, 
 however, all those cares and privations, his 
 ardour for knowledge did not in the least 
 abate; his idolatry of wisdom scorned the 
 usual appropriation of time and accommo- 
 dation to the seasons : night and day, melt- 
 ing heat, and freezing cold, were alike to 
 him. 
 
 According to Plato's beautiful fiction, 
 Love is the offspring of the intercourse of 
 Poverty with Abundance. In the same man- 
 ner it might be said, that superlative and 
 exquisite minds are generally matured by 
 the pressure of external circumstances on 
 native genius. The scholar, that is, he who 
 exists for science and learning only, is an 
 exotic in the garden of nature, who gives, in 
 so many instances, palpable proofs that man 
 was not intended for speculative, but for 
 practical pursuits. It would therefore seem 
 as if these exotics can never be cultivated 
 unless they be forced. The attractions of 
 social life, to which we are invited by ease 
 and affluence, are almost too enticing fon the 
 ardent youth, who has once tasted them, to 
 
JLO MEMOIRS OF 
 
 be supposed willing to saerifice them to the 
 austere routine of study, or the dreary seclu- 
 sion of meditation. But this propensity^ to 
 the pleasures of society and the enjoyments 
 of life — ^inseparable indeed from our nature, 
 but decidedly hostile to the culture of ge- 
 nius and the manifestation of energy*^ 
 poverty deprives of all its nourishment. 
 Poverty drives man back into himself; there 
 it compresses all his feelings, all his 
 thoughts, imparting to the former more in- 
 tenseness, tq the latter, more profundity. 
 It animates, it winds up imagination, and 
 gives a peculiar tact and nicety to the ob- 
 iservative faculty; all which, united,^ consti- 
 tute that characteristic of genius — originality. 
 Poverty possesses another advantage : the • 
 monotony to which its victims are constrainefd, 
 disciplines their minds to more than ordinary 
 steadiness, leading, especially* in the studious, 
 to a peculiar obstinacy and perseverance 
 with respect to certain points arid objects; 
 whence only works of ingenuity derive so- 
 lidity, and those of genius, correctness and 
 classieality. Notwithstanding, however, al- 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 11 
 
 most more than human exertions^ Mendel- 
 sohn despaired of ever gaining access to the 
 sanctuary of the temple of Minerva," other- 
 wise than by the regular avenues of the 
 G-reek and Latin languages. Procrastination, 
 he was aware, would enhance the difficulty of 
 their acquisition, which, being chiefly a pro- 
 cess of memory, could be easily conquered 
 only by a juvenile and unburthened mind ; 
 whilst the ignorance of them, he equally 
 well knew, would be ultijjiately of incal- 
 culable disadvantage. Yet how to acquire 
 those languages without, at least, some oral 
 Instructions, or elementary book, was a pro' 
 blem that he could not solve, and which 
 preyed much upon his spirits : moreover, the 
 dread of being suspected by bigots of going 
 astray, if he meddled with profane learning, 
 deterred him from opening his mind to 
 others, and obt-aining, perhaps, some useful 
 suggestion. Ruminating in solitude on this 
 gordian knot, and on the probability of meet- 
 ing with a friendly Alexander to cut It for 
 him, his tutelary genius brought him ac- 
 quainted with a person named Kish, ef 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Prague, who was then practising medicine 
 and surgery at Berlin; and who, on per- 
 ceiving Mendelsohn's eagerness for study, 
 allowed him a quarter of an hour daily of 
 gratuitous instruction in the rudiments of 
 Latin. 
 
 Having overcome the declensions and 
 verbs, Mendelsohn purchased a very old 
 second-hand Latin dictionary for a few 
 groschen, which he had saved from his earn- 
 ings by copying writings for the ra;bbi his 
 teacher, and now commenced, with alL the 
 force of his faculties, to read whatever he 
 could get hold of in that language. He even 
 ventured on a Latin translation, of " Locke's 
 Essay on the Human Understanding ;" and a 
 Herculean task it was ! He had, in the first 
 place, to consult his dictionary for almost 
 every noun ; then to translate the sentences, 
 study and digest the author's- meaning ; and, 
 finally, to meditate on the argument itself. 
 By dint of this prodigious industry and stub- 
 born perseverance he, at last, triumphed over 
 all difficulties, making himself completely 
 familiar with that abstruse work, and de- 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. is 
 
 riving from its translation the collateral ad- 
 vantage of becoming so well acquainted with 
 the Roman language as to be enabled to 
 read, successively, the Latin classics with 
 ease and judgment, with which attainment he 
 was highly delighted. , 
 
 At that time there was at Berlin a Po- 
 lander, called Israel Moses, an excellent 
 Hebrew scholar and profound mathematician ; 
 also a person of most ^nlightened micd, and 
 amiable disposition. (This man had been a 
 martyr to liberal prinlciples, on account of 
 which he was obliged to leave his native 
 cauntry, then swarming with fanatic zealots. 
 Mendelsohn Gouxted his society, in order to 
 profit by his conversation.' The attachment 
 of brothers in distress, the Talmudist says, 
 surpasses that of brethren by birth. Thus 
 the kindred situation of these two individuals 
 consolidated their friendship, and they be- 
 came inseparable. As they were both seek- 
 ing the same goal, Mendelsohn attended his 
 friend's lectures on geometry, from a Hebrew 
 translation of " Euclid's Elements," to which / 
 the latter had added many problems of his/ 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 own invention ; became fond of the 6cience> 
 and studied it with his charaoteristio ardour. 
 In return^ he imparted to Israel MoseS) who 
 understood no language but the Hebrew, his 
 own readings in Latin and German^ which, 
 they discussed together, and reaped, from 
 this interesting reciprocation of intellect, 
 a rich harvest of wisdom and useful know- 
 ledge. Becoming, in the sequel, very dejj 
 sirous of learning both the English and 
 French languages, in order to be able to 
 ei\joy the masterpieces of those nationiS in 
 their vernacular idiom;, Mendelsohn solieiied 
 for this purpose D^. Aaron Emrick's instriy)- 
 tions, which were cheerfully granted ; and in 
 a very short tithe he made surprising pro- 
 gress, and finally became a decent scholar 
 in both these languages. 
 . But Moses Mendelsohn was not doomed; 
 to pine all his life in obscurity and distress." 
 Though we are not wedded to the popular- 
 notion, which attributes the fortuitous events, 
 in the lives of distinguished and deservkig! 
 individuals to miracles wrought expressly in 
 th«ir behalf, or think ip 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 15 
 
 " The etel-nal cause 
 Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws^" 
 
 we are far from doubting 
 
 " That the good must merit God's peculiar care j 
 But who but God can tell us ieho they are ?" 
 
 Mr., Bernard, an opulent man of the Jewish 
 persuasion, seems to have had that intuition 
 from the all-wise Power, which directs the 
 inclinations of individuals to the general 
 good ; for he iioticed the interesting youth, 
 and was strongly impressed in his favour. 
 Crito, from love of wisdom, and a desire of 
 encouraging merit, magnanimously main- 
 tained Socrates, the Greek philosopher, and 
 his whole family; so the worthy Bernard, 
 hearing oi Mendelsohn!' s talents and high moral 
 character, admitted him into his family, and 
 intrusted him with the education of his 
 children. 
 
 From that period we may date the emi- 
 nence of the subject of our memoir. His 
 salary now enabled him to supply his defi- 
 ciency in books, and to take lessons in the 
 Greek language^ with which he had been 
 
16 MEMOIRS Of 
 
 hitherto unacquainted ; while he devoted^ as 
 usualj his leisure hours to study and medi- 
 tation. This was the spring in which this 
 precious shrub, transplanted in a kinder soil, 
 blossomed, and throve till it bore, in time, 
 exquisite fruit. Nor did its leaves ever 
 wither ; but, like the superb cedar, it retained 
 its splendour to the last, to the admiration of 
 the world, and the glory of its Creator. There 
 was not a branch of mathematics to- which 
 Mendelsohn did not now apply himself; his 
 knowledge of algebra, fluxions, and judicial 
 astronomy, is said to have been considerable; 
 and in general and natural history he was far 
 above mediocrity. As, in some measure, a 
 singularity, we mention his peculiar skill in 
 mercantile accounts. He also wrote a beau- 
 tiful and masterly hand ; an accomplishment 
 not very common, nor particularly requisite,' 
 for men of letters : but he seems to have had 
 a kind of presentiment that this secondary 
 advantage would eventually enable him to 
 maintain a family with credit ; and the sequel 
 proved he had not been mistaken. 
 It was not long before Mr, Bernard had 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. ir 
 
 reason to rejoice in the fortunate selection 
 he ha:d made of a tutor for his children. In 
 his frequent attendance, during the hours of 
 teaching, he could not fail being struck with 
 Mendelsohn's caligraphic and arithmetical 
 talents, and ' deemed the counting-house a 
 much fitter sphere for his exertions than the 
 school-room. Accordingly he engaged, him 
 first as clerk; then raised him to cashier; 
 and finally made him the manager of his 
 extensive silk manufactory, with a very libe- 
 ral income.' By day, he attended diligently to 
 his employer's — afterwards his > partner's-^ 
 concerns, whilst the greater part of his nights 
 were devoted to literature and study. ■- 
 
 The great mass of Jews, in Germany and 
 the suri^ounding countries, were^^ at that 
 period, most deplorably deficient in edu- 
 cation and useful knowledge. Even ordi- 
 nary information and reading had almost 
 vanished from amongst them, and few could 
 be met with who knew Hebrew grammar; 
 fewer still who knew that - of any other lan- 
 guage. ■ Unsophisticated theologians, arid 
 logical Talmudists, too> had become per- 
 
18 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ceptibly scarce, in proportion as the vice of 
 wandering from good sense, and the intel- 
 ligible precepts of the primitive doctors — of 
 harping incessantly on philological quib- 
 bles, conjuring up doubts, inventing hyper- 
 criticiems, and interposing obstructions> when 
 the straight and level road lay before them — ■ 
 had got the ascendency. The advantages of 
 subtilizing the understanding, and sharpening 
 the powers of perception, usually pleaded 
 in favour of this practice, did not, by any 
 means, outweigh its pernidous effects in dis- 
 figuring truth, so as even to render it indis- 
 cernible. Farfetched and distorted quota'- 
 tions, arbitrary and preposterous definitions, 
 together with eccentric deductions, became 
 the grand points of Talmudic excellence, and 
 the main qualifications for rabbinical fame 
 and preferment. To deprecate these abuses, 
 or ridicule their absurdity, involved the risk 
 of being held up as an illiterate clown,* 
 for not relishing the hocus-pocus, or of 
 being detested and hooted as a sectarian, 
 for exposing the quackery. A mind like 
 * Era-arets. 
 
MOSES MENDBIiSOHN. 19 
 
 M^indelsohn's must have Ibeen Ipr»g disgusted 
 at this folly ; and at length he felt an irre- 
 sistible impulse to warn the youth of his 
 ijation against this corrupt system, animate 
 them to study grammar and literature me- 
 thodically, and lead them in th? path of 
 rational inquiry, the only object of learning, 
 in order that there might be, in future, fewer 
 Talmudical njountebanks, and more solid 
 scholars. For this salutary purpose he 
 coalesced with a literary acquaintance, and 
 wrote, jointly with him, a Hebrew periodic 
 cal work, under the title of Koheleth Mus* 
 sar^ i. e. " The Moral Preacher,*' con- 
 taining chiefly inquiries in natural history, 
 essays on the beauties of the cre9,tion, &c. 
 all founded on moral and ascetic aphorisfns, 
 extracted from the Tcdmud and other rab- 
 binical writings. Of this, however, there 
 were no more than two numbers published 5 
 as the bigots took the alarjn, and trepanned 
 the naturally timid Mendelsohn into a pro- 
 mise to drop tiie publication. A few grains 
 of information were, at all events, strewn 
 in a weedy, it is true, but not a sterile spii* 
 c2 
 
go Memoirs of 
 
 and he patiently awaited the result of some 
 harvest^ in hopes of a more propitious oppor- 
 tunity of becoming further useful to his 
 people. This occurrence^ trifling in itself, 
 is interesting as an omen of Mendelsohn's 
 subsequent greatness. The temper" of the 
 nation in his youth, the disposition of influ- 
 ential individuals to throw obstacles in the 
 way of his imparting moral and useful know- 
 ledge to his brethren, and their drowning, 
 by clamour and vituperation, every appeal 
 to public judgment and feeling, would have 
 been enough to (damp the zeal of the warmest 
 patriot, and to exact a vow, never more to 
 interfere with so stubborn, ill-advised,- and 
 degenerate a people. Not such was ithe 
 result with Mendelsohn. Conscious of the 
 purity of his intentions, and cheered by the 
 glimpse of a dawning reformation, he per- 
 severed steadily and unobtrusively in his 
 philanthropic designs, and, at the same time, 
 pursued his scientific and philosophical la- 
 bours with redoubled energy, to enable him 
 . to check, if possible, the national cecutiency: 
 Behold! not twenty yeetrs had elapsed, and 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 21 
 
 he had accomplished the gigantic — at that 
 time of day darinff-T-ejAeripTise of render- 
 ing the Jive books of Moses, the Psalms of 
 David, and other scriptural books^ into clas- 
 sic and metrical German; had written and 
 published several works on philosophy and 
 on theoretical religion. Was there a single 
 respectable, a singly leading voice then 
 raised against him? No; the majority of 
 the nation, whom he had taught to cultivate 
 general knowledge, and appreciate method 
 and regularity, cherished and revered him. 
 They received the gems, with which his 
 mighty genius enriched them, with awful 
 amazement and boundless gratitude. As to 
 the few querulous frogs, who were still 
 croaking in their muddy pools, they were too 
 contemptible to be noticed, and too fearful of 
 his retaliation to proceed to extremities. 
 
 We are now arrived at the important pe- 
 riod of 1744, when he became acquainted with 
 Lessing, one of the most learned and enlight- 
 ened men that Germany, or, indeed, any other 
 country, ever had to boast of.* The republic 
 
 * For a biographical memoir of Lessing, see the Ap- 
 pendix to this work. 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of letters has, long since, enrolled him amongst 
 h©r most illustrious citizens, and in thd heart 
 of a grateful people, his name is " sculp- 
 tured in indelible characters. He was the 
 first, in his days, who attempted to neutralize 
 the virulence of religiows rancour ; the first, 
 who, h.y ihe magic of his writings, succeeded 
 in creating favourable symptoms in the Ger* 
 man endemical distemper, the Judeopkobi^; 
 the first, w'ho preached liberty and equality 
 in religion, long before these terms were 
 abused in civil society ; and, above all, the 
 first plausible mediator between the three 
 litigating sons of one father, the Lcm, the 
 Gospel, and the Coran.*-^Lessinff loved Men- 
 delsohn for his excellent heart, and highly 
 cultivated understanding; and Mendelsohn 
 was no less attached to Lessing, for his inflexi- 
 ble consistency, and transcendent abilities. 
 A union, founded on esteem and friendship, 
 was thus cemented between them, which nei- 
 ther time nor long separation, nothing/indeed, 
 but death could dissolve. The noble raonumeni 
 of their mutual affection, preserved to posterity 
 
 * in his drama of Nathan 4er fVem, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, S3 
 
 in the latter pages of the Morgenstnnden, 
 will endure as long as virtue and science are 
 cherished and cultivated amongst mankind. 
 The benefit^ which ultimately resulted to the 
 Jewish nation^ from the known intercourse of 
 these two great and good men, is not to be 
 calculated. That men of letters and virtuosi 
 were occasionally to be met with^evenin those 
 days, in the drawing-rooms of opulent Jewish 
 families, at Berlin, was accounted for, partly 
 by the sumptuousness and munificence of the 
 hosts, and partly by the amiable pretext 
 it afforded some of those visitors, to make 
 themselves diverting in their own circles. — 
 But that the first author of the age, the recog- 
 nised dictator of the republic of letters, who 
 was neither a parasite nor buffoon, should court 
 the society of an obscure Jewish private tutor, 
 was a sign of the times, no less novel, than 
 auspicious. They unbosomed their thoughts 
 and feelings to each other; deplored the dis- 
 tance and spleen subsisting amongst fellow- 
 creatures, from a mere diversity of specula^ 
 tive opinions; and blushed at the vulgar, high 
 and low, who, blind to the page of history, 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and unlesspned by the mutations of states^ 
 and the fall of empires^ would not be contented 
 with the monopoly of power and honour, and 
 an enlarged scope of industry, but persevered 
 in "oppressing the oppressed, and taunting the 
 afflicted Jews, by contesting even the slightest 
 reappearance amongst them,of genius,wisdom, 
 or judgment. Could two such men witness, 
 daily ' and hourly, this disgrace on human 
 nature, and remain supine at the melancholy 
 • condition of so numerous and available a por- 
 tion of the population, dangling like a palsied 
 limb by the body politic; knowing, as they 
 did, that liberal usage, and proper encourage- 
 ment, only were required to restore its anima- 
 tion, and make it subservient to the good and 
 welfare of the whole ? Mendelsohn now ap- 
 peared before the public at large, as a tem- 
 perate, but energetic advocate of his brethren, 
 and wrote several things, to endeavour to 
 make the nations sensible of the harsh and 
 degrading manner in which they treated the 
 Jews. This pursuit was> in p. great measure, 
 facilitated by the accession of Nicolai and 
 oiAbbt to the union of friendship and scie»ce. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 25 
 
 in Mendelsohn's party ; the former being an 
 eminent publisher and man of letters, of Ber- 
 lin,* the latter, professor at the miiversity 
 of Rintelen, and a man of profound learning, 
 who died in the prime of youth.f /But let us 
 hear Mendelsohn, in his preface to Phesdon. 
 " These dialogues/' says he, " were dedicated 
 to my dear friend Ahht ; but this plant was 
 cut off in its blossom. — It was the will of 
 God ! — Short were his days on earth, but 
 great his fame. His ' Essay on Merit,'J is a 
 proof of his noble mind. Posterity will be 
 amazed at such a work by a mere youth. 
 What exquisite fruit would this sapling still 
 have yielded ! Alas ! death came, and frus- 
 trated our hopes. Germany lost a sage and 
 an instructor; society a worthy and highly 
 gifted member; his intimates a faithful friend; 
 and myself an amiable fellow-traveller on the 
 road to truth, who guarded my steps from 
 straying." Nicolai was at this time publishing 
 
 * See biography of Nicolai in the Appendix to this 
 volume. * 
 
 t See biography of Abbt, in the Appendix to this 
 volume. 
 
 X Vom Verdienst. 
 
86 MEMOmS OF 
 
 several literary reviews, and amongst theoi^ 
 " The Library of the Liberal Arts :"* to which 
 Mendelsohn contributed many Essays and Cri- 
 tiques, the elegant language and pure diction 
 of which, so pleased both the former and Les- 
 siAg, that they endeavoured to prevail on him 
 jto 'write and publish an entire work on some 
 scientific or philosophical subject, in his own 
 name; but his excessive modestywouldnotyet 
 allow him to think of figuring as an original 
 author, and he declined the- proposition. 
 
 Lessinff once brought to Mendelsohn, a work 
 written by a celebrated character, to hear his 
 opinion on it. Having given it a reading, he 
 told his friend, that he deemed himself a match 
 for the author, and would refute him. Nothing 
 could be more welcome to Lessing, and be 
 strongly encouraged the idea. Accordingly 
 Mendelsohn sat down and wrote his ^' Philoso- 
 phical Dialogues,"f on the most abstruse sub- 
 jects, in which he strictly redeemed his pledge 
 of confuting the author, though, for quietness' 
 sake, he forbore mentioning his name, and 
 
 * Bibliothek derfreien KUmte. 
 t Philosophischen Gespraeche, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 27 
 
 carried the manuscript to Lessing for examin- 
 ation. " When I am at leisure/' said Les- 
 smg^ " I will peruse it." After a convenient 
 interval, he repeated his visits when Lessing 
 kept up a miscellaneous conversation, with- 
 out once mentioning the manuscript in ques- 
 tion,' and the other being too bashful to put 
 him in mind of it, he was obliged to depart, 
 no better informed than when he came, which 
 was also the case at several subsequent meet- 
 ings. At last, however, he mustered sufficient 
 resolution to inquire after it, and still Lessing 
 withheld his opinion. Want of leisure was 
 pleadedras before, but now he would certainly 
 read it ; Mr. Mendelsohn might, in the mean 
 time, take yonder small volume home with 
 him, and let him know his thoughts on it. On 
 opening it, Mendelsohn was not a little sur- 
 prised to behold his own Dialogues in print. 
 " Put it into your pocket," said Lessing good- 
 naturedly, '^ and this Mammon along with it. 
 It is what I got for the copy-right j it will be 
 of service to you." Nicolai and Lessing now 
 succeeded in persuading him to collect all his 
 physiological lucubratioM, and arrange them 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 for the press.. They accordingly appeared, 
 anonymously, under the title of ^'^ Philosiophi- 
 cal Essays ;"* for Mendelsohn wished to sound 
 the, public on a work of which the author was 
 not known: and the public soon ^'awe its. opi- 
 nion most unequivocally by exhausting .three 
 editipps in a very short time. After this, he 
 published, jointly with jLessiwtyj a little work, 
 called '^'^ Pope; a Metaphysician !"-|- in reply 
 to a. question proposed by the Berlin aca- 
 demy, as to the propriety. of the concluding 
 line of the first epistle of the Essay on Man, 
 
 " One truth is clearj whatever kj is right ;" 
 
 which maxim was expounded and elucidated, 
 in a masterly manner, by the two philosophers. 
 About this time Lessing went abroad, Abbt 
 removed to Rintelen, and Mendelsohn and 
 Nicolai remained at Berlin. Mendelsohn's 
 fame now Jbegan to spread amongst the 
 public, it having transpired that he was the 
 author of^the before-mentioned physiological 
 
 * Brief e ueber die Empfindungen, 
 t Popej ein Metaphysiker ! 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, 29 
 
 work, which had excited such an universal 
 sensation. The object of philosophy, amongst 
 the Germans, had been, hitherto, little more 
 than dry reasoning, on the sifting of which 
 by demonstrations marshalled in rank and 
 file, the question Cui bono ?' was frequently 
 asked in vain, since no truths, either phy- 
 sical or moral, were thereby elucidated. 
 Bcmmgarten was the only one, who, by his 
 theory of the sublime and the beautiful, gave 
 to philosophy a new tendency, and who en- 
 deavoured, like Socrates, to reclaim it from 
 barren speculation, leading it back to the 
 phenomena of nature : showing the Germans; 
 at the same time, by his precise exposition, 
 that Q. E. D. is not always necessary to ar- 
 rive at truths Those phenomena of nature, 
 Mendelsohn selected for the subject of his 
 philosophical letters : he investigated the ori- 
 gin and gradual developement of our ideas 
 of the beautiful, analyzed them into their first 
 principles, and introduced into this obscure 
 recess of the human soul, all the clearness to 
 which he was accustomed in the school of 
 demonstration, where he had been trained. 
 
so MEMOIRS OB 
 
 Further^ although the theory of the beautiful, 
 held up by him, may not perhaps altogether 
 i?tand the test of severe criticism, his mode of 
 unfol4ing his ideas, and of spinning out the 
 thread to the utmost extent j the ornamental 
 and elegant attire of the graces in which he 
 clothed the profoundest and acutest thoughts^ 
 and the smile, as it were, SocratiC) which he 
 diffused all over his subject,— were nevertbe^i 
 less a " novum, recens, inaitdUum." in Ger- 
 man philosophical literature, which now be- 
 held, for the first time, the graces ushered, 
 by his hand, into its walk. To no GermaQ 
 prose writer can the 
 
 " Honey flowed from the speaker's lips," J 
 
 as Homer says of Nestor, so justly be ap- 
 plied as to our philosopher. Never have 
 the mind and the heart been so jointly im-« 
 plicated and interested ; never did truth and 
 beauty walk so consistently and amiably to- 
 gether. He convinces the mind while he 
 affects the heart; and we feel deeply in- 
 terested at the same time that we are per- 
 suaded; — sind if, in either of those cases, any 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 31 
 
 thing be wanting, it is supplied by the mild 
 and pleasant diction of the speaker, whom we 
 are tempted to believe, merely because he 
 seems to be convinced or moved himself, 
 There is a certain heartiness even in the Urn- 
 guage of conviction, when speaking of, nay 
 demonstrating, truths great and important — 
 an earnestness, we say, which shows in itself, 
 as it were, a living example of a mind Con- 
 vinced. And in this, MMidelsohn 'had not 
 hitherto been equalled by any of the German 
 philosophers. None of them ever united, in 
 writing either on God, on the beauty of virtue, 
 or on the immortality of the soul, such pro- 
 found sagacity with such intense interest. 
 
 Admitting then, that next to the profound- 
 ness of Mendelsohn's thought^, the admirable 
 skill with which he embodied and expressed 
 them, gained him a high rank amongst the 
 classic authors of the nation : with what in- 
 flexible industry must he have studied the 
 German language, to be able to impart to it 
 that inimitable melliffluence, and to accom- 
 modate it to the pleasing ductility of his most 
 exquisite cogitations ! The more particularly, 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 as he belonged to a nation, to whom the two- 
 fold idiom (Hebrew and German) to which 
 they were accustomed from their infancy, and 
 in which corrupt amalgama they were then 
 educated, must have formed — as in most cases 
 it did — a, strong impediment to the attainment 
 of a high degree of correctness of composition 
 in either. There were many of the subsequent 
 philosophers who attempted to imitate him ; 
 but tbey shared th« common fate of imitators. 
 Under their management, his beauties soon 
 turned to blemishes; his chaste and delightful 
 ornaments, they rendered tawdry and mere- 
 tricious ; and that which was in him (if we 
 may use the simile) a natural suffusion driven 
 to the countenance by enthusiasm and intel- 
 lectual ardour, had in them all the appearance 
 of too thick a coat of " rouge," daubed on 
 with a mechanical hand, prompted by a still 
 more mechanical turn of mind. 
 
 -No wonder then that the Germans, whose 
 mind, of all European nations, is most acces- 
 sible by the avenue of the heart, so highly 
 applauded Mendelsohn's work, and made it a 
 standard and favourite book in their libraries, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN." SS 
 
 The learned, indeed, of every country 
 where it became known, admired, and many 
 adopted his hypotheses ; in the theory of 
 the sublime and the beautiful, they formed 
 their system from his model,, made his work 
 the compendium of their lectures, and the basis 
 of their demonstrations. The, grand work, 
 " Letters on contemporary Literature," * was 
 also now revived, and continued by MendeU 
 sohn and Nicolai, to which- ^456^ and Lessing 
 contributed their share. His correspondence 
 with .J.66#, subsequently, published,-}- also 
 falls under this date. Besides being incom- 
 parable . specimens of epistolary . grace and 
 beauty, these letters convey an idea of Mew- 
 delsoJm's vast information, his spotless virtue, 
 and unfeigned piety. This year further added 
 to his laurels, the award of the prize of the 
 Royal Academy of Berlin, for his approved 
 solution, when even Kant vf^.^ a competitor, 
 of .the problem given out annually, "Are 
 metaphysics, susceptible of mathematical de- 
 
 * Briefs, die neueste Literqtur betreffend. 
 j- -/ibbt's^y-ermischie Schriftki, Ztelr Theil; skirie fieurid^ 
 schtftUphe Correspmdenx efitlialtSnd, ;, i 
 
 D 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 monstration ?"* In addition to these literary 
 labours, Mendelsohn did not cease greatly to 
 serve individuals by his salutary advice to the 
 numbers who consulted him about their pri-* 
 vate affairs, and the assistance he readily gavfi 
 to any one who was in want of information. , 
 In the year 1762, being thirty-three years 
 of age, he married a daughter of Mr. Abra- 
 ham, Gavtgetlheim,^ of Hamburgh* The pomp 
 of wealth, and the boast of connection, had 
 no temptation for him ; for he took no notice 
 of some enticing overtures made to him by 
 the best families of Bei^lin, who eagerly 
 isought his alliance, but patiently awaited the 
 destined time, when, he trusted. Providence 
 would point out to him a cheerful, intelligent) 
 and pious partner. Nor was he disappointed ; 
 during a temporary stay at Hamburgh,, he 
 became acquainted with the above-named 
 lady, whose understanding and demeanour 
 answering his ideas of desirable matrimonial 
 attributes, he offered his hand and was 
 accepted. By this, amiable woman he had 
 several children, of whom the eldest, a girl, 
 * Von der Evidenz der Metaph^skchen Wissenschafierh 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 85 
 
 died wjien she was eleven months old. This 
 domestic calamity requires to be noticed, 
 because it took place just after SpaMing had 
 published his fine work " On the Destination 
 of Man,"* which Abbt attacked in his 
 ''Doubts on the Destination of Man."f 
 Mendelsohn took Spalding's part against 
 Abbt^ and defended the correctness and 
 purity of the principles of the former. 
 Pending this discussion, the child died, and 
 Mendelsohn thus wrote to ABbt:X " Within 
 the last few days I have been obliged to 
 forego the pleasure of writing to you, and 
 to suspend our discussion on the destiny of 
 man. I am still plunged in the deepest 
 affliction caused by the death of my first- 
 born child, a girl eleven months old. I have 
 nevertheless reason to give thanks to God 
 for the happy and serene existence she en- 
 joyed during her evanescent abode here. 
 
 * Ueher die Bestimmung des Menschen. 
 
 t Zweifel ueher die Bestimmung des Menschen. 
 
 % The letter printed in the correspondence,, under the 
 title of ''Oracle," and of which it is doubtful whethei: 
 any other country can produce the equal. 
 
 d2 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 •when she gave us hopes of future exultation. 
 Do not, however, imaginef my friend,- that 
 this delicate r floweret was made to ■ flit 
 through • this world for no wise purpose, 
 like an ethereal vision, which is now before 
 us, and then is seen no more. No; she*had 
 already accomplished various designs • here. 
 Many; were the tokens of her Creator's infi- 
 nite wisdom whieh she manifested to,, the 
 intelligent observer. • From a babe, scarcely 
 more than vegetating, her eye was observant; 
 she soon gave evident proofs of memory and 
 recognition; smiles of complacency hovered 
 on her lips,^ and lo ! the intellectual being 1 
 As we observe the lily which gently grows, 
 then expands, and exhibits its simple beau- 
 ties,' so .plainly did we see in this infant 
 those emotions of soul which distinguish man 
 fronl the brute creation; such as compassion, 
 impatience, surprise,* and reflection, display- 
 ing themselves gradually in her looks and 
 gestures : she increa)Sed,.from day to day, in 
 intelligence, and became richer in contri- 
 vances to convey her thoughts to others." 
 By this he alluded to the destination which 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 37 
 
 the Almighty has given to man, whom he 
 has made capable of progressive perfection; 
 to the successive gradations of improvement 
 in ascending life J to the unlimited scope of 
 the mindj and probably also to the moral 
 obligation of striving to reach the highest 
 possible degree of perfection, and to fulfil the 
 end of our creation, in the respective stations 
 in which Providencehas placed us. 
 
 Wrought upon by his important discus- 
 sion^ with Abbt, Mendelsohn next betook 
 himself ' to translate Plato's Phcedon from 
 the Greek into German, and to add to it all 
 the proofs of the immortality of the soul, and 
 the destination of man in a future state, that 
 could be collected or suggested. He pub- 
 lished the work under the title of " Phcsdon, 
 or. On the Immortality of the Soul."* It 
 consists of three parts, in the form of con- 
 versations between Socrates and his friends. 
 There is a happy — not a profane; — parody, 
 if we may so call it, in Mr. David Fried- 
 lander' s Tpreidice to " Hanephesh," i. e. " On 
 the Soul," a posthumous Hebrew work of 
 
 * Phadon, oder ueber dk Unsterblichkeit der Seple, 
 
33 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Mendelsohn's, edited by thaV gentleman. It 
 runs thus :— " Moses (Mendelsohn) spake, 
 and Socrates^ was to him even as a mouth,* 
 into which he put all his questions and an- 
 swers, not as that ancient sage delivered 
 them, at the time, but as they sprang up in 
 the modern philosopher's mind, and were 
 sanctioned by his judgment." Few worj^s 
 were ever crowned with such great and, 
 deserved success. Written in most classical, 
 though apparently popular style-^-a talent 
 which Mendelsohn possessed in an emineuli 
 degree— it was read by th« fashionable, as 
 well as by the learned world, with pleasure^ 
 and advantage. In less than two years, it 
 went through three large German editions,, 
 was iranslated into the JEngUsh, French, 
 Putch> Italian, Danish, and Hebrew lan-^ 
 guages, and established the author's fame on 
 a large portion of the civilized globe. 
 
 Such a brilliant constellation had not been 
 seen on the Jewish horizon, since the twelfth 
 century, the days of the great MaimmMes. 
 Not but that the nation had to boast, in every 
 
 " . * Exod. iv. X5, 16. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 39 
 
 age and eonntry, of wise and eminent men, 
 who would have been ornaments to society 
 at large, had they turned their minds to pro- 
 fane as well as sacred learning : but as, 
 with the exception of a few poets and mathe- 
 maticians, they devoted most of their time to 
 commenting on Scripture, and to Talmudic 
 disquisitions ; and as they wrote exclusively 
 in Hebrew, and that mostly rabbinical, their 
 writings, however excellent of their kind, did 
 not circulate farther than the community for 
 tfhich tbey were intended, to which only they 
 could be of practical utility, and which was 
 the only competent judge of their merits. Of 
 Jewish authors who have, in that long inter- 
 val, acquired general celebrity, we know only 
 three : Manasseh ben Israel, the contemporary 
 and friend of Hugo Grotius, and the favourite 
 (?f Oliver Cromwell;* the major part of whose 
 works, too, are theological, Talmudic, and 
 written in the Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and 
 Spanish tongues, Benedict Spinoza^ a man 
 
 *Biblioth^ue Judaique, Art. Angleterre. %regorjo 
 Letti. Life of Oliver Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 125. Bishop 
 Burnet's History of his "Kmes. 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of a gigantic intellect, and incorruptible prin^ 
 ciples, wrote in Latin, and far above the me- 
 ridian of the Jews of his days. They detested 
 his doctrine, and — glorious times! — excom- 
 municated him as an atheist. Little, however, 
 did he deserve this rigour at their hands ; for 
 he subsequently declined the most tempting 
 offers to embrace Christianity, and rather 
 maintained himself, penuriously, through the 
 remainder of his life, by grinding spectacle- 
 glasses. Orobio has left us nothing but his 
 interesting controversy with Limborch. It 
 may be as well to mention, by the way, that 
 M. ben Israel was of a distinguished family of 
 clandestine Jews, at Lisbon, who emigrated 
 to Holland, as did many of the first nobility, 
 and even clergy, in the same predicament, to 
 avoid the tender mercies of the holy inquisi- 
 tion, and spare that benevolent institution the 
 trouble of saving their souls by roasting their 
 bodies. Spinoza, also, and Orobio were re- 
 spectably descended; and all the three above- 
 named^ belonged to the Portuguese commu- 
 nity of Amsterdam^ which was, at that time, 
 infinitely superior, in consequence, education. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN; 41 
 
 manners, and institutions^ to their German 
 brethren. After such a chasm, when the 
 ideas of a "classical Jew/' an " elegant Israel- 
 itish scholar/' a " philosophical rabbi/' were 
 likened, with an incredulous smile,' to those 
 whimsical and grotesque combinations of he- 
 terogeneous things, with which the designer 
 and ,the painter sometimes amuse themselves 
 and the public ; Mendelsohn, who united in 
 himself all those qualities, who, moreover, not 
 only wrote his native language fluently and 
 correctly, but imparted to it a grace and 
 energy which it never had before — Mendel- 
 sohn,^G say, could not but appear an amazing 
 prodigy to his contemporaries. The learned, 
 in particular, were puzzled how* to square his 
 notorious Mosaic orthodoxy with' his habitual 
 liberality of expression; his pertinacious se- 
 clusion with his undeniable claims to distinc- 
 tion ; and his resignation to his lot with the 
 hinted facility of improving it. A professor- 
 ship at one of the universities, and perhaps 
 the honorary title of " aulic counsellor/' so 
 cheap in Germany, would have been, under 
 certain circunistances/ no surprising revolu- 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 tJon at all in his temporal affairs, — ^We d» 
 not mean to insinuate^ that the example of a 
 neighbouring state — where a piouSj, and, no 
 djonhi, well-meaning princess, had been rid- 
 ding the Jewish communities, under her pro- 
 tection, of som« spendthrifts, reprobates, and 
 starvelings, by the lures of paltjy offices and 
 miniature sinecures — was deemed worthy: of 
 imitiatioa by an enlightened government like 
 the Prussian, in the reign of Frederic 11., the 
 friend of religious toleration and liberty of 
 conscience. Frederic had no great opinion 
 either of deserters or of apostates. When 
 his regiments had their complementjno further 
 recruiting or kidnapping was allowed in his 
 dominions. No; not even for the kingdom 
 of heaven. And as for those depots of renega- 
 does, those nurseries of temporal recklessness 
 and final remorse, so much the toy, the tool, and 
 the fashion elsewhere, it does no^ appear that,' 
 amongst the number of useful institutions, 
 public and private, formed under his auspices, 
 there was a single one of this description. — 
 These speculations on Mendelsohn's views 
 and secret policy, naturally revived the recol 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 4» 
 
 lection of the miscarriage with Spinoza, 
 However habitually indifferent, nay, jocular, 
 at the conversion of an ordinary person, 
 that of a philosopher was considered by the 
 scholar, as the triumph of learning ; by the 
 puritan^ as the influence of grace; and by 
 those who had been frequently predicting it, 
 as a proof of their uncommon sagacity. His 
 enviers — of which, like all great men, he had 
 a tolerable share — were not sparing with 
 inuendoes upon his hypocrisy, his national 
 shrewdness, and his patient watching for a 
 convenient opportunity to throw off the cum- 
 bersome mask. This might, or might not be 
 so ; to bring the matter to a tangible shape, 
 remained, nevertheless, for some time, a knotty 
 pointwith theGerman literati. Johann Casper 
 Lavater^ a most amiable, but rather over- 
 zealous protestant minister oi Zurich^ in Swit- 
 zerland, an old acquaintance of Mendelsohn's, 
 at length broke the ice. He had been trans- 
 lating " Bonnet's Inquiry into the Evidences 
 of Christianity," from the French ipto the 
 
 , * See the biogeaphy of Lavater, in the Appendix to this 
 
 work. ,).,-. 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 German, and ptiblished it, with the following 
 dedication to Moses Mendelsohn^ 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 * 
 
 "\ think I cannot give you- a stronger 
 proof of my admiration of your excellent 
 writings, and of your still more excellent 
 character, that of an Israelite in wivom there 
 is no guile ; nor offer you a better requital' 
 for the great gratification which I have, 
 some years ago, enjoyed in your interesting 
 society, thaii by dedicating to you the ablest 
 philosophical inquiry into the evidences of 
 Christianity that I am acquainted with. 
 
 "1 am fully conscious of your profound 
 judgment, steadfast love of truth, literary 
 independence, enthusiasm for philosophy in- 
 general, and esteem for Bonnet's works in 
 particular. The amiable discretion with 
 which, notwithstanding your contrariety to the 
 christian religion, you delivered' your opinion 
 on it, is still fresh in my meniory. And so 
 indelible and important, is the impression, 
 which your truly philosophical respect for the 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 45 
 
 MO^ar character of its Founder'made ou me, 
 in one of the happiest moments of my existence, 
 .that I venture^ to beseech you — nay, before 
 the God of truth, your and my, creator and 
 father, I. beseech and conjure you^ — to read 
 .this work, I , will not say, with philosophical 
 impartiality, which I am confident wjll be the 
 case, but for the purpose of publicly refuting 
 it, in case you should find the main SiTgnments, 
 in support of , the facts of Christianity; unte- 
 n£i,bl,e; or, should you find them conclusive, 
 with the determination of doing' what policy, 
 . love , of. truth, and probity , demand — ^what 
 jSocra^es would doubtless, have. done, had he 
 read the work, and found it unanswerable. 
 
 " May God still cause much truth and virtue 
 to be disseminated by your means ; and make 
 you. experience the happiness my whole heajft 
 wishes you. ^ 
 
 ^' JoHANN Casper Lavatkr. 
 
 •" Zurichj 95"th August, 1769." 
 
 When this address fir'st met Mendelsohn's 
 eye, he: was gr§atly struck by the snare seem- 
 ingly laid for himj and not a little perplexed 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 as to the means of frustrating it. The alter- 
 native was strangely critical. He must either 
 fall in with Bonnet's arguments, and acknow- 
 ledge the soundness of his doctrine, or refute 
 them, and expose its inconsistency. The 
 former would itnply indifference to his own 
 faith, whereas the latter must infalliblyincense 
 the clergy of all denominations, and produce 
 vexatious consequences to himself, and to all 
 his brethren scattered through Christendom. 
 To equivocate or qualify, was against his 
 principles, and would have surely endangered, 
 if not destroyed, the unbounded veneration 
 and honourable influence which he enjoyed 
 amongst his own sect, who would have looked 
 upon the least compromise, in fundamental 
 points of religion, as a monstrous anomaly, 
 and alarming precedent. Absolute silence 
 might incur the imputation of contempt of so 
 celebrated and universally esteemed a man as 
 Lavater, or, of a pusillanimous evasion of his 
 challenge, or, what was worse — and there 
 were not a few of that opinion — of disguised 
 deism. As if to aggravate this dilemma, the 
 disagreeable news had reached Mendelsohn 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 4? 
 
 just after his being taken ill, and when he was 
 confined to his bed, and unfit for any mental 
 exertion. But this was a case which, with 
 him, superseded q,ll secondary considerations, 
 /He rallied his retreating spirits, brought the 
 whole reserve of his faculties into action, and 
 wag— ^to use a chivalroiis phrase — determined 
 to conquer or die. Meanwhile the public, 
 and the learned world in particular, were on 
 the alert, and anticipated various results. His 
 friends, though perfectly easy as to his reputa- 
 tioa and consistency, could not divest them- 
 selves of their fear, lest the more than pro- 
 bable issue should subject him ultimately to 
 the unceremonious behaviour of bafiled wags 
 aod pert collegians, who talked of nothing 
 hut Mendelsohn's being about to shave off" his 
 beard, and turn Christian. Lavater's party, 
 more dignified, but not less sanguine, already 
 •hailed the hour when the Hebrew sage could 
 be admitted, with propriety, to their soirees. 
 Th« Muses were invoked for odes and sonnets, 
 the Graces for tasteful patterns for purses, 
 souvenirs, and snuffboxes, and the saints for 
 blessings, for and on the undoubted victor, 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " 'twas silence all, 
 "■And pleasing expectation," 
 
 when the following letter of Mendelsohn's 
 appeared before the public. 
 
 " Honoured philanthropist^ 
 
 ''You were pleased to dedicate •. to me^ 
 your translation from the French of Bonnet's 
 Inquiry into the Evidences of the Christian 
 Religion; and most publicly and solemnly to 
 conjure me, to refute that work, in , case I 
 should find the main argzmients in Support 
 of the facts of Christianity untenajble ; hut, 
 should I find them conclusive, to do^ what 
 policy, love of truth ^ and probity bid me, 
 what Socrates would have done, had he read 
 the • work, and found it unanswerable.— 
 Which, I suppose/- means, to renounce the 
 religion of my fathers, and embrace that which 
 Mr. Bonnet vindicates. Now, were I ever 
 mean-spirited • enough, to" balance love of 
 truth and probity against policy, I assure 
 you I should, in this instance, throw them all 
 three into the same scale. 
 
 .''I should deem myself beneath a worthy 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 49 
 
 man's notice, did I not acknowledge, with a 
 grateful heart, the frieiidship and kindness you 
 manifest for me in that dedication, which I 
 am fully persuaded flowed from a pure source, 
 and cannot be ascribed to any but benevolent 
 and philanthrope motives. Yet I must own, 
 that it appeared to me exceedingly^ strangg^; 
 and I should have expected any thing, rather 
 than a public ; challenge from a man like 
 Lavater: 06' ■ 
 
 '^It seems you still recollect theconfideii- 
 tial conversation I had the pleasure of hold- 
 ing with yourself and your worthy friends in 
 my apartinent. Xj9Xi you then possibly have 
 forgotten> how frequently I soijght to divert 
 the discourse from religious, to more neutral 
 topics, and how much yourself and your friends 
 had ta urge me, before I would venture to 
 deliver my opinion on a subject of such vital 
 importance ? If 1 am not mistaken, preliminary 
 assurances were even given, that no ptiblic use 
 should ever be made, of any remarkable ex- 
 pression that might drop on the occasion. 
 Be that as it may; I will rather suppose 
 niyself in error, than tax you with a breach of 
 
 E 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 prbmise. But as ' I so sedulously sought to 
 avoid an explanation in my own apajrtinent, 
 amidst a small nuiribef of worthy m»8n, of 
 whose good intentions I had every reason to 
 be persuaded,' it might have been reasonably 
 inferred that sn^uhiic one woSfid be extremely 
 repugnant to myjdispositionj and that 1 must 
 have inevitably feecoMie the mur^ embarrasised, 
 vfhen tiie voice demanding it happened io be 
 entitled to an answer at any rate. What then, 
 sir, comld induce you to single me thus, against 
 my well-known disiriclinatidn> out of the many, 
 saiid'forcfe me into a •gnlAiQidreim^ which i so 
 mucTi wished; never to have occasion to enter? 
 —If ev6n you placed my reserve to the score 
 'of mere timidity and bashfdriess, these very 
 foibles would have deserved the moderation 
 and fbrbea^anco of a charitable heart. 
 lis <' But my scruples of engaging in religious 
 controversy, never, proceeded from timidity 
 or basTiMness. Let me assure you, that it 
 was not mljfrom tke othr day, that I began 
 searching into my religion. Noj I became 
 very timely sensible of the duty of putting 
 my actions and opinions to a test. That I 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 51 
 
 have from jtny early youth devoted my hours 
 of repose and relaxation to philosophy and 
 the arts and sciences, was done for the sole 
 purpose x)f qualifying myself for this important 
 investigation. What other motives could I 
 have had ? In the situation I was then in, 
 not the hast temporal benefit- was to be ex- 
 pected frorn^ the sciences. I knew very well, 
 that I had no chance (^ igetting forward in 
 the world throy^h them. And as to the gra- 
 tification they might afford me— alas ! much 
 esteemed philanthropist ! th^ station allotted 
 to my brethreiK ia the faith, in civil society, 
 is so fncompatH)le with the expansion of the 
 tuind; that we ^4:eriamly^ do not increase our 
 'happiness by learning' to mew the rights of 
 humanity under their true aspect. — iOn this 
 point, too, I must decline saying any more. 
 He that is acquainted with our condition,, and 
 has a humane heart, will here feel more than 
 I dare to express. 
 
 "\^, after so many years of investigation, 
 the decision of my mind had not been com- 
 pletely in favour of my religion, it would 
 infallibly have become known through my 
 
 e2 
 
52 MEMOIRS "OF 
 
 public conduct. I do not conceive what should 
 rivet me to a religion,yto appearance so ex-. 
 cessively severe, and so commonly exploded, 
 if I were' not convinced in my heart of its 
 truth.: Let the result of my investigation have 
 been what it may, so soon as I discovered the 
 religion of my fathers not to be the true one, 
 I must, of course, have discarded it. Indeed, 
 were I convinced in my heart of another reli- 
 gion being true, there could not, in my opinion, 
 be a more flagitious depravity, than to refuse 
 homage to truth, in defiance of internal evi^ 
 dence. What should entice me to such de- 
 pravity ? Have I not already declared, that 
 in this instance, policy, love of truth, and 
 probity, would lead me to steer the same 
 course ? 
 
 " Were I indifferent to both religions, or 
 derided and scorned, in nly mind, revelation 
 in general, I should know well enough what 
 policy suggests, when conscience remains 
 neutral. What is there to deter me ? Fear 
 of my brethren in the faith ? Their temporal 
 power is too much curtailed to daiint me.— - 
 What then ? .Obstinacy ? indglence ? a pre- 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 53 
 
 dilection for habitual notions ?— Having de- 
 voted the greatest portion of, my life to the 
 ■investigation, I may be supposed to possess 
 sufficient good sense, not to sacrifice the 
 fruit of my labours to such frivolities. 
 
 " Thus you see, sir, that, but for a sincere 
 .conviction of my. religion, the result of my 
 theological investigations would have been 
 sealed by a public act of mine. Whereas, 
 on the contrary, they have strengthened me 
 in the faith of my fathers ; still I could wish 
 to move on quietly ; without rendering the 
 public an account of the state of my mind. ■ 
 I do not mean to deny that I have detected 
 in my religion human additions and base 
 alloy, which, alas ! but too much tarnish its 
 pristine lustre. But where is the friend of 
 truth that can boast of having found his 
 religion free from similar corruptions? We 
 all, who go in search of truth, are annoyed 
 by the pestilential vapour of hypocrisy and 
 superstition, and wish we could wipe it oflF 
 without defacing what is really good and 
 true. Yet of the essentials of my religion I 
 am as firmly, as irrefragably cbnvinced, as 
 
54 .::r memoirs m 
 
 yoUf sir, or Mr. Borimty e^^x can be of 
 those of yours. And I herewith declare in 
 the presence of the God of truth, your and 
 my creator and J^ supporter, by whom you 
 have ccagurfed me in your dedication, that I 
 will adhere to my prmcifiks so long as my 
 mtirs ^bul does i not assume amther nature. 
 My contrariety to; your cteed, which I ex- 
 presseid \o yourself and to ;your friends, 
 has since,^in ho inspect, changed. And as 
 to my veneration for the moral character of 
 its founder ! had you not omitted the re- 
 geijvatipns which I so distinctly annexed to 
 itj I should concede as much now.— We 
 must finish certain inquiries once in our life, 
 if we wish to proceed further. This, I may 
 say, I had' done, with regard to rfiligioi^ 
 several years ago. I read, compared, re- 
 flected, and — made up my mind. 
 
 "Yet, for what I cared, Judaism might 
 have been hurled down in every polemical 
 compendium, and triumphantly sneered at 
 in every academic exercise, and I would 
 not have entered into a dispute about it 
 Rabbiiuoal scholars, and rabbinical smat> 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. S5 
 
 ter'&vs, might have grubbed in obsolete scrib- 
 bliogs, whidh no sensible'Jew reads or knows 
 of, and amused the public with the most 
 fantastic ideas of Judaism, without so much 
 as a contradiction on my part. It is by 
 virtue that I. wish to- shame the opprobrious 
 opinion commonly entertained of a Jew, and 
 not by controversial : writings. My .religious 
 tenetSy philosophy, .station in caYih society, 
 all furnish^ me with the most cogent reason 
 for abstaimng ^rpm theological disputes, and 
 for'treatM^ in myj puMicatioQs.of those truths 
 only wTiich are . eqaisdly ; iiripdrtaiit ,, to all 
 persuasions, v . i k • . 
 
 »i " Pursuant to the principles of my religion, 
 I am not to seek to convert any one who is 
 not born according to our laws. ThiS'%roner 
 ness to conversion, the origin of which some 
 would fain tack on the Jewish religion, is, 
 nevertheless, diametrically opposed to it. 
 Our rabbins unanimously teach, that,the 
 written and oral laws, which form conjointly 
 our revealed religion, are obligatory on our 
 nation only. ' Moses commanded us a law, 
 even tlie inheritance of the congregation of 
 
56 MEMOms OF 
 
 Jacob.'* We believe that all other nations 
 of the earth have been directed by God to 
 adhere to the laws of nature, and to tlie 
 religion of the patriarchs.-j- Those who re- 
 gulate their lives according to the precepts 
 of this religion of nature and of reaison, are 
 called virtzious men of other nations,% and 
 are the children of eternal salvation.§ 
 
 ''Our rabbins are so remote from Pro- 
 'seIi/fomani(f, thai they enjoin us to dissuade, 
 by forcible remonstrances, every one who 
 comes forward to be converted.|| We 
 are tp lead him to reflect that, by such 
 .a' step, he is subjecting himself need- 
 lessly to a most onerous burthen ; that, in 
 his present condition, he has only to observe 
 the -^ecepts of a Noachide, to be saved; 
 but the diom^nt he embraces the religion of 
 the Israelites, he svObscribes gratuitously to 
 
 . ■■ - * 
 
 *^euteron. xxx. 4. Talmud Sanhedrim, folio 59. 
 Maimonides on the Book of Kings, cap. 8. sec. 10. 
 
 f See notes in'^^ppendix. 
 
 } Appendix. 
 
 § Appendix. 
 
 II The Talmud says somewhere, nnflD3 hvfwh on: 
 tS'lPp, i. e, proselytes are annoying to Israel like a scab. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. sy 
 
 all the rigid rites of that faith, to which he 
 must then strictly conform, or await the 
 punishment which the legislator has denounced 
 on their infraction. Finally, we are to hold 
 up to him a faithful picture of the misery, 
 tribulation, and obloquy, in which the nation is 
 now living, in order to guard him from a rash 
 act, which he might ultimately repent.* 
 
 "Thus, you see, the religion of my fathers 
 does not wish to be extended. We are wo^ 
 to send missions to both the Indies, or to 
 Greenland, to preach our doctrine to those 
 remote people. The latter, in particular, who, 
 by all accounts, observe the laws of nature 
 stricter than, alas ! we do, are, in our religious 
 estimation, an enviable race. Whoever is not 
 born conformable to our laws, has no occasion 
 to Jive according to them. We alone con- 
 sider ourselves bound to acknowledge their 
 authority ; and this can give no*ofFence to 6ur 
 neighbours. Let our notions be held ever so 
 absurd, still there is no need to cavil about 
 them, and others are certainly at liberty to 
 question the validity of laws, to which they 
 
 * Maimonides of forbidden marriages, cap. 13. sec. 14. 
 cap. Hi sec. 1. 
 
^g MEMOffiS OF - 
 
 are/ by owf own admisskm,- not amebable;-^ 
 but Whether they are acting inanlyj socially, 
 jand charitably> in ridiculing these laws, must 
 be left to their iponsciences; So long as we do 
 not tamper with their opinions, ■ wrafi^linf 
 serves no purpos^x whatsoever, f 
 
 " Suppose there\,were amoftgst my con- 
 temporaries, a Confudius or a iS&ib*, I 60uld, 
 consistently with '- my\ religious ' prinoiples, 
 love and admire the great' man/ IJutl Should 
 never hit on the extravagant' idea Tof xori- 
 verting a Confucius or a' iSo/K®.« What should 
 I conv«ert him for ? As he doeB. not belong 
 to the congregcdion of Jacob, my religious 
 laws were not legislated for' him ; and on 
 doctrines we should soon come to an under- 
 standing. Do I think there is a chance of his 
 -being saved? — I certainly believe, that he, 
 who leads mankind on to virtue in this world, 
 cannot be dai&ned in the next. And I need 
 not now stand in awe of any reverend college, 
 that would call me to siccount for this opinion, 
 as the JSorbonne did honest Marmontel, 
 
 " I am so fortunate, as to count amougsfc 
 my friends, many a worihy man, who is not 
 of my faith. We love each othej? sincerely, 
 
MOSEiS. MENDELSOHN. 59 
 
 nottH-thsfehding. we presume, or take for 
 granted, .that, ^ in mq,tters of belief, we differ 
 widely ins^pinioR;" 1 enjoy the delighl of their 
 society, which both improves and solaces me. 
 Never yet has my heart whispered, " Alas ! 
 for this excellent man's, soul !"— He, who 
 believes, that no salvation is to be found oirt 
 of the pale of his own church, must often feel 
 such sighs rise in his bosom. 
 
 '* It is true, every man is naturally bound 
 to diffuse 4ak)wledge and virtufe amongst his 
 fellow-jcreatures, and to era^ieate error and 
 preju^tiee* as much as lies in his. power. It 
 mightitherefbre^bfe e6naluded,*that it is a duty, 
 pubiieiyto fling the f auntlet at every religious 
 opiaionj which one deems erroneous. But 
 all prejudices are not equally Qojdoujs. Cer- 
 tainly^ there jare some, which strike directly 
 at the happiness of the human race ; their 
 effect on morality is obviously deleterious, and 
 we cannot expect even a castial benefit from 
 them.. These must be unhesitatingly assailed 
 by the philanthropist. To grapple with them, 
 at once, is indisputably the best mode, and all 
 delay, from circuitous measures, unwarrant- 
 able. Of this kind are those errors and pre- 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 judices which disturb man's owiij and his fellow- 
 creatures' peace and happiness, and canker, in 
 youth, the germ of benevolence and virtue, 
 before it can shoot forth. Fanaticism, ill-will, 
 and a spirit of pe»secution, on the one side; 
 levity, Epicurism, gind boasting infidelity, on 
 the other. 
 
 " Yet the opinions of my fellow-creatures, 
 erroneous as they may appear to my conviction, 
 do sometimes belong to the higher order of 
 theoretical principles, and are too remote 
 from practice, to become immediately perni- 
 cious; they constitute, however, from their 
 generality, the basis, on wMclr the people 
 who entertain them have raised their system 
 of morality and social order; and so they have 
 casually become of great importance to that 
 portion of mankind. To attack such dogmas 
 openly, because they appear prejudices, would 
 be like sapping the foundation of an edifice, 
 for the purpose of examining its soundness and 
 stability, without first securing the super- 
 structure against a total downfal. He who 
 values the welfare of mankind more tlian his 
 own fame, will bridle his tongue on prejudices 
 of this description, and beware of seeking to 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 61 
 
 reform them prematarely and precipitately, 
 lest be should overset, what Ae thinks a de- 
 fective theory of morality, before his fellow- 
 creatures are firm in the perfect one, which 
 he means to substitute. 
 
 "Therefore, there is nothing inconsistent 
 in my thinking myself bound to remain neutral, 
 uiider the impression of having detected na- 
 tional prejudicies and religious errors amongst 
 my fellow-citizens. Provided these errors 
 and prejudices do not subvert, directly, either 
 their religion or the laws of nature, and that 
 they have a tendency to promote, case^a/^, 
 thatwhich is good and desirable. The morality 
 of our actipns," when founded in error, it is 
 true, scarcely deserves that name; and the 
 advancement of virtue will be always more 
 eflBcaciously and permanently eflfected through 
 the medium of truth, where truth is known, 
 than through that of prejudice or error. But 
 where truth is not known, where it has not 
 become national, so as to operate as powerfully 
 on the bulk of the people as deep-rooted pre- 
 judice — there prejudice will be held almost 
 sacred by every votary of virtue. 
 
 " How much pore imperative, then, dpes 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 this discretion become, when the nation, 
 which, in our opinion, fosters such prejudices^ 
 has rendered itself otherwise estimable through 
 wisdom and virtue; when it contains numbers 
 of eminent men, who rank with the benefactari 
 of mankind. The human errors of suc^ a 
 noble portion of our specie^, ought to be de- 
 ferentially overlooked by one, who is liable to 
 the same-; he should dwell on its exceHencies 
 only, arid not insidiously prowl to pOurice upoa 
 it, where he conceives it to be vulnerable. > 
 " These are the reasons which my religion 
 and my philosophy suggest to me, for scrupu- 
 lously avoiding polemical controversy ^ Add 
 to them, my local relations to my Fellow-citizens, 
 and you cannot but justify me. lam one of 
 an oppressed people, 'who have to supplicate 
 shelter and protection of the ascendant na- 
 tions; and these boons they do not obtain 
 every where, indeed nowhere, without more 
 or less of restriction.* Rights granted t6 every 
 other human being, my brethren in the faith 
 willingly forego, contented with being tole- 
 
 * Justice and gratitude require to observe, that this was 
 written in the middle of the last cCintiiry. Enlightened. 
 Europe pi^sents, in our days, but one state to \rerify it, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 63 
 
 rated and protected; and they account it no 
 triifling favour, on the part of the nation, who 
 4akes them in on bearable terms, -since, in 
 some, places, even a temp^t^y domicile is 
 denied them. Do the laws of ^ncA allow 
 Vyour circumcised frien^ to pay you a visit 
 there ? No, — What gratitude then do not my 
 brethren owe to the nation> which includes 
 them in its general philanthropy, suffering 
 them, without molestation, to worship the Su- 
 preme Being after thd rites of their ancestors? 
 The goV6i?nment under which- I live, leaves 
 nothing, to wi^h for in this respect ;. and the 
 HeTbrews- sKoald therefore be scrupulous in 
 abstaining- from reflections on the predominant 
 religion, or^ which is the same thing, in touch- 
 ing their protectors, where men of virtue are 
 most tender. 
 
 '*:!^ those- principles, I have resolved in- 
 variably to regulate my conduct; unless ex- 
 traordinary inducements should compel me 
 to deviate from them. Private appeals, from 
 men of worth, I have take^n the liberty tacitly 
 to decline. The importunities of pedants, who 
 arrogated to themselves the right of worrying 
 
64 MEMOmS OF 
 
 me publicly, on account of my religious prin- 
 ciples, I conceived myself justified in treating 
 with contempt. But the solemn conjuration 
 of Si Lavater, demands, at any rate, this public 
 avowal of my sentiments : lest too pertinacious 
 a silence should be construed into disregard, 
 or — into acquiescence. 
 
 " I have read, with attention, your transla- 
 tion of Bonnet's work. After what I have 
 already stated, conviction becomes, of course, 
 foreign to the question : but, even considered 
 abstractedly, as an apology of the christian 
 religion, I must own, it does not appear to 
 me to possess that merit which you attach to 
 it. 1 know Mr. Bonnet, from other works, as 
 an excellent author ; but I have read many 
 vindications of the same religion, I will not 
 only say by English writers, but by our own 
 German countrymen, which I thought much 
 more recondite and philosophical, than that 
 by Bonnet, which you are recommending for 
 my conversion. If I am not mistaken, most 
 of your friend's hypotheses are «ven of Ger- 
 man growth ; for the author of the Essai de 
 Psychohgie, to whom Mr. Bonnet cleaves so 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 65 
 
 firmly, owes almost every thing to German 
 philosophers. In the matter of. philosophical 
 principles, a German has seldom occasion to 
 borrow of his neighbours. 
 
 " Nor are the general reflections^ premised 
 by the author, in my judgment, the most pro- 
 found part of the work ; at least the applica- 
 tion and use which he makes of them, for the 
 .vindication of his religion, appear to me so 
 unstable and arbitrary, that I scarcely can 
 trace Bonnet in them. It is unpleasant, that 
 my opinion happens to be so much at variance 
 \yith yours ; but I am inclined to think, that 
 Bonnet's internal conviction, and laudable 
 zeal for his religion, have given to himself a 
 cogency in his arguments, which, for my own 
 part, I cannot discover in them. The major 
 part of his com^quents flow so vaguely from 
 the antecedents, that I am confident I could 
 vindicate ani/ religion, by the same ratiocina- 
 tion. After all, this may not be the author's 
 fault*; he could have written for those only 
 who are convinced like himself, and who read, 
 merely to fortify themselves in their belief. 
 Whek an author once agrees with his readers 
 
66 MEMoms ot 
 
 about the resuli, they wilt not fall out about 
 the argument. But at yoU> sir^ I may WfeU' 
 be astonished : that you should deem that, 
 work adequate to convince a man^ who, from 
 his principles, cannot but be prepossessed in 
 favout of its reverse. It was probably im^ 
 possible for you to identify the thoughts of a 
 person, like me^ who is not furnished with ' 
 conviction, but has to seek it. But if youj 
 have done so, and believe, notwithstandliMf' 
 what you have intimated> that Socrates hia^| 
 self would have found Mr. Bonnet's arguments 
 unanswerable, one of us is, certainly^ a 
 remarkable instance of the dominion of pre- 
 judice and education, even over those who 
 go, with an upright heart, in search of truth. 
 '^'^I have now stated to you the reasons why 
 I so earnestly wish to have no more to4o 
 with religious controversy ; but I have givefl 
 you, at the same time to understand, that I 
 couldj very easily, bring forward something 
 in refutation of Mr. Bonnet's work. If you 
 should prove peremptory, I must lay aside 
 my scruples, and come to a resolution of pub- 
 lishing, in a counter-^inquiry i my thoughts, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. Gf 
 
 both oh Mr. Bonnet's work, atid on the cause 
 which he virldiGates. But, I hope you will 
 exonerate me from this irksome task, and 
 rather give me leave to withdraw to that 
 state of quietude, which is more congenial to 
 my disposition. Place yourself in my situation ; 
 take my view of circumstances, not yoUrs> 
 and you will no longer strive against my 
 relnetatice. tl should be sorry to be led into 
 the temptation of breaking through those 
 boimdaries, which I have, after such mature 
 deliberation, marked out to myself. 
 
 ' " I am, with most perfect respect, 
 " yours sincerely, 
 
 " Moses Mendelsohn. 
 
 "Berlin, 
 the 1,2th of December, 1769." 
 
 That this letter had the desired effect, in 
 making Lavater sensible of his premature 
 zeal, is manifest ftom the following answer, 
 which appeafed in public, very soon af1;er : 
 
 '* Honoured Sir, 
 '' I did take the liberty of requesting you, 
 before the public, to, refute Mr. Bonnet'k 
 f2 
 
68 - MEMOIRS OP 
 
 Inquiry' into the Evidences of Christianitf: 
 or to do^ what'' (Socrates would have done^ 
 had he found, that work^ in the main, un- 
 answerable. 
 
 t "^It shall be no secret to you> that this 
 step, at which you are so much surprised, is 
 thought hasty by most of my friends ; par-, 
 ticularly so by those abroad,, amongst whom 
 Mr. Bonnet himself greatly disapproves of it. 
 However, it was past remedy. The Leipsim 
 fair* being so veijy- near at hand, I had no 
 time to consult my distant connections. ' Fur- 
 ther, I am not unwilling to own, that I am 
 by no means indifferent to my friends' opinions 
 on this subject, and that I had been desirous, 
 even before I received your kind letter, to 
 relieve you from the embarrassment in which 
 I had placed you. 
 
 "Still, I could not regret, entirely, what 
 had passed; and even now, amidst the varying 
 opinion of the public, and with your letter 
 before me, I think I have no reason for doing 
 so. I am only now becoming aware, that I 
 
 * At Michaelmas, when most new works are published 
 by the German booksellers. ■ 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 69 
 
 might haive^ perhaps, gained my end easier 
 in another way, and saved you all this vexation. 
 
 " My object was, not to elicit from you a 
 confession of faith, but to render the cause 
 of Christianity — ^which concerns me so much, 
 and which I think so ably defended by Mr. 
 Bonnet — a service, in my opinion, far more 
 material,' than merely translating his work. 
 I was in hopes of prevailing upon you to 
 scrutinize it. A scrutiny which must have 
 thrown the; brightest light on truth, or, at 
 least, on what I conceive such. 
 
 " It is plain I should have been more suc- 
 cessful, and so would the public, if I had 
 solicited your opinion of Bonnet's philosophy, 
 as applied to the christian faith, in a private 
 letter ; and if I dedicated the work to youat 
 all, the dedication ought to have been written 
 quite differently, when the inquiries of one 
 philosopher are submitted to the investigation 
 oi another. 
 
 • " Your obliging letter corroborates my 
 friends' opinions, and .convinces me that I 
 have erred. — ^You give me credit for good 
 intentions; but, at the same time, point out 
 
fO MEMOIRS QF 
 
 to x^e, not only the reasons I ought to hav* 
 listened to myself, but also those, which I 
 should have anticipated, on your part. Rea- 
 sons, by which you consider yourself justified 
 neither to admit, nor to refute, any thing 
 before the public Reasons, which you are 
 not at all bound to stfite. 
 < " This makes me think, that a detaU ef the 
 reasons which led me to this step, wiU-not 
 go far in my defence, With those who know 
 you as a philosopher, they might, generally^ 
 excuse my solicitude to have Bonnet's work 
 scrutinized by you. They might show, that 
 every one exactly in my situation, would have 
 deemed it a duty, or would, at all events, 
 have felt a strong moral impulse to be urgent 
 with you on the importance of this scrutiny, 
 though they do not extenuate the importunity 
 and peremptoriness of my chsdlenge, 
 
 " That I could not have addressed myself 
 to a fitter person, I am, friend of truth, now 
 more convinced of thsin ever; had I but 
 contented myself with submitting this part of 
 Bonnet's philosophy for the sake of general 
 utility;itoyQWj,aphilosQpher'sune6njproioisilig 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 71 
 
 judgment. I find we agree on the importance 
 of applying philosophy to revQlatiOOj and that 
 nothing se^ms of more importance to you 
 than this appliqation. ' It is not since the Qther 
 day/ you write, ' that you have searched into 
 your faith. You became very early sensible 
 of the duty of putting if to the test ; and have 
 devoted your leisure arid hours of relaxation 
 to philosophy and the liberal arts and sciences, 
 Tn&re,]^ with a view qf preparing yourself for 
 this essential trial.' Indeed^ my honoured 
 friendj you are the man to whom, of all 
 others, I long to be allowed to apply, in order 
 to profit by his inquiries, and to expose mine 
 to his severest investigation, 
 
 " Nevertheless, when I took it for granted, 
 that an inquiry into religion must be of equal 
 consequence to you as to myself, I ought 
 properly to have considered whether the 
 duty which enjoins the examination and con- 
 fession of religion does also impose the 
 obligation of religious controversy. By so 
 doing, I might have hit, at least, on some of 
 the reasons by which you show that you are 
 not under such an obligation, and that I have 
 
72 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 been premature in challenging you in this 
 solemn and peremptory manner. And. even 
 if those reasons had not satisfied me at once, 
 our not havitig yet agreed on the importance 
 of an inquiry' into Christiamiy, ought to have 
 been sufficient to deter me. 
 I " Consequently, I retract my peremptory 
 challenge, in which I was* not sufficiently 
 warranted. And here, before the public, I 
 entreat you to forgive whatever is importti- 
 note, whatever is improper, in my dedi- 
 cation. 
 
 " In the most implicit confidence that you 
 will accept of this apology, I further venture 
 candidly to impart to you my thoughts on 
 some parts of your letter, and to disclose, 
 at the same time, the wishes of my heart. 
 
 " It would pain me exceedingly if you 
 had, from mere complaisance or charitable 
 feeling, quashed the charge, that I have 
 acted in defiance of a promise. Can you, 
 man of integrity as- you are, suffer the 
 public to harbour the slightest supposition 
 that the m.anner in which I alluded to our 
 conversation was a brea.ch of promise .'' that 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 73 
 
 the use I made of it was indiscreet^ and 
 tending to your prejttdice ?—^ls it possible 
 you can think me capable of such a total 
 want of prudence, as to lay myself open to 
 a reproach of that sort under the least im- 
 pression of deserving it? I should indeed 
 feel sensibly hurt at any unpleasantness I 
 may have inadvertently caused you through 
 not having" placed myself sufficiently in your 
 situation; and, in that case, I should pray 
 God' to avert from you all the vexatious 
 consequences of my hastiness. — -As that 
 conversation was the primary inducement to 
 my dedication, I thought it quite natural, 
 quite innocent, when I wrote the latter, to 
 refer in general terms to the former. 
 
 " But that, on speaking of your veneration 
 of the moral character of the founder of my 
 religion, I have omitted the reservations 
 tvhich you distinctly annexed ; that, b6 as- 
 sured, my friend, was not duplicity. — Did I 
 insinuate this veneration of yours to have 
 been unreserved? Why, I have not even 
 made use of the term, veneration, I spoke of 
 mere respect, by no means of religious — for 
 
f 4 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 th©P I sho aid have sai4 th&t wMch is not 
 true — ^but of philQSOphieai respect; which 
 word, as well as that of mot^l, I caused 
 designedly to be printed in a conspicuous 
 type. Immediately preceding this, we have 
 the sentence, ^ Notwithstanding your coht 
 trariety to Christianity' Every reasonablf 
 reader* must instantly perceive, that your 
 respect was not mthout its provisoes ; that 
 it was very limited, and every thing but 
 religious. To be sure, I might have ex- 
 pressed myself somewhat plainer ; and now 
 I find I actually ought to have done sor 
 though the chance qf being remmded by you 
 of the neglect of my promise would perhaps 
 have eqtmlly existed. 
 
 " I should be guilty of wronging the no- 
 blest of minds did I suppose that, after a 
 declaration like this, you could still deem 
 the omission intentional and immoral. If I 
 
 * " The least turn given to my expressions throws a 
 fsilse light on my opinions^ in whieh conscience will not 
 approve of their going abroad." So says Mendelsdm to 
 unfair reviewers. I find it highly necessary to repeeit the 
 same to my readers in general, both on his behalf and on 
 my ow&.—'Lavater, 
 
MOSISS MENDELSOHN. 7^ 
 
 am not mistaken, your respeqt for th© 
 founder of my rpligion was attended by the 
 following enaphsitio clause : ' If he had not 
 aeeepted of the honmge which is dm to the 
 Most-High only!'^ If it was another, you 
 willpleasetosubstitute.it. 
 
 " You wonder, my dear sir, that I should 
 deem Bomiet's work sufficient to convince 
 t/ou. It is not improbable that, in weigh- 
 ing the proofs in my original, I have been 
 biassed by my own conviction of the divine 
 origin of my religion. It may be, that I 
 think them stronger than they really are; 
 stronger than they are, perhaps, thought by 
 that modest philosopher himself, whose prin- 
 cipal object in promulgating theni was cer- 
 tainly not the conviction of readers of your 
 faith. And let us suppose that I had actunUy 
 imagined to have met in the work with some 
 chasms, some rather weak points, might they 
 not have seemed to me of that kind, which 
 yott, an expert logician, would easily be able 
 
 * In the original : " Wenn er sich die Ehre der Anbeth' 
 ung, die dem, dnigen Jehovah gebuehrt, nieht angemaazt 
 haette /" 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to supplyy and find the, main argument con- 
 clusive notwithstanding? I obviously in- 
 terested myself: for an inquiry into the 
 evidfence of- the facts only of Christianity, 
 as weighed by Mr. Bonnet. I did not say a 
 word of the doctrine. To have its history 
 investigated by an impartial philosopher was 
 all I wislied for at the moment. But what I 
 certainly coUld not conceive, and what still 
 remains inexplicable to me is, how you^ 
 firmly convinced as you are of the essentials 
 of ye?^r faith, can be so confident of being 
 able to vindicate any faith one pleases, by 
 the same reasoning by which Mr. Bonnet 
 proves the truth of his own ? 
 
 " You are perfectly ingenuous ; permit 
 me to be so too. In this your very depre- 
 ciating judgment of Bonnet's work, I rather 
 miss the philosopher Mendelsohn. I may be 
 mistaken ; but this most condemning tone is 
 obviously carried to a greater length than 
 the object of your letter seems to require; 
 than one would have expected indeed of 
 a believer in revelation ; so that, let the 
 matter be viewed whichever way it may. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 77 
 
 I cannot well consider you otherwise -than 
 as a man strongly: prejudiced for his 
 religion. > 
 
 " You confess the religion of your fathers 
 an apparently over-severe, and commonly 
 exploded religion — you are convinced in your 
 heart of its truth! Thus you lend your faith 
 to a revealed religion! You are far from 
 deriding or contemning revelation in general 
 — and yet your entire soul must, assume 
 another nature before you could become a 
 Christian. — Of these extraordinary, results 
 of your reason I am now perfectly satisfied. 
 I think them singular beyond expression, but 
 they do not dismay me much.— The stautich- 
 est advocate of Christianity was, at least, at 
 one time, as contrary to Christianity as you 
 can possibly bd. Sure enough his entire soul 
 did assume another nature. A phenomenon, 
 the historical credibility of which you can 
 hardly call into question, though you, in par- 
 ticular, must maintain the impracticability of 
 accounting for it by natural physiological 
 causes. , For whom must the natural impos- 
 sibility of the abrupt transition of the„ most 
 
?g MfiMOms OI' 
 
 inveterate persecutor of ChtiStiaHity to iU 
 most faithful^ most zealous^ most vskliatit 
 champion, strike more forcibly than i/ouj who 
 have no wish to refute Christianity ; who are 
 infinitely remote from the spirit of perse- 
 cution; than you^ in whom exuberate senti^ 
 ments most noble^ philanthropic, and exalted 
 towards Christians, let them^ to the eternal 
 disgrace of their own religion and of human 
 nature, trample ever so conttitneliftUsl^ on 
 the most sacred duties towards your nation, 
 whom they ought, on so many accounts, to 
 hold in veneration— and yet you think it 
 morally impossible tO become a Christian ? 
 Let us balance the historical facts and the 
 intrinsic beauties of both religions — Moses 
 , and Jesus — the decalogue and the sermon oii 
 the mount — the prophets and the apostles—^ 
 the distance and the state of the respective 
 ages — the more or less interrupted success 
 sion of witnesses, and of written or other 
 monuments. I will say no more. -"May I be 
 so unfortunate as to learn the philosophical 
 grounds on which you maintain the divinity 
 of the Mosaic religion ! They would solve 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 79 
 
 wHat is, as yet, to me, an imp#neti'able mys- 
 tery; I mean your voluntary confession of 
 faith — in whifth my plainness cannot possibly 
 suspect the least ambiguity-^-fl!/«(^ youf, as 
 yet, unabated repugnance to our religion. 
 
 " Not that I mean in any way ia force yOu, 
 dear friend of truth, to refute Bonnet on 
 Christianity, or to show cause why you are 
 an Israelite and not a Christian. I have no 
 right to do so. But I must say, as I have 
 already intimated, that I look upon the main 
 arguments for the facts of Christianity as 
 unanswerable ; and say I lOiU that my attach- 
 ment to my faith should not deter me from 
 renouncing it, could its spurioUsness be made 
 manifest to me> or could I be only persuaded 
 that the moral and historical evidence of 
 the divinity of the mission of Jesus has less 
 theological tvorth than the proofs on which 
 you found the divinity of the legation of 
 Moses ami the prophets. — In things ema- 
 nating from mortals we may be indulgent ; 
 God has no need of indulgence. That is no 
 religion for me — however fair it may appear 
 in s&me lights— which would pass for divine, 
 
80 . MEMOIRS OF DTJ? 
 
 in the sublimest sense, and yet. turn out, by 
 the light of impartial investigation, to be a 
 mere tissue of consummate craft; no matter 
 how, pious the intentions the imposture j may 
 appear to arise from. 
 
 , " But I recollect, that the opinion of yours 
 which induces me to, declare these senti- 
 ments, does not bear upon arguments- for 
 Christianity in general^ but only upon Bon- 
 net's^ which you think inferior .to many other 
 apologies for my religion. , Now, as I must 
 still believe that I have reason to rank Bon- 
 net amongst the principal vindicators of 
 Christianity; knowing of no other author 
 amongst those that I have read who so 
 strictly adheres to the rules t of sound 
 logic, handles his demonstrations in a more 
 interesting manner, connects them more 
 closely, and establishes them more firmly; 
 it concerns me very much to know the rea- 
 sons by which your judgment is supported. 
 The knowledge and examination of them 
 would be, in every respect, useful and in- 
 structive to me ; even if I should find my- 
 self thereby, induced to condemn proofs of 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 81 
 
 my faith,, which I have hitherto considered 
 as invincible. I would even count the ex- 
 posure of weakness in any one of the argu- 
 ments in favour of my religion, a service, a 
 benefaction, deserving my warmest thanks. 
 What avails me a staflF on which I cannot 
 lean with perfect security ? 
 
 " But what am I to do now ? You say you 
 are under no obligation to engage in polemical 
 disputes, either for the sake of propagating 
 your own religion, or of -convincing others of 
 the futility of theirs. Amongst your reasons 
 for this, I considered those to be most cogent 
 which are deduced from the nature of i/our 
 religion. I can conceive very well, even from 
 my own ideas of Judaism, formed on our 
 joint revelation, why the Mosaic church does 
 not wish to be extended beyond the descend- 
 ants of Israel ; and that thus, of course, the 
 spirit of converting does not take place in 
 it. Of Christianity, on the contrary, I must, 
 doubtless, think the reverse ; this is, from its 
 nature, to be a universal religion, adapted to 
 all nations. I therefore, as a Christian, con- 
 sider myself under the strongest obligation 
 
 G 
 
82 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 (however lost sight of by many of my 
 brethren) to promulgate the glory of my 
 Lord and Master, and the truth of his 
 faith, by every means consistent with rea- 
 son, and the nature of the object, and to 
 divest it of all pernicious prejudices. 
 
 " Although I am sensible, for this rea- 
 son — as also partly for the others before 
 stated — of the impropriety of a public chal- 
 lenge, yet I cannot refrain from beseeching 
 you, sir, from beseeching you, I repeat, for 
 the furtherance of truth, so precious to both 
 of us, that, provided no paramount motives 
 interfere — ^which neither the public nor my- 
 self have any claim to inquire into — you 
 will point out, at your convenient leisure, at 
 least to me, (unless you prefer to point it 
 out to the public,) in what respect Bonnet's 
 Inquiry trespasses against logic. Whether 
 your eounter-inquiry be directed against Bon- 
 net, or (which I should like best) against the 
 cause which he defends, .do not give it up 
 definitively, at least not so far as I am con- 
 cerned. Should you do me the favour of 
 entering with me into a private correspond-' 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 83 
 
 ence on the subject, it will thea depend on 
 our mutual approval, to have the whole, or 
 the result of it, eventually published. Of 
 thus much I am certain, that your counter- 
 inquiry would be written in such a philoso- 
 phical and temperate mood, it would have 
 so little the appearance of a controversial 
 writing, that not the slighest suspicion of a 
 hostile intention against that which i* held 
 most sacred by the nation, by whom you are 
 protected, could ever attach to it. Permit 
 me to say, that your letter to me leaves no 
 room at all for apprehending tljat. you are 
 likely to overstep the boundaries of philo- 
 sophical gravity and impartiality. 
 
 ^' I accept with sincere thanks, also, those 
 parts of your letter which enable me to form, 
 from yourself and from your mode of thinking, 
 a correct knowledge and estimation of the 
 sentiments which pervade pure Judaism, and 
 the better description of rabbinical writings. 
 You have indeed made me desirous of know- 
 ing more of them. A direction to the most 
 profound works which your nation can bring 
 forward, would perhaps give many an unpre- 
 
 g2 
 
84 MEMOIRS OP' 
 
 judiced Christian, more becoming notions of 
 the stock on which we boast of being grafted. 
 And who knows, but an insight into the best 
 sys^eOT of Judaism, might lead to the removal 
 of many a stumbling-block, now lying be- 
 tween it and Christianity. What say you, 
 dearest friend, if my, in other respects, pre- 
 mature dedication, and your excellent letter, 
 were ftii accidental instigation to this further 
 correspondence — ^wOuld not the unpleasant' 
 situation in which' I have, unintentionally,"^ 
 jilaced you, be, by this means, changed into a 
 very agreeable one? For my own part, I 
 should have no longer reason to regret my 
 well-meant dedication, if, to it, the intellectual 
 portion" of the public shall be indebted for 
 the acquisition of that letter. ' 
 
 " Let me now proclaim, in homage to truth, 
 tha,t I meet in your letter with sentiments' 
 which I more than revere ;- sentiments, that 
 have beguiled me into tears, which — pardon' 
 my weakness — drew forth the ejaculation, 
 ' Wotuld to God he were a Christian !' — Not ' 
 that I have the - least doubt but that the 
 s raelite, to whom the Omniscient must give ' 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 85. 
 
 that testimonial of integrity, ^vhich I gave 
 you in my dedication, will be every way 
 as estimable in his sight, as an upright 
 Christian. My gospel, too, teaches me, God 
 is no respecter of persons ; in every nation, 
 he that feareth him, and worheth righteous- 
 ness, is accepted with him. Again> pur joint 
 philosophy and revelation lead us to adopt 
 gradations of beatitude in future life. The 
 proportion of felicity, they inform us, will, in 
 all rational beings, be, equal to their moral 
 receptibility. Now, according to my notions, 
 a Christian can reach the highest degree of 
 this moral faculty easiest and speediest. 
 Would you then not willingly pardon me, if 
 this conviction, closely identified too with my 
 nature, has prompted me, as it still does, to 
 wish, from the bottom of my soul, that you 
 may take the shortest road to supreme virtue. 
 and to supreme felicity ! 
 
 " Much more that I could say on this sub- 
 ject remains in my heart, which rei3:iembers 
 you with the tranquillity of innocence, and with 
 the delight of friendship and affection ! — But 
 enough, before the public ! Let us now drop 
 
86 Memoirs of 
 
 the curtain^ atid givfe no inducement to further 
 pertrersions and feuds, through which, I find, 
 to ihy no small sorrow, you have, notwith- 
 standing all your solicitude and prudence, 
 already been a sufferer. Our aim is truth, 
 ndt the gratification of sectarism ; and truth 
 is too sacred a thing, that we should allow 
 ourselves to bsltidy it, merely for the diversion 
 of idle spectators ; mtich less permit it to be 
 given up to the subtle equivocation and 
 oblique jndgmeM of those with whom deceit 
 is ever current, when they find it will serve 
 to blazen the credit of their p^rty. 
 
 " I cbnclude, not only with renovated feel- 
 ings of veneration, and the tenderest affection, 
 but also with the impression (probably as 
 chimerical, in your estimation, as it is firm, 
 and rapturous irt mine) of meeting with you, 
 if not shortly, at all events at some future 
 period, amongst the happy worshippers of 
 him, whose wJieritdnce is the congregation of 
 Jacob ; teven of my Lord and Master Jestis 
 Chfist, blessed to all eternity. Amen ! 
 
 *■' JbHANN Casper Lavater. 
 "Zurich, the 14th Februait; 1770." 
 
MOSES -MENDELSOHN. 87 
 
 However unimportant this correspondence 
 may appear to us now^ it affords a beautiful 
 specimen of urbanity and delicacy in learned 
 and religious controversy^ as different from 
 more modern literary squabbles^ as a corte 
 d'amore from the feudal club-law. The pub- 
 lic did Mendelsohn full justice for his clever- 
 ness, temperance, and consistency. Most of 
 the journals of the day resounded his praise, 
 and animadverted On Lavater for having 
 worried a deserving and unmeddling man, 
 with a view of involving him in a public 
 transaction of a most delicate nature. Lava- 
 ter's promise to relinquish his purpose, was 
 all — and the manly and magnanimous avowal 
 of his error, more than — Mendelsohn wanted. 
 His humility felt oppressed, by what he 
 thought unmerited encomium and excessive 
 condescension J yet his consistency could not 
 sit easy under some observations contained 
 in the answer : which gave rise to the following 
 publication^ under the title of " Supplementary 
 Remarks." 
 
 "Mr. Lavater had the'goodness to transmit 
 to me his answer in manuscript, before he 
 
88 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 consigned it to the press. I discern, in this 
 proceeding, his undiminished kind attention 
 knd friendship towards me. But the answer 
 itself exhibits, in my opinion, his moral cha- 
 racter in its brig'htest excellence; it shows 
 unerring marks of pure philanthropy, genuine 
 piety, and ardent zeal for truth and virtue, 
 unvarnished rectitude, and a moderation verg- 
 ing on humility. I am exceedingly happy 
 that rha,ve never been mistaken in the worth 
 of this noble-minded mortal. Even in the 
 effervescence of provocation, I did not sus- 
 pect his intentions; however strange it must 
 have appeared to me, to find the first address 
 from a man of letters accompatlied by a 
 puhlic challenge. 
 
 " I am highly obliged to Mr. Lavater for 
 the justice he does to my scruples, and for 
 declining to reduce me to the necessity df 
 carrying on a controversy so repugnant to 
 my disposition. During the few evening hours 
 of relaxation which business spares me, I 
 would fain rest in ignorance of all the va- 
 riance, all the schisms, which have ever sown 
 the seed of enmity between man and man ; and 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 89 
 
 I even endeavour to erase from my memory, 
 what personal experience I may necessarily 
 have had of such subjects in the course of 
 the day. In those felicitous hours, I delight 
 in giving myself up to the unrestrained and 
 undivided emotions of my heart, the feplings 
 of which I am yet to learn how to as similate 
 with the state of a disputant.^ Nature never 
 intended me for a wrestler, either in a phy- 
 sical or moral sense. 
 
 •^'It shows infinite magnanimity in Mr. 
 Lavdter.^ that he publicly asks my pardon. 
 What need has he to do so? I declare, once' 
 more, before the public, that I have never 
 felt myself offended by him. What he calls 
 importunate and improper in his dedication, 
 can, at the utmost, be ascribed to an over- 
 hasty zeal for truth, and this carries, at all 
 events, forgiveness with it, 
 
 ^'The suspicion of his having acted against 
 his promise, I did not repress through co/«- 
 plaisance or charity ; but, lest I should be 
 unjust, I mentioned that promise in the vague 
 manner I then recollected it. It occurred to 
 me, generally, that something to that effect 
 
90 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 had been stipulated on the occasion, though 
 I could not tell the exact words, nor yet 
 whether it was Mr. Lavafer, or one of his 
 friends who participated in the conversation^ 
 that gave the promise. Hence I could not 
 have a more distinct idea of the charge, than 
 I had of the gromid of it; and now I am 
 glad to be able to withdraw it altogether. 
 I firmly believe Mr. Lavater, that the question 
 was, simply, of an indiscreet use that might 
 be eventually prejudicial to me, and I am 
 perfectly satisfied that he was not aware of 
 making suck a use of it. 
 
 "As to what regards Bonnet's work, I 
 confess, that my judgment on it referred 
 entirely to the pufpose for which it was re- 
 commended to me by Mr. Lavater. I might, 
 it is true, have taken for granted, that it was 
 not at all Mr. Bonnet's aim to oppugn, by 
 his Inquiry, any religious persuasion whatso- 
 ever, least of all Judaism ; but that he had 
 only the benevolent intention of leading, by 
 means of a more tvholesome philosophy, back 
 into the paths of truth, the sceptics and 
 'weak in faith of his own church, who have 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 91 
 
 been deluded by o. false philosophy, to latigh 
 at religion^ Providence, immortality of the 
 soul, resurrection, and retribution, as ab- 
 surd superstitions. In this light I should 
 have considered Mr. Bonnet's work, in order 
 to form a more correct estimate of its merits. 
 
 " But the unlucky dedication had at once 
 deranged the proper aspect of things. And 
 as that was the point from which I started, 
 and not knowing that the author had disap- 
 proved of the translator's proceeding, I read 
 the whole performance under the impression, 
 that it was levelled against myself, aud those 
 of my persuasion. In this view, then, the 
 use and application which Mr. Bonnet makes 
 of philosophical principles, could not but ap- 
 pear to me loose and arbitrary ; and I eouM 
 say, with propriety, that 1 was confident I 
 could vindicate, in the same manner, ani/ 
 feligion one pleases., 
 
 '' This assertion appears singular to Mr. 
 Lavater. He is at a loss, on the one hand, 
 how to make it chime with the belief in reve- 
 lation, and cannot^ on the other, absolve me 
 from strong prejudice in favour of my reli- 
 
n MEMOIRS OF 
 
 gion. Whether I do or do not nourish pre- 
 judices in favour of my religion, I am myself 
 as little able to ascertain as whether my 
 breath is sweet or not. But that my asser- 
 tion does not contradict the belief in reve- 
 lation, I am perfectly convinced of. I will 
 mention a single point by way of illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 " Mr. Bonnet constitutes miracles the in- 
 fallible criterions of truth ; and maintains 
 that if there be but credible testimony that 
 a prophet has wrought miracles, his divinq 
 mission is 'no longer to be called in question. 
 He then actually demonstrates, by very 
 sound logic, that there is nothing impossible 
 in miracles, and that testimony concerning 
 them may be deserving of credit. 
 
 " Now, according to my religious theory, 
 miracles are not, indiscriminately, a distinc- 
 tive mark of truth; nor do they yield a 
 moral evidence of a prophet's divine lega- 
 tion. The public giving of the law, only, 
 could, according to our creed, impart satis- 
 factory authenticity ; because the ambassador 
 had, in this case, no need of credentials, the^ 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 93 
 
 divine commissioa being given in the hearing 
 of the whole nation. Here no truths were to 
 be confirmed by actual proceedings, no doc- 
 trine by preternatural occurrences, but it was 
 intended it should be believed, that the di- 
 vine manifestation had chosen this very pro- 
 phet for its legate, as every individual had 
 heard himself the nomination. Accordingly 
 we read, (Exod, xix.' 9.) An;d the Lord said 
 unto Moses, ho, I come unto thee in a thick 
 cloud, that the people may hear when I speak 
 unto thee, and believe thee for ever : and 
 (Exod. iii. 12.) And this shall be a token unto 
 thee. W/ien thou hast brought forth the 
 people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon 
 this mountain. Our belief in a revealed 
 religion is, therefore, not founded in miracles 
 but on a public legislation. The precept to 
 hearken to a wonder-working prophet (Deut. 
 xviii. 15.) is, as our rabbins teach, a mere 
 implicit law, as given by the legislator, and 
 quite independent of the intrinsic evidence 
 of such wonders. So does a similar law 
 (Deut.xvii. 6.) direct us to abide, in juridical 
 cases, by the evidence of two witnesses, 
 
94 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 though we are not bound to consider their 
 evidence as infallible. Further information 
 on this Jewish elemental law will be found in 
 Maimonides' Elements of the Law, chap. 8> 
 9j 10. And there is an ample illustration 
 of this passage of Maimonides, in Rabbi 
 Joseph Albo, Sepher Ikkarim, sect. i. cap. 
 18. 
 
 " I also meet with decisive texts in the 
 Old Testament, and even in the New, show- 
 ing that there is nothing extraordinary in 
 enticers and false prophets performing mi- 
 racles j* whether by magic, occult sciences, 
 or by the misapplication of a gift truly con- 
 ferred on them for proper purposes, I will 
 not pretend to determine. So much, how- 
 ever, appears to me incontrovertible, that, 
 according to the naked text of Scripture, 
 
 * How are we, for iuBtancej to account for the Egyp- 
 tian magicians ? — In the Old Testament (Deut. xiii. ?.) 
 a case is laid down, when we are not to heiarken to a pro- 
 pliet or a dreamer of dreams, even if he give a sign or a 
 wonder, but put him to death. In the New Testament it 
 is distinctly said, (Mat. xxiv. 24.) For ihere shall arm 
 false Chrisis and false prophets, and shall show great signi 
 and wonders, SfC.—'Not to mention other texts. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 95 
 
 miracles cannot be taken as absolute cri- 
 terions of a divine mission. 
 
 <'■ I could, therefore, perfectly well main^ 
 tain that an argument, founded on the infal- 
 libility of miracles, does not decide any 
 thing against the believers in my religion, 
 since we do ndt acknowledge that infalli- 
 bility. My Jewish principles will fully bear 
 me out in the assertion, that I would under- 
 take to vindicate, by similar reasoning, ciny 
 religion one pleases ; because I do not know 
 any religion which has not signs and miracles 
 to produce ; and surely every one has a right 
 to place confidence in his forefathers. All 
 revelation is propagated by tradition and by 
 monuments. There, I suppose, we agree. 
 But, according to the fundamentals of my re- 
 ligion, not miracles only, but a public giving 
 of the law, must be the origin of tradition. 
 
 " It will now be seen that the assertion of 
 mine, which Mr. Lavater calls singular, is 
 not only compatible with the belief in a 
 revelation, but that it even emanates from 
 the very elements of my religion. As an 
 Israelite, I have argued on Iraelitish princi- 
 
96 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 pies. How could I have done otherwise, 
 under the impression that Mr. Bonnet meant 
 to controvert those principles ? But now 
 that I am aware that this excellent author's 
 design was to oppugn the unbelievers of his 
 own church only, and to show them 'that the 
 doctrines which they revile are, by far, more 
 reconcilable with sound reason than their 
 own fantastic deliration, many difficulties 
 which I have met with on reading the Ger- 
 man translation, of course vanish of them- 
 selves; and I must own, that, so far as its 
 scope goes, the work is more important, and 
 more worthy of Mr. Bonnet's pen, than I had, 
 at first, an idea of, 
 
 ■^ " In my letter to Mr. havater, I said, 
 if I am not mistaken, most of Mr. Bon- 
 net's hypotheses are of German growth. My 
 friends think this is liable to be interpreted 
 into a charge oi plagiarism against Mr. Bon- 
 net ; though, for my own part, I do not see 
 in which way it is so, without a violent per- 
 version and wilful misconstruction of ray 
 
 words. Mr. Bonnet is one of the most_ 
 
 f i 
 
 learned authors of our' age, whose works I 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 97 
 
 read with utility and pleasure, and whose 
 moral character I hold in the highest vene- 
 ration, I shoul'd never forgive myself if such 
 an odious imputation had ever escaped me, 
 even as an innuendo. Generally speaking, I 
 have always been of opinion, that, in meta- 
 physical matters in particular, we cannot be 
 too cautious in judging of their originality ; 
 since the reproach of plagiarism, in this sci- 
 ence, is the more offensive, the more difficult 
 it is to bring it home. We may almost say, 
 that no new metaphysical truths have been 
 discovered for ages past. The most import- 
 ant objects of human knowledge which dcr 
 serve inquiry have been so multifariously 
 handled, and surveyed under such a variety 
 of aspects, that one must almost broach an 
 absurdity in order to produce a novelty. Nay, 
 an ancient philosopher had occasion to com- 
 plain, that, even in his days, absurdity itself 
 had been forestalled by still more ancient 
 'philosophers. In what philosophical writers 
 have not some of the opinions of Leibnitz 
 been really or imaginatively traced ? From 
 excessive modesty, or, perhaps, because ei-u- 
 
 H 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 dition stood with him as high as genius, he 
 himself seldom asserted any thing without 
 attributing it to some ancient or other. But 
 suppose he had not done so, who would dare 
 to charge him with plagiarism? 
 
 " He who brightens up ideas in the ab- 
 struser parts of philosophy, who shows truths 
 in a more favourable light than they had 
 hitherto appeared, and brings them into 
 connection with other important truths: he 
 who unites, like Mr. Bonnet, acute tact with 
 ingenious speculation, and thereby possesses 
 the art of leading slow, but sure, common 
 sense up the steepest acclivities of genius, 
 cannot, withdut injustice, be absolutely de- 
 nied the merit of invention. Nor did it ever 
 come into my head to dispute Mr. Bonnet's 
 possession of that merit. I only meant to 
 let Mr. Lavater see (and so it will appear to 
 every sensible reader, from the context) that 
 the philosophical principles on which Mr. 
 Bonnet rests his positions, are not new to a 
 German ; that, subsequent to Leibnitz^ all 
 the Monadists, and especially Hanschy BmU 
 fiiiger, Canz, and Baumgarten, have arrived, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 99 
 
 by subtle speculations, to where tbe Pa/iw- 
 gemsist leads along the road of observation. 
 A man like Mr. Bonnet is not to be blamed 
 for not having read those German authors. 
 Leibnitz is the only one who could not be 
 unknown to him; and to this ornament of 
 Germany, Bonnet, as a Palingenesist, does 
 all possible justice. The successors of Leib- 
 nitz are not so generally known out of Ger- 
 many as they deserve to be ; but of myself, 
 as a German, Mr. Lavater might have taken 
 for granted^ that I had read our native 
 authors. 
 
 " Several passages in Mr. Lavaier's an- 
 swer strengthen my resolution never to enter 
 into a public controversy on religious topics. 
 He finds, in my confession, much which 
 seems to him paradoxical, enigmatical, and 
 inconceivable. I am not at all surprised at 
 it; for 1 can just as little see my way clearly 
 to his creed. However near we may come 
 to each other when the question is of mo- 
 rality and propriety, we still differ widely 
 when that of dogmas is agitated ; and 1 ap. 
 prehend we shall have to fall back a great 
 h2 
 
100 MEMOIRS. OF 
 
 distance beforei we coincide on the point 
 whence we could start together. The judg- 
 ment of mankind is so trained to habitual 
 notions, prepossessed opinions, and incul- 
 cated theories, that two men, like Mr. La- 
 vater and myself, who have been bred and 
 instructed on such heterogeneous principles, 
 must be of quite a different mind on many 
 points and opinions. In a matter so com- 
 plicated, and of such vital importance, the 
 least soar puts reason out of its orbit, and 
 the more impetuous Js its flight the further 
 will it stray. It is incumbent on the true, 
 philosopher to ?icknowledge this risk, and to 
 beware of it, for his own sake, as well as for 
 that of his fellow-creatures. He must, on 
 this account, not jalways be diffident of his 
 conviction; but when he has doubted with 
 reason, and once acquired certainty to the 
 best of his judgment, he ought to be easy 
 on that point, not letting the result of his 
 investigation evaporate through fickleness, 
 but proceeding in his further researches. 
 Nevertheless, he must not cease to bear in 
 mind that this is only his own cqnvictiony and^ 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. lol 
 
 that other rational beings who have started 
 from other points, and have followed differer?t 
 clues, may arrive at quite opposite con- 
 clusions. 
 
 " These sentiments I have adopted for many 
 years past, and have endeavoured, in conse- 
 quence, to observe a middle course between 
 a dogmatist and a sceptic. Dogmatically, in 
 the strictest sense of the word, have I made 
 up my mind, so far as regards myself, on 
 the most important points of religion and 
 morality; and I may say, that I am myself 
 rooted where I believe truth to prevail. But, 
 on the contrary, I am just as great a sceptic 
 when I am to judge my neighbours. I allow 
 every one the right which I claim for myself, 
 and place the utmost distrust in my capa- 
 city to bring over to my opinion one who 
 has likewise made up his mind ; therefore, it 
 cannot but be highly gratifying to me that 
 Mr. Lavater consents to close herewith our 
 public correspondence. 
 
 " Indeed, why should we let the public 
 witness such particularizations ? It does not 
 become either Mr, Lavater ox myself to 
 
102 BIEMOIRS OF 
 
 afford^ by these public exhibitions, diversion 
 td the idle, scandal to the weak and wicked, 
 or gratification to the scoffers, at what is 
 good and true. The truths which we recog' 
 nise, and espouse in common, are not yet 
 sufficiently current, that we may promise our- 
 selves any signal benefit to the good cause 
 from a public discussion of the points on 
 which we do not yet agree. What a blissc 
 ful world we should live in did all men 
 espouse and carry into practice, thoSe sacred 
 truths, in which the worthier Christian par- 
 ticipates with the worthier Jew ! (_May the 
 Lord Zeboath speedily bring on those happy 
 days, when no one shall hurt nor destroy, for 
 the tvhole earth shall be full of the hord as 
 the waters cover the sea* The day of 
 which it is written : And they shall teach no 
 more every man his neighbour, and every^ 
 man his brother, saying, know the Lord; for 
 they shall all know me, from the least of 
 them unto the greatest ofthem.'*-f 
 Here this matter would have quietly ended, 
 
 * Isaiah, xl. 9. 
 
 t Jerejniah, xxxi. 34. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 103 
 
 had it not been for the officious interference 
 of restless German authorship; which deluged 
 the literary market with a variety of pam- 
 phlets and a good quantum of trash on the 
 subject, to the annoyance of the public, and 
 especially of the celebrated correspondents. 
 The most prominent of these ephemeral pubr 
 lications, too prolix and too coarse to deserve 
 much mention here, was written by oweJohann 
 BaltJiasarKoelbek, oi Frankfort on theMaine; 
 a kind of pedantic nondescript, compounded 
 of lawyer, polemic, and — as he himself de- 
 clares — reclaimed deist; of course the more 
 furious zealot on the latter account. Menr- 
 delsohn did not deign to answer his epistle 
 formally, but he animadverted keenly upon 
 it, in a continuation to the preceding supple- 
 mentary remarks ; and gave, for once, a ^of, 
 that, when he had a mind, he could a,pply the 
 lash of satire as ably as he could handle a 
 philosophical argument.* These illiberal 
 attacks, however, strengthened him still more 
 
 * See an extract from Mendelsohn's Remarks on 
 J. B. Kolbele's Pamphlet, in the Appendix to this 
 work. 
 
104 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in his resolution never to engage in public 
 religious discussions, and to take no notice 
 of any controversial questions addressed to 
 him ; to which determination he ever after- 
 wards adhered. 
 
 So far the storm was now laid ; but Mendel- 
 sohn's late mental uneasiness, wounded feel- 
 ingSj bodily exertions, and above all, his an- 
 tipathy to strife and recrimination, increased 
 his disorder to such an alarming degree, that 
 he was no longer capable of intense medita- 
 tion, without feeling acute pain, in some part 
 of his body, and a violent head-ache, that 
 baffled all medical treatment. In this state 
 he lingered a considerable while. His friends 
 and reverers mourned for their teacher ; de- 
 spaired of his recovery from a complaint, 
 often fatal to the robust, much more so to 
 persons of his delicate constitution, and ex- 
 pected to hear no more treasures of thought 
 from his lips. Wisdom will act with pro- 
 priety on all occasions, but we best see its 
 effects in cases of emergency. When Men- 
 delsohn felt his strength rapidly declining, 
 he abstained entirely from reading and raedi- 
 
MOiSlES MENDELSOHN. lofe 
 
 tation, and, though lisiturally abstemious, 
 observed a more than usually rigorous regi- 
 men, that he might lose no chance of 
 recovery, and of becoming again useful to 
 his disciples and the public at large. During 
 his illness, he would not even participate in 
 any serious conversation ; and being once 
 asked how he i^sed his time, answered, 
 that, to drive away tedium, he counted the 
 pantiles on the neighbouring houses. The 
 celebrated Zimmerman, author of the *' Essay 
 on Solitude," pays Mendelsohn, somewhere, 
 an elegant compliment on the fortitude and 
 self-denial with which, he says, he had con- 
 trived to beat oflF, for a time, the great adver- 
 sary death, as calmly and effectually as he 
 had silenced his polemical adversaries. He 
 gradually recovered, 'and commemorated his 
 return to health by an admirable commentary 
 on the book of *' Ecclesiasticus." y 
 
 About this time, Frederic II. ordered the 
 Jewish code of civil laws to be laid before him, 
 in order to judge, whether it did not militate 
 against the laws of the land, and whether the 
 tribunals could fitly act by it, as heretofore. 
 
106 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in eases between one Jew and another. The 
 royal mandate was directed to the chief rabbi 
 of the Prussian monarchy, who requested 
 Mendelsohn to form a digest, in German, of 
 ^% <^ Hoshen kamishpat,'' i. e, the "Breast- 
 plate of Justice," principally as relating to 
 laws of inheritance, imniovable property, 
 minority, testa,mentary bequests, and oral 
 legaeies. He arranged what was required, 
 conjointly with the rabbi ; it was laid before 
 the king and council, approved of, and pub- 
 lished in 1778, under the title of "Ritual 
 Laws of the Jews."* 
 
 / In no part of Europe are Jews more 
 numerous than in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, 
 and Moravia. Their notorious prolificalness, 
 owing to religious, moral, and physiologia&l 
 causes, proved too great for a population 
 debarred, as it then was^ from most of the 
 resources of industry that were open to all 
 other members of civil society. The natural 
 consequence of such a precarious existence, 
 was emigration ; and like notnad hordes, who 
 leave the plains, which their flocks have laid 
 
 * Ritual' Gesexge ier Juden. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN; lor 
 
 bare, and go in search of fresh pasturage 
 elsewhere, so numbers of Polanders, Hunga- 
 rians, &c. used to issue forth, from time to 
 time, from their native land, to them no foster- 
 ing country — from the parental roof, to them no 
 cheerful home — from the circle of their starv- 
 ing wives and children, to them no solace — 
 and spread over Germany and Holland, with*- 
 out any trade, profession, or settled purpose 
 whatsoever. Some, it is true, took to com- 
 merce, and became, through their peculiar 
 shrewdness, versatility, and frugality, re- 
 spectable and opulent men, and ornaments to 
 society. Not a few acquired, through genius 
 and industry, skill in professions and the arts, 
 and even renown for literature and science : 
 but by far the greater part, either deterred 
 by the pride of scholarship, discouraged by 
 inexperience, or governed by indolence and 
 bad example, loathed itinerant traffic, and 
 chose the more convenient, and rather more 
 reputable, calling of religious teachers; a 
 drudgery which the less indigent and better 
 employed German and Dutch Jews were glad 
 to have taken off their own hands. However 
 
108 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "the general learned education of those emi- 
 grants^ might have qualified 'them for tuition^ 
 yet their ignorance of every interpreting 
 medium^ except their native language^ was a 
 most serious impediment. Thus Scripture, 
 which is taught to Jewish males from infancy, 
 was, formerly, expounded to them in a jargon, 
 so uncouth and barbarous, that the German 
 now spoken by the lower order of Jewsj 
 may be called, comparatively, pure and clas- 
 sical. The enlightened and philanthropic 
 had long been deprecating this practice, and 
 its prejudicial influence on religion and edu- 
 cation, and would have taken measures to 
 abolish it j but the self-interested pedagogues, 
 coalescing with bigoted parents, formed too 
 formidable an opposition, to be overcome by 
 any thing but coercion, which was, as it should 
 always be in matters of conscience, quite out 
 of the question. Thus the evil continued 
 unabated, in spite of the general improvement 
 of the age, and the laudable example of the 
 Portuguese Jews, who teach the written and 
 oral law in pure and grammatical Spanishi. 
 when Mendelsohn brought to light, in 1773,, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 109 
 
 his admirable translation of the Pentateuch ; 
 a work which forms an epoch in the history 
 of modern Judaism, and which^ for its vast 
 utility, and the immense good it has wrought, 
 entitles the author to the eternal gratitude 
 pf his nation. The excellencies of this 
 translation, which is printed in Hebrew cha- 
 racters,* opposite to the original, are too 
 well known and acknowledged, to require 
 enumeration. For elegance and perspicuity 
 it has no equal. Not an obscure or ambigu- 
 ous text, but what is made, clear ; not a noun 
 or verb, but what is rendered in its true 
 sense. His scrupuloutj attention .too to the 
 Massora, proves his veneration of ancient in- 
 stitutions; not a single vowel-point or accent 
 did he disturb ; nor did he, with philological 
 and antiquarian ostentalaon, ransack libraries, 
 :^nd travel in search of monuments, for new 
 versions; or pretend to supply chasms, prune 
 redundancies, or alter readings. The preface, 
 as a treatise on the lyric songs in the books 
 of Moses, and on the general rules of Hebrew 
 poetry, so extolled by poets of all nations, is 
 * There is also an edition printed in Gerjpaan characters. 
 
no MEMOIRS OF 
 
 a classical work by itself. Not but what the 
 introduction of this useful book in seminaries, 
 metj at first, with partisil resistance by a 
 remnant of fanatics of the age of darkness, 
 sworn enemies to improvement, and trembling 
 at every new measure, however judicious 
 and salutary, which they were sure to stigma* 
 tize with the odious terms of heresy and 
 encroachment ; but Mendelsohn's and his 
 ingenious pupils' previous writings, had hap- 
 pily so undermined the arguments of these 
 gainsayers, that the concentrated rays of this 
 meridian sun of reformation, could not fail of 
 •exploding their power altogether. Moses the 
 son of Amram delivered his brethren from 
 bodily slavery ; the glorious task of emanci- 
 pating their minds was reserved for Mose$ 
 the son of Mendel. His brethren duly appre- 
 ciated the boon, and his Pentateuch has ever 
 since remained the basis of the religious 
 and moral education of their children of both 
 sexes. 
 
 In the year 1783, Mendelsohn published 
 his metrical translation of the Psalms of 
 David. It is the opinion of the learned in 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. IH 
 
 general, that the poetical works of antiquity, 
 taken together, bear no comparison to the 
 Hebrew Hagiography, Mendelsohn exempli- 
 fied this decision to the unlearned by exhi- 
 biting the sublimity of the sacred Bard's 
 thoughts, and the beauty of his versification. 
 It is evident, throughout this performance, 
 that every chord touched by the royal 
 Harper caused a responsive one to vibrate 
 in the bosom of his translator. Other 
 versions of the Psalms may lay a claim 
 to greater philological nicety, but none 
 breathes, like Mendelsohn's, the spirit and 
 energy of the original in its minutest shades. 
 Every deep sigh vented by the Poet swells, 
 as it were, the translator's heart with a cor- 
 responding one ; at every lofty hymn to the 
 God of Israel for the wonders he wrought 
 for his people, it throbs with sympathizing 
 exultation. He was ten years in accomplish- 
 ing this work, during which he always car- 
 ried the Hebrew Psalms, bound with alter- 
 nate blank leaves, about him. In the pre- 
 face he says, he did not translate them in 
 their regular order, but selected any one of 
 
}12 ' MEMOIRS OF 
 
 which the tenour was in unison with the state 
 his mind happened to be in^ and recommends 
 to the reader to adopt the same method. 
 This translation he caused to be printed in 
 German characters, partly to give it a uni- 
 versal circulation, and partly to avoid the 
 orthographical inaccuracies inseparable from 
 German printed with Hebrew letters. — The 
 translation of the Song of Solomon was pub- 
 lished after his death by the Jewish Society 
 for promoting merit and information amongst 
 the Jews. Mendelsohn's principal object was 
 to operate the cultivation of his brethren by 
 means of Scripture; a method which has 
 been strongly recommended by several of 
 his learned successors. Scripture forms a 
 Jew's religious and civil codcj and is con- 
 sequently the source of his most important 
 knowledge; useful truths, when conveyed 
 through this medium, make the deeper im- 
 pression, and become, in a manner, sacred to 
 him. 
 
 Like his prototype and namesake Moses, 
 Mendelsohn delivered his people from the 
 bondage of their benighted, taskmasters ', 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 113 
 
 like him, he led them forty years through 
 the desert of ignorance and superstition, 
 during which he sustained them with the 
 manna of his wisdom, bore meekly and 
 patiently with their stubbornness and per^ 
 versity, and defeated their adversaries ; and, 
 like him too, he now stood on the summit of 
 Nebo, with the noble prospect before him of 
 the promised land of knowledge and general 
 information, religious and moral improve- 
 ment, and progressive civil and political 
 restoration. — Alas ! neither was he allowed ta 
 enter it; for he had but four years more to 
 live. How short a space of time ! but which 
 nevertheless produced the mightiest efforts of 
 his genius. Happily he had formed and left 
 behind him more than one Joshua, who com- 
 pleted the work which he so gloriously began, 
 Counsellor Von Dohm's celebrated work, 
 " On the Condition of the Jews as Citizens of 
 ^he State,"* which appeared in 1781, in- 
 duced Mendelsohn to translate Manasseh 
 Ben Israel's Apohgy for the Jews from the 
 Engli'Sh, and accompany it with a preface^ 
 
 * Ueber die bwrgerliche Verfaesung der Juden. 
 I 
 
114 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 which is universally considered a master- 
 piece, not inferior to many of Tully's ora- 
 tions. Von Dohm's work became exceed- 
 ingly popular. He founded his arguments 
 for the civil amelioration of the Jews, on the 
 one hand, on the principles of justice and 
 humanity; and on the other, on those of 
 sound policy and political economy. The 
 ministers of several German sovereigns so- 
 licited his detailed opinion on the feasibility 
 of reconciling agriculture and mechanical 
 trades, civic and military duty, with the 
 Israelitish ceremonial law. — Some bad it 
 already in contemplation to form villages and 
 small townSj and colonize them with Jews, 
 Tinder municipal officers of their own per- 
 suasion. Innumerable were the memorials, 
 projects, hints, and suggestions, of which 
 the prolific German press was delivered on 
 that occasion. The greatest part, however, 
 agreed, that the Jewish nation had not, 
 hitherto, been fairly dealt with, and that it 
 was time they should share in the rights of 
 their species, in common with other classes 
 of society.— jAbout this time, too, that en- 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, H5 
 
 lightened prince Joseph II., emperor of Ger- 
 many, issued the memorable " Decree of 
 Toleration;" in consequence of which the 
 condition of the numerous Jews under his 
 sceptre was rendered comparatively com- 
 fortable. — Nevertheless, it would have been 
 extravagant to expect that a measure of 
 such magnitude and importance should suc- 
 ceed without difficulties. Of those inter- 
 posed on one side it is not necessary to 
 speak here. The bulk of the Jews, especially 
 in the remote provinces, were yet too much 
 taken up by daily cares to find inclination 
 or leisure for the novelties of literature ; and 
 the mystic and miracle-struck rabbis, in 
 whose estimation the greatest of all miracles, 
 the gradual emancipation of the Jews, was 
 too simple in its operation, its causes too 
 comprehensible, and its teeming — though as 
 yet partial — accomplishment too near, to 
 deserve the name of one, took no trouble 
 to excite the attention of their flocks, and 
 remained ostensibly neutral. Now it was that 
 the grand champion once more raised his 
 voice in the before-mentioned preface. 
 i2 
 
116 MEMOIRS 01^* 
 
 "God be praised," said he, ''for having 
 sustained me, that I may yet see, in the 
 evening^ of my life, the blossoms of charity 
 and goodwill between man and man expand, 
 and ripen into fruit. In his mercy, he has 
 raised up in the land illustrious and vir- 
 tuous individuals, to rouse the better feelings 
 of .the nation against the oppression and 
 sufferings of brethren living under their pro- 
 tection. Mr. Von Dokm, as a benevolent 
 and unprejudiced man, patronises the Jews ; 
 as a sagacious and patriotic statesman he 
 foresees and covets the benefits which would 
 accrue to the civil government, through their 
 naturalization. Permanent prosperity, he is 
 £|.ware, will be attained, when guilds and 
 corporations are abolished, and trades and 
 professions thrown open to all subjects. The 
 riches of a country consist in the industry 
 of its inhabitants. What rendered Holland, 
 a cluster of swampy and barren islets, one 
 of the most fertile and wealthy states of 
 Europe, but the liberality and toleration of 
 its government? There the oppressed and 
 persecuted in other parts of Europe found a 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, 117 
 
 safe refuge ; the skilful and industrious A scopd 
 for their exertions : there they settled, prosj 
 pered, grew powerful, and, in half a century, 
 the desert was transformed into a paradise. 
 
 " It is objected by some, that the Jews are 
 both too indolent for agriculture, and too proud 
 for mechanical trades ; that if the restrictions 
 were removed, they would uniformly select 
 the arts and sciences, as less laborious and 
 more profitable, and soon engross all light, 
 genteel, and learned professions. But let 
 not those be hearkened to, who thus argue. 
 They conclude, from the present state of 
 things, how they will be in i\iQ future, which 
 is not a fair mode of reasoning. What should 
 induce a Jew to waste his time, in learning 
 to manage the plough, the trowel, the plane, 
 Stc. whilst he knows he can make no practical 
 use of them ? But put them into his hands, 
 and suffer him to follow the bent of his in- 
 clinations, as freely as other subjects, and the 
 result will not long be doubtful. Men of 
 genius and talent will, of course, embrace 
 the learned professions; those of inferior 
 capacities will turn their minds to mechanical 
 
118 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 trades; the rustib will cultivate the land; 
 each will contribute, according to his station 
 in life, his quota to the aggregate of pro- 
 ductive labour. 
 
 "I cannot, however, refrain from express- 
 ing my surprise at Mr. Von Dokm's ideas of 
 church government and ecclesiastical power, 
 * To the elders of the synugogties^' he says, 
 'belongs the duty of keeping ci watchful eye on 
 their congregations. They are to be invested 
 with the authority of punishing every Jew 
 who deviates from the essentials of his creeds 
 with anathema, excommunication) and expul- 
 sion from their congregation.' I am at a loss 
 what to think of an author, who holds the 
 olive-branch in one hand, and the torch of 
 discord in the other. It will, therefore, be 
 requisite to inquire, publicly, whether it be 
 proper to give men the power of arraigning 
 and punishing others for religious and philo- 
 sophical opinions. 
 
 '' Civilized society requires of its members 
 rectitude of conduct and purity of intention. 
 These are the pivots on which the social 
 Qompaot turns, the foundation of confidence 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 119 
 
 and security in all mutual transactions through 
 life. With regard to the conservation of pub- 
 lic morality, it belongs to that magistrate to 
 whom the sovereign, with the advice of his 
 council, has delegated such authority. It is 
 his province to try all cases of oppression, 
 fraud, and affray; to punish the offender, 
 and to right the injured. The magistrate 
 being thus invested with authority, it can 
 make no difference at all to jis whether he 
 be of this or of that religion ; for so soon as 
 we behold him seated in the judgment^seat, 
 it behoves us to trust in him, that he will not 
 pervert the law, nor be partial to suitors, 
 whether Jews or Gentiles, natives or foreigur 
 ers, but administer even-handed justice to all 
 alike.J The patient stretched on the bed of 
 sickness, and within a step of eternity, will 
 implicitly confide in his physician, and take 
 whatever he prescribes, without asking whe- 
 ther he believes in the God of Israel or i^ot; 
 because he knows it is the physician's bu- 
 siness to cure the sick, and his duty to 
 attend, and endeavour to give relief, to every 
 one who has recourse to his abilities, If we 
 
120 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 act thus^ where life and health, the most 
 precious gifts we hold, are concerned, we 
 may surely in matters of dispute or im- 
 position, which involve only property, and 
 other external things, safely place our reliance 
 on the judge appointed by the sovereign, let 
 him be of what religion he may, without fear 
 that a difference in belief will have any in- 
 fluence in his decision. Purity of intention, 
 on the contrary, is vested in the heart of 
 every rational being ; it does not depend on 
 the will, but on the understanding; and is 
 therefore not subject to magisterial control, 
 nor ought its opposite to be liable to punish- 
 ment by the hands of man. 
 
 " What sensible person would pretend to 
 reform his neighbour's thoughts, or to chasten 
 his heart by coercion ? If we meet, in society, 
 with a man of a froward heart, with wild and 
 improper notions on the fundamental points 
 of religion, we have no other power, but to 
 reason with him in a mild and conciliating 
 manner, and try to persuade him, by patient 
 argument, to dismiss his erroneous opinions, 
 and return to the wholesome doctrine j in 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. ml 
 
 which we may persevere, uatil we are certain 
 that the delusion has left him. If we find him 
 incorrigible, it will be better to discontinue 
 our efforts, lest we should convert a sceptic, 
 who had, at least, the merit of sincerity, into 
 a hypocrite and a liar. Would it not be 
 preferable to rouse his conscience, ahd mor- 
 tify his presumption, by showing him the 
 humbleness of his condition, in regard to the 
 Deity whom he disparages, than to stun him 
 with abuse, heap shame and ignominy on his 
 character, and, perhaps, prove his ruin? It 
 is a widely different case when such a man 
 is offensively licentious or blasphemous in 
 public, when he sets a bad example to the 
 community he belongs to, by proceedings 
 subversive of morality, decency, and social 
 order; then he steps out of this class,' enters 
 the first, and his conduct becomes cognizable 
 to the magistrate, who, if he find him guilty, 
 is to punish him for what he has been doing, 
 but not for what he has been thinking. How 
 much less right, then, have we to be indig- 
 nant and vindicative on account of things, 
 which, with our frail reason, we presume a 
 
122 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 maif capable of doing ! A practice but too 
 prevalent amongst the lower orders of society. 
 After the most sedulous search in the Talmud 
 and in the whole range of philosophical and 
 ethical learning, I have not been able to find 
 a single passage to justify sovereigns and 
 governments in persecuting sectarians or 
 dissenters from the established religion. If 
 these dissenters are, occasionally, in the 
 wrong, they are not wilfully so. The Creator 
 implanted in them, as in all men, a longing 
 after knowledge and perfection ; they suppose 
 themselves to be in the path of truth; — if 
 they swerve from it in the integrity of their 
 hearts, is that a sufficient reason for hatred 
 and persecution? 
 
 ''Beware then, brethren, of judging un- 
 charitably of your neighbours ; desist from 
 dealing out anathema and excommunication 
 xDn him who falls inadvertently. Rather draw 
 him unto ye, with mild words and gentle 
 persuasion. Forbid him not your meetings ; 
 let not the doors of your assemblies and 
 places of worship be shut to him when be 
 comes to pour out his heart before his Maker. 
 
/ MOSES MENDELSOHN. 123 
 
 If ye do, if ye cast him off, and consider 
 him as a stranger, ye cut off the return to 
 repentance ; the guilt is yours, he \&^-douhly 
 innocent. [The house of God should be acces- 
 sible to all; it is properly the abode of 
 universal love, and peace should encompass 
 it; let then every mortal enter it, and adore 
 the Supreme Being as his individual feeliagg 
 guide him. Moreover, king Solomon prayed, 
 concerning a stranger that is not of thy people 
 Israel, but cometh out of afar coumtry for thy 
 name's sake^ 8fc. ; When he shall come and pray 
 towards this house, hear thou in heaven thy 
 dwelling-place, and do according to all that 
 the stranger calleth to thee for.* And ye, 
 esteemed Christians, eminent for wisdom and 
 learning, if it be your wish to promote peace 
 and brotherly love amongst mankind, do not 
 countenance with the force of your intellect 
 the sway of one man ov'cr the religious 
 opinions of another. God alone searches 
 
 the heart, and knows our secret thoughts. 
 
 We are but of yesterday, and know nothing. 
 Show me a single instance in our holy law, 
 * 1 Kings, viii, 43. 
 
124 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 where it gives man a correctional jurisdiction 
 over the thoughts and opinions of others. 
 Our rabbinical doctors ordain, tlutt sacrifices 
 are to be accepted of the trmtsgressofs of 
 Israel, to give them a chance of repentance.* 
 Do not deem it wise to rule the people with 
 a rod of iron. Violence will not abide under 
 the roof of Wisdom, nor will persecution, 
 coercion, and degradation prevail where she 
 presides. Do not proclaim on one side the 
 treaty of peace and amity, and on the other 
 the manifesto of war ; but do justice, pursue 
 righteousness, and teach truth in the paths of 
 unaniiaity. Leave supremacy to God, and 
 love each other like brethren, &c. &c.-*'J 
 
 Towards the close of that year there 
 appeared a small anonymous work under 
 the title of ^^Search after Light and the 
 Right,"f in which Mendelsohn was sharply 
 attacked on account of his sentiments on 
 ecclesiastical power, which the author, a 
 man of first-rate talents, pronounced as dia- 
 metrically opposite to the Mosaic law, which 
 
 * Treatise Hullin, i* e. of unholy things, 
 t Forschen mch Licht mid Mecht, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, 125 
 
 ordaitis stripes for disobedience, and curses 
 on scepticism. Whence iie pretends to dis- 
 cover a great approximation to the Christian 
 religion, probably the consequence of a ma- 
 turer reflection on Lavater's or Bonnet's 
 arguments, and exultingly congratulates his 
 own church on the conversion of the Hebrew 
 philosopher. 
 
 This induced Mendelsohn to declare once 
 more his full opinion of religion and tole- 
 ration; and in 1783, he published the work 
 called '' Jerusalem, or on religious Power and 
 Judaism."* Notwithstanding this work was 
 more criticised than any of his preceding 
 ones, as the author advanced in it some posi- 
 tions on law, both natural and ecclesiastical, 
 but especially the latter, which were dia- 
 metrically opposed to generally received 
 opinions ; — notwithstanding it was declaimed 
 against by Christians, as well as by those of 
 his own persuasion, for the manner in which 
 Judaism is vindicated, it shows, throughout, 
 the masterly hand of the gfeat philosopher 
 and elegant writer, who understood the art 
 
 * Jerusalem, joder ueber reUgioese Macht und Judenthum, 
 
126 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of clothing the most abstruse thoughts in the 
 drapery of the Graces. And although no 
 subject has been, during the last half-century, 
 so multifariously handled as toleration, we 
 do not recollect having read, any where, a 
 passage on it so pathetic and forcible as 
 that in the ^' Jerusalem." In the first part 
 of the work he defines, on the principles of 
 the social compact, the extent of church 
 authority, vested in the elders of dlien con- 
 gregations, over such of their members as 
 dissent from the fundamental points of reli- 
 gion; and inquires, whether they have a right, 
 iu such cases, to inflict anathema or excom- 
 munication, &c. &c. In the second part, 
 which is entirely dedicated to the vindication 
 of Judaism, there is a passage wherein he 
 expresses hiinself, in Substance, thus : 
 
 " The anonymous author, (of Search after 
 Light and the Right,) chuckling at his fancied 
 discovery of my dissenting opinions from the 
 Mosaic faith, exclaims, 'Would to God 
 Mendelsohn would do homage to truth, as it 
 prevails in his heart, and that we could see 
 him throw himself into the arms of our church, 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 12?- 
 
 &c. &c.' — Then he expatiates, in very flowery 
 language, on the beauty and excellence of 
 his religion, as inculcating love, peace, and 
 goodwill amongst mankind, as abhorring 
 rigour and coercion, &c. Now, anonymous 
 friend, give me leave to request your advice 
 in a particular emergency.' — Suppose a fire 
 should break out in my dwelling-house ; the 
 flames have already gutted the ground-floor, 
 and the foundation-posts begin to totter. 
 Will you have me fly for safety to the upper 
 story ? Can I rationally hope to find, safety 
 on the roof, whilst the lower part of the 
 building, which supports it, is falling in? — 
 When you find a man of judgment entertain 
 opinions subversive of the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation, does the question never occur to you, 
 <What will become of the Christian one, 
 which is founded on it?' — Verily, Searcher 
 after Light and the Right ! were I not purely, 
 for the sake of light and the right, inclined to 
 expatiate somewhat further, I should here 
 have closed my discourse at once, by showing 
 you, that your concluding wishes are in direct 
 contradiction with the principles in which you 
 
128 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 set out. However> I cannot lay down my 
 pen, till I have introduced light into every 
 part of this inquiry/ in order- to rebut 
 the insidious insinuations made by Mer-. 
 schel,* your 'squire, who says, he finds me as 
 remote from Christianity, as you suppose me 
 to be from Judaism, and that I am not much 
 better than a deist. This notable discovery, 
 the gentleman, a total stranger to me, founds 
 upon a passage ''in my preface to Manassek 
 Ben Israel's Apology, Sfc. where I say, ' The 
 house of God is accessible to all, it is the 
 abode of universal love, and peace encom- 
 passes it; let every mortal enter it^ and 
 adore the Supreme Being as he lists' He 
 also draws a false conclusion, from my claim- 
 ing equal rights and toleration in behalf of 
 virtuous men of every religion; and main- 
 tains, in downright opposition to me, that it 
 is impossible any believer in a recognised 
 and established religion can lend his temple 
 indiscriminately to every worshipper, unless 
 he himself be indifferent to that religion. 
 
 * Merschel wrote a contin\iatioii of the "Search after 
 Lightj 8cc." which was printed along with it. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 129 
 
 Finally, he desires me to be candid with him^ 
 as to my real thoughts of religion; and pro- 
 tests before the public, that he is no ways 
 desirous of seducing me from mine, nor does 
 he think it desirable to give me an oppor- 
 tunity of attacking his, which has been the 
 comfort and solace of his life. All this 
 desiring and not desiring is = 0. However, 
 I will be plain, and show the reader the 
 course I take in inquiries like these. Per- 
 haps Mr. Merschel may find what he desires 
 and-^what he does not desire." 
 
 As a practical philosopher, in evefy 
 sense of this term, Mendelsohn had, for 
 some time, been inculcating- the truths of 
 natural philosophy to his eldest son Joseph, 
 to his son in law, and to another young man 
 of promising talents. He delivered to them 
 methodical lectures every morning for two 
 or three hours after sunrise, which he ar- 
 ranged for the press in 1785, under the title 
 of " Morning Hours,* or Lectures on the 
 Existence of God;'^ and which he intended 
 
 * Morgenstunden ; oder Vortesungen ueber das'Vaseyn 
 Gottes, 
 
130 MEMOffiS OF 
 
 to continue from time to time. The last 
 sheets of the first volume were in the com- 
 poser's hands when Jacobi, privy counsellor 
 to the Elector of Bavaria at DusseMorf^ 
 wrote to a learned Berlin lady, an acquaint- 
 ance of Mendelsohn's, that having heard that 
 the latter contemplated writing the life of 
 Lessing^ he wished to learn, through her 
 means, whether Mendelsohn was privy to his 
 friend's metaphysical principles, he (Jacobi) 
 having good reason to believe Lessing to 
 have been a Spinozist. This_ commttnication 
 was no sooner made to Mendelsohn than he 
 wrote to Jacobi, hitherto a stranger to him, 
 for proofs of this odious assertion; and re- 
 ceived, in reply, merely the substance of a 
 former conversation between the latter and 
 Lessinff^ which, if it proved Spinozism at all, 
 brought it home to the accuser rather than 
 to the accused. Shortly afterwards the first 
 volume of the Hours of Morning appeared, 
 wherein Mendelsohn raised that imperishable 
 monument to his departed friend of which 
 we have spoken in another part of this 
 biography. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 131 
 
 Jacobi felt very sore at this, and appre- 
 hending a public exposure of his principles 
 hy Mendelsohn, anticipated it by publishing 
 " Letters to Mr. Mendelsohn on the Doctrine 
 of Spinoza^" in which he confessed his pre- 
 dilection for that system, endeavouring, at 
 the same time, to extenuate it by saying, that 
 where reason would not suffice, faith sup- 
 plied, with him, the deficiency ; that he was 
 still true to the belief of his fathers, but that 
 Lessing had been an implicit Spin^zist. — 
 To vituperate this stanchest advocate of 
 the pure religion of nature, the author of 
 Natlian, the most popular writer of Ger- 
 many, — to vituperate him in the manner 
 Jacobi did, was tantamount to holding him 
 up not only as an atheist and blasphemer, 
 but likewise as a hypocrite and scoffer: it 
 was throwing suspicion on the principles and 
 maxims of one of Germany's most authori- 
 tative writers. Could Mendelsohn, his heart 
 glowing with friendship and affection, suffer 
 the memory of his dearest, his never-to- 
 be-forgotten friend, to be thus wantonly 
 vilified ? Could he sit still, and see the man 
 
 k2 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to whom he was indebted for his principal 
 mental cultivation j the man who had in- 
 troduced him, as it were, in spite of him- 
 self, to the public as an author, stript of 
 his fame, his rectitude, and. veracity ? No; 
 a vindication was due not only to the de- 
 ceased, but to the nation, to the world at 
 large; particularly as Jacobi did not hesi- 
 tate to hint that Mendelsohn also was tainted 
 with infidelity, and offered to teach him the 
 way of, saving himself from that perdition to 
 which his speciilations were likely to lead ; 
 with similar aspersions, which sensibly hurt 
 the good man's feelings. Indeed, his friends 
 had never seen him so dejected and taciturn 
 as he then was. Regardless of his tottering 
 frame ; greatly emaciated , with composing 
 the. first part of the " Morning Hours ; " 
 subduing his horror of controversy of any 
 kind, and of religious in particular ; anxious 
 only to remove the first impression which 
 Jacobi's work might have made, he wrote 
 the , " Moses Mendelsohn to the Friends of 
 Lesmig,"* and sacrificed the last remainder 
 * Moies Mendelsohn an die Freunde Lessingi, . 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 133 
 
 of his strength to the cause of friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Independent of the subject of debate, 
 namely, Lessing's Spinozism, this little 
 ^ork contains an important exposition con- 
 cerning the distinctions between speculative 
 opinions and plain common sense, and the 
 guiding and disciplining of the former by 
 the latter. " In the Jerusalem," says Men- 
 delsohn, " I have, once for all, declared my 
 sentiments on theological matters, by which 
 I shall abide as long as I live. From my 
 earliest youth I delighted in profound in- 
 quiry ; even now I meet with new branches 
 of the science of nature, which yield proofs of 
 eternal truths as firm and irrefragable as any 
 mathematical demonstration. But it is not 
 by them alone that I stand. My adversaries 
 may all rise against me, they may shake the 
 principles on which I founded my inquiries ; 
 overthrow whatever I have advanced, and 
 explode for ever all my theories ; yet they 
 shall not disturb, in my heart, one atom of 
 those eternal truths which I believe will pre- 
 vail and endure for ever. Through all the 
 
134 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 walks of life, through all its gradations and 
 incidents^ we meet with proofs innumerable 
 to corroborate our faith in those eternal 
 truths. How expressive is the exclamation 
 of that Greenlander who, seeing the rays of 
 the rising sun pierce the mist, and shed 
 their lustre on the snow-clad mountains, cried 
 out to a German clergyman, ' Look, brother, 
 looh ; the returning light of deny! if the 
 creation is so excellent, how excellent must 
 the Creator be /' With all my inquiries and 
 study, one such scene is sufficient to demon- 
 strate to me the truth of those sublime les- 
 sons, and of the words of the sacred Bard : 
 
 He that planted the ear^ shall he not hear ? He that 
 formed the eye, shall he not see ? 
 
 He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not 
 know ?* 
 
 Whatever plain sense, which is common to 
 all men, taught me, that is before me, like 
 the light at noon-day. So long as the study 
 of any science assists me in fathoming and 
 comprehending the laws of nature, I follow 
 it with satisfaction and delight j but when it 
 * Psalm xciv. 9, 10. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 1S5 
 
 proves insufficient J I leave the path of in- 
 quiry, and trust to the solution of common 
 sense only, which never deceives me. Let 
 the proficient pursue this course before he 
 runs his head against the dark mountains-, 
 which wiseacres and mislpaders have raised 
 in the walks of inquiry, he will discern and 
 know it as the unobstructed path which the 
 sincere will tread to acquire the knowledge 
 of God, and of the true and eternal doctrine 
 on which our happiness depends." 
 
 In that part of the work " which immedi- 
 ately concerns Lessing, both the philosopher's 
 heart and mind appear in extreme agitation. 
 The bitterness and indignation of stung 
 friendship pervade every line ; the ;pro- 
 foundest sagacity is relieved by flashes of 
 the most exquisite irony, and the very pro- 
 bable turn which he manages to give to 
 Lessing's conversation with Jacobi is a mas- 
 ter-stroke in its kind. — ^Perhaps Mendelsohn 
 has taken this affair rather too seriously; 
 but his generous heart could certainly not 
 have viewed it in any other light. This dis- 
 pute made Kant say, with no less wit than 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 truths " It is Mendelsohn's fault that JmoU 
 thinks himself a philosopher." 
 
 This quarrel had, however^ a very, inju- 
 rious effect on his health, and it also . de- 
 ranged the plan of the second volume of the 
 " Morning Hours" in which he purposed 
 inserting the correspondence with, Jacobi^ 
 whence the dispute originated. He could 
 not now postpone this work so as to finish it 
 with his accustomed calmness, and he used 
 extraordinary exertions to form an entirely 
 new arrangem'ent, both as to the introduc- 
 tion of matter and the mode of. developing 
 it. The effervescence which this intense ap- 
 plication caused in his blood, together with 
 the constitutional weakness of his nerves, 
 required only a trifling casualty to render the. 
 result fatal. Returning from the synagogue on 
 a frosty Saturday morning, he caught a cold, 
 which terminated his career on the following 
 Wednesday, the 4th of January, 1786, at the 
 age of fifty-seven years and four months. ; 
 
 Mendelsohn died as he had lived, calm and 
 placid; and took an earthly smile with. him 
 into eternity. 'When his death became 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 137 
 
 known, the whole city of Berlin was a scene 
 of unfeigned sorrow. The citizens of all 
 denominations looked upon the event as a 
 national calamity. The nobility, the court, 
 sent letters of condolence to the widow; 
 Professor Rammkr, amongst several other 
 celebrated poets, wrote a beautiful elegy on 
 his death in alternate stanzas by the Jewish 
 and Christian nations, represented by two 
 mourning females, Sulamith and Eusebia ; 
 and the learned of all parts of Europe, 
 where his writings were known, paid him a 
 tribute of their respect by joining the general 
 lamentation. 
 
 Mendelsohn was of a short stature, very 
 thin, and deformed in the back. His com- 
 plexion was very dark and sallow ; hair 
 black and curly ; nose rather large and 
 aquiline. A gentle smile constantly played 
 round his mouth, which was always a little 
 open. Nothing could exceed the fire of his 
 eyes ; and there was so much kindness, 
 modesty, and benevolence portrayed on his 
 countenance, that he won every heart at 
 first sight. His vaulted brow, and the general 
 
138 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 cast of his features, bespoke a vast intellect 
 and noble heart. 
 
 Intense meditation, to which he had dedi- 
 cated almost the whole of his life, could not 
 but become injurious to a frame so delicate 
 and so untowardly constructed. Still this 
 excellent man continued his pursuits with- 
 out any sensible deterioration of his health, 
 so long as his labours were merely specu- 
 lative; but when Lavater's challenge in- 
 volved his feelings also, he then suddenly 
 felt the most dreadful consequences of his 
 mode of living; and had it not been for 
 the fortitude with which, as a truly practical 
 sage, he renounced, for entire years, all 
 physical and mental enjoyment, he would 
 have probably been much earlier snatched 
 away from the world and from his friends. 
 From sensual gratification he abstained 
 firmly to the end. It was inconceivable, 
 that the quantity of food, to which he 
 restricted himself, could sustain a human 
 being ; and, at the same time, it was aflfectr 
 ing to see him press his guests, good-hu- 
 mouredly, to partake of viands and liquors. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN, 139 
 
 which himself, though ever so desirous, durst 
 not venture to taste. But the spiritual en- 
 joyment of reading, and the still more attrac- 
 tive one of composing, he, who was all 
 spirit, could not continue to forego. Short 
 compositions, on which he might have ven- 
 tured with impunity in his serene hours, 
 enticed him further and further. He began 
 to rake up his former favourite ideas, and 
 had the world but suffered him to go on in 
 his own way, had they not forced him, once 
 more, out of the sphere of tranquil specula- 
 tion, he would, probably, have preserved his 
 life several years longer. 
 
 He was very fond of company, and never 
 courted solitude, except from four or five 
 o'clock in the morning, till about eight or 
 nine, when he adjourned to his counting- 
 house, and remained there till noon. After 
 dinner, he generally attended to business 
 again, till about four in the afternoon. About 
 this hour, his friends and pupils used to meet 
 at his house, and on his return, he usually 
 found a numerous assembly in his room, 
 who anxiously awaited his appearance. There 
 
140 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 were theologians, literati, philosophers, pub- 
 lic functionaries, merchants, natives, foreign- 
 ers, old and young, in promiscuous groups, 
 with whom he conversed till eight o'clock 
 on various topics. 
 
 He possessed, in an eminent degree, the 
 talent of conversing with each person on 
 his individual pursuits ; and that, with such 
 judgment and technicality, as if the pursuit 
 had been peculiarly his own. He would 
 never «aaintain any. thing positively, but al- 
 ways made his assertions appear like a pro- 
 blem, beginning his remarks, for instance, 
 with the words, " I should think," " It may 
 be said," " What is your opinion ?" " Sup- 
 pose we say," &c. In his discourses, indeed, 
 we never lose sight of his illustrious model, 
 Socrates.* 
 
 He had, by nature, a rich vein of satire, 
 
 * A young man, anxious to parade his learning, craved 
 his opinion on a passage in £6en Esra on special Pro- 
 vidence. " I do not comprehend the meaning of it my- 
 self," sai^ Mendelsohn j "but in order to ascertain the 
 distinction, it will be best to contemplate the works of 
 God, his goodness and mercy to all his creatures, and 
 then it will be time enough to gtudy Ebm Esra," 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 141 
 
 approaching very nearly to the irony of the 
 Greek philosophers ; it pierced, like the 
 sting of a bee, those, on whom he found it, 
 occasionally, necessary to inflict it. But he 
 was always on his guard, and stiffled many 
 a witty thought, from fear of giving offence. 
 
 The great Frederic once sent for him, to 
 come to Pofzdam. It happened to be Satur- 
 day, on which day Jews are not allowed to 
 ride on horseback or in coaches. Mendelsohn 
 therefore entered the royal residence on foot. 
 The officer on duty, a sprig of nobility, who, 
 of course, had never read either " Pkeedon/' 
 or the "Philosophical Letters," being in- 
 formed that he was a Jew, called Mendelibhn, 
 asked, amidst a volley of swearing and 
 guard-room wit, what could have procured 
 him the honour of being called to the king ? 
 The terrified philosopher replied, with the 
 true causticity of Diogenes, " I am a slight of 
 hand player." ''Oh \" says the lieutenant, 
 ''that's another afiair," and suffered the y«^- 
 gler Mendelsohn to pass, when he would have 
 examined — who knows how long ? — the philO' 
 sopher Mendelsohn, and perhaps have arrested 
 
142 ' MEMOIRS OF 
 
 him in the guard-room; since it is well 
 known that more jugglers than philosophers 
 pass through palace gates. 
 
 It was an invariable rule with him, never 
 to enter into a discussion, on any particular 
 matter, without first coming to a perfect 
 understanding on the fundamental principles ; 
 for he maintained — ^truly enough ! — that the 
 majority of literary squabbles arise from 
 definitions misunderstood. The Polish rab- 
 bis usually call their learned conversations 
 '^ disputes/' because they immediately inter- 
 pose objections and subtleties before the 
 question is fairly stated. This Mendelsohn 
 dislfls-ed above all things. One day, one of 
 these gentry tumbled into his room, then 
 full of company, and, in their unceremonious 
 way, accosted him with '* I am come to 
 have a dispute* with you. Rabbi Moses I" " I 
 protest, before this company," said Mendel- 
 sohn, good-humouredly, *^*^that we are at peace 
 with each other, and it shall not be broken." 
 How many thousands of polemical volumes 
 there would be less in the world, if every 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 143 
 
 one attacked, from no other motive than that 
 of the rabbi, had confined their answer to 
 Mendelsohn's pacific declaration ! 
 
 To the decisions of sound common sense 
 he was remarkably partial, and deemed it 
 the principal element of his philosophy. There 
 are several lettqrs of his, on mercantile 
 affairs, still extant,, in which he invariably 
 appeals to it, as the highest tribunal, and 
 also refers to the same, all friends who ap- 
 plied to him for advice. 
 
 Providence had blessed him with affluence. 
 His fortune enabled him to live genteelly, ' 
 keep a hospitable table, and support both his 
 own, and his wife's poor relations, with a 
 most liberal hand. Whenever any one had 
 occasion for Jiis good offices, and they were 
 successful, the inward gratification of the 
 philanthropist was seen to beam on his coun- 
 tenance. Many traits of integrity, magna- 
 nimity, and humanity, are still the favourite 
 theme of his friends' conversations ; to recite 
 them here, would not be in keeping with the 
 biography of the most retired, the most 
 modest of men. 
 
144 MEMomS OF 
 
 How highly he was esteemed by the literati 
 of Berlin, appears from the articles respect- 
 ing him in the " Berlin Monthly Magazine," 
 in Nicolai's " German Library/' and par- 
 ticularly from the preface written to his last 
 work, "To the Friends of Lessing," by the 
 professors Emgel and Herz. This preface is 
 the most unintentional — and therefore the 
 most affecting — eulogy on the departed sage. 
 It is like the spontaneous tear of a noble 
 heart, dropped on the grave of goodness and 
 excellence. 
 
 On a bust in Professor Herz^s study, there 
 was the following inscription : 
 
 Moses Mendelsohn, 
 
 The greatest sage since Socrates, 
 
 His own nation's glory. 
 
 Any nation's ornament. 
 
 The confidant 
 
 OiJjessing and of Truth, 
 
 Died, 
 
 As he lived, 
 
 Serene and wise. 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. id 
 
 Professor Rammler erected to him a monu- 
 mentj with this inscription: 
 
 Moses MendelsoM^ 
 
 Born at Dessau^ of hebrew parents, 
 
 A sage like Socrates, 
 
 Faithful to the ancient creed, 
 
 Teaching immortality. 
 
 Himself immottal. 
 
 The following is a list of Mendelsohn's works, 
 
 HEBREW AND IN HEBREW CHARACTERS, 
 
 Nesibat Hashalom : i. e. The Path of Peac^. 
 The five Books of Moses, with commentary and 
 German translation. 
 
 Commentary on Ecclesiasticus. 
 
 A Paraphrase and Commentary of Maimonides' 
 Meditations. 
 
 Hanephesh, (the Soul.) Two Dissertations : 
 ediied after his death by Mr. D. Friedlaender. 
 
 The Song of Solomon, with German translation : 
 edited after his death by Mr. Aaron Wolfszohn and 
 Mr. Joel Briel. 
 
 , IN GERMAN. 
 
 Philosophische jSchriftetiy 2 vols. 
 
146 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Philosophical Writings. • 
 
 Ph&don, Oder uber die Uns(erbUch/ceit der 
 Seele. 
 
 Phsedon, or the Immortality of the Soul. (Has 
 been translated in English.) 
 
 Johann Jacob Rousseay,s Ahhandlung van dem 
 Ur sprung der Ungleicheit der Menschen. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau's Treatise on the Origin of 
 the Inequality of Mankind. 
 
 Schreiben an Herrn Johami. Casper Lavater, 
 Diaconus zu 2&fch. 
 
 Letter to the Rev. John Casper Lavater, at Zurich, 
 
 Antwart an den Herrn Moses Mendelsohn von 
 J. C. Lavater, nebst einer Nacherrinerung von 
 Moses Mendelsohn, 
 
 J. C. Lavater's Answei», with Supplementary Re- 
 marks by Moses Mendelsohn. 
 
 Anmerkung zu Abbts Fretmdsehaftlicher Corres- 
 pondenz. 
 
 Remarks on the Correspondence with Abbt. 
 
 Jerusalem, oder uber religiose Macht und Jur 
 denthum. 
 
 Jerusalem, or Ecclesiastical Authority and Ju- 
 daism. 
 
 Morgenstunden, oder Fgrhftungen uber das Dimyn 
 Gottes. 
 
 Aurora. Lectures on the Existence of God. 
 Von der Unkorperliehkeit der menschlichen 
 Seele. ' 
 
 On the Immateriality of the human Soul. (Pub- 
 lislied surreptitiously at Vienna, without the author's 
 knowledge,) 
 
MOSES MENDELSOHN. 147 
 
 ^n die Freunde Lesdngs ; ein Unhang zu 
 Herm Jacobis Briefwechsel uber die Lehre des 
 Spinoza. 
 
 To the Friends of Lessiijg; an Appendix to 
 Mr. Jacobi's Correspoudence on t^ie Doctrine of 
 Spinoza. 
 Pope em Metaphisicker ! 
 Pope (Alexander) a Metaphysician ! 
 Ueber die Evidenz in Metaphisischen Wissen- 
 schaften. 
 On Evidence in Metaphysics. 
 Die Psalmen. 
 The Psalms of David. 
 Manasseh Ben Israels Rettung der Juden. 
 Manasseh Ben Lsrael's Apology for the Jews. 
 (From the English.) 
 
 Uebersetzung der fiinf Biicher Moses, zum Ge- 
 brauch der Judisch-Deutschen Nation. 
 
 Translation of the five Books of Moses for the 
 Use of the German Jews. 
 
 Ritual-gesetze der Juden,' betreffend Erbschaften, 
 Vormundssachen, Testamente und Ehesachen, in so 
 weit sie das Mein und Dein angehen. 
 
 Ritual Laws of the Jews concei'ning Inheritance, 
 Guardianship, Last Wills, Marriages, &c. as affect- 
 ing Property only. 
 
 In addition to the above, Mendelsohn wrote 
 several letters and articles in jibbt's friendly cor- 
 respondence ; in the letters " On the newest 
 Contemporary Literature;" in " The Library of the 
 Liberal Sciences ;" and in " The Universal German 
 Library." — Besides several fugitive pieces; as a 
 
 1.2 
 
148 MEMOIRS OF, ke. 
 
 metrical translation of the most beautiful felegy, 
 " 2ion hallo tishalli," by Rabbi Jehuda Halevi. 
 The triumphant Song of Deborah, (Judges v.) and 
 some chapters of Kabbi Jedaja Hapnini Badrashi's 
 Bechinath Olam, (Test of the Universe.) 
 
NOTES. 
 
 • Page 56. The religion of the Patriarchs. 
 
 The seven chief precepts of the Nbachides. which, 
 comprise, nearly, the essentials of the law of na- 
 ture J viz. forbidding 1 . idolatry ; 2, blasphemy ; 3. 
 murder; 4. theft; 5. incest; and enjoining, 6. the 
 administration of justice. (These, it is supposfid^: 
 were promulgated already to Adam.) Finally, 7- the 
 prohibition of eating off a live animaj^ imparted tp 
 Noah. See Talmud on Idolatry, page 64. Mai-^ 
 monides on the Book of Kings, cap. 8, sect. 10, 
 
 Page 56. Virtuous men of other nations^ 
 
 o'jiyn maiK n'on, Maimonides adds the clause, 
 '' Provided they do not observe them, as mere pre- 
 cepts of nature, but as laws specially revealed by 
 God." The Talmud, however, does not sa^ctiw 
 this addition. 
 
 Page 56. Children of eternal salvation. 
 
 Maimonides on Penitence, cap. iii. sect. 5; and 
 on the book of Kings, cap. viii. sect. 11. In an 
 epistle to Mabl/i Hasdi Halevix this doctor expresses 
 
150 NOTES. 
 
 himself thus : " As to what regards the other na- 
 tionsj know, my^beloved ! that God looks only to the 
 heart of men, and judges their deeds by their con- 
 sciences. Hence, our sages teach, that the virtuous 
 of other nations will participate in eternal sal- 
 vation, in proportioiai as they are advanced in the 
 knowledge of God, and the practice of virtue." 
 Mandsseh Ben Israel quotes, in his treatise Nish- 
 math Hajim, (the Breath of Life,) decisive passages 
 from the Tdlmud,'the Sohdr, and other authoritative 
 bbbks, which place this doctrine beyond all question. 
 " We will ndt withhold from any hutnan being hjs 
 well-earned reward," says the author of Cozri.—^ 
 Rabbi Jacob Hirschel, one of the most erudite rab- 
 bins of oiir daysy treats very laifgely of this in several 
 of his writihgs. 
 
 Extract from Mendelsohn's Remarks on J. B. 
 Kolbele's coarse Pamphlet, mentioned page 
 103. 
 
 * * * « In my letter to Mr. J. C. Lavater, I 
 alleged from the Talmud, and from Maimonides, 
 that we Jews are not to seek to donvert any one 
 who is not born conformable to the principles of our 
 religion. Whoever has the least knowledge ot 
 Judaism need not be toM that those authorities are 
 peremptorily ecisive with us** Mr. KolbeU owns 
 
 * Talmud est opus doctrinale, slve corpus doetrinse magaum, 
 a variis ac dootissimis quibusque Uabbinis compilatum, multi- 
 plicein omnium scientiarum doctrinam continens, et potissi- 
 luum jus civile ac canonicum Judeeonun plenissiiue ac perfec* 
 
NOTES. 151 
 
 to have read the same in JAghtfoot. Still he attempts 
 to prove from the Justinian code, and from Jose- 
 phus, that the Jews did actually strive, at various 
 times, to convert other nations. And then he ex- 
 claims most triumphantly, ' Now, Mr. Mendelsohn, 
 is not your delineation of Jewish principles palpably 
 incorrect ?' 
 
 " What would Mr. K. say, if I were so un- 
 reasonable as to draV conclusions on the prin- 
 ciples of Christianity from what has, at certain 
 times, been done, and held meritorious by all 
 Christendom? — Among the Jews too^ there have 
 been adulterers, profaners of the sabbath, stubborn 
 and rebellious sons; should one, by such persons' 
 conduct, judge of the principles of our religion f 
 I have no occasion at all to take the trouble of 
 turning to Josephus for the passages which Mr, K. 
 alludes to. I know that the lower orders of all 
 sects are mighty fond of converting. The narrower 
 the mihd, the more excluding the principles. But 
 the better informed amongst our nation endeavour 
 to check with energy this proselyting fervour of the 
 
 tisfeime proponens, ut secundum illud universa gens et Synagoga 
 Israelitjca optime feliciterque \vv3.t.—Bv,aitorffi Becensio Operif 
 3\amudiai, ■p. 191. 
 
 yin'D -13 nttfO '3% 03ni Eabbi Moshe filius Maimoni, 
 Mbreviate Rambam dictus. Patria fiiit Cordubensis, sed in 
 £gypto edacatis et studiis consecratus, unde vocatus Motes 
 ^gyptius. Vixit annos septaaginta, et tantum laudem sibi coiii- 
 paravit, ut de.eo tritune dictum sit, nifOO iTH vh PlffD fi) 
 nipan A Mose (propheta) usq. ad Mosen (^gyptium) non fuit 
 iicut iste Moses. Bumtorffi de Abhtevat. HebreBror. ■ (oh i6i, 
 attic. ti3»"l» Likewise fol. 291. Rabbinica Bibliotheca, artic. 
 npinn T of which he says, Opens summa hsec est. 
 
162 NOTES. 
 
 rabble, which has been done also invariably by the 
 supreme court of Jerusalem.* 
 
 'f In the same place I assert, that according to the 
 spirit of my religion there is no reason why virtuous 
 men of other nations should not be saved. That 
 is, (says Mr. K.) according to Mr, Mendelsohn, 
 and the exoteric f language of the rabbins, 
 but quite different from what Eisenmenger states. 
 What an authority ! Refute the Talmud and 
 Maimonides by JSisenmenger ! In another place, 
 Mr. K. again finds in his favourite Eisenmetiger, 
 (who has long gince become contemptible to intel- 
 ligent Gbristians,) that the principles of more mo- 
 dern Judaism do not sanction loving and admiring a, 
 Confucius or a Solon. Better informed authors 
 would have told him, that our rabbins have even 
 prescribed to us a special form of benediction^ to be 
 recited, whenever we behold a sage pf another 
 nation.J One needs but to know the ineffabl^ awe 
 with which we contemplate the four^lettered name of 
 the Most High,§ not to fsuspeqt any equivocation op 
 exoteric language here 5 for, according to our tenets, 
 
 * Maimonides of Penitence. 
 
 t He must know the Talmud scarcely by name who imputes 
 to iteivoterie language from feav of man. Alas ! how many per- 
 secutions have we had to endure because the writers of the 
 Talmud were not prudent enough ! 
 
 J (Maimonides on Forms of Benedictions, cap. 10. sect. 11.) 
 According to the Talmud, the prayer is this : " Blessed be thou, O 
 Lord our God, ruler of the universe ! that thou hast imparted of 
 thy wisdom to. flesh and blood 1" In rabbinical phraseology, 
 jlesh and blood means man, the human race. Buxtotfii Lexic. 
 Jlabbin.; likewise de Abbrev. folio 45, art. t3 
 
 § Qiffn, Nomen- , Quomodo , vocatur nomen tetragrammaton, 
 Buxtorff. de Abbrev, folio 63^ art, n 
 
NOTES. 15S 
 
 that would be using the name of God in vain in a 
 most reprehensible manner. 
 
 " Does Mr. K. suppose' to prove any thing 
 against me, by arguing that clandestine Jews of 
 Spain and Portugal go to Holland to get circum- 
 cised; and that baptized Jews too find an asylum 
 there when they secede from Christianity ? — When 
 a native Israelite, one of the congregdtion of Jacob, 
 has left that congregation through necessity or de- 
 lusion, and wants to return into its bosom again, is 
 it not to take him in ?— -Cap that he called prosely- 
 tomania?" 
 
154 NOTES. 
 
 Thoughts on Lavater's Proposition to Moses Men- 
 delsohn to turn Christian, in a Letter from one 
 Friend to another. 
 
 Sir, 
 Yob Lave perhaps read the enclosed pamphlet ; if 
 not, I feel pleasure in handing it to you. It is 
 highly interesting, inasmuch as it relates to reli- 
 gion, from the earliest ages to the present time; 
 and it is my opinion we cannot think, or read too 
 much, on a subject of such vital importance. 
 
 Lavater, in his dedication, wants Mendelsohn 
 to renounce his religion, and publicly embrace 
 Christianity. At least, so the latter takes it. But 
 be this as it may, the challenge appears to me, 
 at all events, a hardship upon Mendelsohn. 
 
 It is evident Mendelsohn cannot renounce the 
 religion of his fathers so long as he is convinced of 
 its divine origin. 
 
 The Founder of the Christian religion himself, was 
 born and brought up a Jew. This, you will say, is no 
 very forcible argument in favour of Judaism. Yet he 
 never pronounced his national religion, so far as ,its 
 elemental principles go, a false one ; but, on the con- 
 trary, strove to purge it of errors and superstitions, to 
 winnow it of pernicious prejudices and surreptitious 
 additions, and to restore it to its pristine splendour. 
 
 We Christians derive our knowledge of God solely 
 from Judaism, as refined by Christ and his apostles. 
 We recognise the books of the Old Testament as 
 
NOITES. 155 
 
 true and divine ; and our New Testament, with all 
 the facts and circumstances recorded therein^ is. 
 Strictly speaking, nothing but a refinement of the 
 Mosaic law, at that time adulterated With hurtful 
 prejudices and human ordinances 5 and which, in 
 consequence of this refinement, has, secondarily, 
 been the means of enlightening Paganism, darkened 
 by superstition and idolatry. 
 
 If we take a retrospect of the Jewish and Pagan 
 world previous to the era of Christ, we shall find it, 
 certainly, sad and deplorable. At the same time we 
 cannot but pronounce the change these religions 
 have severally undergone to be of the highest 
 importance. 
 
 As Christians, we are in justice bound to adorea 
 with profound awe and reverence, the great genius, 
 of whom all-ruling Providence made use, at the 
 time appointed, to accomplish a work of such mag- 
 nitude and importance to the whole human race ; 
 the propagation of which work has been so obvi- 
 ously favoured for a long series of ages. It is 
 therefore we call Christ, with reason, the Saviour of 
 mankind. 
 
 Viewing the matter in this light, the ingenuous 
 and sagacious Mendelsohn could not, with all his 
 contrariety to our religion, deny his tribute of re- 
 spect to its Founder. 
 
 To a man like Mendelsohn, who has carefully 
 analyzed his own religion, and confesses having 
 found it to be alloyed with human additions, it could 
 not have been difficult to detect a similar accumu- 
 lation of dross in ours too, degenerated, as it visibly 
 
156 NOTES. 
 
 has, in so many respects, from its original purity and 
 simplicity. Nevertheless, if those blemishes were 
 removed on either side, and the harmless prejudices 
 which are concomitant to all religions were borne 
 with indnlgence, I am conscious of being in one and 
 the same road with Mendelsohn, namely, in that which 
 leads to the God of truth and justice, by whom 
 Lavater has conjured him ; and neither of us will 
 have a plausible motive for renouncing the religion 
 in which we have respectively been born and 
 educated, &c. &c. &c. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Thomas Abbt was borAj 1738, at Ulm, in Sueibia; 
 In 1756, he went to the university of Halle, the 
 principal chair of which was then filled by the cele- 
 brated Baumgarten. Here he applied himself chiefly 
 to philosophy and mathematics, relinquishing divi- 
 nity, for which he had been originally educated. In 
 I76O, he was appointed professor extraordinary of 
 philosophy at the university of Frankfort on the 
 Oder, and there, ;in the very centre of the theatre 
 of war, wrote the tred;tise on " Dying for one's 
 Country," The year following he spent at Berlin, 
 where he formed a connection with the two Enters, 
 Mendelsohn, and Nicolai, siad accepted of the situ- 
 ation of professor of mathematics at the university 
 of Rintelen in Westphalia. But he soon took an 
 aversion to academical life, and began to study law, 
 with the intention of qualifying himself for some 
 civil office. In 1763, he travelled through the whole 
 south of Germany, Switzerland, and part of France, 
 but returned again to Rintelen, where he published, 
 soon after, his work " On Merit," to which he owes 
 most of his celebrity. It abounds with sublime 
 thoughts, novel and striking observations, and most 
 excellent practical philosophy. This pfocared its 
 
158 APPENDIX. 
 
 author a high and lucrative situation with one of the 
 inferior German sovereigns, the prince of Schaum- 
 burg lAppe, who treated him with great personal 
 friendship ; adistinction, however, which he did not 
 enjoy long, as he died at the early ^ge of twenty- 
 eight. The worthy prince caiiged his friend to be 
 splendidly interred in his own chapel, and himself 
 wrote a pathetic inscription on his monument. 
 Abbt'swcyvk^ are full of profound thought, fancy, and 
 spirit ; and no doubt he 'would have become one of 
 the first German authors had he liveii, to a more 
 advanced age. As it is, he deserves ^o jjje ranked 
 ■*ith those who contributed most to the^ refinement 
 o^ the German language, which had been, till then, 
 so niucb neglected. Hi^ style is particularly suc- 
 cinct apd agreeably. Nicolai published Abbt's 
 works, after his death, in six volumes. 
 
 Christopher Frederic Nicolai was born at 
 Berlin in 1733* In 1749, he was apprenticed to a 
 bookseller at Frankfort on the Oder. By dint of 
 perseverance apd self-denial he contrived to find 
 leisure for self-tuition in the Latin, Greek, and 
 I^iglish languages. He read their best authors, at 
 the same time, studying mathematics, history, and 
 philosophy ; but most of all, literary biography. In 
 1763, he returned to Berlin, and took an active part 
 in the business of his father, who was likewise a 
 bookseller. The German literati were, at that time, 
 divided into two parties, headed by Gottscked, and 
 by Bodmer, Nicolai soon discovered the prejudices' 
 
APPENDIX. 159 
 
 of either party, and delivered his opinions thereon 
 in the " Letter^ on the Present State of the Liberal 
 ^cignces^" published in 1755. Lessing was amongst 
 his friends, and made him acquainted with Moses 
 MentlaUothn. This triumvirate then followed im- 
 plicitly their zeal for science without any deference 
 Tf^hatever to the authority of ©pinion. Of the three, 
 Lessing was most lively ?^nd hold, Mendelsohn more 
 considerate and sure, wlule Nieolai equalled both, 
 at least, in love of truth and in courage. Most of 
 };l:^e be§t thinkers of Germany united themselves with 
 ^hem in the sequei. In 1757, Nieolai retired from 
 ]business, and devoted hipiself entirely to the sci- 
 ences, living on a small inconie during the dear 
 period of the seven years' wa^-. Through Wi^^elf 
 man's works he became initiated in the fine arts, and 
 MO'Tpurg iiastructed him in musical composition. 
 His elder brother, the head of the book establish- 
 ment, dying in 1758, C. F. Nieolai wfis, obliged to 
 resume the management of the concern again. 
 United with Mendelsohn, he had published the 
 f Library of the Liberal Arts and Sciences," 
 (four vols. Leipsig, 1757 to I76O,) At the fifth 
 volume they transferred the publication to their 
 friend Weisse at Leipsig. With this " Library" 
 the better system of critique was introduced in Ger- 
 many. The three friends, supported by Abbt, 
 ^Sulzer, and others, now published the ". Letters on 
 the newest Contemporary Literature," (34 vols. 
 Berlin, I76I to 1766.) In 1765, Nieolai carried his 
 project of the "< Univeifsal Qe^^an Library" into 
 execution. In tM§; periodical,. (107 Ywls, and 31 
 
160 ' APJPENDi^. 
 
 Vols, supplement, Berlin, 1765 — 17^2,) the German 
 republic of letters asserted for the first time its 
 rights of free sttflfrage. It iriade every new systeni 
 subject to its most rigid scrutiny, and operated most 
 powerfully, for more than forty years, on the progress 
 of scientific cultivation in all parts of Germany. 
 At the 107th volume, JVicolai ceased to be the pub- 
 lisher. It was then continued at Kiel iu Holstein, 
 under the title of " New Universal German Lite- 
 rature, 8fc." At the 56th volume of the new serie^, 
 Nicolai once more resumed the editorship, and his 
 preface to that volume is a very remarkable piece of 
 composition. The work was closed in 1805. The 
 pointed and austere tone which this periodical 
 assumed involved him in many quarrels. Of those 
 who wrote against him we will name Garve, Herder, 
 Wieland, Fichte, and Lavater ; the latter called 
 him an endless wrangler. None of those disputes 
 became so vehement as that with Stark, first chap- 
 lain of the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, when 
 Nicolai, Biester, and other writers of the Berlin 
 Magazine; threw out hints of Nicolai' s latent dis- 
 semination of popery, and of the existence of dis- 
 guised Jesuits. From 1770 he directed his study to 
 the financial and commercial relations of the Prus- 
 sian state. His " Characteristic Anecdotes of Fre- 
 deric II. and his Court," (Berlin, 1792,) possess 
 considerable historical merit. The minister of state, 
 count Fbn Herzberg, granted him the use of the royal 
 archives to revise his " Topographic and Historical 
 Description of Berlin and Potsdam," published 
 Berlin, 1786^ 3 vols, third edition. To his novels 
 
APPENDIX. 161 
 
 no particular merit attaches as works of imagination, 
 yet they are interesting as features of the times. 
 His best, " The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus 
 ' JVotkanker, Schoolmaster," (4 vols. 1779j) was de- 
 igned to expose the mania of persecution in its 
 hideous nakedness ; to lead enthusiasts back to 
 sound reason, and to cure the age of its ridiculous 
 sentimentality. It was translated into the French, 
 Panish, Dutch, and Swedish languages. Provoked 
 by his adversaries, he wrote, 1794, " The Memoirs 
 of a Lusty Man," in 2 vols., in which he severely 
 lashed literary coxcombs. Amongst his greater 
 works, that which exposed him to the most contro- 
 versy was his " Journey through Germany and 
 Switzerland in the Year 1784," (12 vols. 8vo.,) a 
 book which is very valuable in regard to its statis- 
 tical, merits and the boldness with which it is written. 
 Accustomed, through his intercourse with Mendel- 
 sohn, to popular philosophy, Nicolai £Ould not relish 
 the new-fangled phraseology of Kant's " Critique 
 of pure Reason ;"* although he was just to the 
 author's ingenuity, who has, however, certainly in- 
 troduced in his works a cloud of extravagant, novel 
 technicalities. He, therefore, in his novel, called 
 " The lAfe and Opinions of Sempronius Gundiberf, 
 a German Philosopher," made an attempt to throw 
 ridicule on the oddities of the Kantean school. 
 Fichte then wrote in reply, " 7%e Ldfe and singular 
 Opinions of F. Nicolai," edited by A. W. Schlegel, 
 1801. The worthy veteran, Nicolai, received, never- 
 theless, many proofs of public esteem. He was 
 
 * KrUih der reinen Fermnft, 
 M 
 
162 APPENDIX. 
 
 elected tnetnbef of the academies of Munich, Berlin^ 
 and St. Petersburg, His active life was supftprted 
 by a very firm constitution; but in 1791 he was 
 attacked by giddiness and violent nervous coht- 
 vulsionSj and at the age of sevetlty-one he lost the 
 use of one oi his eyes. Nothing, however, so much 
 disturbed the did man's happiness as the mekneholy 
 situation of his country, in the possession of revo* 
 lutionary France. He died in 1811. Amdiigstmany 
 of his \vorks not enumerated hete, we will mention 
 his " Essay on the Accusations brought against the 
 Ordet of Knights-Templar, with a Supplement on 
 the Origin of Freemasonry." Indeed^ a great por* 
 tion of Nicolai's research was devoted to " Secret 
 Societies ; " witness his " Remarks on Rosicrucians 
 and Freemasons," (Berlin, 1782,) which is very 
 profound, notwithstanding some bold hypotheses, 
 as for instahee, on the Bqff'ometus of the Templars. 
 He also wrote a clever treatise on the " Use of 
 Artificial Hair and Wigsj" and lastly, his owd 
 Biography* 
 
 GoTTHOLD Ephraim Lessing was born in the 
 yeai' 1720 at Kamsnts^ in Bohemia, where his 
 father was minister. He received his first education 
 at the freeschool of Konigsbetgj and in" 1741 was 
 entered at the electoral Senunary at Meissettf in 
 Saxoby, wh^e he successfully Studied Greek, Latin, 
 and the mathematics. He left the seminary in 1746, 
 after having delivered the usual parting oration^ the 
 subject of which was De Mathematica Barbara- 
 
APPENDIX. 163 
 
 mm, Thence he went ta the university of Leipsig, 
 where he became acquainted with the celebrated 
 Madaane Neubaur, the theatrical manager there, and 
 tijok a, part in a Critique on the Drama, then pub- 
 lished at Hamburgh. Conjointly with JFeisse he 
 translated the " Hannibal " of Mmivaux from the 
 French, and brought out, on the Leipsig stage, hie 
 own '' Young Scholar," which he had commenced 
 writing when at school. However, his disinclinatjan 
 to every kind of professional study, , and his inter- 
 course with comedians, a proscribed cast in those 
 days, determined his strictly-notioned parents to 
 recall him home. There are yet a number of ana- 
 creontic songs of his extant, written about this time 
 in a spot where love and the juice of the grape were 
 the last things thought of. He returned again to 
 Leipsig ; but Madame Meubaur having moved to 
 Berlin with the better part of that dramatic com- 
 pany, which had formerly rendered his abode so 
 agreeable, he did not hesitate to follow them. Af, 
 Berlin he contributed to a weekly publication, wrote 
 a history of the rise and progress of the stage, and 
 published some of his poems. Louvain, the secre- 
 tary to Voltaire, having, from motives of frieadsbipj 
 put him, rathei' prematurely, in possession oC a tran* 
 S£iipt of the Vie de Charles XII., the French au- 
 thor entered into a correspondence with Lessing 
 which excited some sensation at the time. In com^ 
 pliance with his parents' desires, he now went to 
 WUienherg, where he took the degree of master of 
 arts. Puring this time he i^raijslated a Spanish 
 work of Huarte " On Human Heads," -wxa^ a 
 
164 APPENDIX. 
 
 criticism on the Messiah of Klopstock, and de- 
 termined on making a translation of it in Latin 
 hexameters. In 1753, he removed again to Berlin. 
 In 1754, the second and third volume of his " Fugi- 
 tive Works" were published, as likewise the first 
 and second volume of his " Theatrical Library" 
 In 1755, he became acquainted w^h Nicolai and 
 Mendelsohn and removed to Potsdam, to seek re- 
 tirement, for the purpose of finishing his tragedy, 
 " Miss Sarah Sampson." In 1755, he went again 
 to Leipsig, where he became acquainted with a 
 merchant of the name of Winckler, whom he joined 
 as companion on a distant journey ; but the seven 
 years' war happening to break out they proceeded 
 no further than Holland. On his return, his abode 
 at Leipsig was rendered irksome by Winckler's con- 
 duct, who was then prompted, by avarice, to endea- 
 vour to elude his engagement with 'icssira^, the 
 fulfilment of which he was at length obliged to com- 
 pel him to by legal means. An acquaintance with 
 the celebrated ]poet Kleist, major in the Prussian 
 service, partially compensated Lessing for this 
 unpleasant alternative. In 17573 he began his tra- 
 gedy of Virginia, which • was afterwards completed 
 and known under the title of " Emilia Galloti,"* 
 and is, with the exception of his Nathan — which 
 partakes, however, of quite a different character — 
 the most ingenious, and most carefully finislted, of 
 all his dramatic productions. In 1760, he published, 
 jointly with Nicolai and Mendelsohn, the " Letters 
 
 * Translated into English, andj I rather think, performed in 
 London, . - .. 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 on the newest Cont&nporary Literature," and was, 
 in the same year, elected member of the Berlin 
 royal academy. About this time appeared his 
 popular military comedy, called " Mina von Barn- 
 helm," which gave rise to innumerable imitations of 
 military dramas. He now resided at Breslau, where 
 he composed his " Laocoon, or the Boundaries of 
 Poetry and Painting," and also began to engage in 
 theological inquiries. In 1/65 he left Breslau and 
 returned to Berlin, once more determining to devote 
 his time to the sciences only. But having hitherto 
 been used to an unsettled life he could not, at first, 
 easily reconcile himself to become sedentary; and, 
 it is said, that in his dislike to it, he once meditated 
 placing himself at the head of an itinerant com- 
 pany of comedians. This will account for his 
 removal to Hamburgh in \7&I, where he was in- 
 vited, with very advantageous offers, by the thea- 
 trical managers, and where he wrote his hitherto 
 unexcelled " Dramaturgie." There also his abode 
 was rendered irksome both by the continual squab- 
 bles of the managers, and the self-sufficient indo- 
 cility of the actors. At the same time he gdt 
 entangled in the celebrated dispute with Klotz, 
 originating in the latter's work on " The Study 
 of Antiquity ;" and another work, called *' On the 
 Utility and Use of Antique Intaglios and their 
 Impressions;" which dispute he terminated with 
 Klotze's literary annihilation. Highly disgusted at 
 his situation, he determined, at leng'th, on a trip to 
 Italy, which he would have accomplished but for 
 the very acceptable offer of librarian at Wolfenbifttelf 
 
166 APPENDK. 
 
 which the court of Brunswick made him at the 
 instigation of the hereditary prince and of professor 
 Mbert. In the library at Wolfenhuttel he disco^ 
 vered the ^lanuscript of Berengarius of Tours, in 
 which he controverts the work of the transubstan- 
 tiajist Lanfrancus, Here he also published the 
 Wolfenbuttel ainmymQUs ^Fragments on theologieaJ 
 subjects, through which he got involyed in contro- 
 versies which afforded hint' an opportunity of dis- 
 playing his active mind, and matchless polemical 
 erudition, in a supereminent manner. 
 The Wolfenhuttel Fragnients is an antichristian* 
 
 * A posthumous supplement, published by C. A. E. Schmidt, 
 1787, (without name of printer or place,) shows these fragments 
 to be quite as anti-mosaic as anti-christian. It is entitled Uebrige 
 swch uvgedmekte Werlie des Wolfenbiittlichen Fragmentisten. 
 Ein Nachlasx von Gottholfl Epjiraim Lessing, heramgegeben 
 von C. A. E. Schmidt: i. e. The remainder of the unedited 
 works of the Wolfenhuttel Fragmentist, left behind by Lesiing, 
 and published by C. A. E. Schmidt, 1787, with notes. In his 
 preface, the editor says, '■' Lessing, in one of his ijxoody moments, 
 gave me this manuscript of the Fragmentist, on condition not 
 to publish it during his life. This condition, with which I 
 strictly complied, is no longer binding. My motive for publish- 
 ing these fragments isj- because there are to my, knowledge four 
 transcripts of the work at Hamburgh, six or jcight at Berlin, find 
 no fewer at Brunswick, which, as Lessing said, would make more 
 prosehfte^ by circulating clandestinely, than they would if exposed 
 to the contradiction of th/s world. I have added noties to it, in 
 order to render th^ JjooV less exceptionable, though I ultimately 
 f?lt how difficult a task if is for a layman to enter into theolo- 
 gical controversy. This work will no doubt be controventedj 
 and so it ought ; had I the ability, I would enter the lists against 
 jt myself. Should Ifce refutation be skilful and forqibie — and I 
 wishjt may — ^religion will have all fhe benefit of it j .since coib 
 tradictioh in religion, above all things, tends most to elicit its 
 trttth 5 that is, however, if the Fragmentist meant to level his 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 work published by Jjesaing^ who jn-etended to have 
 discovered it in the. library at Wolfenbuttel which 
 was under his care, That which excited most sen- 
 sation, was the fifth Fragment^ in which the Founder 
 of ChtlStianity is charged with political and ambi- 
 tions motives^ It has never been satisfactorily 
 proved who was the real author of them j never- 
 theless they are attributed by the majority to 
 Meimarus of Hamburg!^ Who is Well known in 
 Germany by an interesting work on the principal 
 truths of natural religion^ The Fragiiaentist is ac- 
 cused of much wilful perversion^ as well as of false 
 views and premature conclusions^ owing to his want 
 of knowledge of the ancient world. His objections 
 were met by several writers, amongst whom Sem- 
 ler, Daderlein, "and Michdlis in particular^ deserve 
 to be noticed. Dbdeflein's " Fragments and Anti-' 
 ftagments" is written! with such dispassionate 
 judgment, erudition, and taste, that it is justly con- 
 sidered the most successful confutation of the Frag- 
 mentist. 
 
 Amongst several Works with which he occu- 
 pied himself at Wolfen&uttel, his " Treatise on 
 the Origin and Date of Painting in Oil Colours" 
 also deserves to be mentioned. Some ^ospects 
 held out to him at Vienna induced him to visit that 
 eapML in 1775. However, he did not settle there, 
 foi? prince Leopold of Brunswickj who was just then 
 passing through Vienna on his journey to Italy, took 
 
 attack ftgaJnst essential feligibn, •which I, along With many other?; 
 cannot believe. 
 
1S8 APPENDIX. 
 
 him with him to the country which had been bo long 
 the object of his ardent desire. Before his depar- 
 ture from Vienna he had an interview with the 
 empress Marigi Theresa, who gave him an auto- 
 graph letter of recommendation to count Firmian 
 at Milan. He remained but a short time in Italy ; 
 honourable and lucrative offers being made to him 
 by the court of Manheim, in consequence of which 
 he repaired thither in 1777 5 these, however, turned 
 out empty promises, through the machinations of 
 some illiberal men in power. Wolfenbuttel too 
 proved an impleasant abode to him, on account of 
 the theological disputes in which he was involved, 
 particularly with the head-pastor Gbtze at Ham- 
 burgh, which attained to such a height that it was, 
 at length, intended to place him under the most 
 rigid censorial restrictions. His theological pole- 
 mics he then crowned with his dramatic poem, called 
 " NatJian the Wise;" a production with which no 
 man of taste and education is or ought to be unac- 
 quainted. It is impossible not to be amazed at the 
 stupendous mind of him who, amidst numerous 
 poetical essays, and critical and philosophical re- 
 searches of all sorts, was able to encompass the 
 most comprehensive theological discussions 5 at the 
 man who, while he exposed, on the one hand, the 
 pitiful compound of positive and rational religion 
 which was then beginning to be hawked about under 
 the specious name oi Illumination, declared war, 
 pn the other,* against all exclusive religion, pro- 
 
 * In his Nathan. 
 
APPENDIX. 169 
 
 ducing models in polemics previously quite un- 
 known. He died in 1781. 
 
 JoHANN Caspar Lavater was bom in 1741. at 
 Zurich, in Switzerland, where his father practised 
 as physician. He was educated for the church. 
 At the age of twenty-one he established his claim 
 to majority by a singular act of energy and intre- 
 pidity, in uniting with Hmry Filseli (the celebrated 
 painter) for the purpose of impeaching, before the 
 government, the high land bailifif Grebel, a func^ 
 tionary whose injustice and oppressions none dared 
 to attack, on account of his powerful connections. 
 Patriotism and justice alone prompted him to this 
 step, in which he succeeded. In consequence of a 
 decree of the senate, Grebel was condemned to make 
 restitution to the injured, and his accusers were 
 rewarded with distinguished public esteem. His 
 Swiss bajlads, which appeared in 1767j are univer- 
 sally acknowledged as excellent, and his Prospects 
 jin Futurity, which were published in 1768, laid the 
 foundation of his fame, and acquired him many 
 admirers, who, beguiled by the .magic of his fanci- 
 ful delineation, forgave him the venturous suppo- 
 sitions in which he strayed, particularly in the latter 
 work ; also for not accomplishing the elucidations 
 about a future state, which his positive tone gave 
 them a right to expect. In 1769, he became dean 
 of the church of the Orphan Establishment at 
 Zurich. His sermons, of which several volumes 
 were 'printed subsequently to the year 1772, are 
 N' ' 
 
170 AP|?ENDIX. 
 
 much admired on the continent. His book of 
 Morals for Servants is a very valuable acquisition 
 to popular literature j and his work on physiognomy 
 is too universally known to require enumeration. 
 He wrote tv70 epic poems, "Jesus Messiah," and 
 " Pontius Pilate;" by which works he showed that, 
 for a poet he was too much of a divine, and for 
 a divine too much of a poet. Hence may be ex- 
 plained his abortive attempts at converting men of 
 real learning and consistency. However honest 
 vi'ere his wishes, that every man of reputation, who 
 was dear to hiiii, would join his opinions ; however 
 patiently and indefatigably he proceeded in his 
 "efforts to convince them ; still there was always 
 Semething violent and revolting to the feelings of the 
 assailed, in his customary manner of forcing them to 
 a categorical declaration, by the alternative of refuting^ 
 him or embracing his' faith. In this manner, he 
 attempted, in the ardour of youth, the conversion of 
 the Jewish philosopher, Mendelsohn, which naturally 
 did not succeed, and drew upon him, moreover, a 
 humiliating rebuke, without however deterring him 
 from similar unlucky attempts. . Evading, oir sharp 
 ariswets, gave rise to passionate language on his 
 part, in consequence of which he quarrelled with 
 many a leatned friend who otherwise esteemed hitfl. 
 In other respects, a perfectly pious, virtuous, philan- 
 thropic, and learned man, he died, much lamented, 
 in 1801. The foundation of his foibles lay in his 
 head, which was overruled by an impetuous idiagin- 
 ation, and overstocked with eccentric conceptions. 
 Still, if there be yet any of his numerous disciples 
 
APPENDIX, 171 
 
 living, tliey have no reason to judge the vrorse of 
 their teacher, because, though possessed of splendid 
 talents and transcendent 'virtues, he was not exempt 
 of human failings. * 
 
 London : Printed hj A. Afpleoath, Stamford-street,