Lessing"s life has been sketched in the introduction to his "Minna von Barnhelm" in the volume of Continental Dramas in The Harvard Cla.s.sics.
"The Education of the Human Race" is the culmination of a bitter theological controversy which began with the publication by Lessing, in 1774-1778, of a series of fragments of a work on natural religion by the German deist, Reimarus. This action brought upon Lessing the wrath of the orthodox German Protestants, led by J. M. Goeze, and in the battle that followed Lessing did his great work for the liberalising of religious thought in Germany. The present treatise is an extraordinarily condensed statement of the author"s att.i.tude towards the fundamental questions of religion, and gives his view of the signification of the previous religious history of mankind, along with his faith And hope for the future.
As originally issued, the essay purported to be merely edited by Lessing; but there is no longer any doubt as to his having been its author. It is an admirable and characteristic expression of the serious and elevated spirit in which he dealt with matters that had then, as often, been degraded by the virulence of controversy.
THE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
1
That which Education is to the Individual, Revelation is to the Race.
2
Education is Revelation coming to the Individual Man; and Revelation is Education which has come, and is yet coming, to the Human Race.
3
Whether it can be of any advantage to the science of instruction to contemplate Education in this point of view, I will not here inquire; but in Theology it may unquestionably be of great advantage, and may remove many difficulties, if Revelation be conceived of as the Educator of Humanity.
4
Education gives to Man nothing which he might not educe out of himself; it gives him that which he might educe out of himself, only quicker and more easily. In the same way too, Revelation gives nothing to the human species, which the human reason left to itself might not attain; only it has given, and still gives to it, the most important of these things earlier.
5
And just as in Education, it is not a matter of indifference in what order the powers of a man are developed, as it cannot impart to a man all at once; so was G.o.d also necessitated to maintain a certain order, and a certain measure in His Revelation.
6
Even if the first man were furnished at once with a conception of the One G.o.d; yet it was not possible that this conception, imparted, and not gained by thought, should subsist long in its clearness. As soon as the Human Reason, left to itself, began to elaborate it, it broke up the one Immeasurable into many Measurables, and gave a note or sign of mark to every one of these parts.
7
Hence naturally arose polytheism and idolatry. And who can say how many millions of years human reason would have been bewildered in these errors, even though in all places and times there were individual men who recognized them as errors, had it not pleased G.o.d to afford it a better direction by means of a new Impulse?
8
But when He neither could nor would reveal Himself any more to each individual man, He selected an individual People for His special education; and that exactly the most rude and the most unruly, in order to begin with it from the very commencement.
9
This was the Hebrew People, respecting whom we do not in the least know what kind of Divine Worship they had in Egypt. For so despised a race of slaves was not permitted to take part in the worship of the Egyptians; and the G.o.d of their fathers was entirely unknown to them.
10
It is possible that the Egyptians had expressly prohibited the Hebrews from having a G.o.d or G.o.ds, perhaps they had forced upon them the belief that their despised race had no G.o.d, no G.o.ds, that to have a G.o.d or G.o.ds was the prerogative of the superior Egyptians only, and this may have been so held in order to have the power of tyrannising over them with a greater show of fairness. Do Christians even now do much better with their slaves?
11
To this rude people G.o.d caused Himself to be announced first, simply as "the G.o.d of their fathers," in order to make them acquainted and familiar with the idea of a G.o.d belonging to them also, and to begin with confidence in Him.
12
Through the miracles with which He led them out of Egypt, and planted them in Canaan, He testified of Himself to them as a G.o.d mightier than any other G.o.d.
13
And as He proceeded, demonstrating Himself to be the Mightiest of all, which only One can be, He gradually accustomed them thus to the idea of THE ONE.
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But how far was this conception of The One, below the true transcendental conception of the One which Reason learnt to derive, so late with certainty, from the conception of the Infinite One?
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Although the best of the people were already more or less approaching the true conception of the One only, the people as a whole could not for a long time elevate themselves to it. And this was the sole true reason why they so often abandoned their one G.o.d, and expected to find the One, i. e., as they meant, the Mightiest, in some G.o.d or other, belonging to another people.
16
But of what kind of moral education was a people so raw, so incapable of abstract thoughts, and so entirely in their childhood capable? Of none other but such as is adapted to the age of children, an education by rewards and punishments addressed to the senses.
17
Here too Education and Revelation meet together. As yet G.o.d could give to His people no other religion, no other law than one through obedience to which they might hope to be happy, or through disobedience to which they must fear to be unhappy. For as yet their regards went no further than this earth. They knew of no immortality of the soul; they yearned after no life to come. But now to reveal these things to one whose reason had as yet so little growth, what would it have been but the same fault in the Divine Rule as is committed by the schoolmaster, who chooses to hurry his pupil too rapidly, and boast of his progress, rather than thoroughly to ground him?
18
But, it will be asked, to what purpose was this education of so rude a people, a people with whom G.o.d had to begin so entirely from the beginning? I reply, in order that in the process of time He might employ particular members of this nation as the Teachers of other people. He was bringing up in them the future Teachers of the human race. It was the Jews who became their teachers, none but Jews; only men out of a people so brought up, could be their teachers.
19
For to proceed. When the Child by dint of blows and caresses had grown and was now come to years of understanding, the Father sent it at once into foreign countries: and here it recognised at once the Good which in its Father"s house it had possessed, and had not been conscious of.
20.
While G.o.d guided His chosen people through all the degrees of a child-like education, the other nations of the earth had gone on by the light of reason. The most part had remained far behind the chosen people. Only a few had got before them. And this too, takes place with children, who are allowed to grow up left to themselves: many remain quite raw, some educate themselves even to an astonishing degree.
21
But as these more fortunate few prove nothing against the use and necessity of Education, so the few heathen nations, who even appear to have made a start in the knowledge of G.o.d before the chosen people, prove nothing against a Revelation. The Child of Education begins with slow yet sure footsteps; it is late in overtaking many a more happily organised child of nature; but it does overtake it; and thenceforth can never be distanced by it again.
22
Similarly--Putting aside the doctrine of the Unity of G.o.d, which in a way is found, and in a way is not found, in the books of the Old Testament--that the doctrine of immortality at least is not discoverable in it, is wholly foreign to it, that all doctrine connected therewith of reward and punishment in a future life, proves just as little against the Divine origin of these books.
Notwithstanding the absence of these doctrines, the account of miracles and prophecies may be perfectly true. For let us suppose that these doctrines were not only wanting therein, but even that they were not at all true; let us suppose that for mankind all was over in this life; would the Being of G.o.d be for this reason less demonstrated? Would G.o.d be for this less at liberty, would it less become Him to take immediate charge of the temporal fortunes of any people out of this perishable race? The miracles which He performed for the Jews, the prophecies which He caused to be recorded through them, were surely not for the few mortal Jews, in whose time they had happened and been recorded: He had His intentions therein in reference to the whole Jewish people, to the entire Human Race, which, perhaps, is destined to remain on earth forever, though every individual Jew and every individual man die forever.