[Footnote 1: H.S. Reimarus: _Discussions on the Chief Truths of Natural Religion_, 1754; _General Consideration of the Instincts of Animals_, 1762; _Apology or Defense for the Rational Worshipers of God_. Fragments of the last of these works, which was kept secret during its author's life, were published by Lessing (the well-known "Wolffenbüttel Fragments," from 1774). A detailed table of contents is to be found in _Reimarus und seine Schutzschrift_, 1862, by D. Fr. Strauss, included in the fifth volume of his _Gesammelte Schriften_.] [Footnote 2: Cf. O. Pfleiderer, _Philosophy of Religion_, vol. i. p. 102, p. 106 _seq_.] The philosophico-religious standpoint of G.E. Lessing (1729-81), in whom the Illumination reached its best fruitage, was less one-sided. Apart from the important aesthetic impulses which flowed from the _Laocoon_ (1766) and the _Hamburg Dramaturgy_ (1767-69), his philosophical significance rests on two ideas, which have had important consequences for the religious conceptions of the nineteenth century: the speculative interpretation of certain dogmas (the Trinity, etc.), and the application of the Leibnitzian idea of development to the history of the positive religions. By both of these he prepared the way for Hegel. In regard to his relation to his predecessors, Lessing sought to mediate between the pantheism of Spinoza and the individualism of Leibnitz; and in his comprehension of the latter showed himself far superior to the Wolffians. He can be called a Spinozist only by those who, like Jacobi, have this title ready for everyone who expresses himself against a transcendent, personal God, and the unconditional freedom of the will. Moreover, in view of his critical and dialectical, rather than systematic, method of thinking, we must guard against laying too great stress on isolated statements by him.[1] [Footnote 1: A caution which Gideon Spicker (_Lessings Weltanschauung_, 1883) counsels us not to forget, even in view of the oft cited avowal of determinism, "I thank God that I must, and that I must the best." Among the numerous treatises on Lessing we may note those by G.E. Schwarz (1854), and Zeller (in Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, 1870, incorporated in the second collection of Zeller's _Vorträge und Abhandlungen_, 1877); and on his theological position, that of K. Fischer on Lessing's _Nathan der Weise_, 1864, as well as J.H. Witte's _Philosophie unserer Dichterheroen_, vol. i. _(Lessing and Herder_), 1880. [Cf. in English, Sime, 2 vols., 1877, and _Encyclopedia Britannica_, vol. xiv. pp, 478-482.--TR.]]