It was Lessing who laid the foundations of the intellectual life of modern Germany. Clear of thought, strong of will, indefatigably active, he was a reformer in every matter in which he interested himself. With perfect consciousness of what he was doing, he enlightened and educated the German mind. He was the embodiment of manly independence and vigorous, tireless militancy. His personal ideal, as it is revealed in his life and writings, was proud independence in combination with a wise love of his fellow-men, which overcame all differences of creed. Hence, solitary as he stood in his own day, his Ego became a source of light. He was the "Prometheus of German prose." His great achievement was that of freeing German culture for all time from the swaddling bands of theology, as Luther had freed it from those of Catholicism. His life and his criticism were action, and to him the essence of poetry too was action. All his characters are instinct with dramatic passion. In opposition to the theological doctrine of punishment and reward, he maintained that to do right for the sake of doing right is the highest morality. And for him the history of the world became the history of the education of the human race. To a certain extent the word "education" is employed by him merely as a concession to his readers, who, he knew, could not conceive of any development without a divine educator; but, all the same, the idea of natural development is not an idea with which he was familiar. To him, history is the record of "enlightenment." The Ego to him is not nature, but pure mind. In reality, all that was best in Lessing was entirely unsympathetic to the new group of Romanticists; they had less in common with him than with any other of the great German authors, Schiller not excepted. Nevertheless, it was natural enough that they should refuse to acknowledge any connection between Lessing and those of his disciples (men such as Nicolai, Engel, Garve, and Schütz), who were, from the "enlightenment" standpoint, their bitter enemies and ruthless persecutors. This was done by Friedrich Schlegel in an essay in which, while praising the power and the width of Lessing's grasp, he lays chief stress upon everything in him that is irregular, boldly revolutionary, unsystematic, and paradoxical, dwells on his bellicose wit, and draws attention to everything that can be construed into cynicism. The Romanticists could not possibly claim a champion of reason, pure and simple, as their forerunner, hence they attempted to characterise the nutritive element in Lessing's works as mere seasoning, as the salt which preserves from corruption.