Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

German Aufklärung dramatist, critic, and philosopher (1729–1781), three roles in Schelling's *Philosophical Investigations* (1809): (1) the staged Spinozist in Jacobi's 1785 On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn — Lessing's confession to Jacobi "I came to talk to you about my hen kai pan" is the document that launched the Pantheismusstreit and reshaped late-18th-century German philosophy; (2) the author of the parable about a palace fire and the watchmen disputing over the "plans" — reprinted as Supplementary Text 3 to the Freedom Essay volume — directed against the Lutheran orthodox pastor Goeze; (3) the author of The Education of the Human Race (Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, 1780), whose claim that "the development of revealed truths into truths of reason is simply necessary" Schelling cites approvingly at Freedom Essay p. 673 (note 101). Lessing's life-work-end position is what Schelling's Freedom Essay attempts to resolve and vindicate: a rational theology that does not collapse into either Spinozist fatalism (Jacobi's charge) or anti-rationalist leap-of-faith (Jacobi's alternative).

Key Points

  • Born 1729 in Saxony, died 1781 in Brunswick. Major works: Miss Sara Sampson (1755, the first German bourgeois tragedy); Minna von Barnhelm (1767); Emilia Galotti (1772); Nathan the Wise (1779, the most consequential late drama); Laokoon (1766, aesthetics of distinct arts); Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69, theatre criticism); The Education of the Human Race (1780); the Fragmentenstreit writings (1774–1778, the anti-Goeze polemic).
  • The Pantheismusstreit (Pantheism Controversy, 1785+): the controversy that defined late-18th-century German philosophy. Jacobi's 1785 On the Doctrine of Spinoza claimed Lessing had privately confessed Spinozism to him in a 1780 conversation: "I came to talk to you about my hen kai pan. There is no other philosophy than the philosophy of Spinoza... the determinist, if he wants to cut to the heart of the matter, has to become a fatalist." The publication produced philosophical scandal — Spinozism in late-18th-century Germany was a charge of atheism — and forced the question of whether any rationalist theology can avoid Spinozist fatalism.
  • The "Parable" (Supplementary Text 3 to the Freedom Essay): a short parable about a palace where the watchmen, in a moment of crisis, mistake the northern lights for a blaze of fire and run with their architectural "plans" rather than addressing the actual situation. The parable is anti-Goeze: directed against Lutheran orthodox pastor Johann Melchior Goeze, who attacked Lessing for publishing the Reimarus Fragments. The parable's mechanism is displacement: the watchmen dispute over the plans while the actual situation (the fire/non-fire) goes unaddressed. Read more broadly: biblical-literalist controversy is structurally incapable of recognizing genuine emergencies of faith.
  • The Education of the Human Race (1780): a philosophical-theological treatise arguing that revealed religion is propaedeutic to rational religion — that historical revelation is necessary as a first lesson in religious truth that reason will subsequently develop into truths of reason. Schelling cites the §76 passage (note 101 to the Freedom Essay, raw line ~1843): "the development of revealed truths into truths of reason is simply necessary if they are to be of any help to the human race... they were revealed in order to become such truths."
  • Lessing as Schelling's quiet ally: Schelling does not name Lessing in the body of the Freedom Essay but cites him favorably (note 101) for the rational-development-of-revealed-truth doctrine. Schelling's positioning of the Supplementary Texts implicitly aligns him with Lessing's Spinozism-without-leap against Jacobi's leap-of-faith alternative.

Details

The Pantheismusstreit and Jacobi's staging

In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn (Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn), claiming that Lessing in private conversation in 1780 (the year of Lessing's death) had confessed: "I came to talk to you about my hen kai pan. There is no other philosophy than the philosophy of Spinoza."

Mendelssohn — Lessing's friend, executor of his literary estate, and a fellow rationalist — denied that Lessing had been Spinozist and prepared a counter-publication, Morning Hours, or Lectures on the Existence of God (1785), which was published shortly before Mendelssohn's death (some sources say his death was accelerated by the stress of the controversy).

The philosophical stakes: if Lessing — the paradigmatic Aufklärer, the rationalist dramatist whose Nathan the Wise had vindicated religious tolerance through reason — was secretly a Spinozist, then all late-Enlightenment rationalist theology was implicitly Spinozist, and the choice was either Spinozism (fatalism, atheism) or Jacobi's salto mortale (leap into faith). This is the dilemma Schelling's Freedom Essay attempts to escape: system can include freedom, and rationalism need not collapse into Spinozist fatalism.

Lessing's dialogue with Jacobi (as Jacobi reports it):

  • Lessing: "the orthodox concepts of the divinity are no longer for me; I can no longer enjoy them. Hen kai pan! I know nothing else."
  • Lessing on Leibniz: "the Principia by Leibniz put an end to" Spinozism? "How could I in view of the firm conviction that the incisive determinist does not differ from the fatalist?"
  • Lessing on the force in things: "thought is not the source of substance, but rather substance is the source of thinking" — the Spinozist priority of being.
  • But Lessing also: "I notice you would like your will to be free. I desire no free will."

The full set of Jacobi-Lessing dialogue passages is in the Supplementary Texts to the Freedom Essay (raw lines ~1009–1151).

Lessing's "fastidious" Spinozism

The editors' characterization (Introductory Note to Supplementary Texts, raw line ~1875): Lessing's Spinozism is rationalist but not unqualified — he tells Jacobi the "force" might enjoy itself in ways "wholly outside of the concept" (raw line 1059). The "fastidiousness" is the editorial label: Lessing accepts the Spinozist immanence and determinism but does not give up the idea that there is something more than mechanical extension.

This positions Lessing closer to Schelling than to Spinoza-as-Jacobi-reads-him: Lessing accepts immanence (Schelling does), accepts that "substance is the source of thinking" (Schelling does — see ground precedes existence), but does not collapse into the thing-construal of substance that Schelling diagnoses as Spinoza's real error.

"The Parable" (Supplementary Text 3)

The parable is short (raw lines ~971–1007). The structure:

  • A palace has been built whose exterior offends all "accepted rules" of architecture — windows in odd places, no obvious symmetry, no proportion. But the interior rooms receive their light "from above" and are surprisingly habitable.
  • Watchmen dispute over the architectural plans (blueprints) of the palace. The dispute is heated; each watchman champions a different plan.
  • A cry arises: "Fire! Fire in the palace!" The watchmen run with their plans into the street, debating the plans.
  • Only after a long delay do they realize: there is no fire. What they thought was the blaze was the northern lights ("the horrified guards had taken the northern lights for the blaze of a fire," raw line 1007).
  • "What do your plans have to do with me?" (raw line 995) — the parable's anti-doctrinal-quibble line.

The polemical target: Lutheran orthodox pastor Johann Melchior Goeze of Hamburg, who attacked Lessing for publishing the Fragments of Reimarus (anonymous deistic-critical writings on biblical scholarship). Goeze's attack and Lessing's Anti-Goeze pamphlets defined the Fragmentenstreit (1774–1778). The parable's claim: biblical-literalist controversy (the dispute over the plans) substitutes for any actual care of the palace (the living institution of faith) — and is structurally incapable of recognizing genuine emergencies (the false fire alarm).

The Education of the Human Race (1780)

Lessing's last major work. The central thesis: revealed religion is propaedeutic to rational religion. Historical revelation is necessary because reason needs first lessons — but the goal is the development of revealed truths into truths of reason. The work has been read variously: as a defense of Christianity (the orthodox reading); as a covert demolition of Christianity (the radical Enlightenment reading); as a Hegelian-anticipating philosophy of history (Hegel himself cites Lessing).

Schelling cites the §76 passage at Freedom Essay p. 673 (note 101). The passage:

"Let it not be objected that such rational speculations on the mysteries of religion are forbidden... the development of revealed truths into truths of reason is absolutely necessary if they are to be of any help to the human race. When they were revealed, of course, they were not yet truths of reason; but they were revealed in order to become such truths."

Schelling's appropriation: against Jacobi's anti-rationalism, reason is fully adequate to the spiritual content of revelation. The Schelling-Jacobi axis on the Freedom Essay turns precisely on this point — whether the rational development of revelation is possible without lapsing into Spinozist fatalism. Schelling's answer: yes, if the ground/existence distinction is in place.

Connections

  • is the staged Spinozist in the Jacobi Spinoza Letters — the document that launched the Pantheismusstreit
  • contributes "The Parable" as Supplementary Text 3 to schelling-1809-freedom-essay
  • is cited by Schelling at p. 673 via the Education of the Human Race §76 — the rational-development-of-revealed-truths doctrine
  • opposes Jacobi on the question of rationalist theology — Lessing: rational immanence is possible; Jacobi: only via salto mortale
  • is allied with Spinoza in Jacobi's framing (hen kai pan) — but Lessing's fastidious Spinozism is closer to Schelling's nuanced reading
  • opposes Goeze in the Fragmentenstreit (1774–1778) — the immediate polemical context of "The Parable"
  • anticipates Hegel's philosophy of religion — Lessing's "education of the human race" is a proto-Hegelian narrative of historical-rational development
  • is structurally positioned by Schelling's editors as the rational-immanence pole of the Pantheismusstreit axis (Jacobi being the leap-of-faith pole)

Open Questions

  • Whether Lessing genuinely confessed Spinozism to Jacobi or whether Jacobi's reporting amplifies/distorts. Mendelssohn's counter-claim is unprovable; the historical record is Jacobi's account alone.
  • Whether Lessing's Education of the Human Race is Christian-orthodox, covertly anti-Christian, or proto-Hegelian — interpretive disputes that pre-date Schelling and continue.
  • Whether "The Parable" is anti-orthodox-only or also anti-Enlightenment — the watchmen disputing over plans could also be read as Enlightenment philosophers debating reason while missing the actual life of faith.

Sources

  • schelling-1809-freedom-essay — primary anchor for the wiki. Schelling's citation at p. 673 (note 101, raw line ~1843). "The Parable" is Supplementary Text 3 (raw lines ~971–1007). Lessing also appears in the Jacobi Spinoza Letters as the dialogue partner (raw lines ~1013ff).
  • Implicit anchor in Mendelssohn's Morning Hours (not in raw/) and the broader Pantheismusstreit literature.