this, however, says Lessing, which
constitutes one of its signal excellences. "That thy days may be long
in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee," was an appeal which the
uncivilized Jew could understand, and which could arouse him to action;
while the need of a future world, to rectify the injustices of this, not
yet being felt, the doctrine would have been of but little service.
But in later Hebrew literature, many magnificent passages revealed the
despair felt by prophet and thinker over the insoluble problem presented
by the evil fate of the good and the triumphant success of the wicked;
and a solution was sought in the doctrine of a Messianic kingdom, until
Christianity with its proclamation of a future life set the
question entirely aside. By its appeal to what has been aptly termed
"other-worldliness," Christianity immeasurably intensified human
responsibility, besides rendering clearer its nature and limits. But
according to Lessing, yet another step remains to be taken; and here we
come upon the gulf which separates him from men of the stamp of
Theodore Parker. For, says Lessing, the appeal to unearthly rewards
and punishments is after all an appeal to our lower feelings;
other-worldliness is but a refined selfishness; and we are to cherish
virtue for its own sake not because it will lead us to heaven. Here is
the grand principle of Stoicism. Lessing believed, with Mr. Mill, that
the less we think about getting rewarded either on earth or in heaven
the better. He was cast in the same heroic mould as Muhamad Efendi, who
when led to the stake exclaimed: "Though I have no hope of recompense
hereafter, yet the love of truth constraineth me to die in its defence!"

With the truth or completeness of these views of Lessing we are not here
concerned; our business being not to expound our own opinions, but
to indicate as clearly as possible Lessing's position. Those who are
familiar with the general philosophical spirit of the present age,
as represented by writers otherwise so different as Littre and
Sainte-Beuve, will best appreciate the power and originality of these
speculations. Coming in the last century, amid the crudities of deism,
they made a well-defined epoch. They inaugurated the historical method
of criticism, and they robbed the spirit of intolerance of its only
philosophical excuse for existing. Hitherto the orthodox had been
intolerant toward the philosophers because they considered them
heretics;