bnitz, and Kant are in vogue. His
importance to us does not lie in the circumstance that his
autobiography--"that wonderful bit of Autobiography," as George Eliot
speaks of it, or "that curious and rare book," as Dean Milman calls
it--and the pictures drawn of him by Berthold Auerbach and Israel
Zangwill[28] have made him the hero of some of the world's best
biographies and novels. Over and above this, he is the prototype of his
unfortunate countrymen during the days of transition. He embodied the
aspiration, courage, and disappointments of them all, and if, as Carlyle
said, "the history of the world is the history of its great men,"
Maimon's life should be studied by all interested in the Kulturkampf of
the Russo-Polish and of the German Jews in the eighteenth century.

What could he not have accomplished, he to whom Kant and Goethe,
Schiller and Koerner paid tributes of unstinted praise, had he not been
doomed to suffer and to starve. Only at the last moment, before he was
silenced forever, was he able to say, _Ich bin ruhig_ ("I am at peace").
Yet, in spite of the difficulties and impediments besetting him at every
step, his promise of greatness and usefulness was not belied. In the
Introduction to his commentary on Maimuni's _Guide to the Perplexed
(Gibe'at ha-Moreh)_, in which he attempted to reconcile his master's
system with that of modern philosophy--even as the master had tried to
reconcile Judaism with Aristotelianism--he gave a brief sketch of the
development of modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously
studied by his compatriots. Among his unpublished writings was found a
work on mathematical physics, _Ta'alumot Hokmah_, and in his Talmudic
treatise, _Heshek Shelomoh_, he inserted a dissertation, _Ma'aseh
Hosheb_, on arithmetic, like a skilful physician putting a healing,
though to some it may appear a repelling, balm into a delicious,
attractive capsule.

The story of Maimon, as I have said, is the story of many of the
peripatetic apostles of Haskalah, and his experience was more or less
also theirs. Issachar Falkensohn Behr (or Baer Falkensohn, 1746-1796?),
without funds, friends, or rudimentary knowledge of the subjects
necessary for admission into a public school, left his native city of
Zamosez with the determination to enter the university of "Little
Berlin," as Koenigsberg was called. Too poor to carry out his plan, he
tramped to Berlin. Through the influence of his relatives and
country