human
I remind my readers here, that these pages are by no means intended to contain a dramatic system. I am accordingly not bound to solve all the difficulties which I raise. I am quite willing that my thoughts should seem to want connection,--nay, even to contradict each other,--if only there are thoughts in which they [my readers] find material for thinking themselves. I wish to do nothing more than scatter the _fermenta cognitionis_. That is Lessing's great praise, and gives its chief value to his works,--a value, indeed, imperishable, and of the noblest kind. No writer can leave a more precious legacy to posterity than this; and beside this shining merit, all mere literary splendors look pale and cold. There is that life in Lessing's thought which engenders life, and not only thinks for us, but makes us think. Not sceptical, but forever testing and inquiring, it is out of the cloud of his own doubt that the flash comes at last with sudden and vivid illumination. Flashes they indeed are, his finest intuitions, and of very different quality from the equable north-light of the artist. He felt it, and said it of himself,
gpt
Ever so many flashes of lightning do not make daylight. We speak now of those more rememberable passages where his highest individuality reveals itself in what may truly be called a passion of thought. In the
human
Laocoön