But one learns at length to recognize and value this very
incompleteness as characteristic of the man who was growing lifelong, and
to whom the selfish thought that any share of truth could be exclusively
_his_ was an impossibility. At the end of the ninety-fifth number of the
_Dramaturgie_ he says: "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.
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