The result of this and subsequent investigations is as follows. The original work of Reimarus, from which the Fragments were taken, remains in MS. in the public library of Hamburg. It was entitled Apologie oder Schutz-Schrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes. When written, it was shown only to intimate friends. Lessing was allowed to take a copy, and showed the MS. to Mendelssohn in 1771. Lessing wished to publish it entire; but the censorship would not give the imprimatur. Consequently it came out in fragments among the series of contributions from the Wolfenbüttel library, which were free from the censorship. The pretended discovery of them in the library was a mere excuse; and there is proof in Lessing's remains that he admitted the fact. See the statement of these facts in Lessing's Leben, by Guhrauer, (of which, vol. i. is by Danzel; vol. ii. by Guhrauer,) vol. ii. b. iii. ch. iv. p. 133, note 3, and b. iv. p. 141.[1067]
Several writers, subsequently to Gurlitt's examination of the question of authorship, have written, either on the question of the authorship of the Fragments, or on the contents of the larger work from which they are selections. In the Zeitschrift für die Historische Theologie for 1839, part iv. is an article composed from W. Körte's life of Thaer, in reference to the former question. Also Dr. W. Klose examined the original MS. in the Hamburg library, and published an account of it, with considerable extracts, in several of the numbers of the same journal, Niedner's Zeitschrift, 1850, (part iv; 1851, part iv; 1852, part iii.) It is in the preface (Vorbericht) to the first of these parts that the account of Reimarus's own mental history is given, to which allusion was made in the text of Lecture [VI]. (p. [225].)
During the last year the question has been made the subject of a monograph by the celebrated Strauss. He had heard of the existence of a copy of the original MS. in private hands at Hamburg, and proceeded to collate it with the view of publication. [pg 427] He found it to differ in some respects from the Fragments published by Lessing and Schmidt. He did not consider the hitherto unpublished parts of the work sufficiently important, either in a literary or historical point of view, to merit publication in extenso; but contented himself with stating the results of his study of it in a small work, H. S. Reimarus und seine Schutz-Schrift, &c. 1861. It contains a brief account of the literary question of the Fragments, and of Reimarus's life and stand-point; also an analysis of the unpublished parts of the work, written with the clearness which characterises all Strauss's didactic works. It would appear from the analysis that the pieces printed by Lessing were not only some of the ablest, but some of the least offensive of the whole work. The concluding pages contain some very interesting remarks, in which Strauss contrasts the criticism of the eighteenth century with that of the present day; the characteristics of the former being, that it charges imposture on the scripture writers; that of the latter, that it admits their honesty, but explains away their statements and opinions by reference to psychological and historical phenomena.
In addition to the sources given above, information is contained in the following works: Schröckh's Christ Kirchengesch. vi. 275; Schlosser's History of the Eighteenth Century, E. T. vol. ii. 266 seq.; Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, § 275 notes, (where reference is made to Guhrauer's Bodin's Heptaplomeres, 1841, p. 257 seq.); Conversations-Lexicon, art. Reimarus; Amand Saintes' History of Rationalism, E. T. p. 84; Kahnis, Id. p. 145 seq.; K. Schwarz, Lessing als Theolog, of which ch. iv. is on the Fragmenten-streit; Strauss's Kleine Schriften, 1861; Lessing's Werke, xii. 508. (ed. Lachmann.)
Note 30. p. [242]. Schleiermacher's Early Studies.
It may be interesting to trace more fully the parallel noticed in the text between the development of Plato's thoughts and Schleiermacher's early studies.
Though it is impossible to arrange the dialogues of Plato in the chronological order in which they were composed, so as to be able to study the master in his successive styles, yet several systems of arrangement, founded on different principles, seem to coincide so far as to render it probable that Plato's great theory of ideas or forms grew upon him through these stages: viz. (1) it was viewed as a fact of mind, an innate conception of forms (e.g. in Meno); (2) as useful in guiding perplexed minds to truth, and sifting philosophical doctrines by means of the dialectical process, e.g. in the Theætetus and Parmenides; (3) as representing an objective [pg 428] reality, a true cause in nature external to the mind, as well as an hypothesis in science (e.g. in the Republic); (4) as having a mystical connexion with divinity, and furnishing a cosmogony, Whether this passage, from the subjective conception to the objective reality, be really or only logically the order of development in Plato's ideal theory, it is clear that the growth of Schleiermacher's mind admits of comparison with this supposed order of development in Plato; though there is a slight variation in the steps of the process. Schleiermacher went through three stages, (1) the philosophy of Jacobi, (2) of Fichte, and probably (3) of Schelling; from which he learned respectively, (1) to have faith in our intuitions, (2) to construe the outward by the inward, (3) to believe in the power of the mind to pass beyond the inward, and apprehend absolute truth. If the resemblance to the above account of Plato were exactly perfect, the love of a philosophy like Fichte's ought to have preceded that of Jacobi. Schelling's influence, it ought to be noted, is very slight on Schleiermacher, compared with that of the others. The traces of it which appear are perhaps resolvable into a similarity to Jacobi's system.