As Goldsmith came to London, so came Maimon to Berlin, "without friends, recommendation, money, or impudence." His only luggage was two manuscripts: a commentary on the works of Maimuni, whose name he had adopted, and to whom he paid divine reverence; and a treatise in which he attempted to rationalize the recondite doctrines of the Cabbala, and which he always kept by him "as a monument of the struggle of the human mind after perfection in spite of all hindrances which were put in its way." The little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin; and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike naïveté he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most. All this could not deaden his love for knowledge and truth. By chance he obtained Wolff's Metaphysics, and this marked a new epoch in his life. "Not only the sublime science in itself," says he, "but also the order and mathematical method of the celebrated author, the precision of his explanations, the exactness of his reasoning, and the scientific arrangement of his expositions—all this kindled a new light in my mind."
So profound a thinker could not for long be a mere pupil. Wolff's argument a posteriori for the existence of God, in accordance with his philosophic hobby, the "principle of sufficient reason," displeased him wholly. A Hebrew letter to Mendelssohn, in which he shook the foundation of the Metaphysics by means of his irrefutable ontology, won him the admiration of the Berlin sage, who invited him to become his daily guest.
Maimon's intellect unfolded from day to day, until, some time afterwards, he astonished the philosophic world by his great work, Die Transcendentale Philosophie (Berlin, 1790), in reference to which Kant wrote to his beloved disciple Marcus Herz: "A mere glance at it enabled me to recognize its merits, and showed me, that not only had none of my opponents understood me and the main problem so well, but very few could claim so much penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this sort." He demolished the prevalent Leibnitzo-Wolffian system in it, and proved that even the Kantian theory, though irrefutable from a dogmatic point of view, is exposed to severe attacks from the skeptic's point of view.
Thenceforth he became a leading figure in philosophic controversy. In 1793 he published Ueber die Progresse der Philosophie; in 1794, Versuch einer neuen Logik, and Die Kategorien des Aristoteles, and, three years later, Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Geist (Berlin, 1797), wherein he originated a speculative, monistic idealism, which pervaded not only philosophy, but all sciences during the first half of the nineteenth century, the system by which Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were influenced. According to Bernfeld, he was the greatest Jewish philosopher since the time of Spinoza, with whose depth of reasoning he combined an ease and straightforwardness of illustration characteristic of Benjamin Franklin.[25]
With all this he remained an ardent lover of the Talmud to the last. In fact, his philosophy is distinctively Jewish. Like Spinoza, he exhibited the effects of the Cabbala and of rabbinic speculation, with which he had been familiar from childhood. The honor of the Talmudic sages was always dear to him, and he never mentioned them without expressing profound respect. Persecuted though he was by his German coreligionists, he never bore them a grudge. As a man he loved them as brothers, but as a philosopher he could not subscribe to their views implicitly. But for friends and benefactors his affection was unusually strong. With what love he talks of Mendelssohn in the chapter dedicated to him in his autobiography, even though "he could not explain the persistency of Mendelssohn and the Wolffians generally in adhering to their system, except as a political dodge, and a piece of hypocrisy, by which they studiously endeavored to descend to the mode of thinking common to the popular mind!" His devotion to his wife was not diminished even after he had been compelled to divorce her because of his supposed heretical proclivities. "When the subject [of his divorce] came up in conversation, it was easy," says his biographer,[26] "to read in his face the deep sorrow he felt: his liveliness then faded away sensibly. By and by he would become perfectly silent, was incapable of further entertainment, and went home earlier than usual." Of his Russo-Polish brethren he speaks in the highest terms. He cannot bestow too much praise on their care for the poor and the sick, and he always hoped once more to see his native land, to whose king he dedicated his Transcendental Philosophy. "For," says he, "the Polish Jews are, indeed, for the most part not enlightened by science; their manners and way of life are still rude, but they are loyal to the religion of their fathers and to the laws of their country."[27]
It is because I regard him as the greatest Maskil of his time that I have dwelt on Maimon at such length. Mendelssohn's philosophy, if he had an original system, has long since passed into oblivion; Maimon's will be studied as long as Spinoza, Leibnitz, 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 Körner 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 Bär 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 Königsberg was called. Too poor to carry out his plan, he tramped to Berlin. Through the influence of his relatives and countrymen, Israel Moses Halevi and Daniel Jaffe, he was introduced to Mendelssohn, and was enabled to devote himself systematically to the study of German, the alphabet of which he had learned from Wolff's treatise on mathematics, and to French, Latin, physics, philosophy, and medicine. In a very short time he mastered them all, especially German. His Gedichte eines polnischen Juden (Mitau and Leipsic, 1772) caused no little stir among the poets. Lessing and Goethe, close observers of symptoms of enlightenment among the Jews, expressed themselves differently as to the real merit of the collection; but both concurred with Boie, who, writing to Knebel, the friend of Goethe, remarked concerning them, "You are right; the Jewish nation promises much after it is once awakened."[29]
For one reason or another we find that some Slavonic Jewish youths preferred other places to Berlin for the pursuit of their studies. Such were Benjamin Wolf Günzberg and Jacob Liboschüts. The former was probably the only Jew at the Göttingen University. It was from there that he inquired of Jacob Emden "whether it was permissible to dissect on the Sabbath," and his thesis for the doctor's degree was De medica ex Talmudicis illustrata (Göttingen, 1743).[30] Liboschüts studied at the University of Halle. After graduation, finding that as a Jew he could not settle in St. Petersburg, he established himself in Vilna, where he became celebrated as a diplomat, philanthropist, and, more especially, expert physician. When Professor Frank was asked who would take care of the public health in his absence, he is reported to have said, Deus et Judaeus, "God and the Jew" [Liboschüts]!