do little else, can wonder and worship and
enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know that
some one else knows; he who has no law may still have a master; he who
is incapable of justice may be capable of fidelity; he who understands
little may have his sins forgiven because he loves much."

Such was Lessing's religion, so far as it can be ascertained from the
fragmentary writings which he has left on the subject. Undoubtedly it
lacked completeness. The opinions which we have here set down, though
constituting something more than a mere theory of morality, certainly
do not constitute a complete theory of religion. Our valiant knight has
examined but one side of the shield,--the bright side, turned toward us,
whose marvellous inscriptions the human reason can by dint of unwearied
effort decipher. But the dark side, looking out upon infinity, and
covered with hieroglyphics the meaning of which we can never know,
he has quite forgotten to consider. Yet it is this side which genuine
religious feeling ever seeks to contemplate. It is the consciousness
that there is about us an omnipresent Power, in which we live and move
and have our being, eternally manifesting itself throughout the whole
range of natural phenomena, which has ever disposed men to be religious,
and lured them on in the vain effort to construct adequate theological
systems. We may, getting rid of the last traces of fetishism, eliminate
arbitrary volition as much as we will or can. But there still remains
the consciousness of a divine Life in the universe, of a Power which is
beyond and above our comprehension, whose goings out and comings in no
man can follow. The more we know, the more we reach out for that which
we cannot know. And who can realize this so vividly as the scientific
philosopher? For our knowledge being, according to the familiar
comparison, like a brilliant sphere, the more we increase it the greater
becomes the number of peripheral points at which we are confronted
by the impenetrable darkness beyond. I believe that this restless
yearning,--vague enough in the description, yet recognizable by all who,
communing with themselves or with nature, have felt it,--this constant
seeking for what cannot be found, this persistent knocking at gates
which, when opened, but reveal others yet to be passed, constitutes an
element which no adequate theory of religion can overlook. But of this
we find nothing in Lessing. With him all is