Note 181 — Chapter XVIII · GERMAN FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Cited by Hurst, Hist. of Rationalism, 3rd ed. p. 125. Outside Berlin, however, matters went otherwise till late in the century. Kurz tells (Gesch. der deutschen Literatur, ii, 461 b) that “the indifference of the learned towards native literature was so great that even in the year 1761 Abbt could write that in Rinteln there was nobody who knew the names of Moses Mendelssohn and Lessing.” ↑