Note 1 — PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY;

In confirmation of this pithy sentence of Schlegel’s, I may cite a remarkable passage from the celebrated Lessing, which, as coming from an Infidel, may perhaps have more weight with the Unitarian. “If Christ,” he says, “is not truly God, then Mohammedanism was an undoubted improvement on the Christian religion: Mahomet, on such a supposition, would indisputably have been a greater man than Christ, as he would have been far more veracious, more circumspect, and more zealous for the honour of God, since Christ, by his expressions, would have given dangerous occasion for idolatry; while, on the other hand, not a single expression of the kind can be laid to the charge of Mahomet.”—Lessing’s Beiträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur. Vol. II. p. 410.—Trans.