Section 115

defined the universe as a creation out of the divine substance, a view involving the main principle of Spi- nozism, and directly opposed to the notions of deity and creation prevalent in his day. He now attempted, by concessions and modifications, to get rid of the eth- ical objections usually brought against kindred theories. The work is a fragment ; only the first volume appeared (in 1785), the death of the author arresting its progress. The most popular work, however, was his Phddon, oder iiber die UnsterblichJceit der Seek, a colloquy on the doc- trine of immortality. The characters are taken from Plato's dialogue of the same name, and the descriptive parts are mere translations of the original. The Jew- ish philosopher, however, has made Socrates produce new arguments in place of those attributed to him by his disciple Plato, thinking these substitutions better adapted to modern readers. The following is his prin- cipal, and, indeed, his only peculiar argument, the rest of the dialogue being employed m its defence, and in expressions of reliance on the goodness of the Deity. For every change three things are required : first, a state of the changeable thing prior to its change ; sec- ondlj', the state that follows the change ; and, thirdly, a middle state, as change does not take place at once, but by degrees. Between being and not-being there is no middle state. Now the soul being simple, and not, as a compound body, capable of resolution into parts, must, if it perish, be absolutely annihilated; and in its change from death to life, it must pass at once from be- ing to not-being, without, of course, going through any raiildle state — a change which, according to the three requisitions of change, is impossible. Thus by " reduc- tio ad absurdum" the immortality of the soul was proved. Kant, in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft ('2d ed. ; it is not in the 1st ed. ; see the complete edition of Kant's works by M. Kosenkranz [Leipsic]), has shown the iutilitj' of Mendelssohn's argument, while he admits his acuteness in perceiving that mere incapability of resolution into parts ^v•as of itself not sufficient to preserve the immor- tality of the soul, as had been supposed by many phi- losophers of the time. Mendelssohn, by assuming that change must be gradual and not sudden, thought that he had established his point, as the soul, being simple, could not admit of gradual resolution. Kant, however, shows that we may conceive a gradual annihilation even without resolution into parts — or, to use his own expression, a diminution of the "intensive magnitude." Thus a deep red color may grow fainter and fainter till at last all the redness is gone, and this without any diminution of the surface colored. Another fallacy in Mendelssohn's argument is that his definition of change applies only to a transition from one state of being to another, and therefore does not include a transition from being to not-being. For if not-being be considered a state of being, there is no occasion for an argument at all, as the continuance of being is assumed in the defini- tion of change, nor would anything be gained by sup- posing the soul in such a paradoxical state as nonentity with still a sort of being attached to it. This work not only immortalized its author's name, but conferred upon him for the strength of his reasoning the name of " the Jewish Socrates," and " the Jewish Plato" for the amen- ity of his diction. In less than two years after its first appearance (17G7) it went through three large editions, and was translated into Hebrew, and into almost every modern language ; English editions were published in 1789 and 1838. Mendelssohn's fame was at its height both among Christians and Jews, and he was lauded both as a philosopher and literary character. Zeal- ous Christians were wondering that so enlightened and exemplary a man should retain the faith of his fathers, and regarded it as a sacred duty to bring him over to the Church. Foremost among them was John Caspar Lavater (q. v.), who sought to drag him into theolog- ical controversy, though with no unkind intentions. In order to bring about this result, he dedicated to Mendelssohn his translation of Bonnet's Inquiry into