Lessing was a sort of forerunner of the classical age. Long as was Goethe’s literary life, his best years are those between 1770 and Schiller’s death in 1805. And to the credit of these thirty-five years may be reckoned much the larger half of the literary and a decidedly large fraction of the philosophical work of the whole great century of German mental life. Not only was this most productive period decidedly brief, but the geographical limitations of the intenser literary interest, at any rate, in view of the fact that Germany had no natural literary capital, are decidedly noteworthy. Two circles, the court at Weimar and the university a few miles distant at Jena, were, between 1775 and 1805, far and away the chief influences in German literature and philosophy. At Weimar, Goethe and Schiller were for a time together. In Jena, Schiller himself taught for some years, while Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel all began their academic activity there. After 1800, indeed, Berlin became a centre second in importance only to Weimar, while the university at Jena sadly declined. But not until still later was intellectual activity of high rank observable all over Germany from Berlin to Heidelberg, and from Munich to the Rhine. However, as the streams spread they lost their swiftness, and erelong, for the intense life of the great years, there was substituted more and more of that fruitful but quiet industry of minute German scholarship, to which we all owe so much.
The years from 1770 to 1805, and the circles of Weimar, of Jena, and, in a less degree, of Berlin, are therefore central in importance in the history of German thought. But now, as must be pointed out, even here there are to be specially mentioned, as of most critical significance, ten years out of these thirty-five. They were the flower of the flower for German life. These were the last ten years of Schiller’s career, when his friendship with Goethe was most intimate, and when also, in addition
