Volume 13, Number 11 · December 18, 1969
Shadows on the Enlightenment
By C.B.A. Behrens
The Enlightenment: An Interpretation Volume II: The Science of Freedom
by Peter Gay
Knopf, 745 pp., $10.00
David Chodowiecki, a hack illustrator of the eighteenth century, once produced a sketch to illustrate the Enlightenment which was reproduced in the Göttingen pocket calendar for the year 1792. It showed a hilly landscape, with a man on foot, a man on horseback, and a coach, all facing toward the rising sun. It was a pretty picture but suggested nothing in particular. As a German historian observed, it might equally well have borne the legend: 'the mail-coach at sunrise.' This historian used it to demonstrate that though everyone in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century continually talked about Enlightenment, no one knew what Enlightenment meant. At this time many authors besides Kant wrote books on 'was ist Aufklärung?' Many others have done so since.
Review, 2412 words
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