Reflections on Lessing's Fragments

propositions, counter-propositions, and conclusions, when both seek to assert their own propositions through the light of reason Vernunft: The capacity for rational thought, which the author argues is being used by both sides of the religious debate to conflicting ends.

You too, my dear Horus! Horus: Likely a pseudonym for a specific Enlightenment critic or polemicist the author is addressing belong to this class of learned brawlers Klopfechter: Originally meaning a prize-fighter or fencer, here it refers to a "polemicist" or someone who engages in aggressive intellectual combat, because I have seen in your published book that you do not even know the hieroglyphs Hierogliphen: Used here not as Egyptian writing, but in the sense of "sacred symbols" or "hidden mysteries" containing deeper truths of the ancient world-sages Weltweisen: A common 18th-century term for philosophers, and least of all the hieroglyphs of Revelation. This is despite the fact that both stand in a shared understanding and connection with one another and flow from a single source. Otherwise, you would have written with greater caution and not thrown the baby out with the bathwater original: "das Kind nicht mit samt dem Bade ausgeschüttet"; instead, you would have applied both in such a way that it would not have resulted in your own branding original: "Brandmarke" – a mark of shame or a criminal's brand, but rather in a quiet conscience,