example). In relation to psychology metaphysics fell more and more into the background.
The psychology of the enlightenment, in its more characteristic development, held that the clearness or obscurity of ideas is all that it is possible to assert. In Germany however, like Shaftesbury in England and Rousseau in France, Sulzer (in the Essays of the Berlin Academy, 1751–2) and Mendelssohn (Briefe über die Empfindungen, 1755) held that the sentiments (above all the aesthetic sentiment) possess an independent significance and that they cannot be resolved into purely intellectual elements. Kant (in his writings during the sixties) and Tetens (Philosophische Versuche über die menschlische Natur und ihre Entwickelung, 1777) likewise adopt this view.
The eighteenth century was not only the century of enlightenment, but likewise the century of sentimentality. The natural sentiments demand satisfaction just as well as the natural understanding. And it frequently happened that these two tendencies came into conflict with each other, just as in the "storm and stress period," the period of ferment, whence the most brilliant products of art and of science were ultimately destined to proceed. On the other hand, however, the ferment did not permeate public life there as it had done in France. Neither were the religious antitheses so sharply drawn in Germany as in France. Protestantism had already departed from barren orthodoxy through the influence of pietism, and adherents to rationalism were even found within the church itself. Influential churchmen accepted the Wolffian philosophy, frequently (as e. g. at Königsberg) in its characteristic combination with pietism.
Moses Mendelssohn (1722–1786), a Jewish author noted for clearness and elegance of style, a disciple of Wolff and
