world. In Austria, despite a certain amount of French culture, the
rule of the Jesuits in the eighteenth century was too effective to
permit of any intellectual developments. Maria Theresa, who knew
too well that the boundless sexual licence against which she fought
had nothing to do with innovating ideas, had to issue a special
order to permit the importation of Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois;
and works of more subversive doctrine could not openly pass the
frontiers at all. An attempt to bring Lessing to Vienna in 1774,
with a view to founding a new literary Academy, collapsed before the
opposition; and when Prof. Jahn, of the Vienna University--described
as "freethinking, latitudinarian, anti-supernaturalistic"--developed
somewhat anti-clerical tendencies in his teaching and writing, he
was forced to resign, and died a simple Canon. [1488] The Emperor
Joseph II in his day passed for an unbeliever; [1489] but there was
no general movement. "Austria, in a time of universal effervescence,
produced only musicians, and showed zest only for pleasure." [1490]
Yet among the music-makers was the German-born Beethoven, the greatest
master of his age. Kindred in spirit to Goethe, and much more of a
revolutionist than he in all things, Beethoven spent the creative part
of his life at Vienna without ceasing to be a freethinker. [1491]
"Formal religion he apparently had none." He copied out a kind of
theistic creed consisting of three ancient formulas: "I am that which
is": "I am all that is, that was, that shall be": "He is alone by
Himself; and to Him alone do all things owe their being." Beyond this
his beliefs did not go. When his friend Moscheles at the end of his
arrangement of Fidelio wrote: "Fine, with God's help," Beethoven added,
"O man, help thyself." [1492] His reception of the Catholic sacraments
in extremis was not his act. He had left to mankind a purer and a more
lasting gift than either the creeds or the philosophies of his age.