Lessing would step up; with an ambiguously admiring expression on his face, he would pat me on the shoulder and say: Daran haben sie Recht, wenn ich das gewusst hätte, ich aber habe mir nie so etwas einfallen lassen [You are right in that, if only I had known, but nothing like that has ever occurred to me]——Pap. VI B 35:5 n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.71:15:

. . . . . πολύμητις [of many wiles] (the wily Lessing).

—Pap. VI B 37 n.d., 1845

In margin of final copy; see 1.72:1-3:

Ch. II. Possible and Actual Theses by Lessing.

—Pap. VI B 98:22 n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.72:31-32:

(1) Lessing, as a subjective thinker, is aware of the dialectic of communication.—JP III 2371 (Pap. VI B 35:7) n.d., 1845

From final copy; see 1.72:31-32:

Changed from: Lessing as a subjective thinker is. . . . .

—Pap. VI B 98:23 n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.73:21-74:40 fn., 1.110:3-29:

Double-reflection is already implicit in the communication itself, in the fact that the subjective individual (who wants to express the life of the eternal*) existing in isolation wants to communicate himself, something he cannot possibly want to do directly, since it is a contradiction.

One may very well want to communicate oneself, like the person in love, but always indirectly.

Every finite certainty is simply a deception; to demand this of God is only to make a fool of him. It is like the unfaithfulness in an erotic relationship, which consists not in one’s loving another girl but in having lost the idea.**

*in which all sociality and all communication are inconceivable, because movement is inconceivable. Trendlenburg’s contribution to the category; the passage in the conclusion about Isis and Osiris, which is marked in my copy.

** thus if the girl were to long for the wedding day because it would give finite certainty, if she wanted to make me understand that now she was certain, I would deplore her unfaithfulness, for then she would have lost the idea of love.— JP I 632 (Pap. VI B 38) n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.78:24-79:2:

. . . . . probably in the reliance that the other was greater than he, consequently that the pupil was greater than the master.29 —Pap. VI B 35:13 n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.80:21-24:

2. In his idea-relationship to truth, Lessing is just as negative as positive, equally as much, has just as much of the comic as he has of pathos, equally as much, and in his idea-relationship is continually in a process of becoming—that is, striving.— JP V 5793 (Pap. VI B 35:14) n.d., 1845

Deleted from final copy; see 1.80:21:

Lessing as

—Pap. VI B 98:24 n.d., 1845

From draft; see 1.81:25-31:

. .