The Strange Illness

The year 1771 began rather auspiciously for Moses Mendelssohn: the Royal Academy in Berlin decided on February 7 to propose to the king that the vacant place of a “membre ordinaire de la classe de philosophie spéculative” be filled by the appointment of “le juif Moses.“

Johann Georg Sulzer, who had moved the resolution, announced it to Mendelssohn that same day in an official letter: “The Royal Academy has directed me to inform you that it desires to have you as a regular member of the philosophical class. It is its desire and hope that you will not object to such a position, although, for the time being, it carries no stipend. Should this be the case, the proposal will be dispatched to the king tomorrow. Kindly let me know whether this meets with your approval. To have you for a colleague would be a particular pleasure to me.” On February 12 Nicolai wrote to Lessing: “Our friend Moses was elected a regular member of the academy (albeit without a stipend) last Thursday. True, the king's confirmation has not yet been received from Potsdam, but no one doubts it.“

The king had his doubts, it seems, and chose to veto the appointment by the simple expedient of ignoring the letter. His ominous silence was attributed first to the pressures of state business, and when the academy convened on September 26, 1771, a majority of the academicians voted to resubmit Mendelssohn's name to the enlightened monarch. But this resolution was not carried out. In the end, the academy preferred not to risk offending the king. A list of three names from which he might choose was submitted, and Mendelssohn's name was not one of the three. Mercifully, Mendelssohn did not learn of this cowardly act on the academy's part. When no news of any response by the king was forthcoming, he seems to have asked Sulzer about the situation, and Sulzer's reply indicated that the academy's letter proposing Mendelssohn's name, as well as that of Garve and some others, had been dispatched to Potsdam on September 27, as Sulzer's inquiries had shown.