So you continue to insist on the opinion, dear friend, that the enlightenment of our German fatherland has been waning in Protestant domains ever since it began rising in Catholic domains? Given the comparison you drew, I wonder whether you have, on the one hand, taken into account a truly greater swiftness that has diminished since its initial zeal and, on the other, an apparent slowness that is based on an optical illusion. Has not this slowness become more prominent the further the enlightenment, much like the sun, advances in relation to its horizon? – But, according to your own assurance, you have compared the course of Protestantism only to itself and have found that it is not, for instance, merely moving forward more slowly [100] but rather that it is actually at the point of retreating. Given the perspective in which you were able to arrange them in your letter, the many facts on which you base this claim certainly offer no comforting view of the future; and I confess to you that I have not found one among them I could deny or even call into doubt. By deriving the plausibility of your claim more from the combined effect of your reasons than from the force of any one taken individually, you anticipate the objections I could make against many of the inferences you have drawn.