It is impossible here to go even briefly into the achievements of the bearers of these great names.
They may be truly regarded in many important respects as the founders of modern German culture.

Around them sprang up a whole galaxy of smaller men, and the close of the eighteenth century showed a literary activity in Germany exceeding any that had gone before.
Turning to philosophy, it is enough to mention the immortal name of Immanuel Kant as the founder of modern German philosophic thought and the first of a line of eminent thinkers extending to wellnigh the middle of the nineteenth century.

The names of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and others will at once occur to the reader.
Contemporaneously with the great rise of modern German literature there was a unique development in music, beginning with Sebastian Bach and continuing through the great classical school, the leading names in which are Glueck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, etc.

The middle period of the nineteenth century showed a further development in prose literature, producing some of the greatest historians and critics the world has seen.

At this time, too, Germany began to take the lead in science.