Bavaria at this time was modernizing her institutions.
Yet the town is under no great industrial or other modernizing influence, and therefore stands in the position of an ancient shrine, drawing a pilgrimage of modern origin.
In the 19th century the modernizing tendency continued to grow, though always side by side with a strong conservative opposition, and the most prominent names on both sides are those of scholars rather than literary men.
The influence that Rosicrucianism had in the modernizing of ancient Freemasonry early in the 18th century must have been slight, if any, though it is likely that as the century advanced, and additional ceremonies were grafted on to the first three degrees, Rosicrucian tenets were occasionally introduced into the later rituals.
In substantials the theory of Schopenhauer may be compared with a more prosaic statement of Herbert Spencer (modernizing Hume).