THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
physics, then on other branches of philosophy. His success as a teacher was extraordinary and was soon supplemented by the impression made by his writings. His fame extended over Europe. At home king and government heaped honors upon him, and scholars gathered about him; but in Halle itself the Pietists and Christian Thomasius (q.v.) were hostile. After some friction the address De Sinarum philosophia practica (Frankfort, 1726; Eng. transl., The Real Happiness of a People under a Philosophical King Demonstrated, London, 1750), which Wolff delivered in 1721, led to a complete rupture. His enemies found in it a glorification of the morality of Confucius and inferred that Wolff taught the dispensability of Christian revelation for human happiness. The Pietists won the ear of the king who on Nov. 8, 1723, ordered the deposition of Wolff and ordered him to leave the realm within forty-eight hours. From 1723 to 1740 Wolff was professor in Marburg. It was the most brilliant and the happiest period of his life. He continually gained philosophical adherents and new students and earned rich honors. In the mean time conditions in Prussia became better. Provost Reinbeck in Berlin was active in his behalf; the king changed his opinion, ordered candidates to study his works, and would have liked to recall Wolff to Prussia as early as 1733, but he died during the negotiations. Frederic II., who in 1736 had designated Wolff as the greatest philosopher of his time, carried out his father’s plan, and since Wolff declined a position in the academy at Berlin, he was called as privy councilor and vicechancellor to Halle where he arrived in 1740, was received with unusual honors, and was active until his death.
Of his numerous treatises and books those of especial importance for theology, many of which reached numerous editions, are: Methodus demonstrandi veritatem religionis Christiane (1707); Verniinftige Gedanken von den Kraften des menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkenntnis der Wahrhet (1712; Eng. transl., Logic, or Rational Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding, London, 1770); Ratio prelectionum Wolfianarum in Mathesin et philosophiam universam (1718); Verniinftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen (1719; his great theological work); Verniinftige Gedanken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen zu Beférderung ihrer Gliickseligkeit (1720); Verntinftige Gedanken von dem gesellschaftlichen Leben der Menschen und insonderheit dem gemeinen Wesen zur Beférderung der Gliickseligkeit des menschlichen Geschlechts (1721); Verniinftige Gedanken von den Wirkungen der Natur (3 parts, 1723-25); Verniinftige Gedanken von den Absichten der naturlichen Dinge (1724); Philosophia rationalis sive Logica (1728); Philosophia prima sive ontologia (1729); Cosmologia generalis (1731); Psychologia empirica (1732); Psychologia rationalis (1734); Theologia naturals (2 parts, 1736-37), Philosophia practica universalis (1738). G. F. Hagen edited his Gesammelte kleine philosophische Schriften (6 parts, Halle, 1736-40).
Wolff was not a great creative spirit, but rather the philosopher in whom the scientific efforts of the
Works.
time combined and in their connection influenced the future. By the application of the mathematicalsyllogistic method he tried to give to all sciences the same formal certainty and thus to make possible a universal system of human science. Philosophy. Philosophy ‘is for him the science of the conceivable or the possible, which appears as the essence of reality. Upon the relation of the higher (rational) and the lower (sensual) faculty of the soul is built the distinction between rational and empirical knowledge. The objective order of the sciences is based upon psychology, upon the distinction between knowledge and desire. On the one side stands theoretical, on the other side practical philosophy. In the system of Wolff logic leads as a sort of propsedeutic. Then follow the rational theoretical sciences, metaphysics, ontology; then in the order of the three main objects (world, soul, and God), cosmology, rational psychology, natural theology. The rational practical sciences begin with general practical philosophy and natural law, and then consider man in Aristotelian fashion successively as individual being (ethics), citizen (politics), and member of the family (economy). The empirical sciences are empirical-theoretical science (empirical psychology, teleology, empirical theology, dogmatic physics) and empirical-practical science (technology, experimental physics). Esthetics is not taken into the system. The most characteristic feature of Wolff’s theology is the emphasis upon natural religion. While he strictly separated this from the knowledge given by revelation and refrained from encroachments upon the dogmatic sphere, he based upon natural religion the general religious truths which seemed to be assailed by naturalism, brought it to the front in the spiritual struggle, and focused about it the religious and theological interest which hitherto had been directed to revelation. In the proof of the existence of the deity he stressed the cosmological argument, and employed also the ontological. However much the philosophy of Wolff tended to depreciate miracles and revelation, he himself fully acknowledged both in so far as they fulfil definite conditions in the system. Since God does nothing superfluous, revelation can comprehend only necessary, otherwise unknowable things, mysteries; it may not contain any inner contradictions, nor may it contradict the attributes of God, reason, or experience. Miracles are changes which by the nature of the bodies concerned are not impossible, though they lack the natural cause. In psychology Wolff taught that souls are simple created substance, originating at creation, and existing without consciousness until the latter was induced through birth. He held that the bodily and spiritual processes are independent of each other; their agreement does not rest upon perpetual miracle, as the occasionalists teach, but upon preestablished harmony. The intellectual faculty takes precedence over the will. In practical philosophy Wolff separated ethics from religion and based it upon reason. His system is, therefore, rationalistic throughout. The success of the philosophy of Wolff is a proof that it victoriously comprehended and satisfied the longing of his time. To this contributed his talent