Wolff, Christian, and the Wolffian School

WOLFF, volf, CHRISTIAN, AND THE WOLFFIAN SCHOOL: German philosopher; b. at Breslau Jan. 24, 1679; d. at Halle May 9, 1754. He was educated at the gymnasium in Breslau and the University of Jena, where he was greatly attracted to the study of mathematics

Life. by the certainty of its method, which

seemed to him typical for science.

Without entirely giving up the thought of a theo

logical career, he took his master's degree in Leipsic,

then studied philosophy at Jena, and in 1703 established himself as privat-docent of philosophy at

Leipsic. In 1707 he accepted a call to Halle where

he lectured on mathematics, after 1709 also on

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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 Christianae (1707); Vern�nftige Gedanken von den Kraften des

Works. menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkenntnis der Wahrheit (1712; Eng. transl., Logic, or Rational Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding, London, 1770); Ratio praelectionum Wolfianarum in Mathesin et philosophiam universam (1718); Vern�nftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen (1719; his great theological work); Vern�nftige Gedanken von der Menschen Thun and Lassen zu Bef�rderung ihrer Gl�ckseligkeit (1720); Vern�nftige Gedanken von dem gesellschaft lichen Leben der Menschen and insonderheit dem gemeinen Wesen zur Bef�rderung der Gluckseligkeit des menschlichen Geschlechts (1721); Vern�nftige Gedanken von den Wirkungen der Natur (3 parts, 1723-25); Vern�nftige Gedanken von den Absichten der nat�rlichen Dinge (1724); Philosophia rationalis sive Logica (1728); Philosophia prima sive ontologia (1729); Cosmologia generalis (1731); Psychologia empirica (1732); Psychologia rationalis (1734); Theologia naturalis (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

time combined and in their connection influenced the future. By the application of the mathematical- syllogistic 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 ap pears 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 practi cal philosophy. In the system of Wolff logic leads as a sort of propaedeutic. 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 theol ogy. The rational practical sciences begin with gen eral practical philosophy and natural law, and then consider man in Aristotelian fashion successively as individual being (ethics), citizen (politics), and mem ber of the family (economy). The empirical sciences are empirical-theoretical science (empirical psychol ogy, teleology, empirical theology, dogmatic physics) and empirical-practical science (technology, experi mental 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 encroach ments 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 hith erto had been directed to revelation. In the proof of the existence of the deity he stressed the cosmolog ical 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 neces sary, otherwise unknowable things, mysteries; it may not contain any inner contradictions, nor may it contradict the attributes of God, reason, or experi ence. 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 con sciousness until the latter was induced through birth. He held that the bodily and spiritual proc esses are independent of each other; their agree ment does not rest upon perpetual miracle, as the occasionalists teach, but upon preestablished harmony. The intellectual faculty takes prece dence 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

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for popularizing and teaching. It gave to the German "Enlightenment" its scientific independence. The disciples of Wolff not only repeated the principles of their master, but applied them more exactly to special departments of science. In

His Philos- jurisprudence, in philology, and even ophy and in medicine there arose scholars who Theology tried to give their science a greater

Victorious. stability by employing the "scientific" method of Wolff. Representatives of German culture, like Gottsched, transmitted his influence to larger circles of educated people. Among the disciples of Wolff must be mentioned especially Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (d. 1762), who sup plemented the system at an important point and anticipated its further development. LikS Leibnitz, Wolff had separated the lower sensual and the higher intellectual knowledge, but in his logic he represented only the latter. Baumgarten treated in his Esthetics the doctrine of sensual knowledge as esthetics. The philosophy of Wolff was of course not without its opponents, especially among the theologians, among the orthodox as well as among the Pietists. The orthodox, it is true, also combined theology and philosophy in an intellectualistic way, but so that philosophy served theology; philosophy in its independence seemed to them not only against the rule of theology, but also against religion and revelation. The Pietists, on the other hand, were offended by the intellectualism of the followers of Wolff as well as of the orthodox. The spokesman of Pietistic polemics was Joachim Lange (q.v.), the principal defender of orthodoxy was Valentin Ernst Löscher (q.v.); but the opponents of Wolff were either representatives of a vanishing period of thought or precursors of a later culture that pos sessed no influence, and Wolff gained the victory. The theologians of his school developed the thoughts of their master by applying his method to the Bible and revelation. In conformity with the later ortho doxy they conceded to natural theology an increas ing influence in the dogmatic system. Owing to the expansion of intellectualism, the independent posi tion of revelation still asserted by Wolff proved impossible; it was gradually supplanted by the rationalistic element. The history of the Wolffian school of theology became the history of the dissolu tion of the orthodox system; it was in every respect a theology of transition. Far more positive is its practical importance for Church and Christianity as it secured for undogmatic piety, which had arisen since the stagnation of orthodoxy and the influence of Pietism, a solid background of ideas and concep tions. Protestant apologetics owed to it a good deal of its first bloom. It provided for the transition from Pietism as well as from orthodoxy to the period of "Enlightenment" without the sacrifice of the uni versal character of Christianity.

(H. Stephan.)

Bibliography: On the life consult: F. C. Baumeister, Vita, fata et scripts Wolfii, Leipsic, 1739; J. C. Gottsched, Historische Lobschrift auf Christian Freiherr von Wolf, Halle, 1755; F. W. Kluge, Christian von Wolf, der Philosoph, Breslau, 1831; Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz and Christian Wolff, ed. C J. Gerhardt, Halle, 1860; B. Erdmann, M. %nutzen und seine Zeit, Leipsic, 1876; J. Ca'sar, Christian Wol$in Marburg, Marburg, 1879; ADB, xliv.12-28.

Ou hia phAoaophy and theology consult: J. F. Buddeus, Bedenken über die wolfsche Philosophie, Freiburg, 1724;

L. P. Thummig, Instilutiones philosophies Wolfance, 2 vols., Leipoic, 1725-26; 1. G. Canz, Philosophise Leibnitzianou et Wolfanw usus in theologia, ib. 1728-34; K. G. Ludoviei, Ausführlicher Bntwurf einer vollstdndipen Historic der wolfschen Philosophie, 3 vols., ib. 1736-38; idem, Sammlung and Ausziige der sammtlichen Streitschriften wegen der wolfachen Philosophie, 2 parts, ib. 1737; idem, Neueste Merkwardigkeiten der leibnitz-wolfischen Philosophie, ib. 1738; G. V. Hartmann, Anleitung zur Historic der leibnitz-wolfsehen Philosophie, Hof, Bavaria, 1737; J. J. Koethen, Principia qucedam metaphysic� Wolfiana, Cologne, 1737; J. G. Daries, Anmerkungen �ber einige Lehrsktze der wolfschen Metaphysik, Leipsic, 1748; J. M. Schr6ekh, Christliche Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation, vi. 100 sqq., viii. 26 sqq. (the whole series, 45 vols.), ib. 1768-1812; J. C. Schwab, Vergleichung des kantischen Moralprincips mit dem leibnitzisch-wolfschen, Berlin, 1800; W. Gass,, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, ii. 160 sqq., 4 vols., ib. 1854-67; G. W. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, ii. 384 sqq., 4 vols., Leipsic, 1862-1905; E. Zeller, Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz, Munich, 1873; R. Frank, Die wolf"scheStrafrechtSphilosophie, Göttingen, 1887; G. Kraus, Christian Wolff als Botaniker, Halle, 1892; W. Arnsperger, Christian Wolf's Verhaltnis zu Leibniz, Weimar, 1897; O. Willareth, Die Lehre vom Uebel bei Leibniz und seiner Schule, Strasburg, 1898; K. Fischer, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, iii. 627-638, Heidelberg, 1902; J. Reinhard, Die Prinzipienlehre der lutherischen Dogmatik 1700-60, Leipsic, 1906; E. Weber, Die philosophische Scholastik des deutschen Protestantismus im Zeitalter der Orthodozie, ib. 1907; H. Pichler, Ueber Christian Wolfs Ontologie, ib. 1900; the works on the history of philosophy by W. Windelband, New York, 1893; J. E. Erdmann, 3 vols., London, 1892-98; Ueberweg-Heinze, 9th ed., Berlin, 1905.