[46] Cp. Schmid, Geschichte des Pietismus, pp. 486–88. [↑]
[47] Pufendorf’s bulky treatise De Jure Naturæ et Gentium was published at Lund, where he was professor, in 1672. The shorter De Officio hominis et civis (also Lund, 1673) is a condensation and partly a vindication of the other, and this it was that convinced Thomasius. As to Pufendorf’s part in the transition from theological to rational moral philosophy, see Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iv, 171–78. He is fairly to be bracketed with Cumberland; but Hallam hardly recognizes that it was the challenge of Hobbes that forced the change. [↑]
[48] Freimüthige, lustige und ernsthafte, jedoch vernunft- und gesetzmässige Gedanken, oder Monatgespräche über allerhand, vornehmlich über neue Bücher. There had been an earlier Acta Eruditorum, in Latin, published at Leipzig, and a French Ephemerides savantes, Hamburg, 1686. Other German and French periodicals soon followed that of Thomasius. Luden, p. 162. [↑]
[49] Schmid, pp. 488–92, gives a sketch of some of the contents. [↑]
[50] Pusey, p. 86, note. It is surprising that Pusey does not make more account of Thomasius’s naturalistic treatment of polygamy and suicide, which he showed to be not criminal in terms of natural law. [↑]
[51] Compare Weber, Gesch. der deutschen Lit. § 81 (ed. 1880, pp. 90–91); Pusey, as cited, p. 114. note; Enfield’s Hist. of Philos. (abst. of Brucker’s Hist. crit. philos.), 1840. pp. 610–612; Ueberweg, ii, 115; and Schlegel’s note in Reid’s Mosheim, p. 790, with Karl Hillebrand, Six Lect. on the Hist. of German Thought, 1880, pp. 64–65. There is a modern monograph by A. Nicoladoni, Christian Thomasius; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Aufklärung, 1888. [↑]
[52] Baron de Bielfeld, Progrès des Allemands, 3e éd. 1767, i, 24. “Before Thomasius,” writes Bielfeld, “an old woman could not have red eyes without running the risk of being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.” [↑]
[53] Schmid, pp. 493–97. Thomasius’s principal writings on this theme were: Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten in Mitteldingen (1692); Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten in theologischen Streitigkeiten (1696); Vom Recht evangelischen Fürsten gegen Ketzer (1697). [↑]
[54] Ec. Hist. 17 Cent. sect. ii, pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 11, 14. It is noteworthy that the Pietists at Halle did not scruple to ally themselves for a time with Thomasius, he being opposed to the orthodox party. Kahnis, Internal Hist. of Ger. Protestantism, p. 114. [↑]