WUNDT
WUETZ
1630 and 1640. T. Edwards says in his
Gangrcena (quoted in Professor Masson s
Life of Milton, vol. ii) that Wright was a
Presbyterian who left the Church about
1638, and went from depth to depth of
heresy until he reached " Atheism." It is
clear only that he rejected the authority
of the Bible, the doctrines of the Church,
and the immortality of the soul. He was
most outspoken and aggressive in a very
dangerous age. An anti-clerical work of
his, w r ith the ironical title of Jus Divinum
Presbyterii, has been lost ; but we have
memorials of his controversy with Eichard
Baxter, whose Unreasonableness of Infidelity
was directed against him. The anonymous
Fides Divina : the Ground of True Faith
Asserted (1657), which is an attack on the
Bible, is believed to be Writer s reply. To
Baxter s further work Writer replied with
An Apologetic Narration (1658). As nothing
more is found, it is conjectured that he died
soon afterwards.
WUNDT, Professor Wilhelm Max,
M.D., Ph.D., Jur.D., German physiologist and psychologist. B. Aug. 16, 1832. Ed. Heidelberg, Tubingen, and Berlin Univer sities. In 1857 he began to teach at Heidelberg, and in 1865 he became extra ordinary professor. He passed to Zurich in 1874, and in 1875 was appointed pro fessor of philosophy at Leipzig. At Leipzig he founded an Institute for Experimental Psychology, which served as model for many others throughout the world and gave a great impetus to scientific psycho logy. Wundt s thorough training in physio logy and important original work on the nervous system and the senses gave him a very solid basis for psychological study, and he was one of the first to carry inductive methods into that field. It coloured his whole philosophy and made him a thorough Rationalist. He taught an evolutionary ethic, rejected the idealism of the current German schools of metaphysics, and taught that the soul was not a simple immaterial substance, but a complex of psychic elements (and therefore not personally
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immortal). God he regarded as " a divine
world-ground," in a Pantheistic sense, or
the transcendental idea of unity ; and he
boldly accused Christianity of lapsing into
early superstition in claiming miracles
(System der Philosophic, 1889, pp. 649-51).
He was virtually the creator of scientific
psychology, and the long list of his weighty
works ranges from physiology to logic,
ethics, and metaphysics. He was one of
the founders of the science of Folk
Psychology, and he established and edited
Philoso2ihische Studien. His Grundziige
der Physiologischen Psychologic (1874) is &
classic of empirical psychology. Wundt
had the Prussian order Pour le M6rite and
innumerable other honours.
WUNSCH, Professor Christian Ernst,
Ph.D., M.D., German mathematician. B. Oct. 31, 1744. Wiinsch was the son of a weaver, and in his youth he worked, in great poverty, as a weaver. He gave much trouble to his pastor by his sceptical questions, and at the close of his appren ticeship he wandered afoot for a period. After his return he was a master weaver at his native place, Hohenstein. He made a, thorough study of mathematics and astro nomy, and in 1780 found occupation in the schools at Leipzig. When the great comet appeared some time afterwards Wiinsch so successfully explained it, and appeased the population, that he was offered a scholar ship at the University. He graduated in medicine and philosophy, and in 1784 he was appointed professor of mathematics and physics at Frankfoii on the Oder. He was " half a heretic " (Allgem. Deutsche Biog.), or a moderate Rationalist ; and he wrote a few substantial works on physics and chemistry. D. May 28, 1828.
WURTZ, Professor Charles Adolphe,
M.D., French chemist. B. Nov. 26, 1817. Ed. Giessen and Strassburg Universities. In 1843 he was appointed head of the chemical section of the Faculty of Medicine at Strassburg, and two years later preparer of lectures at the Sorbonne. He succeeded
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