CHAPTER VIII. THE GERMAN ILLUMINATION. I. The Contemporaries of Leibnitz. The period between Kepler and Leibnitz in Germany was very poor in noteworthy philosophical phenomena. The physicist, Christoph Sturm * of Altdorf (died 1703), was a follower of Descartes, Joachim Jungiusf (died 1657) a follower of Bacon, though not denying with the latter the value of the mathematical method in natural science. Hier- onymus Hirnhaym, Abbot at Prague {TJie Plague of the Hu- man Race, or the Vanity of Human Learning, 1676), declared the thirst for knowledge of his age a dangerous disease, knowledge uncertain, since no reliance can be placed on sense-perception and the principles of thought contradict the doctrines of faith, and harmful, since it contributes nothing to salvation, but makes its possessors proud and draws them away from piety. He maintained, further, that divine authority is the only refuge for man, and moral life the true science. Side by side with such skepticism Hirn- haym's contemporary, the poet Angelus Silesius (Joh. Schefifler, died 1667),. defended mysticism. The teacher of natural law, Samuel Pufendorf X (1632-94, professor in Heidelberg and Lund, died in Berlin), aimed to mediate between Grotius and Hobbes. Natural law is demon- strable, its real ground is the will of God, its noetical ground (not revelation, but) reason and observation of the (social) nature of man, and the fundamental law the promotion of universal good. The individual must not
- Chr. Sturm : Physica Conciliatrix, 1687; Physica Electiva, vol. i. 1697, vol. ii.
with preface by Chr. Wolff, 1722 ; Compendium Universalium seu Metapkysic* Euclidea.
J. Jung, Logica Hamburgiensis, 1638 ; cf. Guhrauer, 1859.
X Pufendorf : EUmenta Juris Universalis, 1660 ; De Statu Imperii Germanici, 1667, under the pseudonym Monzambano ; De Jure Naturce et Gentium, 1672, and an abstract of this, De Officio Hominis et Civis, 1673. 291
