294 CONTEMPORARIES OF LEIBNITZ. violate the interests of society in satisfying his impulse to self-preservation, because his own interests require social existence, and, consequently, respect for its conditions. Pufendorf was followed by Christian Thomasius * (1655- 1728; professor of law at the University of Halle from its foundation in 1694). He was the first instructor who ventured to deliver lectures in the German language — in Leipsic from 1687 — and at the same time was the editor of the first learned journal in German {Teutsche Monate, Geschichte der Weisheit und Thorheit). In Thomasius the characteristic features of the German Illumination first came out in full distinctness, namely, the avoidance of scholas- ticism in expression and argument, the direct relation of knowledge to life, sober rationality in thinking, heedless eclecticism, and the demand for religious tolerance. Philosophy must be generally intelligible, and practically useful, knowledge of the world (not of God); its form, free and tasteful ratiocination; its object, man and morals; its first duty, culture, not learning; its highest aim, happiness;, its organ and the criterion of every truth, common sense. He alone gains true knowledge who frees his understanding from prejudice and judges only after examining for himself; the joy of mental peace is given to no one who does not free his heart from foolish desires and vehement passions, and devote it to virtue, to "rational love." The positive doc- trines of Thomasius have less interest than this general stand- point, which prefigured the succeeding period. He divides practical philosophy into natural law which treats of the Jusium, politics which treats of the decorum, and ethics which treats of the honestiim. Justice bids us, Do not to others what you would not that others should do to you ; decorum, Do to others as you would that they should do to you ; and morality, Do to yourself as you would that others should do to themselves. The first two laws relate to external, the third to internal, peace; legal duties may be enforced by compulsion, moral duties not. If Thomasius was the leader of those popular philoso-
- Thomasius : Institutionum Jurisprudentia Divines Libri Tres, l688 ; Fun-
damenta Juris Natura et Gentium, 1 705, both in Latin ; in German, appe.ired in. 1691-96 the Introduction and Application of Rational and Moral Philosophy.
