304 REIMARUS. Samuel Reimarus* (1694-1768), from 1728 professor in Hamburg. He attacks atheism, in whatever form it may present itself, with as much zeal and conviction as he shows in breaking down the belief in revelation by his inex- orable criticism (in his Defense, communicated in manuscript to a few friends only). He obtains his weapons for this double battle from the Wolffian philosophy. The existence of an extramundane deity is proved by the purposive arrange- ment of the world, especially of organisms, which aims at the good — not merely of man, as the majority of the physico- theologists have believed, but — of all living creatures. To believe in a special revelation, /. <?., a miracle, in addition to such a revelation of God as this, which is granted to all men, and is alone necessary to salvation, is to deny the perfection of God, and to do violence to the immutability of his provi- dence. To these general considerations against the credi- bility of positive revelation are to be added, as special argu- ments against the Jewish and Christian revelations, the untrustworthiness of human testimony in general, the con- tradictions in the biblical writings, the uncertainty of their meaning, and the moral character of the persons regarded as messengers of God, whose teachings, precepts, and deeds in nowise correspond to their high mission. Jewish history is a "tissue of sheer follies, shameful deeds, deceptions, and cruelties, the chief motives of which were self-interest and lust for power." The New Testament is also the work of man ; all talk of divine inspiration, an idle delusion, the resurrection of Christ, a fabrication of the disciples; and the Protestant system, with its dogmas of the Trinity, the fall of man, original sin, the incarnation, vicarious atonement, and eternal punishment, contrary to reason. The advance of Reimarus beyond Wolff consists in the consistent applica- tion of the criteria for the divine character of revelation, which Wolff had set up without making a positive, not to
- H. S. Reimarus : Discussions on the Chief Truths of Natural Religion,
1754 ; General Consideration of the Instincts of Animals, x'jii'i ; Apology or Defense fc^r the Raticmal Worshipers of God. Fragments of the last of these works, which was kept secret during its author's life, were published by Lessing (the well-known " WolffenbUttel Fragments," from 1774). A detailed table of contents is to be found in Reimarus und seine Schutzschrift, 1862, by D. Fr. Strauss, included in the fifth volume of his Gesammelte Sthriften.
