of his course at Halle. His rising fame procured him invitations from other universities and from foreign kings, but he remained faithful to Halle and Prussia, and gradually addressed himself to more arduous work. In 1719, in his fortieth year, he produced his Metaphysics, or "Rational Thoughts on God, the World, the Soul of Man, and Being in general," which soon after gave rise to a stormy controversy, and to the expulsion of Wolf from the university and his native country for nearly twenty years. Meanwhile, in 1720, he published his "Moral Philosophy," in which his grand rule is, Perfice teipsum; and in the following year a treatise on "Civil and Political Philosophy," in which he applied ethics to the various developments of society. Wolf's course of peaceful labour was now interrupted. His favourite lesson was the need for clear insight as the condition of all reasonable belief; and logical and metaphysical philosophy was his instrument for rendering obscure dogmas clear. He paid the penalty exacted of those, from Socrates downwards, who have enforced this lesson, and his pupils were exposed to the resentment of the received authorities in the various branches of knowledge, by their questioning criticism of the common definitions and assumptions of their teachers. A discourse by Wolf on the "Moral Philosophy of Confucius" brought matters to a crisis. Articles were drawn up against him, in which he was charged with heresy and implied atheism in his metaphysical principles. A fierce controversy ensued. Lange, professor of theology at Halle, was one of his most conspicuous assailants, charging the Wolfian system with a fatalism subversive of society. The popular misrepresentation, common in metaphysical controversy, was encouraged by his colleagues, and at last Frederick William of Prussia was induced to deprive Wolf of his position and emoluments at Halle, in November, 1723, requiring him at the same time to quit the Prussian dominions. He retired to Marburg, where he was cordially received by the landgrave, and where a great concourse of students soon resorted to his lectures. At Marburg he resumed his labours through the press, most of his later works being in Latin. He published some annotations on his "Metaphysics," in which he redargued the charge of atheism, the clamour raised against him at the same time spreading his books far and wide. In 1725 he published two volumes on natural philosophy, and soon after, under the name of "Horæ Subsecivæ," some philosophical aphorisms, meant for those unaccustomed to system. In 1728 appeared his celebrated "Philosophia Rationalis, sive Logica methodo scientifica pertractata et ad usum scientiarum atque vitæ aptata." This was followed in 1730 by his "Philosophia Prima, sive Ontologia," a study which he endeavoured to elevate from its place in public repute as a mere lexicon of barbarous words. In 1731 he published "Cosmologia Generalis," or the ontological theory of the physical universe; and cosmology he regarded as the philosophical basis of physics and natural theology. Then followed two treatises on psychology—"Psychologia Empirica, methodo scientifica pertractata," in 1732, and "Psychologia Rationalis," in 1734. Rational Theology, Rational Cosmology, and Rational Psychology—conversant respectively with God, the World, and the Soul—were the three branches of dogmatic metaphysics, according to Wolf. In 1736-37 was published his "Theologia Naturalis," in opposition to Spinozism, Epicureanism, and atheism, and in the year after his "Philosophica Practica Universalis." About this time efforts were made to induce him to return to Halle, as the king was satisfied that he had been unjustly expelled. He declined all overtures until the accession of Frederick William's successor. At last, in December, 1740, he resumed his academical life at Halle after his long exile at Marburg, to the great joy of the inhabitants, and proceeded in the course of literary labour in which he had been so long engaged. Some years before this he had been elected an associate of the French Institute, on the death of the earl of Pembroke, the friend of Locke. He was now made a privy councillor of Prussia, vice-chancellor, and professor of the law of nature and nations at Halle. Afterwards he was appointed chancellor of the university, and created a baron of the empire. His later years were devoted to the preparation of treatises on the law of nature, and on political philosophy. His treatise, entitled "Jus Naturæ," in 8 vols., was published in successive instalments (1740-48), followed by his "Philosophia Moralis, sive Ethica," 4 vols., and his "Jus Gentium." In 1752, when more than seventy years of age, he completed in a great measure the comprehensive scheme which he had formed in youth, and had pursued during life with a methodical industry remarkable and very instructive. Christian Wolf has his place, dry and pedantic as his writings now seem, as the most methodical genius in modern philosophy, and the representative of the "dogmatic" school in the period intermediate between Leibnitz and Kant. He had many followers and many opponents, and the Leibnitzo-Wolfian school played a conspicuous part in the philosophical discussions of the early and middle part of last century. The life of Wolf was prolonged, notwithstanding his incessant mental work, until he had completed his seventy-fifth year. Gout, complicated with other diseases, carried him off on the 9th of April, 1754, resting "with full trust on the mercy of God in Christ."—A. C. F.
WOLF, Friedrich August, the great humanist and critic, was born at Haynrode, near Nordhausen, 15th February, 1759. Being instructed in the rudiments by his own father, a schoolmaster, he was sent to the gymnasium of Nordhausen, where he imbibed that love for independent and self-taught knowledge, which characterized the whole course of his life. He was conversant both with the ancient and modern classics, when in 1777 he entered himself of the university of Göttingen as "studiosus philologiæ," an unheard-of innovation, which had nearly shut the gates of the alma mater in his face. Even Heyne, himself a philologer, strongly objected to this appellation, and advised the young student to style himself a student of theology. But Wolf persisted, and Heyne took a life-long dislike for him, so much the more as Wolf became by no means a diligent hearer, but preferred to read for himself. Heyne therefore excluded him from one of his lectures. Necessity drove Wolf to teach privately the Greek and English languages, and it was for the use of his pupils that he published in 1778 an edition of Shakspeare's Macbeth, with notes. In the following year he obtained a mastership at Ihlefeld, where he at once made himself favourably known by his edition of the Symposium. In 1782 he was appointed headmaster at Osterode, and in 1783 was called to the chair of philosophy and pedagogical science at Halle, which he filled for twenty-three years. At first, his lectures were much above the capacities of his hearers, but when he had lowered his tone the students flocked to his class. The influence of his lectures, as well as of his writings, on the work of education in Germany, cannot be overrated.—(See his "Consilia Scholastica," edited by Föhlisch.) Wolf declined the chairs which were successively offered him at Leyden, Copenhagen, and Munich, as he was duly promoted at Halle, and was nominated privy councillor. When in 1806 the university was closed, he repaired to Berlin, where he took a most active part in the establishment of the new university, and was preferred to high offices, which he, however, resigned one by one, and only continued his lectures. For the benefit of his broken health he was advised to go to the south of France in 1824, where he died (at Marseilles) on the 8th August of the same year. Wolf has altered the whole face of classical learning, not only in Germany, but all over the world. He was the first to develop in his lectures a complete system of philology, which he called the Science of Antiquity (Alterthumswissenschaft), and which was published by some of his pupils. We note Wolf's "Vorlesungen über die Alterthumswissenschaft," edited by Gürtler, five volumes; the Cyclopædia of Philology by Stockmann; and the Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft by Hoffmann. The system of Boeckh also (see Boeckh) is chiefly based on that of Wolf. But he gained still greater fame by his "Prolegomena in Homerum," in which, by an admirable chain of arguments, he came to the result, that the Iliad and Odyssey are not the works of one single and individual Homer, but a comparatively late compilation of several lays and episodes sung by the ἀοιδοί and handed down by oral tradition. This startling theory set the world a-blaze, and several Hellenists, Heyne among the number, claimed for themselves the priority of the discovery. Wolf, therefore, in self-defence published his "Letters to Heyne," Berlin, 1797, the first three of which are justly considered models of controversial writing and refined irony. Some years later Wolf brilliantly established the genuineness of those speeches of Cicero (Post Reditum, Ad Quirites post Reditum, Pro Domo, et De Haruspicum Responsis), which had been impugned by Markland. With so much the less success he met when he attempted to denounce the speech Pro Marcello, as spurious and unworthy of the great orator. Among the rest of his numerous works, his renowned editions of Homer, of the Theogony, the Quæstiones Tusculanæ, and the Select Dialogues of Plato, must not be omitted. Wolf excelled no less in the art of the translator, his translations of
