Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/327

Rh the borders of the same county. He figures in the works of Barbour and Blind Harry as the sympathizing contemporary of their heroes, and Wyntoun tells how he prophesied a battle. In the folk-lore of Scotland his name is associated with numerous fragments of rhymed or alliterative verse of a more or less prophetic and oracular character; but the chief extant work with which his name is associated is the poem of Sir Tristrem, edited from the Auchinleck MS. by Sir Walter Scott in 1804, and again in 1886 for the Scottish Text Society by Mr G. P. M'Neill. In the latter edition the claim of Thomas to the authorship of this work (conceded by both editors) is fully discussed.

 THOMAS A KEMPIS. See.  THOMASIUS, (1655-1728), German jurist and publicist, was born at Leipsic January 1, 1655, and educated by his father Jacob Thomasius, professor of philosophy and eloquence, a learned man, and friend of Spener. Through his father's lectures Christian came under the influence of the political philosophy of Grotius and Pufendorf, and continued the study of law under Stryck at Frankfurt on the Oder. In 1681 he commenced the career of professor of law at Leipsic, and soon attracted attention by his abilities, but particularly by his daring attack upon all ancient prejudices. His views on matters of law were heretical; he made the daring innovation of lecturing in German instead of Latin; he published a monthly periodical in which he ridiculed with vast wit and humour the pedantic weaknesses of the learned; he took valiantly the side of the Pietists in their controversy with the orthodox, and defended mixed marriages of Lutherans and Calvinists. In consequence of these and other sins, he was preached against from the pulpits, forbidden to lecture or to write (May 10, 1690), and his arrest was soon commanded. He escaped the latter by flight to Berlin, and the elector Frederick III. offered him a refuge in Halle, with a salary of 500 thalers and the right to lecture there. He took part in founding the university of Halle (1694), where he became second and then first professor of law and director of the university. He was one of the most esteemed university teachers and influential writers of his day. He died, after a singularly successful and honourable career, in his 74th year, September 23, 1728.

Though not a profound and systematic philosophical thinker, but rather a clever eclectic of the common-sense school, Thomasius prepared the way for great reforms in philosophy, and, above all, in law, literature, social life, and theology. It was his mission to bring all the high matters of divine and human sciences into close and living contact with the everyday world. He made learning, law, philosophy, and theology look at everything from a rational common-sense point of view, and speak of everything in vigorous German. He thus created an epoch in German literature, philosophy, and law, and Spittler opens with him the modern period of ecclesiastical history. Tholuck pronounces him "the personified spirit of illuminism." He made it one of the aims of his life to free politics and jurisprudence from the control of theology. He fought bravely and consistently for freedom of thought and speech on religious matters. He is often spoken of in German works as the author of the "territorial system," or Erastian theory of ecclesiastical government. But he taught that the state may interfere with legal or public duties only, and not with moral or private ones. He introduced a new definition of heresy, and pronounced it a bug bear of the theologians. He would not have even atheists punished, though they should be expelled the country. He came forward as an earnest opponent of the prosecution of witches and of the use of torture. In theology he was not a naturalist or a deist, but a believer in the necessity of revealed religion for salvation. He felt strongly the influence of the Pietists at times, particularly of Spener, and there was a mystic vein in his thought; but other elements of his nature were too powerful to allow him to attach himself finally to that party. Thomasius's most popular and influential German publications were his periodical Monatsgespräche, vornehmlich über neue Bücher (1688); Einleitung zur Vernunftlehre (1691, 5th ed. 1719); Vernünftige Gedanken über allerhand auserleserne, gemischte, philosophische, und juristische Händel (1723–26); Geschichte der Weisheit und Thorheit (3 vols., 1693); Kurze Lehrsätze von dem Laster der Zauberei mit dem Hexenprocess (1704); Weitere Erläuterungen der neueren Wissenschaft Anderer Gedanken kennen zu lernen (1711).

See Heinrich Luden's Christian Thomasius nach seinen Schicksalen und Schriften, 1805; Zeller's Geschichte der Philosophie in Deutschland, 2d ed., 1875, pp. 162–171; Gass, Geschichte der Protestantischen Dogmatik, ii. 484 sq.; the histories of German literature, especially Hettner's Geschichte der deutschen Lit. im 18ten Jahrh.; Tholuck's article in Herzog's Real-Encyklop.

  THOMPSON, (1753–1814), an eminent man of science, enlightened philanthropist, and sagacious public administrator, was born at Woburn, in Massachusetts, in 1753, and died at Auteuil, near Paris, in 1814. His family had been settled in New England since the middle of the century preceding his birth, and belonged to the class of moderately wealthy farmers. His father died while Thompson was very young, and his mother speedily married a second time. But he seems to have been well cared for, and his education was so far from neglected that, according to his own statement, he was at the age of fourteen sufficiently advanced "in algebra, geometry, astronomy, and even the higher mathematics," to calculate a solar eclipse within four seconds of accuracy. In 1766 he was apprenticed to a storekeeper at Salem, in New England, and while in that employment occupied himself in chemical and mechanical experiments, as well as in engraving, in which he attained to some proficiency. The outbreak of the American war put a stop to the trade of his master, and he thereupon left Salem and went to Boston, where he engaged himself as assistant in another store. He afterwards applied himself to the study, with a view to the practice, of medicine, and then (although, as he affirms, for only six weeks and three days) he became a school teacher it is believed at Bradford on the Merrimack. Thompson was at that period between eighteen and nineteen years old, and at nineteen, he says, "I married, or rather I was married." His wife was the widow of a Colonel Rolfe, and the daughter of a Mr Walker, "a highly respectable minister, and one of the first settlers at Rumford," now called Concord, in New Hampshire. His wife was possessed of considerable property, and was his senior by fourteen years. This marriage was the foundation of Thompson's success. Within three years of it, however, he left his wife in America to make his way to wealth and distinction in Europe, and, although his only child by her, a daughter, subsequently joined him, he never saw and, so far as anything appears to the contrary, never attempted or desired to see her again. Soon after his marriage Thompson became acquainted with Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, who, struck by his appearance and bearing, conferred on him the majority of a local regiment of militia. He speedily became the object of distrust among the friends of the American cause, and it was considered prudent that he should seek an early opportunity of leaving the country. On the evacuation of Boston by the royal troops, therefore, in 1776, he was selected by Governor Wentworth to carry despatches to England. On his arrival in London he almost immediately attracted the attention of Lord George Germaine, secretary of state, who appointed him to a clerkship in his office. Within a few months he was advanced to the post of secretary of the province of Georgia, and in about four years he was made under secretary of state. His official duties, however, did not materially interfere with the prosecution of scientific pursuits, and in 1779 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Among the subjects to which he especially directed his attention were the explosive force of gun powder, the construction of firearms, and the system of signalling at sea. In connexion with the last, he made a cruise in the Channel fleet, on board the "Victory," as a volunteer under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Hardy. On the resignation of Lord North's administration, of which Lord George Germaine was one of the least