Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/672

Rh 632 L W L Hesse received him with every mark of distinction, and the circumstances of his expulsion drew universal atten tion to his philosophy. It was everywhere discussed, and over two hundred books and pamphlets appeared for or against it before 1737, not reckoning the systematic treatises of Wolff and his followers. The seventeen years which Wolff spent at Marburg witnessed the publication of his chief works, and the rise of his philosophy to almost un disputed sway throughout Germany. His earlier treatises were, like his lectures, composed in German : a treatise on logic, called Verniinftige Gedanken von den Kraften des menschlichen Verstandes (1712); a metaphysic, Verniinftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt, und der Seele des Menschen, auch aller Dinge Hherhaiipt (1719) ; treatises on ethics and politics with similar titles (1721) ; three on the philosophy of nature (1723-4-5), followed by an encyclopaedic review of his system in 1726. From that time he began to go over the same ground more fully and methodically in a series of Latin works. The logic, ontology, cosmology, and em pirical psychology appeared between 1728 and 1732, followed by the rational psychology and natural theology in 1734. Meanwhile, after some years the king of Prussia made overtures to Wolff to return, and in 1739, by the irony of events, a cabinet order prescribed the study of the Wolffian philosophy to all candidates for ecclesiastical pre ferment. In 1740 Frederick William died suddenly, and one of the first acts of his successor, Frederick the Great, was to recall Wolff to Halle on the most flattering and advantageous terms. His entry into Halle on the 6th of December 1740 partook of the nature of a triumphal pro cession. In 1743 he became chancellor of the university, and in 1745 he received the title of &quot; freiherr &quot; from the elector of Bavaria. But, though he was thus loaded with honours, and his philosophy everywhere triumphant, he found that he had outlived his power of attracting the academic youth. His matter was no longer fresh, nor were his own powers what they had been when he left Halle seventeen years before, and he had the bitter ex perience of lecturing to empty class-rooms. He died on the 9th April 1754, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, fourteen years after his return to Halle. The Wolffian philosophy held almost undisputed sway in Germany till it was displaced by the Kantian revolution. It is essentially a common-sense adaptation or watering-down of the Leibnitian system ; or, as we can hardly speak of a system in con nexion with Leibnitz, Wolff may be said to have methodized and reduced to dogmatic form the thoughts of his great predecessor, which often, however, lose the greater part of their suggestiveness in the process. Since his philosophy disappeared before the influx of new ideas and the appearance of more speculative minds, it has been customary to dwell almost exclusively on its defects the want of depth or freshness of insight, and the aridity of its neo- .scholastic formalism, which tends to relapse into verbose platitudes. But this is to do injustice to Wolff s real merits. These are mainly his comprehensive view of philosophy, as embracing in its survey the whole field of human knowledge, his insistence every where on clear and methodic exposition, and his confidence in the power of reason to reduce all subjects to this form. To these must be added that he was practically the first to teach philosophy to speak German.&quot; It will be seen that these merits concern the form rather than the matter of philosophy, the latter being mainly derived from Leibnitz, with some modifications in the sense of the older scholastic Aristotelianism. The Woltliaii system retains the determinism and optimism of Leibnitz, but the monadology recedes into the background, the monads falling asunder into souls or conscious beings on the one hand and mere atoms on the other. The doctrine of the pre-established harmony also loses its meta physical significance, and the principle of sufficient reason intro duced by Leibnitz is once more discarded in favour of the principle of contradiction which Wolff seeks to make the fundamental principle of philosophy. Philosophy is defined by him as the science of the possible, and divided, according to the two faculties of the human individual, into a theoretical and a practical part. Logic, sometimes called pliilosopliia rationalis, forms the introduc tion or propredeutic to both. Theoretical philosophy has for its parts ontology or pliilosopTiia prima, cosmology, rational psycho logy, and natural theology; ontology treats &quot;of the existent in eneral, psychology of the soul as a simple non-extended substance, cosmology of the world as a whole, and rational theology of the existence and attributes of God. These are best known to philo sophical students by Kant s treatment of them in the Critique of Pure Reason. Practical philosophy is subdivided into ethics, economics, and politics. Wolff s moral principle is the realization of human perfection. (A. SE. ) WOLF-FISH. See SEA-WOLF. WOLFKAM VON ESCHENBACH, medieval German poet, lived in the latter part of the 12th and the early part of the 13th century. Little is known about the facts of his life, and such knowledge as we possess is derived wholly from his own writings. He belonged to a poor but noble family. He speaks of himself as a Bavarian, and refers to the count of Wertheim as his feudal lord. His home was the castle of Escheribach near Ansbach), and in the churchyard at Eschenbach what was said to be his grave was shown as late as the beginning of the 17th century. He spent some time at the court of Hermann, landgrave of Thuringia, where he met Walther von der Vogelweide, to whom he makes two references in his works. Wolfram survived Hermann, who died in 1216. His residence at the Thuringian court led to his being included among the poets who were afterwards said to have taken part in a great competition for poetic supremacy at the Wartburg. Wolfram seems to have been happily married, and to have had children. In politics he was a supporter of the emperor Otho IV. He understood French, but could neither read nor write. His greatest work is Parzival, an epic poem completed between 1205 and 1215. It combines the story of the Holy Grail with in cidents from the legends of southern France about the old princes of Anjou and from the legendary history of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. To AVolfram s contemporary, Gottfried of Strasburg, the style of this poem seemed abstract and obscure ; and Parzival certainly lacks the lightness and grace of Gottfried s masterpiece Tristan. It has, however, high imaginative qualities, and, regarded as a whole, is the most splendid achievement in the literature of Germany during the period of Middle High German. Even in Wolfram s day the poem produced a profound impres sion, and in the 15th century it was still so warmly appreciated that it was one of the earliest works made accessible to the public through the invention of printing. The principal authority used by AVolfram seems to have been the Conte del Oral of Chrestien de Troyes. He mentions, besides this work, a poem by Kiot, a Pro- venal poet ; but nothing is known of Kiot, and it may be that he never really existed. Whatever may have been the sources of Parzival, Wolfram gave to everything he borrowed from others a wholly new character, impressing upon it strongly the mark of his own great ideal spirit. Besides his chief work and various lyrics he composed two epic fragments, Titurel and Willehalm, the former before Parzival, the latter after. Titurel, a love-tale, be longs to the same cycle of legends as the story of Parzival, and, so far as form is concerned, it is the brightest and most artistic of Wolfram s works. Willehalm presents the legendary history of St William of Orange, a contemporary of Charlemagne. The so- called third part of this poem was continued by Ulrich von Tiir- heim about 1250, the first part by Ulrich von dem Tiirlin between 1252 and 1278. A complete edition of Wolfram s works was issued by Lachmann in 1833. Bartsch afterwards published, with notes, an edition of Parzival and Titurel. There are renderings into modern German by San-Murte and Simrock. See Sun- Marte s Parzival-Studien, and essays by Bartsch, Pfeiffer, Rochat, and Zingerle in Pfeiffer s Germania. WOLLASTON, WILLIAM (1659-1724), English philo sophical writer, was born at Coton-Clanford in Stafford shire, March 1659. He was educated under disadvantages both at school and at the university, but left his college (Sidney, Cambridge) with a high reputation for his acquirements, in September 1681. He then became assistant-master of the Birmingham grammar school, and in that position took holy orders. In 1688 an uncle unexpectedly left him an ample fortune, on which he retired, moving to London, where he married a lady of fortune, and devoted himself to his domestic duties and the pursuit of learning and philosophy. In his studies he occupied himself more especially with the foundation of the common doctrines of &quot; natural religion,&quot; which were