Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling

Biography

His/her father, Minister for the church of Kirchensittenbach, called then with the same functions with Nuremberg, itself deeply was informed and poured in particular in the study of the history; he wanted to be the first teacher of his son; but the Gundling young person had misfortune to lose it soon. He visited successively the universities of Altorf, of Iéna, Leipzig. At the end of its career Scholastic, being of return in its fatherland, it defended the book of his father of Gangrensi concilio . It brings together several young people with which it was given the responsability to improve the instruction; and having on occasion to lead them to Market, it made there knowledge with famous the Christian Thomasius, disciple himself of Puffendorf: Thomasius stuck it in particular, engaged it in the study of jurisprudence, and exerted a great influence on the direction of its work.

, In two years, having finished the study of this science under such a skilful Master, and being announced already like worthy succeeding to him, Gundling opened courses where he taught itself philosophy, the history, jurisprudence and the eloquence, and pointed out itself there so much by a great extent of knowledge and the glare of the talent, which, on the request for Danckelmann, the king of Prussia, in 1705, invited it to occupy an extraordinary pulpit of philosophy in Halle: it succeeded it soon afterwards Christophe Cellarius in the pulpit of poetry and eloquence, to which it joins together the teaching of the right of nature and people. Endowed with a happy memory, enriched by immense readings, of a yif and bold spirit, an eloquence animated by a prickly diction, it attracted with him a great number of listeners, interested them highly and a kind of enthusiasm inspired to them. But, scorning the authority of its predecessors, clearing new roads, it did not leave with the others the independence which it affected itself; he did not suffer contradiction: pressing, corrosive, caustic, it used without care the weapon of the satire against its antagonists. One reproached him too often for having exceeded measurement and for having missed with suitabilities; and the Prussian government itself believed, once, duty to make of them him a subject of reprimand, because he had retorted with a bitterness and almost a violence without terminals with the author of the booklet entitled Salebrœ in via adveritatem, etc , which was one moment allotted, badly by the way, with Heumann. Gundling died of a Hydropisie, the December 3rd 1729.

Philosophy

He was member of the synod of Magdeburg and private adviser of the king. Though its career had been any unit and so rapid and if filled, it left a considerable number of important writings, and materials for other works which it had prepared. The study of the public law had then taken in Germany a remarkable rise, especially since large the Leibnitz and its school had directed on this science the meditations of the thinkers. Gundling considered it under a point of view which is clean for him; it based it on the Coercition, distinguishing it by from morals itself; this coercion derives from the authority of the law; the law itself is only the rule whose violation is struck by a current or future external sorrow; the right is only there freedom authorized by the law, and that each one can assert, so others want to put obstacle at it. The author establishes with Hobbes the natural right on the principle of the need for preserving peace external in the center of the company; conservation which, according to one and the other, can result only from the contracts and the public power; but it differs from Hobbes in what this one deduces the obligation to maintain peace only individual utility, while the author admits an obligation specific and former to the contract like independent of the utility. Besides it gives to the application of its principles an absolute extension; it allots, in the state of nature, with the right of defense, the most unlimited consequences, rejecting the allowed distinctions and nuances by the other jurisconsults, and going until authorizing the son, in a given case, to remove the life with his father; it puts little. of difference between the property in another man and his life ( Proportionem inter rem and vitam alterius, nonnisi homines scrupulosissimï and simul ignarissimi urgent }. On another side, when it treats rights of the princes, its maxims have the same rigor, its consequences are not less unlimited; it justifies civil slavery like the political despotism; one and the other, according to its doctrines, can be founded in right, not only by the assent of the individuals or the controlled nation, but by the only constraint, the odious attache with tyranny is a foreign consideration with the rule of the right. He places the origin of the property, not only in the simple fact of the occupation, but in his intention alone, in some manner that it is expérimé, and thus seeks to confirm the claims of the Spanish S on the property of the territories which they had discovered in the new world. These paradoxes and some others caused right censures; but the Severe method of , introduced by Gundling into the study of science, was more useful to him than its doctrines, though this one, by the boldness even of its proposals, gave place to a thorough study of the problems. The improvement of the method appears to have been the main object of its efforts. Like philosopher, it was not shown less free, though it was less bold and less deep undoubtedly., Such a spirit could embrace only eclecticism, and it was one of the first which professed it in Germany; but it borrowed from the various philosophers who had preceded it, or who opened new roads then, rather than it did not draw from its clean funds. We already indicated some of the loans that it made in Hobbes; it adopted the maxims of Locke, while making derive all knowledge from the experiment, and the experiment nongeneral, but particular, and did not admit thus that significant knowledge; it rejected any innate element in the ideas as in their principle the definitions, in its eyes, can hold place sometimes principles: it approaches the school Cartésien have defining truth all that is of agreement, with our directions, our ideas and the definitions; it subordinates to this maxim the principle of contradiction. With these various elements, it associates a great number of the ideas of Leibnitz, and mainly those which belong to natural theology. Remainder, after having followed Locke, and, according to our opinion, to have exceeded it while inclining with empiricism, it grants only one subjective value to the principles of knowledge, and refuses with the reason the right to penetrate in the reality of the external world and the intellectual area.

It is noticed that, contemporary of Wolf, and even his/her colleague at the university, treating matters which were common for him with this professor, it never had anything commun run with him in its maxims, or its expressions; perhaps but the competition even, in a similar character, is enough to explain this circumstance. The moral philosophy of Gundling was primarily founded on natural theology; and the idea of the duty was born, following him, of the divine will, like the idea of the civil obligation of the authority of the law. Gundling, with the remainder, is less today to consider, or like having left a deposit of truths be consulted, or like a model to be followed, that like one of the engines, which exerted a great influence on the spirit and the direction of the studies in its century and its fatherland; it contributed to give a great movement to the ideas; it extended the sphere from it; it gave birth to from the comparisons and research; sometimes it advanced especially the art of the methods, and seemed to tend rather to trace the way of the truth that to even seize the truth. Remainder, it rendered to philosophy invaluable services, and whose fruit will never be lost, by its erudite essays on this portion of the history of the human spirit. Its elegant Treated on the history of moral philosophy , though nonof errors and imperfections, can be recommended to the study. One will be surprised to find there, however, a kind of eagerness to discover atheists among the former philosophers, and who would believe it? until in Plato itself: Plato found in Zimmermann dedicated and erudite defender, undoubtedly, but which it was to hardly need.

Historian

Many fragments of Gundling on the history, we will restrict ourselves to point out that in which it fought the opinion of Leibnitz on the origin of the Francs .

Publications

One can see in Jean-Pierre Niceron (T. 21) the list of thirty-seven works of Gundling.

The three principal ones carry a similar title:

Via AD veritatem, and speciatim qnidem AD logicam . Market, 1715, in-8°;
Via AD was windy moralem , ibid, 1715;
Via AD veritatem juris naturœ . It had prepared of it a fourth, relating to the policy, but which could not be finished and be born. These three writings had several editions.

In Halle were also printed:

its Historia philosophized moralis , 1706;
its Leisures, Otia , in 5 volumes, 1706 and 1707;
Juice naturœ and gentium, etc , in-8°, in 1714. The collection entitled Gundlingiana , composed of sixty-five fragments, was it with Magdeburg, 1715, 9 vol. in-12.

After its death, its lessons, collected by its disciples, and under a too neglected and too imperfect form so that it could be acknowledged of him, were gathered and published in Halle, Frankfurt and in Leipzig in 1734, 1739 and 1740, Its first work is a periodic collection, in German, under the title of Nouveaux talks , in-8°. It appeared a number per month of it but it was stopped as of the third book, because of the personalities that the satirist writer allowed itself it. The collection of its consultations on more than four hundred and fifty points of law was published by Hommel, Halle, 1772 - 1773, 2 flight, in_4°. Another, posthumous work, not less important, of Gundling is its Histoire of the literature , also published in German by C. - F. Hempel, Frankfurt, 1754 - 1742, 6 vol. in-4°. The editor added to it, with volume 4, a note very detailed on the life of Gundîing, his studies, his writings and his arguments literary. The catalog of its library, by Chr. Ben. Michaeli, Market, 1731, in-8°, is required bibliographers (see: Aventinus and H.A. Groschuf).

Source

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