The period between Kepler and Leibnitz in Germany was very poor in noteworthy philosophical phenomena.  The physicist, Christoph Sturm[1] of Altdorf (died 1703), was a follower of Descartes, Joachim Jungius[2] (died 1657) a follower of Bacon, though not denying with the latter the value of the mathematical method in natural science.  Hieronymus Hirnhaym, Abbot at Prague (The Plague of the Human Race, or the Vanity of Human Learning, 1676), declared the thirst for knowledge of his age a dangerous disease, knowledge uncertain, since no reliance can be placed on sense-perception and the principles of thought contradict the doctrines of faith, and harmful, since it contributes nothing to salvation, but makes its possessors proud and draws them away from piety.  He maintained, further, that divine authority is the only refuge for man, and moral life the true science.  Side by side with such skepticism Hirnhaym’s contemporary, the poet Angelus Silesius (Joh.  Scheffler, died 1667), defended mysticism.  The teacher of natural law, Samuel Pufendorf[3] (1632-94, professor in Heidelberg and Lund, died in Berlin), aimed to mediate between Grotius and Hobbes.  Natural law is demonstrable, its real ground is the will of God, its noetical ground (not revelation, but) reason and observation of the (social) nature of man, and the fundamental law the promotion of universal good.  The individual must not violate the interests of society in satisfying his impulse to self-preservation, because his own interests require social existence, and, consequently, respect for its conditions.

[Footnote 1:  Chr.  Sturm:  Physica Conciliatrix, 1687; Physica Electiva, vol. i. 1697, vol. ii. with preface by Chr.  Wolff, 1722; Compendium Universalium seu Metaphysica Euclidea.]

[Footnote 2:  J. Jung Logica Hamburgiensis, 1638; cf.  Guhrauer, 1859.]

[Footnote 3:  Pufendorf:  Elementa Juris Universalis, 1660; De Statu Imperii Germanici, 1667, under the pseudonym Monzambano; De Jure Natures et Gentium 1672, and an abstract of this, De Officio Hominis et Civis, 1673.]

Pufendorf was followed by Christian Thomasius[1] (1655-1728; professor of law at the University of Halle from its foundation in 1694).  He was the first instructor who ventured to deliver lectures in the German language—­in Leipsic from 1687—­and at the same time was the editor of the first learned journal in German (Teutsche Monate, Geschichte der Weisheit und Thorheit).  In Thomasius the characteristic features of the German Illumination first came out in full distinctness, namely, the avoidance of scholasticism in expression and argument, the direct relation of knowledge to life, sober rationality in thinking, heedless eclecticism, and the demand for religious tolerance.  Philosophy must be generally intelligible, and practically useful, knowledge of the world (not of God); its form, free and tasteful