especially favorable for
the illustration of the hypothesis. By such trifling the real meaning of
both these ideas is sacrificed and their bloom rubbed off.--While depth
is lacking in Wolff's thinking, he is remarkable for his power of
systematization, his persevering diligence, and his logical earnestness,
so that the praise bestowed on him by Kant, that he was the author of the
spirit of thoroughness in Germany, was well deserved. He, too, finds
the end of philosophy in the enlightenment of the understanding, the
improvement of the heart, and, ultimately, in the promotion of the
happiness of mankind. But while Thomasius demanded as a condition of such
universal intelligibility and usefulness that, discarding the scholastic
garb, philosophy should appear in the form of easy ratiocination, Wolff, on
the other hand, regards methodical procedure and certainty in results as
indispensable to its usefulness, and, in order to this certainty,
insists on distinctness of conception and cogency of proof. He demands
a _philosophia et certa et utilis_. If, finally, his methodical
deliberateness, especially in his later works, leads him into wearisome
diffuseness, this pedantry is made good by his genuinely German, honest
spirit, which manifests itself agreeably in his judgment on practical
questions.

[Footnote 1: _Reasonable Thoughts on the Powers of the Human
Understanding_, 1712; _Reasonable Thoughts on God, the World, and the
Soul of Man, also on All Things in General_, 1719 (_Notes_ to this 1724);
_Reasonable Thoughts on the Conduct of Man_, 1720; _Reasonable Thoughts on
the Social Life of Man_, 1721; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Operations of
Nature_, 1723; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Purposes of Natural Things_,
1724; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Parts of Man, Animals, and Plants_, 1725,
all in German. Besides these there are extensive Latin treatises (1728-53)
on Logic, Ontology, Cosmology, Empirical and Rational Psychology, Natural
Theology, and all branches of Practical Philosophy. Detailed extracts may
be found in Erdmann's _Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung_, ii.
2. The best account of the Wolffian philosophy has been given by Zeller
(pp. 211-273).]

[Footnote 2: Eucken, _Geschichte der Terminologie_^ pp. 133-134.]

Wolff reaches his division of the sciences by combining the two
psychological antitheses--the higher (rational) and lower (sensuous)
faculties of cognition and appetition. On the first is based t