e latter, moreover, in
anticipation of the Critique of Reason, pointing very definitely to the
distinction between content and form as the salient point in the theory of
knowledge.

[Footnote 1: Benno Erdmann, _M. Knutzen und seine Zeit_, 1876.]

[Footnote 2: Th. W. Danzel, _Gottsched und seine Zeit_, 1848.]

[Footnote 3: Lambert: _Cosmological Letters_, 1761; _New Organon_, 1764;
_Groundwork of Architectonics_, 1771. Bernoulli edited some of Lambert's
papers and his correspondence.]

Among the opponents of the Wolffian philosophy, all of whom favor
eclecticism, A. Ruediger[1] and Chr. Aug. Crusius,[2] who was influenced by
Ruediger, and, like him, a professor at Leipsic, are the most important.
Ruediger divides philosophy according to its objects, "wisdom, justice,
prudence," into three parts--the science of nature (which must avoid
one-sided mechanical views, and employ ether, air, and spirit as principles
of explanation); the science of duty (which, as metaphysics, treats of
duties toward God, as natural law, of duties to our neighbor, and deduces
both from the primary duty of obedience to the will of God); and the
science of the good (in which Ruediger follows the treatise of the Spaniard,
Gracian, on practical wisdom). Crusius agrees with Ruediger that mathematics
is the science of the possible, and philosophy the science of the actual,
and that the latter, instead of imitating to its own disadvantage the
deductive-analytical method of geometry, must, with the aid of experience
and with attention to the probability of its conclusions, rise to the
highest principles synthetically. Besides its deduction the determinism
of the Wolffian philosophy gave offense, for it was believed to endanger
morals, justice, and religion. The will, the special fundamental power of
the soul (consisting of the impulses to perfection, love, and knowledge),
is far from being determined by ideas; it is rather they which depend on
the will. The application of the principle of sufficient reason, which is
wrongly held to admit of no exception, must be restricted in favor of
freedom. For the rest, we may note concerning Crusius that he derives the
principle of sufficient reason (everything which is now, and before was
not, has a cause) and the principle of contingency from the principles of
contradiction, inseparability, and incompatibility, and these latter from
the principle of conceivability; that he rejects the ontological argument,
and