WOLFF

, Wolfius, (Christian), baron of the Roman empire, privy counsellor to the king of Prussia, and chancellor to the university of Halle in Saxony, as well as member of many of the literary academies in Europe, was born at Breslau in 1679. After studying philosophy and mathematics at Breslau and Jena, he obtained permission to give lectures at Leipsic; which, in 1703, he opened with a dissertation called Philosophia Practica Universalis, Methodo Mathematica conscripta, which served greatly to enhance the reputation of his talents. He published two other dissertations the same year; the first De Rotis Dentatis, the other De Algorithmo Insinitesimali Differentiali; which obtained him the honourable appellation of Assistant to the Faculty of Philosophy at Leipsic.

He now accepted the professorship of mathematics at Halle, and was elected into the society at Leipsic, at that time engaged in publishing the Acta Eruditorum. After having inserted in this work many important pieces relating to mathematics and physics, he undertook, in 1709, to teach all the various branches of philosophy, beginning with a small Logical treatise in Latin, being Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding. He carried himself through these great pursuits with amazing assiduity and ardour: the king of Prussia rewarded him with the office of counsellor to the court in 1721, and augmented the profits of that post by very considerable appointments: he was also chosen a member of the Royal Society of London and of Prussia.

In the midst of all this prosperity however, Wolff raised an ecclesiastical storm against himself, by a Latin oration he delivered in praise of the Chinese philosophy: every pulpit immediately resounded against his tenets; and the faculty of theology, who entered into a strict examination of his productions, resolving that the doctrine he taught was dangerous to the last degree, an order was obtained in 1723 for displacing him, and commanding him to leave Halle in 24 hours.

Wolff now retired to Cassel, where he obtained the professorship of mathematics and philosophy in the university of Marbourg, with the title of Counsellor to the Landgrave of Hesse; to which a prositable pension was annexed. Here he renewed his labours with redoubled ardour; and it was in this retreat that he published the greatest part of his numerous works.

In 1725, he was declared an honorary professor of the academy of sciences at Petersburg, and in 1733 was admitted into that of Paris. The king of Sweden also declared him one of the council of regency; but the pleasing situation of his new abode, and the multitude of honours which he had received, were too alluring to permit him to accept of many advantageous offers; among which was the office of president of the academy at Petersburg.

The king of Prussia too, who was now recovered from the prejudices he had been made to conceive against Wolff, wanted to re-establish him in the university of Halle in 1733, and made another attempt to effect it in 1739; which Wolff for a time thought fit to decline, but at last submitted: he returned therefore in 1741, invested with the characters of privy counsellor, vice chancellor, and professor of the law of nature and of nations. The king afterwards, upon a vacancy, raised him to the dignity of chancellor of the university; and the elector of Bavaria created him a baron of the empire. He died at Halle in Saxony, of the gout in his stomach, in 1754, in the 76th year of his age, after a life silled up with a train of actions as wise and systematical as his writings, of which he composed in Latin and German more than 60 distinct pieces. The chief of his mathematical compositions, is his Elementa Matheseos Universæ, the best edition of which is that of 1732 at Geneva, in 5 vols 4to; which does not however comprise his Mathematical Dictionary in the German language, in 1 vol. 8vo, nor many other distinct works on different branches of the mathematics, nor his System of Philosophy, in 23 vols. in 4to.

WORKING to Windward, in Sea Language, is the operation by which a ship endeavours to make a progress against the wind.