1. Ernst Bloch, Christian Thomasius, ein deutscher Gelehrter ohne Misere (1961). Although the interpretation is somewhat tendentious, Bloch’s essay is a most vivid rendering of Thomasius’s core ideas. For an excellent treatment of Thomasius’s voluntarism and contribution to jurisprudence
2. see Leonard Krieger, The German Idea of Freedom (1957), S. 59–66. I benefited greatly from Werner Schneider’s perceptive introductions to the reprints of Thomasius’s Einleitung zur Vernunftlehre, 2 vols., (1968) and Thomasius’s Einleitung zur Sittenlehre 2 vols. (1968) and from conversations with Dr. Horst Denzer, University of Augsburg, and Professor Joachim Dyck, University of Freiburg, who (with collaborators) is preparing a critical edition of Thomasius’s works. For a fuller bibliography of secondary works on Thomasius, see my earlier publications on Thomasius listed below.
3. Christian Thomasius, Ausübung der Vernunftlehre (1691), pp. 16–18; also pp. 82–88; Einleitung zur Vernunftlehre (1691), pp. 81–88; and Ausübung der Sittenlehre (1696), pp. 540–541. For an extended discussion of Thomasius’s legal, ethical, and political thinking, see my ”Christian Thomasius: Enlightenment and Bureaucracy,“ American Pol. Science Review, 59 (1965), 430–438; and” The Practical Philosophy of Christian Thomasius, “Journal of the History of Ideas, 32 (1971), 221–246.
4. The letter is dated Berlin, May 20, 1693; see Emil Gigas, ed., Briefe Samuel Pufendorfs an Christian Thomasius (1687–93) (1897), p. 73.
5. Thomasius, InstitutionesJurisprudentiae Divinae (1688). Introd., para. 33; and Introductio ad Philosophiam Aulicam (1688), Preface.