Childhood and Early Youth 25came out, as did Bernard de Fontenelle's De l'Origine des fables (The Ori¬
gin of Myths) intended to explore both the psychological and intellectual
roots of mythology and to refute popular superstitions. Claude Buffier
published his Tratte des verites premieres et de la source de nos jugements
(Treatise on First Truths and on the Source of Our Judgments), trying to
uncover the basic principles of human knowledge, while David Hume was
beginning his second year of study at the University of Edinburgh.
In Prussia, Frederick William I (1688—1740), who ruled from 1713, was
hard at work, trying to centralize the state, and to amass an impressive
army with the revenue from an impoverished country. During the previous
year he had taken a decisive step to reform his administration, unifying it
into a single board, which was known as the general directory. This insti¬
tution was to become an efficient bureaucracy that cut royal expenditures
while more than doubling annual income, allowing him to channel funds
to his army. During 1723 he had also found time to expel Christian Wolff
from all of Prussia at the behest of religious zealots, known as Pietists, in
Halle. They had argued that Wolff's acceptance of the Leibnizian theory
of preestablished harmony implied fatalism and could serve as an excuse
for deserters from the army. Indeed, it might persuade them to desert.
Frederick William I went so far as to prohibit Wolffian doctrines from
being taught.^1 He thereby, quite against his intention, made this thinker
a cause celebre among those who favored Enlightenment. Wolff, ordered
not to reenter Prussia at the pain of death, made the University of Mar¬
burg his home and published in 1724 one of his most successful works,
namely the Vernünftige Gedanken von den Absichten der natürlichen Dinge
(Reasonable Thoughts about the Purposes of Natural Things), a treatise
on teleology in which he attempted to show how well-planned this world
really is.
Most of these events in Prussia and elsewhere — in due time - were of
consequence in Königsberg. Some of the king's actions had immediate
effects: In 1724 Königsberg, which until then had consisted of three dif¬
ferent cities, namely the Altstadt or the old city, the Löbenicht, and the
Kneiphof was united. This made the city easier to administer and govern¬
ment more effective. (Among other things, the unification reduced the num¬
ber of gallows from three to one.) The same year also saw the return of a
church official named Georg Friedrich Rogall, who was to look out for the
king's interests in Königsberg. Having been educated and converted to
Pietism in Halle by the enemies of Wolff, he also had the ear of his reli¬
gious ruler. One of his first actions consisted in the removal from the