68 Kant: A Biographynative of Königsberg and one of Wolff's first students, is said to have been
the first to teach Wolffian philosophy at Königsberg. After receiving a mas¬
ter's degree from the University of Leipzig in 1720, he had returned to the
city of his birth to teach there, and he spread what he took to be a better
system. Others followed. Thus Theodor Reinhold That (1698-1735) pub¬
lished a book in 1724 in which he tried to show the superiority of the Wolf¬
fian method, and N. E. Fromm also advocated a strict Wolffian approach.
Georg Heinrich Rast, who in 1719 had defended Leibniz's explanation of
why the level of mercury in a barometer contracts just before a thunder¬
storm, was also close to Wolff.^32 It was he who converted the young
Gottsched to Wolffian thinking.^33 Another younger teacher advocating
Wolffian principles was Conrad Theophil Marquardt. Also born in Königs¬
berg, he had studied theology in Königsberg and philosophy in Halle.
While in Halle, he had become a strict Wolffian. In 1722 he defended in
Königsberg his Inaugural Dissertation on preestablished harmony, and he
was still teaching theology, philosophy, and mathematics when Kant came
to the university. Leibniz and Wolff were not the only philosophers taught
at Königsberg. Students were exposed to many different thinkers, and a
one-sided Wolffianism does not appear to have been the rule. Thus even
Gottsched, who saw in Wolff an escape from an eclecticism that "mixes up
very different ideas and principles" and that left him without orientation,
could remain relatively independent. His first academic treatise was called
"Doubts about Leibnizian Monads"; and his Inaugural Dissertation about
the "genuine notion of divine omnipresence" shows that he was preoccu¬
pied with Wolffian problems but did not uncritically accept all of Wolffian
doctrine.
This freedom to pursue different philosophical ideas did not last long.
Pietism, which had been influential among ordinary citizens in the city of
Königsberg for some time, also gained the upper hand at the university.
Because of a number of strategic appointments by the king, Lysius and his
Pietistic friends were finally able to dominate the theological faculty in 1725.
They immediately introduced decisive changes in what could be taught.^34
Not only did they eliminate all patristic studies but, following the lead of
their colleagues in Halle, they also confronted Wolffian philosophers head
on. They had already succeeded in having Fischer expelled from the uni¬
versity, from Königsberg, and from all of Prussia in 1724, but they con¬
tinued to argue that Wolff's views ultimately amounted to atheism. This
was, of course, a most powerful warning to all other Wolffians.
The Pietists also restricted freedom in other ways. Lysius had been rather