Gottfried Sellius

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Gottfried Sellius , also Godofredus Sellius , Godefroy Sellius and Godofredi Sellii (* around 1704 in Danzig ; † June 25, 1767 in Charenton near Paris) was a German lawyer, natural scientist and translator in the Age of Enlightenment .

Life

Illustration for the review of Historia naturalis Teredinis seu Xylophagi Marini ... , Acta Eruditorum , 1734

He studied in Marburg and Leiden, among others with the doctor and botanist Herman Boerhaave . In Leiden he received his doctorate in law in 1730. In 1733 he had turned his microscope on the Teredo navalis Linnaeus , who had made the republic angry. In 1735 he came to Göttingen as associate professor of law and assessor of the law faculty . In the following year he went to Halle as Royal Prussian Councilor and Professor of Law and Philosophy. Soon afterwards he went to Berlin, where in 1739 he was professor of physics at the Collegium Medicum . In 1741 he went from Berlin to Paris . In the meantime he was back in Holland. On May 31, 1736, Gottfried Sellius , nicknamed Anaxagoras II, was accepted as a member ( matriculation no. 459 ) of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

In June 1744 he signed a contract with the publisher André Le Breton for the translation of the works of the enlightener and metaphysician Christian Wolff . At his suggestion, Le Breton acquired a printing license for a translation of the Cyclopaedia in 1745 . However, differences arose between the second translator, John Mills , and Le Breton, which culminated in a fight and a subsequent lawsuit, ending the joint encyclopedia project.

From 1750 he lived permanently in Paris and gave lessons in the German language. He also spoke the Nordic languages.

Publications (selection)

  • [De imaginario] Dissertatio philosophico-juridica inauguralis de imaginario, quod scientiis adhaeret, in jurisprudentia detegendo / D. Hermanni Boerhaave ... publice ac solemni Examini submittit Godofredus Sellius. 1730.
  • Responsiones ad Vindicias hujus methodi. 1735.
  • Principia philosophiae naturalis experimentis stabilita in usus academicos. 1738.
  • Epistola Ad Virum Celeberrimum Atque Excellentissimum Joannem Wolfgang Trier . Amsterdam 1735.
  • with Dujardin: La Double Beauté: Roman Étranger. 1754.
  • Translation of Histoire naturelle de l'Islande, du Groenland, du détroit de Davis, et d'autres pays situés sous le Nord. by Johann Anderson , 1750.
  • with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Jean-Baptiste-René Robinet : Histoire de l 'art chez les anciens. until 1766 In: Histoire générale des Provinces-Unies. until 1770.

literature

  • Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the imperial Leopoldino-Carolinische German academy of natural scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 214 digitized
  • Lodewijk C. Palm : Sellius and his newtonian teaching of physics in Halle. In: Janus. 64, pp. 15-24 (1977).
  • Lodewijk C. Palm: Gottfried Sellius (1704–1767). In: W. Kaiser, A. Völker (Ed.): Hallesche Physiologie im Werden. (Scientific articles from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 41). 1981, DNB 831020660 , pp. 90-101.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Georg Meusel: Lexicon of the Teutschen who died from 1750 to 1800 ... Volume 13, p. 85 .
  2. ↑ John Lough: The Encyclopédie. Longman, London 1971, ISBN 0-582-31377-5 , p. 8.
  3. ^ Acta Eruditorum. 1734, Retrieved July 17, 2018 .
  4. ^ Fish: A student's guide to the seashore. P. 326 ; Edward G. Ruestow: The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. P. 264 .
  5. ↑ Hartkopf: The Berlin Academy of Sciences: its members and award winners , p. 335.
  6. ↑ Hartkopf: The Academy of Sciences of the GDR: a contribution to their history. P. 376.
  7. ↑ John Lough: The Encyclopédie . Slatkine 1971, ISBN 9782051010467 , pp. 8-14 ( excerpt (Google) )
personal data
SURNAME Sellius, Gottfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sellius, Godofredus; Sellius, Godefroy; Sellii, Godofredi; Anaxagoras II.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, natural scientist and translator in the Age of Enlightenment
DATE OF BIRTH around 1704
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1767
Place of death Charenton near Paris