PUFENDORF, SAMUEL (1632-1694), German jurist, was born at Chemnitz, Saxony, on Jan. 8, 1632, the son of a Lutheran pastor. He was educated at Grimma and the University of Leipzig, and then at Jena. Pufendorf quitted Jena in 1657 and became a tutor in the family of Petrus Julius Coyet, one of the resident ministers of Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden, at Copen hagen. As a result of Danish resentment of Gustavus' conduct in suddenly declaring war, Pufendorf with the rest of the suite was imprisoned. He occupied himself during this time in meditating upon what he had read in the works of Grotius and Hobbes. He mentally constructed a system of universal law ; and when, at the end of his captivity, he accompanied his pupils to the Univer sity of Leyden, he was enabled to publish, in 1661, the fruits of his reflections under the title of Elementa jurisprudentiae univer salis. The work was dedicated to Charles Louis, elector palatine, who created for Pufendorf at Heidelberg a new chair, that of the law of nature and nations, the first of the kind in the world. In 1667 he wrote, with the assent of the elector palatine, a tract, De statu imperii germanici, liber onus. Published under the cover of a pseudonym at Geneva in 1667, it was supposed to be ad dressed by a gentleman of Verona, Severinus de Monzambano, to his brother Laelius. The pamphlet made a great sensation. It was a direct attack on the Holy Roman Empire and the house of Aus tria. In 167o Pufendorf was called to the University of Lund, where he published in 1672 the De jure naturae et gentium, libri octo, and in 1675 a resume of it as De officio hominis et civis.
In the De jure naturae et gentium Pufendorf took up in great measure the theories of Grotius and sought to complete them by means of the doctrines of Hobbes and of his own ideas. His first important point was that natural law does not extend beyond the limits of this life and that it confines itself to regulating external acts. He combated Hobbes's conception of the state of nature and concluded that the state of nature is not one of war but of peace. But this peace is feeble and insecure, and if something else does not come to its aid it can do very little for the preserva tion of mankind. As regards public law Pufendorf, while recog nizing in the State (civitas) a moral person (persona moralis), teaches that the will of the State is but the sum of the individual wills that constitute it, thus showing himself a precursor of J. J. Rousseau and of the Contrat social. Pufendorf powerfully defends the idea that international law is not restricted to Chris tendom, but constitutes a common bond between all nations.
In 1677 Pufendorf was called to Stockholm as historiographer royal. To this new period belong Einleitung zur Historie der vornehmsten Reiche and Staaten, also the Commentarium de rebus suecicis, and De rebus a Carolo Gustavo gestis. In his De habitu religionis christianae ad vitam civilem he traces the limits between ecclesiastical and civil power. This work propounded for the first time the so-called "collegial" theory of church government (Kol legialsystem), which, developed later by Pfaff (1686-176o), was the basis of the relations of church and State in Germany.
This theory makes a fundamental distinction between the su preme jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters (Kirchenhoheit or jus circa sacra), which it conceives as inherent in the power of the State in respect of every religious communion, and the ecclesias tical power (Kirchengewalt or jus in sacra) inherent in the church, but in some cases vested in the State by tacit or expressed con sent of the ecclesiastical body. The theory helped towards the principle of toleration. It was put into practice to a certain ex tent in Prussia in the 18th century. The theory, of course, has found no acceptance in the Roman Catholic Church, but it none the less made it possible for the Protestant Governments to make a working compromise with Rome.
In 1688 Pufendorf took service under Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, but he had no sooner arrived than the elector died. His son, Frederick III., fulfilled the promises of his father; and Pufendorf, historiographer and privy councillor, was in structed to write a history of the Elector Frederick William (De rebus gestis Frederici Wilhelmi Magni). He was also created baron. Pufendorf died at Berlin on Oct. 26, The value of Pufendorf's work was much underestimated by posterity. Much of the responsibility for this injustice rested with Leibnitz, who would never recognize the incontestable greatness of one who was constantly his adversary, and whom he dismissed as "vir parum jurisconsultus et minime philosophus." His Juris prudence is the standard one for the 17th and i8th centuries.
See H. von Treitschke, "Samuel von Pufendorf," in Preussische Jahrblicher (vol. xxxv., 1875, and xxxvi., 1876) ; J. Bluntschli, in Deutsches Staats-Worterbuch (1857-70), and Geschichte des allge meinen Staatsrechts and der Politik (1864) ; J. Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations (2 vols., 1883-84) ; J. C. Droysen, "Zur Kritik Pufendorfs" in his Abhandlungen zur neueren Geschichte (1876) ; W. Roscher, Geschichte der National Oekonomik in Deutschland (1892) ; 0. Franklin, Das deutsche Reich nach Severino von Monzambano (1874).