PUFFENDORF, SAMUEL, son of a Lutheran clergyman, was b. in 1632 at Chemnitz, in Saxony. He received the early part of his education at Grimma; whence he removed to the university of Leipsic. There lie studied theology for several years. In 1656 he went to the university of Jena, where he seems to have devoted himself at first chiefly to mathematics, and subsequently to the study of the Law of Nature, as he, and others who have treated on the same subject, have termed the law which regulates the duties of men to one another, independent of the mutual obligation which is enforced by polit ical government, or by revelation of divine will. After quitting Jena, lie was appointed tutor to the son of the Swedish ambassador at Copenhagen. Soon after he had received this appointment, a rupture having taken place between Denmark and Sweden, Puffen dorf was detained as a prisoner in the Danish capital. The power of his mind here showed itself in a remarkable manner. Deprived of books and of society, he threw lihnself vigorously into meditating on what be had formerly read in the treatise of Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pads, and in the writings of Hobbes on the principles of general law. The result was the production of the Elementa Jurispruclentice Unizer salis—a work which was the foundation of its author's fortune. It was dedicated to the elector Palatine; and by this prince, Puffendorf was appointed to the professorship of the law of nature and nations at the university of Heidelberg. He now gave his attention to the tissue of absurdities which existed in the constitution of the Germanic empire. As was to have expected, the work (De Statu Beipublica Germanism,
1667), in which he exposed the defects of the system, raised a storm of controversy. Austria was especially furious. Puffendorf had taken care to publish it under a pseudonym—that of Severinus a Mozambano, hut still, to avoid the possible conse quences, he accepted an invitation from Charles XI. of Sweden, in 1670, to become pro fessor of the law of nations at Lund. During his residence there, he published the work on which his fame now principally rests, De Jure iVaturce ct Gentium. He then rc:.ioved to Stockholm, where the king of Sweden made him his historiographer, with the dignity of a counselor of state. In his official character, be published a very unin teresting history of Sweden, from the expedition of Gustavus Adolphus into Germany to the death of queen Christine. In 1688, the elector of Brandenburg invited him to Berlin to write the history of his life and reign. Pnffcndorf accepted the invitation, and execu ted the required work in 19 dreary volumes. His intention was to have returned to Stockholm, but death overtook him at Berlin in 1694. Puffendorf lacked the genius to render the subjects on which he wrote generally interesting, but his intellectual power was nevertheless very considerable, and it appears to have throughout been honestly exercised with unflagging industry.—See Jenisch's Vita Pufendorfi in the Memoirs of the Academy of Stockholm, 1802.