PUFENDORF, pnf'cri-d6rf, SAMUEL. Baron (1632-94). A celebrated German publicist. horn at Chemnitz. in Saxony. He began the study of theology at Leipzig, but speedily turned to the subject of public law, which he pursued at ,lena till 1657. In 1658 he became tutor in the family of Coyet, Swedish :Minister at Copenhagen, and in 1660 went with his patron to The Hague, where he published his Etc men ta jurisprudenfiir (1060). This led to his being stun mooed to the University of Heidelberg, where the chair of the law of nature and of nations was created for hint. In 1667 he published, under the pseudonym of Severiuus de Mozambano, De Staht Imperii Germaniei, a merciless analysis of the anachronisms and absurdities of the Im perial Constitution. This work aroused great at tention and brought the author much fame and many enemies. In 1670 Pufendorf followed a call to the Swedish University of Lund. There he wrote De Jure Xatura' et Gentium (1672) and Dc Officio Hominis et Civis (1673). In the former of these he makes an elaborate study of the origin of law, finding its threefold source in reason, the civil law, and revelation. He also
did much to free the study of jurisprudence from the fantastic speculations of the theologians, and as a result was precipitated into bitter controver sies with the representatives of the old order. In 1677 he became Councilor of State and royal his toriographer to the King of Sweden. There fol lowed a number of important works, Linleitung zur Historic der rornehmsten Reiehc and Staaten (1682), De Rebus ,uceicis (1686), and De Rebus a Carolo Gustavo Gestis (1688). In De Habitu Christiana' Reliqionis ad Cirilem (1687) be upheld the right of the State as against the Church. He went to Berlin in 16S6, summoned by the Great Elector, and after the latter's death in 1688 was made by his successor Privy Conn cilOr. He (lied in Berlin October 26, 1694. The De Rebus Gestis Frideriei Wilhelmi Magni and Dc Rebus Gestis Frideriei III. appeared the year after his death. Consult; Treitschke, "Samuel von Pufendorf," in the Prcussische Jahrbiicher (Berlin, 1875) ; Droysen, "Zur Kritik Pufen dorfs," in Abhandlungen our neuerca Geschichte (Berlin, 1876).