THE SCHOLAR AND THE COMMONWEAL: CHRISTIAN WOLFF, ALBRECHT VON HALLER AND THE ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT

Favouring the wheat stalk over the pleasant-smelling jasmine and preferring a well-tended field to any pleasure garden are characteristic examples of the thinking of a new breed of scholars who first appeared during the early Enlightenment and were responsible for the increasingly practical and social orientation of the natural sciences. These scholars saw contributions to the common good as the source of all advantage and renown.⁴ Christian Wolff pointed out in the year 1718 that the “academies of sciences” had hitherto been concerned only with “mathematics and astronomy and with a general knowledge of nature and medicine.” The philosopher noted