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STIEGLITZ, CHRISTIAN LUDWIQ. * 



STIFEL, MICHAEL. 



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when he published the third volume of his ' Elements.' In 1828, a 

 fe\v weeks before bia death, he published his ' View of the Active and 

 Moral Powers,' by far the least exceptionable of his works. It is more 

 systematic and contains more new truths than any of his metaphysical 

 writings, and Lis long acquaintance with the world and with letters 

 enabled him to suggest many obvious but overlooked analyses. It is 

 not a profound, but it is au agreeable book. 



Dugald Stewart died on the llth of June 1828, in the seventy-fifth 

 year of his age, and was buried in the Canongate churchyard, 

 Edinburgh. 



Wo have also to add to the list of his philosophical writings an 

 interesting ' Account of a Boy born blind and deaf,' to which no date 

 is affixed. 



The admirers of Dugald Stewart style him the Plato of the Scotch 

 school, to which title he Las undoubtedly as much claim as Reid has 

 to that of Socrates. But without having himself discovered any 

 important elements which others had overlooked, without even 

 reducing to a system the discoveries of his predece-sors, it cannot 

 be denied that his influence was a beneficial one, for he not only 

 strengthened the weaker parts of the ethical doctrines of Ferguson 

 and Reid (Victor Cousin, ' Fragmens Philosophiques,' p. 78), and 

 rendered the metaphysical doctrines of Reid less objectionable and 

 confused, by substituting the "laws of human thought or belief" for 

 the absurd " common sense " or " instinct " which Reid assumed as 

 final arbiters, but he also adorned the school by every charm of mild 

 enthusiasm and elegance of diction, and rendered tha study attractive, 

 by enlisting in its cause the aid of much elegant literature and an 

 exquisite taste, at least such as was in those days regarded as exquisite, 

 when an exclusive regard to diction was the exercise of the most 

 refined taste. " Few writers," remarks his friendly critic, " rise with 

 more grace from a plain groundwork to the passages which require 

 greater animation or embellishment. He gives to narrative, according 

 to the precept of Bacon, the colour of the time, by a selection of 

 happy expressions from original writers. Among the secret arts by 

 which he diffuses elegance over his diction, may be remarked the skill 

 which, by deepening or brightening a shade in a secondary term, by 

 opening partial or preparatory glimpses of a thought to be afterwards 

 unfolded, unobservedly heightens the import of a word, and gives it a 

 new meaning without offence against old use." (' Ediu. Rev.,' 1816.) 

 Sir James Mackintosh afterwards repeated this verbatim in his ' Pre- 

 liminary Dissertation,' p. 321 ; so that it may be regarded as his delibe- 

 rate judgment. A want of depth, indeed of speculative power, is 

 everywhere manifested in Stewart's writings, and the most glaring 

 contradictious to his own principles impeach his logical rigour ; but 

 the style and his calm earnestness always render his works interesting 

 to students. 



STIEGLITZ, CHRISTIAN LUDWIG, was born on the 12th of 

 December 1756, at Leipzig, in which city both his grandfather and 

 father were persons of station, the former, who died in 1758, having 

 been burgomaster, and the other holding the office of proconsul. 

 Surrounded at home with objects of art for his father possessed both 

 a collection of pictures and a cabinet of medals and minerals Stieglitz 

 imbibed from them almost in his childhood those tastes which he so 

 assiduously cultivated throughout life, although they were altogether 

 remote from his other studies and occupations. Though he lost his 

 father early (May 4th, 1772), in conformity with his wishes he applied 

 himself to jurisprudence and other studies at the university of his 

 native city, where he attended the courses of all the most eminent 

 professors of that day Ernesti, Winkler, Plainer, &c. He took his 

 Bachelor's degree in 1777, and in 1784 that of Doctor of Laws, on 

 which latter occasion he produced his dissertation ' Do Causis cur Jus 

 Feudale Germanicum in Germania neglectum sit.' In the meanwhile 

 he devoted all his leisure to literature and art, and in 1775 made his 

 first essay in poetry, in which, if he did not distinguish himself, he 

 continued occasionally to exercise his pen, for he contributed many 

 pieces to a collection of Kriegslieder, or War-Songs, published in 

 1778; and in 1801 he published ' Wartburg,' a poem in eight cantos, 

 long since forgotten. He also published some tales of romance and 

 chivalry ; but it was in a very different field from that of the poet or 

 novelist that he gained his reputation and rendered essential service to 

 a branch of literature which is more indebted to the labours of non- 

 professional writers in it than of those who practise the art. It was 

 in 1786 that he appeared, though then anonymously, as an archi- 

 tectural writer, with his ' Versuch iiber die Baukunst.' He next con- 

 tributed to the ' Neue Bibliothek der Schunen Wissenschaften ' several 

 essays and minor treatises on various subjects relative to the aesthetics 

 of architecture and decoration, one or two of which appear to have 

 been also published separately.- In 1792, the same year in which he 

 was made a member of the Rathscollegium, or Council of Leipzig, he 

 first brought out his 'History of the Architecture of the Ancients' 

 (' Geschichte der Baukunst der Alten '), and immediately afterwards 

 engaged in a work of some extent, namely, his ' Encyclopaedia of Civil 

 Architecture,' in 5 vole , the first of which appeared in 1792, the last 

 in 1798. In the interim he brought out a work upon Modern Garden- 

 ing, which came to a second edition in 1804. His next production 

 was his 'Artistische Blatter' (1800), a collection of papers on Deco- 

 ration. In 1804 he began to publish, under the title of ' Zeichnungen 

 aus der schonen Baukunst,' a series of engravings, plans, and elevations, 



intended as select specimens of modern architecture ; but though it 

 was exceedingly well received for not only did it reach a second 

 edition, but there was also a French one the choice compromised 

 both his judgment and taste, the majority of the specimen* partaking 

 of that feeble and insipid mannerism which had just before prevailed 

 in this country ; and a great many of the subjects were taken from 

 English publications those for instance of Adam and Lewis or 

 showed English buildings, and among others such examples aa the 

 Trinity House, London, and the County Hall at Chelmsford. How he 

 could reconcile them with his own theoretical principles is difficult to 

 bo understood. 



Whether it was owing to his being satisfied with what be had then 

 done for architecture, or afterwards dissatisfied with his last, work, 

 some years elapsed before he again published anything on the subject, 

 turning in the interim to studies more professedly archaeological ; the 

 fruits of which were an essay on ' Medals and Collections of Coins ' 

 (1809), a treatise on the ' Pigments employed by the Artists of 

 Antiquity ' (1818), and-' Arcbaeologische Unterhaltuugcn ' (1820). In 

 the same year with the last-mentioned publication came out his 

 excellent work on 'Ancient or Mediaeval German Architecture' ('Alt- 

 Deutsche Baukunst '), which contributed not a little to direct attention 

 to and inspire that taste for mediaeval art and its monuments which 

 has since struck root and grown up in Germany. His next work was 

 his ' Geschichte der Baukunst,' a valuable compendium of the history 

 of architecture from the very earliest periods, and among all nations ; 

 the first edition of which appeared in 1827, and the second, a greatly 

 enlarged one, in 1837. Contrary to the opinion of Hirt [HiRT, 

 ALOYSIUS], Stieglitz contends very strongly that Grecian architecture 

 must have derived its principles and characteristics from an original 

 construction of stone, and not of timber or wooden framing. The 

 list of his literary labours is farther extended by his ' Distributio 

 Nummorum faoniliarutn Romanarum,' 1830, and his 'Beitriige zur 

 Geschichte der Ausbildung der Baukunst,' 2 vols., 1834 ; and it would 

 be prodigiously increased were it possible to enumerate all the various 

 articles which he contributed to the ' Hermes,' the ' Kunstblatt,' and 

 other journals, and to Ersch and Griiber's Encyclopaedia. After 

 having held the office of proconsul in the magistracy of Leipzig, and 

 other appointments connected with the town government, Stieglitz 

 retired from public duties in 1830, though he retained the title and 

 distinction of proconsul; and in 1834 the 'jubilee' or fiftieth anni- 

 versary of his obtaining his Doctor's degree was celebrated by his 

 townsmen, and a silver medal was struck and presented to him on that 

 occasion. He died on the 17th of July 1836. 



In Forster's ' Bauzeituug ' for 1 838 there is a portrait of Stieglitz 

 accompanying a full memoir of him, which we have made use of for 

 this article. 



STIFEL, or STIFE'LIUS, MICHAEL, a celebrated German alge- 

 braist of the 16th century, was born at Eslingen, in Saxony ; the year 

 of his birth is not known with certainty, but, according to Vossius, it 

 was in 1509, He was a Lutheran clergyman, and a contemporary of 

 Cardan ; and it may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance, that 

 algebra should at the same time have been diligently studied both in 

 the north and south of Europe, apparently without any intercourse 

 being maintained among the persons who were engaged in the pursuit. 

 Of the men who distinguished themselves in the north may be 

 mentioned Rudolph, Stifel, Scheubel, and Stevin ; and among those of 

 the south were Ferreus, Cardan, T artaglia, and Ferrari. The notation 

 employed in Germany differed in some respects from that which was 

 used in Italy ; and from this circumstance it has been imagined that 

 the mathematicians of the two countries obtained the first principles 

 of the science from distinct sources. 



Stifel's first publication was a treatise on algebra, in German ; but 

 in 1544, that is, a year before Cardan's rule concerning cubic equations 

 came out, he published at Nuremberg, in Latin, the 'Arithmctica 

 Integra,' which is his principal work. It is divided into three books, 

 of which the first is a treatise on arithmetic ; the second, a commen- 

 tary on Euclid's tenth book ; and the third, a treatise on algebra. He 

 appears to have been the first who used the signs + and between 

 quantities, in order to indicate addition and subtraction : the first 

 power of the ' res ' (the unknown quantity) in au equation he desig- 

 nates the root of the equation, and represents it by a letter of the alpha- 

 bet : he employs the initial letters of the words, and also the numbers 

 2, 3, &c., both positive and negative, to denote the corresponding 

 powers of the quantities to which they are affixed, and he calls the 

 numbers so applied the exponents of the powers, as they are called 

 at present. He uses the radical sign to designate a root, but he has 

 no mark to denote equality, the word itself being employed for that 

 purpose. 



In one 'of the chapters he demonstrates, from the nature of arith- 

 metical and geometrical progressions, that the addition and subtrac- 

 tion of the exponents of powers correspond to the multiplication and 

 division of the numbers whose power they indicate; and this may be 

 considered as one step towards the discovery of logarithms : but in 

 expressing the exponents of the higher powers of quantities, he com- 

 bines those of the lower powers by multiplication instead of addition : 

 this last method was that of Diophantus. Thus, in order to denote 

 the sixth power of any quantity, he uses terms indicating the square 

 of the cube, instead of terms expressing the sum of two third powers. 



