Thomas Abbt was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 and writer.

Born in Ulm

Ulm

Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...

, Abbt visited a secondary school in Ulm, then moved in 1756 to study theology, philosophy and mathematics at the University of Halle, receiving a Magister degree in 1758. In 1760 he was appointed as an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), where he wrote his most well-known work Vom Tode für's Vaterland (1761).

This highly patriotic tract thematises Frederick II

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

's defeat at Kunersdorf

Battle of Kunersdorf

The Battle of Kunersdorf, fought in the Seven Year's War, was Frederick the Great's most devastating defeat. On August 12, 1759, near Kunersdorf , east of Frankfurt , 50,900 Prussians were defeated by a combined allied army 59,500 strong consisting of 41,000 Russians and 18,500 Austrians under...

. It also drew the attention of the editors of the famous Literaturbriefe (Literary Letters), started by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...

. He contributed a large number of historical, political, esthetical and philosophical essays. Abbt was a fervent admirer of Lessing and seconded his educational, prosaic style of writing.

In autumn 1761 he was appointed as the full professor of mathematics in Rinteln

Rinteln

Rinteln is a small town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the banks of the Weser river above the Porta Westfalica. Population: 28,500.It is accessed by the A2 autobahn .-History:...

. In 1763, he entered a competition that was sponsored by the Berlin Academy for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to metaphysics. Among the competitors were Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

, who won, and Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

. While in Rinteln, Abbt wrote his other famous work, Vom Verdienste (1765).

He travelled for nine months to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where he was able to speak with Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

 in Ferney. He also climbed in the Alps of Savoy

Savoy

Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....

. This travel and the disapproval of the life at the university raised his urge to trade the Theory for the Life.

While dealing with the idea to become a historian, he was offered in 1765 at the same time a professorship at the University of Marburg and a post as Councillor of the Court at the court of Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe. He decided for the latter.
The count was highly interested in the plans of Thomas Abbt, which included a history of Maximilian

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...

 and a translation of Sallust

Sallust

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...

 among others.

However in 1766, the twenty-seven year old Abbt suddenly died of an intestinal illness in Bückeburg

Bückeburg

Bückeburg is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, on the border with North Rhine Westphalia. It was once the capital of the tiny principality of Schaumburg-Lippe and is today located in the district of Schaumburg close to the northern slopes of the Weserbergland ridge...

. Of him Herder

Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...

 wrote that he "died for Germany and for his language too early!"

Sources

• Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie - online version at Wikisource
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