Spinoza – first German translation of the Ethics, 1744
First German translation of Spinoza’s Ethics (1677), and of Wolff’s attempted refutation (from his Theologia naturalis, pars II, 1737). The translator was Johann Lorenz Schmidt (1702-49), translator also of the controversial ‘Wertheim Bible’ (1735). ‘This crucial publication … represents both the first of Spinoza’s writings to appear in German and, simultaneously, the first printed vernacular […]