Spinoza – first German translation of the Ethics, 1744
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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 […]