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Bernard Bolzano: His Life and Work
Paul Rusnock
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Bernard Bolzano
Bernard Bolzano
His Life and Work
Paul Rusnock and Jan Šebestík
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Dedicated to the memory of Anna Hoffmann
C ONTENTS
A Note on Citations xiii

Acknowledgements xv
Preface xvii
Chronology xx
Extracts xxxi
Introduction 1
1 Bolzano’s Life 5
1. The Historical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
(a) The Restoration of the Sciences in Bohemia . . . . . . . . 14
(b) The Czech National Revival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2. The Young Bolzano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3. Præceptor Bohemiæ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4. The Mathematician . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5. Troubles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6. The Hoffmanns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7. The Těchobuz Institute for Advanced Study . . . . . . . . . . 68
8. Last Years: Return to Prague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2 Ethics 83
1. The Highest Moral Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2. Duties and Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3. The Cultivation of Virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4. The Ethics of Belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3 Political Philosophy 105

1. The Best State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
(a) General Organization, Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
(b) Social Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
(c) Economic Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
2. Principles and Aims of Political Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
vii
4 Philosophy of Religion 139

1. Bolzano’s Concept of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
2. Figurative or Symbolic Doctrines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
3. Sources of Religious Belief: Natural and Revealed Religion . . 157
4. The Concept of Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5 Catholicism and the Catholic Church 167

1. Natural Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
2. Catholicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
3. How is the Content of Catholicism Determined? . . . . . . . . 170
4. Revelation and Miracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
5. Universal Consensus and Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6. Authority in the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
6 Logic 187
1. Bolzano’s Logical Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
2. The Scope of Bolzano’s Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
3. Logical Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
4. Propositions and Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
5. The Nature of Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
(a) Ideas and their Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
(b) The Individuation of Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
(c) The Logic of Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
(d) Simple and Complex Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
(e) Objectless Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
(f) Intuitions and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
(g) Representing Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
(h) Representing Natural Kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
(i) Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
6. Contributions to the Analysis of Propositions . . . . . . . . . . 243
(a) On the Form and Content of Propositions . . . . . . . . . 245
(b) The Subject–Predicate Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
(c) Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
(d) Temporal Determinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
(e) Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
(f) Existence and Objectuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
(g) Negation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
viii
Contents
(h) Categorical Statement Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

(i) Disjunctions and Conditionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
(j) Purely Conceptual and Intuitional Propositions . . . . . . 271
(k) Necessity, Possibility, and Contingency . . . . . . . . . . 272
(l) Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
7. Bolzano’s Variation Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
(a) Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
(b) Variation, Substitution, and Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
(c) Analyticity and Related Notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
(d) Consequence and Related Notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
8. Ground–Consequence and the Objective Connection
between Truths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
9. Sciences and their Treatises: The Theory of Science Proper . . 331
10. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
7 Theory of Knowledge 337

1. The Elements of Bolzano’s Theory of Knowledge . . . . . . . 342
(a) Subjective Ideas and Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
(b) Intuitions and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
(c) Individuation; Equal Ideas; Clarity, Distinctness, and
Vividness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
(d) Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
(e) Mediated and Immediate Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
(f) A priori and Empirical Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
2. Knowledge, Ignorance, Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
3. Certainty, Probability, and Confidence; Knowledge and
Belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
4. Wissen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
5. Judgments of Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
6. Bolzano on Kant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
8 Ontology and Metaphysics 405

1. Objects in General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
2. Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
3. Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
(a) Origins: Universal Mathematics (1810) . . . . . . . . . . 417
(b) Bolzano’s Later Theory of Collections . . . . . . . . . . . 422
4. Identity, Equality, Similarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
ix
5. Bolzano on some Traditional Ontological Theses . . . . . . . 444

6. Actual and Non-actual Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
7. Substance and Adherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
8. Time and Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
9. From Metaphysics to Physics: Bolzano’s Atoms and
Leibniz’s Monads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
10. Non-actual Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
11. Necessity, Possibility, Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
12. A Proof of the Existence of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
13. The World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
9 Mathematics 502
1. On Mathematical Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
(a) The Ancient Ideal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
(b) Bolzano’s Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
(c) Definitions and Explications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
(d) Proofs, Objective and Subjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
(e) Foundations and Foundational Research . . . . . . . . . . 513
2. Adventures in the Infinite: A Sample of Bolzano’s
Mathematical Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
(a) Infinite Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
(b) Bolzano’s Analysis of Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
(c) Paradoxes of the Infinite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
10 Aesthetics, the Science of Beauty 544

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
2. Works on Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
3. On Laughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
4. The Concept of Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
5. The Concept of the Beautiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
(a) Conceptual Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
(b) The Beautiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
(c) Other Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
6. On the Classification of the Fine Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
(a) The Division of the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
(b) Arts of Pure Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
(c) Arts of the External Senses: the Tonal Arts . . . . . . . . . 584
(d) The Visual Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
(e) Panorama of the Fine Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
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Contents
7. The Reception of Bolzano’s Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

8. Critical Remarks and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Afterword 595
Bibliography 599
Index of Persons 647
Index of Subjects 653
xi
A N OTE ON C ITATIONS
A bibliography is provided towards the end of this book (pp. 599 ff.). In our
footnotes, we use the following abbreviations:
BBGA Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe, ed. E. Winter, J. Berg, F. Kambar-

tel, J. Loužil, E. Morscher, and B. van Rootselaar (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1969–).
BD Beyträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik (Prague,
1810). English translation in MW (see below).
EP Selected Writings on Ethics and Politics, tr. P. Rusnock and R. George
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007).
GL Größenlehre (manuscript); BBGA, Series 2A, Vols 7–10 (some volumes
still to appear). Selections translated in MM-EX, MW (see below).
ML “Von der mathematischen Lehrart” (manuscript, part of GL); BBGA
2A.7, pp. 46–97. English translation in MM-EX (see next entry).
MM-EX On the Mathematical Method and Correspondence with Exner, tr.
P. Rusnock and R. George (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004).
MW The Mathematical Works of Bernard Bolzano, tr. S. B. Russ (Oxford
University Press, 2004).
PdU Paradoxien des Unendlichen (Leipzig, 1851). English translations: Para-
doxes of the Infinite by D. A. Steele (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1950) and S. B. Russ (in MW).
PK Ueber die Perfectibilität des Katholicismus, 2 Vols (Leipzig, 1845).
RB Rein analytischer Beweis . . . (Prague, 1817). English translation in MW.
RW Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft (Sulzbach, 1834).
3-D Versuch einer objectiven Begründung von den drei Dimensionen des
Raumes (Prague, 1843).
WL Wissenschaftslehre (Sulzbach, 1837). New edn in BBGA, Series 1, Vols
11/1–14/3. English translation by P. Rusnock and R. George: Theory of
Science, 4 Vols (Oxford University Press, 2014).
xiii
The Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe (BBGA) is divided into 6 Series:
E: Einleitungsband
1: Schriften
2A: Nachlaß: Schriften
2B: Nachlaß: Wissenschaftliche Tagebücher
3: Briefwechsel
4: Dokumente
The Series are divided into Volumes, and some of the latter are further divided
into parts. Accordingly, we give citations of the forms:
w.x/y, p. z
w.x, p. z
where w indicates the Series, x the Volume, y the Part (when applicable), and
z the page number. For example:
BBGA 1.6/1, p. 25
refers to Series 1, Volume 6 (part 1), page 25; and
BBGA 1.18, p. 35
to Series 1, Volume 18 (which is not subdivided), page 35.

Generally speaking, we cite original editions (which are often available
online), followed by the Gesamtausgabe, and English translation (the last two
when available). Here, for example, is a typical reference:
RW, I, §14, no. 7 [BBGA 1.6/1, pp. 77–8; EP, p. 177].
There is one exception to this practice: in the case of the Wissenschaft-

slehre (WL), we simply cite the section numbers and, where appropriate, the
volume and page numbers of the first (1837) edition, e.g., WL, §148 [II.83].
We do this because the pagination of the first edition is given in the margins
of both the BBGA edition and the complete English translation.
Finally, for Kant’s works, we usually cite the Academy edition:
Ak Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Königlich Preußis-

chen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin and Leipzig, 1900–.
We also use the standard abbreviations (A, B) to designate the first and second
editions of the Critique of Pure Reason.
xiv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Even if we cannot mention all people who helped us at different stages of

writing this book, we would at least like to name some of those whose work
informed ours and to whom we express our particular gratitude:
Marie Bayerová, Ali Behboud, Ali Benmakhlouf, Jocelyn Benoist, Johann
van Benthem, Jan Berg, Karel Berka, Stefano Besoli, Ariana Betti, Kurt Blau-
kopf, Johann Blok, Jacques Bouveresse, Günter Buhl, Paola Cantù, Ettore
Casari, Carlo Cellucci, Stefania Centrone, Charles Chihara, Alberto Coffa,
Jonathan L. Cohen, Jaromír Daněk, Michael Detlefsen, Georg Dorn, Jacques
Dubucs, Pierre Dugac, Petr Dvořák, John Etchemendy, Boris I. Fedorov, Jiří
Fiala, Denis Fisette, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Jaroslav Folta, Guillaume Fréchette,
Margret Friedrich, František Gahér, Alain Gallerand, Heinrich Ganthaler,
Carsten Gieske, Rolf George, Gilles-Gaston Granger, Ivor Grattan-Guinness,
Johannes Hafner, Vlastimil Hála, Rudolf Haller, Josef Haubelt, Jan Havránek,
Magdalena Hykšová, Vojtěch Jarník, Dale M. Johnson, Willem de Jong, Anita
Kasabova, Arnošt Kolman, Anita Konzelmann Ziv, L. Koreň, Jan Kořalka,
Lukas Benedict Kraus, Andrej Krause, Lothar Kreiser, Frank Krickel, Pavel
Křivský, Wolfgang Künne, Sandra Lapointe, Detlef Laugwitz, Jacques Laz,
Alain de Libera, Paisley Livingston, Jan Milič Lochman, Iris Loeb, Helena
Lorenzová, Winfried Löffler, Jaromír Loužil, Jan Łukasiewicz, Karel Mačák,
Carole Maigné, Claudio Majolino, Paolo Mancosu, Pavel Materna, Benson
Mates, Henryk Moese, Edgar Morscher, Massimo Mugnai, Kevin Mulligan,
Otto Neumaier, Luboš Nový, Radim Palouš, Francesco Paoli, Jan Patočka,
Miroslav Pauza, Marie Pavlíková, Gaëtan Pégny, Karel Petr, Joëlle Proust,
Venanzio Raspa, Jane Regenfelder, Maria Reicher, Stefan Roski, Bob van
Rootselaar, Antje Rumberg, Helmut Rumpler, Frédéric Ruscher, Steve Russ,
Karel Rychlík, Maria van der Schaar, Günter Schenk, Benjamin Schnieder,
Heinrich Scholz, Irena Seidlerová, Mark Siebel, Petr Simon, Peter Simons,
Hourya Sinaceur, Alena Šolcová, Detlef Spalt, Peter Stachel, Anatoli A.
Starčenko, Werner Stelzner, Kurt F. Strasser, Göran Sundholm, Christian
Tapp, Armin Tatzel, Gerhard Terton, Mark Textor, Paul B. Thompson, Kateř-
ina Trlifajová, Petr Urban, Emil Utitz, Lubomír Valenta, Karel Večerka, Marta
Vlasáková, Franco Voltaggio, Petr Vopěnka, Manfried Welan, Eduard Winter,
Jan Woleński, Hans Wussing, and Pavel Zlatoš.
The contributions of those who were not mentioned or quoted in our text
also found their way into this book. Between the two of us, we have met quite
a few of these scholars (some, alas, no longer with us), and feel very fortunate
to be able to call a number of them friends.
xv
Several of the subjects discussed in this book have been previously dealt
with in articles we have published (listed below), and we have made use of
the material in them at various points. We are grateful to the publishers and
co-authors for granting us permission to do this.
S. Roski and P. Rusnock, “Bolzano on necessary existence,” Archiv für Ge-

schichte der Philosophie 96 (2014) 320–59.
P. Rusnock, “Analyticity in Kant and Bolzano,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 95 (2013) 298–335.
P. Rusnock, “On Bolzano’s concept of a sum,” History and Philosophy of
Logic 34 (2013) 155–69.
P. Rusnock and J. Šebestík, “The Beyträge at 200: Bolzano’s quiet revolu-
tion in the philosophy of mathematics,” Journal for the History of Analytic
Philosophy, Vol. 1, no. 8 (2013).
P. Rusnock, “Remarks on Bolzano’s conception of necessary truth,” British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (2012) 817–37.
P. Rusnock, “Kant and Bolzano on logical form,” Kant-Studien 102 (2011)
1–15.
P. Rusnock and M. Burke, “Etchemendy and Bolzano on logical consequence,”
History and Philosophy of Logic 31 (2010) 3–29.
R. George and P. Rusnock, “Bolzano’s Political Philosophy,” in M. Textor, ed.
The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy (London: Routledge,
2006), pp. 264–92.
P. Rusnock and R. George, “Bolzano as Logician,” in D. Gabbay and J.
Woods, eds, Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Logic, Vol. 3
(Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004), pp. 177–205.
P. Rusnock, “Bolzano and the traditions of analysis,” in Bolzano and Analytic
Philosophy, ed. W. Künne, M. Siebel and M. Textor (Amsterdam: Rodopi,
1998); also in Grazer philosophische Studien 53 (1997) 61–85.
xvi
P REFACE
Jan Šebestík and I began work on this book almost two decades ago. I had
come to work with him in the mid-1990s after finishing my doctorate, and he
invited me to join his seminar, which was then working to translate Bolzano’s
work Von der mathematischen Lehrart and his correspondence with Franz
Exner. After a year or so of working together, we discussed the possibility of
writing a book together on Bolzano’s life and work, and finally resolved to do
it. It would be difficult to overstate the breadth and depth of Jan’s knowledge,
the fruit of a long life of determined study, and I count it as one of the great
fortunes of my life to have worked with him on this book.
As things turned out, it took much longer than either of us had antici-
pated to reach this point. Soon after we had decided to write this book, I was
launched on the sessional lecturers’ circuit, moving repeatedly with my fam-
ily and teaching a new selection of courses each year while constantly on the
lookout for the next contract. Jan, for his part, struggled through two bouts of
cancer and other assorted health problems, all the while taking on a multitude
of other commitments. This was on top of the intrinsic difficulties involved
in trying to take the measure of the many and varied interests of an author
as widely-read, far-seeing, and prolific as Bolzano—and my somewhat fool-
hardy decision to translate substantial parts of Bolzano’s works into English
with Rolf George, including the massive Theory of Science.
Over the years, I have worked with a number of other people on various
aspects of Bolzano’s thought. Rolf George, to begin with, has been a constant
source of knowledge and support since I first went to Waterloo to study with
him in the early 1990s. Through his teaching, as well as our discussions
and joint work, he has deeply influenced my contributions to this book, not
least to the chapter in this volume on Bolzano’s political philosophy, which
is based on an article we wrote together. I cannot imagine a better teacher,
supervisor, collaborator, or friend.
I also have fond memories of working on Bolzano’s mathematics with
the late Angus Kerr-Lawson, on his conception of logical consequence with
Mark Burke, on his philosophy of religion with Anna Ezekiel, and on the
concept of necessity with Stefan Roski. My deepest thanks go to all of them.
We owe another major debt to Wolfgang Künne, who provided acute and
detailed comments on significant parts of this book, and who has generously
shared with us a number of his still to be published writings on Bolzano.
Stefan Roski, too, read an earlier version of the manuscript and provided
xvii
many valuable comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank two
anonymous reviewers for Oxford University Press, whose comments, based
upon a thorough and careful reading of our text, have helped us greatly, along
with Peter Momtchiloff, who has been an ideal editor.
This book would not have been possible if not for the well-advanced crit-
ical edition of Bolzano’s works (Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe), the fruit
of many decades of hard work and exemplary dedication on the part of its ed-
itors: Jan Berg, Friedrich Kambartel, Jaromír Loužil, Edgar Morscher, Bob
van Rootselaar, and Eduard Winter. Like all those who study Bolzano, we
mourn the recent passing of Jan Berg.
Finally, my family has been remarkably patient with me while I pursued
these massive projects. To Elizabeth, Sophie, and Harry, I here express my
gratitude and my love.
Paul Rusnock, Ottawa, February 2018
xviii
xix
Mid-Nineteenth Century Prague; from A Handbook for Travellers in Southern Ger-

many (7th edn, London: John Murray, 1857). Image courtesy of the McGill University
Library.
C HRONOLOGY
Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

1776 Smith, Wealth of Nations
1779 Hume, Dialogues on Natural
Religion (posth.)
1780
1781 Born 5 October in Prague Kant, Critique of Pure Reason;

Rousseau, Confessions
1787– Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris;
1788 Schiller, Don Carlos; Mozart,
Don Giovanni, Symphonies nos.
39–41
1789 Bentham, Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legisla-
tion; Blake, Songs of Innocence;
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire
1790 Burke, Reflections on the Revolu-
tion in France
1792 Dobrovský, History of Czech
Language and Literature; Woll-
stonecroft, Vindication of the
Rights of Women
1793 David, Death of Marat
1794– Blake, Songs of Experience;

1795 Condorcet, Esquisse d’un tableau
historique des progrès de l’esprit
humain; Paine, The Age of
Reason
xx
Chronology
S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Thirteen Colonies issue Declaration
of Independence
Joseph II becomes ruler of Habsburg

lands
Watt patents steam engine; Herschel, Joseph II Issues Patent of Tolerance,
discovery of Uranus expands freedom of press in Austria
US Constitution ratified
Lavoisier, Traité elémentaire de French Revolution; Washington

chimie elected President of USA
Bohemian Royal Society of Sciences Joseph II dies; Leopold II becomes

founded ruler of Habsburg lands
Leopold II dies; succeeded by Francis
Whitney invents cotton gin Louis XVI executed; Reign of Terror

begins
Lavoisier executed; École Poly-
technique founded; Metric system
adopted in France
xxi

1796– Student at Charles University Goethe, Wilhelm Meister (1796);
1799 Coleridge, Kubla Khan; Co-
leridge and Wordsworth, Lyrical
Ballads; Haydn, The Creation
1799– Advanced studies in Mathematics

1800
1800– Studies Theology at Charles Uni- Schelling, System of Transcen-

1804 versity; Considerations on some dental Idealism; Paley, Natural
Objects of Elementary Geometry Theology
(1804)
1804 Fichte, Theory of Science
1805 Ordained priest, doctorate con- Beethoven, Eroica Symphony

ferred, provisionally appointed to
Chair of the Science of Religion
at Charles University
1806– University appointment con-
1807 firmed (1806)
1808 Goethe, Faust, Part 1
1809 Goethe, Elective Affinities
1810 Contributions to a more Well- Fichte, Addresses to the German

Grounded Presentation of Math- Nation
ematics, 1
1812 In a notebook, records intention
to write a “New Logic”
1813 Erbauungsreden für Akademiker, Austen, Pride and Prejudice;
a volume of exhortations Herbart, Introductory Treatise of
Philosophy
xxii
Chronology

Jenner, vaccination for smallpox;
Lagrange, Théorie des fonctions ana-
lytiques; Malthus, Essay on the Prin-
ciple of Population; Rosetta Stone dis-
covered
Gauss proves Fundamental Theorem Napoleon becomes First Consul
of Algebra; Laplace, Traité de mé- (1800)
canique céleste
Volta constructs chemical battery; Louisiana Purchase; Napoleonic Wars
first census in France, Britain begin (1803)
Lewis and Clark begin their expedi- Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor,
tion crowned Francis I of Austria;
Napoleon crowned Emperor of the
French
French troops occupy Vienna;
Napoleon victorious at Austerlitz;
Peace of Pressburg
Prague Polytechnical Institute, Geo- Holy Roman Empire officially dis-

logical Society of London founded solved
Dalton, A New System of Chemical
Philosophy
Lamarck, Philosophie zoologique Napoleon annexes Papal States, Pope
Pius VII taken prisoner; Metternich
becomes Foreign Minister of Austria
Napoleon marries Archduchess Marie
Louise of Austria, daughter of Francis
Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossements Napoleon’s Russian campaign; USA

fossiles de quadrupèdes declares war on Britain
xxiii

1814 Scott, Waverley; Ingrès, La
grande odalisque; Goya, The
Third of May, 1808 in Madrid
1815 Elected member of Bohemian Schubert, Erlkönig
Royal Society
1816 Binomial Theorem Rossini, Barber of Seville
1817– Purely Analytic Proof ; Three Hegel, Encyclopedia; Ricardo,

1818 Problems Principles of Political Economy
and Taxation
1819 On 24 December, Kaiser Francis Schopenhauer, The World as Will
orders Bolzano’s dismissal and Idea
1820 Begins work on Theory of Science Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale,”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
1821– Bolzano’s ecclesiastical “trial”; Constable, The Hay Wain; De
1825 meets Anna Hoffmann (1823) Quincey, Confessions of an
English Opium Eater (1821)
1823– Summers in Těchobuz with the Beethoven, Ninth Symphony
1830 Hoffmanns (1824); Kollár, Slávy dcera
(1824); Fennimore Cooper, The
Last of the Mohicans (1826)
1827 Athanasia Heine, Buch der Lieder; Schu-
bert, Die Winterreise
1828 Erbauungsreden placed on Index Turner, Chichester Canal
1830 Completes manuscript of Theory Comte, Cours de philosophie

of Science positive (6 Vols, 1830–42); Sten-
dahl, Le rouge et le noir
xxiv
Chronology

Napoleon defeated in Battle of the
Nations at Leipzig
Allies invade France, Napoleon ab-

dicates; Congress of Vienna begins;
Pius VII returns to Rome, reinstates
Inquisition; British troops set fire to
White House
Napoleon returns, is defeated at Wa-
terloo; Mount Tambora erupts, lead-
ing to “year without a summer” in
1816
Cuvier, La règne animal; first suc- Wartburgfest
cessful blood transfusion
Kotzebue assassinated; Carlsbad de-

crees; Peterloo massacre
Oersted discovers electromagnetism Missouri Compromise
Fourier, Théorie analytique de la

chaleur; Poncelet, Traité des pro-
priétés projectives des figures (1822)
Abel proves that the general quintic
is not solvable in terms of radicals;
Bolyai and Lobachevsky, Non-
Euclidean Geometry
Ohm’s Law discovered
Railway between České Budjějovice

and Linz partially completed—first
rail service in Austria (horse-drawn);
Woehler synthesizes urea
Liverpool and Manchester Railway July Revolution in France, Belgian
opens; Lyell, Principles of Geology Revolution
xxv

1830– Lives in Těchobuz on Hoffmann Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique;
1841 estate; works on Theory of Quan- Delacroix, La liberté guidant le
tities peuple; Hugo, Notre Dame de
Paris (1831)
1831 O logice published (Czech trans- Bellini, La Sonnambula, Norma
lation of Etwas über Logik); fin-
ishes MS of On the Best State
1832– Chopin, Études, op. 12;
1833 Mendelssohn, Italian Symphony;
Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
1834 Treatise of the Science of Re- Balzac, Le père Goriot
ligion; Opinions of a Liberal
Catholic Theologian on the Rela-
tion between Church and State
1835 Religious Professions of two De Tocqueville, De la démocratie
Friends of Reason, namely, en Amérique, Vol. 1; Donizetti,
a Protestant and a Catholic Lucia di Lamermoor; Strauss,
Theologian The Life of Jesus (1835–6)
1836 Autobiography Mácha, Máj
1837 Theory of Science published;

Krug and Bolzano; Epistle to
Röhr
1838 “On the Right of Clergy to Draw Dickens, Oliver Twist
their Living from Persons not of
their Faith,” Dr. Bolzano and his
Adversaries
1839– Treatise of the Science of Reli- Poe, The Fall of the House of
1840 gion placed on the Index; Exam- Usher; Lermontov, A Hero of our
ination of the Philosophy of the Time, Stendahl, La Chartreuse de
late Georg Hermes Parme
1841 Anna Hoffmann ill, Hoffmanns Cousin, Cours d’histoire de la
and Bolzano back in Prague; B. philosophie moderne; Feuerbach,
active in Royal Society (1841–8); The Essence of Christianity
A Critical Overview of Bolzano’s
Theory of Science und Science of
Religion
xxvi
Chronology
Faraday and Henry discover electro-

magnetic induction
Cholera epidemic in Europe; Re-

form, Slavery Abolition Acts passed
in Britain
German customs union formed
Francis I of Austria dies; succeeded

by Ferdinand I
Telegraph patented Victoria becomes Queen of United

Kingdom
Audubon, Birds of America
Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (1839); First Opium War (1839–42); Amistad
Agassiz, Études sur les glaciers rebellion
(1840)
xxvii

1842 Anna Hoffmann dies; Essay of an Gogol, Dead Souls
Objective Grounding of the The-
ory of the Composition of Forces
1843 On the Concept of the beautiful; Kirkegaard, Either/Or, Fear and
Remarks on Doppler; Reply to Trembling; Mill, A System of
Exner’s “On Nominalism and Re- Logic
alism”
1845 On the Perfectibility of Catholi- Wagner, Tannhäuser
cism; Essay of an Objective
Grounding of the Theory of the
Three-Dimensionality of Space
1847 On Charity; Proposal for Ad- C. Brontë, Jane Eyre; E. Brontë,
dressing the Growing Emergency Wuthering Heights
Afflicting a Considerable Num-
ber of the Inhabitants of Prague;
On Christian Doppler’s latest Ac-
complishments
1848 Dies 18 December Marx and Engels, Communist
Manifesto; Mill, Principles of Po-
litical Economy
1849– Posthumous publications: On the Dickens, David Copperfield,
1852 Classification of the Fine Arts; Bleak House; Melville, Moby
What is Philosophy?; Erbau- Dick; Turgenev, Sportsman’s
ungsreden, 4 Vols; Paradoxes of Sketches; Verdi, Rigoletto, Il
the Infinite; Three Philosophical Trovatore, La Traviata
Essays
1853 Erben, Kytice (Bouquet)
1854
xxviii
Chronology

Doppler effect explained; first use
of anaesthesia in surgery
Great Famine in Ireland (1845–52)
Semmelweis documents correlation

between hand-washing and lower
mortality in obstetrics
Revolutions across Europe
Riemann, On the Hypotheses which

Underlie Geometry; Boole, An Inves-
tigation of the Laws of Thought
xxix
Bernard Bolzano. Lithograph by Josef Kriehuber, 1849, based on an oil

painting by Heinrich Holpein, 1839. The caption reads: Št’astným být a jiné
blažit—to jest úkol člowěka [To be happy and to make happy—that is our
calling.] Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.
xxx
E XTRACTS
He above all others has the merit of having scattered the seeds of the beautiful
and the sublime in the minds of thousands, and of having cultivated them until
they became a tree full of buds that will also provide a thousand beneficial
fruits for future generations.
Josef Dobrovský, 1825
Bolzano was one of those rare people for whom the outer man was a
perfect imprint of the inner, and whose scientific significance and personal
character can hardly be separated.
Robert Zimmermann, 1849
For Bolzano it was impossible to be merely a Slav or a German. Just as

he, a born Christian, esteemed the Jews; as he, by choice a Catholic, honoured
the non-Catholics; so too, by education a German, he saw in the Slavs only—
people.
Michael Josef Fesl, 1849
He was a German but also a whole man [. . . ] and this raised him above
all racial hatred. In the best sense of that word he was a citizen of the world.
From this vantage point he looked upon the relation between the two nation-
alities of Bohemia much as Goethe did. From this vantage point this man
demanded justice for the Czechs as long as 70 years ago with such energy
that even now we cannot express it more eloquently. For justice lay at the
core of everything he strove for in his political life . . . . He clearly stated his
view about the two peoples that inhabit our country, seeking the ideal solu-
tion for them in harmony and concord. . . . Even today there are occasional
individuals who seek to prove that our language and our brains are not suit-
able for higher learning. It is a bitter burden, but we shall not be provoked. . . .
Therefore in this year 1881 it is all the more desirable that Bolzano’s opin-
ions about the relation between the two peoples of Bohemia be restored. . . .
His example and his writings will always speak to us. Take them to hand and
read. . . . Honour the memory of this man and in him the spirit of humanity,
of nobility, of light and peace!
Josef Durdík, 1881
xxxi
Even though Bolzano wrote and preached in German, the blessing of his
words fell above all on our people, and it merely fulfills the duty of gratitude
by placing the name of Bernard Bolzano in the ranks of its first benefactors
and awakeners.
Marie Červinková-Riegrová, 1881
From his quiet retirement, the inflexible and truthful Bolzano, defended
by Dobrovský—everywhere heart and work are needed you find Dobrov-
ský—but suspected by Jungmann, also had a beneficient influence on our
patriotic circles. It is important that in his effort, Bolzano, too, was directed
towards humanist aims.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, 1895
This man is the chief pseudoprophet of our age.

Denunciation of Bolzano made to Pope Pius VII, 1818
Of the 30,000 students who are said to have crowded, in the times of
Charles the Fourth and his successors, the saloons of the renowned university
at Prague, but 1000 remain. These are trained according to the pleasure of his
Imperial Majesty, as expressed when the professors were admitted into his
Imperial presence, in 1825. “I will have my subjects learn all those things that
are useful in common life, and likely to keep them attached to our person and
to their religion. I don’t want teachers who fill the heads of my students with
that nonsense which turns the brains of so many youths in our days.” The only
scientific branch allowed a free range is medicine. The others, in 1822, re-
ceived a warning which will cut off all redundant study during the Emperor’s
life. Of all the members of this university, the Professor of Philosophy Bol-
zano was universally admitted to be one of the very first. Several works which
he published, showed him to be a very liberal and eminent thinker. This gen-
tleman was suddenly arrested, his writings seized, himself placed before an
ecclesiastical tribunal, at the head of which was the archbishop, to answer the
charge of heterodoxy. The poor archbishop, a good, kind-hearted, simple old
man, universally beloved, was, one may suppose, not a little puzzled to man-
age this dogmatical trial, out of whose labyrinth of nonsense the Pope, with
all his infallibility, would not have extricated himself: he succeeded, how-
ever, in clearing the doctor of the crime of heterodoxy; but all his endeavours,
together with those of the nobility, to obtain his re-admission to the philo-
sophical chair, were unsuccessful. “Let me alone,” said the Emperor, when
the P——ss L——y interceded on his behalf. “He has dangerous, extrava-
gant principles.” One of his disciples, a director of the theological seminary
xxxii
Extracts
in Leitmeritz, went a step further, and asserted, as was said, in one of his lec-
tures, that those doctrines, which are incompatible with human reason, cannot
be founded on divine precepts. This daring speech resounded in Vienna, and
a few weeks afterwards the confessor of his Majesty, M. Frint, arrived with
two commissaries from Vienna, arrested the poor director, and carried him
under escort to Vienna, where he was imprisoned with the Ligorians. The
bishop, under whose eyes this ne plus ultra of infidelity took place, was de-
prived of his see, and sent into a capuchin monastery. These three examples
have proved effectual in curing the spirit of the Bohemian literati, and they
are now plodding on according to the manner prescribed.
Karl Postl, a.k.a. Charles Sealsfield, 1828
Husserl . . . took up the battle against psychologism in epistemology, and

the happy formulation of the concept of the validity of truth independent of
the movements of empirical consciousness which he found in Bolzano’s for-
mula of a “proposition in itself” was the reason why this otherwise rather
insignificant brooder received some momentary attention.
Wilhelm Windelband, 1912
One is surprised in reading the works of Bolzano—philosophical or math-
ematical, and especially this logic, published in 1837—to find a contempo-
rary, someone so far in advance of the science and philosophy of his time that
it seems that he has anticipated some of the most recent directions taken in the
past few years in the exact sciences and epistemology. Doubtless this explains
why, though unrecognized in his own lifetime, he was so to speak discov-
ered by contemporary mathematicians and philosophers, who devoted many
important studies to him, such as Höfler, Twardowski, Husserl, Meinong,
Kreibig, Marty, Bergmann, Stumpf and many others.
Anonymous reviewer for the Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 1914
Modern mathematicians would not have fallen into contradictions or con-

fusions . . . if they had studied Bolzano’s Theory of Science (Sulzbach, 1837).
Bolzano, the great adversary of Kant, is the first philosophical mathematician
and mathematical philosopher since Leibniz. He is known to mathematicians
only for his new foundation of mathematics and his discovery of set theory,
but his views on the foundations of geometry and on scientific presentation
in general . . . are at least as significant.
Alwin Korselt, 1903
Leibniz in Bohemia.
Josef Durdík, 1881
xxxiii
INTRODUCTION
Bolzano’s life coincides almost exactly with what has been called the Age
of Revolutions. Born in 1781, he lived through the revolution from above
launched by Joseph II in 1780, the French Revolution, the triumphs and de-
feats of Napoleon, the conservative reaction embodied in the Metternich Sys-
tem, the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, the July revolution of 1830,
and finally the uprisings of 1848, the last year of his life. It was a time of
exaggerations, of great hopes and fears, sudden reversals, and crushing dis-
appointments, a time of vast enthusiasms and general confusion, as unprece-
dented forces were let loose upon a world almost completely unprepared for
them. The world of letters was not spared, as authors strove to make their
voices count in an ever more crowded and noisy public forum. Novelty was
everywhere sought, overreach and passion common on all sides.
At first glance, Bolzano can easily appear to be out of tune with his age.
A Catholic priest and professor of religion in Prague, he worked steadily
throughout his life on what must have seemed to his contemporaries pedantic
matters of detail, often having to do with fine points of logic and mathemat-
ics. In metaphysics, unpersuaded by Kant’s critical turn, he continued to work
in the spirit of Leibniz and Wolff. The tone of his philosophical writings is
almost invariably measured and respectful, deliberately shunning rhetorical
excess. Throughout, he shows deep respect for the work of his predeces-
sors, even when he thinks them profoundly mistaken. Received terminology
and teachings are maintained whenever possible, even if this requires him to
develop new interpretations. He takes note of, but rarely chooses to follow,
the latest trends, inveighs against novelty for its own sake and warns against
enthusiasms of all sorts, notably those of contemporary German philosophy.
In politics, he thinks violent upheavals more likely to cause harm than to do
good. Is this not the portrait of an old-style conservative, someone completely
out of touch with the temper of his times?
A closer look, however, reveals a thinker who, while incapable of making
much of an impression on many of his German contemporaries, was effecting
a quiet revolution in philosophy, pursuing lines of thought whose significance
only began to be appreciated long afterwards. Quine recognized Bolzano as
having anticipated his definition of logical truth, and Tarski would do the
same for his definition of logical consequence. Frege—who never mentions
Bolzano—was also anticipated by the Prague philosopher, who presented
1
many decades earlier an anti-psychologistic position in logic, something very

like a sense-reference distinction, and a logic of variation based on a very
general notion of propositional form. Husserl, who had generously acknowl-
edged Bolzano in his Logical Investigations, felt himself obliged to defend
his originality and honesty in the face of charges that many of the key ideas
in that work had been taken from Bolzano’s Theory of Science. Historians
of mathematics have pointed out that Bolzano, some years before Cauchy,
had given rigorous definitions of such key concepts as the sum of an infinite
series and the continuity of a function; that many years before Weierstrass,
Bolzano had used the Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem to prove key theorems of
real analysis, and constructed an everywhere continuous, nowhere differen-
tiable function; and, finally, that Bolzano noticed the property of infinite sets
that is the key to Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers as well as anticipating
certain aspects of Cantor’s set theory.
Yet interest in Bolzano’s theoretical work has rarely extended farther than
mere curiosity. Where Frege, for instance, has been the subject of many
studies, few English-speaking philosophers have felt moved to look into the
details of Bolzano’s work. This is more than a pity, since Bolzano did not
simply anticipate what others later developed, but has original things to say
that are of enduring interest. One of the most remarkable philosophers of the
nineteenth century, his works are still very much worth studying today, so
solid is their foundation, so meticulous their detail. Quine might have done
well, for instance, to have considered what Bolzano had to say about the
analytic/synthetic distinction, or about the a priori, Putnam and Kripke to
what Bolzano had to contribute to their discussions of indexicals and natu-
ral kind terms. Frege himself, as Alwin Korselt pointed out in a none-too-
friendly exchange over the foundations of geometry, might have learned a
few things about logical consequence from him.
As a political philosopher and public intellectual, Bolzano has from time
to time caught the eye of students of Central European history, but here
too there has been some difficulty bringing him into focus. Looking back,
through one distorting lens or another, Bolzano seemed strangely out of touch
with fundamental realities. Czechs sometimes had difficulty fitting Bolzano,
whose parents were of Italian and German heritage, into the story of the na-
tional rebirth, while the Germans, for their part, were not quite sure whether
he should be counted as one of theirs, even though he wrote in their language.
Since he wrote a work called On the Best State, he has been portrayed as a
utopian, unconcerned with the here and now. Marxists also tended to look
upon him as a dreamer, or at best—when he could be brought into line with
2
Introduction
current orthodoxy—a somewhat misguided precursor. As a leading represen-

tative of the Bohemian Enlightenment and a priest, it has often been thought
that Bolzano couldn’t possibly be sincere in the latter vocation. But few have
taken the time to see whether or not this was really so. Would a utopist, for
example, be concerned with measuring inflation, instituting state-supported
health care (with a strong emphasis on public health), or managing the com-
plexities of multicultural societies? Yet Bolzano certainly was.
In the English-speaking world, Bolzano is best known for his work in
logic and mathematics. There are certainly things of great importance and
beauty in these parts of his work. We have already written, each of us, on
these matters, and will have more to say about them in this book. But a faith-
ful portrait of Bolzano cannot limit itself to this, for until he was 40 years
old, he was only able to pursue these subjects in his spare time. With his con-
siderable gifts in these non-controversial areas, he certainly might have led a
distinguished life of speculation as a mathematician or philosopher. Instead
he chose quite deliberately to plunge into the turbulent political life of his
homeland, applying his formidable intelligence, energy, and determination to
the reform of his society and its institutions. It is here that we shall begin.
3
Street Scene near St Nicholas Church, Prague. Lithograph by Samuel Prout

from 1833, based on his watercolour from c. 1820. Image courtesy of the
McGill University library.
4
C HAPTER 1
B OLZANO ’ S L IFE
1. T HE H ISTORICAL C ONTEXT
Though he spent most of his life in Prague, Bolzano cannot really be called
a Czech; nor, though his mother tongue was German, a German; nor yet an
Austrian, even though his homeland was then part of the Habsburg Empire.
He was, rather, a Bohemian, indeed a sort of national philosopher for this
now defunct country. If Central Europe remains relatively unfamiliar to the
English-speaking world today, how much more so is this true of the Bohemia
of yesteryear—which Shakespeare endowed with a coastline—and of its peo-
ple, of whom, to borrow the words of a famous statesman, we know nothing.1
In order to recount the events of Bolzano’s life, it will therefore be necessary
to begin with a few words about his country.
Bohemia should not be confused with the modern Czech Republic, whose
ethnic and linguistic homogeneity is a quite recent result of what has come
to be called ethnic cleansing (the modern Republic also contains Moravia
and a small part of Silesia). From the early Middle Ages until the twentieth
century, Bohemia’s population was multi-lingual and multi-ethnic, including
significant numbers of Germans and Jews as well as Czechs. This diversity
was destroyed in a very short time in the middle of the twentieth century.
The Czechoslovak Republic was occupied by the Nazis, who deported and/or
murdered large numbers of the Bohemian Jews and, once the war was over,
the majority of the German inhabitants were expelled by the Czechoslovak
government.
These and other developments in the twentieth century—over the last
hundred years, Bohemia has been, by turns, a province of the Austrian Em-
pire, part of an independent Czechoslovakia, a Reichsprotectorat annexed
to the Nazi state, very briefly part of an independent Czechoslovakia again,
annexed de facto to the Soviet Union, very briefly part of an independent
Czechoslovakia once more, and most recently part of the Czech republic—
have been by no means untypical of Bohemian history. A rich and productive
land, occupying a vitally important strategic position in the middle of Europe,
1 Neville Chamberlain.
5
surrounded by powerful and power-hungry neighbours, Bohemia has had an

unstable and troubled history for most of its existence.
An independent kingdom during the Middle Ages, Bohemia was for a
time at the very centre of European culture and politics. Charles IV, Holy
Roman Emperor from 1355 to 1378, made Prague capital of the empire,
and founded a university there (1348) on the model of those in Paris and
Bologna. Close links were established with the Sorbonne as well as with
Oxford, whence Bohemian students brought home the writings and ideas of
Wyclif. The magnificence of the Imperial court attracted artists, poets, mu-
sicians, and intellectuals from all parts of Europe. Some two centuries later,
Prague remained a centre of European learning, and in particular of science.
Giordano Bruno spent several months in Prague. Tycho Brahe came there to
work as Imperial Astronomer, and in his turn invited Kepler, who inherited
the job when Brahe died.
As Bohemia prospered under Charles IV, the Church did as well, attract-
ing a swarm of layabouts and scoundrels, and making Bohemia a paragon of
ecclesiastical corruption:
. . . on the one hand there was simony and the traffic in benefices,
from which the Curia derived its financial profit, on the other
concubinage and all the grosser forms of immorality. [. . . ] The
statutes of archbishop Ernest show clearly by their prohibitions
what was common practice of the day—the frequenting of tav-
erns and wearing of lay dress and weapons by priests, their re-
fusal to marry, bury, confess or administer the sacraments save in
return for money payments, and much else besides. An archidia-
conal inspection of the year 1380 revealed that of the thirty-two
parish priests of Prague itself, sixteen were living in open scan-
dal; while charges of theft and even highway robbery against the
lower clergy were far from uncommon.1
Such widespread and flagrant abuses prompted the growth of a number of

reform movements. Jan Milíč of Kroměříž preached the return to a primitive
Christianity with its simple, ascetic life and became the founder of the devotio
moderna. One of his students, Geert Groot from the Netherlands, put Milíč’s
ideas into practice in a community to which Thomas à Kempis, the author of
The Imitation of Jesus Christ, later belonged. Jan Hus (?1370–1415), who
1R. W. Seton-Watson, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks (London: Archon
Books, 1943), p. 33.
6
Bolzano’s Life
drew inspiration from the writings of Wyclif, attacked not only the sale of in-
dulgences, the corruption and lust of the clergy, but also the very organization
of the medieval church, defending the rights of the civil authorities to inter-
vene in its affairs. Another Czech reformer, Petr Chelčický (?1390–1460)
was more profound and more radical. In books written in Czech, he advo-
cated the evangelical doctrine of non-violence, non-resistance to evil, and the
refusal to acknowledge any civil authority. Chelčický assembled around him
a small community which was the origin of the Unity of Brethren, later called
the Czech (or Moravian) Brethren.1
As a major centre for reformist movements, Bohemia was also a prime
target for the forces of reaction. Catholic rulers saw in Bohemia a highly
attractive opportunity to combat heresy while pursuing their territorial am-
bitions. Already in the early fifteenth century, the Emperor Sigismund had
betrayed Hus at the Council of Constance, reneging on a guarantee of safe
conduct and allowing him to be burned at the stake in 1415, an act of bad
faith that sparked a conflagration that for twenty years swept through Central
Europe.
But the Hussite wars were just the beginning of centuries-long religious
and political conflict in Central Europe. The decisive period for the fate of
Bohemia came early in the seventeenth century, when its Protestant leaders
were drawn unprepared into a position of open rebellion. An uneasy religious
peace had been established on the basis of a pledge of tolerance on the part
of the emperor. But this pledge was repeatedly and provocatively violated:
churches under construction by Protestants, for instance, were knocked down,
and the builders imprisoned. Angered by such abuses, a group of Czech and
German Protestant nobles, who had gathered at the Castle in Prague in 1618,
hurled three of the emperor’s men out of a high window. They survived this
terrific fall, we are told, thanks to the cushion provided by large quantities
of garbage and human waste piled up under the castle windows. On this
somewhat comical note began the Thirty Years War, which was to lay waste
to so much of Central Europe, and especially Bohemia.
The Protestant nobles expelled the Jesuits from Bohemia, deposed its
Habsburg king, declared the position no longer hereditary but elective, and
chose their own king. Unfortunately, their new king, Frederick V of the
Palatinate, was not a good choice for this country badly in need of military
and political leadership. He neither drew allies to the cause of the Bohemian
Protestants, nor did he materially improve the preparedness of his armies. In
1620, after the Bohemians lost a relatively short battle (at which Descartes
1 Leo Tolstoy mentions his Net of Faith in The Kingdom of God is Within You.
7
was present) outside of Prague at White Mountain, Frederick and his court
turned tail and ran, fleeing the country with as much property as they could
carry. Thus abandoned to the occupying forces of the emperor, Bohemia was
swallowed whole by the Habsburg whale.
War, however, would continue for many years, as Bohemia became a bat-
tleground for the European powers. Death, disease, hunger, rape, murder,
torture, destruction of property, and the rest left the country in ruins. The
population of Bohemia decreased by at least a fourth. Many villages and
towns were simply obliterated, while others were severely damaged. Along
with the military came attempts at spiritual conquest. As a heretic-infested
country, Bohemia was to bear the full force of Habsburg state power, its rel-
ative autonomy disappearing for more than three centuries. Twenty-seven
leaders of the rebellion were executed (their names are preserved on a desk
in the Old City Town Hall tower in Prague and twenty-seven crosses on the
ground outside mark the place of execution).1 The vast majority of the lead-
ing Protestant families were dispossessed and forced into exile, their estates
handed over to foreigners—Austrians, Italians, Spaniards, and others who
had done the emperor some service. The loss of the Czech-speaking ruling
and educated classes and their replacement by foreigners who never really
established close links to the people meant that until well into the nineteenth
century, Bohemia never really ceased to be occupied territory.
Even fifty-three years after the Austrian conquest of the Czech lands, the
Jesuit Bohuslav Balbín bears witness to the permanent sentiment of hostility
against the new rulers:
[I]t seems to them [i.e., the occupiers] that all prepare upheavals
and new changes, that the woods and forests, the profound val-
leys and even the branches and leaves of the trees murmur: rebel-
lion! rebellion! And that . . . on this soil of mistrust, one should
destroy everything, demolish castles, never repair the walls of
cities and small towns crumbling with age, treating this people
like a future enemy, with violence and force and, if even this does
not suffice, with subterfuge, dissimulation, and fraud.2
1 For an impressive account of the execution, see Chapter 2 of Jaroslav Durych’s

novel about the Thirty Years’ War, Bloudění (Prague: Kuncíř, 1929); Eng. tr. The
Descent of the Idol (New York: Dutton, 1936).
2 Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica, praecipue Bohemica, written in
1673. Quoted according to the Czech translation by E. Tonner, Rozprava na obranu

jazyka slovanského, zvláště pak českého (Prague, 1869), pp. 44–5.
8
Bolzano’s Life
In religious matters, all faiths save the strictly Catholic were rigorously
persecuted. Utraquist priests (those who, in the manner of Hus, had admin-
istered communion of both kinds to everyone) were forced to renounce this
practice and the associated beliefs or to leave the priesthood. Married priests
had to abandon their wives and children. Protestant clergymen were simply
driven into exile. The Jesuits were brought back, and to them was assigned
the task of winning the hearts and minds of the people. This they attempted by
taking over the system of education and by rigorously suppressing anything
connected with the Protestant and reformist past.1 Their attempts were only
partly successful, as the Protestants did not disappear, but instead went un-
derground, holding their religious services in secret in the forests, a practice
that continued until the end of the eighteenth century.
The counterreformation was especially hard on the Czech language and
culture, as Josef Dobrovský pointed out in his History of the Czech Language
and Literature:
At the end of the Thirty Years War, Bohemia found itself in a sit-
uation that was by no means favourable for the Czech language.
The scholars and preachers, most of whom were not Catholic,
were chased out of the country, and the books that remained
from the previous time were carefully sought out and burned,
because, in accordance with the 21st rule of the Prague Index
[Index Bohemicorum librorum prohibitorum], all Czech books
written between 1414 and 1635 reeked of heresy.2
Thus Czech, which had been since the time of Charles IV a language of pol-
itics, culture, and science, became, in a matter of very few years, mostly a
language of uneducated peasants, which, generally speaking, was learned by
the higher orders only well enough to issue the most basic commands.
Another major casualty of the Thirty Years War was the intellectual com-
munity of Prague. With most of the Czech intellectuals, among them Come-
nius (Komenský), forced into exile, the links with the Protestant countries of
northern Europe were broken. Czech Protestants educated in German uni-
versities were replaced by Italian and Spanish Jesuits. Under their regime,
1 See Jiří Šotola’s impressive novel Tovaryšstvo Ježíšovo [Society of Jesus]
(Prague, 1969), which recalls at the same time the so-called normalization after the
Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
2 Josef Dobrovský, Geschichte der böhmischen Sprache und Literatur (1792;
new edn, Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1955), p. 114. Cf. R. W. Seton-Watson,
A History of the Czechs and Slovaks, pp. 116–17.
9
Bohemia was denied all access to the contemporary scientific and cultural de-
velopments in other European countries. The intellectual isolation enforced
upon Bohemia by the Jesuits was compounded by the devastation caused by
decades of war. Princess Elisabeth, the Daughter of Frederick V, explained to
Descartes the reasons for the cultural and scientific backwardness of Central
Europe after the war: “the people are so poor that nobody engages in study-
ing and thinking except in order to survive.”1 In contrast to Western Europe,
where the scientific revolution and the new philosophy laid the foundations of
the modern world, Bohemia was preoccupied with the restoration of Catholi-
cism, accompanied by an extraordinary blossoming of architecture, art, and
music. Confiscated property, distributed to Austrian, Italian, and Spanish no-
bles and generals, was used to construct magnificent palaces and castles all
over the country. The Gothic city of Prague, which had been only slightly
touched by the Renaissance, was remodelled by Baroque architects.
The magnificence of Prague and the estates of the nobility was matched
by widespread misery and poverty. The taint of heresy, and the continued sus-
picion of disloyalty, served as justification for the continuing exploitation of
Bohemia and its people. The freedoms of earlier times quickly disappeared,
and many of the institutions of serfdom were re-established. And Bohemia
served as a milch cow for the empire, a major source of taxes and recruits for
its armies.
In 1749 the local government was abolished and Bohemia integrated into
a centrally governed state ruled from Vienna. The title ‘Kingdom of Bo-
hemia’ remained, but the country became a simple province of the empire. In
1765, Joseph II was elected Holy Roman Emperor and served as co-regent of
the Habsburg dominions with his mother, Maria Theresa.
Agricultural production was poor (during the famine of 1771, according
to one estimate, approximately twelve per cent of the population died2 ) and
there were a number of rebellions, not only because of hunger and misery,
but also in protest against the Robota system, which required peasants to
work for their landlords without pay at various times during the year.3 One
1 Letter of 29 November 1646. Cited after A. Foucher de Careil, Descartes, la

reine Elisabeth et la reine Christine, d’après des lettres inédites (Paris and Amster-
dam, 1879), p. 117.
2 H. Agnew, The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Stanford:
Hoover Institution Press, 2004), p. 88.

3 The two issues were connected, since forced labour was notoriously less pro-
ductive than the unforced variety (cf. J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy,
Book 2, Chapter 5, “On Slavery,” who refers to “an able work on agriculture” which
10
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being greatest among them, who can afford to eat [18]Rice all the
Year round. Kid and Fowl, they have a few, and were all the
domestick Animals I saw.
Remark 4. On the Negroes here, their Clothing, Customs and
Religion.
The Men are well-limbed, clean Fellows; flattish-nosed, and many
with Exomphalos’s; the Effect of bad Midwifry, or straining in their
Infancy to walk; for they are never taught, but creep upon a Matt on
all Fours, till they have Strength to erect themselves; and
notwithstanding this, are seldom distorted. These do not circumcise,
but the Slaves brought from the Northward are frequently so;
perhaps from bordering on Morocco.
The Women are not nigh so well shaped as the Men: Childing, and
their Breasts always pendulous, stretches them to so unseemly a
Length and Bigness, that some, like the Ægyptians, I believe, could
suckle over their Shoulders. Their being imployed in all Labour,
makes them robust; for such as are not Gromettas, work hard in
Tillage, make Palm-Oil, or spin Cotton; and when they are free from
such work, the idle Husbands put them upon breading and fetishing
out their Wool, they being prodigious proud and curious in this sort of
Ornament; and keep them every day, for many hours together, at it.
Their Houses are low, little Hutts, not quite so bad as many in
Yorkshire, built with wooden Stockades set in the ground, in a round
or square form, thatched with Straw; they are swept clean every day;
and for Furniture, have a Matt or two to lie down upon; two or three
earthen or wooden Dishes, and Stools, with a Spoon, all of their own
making. They are idle, principally from want of Arts and domestick
Employments: for as I observed, they are so cautious of planting too
much, and wasting their Labour, that they are really improvident;
smoaking all day in long Reed-Pipes together; unplagued with To-
morrow, or the Politicks of Europe.
Whole Towns shift their Habitations, either when they do not like
their Neighbours, or have more Conveniency somewhere else; soon
clearing Ground enough for what Building and Culture they purpose.
Seignior Joseph, a Christian Negro of this Place, has lately with his
People left a clean, well-built Town, and removed further up the
River. Their Huts are mostly orbicular, forming a spacious square
Area in the middle, and in this, the doors paved with Cockle-Shells;
two or three Crosses erected, and round about, Lime-trees, Papais,
Plantanes, Pine-apples, and a few Bee-hives; the latter made out of
pieces of old Trees, three foot long, hollowed and raised on two
Poles.
In the middle of the Area was a great Curiosity, a large Tree with
500 hanging Nests at least upon it; this is a small familiar Bird, that
builds thus about their Towns, upon the extreme slenderest Twigs,
hanging like Fruit, and declares the Wisdom of Instinct, since it’s
designed a Security for their Young, against Monkeys, Parrots,
Squirrels, &c. Creatures of Prey, whose Weight cannot there be
supported.
Anointing their Body and Limbs with Palm-Oil, is a daily Practice
with both Sexes; some use [19]Civet, but all cast a strong,
disagreeable Smell; this mending it much like as melted Tallow is by
a Perfumer’s Shop.
Palaavers are their Courts of Judicature, where the principal or
elderly Men amongst them meet in a Ring or under a Lodge, to settle
the Differences that arise amongst themselves, or with the Factories;
the frequentest are in relation to Trade. Each salutes the other at
meeting, by a Bend of the Elbow, and raising his Hand to his Face.
When they have heard what each Party has to say, they determine
by Vote, who has the Reason of the thing on their side, and so
punish, or acquit. For Fornication, the Party (whether Man or
Woman) is sold for a Slave. If a white Man lies with another’s Slave,
he is bound to redeem her at a current Price. On a Charge of
Murder, Adultery, or if there can be any other more heinous Crime
among them, the suspected Person must drink of a red Water his
Judges prepare; which is called, purging the Criminal: that is, if the
suspected be of ill Life, or had Envy to the deceased, so that the
Surmizes against him are strong, though they want positive
Evidence; they will give him so much of that Liquor as shall kill him;
but if inclined to spare him, they politickly give less, or make it
weaker, whereby his Innocence appears the better to the Friends
and Relations of the deceased.
Panyarring, is a Term for Man-stealing along the whole Coast:
Here it’s used also, for stealing any thing else; and by Custom (their
Law) every Man has a right to seize of another at any Conveniency,
so much as he can prove afterwards, at the Palaaver-Court, to have
been defrauded of, by any body in the same place he was cheated.
Dancing is the Diversion of their Evenings: Men and Women make
a Ring in an open part of the Town, and one at a time shews his Skill
in antick Motions and Gesticulations, yet with a great deal of Agility,
the Company making the Musick by clapping their hands together
during the time, helped by the louder noise of two or three Drums
made of a hollowed piece of Tree, and covered with Kid-Skin.
Sometimes they are all round in a Circle laughing, and with uncouth
Notes, blame or praise somebody in the Company.
During our stay at this Port, we paid a Visit to Seignior Joseph,
about nine miles up the River. The Reason of his leaving the other
Town, he told me was, the frequent Palaavers he was engaged in,
on account of Differences between his People and the Grimattoes,
and the great Expence he was at, in so near a Neighbourhood with
the English. He has been in England and Portugal; at the last place
he was baptized, and took in that christian Erudition that he
endeavours to propagate. He has built a little Oratory for his
People’s Devotions; erected a Cross; taught several of his Kindred
Letters, dispersing among them little Romish Prayer-Books, and
many of them are known by Christian Names. Those of the Country
not yet initiated, never have but one. Mousi, or Moses; Yarrat, and
Cambar, are very common Names to the Men; Baulee, and Kibullee,
to the Women. Others take the Cognomen from their Disposition;
Lion, Lamb, Bear, Hog, &c. like our Danish Ancestors. Seignior
Joseph, who is very communicative, tells me, to the extent of his
knowledge, the People are cleanly, of good Temper, and docible; all
wishing some Missionaries would think their Conversion and Wants
worth regarding: But the Poverty of their Country will probably keep
them a long time from that Benefit. There is no Invitation in a barren
Soil, scarce of Provisions and Necessaries, Danger of wild Beasts a
mile from Home (especially Wolves;) and about their Houses, Rats,
Snakes, Toads, Musquitoes, Centipes, Scorpions, Lizards, and
innumerable Swarms of Ants, a white, black, and red sort, that build
to 8 or 9 Foot high, dig up the Foundation of their Houses in two or
three Years, or turn a Chest of Cloaths to Dust (if not watched) in as
many Weeks. This Christian Negro, by the Advantage of Trade, has
in some measure removed the Wants of his own Family (his Towns;)
they are tolerably stocked with Guinea Hens, Fish, and Venison;
while the Country fifty miles off, he says, have little to feed on but
Honey, and Manyoco Root. He received us in a Europæan Dress
(Gown, Slippers, Cap, &c.) and sent his Canoos out to shew us the
Diversion of chasing the Manatea; they brought one ashore in two
hours time, and we had stewed, roast, and boiled, with a clean
Table-cloth, Knives and Forks, and Variety of Wines and strong Beer,
for our Entertainment. The Flesh of this Creature was white, and not
fishy; but very tough, and seasoned high (as are all their Dishes)
with Ochre, Malaguetta, and Bell-pepper.
His Kinswomen came into the Room after we had dined, and to
them other Neighbours, saluting those of their own Colour, one by
one, by making a Bend of their right Elbow, so that the Hand comes
nigh the Mouth; the other to whom she addresses, is in the same
Posture, and mixing their Thumbs and middle Fingers, they snap
them gently off, and retreat with a small Quaker-like Obeysance,
decently and without Hurry or Laugh. They shewed likewise much
good-nature towards one another, in dividing two or three Biskets,
and half a Pint of Citron Water (we brought) into twenty Parts, rather
than any one should miss a Taste. In conclusion, Seignior Joseph
saw us to the Boat, and took leave with the same Complaisance he
had treated us.
The Religion here, if it may be called such, is their Veneration to
Gregries: Every one keeps in his House, in his Canoo, or about his
Person, something that he highly reverences, and that he imagines
can, and does defend him from Miscarriage, in the nature our
Country-Folks do Charms, but with more Fear: And these things are
very various; either a cleaved piece of Wood, a Bundle of peculiar
little Sticks or Bones, a Monkey’s Skull, or the like. To these, every
Family has now and then a Feast, inviting one another; but of this
more, under the Word Fetish.
The GRAIN and MALAGUETTA Coasts.
We left Sierraleon and were joined by our Consort the Weymouth,
May 1, from Gambia; we found upon Conference, that both Ships
had like to have ended their Voyage at these first Ports: She had run
on a Sand in that River, wringing three Days and Nights in a Tide’s
way, with great difficulty getting off: We, at Sierraleon letting in Water
to the Ship one Evening, had forgot the Plug, till we had 5 or 6 Foot
Water in the Hold.
The Company’s Presents, we understood by them, were received
well there by the King of Barra, and he has given the Factors leave
to build a Fortification at Gilliflee, a Town commanded by a Woman,
about 15 Miles up the River; made a Duchess by Captain
Passenger, from whence the Custom I believe has been taken up, of
distinguishing the most deserving Fellows at trading Towns by the
Titles of Knights, Colonels, and Captains, which they are very proud
of. This Duchess of Gilliflee has become very much the Factory’s
Friend there, and gives all possible Assistance in their Settlement.
Cape St. Mary’s, or the Starboard Entrance of that River, they
found no Cannibals, as commonly reported among Sailors; but a
civilized People, with whom they wooded their Ship.
On the 4th we were off Cape Monte, and next day Montzerado,
both high Lands; the former appearing in a double, the latter with a
single Hommock; the Country trenching from them, low and woody;
about 35 Fathom Water 3 Leagues from Shore. From the latter,
came off a Canoo with the Cabiceer, Captain John Hee,
distinguished by an old Hat, and Sailor’s Jackett with a greater
number of thick brass Rings on his Fingers and Toes, than his
Attendants. He seemed shy of entering the Ship, apprehending a
Panyarring; his Town’s People having often suffered by the
Treachery of Ships, and they as often returned it, sometimes with
Cruelty, which has given rise to the Report of their being Savages
and Cannibals at several places; very unlikely any where, because
they could not part with their Slaves, which are but few, if they had
this Custom, nor could they have any Trade or Neighbours: Their
Fears would make them shun their Enemies (the rest of Mankind)
and all Correspondence totally cease.
The Fetish they brought off, on this dangerous Voyage, was a
Bundle of small, black Sticks, like a hundred of Sparrowgrass put
into a Bag, knit of Silk-grass, and hanging over one of their
Shoulders, seeming to place a Security and Confidence in it; for I
would have handled and tasted it, but found it put them in a Fright,
saying, to deter me, You didee, you kicatavoo, (i. e.) if you eat, you
die presently.
The mutual Distrust between us, made their present Business only
begging old Breeches, Shirts, Rags, Biskett, and whatever else they
saw, parting in some hurry, and calling to one another for that end, in
a Note like what Butchers use in driving Cattle. They have plenty of
Milhio, Rice, Yamms, and Salt hereabouts.
We found in our coasting by Bashau, and other trading Towns, the
same Fears subsisting, coming off every day in their Canoos, and
then at a stand whether they should enter: The boldest would
sometimes come on board, bringing Rice, Malaguetta, and Teeth,
but staying under Fear and Suspicion. Here we may take these
Observations.
1. Canoos are what are used through the whole Coast for
transporting Men and Goods. Each is made of a single Cotton-tree,
chizelled and hollowed into the shape of a Boat; some of them 8 or
10 Foot broad, carrying twenty Rowers. The Negroes do not row one
way and look another, but all forward, and standing at their Paddles,
they dash together with dexterity, and if they carry a Cabiceer,
always sing; a Mark of Respect.
2. Cabiceers are the principal of the trading Men at all Towns; their
Experience, or Courage having given them that Superiority: All Acts
of Government in their several Districts, are by their Votes.
They came off to us with some English Title and Certificate; the
Favour of former Traders to them, for their Honesty and good
Service; and were they done with Caution, might be of use to Ships
as they succeed in the Trade: Whereas now they contain little Truth,
being done out of Humour, and learn them only to beg or steal with
more Impudence.
3. The Negrish Language alters a little in sailing, but as they are
Strangers to Arts, &c. restrained to a few Words, expressive of their
Necessities: This I think, because in their Meetings they are not
talkative; In their Trading the same Sound comes up often; and their
Songs, a Repetition of six Words a hundred times.
Some Negrish Words.
Didee, Eat. Attee, ho, How do you?
Malafia, } Dashee, a Present.
Govina, } Ivory. Kickatavoo, Killed, or Dead.
Malembenda, Rice. Tossu, Be gone.
Cockracoo, Fowl. Yarra, Sick.
Praam, Good. Fabra, Come.
Nino, Sleep. Brinnee, White Man.
Sam sam, all one. Bovinee, Black Man.
Acquidera, Agreed. Soquebah, Gone, lost.
Oura, Very well. Tongo, Man’s Privities.
Tomy, Arse-clout. Bombo, Woman’s.
Lastly, the Dress common to both Sexes every where, is the Tomy,
or Arse-clout, and the pleating or breading of their Wooll. The Arse-
clout the Women tie about their Hips, and falls half way down their
Thigh all round; but the Men bring it under their Twist, and fasten just
upon the girdling part behind. Both take great delight in twisting the
Wool of their Heads into Ringlets, with Gold or Stones, and bestow a
great deal of Time and Genius in it.
The Women are fondest of what they call Fetishing, setting
themselves out to attract the good Graces of the Men. They carry a
Streak round their Foreheads, of white, red, or yellow Wash, which
being thin, falls in lines before it dries. Others make Circles with it,
round the Arms and Bodies, and in this frightful Figure, please. The
Men, on the other side, have their Ornaments consist in Bracelets; or
Manilla’s, about their Wrists and Ancles, of Brass, Copper, Pewter, or
Ivory; the same again on their Fingers and Toes: a Necklace of
Monkey’s Teeth, Ivory Sticks in their Ears, with a broad head. Most
of them have one, two, or more of these Ornaments, and have an
Emulation in the number and use of them.
When the Nakedness, Poverty and Ignorance of these Species of
Men are considered; it would incline one to think it a bettering their
Condition, to transport them to the worst of Christian Slavery; but as
we find them little mended in those respects at the West-Indies, their
Patrons respecting them only as Beasts of Burthen; there is rather
Inhumanity in removing them from their Countries and Families; here
they get Ease with their spare Diet; the Woods, the Fruits, the
Rivers, and Forests, with what they produce, is equally the property
of all. By Transfretation they get the brown Bread, without the
Gospel: together, as Mr. Baxter observed, they might be good Fare,
but hard Work and Stripes without it, must be allowed an unpleasant
Change. They are fed, it’s true, but with the same Diet and Design
we do Horses; and what is an aggravating Circumstance, they have
a Property in nothing, not even in their Wives and Children. No
wonder then, Men under this View, or worse Apprehensions, should
be prompted with Opportunity frequently to sacrifice the Instruments
of it.
SESTHOS.
We anchored before Sesthos, or Sesthio, May 10th, a Place where
most of our windward Slave-ships stop to buy Rice, exchanged at
about 2s. per Quintal. The River is about half the breadth of the
Thames; a narrow Entrance only for Boats on the starboard Side,
between two Rocks, which, on great Swells and Winds, make the
shooting of it dangerous; the rest of the breadth being choaked with
Sands.
The Town is large, and built after a different Model from those we
have left; they run them up (square or round) four Foot from the
Earth; at that height, is the first and chief Room, to sit, talk, or sleep
in, lined with matted Rinds of Trees, supported with Stockades, and
in the middle of it, a Fire-place for Charcoal, that serves a double
Purpose; driving off Insects and Vermine, and drying their Rice and
Indian Corn. Of the upper Loft they make a Store-house, that runs up
pyramidal 30 foot; making the Town at distance, appear like a
number of Spires, each standing singly.
This, and every Town hereabouts, had a Palaaver-Room, a publick
Place of meeting for the People to council, and transact the Business
of the Society: They are large, and built something like our Lodges
for Carts, open, 4 foot from the Ground; then a Stage to sit, rafted
and well covered against Rain and Sun-shine. Here they meet
without distinction; King and Subject, smoaking from Morning to
Night. At this Place, it is common to bring your Traffick; brass Pans,
pewter Basins, Powder, Shot, old Chests, &c. and exchange for
Rice, Goats and Fowls. Two or three Pipes, a Charge of Powder, or
such a Trifle, buys a Fowl. A 2 pound Basin buys a Goat; and I
purchased two for an old Chest, with a Lock to it. Such a piece of
Mechanism I found a Rarity, and brought all the Country down to
admire. A Watch still encreased their Wonder; and making Paper
speak (as they call it) is a Miracle.
They bring their written Certificates hinted above, and when you
tell them the Contents, or they are made Messengers of Notes
between English Ships, they express the utmost Surprize at such
sort of Knowledge and Intercourse; it infinitely exceeds their
Understanding, and impresses a superior and advantageous Idea of
the Europeans.
The King who commands here has the Name of Pedro; he lives
about five Miles up the River, a Sample of Negro Majesty.
As there is a Dashee expected before Ships can wood and water
here; it was thought expedient to send the Royal Perquisite up by
Embassy (a Lieutenant and Purser) who being in all respects equal
to the Trust, were dismissed with proper Instructions, and being
arrived at the King’s Town, they were ushered or thrust in by some of
the Courtiers into the common Palaaver-Room (to wait the King’s
dressing, and coming from his Palace) his publick Audience being
ever in the Presence of the People. After waiting an hour, King Pedro
came attended by a hundred naked Nobles, all smoaking, and a
Horn blowing before them. The King’s Dress was very antick: He had
a dirty, red Bays Gown on, chequer’d with patch-work of other
Colours, like a Jack pudding, and a Fellow to bear the Train, which
was a narrow Slip of Culgee tacked to the bottom of the Gown. He
had an old black full-bottom’d Wig, uncombed; an old Hat not half big
enough, and so set considerably behind the Fore-top, that made his
meagre Face like a Scare-crow; coarse Shoes and Stockings,
unbuckled and unty’d, and a brass Chain of 20lib. at least about his
Neck.
To this Figure of a Man, our modern Embassadors in their Holiday
Suits, fell on their Knees, and might have continued there till this
time, for what Pedro cared: He was something surprized indeed, but
took it for the Fashion of their Country, and so kept making instant
Motions for the Dashee. This brought them from their Knees, as the
proper Attitude for presenting it; consisting in a trading Gun, two
pieces of salt Ship-beef, a Cheese, a Bottle of Brandy, a Dozen of
Pipes, and two Dozen of Congees. But Pedro, who understood the
Present better than the Bows, did not seem pleased when he saw it;
not for any defect in the Magnificence, but they were such things as
he had not present Occasion for; asking some of their Clothes and to
take those back again, particularly their Breeches, sullied a little with
kneeling in the Spittle: But on a Palaaver with his Ministers, the
Present was accepted, and the Officers dismissed back with a Glass
of Palm-Wine and Attee, ho, (the common way of Salutation with
Thumbs and Fingers mixed, and snapping off.)
To smooth the King into a good Opinion of our Generosity, we
made it up to his Son, Tom Freeman; who, to shew his good-nature,
came on board uninvited, bringing his Flagelet, and obliging us with
some wild Notes. Him we dress’d with an edg’d Hat, a Wig, and a
Sword, and gave a Patent upon a large Sheet of Parchment,
creating him Duke of Sesthos, affixing all our Hands, and the
Impress of a Butter mark on Putty.
This was taken so kindly by the Father, that he sent us a couple of
Goats in return, and his younger Son Josee for further Marks of our
Favour; whom we dignified also, on a small Consideration, with the
Title of Prince of Baxos. Several indeed had been titled, but none so
eminently, as by Patent, before; which procured us the entire good-
will of the King; suffering us at any time to hawl our Searn in the
River, where we catched good store of Mullets, Soles, Bump noses,
and Rock-fish; and to go up to their Villages unmolested.
In one of these Towns, some others of us paid a Visit to his
Majesty, whom we found at a Palace built as humble as a Hog-sty;
the entrance was narrow like a Port-hole, leading into what we may
call his Court-Yard, a slovenly little Spot, and two or three Hutts in it,
which I found to be the Apartment of his Women. From this we
popped through another short Portico, and discovered him on the left
hand, upon a place without his House, raised like a Taylor’s Shop-
board, and smoaking with two or three old Women, (the favourite
Diversion of both Sexes.) His Dress and Figure, with the novelty of
ours, created mutual Smiles which held a few Minutes, and then we
took leave with the Attee, ho.
From his Town we went to two others still farther up the River; at
one of them was a bright yellow-colour’d Man, and being curious to
know his Original, were informed (if we interpret their Signs and
Language right) that he came from a good distance in the Country,
where were more. Captain Bullfinch Lamb, and others, have since
told me, they had seen several; Mr. Thompson, that he saw one at
Angola, and another at Madagascar; a great Rarity, and as
perplexing to account for, as the black Colour.
Exomphalos’s are very common among the Negroes here. I saw
also one squint-ey’d; another without a Nose; and another with a
Hair Lip; Blemishes rare among them. Circumcision is used pretty
much; not as a religious Symbol, but at the Humour of the Parent,
who had found a Conveniency in it.
The Diet is Rice, Potatoes, Yacoes or Indian Corn, Parsly, and
other Vegetables; the Cultivation of which, and their domestick
Affairs, are all imposed on the Women.
In general may be observed, they are exceeding cowardly, like
other Countries undisciplined; a whole Town running away from a
Boat with white Men. Thievish on their own Dunghills; none of them
seeming to have any Notion of it as a Crime, and quarrel only about
a Share of what is stole. So lazy, that Scores of them will attend our
Searn for a Bisket, or the Distribution of such small Fish as are
thrown by; for tho’ their Waters afford great Plenty, they want the
Means or Inclination to catch them; chusing rather to loiter and jump
about the Sands, or play at round Holes, than endeavour to get Food
for themselves.
Cape A P O L L O N I A .
From Sesthos, we reached in two or three Days Cape Palma;
weighed Anchor from Jaque a Jaques, the 28th; from Bassau, the
30th; Assmee, the 31st; and anchored here the 6th of June. In this
part of our Sailing may be observed,
1. That the Land from Sierraleon, excepting two or three Capes,
and that about Drewin, appears low, and the first Land you see (as
the Irishman says) is Trees; runs very streight without Bays or Inlets,
which makes it difficult to distinguish, and impossible for us to land
safely at; the Surff breaking all along to a great height, by means of a
continued Swell from a vast Southern Ocean; a Sea which the
Natives only understand, and can push their Canoos through. This
seems a natural Prohibition to Strangers, and whence it follows in
respect to Trade, that Ships are obliged to send their Boats with
Goods near Shore, where the Natives meet them, and barter for
Slaves, Gold, and Ivory; for at many places a Grandee Shippee (as
they call it) affrights them, and they will venture then, as I imagine
they can swim.
2. The Ground is very tough, our Consort and we losing three
Anchors in heaving a Purchase; we stopping at Nights for fear of
over-shooting Places of Trade.
3. We find pretty equal Soundings, about 14 Fathom Water, a
League from Shore, unless at one noted place, a Lusus Naturæ,
called the bottomless Pit, 7 Leagues below Jaque a Jaques, where
the Depth is all at once unfathomable, and about three Miles over.
The great Sir Is. Newton, in his calculating the Force of Gravity,
says, Bodies decrease in their Weight, and Force of their Fall, in the
Proportion of the Squares of Distance from the Center; so that a Tun
at the Surface of the Earth would weigh but ¼ of a Tun, removed
one Semi-Diameter of the Earth higher; and at three Semi-
Diameters, but the 1/16 of a Tun. In like manner their Velocities of
Descent decrease: A Body at the Surface which would fall 16 foot in
a Second, at 12000 Miles high, or three Semi-Diameters, would fall
only 1/16, or one Foot in a Second; but at all given Distances,
something, &c.
Now, according to this Rule, heaving a Lead in great depths of
Water, the Velocity should increase with the descent or sinking of it;
since in the Progress of Gravity, the falling Body in every space of
Time receives a new Impulse, and continually acting, the same
Gravity super-adds a new Velocity; so that at the end of two
Seconds, to be double what it was at the end of the first, and so on,
which here the Weight of the super-incumbent Medium should still
more accelerate. Yet a Lead-line is drawn out perceptibly slower at
the second, than the first hundred Fathoms: But perhaps this
proceeds from the increasing quantity of Line to be drawn with it, not
so equally apt to demerge, and a Nisus in all Bodies of Water, from
below upwards, contrary to Gravity.
4. The Winds were more Southerly than above, checking the
Land-Breeze, which obtaining brings strong unwholesome Smells
from the Mangroves.
5. Their Diet being very slovenly, and much of a piece in this
Track, I shall here entertain you with two or three of their Dishes.
Slabbersauce is made of Rice and Fish, a Fowl, a Kid, or
Elephant’s Flesh, the better for being on the stink. They boil this with
a good quantity of Ochre and Palm-Oil, and is accounted a royal
Feast.
A Dog is a Rarity with some: Our Master had a little Boy-Slave of
eight years of Age, in exchange for one. At other Places, Monkeys
are a very common Diet.
Bomini is Fish dried in the Sun without Salt; stinking, they put it in
a Frying-pan with Palm-Oil, then mixed with boiled Rice, snatch it up
greedily with their Fingers.
Black Soupee is a favourite Dish, as well at our Factories, as
among the Negroes; we make it of Flesh or Fowl, stew’d sweet, with
some uncommon tasted Herbs; but the ascendant Taste is Pepper,
Ochre, and Palm-Oil. At first I thought it disagreeable, but Custom
reconciled it as the best in the Country: Men’s way of Diet being
certainly a principal Reason why in all places some of Land and Sea-
animals are approved or rejected; liked in one Country, and detested
in another.
To return to Jaque a Jaques; we met there the Robert of Bristol,
Captain Harding, who sailed from Sierraleon before us, having
purchased thirty Slaves, whereof Captain Tomba mentioned there
was one; he gave us the following melancholly Story. That this
Tomba, about a Week before, had combined with three or four of the
stoutest of his Country-men to kill the Ship’s Company, and attempt
their Escapes, while they had a Shore to fly to, and had near
effected it by means of a Woman-Slave, who being more at large,
was to watch the proper Opportunity. She brought him word one
night that there were no more than five white Men upon the Deck,
and they asleep, bringing him a Hammer at the same time (all the
Weapons that she could find) to execute the Treachery. He
encouraged the Accomplices what he could, with the Prospect of
Liberty, but could now at the Push, engage only one more and the
Woman to follow him upon Deck. He found three Sailors sleeping on
the Fore-castle, two of which he presently dispatched, with single
Strokes upon the Temples; the other rouzing with the Noise, his
Companions seized; Tomba coming soon to their Assistance, and
murdering him in the same manner. Going aft to finish the work, they
found very luckily for the rest of the Company, that these other two of
the Watch were with the Confusion already made awake, and upon
their Guard, and their Defence soon awaked the Master underneath
them, who running up and finding his Men contending for their Lives,
took a Hand-spike, the first thing he met with in the Surprize, and
redoubling his Strokes home upon Tomba, laid him at length flat
upon the Deck, securing them all in Irons.
The Reader may be curious to know their Punishment: Why,
Captain Harding weighing the Stoutness and Worth of the two
Slaves, did, as in other Countries they do by Rogues of Dignity, whip
and scarify them only; while three others, Abettors, but not Actors,
nor of Strength for it, he sentenced to cruel Deaths; making them
first eat the Heart and Liver of one of them killed. The Woman he
hoisted up by the Thumbs, whipp’d, and slashed her with Knives,
before the other Slaves till she died.
From this Ship we learned also, that the inland Country who had
suffered by the Panyarrs of the Cobelohou and Drewin People, have
lately been down, and destroyed the Towns, and the Trade is now at
a stand; and perhaps the Consciousness of this Guilt increases their
Fears of us. The Ceremony of contracting Friendship and Trade, is
dropping a little salt-water into the Eye, or taking it into their Mouth,
and spurting out again; which must be answer’d, or no Trade will
follow.
At Cape Apollonia, the Natives are of a jet black, very lively and
bold, accustomed to Trade, and better fetished than their
Neighbours; have cleaner and larger Tomys, wear Amber Beads,
Copper Rings, Cowrys, and their Wooll twisted in numberless little
Rings and Tufts, with bits of Shell, Straw, or Gold twisted in them.
They have all a Dagger † cut in their Cheek, and often in other Parts
of their Body: A Custom preserved among a few, down to the Gold
Coast. The Romans and Goths, when possessed of Barbary,
exempted the Christians from Tribute; and to know them, engraved a
+ upon their Cheeks; but this seems too distant for any Analogy with
theirs. All we learn is, its being a very ancient Custom, and
distinguishes them from the Country, who they Panyarr and sell for
Slaves, naked at 4 oz. per Head; allowing 100 per Cent. on Goods,
they cost at a medium 8l. Sterling. The Cabiceers, out of this,
demand a due of 20s. and the Palaaver-Man 10s. whence I
conjecture they are more regularly trained to Panyarring or thieving,
than the Towns we have past.
There is a great deal of Ground cleared about this Cape, and
sown with Indian Corn; first brought among the Negroes, it’s said, by
the Portuguese.
Cabo T R E S P U N T A S .
We stopped a few Hours at Axim in our Passage from Apollonia, and
anchored here June 7, most Ships doing it for the Conveniency of
watering, more difficultly supplied at any parts above. It is called
Three Points, from that number of Headlands that jutt one without
the other; within the innermost is a commodious Bay, nigh the
watering-place. John Conny, who is the principal Cabiceer, exacts a
Duty from all Ships, of an Ounce of Gold, for this Privilege; and
sends off a Servant with his Commission, a large Gold-headed
Cane, engraved John Conny, to demand it. Our Neglect herein, with
some opprobrious Treatment of the Agent, occasioned John Conny
next day to come down with a Posse and seize our Water casks
ashore, carrying away ten or a dozen of our Men Prisoners to his
Town. The Officer among them endeavouring to distinguish to John
the Difference of a King’s Ship from others, got his Head broke: John
(who understood English enough to swear) saying, by G—— me
King here, and will be paid not only for my Water, but the Trouble
has been given me in collecting it. Drink on, says he to the Sailors,
(knocking out the Head of a Half-Anchor of Brandy,) and eat what my
House affords; I know your part is to follow Orders. John, after some
trouble in negotiating, accepted in recompence, six Ounces of Gold,
and an Anchor of Brandy.
His Town stands about three Miles Westward of the watering-
place; large, and as neatly raftered and built, as most of our North or
West small Country Villages. Every Man his Coco-trees round the
House, and in the Streets (such as they are) sit People to sell the
Nuts, Limes, Soap, Indian Corn, and what is a great part of their
Food, Canky, the Work of the Women. It is made of Indian Corn,
after this manner; they pound it in a Mortar for some time, then
malaxing it with Water and Palm-Wine, they grind it still finer with a
Mull upon a great Stone, which every House almost has at the Door
for that purpose; baked or boiled in Cakes, it makes a hearty and
well-tasted Bread.
The Danish (or, as they say, the Brandenburghers) Fort was on an
adjacent Hill, of four or five Bastions, and could mount fifty Guns.
The Garison, when in being, probably taught the Natives the way of
marketing, observed only where the Factories are; but being some
few years since relinquished by them, it’s now in John Conny’s
possession, and has raised up some Contests and Palaavers with
the Dutch: for they pretending a Title of Purchase, sent a Bomb-
Vessel and two or three Frigates last Year, to demand a Surrendry;
but John being a bold and subtle Fellow, weighing their Strength,
answer’d, that he expected some Instrument should be shewed him
to confirm the Brandenburghers Sale; and even with that (says he) I
can see no Pretence but to the Guns, the Brick, and Stone of the
Building, for the Ground was not theirs to dispose of. They have paid
me Rent for it, (continues he) and since they have thought fit to
remove, I do not design to tenant it out to any other white Men while
I live. This sort of Palaaver nettled the Dutch; they threw in some
Bombs and Shot; and heating more with Rage and Brandy, very
rashly landed forty of their Men under the Command of a Lieutenant
to attack the Town: They fired once without any Damage, and then
John at the Head of his Men, rushing from under the Cover of the
Houses, outnumbred and cut them in pieces; paving the entrance of
his Palace soon after, with their Skulls.
This Advantage made him very rusty, upon what he called his
Dues from every body, tho’ just in Trade; and when we had returned
to a good Understanding, my self, with some other of our Officers
paid him a Visit: Our landing was dangerous, the Southerly Winds
making so great a Surff, nor could we do it by our own Boats, but
Canoos of his sending, paying an Accy for the Service; they count
the Seas, and know when to paddle safely on or off. John himself
stood on the Shore to receive us, attended with a Guard of twenty or
thirty Men under bright Arms, who conducted us to his House; a
Building pretty large, and raised from the Materials of the Fort. It
ascends with a double Stone Stair-case without, of twelve Steps; on

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Bernard Bolzano: His Life and Work

Paul Rusnock and Jan Šebestík

A Note on Citations xiii

3 Political Philosophy 105

4 Philosophy of Religion 139

5 Catholicism and the Catholic Church 167

(h) Categorical Statement Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

7 Theory of Knowledge 337

8 Ontology and Metaphysics 405

5. Bolzano on some Traditional Ontological Theses . . . . . . . 444

10 Aesthetics, the Science of Beauty 544

7. The Reception of Bolzano’s Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

BBGA Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe, ed. E. Winter, J. Berg, F. Kambar-

The Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe (BBGA) is divided into 6 Series:

refers to Series 1, Volume 6 (part 1), page 25; and

to Series 1, Volume 18 (which is not subdivided), page 35.

RW, I, §14, no. 7 [BBGA 1.6/1, pp. 77–8; EP, p. 177].

There is one exception to this practice: in the case of the Wissenschaft-

Ak Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Königlich Preußis-

Even if we cannot mention all people who helped us at different stages of

S. Roski and P. Rusnock, “Bolzano on necessary existence,” Archiv für Ge-

Paul Rusnock, Ottawa, February 2018

Mid-Nineteenth Century Prague; from A Handbook for Travellers in Southern Ger-

Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

1781 Born 5 October in Prague Kant, Critique of Pure Reason;

1794– Blake, Songs of Experience;

S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Joseph II becomes ruler of Habsburg

Lavoisier, Traité elémentaire de French Revolution; Washington

Bohemian Royal Society of Sciences Joseph II dies; Leopold II becomes

Whitney invents cotton gin Louis XVI executed; Reign of Terror

Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

1799– Advanced studies in Mathematics

1800– Studies Theology at Charles Uni- Schelling, System of Transcen-

1805 Ordained priest, doctorate con- Beethoven, Eroica Symphony

1809 Goethe, Elective Affinities

1810 Contributions to a more Well- Fichte, Addresses to the German

S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Prague Polytechnical Institute, Geo- Holy Roman Empire officially dis-

Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossements Napoleon’s Russian campaign; USA

Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

1816 Binomial Theorem Rossini, Barber of Seville

1817– Purely Analytic Proof ; Three Hegel, Encyclopedia; Ricardo,

1830 Completes manuscript of Theory Comte, Cours de philosophie

S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Allies invade France, Napoleon ab-

Kotzebue assassinated; Carlsbad de-

Fourier, Théorie analytique de la

Railway between České Budjějovice

Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

1837 Theory of Science published;

S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Faraday and Henry discover electro-

Cholera epidemic in Europe; Re-

Francis I of Austria dies; succeeded

Telegraph patented Victoria becomes Queen of United

Audubon, Birds of America

Y EAR B OLZANO ’ S L IFE AND W ORKS A RTS AND L ETTERS

S CIENCE AND T ECHNOLOGY H ISTORICAL E VENTS

Great Famine in Ireland (1845–52)

Semmelweis documents correlation

Revolutions across Europe

Riemann, On the Hypotheses which