Stahl, FRIEDRICH JULIUS

Stahl, FRIEDRICH JULIUS, writer on law and jurisprudence, was born of Jewish parents at Munich on 16th January 1802. He became a Protestant when seventeen, studied law at the universities of central Germany, and in 1830 published the first volume of his greatest book, Die Philosophie des Rechts, the second volume of which appeared seven years later. In this work (of which the 3d improved edition in 1854-56 is the best) Stahl proclaimed the doctrine that belief in the revealed truths of the Christian religion is the only satisfactory basis of jurisprudence and politics. From 1832 to 1840 he taught alternately at Erlangen and Würzburg, and in 1840 was called to the chair of Philosophy of Law at Berlin. In the Prussian capital he acquired an influential position as a leader of the 'Junker' or reactionary party in the Chamber of Magnates (of which he was appointed a life-member) and as an uncompromising opponent of all political change, and the mouthpiece of a stern Lutheranism in the church assemblies. He died at Brückenau (north-west corner of Bavaria) on 10th August 1861, a determined opponent to the last of the various liberal parties in both civil and ecclesiastical politics. He wrote several other books, as Der Christliche Staat (1847), in which he advocated a sovereign despotism grounded on a doctrine very similar to the 'divine right of kings'; Der Protestantismus als politisches Princip (1853); Was ist Revolution? (1852); Wider Bunsen (1856); and Siebenzehn parlamentarische Reden (1862).