A rectangular decorative woodcut headpiece features symmetrical floral patterns, blossoms, and foliate scrolls.

Preface.

Gracious Reader!

Understanding, virtue, and health are the three most noble things for which people in this world should strive. In the 18th century, "Verstand" (Understanding/Intellect) and "Tugend" (Virtue) were the pillars of the Enlightenment; Wolff argues that the correct use of the mind leads to moral living. Yet, commonly, nothing is less esteemed than these three. And whoever considers the present unfortunate times Wolff may be referring to the social and intellectual unrest in the German states following the Thirty Years' War and the slow recovery of the educational system. sees how they arise from a lack of understanding and virtue. People, who are children in understanding but men in malice, This is an inversion of 1 Corinthians 14:20, which suggests being infants in evil but mature in thinking. Wolff suggests his contemporaries have it backwards. cast