Early figure in the German Enlightenment. Thomasius taught in Leipzig and Halle, where he helped to found the university in 1694. He was an opponent of Aristotelianism, Lutheranism, the divine right of Kings and Roman Law, instead promoting a non-theological, natural foundation for ethics following in the spirit of Grotius and Pufendorf. Although he was one of the earliest to lecture in German, his principal work was the Fundamenta Juris Naturae et Gentium (1705).