BRANDIS, Christian August, a distinguished scholar and historian of Greek philosophy, was born on 13th February 1790 at Hildesheim. His father, a physician of some distinction, held for a time a professorship at the university of Kiel. His education was begun at the gymnasia of Holzminden and Kiel, and in 1806" he entered the university of the latter town. His attention was soon drawn from theology, in the study of which he was then engaged, to philosophy, particularly to Plato. In 1809 he accepted the post of private tutor in the family [of Count Adam Moltke at Nütschau, and there became acquainted with Niebuhr, whose noble character made a deep impression on him. In 1812 he graduated at the university of Copenhagen, and presented as his thesis “Commentationes Eleaticae,” a careful collection of thefragments of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Melissus. Two years later he attended the university of Gottingen, and in 1815 presented as his inaugural dissertation at Berlin an essay On the Idea of the History of Philosophy ( Von dem Begriff der Geschichte der Philosophie). In 1816 he had the offer of an extraordinary professorship at Heidelberg, but preferred to accompany Niebuhr to Italy. Six years were spent in examination of the principal libraries, and Brandis began the labours on Aristotle which were to occupy many years of his life. In 1821 he was made professor of philosophy in the newly founded university of Bonn, and in 1823 appeared his edition of the Metaphysics of Aristotle (Aristotelis et Theophrasti Metaphy sied). To this was added in 1837 a second part, Scholia Groeca in Aristotelis Metaphysica. He became part editor, along with Boeckh and Niebuhr, of the new classical journal Rheinisches Museum·, and contributed largely to it. His articles on Socrates ...(1827, 1829) are particularly deserving of notice. In 1835 appeared the first part of his great work, Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechisch-röm. Phil., and in 1836 the Scholia in Aristotelem, forming the 4th volume of the Berlin edition of Aristotle. The following three years were spent in Greece, whither he had gone as instructor to the young king Otho. Some of his experiences in Greece were published in 1843 (Mittheilungen über lG riechenland). The remainder of his Hfe was devoted to his history of Greek philosophy, the last part of which was published in 1866, little more than a year before his death, which took place on the 24th July 1867.
Brandis’s great work, that by which he will be best remembered, appeared at intervale from 1835 to 1866, and altogether fills six volumes. It is characterized generally by great extent of reading, sound judgment, and critical examination of authorities. But it is to some extent defective in speculative insight and in power of exposition. The history for the most part is moulded too rigidly on the work of the author under consideration, and the whole course of exposition follows the order of the author’s thought. Thus in many cases it is apt to degenerate into what is little more than a running commentary or summary of the original text. This is particularly noticeable in the portions on Plato and Aristotle. There is no attempt made to bring together information from all quarters and to work the whole into an organic unity. A comparison of the work of Brandis with that of Zeller would bring out the contrast between the two methods. At the same time the Handbuch will always retain a high value, even by the side of Zeller’s later work, and its best portion, that on Aristotle, is perhaps as complete and accurate an account as can be desired. That Brandis himself felt the defects of his own method of history is shown by the fact that he threw the whole matter of his larger treatise into a smaller and more systematic form, the very title of which, History of the Developments of Greek Philosophy (Geschichte der Entwickelungen der Griechischen Philosophie, 2 vols., in three parts, 1862, 1864, 1866), indicates the change made. This smaller work is decidedly one of the best and completest histories of Greek thought in existence.
A sketch of the life of Brandis, with full list of his works, will be found in the notice read by Trendelenburg to the Berlin Academy. 1868 (“Zur Erinnerung an C. A. Brandis,” Abh. der Kön. Akad. d. Wissen., 1868, pp. 1-24).
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