JOHANN HEINRICH

SAMUEL

See also:

• JOHANN HEINRICH SAMUEL FORMEY (1711–1797)

FORMEY (1711–1797)  , Franco-German author, was born of French parentage at Berlin on the 31st of May 1711 . He was educated for the ministry, and at the age of twenty became pastor of the French church at Brandenburg . Having in 1736 accepted the invitation of a congregation in Berlin, he was in the following year chosen professor of rhetoric in the French college of that city and in 1739 professor of philosophy . On the organization of the academy of Berlin in 1744 he was named a member, and in 1748 became its perpetual secretary . He died at Berlin on the 7th of March 1797 . His principal works are La Belle Wolfienne (1741-175o, 4 vols.), a kind of novel written with the view of enforcing the precepts of the Wolfian philosophy; Bibliotheque critique, ou memoires pour servir a l'histoire litteraire ancienne et modern (1746); Le Philosophe chretien (1750); L'Emile chi-Men (1764), intended as an answer to the . Emile of Rousseau; and Souvenirs d'un citoyen (Berlin, 1789) . He also published an immense number, of contemporary memoirs in the transactions of the $erlin Academy .