will perhaps be best appreciated in its intellectual aspect when we recall the fact that the popular essayist Thomasius, the precursor of the later Aufklärung writers, died as late as 1728, and that he was a main instrument in exploding the belief in witchcraft among the educated classes, and in abolishing the laws directed against it, as well as a determined, and, to a large extent, successful opponent of the practice of judicial torture.
But the most important influence at this period dominant in North Germany, was not so much embodied in literature as in the social life of the people. We refer to the "Pietism" which then reigned, to a greater or less extent, in well-nigh every German home, and which formed such a marked feature in the early life of the subject of the present biographical sketch.
Such were the social conditions of Germany when the worthy saddler, Johann Georg Cant, was carrjung on his handicraft in the Sadlergasse of Königsberg, learning to labour and to wait for those better days which, alas! he was never destined to see reward his labour. Johann Georg, in fact, though an upright and excellent man, appears to have been more esteemed by his fellow townsmen for his personal character than his saddle-making abilities. In spite of rigid economy, he never compassed more than very "moderate" circumstances, even according to the standard of the German Kleinbürger—and he not the Kleinbürger of to-day, but of the 18th century—while at times, it seems, he had a difficulty in making the proverbial two ends meet. Though originally of Scotch extraction, the Cant family had been settled for some generations in the Baltic province, at the time of which we speak. It was on November 13th, 1715, that Johann Georg Cant was united, in the cathedral church of the city, to Anna Regina Reuter, if we may judge by the name, a genuine daughter of the Baltic shores. As is not
