Jung Johann Heinrich

Jung, Johann Heinrich, who called himself Heinrich Stilling, a German of great versatility, was born at Grund, Nassau, in 1740, his father being a charcoal-burner. Having been a tailor and a schoolmaster, then a tutor, he went to study medicine at Strasburg in 1768. Here he made the acquaintance of Goethe and Herder, who encouraged his literary tastes. In 1772 he settled at Elberfeld as a surgeon, and attained great skill as an oculist. Six years later, however, he accepted a lectureship at Kaiserslautern, and in 1787 became a professor of economics at Marburg. In 1803 he came back to Heidelberg, but afterwards went to Carlsruhe, where he died in receipt of a. pension from the Grand Duke of Baden in 1817. In 1777 "Stilling's Jugend," an account of Jung's boyhood, was published. He adopted the name from the Pietists (Die Stillen), whose doctrines he expounded in several works. His autobiography (translated into English in 1835), however, is his only work of permanent interest. Kant and Lavater were friends of the mystic.