philosopher university professor
In 1848 he was elected a member of the Frankfurt Parliament, and attended, at Mainz, the first Congress of the German Catholics, at which he suggested the foundation of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society in Germany.
In 1835 he matriculated at the University of Berlin, where he devoted special attention to the study of philosophy and received the doctorate in philosophy in 1839 with a dissertation titled De philosophia Anaxagorae Clazomenii (On the Philosophy of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae). At the end of a literary journey through German and Italy, he became, in 1843, instructor in philosophy at the University of Bonn, and taught there until 1856. In 1856 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the Academy of Munster.
So great was his popularity as a teacher at Bonn that, when he removed to the University of Münster, he was followed by some seventy students.
The attendance at his lectures in the Westphalian capital was an extraordinarily large one. But his health failed after a few years.
In 1861, upon the advice of his physicians, he sought relief in a southern climate. He died in Rome at the beginning of the following year and was buried at the Gesù.