GEORG BERNHARD, was born on the 23rd of January 1693, at Canstatt in Württemberg. His father was a Lutheran minister. By a singularity of constitution, hereditary in his family, Bilfinger came into the world with twelve fingers and twelve toes. An amputation happily corrected this deformity. Bilfinger, from his earliest years, discovered the greatest inclination to learning. He studied in the schools of Blaubeuren and Bobenhausen, and afterwards entered into the theological seminary of Tübingen. The works of Wolf, which he studied in order to learn mathematics, soon inspired him with a taste for the Wolfian philosophy and that of Leibnitz; a passion which made him neglect for some time his other studies. Returning to theology, he wished at least to try to connect it with his favourite science of philosophy; and in this spirit he composed a tract entitled De Deo, Anima, et Mundo. This work, filled with new ideas, met with great success, and contributed to the advancement of the author, who was appointed soon after to the office of preacher at the castle of Tübingen, and of reader in the school of theology; but Tübingen was now become too small a theatre for him. He obtained from his friends in 1719 a supply of money, which enabled him to spend some time at Halle, in order to attend the lectures of Wolf; and, after two years of study, he returned to Tübingen, where the Wolfian philosophy was not yet in favour. He found his protectors there cooled, saw his lectures deserted, and perceived himself shunned, from the dislike of his new doctrines; his ecclesiastical views also suffered from the same cause. By the intervention of Wolf, he received an invitation to Petersburg, where Peter I. wished to appoint him professor of logic and metaphysics, and member of his new academy. He was received in that city, where he arrived in 1725, with the consideration due to his abilities. The Academy of Sciences of Paris having proposed about this time the famous problem on the cause of gravity, Bilfinger gained the prize, which was a thousand crowns. The reputation of this success was spread among the learned of Europe; and the Duke Charles Edward of Württemberg, finding that the author of this admired memoir was one of his subjects, hastened to recall him into his dominions. The court of Russia, after having made some useless attempts to detain him, granted him a pension of four hundred florins, and a present of two thousand, in reward of an invention relative to the art of fortification. He quitted Petersburg in 1731. Returned to Tübingen, Bilfinger soon excited considerable attention in that quarter, both by his own lectures, and by the changes which he introduced into the school of theology. After his return to Tübingen, the Duke Charles Alexander appointed him privy counsellor in 1735. This nomination was not a simple honorary title. Bilfinger saw himself raised at once to a power almost unlimited. He resisted some time a promotion for which he did not think himself qualified. In accepting office his first care was to acquire the knowledge necessary to the discharge of its duties. He employed almost two years in assiduous labour to instruct himself thoroughly in the statistics of the country, its political situation, its constitution, and its interests; and became, at the end of all this study, one of the most enlightened ministers that his country had yet produced. Bilfinger was placed in a situation too elevated not to excite jealousy and hatred. He felt it, and wished to quit the ministry; but the court refused to receive his resignation, soon after the tender of which the duke died. Bilfinger received from his successor all the consideration and all the friendship which he had experienced in the beginning of his career. Enjoying a confidence without bounds, he had the power to realize, without obstacle, those plans of administration with which the most enlightened patriotism had inspired him; and Württemberg still feels the happy influence of his ministry. Commerce, public instruction, and agriculture, flourished under his care. The culture of the vine, of so much importance in that country, was one of the principal objects of his attention. We ought not to forget that he was the original author of that strict union which has long united Württemberg and Prussia, and of the importance to which the hereditary prince of Württemberg was raised at the court of Berlin. He has been reproached with being irascible; but, in spite of some slight blemishes, the memory of Bilfinger will be always dear to his countrymen, and honoured by all Germans. Württemberg reckons him among the greatest men which she has produced, and proposes him as a model to her statesmen and her men of letters. He was never married, and left no issue. He died at Stuttgart on the 18th of February 1750. His works, besides various papers separately published in the Memoirs of the St Petersburg and Paris Academies of Science, are numerous and valuable. (See Biographie Universelle, tom. iv.)