[2] His father, a man of serious and stern character, attained the rank of aulic councillor in the Austrian civil service.

In this capacity he attempted to introduce some important reforms in the system of education, but, discouraged by the difficulties which he encountered, he resigned in December of the following year.

[3][4] It is often credited as a first notable use of the term psychopathy, used with a broad meaning more accurate to its etymological literal sense (mental disorder) than today's usage.

It has also often been credited with the coining of the term psychosis, which at that time had a similarly broad meaning to psychopathy, but this has since been traced back to Karl Friedrich Canstatt's Handbuch der Medicinischen Klinik (1841).

1836), among which is the well-known beautiful hymn, which Mendelssohn set to music, Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rat.

As a philosopher he is best known by his Zur Diätetik der Seele ("Dietetics of the soul") (Vienna, 1838), which attained great popularity, and the tendency of which, in contrast to Hufeland's Makrobiotik ("On the Art of Prolonging Life"), is to show the true way of rendering life harmonious and lovely.