Johann Georg Sulzer was a Swiss professor of Mathematics, who later on moved on to the field of electricity. He was a Wolffian

Christian Wolff (philosopher)

Christian Wolff was a German philosopher.He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant...

 philosopher and director of the philosophical section of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

Sulzer is best known as the subject of an anecdote in the history of the development of the battery

Battery (electricity)

An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...

. In 1752, Sulzer happened to put the tip of his tongue between pieces of two different metals whose edges were in contact. He exclaimed, "a pungent sensation, reminds me of the taste of green vitriol when I placed my tongue between these metals." He thought the metals set up a vibratory motion in their particles which excited the nerves of taste. The event became known as the "battery tongue test": - the saliva serves as the electrolyte carrying the current between two metallic electrodes.

In his General Theory of Beautiful Art "…he [Sulzer] extended Baumgarten

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten was a German philosopher.-Biography:Baumgarten was born in Berlin as the fifth of seven sons of the pietist pastor of the garrison, Jacob Baumgarten and his wife Rosina Elisabeth....

's approach into an even more psychological theory that the primary object of enjoyment in aesthetic experience is the state of one's own cognitive condition." Kant had respectfully disagreed with Sulzer's metaphysical hopes. Kant wrote: "I cannot share the opinion so frequently expressed by excellent and thoughtful men (for instance Sulzer) who, being fully conscious of the weakness of the proofs hitherto advanced, indulge in a hope that the future would supply us with evident demonstrations of the two cardinal propositions of pure reason, namely, that there is a God, and that there is a future life. I am certain, on the contrary, that this will never be the case…."