Two of his publications, with similar titles, in 1530, are noteworthy as having influenced Menno Simons and David Joris (_Weissagung vsz heiliger gotlicher geschrifft_, and _Prophecey oder Weissagung vsz warer heiliger gotlicher schrifft_). Bock treats him as an antitrinitarian, on grounds which Wallace rightly deems inconclusive. With better reason Trechsel includes him among pioneers of some of the positions of Servetus. His Christology was Valentinian. While all are elected to salvation, only the regenerate may receive baptism, and those who sin after regeneration sin against the Holy Ghost, and cannot be saved. His followers were known as Hofmannites or Melchiorites. See G. Herrmann, _Essai sur la vie et les ecrits de M. Hofmann_ (1852); F. O. zur Linden, _M. Hofmann, ein Prophet der Wiedertaufer_ (1885); H. Holtzmann, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_ (1880); Hegler in Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_ (1900); Bock, _Hist. Antitrin._ (1776), ii.; Wallace, _Antitrin. Biography_ (1850) iii., app. iii.; Trechsel, _Prot. Antitrin. vor F. Socin_ (1839) i.; Barclay, _Inner Life of Rel. Societies_ (1876). An alleged portrait, from an engraving of 1608, is reproduced in the appendix to A. Ross, _Pansebeia_ (1655). (A. Go.*) HOFMEISTER, WILHELM FRIEDRICH BENEDICT (1824-1877), German botanist, was born at Leipzig on the 18th of May 1824. He came of a family engaged in trade, and after being educated at the _Realschule_ of Leipzig he entered business as a music-dealer. Much of his botanical work was done while he was so employed, till in 1863 he was nominated, without intermediate academic steps, to the chair in Heidelberg; thence he was transferred in 1872 to Tubingen, in succession to H. von Mohl. His first work was on the distribution of the Coniferae in the Himalaya, but his attention was very soon devoted to studying the sexuality and origin of the embryo of Phanerogams. His contributions on this subject extended from 1847 till 1860, and they finally settled the question of the origin of the embryo from an ovum, as against the prevalent pollen-tube theory of M. J. Schleiden, for he showed that the pollen-tube does not itself produce the embryo, but only stimulates the ovum already present in the ovule. He soon turned his attention to the embryology of Bryophytes and Pteridophytes, and gave continuous accounts of the germination of the spores and fertilization in _Pilularia_, _Salvinia_, _Selaginella_. Some of the main facts of the life of ferns and mosses were already known; these, together with his own wider observations, were worked into that great general pronouncement published in 1851 under the title, _Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Keimung, Entfaltung und Fruchtbildung koherer Kryptogamen und der Samenbildung der Coniferen_. This work will always stand in the first rank of botanical books. It antedated the _Origin of Species_ by eight years, but contained facts and comparisons