Act 1903). It is to be noted, however, that in these states the mere

fact of the parents marrying does not legitimate the child; indeed, the

parents may marry, yet the child remain illegitimate. In order to

legitimate the child it is necessary for the father to make application

for its registration; in South Australia, the application must be made

by both parents; so also in Victoria, if the mother is living, if not,

application by the father will suffice. In New Zealand, Queensland and

New South Wales, registration may be made at any time after the

marriage; in Victoria, within six months from the date of the marriage;

in South Australia, by the act of 1898, registration was permissible

only within thirty days before or after the marriage, but by the

amending act of 1902 it is allowed at any time more than thirty days

after the marriage, provided the applicants prove before a magistrate

that they are the parents of the child. In all cases the legitimation is

retrospective, taking effect from the birth of the child. Legitimation

by subsequent marriage exists also in the following states of the

American Union: Maine, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa,

Minnesota, California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, N. and S. Dakota,

Idaho, Montana and New Mexico. In Massachusetts, Vermont, Illinois,

Indiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,

Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Georgia,

Alabama, Mississippi and Arizona, in addition to the marriage the father

must recognize or acknowledge the illegitimate child as his. In New

Hampshire, Connecticut and Louisiana both parents must acknowledge the

child, either by an authentic act before marriage or by the contract of

marriage. In some states (California, Nevada, N. and S. Dakota and

Idaho) if the father of an illegitimate child receives it into his house

(with the consent of his wife, if married), and treats it as if it were

legitimate, it becomes legitimate for all purposes. In other states (N.

Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and New Mexico) the putative father can

legitimize the child by process in court. Those states of the United

States which have not been mentioned follow the English common law,

which also prevails in Ireland, some of the West Indies and part of

Canada. In Scotland, on the other hand, the principle of the civil law

is followed. In Scotland, bastards could be legitimized in two ways:

either by the subsequent intermarriage of the mother of the child with

the father, or by letters of legitimation from the sovereign. With

respect to the last, however, it is to be observed that letters of

legitimation, be their clauses ever so strong, could not enable the

bastard to succeed to his natural father; for the sovereign could not,

by any prerogative, cut off the private right of third parties. But by a

special clause in the letters of legitimation, the sovereign could

renounce his right to the bastard's succession, failing legitimate

descendants, in favour of him who would have been the bastard's heir had

he been born in lawful wedlock, such renunciation encroaching upon no

right competent to any third person.

The question remains, how far, if at all, English law recognizes the

legitimacy of a person born out of wedlock. Strictly speaking, English

law does not recognize any such person as legitimate (though the supreme

power of an act of parliament can, of course, confer the rights of

legitimacy), but under certain circumstances it will recognize, for

purposes of succession to property, a legitimated person as legitimate.

The general maxim of law is that the status of legitimacy must be tried

by the law of the country where it originates, and where the law of the

father's domicile at the time of the child's birth, and of the father's

domicile at the time of the subsequent marriage, taken together,

legitimize the child, English law will recognize the legitimacy. For

purposes of succession to real property, however, legitimacy must be

determined by the _lex loci rei sitae_; so that, for example, a

legitimized Scotsman would be recognized as legitimate in England, but

not legitimate so far as to take lands as heir (_Birtwhistle_ v.

_Vardill_, 1840). The conflict of laws on the subject yields some

curious results. Thus, a domiciled Scotsman had a son born in Scotland

and then married the mother in Scotland. The son died possessed of land

in England, and it was held that the father could not inherit from the

son. On the other hand, where an unmarried woman, domiciled in England

died intestate there, it was held that her brother's daughter, born

before marriage, but whilst the father was domiciled in Holland, and

legitimized by the parents' marriage while they were still domiciled in

Holland, was entitled to succeed to the personal property of her aunt

(_In re Goodman's Trusts_, 1880). _In re Grey's Trusts_ (1892) decided

that, where _real estate_ was bequeathed to the children of a person

domiciled in a foreign country and these children were legitimized by

the subsequent marriage in that country of their father with their

mother, that they were entitled to share as legitimate children in a

devise of English realty. It is to be noted that this decision does not

clash with that of _Birtwhistle_ v. _Vardill_.

See J. A. Foote, _Private International Law_; A. V. Dicey, _Conflict

of Laws_; L. von Bar, _Private International Law_; Story, _Conflict of

Laws_; J. Westlake, _International Law_.

LEGITIMISTS (Fr. _légitimistes_, from _légitime_, lawful, legitimate),

the name of the party in France which after the revolution of 1830

continued to support the claims of the elder line of the house of

Bourbon as the legitimate sovereigns "by divine right." The death of the

comte de Chambord in 1883 dissolved the _parti légitimiste_, only an

insignificant remnant, known as the _Blancs d'Espagne_, repudiating the

act of renunciation of Philip V. of Spain and upholding the rights of

the Bourbons of the line of Anjou. The word _légitimiste_ was not

admitted by the French Academy until 1878; but meanwhile it had spread

beyond France, and the English word legitimist is now applied to any

supporter of monarchy by hereditary right as against a parliamentary or

other title.

LEGNAGO, a fortified town of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Verona,

on the Adige, 29 m. by rail E. of Mantua, 52 ft. above sea-level. Pop.

(1906) 2731 (town), 17,000 (commune). Legnago is one of the famous

Quadrilateral fortresses. The present fortifications were planned and

made in 1815, the older defences having been destroyed by Napoleon I. in

1801. The situation is low and unhealthy, but the territory is fertile,

rice, cereals and sugar being grown. Legnago is the birthplace of G. B.

Cavalcaselle, the art historian (1827-1897). A branch line runs hence to

Rovigo.

LEGNANO, a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, 17 m. N.W.

of that city by rail, 682 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1881) 7153, (1901)

18,285. The church of S. Magno, built in the style of Bramante by G.

Lampugnano (1504-1529), contains an altar-piece considered one of

Luini's best works. There are also remains of a castle of the Visconti.

Legnano is the seat of important cotton and silk industries, with

machine-shops, boiler-works, and dyeing and printing of woven goods, and

thread. Close by, the Lombard League defeated Frederick Barbarossa in

1176; a monument in commemoration of the battle was erected on the field

in 1876, while there is another by Butti erected in 1900 in the Piazza

Federico Barbarossa.

LEGOUVÉ, GABRIEL JEAN BAPTISTE ERNEST WILFRID (1807-1903), French

dramatist, son of the poet Gabriel Legouvé (1764-1812), who wrote a

pastoral _La Mort d'Abel_ (1793) and a tragedy of _Epicharis et Néron_,

was born in Paris on the 5th of February 1807. His mother died in 1810,

and almost immediately afterwards his father was removed to a lunatic

asylum. The child, however, inherited a considerable fortune, and was

carefully educated. Jean Nicolas Bouilly (1763-1842) was his tutor, and

early instilled into the young Legouvé a passion for literature, to

which the example of his father and of his grandfather, J. B. Legouvé

(1729-1783), predisposed him. As early as 1829 he carried away a prize

of the French Academy for a poem on the discovery of printing; and in

1832 he published a curious little volume of verses, entitled _Les Morts

Bizarres_. In those early days Legouvé brought out a succession of

novels, of which _Edith de Falsen_ enjoyed a considerable success. In

1847 he began the work by which he is best remembered, his contributions

to the development and education of the female mind, by lecturing at the

College of France on the moral history of women: these discourses were

collected into a volume in 1848, and enjoyed a great success. Legouvé

wrote considerably for the stage, and in 1849 he collaborated with A. E.

Scribe in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_. In 1855 he brought out his tragedy of

_Médée_, the success of which had much to do with his election to the

French Academy. He succeeded to the fauteuil of J. A. Ancelot, and was

received by Flourens, who dwelt on the plays of Legouvé as his principal

claim to consideration. As time passed on, however, he became less

prominent as a playwright, and more so as a lecturer and propagandist on

woman's rights and the advanced education of children, in both of which

directions he was a pioneer in French society. His _La Femme en France

au XIX^me siècle_ (1864), reissued, much enlarged, in 1878; his

_Messieurs les enfants_ (1868), his _Conférences Parisiennes_ (1872),

his _Nos filles et nos fils_ (1877), and his _Une Éducation de jeune

fille_ (1884) were works of wide-reaching influence in the moral order.

In 1886-1887 he published, in two volumes, his _Soixante ans de

souvenirs_, an excellent specimen of autobiography. He was raised in

1887 to the highest grade of the Legion of Honour, and held for many

years the post of inspector-general of female education in the national

schools. Legouvé was always an advocate of physical training. He was

long accounted one of the best shots in France, and although, from a

conscientious objection, he never fought a duel, he made the art of

fencing his life-long hobby. After the death of Désiré Nisard in 1888,

Legouvé became the "father" of the French Academy. He died on the 14th

of March 1903.

LEGROS, ALPHONSE (1837- ), painter and etcher, was born at Dijon on the

8th of May 1837. His father was an accountant, and came from the

neighbouring village of Veronnes. Young Legros frequently visited the

farms of his relatives, and the peasants and landscapes of that part of

France are the subjects of many of his pictures and etchings. He was

sent to the art school at Dijon with a view to qualifying for a trade,

and was apprenticed to Maître Nicolardo, house decorator and painter of

images. In 1851 Legros left for Paris to take another situation; but

passing through Lyons he worked for six months as journeyman

wall-painter under the decorator Beuchot, who was painting the chapel of

Cardinal Bonald in the cathedral. In Paris he studied with Cambon,

scene-painter and decorator of theatres, an experience which developed a

breadth of touch such as Stanfield and Cox picked up in similar

circumstances. At this time he attended the drawing-school of Lecoq de

Boisbaudran. In 1855 Legros attended the evening classes of the École

des Beaux Arts, and perhaps gained there his love of drawing from the

antique, some of the results of which may be seen in the Print Room of

the British Museum. He sent two portraits to the Salon of 1857: one was

rejected, and formed part of the exhibition of protest organized by

Bonvin in his studio; the other, which was accepted, was a profile

portrait of his father. This work was presented to the museum at Tours

by the artist when his friend Cazin was curator. Champfleury saw the

work in the Salon, and sought out the artist to enlist him in the small

army of so-called "Realists," comprising (round the noisy glory of

Courbet) all those who raised protest against the academical trifles of

the degenerate Romantics. In 1859 Legros's "Angelus" was exhibited, the

first of those quiet church interiors, with kneeling figures of patient

women, by which he is best known as a painter. "Ex Voto," a work of

great power and insight, painted in 1861, now in the museum at Dijon,

was received by his friends with enthusiasm, but it only obtained a

mention at the Salon. Legros came to England in 1863, and in 1864

married Miss Frances Rosetta Hodgson. At first he lived by his etching

and teaching. He then became teacher of etching at the South Kensington

School of Art, and in 1876 Slade Professor at University College,

London. He was naturalized as an Englishman in 1881, and remained at

University College seventeen years. His influence there was exerted to

encourage a certain distinction, severity and truth of character in the

work of his pupils, with a simple technique and a respect for the

traditions of the old masters, until then somewhat foreign to English

art. He would draw or paint a torso or a head before the students in an

hour or even less, so that the attention of the pupils might not be

dulled. As students had been known to take weeks and even months over a

single drawing, Legros ordered the positions of the casts in the Antique

School to be changed once every week. In the painting school he insisted

upon a good outline, preserved by a thin rub in of umber, and then the

work was to be finished in a single painting, "_premier coup_."

Experiments in all varieties of art work were practised; whenever the

professor saw a fine example in the museum, or when a process interested

him in a workshop, he never rested until he had mastered the technique

and his students were trying their 'prentice hands at it. As he had

casually picked up the art of etching by watching a comrade in Paris

working at a commercial engraving, so he began the making of medals

after a walk in the British Museum, studying the masterpieces of

Pisanello, and a visit to the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. Legros

considered the traditional journey to Italy a very important part of

artistic training, and in order that his students should have the

benefit of such study he devoted a part of his salary to augment the

income available for a travelling studentship. His later works, after he

resigned his professorship in 1892, were more in the free and ardent

manner of his early days--imaginative landscapes, castles in Spain, and

farms in Burgundy, etchings like the series of "The Triumph of Death,"

and the sculptured fountains for the gardens of the duke of Portland at

Welbeck.

Pictures and drawings by Legros, besides those already mentioned, may

be seen in the following galleries and museums: "Amende Honorable,"

"Dead Christ," bronzes, medals and twenty-two drawings, in the

Luxembourg, Paris; "Landscape," "Study of a Head," and portraits of

Browning, Burne-Jones, Cassel, Huxley and Marshall, at the Victoria

and Albert Museum, Kensington; "Femmes en prière," National Gallery of

British Art; "The Tinker," and six other works from the Ionides

Collection, bequeathed to South Kensington; "Christening,"

"Barricade," "The Poor at Meat," two portraits and several drawings

and etchings, collection of Lord Carlisle; "Two Priests at the Organ,"

"Landscape" and etchings, collection of Rev. Stopford Brooke; "Head of

a Priest," collection of Mr Vereker Hamilton; "The Weed-burner," some

sculpture and a large collection of etchings and drawings, Mr Guy

Knowles; "Psyche," collection of Mr L. W. Hodson; "Snow Scene,"

collection of Mr G. F. Watts, R.A.; thirty-five drawings and etchings,

the Print Room, British Museum; "Jacob's Dream" and twelve drawings of

the antique, Cambridge; "Saint Jerome," two studies of heads and some

drawings, Manchester; "The Pilgrimage" and "Study made before the

Class," Liverpool Walker Art Gallery; "Study of Heads," Peel Park

Museum, Salford.

See Dr Hans W. Singer, "Alphonse Legros," _Die graphischen Künste_

(1898); Léonce Bénédite, "Alphonse Legros," _Revue de l'art_ (Paris,

1900); Cosmo Monkhouse, "Professor Legros," _Magazine of Art_ (1882).

(C. H.*)

LEGUMINOSAE, the second largest family of seed-plants, containing about

430 genera with 7000 species. It belongs to the series Rosales of the

Dicotyledons, and contains three well-marked suborders, Papilionatae,

Mimosoideae and Caesalpinioideae. The plants are trees, shrubs or herbs

of very various habit. The British representatives, all of which belong

to the suborder Papilionatae, include a few shrubs, such as _Ulex_

(gorse, furze), _Cytisus_ (broom) and _Genista_, but the majority, and

this applies to the suborder as a whole, are herbs, such as the clovers,

_Medicago_, _Melilotus_, &c., sometimes climbing by aid of tendrils

which are modified leaf-structures, as in _Lathyrus_ and the vetches

(_Vicia_). Scarlet runner (_Phaseolus multiflorus_) has a herbaceous

twining stem. Woody climbers (lianes) are represented by species of

_Bauhinia_ (Caesalpinioideae), which with their curiously flattened

twisted stems are characteristic features of tropical forests, and

_Entada scandens_ (Mimosoideae) also common in the tropics; these two

suborders, which are confined to the warmer parts of the earth, consist

chiefly of trees and shrubs such as _Acacia_ and _Mimosa_ belonging to

the Mimosoideae, and the Judas tree of southern Europe (_Cercis_) and

tamarind belonging to the Caesalpinioideae. The so-called acacia of

European gardens (_Robinia Pseudacacia_) and laburnum are examples of

the tree habit in the Papilionatae. Water plants are rare, but are

represented by _Aeschynomene_ and _Neptunia_, tropical genera. The roots

of many species bear nodular swellings (tubercles), the cells of which

contain bacterium-like bodies which have the power of fixing the

nitrogen of the atmosphere in such a form as to make it available for

plant food. Hence the value of these plants as a crop on poor soil or as

a member of a series of rotation of crops, since they enrich the soil by

the nitrogen liberated by the decay of their roots or of the whole plant

if ploughed in as green manure.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Leaf of an Acacia (_A. heterophylla_) showing

flattened leaf-like petiole (phyllode), p, and bipinnate blade.]

The leaves are alternate in arrangement and generally compound and

stipulate. A common form is illustrated by the trefoil or clovers, which

have three leaflets springing from a common point (digitately

trifoliate); pinnate leaves are also frequent as in laburnum and

_Robinia_. In Mimosoideae the leaves are generally bipinnate (figs. 1,

2, 3). Rarely are the leaves simple as in _Bauhinia_. Various departures

from the usual leaf-type occur in association with adaptations to

different functions or environments. In leaf-climbers, such as pea or

vetch, the end of the rachis and one or more pairs of leaflets are

changed into tendrils. In gorse the leaf is reduced to a slender

spine-like structure, though the leaves of the seedling have one to

three leaflets. In many Australian acacias the leaf surface in the adult

plant is much reduced, the petiole being at the same time flattened and

enlarged (fig. 1), frequently the leaf is reduced to a petiole flattened

in the vertical plane; by this means a minimum surface is exposed to the

intense sunlight. In the garden pea the stipules are large and

foliaceous, replacing the leaflets, which are tendrils; in _Robinia_ the

stipules are spiny and persist after leaf-fall. In some acacias (q.v.)

the thorns are hollow, and inhabited by ants as in _A. sphaerocephala_,

a central American plant (fig. 2) and others. In some species of

_Astragalus_, _Onobrychis_ and others, the leaf-stalk persists after the

fall of the leaf and becomes hard and spiny.

[Illustration: From Strasburger's _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, by permission

of Gustav Fischer.

FIG. 2.--_Acacia sphaerocephala._

I, Leaf and part of stem; D, hollow thorns in which the ants live; F,

food bodies at the apices of the lower pinnules; N, nectary on the

petiole. (Reduced.)

II, Single pinnule with food-body, F. (Somewhat enlarged.)]

Leaf-movements occur in many of the genera. Such are the

sleep-movement in the clovers, runner bean (_Phaseolus_), _Robinia_

and acacia, where the leaflets assume a vertical position at

nightfall. Spontaneous movements are exemplified in the

telegraph-plant (_Desmodium gyrans_), native of tropical Asia, where

the small lateral leaflets move up and down every few minutes. The

sensitive plant (_Mimosa pudica_) is an example of movement in

response to contact, the leaves assuming a sleep-position if touched.

The seat of the movement is the swollen base of the leaf-stalk, the

so-called pulvinus (fig. 3).

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Branch with two leaves of the Sensitive Plant

(_Mimosa pudica_), showing the petiole in its erect state, a, and in

its depressed state, b; also the leaflets closed, c, and the leaflets

expanded, d; p, pulvinus, the seat of the movement of the petiole.]

The stem of the lianes shows some remarkable deviations from the

normal in form and structure. In Papilionatae anomalous secondary

thickening arises from the production of new cambium zones outside the

original ring (_Mucuna_, _Wistaria_) forming concentric rings or

transverse or broader strands; where, as in _Rhyncosia_ the successive

cambiums are active only at two opposite points, a flat ribbon-like

stem is produced. The climbing _Bauhinias_ (Caesalpinioideae) have a

flattened stem with basin-like undulations; in some growth in

thickness is normal, in others new cambium-zones are found

concentrically, while in others new and distinct growth-centres, each

with its cambium-zone, arise outside the primary zone. The climbing

Mimosoideae show no anomalous growth in thickness, but in some cases

the stem becomes strongly winged. Gum passages in the pith and

medullary rays occur, especially in species of acacia and

_Astragalus_; gum-arabic is an exudation from the branches of _Acacia

Senegal_, gum-tragacanth from _Astragalus gummifer_ and other species.

Logwood is the coloured heartwood of _Haematoxylon campechianum_; red

sandalwood of _Pterocarpus santalinus_.

The flowers are arranged in racemose inflorescences, such as the simple

raceme (_Laburnum_, _Robinia_), which is condensed to a head in

_Trifolium_; in _Acacia_ and _Mimosa_ the flowers are densely crowded

(fig. 4). The flower is characterized by a hypogynous or slightly

perigynous arrangement of parts, the anterior position of the odd sepal,

the free petals, and the single median carpel with a terminal style,

simple stigma and two alternating rows of ovules on the ventral suture

of the ovary which faces the back of the flower.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Acacia obscura_, flowering branch about 1/3

natural size.

1, Part of stem with leaf and its subtended inflorescence, about

natural size.

2, Flower, much enlarged.

3, Floral diagram of _Acacia latifolia_. (After Eichler.)]

The arrangement of the petals and the number and cohesion of the

stamens vary in the three suborders. In Mimosoideae, the smallest of

the three, the flower is regular (fig. 4 [3]), and the sepals and

petals have a valvate aestivation, and are generally pentamerous, but

3-6-merous flowers also occur. The sepals are more or less united into

a cup (fig. 4 [2]), and the petals sometimes cohere at the base. The

stamens vary widely in number and cohesion; in _Acacia_ (fig. 4) they

are indefinite and free, in the tribe _Ingeae_, indefinite and

monadelphous, in other tribes as many or twice as many as the petals.

Frequently, as in _Mimosa_, the long yellow stamens are the most

conspicuous feature of the flower. In Caesalpinioideae (fig. 5) the

flowers are zygomorphic in a median plane and generally pentamerous.

The sepals are free, or the two upper ones united as in tamarind, and

imbricate in aestivation, rarely as in the Judas-tree (fig. 5 [2]),

valvate. The corolla shows great variety in form; it is imbricate in

aestivation, the posterior petal being innermost. In _Cercis_ (fig. 5)

it clearly resembles the papilionaceous type; the odd petal stands

erect, the median pair are reflexed and wing-like, and the lower pair

enclose the essential organs. In _Cassia_ all five petals are subequal

and spreading; in _Amherstia_ the anterior pair are small or absent

while the three upper ones are large; in _Krameria_, the anterior pair

are represented by glandular scales, and in _Tamarindus_ are

suppressed. Apetalous flowers occur in _Copaifera_ and _Ceratonia_.

The stamens, generally ten in number, are free, as in _Cercis_ (fig.

5) or more or less united as in _Amherstia_, where the posterior one

is free and the rest are united. In tamarind only three stamens are

fertile. The largest suborder, Papilionatae, has a flower zygomorphic

in the median plane (figs. 6, 7). The five sepals are generally united

(figs. 7, 9), and have an ascending imbricate arrangement (fig. 6);

the calyx is often two-lipped (fig. 9 [1]). The corolla has five

unequal petals with a descending imbricate arrangement; the upper and

largest, the standard (_vexillum_), stands erect, the lateral pair,

the wings or _alae_, are long-clawed, while the anterior pair cohere

to form the keel or _carina_, in which are enclosed the stamens and

pistil. The ten stamens are monadelphous as in gorse or broom (fig.

9), or diadelphous as in sweet pea (fig. 8) (the posterior one being

free), or almost or quite free; these differences are associated with

differences in the methods of pollination. The ten stamens here, as in

the last suborder, though arranged in a single whorl, arise in two

series, the five opposite the sepals arising first.

The carpel is sometimes stalked and often surrounded at the base by a

honey-secreting disk; the style is terminal and in the zygomorphic

flowers is often curved and somewhat flattened with a definite back

and front. Sometimes as in species of _Trifolium_ and _Medicago_ the

ovules are reduced to one. The pod or legume splits along both sutures

(fig. 10) into a pair of membranous, leathery or sometimes fleshy

valves, bearing the seeds on the ventral suture. Dehiscence is often

explosive, the valves separating elastically and twisting spirally,

thus shooting out the seeds, as in gorse, broom and others. In

_Desmodium_, _Entada_ and others the pod is constricted between each

seed, and breaks up into indehiscent one-seeded parts; it is then

called a lomentum (fig. 11); in _Astragalus_ it is divided by a

longitudinal septum.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Flowering branch of Judas-tree (_Cercis

siliquastrum_) reduced. 1, Flower, natural size. 2, Floral diagram.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Diagram of Flower of Sweet Pea (_Lathyrus_),

showing five sepals, s, two are superior, one inferior, and two

lateral; five petals, p, one superior, two inferior, and two lateral;

ten stamens in two rows, a, and one carpel, c.]

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Flower of Pea (_Pisum sativum_), showing a

papilionaceous corolla, with one petal superior, st, the standard

(vexillum), two inferior, _car_, the keel (carina), and two lateral,

a, wings (alae). The calyx is marked c.]

The pods show a very great variety in form and size. Thus in the

clovers they are a small fraction of an inch, while in the common

tropical climber _Entada scandens_ they are woody structures more than

a yard long and several inches wide. They are generally more or less

flattened, but sometimes round and rod-like, as in species of

_Cassia_, or are spirally coiled as in _Medicago_. Indehiscent

one-seeded pods occur in species of clover and in _Medicago_, also in

_Dalbergia_ and allied genera, where they are winged. In _Colutea_,

the bladder-senna of gardens, the pod forms an inflated bladder which

bursts under pressure; it often becomes detached and is blown some

distance before bursting. An arillar outgrowth is often developed on

the funicle, and is sometimes brightly coloured, rendering the seed

conspicuous and favouring dissemination by birds; in such cases the

seed-coat is hard. In other cases the hard seed-coat itself is

bright-coloured as in the scarlet seeds of _Abrus precatorius_, the

so-called weather-plant. Animals also act as the agents of

distribution in the case of fleshy edible pods containing seeds with a

hard smooth testa, which will pass uninjured through the body, as in

tamarind and the fruit of the carob-tree (_Ceratonia_). In the

ground-nut (_Arachis hypogaea_), _Trifolium subterraneum_ and others,

the flower-stalks grow downwards after fertilization of the ovules and

bury the fruit in the earth. In the suborders Mimosoideae and

Papilionatae the embryo fills the seed or a small quantity of

endosperm occurs, chiefly round the radicle. In Caesalpinioideae

endosperm is absent, or present forming a thin layer round the embryo

as in the tribe _Bauhinieae_, or copious and cartilaginous as in the

_Cassieae_. The embryo has generally flat leaf-like or fleshy

cotyledons with a short radicle.

Insects play an important part in the pollination of the flowers. In the

two smaller suborders the stamens and stigma are freely exposed and the

conspicuous coloured stamens serve as well as the petals to attract

insects; in _Mimosa_ and _Acacia_ the flowers are crowded in conspicuous

heads or spikes. The relation of insects to the flower has been

carefully studied in the Papilionatae, chiefly in European species.

Where honey is present it is secreted on the inside of the base of the

stamens and accumulated in the base of the tube formed by the united

filaments round the ovary. It is accessible only to insects with long

probosces, such as bees. In these cases the posterior stamen is free,

allowing access to the honey. The flowers stand more or less

horizontally; the large erect white or coloured standard renders them

conspicuous, the wings form a platform on which the insect rests and the

keel encloses the stamens and pistil, protecting them from rain and the

attacks of unbidden pollen-eating insects. In his book on the

fertilization of flowers, Hermann Müller distinguishes four types of

papilionaceous flowers according to the way in which the pollen is

applied to the bee:

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Stamens and Pistil of Sweet Pea (_Lathyrus_).

The stamens are diadelphous, nine of them being united by their

filaments f, while the uppermost one (e) is free; st, stigma, c, calyx.]

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Broom (_Cytisus scoparius_). (2-7 slightly

reduced.)

1, Calyx.

2, Standard.

3, Wing.

4, Keel.

5, Monadelphous stamens and style.

6, Pistil.

7, Pod.]

(1) Those in which the stamens and stigma return within the carina and

thus admit of repeated visits, such are the clovers, _Melilotus_ and

laburnum. (2) Explosive flowers where stamens and style are confined

within the keel under tension and the pressure of the insect causes

their sudden release and the scattering of the pollen, as in broom and

_Genista_; these contain no honey but are visited for the sake of the

pollen. (3) The piston-mechanism as in bird's-foot trefoil (_Lotus

corniculatus_), _Anthyllis_, _Ononis_ and _Lupinus_, where the

pressure of the bee upon the carina while probing for honey squeezes a

narrow ribbon of pollen through the opening at the tip. The pollen has

been shed into the cone-like tip of the carina, and the heads of the

five outer stamens form a piston beneath it, pushing it out at the tip

when pressure is exerted on the keel; a further pressure causes the

protrusion of the stigma, which is thus brought in contact with the

insect's belly. (4) The style bears a brush of hairs which sweeps

small quantities of pollen out of the tip of the carina, as in

_Lathyrus_, _Pisum_, _Vicia_ and _Phaseolus_.

[Illustration: From Vines's _Students' Text-Book of Botany_, by

permission of Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.

FIG. 10.--Dry dehiscent Fruit. The pod (legume) of the Pea. r, The

dorsal suture; b, the ventral; c, calyx; s, seeds.]

[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Lomentum or lomentaceous legume of a species of

_Desmodium_. Each seed is contained in a separate cavity by the folding

inwards of the walls of the legume at equal intervals; the legume, when

ripe, separates transversely into single-seeded portions or mericarps.]

Leguminosae is a cosmopolitan order, and often affords a characteristic

feature of the vegetation. Mimosoideae and Caesalpinioideae are richly

developed in the tropical rain forests, where Papilionatae are less

conspicuous and mostly herbaceous; in subtropical forests arborescent

forms of all three suborders occur. In the temperate regions, tree-forms

are rare--thus Mimosoideae are unrepresented in Europe; Caesalpinioideae

are represented by species of _Cercis_, _Gymnocladus_ and _Gleditschia_;

Papilionatae by _Robinia_; but herbaceous Papilionatae abound and

penetrate to the limit of growth of seed-plants in arctic and high

alpine regions. Shrubs and undershrubs, such as _Ulex_, _Genista_,

_Cytisus_ are a characteristic feature in Europe and the Mediterranean

area. Acacias are an important component of the evergreen

bush-vegetation of Australia, together with genera of the tribe

_Podalyrieae_ of Papilionatae (_Chorizema_, _Oxylobium_, &c.).

_Astragalus_, _Oxytropis_, _Hedysarum_, _Onobrychis_, and others are

characteristic of the steppe-formations of eastern Europe and western

Asia.

The order is a most important one economically. The seeds, which are

rich in starch and proteids, form valuable foods, as in pea, the

various beans, vetch, lentil, ground-nut (_Arachis_) and others; seeds

of _Arachis_ and others yield oils; those of _Physostigma venenosum_,

the Calabar ordeal bean, contain a strong poison. Many are useful

fodder-plants, as the clovers (_Trifolium_) (q.v.), Medicago (e.g. _M.

sativa_, lucerne (q.v.), or alfalfa); _Melilotus_, _Vicia_,

_Onobrychis_ (_O. sativa_ is sainfoin, q.v.); species of _Trifolium_,

lupine and others are used as green manure. Many of the tropical trees

afford useful timber; _Crotalaria_, _Sesbania_, _Aeschynomene_ and

others yield fibre; species of _Acacia_ and _Astragalus_ yield gum;

_Copaifera_, _Hymenaea_ and others balsams and resins; dyes are

obtained from _Genista_ (yellow), _Indigofera_ (blue) and others;

_Haematoxylon campechianum_ is logwood; of medicinal value are species

of _Cassia_ (senna leaves) and _Astragalus_; _Tamarindus indica_ is

tamarind, _Glycyrrhiza glabra_ yields liquorice root. Well-known

ornamental trees and shrubs are _Cercis_ (_C. siliquastrum_ is the

Judas-tree), _Gleditschia_, _Genista_, _Cytisus_ (broom), _Colutea_

(_C. arborescens_ is bladder-senna), _Robinia_ and _Acacia_; _Wisteria

sinensis_, a native of China, is a well-known climbing shrub;

_Phaseolus multiflorus_ is the scarlet runner; _Lathyrus_ (sweet and

everlasting peas), _Lupinus_, _Galega_ (goat's-rue) and others are

herbaceous garden plants. _Ceratonia Siliqua_ is the carob-tree of the

Mediterranean, the pods of which (algaroba or St John's bread) contain

a sweet juicy pulp and are largely used for feeding stock.

The order is well represented in Britain. Thus _Genista tinctoria_ is

dyers' greenweed, yielding a yellow dye; _G. anglica_ is needle furze;

other shrubs are _Ulex_ (_U. europaeus_, gorse, furze or whin, _U.

nanus_, a dwarf species) and _Cytisus scoparius_, broom. Herbaceous

plants are _Ononis spinosa_ (rest-harrow), _Medicago_ (medick),

_Melilotus_ (melilot), _Trifolium_ (the clovers), _Anthyllis

Vulneraria_ (kidney-vetch), _Lotus corniculatus_ (bird's-foot

trefoil), _Astragalus_ (milk-vetch), _Vicia_ (vetch, tare) and

_Lathyrus_.

LÈGYA, called by the Shans LAI-HKA, a state in the central division of

the southern Shan States of Burma, lying approximately between 20° 15´

and 21° 30´ N. and 97° 50´ and 98° 30´ E., with an area of 1433 sq. m.

The population was estimated at 30,000 in 1881. On the downfall of King

Thibaw civil war broke out, and reduced the population to a few

hundreds. In 1901 it had risen again to 25,811. About seven-ninths of

the land under cultivation consists of wet rice cultivation. A certain

amount of upland rice is also cultivated, and cotton, sugar-cane and

garden produce make up the rest; recently large orange groves have been

planted in the west of the state. Laihka, the capital, is noted for its

iron-work, both the iron and the implements made being produced at Pang

Long in the west of the state. This and lacquer-ware are the chief

exports, as also a considerable amount of pottery. The imports are

chiefly cotton piece-goods and salt. The general character of the state

is that of an undulating plateau, with a broad plain near the capital

and along the Nam Teng, which is the chief river, with a general

altitude of a little under 3000 ft.

LEH, the capital of Ladakh, India, situated 4 m. from the right bank of

the upper Indus 11,500 ft. above the sea, 243 m. from Srinagar and 482

m. from Yarkand. It is the great emporium of the trade which passes

between India, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet. Here meet the routes leading

from the central Asian khanates, Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan and Lhasa. The

two chief roads from Leh to India pass via Srinagar and through the Kulu

valley respectively. Under a commercial treaty with the maharaja of

Kashmir, a British officer is deputed to Leh to regulate and control the

traders and the traffic, conjointly with the governor appointed by the

Kashmir state. Lying upon the western border of Tibet, Leh has formed

the starting-point of many an adventurous journey into that country, the

best-known route being that called the Janglam, the great trade route to

Lhasa and China, passing by the Manasarowar lakes and the Mariam La pass

into the valley of the Tsanpo. Pop. (1901) 2079. A Moravian mission has

long been established here, with an efficient little hospital. There is

also a meteorological observatory, the most elevated in Asia, where the

average mean temperature ranges from 19.3° in January to 64.4° in July.

The annual rainfall is only 3 in.

LEHMANN, JOHANN GOTTLOB (?-1767), German mineralogist and geologist, was

educated at Berlin where he took his degree of doctor of medicine. He

became a teacher of mineralogy and mining in that city, and was

afterwards (1761) appointed professor of chemistry and director of the

imperial museum at St Petersburg. While distinguished for his chemical

and mineralogical researches, he may also be regarded as one of the

pioneers in geological investigation. Although he accepted the view of a

universal deluge, he gave in 1756 careful descriptions of the rocks and

stratified formations in Prussia, and introduced the now familiar terms

Zechstein and Rothes Todtliegendes (Rothliegende) for subdivisions of

the strata since grouped as Permian. His chief observations were

published in _Versuch einer Geschichte von Flötz-Geburgen, betreffend

deren Entstehung, Lage, darinne befindliche Metallen, Mineralien und

Fossilien_ (1756). He died at St Petersburg on the 22nd of January 1767.

LEHMANN, PETER MARTIN ORLA (1810-1870), Danish statesman, was born at

Copenhagen on the 15th of May 1810. Although of German extraction his

sympathies were with the Danish national party and he contributed to the

liberal journal the _Kjöbenhavnsposten_ while he was a student of law at

the university of Copenhagen, and from 1839 to 1842 edited, with

Christian N. David, the _Fädrelandet_. In 1842 he was condemned to three

months' imprisonment for a radical speech. He took a considerable part

in the demonstrations of 1848, and was regarded as the leader of the

"Eiderdänen," that is, of the party which regarded the Eider as the

boundary of Denmark, and the duchy of Schleswig as an integral part of

the kingdom. He entered the cabinet of Count A. W. Moltke in March 1848,

and was employed on diplomatic missions to London and Berlin in

connexion with the Schleswig-Holstein question. He was for some months

in 1849 a prisoner of the Schleswig-Holsteiners at Gottorp. A member of

the Folkething from 1851 to 1853, of the Landsthing from 1854 to 1870,

and from 1856 to 1866 of the Reichsrat, he became minister of the

interior in 1861 in the cabinet of K. C. Hall, retiring with him in

1863. He died at Copenhagen on the 13th of September 1870. His book _On

the Causes of the Misfortunes of Denmark_ (1864) went through many

editions, and his posthumous works were published in 4 vols., 1872-1874.

See Reinhardt, _Orla Lehmann og hans samtid_ (Copenhagen, 1871); J.

Clausen, _Af O. Lehmanns Papirer_ (Copenhagen, 1903).

LEHNIN, a village and health resort of Germany, in the Prussian province

of Brandenburg, situated between two lakes, which are connected by the

navigable Emster with the Havel, 12 m. S.W. from Potsdam, and with a

station on the main line Berlin-Magdeburg, and a branch line to

Grosskreuz. Pop. (1900) 2379. It contains the ruins of a Cistercian

monastery called Himmelpfort am See, founded in 1180 and dissolved in

1542; a handsome parish church, formerly the monasterial chapel,

restored in 1872-1877; and a fine statue of the emperor Frederick III.

Boat-building and saw-milling are the chief industries.

See Heffter, _Geschichte des Klosters Lehnin_ (Brandenburg, 1851); and

Sello, _Lehnin, Beiträge zur Geschichte von Kloster und Amt_ (Berlin,

1881).

The LEHNIN PROPHECY (_Lehninsche Weissagung, Vaticinium Lehninense_), a

poem in 100 Leonine verses, reputed to be from the pen of a monk,

Hermann of Lehnin, who lived about the year 1300, made its appearance

about 1690 and caused much controversy. This so-called prophecy bewails

the extinction of the Ascanian rulers of Brandenburg and the rise of the

Hohenzollern dynasty to power; each successive ruler of the latter house

down to the eleventh generation is described, the date of the extinction

of the race fixed, and the restoration of the Roman Catholic Church

foretold. But as the narrative is only exact in details down to the

death of Frederick William, the great elector, in 1688, and as all

prophecies of the period subsequent to that time were falsified by

events, the poem came to be regarded as a compilation and the date of

its authorship placed about the year 1684. Andreas Fromm (d. 1685),

rector of St Peter's church in Berlin, an ardent Lutheran, is commonly

believed to have been the forger. This cleric, resisting certain

measures taken by the great elector against the Lutheran pastors, fled

the country in 1668 to avoid prosecution, and having been received at

Prague into the Roman Catholic Church was appointed canon of Leitmeritz

in Bohemia, where he died. During the earlier part of the 19th century

the poem was eagerly scanned by the enemies of the Hohenzollerns, some

of whom believed that the race would end with King Frederick William

III., the representative of the eleventh generation of the family.

The "Vaticinium" was first published in Lilienthal's _Gelehrtes

Preussen_ (Königsberg, 1723), and has been many times reprinted. See

Boost, _Die Weissagungen des Mönchs Hermann zu Lehnin_ (Augsburg,

1848); Hilgenfeld, _Die Lehninische Weissagung_ (Leipzig, 1875);

Sabell, _Literatur der sogenannten Lehninschen Weissagung_ (Heilbronn,

1879) and Kampers, _Die Lehninsche Weissagung über das Haus

Hohenzollern_ (Münster, 1897).

LEHRS, KARL (1802-1878), German classical scholar, was born at

Königsberg on the 2nd of June 1802. He was of Jewish extraction, but in

1822 he embraced Christianity. In 1845 he was appointed professor of

ancient Greek philology in Königsberg University, which post he held

till his death on the 9th of June 1878. His most important works are:

_De Aristarchi Studiis Homericis_ (1833, 2nd ed. by A. Ludwich, 1882),

which laid a new foundation for Homeric exegesis (on the Aristarchean

lines of explaining Homer from the text itself) and textual criticism;

_Quaestiones Epicae_ (1837); _De Asclepiade Myrleano_ (1845); _Herodiani

Scripta Tria emendatiora_ (1848); _Populäre Aufsätze aus dem Altertum_

(1856, 2nd much enlarged ed., 1875), his best-known work; _Horatius

Flaccus_ (1869), in which, on aesthetic grounds, he rejected many of the

odes as spurious; _Die Pindarscholien_ (1873). Lehrs was a man of very

decided opinions, "one of the most masculine of German scholars"; his

enthusiasm for everything Greek led him to adhere firmly to the

undivided authorship of the _Iliad_; comparative mythology and the

symbolical interpretation of myths he regarded as a species of

sacrilege.

See the exhaustive article by L. Friedländer in _Allgemeine Deutsche

Biographie_, xviii.; E. Kammer in C. Bursian's _Jahresbericht_ (1879);

A. Jung, _Zur Erinnerung an Karl Lehrs_ (progr. Meseritz, 1880); A.

Ludwich edited Lehrs' select correspondence (1894) and his _Kleine

Schriften_ (1902).

LEIBNITZ (LEIBNIZ), GOTTFRIED WILHELM (1646-1716), German philosopher,

mathematician and man of affairs, was born on the 1st of July 1646 at

Leipzig, where his father was professor of moral philosophy. Though the

name Leibniz, Leibnitz or Lubeniecz was originally Slavonic, his

ancestors were German, and for three generations had been in the

employment of the Saxon government. Young Leibnitz was sent to the

Nicolai school at Leipzig, but, from 1652 when his father died, seems to

have been for the most part his own teacher. From his father he had

acquired a love of historical study. The German books at his command

were soon read through, and with the help of two Latin books--the

_Thesaurus Chronologicus_ of Calvisius and an illustrated edition of

Livy--he learned Latin at the age of eight. His father's library was now

thrown open to him, to his great joy, with the permission, "Tolle,

lege." Before he was twelve he could read Latin easily and had begun

Greek; he had also remarkable facility in writing Latin verse. He next

turned to the study of logic, attempting already to reform its

doctrines, and zealously reading the scholastics and some of the

Protestant theologians.

At the age of fifteen, he entered the university of Leipzig as a law

student. His first two years were devoted to philosophy under Jakob

Thomasius, a Neo-Aristotelian, who is looked upon as having founded the

scientific study of the history of philosophy in Germany. It was at this

time probably that he first made acquaintance with the modern thinkers

who had already revolutionized science and philosophy, Francis Bacon,

Cardan and Campanella, Kepler, Galileo and Descartes; and he began to

consider the difference between the old and new ways of regarding

nature. He resolved to study mathematics. It was not, however, till the

summer of 1663, which he spent at Jena under E. Weigel, that he obtained

the instructions of a mathematician of repute; nor was the deeper study

of mathematics entered upon till his visit to Paris and acquaintance

with Huygens many years later.

The next three years he devoted to legal studies, and in 1666 applied

for the degree of doctor of law, with a view to obtaining the post of

assessor. Being refused on the ground of his youth he left his native

town for ever. The doctor's degree refused him there was at once

(November 5, 1666) conferred on him at Altdorf--the university town of

the free city of Nuremberg--where his brilliant dissertation procured

him the immediate offer of a professor's chair. This, however, he

declined, having, as he said, "very different things in view."

Leibnitz, not yet twenty-one years of age, was already the author of

several remarkable essays. In his bachelor's dissertation _De principio

individui_ (1663), he defended the nominalistic doctrine that

individuality is constituted by the whole entity or essence of a thing;

his arithmetical tract _De complexionibus_, published in an extended

form under the title _De arte combinatoria_ (1666), is an essay towards

his life-long project of a re-formed symbolism and method of thought;

and besides these there are our juridical essays, including the _Nova

methodus docendi discendique juris_, written in the intervals of his

journey from Leipzig to Altdorf. This last essay is remarkable, not only

for the reconstruction it attempted of the _Corpus Juris_, but as

containing the first clear recognition of the importance of the

historical method in law. Nuremberg was a centre of the Rosicrucians,

and Leibnitz, busying himself with writings of the alchemists, soon

gained such a knowledge of their tenets that he was supposed to be one

of the secret brotherhood, and was even elected their secretary. A more

important result of his visit to Nuremberg was his acquaintance with

Johann Christian von Boyneburg (1622-1672), formerly first minister to

the elector of Mainz, and one of the most distinguished German statesmen

of the day. By his advice Leibnitz printed his _Nova methodus_ in 1667,

dedicated it to the elector, and, going to Mainz, presented it to him in

person. It was thus that Leibnitz entered the service of the elector of

Mainz, at first as an assistant in the revision of the statute-book,

afterwards on more important work.

The policy of the elector, which the pen of Leibnitz was now called upon

to promote, was to maintain the security of the German empire,

threatened on the west by the aggressive power of France, on the east by

Turkey and Russia. Thus when in 1669 the crown of Poland became vacant,

it fell to Leibnitz to support the claims of the German candidate, which

he did in his first political writing, _Specimen demonstrationum

politicarum pro rege Polonorum eligendo_, attempting, under the guise of

a Catholic Polish nobleman, to show by mathematical demonstration that

it was necessary in the interest of Poland that it should have the count

palatine of Neuburg as its king. But neither the diplomatic skill of

Boyneburg, who had been sent as plenipotentiary to the election at

Warsaw, nor the arguments of Leibnitz were successful, and a Polish

prince was elected to fill the vacant throne.

A greater danger threatened Germany in the aggressions of Louis XIV.

(see FRANCE: _History_). Though Holland was in most immediate danger,

the seizure of Lorraine in 1670 showed that Germany too was threatened.

It was in this year that Leibnitz wrote his _Thoughts on Public

Safety_,[1] in which he urged the formation of a new "Rheinbund" for the

protection of Germany, and contended that the states of Europe should

employ their power, not against one another, but in the conquest of the

non-Christian world, in which Egypt, "one of the best situated lands in

the world," would fall to France. The plan thus proposed of averting the

threatened attack on Germany by a French expedition to Egypt was

discussed with Boyneburg, and obtained the approval of the elector.

French relations with Turkey were at the time so strained as to make a

breach imminent, and at the close of 1671, about the time when the war

with Holland broke out, Louis himself was approached by a letter from

Boyneburg and a short memorial from the pen of Leibnitz, who attempted

to show that Holland itself, as a mercantile power trading with the

East, might be best attacked through Egypt, while nothing would be

easier for France or would more largely increase her power than the

conquest of Egypt. On February 12, 1672, a request came from the French

secretary of state, Simon Arnauld de Pomponne (1618-1699), that Leibnitz

should go to Paris. Louis seems still to have kept the matter in view,

but never granted Leibnitz the personal interview he desired, while

Pomponne wrote, "I have nothing against the plan of a holy war, but such

plans, you know, since the days of St Louis, have ceased to be the

fashion." Not yet discouraged, Leibnitz wrote a full account of his

project for the king,[2] and a summary of the same[3] evidently intended

for Boyneburg. But Boyneburg died in December 1672, before the latter

could be sent to him. Nor did the former ever reach its destination. The

French quarrel with the Porte was made up, and the plan of a French

expedition to Egypt disappeared from practical politics till the time of

Napoleon. The history of this scheme, and the reason of Leibnitz's

journey to Paris, long remained hidden in the archives of the Hanoverian

library. It was on his taking possession of Hanover in 1803 that

Napoleon learned, through the _Consilium Aegyptiacum_, that the idea of

a French conquest of Egypt had been first put forward by a German

philosopher. In the same year there was published in London an account

of the _Justa dissertatio_[4] of which the British Government had

procured a copy in 1799. But it was only with the appearance of the

edition of Leibnitz's works begun by Onno Klopp in 1864 that the full

history of the scheme was made known.

Leibnitz had other than political ends in view in his visit to France.

It was as the centre of literature and science that Paris chiefly

attracted him. Political duties never made him lose sight of his

philosophical and scientific interests. At Mainz he was still busied

with the question of the relation between the old and new methods in

philosophy. In a letter to Jakob Thomasius (1669) he contends that the

mechanical explanation of nature by magnitude, figure and motion alone

is not inconsistent with the doctrines of Aristotle's _Physics_, in

which he finds more truth than in the _Meditations_ of Descartes. Yet

these qualities of bodies, he argues in 1668 (in an essay published

without his knowledge under the title _Confessio naturae contra

atheistas_), require an incorporeal principle, or God, for their

ultimate explanation. He also wrote at this time a defence of the

doctrine of the Trinity against Wissowatius (1669), and an essay on

philosophic style, introductory to an edition of the _Anti-barbarus_ of

Nizolius (1670). Clearness and distinctness alone, he says, are what

makes a philosophic style, and no language is better suited for this

popular exposition than the German. In 1671 he issued a _Hypothesis

physica nova_, in which, agreeing with Descartes that corporeal

phenomena should be explained from motion, he carried out the mechanical

explanation of nature by contending that the original of this motion is

a fine aether, similar to light, or rather constituting it, which,

penetrating all bodies in the direction of the earth's axis, produces

the phenomena of gravity, elasticity, &c. The first part of the essay,

on concrete motion, was dedicated to the Royal Society of London, the

second, on abstract motion, to the French Academy.

At Paris Leibnitz met with Arnauld, Malebranche and, more important

still, with Christian Huygens. This was pre-eminently the period of his

mathematical and physical activity. Before leaving Mainz he was able to

announce[5] an imposing list of discoveries, and plans for discoveries,

arrived at by means of his new logical art, in natural philosophy,

mathematics, mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and nautical

science, not to speak of new ideas in law, theology and politics. Chief

among these discoveries was that of a calculating machine for performing

more complicated operations than that of Pascal--multiplying, dividing

and extracting roots, as well as adding and subtracting. This machine

was exhibited to the Academy of Paris and to the Royal Society of

London, and Leibnitz was elected a fellow of the latter society in April

1673.[6] In January of this year he had gone to London as an attaché on

a political mission from the elector of Mainz, returning in March to

Paris, and while in London had become personally acquainted with

Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society, with whom he had already

corresponded, with Boyle the chemist and Pell the mathematician. It is

from this period that we must date the impulse that directed him anew to

mathematics. By Pell he had been referred to Mercator's

_Logarithmotechnica_ as already containing some numerical observations

which Leibnitz had thought original on his own part; and, on his return

to Paris, he devoted himself to the study of higher geometry under

Huygens, entering almost at once upon the series of investigations which

culminated in his discovery of the differential and integral calculus

(see INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS).

Shortly after his return to Paris in 1673, Leibnitz ceased to be in the

Mainz service any more than in name, but in the same year entered the

employment of Duke John Frederick of Brunswick-Lüneburg, with whom he

had corresponded for some time. In 1676 he removed at the duke's request

to Hanover, travelling thither by way of London and Amsterdam. At

Amsterdam he saw and conversed with Spinoza, and carried away with him

extracts from the latter's unpublished _Ethica_.

For the next forty years, and under three successive princes, Leibnitz

was in the service of the Brunswick family, and his headquarters were at

Hanover, where he had charge of the ducal library. Leibnitz thus passed

into a political atmosphere formed by the dynastic aims of the typical

German state (see HANOVER; BRUNSWICK). He supported the claim of Hanover

to appoint an ambassador at the congress of Nimeguen (1676)[7] to defend

the establishment of primogeniture in the Lüneburg branch of the

Brunswick family; and, when the proposal was made to raise the duke of

Hanover to the electorate, he had to show that this did not interfere

with the rights of the duke of Württemberg. In 1692 the duke of Hanover

was made elector. Before, and with a view to this, Leibnitz had been

employed by him to write the history of the Brunswick-Lüneburg family,

and, to collect material for his history, had undertaken a journey

through Germany and Italy in 1687-1690, visiting and examining the

records in Marburg, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Munich, Vienna (where he

remained nine months), Venice, Modena and Rome. At Rome he was offered

the custodianship of the Vatican library on condition of his joining the

Catholic Church.

About this time, too, his thoughts and energies were partly taken up

with the scheme for the reunion of the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

At Mainz he had joined in an attempt made by the elector and Boyneburg

to bring about a reconciliation, and now, chiefly through the energy and

skill of the Catholic Royas de Spinola, and from the spirit of

moderation which prevailed among the theologians he met with at Hanover

in 1683, it almost seemed as if some agreement might be arrived at. In

1686 Leibnitz wrote his _Systema theologicum_,[8] in which he strove to

find common ground for Protestants and Catholics in the details of their

creeds. But the English revolution of 1688 interfered with the scheme in

Hanover, and it was soon found that the religious difficulties were

greater than had at one time appeared. In the letters to Leibnitz from

Bossuet, the landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels, and Madame de Brinon, the

aim is obviously to make converts to Catholicism, not to arrive at a

compromise with Protestantism, and when it was found that Leibnitz

refused to be converted the correspondence ceased. A further scheme of

church union in which Leibnitz was engaged, that between the Reformed

and Lutheran Churches, met with no better success.

Returning from Italy in 1690, Leibnitz was appointed librarian at

Wolfenbüttel by Duke Anton of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Some years

afterwards began his connexion with Berlin through his friendship with

the electress Sophie Charlotte of Brandenburg and her mother the

princess Sophie of Hanover. He was invited to Berlin in 1700, and on the

11th July of that year the academy (Akademie der Wissenschaften) he had

planned was founded, with himself as its president for life. In the same

year he was made a privy councillor of justice by the elector of

Brandenburg. Four years before he had received a like honour from the

elector of Hanover, and twelve years afterwards the same distinction was

conferred upon him by Peter the Great, to whom he gave a plan for an

academy at St Petersburg, carried out after the czar's death. After the

death of his royal pupil in 1705 his visits to Berlin became less

frequent and less welcome, and in 1711 he was there for the last time.

In the following year he undertook his fifth and last journey to Vienna,

where he stayed till 1714. An attempt to found an academy of science

there was defeated by the opposition of the Jesuits, but he now attained

the honour he had coveted of an imperial privy councillorship (1712),

and, either at this time or on a previous occasion (1709), was made a

baron of the empire (_Reichsfreiherr_). Leibnitz returned to Hanover in

September 1714, but found the elector George Louis had already gone to

assume the crown of England. Leibnitz would gladly have followed him to

London, but was bidden to remain at Hanover and finish his history of

Brunswick.

During the last thirty years Leibnitz had been busy with many matters.

Mathematics, natural science,[9] philosophy, theology, history

jurisprudence, politics (particularly the French wars with Germany, and

the question of the Spanish succession), economics and philology, all

gained a share of his attention; almost all of them he enriched with

original observations.

His genealogical researches in Italy--through which he established the

common origin of the families of Brunswick and Este--were not only

preceded by an immense collection of historical sources, but enabled him

to publish materials for a code of international law.[10] The history of

Brunswick itself was the last work of his life, and had covered the

period from 768 to 1005 when death ended his labours. But the

government, in whose service and at whose order the work had been

carried out, left it in the archives of the Hanover library till it was

published by Pertz in 1843.

It was in the years between 1690 and 1716 that Leibnitz's chief

philosophical works were composed, and during the first ten of these

years the accounts of his system were, for the most part, preliminary

sketches. Indeed, he never gave a full and systematic account of his

doctrines. His views have to be gathered from letters to friends, from

occasional articles in the _Acta Eruditorum_, the _Journal des Savants_,

and other journals, and from one or two more extensive works. It is

evident, however, that philosophy had not been entirely neglected in the

years in which his pen was almost solely occupied with other matters. A

letter to the duke of Brunswick, and another to Arnauld, in 1671, show

that he had already reached his new notion of substance; but it is in

the correspondence with Antoine Arnauld, between 1686 and 1690, that his

fundamental ideas and the reasons for them are for the first time made

clear. The appearance of Locke's _Essay_ in 1690 induced him (1696) to

note down his objections to it, and his own ideas on the same subjects.

In 1703-1704 these were worked out in detail and ready for publication,

when the death of the author whom they criticized prevented their

appearance (first published by Raspe, 1765). In 1710 appeared the only

complete and systematic philosophical work of his lifetime, _Essais de

Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme, et l'origine du

mal_, originally undertaken at the request of the late queen of Prussia,

who had wished a reply to Bayle's opposition of faith and reason. In

1714 he wrote, for Prince Eugene of Savoy, a sketch of his system under

the title of _La Monadologie_, and in the same year appeared his

_Principes de la nature et de la grâce_. The last few years of his life

were perhaps more occupied with correspondence than any others, and, in

a philosophical regard, were chiefly notable for the letters, which,

through the desire of the new queen of England, he interchanged with

Clarke, _sur Dieu, l'âme, l'espace, la durée_.

Leibnitz died on the 14th of November 1716, his closing years enfeebled

by disease, harassed by controversy, embittered by neglect; but to the

last he preserved the indomitable energy and power of work to which is

largely due the position he holds as, more perhaps than any one in

modern times, a man of almost universal attainments and almost universal

genius. Neither at Berlin, in the academy which he had founded, nor in

London, whither his sovereign had gone to rule, was any notice taken of

his death. At Hanover, Eckhart, his secretary, was his only mourner; "he

was buried," says an eyewitness, "more like a robber than what he really

was, the ornament of his country."[11] Only in the French Academy was

the loss recognized, and a worthy eulogium devoted to his memory

(November 13, 1717). The 200th anniversary of his birth was celebrated

in 1846, and in the same year were opened the Königlichsächsische

Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften and the Kaiserliche Akademie der

Wissenschaften in Leipzig and Vienna respectively. In 1883, a statue was

erected to him at Leipzig.

Leibnitz possessed a wonderful power of rapid and continuous work. Even

in travelling his time was employed in solving mathematical problems. He

is described as moderate in his habits, quick of temper but easily

appeased, charitable in his judgments of others, and tolerant of

differences of opinion, though impatient of contradiction on small

matters. He is also said to have been fond of money to the point of

covetousness; he was certainly desirous of honour, and felt keenly the

neglect in which his last years were passed.

_Philosophy._--The central point in the philosophy of Leibnitz was

only arrived at after many advances and corrections in his opinions.

This point is his new doctrine of substance (p. 702),[12] and it is

through it that unity is given to the succession of occasional

writings, scattered over fifty years, in which he explained his views.

More inclined to agree than to differ with what he read (p. 425), and

borrowing from almost every philosophical system, his own standpoint

is yet most closely related to that of Descartes, partly as

consequence, partly by way of opposition. Cartesianism, Leibnitz often

asserted, is the ante-room of truth, but the ante-room only.

Descartes's separation of things into two heterogeneous substances

only connected by the omnipotence of God, and the more logical

absorption of both by Spinoza into the one divine substance, followed

from an erroneous conception of what the true nature of substance is.

Substance, the ultimate reality, can only be conceived as force. Hence

Leibnitz's metaphysical view of the monads as simple, percipient,

self-active beings, the constituent elements of all things, his

physical doctrines of the reality and constancy of force at the same

time that space, matter and motion are merely phenomenal, and his

psychological conception of the continuity and development of

consciousness. In the closest connexion with the same stand his

logical principles of consistency and sufficient reason, and the

method he developed from them, his ethical end of perfection, and his

crowning theological conception of the universe as the best possible

world, and of God both as its efficient cause and its final harmony.

The ultimate elements of the universe are, according to Leibnitz,

individual centres of force or monads. Why they should be individual,

and not manifestations of one world-force, he never clearly

proves.[13] His doctrine of individuality seems to have been arrived

at, not by strict deduction from the nature of force, but rather from

the empirical observation that it is by the manifestation of its

activity that the separate existence of the individual becomes

evident; for his system individuality is as fundamental as activity.

"The monads," he says, "are the very atoms of nature--in a word, the

elements of things," but, as centres of force, they have neither

parts, extension nor figure (p. 705). Hence their distinction from the

atoms of Democritus and the materialists. They are metaphysical points

or rather spiritual beings whose very nature it is to act. As the bent

bow springs back of itself, so the monads naturally pass and are

always passing into action without any aid but the absence of

opposition (p. 122). Nor do they, like the atoms, act upon one another

(p. 680); the action of each excludes that of every other. The

activity of each is the result of its own past state, the determinator

of its own future (pp. 706, 722). "The monads have no windows by which

anything may go in or out" (p. 705).

Further, since all substances are of the nature of force, it follows

that--"in imitation of the notion which we have of souls"--they must

contain something analogous to feeling and appetite. It is the nature

of the monad to represent the many in one, and this is perception, by

which external events are mirrored internally (p. 438). Through their

own activity the monads mirror the universe (p. 725), but each in its

own way and from its own point of view, that is, with a more or less

perfect perception (p. 127); for the Cartesians were wrong in ignoring

the infinite grades of perception, and identifying it with the reflex

cognizance of it which may be called apperception. Every monad is thus

a microcosm, the universe in little,[14] and according to the degree

of its activity is the distinctness of its representation of the

universe (p. 709). Thus Leibnitz, borrowing the Aristotelian term,

calls the monads _entelechies_, because they have a certain perfection

([Greek: to enteles]) and sufficiency ([Greek: autarkeia]) which make

them sources of their internal actions and, so to speak, incorporeal

automata (p. 706). That the monads are not pure entelechies is shown

by the differences amongst them. Excluding all external limitation,

they are yet limited by their own nature. All created monads contain a

passive element or _materia prima_ (pp. 440, 687, 725), in virtue of

which their perceptions are more or less confused. As the activity of

the monad consists in perception, this is inhibited by the passive

principle, so that there arises in the monad an appetite or tendency

to overcome the inhibition and become more perceptive, whence follows

the change from one perception to another (pp. 706, 714). By the

proportion of activity to passivity in it one monad is differentiated

from another. The greater the amount of activity or of distinct

perceptions the more perfect is the monad; the stronger the element of

passivity, the more confused its perceptions, the less perfect is it

(p. 709). The soul would be a divinity had it nothing but distinct

perceptions (p. 520).

The monad is never without a perception; but, when it has a number of

little perceptions with no means of distinction, a state similar to

that of being stunned ensues, the _monade nue_ being perpetually in

this state (p. 707). Between this and the most distinct perception

there is room for an infinite diversity of nature among the monads

themselves. Thus no one monad is exactly the same as another; for,

were it possible that there should be two identical, there would be no

sufficient reason why God, who brings them into actual existence,

should put one of them at one definite time and place, the other at a

different time and place. This is Leibnitz's principle of the

_identity of indiscernibles_ (pp. 277, 755); by it his early problem

as to the principle of individuation is solved by the distinction

between genus and individual being abolished, and every individual

made _sui generis_. The principle thus established is formulated in

Leibnitz's law of continuity, founded, he says, on the doctrine of the

mathematical infinite, essential to geometry, and of importance in

physics (pp. 104, 105), in accordance with which there is neither

vacuum nor break in nature, but "everything takes place by degrees"

(p. 392), the different species of creatures rising by insensible

steps from the lowest to the most perfect form (p. 312).

As in every monad each succeeding state is the consequence of the

preceding, and as it is of the nature of every monad to mirror or

represent the universe, it follows (p. 774) that the perceptive

content of each monad is in "accord" or correspondence with that of

every other (cf. p. 127), though this content is represented with

infinitely varying degrees of perfection. This is Leibnitz's famous

doctrine of pre-established harmony, in virtue of which the infinitely

numerous independent substances of which the world is composed are

related to each other and form one universe. It is essential to notice

that it proceeds from the very nature of the monads as percipient,

self-acting beings, and not from an arbitrary determination of the

Deity.

From this harmony of self-determining percipient units Leibnitz has to

explain the world of nature and mind. As everything that really exists

is of the nature of spiritual or metaphysical points (p. 126), it

follows that space and matter in the ordinary sense can only have a

phenomenal existence (p. 745), being dependent not on the nature of

the monads themselves but on the way in which they are perceived.

Considering that several things exist at the same time and in a

certain order of co-existence, and mistaking this constant relation

for something that exists outside of them, the mind forms the confused

perception of space (p. 768). But space and time are merely relative,

the former an order of coexistences, the latter of successions (pp.

682, 752). Hence not only the secondary qualities of Descartes and

Locke, but their so-called primary qualities as well, are merely

phenomenal (p. 445). The monads are really without position or

distance from each other; but, as we perceive several simple

substances, there is for us an aggregate or extended mass. Body is

thus active extension (pp. 110, 111). The unity of the aggregate

depends entirely on our perceiving the monads composing it together.

There is no such thing as an absolute vacuum or empty space, any more

than there are indivisible material units or atoms from which all

things are built up (pp. 126, 186, 277). Body, corporeal mass, or, as

Leibnitz calls it, to distinguish it from the _materia prima_ of which

every monad partakes (p. 440), _materia secunda_, is thus only a

"phenomenon bene fundatum" (p. 436). It is not a _substantia_ but

_substantiae_ or _substantiatum_ (p. 745). While this, however, is the

only view consistent with Leibnitz's fundamental principles, and is

often clearly stated by himself, he also speaks at other times of the

_materia secunda_ as itself a composite substance, and of a real

metaphysical bond between soul and body. But these expressions occur

chiefly in the letters to des Bosses, in which Leibnitz is trying to

reconcile his views with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church,

especially with that of the real presence in the Eucharist, and are

usually referred to by him as doctrines of faith or as hypothetical

(see especially p. 680). The true vinculum _substantiale_ is not the

_materia secunda_, which a consistent development of Leibnitz's

principles can only regard as phenomenal, but the _materia prima_,

through which the monads are individualized and distinguished and

their connexion rendered possible. And Leibnitz seems to recognize

that the opposite assumption is inconsistent with his cardinal

metaphysical view of the monads as the only realities.

From Leibnitz's doctrine of force as the ultimate reality it follows

that his view of nature must be throughout dynamical. And though his

project of a _dynamic_, or theory of natural philosophy, was never

carried out, the outlines of his own theory and his criticism of the

mechanical physics of Descartes are known to us. The whole distinction

between the two lies in the difference between the mechanical and the

dynamical views of nature. Descartes started from the reality of

extension as constituting the nature of material substance, and found

in magnitude, figure and motion the explanation of the material

universe. Leibnitz, too, admitted the mechanical view of nature as

giving the laws of corporeal phenomena (p. 438), applying also to

everything that takes place in animal organisms,[15] even the human

body (p. 777). But, as phenomenal, these laws must find their

explanation in metaphysics, and thus in final causes (p. 155). All

things, he says (in his _Specimen Dynamicum_), can be explained either

by efficient or by final causes. But the latter method is not

appropriate to individual occurrences,[16] though it must be applied

when the laws of mechanism themselves need explanation (p. 678). For

Descartes's doctrine of the constancy of the quantity of motion (i.e.

momentum) in the world Leibnitz substitutes the principle of the

conservation of _vis viva_, and contends that the Cartesian position

that motion is measured by velocity should be superseded by the law

that moving force (_vis motrix_) is measured by the square of the

velocity (pp. 192, 193). The long controversy raised by this criticism

was really caused by the ambiguity of the terms employed. The

principles held by Descartes and Leibnitz were both correct, though

different, and their conflict only apparent. Descartes's principle is

now enunciated as the conservation of momentum, that of Leibnitz as

the conservation of energy. Leibnitz further criticizes the Cartesian

view that the mind can alter the direction of motion though it cannot

initiate it, and contends that the quantity of "_vis directiva_,"

estimated between the same parts, is constant (p. 108)--a position

developed in his statical theorem for determining geometrically the

resultant of any number of forces acting at a point.

Like the monad, body, which is its analogue, has a passive and an

active element. The former is the capacity of resistance, and includes

impenetrability and inertia; the latter is active force (pp. 250,

687). Bodies, too, like the monads, are self-contained activities,

receiving no impulse from without--it is only by an accommodation to

ordinary language that we speak of them as doing so--but moving

themselves in harmony with each other (p. 250).

The psychology of Leibnitz is chiefly developed in the _Nouveaux

essais sur l'entendement humain_, written in answer to Locke's famous

_Essay_, and criticizing it chapter by chapter. In these essays he

worked out a theory of the origin and development of knowledge in

harmony with his metaphysical views, and thus without Locke's implied

assumption of the mutual influence of soul and body. When one monad in

an aggregate perceives the others so clearly that they are in

comparison with it bare monads (_monades nues_), it is said to be the

ruling monad of the aggregate, not because it actually does exert an

influence over the rest, but because, being in close correspondence

with them, and yet having so much clearer perception, it seems to do

so (p. 683). This monad is called the entelechy or soul of the

aggregate or body, and as such mirrors the aggregate in the first

place and the universe through it (p. 710). Each soul or entelechy is

surrounded by an infinite number of monads forming its body (p. 714);

soul and body together make a living being, and, as their laws are in

perfect harmony--a harmony established between the whole realm of

final causes and that of efficient causes (p. 714)--we have the same

result as if one influenced the other. This is further explained by

Leibnitz in his well-known illustration of the different ways in which

two clocks may keep exactly the same time. The machinery of the one

may actually move that of the other, or whenever one moves the

mechanician may make a similar alteration in the other, or they may

have been so perfectly constructed at first as to continue to

correspond at every instant without any further influence (pp. 133,

134). The first way represents the common (Locke's) theory of mutual

influence, the second the method of the occasionalists, the third that

of pre-established harmony. Thus the body does not act on the soul in

the production of cognition, nor the soul on the body in the

production of motion. The body acts just as if it had no soul, the

soul as if it had no body (p. 711). Instead, therefore, of all

knowledge coming to us directly or indirectly through the bodily

senses, it is all developed by the soul's own activity, and sensuous

perception is itself but a confused kind of cognition. Not a certain

select class of our ideas only (as Descartes held), but all our ideas,

are innate, though only worked up into actual cognition in the

development of knowledge (p. 212). To the aphorism made use of by

Locke, "Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu," must

be added the clause, "nisi intellectus ipse" (p. 223). The soul at

birth is not comparable to a _tabula rasa_, but rather to an unworked

block of marble, the hidden veins of which already determine the form

it is to assume in the hands of the sculptor (p. 196). Nor, again, can

the soul ever be without perception; for it has no other nature than

that of a percipient active being (p. 246). Apparently dreamless sleep

is to be accounted for by unconscious perception (p. 223); and it is

by such insensible perceptions that Leibnitz explains his doctrine of

pre-established harmony (p. 197).

In the human soul perception is developed into thought, and there is

thus an infinite though gradual difference between it and the mere

monad (p. 464). As all knowledge is implicit in the soul, it follows

that its perfection depends on the efficiency of the instrument by

which it is developed. Hence the importance, in Leibnitz's system, of

the logical principles and method, the consideration of which occupied

him at intervals throughout his whole career.

There are two kinds of truths--(1) truths of reasoning, and (2) truths

of fact (pp. 83, 99, 707). The former rest on the principle of

identity (or contradiction) or of possibility, in virtue of which that

is false which contains a contradiction, and that true which is

contradictory to the false. The latter rest on the principle of

sufficient reason or of reality (_compossibilité_), according to which

no fact is true unless there be a sufficient reason why it should be

so and not otherwise (agreeing thus with the _principium melioris_ or

final cause). God alone, the purely active monad, has an _a priori_

knowledge of the latter class of truths; they have their source in the

human mind only in so far as it mirrors the outer world, i.e. in its

passivity, whereas the truths of reason have their source in our mind

in itself or in its activity.

Both kinds of truths fall into two classes, primitive and derivative.

The primitive truths of fact are, as Descartes held, those of internal

experience, and the derivative truths are inferred from them in

accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, by their agreement

with our perception of the world as a whole. They are thus reached by

probable arguments--a department of logic which Leibnitz was the first

to bring into prominence (pp. 84, 164, 168, 169, 343). The primitive

truths of reasoning are identical (in later terminology, analytical)

propositions, the derivative truths being deduced from them by the

principle of contradiction. The part of his logic on which Leibnitz

laid the greatest stress was the separation of these rational

cognitions into their simplest elements--for he held that the

root-notions (_cogitationes primae_) would be found to be few in

number (pp. 92, 93)--and the designation of them by universal

characters or symbols,[17] composite notions being denoted by the

formulae formed by the union of several definite characters, and

judgments by the relation of aequipollence among these formulae, so as

to reduce the syllogism to a calculus. This is the main idea of

Leibnitz's "universal characteristic," never fully worked out by him,

which he regarded as one of the greatest discoveries of the age. An

incidental result of its adoption would be the introduction of a

universal symbolism of thought comparable to the symbolism of

mathematics and intelligible in all languages (cf. p. 356). But the

great revolution it would effect would chiefly consist in this, that

truth and falsehood would be no longer matters of opinion but of

correctness or error in calculation,[18] (pp. 83, 84, 89, 93). The old

Aristotelian analytic is not to be superseded; but it is to be

supplemented by this new method, for of itself it is but the ABC of

logic.

But the logic of Leibnitz is an art of discovery (p. 85) as well as of

proof, and, as such, applies both to the sphere of reasoning and to

that of fact. In the former it has by attention to render explicit

what is otherwise only implicit, and by the intellect to introduce

order into the _a priori_ truths of reason, so that one may follow

from another and they may constitute together a _monde intellectuel_.

To this art of orderly combination Leibnitz attached the greatest

importance, and to it one of his earliest writings was devoted.

Similarly, in the sphere of experience, it is the business of the art

of discovery to find out and classify the primitive facts or data,

referring every other fact to them as its sufficient reason, so that

new truths of experience may be brought to light.

As the perception of the monad when clarified becomes thought, so the

appetite of which all monads partake is raised to will, their

spontaneity to freedom, in man (p. 669). The will is an effort or

tendency to that which one finds good (p. 251), and is free only in

the sense of being exempt from external control[19] (pp. 262, 513,

521), for it must always have a sufficient reason for its action

determined by what seems good to it. The end determining the will is

pleasure (p. 269), and pleasure is the sense of an increase of

perfection (p. 670). A will guided by reason will sacrifice transitory

and pursue constant pleasures or happiness, and in this weighing of

pleasures consists true wisdom. Leibnitz, like Spinoza, says that

freedom consists in following reason, servitude in following the

passions (p. 669), and that the passions proceed from confused

perceptions (pp. 188, 269). In love one finds joy in the happiness of

another; and from love follow justice and law. "Our reason," says

Leibnitz,[20] "illumined by the spirit of God, reveals the law of

nature," and with it positive law must not conflict. Natural law rises

from the strict command to avoid offence, through the maxim of equity

which gives to each his due, to that of probity or piety (_honeste

vivere_),--the highest ethical perfection,--which presupposes a belief

in God, providence and a future life.[21] Moral immortality--not

merely the simple continuity which belongs to every monad--comes from

God having provided that the changes of matter will not make man lose

his individuality (pp. 126, 466).

Leibnitz thus makes the existence of God a postulate of morality as

well as necessary for the realization of the monads. It is in the

_Théodicée_ that his theology is worked out and his view of the

universe as the best possible world defended. In it he contends that

faith and reason are essentially harmonious (pp. 402, 479), and that

nothing can be received as an article of faith which contradicts an

eternal truth, though the ordinary physical order may be superseded by

a higher.[22]

The ordinary arguments for the being of God are retained by Leibnitz

in a modified form (p. 375). Descartes's ontological proof is

supplemented by the clause that God as the _ens a se_ must either

exist or be impossible (pp. 80, 177, 708); in the cosmological proof

he passes from the infinite series of finite causes to their

sufficient reason which contains all changes in the series necessarily

in itself (pp. 147, 708); and he argues teleologically from the

existence of harmony among the monads without any mutual influence to

God as the author of this harmony (p. 430).

In these proofs Leibnitz seems to have in view an extramundane power

to whom the monads owe their reality, though such a conception

evidently breaks the continuity and harmony of his system, and can

only be externally connected with it. But he also speaks in one place

at any rate[23] of God as the "universal harmony"; and the historians

Erdmann and Zeller are of opinion that this is the only sense in which

his system can be consistently theistic. Yet it would seem that to

assume a purely active and therefore perfect monad as the source of

all things is in accordance with the principle of continuity and with

Leibnitz's conception of the gradation of existences. In this sense he

sometimes speaks of God as the first or highest of the monads (p.

678), and of created substances proceeding from Him continually by

"fulgurations" (p. 708) or by "a sort of emanation as we produce our

thoughts."[24]

The positive properties or perfections of the monads, Leibnitz holds,

exist _eminenter_, i.e. without the limitation that attaches to

created monads (p. 716), in God--their perception as His wisdom or

intellect, and their appetite as His absolute will or goodness (p.

654); while the absence of all limitation is the divine independence

or power, which again consists in this, that the possibility of things

depends on His intellect, their reality on His will (p. 506). The

universe in its harmonious order is thus the realization of the divine

end, and as such must be the best possible (p. 506). The teleology of

Leibnitz becomes necessarily a _Théodicée_. God created a world to

manifest and communicate His perfection (p. 524), and, in choosing

this world out of the infinite number that exist in the region of

ideas (p. 515), was guided by the _principium melioris_ (p. 506). With

this thorough-going optimism Leibnitz has to reconcile the existence

of evil in the best of all possible worlds.[25] With this end in view

he distinguishes (p. 655) between (1) metaphysical evil or

imperfection, which is unconditionally willed by God as essential to

created beings; (2) physical evil, such as pain, which is

conditionally willed by God as punishment or as a means to greater

good (cf. p. 510); and (3) moral evil, in which the great difficulty

lies, and which Leibnitz makes various attempts to explain. He says

that it was merely permitted not willed by God (p. 655), and, that

being obviously no explanation, adds that it was permitted because it

was foreseen that the world with evil would nevertheless be better

than any other possible world (p. 350). He also speaks of the evil as

a mere set-off to the good in the world, which it increases by

contrast (p. 149), and at other times reduces moral to metaphysical

evil by giving it a merely negative existence, or says that their evil

actions are to be referred to men alone, while it is only the power of

action that comes from God, and the power of action is good (p. 658).

The great problem of Leibnitz's _Théodicée_ thus remains unsolved. The

suggestion that evil consists in a mere imperfection, like his idea of

the monads proceeding from God by a continual emanation, was too bold

and too inconsistent with his immediate apologetic aim to be carried

out by him. Had he done so his theory would have transcended the

independence of the monads with which it started, and found a deeper

unity in the world than that resulting from the somewhat arbitrary

assertion that the monads reflect the universe.

The philosophy of Leibnitz, in the more systematic and abstract form

it received at the hands of Wolf, ruled the schools of Germany for

nearly a century, and largely determined the character of the critical

philosophy by which it was superseded. On it Baumgarten laid the

foundations of a science of aesthetic. Its treatment of theological

questions heralded the German _Aufklärung_. And on many special

points--in its physical doctrine of the conservation of force, its

psychological hypothesis of unconscious perception, its attempt at a

logical symbolism--it has suggested ideas fruitful for the progress of

science.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--(1) Editions: Up to 1900 no attempt had been made to

publish the complete works. Several editions existed, but a vast mass

of MSS. (letters, &c.) remained only roughly classified in the Hanover

library. The chief editions were: (1) L. Dutens (Geneva, 1768), called

_Opera Omnia_, but far from complete; (2) G. H. Pertz, _Leibnizens

gesammelte Werke_ (Berlin, 1843-1863) (1st ser. History, 4 vols.; 2nd

ser. Philosophy, vol. i. correspondence with Arnauld, &c., ed. C. L.

Grotefend; 3rd ser. Mathematics, 7 vols., ed. C. J. Gerhardt); (3)

Foucher de Careil (planned in 20 vols., 7 published, Paris,

1859-1875), the same editor having previously published _Lettres et

opuscules inédits de Leibniz_ (Paris, 1854-1857); (4) Onno Klopp, _Die

Werke von Leibniz gemäss seinem Handschriftlichen Nachlasse in der

Königlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover_ (1st series, Historico-Political

and Political, 10 vols., 1864-1877). The _Oeuvres de Leibnitz_, by A.

Jacques (2 vols., Paris, 1846) also deserves mention. The

philosophical writings had been published by Raspe (Amsterdam and

Leipzig, 1765), by J. E. Erdmann, _Leibnitii opera philos. quae extant

Latina, Gallica, Germanica, omnia_ (Berlin, 1840), by P. Janet (2

vols., Paris, 1866, 2nd ed. 1900), and the fullest by C. J. Gerhardt,

_Die Philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz_ (7 vols.,

1875-1890); cf. also _Die kleineren philos. wichtigeren Schriften_

(trans. with commentary, J. H. von Kirchmann, 1879). The German works

had also been partly published separately; G. E. Guhrauer (Berlin,

1838-1840). Of the letters various collections had been published up

to 1900, e.g.: C. J. Gerhardt (Halle, 1860) and _Der Briefwechsel von

G. W. Leibnitz mit Mathematikern_ (1899); _Corrispondenza tra L. A.

Muratori e G. Leibnitz_ (1899); and cf. _Neue Beiträge zum

Briefwechsel zwischen D. E. Jablonsky und G. W. Leibnitz_ (1899).

In 1900 it was decided by scholars in Berlin and Paris that a really

complete edition should be published, and with this object four German

and four French critics were entrusted with the preliminary task of

correlating the MSS. in the royal library at Hanover. This process

resulted in the preparation of the _Kritischer Katalog der

Leibnitz-Handschriften zur Vorbereitung der interakademischen

Leibnitz-Ausgabe unternommen_ (1908), and also in certain other

preliminary publications, e.g. L. Couturat, _Opuscules et fragments

inédits_ (1903); E. Gerland, _Leibnizens nachgelassene Schriften

physikalischen, mechanischen und technischen Inhalts_ (1906); Jean

Baruzi, _Leibniz_ (1909), containing unedited MSS. and a

sketch-biography; cf. the same author's _Leibniz et l'organisation

religieuse de la terre_ (1907).

_Translations._--Of the _Systema Theologicum_ (1850, C. W. Russell),

of the correspondence with Clarke (1717); _Works_, by G. M. Duncan

(New Haven, 1890); of the _Nouveaux Essais_, by A. G. Langley (London,

1894); the _Monadology and other Writings_, by R. Latta (Oxford,

1898).

_Biographical._--The materials for the life of Leibnitz, in addition

to his own works, are the notes of Eckhart (not published till 1779),

the _Éloge_ by Fontenelle (read to the French Academy in 1717), the

"Eulogium," by Wolf, in the _Acta Eruditorium_ for July 1717, and the

"Supplementum" to the same by Feller, published in his _Otium

Hannoveranum_ (Leipzig, 1718). The best biography is that of G. E.

Guhrauer, _G. W. Freiherr von Leibnitz_ (2 vols., Breslau, 1842;

_Nachträge_, Breslau, 1846). A shorter _Life of G. W. von Leibnitz, on

the Basis of the German Work of Guhrauer_, has been published by J. M.

Mackie (Boston, 1845). More recent works are those of L. Grote,

_Leibniz und seine Zeit_ (Hanover, 1869); E. Pfleiderer, _Leibniz als

Patriot, Staatsmann, und Bildungsträger_ (Leipzig, 1870); the slighter

volume of F. Kirchner, _G. W. Leibniz: sein Leben und Denken_ (Köthen,

1876); Kuno Fischer, vol. iii. in _Gesch. der neuern Philosophie_ (4th

ed., 1902).

_Critical._--The monographs and essays on Leibnitz are too numerous to

mention, but reference may be made to Feuerbach, _Darstellung,

Entwicklung, und Kritik der Leibnitz'schen Phil._ (2nd ed., Leipzig,

1844); Nourrisson, _La Philosophie de Leibniz_ (Paris, 1860); R.

Zimmermann, _Leibnitz und Herbart: eine Vergleichung ihrer

Monadologien_ (Vienna, 1849); O. Caspari, _Leibniz' Philosophie

beleuchtet vom Gesichtspunkt der physikalischen Grundbegriffe von

Kraft und Stoff_ (Leipzig, 1870); G. Hartenstein, "Locke's Lehre von

der menschl. Erk. in Vergl. mit Leibniz's Kritik derselben

dargestellt," in the _Abhandl. d. philol.-hist. Cl. d. K. Sächs.

Gesells. d. Wiss._, vol. iv. (Leipzig, 1865); G. Class, _Die metaph.

Voraussetzungen des Leibnitzischen Determinismus_ (Tübingen, 1874); F.

B. Kvet, _Leibnitzens Logik_ (Prague, 1857); the essays on Leibnitz in

Trendelenburg's _Beiträge_, vols. ii. and iii. (Berlin, 1855, 1867);

L. Neff, _Leibniz als Sprachforscher_ (Heidelberg, 1870-1871); J.

Schmidt, _Leibniz und Baumgarten_ (Halle, 1875); D. Nolen, _La

Critique de Kant et la Métaphysique de Leibniz_ (Paris, 1875); and the

exhaustive work of A. Pichler, _Die Theologie des Leibniz_ (Munich,

1869-1870). Among the more recent works are: C. Braig, _Leibniz: sein

Leben und die Bedeutung seiner Lehre_ (1907); E. Cassirer, _Leibniz'

System in seinem wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen_ (1902); L. Couturat,

_La Logique de Leibniz d'après des documents inédits_ (1901); L.

Davillé, _Leibniz historien_ (1909); Kuno Fischer, _G. W. Leibniz_

(1889); R. B. Frenzel, _Der Associationsbegriff bei Leibniz_ (1898);

R. Herbertz, _Die Lehre vom Unbewussten im System des Leibniz_ (1905);

H. Hoffmann, _Die Leibniz'sche Religions-philosophie in ihrer

geschichtlichen Stellung_ (1903); W. Kabitz, _Die Philosophie des

jungen Leibniz_ (1909), a study of the development of the Leibnitzian

system; H. L. Koch, _Materie und Organismus bei Leibniz_ (1908); G.

Niel, _L'Optimisme de Leibniz_ (1888); Bertrand A. W. Russell, _A

Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz_ (1900); F. Schmöger,

_Leibniz in seiner Stellung zur tellurischen Physik_ (1901); A.

Silberstein, _Leibnizens Apriorismus in Verhältnis zu seiner

Metaphysik_ (1904); Stein, _Leibniz und Spinoza_ (1890); F. Thilly,

_Leibnizens Streit gegen Locke in Ansehung der angeborenen Ideen_

(1891); R. Urbach, _Leibnizens Rechtfertigung des Uebels in der besten

Welt_ (1901); W. Werckmeister, _Der Leibnizsche Substanzbegriff_

(1899); F. G. F. Wernicke, _Leibniz' Lehre von der Freiheit des

menschlichen Willens_ (1890). (W. R. So.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Bedenken, welchergestalt securitas publica interna et externa

und status praesens jetzigen Umständen nach im Reich auf festen Fuss

zu stellen._

[2] _De expeditione Aegyptiaca regi Franciae proponenda justa

dissertatio._

[3] _Consilium Aegyptiacum._

[4] _A Summary Account of Leibnitz's Memoir addressed to Lewis the

Fourteenth_, &c. [edited by Granville Penn], (London, 1803).

[5] In a letter to the duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (autumn 1671),

_Werke_, ed. Klopp, iii. 253 sq.

[6] He was made a foreign member of the French Academy in 1700.

[7] _Caesarini Furstenerii tractatus de jure suprematus ac legationis

principum Germaniae_ (Amsterdam, 1677); _Entretiens de Philarète et

d'Eugène sur le droit d'ambassade_ (Duisb., 1677).

[8] Not published till 1819. It is on this work that the assertion

has been founded that Leibnitz was at heart a Catholic--a supposition

clearly disproved by his correspondence.

[9] In his _Protogaea_ (1691) he developed the notion of the

historical genesis of the present condition of the earth's surface.

Cf. O. Peschel, _Gesch. d. Erdkunde_ (Munich, 1865), pp. 615 sq.

[10] _Codex juris gentium diplomaticus_ (1693); _Mantissa codicis

juri gentium diplomatici_ (1700).

[11] _Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland_, by himself (1726), i. 118.

[12] When not otherwise stated, the references are to Erdmann's

edition of the _Opera philosophica_.

[13] See _Considérations sur la doctrine d'un esprit universel_

(1702).

[14] Cf. _Opera_, ed. Dutens, II. ii. 20.

[15] The difference between an organic and an inorganic body

consists, he says, in this, that the former is a machine even in its

smallest parts.

[16] _Opera_, ed. Dutens, iii. 321.

[17] Different symbolic systems were proposed by Leibnitz at

different periods; cf. Kvet, _Leibnitzens Logik_ (1857), p. 37.

[18] The places at which Leibnitz anticipated the modern theory of

logic mainly due to Boole are pointed out in Mr Venn's _Symbolic

Logic_ (1881).

[19] Hence the difference of his determinism from that of Spinoza,

though Leibnitz too says in one place that "it is difficult enough to

distinguish the actions of God from those of the creatures" (_Werke_,

ed. Pertz, 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 160).

[20] _Opera omnia_, ed. Dutens, IV. iii. 282.

[21] Ibid. IV. iii. 295. Cf. Bluntschli, _Gesch. d. allg.

Staatsrechts u. Politik_ (1864), pp. 143 sqq.

[22] P. 480; cf. _Werke_, ed. Pertz, 2nd ser. vol. i. pp. 158, 159.

[23] Werke, ed. Klopp, iii. 259; cf. Op. phil., p. 716.

[24] Werke, ed. Pertz, 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 167.

[25] "Si c'est ici le meilleur des mondes possibles, que sont donc

les autres?"--Voltaire, _Candide_, ch. vi.

LEICESTER, EARLS OF. The first holder of this English earldom belonged

to the family of Beaumont, although a certain Saxon named Edgar has been

described as the 1st earl of Leicester. Robert de Beaumont (d. 1118) is

frequently but erroneously considered to have received the earldom from

Henry I., about 1107; he had, however, some authority in the county of

Leicester and his son Robert was undoubtedly earl of Leicester in 1131.

The 3rd Beaumont earl, another Robert, was also steward of England, a

dignity which was attached to the earldom of Leicester from this time

until 1399. The earldom reverted to the crown when Robert de Beaumont,

the 4th earl, died in January 1204.

In 1207 Simon IV., count of Montfort (q.v.), nephew and heir of Earl

Robert, was confirmed in the possession of the earldom by King John, but

it was forfeited when his son, the famous Simon de Montfort, was

attainted and was killed at Evesham in August 1265. Henry III.'s son

Edmund, earl of Lancaster, was also earl of Leicester and steward of

England, obtaining these offices a few months after Earl Simon's death.

Edmund's sons, Thomas and Henry, both earls of Lancaster, and his

grandson Henry, duke of Lancaster, in turn held the earldom, which then

passed to a son-in-law of Duke Henry, William V., count of Holland (c.

1327-1389), and then to another and more celebrated son-in-law, John of

Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. When in 1399 Gaunt's son became king as Henry

IV. the earldom was merged in the crown.

In 1564 Queen Elizabeth created her favourite, Lord Robert Dudley, earl

of Leicester. The new earl was a son of John Dudley, duke of

Northumberland; he left no children, or rather none of undoubted

legitimacy, and when he died in September 1588 the title became extinct.

In 1618 the earldom of Leicester was revived in favour of Robert Sidney,

Viscount Lisle, a nephew of the late earl and a brother of Sir Philip

Sidney; it remained in this family until the death of Jocelyn

(1682-1743), the 7th earl of this line, in July 1743. Jocelyn left no

legitimate children, but a certain John Sidney claimed to be his son and

consequently to be 8th earl of Leicester.

In 1744, the year after Jocelyn's death, Thomas Coke, Baron Lovel (c.

1695-1759), was made earl of Leicester, but the title became extinct on

his death in April 1759. The next family to hold the earldom was that of

Townshend, George Townshend (1755-1811) being created earl of Leicester

in 1784. In 1807 George succeeded his father as 2nd marquess Townshend,

and when his son George Ferrars Townshend, the 3rd marquess (1778-1855),

died in December 1855 the earldom again became extinct. Before this

date, however, another earldom of Leicester was in existence. This was

created in 1837 in favour of Thomas William Coke, who had inherited the

estates of his relative Thomas Coke, earl of Leicester. To distinguish

his earldom from that held by the Townshends Coke was ennobled as earl

of Leicester of Holkham; his son Thomas William Coke (1822-1909) became

2nd earl of Leicester in 1842, and the latter's son Thomas William (b.

1848) became 3rd earl.

See G. E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_, vol. v. (1893).

LEICESTER, ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF (c. 1531-1588). This favourite of

Queen Elizabeth came of an ambitious family. They were not, indeed, such

mere upstarts as their enemies loved to represent them; for Leicester's

grandfather--the notorious Edmund Dudley who was one of the chief

instruments of Henry VII.'s extortions--was descended from a younger

branch of the barons of Dudley. But the love of power was a passion

which seems to have increased in them with each succeeding generation,

and though the grandfather was beheaded by Henry VIII. for his too

devoted services in the preceding reign, the father grew powerful enough

in the days of Edward VI. to trouble the succession to the crown. This

was that John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, who contrived the marriage

of Lady Jane Grey with his own son Guildford Dudley, and involved both

her and her husband in a common ruin with himself. Robert Dudley, the

subject of this article, was an elder brother of Guildford, and shared

at that time in the misfortunes of the whole family. Having taken up

arms with them against Queen Mary, he was sent to the Tower, and was

sentenced to death; but the queen not only pardoned and restored him to

liberty, but appointed him master of the ordnance. On the accession of

Elizabeth he was also made master of the horse. He was then, perhaps,

about seven-and-twenty, and was evidently rising rapidly in the queen's

favour. At an early age he had been married to Amy, daughter of Sir John

Robsart. The match had been arranged by his father, who was very

studious to provide in this way for the future fortunes of his children,

and the wedding was graced by the presence of King Edward. But if it was

not a love match, there seems to have been no positive estrangement

between the couple. Amy visited her husband in the Tower during his

imprisonment; but afterwards when, under the new queen, he was much at

court, she lived a good deal apart from him. He visited her, however, at

times, in different parts of the country, and his expenses show that he

treated her liberally. In September 1560 she was staying at Cumnor Hall

in Berkshire, the house of one Anthony Forster, when she met her death

under circumstances which certainly aroused suspicions of foul play. It

is quite clear that her death had been surmised some time before as a

thing that would remove an obstacle to Dudley's marriage with the queen,

with whom he stood in so high favour. We may take it, perhaps, from

Venetian sources, that she was then in delicate health, while Spanish

state papers show further that there were scandalous rumours of a design

to poison her; which were all the more propagated by malice after the

event. The occurrence, however, was explained as owing to a fall down

stairs in which she broke her neck; and the explanation seems perfectly

adequate to account for all we know about it. Certain it is that Dudley

continued to rise in the queen's favour. She made him a Knight of the

Garter, and bestowed on him the castle of Kenilworth, the lordship of

Denbigh and other lands of very great value in Warwickshire and in

Wales. In September 1564 she created him baron of Denbigh, and

immediately afterwards earl of Leicester. In the preceding month, when

she visited Cambridge, she at his request addressed the university in

Latin. The honours shown him excited jealousy, especially as it was well

known that he entertained still more ambitious hopes, which the queen

apparently did not altogether discourage. The earl of Sussex, in

opposition to him, strongly favoured a match with the archduke Charles

of Austria. The court was divided, and, while arguments were set forth

on the one side against the queen's marrying a subject, the other party

insisted strongly on the disadvantages of a foreign alliance. The queen,

however, was so far from being foolishly in love with him that in 1564

she recommended him as a husband for Mary Queen of Scots. But this, it

was believed, was only a blind, and it may be doubted how far the

proposal was serious. After his creation as earl of Leicester great

attention was paid to him both at home and abroad. The university of

Oxford made him their chancellor, and Charles IX. of France sent him the

order of St Michael. A few years later he formed an ambiguous connexion

with the baroness dowager of Sheffield, which was maintained by the

lady, if not with truth at least with great plausibility, to have been a

valid marriage, though it was concealed from the queen. Her own

subsequent conduct, however, went far to discredit her statements; for

she married again during Leicester's life, when he, too, had found a new

conjugal partner. Long afterwards, in the days of James I., her son, Sir

Robert Dudley, a man of extraordinary talents, sought to establish his

legitimacy; but his suit was suddenly brought to a stop, the witnesses

discredited and the documents connected with it sealed up by an order of

the Star Chamber.

In 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited the earl at Kenilworth, where she was

entertained for some days with great magnificence. The picturesque

account of the event given by Sir Walter Scott has made every one

familiar with the general character of the scene. Next year Walter, earl

of Essex, died in Ireland, and Leicester's subsequent marriage with his

widow again gave rise to very serious imputations against him. For

report said that he had had two children by her during her husband's

absence in Ireland, and, as the feud between the two earls was

notorious, Leicester's many enemies easily suggested that he had

poisoned his rival. This marriage, at all events, tended to Leicester's

discredit and was kept secret at first; but it was revealed to the queen

in 1579 by Simier, an emissary of the duke of Alençon, to whose

projected match with Elizabeth the earl seemed to be the principal

obstacle. The queen showed great displeasure at the news, and had some

thought, it is said, of committing Leicester to the Tower, but was

dissuaded from doing so by his rival the earl of Sussex. He had not,

indeed, favoured the Alençon marriage, but otherwise he had sought to

promote a league with France against Spain. He and Burleigh had listened

to proposals from France for the conquest and division of Flanders, and

they were in the secret about the capture of Brill. When Alençon

actually arrived, indeed, in August 1579, Dudley being in disgrace,

showed himself for a time anti-French; but he soon returned to his

former policy. He encouraged Drake's piratical expeditions against the

Spaniards and had a share in the booty brought home. In February 1582

he, with a number of other noblemen and gentlemen, escorted the duke of

Alençon on his return to Antwerp to be invested with the government of

the Low Countries. In 1584 he inaugurated an association for the

protection of Queen Elizabeth against conspirators. About this time

there issued from the press the famous pamphlet, supposed to have been

the work of Parsons the Jesuit, entitled _Leicester's Commonwealth_,

which was intended to suggest that the English constitution was

subverted and the government handed over to one who was at heart an

atheist and a traitor, besides being a man of infamous life and morals.

The book was ordered to be suppressed by letters from the privy council,

in which it was declared that the charges against the earl were to the

queen's certain knowledge untrue; nevertheless they produced a very

strong impression, and were believed in by some who had no sympathy with

Jesuits long after Leicester's death. In 1585 he was appointed commander

of an expedition to the Low Countries in aid of the revolted provinces,

and sailed with a fleet of fifty ships to Flushing, where he was

received with great enthusiasm. In January following he was invested

with the government of the provinces, but immediately received a strong

reprimand from the queen for taking upon himself a function which she

had not authorized. Both he and the states general were obliged to

apologize; but the latter protested that they had no intention of giving

him absolute control of their affairs, and that it would be extremely

dangerous to them to revoke the appointment. Leicester accordingly was

allowed to retain his dignity; but the incident was inauspicious, nor

did affairs prosper greatly under his management. The most brilliant

achievement of the war was the action at Zutphen, in which his nephew

Sir Philip Sidney was slain. But complaints were made by the states

general of the conduct of the whole campaign. He returned to England for

a time, and went back in 1587, when he made an abortive effort to raise

the siege of Sluys. Disagreements increasing between him and the states,

he was recalled by the queen, from whom he met with a very good

reception; and he continued in such favour that in the following summer

(the year being that of the Armada, 1588) he was appointed

lieutenant-general of the army mustered at Tilbury to resist Spanish

invasion. After the crisis was past he was returning homewards from the

court to Kenilworth, when he was attacked by a sudden illness and died

at his house at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, on the 4th September.

Such are the main facts of Leicester's life. Of his character it is more

difficult to speak with confidence, but some features of it are

indisputable. Being in person tall and remarkably handsome, he improved

these advantages by a very ingratiating manner. A man of no small

ability and still more ambition, he was nevertheless vain, and presumed

at times upon his influence with the queen to a degree that brought upon

him a sharp rebuff. Yet Elizabeth stood by him. That she was ever really

in love with him, as modern writers have supposed, is extremely

questionable; but she saw in him some valuable qualities which marked

him as the fitting recipient of high favours. He was a man of princely

tastes, especially in architecture. At court he became latterly the

leader of the Puritan party. and his letters were pervaded by

expressions of religious feeling which it is hard to believe were

insincere. Of the darker suspicions against him it is enough to say that

much was certainly reported beyond the truth; but there remain some

facts sufficiently disagreeable, and others, perhaps, sufficiently

mysterious, to make a just estimate of the man a rather perplexing

problem.

No special biography of Leicester has yet been written except in

biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias. A general account of him

will be found in the Memoirs of the Sidneys prefixed to Collins's

_Letters and Memorials of State_; but the fullest yet published is Mr

Sidney Lee's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_

(London, 1888) where the sources are given. Leicester's career has to

be made out from documents and state papers, especially from the

Hatfield MSS. and Major Hume's _Calendar_ of documents from the

Spanish archives bearing on the history of Queen Elizabeth. This last

is the most recent source. Of others the principal are Digges's

_Compleat Ambassador_ (1655), John Nichols's _Progresses of Queen

Elizabeth_ and the _Leycester Correspondence_ edited by J. Bruce for

the Camden Society. The death of Dudley's first wife has been a

fruitful source of literary controversy. The most recent addition to

the evidences, which considerably alters their complexion, will be

found in the _English Historical Review_, xiii. 83, giving the full

text (in English) of De Quadra's letter of Sept. 11, 1560, on which so

much has been built. (J. Ga.)