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GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS
FOR
ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS.
EDITED BY
GEORGE S. MORRIS.
LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING
THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
LEIBNIZ'S
NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
A CRITICAL EXPOSITION.
By JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D.,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN, AND PROFESSOR (ELECT) OF MENTAL AND
MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF MINNESOTA
CHICAGO:
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
1902
Copyright, 1888,
By S. C. Griggs and Company.
PREFACE.
The purpose of the series of which the present volume is one, is not,
as will be seen by reference to the statement in the initial volume,
to sum up _in toto_ the system of any philosopher, but to give a
"critical exposition" of some one masterpiece. In treating the
"Nouveaux Essais" of Leibniz, I have found myself obliged, at times,
to violate the letter of this expressed intention, in order to fulfil
its spirit. The "Nouveaux Essais," in spite of its being one of the
two most extended philosophical writings of Leibniz, is a compendium
of comments, rather than a connected argument or exposition. It has
all the suggestiveness and richness of a note-book, but with much also
of its fragmentariness. I have therefore been obliged to supplement my
account of it by constant references to the other writings of Leibniz,
and occasionally to take considerable liberty with the order of the
treatment of topics. Upon the whole, this book will be found, I hope,
to be a faithful reflex not only of Leibniz's thought, but also of his
discussions in the "Nouveaux Essais."
In the main, the course of philosophic thought since the time of
Leibniz has been such as to render almost self-evident his limitations,
and to suggest needed corrections and amplifications. Indeed, it is
much easier for those whose thoughts follow the turn that Kant has
given modern thinking to appreciate the defects of Leibniz than to
realize his greatness. I have endeavored, therefore, in the body
of the work, to identify my thought with that of Leibniz as much
as possible, to assume his standpoint and method, and, for the most
part, to confine express criticism upon his limitations to the final
chapter. In particular, I have attempted to bring out the relations
of philosophy to the growing science of his times, to state the
doctrine of pre-established harmony as he himself meant it, and to give
something like consistency and coherency to his doctrine of material
existence and of nature. This last task seemed especially to require
doing. I have also endeavored to keep in mind, throughout, Leibniz's
relations to Locke, and to show the "Nouveaux Essais" as typical of the
distinction between characteristic British and German thought.
JOHN DEWEY.
_May_, 1888.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Man.
PAGE
His Parents 1
His Early Education 2
His University Training at Leipsic 4
At Jena 8
At the University of Altdorf 10
His Removal to Frankfurt 10
His Mission to Paris 11
Discovery of the Calculus 12
Librarian at Hanover 13
His Activities 14
His Philosophic Writings 15
His Ecclesiastic and Academic Projects 17
His Later Years and Death 18
CHAPTER II.
Sources of his Philosophy.
Character of the Epoch into which Leibniz was born 20
The Thought of the Unity of the World 23
The two Agencies which formed Leibniz's Philosophy 24
The Cartesian Influences 26
Rationalistic Method 28
Mechanical Explanation of Nature 30
Application of Mathematics 32
Idea of Evolution 33
Interpretation of these Ideas 35
Idea of Activity or Entelechy 39
Idea of Rationality 40
Idea of Organism 42
CHAPTER III.
The Problem and its Solution.
Unity of Leibniz's Thought 43
Relation of Universal and Individual 44
Descartes' Treatment of this Question 46
Spinoza's Treatment of it 48
Leibniz's Solution 50
All Unity is Spiritual 53
And Active 54
Is a Representative Individual 56
Contrast of Monad and Atom 58
Pre-established Harmony reconciles Universal and Individual 59
Meaning of this Doctrine 62
CHAPTER IV.
Locke and Leibniz.--Innate Ideas.
Necessity of Preliminary Account of Leibniz's Philosophy 66
Locke's Empiricism 67
Leibniz's Comments upon Locke 69
The Controversies of Leibniz 72
The Essay on the Human Understanding 73
Locke's Denial of Innate Ideas 75
Depending upon
(1) His Mechanical Conception of Innate Ideas 77
Leibniz undermines this by substituting an Organic Conception 80
And upon
(2) His Mechanical Conception of Consciousness 84
Leibniz refutes this by his Theory of Unconscious Intelligence 85
CHAPTER V.
Sensation and Experience.
Importance of Doctrine regarding Sensation 87
The Two Elements of Locke's Notion of Sensation 89
Its Relation to the Object producing it: Primary and Secondary
Qualities 91
Locke criticized as to his Account
(1) Of the Production of Sensation 92
(2) Of its Function in Knowledge 95
The Meaning of Physical Causation 97
Bearing of this Doctrine upon Relation of Soul and Body 98
Criticism of Locke's Dualism 98
Leibniz's Monism 101
Summary of Discussion 103
Leibniz on the Relation of Sensations to Objects
occasioning them 105
Nature of Experience 106
Distinction of Empirical from Rational Knowledge 107
CHAPTER VI.
The Impulses and the Will.
The Doctrine of Will depends upon that of Intelligence 109
The Character of Impulse 111
Of Desire 112
Half-Pains and Pleasures 113
The Outcome of Desire 115
Nature of Moral Action 117
Of Freedom 118
(1) Freedom as Contingency 119
Limitation of this Principle 121
(2) Freedom as Spontaneity 123
This Principle is too Broad to be a Moral Principle 125
(3) True Freedom is Rational Action 125
Our Lack of Freedom is due to our Sensuous Nature 128
Innate Practical Principles 129
Moral Science is Demonstrative 130
CHAPTER VII.
Matter and its Relation to Spirit.
Locke's Account of Matter and Allied Ideas the Foundation of the
Philosophy of Nature Characteristic of British Empiricism 132
Space and Matter wholly Distinct Ideas 134
Leibniz gives Matter a Metaphysical Basis 137
Ordinary Misunderstanding of Leibniz's Ideas of Matter 138
Matter is not composed of Monads 139
Matter is the Passive or Conditioned Side of Monads 140
Passivity equals "Confused Representations," _i. e._ Incomplete
Development of Reason 144
Matter is logically Necessary from Leibniz's Principles 145
Bearing of Discussion upon Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony 146
Summary 147
CHAPTER VIII.
Material Phenomena and their Reality.
What is the Connection between Matter as Metaphysical and as
Physical? 151
The Latter is the "Image" of the Former 151
Leibniz's Reaction from Cartesian Theory 152
His Objections are (1) Physical and (2) Logical 153
(1) Motion is Source of Physical Qualities of Bodies 155
Hence there are no Atoms 158
Secondary Qualities as well as Primary depend upon Motion 160
(2) What is the Subject to which the Quality of Extension
belongs? 161
It is the Monad _as Passive_ 162
Space and Time connect the Spiritual and the Sensible 164
Distinction between Space and Time, and Extension and Duration 166
Space and Time are Relations 167
Leibniz's Controversy with Clarke 168
Leibniz denies that Space and Time are Absolute 170
What is the Reality of Sensible Phenomena? 173
It consists
(1) In their Regularity 174
(2) In their Dependence upon Intelligence and Will 175
Leibniz and Berkeley 177
CHAPTER IX.
Some Fundamental Conceptions.
Locke's Account of Substance as Static 179
The Distinction between Reality and Phenomena 180
Leibniz's Conception of Substance as Dynamic 181
His Specific Criticisms upon Locke 182
The Categories of Identity and Difference Locke also explains in
a Mechanical Way 183
Leibniz regards them as Internal and as Organic to each other 184
Locke gives a Quantitative Notion of Infinity 188
And hence makes our Idea of it purely Negative 189
Leibniz denies that the True Notion of Infinity is Quantitative 189
He also denies Locke's Account of the Origin of the Indefinite 192
In General, Locke has a Mechanical Idea, Leibniz a Spiritual, of
these Categories 193
CHAPTER X.
The Nature and Extent of Knowledge.
Locke's Definition and Classification of Knowledge 196
Leibniz's Criticism 197
Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant regarding Knowledge of Objects 198
The Degrees of Knowledge,--Intuitive, Demonstrative, and
Sensitive 199
Locke's Contradictory Theories regarding the Origin of Knowledge 202
Locke starts both with the Individual as given to Consciousness
and with the Unrelated Sensation 204
Either Theory makes Relations or "Universals" Unreal 205
As to the Extent of Knowledge, that of Identity is Wide, but
Trifling 205
That of Real Being includes God, Soul, and Matter, but only as to
their Existence 206
And even this at the Expense of contradicting his Definition of
Knowledge 206
Knowledge of Co-existence is either Trifling or Impossible 207
Leibniz rests upon Distinction of Contingent and Rational Truth 209
The Former may become the Latter, and is then Demonstrative 210
The Means of this Transformation are Mathematics and
Classification 215
There are Two Principles,--One of Contradiction 217
The Other of Sufficient Reason 218
The Latter leads us to God as the Supreme Intelligence and the
Final Condition of Contingent Fact 219
The Four Stages of Knowledge 222
CHAPTER XI.
The Theology of Leibniz.
Leibniz's Three Arguments for the Existence of God 224
The Value of the Ontological 225
The Cosmological 226
The Teleological 226
The Attributes of God 227
The Relation of God to the World, his Creating Activity 228
Creation involves Wisdom and Goodness as well as Power 229
The Relation of God to Intelligent Spirits: they form a Moral
Community 230
Leibniz as the Founder of Modern German Ethical Systems 231
The End of Morality is Happiness as Self-realization 232
The Three Stages of Natural Right 234
The Basis of Both Leibniz's Ethics and Political Philosophy is
Man's Relation to God 236
His Æsthetics have the Same Basis 237
Man's Spirit as Architectonic 238
CHAPTER XII.
Criticism and Conclusion.
Leibniz's Fundamental Contradiction is between his Method and his
Subject Matter 240
The Use which Leibniz makes of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
reveals this Contradiction 242
The Contradiction is between the Ideas of Formal and of Concrete
Unity 243
From this Contradiction flow
(1) The Contradiction in the Notion of Individuality 246
Which becomes purely Negative 247
The Negative he interprets as merely Privative 249
(2) The Contradiction in his Conception of God has the Same
Source 250
He really has Three Definitions of God 250
One results in Atomism, another in Pantheism 251
The Third in a Conception of the Organic Harmony of the
Infinite and Finite 252
(3) The Contradiction between the Real and the Ideal in the
Monads has the Same Source 253
(4) As have also the Contradictions in the Treatment of the
Relations of Matter and Spirit 254
(5) And finally, his Original Contradiction leads to a
Contradictory Treatment of Knowledge 257
Summary as to the Positive Value of Leibniz 259
The Influence of Leibniz's Philosophy 261
Especially upon Kant 262
Kant claims to be the True Apologist for Leibniz 263
(1) As to the Doctrine of Sufficient Reason and Contradiction 263
Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Distinction between
Analytic and Synthetic Judgment 266
(2) As to the Relation of Monads and Matter 268
Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Relation of the
Sensuous and Supersensuous 268
(3) And finally, as to the Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony 269
Which Kant transforms into Harmony between Understanding
and Sense 269
And between the Categories of the Understanding and the
Ideas of Reason 270
Conclusion 272
LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAN.
"He who knows me only by my writings does not know me," said
Leibniz. These words--true, indeed, of every writer, but true of
Leibniz in a way which gives a peculiar interest and charm to his
life--must be our excuse for prefacing what is to be said of his "New
Essays concerning the Human Understanding" with a brief biographical
sketch.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig June 21, 1646. His
father, who died when Leibniz was only six years old, was a professor
in the university and a notary of considerable practice. From him the
future philosopher seems to have derived his extraordinary industry
and love of detail. Such accounts as we have of him show no traces of
the wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a diligent,
plodding, faithful, and religious man, a thoroughly conscientious
husband, jurist, and professor. Nor in the lines of physical heredity
can we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his mother's
endowments. The fact, however, that she was patient in all trial,
living in peace with her neighbors, anxious for unity and concord with
all people, even with those not well disposed to her, throws great
light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz's ethical nature. As in so
many cases, it is the inherited moral characteristics which form the
basis of the intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a moral
trait in Leibniz's mother became in him the hunger for a harmonious and
unified mental world; the father's devotion to detail showed itself
as the desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive as it was
inter-related.
Left without his father, he was by the advice of a discerning friend
allowed free access to the library. Leibniz never ceased to count this
one of the greatest fortunes of his life. Writing in after years to a
friend, he says:--
"When I lost my father, and was left without any direction in my
studies, I had the luck to get at books in all languages, of all
religions, upon all sciences, and to read them without any regular
order, just as my own impulse led me. From this I obtained the great
advantage that I was freed from ordinary prejudices, and introduced to
many things of which I should otherwise never have thought."
In a philosophical essay, in which he describes himself under the name
of Gulielmus Pacidius, he says:--
"Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who lost his father in his early
years, was led to study through the innate tendency of his spirit; and
the freedom with which he moved about in the sciences was equal to this
innate impulse. He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a library,
staying there sometimes whole days, and, hardly stammering Latin, he
took up every book which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them
without any choice, he sipped now here, now there, lost himself in one,
skipped over another, as the clearness of expression or of content
attracted him. He seemed to be directed by the _Tolle et lege_ of a
higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he gave himself up to the
ancients, in whom he at first understood nothing, by degrees a little,
finally all that was really necessary, until he assumed not only a
certain coloring of their expression, but also of their thought,--just
as those who go about in the sun, even while they are occupied with
other things, get sun-browned."
And he goes on to tell us that their influence always remained
with him. Their human, their important, their comprehensive ideas,
grasping the whole of life in one image, together with their clear,
natural, and transparent mode of expression, adapted precisely to
their thoughts, seemed to him to be in the greatest contrast with the
writings of moderns, without definiteness or order in expression, and
without vitality or purpose in thought,--"written as if for another
world." Thus Leibniz learned two of the great lessons of his life,--to
seek always for clearness of diction and for pertinence and purpose
of ideas.
Historians and poets first occupied him; but when in his school-life,
a lad of twelve or thirteen years, he came to the study of logic,
he was greatly struck, he says, by the "ordering and analysis
of thoughts which he found there." He gave himself up to making
tables of categories and predicaments, analyzing each book that he
read into suitable topics, and arranging these into classes and
sub-classes. We can imagine the astonishment of his playmates as
he burst upon them with a demand to classify this or that idea, to
find its appropriate predicament. Thus he was led naturally to the
philosophic books in his father's library,--to Plato and to Aristotle,
to the Scholastics. Suarez, in particular, among the latter, he read;
and traces of his influences are to be found in the formulation of his
own philosophic system. At about this same time he took great delight
in the theological works with which his father's library abounded,
reading with equal ease and pleasure the writings of the Lutherans
and of the Reformed Church, of the Jesuits and the Jansenists, of the
Thomists and the Arminians. The result was, he tells us, that he was
strengthened in the Lutheran faith of his family, but, as we may easily
imagine from his after life, made tolerant of all forms of faith.
In 1661 the boy Leibniz, fifteen years old, entered the University of
Leipzig. If we glance back upon his attainments, we find him thoroughly
at home in Latin, having made good progress in Greek, acquainted with
the historians and poets of antiquity, acquainted with the contemporary
range of science, except in mathematics and physics, deeply read and
interested in ancient and scholastic philosophy and in the current
theological discussions. Of himself he says:--
"Two things were of extraordinary aid to me: in the first place, I was
self-taught; and in the second, as soon as I entered upon any science
I sought for something new, even though I did not as yet thoroughly
understand the old. I thus gained two things: I did not fill my mind
with things empty and to be unlearned afterwards,--things resting
upon the assertion of the teacher, and not upon reason; and secondly,
I never rested till I got down to the very roots of the science and
reached its principles."
While there is always a temptation to force the facts which we know
of a man's early life, so as to make them seem to account for what
appears in mature years, and to find symbolisms and analogies which do
not exist, we are not going astray, I think, if we see foreshadowed in
this early education of Leibniz the two leading traits of his later
thought,--universality and individuality. The range of Leibniz's
investigations already marks him as one who will be content with
no fundamental principle which does not mirror the universe. The
freedom with which he carried them on is testimony to the fact
that even at this age the idea of self-development, of individual
growth from within, was working upon him. In the fact, also, that he
was self-taught we find doubtless the reason that he alone of the
thinkers of this period did not have to retrace his steps, to take
a hostile attitude towards the ideas into which he was educated, and
to start anew upon a foundation then first built. The development of
the thought of Leibniz is so gradual, continuous, and constant that it
may serve as a model of the law by which the "monad" acts. Is not his
early acquaintance with ancient literature and mediæval philosophy
the reason that he could afterwards write that his philosophical
system "connects Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the
Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morals with reason"? And
who can fail to see in the impartiality, the comprehensiveness, of
his self-education the prophecy of the time when he can write of his
ideas that "there are united in them, as in a centre of perspective,
the ideas of the Sceptics in attributing to sensible things only
a slight degree of reality; of the Pythagoreans and Platonists,
who reduce all to harmonies, numbers, and ideas; of Parmenides and
Plotinus, with their One and All; of the Stoics, with their notion of
necessity, compatible with the spontaneity of other schools; of the
vital philosophy of the Cabalists, who find feeling everywhere; of the
forms and entelechies of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, united with the
mechanical explanation of phenomena according to Democritus and the
moderns"?
But we must hurry along over the succeeding years of his life. In
the university the study of law was his principal occupation, as he
had decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. It cannot be
said that the character of the instruction or of the instructors at
Leipzig was such as to give much nutriment or stimulus to a mind like
that of Leibniz. He became acquainted there, however, with the Italian
philosophy of the sixteenth century,--a philosophy which, as formulated
by Cardanus and Campanella, formed the transition from Scholastic
philosophy to the "mechanical" mode of viewing the universe. He had
here also his first introduction to Descartes. The consequences of the
new vision opened to Leibniz must be told in his own words: "I was but
a child when I came to know Aristotle; even the Scholastics did not
frighten me; and I in no way regret this now. Plato and Plotinus gave
me much delight, not to speak of other philosophers of antiquity. Then
I fell in with the writings of modern philosophy, and I recall the
time when, a boy of fifteen years, I went walking in a little wood
near Leipzig, the Rosenthal, in order to consider whether I should
hold to the doctrine of substantial forms. Finally the mechanical
theory conquered, and thus I was led to the study of the mathematical
sciences."
To the study of the mathematical sciences! Surely words of no mean
import for either the future of Leibniz or of mathematics. But his
Leipzig studies did not take him very far in this new direction. Only
the elements of Euclid were taught there, and these by a lecturer
of such confused style that Leibniz seems alone to have understood
them. In Jena, however, where he went for a semester, things were
somewhat better. Weigel, a mathematician of some fame, an astronomer,
a jurist, and a philosopher, taught there, and introduced Leibniz
into the lower forms of analysis. But the Thirty Years' War had not
left Germany in a state of high culture, and in after years Leibniz
lamented the limitations of his early mathematical training, remarking
that if he had spent his youth in Paris, he would have enriched science
earlier. By 1666 Leibniz had finished his university career, having
in previous years attained the degrees of bachelor of philosophy and
master of philosophy. It is significant that for the first he wrote
a thesis upon the principle of individuation,--the principle which
in later years became the basis of his philosophy. This early essay,
however, is rather an exhibition of learning and of dexterity in
handling logical methods than a real anticipation of his afterthought.
For his second degree, he wrote a thesis upon the application
of philosophic ideas to juridic procedure,--considerations which
never ceased to occupy him. At about the same time appeared his
earliest independent work, "De Arte Combinatoria." From his study of
mathematics, and especially of algebraic methods, Leibniz had become
convinced that the source of all science is,--first, analysis; second,
symbolic representation of the fundamental concepts, the symbolism
avoiding the ambiguities and vagueness of language; and thirdly,
the synthesis and interpretation of the symbols. It seemed to Leibniz
that it ought to be possible to find the simplest notions in all the
sciences, to discover general rules for calculating all their varieties
of combination, and thus to attain the same certainty and generality
of result that characterize mathematics. Leibniz never gave up this
thought. Indeed, in spirit his philosophy is but its application,
with the omission of symbols, on the side of the general notions
fundamental to all science. It was also the idea of his age,--the
idea that inspired Spinoza and the _Aufklärung_, the idea that
inspired philosophical thinking until Kant gave it its death-blow by
demonstrating the distinction between the methods of philosophy and of
mathematical and physical science.
In 1666 Leibniz should have received his double doctorate of philosophy
and of law; but petty jealousies and personal fears prevented his
presenting himself for the examination. Disgusted with his treatment,
feeling that the ties that bound him to Leipzig were severed by the
recent death of his mother, anxious to study mathematics further,
and, as he confesses, desiring, with the natural eagerness of youth,
to see more of the world, he left Leipzig forever, and entered upon
his _Wanderjahre_. He was prepared to be no mean citizen of the
world. In his education he had gone from the historians to the poets,
from the poets to the philosophers and the Scholastics, from them
to the theologians and Church Fathers; then to the jurists, to the
mathematicians, and then again to philosophy and to law.
He first directed his steps to the University of Altdorf; here he
obtained his doctorate in law, and was offered a professorship,
which he declined,--apparently because he felt that his time was
not yet come, and that when it should come, it would not be in
the narrow limits of a country village. From Altdorf he went to
Nürnberg; here all that need concern us is the fact that he joined a
society of alchemists (_fraternitas roseæcrucis_), and was made their
secretary. Hereby he gained three things,--a knowledge of chemistry; an
acquaintance with a number of scientific men of different countries,
with whom, as secretary, he carried on correspondence; and the
friendship of Boineburg, a diplomat of the court of the Elector and
Archbishop of Mainz. This friendship was the means of his removing
to Frankfurt. Here, under the direction of the Elector, he engaged
in remodelling Roman law so as to adapt it for German use, in writing
diplomatic tracts, letters, and essays upon theological matters, and
in editing an edition of Nizolius,--a now forgotten philosophical
writer. One of the most noteworthy facts in connection with this
edition is that Leibniz pointed out the fitness of the German language
for philosophical uses, and urged its employment,--a memorable fact
in connection with the later development of German thought. Another
important tract which he wrote was one urging the alliance of
all German States for the purpose of advancing their internal
and common interests. Here, as so often, Leibniz was almost two
centuries in advance of his times. But the chief thing in connection
with the stay of Leibniz at Mainz was the cause for which he left
it. Louis XIV. had broken up the Triple Alliance, and showed signs of
attacking Holland and the German Empire. It was then proposed to him
that it would be of greater glory to himself and of greater advantage
to France that he should move against Turkey and Egypt. The mission of
presenting these ideas to the great king was intrusted to Leibniz, and
in 1672 he went to Paris.
The plan failed completely,--so completely that we need say no
more about it. But the journey to Paris was none the less the
turning-point in the career of Leibniz. It brought him to the
centre of intellectual civilization,--to a centre compared with
which the highest attainments of disrupted and disheartened Germany
were comparative barbarism. Molière was still alive, and Racine was
at the summit of his glory. Leibniz became acquainted with Arnaud,
a disciple of Descartes, who initiated him into the motive and spirit
of his master. Cartesianism as a system, with its scientific basis and
its speculative consequences, thus first became to him an intellectual
reality. And, perhaps most important of all, he met Huygens, who became
his teacher and inspirer both in the higher forms of mathematics
and in their application to the interpretation and expression of
physical phenomena. His diplomatic mission took him also to London,
where the growing world of mathematical science was opened yet wider to
him. The name of Sir Isaac Newton need only be given to show what this
meant. From this time one of the greatest glories of Leibniz's life
dates,--a glory, however, which during his lifetime was embittered by
envy and unappreciation, and obscured by detraction and malice,--the
invention of the infinitesimal calculus. It would be interesting, were
this the place, to trace the history of its discovery,--the gradual
steps which led to it, the physical facts as well as mathematical
theories which made it a necessity; but it must suffice to mention that
these were such that the discovery of some general mode of expressing
and interpreting the newly discovered facts of Nature was absolutely
required for the further advance of science, and that steps towards
the introduction of the fundamental ideas of the calculus had already
been taken,--notably by Keppler, by Cavalieri, and by Wallis. It
would be interesting to follow also the course of the controversy
with Newton,--a controversy which in its method of conduct reflects no
credit upon the names of either. But this can be summed up by saying
that it is now generally admitted that absolute priority belongs to
Newton, but that entire independence and originality characterize
none the less the work of Leibniz, and that the method of approach and
statement of the latter are the more philosophical and general, and,
to use the words of the judicious summary of Merz, "Newton cared more
for the results than the principle, while Leibniz was in search of
fundamental principles, and anxious to arrive at simplifications and
generalizations."
The death of Boineburg removed the especial reasons for the return of
Leibniz to Frankfurt, and in 1676 he accepted the position of librarian
and private councillor at the court of Hanover. It arouses our interest
and our questionings to know that on his journey back he stopped at the
Hague, and there met face to face the other future great philosopher
of the time, Spinoza. But our questionings meet no answer. At Hanover,
the industries of Leibniz were varied. An extract from one of his own
letters, though written at a somewhat later date, will give the best
outline of his activities.
"It is incredible how scattered and divided are my occupations. I
burrow through archives, investigate old writings, and collect
unprinted manuscripts, with a view to throwing light on the
history of Brunswick. I also receive and write a countless number of
letters. I have so much that is new in mathematics, so many thoughts
in philosophy, so many literary observations which I cannot get into
shape, that in the midst of my tasks I do not know where to begin,
and with Ovid am inclined to cry out: 'My riches make me poor.' I
should like to give a description of my calculating-machine; but time
fails. Above all else I desire to complete my Dynamics, as I think
that I have finally discovered the true laws of material Nature, by
whose means problems about bodies which are out of reach of rules now
known may be solved. Friends are urging me to publish my Science of
the Infinite, containing the basis of my new analysis. I have also on
hand a new Characteristic, and many general considerations about the
art of discovery. But all these works, the historical excepted, have
to be done at odd moments. Then at the court all sorts of things are
expected. I have to answer questions on points in international law;
on points concerning the rights of the various princes in the Empire:
so far I have managed to keep out of questions of private law. With all
this I have had to carry on negotiations with the bishops of Neustadt
and of Meaux [Bossuet], and with Pelisson and others upon religious
matters."
It is interesting to note how the philosophic spirit, the instinct
for unity and generality, showed itself even in the least of Leibniz's
tasks. The Duke of Brunswick imposed upon Leibniz the task of drawing
up a genealogical table of his House. Under Leibniz's hands this
expanded into a history of the House, and this in turn was the centre
of an important study of the German Empire. It was impossible that
the philosopher, according to whom every real being reflected the
whole of the universe from its point of view, should have been able to
treat even a slight phase of local history without regarding it in its
relations to the history of the world. Similarly some mining operations
in the Harz Mountains called the attention of Leibniz to geological
matters. The result was a treatise called "Protogäa," in which Leibniz
gave a history of the development of the earth. Not content with seeing
in a Brunswick mountain an epitome of the world's physical formation,
it was his intention to make this an introduction to his political
history as a sort of geographical background and foundation. It is
interesting to note that the historical studies of Leibniz took him on
a three years' journey, from 1687 to 1690, through the various courts
of Europe,--a fact which not only had considerable influence upon
Leibniz himself, but which enabled him to give stimulus to scientific
development in more ways and places than one.
His philosophical career as an author begins for the most part with
his return to Hanover in 1690. This lies outside of the scope of the
present chapter, but here is a convenient place to call attention to
the fact that for Leibniz the multitude of his other duties was so
great that his philosophical work was the work "of odd moments." There
is no systematic exposition; there are a vast number of letters, of
essays, of abstracts and memoranda published in various scientific
journals. His philosophy bears not only in form, but in substance,
traces of its haphazard and desultory origin. Another point of
interest in this connection is the degree to which, in form, at least,
his philosophical writings bear the impress of his cosmopolitan
life. Leibniz had seen too much of the world, too much of courts,
for his thoughts to take the rigid and unbending form of geometrical
exposition suited to the lonely student of the Hague. Nor was the
regular progression and elucidation of ideas adapted to the later
Germans, almost without exception university professors, suited to
the man of affairs. There is everywhere in Leibniz the attempt to
adapt his modes of statement, not only to the terminology, but even
to the ideas, of the one to whom they are addressed. There is the
desire to magnify points of agreement, to minimize disagreements,
characteristic of the courtier and the diplomat. His comprehensiveness
is not only a comprehensiveness of thought, but of ways of exposition,
due very largely, we must think, to his cosmopolitan education. The
result has been to the great detriment of Leibniz's influence as a
systematic thinker, although it may be argued that it has aided his
indirect and suggestive influence, the absorption of his ideas by men
of literature, by Goethe, above all by Lessing, and his stimulating
effect upon science and philosophy. It is certain that the attempt to
systematize his thoughts, as was done by Wolff, had for its result the
disappearance of all that was profound and thought-exciting.
If his philosophy thus reflects the manner of his daily life,
the occupations of the latter were informed by the spirit of
his philosophy. Two of the dearest interests of Leibniz remain
to be mentioned,--one, the founding of academies; the other, the
reconciling of religious organizations. The former testifies to his
desire for comprehensiveness, unity, and organization of knowledge;
the latter to his desire for practical unity, his dislike of all
that is opposed and isolated. His efforts in the religions direction
were twofold. The first was to end the theological and political
controversies of the time by the reunion of the Protestant and Roman
Catholic Churches. It was a plan which did the greatest honor to the
pacific spirit of Leibniz, but it was predestined to failure. Both
sides made concessions,--more concessions than we of to-day should
believe possible. But the one thing the Roman Catholic Church would not
concede was the one thing which the Protestant Church demanded,--the
notion of authority and hierarchy. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
the terms on which Leibniz conceived of their reunion do not point to
the greatest weakness in his philosophy,--the tendency to overlook
oppositions and to resolve all contradiction into differences of
degree. Hardly had this plan fallen through when Leibniz turned to
the project of a union of the Lutheran and Reformed branches of the
Protestant Church. This scheme was more hopeful, and while unrealized
during the life of our philosopher, was afterwards accomplished.
It is noteworthy that even before Leibniz went to Paris and to
London he had conceived the idea of a society of learned men for the
investigation, the systematization, and the publication of scientific
truth in all its varied forms,--a society which should in breadth
include the whole sphere of sciences, but should not treat them as so
many isolated disciplines, but as members of one system. This idea
was quickened when Leibniz saw the degree in which it had already
been realized in the two great world-capitals. He never ceased to
try to introduce similar academies wherever he had influence. In
1700 his labors bore their fruit in one instance. The Academy at
Berlin was founded, and Leibniz was its first, and indeed life-long,
president. But disappointment met him at Vienna, Dresden, and
St. Petersburg, where he proposed similar societies.
Any sketch of Leibniz's life, however brief, would be imperfect which
did not mention the names at least of two remarkable women,--remarkable
in themselves, and remarkable in their friendship with Leibniz. These
were Sophia, grand-daughter of James I. of England (and thus
the link by which the House of Brunswick finally came to rule over
Great Britain) and wife of the Duke of Brunswick, and her daughter
Sophia Charlotte, wife of the first king of Prussia. The latter,
in particular, gave Leibniz every encouragement. She was personally
deeply interested in all theological and philosophical questions. Upon
her death-bed, in 1705, she is said to have told those about her that
they were not to mourn for her, as she should now be able to satisfy
her desire to learn about things which Leibniz had never sufficiently
explained.
Her death marks the beginning of a period in Leibniz's life which it is
not pleasant to dwell upon. New rulers arose that knew not Leibniz. It
cannot be said that from this time till his death in Hanover in 1716
Leibniz had much joy or satisfaction. His best friends were dead; his
political ambitions were disappointed; he was suspected of coldness
and unfriendliness by the courts both of Berlin and Hanover; Paris and
Vienna were closed to him, so far as any wide influence was concerned,
by his religious faith; the controversy with the friends of Newton
still followed him. He was a man of the most remarkable intellectual
gifts, of an energy which could be satisfied only with wide fields
of action; and he found himself shut in by narrow intrigue to a petty
round of courtly officialism. It is little wonder that the following
words fell from his lips: "Germany is the only country in the world
that does not know how to recognize the fame of its children and to
make that fame immortal. It forgets itself; it forgets its own, unless
foreigners make it mindful of its own treasures." A Scotch friend of
Leibniz, who happened to be in Hanover when he died, wrote that Leibniz
"was buried more like a robber than what he really was,--the ornament
of his country." Such was the mortal end of the greatest intellectual
genius since Aristotle. But genius is not a matter to be bounded in
life or in death by provincial courts. Leibniz remains a foremost
citizen in that "Kingdom of Spirits" in whose formation he found the
meaning of the world.