L. P. Lagrange, Les Principes de la Philosophie contre les Nouveaux Philosophes.—See Bouillier’s Histoire de la Philosophie Cartesienne, Vol. I, Chap. 26.
We give here in a note the résumé of Leibniz’s life and the names of his principal works. Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm) was born at Leipzig in 1646. He lost his father at the age of six years. From his very infancy he gave evidence of remarkable ability. At fifteen years of age he was admitted to the higher branches of study (philosophy and mathematics) which he pursued first at Leipzig and then at Jena. An intrigue not very well understood prevented his obtaining his doctor’s degree at Leipzig and he obtained it from the small university of Altdorf near Nuremberg, where he made the acquaintance of Baron von Boineburg, who became one of his most intimate friends and who took him to Frankfort. Here he was named as a councillor of the supreme court in the electorate of Mainz, and wrote his first two works on jurisprudence, The Study of Law and The Reform of the Corpus Juris. At Frankfort also were written his first literary and philosophical works and notably his two treatises on motion: Abstract Motion, addressed to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Concrete Motion, addressed to the Royal Society at London. He remained with the Elector till the year 1672, when he began his journeys. He first went to Paris and then to London, where he was made a member of the Royal Society. Returning to Paris he remained till 1677, when he made a trip through Holland, and finally took up his residence at Hanover, where he was appointed director of the library. At Hanover he lived for ten years, leading a very busy life. He contributed to the founding of the Acta Eruditorum, a sort of journal of learning. From 1687 to 1691, at the request of his patron, Duke Ernst-Augustus, he was engaged in searching various archives in Germany and Italy for the writing of the history of the houses of Brunswick. To him the Academy of Berlin, of which he was the first president, owes its foundation. The last fifteen years of his life were given up principally to philosophy. In this period must be placed the New Essays, the Theodicy, the Monadology, and also his correspondence with Clarke, which was interrupted by his death—November 14, 1716. For fuller details, see Guhrauer’s learned and complete biography, 2 vols., Breslau, 1846. During the life-time of Leibniz, aside from the articles in journals, only some five of his writings were published, including his doctor’s thesis, De Principio Individui (1663), and the Théodicée (1710). After his death (1716) all his papers were deposited in the library at Hanover, where they are to-day, a great part of them (15,000 letters) still unpublished. In 1717–1719 appeared the Correspondence with Locke; in 1720 a German translation of the Monadology; in 1765 his Oeuvres Philosophiques, etc., including the New Essays on the Human Understanding; in 1768 Duten’s edition of his works in six volumes; in 1840 appeared Erdmann’s edition of his works, including among other unpublished writings the original French of the Monadology. The Correspondence with Arnauld and the Treatise on Metaphysics were first published by Grotefend in 1840. Gerhardt published Leibniz’s mathematical works 1843 to 1863, and the Philosophical Works (seven volumes), 1875–1890. In 1900 Paul Janet, who had already published the Philosophical Works (1866) in two volumes, brought out a second edition, revised and enlarged. The first English translation of Leibniz’s works was made by Professor G. M. Duncan, who included in one volume all of the better known shorter works (1890). This was followed in 1896 with a translation of the New Essays by A. G. Langley. Latta’s translation of some of the shorter works, including the Monadology, has earned a well-merited reputation, and Russell’s work on Leibniz’s philosophy contains much that is suggestive to a translator.
Letter to Schulemburg (Dutens, T. III, p. 332): “The Cartesians rightly felt that all particular phenomena of bodies are produced mechanically, but they failed to see that the sources of mechanicalism in turn arise in some other cause.” Letter to Rémond de Montmort (Erdmann, Opera Philosophica, p. 702): “When I seek for the ultimate reasons of mechanicalism and the laws of motion I am surprised to discover that they are not to be found in mathematics and that we must turn to metaphysics.”—See also: De Natura Ipsa, 3; De Origine Radicali; Animadversiones in Cartesium, Guhrauer, p. 80), etc.
Letter, Whether the essence of bodies consists in extension, 1691 (Erdmann, Vol. 27, p. 112).
“Extension is an attribute which cannot constitute a complete being from it can be obtained neither action nor change; it expresses merely a present condition but in no case the past or future, as the conception of a substance should.”—Letter to Arnauld.
Confessio Naturae Contra Artheista, 1668, Erdm., p. 45. Leibniz in this little treatise proves: 1st, that bodies and indeed atoms have not in themselves the reason for their forms; 2d, that they have not the reason for their motion; 3d, that they have not the reason for their coherence.
Extract from a letter (Erdmann, Vol. 28, p. 115): Examination of the principles of Malebranche (Erdmann, p. 692).
“If the parts which act together for a common purpose, more properly compose a substance than do those which are in contact, then all the officials of the India Company would much better constitute a real substance than would a pile of stones. What else, however, is a common purpose rather than a resemblance or indeed an orderliness which our minds notice in different things? If on the other hand the unity by contact be made the basis, other difficulties arise. The parts of solid bodies are united perhaps only by the pressure of surrounding bodies, while in themselves and in their substance there is no more union than in a heap of sand, arena sine calce. Why do many rings when interlaced to form a chain compose a veritable substance rather than when there are openings so that they can be taken apart? . . . They are all fictions of the mind.” (Letter to Arnauld).
This term is employed here for the sake of clearness. Leibniz did not possess the concept “mass,” which was enunciated by Newton in the same year in which the present treatise was written, 1686. Leibniz uses the terms “body,” “magnitude of body,” etc. The technical expression “mass” occurs once only in the writings of Leibniz (in a treatise published in 1695), and was there doubtless borrowed from Newton. For the history of the controversy concerning the Cartesian and Leibnizian measure of force, see Mach’s Science of Mechanics, Chicago, 1893, pp. 272 et seq.—Trans.
There is a gap here in the MS., intended for the passage from Plato, the translation of which Leibniz did not supply.—Trans.
“All things conspire” is what Leibniz means. See note in Latta’s edition.—A. R. C.