1. We have seen that the characteristic was inseparable in Leibniz's mind from the encyclopedia. The former presupposed the latter, or at least had to be established at the same time and developed in parallel with it. Conversely, once established, the characteristic would be the instrument of the encyclopedia and the key to all the sciences.1 This encyclopedia was to be a compendium of all human knowledge, both historical and scientific, arranged in a logical order according to a demonstrative method, beginning with definitions of all the simple and primitive terms (which form the alphabet of human thoughts). This project occupied Leibniz throughout his life and was to be his great philosophical and scientific work. Thus the history of this enterprise—its origins, transformations, and final failure—are mixed with the history of the thought and mind of the philosopher.
Without a doubt, no one was better prepared than Leibniz to conceive and undertake such a work. While still a child, he had gathered from his reading, done at random and with an insatiable curiosity, an extremely broad and varied erudition, of which he gave proof, not without some ostentation, in the essays of his youth,2 and of which the works of his maturity are but the fulfillment. Trained at first in the history and literature of the ancients, he later immersed himself in reading scholastic authors with an ardor that put his teachers in fear of his going any further.3 He next studied law and theology and made a brilliant debut as a lawyer, which was to remain his official position for life.4 Soon he applied his philosophical and critical mind to the science of law. His first essays as a jurist are marked by the preoccupations of the logician.5 In them, he deals with difficulties of a logical order and strives to resolve them by rigorous demonstrations. The spirit of these works can be characterized by the thought that Leibniz expressed some years later, namely that jurisprudence is nothing but logic applied to moral questions; likewise, just as there is a theological logic, a medical logic, and a mathematical logic (that is, algebra), there is also a juridical logic, so that jurisprudence is a true dialectic of the law.6
2. From legal casuistry and the interpretation of positive laws, Leibniz advanced little by little to the philosophy of law. He discovered first a "new method for learning and teaching jurisprudence," in which he was naturally led back to the logical principles of the didactic art and to note the imperfections of contemporary legal studies.7 He then conceived a project for reformulating civil law on the one hand and Roman law on the other, according to a systematic plan;8 he also began to collaborate with Lasser, tribunal councilor to the Elector of Mainz, on some "elements of Roman law."9 From there he was led to investigate the principles of natural law, in order to found on them the set of positive laws, and he articulated these already in his New Method, as he would 26 years later in the preface to Diplomatic Code of the Law of Nations.10 Around this time he planned to compose a work on the elements of natural law, about which he wrote to Arnauld and the Duke of Hanover,11 and which his trip to Paris must have forced him to abandon. He returned later to this plan (although without much success12) and until the last year of his life he dreamed of emending the civil code according to the principles of natural law.13 From all these plans, we are left with numerous essays and drafts, most notably a fragment entitled Definition of Universal Justice.14 It contains the seed of several original theories, both in logic and in morality, that are connected with the idea of the encyclopedia and which will be met again in the philosopher's later writings.
3. At the same time, Leibniz was preoccupied with introducing mathematical rigor into practical questions of morality and politics by means of formal reasoning. It is in this spirit that he composed A Specimen of Political Demonstrations for Choosing the King of Poland in 166915 and A Specimen of a Political Demonstration in 1671,16 intended to recommend to Louis XIV the conquest of Egypt as a means of diverting his armies away from Holland.17 The same preoccupation with logical rigor, this time applied to the justification of theological dogmas, is manifest in Confession of Nature Against the Atheists (1668) and Defense of the Trinity Through a Newly Discovered Logic (1669).
In sum, Leibniz's first essays show, on one hand, that he was interested in all types of knowledge with a truly universal curiosity, and on the other, that he endeavored in all these fields, even the moral and practical, to give priority to the logical clarity and demonstrative force already convincingly observed in mathematics, although he was only very imperfectly acquainted with it and had not yet been charmed, as he says, by the sirens.18
4. It is in this period that the idea of an encyclopedia first surfaces. It appears in connection with the plan for "repairing the body of the law," which was to culminate in a true encyclopedia of the law.19 Leibniz had conceived the project of a bibliographic review, which would give an account of all new books and would serve to summarize and classify scientific works of every sort.20 This project was for him, however, only the indispensable preparation for the encyclopedia.21 Already he complained of the accumulation of bad or useless books, the mass of which smothered good books; already he feared that the confusion of studies produced disgust and a return to barbarism.22 The Semiannual Literary Review would not only give a concise analysis (without criticism) of worthwhile new books (the others would be passed over in silence), but it would also print unpublished works, both ancient and contemporary; it would give an account of inventions and discoveries; and finally, it would describe and explain arts and crafts and provide all the scientific and historical information not found in books. Periodically, there would be a complete catalogue of its contents, which would serve as a bibliographic index. In the end, the materials methodically compiled and classified in this way would form a complete encyclopedia.23
This encyclopedia was initially conceived as a simple summary of acquired knowledge, as a portable library24 or Photian work—that is, an extract or essence of books, after the example of the work that Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, had ordered for the books gathered in the Basilica of St. Sophia, later destroyed by the Turks.25 However, it would be composed in a more logical order, according to the didactic method that Leibniz had invented and applied to the study of the law in his New Method (1667).26 This method would constitute, according to a metaphor dear to Leibniz, the thread of Ariadne in the labyrinth of literature.27 The encyclopedia would thus comprise not only the "public treasury of learning,"28 but a logical and didactic system of knowledge.
From here the original plan was developed and expanded. Leibniz conceived the plan of founding a society of learned men to carry out the work, which would surpass the efforts of a single man.29 The final product would include, first, a compact library, which would be the summary of the knowledge contained in the books; second, a universal atlas, which would assemble all the figures, tables and diagrams needed for illustrating and completing the encyclopedia;30 third, a corpus of literary treasures, that is, a collection of rare or unpublished documents; fourth, a treasury of experiences, or a compendium of observations and experiments of all sorts (physical, medical, and industrial); and fifth and finally, the true method of invention and judgment, which would include analysis and the combinatory-that is, logic as Leibniz conceived it, which would serve to organize all the enumerated material according to the logical succession of truths and to complete them by deducing all their necessary consequences.31
5. The oldest extant plan for the encyclopedia undoubtedly dates from this period: An Encyclopedia Drawn From Successive Authors and Their Particular Views.32 As the title indicates, and even more the list of authors whose names appear in the different headings, this would be a compilation rather than an original and systematic work, and this is why we believe it can be related to the project of the Semiannual Literary Review. The plan gives a prominent place to theology, law, history, and the moral and political sciences; by contrast, mathematics and medicine occupy only a subordinate position, which shows that this document dates from the period in which Leibniz, doctor utriusque juris, had not yet studied the sciences.
To this plan we can join a project for correcting and completing the encyclopedia of Alsted, which appears to date from around 1671.33 This too would be a compilation of works by different authors, but Leibniz reserved the right to modify their doctrines and perhaps reconcile them. The physics was borrowed primarily from Hobbes, supplemented by Galileo, Huygens, and even Aristotle and Digby. The geometry was taken entirely from Euclid. The logic was that of Jungius, with additions from Clauberg, the Port-Royal Logic and On the Art of Combinations. The philosophy of soul was extracted from Descartes, Digby, and Thomas Barton.34 The most personal part was the jurisprudence, politics, and theology, and this confirms our conjecture concerning the date of this plan, which appears to be contemporary with the New Physical Hypothesis (1671), as well as the projected Elements of Natural Law and Elements of Mind,35 and which certainly predates the journey to Paris in March 1672. In any case, Leibniz appears to have begun the work and to have undertaken to extract lists of definitions from Alsted's encyclopedia36 and Zwinger's Theatrum vitæ humanæ.37
6. Leibniz's journey to and sojourn in Paris (March 1672-October 1676) naturally interrupted his projects, or at least delayed their practical realization. However, he did not renounce them, as we see in a piece dated May 1676 and entitled Physical method. Characteristic. Improvements. Society or Order.38 This small memorandum, clearly intended for an illustrious figure to whom Leibniz promises glory in the final phrase, marks a new stage in his great project: the characteristic is presented as the true method of reasoning or the universal logic. Moreover, evident in it an entirely new regard for the physical sciences and the experimental method (to which the characteristic is also applicable, as we shall see in the next chapter39). The memorandum concludes with the foundation of a learned society that would have for its aim not only the recording of acquired knowledge but research and discovery and the promotion of all the sciences, both theoretical and experimental.40
This project is developed and refined in another, more extended memorandum,41 which Leibniz must have drafted shortly after his return to Germany, at the instigation of certain great personages, whom he says have sustained him.42 He proposes founding the Imperial German Society, which would have as its aim the advancement of the natural sciences.43 The result of its efforts would be the encyclopedia, whose rules and composition Leibniz describes: every proposition must be either postulated or proved. The postulates will be definitions, axioms, and hypotheses. Propositions will be proved by demonstration or by experiment; in the absence of certainty, the most probable conclusions will be sought, for probability itself is susceptible to demonstration.44
7. This
project, to be carried out under the auspices of the emperor, undoubtedly met
with no more favor at the Viennese court than had the Semiannual Literary
Review. In any case, Leibniz
subsequently appears to have set aside invocations to the great and instead
made a direct appeal to the good will of learned men. This new attitude is revealed in several French fragments45 and in a Latin memorandum in which he develops the
plan for the future encyclopedia.46 The first science is the rational
grammar, which, we know, is the indispensable prelude to logic.47 The second is logic, of which Aristotelian
syllogistic is only the most basic part.
The third is mnemonics.48 The
fourth is topics, or the art of invention. The fifth is the
To the theoretical encyclopedia there would have to be added a practical one, containing those scientific applications most useful for human life and happiness.51 We note that the project acquires an increasingly rationalist character. Theology and law, which initially occupied the position of honor, have disappeared from it, and the mathematical and physical sciences enter the first rank after logic, to which they are related. We can measure the progress of Leibniz's thought by comparing this plan to the one sketched at the end of The Analysis of Languages of 11 September 1678.52 There, too, grammar serves as an introduction to logic, but immediately after logic comes metaphysics as the most general science, then morals, the science of human actions and passions, and only then mathematics, physics, and finally history and custom.53
8. These unpublished fragments furnish chronological facts that allow us to date very roughly the two plans for an encyclopedia published by Gerhardt. He wrongly regarded them as contemporary, for they display a great difference in their order of subjects. The oldest, and also the shortest, initially bore the title Dialogues on the Secrets of Things; later, Leibniz crossed out Dialogues and wrote above it Guilielmus Pacidius's.54 Now, it was in 1676, after he had read Plato and summarized the Phaedo and Theatetus,55 that Leibniz too began to compose dialogues, such as Pacidius Philalethi.56 He seems, therefore, to have rejected the idea of composing this work in the form of a dialogue, and this in the period in which he used the pseudonym Pacidius, under which he planned to publish the Plus Ultra. In this plan we find, inserted between algebra and geometry, the whole of metaphysics, with the issues of the existence of God (no. 4) and the immortality of the soul (no. 5), and the two famous labyrinths (that of freedom and that of infinity and the continuum) (nos. 6 and 7).57 Already there is mention of the rational language, associated with the characteristic and the combinatorial art, and a new analysis that is undoubtedly the infinitesimal calculus58 (nos. 2 and 3). But the positive sciences still occupy a minor place in it,59 compared with the moral, political, and religious sciences.60 On the other hand, there is a chapter devoted to alchemy,61 and in the last two chapters there are traces of a utopian, mystic imagination,62 whose absence is notable in the plan of Plus Ultra. All these comparisons indicate that the plan for On the Secrets of Things dates from 1678 at the latest.
9. The second plan is not only more developed and more precise; it marks an obvious progress in the classification of the sciences.63 After some introductory chapters to which we shall return, we find first rational grammar, then logic, with the logical calculus and the dual methods of synthesis (combinatory) and analysis; then follow universal mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, the physical sciences (optics, kinematics, dynamics and mechanics, astronomy, geophysics, and meteorology), the natural sciences (mineralogy, botany, and zoology), medicine, psychology, politics, and economics; and finally, jurisprudence and theology, which now come last. We note the absence of morals, properly speaking. The work would end with a proof of the truth of Christianity, a plan for the reconciliation of the churches,64 and a plan for a society of the friends of God, which figured already inOn the Secrets of Things (no. 24).65 In its arrangement of subjects, this plan closely resembles that of June 1679, and it must be contemporary with it or slightly later.
An examination of its form confirms the conclusion drawn from the study of its contents. First, the author's pseudonym, Guilielmus Pacidius, is the same as the one Leibniz added as an afterthought to the title of On the Secrets of Things. This pseudonym has a transparent meaning that reveals the intentions of the author: he is presented as the conciliator or “pacifier” of minds; he aims to end disputes and controversies, abolish philosophical sects, and unite all learned men in a common labor. If he adopts a pseudonym, it is precisely in order to protect the pride of his future collaborators, to give his enterprise an impersonal character, and to extol more freely its advantages and benefits.66 This does not prevent him, however, from providing on this occasion valuable autobiographical details of the studies and projects of his youth.67 Next we notice the title Plus Ultra, borrowed from Glanvill,68 and the subtitle Foundations and Specimens of the General Science, or on the Renewal and Advancement of Learning (recalling Bacon69) and on the Perfection of the Mind and the Discovery of Things for the Public Happiness.70 There appears in it a new idea: that of the general science, which, at first confounded with that of the encyclopedia,71 is refined and specialized so as to designate the general method of the sciences, the arts of invention and demonstration, and in short the true logic, which must serve as the form of the encyclopedia.72 A fragment of a preface, intended precisely to define this method, carries another title: Guilielmus Pacidius Lubentianus's Aurora,73 or Foundations of the General Science Drawn from the Divine Light for the Sake of Human Happiness. This poetically styled piece, throughout which Leibniz employs the metaphor of light or fire to describe his method, appears to be prior to Plus Ultra,74 but the two are related. Finally, other fragments carry neither the title Plus Ultra nor the title Aurora, but only the simple and prosaic subtitle, which seems to indicate that they are later than the other two.75
10. Let us now return to the plan of Plus Ultra, in order to try to classify the various fragments related to it. The first chapter would give the reasons that the author has undertaken the work, and why he has concealed his name. We are already acquainted with the latter;76 and as to the former, we find them indicated at the beginning of a long preface evidently destined for Plus Ultra.77 Leibniz perceives more and more that his great project would surpass the powers of a single man, and he communicates it to the public, on one hand, in order to find helpful collaborators, and on the other, in order to prevent the idea of the general science from being lost if he should perish before the completion of the work.78 In the same chapter, he seems to boast of his familiarity with princes and of their approbation;79 he clearly alludes to his position at the court of the duke of Hanover,80 and he counts on his patronage and protection.
The second chapter, entitled "The History of Letters," is contained in the long preface already cited,81 in which Leibniz reviews the entire history of letters, the sciences, and philosophy. The third chapter, entitled "On the Present State of Learning, or of the Republic of Letters,"82 would depict the actual state of our knowledge, after the historical picture of its origin and progress.83 This picture is sketched in the fragment that begins with the words "On the Republic of Letters," dated May 1681.84 The following chapters would deal with the evils humanity suffers through its own fault, with discoveries useful for human life and the means of assuring human happiness.85 We can gather their contents from various drafts. First, the philanthropic intention of the work, already marked in all the titles we have quoted,86 is strongly and eloquently affirmed in a plan for a preface,87 in which Leibniz declares that he intends to work for the happiness of humanity, and that nothing can contribute more to the public good than the composition of the encyclopedia.88 It is not easy to see at first what relation there is between this completely utilitarian moral end and Leibniz's wholly speculative and scientific project. Yet the fact is that, for him, the ultimate end of mankind is knowledge of the universe, such that politics has no other aim, after virtue, than the progress of the sciences.89 This progress is, moreover, the condition of happiness for humans, not only because the sciences increase material well-being, allow the satisfaction of needs, and remedy the evils of physical life,90 but because science is the principle of all civilization and virtue. Knowledge of the universe leads to knowledge of God, and consequently to the love of God, who is the provider and source of all the virtues.91 It causes us, therefore, to recognize our duties and at the same time disposes us to fulfill them. Even better, it reveals to us the identity of justice and prudence, and of the honest and the useful—in short, of self-interest and the general interest,92 which is clearly the best and the surest means of making us love and practice virtue willingly.93
In sum, justice is the charity of the wise,94 wisdom is the science of happiness,95 and it presupposes genuine eruditioni—that is, knowledge of all the sciences. Thus, nothing can better serve to render men virtuous and happy than the encyclopedia and the general science that is its method and key.96
Elsewhere, these utilitarian and humanitarian motives seem to give way to religious ones, but it is easy to show that these two levels of motive concur and at bottom even coincide. The encyclopedia appears to have for its aim and crowning moment the demonstration of the truth of religion.97 The "true use of meditation" is the study of questions relating to God, the soul, and true happiness.98 We cannot be assured of finding happiness in virtue, however, unless we acquire certainty of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, and this is precisely what natural theology provides by demonstrating the truth of religion. Now, this demonstration can only come after study of all the sciences, including mathematics and physics,99 so it presupposes the entire encyclopedia. The latter appears to have for its aim, over and above the happiness of mankind, the glory of God,100 but we soon discover that these two ends are in reality the same.101 The best way of knowing and honoring God is to study the universe and to ameliorate the condition of mankind. The most beautiful hymn that can be sung to God is the discovery of a law of nature or an invention useful to humanity.102
Thus, the apparently conflicting tendencies of Leibniz's mind—his nearly mystical religiosity and his positive and businesslike philanthropy—are reconciled, just like the utilitarianism and intellectualism of his ethics. In fact, his religion is at bottom essentially rationalistic, naturalistic, and almost pagan, as is his ethics itself.103
11. As the plan for the encyclopedia was extended and completed, Leibniz came to realize better the immensity of the work and the need for collaborators. In order to attract the latter and to give them an example, he restricted himself to presenting his logic (the general science) and to publishing, by way of examples, some isolated chapters of the encyclopedia. The title Foundations and Specimens of the General Science, which comes to take the place of the more ambitious Plus Ultra, corresponds to this more limited project. The work thus conceived would contain two parts: first, Foundations of the General Science, that is, the principles of the general method that serves to elaborate the encyclopedia, and second, Specimens of the General Science, that is, the abbreviated encyclopedia of no more than two or three sciences, designed to show the application of the method and thereby to prove its usefulness and fruitfulness.104 Several drafts of this new plan have survived. The first part (Foundations) is almost the same in all of them. It would include, first, the "elements of eternal truth," that is, the foundations of logic reduced to a type of algebra rivaling the rigor of mathematics.105 Next would come the art of invention, which was the logic of research and discovery, just as the elements of eternal truth would be the logic of judgment and demonstration.106 Thereafter, Leibniz proposed his project for an encyclopedia and invited the learned to collaborate with him by using the general science just revealed.107
There is more variation among the different plans in the choice of the examples. In the briefest, which is probably also the oldest, these include mathesis generalis, mechanics, physics, as well as a provisional medicine; elements of moral and political science; then metaphysics and rational theology; and finally a literary history, which was to serve as a basis for the demonstration of revealed theology.108 This still overly ambitious plan was limited in subsequent versions. In one, four examples are given: general mathematics,109 geometry,110 mechanics, and a “physical essay.”111 Another, more detailed plan contains no more than three test cases: geometry and mechanics, whose contents seem to be the same as in the preceding plan, and the elements of universal jurisprudence, in which Leibniz intended to explicate the nature of justice, define the pure law, and give a method for resolving questions of law with geometrical certainty.112 Finally, there is an unpublished fragment closely connected with the preceding plan, for it mentions as examples geometry (including the transcendental geometry invented by Leibniz), mechanics (founded on geometry), and "civil logic" or "the logic of life," that is, the logic of probabilities, applicable to all practical questions (particularly to questions of law).113 This last science would later be incorporated into the general science itself and would no longer belong to its applications.114
12. In the period at which we have now arrived, Leibniz appears to have renounced founding a new society of collaborators for his encyclopedia. Instead, he undertook (undoubtedly believing it was the easier route) to convert to his design one of the learned societies that had recently been established for the purpose of organizing and centralizing the labors of researchers.115 He made appeals to the Royal Society of London and to the Académie des Sciences in Paris that they adopt his great project and make it their own.116 He addressed himself first to the Royal Society, to which he had been elected a member on 9 April 1673.117 We have already seen him recommend his characteristic to his compatriot Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, in a letter that is actually a memorandum intended for the Society.118 It ended with a precise and highly significant declaration, constituting a barely disguised invitation, namely that ten learned and willing men would be enough to make great progress in the sciences in a short time.119
Oldenburg died in 1677, and Leibniz lost his main support in the Royal Society. He turned then toward the Académie des Sciences, whose principal members he had known since his stay in Paris, and to which he would have been admitted in this period had he not been a Lutheran.120 He had remained in correspondence with Huygens and with the Abbé Galloys.121 To the latter he submitted his plan for the characteristic, hinting that he needed collaborators: "But if I had capable persons to work with me, I believe I have said nothing that we would not execute, and maybe even something more, for there is usually a connection among discoveries."122 This "something more" of which Leibniz did not want to speak, undoubtedly for fear of frightening Galloys, is obviously the encyclopedia, which is inseparable from the characteristic. Indeed, Leibniz asked Galloys to make excerpts of definititions for him from the Dictionnaire de l'Académie.123 We know that the initial preparatory work for the encyclopedia was the formulation of good definitions, and we shall see that Leibniz occupied himself with collecting them from a wide range of earlier works (§23).
13. Leibniz does not appear to have succeeded in interesting Galloys, a superficial and frivolous man, in his great project, nor consequently the Académie des Sciences. Thus, he soon turned back to the Royal Society, where he presumably had more influence as a member. Robert Hooke had succeeded Oldenburg as secretary, and Leibniz tried to engage his interest through the agency of his compatriot Theodore Haak, who lived in London.124 He recommended himself by way of the memory and example of Wilkins, and presented his characteristic as the development and perfection of the idea of a universal language, suggesting that its application to all the sciences could not be the work of a single man.125
To these overtures, Hooke responded through the same intermediary, approving in principle Leibniz's project and recognizing that Wilkins's work could, and must, be simplified and perfected. He went so far as to declare that the method used in algebra was equally valuable for the other sciences.126 Leibniz responded by expressing some far more precise and profound ideas he had had for some time,127 namely that algebra was not the true art of invention and that it was not even the general method of mathematics; that he had formulated an entirely new and truly universal analysis, which he had applied to algebra and which could be applied even to objects not dependent on the imagination (that is, to abstract ideas such as those of metaphysics, morals, and law). He ended by addressing an explicit appeal to the Royal Society, while expressing fear that the political state in England was hardly favorable to such undertakings.128
We do not know how Hooke responded to this formal invitation, but it is probable that he did not comprehend the magnitude and the scope of the method conceived by Leibniz. The praises that Leibniz bestowed in advance on his invention continued to appear to Hooke mere bragging and boasting and instead inspired mistrust and aversion toward the project. This is all the more excusable as Huygens, to whom Leibniz had at least communicated a sample of his geometrical characteristic, had formed no more favorable an opinion of it than Hooke.129 In any case, the Royal Society of London failed to carry out the project proposed by Leibniz.
14. Rebuffed by the learned societies, Leibniz resolved to appeal once more to the great, to princes and kings; he hoped that it would be easier to convince a single man than an entire society.130 He naturally thought of Louis XIV, who was then at the height of his glory and power and who had assumed the role of protector of the arts and sciences, not only in France but in Europe as a whole. He told himself that the king could impose on the Académie des Sciences the great project that Galloys had undoubtedly failed to bring before him. It was with this intention that Leibniz composed his Discourse Concerning the Method of Certainty and the Art of Invention and the essay Erdmann entitled Precepts for Advancing the Sciences.131 These two memoranda, drafted in French in an elegant and careful style, were clearly designed to be presented to the great king to commend to him the project of the encyclopedia and to persuade him to have it executed by a learned society. Leibniz recalled the illustrious examples (chosen to evoke in Louis XIV a sense of honor and rivalry) of Alexander the Great, the "Emperors of Constantinople—Justinian, Basil of Macedonia, Leon the Philosopher, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus," and finally "Almansor or Miramolin, great prince of the Arabs," all of whom had ordered collected the knowledge of their day. He began by imagining the existence, in an indeterminate future, of "a great prince, unconstrained and curious, or a lover of glory, or even enlightened himself (and one can be enlightened without having attended school132)," who "will have the essence of the best books extracted and will have joined to it the best observations..., which would represent the greatest and most lasting tribute to his glory and an incomparable duty that would be owed to him by the entire human race."133
After this suggestive preface, Leibniz revealed his intentions by means of a rhetorical device: "But what need have I of fiction? Why look back to some distant past for what would be incomparably easier in our time?... What century would be better suited for it than our own, which we will perhaps one day designate as the century of inventions and marvels. The greatest marvel that we will be able to observe may be this great prince in whom our century glories, and whom those coming after him will wish for in vain." This pompous praise suffices to designate, as Leibniz himself said, the sovereign to whom the memorandum is indirectly addressed.134
Erdmann was mistaken on this point and saw in this great prince the king of Prussia!135 This error would be of no great importance if it did not force us as a consequence to push forward the date of this piece and the connected pieces until after 1701, which disrupts the chronology of Leibniz's writings and renders their succession unintelligible.136 Erdmann's conjecture, however, does not stand up to a reading of certain noteworthy passages from the two memoranda in question, which make reference to the peace of Nijmegen (1678): "All that we must hope is ... that the heavens continue to favor him, that without external problems he can make Europe enjoy this happy peace by which he has crowned his marvelous exploits." Likewise, in Discourse Concerning the Method of Certainty, Leibniz says: "Finally, I count as one of the greatest advantages of our century that there is a monarch who, by a rare and amazing combination of merit and fortune, after having triumphed on all fronts and reestablished peace and prosperity in his kingdom, is placed in a state not only to fear nothing, but also to be able to carry out at home everything he desires for the happiness of his people." He adds that "this great monarch, who will be recognized easily from what I have just said about him" is the arbiter of his fate and of that of his neighbors,"137 which could never be said of the king of Prussia during Leibniz's lifetime, even with the obligatory hyperbole of these courtly compliments.138 Later, there is an allusion that can only refer to France: "What Alexander had done by Aristotle cannot compare, and already the Mémoires of the Académie and the accomplishments of the Observatory infinitely surpass it.”139 Finally, a last passage is addressed specifically to a personage of the court who would present Leibniz's memorandum to the king: "It remains, therefore, only to inform this great prince of all he can do; this detail falls to those illustrious figures who approach him the nearest, but as they are all burdened with great affairs, it must be the duty of others to furnish them with memoranda, and if this small paper could serve them among others, it would be well enough employed."140
All these considerations suggest that the two French memoranda date from around 1680, or a little later than Leibniz's letters to Galloys.141 It seems that, having failed to find a favorable reception at the Académie des Sciences, he appealed to the king to patronize his project and to impose it on the Académie. This is what is implied in the following passage: "This project, as important as it is for our well-being, demands too much cooperation for us to be able to hope for it very soon without some higher command."142 This means, in short, that to find collaborators, Leibniz no longer counted on the good will and spontaneous understanding of his colleagues, but on a sovereign command that would oblige them to cooperate in the envisioned great work.
15. It is important to analyze these two memoranda in order to understand the state of the project around this time. Leibniz compares "our knowledge to a great shop or store or bank that lacks order and an inventory: for we do not even know ourselves what we already possess, and we cannot make use of it when required."143 He deplores the disorder that reigns in the Republic of Letters and which makes it that "we are paupers in the midst of riches."144 He is terrified of this horrible mass of books, which always keeps growing,145 and he goes so far as to fear that "we are repelled by the sciences, and that out of a fatal despair, men will fall back into barbarism."146 At the same time, he criticizes the absence of order and method in scientific research and the lack of understanding and agreement among the learned, which has the consequence that they squander their time, energy, and work almost at random. To be sure, he pays tribute to the marvelous progress that science has made since the Renaissance,147 but the very abundance of discoveries engenders a confusion within which the mind has difficulty finding its bearings. This confusion is aggravated by rivalry among the learned, who all claim to invent systems and set themselves up as the heads of schools: each devotes himself to refuting his predecessors and demolishing their work in order to raise himself up on their ruins. This ambition only produces fruitless disputes, in which "one contents oneself with specious discourse," and a multitude of books in which a few good ideas and a few new truths are lost in a cumbersome and indigestible jumble. Thus Leibniz scorns above all the spirit of sects and systems, which perpetuates the discord and anarchy of the learned world.148 In sum, the very title of Discourse Concerning the Method of Certainty and the Art of Invention defines perfectly the double end it advances: first, "to end disputes," to suppress the schools and sects, and to bring all the learned together to collaborate in the collective work; second, "to make great progress in a short period of time," by uniting and coordinating the efforts of researchers and by furnishing them with a rigorous and infallible method—that is, the general science. It is the encyclopedia that would, in short, constitute that "perennial philosophy" of which Leibniz dreamed all his life and which would reconcile all thinkers in a common and impersonal doctrine open to indefinite progress.149
16. For this, it would first be necessary to gather all the knowledge already acquired and to make an inventory or balance sheet of our scientific riches, which are "the greatest treasury of the human race."150 Leibniz believed that the time had come to draw up a catalogue of the truths we possess: "Never has a century been better suited for this great work than ours, which seems to harvest the crops sown by all the others."151 This systematic presentation of the sciences would summarize and replace all earlier books, and it would allow us to digest their contents in a methodical and much more rapid manner. Not only would the encyclopedia dispense with the need for reading a multitude of henceforth useless books, but in the future it would even dispense with the need to write them, since each new discovery would soon be assigned its place within the encyclopedia and would come to be enclosed among the already-known truths to which it is logically related. This would mean a great saving of time for readers, for they would no longer have to digest entire works in order to assimilate a few new truths. Moreover, the pride of authors (which Leibniz wanted to satisfy and feed) would still receive its due, for the name of the inventor would forever be attached to the truth he had discovered; one would be immortalized even more surely by a single discovery than by fat books, which fall, sooner or later, into oblivion.152
Finally, this general catalogue would serve as a guide for scientific research, for since truths would be classified in it in the order of their logical dependence, one would see in a glance, as in a synoptic table, which truths are still missing, which are the most pressing to discover next, and how we can arrive at them.153 Instead of searching haphazardly and tentatively, we would make discoveries methodically and with complete assurance, and this would accelerate the progress of science enormously. If we rigorously applied the method that Leibniz recommends, science would advance more in ten years than it has done in several centuries.154
17. What we have just said applies above all to the rational sciences, whose method is deductive. In what concerns them, the plan of the encyclopedia is completely prescribed: propositions will be arranged in the order in which they are deduced from each other, just as in treatises of geometry.155 Thus, Euclid's Elements must serve as a model for the demonstrative encyclopedia,156 just as geometry constitutes for Leibniz the ideal of a rational science.157 Furthermore, all the sciences must be organized in turn according to the deductive model. As we discover truths (for example, laws of nature), they are related to one another by multiple connections. In this way, their logical order is revealed and strengthened, and we gradually reduce them by deduction to a small number of principles or hypotheses.158 Thus it is, according to a profoundly accurate observation endlessly verified by history, that "the sciences are abridged while being enlarged."159 When a science is constituted in its rational form, all its propositions are derived logically from a few principles, with the result that one needs only to know these principles and to possess "the true logic" in order to rediscover these truths in order and to reconstitute deductively the entire science in question.160 These principles can be truths of reason or truths of experience or propositions borrowed from another science. In the last case, the science in question is "subordinate," and this consideration determines the natural order of subordination of the various sciences.161
We thus gradually arrive at a formulation of the "demonstrative elements of all human knowledge."162 Undoubtedly, according to what has just been said, we could dispense with them if need be, for once we know the principles of invention for each science, we can derive all the rest from them by means of the general science or art of invention.163 But the characteristic, to which Leibniz here alludes, had not yet been established, and furthermore, not everyone has the force of mind necessary to follow long chains of deductions.164 Accordingly, this logical calculus is not indispensable; it undoubtedly perfects the natural logic, but the latter can still serve provisionally to develop the encyclopedia.165
18. The "general inventory of all knowledge"166 must include not only the rational and deductive sciences; it will also include all the experimental sciences, until they can be given in their turn a mathematical form and reduced deductively to a few principles. Leibniz did not hesitate to take experience into account in his formulation of the general science, and we know already that he admitted truths of experience as principles of some deductive sciences.167 In the sciences that are still entirely empirical—for example medicine, in which "all turns on observations"—it is all the more important to gather in a methodical and orderly manner as many facts and observations as possible.168 In these sciences it is appropriate to draw up catalogs or "books of practice," that is, collections of facts and experiences, from which would emerge by induction empirical and provisional rules—more-or-less-probable laws, until that time when they could be justified rationally and established by deduction. Leibniz noted that this method is much better suited to doctors than to lawyers, who, according to him, abuse it; in fact, the law is a deductive science founded on a priori principles that are applied to particular cases, whereas medicine is ana posteriori science in which it is necessary to ascend from facts to laws.169 Therefore, "both alphabetical and systematic general indices," would be needed, along with bibliographical catalogs and references to authors.170 The alphabetical indices would be chiefly designed to indicate the author and the text in which a certain truth is found; the systematic indices would contain in addition "the reasons or proofs" for each truth and would thus outline their arrangement and unification in a system.171
19. That is not all: an infinity of beautiful thoughts and useful observations are found in authors, but there are still many more dispersed among men in the practice of each profession,172 and this unwritten knowledge far surpasses in both quantity and importance all that is found in books.173 In order to show fully the value of this common and technical knowledge, Leibniz depicted (before Daniel Defoe) a Robinson Crusoe thrown onto a desert island and asked how much enlightenment we would need to obtain all the things useful for life. He imagined "that an art was lost and that it was necessary to rediscover it, something that all our libraries often could not make good."174 He thus delighted in abasing the scholastic and arrogant science of books and in humbling it before the industry of the simple artisan. It is not the case, as with empiricists, that he subordinated theory to practice and reason to experience; rather, on the contrary, he saw in practice "another theory, one more complicated and more detailed,"175 and in experience an implicit and immanent reason, which serves to control the deductive and discursive reason of the learned.176 This is why Leibniz dreamed of the intimate union of science and industry, of theory and practice, which can and must assist each other.177 Without theory, practice is blind; but without practice, theory is often insufficient, and consequently mistaken, for want of taking into account certain elements (for example, abstract mechanics neglects the resistance of matter).178 If theory enlightens routine practice and allows it to be applied to new cases and to exceptional and unproven circumstances, practice in turn completes theory, or demands that it be completed, poses problems for it, and suggests their solutions.179 Moreover, theory and practice penetrate one another and are mixed in such a way that it is impossible in reality to separate the theorist from the practical man; in every worker, there is an unconscious theorist.180 Thus, to be complete, the encyclopedia must record all the procedures of the arts and crafts, and collect even the techniques of craftsmen, which can be the origin or occasion of discoveries and inventions of great scientific interest.181 In sum, the encyclopedia must be, in the words of Leibniz, "a true theater of human life drawn from the practice of men."182
20. That is still not all: the "general inventory of our public treasury" will only be complete when we have gathered and classified not only laws, experiments, and observations, but also historical facts of every sort, "for these are the facts that have the greatest need of collections, authorities, and inventories."183 Leibniz conceived of history in the most general and most philosophical sense (which is at the same time its etymological meaning) as the search for and preservation of particular facts and events, both of nature and human society.184 Already in his project for recasting Alsted's Encyclopedia, he divided history into the "history of things," including observations of the body, the soul, and man (that is, physiological, psychological, and social facts), and the "history of places and times," including geography and history properly speaking.185 Similarly, he here defines "observations and historical truths" as "the facts of sacred, civil, or natural history." Natural history is obviously the object of the physical and natural sciences.186 Civil history serves as the object of the moral and political sciences. Finally, sacred history provides the arguments of fact that are indispensable for apologetics, which, we know, is not the least important goal of the encyclopedia.187
Furthermore, besides the usefulness of history for "the proof of religion," Leibniz was interested in history for its own sake. Even before becoming a professional historian, he showed a curiosity and respect for historical truths that contrasts sharply with the disdain that Cartesians displayed for history and erudition.188 We know the sarcasm with which Malebranche in particular ridiculed archeologists and philologists, whom he regarded as wasting their time in the pursuit of trifles unworthy of a serious man and a Christian; in response Leibniz was forced to undertake a defense of learning and criticism.189
Unlike the empiricists, Leibniz was not foolishly enamored of facts. To facts themselves, he attached an entirely utilitarian and practical value.190 He was aware, however, of the connection and interdependence of all facts, however scattered or trifling they might be, and he knew that there was none, however insignificant it might appear by itself, that could not serve as the proof or verification of a historical truth or even a scientific one of great importance.191 Thus, despite his literary education and his youthful taste for poetry,192 Leibniz set little value on works of literature and the imagination, or even on works of religion and morals. He sought instead historical books, especially first-person narratives such as memoirs and travel writing.193 He desired that textual criticism be applied not only to classical authors, in the manner of the Renaissance humanists, but also to historical documents and monuments, as the Benedictines had done in another context.194 Finally, he hoped that the critical method would be reduced to principles that would form a system or complete code.195 He indicated in passing one of the fundamental rules of this "art of criticism" of which he dreamed: "The best method is that of making the most comparisons one can and the most exact, specific, and diversified indices possible."196 It is, moreover, this comparative method that he himself employed, whether in etymological research197 or in the interpretation of ancient authors. He claimed in particular that the surest and most exact method for explicating an author, especially a philosopher like Aristotle, is to comment on the author himself and to clarify obscure texts by comparing them with analogous passages.198 This has led to his being regarded by one recent scholar as the precursor of the modern school of the history of philosophy, which employs the philological-critical method.199
All of this shows that Leibniz was in many respects more modern than the majority of his contemporaries. In any case, we would not have a fair and complete idea of his encyclopedic genius if we did not recognize how he was able to join a curiosity for facts, a critical spirit, and a scrupulous concern for historical truth to his taste for logical rigor and clear ideas. Still, as he himself warned us, "it is not this method of carefully recording facts" that is the principal object of his logic, "but rather the method of guiding reason in order to profit both from the facts given by the senses or the reports of others and from the natural light,"200 and to derive from them general truths.
21. This is the largest and most complete plan that Leibniz seems to have conceived for his encyclopedia. As he was—not without reason—doubtful of his ability to have it adopted immediately by a learned society, even with the patronage of a sovereign, he outlined at the same time a more modest project, which he could execute by himself and which would give a sample of the great collective work he envisioned. Furthermore, he took care in his various programs to distinguish clearly that aspect of his undertaking that depended on private individuals and that which required the intervention of authority.201 He was thereby naturally led to consider the part of the work that would revert to him and which he could accomplish by himself. This included, first, the general science, that is, the universal method of the sciences, of which he was the inventor. He then imagined applying the latter to the purely rational sciences, namely metaphysics and morals. This project, however, already very limited, still appeared to him too ambitious, and he doubted that he would be able to realize it: "But as the human mind finds it difficult to trouble itself for a long time in a protracted and exacting labor, we will not easily find a man capable of completing at a single stretch a demonstrative handbook of the sciences that are independent of the imagination, such as I have just described."202 He then proposed carrying out a reduction of the encyclopedia: since each science depends on certain principles from which it can be deduced in its entirety using the general science, it suffices to formulate the fundamental primitive propositions of each science to possess it virtually in its totality. These "elements" would constitute a provisional substitute for the encyclopedia,203 and even when the latter is developed, they would be useful as a handbook and aide-mémoire.204
The same project is revealed in the fragment Raspe entitled History and Praise of the Universal Character Language, Which Can Simultaneously Be the Art of Invention and Judgment.205 In it, Leibniz begins by retracing the origin and history of the idea of his characteristic. He says at the same time that he has not yet devised a system of "characteristic numbers" but that he does not need them in order to set forth the formal rules of his logical calculus. In fact, we know that the characteristic presupposes the encyclopedia, or at the very least a "course of philosophy and mathematics."206 It is this course that Leibniz wanted to have drawn up by some carefully chosen men, according to the method he discovered. He went so far as to fix the probable duration of such a work: five years for all the sciences, two years for metaphysics and morals alone.207 Such is the form that Leibniz's project took from then on: his ambition was limited to formulating the elements of philosophy in a logical order and by a demonstrative method such that they would rival Euclid's Elements in rigor.
22. This was, moreover, a project as old as the encyclopedia itself, and it was so fixed in Leibniz's mind that he regarded it as a "vow." Inspired by Duke Johann Friedrich, a Protestant who had converted to Catholicism,208 Leibniz returned in this period to his earliest attempts at a reconcilation of the churches. It was in this period that his relations and correspondence began with Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, then bishop of Condom, and Christopher Rojas de Spinola, bishop of Thina,209 who had come to Hanover in June or July 1679.210 Invited by the duke to draw up a profession of faith that could serve as a compromise (or at least a basis for discussion) between Protestants and Catholics,211 and which would be a response or counterpoint to Bossuet's Exposition de la doctrine de l'Église catholique,212 Leibniz planned to compose his Catholic Demonstrations,213 which he would submit to the pope to try to win his approval and which would be at the same time acceptable to Protestants.214 He also put at the service of the duke his "art of controversies" and "method of disputing," which he had discussed with the Elector of Mainz and which were essentially just his characteristic.215 These Catholic Demonstrations were to be preceded by Demonstrated Elements of the True Philosophy, including logic ("for a new logic is needed in order to know degrees of probability"), metaphysics, morals, and politics. But it was above all as a logician that Leibniz offered his help: if he had studied mathematics in France, it was to improve his knowledge of the art of demonstration and to acquire authority as a logician. His mathematical discoveries would show that he was in complete possession of the art of invention and demonstration.216 And he indicated how he had perfected this art by reducing it to a calculus: "Finally, in order to render my demonstrations absolutely incontestable and as certain as what can be proved by an arithmetical calculus, I will submit an example of this new writing or characteristic, or even language, if anyone wants it."217
It was this project that he recalled when he wrote to Thomas Burnett in 1697: "A clever theologian who had been a professor of mathematics asked me later whether one could write theology according to the methodo mathematica. I responded that one could certainly do so, and that I myself had composed some examples of the latter, but that such a work could not be completed without first providing some elements of philosophy... in a mathematical order." Leibniz went on to lay out his views "on the manner of establishing well the truth of the Christian religion."218 Above all, it is necessary to establish foundations: "I call a foundation when one determines and achieves at least certain points and places certain theses beyond dispute, in order to gain solid ground and have a basis on which to build."219 After having outlined the theory of necessary and contingent truths, to which we shall have to return, and having shown "that such a labor [the demonstration of the truth of religion] demands not only history and ordinary theology but also philosophy, mathematics, and jurisprudence," Leibniz concluded, "Thus, before theology can be treated by the method of foundations, as I call it, we need a metaphysics, or demonstrative natural theology, and we also need a moral dialectic and natural jurisprudence, by means of which one can learn demonstratively the way of estimating the degrees of proofs."220 Finally, he added this piece of information valuable for the history of his thought: "It is nearly thirty years ago that I made these remarks publicly,221 and since that time I have done much research to lay the foundations for such works; but a thousand distractions have prevented me from finalizing these philosophical, juridical and theological elements that I have projected. If God still gives me life and health, I will make it my principal business."222 He repeated the same promise at the end of a postscript: "Finally, if God continues to give me health and life for some time, I hope he will also give me enough leisure and freedom of mind to carry out my vow, made more than thirty years ago, to contribute to piety and public instruction on the most important matter of all."223
In fact, Leibniz never ceased, despite his numerous "distractions,"224 to think of this vow and to attempt to fulfill it. When, in 1710, he published his Essays on Theodicy, born out of discussions the works of Bayle had occasioned at the courts of Hanover and Berlin,225 he declared that they were in his view only the preface to the metaphysical and theological elements he envisioned,226 and which would have to be composed demonstratively more geometrico.227 It is with this intention that he drafted in 1714 both the Principles of Nature and of Grace228 (at the request of Prince Eugene of Savoy), and the collection of metaphysical theses that has come to be known as the Monadology.229 These two essays take the place for us of the projected elements, but they do not replace them, for Leibniz expressed the same wish again in 1715.230 We can therefore say that even in metaphysics, Leibniz did not succeed in realizing the limited project he had conceived as the successor to the encyclopedia.
23. Nevertheless, he did not renounce his great project, nor cease to work on it or have work done on it. We have the proof of this in the numerous lists of definitions that he himself drew up or had collected in various periods. We know that the preliminary work of the encyclopedia consisted in defining precisely all concepts by decomposing them into their elements; and we may recall that from 1678 Leibniz requested Galloys to prepare excerpts of definitions for him from the Dictionnaire de l'Académie (§12). Around the same time, he himself excerpted definitions of moral concepts from the works of Descartes231 and Spinoza.232 One of these fragments, On the Happy Life, has given rise to a curious mistake. Erdmann believed that one could infer from it that Leibniz accepted Descartes's moral philosophy in its entirety. But Trendelenburg discovered the source of this collection of definitions and propositions in Descartes's letters to Queen Christina and Princess Elizabeth and in his Passions of the Soul, and he showed that it was only an analytic and historical summary of the Cartesian moral philosophy.233
All his life, Leibniz was occupied with finding or collecting definitions in all the sciences he studied,234 and we shall soon see the logical importance he attributed to definitions and the value he attached to good ones. He prepared, as he said, "a supply of definitions," notably in logic, metaphysics, and morals.235 Although he lost many of them, there remain in his manuscripts numerous long tables of them, which, moreover, are repeated often, although this takes nothing away from the perseverance with which he devoted himself to this labor—the indispensable prelude to his great plan. Some of these tables have been published by Gerhardt, among the fragments relating to the characteristic,236 and they are indeed connected to the projects of the encyclopedia and the general science. However, many others remain unpublished. Some of these are related specifically to the logical calculus or the characteristic;237 others contain lists of logico-metaphysical categories;238 finally, some longer and more numerous tables contain concepts belonging to the different sciences, generally arranged in a logical (or more rarely alphabetical) order.239
24. The most important and complete of these studies, however, are five tables of definitions. The first is entirely in Leibniz’s hand,240 and the second is a copy of the first by Hodann,241 which allows us to affirm that this table (as well as the others) dates from between 1702 and 1704.242 It is remarkable in that the definitions are arranged exactly in the order adopted by Dalgarno in his Ars signorum and Lexicon Grammatico-Philosophicum,243 which demonstrates the enduring influence he exercised on Leibniz's thought. This classification rests on the scholastic distinction of substances (things or beings) and accidents (attributes or qualities). It includes several divisions whose titles, borrowed from the text of Dalgarno, are as follows: RES: Concretum mathematicum, Concretum physicum, Concretum artefactum, Concretum spirituale; ACCIDENTIA: Accidens commune, Accidens mathematicum, Accidens physicum generale, Qualitas sensibilis, Accidentia sensitiva, Accidens rationale, Accidens oeconomicum, Accidens politicum. As we see from these headings, it is a small encyclopedia in which the principal concepts or objects of all the sciences, from mathematics to morals and politics, and even domestic tools and instruments of human manufacture, are defined and logically classified.244
The third table carries the title (in Leibniz's hand): Extended [and Expanded] Table.245 The rest is in the hand of Hodann. This is has been published by Trendelenburg.246 It includes 993 definitions, analogous to those of the preceding table and arranged according to the classification of Dalgarno. A certain number of these are accompanied by initials that indicate their source and which will be explained presently.
The fourth, again in the hand of Hodann, is the shortest and least complete.247 The fifth, finally, also by Hodann, is the most extensive.248 It is a lexicon in which the words are arranged in alphabetical order. The origin of the definitions is again noted here by initials, whose explanation Hodann gives in an (unpublished) note at the top249 and later in a final note published by Trendelenburg,250 who gives the date of the completion of this work as 28 May 1704. Thus Leibniz, having reached a mature age and having fully developed his system, did not renounce the project of the encyclopedia and did not hesitate to draw on the help of earlier lexicographers in preparing his great work.
25. We have another contemporary and very remarkable proof of this preoccupation in the last chapter of the New Essays (1704), devoted to the "division of the sciences." There Leibniz distinguishes two orders in which general truths can be arranged: one is the synthetic and theoretical order, in which propositions are organized in their deductive sequence like theorems; the other is the analytic or practical order, in which they are organized in reverse like problems—that is, by proceeding backwards from ends to means, from effects to causes, or from consequences to principles.251 This is, in short, the plan for an encyclopedia, as Leibniz himself states.252 It would be completed by a catalogue of terms, either systematic (by classifying terms in their logical order) or alphabetical.253 Leibniz ends this chapter, and the work as a whole, by expressing the wish that he might finally see his dream realized by some great prince, for the good of mankind.254 Thus he remained faithful to his great plan and always preserved the hope of seeing it executed.
26. And so, when he had entered into relations with Tsar Peter the Great, Leibniz was eager to suggest to him the foundation of a learned society whose principal aim would be the development of an encyclopedia.255 In an admirable memorandum on the means of making progress in the arts and sciences in the Russian empire, Leibniz sketched, among other projects, the plan of the encyclopedia as he envisioned it at the end of his life. It would consist of three parts: a large, medium, and small encyclopedia. The large encyclopedia would be a “universal atlas,” containing all the diagrams relating to the different sciences, in the form of a true atlas (in folio).256 The medium one would be the encyclopedia properly speaking:257 systematic, at once demonstrative and analytic, like the work sketched in the New Essays. It would be accompanied by synoptic tables showing the order and logical relations of the different sciences, as well as the gaps to be filled. Finally, the small encyclopedia would be a type of manual or refresher, such as one finds in mathematics. One would begin by composing the medium encyclopedia, which would serve as a basis for the large and of which the small would be an extract or summary.258
The practical aim of the project was always the same: to remedy the number and confusion of books and to put in order the knowledge that has been acquired. Thus the encyclopedia would be the fruit of a great preparatory labor, which would consist in extracting the essence of all previous works. To this end, Leibniz took up again his youthful project of a bibliographical and analytical review, which would yield “inventories” or “indices”—some alphabetical, others systematic. He preferred the latter as more useful and more instructive, for the alphabetical index would serve merely to rediscover a concept in the systematic index.259 Thus in this memorandum which constitutes, in the words of Foucher de Careil,260 his philosophical testament, Leibniz was more than ever convinced of the usefulness of the demonstrative encyclopedia on which he had meditated all his life. Until the end of his life, he remained hopeful of seeing it composed; he spoke of it to all those whom he thought capable of undertaking it or aiding him in it.261 It is the same with his characteristic, which he preferred to discuss with his new correspondents, as though sounding them out—an indication that it was the project closest to his heart.262 It is thus that he spoke of it again, in a melancholic tone of regret that we now understand after so many abortive attempts, in his first letter to Nicolas Remond: "I would venture to add that if I had been less distracted, or if I were younger or assisted by some well-prepared young men, I would hope to give a type of specieuse générale, in which all the truths of reason would be reduced to a sort of calculus."263
As Leibniz himself noted, two requirements were missing for him: on the one hand, the assistance of obedient and devoted collaborators, on the other, time, which had been consumed by all his historical and political "distractions." After meditating for fifty years on the great work whose idea he had conceived in his youth, and having sketched innumerable plans of it, he died without having executed it.264
1.
See the end of Chap. 3; Leibniz to Oldenburg (Phil., VII, 13; Brief.,
I, 101); and Judgment on the Writings of Comenius (Note XIII).
2.
The dissertation On the Principle of Individuation, On the Art of
Combinations, Preface to Nizolius, etc.
3.
The Life of Leibniz Briefly Sketched by Himself (Klopp, I, Foreword,
xxvi).
4.
See Leibniz to Jacob Bernoulli, April 1703: "In what I would now call an
almost arrogant ignorance of mathematics, I surveyed histories and laws, for I
had devoted myself to these studies" (Math., III, 72).
5.
An Example of Difficulties in the Law, or the More Interesting Philosophical
Questions Gathered From the Law (2 December 1664). An Example of
Certainty, or of Demonstrations in the Law, Displayed in the Doctrine of
Conditions (1665) (see Note V). On Difficult Cases in the Law
(5 November 1666).
6.
Leibniz to Conring, 9/19 April 1670 (Phil., I, 168). Leibniz later
wrote, "We have excellent juridical logics, that is, applications of logic
to jurisprudence." Letter to Bierling, 7 July 1711 (Phil.,
VII, 498).
7.
A New Method for Learning and Teaching Jurisprudence, 1667 (see Note
VII).
8.
A Method for Repairing the Body of Law, Mainz, 1668 (Dutens, III,
235). Cf. Letter to a Friend on the Faults and Improvement of Roman
Law, in Acta Eruditorum, XXIII (Dutens, III, 230); Leibniz to Lambeck,
late 1668 (Klopp, I, 34); Boineburg to Conring, April 1670 (Klopp, I, Foreword,
xxii); Leibniz to Conring, 1670 (Phil., I, 162); Leibniz to Arnauld,
1671 (Phil., I, 73).
9.
See Leibniz to Hobbes, 13/22 July 1670, in which he says that for the past four
years, he has entertained the plan of reducing Roman law to a small number of
general principles, adding that a good half of Roman law is natural law (Phil.,
I, 83). Cf. Leibniz to Arnauld, 14 July 1686 (Phil., II, 60).
10.
See Note VII. Cf. Observations on the Principle of Law, 1670 (Dutens,
III, 270.
11.
Leibniz to Arnauld, 1671 (Phil., I, 73); Leibniz to Duke Johann
Friedrich (Phil., I, 60).
12.
Leibniz to Johann Bernoulli, 28 December 1696 (Math., III, 347-8).
13.
Leibniz to Kestner, 1 July 1716 (see Note XX). In a sketch of the
encyclopedia dated May 1681, Leibniz again spoke of a new book on repairing the
body of law (Phil., VII, 72). We find in Leibniz's manuscripts
numerous drafts relating to these different plans, only a portion of which
appear in Georg Mollat's Rechtphilosophisches aus Leibniz' ungedruckten
Schriften (Leipzig, 1885). A new edition of this work was published
under the title Mitteilungen aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften
(Leipzig, 1893). See the enumeration of these pieces in Bodemann, 31ff.
14.
Published by Trendelenburg (see Note IX).
16.
The complete title is A Specimen of a Political Demonstration Concerning
What Now May Be of Interest to France, or the Best Plan that Can Be Given to
the Most Powerful King. An Expedition into Holland is Rerouted to the East or
Egypt (Klopp, II, 100-7). In the same volume are contained all the
documents relating to the plan for the Egyptian expedition, notably the Egyptian
Plan and Dissertation on a Just Egyptian Expedition Proposed to the King
of France, incompletely published in Foucher de Careil, V.
17.
We know that this plan was the occasion of Leibniz's journey to Paris, where he
accompanied his patron Baron Boineburg on a diplomatic mission. It was,
moreover, at the instigation of the latter that he composed the two
abovementioned essays, as well as Defense of the Trinity (1669) and Preface
to Nizolius (1670).
18.
Phil., VII, 323. He later said of his New Physical Hypothesis,
composed in the same period (1671), "It was the essay of a young man who
had not yet thoroughly penetrated mathematics." Leibniz to Foucher,
1693 (Phil., I, 415). Cf. Leibniz to Tschirnhaus, late 1679 (Brief.,
I, 406); Leibniz to Jacob Bernoulli, April 1703 (Math., III, 71); Phil.,
VII, 186.
19.
See Leibniz's letter to Lambeck, late 1668, and Boineburg to Lambeck, 18
November 1669 (Klopp, I, 34, 100).
20.
See the two plans for the Semiannual Literary Review (1668) in Foucher
de Careil (VII, 164, 155), only the second of which is found in Klopp (I, 39),
and The Usefulness, and Indeed Necessity, of a Semiannual Summary of Books,
1669 (Klopp, I, 86).
21.
See, from the same period, Plan for the Renewal of Letters and the Founding of
an Encyclopedia: "the goal of a universal labor: the development of an
encyclopedia" (Klopp, I, 48).
22.
Klopp, I, 40, 45, 48, 53. Cf. Phil., VII, 160; Foucher de Careil, A,
286.
23.
Plan for the Renewal of Letters and the Founding of an Encyclopedia (for
more details, see Appendix IV).
24.
"It may be contained in several portable volumes of a library"
(Ibid.). Cf. Semiannual Literary Review: "a compact universal
library" (Klopp, I, 40; Foucher de Careil, VII, 157).
25.
The Usefulness, and Indeed Necessity, of a Semiannual Summary of Books
(Klopp, I, 86).
26.
"Didactics or the method of teaching and learning" (Klopp, I,
47). There exist some unpublished fragments relating to this "new
didactic method" (LH IV 6 Bl. 11).
28.
"The public treasury of learning" (Klopp, I, 41; Foucher de Careil,
VII, 160; cf. ibid., 166). "The complete treasury of public
learning" (Klopp, I, 142; Foucher de Careil, VII, 80). "The
encyclopedia or common treasury" (Klopp, I, 45). "The great
work... on behalf of the public treasury of all human knowledge and experience"
(Klopp, I, 54).
30.
Klopp, I, 42, 52, 54. Cf. Foucher de Careil, VII, 140, 163, 592; New
Essays, III.x.25. Leibniz says that he has elsewhere drawn up the
plan for this atlas. It is found in the unpublished fragment LH IV 7A Bl.
30.
32.
Phil., VII, 37-38. Gerhardt published only the headings of this
plan, but each of them is followed by a large number of names of authors, from
whom the material for the corresponding chapter was to be borrowed. This
fragment is classified as LH IV 7A Bl. 16 (see Bodemann, 93).
33.
Some Thoughts on the Method of Completing and Improving the Encyclopedia of
Alsted (Note XII). Cf. Judgment on the Writings of Comenius
(Note XIII).
35.
Leibniz to Arnauld, 1671 (Phil., I, 73); Leibniz to Duke Johann
Friedrich, 26 March 1673 (Phil., I, 67).
36.
Johann Friedrich Alsted of Herborn (1588-1638) published his Encyclopedia
(4 vols. in folio) in 1620. See the notes taken by Leibniz on this work
in the unpublished fragment LH IV 7C Bl. 11-12, and the following fragment (LH
IV 7C Bl. 13-16), Notes on Distinctions or the Principles of Divisions,
which begins: "I do not think that it would be bad if, just as I once did
with Zwinger's Theatrum, I should extract the principles of divisions or
oppositions from Alsted's encyclopedia. For the art of division (which is
a part of logic) has, as I have noted elsewhere [in On the Art of
Combinations, Application IX, 48-54], an important use for invention,
although it seems to me always less suitable for knowledge" (sentence
quoted in Trendelenberg, III, 42, which mistakenly prints propositiones
in place of oppositiones). As we know, the division of concepts
(into genera and species) goes hand in hand with definitions.
37.
Theodore Zwinger of Basel (1533-1588) published his Theatrum in Basel in
1565. This appears to be a sort of practical ethics, according to what
Leibniz says of it (Phil., VII, 181, and New Essays, IV.xvi.11;
xxi.4). He cites Zwinger and Alsted together in a piece from May 1681 (Phil.,
VII, 67).
38.
LH IV 5, 6c Bl. 9-10. Published by Klopp (III, 308) and by Foucher de Careil
(VII, 101-5) under the title On Establishing the Foundation for Advancing
Knowledge.
39.
The unity of the deductive and inductive methods is already affirmed in a
fragment On the Art of Discovering Theorems, dated Paris, 7 September
1674 (LH IV 6, 12d). See Chap. VI, §37.
41.
A Consideration of the Knowledge of Nature, for the Sake of Advancing the
Enjoyment of Life, and Establishing to This End a German Society That Will
Describe in Our Language the Arts and Sciences Most Useful for Life and Assert
the Honor of the Fatherland (Klopp, III, 312; Foucher de Careil, VII,
105-126).
42.
Foucher de Careil, VII, 105, at the bottom.
43.
"The expressed desire of improving physics" (Foucher de Careil, VII,
120). See Appendix IV, §6
44.
"For probability can also be demonstrated" (Foucher de Careil, VII,
125). Cf. Klopp, I, 42; Foucher de Careil, VII, 161.
45.
Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (Foucher de Careil, A,
274-292; Klopp, X, 7-21). Discourse on a New Plan for a Certain
Science, in Order to Seek Advice and Assistance From the Most Intelligent
(LH IV 6, 12 Bl. 29, published in Bodemann, 90). Essay on a New Plan
for a Certain Science, Concerning Which the Advice of the Most Intelligent is
Sought (LH IV 7B, 6 Bl. 1-2; see Bodemann, 99).
46.
Plan for a New Encyclopedia, to be Composed Methodically by its Inventor,
15/25 June 1679 (LH IV 5 Bl. 7).
Cf. the fragments LH IV 7C Bl. 87-88; 156-157; LH IV 6, Bl. 18.
47.
See Chap. 3, §15. We recall that it is in 1678 that Leibniz is chiefly
occupied with the idea of a rational language.
48.
See the beginning of Chap. 6 for the role Leibniz assigned to mnemonics in
logic.
49.
Leibniz distinguishes these two sciences respectively as the science of
attributes and the science of subjects (cf. LH IV 8 Bl. 56 verso; Klopp, I,
51).
50.
Leibniz was acquainted with the word ‘psychology’ (he may have invented it),
but he applies it to the theoretical and metaphysical knowledge of souls and
spirits (see LH IV 8 Bl. 56 verso).
51.
In Plan for the Renewal of Letters, Leibniz already distinguished these
two parts and assigned to them two opposing methods: "The universal
encyclopedia ... will consist of two parts, the theoretical and the
practical. The theoretical will proceed in a synthetic order, the
practical in an analytic order" (Klopp, I, 49). He
distinguished them again in a fragment sometime after 1696 (LH IV 8 Bl. 56-57),
in which he reassigns to the practical side "normative" sciences like
logic, ethics, politics, medicine, and gymnastics.
53.
This is precisely the order assigned to these different sciences in the
fragment A Rational Language, which must date from 1678 (Phil.,
VII, 29). It is worth comparing with The Analysis of Languages,
"the monitor...of the art of peculiar words and phrases and of
accepted formulas and opinions," the subject of A Consideration of the
Knowledge of Nature (Foucher de Careil, VII, 111).
55.
See the abridgements of the Phaedo (March 1676) and Theatetus
(Foucher de Careil, B, 44, 98).
56.
Dated October 1676 (see Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1,
1888). In Leibniz's unpublished manuscripts (LH XXXV 1 Bl. 29), we find a
dialogue on teaching arithmetic, modelled on the Meno, in which appears
a character initially named Pacidius, and then Charinus (these
are the names of two characters in Pacidius Philalethi), and in which
Leibniz shows a lively admiration for Plato (cf. the preface to Plus Ultra,
Phil., VII, 147-8); Dialogue of Charinus and Theophilus on Wisdom and
Happiness (LH IV 4, 4k); two dialogues on theology: Dialogue Between
Theophilus and Polidorus and Dialogue Between Polyander and Theophilus,
the first of which was composed "before the death of the late Duke Johann
Friedrich," i.e. before 1680 (LH I 20 Bl. 61-67, 68-71; Bodemann, p. 22);
and finally, Dialogue on Peasant Religion, dated Paris, November 1673
(LH I 3, 8e; Bodemann, 7). Cf. Conversation of Philarete and Eugene on
the Recent Question Debated at Nijmegen on the Right of an Ambassador of the
Electors and Princes of the Empire, 1677 (Foucher de Careil, VI), and Conversation
of Philarete and Ariste, Following an Earlier Conversation of Ariste and
Theodore (Phil., VI, 579). This last dialogue, composed after
1706, is modeled on Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion
(1688), of which it is a continuation, as its title indicates.
57.
The word labyrinth had been suggested to Leibniz by Libert Fromondus
(1587-1653), author of Labyrinthus, sive de compositione continui (see New
Essays, II.xxiii.31). Leibniz employed it from 1671: see his letter
to Oldenburg of 11 March 1671 (Brief., I, 53). Cf. Discourse on
Metaphysics, 1686 (Phil., IV, 435; cf. 491); Leibniz to Arnauld,
1687 (Phil., II, 119); and finally, Theodicy (1710), Preface and
Preliminary Discourse, §24.
58.
From 1675, Leibniz spoke of the imperfection of algebra. See his letter
to Oldenburg of 28 December 1675 (Phil., VII, 10; Brief., I,
145). He invented his infinitesimal calculus in order to make up for the
inadequacy of Cartesian analysis (see Chap. VII, §5).
59.
The title of No. 11 recalls the New Physical Hypothesis of 1671.
60.
No. 16, On Justice and a New Code, recalls the project of Repairing
the Body of Law.
61.
No. 13: On the Secrets of Nature, and the Refinement and Dyeing of Bodies;
cf. no. 12: On the Hidden Causes of Things; and the title itself: On
the Secrets of Things. We know that in 1666 Leibniz was affiliated in
Nuremburg with the secret society of the Rosicrucians (Guhrauer, I, 46).
62.
No. 25: Prayer, or a Fable on the General Improvement of Things, and the
Story of a Subsequent Age. No. 26: Hope, or a Poem on a Future
Life. No. 21, On Holy War, alludes to the plan for a crusade
against the Turks. These poetic titles (also no. 14, On the Light of
the Mind) recall that of Aurora.
64.
Leibniz, undoubtedly under the influence of Baron von Boineburg, a Lutheran
convert to Catholicism, early on conceived the plan for reuniting Protestants
and Catholics, to which he actively applied himself, though without success, on
repeated occasions (1679, 1683, 1691-1694), as well as the reunion of the
Protestant churches (Lutheran and Reformed) (see the irenic writings of
1697-1706). We find a plan for reconciliation (in Latin) following a plan
for a learned society (in German) that dates, according to Klopp, from the
years 1669-1672: Outline of a Plan for the Formation of a Society in Germany
for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences (Klopp, I, 130; Foucher de
Careil, VII, 60). See §22 of this chapter.
65. We find in Leibniz's manuscripts
two pages relating to this plan: "A charitable society or order (of conciliators
[Pacidianorum])"; “A Society of Theophilists, for the purpose of
celebrating the praise of God and opposing the spread of atheism throughout the
world” (LH I 20 Bl. 99-100; Bodemann, 22). We know that Leibniz was
frightened by the progress of atheism (see his letter to Thomasius, 20/30 April
1699, Phil., I, 26). Cf. Plan for a German Benevolent Society,
§4 (Foucher de Careil, VII, 384), and Appendix IV, §8.
66.
Phil., VII, 124. Cf. LH IV 8, Bl. 3, and A Consideration of the
Knowledge of Nature (Foucher de Careil, VII, 105).
67.
Phil., VII, 51-3; cf. 126.
69.
The Advancement of Learning is cited (Phil., VII, 52-3).
70.
This is the exact title (with a second 'or' linking the title and subtitle) that
Leibniz himself inscribed on a separate sheet (LH IV 7A Bl. 1; see Bodemann,
92). There is another incomplete and unpublished plan, bearing the title Guilielmus
Pacidius's Plus Ultra, or Introduction and Specimens of a Secret Method for the
Renewal and Advancement of Learning for the Sake of the Common Happiness
(LH IV 8 Bl. 3). We note that the phrase general science is
replaced by the words secret method, which recalls the "secret
encyclopedia" (LH IV 8 Bl. 1-2).
71.
Cf. the title: Preliminaries to the Encyclopedia or General Science (Phil.,
VII, 43).
72.
"I mean the general science, which teaches all the other sciences the
method of invention and demonstration from sufficient givens" (Phil.,
VII, 60).
73.
This title seems to have been inspired by another work by Glanvill, Lux
orientalis, 1662 (Phil., VII, 6, note).
74.
The same metaphor is found in the plan for On the Secrets of Things:
"14. On the Light of Minds" (Phil., VII, 51 note).
75.
Guilielmus Pacidius's Foundations and Specimens of the General Science, or
on the Renewal and Advancement of Learning, for the Public Happiness (Phil.,
VII, 124-6), Synopsis of a Book Whose Title Will Be: Foundations and
Specimens of a New General Science for the Renewal and Advancement of Learning,
for the Public Happiness (Phil., VII, 64-5), and an unpublished
fragment entitled Introduction to a Secret Encyclopedia, or Foundations and
Specimens of a General Science for the Renewal and Advancement of Learning, and
Thereafter for the Perfection of the Mind and the Discovery of Things, for the
Public Happiness (LH IV 8 Bl. 1-2), in which Leibniz asks himself,
"Should the author be anonymous?"
78.
"For he fears lest it be lost, and he be unable to complete it" (Phil.,
VII, 128). Cf. LH IV 8 Bl. 3.
79.
"The familiarity of great princes and their friendly opinions" (Phil.,
VII, 49).
80.
He had known Duke Johann Friedrich since 1669 and had kept him informed of his
studies and plans from 1671 (see his letter to the duke, Phil., I,
43). He was appointed librarian at Hanover in 1676 and tribunal councilor
in 1678 (see Leibniz to Galloys, 1677-78, Math., I, 179, 183, and
Leibniz to Conring, 1678, Phil., I, 203).
81.
Phil., VII, 145-6, starting with "On the taste of the
ancients."
82.
Cf. Synopsis of a Book: "We also will have to speak of the present
state of learning" (Phil., VII, 64).
83.
"On the Origin and Progress of the Sciences, or the History of
Letters. On the Present State of the Republic of Letters. The
History of Discoveries" (LH IV 7A Bl. 26). Cf. the unpublished plan
for Plus Ultra: "The division of the work: Chap. 1. On the
History of Letters. Displayed is the state of human knowledge from
the earliest times right up to our own day.... Chap. 2. On the Present State
of Learning, and of all human knowledge. This according to the order
of subjects, in the preceding according to chronological order" (LH IV 8
Bl. 3).
84.
Phil., VII, 66. It carries in addition this note: "There is
in French a small satire on the republic of letters," which probably
refers to the piece entitled by Erdmann Precepts for Advancing the Sciences
(Phil., VII, 157-73; the beginning, up to "When I consider..."
[160], is missing in Erdmann's edition).
85.
"4. On the evils human beings suffer through their own fault. On
those useful things that have been discovered for sustaining human life.
5. On the management of human happiness" (Phil., VII, 49).
Regarding the negligence of human beings, see Foucher de Careil, VII, 101.
86.
Phil., VII, 49, 54, 57, 64, 124; cf. Foundations of the General
Science...for Increasing Human Happiness (Erdmann, 85); LH IV 6 Bl. 18; 8
Bl. 1, 3.
87.
Phil., VII, 125; cf. 45: "From this it follows that it is of
importance for human happiness that a certain encyclopedia or ordered
collection of truths be founded," and LH IV 7A Bl. 26: "An idea of
the happiness of which the human species is capable."
88.
The general welfare was in fact Leibniz's constant motive and the supreme end
of his ethics. See, for example, his curious letter to Burnett (1699), in
which, apropos of Newton, who did not want to publish "his work on
colors," he said, "You know, Sir, my principles, which are to prefer
the public good to all other considerations, even to glory and to
money." Later, he remarked that he had "assumed the role of the
Soliciter General of the public good" (Phil., III, 261, 262).
Cf. Phil., VII, 53; Leibniz to Basnage, 1696 (Phil., III, 125);
and Klopp, IX, 265.
89.
Leibniz to Burnett, 1699 (Phil., III, 261).
92.
Phil., VII, 47, 55, 62, 125.
93.
Leibniz gave a social foundation to justice and defined it in terms of public utility:
"The just and the unjust is anything publicly useful or injurious" (New
Method, 1667; see Note VII). Cf. On Generosity: "The
principle of justice is the good of society, or rather the general good, for we
are all part of the universal republic whose monarch is God.... We are not, therefore, born for
ourselves, but for the good of society, as the parts are for the whole" (Phil.,
VII, 106-7). Consequently, he saw no other means of rendering it
obligatory than by establishing the identity of the just and the useful, which
presupposed the existence of a rewarding God and the immortality of the soul:
"In order truly to show by a universal demonstration that all honesty is
useful and all evil injurious, we must assume the immortality of the soul and
God as master of the universe" (Preface to Diplomatic Code of the Law
of Nations, 1693, Phil., III, 389). Cf. Leibniz to Conring,
1670 (Phil., I, 60); Introduction to the Principles of Eternal Law
(Mollat, 1); On the Highest Rules of Law (Mollat, 85); On the
Principles of Justice (Mollat, 88); Axioms or Principles of Law
(Mollat, 95).
94.
Phil., VII, 47, 73, 75, etc.; LH IV 8 Bl. 4-5. See Definition
of Universal Justice (Note IX).
95.
Phil., VII, 43, 45, 47, 73, etc. Leibniz was in possession of these
ideas from 1671, when he contemplated his Elements of Natural Law
(letter to Arnauld, 1671, Phil., I, 73). Cf. Leibniz to the
Electress Sophie, 1697? (Phil., VII, 549).
96.
Phil., VII, 43, 45, 46-7. Science also serves as the foundation
for friendship, which is only solid and lasting if it rests on reason (Phil.,
VII, 47). But friendship is also a source of happiness, for nothing is
more useful or precious to a human being than another human being (Phil.,
VII, 62). We note the odd mixture of rationalist and utilitarian ideas,
borrowed from Aristotle and Hobbes.
97.
One of the last chapters of Plus Ultra is entitled "On the Truth of
the Christian Religion" (Phil., VII, 51). "But the
greatest usefulness of learning in all matters consists in the fact that it
serves true religion" (Phil., VII, 70).
101. "In the common good, or what
amounts to the same thing, the glory of God" (Mollat, 8). Cf. Memoir
for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention, in which Leibniz speaks of
"contributing to the glory of God, or, what is the same thing, to the
common good" (Foucher de Careil, A, 227). He says elsewhere,
"To love the public good and to comprehend the universal harmony, or what
is the same, the glory of God and how much is in it, is to do the greatest
thing." Outline of a Plan, §9 (Klopp, I, 114; Foucher de
Careil, VII, 34; cf. Klopp, X, 42). There is more: the universal harmony
is not only the glory of God, it is God himself. In the same essay (§8),
God is called “the ultimate reason of things” and “the greatest harmony of
things,” and in a letter to Duke Johann Friedrich (September 1671?), we
read, "The ultimate reason of things or the universal harmony, that is
God" (Phil., I, 60). We note that these texts are much
earlier than the system of preestablished harmony, and they serve to explain
its genesis.
102. This idea, borrowed from Galen (Phil.,
VII, 71), is found expressed in several essays: A Proposal (Klopp, I,
54); The Method of Physics, May 1676 (Foucher de Careil, VII, 104); A
Consideration of the Knowledge of Nature (Foucher de Careil, VII,
107). Leibniz did not even shy away from regarding scientific discoveries
and technical inventions as pious works far superior to the prayers and
ceremonies of priests, insofar as deeds are preferable to words, or from saying
that one of them is worth more than a thousand speeches, poems, or sermons (Outline
of a Plan, §§13-19, Klopp, I, 116-9; Foucher de Careil, VII, 38-44).
Cf. a memorandum to the Elector of Brandenburg (Klopp, X, 23).
103. We may add that he counts on the
encyclopedia, as on the characteristic, to aid in the propagation of the faith
by demonstrating in an obvious and irrefutable manner the fundamental truths of
natural theology and rendering them intelligible to all peoples (Phil.,
VII, 70, 175, 180). See his enduring plan for the “propagation of the
faith through knowledge” (Foucher de Careil, VII, 247, 280, 288; Klopp, X, 353,
366). As to Leibniz's rationalism in religion, it is sufficiently proved
by his "Discourse on the Conformity of Faith With Reason," which
forms part of the Theodicy. Cf. this curious passage from Meditation
on the Common Concept of Justice: "...to the eyes of our reason or faith,
what I here take to be the same thing, for the true faith is founded on
reason" (Mollat, 52); Leibniz to Duke Johann Friedrich, 1679: "The
true religion is always the most reasonable" (Klopp, IV, 445); and Leibniz
to the Electress Sophie, 1709, 1713 (Klopp, IX, 300, 395-6).
104. "Since most people believe
experiences of an event rather than reasons, and do not think they see anything
that they see only with the mind's eye, they also will not value even the
finest method unless they see its use in examples" (Phil., VII,
58). Cf. Phil., VII, 128:
"For I grant that in all matters, experience must so far as possible be
joined to reason.... Thus, I
venture to say that to the foundations of this most general science I
thought should be added examples."
105. In Plus Ultra: "8. Elements
of eternal truth, and of the art of demonstrating in all disciplines as in
mathematics" (Phil., VII, 49). In Synopsis of a Book: "There follow the very
elements of eternal truth, where there is explained the manner of giving
completely rigorous demonstrations in all subjects equal to those of
mathematics" (Phil., VII, 64). Cf. the unpublished plan for Plus
Ultra: "Chap. 3. The elements of truth..." (LH IV 8 Bl. 3) and Phil.,
VII, 296. It is indeed a question of the logical calculus, for we read
soon afterwards in Plus Ultra: "9. On a certain new general
calculus, with the help of which all the disputes among those who agree in its
use will be settled"; and in Synopsis of a Book: "And so a
certain new and wonderful calculus is here revealed, which may be applied in
all our reasoning and which proceeds no less accurately than arithmetic or
algebra" (Cf. Phil., VII, 125). Leibniz developed his first
system of the logical calculus in April 1679 (LH IV 5, 8a-f). We learn in
an unpublished draft that in the preface to Elements of Eternal Truth he
was going to review all the authors who had attempted to reason mathematically
in philosophy (LH IV 6, 12f Bl. 27).
106. "Part I. Foundations of the
General Science: Book I. Elements of Eternal Truth, or on the form
of argumentation through which, by means of a calculus, all controversies can
be demonstratively settled.... Book II. On the Art of Invention, or a
sensible thread for guiding inquiry, and on the species of this art, combinatory
and analysis" (Phil., VII, 57). Cf. an unpublished fragment:
"Foundations of the General Science, wherein is treated the renewal
and advancement of the sciences, or the sensible mark of truth and a certain
thread for the art of invention" (LH IV 7A Bl. 24).
107. "Book III. Plan for Founding an
Encyclopedia, as an inventory of human knowledge" (Phil., VII,
58). The plan for this book constitutes a sort of summary of Precepts
for Advancing the Sciences (Phil., VII, 157-73). We can relate
it to the unpublished fragment LH IV 6 Bl. 18, entitled by Raspe:
"Leibniz's elegant meditation on the confused knowledge of man, and the
ways in which this could be made better and more perfect," and an
unpublished plan in which we read, "The author's plan consists of two
parts: first, in treating of the general science..., second in
establishing the treasury of human knowledge" (LH IV 7A Bl.
26). It is worth noting that Synopsis of a Book contains a new
feature, namely a comparison of Leibniz's method with that of Descartes, and a
discussion of objections made to the Meditations, to which Descartes had
not sufficiently responded. We can get an idea of the crux of this debate
from Leibniz's correspondence with Eckhard and Molanus (1677-79), his letters
to Malebranche (1679) in Phil., I, and his letters to Molanus (1677), to
Philipp (1679-80), and to the Duchess Sophie in Phil., IV. This
connection with Leibniz's first attacks on Cartesianism determines the
approximate date of Synopsis of a Book.
108. Synopsis of a Book (Phil.,
VII, 65). A note inscribed by Leibniz on the back of the plan of Plus
Ultra marks the transition between the project of the complete encyclopedia
and the more circumscribed project of the Examples: "We could
divide it into general principles and applications of these principles to
special cases, of which the former are elements, the latter examples. The
examples are: the mathematical-technical, the physical-medical, the
political-juridical, the metaphysical-theological" (Bodemann, 93, note).
109. For the conception of this science, see
Chap. VII.
110. Leibniz promised the elements of a
transcendental geometry, which are obviously those of the infinitesimal
calculus (Phil., VII, 59; cf. 58), but at the same time he announced a new
geometrical calculus, which he had not yet established. This is a
reference to the "geometrical characteristic," on which he composed
an essay dated 10 August 1679 (see Chap. IX). We may compare this with
what he says concerning the insufficiency of Cartesian algebra in letters to
Molanus, 1677 (Phil., IV, 277, 280, 301); to Philipp, January 1680 (ibid.,
286); to the Duchess Sophie, (ibid., 291); to Tschirnhaus, May 1678 and
the end of 1679 (Math., IV, 460, 481; Brief., I, 379, 405); to
Galloys, December 1678 (Math., I, 183); to Malebranche, 13 January, 22
June 1679 (Phil., I, 328, 336); and to Huygens, 8 September 1679 (Math.,
II, 17-18; Brief., I, 567-8).
113. LH IV 7A Bl. 24. We shall see
that the idea of a logic of probabilities had been suggested to Leibniz by his
legal studies (Chap. VI, §28).
114. Cf. Foundations of the General
Science, or on a New Method forRenewing and Advancing the Sciences, So That
With the Smallest Amount of Time and Effort, If Only Men Should Desire to Do
So, Great Things Could Be Done for Increasing Human Happiness (Erdmann,
85-6), in which the "elements of truth" show not only how to verify
certain (necessary) propositions but also how to evaluate the probability of
those for which the givens do not suffice to prove them. This fragment is consequently later
than all the others that carry a similar title.
115. We may recall that the Royal Society
was founded in 1660 and the Académie des Sciences in 1666
116. We know that he had dedicated to them,
respectively, the two parts of his New Physical Hypothesis (1671).
117. See his letters to the Royal Society (Brief.,
I, 80, 99).
118. He had discussed it with Boyle and
Oldenburg during his first journey to London (January-March 1673), and they had
requested a memorandum from him on the subject, while promising to speak of it
to the Society. Leibniz to Haak (Phil., VII, 17). Cf. Phil.,
VII, 7, reproduced in Note III.
119. "I thus conclude that ten men who
are learned, willing, and versed in the necessary sciences would do more in a
few years than the entire human race could do in the scattered and disorderly
creations of many centuries" (Phil., VII, 15; Brief., I,
104). Elsewhere it is not the number of collaborators but the number of
years that Leibniz fixes: "I venture to say that they would accomplish
more in a decade than the entire human race could otherwise do in the
disorderly and scattered labors of many centuries." The Method of
Physics, May 1676 (Foucher de Careil, VII, 105). The similarity
between these two passages serves to date the preceding letter to
Oldenburg. Cf. Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention
(Foucher de Careil, A, 275) and Plan for a German Benevolent Society,
(Foucher de Careil, VII, 388). Later, Leibniz shows himself more
cautious: "...within a few years by a few intelligent men..." (Phil.,
VII, 199; text after 1684).
120.
He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy in 1699 (at the
time of its division into classes). See the letter from L'Hospital and
Leibniz's reply of 13/23 March 1699 (Math., II, 332f). Cf.
Gerhardt (Math., I, 175).
121. The Abbé Jean Galloys (1632-1707),
professor of Greek at the Collège Royal, editor of the Journal des Savants
from 1666 to 1675, member and secretary of the Académie des Sciences since
1668, enjoyed the favor of Colbert. He later attacked Leibniz's
infinitesimal calculus, and had it attacked through Rolle (see Leibniz to
Johann Bernoulli, 15 April 1706, Math., III, 789). Leibniz painted
a sharp and hardly flattering picture of him in a funeral oration, depicting
him as a court jester (Leibniz to Johann Bernoulli, 24 June 1707, Math.,
III, 816).
122. Leibniz to Galloys, December 1678 (Math.,
I, 187-8).
123. Leibniz to Galloys, 1677-78 (Phil.,
VII, 21, 23; Math., I, 180, 187).
125. "But this takes precedence over
personal honor; it is certain that this is not a matter for one man.
Nevertheless, I wanted Hooke to know this idea of mine, for by virtue of his
excellent mind, he would be able to form a judgment concerning these things-all
the more as he seems more engaged in these matters, having had experience of
Wilkins's work." Leibniz to Haak, February 1679/80, obviously intended
to be communicated to Hooke (Phil., VII, 17).
127. See Leibniz to Tschirnhaus, 1678 and
1679 (Math., IV, 459, 481; Brief., I, 523). Cf. Chap. 7,
§5.
128. "But I am not one who will promise
such a thing, this being a matter of greater importance than can be brought
about by any one man. Indeed, I think this business is worthy of the
entire Society, nor will you find scarcely anywhere else such an abundance of
the most profound minds as I recognize in England." Leibniz to Haak,
6 January 1680/81 (Phil., VII, 20).
129. Leibniz to Huygens, 8 September 1679
and Huygens's replies (Math., II, 17ff, 27, 35). See Chap. 9, §2.
130. An unpublished plan for the
encyclopedia carries this amusing note: "Dedicated to the monarch who
wants it" (LH IV 7A Bl. 26; see Bodemann, 94).
131. Erdmann, selections LIII, LIV; Phil.,
VII, 157, 174.
132. This flattery recalls the proverb that
summarizes the pretension of nobles and courtesans at this time: "The
great know everything without ever having learned anything."
133. Leibniz added a wish that has since
been fulfilled by so many generous benefactors: "Maybe this great prince I
imagine will even offer prizes to those who make discoveries or who uncover
important knowledge that has been hidden in the confusion of men or
authors" (Phil., VII, 163).
134. See the sentences that follow: "I
do not touch here on his praises concerning the state and war, which do not
belong in this place or to this pen; what he has done for the sciences will
suffice by itself to immortalize him. There is no need for more
details-he is too unique and too recognizable in every quarter" (Phil.,
VII, 163).
135. Preface to his edition, xxi. This
conjecture is made with respect to Discourse Concerning the Method of
Certainty, but Erdmann considers it to be contemporary with Precepts for
Advancing the Sciences.
136. Thus Erdmann dated History and
Praise (LII), Precepts for Advancing the Sciences (LIII) and Discourse
Concerning the Method of Certainty (LIV) after 1700; in addition, he placed
between 1684 and 1687 the fragments on the general science, the encyclopedia,
and the logical calculus (XI-XXIII), and in particular Plus Ultra
(XIV-XVII), which, we have seen, dates from around 1679. The evidence
Erdmann believed he could draw from the handwriting of Leibniz's manuscripts
for the purpose of determining their dates was, in his own view, ambiguous
(Preface, xii, xiii), for Leibniz simultaneously employed several scripts: one
(the most common in his letters and drafts) small and compressed, the other (in
copies) larger and more elegant. See the letter from Foucher of 30
January 1693: "When you do me the honor of writing to me, Sir, please
write in your usual manner, for I read very well your writing, which encloses
much in a little space" (Phil., I, 417; cf. Klopp, I, Einleitung,
iv). Thus, whatever Erdmann may say, internal evidence (drawn from the
content of the writings) is more valuable and more certain.
138. This is the opinion of Guhrauer, who
regards the memoranda in question as designed for Louis XIV (I, 335-9) and who
refutes the view of Erdmann (I, Notes, 44, 49). Cf. his Quaestiones
criticae ad Leibnitii opera philosophica pertinentes (Quaest. II).
139. Phil., VII, 177. This is
obviously a reference to the Paris Académie des Sciences, founded in 1666, and
to the Paris Observatory, constructed by Charles Perrault between 1667 and
1672. Dominique Cassini, summoned to France in 1669 to be the director,
immediately began the famous meridian of the observatory, which would serve as
the basis for Newton's calculations. It was installed at the observatory
in 1671.
140.
Phil., VII, 177. We can only conjecture who the personage was to whom
Leibniz addressed this memorandum. Perhaps it was the Duke of Chevreuse, who
had been his patron in Paris and with whom he had remained in contact.
(See Leibniz to Galloys, Math., I, 177, 178, 182, 188; Leibniz to Johann
Bernoulli, 24 June 1707, Math., III, 816; cf. Guhrauer I, 147, 365.)
141. It is likely that Precepts for
Advancing the Sciences is the "small satire on the Republic of
Letters" of which Leibniz spoke in 1681. On the other hand, it shows
many similarities with Plan for a New Encyclopedia of June 1679.
It was therefore probably written between these two dates.
142. Phil., VII, 182. Cf. Phil.,
VII, 163-4 (quoted p. 162, n. 2).
143. Phil., VII, 178; cf. 157, 158; On
Universal Synthesis and Analysis (Phil., VII, 296); Inventory of
Mathematics (Math., VII, 16); and the beginning of Plan for an
Encyclopedia: "It has often occurred to me that men could be much
happier than they are if those things that are within their power were
also enumerated, so that they could be utilized whenever necessary"
(LH IV 5 Bl. 7). We may compare with these two memoranda the unpublished
fragment LH IV 6 Bl. 18.
144. Phil., VII, 178, 158-9; cf. Plan
for a Renewal of Letters (Klopp, I, 54).
145. Phil., VII, 160; cf. Memoir
for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (Foucher de Careil, A, 286).
146. Phil., VII, 160 (cf. the earlier
texts quoted in §4). A little later, he voices some reservations
concerning this fear, which he regards as fanciful (ibid., 162).
148.
"And he strongly scorns the
ambition of those who initiate a sect and condemn others, as if they could by
themselves carry out great things" (Phil., VII, 128; cf. 158,
187). We know that this was his principal complaint against Descartes:
"Descartes had the vanity of wanting to be a solipsist." Memoir
for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (Foucher de Careil, A, 289).
149. He borrowed this idea, or at the very
least the name, from a work by Augustinus Steuchus Jugubinus. See Leibniz
to Foucher, 1687 (Phil., II, 395); Leibniz to Burnett, 1/11 February
1697 (Phil., III, 191); Leibniz to Remond, 26 August 1714 (Phil.,
III, 625).
150. Phil., VII, 174; cf. 158.
151. Phil., VII, 174; cf. 163.
152. "It is not always a question of creating great works;
if each would provide only a single discovery, we would gain much in a short
period of time. A single important observation or demonstration is enough
to be immortalized and to develop merit with future generations. There
are ancient geometers of whom we have no works, like Nicomedes and Dinostratus,
whose reputation is preserved through some propositions that we connect with
them" (Phil., VII, 161). The allusion is to the conchoid of
Nicodemus (2nd century B.C.) and to the quadratrix of Dinostratus (4th century
B.C.). Cf. Phil., IV, 312, and the end of Plan for a New
Encyclopedia (LH IV 5, 7 Bl. 6 recto).
154. "More can be accomplished in a decade by means of a
certain and fruitful method than has been done in a few centuries" (Phil.,
VII, 68). In this fragment, dated May 1681, Leibniz appears to lament
that the learned societies have not appreciated or adopted his project:
"It is true that the Royal Societies of France and England have brilliant
members and that they have given or will give excellent things, but those
things that would be of the greatest necessity and profit, for certain reasons
they do not even dare to attempt." He seems to be alluding here to
the lack of success of the proposals he had made to the two societies, and he
adds, "And so it happens that they are driven to pursue things that are
more curious and more beautiful than they are useful, at a greater loss to the
human race than the insufficiently discerning would readily believe of those
things." Cf. Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention
(Foucher de Careil, A, 275), Plan for a German Benevolent Society
(Foucher de Careil, VII, 388), and the texts quoted on p. 142, n. 5.
158. "The perfect scientific order is that in which
propositions are arranged according to their simplest demonstrations, in the
manner in which they arise from each other; but this order is not known
initially, and it is discovered more and more as the science is perfected"
(Phil., VII, 180).
160. "Thus, the more a science is perfected, the less need
it has of great volumes, for insofar as its elements are sufficiently
established, we can discover the whole of it with the help of the general
science or the art of invention" (Phil., VII, 180; cf. 169, 171-2).
161. For example, perspective is
subordinate to geometry and music to arithmetic (Phil., VII, 169-70).
162. Phil., VII, 168; cf. 158, 180.
163. "In examining each science, it is necessary to try to
discover the principles of invention, which, when combined with some higher
science, or rather the general science or art of invention, can suffice to
deduce all the rest from them" (Phil., VII, 168).
164. "It is true that if this encyclopedia were made as I
wish, we could give the means for always finding the consequences of
fundamental truths or given facts by a type of calculus as exact and simple as
that of arithmetic and algebra, of which I can give demonstrations in advance
in order to interest men in this great work. But as the most exact
demonstrations do not move us sufficiently without examples, I would be happy
not to disclose this considerable device until I could support it with some
fairly complete essays, so as not to prostitute it inopportunely and
ineffectively" (Phil., VII, 168-9). "It is clear that
few men are in a position to develop an exact chain of demonstrations for all
the truths they would be happy to learn" (Phil., VII, 168).
165. "However, although we could not yet easily arrive at
this general calculus, which forms the final perfection of the art of
invention, nevertheless the art of invention continues to exist, and we can
give excellent but little-known rules for it, of which we will say something in
this discourse, and which we will verify by examples of some actual inventions
that appear to be of importance" (Phil., VII, 169). These
last words are no doubt an allusion to the infinitesimal calculus. Cf.
what Leibniz says of the imperfection of the "method of reasoning"
and the "art of invention" (Phil., VII, 172, 173).
168. Phil., VII, 179; cf. LH IV 7C Bl. 81.
169. Phil., VII, 179; cf. New Essays,
IV.vii.19, in which Leibniz also criticized those empirical rules that lawyers
call 'adages' (brocardia), because "jurisprudence is founded
entirely on reason," and contrasted them with the true principles of law:
"The law is not derived from rules; instead, that something is a rule is
founded on the law." Cf. Meditation
on the Common Concept of Justice, after 1693 (Mollat, 47).
170. Phil., VII, 179. We again meet here a reminder
of the plan of the Seminannual Literary Review, with the example of
Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, and the "Journal of the
Moderns."
173. Phil., VII, 181. Leibniz was thinking
especially of empirical remedies that at times succeed where the false science
of doctors has failed. Thus he
praised Cardan and Campanella for collecting the secrets of charlatans, and he
reproached Scaliger, who criticized them for spending more time with Aristotle
and Plato than with herbalists and gardeners (Deliberation, §§20, 21,
Foucher de Careil, VII, 86-8).
Leibniz also cited Galileo and Harvey in order to show what theory owes
to practice and experience (Phil., VII, 69).
176. "I hold that it is necessary to be cautious of
reason all by itself and that it is important to have experience, or to consult
those who do, for experience is to reason what proofs (like those based on the
casting out of nines) are to arithmetical operations" (Phil., VII,
173).
177. In Sketch of a Deliberation on the Establishment of
a Society in Germany (1669-70), Leibniz already proposed to join theorists
and empiricists in a happy union (Foucher de Careil, VII, 50; Klopp, I,
111-33). Cf. Memoir for
Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (Foucher de Careil, A, 287).
178. Phil., VII, 172-3. The question of the resistance of matter much occupied
Leibniz. In the plan for Plus
Ultra, we already find a chapter: "23. On the Resistance of
Solids" (Phil., VII, 50). Cf. New Demonstrations of the
Resistance of Solids, Acta Eruditorum, 1684 (Math., VI,
106). These studies of physical
mechanics can be related to Note on the Resistance of a Medium and on the
Motion of Heavy Projectiles in a Resisting Medium, in Acta Eruditorum,
1689 (Math., VI, 135), and to the question of cohesion, treated in the
correspondence with Hartsoeker, 1706-1712 (Phil., III). In order to appreciate the relation of
these investigations to Leibniz's metaphysics, see the end of Specimen of
Discoveries Concerning the Wonderful Secrets of Nature in General, to which
are joined some unpublished notes on "the hardness and cohesion of
bodies" (Phil., VII, 318; Bodemann, 86), and the unpublished
fragment LH IV 8 Bl. 6-7.
179. Likewise, Descartes wanted us to anticipate deduction
through experience. Practice
precedes theory, guides it, summons it, and even substitutes for it
provisionally.
180. "But we are often mistaken in calling practice
what is in fact theory, and vice versa.
A craftsman who knows neither Latin nor Euclid, provided that he is a
capable man and knows the reasons for what he does, will truly possess the
theory of his art and will be able to find working solutions in every sort of
situation" (Phil., VII, 172).
181. "There is no mechanical art so insignificant or
so contemptible that it cannot furnish some noteworthy observations or
considerations; all the professions and vocations have certain ingenious
skills, which are not easy to spot but which nevertheless can be useful for
some rather more refined results."
Later Leibniz said, "the most important observations and techniques
of all sorts of crafts and professions are still not written down" (Phil.,
VII, 181, 182). Leibniz wanted a
dictionary containing all "the technical terms of the sciences, arts, and
professions, and he recommended to entrepreneurs "a complete dictionary of
the English language," which was meant to satirize the dictionary of the
Paris Académie (Leibniz to Thomas Burnett, 17/27 July 1696, Phil., III,
180; Leibniz to Nicaise, 1696, Phil., II, 557). He added: "A long time ago I
preached this to the French; but they never would have resolved to do it in
their Académie if the late Abbé Furetière had not appealed to their honor"
(Phil., III, 181).
Furetière had in fact composed for the Dictionnaire de l'Académie
(comprising two volumes) a Supplement of two more volumes, containing
technical terms. Likewise, from the time of the foundation of the Berlin Royal
Society of the Sciences, Leibniz proposed a lexicon of technical terms (Leibniz
to De Volder, 6 September 1700, Phil., II, 210; cf. Foucher de Careil,
VII, 272). We see that Leibniz
attached as much importance to the study of arts and crafts as the authors of
the French Encyclopédie of the 18th century.
182. Phil., VII, 181. Leibniz added that it would be "rather different from
that which some learned men have left us"—an allusion to the title of the
work by Theodore Zwinger already cited (§5). Elsewhere, he employed the title Theater of Nature and
Art (Foucher de Careil, VII, 244, 473, 567).
184. This is also the sense in which Cournot understands
history (Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances).
185. See Note XII.
Cf. the Analysis of Languages, 11 September 1678: “There should
be written a book of histories, or of universal propositions derived from
singular ones” (LH IV 7C Bl. 10).
Here the historical truths are not singular facts, but the empirical
laws derived from them by induction.
186. On Universal Synthesis and Analysis: "Now
that the authority of the senses and of other witnesses has been established,
we must compile a history of phenomena; and if we combine these with the truths
abstracted from experience, mixed sciences are formed" (Phil., VII,
296). We note that the history of
phenomena, too, rests on the critique of testimony, in particular the testimony
of the senses. Leibniz observed
that factual truth consists in the agreement of phenomena and that there is no
other means of distinguishing waking from dreaming. Cf. Plan for a Renewal of Letters: "Universal
History, that is both natural and civil." There follows a critique of sense data and of the testimony
of men (Klopp, I, 51).
187. See his 1679 letter to Huet, in which Leibniz pays
homage to history and criticism: "One use of history, and equally of the
art of criticism, is that it is indispensable for securing the truth of
religion" (Phil., III, 15).
Later he wrote: "If anyone wanted to present revealed theology in a
demonstrative manner... he would have need of the preestablished principles of
the art of criticism, for the truth of revealed religion is founded on the
facts of ancient history, which cannot be better proved than by the monuments
of antiquity." Leibniz to Nicaise, 30 April/10 May 1697 (Phil., II,
567). Cf. Leibniz to Burnett,
17/27 July 1696, 1/11 February 1697 (Phil., III, 183, 193) and a letter
of 23 January 1708: "History [which includes antiquities] is useful for
the proof of religion" (Bodemann, 25). This letter was intended to refute Poiret who in his De
eruditione solida discounted the value of learning.
188. Phil., IV, 325. In connection with Saumaise, he said, "Men who are
offended by philosophy and reasoning are accustomed to scorn investigations of
antiquity, and the antiquarians in turn make fun of what they call the reveries
of philosophers." Leibniz to Burnett, 1699 (Phil., III, 263,
270). It is unnecessary to add
that he blamed both sides equally and "does justice to the merit of each
of them," in keeping with his favorite maxim, which was to scorn nothing
(Leibniz to Coste, 4 July 1706, Phil., III, 384; Leibniz to Bourguet, 3
January 1714, Phil., III, 562).
He composed a discourse entitled A Cleansing of Reproaches, or That
No Type of True Learning Should Be Despised, precisely in order to combat
the haughty disdain of Cartesians for the historical sciences (LH IV 8, 7, Bl.
43-44).
189. Leibniz to Gabriel Wagner, 1696 (Phil., VII,
515). Cf. New Essays,
III.ix.9: "All this shows the usefulness and scope of criticism,
which is little regarded by some philosophers, who are very capable in other
respects, but who feel free to speak with disdain of rabbinizing and of philology
in general." Among the
applications of comparative philology, Leibniz mentions research into the
origins of peoples: "Languages will take the place of books, and these are
the most ancient monuments of the human race ... not to mention the origins of
peoples that we will come to discover through the reliable etymologies best
furnished by the comparison of languages." We know what use Fustel de Coulanges and his school have
made of this method of prehistorical inquiry. Cf. Leibniz's letter to Verjus on the usefulness of the
knowledge of languages for history (Dutens, VI, 227). In the Miscellanea Berolinensia of 1710, Leibniz
published A Brief Account of Meditations on the Origins of Peoples, Drawn
Chiefly From the Evidence of Languages (Dutens, IV, 186). Cf. Leibniz to Bierling, 7 July 1711:
"Some judgment could be passed on the remotest origins of peoples from the
agreement of languages" (Phil., VII, 494). Leibniz there takes on the defense of
learning in general, and in particular of Saumaise, against what Bierling said
of it in his Lineamenta Methodi Studiorum.
190. "A knowledge of facts is
almost like that of the streets of London, which is a good thing so long as one
remains there." Leibniz to Burnett, 17/27 July 1696 (Phil., III,
182).
191. "I do not mind that antiquities are closely
examined for the least trifles, for sometimes the knowledge that critics draw
from them can be useful for important things." Leibniz cited as an example the history of dress and added,
"This could perhaps be useful for distinguishing genuine monuments from
those that are not, not to mention a few other uses." New Essays,
IV.xvi.11). Cf. Memoir for
Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (Foucher de Careil, A, 285).
192. “I was indeed so accomplished in humanistic studies
and things poetic that my friends feared, captured by the sweetness of the
seductive muses, I should shun harder and more serious matters.” The life of
Leibniz briefly sketched by himself
(Guhrauer, II, Notes, 54; Klopp, I, xxxii ff). Cf. Phil., VII, 185.
193. Leibniz to Burnett, 1699-1700 (Phil., III,
254-5, 266).
194. "The criticism of charts and documents is much
more useful than that of classical Greek and Latin authors." Leibniz to
Conring, 29 June 1677 (Phil., I, 176). See the homage that Leibniz paid to Dom Mabillon in a 1700
letter to Nicaise (Phil., II, 592). Cf. Leibniz to Bierling, 24 Oct. 1709 and 7 July 1711 (Phil.,
VII, 486, 494).
195. After noting that a work on numismatics (such as
Morell was planning) "would make a considerable contribution to the art of
criticism, which consists in the examination and use of ancient
artifacts," Leibniz added, "If in addition to the diplomatic science
of Dom Mabillon, we were to join to it one day the science of manuscripts, of
inscriptions, and of the rest of the antiquities, we would have a complete art
of criticism." Leibniz to Nicaise, 1697 (Phil., II, 567).
197. See the letters to Nicaise (Phil., VII, 547,
564, 570-1) and the Collectanea etymologica (Dutens, VI). The entire correspondence with Nicaise testifies
to Leibniz's interest in archeological and philological research. Moreover, he published in 1693 his Diplomatic
Code of the Law of Nations, a collection of treatises and documents
designed to serve as a history of the empire.
198. Letters to Cornelius Dietrich Koch (1701-1710),
published by Stein (see the following note) and by Gerhardt (Phil., VII,
470ff).
199. Ludwig Stein, "Die in Halle aufgefundenen
Leibnitz-Briefe im Auszug mitgetheilt," Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie, I (1888), 391.
201. Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention
(Foucher de Careil, A, 276, 283); A Proposal (Klopp, I, 53); Precepts
for Advancing the Sciences: "But let us distinguish that which is
related to the union of our powers from that which depends on a superior
authority, and let us say something about what depends on each of them..."
(Phil., VII, 163-4).
203. "It is necessary to employ provisionally a substitute
for this great method" (Phil., VII, 168).
204. "Even when we have achieved an entirely
demonstrative encyclopedia, it will be necessary to have recourse to this
device in order to aid the memory" (Phil., VII, 168).
205. Gerhardt believes that this fragment was destined to
be published in the Acta Eruditorum (Phil., VII, 39). We see it, on the contrary, as the
preface to a work in which Leibniz would have presented his logical calculus.
206. "Nothing else is needed in order for the
characteristic that I am working on ... to be prepared ... than that there be
established a course of philosophy and mathematics, as it is called, according
to a certain new method, which I can prescribe" (Phil., VII, 187).
207. "No more labor would be required than we see
already expended on some courses or encyclopedias, as they are called. I believe that a few select men could
complete the work within five years; within two years, however, they could
display in a rigorous calculus the doctrines more called on in life, that is,
morals and metaphysics" (Phil., VII, 187).
208. In 1661. See his letter to his mother, 12 April 1662 (Klopp,
IV, xl).
209. Knin, Tnena, or Tnynski, in Dalmatia, on the border of
Croatia.
210.
Guhrauer, I, 361. See the
letters exchanged between the duke and Pope Innocent XI (20 April and 5
December 1678) and the letter from the duke to Spinola (10/20 June 1679), in
Klopp, IV, xlv ff. The two
prelates are named in the fragment On the Republic of Letters, dated May
1681 (Phil., VII, 72).
211. "It is desired that I treat in essence the
important question of the marks of the true church." Some Controversies (Klopp, IV,
429; Foucher de Careil, I, 459).
212. Approved by Innocent XI in an encyclical of 4 January
1679 (Klopp, IV, xlviii); cf. Leibniz to Bossuet, 1 May 1679, and Leibniz to
Duke Johann Friedrich (Klopp, IV, 454).
213. Here is its plan: 1. Natural Theology (existence of
God, immortality of the soul); 2. Revealed Theology (possibility of mysteries,
moral and historical proofs of religion); 3. On the Church (theory of spiritual
and temporal powers). This is the
origin of the so-called System of Theology (1686?), to which Leibniz
gave not this title but rather An Examination of the Christian Religion
(Bodemann, 4).
214. Klopp, IV, 441, 446. Leibniz defined with diplomatic skill the spirit in which
this work would be executed: "It would be necessary to contrive a piece as
though composed by a Catholic in order to convert a Protestant." Leibniz
to Duke Johann Friedrich (Klopp, IV, 455). Cf. Leibniz to the Landgrave Ernst Hesse-Rheinfels, 1684
(Rommel, II, 28, 36).
215. On Controversies (Klopp, IV, 429; Foucher de
Careil, I, 459). Leibniz recalls
there a conversation he once had with a great prince, in which he proposed to
him a method for infallibly guiding and ending controversies. Cf. Leibniz to Duke Johann Friedrich
(Klopp, IV, 440); Method of Disputing All the Way to the End of the Subject
and Defects of a Disorderly Disputation (LH IV 7B, 6 Bl. 5, 4; Bodemann,
99). See also an allusion in LH IV
7C Bl. 87-88.
216. "I want therefore to give first to the public my
discoveries in analysis, geometry, and mechanics, and I venture to say that
they rival those Galileo and Descartes have given us. From these it will be
determined whether I know what it is to invent and demonstrate. I have not, therefore, studied the
mathematical sciences for their own sake, but in order to make good use of them
one day, so as to give myself some credit while advancing piety." Leibniz
to Duke Johann Friedrich, 1679 (Klopp, IV, 444). Cf. an extremely curious
autobiographical fragment in which Leibniz portrays himself as a person whose
acquaintance he had made in Paris (in connection with the Life of Leibniz,
by Guiliemus Pacidius, etc.): "I surprised him one day while reading
books of controversies. I
expressed to him my astonishment, for he had been presented to me as being a
mathematician by calling, because he had done almost nothing else in Paris. It was then that he told me this was
very much a mistake, that he had many other interests, that his principal
meditations concerned theology, that he applied himself to mathematics in the
manner of a scholastic (that is, solely for the improvement of his spirit and
in order to learn the art of invention and demonstration), and that he believed
himself to have progressed in it further than anyone else at present (Klopp,
IV, 454). In the same letter, he
adds this very interesting note, given its date: "There is still something
very important in my philosophy that will give it some entry among the Jesuits
and other theologians. This is
that I reestablish the substantial forms that the atomists and Cartesians claim
to have banished." He states
that mechanism ruins the mysteries of faith and that the identification of
matter and extension excludes a real presence, etc. "Transubstantiation implies a contradiction if the
philosophy of the moderns [Cartesians and Gassendists] is true." Finally, he adds that he has some
metaphysical demonstrations from which the possibility of transubstantiation
could be deduced. Leibniz to the
Landgrave Hesse-Rheinfels, 1684 (Rommel, II, 53). Leibniz is always striving to win Catholics, and in
particular the Jesuits, over to his system. See his letter to the Landgrave Hesse-Rheinfels, 1680 (Rommel,
I, 281); Phil., IV, 343-9; and Appendix IV, §10.
217. Leibniz to Duke Johann Friedrich, 1679 (Klopp, IV,
445).
218. Leibniz to Burnett, 1/11 February 1697 (Phil.,
III, 190).
219. Phil., III, 192. Cf. Leibniz to Foucher, 1679? (Phil., I, 374). This is precisely what Leibniz
understood by "perennial philosophy" (see §15, end). He added: "This is truly the
method of mathematicians, who separate the certain from the uncertain, the
found from the sought." He
further deplored the disorder and absence of method in the works of the
learned, exactly as in Precepts for Advancing the Sciences, and recalled
the famous words of Casaubon concerning the Sorbonne (see p. 97, n. 2).
220. Phil., III, 193, 194. This is the logic of probabilities (see Chap. 6, §§28ff).
221. An allusion to the Specimen of Political
Demonstrations of 1669, which he had recalled earlier (Phil., III,
190). See Note VIII.
222. An allusion to the rumor that was current about
Leibniz's death, concerning which he wrote to Thomas Burnett: "If death
allows me all the time I need to complete the plans I have already formulated,
I would promise it in exchange not to begin any others and to work very
diligently on those that I already have, and still I would gain a great reprieve
through this agreement." Leibniz to Burnett, 7/17 March 1696 (Phil.,
III, 174-5).
223. Phil., III, 197. An allusion to the pious aim of the encyclopedia (see §10).
224. He alluded in the same letter to the principal of
these distractions: "You are right, sir, to say that works that serve to
establish the truth of religion are worth more than the history of
Brunswick. I would thus be very
displeased if I always had to be occupied with this history" (Phil.,
III, 195). This was, however, what
happened to him (see Note XV).
225. See Leibniz to Burnett, 30 October 1710 (Phil.,
III, 321).
226. "If I were rid of my historical works, I would
like to begin to develop these elements of general philosophy and natural
theology.... But this present work
can serve as an advance messenger" (ibid.).
227. He said in connection with his system of
preestablished harmony, "Would that it were possible to reduce all these
things to Euclidean demonstrations, as I see could be done." Leibniz to Tolomei,
17 December 1705 (Phil., VII, 468).
228. Published in 1718 in the Europe savante.
229. Published in German by Köhler in 1720 in
Frankfurt. The original French
text was published for the first time by Erdmann (1840).
230. Leibniz to Des Bosses, June 30, 1715: "I wish I
had the freedom to reduce my whole metaphysics to a scholarly form, in the way
I developed the Theodicy methodically at the end in a short Latin tract,
since it is certainly the accustomed thing to do and since it is possible to
display the complete form of the treatment for inspection in a table" (Phil.,
II, 499). The allusion is to the Causa
Dei, published as an appendix to the Theodicy, and to the two
synoptic tables that summarize it by depicting the logical division of the
subject in a sort of genealogical tree.
Cf. Leibniz to Remond, 26 August 1714 (Phil., III, 624) and 9
January 1715 (Phil., III, 630-4).
Remond had urged Leibniz to bring out a companion volume to his Theodicy
comprising his various metaphysical essays, notably the Principles of Nature
and of Grace, which Leibniz had communicated to him.
231. On the Happy Life (Erdmann, 71). Cf. On the Happy Life (Phil.,
VII, 81); On the Happy Life: On Happiness (Phil., VII,
90).
232. On Affects, 10 April 1679 (see Bodemann, 99). Erdmann and Guhrauer (I, Notes, 15)
date this fragment, and thus On the Happy Life, 12 April 1669, but this
date is clearly false, since Spinoza's Ethics, from which the contents
are borrowed, was not published until 1677.
233. Leibnizens Schrift de vita beata, und sein
angeblicher Spinozismus oder Cartesianismus (Trendelenburg, II,
192-232; and Monatsberichte der k. preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaft zu
Berlin, October 1847). Cf. Phil.,
VII, 38, note, and Stein, Leibniz und Spinoza, 12-13.
234. "A concern for establishing definitions has been
of great importance to me since my youth.
I wish he had gathered them into one collection, which often I have
tried to do in this matter; but many have been lost." Leibniz to Pape, 9
August 1694 (Klopp, I, Introduction, xxiv).
235. "As I have studied with care not only history and
mathematics, but also natural theology, jurisprudence, and philosophy, I have
strongly advanced this plan [the characteristic], and I have prepared a supply
of definitions." Leibniz to Duke Ernst August, 1690? (Phil., VII,
27). Cf. Leibniz to
Bourguet, 22 March 1714 (Phil., III, 569).
236. Principles of the Encyclopedia or Universal Science
(Phil., VII, 43-5); VI, B, on justice (ibid., 73-7); VI, H, on freedom
(ibid., 108-11), XIII (ibid., 195-7).
We can add to these the studies in Latin, French, and German on the
happy life, on wisdom, which is the science of happiness (ibid., 81, 82, 86,
90ff.); and on generosity and justice (ibid., 104ff.). Moral and legal definitions are found
in the Preface to Diplomatic Code of the Law of Nations of 1693 (extract
in Erdmann, 118 and Phil., III, 386-9; complete version in Dutens,
IV.iii, 287ff., 309ff., and in Klopp, VI, 457-92).
237. These are similar to the Logical Definitions (Phil.,
VII, 208-10) and related passages (ibid., 223, 226-7). They include, for example, the
(unpublished) end of Specimen of the Universal Calculus (LH IV 7B, 2 Bl.
10-13) and the following: LH IV 7B, 2 Bl. 34-35, 36, 43, 44, 47-48, 49-50, 73,
74; 7C Bl. 73-74.
238. LH IV 7B, 3 Bl. 17-18, 19-20; 7C Bl. 33-34, 59,
70. Some of these fragments
contain a table of categories that would form the alphabet of human thoughts:
such is, notably, Catalogue of Primitive Notions from Which All the Many
Others Are Composed (LH IV 7C Bl. 52). Cf. LH IV 8 Bl. 2 verso
239. LH IV 7C Bl. 32, 35-46, 47, 48-49, 71-72, 75-78; LH IV
8 Bl. 4-5; Bl. 101 (Bodemann, 123).
240. LH IV 7D, 2, 1 (38 pp. in folio).
241. Johann Friedrich Hodann, born 1 March 1674, was
Leibniz's secretary from 1702 to 1704; his first letter to Leibniz is dated 10
July 1702 (Trendelenburg, III, 1-30).
242. LH IV 7D, 2, 2 (51 pp. in folio).
243. LH IV 7D, 1, 1.
(See Note III.)
244. Leibniz specifically blamed Wilkins for having
excluded artificial objects (such as all human institutions) from his real
characteristic and maintained that they are as susceptible to logical
definition as natural objects (LH IV 7B, 3 Bl. 10; cf. LH IV 7C Bl. 33).
245. LH IV 7D, 2, 3 (36 pp. in folio).
246. In Monatsberichte der k. preuss. Akademie der
Wissenschaft zu Berlin, 1861, 170-219. Cf. Trendelenburg, Ueber das Element der Definition in
Leibnizens Philosophie (III, 48-62).
247. LH IV 7D, 2, 4 (12 pp. in folio).
248. LH IV 7D, 2, 5 (89 pp. in folio).
249. "N.B. By the letter P, I understand Ausonius
Popma on the differentia of words; by B or T.L., the thesaurus of the Roman language,
or as it is commonly called, the Roman Forum; by M, the philological lexicon of
Martinius; by L.P., the philosophical lexicon of Micraelius; by D, the Latin philosophical
lexicon of Dalgarno. We may add
that the letter H designates the definitions composed by Hodann himself (see
the following note).
250. "These definitions or, as I prefer, descriptions,
are entered from the philological lexicon of Matthias Martinius, the thesaurus
of the Latin language, which is commonly called the Roman Forum and sometimes
ascribed to Burerus, perhaps since he was its editor, likewise from the
philosophical lexicon of Micraelius, from Auson. Popma on the differentia of words, and from others,
according to the guidance of the Latin philosophical lexicon that Dalgarno
presents in his Ars signorum, commonly known as the universal character
and philosophical language, gathered at the order of the illustrious and most
excellent G. W. Leibniz and supplemented with his own contributions by Joh.
Fredr. Hodann, Candidate in Holy Theology. The work was brought to an end on 28 May 1704. SOLI DEO GLORIA" (Trendelenburg,
III, 41-2; Monatsberichte, 171; Phil., VII, 30. The last three words are not
published). Gerhardt is mistaken
in claiming that this is the table of definitions that Trendelenburg published
in 1861 (Phil., VII, 30, note).
The latter had even indicated explicitly that this was
"another" (Monatsberichte, 171).
251. Cf. Plan for the Renewal of Letters and the
Founding of an Encyclopedia (Klopp., I, 49), quoted in n. 51, and a
fragment from after 1696, in which we read: "Theoretical philosophy
explains the natures of things; practical philosophy explains the uses of
things for obtaining good and avoiding evil. Thus it happens that the same thing could occur twice: in
the first part, by reason of its efficient cause, and in the second part, by
reason of its final cause" (LH IV 8 Bl. 56). This fragment contains a classification of the sciences,
that is, yet another plan for an encyclopedia.
252. "But by composing an encyclopedia according to
both these methods simultaneously, one could make cross-references so as to
avoid repetitions." New Essays, IV. xxi.
253. "This catalogue would be necessary in order to
assemble all the propositions in which the term enters in a sufficiently
significant way. Following the two
preceding methods, in which truths are arranged according to their origin or
according to their use, truths concerning the same term could not be found
together, as is shown by an example drawn from Euclid's Elements." Leibniz adds that if such catalogues
are useful in geometry, they would be even more so in empirical sciences like
medicine (cf. §18).
254. "And when I consider how men have advanced in
knowledge since a century or two ago and how it would be easy for them to go
incomparably further in order to render themselves happier, I do not despair
that there may come in a more peaceful time some considerable improvement under
a great prince whom God could arouse for the sake of the well-being of
mankind." Cf. Precepts for
Advancing the Sciences (analyzed in §14).
256. We rediscover here the early project of the Atlas
universalis (LH IV 7A Bl. 30).
See §4 and the texts cited there.
257. In this context Leibniz recalls the work of Alsted and
speaks of him again with a certain esteem, despite his datedness (see §5).
258. Foucher de Careil, VII, 591-5. Leibniz cites as an example the
mathematical courses of Hérigone (see Chap. 4, n. 6), of Schott, and above all
of Wolff, "the best and newest" (Foucher de Careil, VII, 592). He speaks here of his most illustrious
disciple, for whom he had obtained in 1706 the chair of mathematics at the
University of Halle. See Leibniz's
comments on Wolff in his letter to Hansch, 25 January 1707 (Dutens, V,
160), and in his letter to Remond, July 1714 (Phil., III, 618-19).
259. Foucher de Careil, VII, 584-90.
260. Foucher de Careil, VII, xxxvi.
261. See Leibniz to Lange, 5 June 1716 (Note XIX).
262. For example, Placcius in 1678, Huygens in 1679, and
L'Hospital in 1693.
263. Leibniz to Remond, 10 January 1714 (Phil., III,
605). Cf. his letters to Remond of
14 March 1714 (quoted Chap. 9, §§2 and 3) and to Bourguet of 22 March 1714 (Phil.,
III, 569).