appendix of suitable engravings of medals, arms, man; it is contradicted alike by the whole internal ancient monuments, and so forth. In short, the evidence of the book, by the circumstances which work would doubtless have been publishing in suc- had elicited it, and by the general tone in which he cessive volumes to this day, if Leibnitz and his pat- refers to it throughout his correspondence. The ron had lived as long and subscribers or their accusation could have been founded only on some heirs would still have been able only to predict the misconceived ironical expressions, and on the very appearance of the last volume. We have been courteous and charitable tone adopted towards opmore minute than the generality of the biographers ponents. of Leibnitz on this subject; because the mode in which he prosecuted his task, the immense gyrations of thought in which he indulged, the number of subjects which were successively taken up, the eagerness with which he pursued each, the gigantic scale on which he framed his plan, and not least of all, the scanty fragments he left of the whole, are so remarkably characteristic of his genius and his habits.

In 1711, he was invited to a conference with Peter the Great at Torgau, whither the Russian monarch had come, to be present at the celebration of the marriage between his son Alexis and the Princess of Wolfenbüttel. Leibnitz was highly gratified, and with some reason. In addition to honors and a pension conferred, there was held out the flattering prospect of being associated in the formation of the future code of that great empire, Let us now resume the sketch of his history. In which the czar was meditating creating, and on 1699 he was chosen member of the Royal Academy the provisions of which that prince consulted of Sciences at Paris; and in the following year he him. induced the Elector of Brandenburg, afterwards In 1714, Queen Anne died. Leibnitz was at King of Prussia, to found an Academy of Sciences Vienna when the king left Hanover for his new at Berlin, of which he was made perpetual presi- dominions, but had an opportunity of paying his dent. The publications of this society he after-homage in 1715, when George I. again visited the wards enriched with various valuable contribu- electorate. tions.

From this period the health of Leibnitz, already A communication from Bouvet on the Chinese shattered by frequent attacks of gout, which had characters, suggested to Leibnitz another of his grievously tormented him for many years, rapidly life-long projects, doomed like so many others, to declined. As he knew much of most things, and be left incomplete-that of a universal language. something of everything, so he had not entirely On this project, more than one able man had toiled neglected medicine, and was a tle inclined, as before Leibnitz, and more than one has toiled since, many such men are, to play the doctor in his own but all fruitlessly. It seems in truth to be one of case. It is said by some, that the immediate the most hopeless of human schemes. But its very cause of his death was an unhappy experiment difficulty had charms for Leibnitz; and he express-with an untried remedy. This event took place, es himself in many parts of his writings with a con- on the 14th of November, 1716, in the seventieth fidence of success which is as characteristic as his year of his age.*

boldness. He did not think "that the great men Leibnitz has left behind him a sketch in Latin who had preceded him had been on the right tack. [of his principal physical and mental peculiarities, He contemplated the invention of a totally novel system, of which the characters should resemble as much as possible those of algebra." He seems in truth to have expended immense thought upon this subject; yet nothing was found in his papers after his death, except some trifling hints.

expressed with his usual frankness, and we might say with a characteristic egotism. From this sketch we extract the following traits. After some whimsical remarks on his temperament and that of his family, he tells us that his stature is of the middle height and graceful, his face pale, He had, it is true, directed a young man to de- hands generally cold, &c., &c.; his eyesight vise and arrange exact definitions of all sorts of keen, his voice rather shrill than strong; that he ideas-in itself not one of the least difficulties of had some little difficulty in pronouncing the gutthe projected enterprise, and which Leibnitz had turals, especially k." He tells us that "his night's better have reserved for his own shoulders. rest was uninterrupted," for which he gives us a "Though he applied himself," says M. Jau- curious reason-"Quod sero cubitum it, et lucucourt, "to this investigation as early as 1703, his brationes studiis matutinis longe præfert." There life, dissipated by a hundred different occupations, are many students who, with the same habits, was not long enough for the execution of this de- have not experienced the same happy results from sign." That man would in truth have a long them. His mode of life from childhood was selease of life who should live till he had invented a dentary; from a boy he read much and mediuniversal language. tated more, and in most things was self-taught, In the year 1710, Leibnitz published his Theo-arTodidantos." The next is certainly a characdicée--properly speaking, his only complete work; teristic trait, but would have been as well recorded certainly the only one which gives a just image of by somebody else. "He was ambitious of more the whole intellect of the man. Its principal ob- profoundly investigating everything than is cusject is to refute the skeptical views which Bayle tomary with the vulgar, and of inventing new had inserted in his Dictionary, touching the good- things." He also tells us "he was endowed ness of God, the liberty of man, and the origin of with a most excellent invention and judgment; evil.

We shall make a few remarks on this work in a *Dr. Guhrauer has given a full account of his last illfuture page. In the mean time, we may observe ness, vol. ii., pp. 328-330. that such doubts were entertained of the orthodoxy † He often did not retire to his couch at all, but sat till of Leibnitz, that several able men-amongst the a late hour, took two or three hours' sleep in his chair, rest, Plaff and Le Clerc-were persuaded he was and then proceeded to his work again at early dawn. of the opinions of Bayle himself, and that the Theo-This plan he is said sometimes to have pursued night after night for weeks together. No wonder he had gout, dicée was but a jeu d'esprit. Never was there a and, towards the close of life, ulcerated and edematous more extravagant charge preferred against any extremities!

and found it no matter of difficulty to apply, in im- | imagination, though sufficiently active to supply mediate succession, to the most varied employ- apt illustrations to his argumentative prose, wanted ments; reading, writing, speaking extempore, and the activity and the brilliancy which can alone investigating any intellectual subject, when neces- make the poet. Yet he evidently regarded with sary, even to the bottom."* He further tells us some complacency this feature of his mind; and "that he was easily made angry, and easily paci- often mentions a certain feat of his early years fied; that he was neither very sad nor very merry; with considerable satisfaction-the composition of that his joy and grief were alike moderate, and three hundred verses in one day, and without that he more frequently smiled than laughed. making a single elision. In another sense of the Risus frequentius deducit, quam pectus convertit." word, we may say with more justice than Ben One or two other traits may be amusing to the Johnson said of Shakspeare, "that it would have reader as parts of a great man's portrait of him- been well if he had made a thousand." self. We give them below.ft

In physics and metaphysics his success was not +"Conversationis appetentia non multa; major medi-eminent; nor was this to be wondered at. It tationis et lectionis solitaria. Implicatus autem conver- arose, assuredly, from no want of subtlety or comsationi satis jucunde eam continuat, sermonibus jocosis prehensiveness; but from his love of hypothesis, et gratis magis delectatus, quam lusu, aut exercitus in motu consistentibus. * * * * Timidus est in re his fondness for the purely abstract, and his imaliqua inchoanda, audax in prosequenda." patience to arrive at a solution. All these prevented a docile observance of the maxims of the inductive philosophy. Any theory that plausibly accounted for the phenomena was apt to find favor in his eyes. Indeed, he never seems to have attained any clear views of the limits within which

*

the human understanding can hopefully speculate of anatomy, then in its infancy; and expresses his at all; and pronounces with as much assurance on confident belief that the time would come when the ultimate constitution and properties of his surgery would be capable of dealing with many Monads, as he would upon any commonplace facts diseases that were then the opprobria of medical whatever. "Monads,' says he, "are simple science. In other places, he indicates the imporsubstances which enter into the constitution of tant bearing of his favorite science, mathematics, composite. Each is a mirror represent- on various branches of political and economical ing the universe, though obscurely. philosophy. The merit in all these cases consists Each soul (âme) knows to infinity, knows every- in the first germinant thought, (evincing the active thing, but confusedly."* and inventive quality of his mind,) rather than in His very notions on this subject, though fre- the exact application or full development of it. quently repeated in his works, he has never been We may say of such proofs of sagacity, as Sir able to express so as to convey a clear idea of his James Mackintosh said of Horne Tooke's theory, meaning to his disciples; who, as Brucker has" the beauty was in the original conception, rather justly remarked, have been involved in hopeless than in the accuracy with which it was applied." perplexities in their attempts to interpret their But it is in these prophetic glimpses of great truths, master's language. It is obvious, however, mean in almost every department of science-truths which what he would, or nothing at all, that neither it was left for after ages fully to evolve and estab Leibnitz nor any one else could know anything lish-that this great man entitled himself to a place upon this subject. A man might as well put down with almost all the very greatest minds-with any incoherent dream that visited him in the night, Aristotle, with Bacon, and with Newton-in all of and call it philosophy. Who could not philoso- whom the same quality was remarkably exempliphize at this rate? Can anything, indeed, more fied. It is given to such minds alone to predict gratuitous be imagined, if it can be said to be intelli- and foreshadow the coming dispensations of philos gible, than that the universe is full of these ultimate ophy;-to catch from the mountain heights of monads, each of which is obscurely omniscient, their contemplations (if we may modify a thought a mirror of the universe, and reflects in infinitely which has occurred to more than one writer) the multiplied forms the infinitude of changes through- first radiance of the rising sun, when to the rest of out universal being? It were less strange to say, this world's inhabitants he is still below the horizon. that every flutter of a gnat's wing was propagated In the variety and grandeur even of his unfinto the utmost limit of the sphere of the fixed stars. ished projects, embracing such different objects, In a like strain of confidence does Leibnitz uni- and grappling with such tremendous difficulties, formly speak of his Preëstablished Harmony; he is we see the sublime audacity and versatility of his just as certain of its truth as of the truth of his genius; as well as a proof that not even the inteldifferential calculus. Indeed, in all departments lect of a Leibnitz can prosecute successfully half a of science, except the mathematics, it is rather in score of pursuits at once. The manner in which his comprehensive suggestions of a possible law or he speaks of these unfinished projects, of which he principle, than in rigidly establishing it by induc- seems hopeful even to the last, no less displays the tion-rather in his sagacious anticipations of a hardy confidence of his nature-often degenerating great truth, than in ascertaining its exact limits, into an appearance of ostentation and vanity; and, that his chief merit consists. And it is curious in truth, it requires all our knowledge of what he to observe in how many different departments of has accomplished to induce us to pardon his unful science this tendency of the mind of Leibnitz was filled promises. His never completed calculating manifested. Thus in his Protogea, he throws out machine—his fragment of an universal alphabetthoughts which, as Dr. Buckland observes, contain his improved watches which were never constructed the germ of some of the most enlightened specula-his hydraulic and pneumatic engines, which extions of modern Geology. In the department of isted only in theory-his swift carriages,† which Philology he often makes the most sagacious ob- existed only in imagination, were monuments alike servations on the history and affinities of languages, of his enterprise and his temerity. and on the proofs of their identity of origin; and was probably the first to predict the important connexion-so fruitful of results-which would be found to subsist between philological and historical researches; and the light which the former might he made to shed on the latter. In various parts of his writings, he judiciously points out the best methods of improving medical science. In one of them-a Letter, Sur la manière de perfectionner la Médecine-he suggests the importance of a system of complete statistics of public health and disease; est in the history of philosophy and science, as in in his controversy with Stahl, he urges the study *See Principia Philosophia, and Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondés en Raison: passim. Dutens' Edition. Tom. ii., pp. 20-39. Sir James Mackintosh, with his usual charity, endeavors to find a meaning for Leibnitz, and supposes that when he says that each Monad is "a mirror of the universe," and "knows everything confusedly," he means nothing more than that "all parts of the universe are connected," and "that no part remains the same, when that of any other is changed." If this be so, we ask, first-What business has a metaphysician to deliver his doctrines in extravagant metaphor? And, secondly, Whether mere change of relation can be called knowledge, (whether distinct or confused,) without the grossest abuse of language?

We have said that Leibnitz was equally distinguished by his love of amassing knowledge, and his capacity for original speculation. It is curious to see the intensity with which the purely literary element operated upon him, and the manner in which it is perpetually manifested. Even his closest and most novel reasonings are continually interrupted by references to authors, and citations from their works. He abounds in curious anecdotes of past literature, and takes almost as eager an inter

the extension of their limits. This quality, in con

*"Spes est, aliquando aquam inter cutem aliaque noxia non minore certitudine sublatum iri, aliasque aperturas, separationes, reparationes, correctiones, in potestate fore, quæ nunc habentur desperatæ ; itaque reipublicæ interest nihil omitti, quod ad spem futuri progressus facere possit."-Opera Omnia. Tom. II., Pars ii., p. 147.

In our railroad era, it is curious to find that one of the extravagancies charged upon Leibnitz by one of his traducers, is that of having conceived it possible to construct carriages by which the journey from Hanover to Amsterdam (about 150 miles) might be accomplished in four-and-twenty hours. Leibnitz in his defence affirms that this is too extravagant a charge to be believed! M. Jaucourt says, "that Leibnitz was not altogether a foel!'

junction with the suavity of his temper, has given that, strange as it may seem, the reader may there one great charm to his general manner. With one get a scarcely less ample, and far more connected unhappy exception-we refer, of course, to the view, of Leibnitz's whole system of metaphysics contest respecting the differential calculus-it is and theology than from all his other writings put impossible to imagine a controversial spirit more together. From the inseparable connexion which fair and candid; nor was there ever a taste in his principal speculations in both these domains literature more catholic than his. He ever seems of science maintained in his own mind, (however to differ from others with reluctance-to diminish we may fail to perceive it, or even doubt whether the interval of disagreement as much as possible he always clearly perceived it himself,) and from -and to discover resemblances, where none but the wide circuit of thought in which he habitually himself can perceive them. He has given an indulged, almost all his characteristic doctrines amusing account of his efforts, when a youth of come under review in one part or other of this sinonly fifteen, during long solitary walks in the gular work. Not only have we in it his theory of wood of Rosenthal near Leipsic, to adjust the moral and physical necessity, (which might be claims of the ancients and moderns-of Aristotle looked for,) but his doctrine of monads, his preand Des Cartes; and the reluctance with which, established harmony, his law of continuity, his when conciliation was impossible, he was com- sufficient reason, his notion of the origin of souls, pelled to make an election. His spirit was truly of generation and dissolution, of space and time. eclectic; and so far from exaggerating the origi- As to his main hypothesis, constructed to acnality of his own conceptions, he is generally anx-count for the origin of evil, and "justify the ways ious to show that there are some traces of them, of God to man," that has long ago been exploded more or less faint, to be found in the preceding as unsatisfactory; but it is so, only for the reasons history of philosophy. Even when threading his which have made every other attempt of mortals to way through the most intricate and untrodden wilds penetrate that great mystery equally unsatisfactory. of speculation, his truly social spirit loves not to We believe that no man ever rose from the perube alone; he delights in searching for traces, how-sal of any work on the subject, (if we except the ever faint, of footsteps that have been there before author,) without feeling the conviction that it lies him, and to follow the trail of humanity, as the beyond the limits of the human understanding, and Indians would say, even though it be only by a that we are absolutely without data for its solution. broken twig, or the down-trodden grass, or the That evil should have been permitted to enter the ashes of a long-extinguished watch-fire. universe under the absolute dominion of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, is a mystery* towards the explanation of which man has not made the very smallest conceivable advance. When we are told that this is the "best of all possible worlds,"-meaning thereby, as Leibnitz takes care to explain, the Universe-that the absolute exclusion of evil was impossible, and that the least possible mixture of it has been admitted, the appeal, in fact, is to faith and not to reason. answer to the argument is," it may be so; we may perhaps even conjecture some grounds of probability for thinking it is so; but who shall assure us of it?" As a matter of pure reasoning, the argument against this hypothesis may be put in a form which we may defy all philosophy to encounter. First, would not a universe without any evil at all be preferable to a universe with some, however little-to say nothing of a universe in which it

This fair and liberal spirit certainly forms one of the greatest charms in his controversial writings. It uniformly appears in his judgments on books, in all of which, however worthless, or however opposed to his own views, he is sure to discover some merits; and indeed it was one of his maxims, that no book was ever written that was altogether without value.

We must now say a few words on his principal writings and opinions.

The

The Theodicée, originally written in French, is the work on which the fame of Leibnitz as a metaphysician and theologian principally rests; indeed, it is almost the only composition of his which has any pretensions to be considered complete. Most of what he wrote, as before mentioned, was fragmentary: this work certainly has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is true that, in accordance with that irresistible bias of his nature on which we have already commented, he manages to inter*The Editor of the Living Age desires his younger readers to consider, that the " origin of evil" is not a weave many topics which are but remotely con- greater mystery than any other part of creation. Why nected with his principal subject, while his exube- there should be a wicked man, is not more mysterious than rant learning wells forth in every page. On the why there should be a man at all. And if we ponder whole, however, and looking upon it merely as an upon this, marvelling why, instead of a creature so dull intellectual effort, it is certainly not unworthy of and blind, there had not been an archangel-we have but stepped to another stage of the same mystery, and may his name. Unsatisfactory as may be the main argu- just as well wonder why the archangel himself was made ment, much light is thrown on collateral subjects, so infinitely below his Maker. It is just as difficult to and many important, though subordinate, topics are know why animals inferior to man are created; why treated with great ability. Full of subtlety and there should be reptiles and insects hurtful to him; why acuteness, we admire the originality, even if we do there should be beyond them the infinity of which the not admit the conclusiveness, of the reasoning."mystery" of the origin of evil seems to us an impertimicroscope shows us only the beginning. Making a Almost everywhere we find reflections character- nence like the talk of "mysterious providences." It apized by German depth of thought, and turned with pears to imply that they are exceptions to the ordinary French vivacity of expression, and these are encourse of things; and that we are able generally to underlivened by perpetual anecdote, and allusions to liter- stand "Him who is unsearchable, and whose ways are past finding out." Everything which occupies the mind ary history. Not only are all the aids of learning, stretches into the infinity which is incomprehensible ;-but not a few of the graces of imagination, em- and the moral is that, reverently feeling our ignorance, ployed to increase its attractions; while the style, blindness and disobedience, we should cast ourselves unevery where perspicuous and elegant, shows the reservedly upon the mercy and love which have been mastery which Leibnitz had attained in the use of be raised to a state of happy obedience, and that some of revealed to us, humbly and joyfully trusting that we shall a language not his own. the things which we "know not now, we shall know hereafter."

Not the least recommendation of the work is,

cannot be said there is very little and, secondly, | and to place him upon the earth for only a certain can we say that we see any reason why such a period of time, his death was the necessary conseuniverse could not be constructed by irresistible quence of this determination." Certainly: but power, under the guidance of an infinite wisdom, why it should have been the will of God to create and both impelled by a goodness equally infinite? -not a limited being, for that was inevitable-but We affirm that the reason of men can reply to the a being subject to death and pain, is the very quesfirst of these questions only in the affirmative, and tion;-not whether, if God determined to create to the second only in the negative. Leibnitz, on such a being, his death was inevitable. In such the other hand, says "no" to the first, and "yes" a way we might get rid of the whole difficulty of to the second. But few will discern his ratio the great problem, by saying, that if it were the sufficiens in either answer. It is evident that he, will of God to admit evil into the universe, its adlike every other man who pretends to solve the mission was the necessary consequence of that mystery, arrives at his conclusions by a gross determination. Again, his lordship says, (p. 72,) petitio principii; or rather the whole work is an "To create sentient beings devoid of all feelings example of the foregor agóregov. The very pro- of affection, was no doubt possible to Omnipotence; blem is to reconcile the consistency of the attributes but to endow those beings with such feelings as of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness with the should give the constant gratification derived from phenomena of physical and moral evil; and Leib- the benevolent affections, and yet to make them nitz solves it, by saying in effect that God is in- wholly indifferent to the loss of the objects of those finitely wise and good, and therefore cannot but affections, was not possible even for Omnipotence; have chosen out of all possibilities, the best; there- because it was a contradiction in terms equivalent fore a universe free from all evil, or even from less to making a thing both exist and not exist at one than exists, is a contradiction-the very thing, that and the same time." Certainly but, as before, is, which is required to be shown. how is it shown to be necessary that these beings should have been subjected to such a loss, or a contradiction to suppose them exempt from it? for this is the very question on which we want light. This sharp-sighted writer has, in a word, been betrayed into the very sophism which he has himself so clearly exposed in Archbishop King, (p. 34.) "The difficult question then," says the Archbishop, "whence comes evil? is not unanswerable. For it arises from the very nature and constitution of created beings, and could not be avoided without a contradiction."

It is very possible that evil may be absolutely inevitable-we believe so, because it has been permitted; it is even possible that we might see this, if we knew all, and that, when we ask that a universe of sentient, intelligent, responsible beings should be created from which evil should be infallibly excluded, we are demanding an impossibility. All we mean is, that this cannot be proved, but is always taken for granted, in every pretended solution of the difficulty. To the considerations which mitigate the difficulties of the subject, we are not blind, but we deny that they remove them. We are promised a cure of our malady, and we are treated with palliatives; we are told that we shall walk in sunlight, and we find ourselves only in starlight. So it is with the Theodicée.

That he is in fact appealing not to reason but to faith, Leibnitz himself often virtually confesses, and never more explicitly than in the following passage "Il est vrai qu'on peut s'imaginer des mondes possibles, sans péché et sans malheur, et on en pourroit faire, comme des Romans, des Utopies, des Severambes; mais ces mêmes mondes seroient d'ailleurs fort inférieurs en bien au nôtre je ne saurois vous le faire voir en détail: car puisje connoitre, et puis-je vous représenter, des infinis, et les comparer ensemble? mais vous le devez juger avec moi ab effectu, puisque Dieu a choisi ce monde tel qu'il est. After this, one is only puzzled to think how it was possible to fill two volumes on the subject.

It is curious to observe how apt are all writers on this subject to fall into the same fallacy, and beg the question in dispute-even though they may clearly perceive the rock on which others have wrecked their logic. Thus, Lord Brougham, after having, in perhaps the most profound of his writings, very clearly exposed the fallacy of Archbishop King and others;-after fairly acknowledging that the problem is insoluble, and stating with much lucidity and beauty the mitigations founded on the immense preponderance of indications of benevolent design-falls into precisely the same error, the moment he ceases to demolish theories, and begins himself to build one. After admitting that death is an evil, he says, "That man might have been created immortal is not denied; but if it were the will of the Deity to form a limited being, * Essais sur la Bonté de Dieu, Part I., § 10. † Dissertations on Paley, vol. ii., p. 71.

But, though we certainly cannot demonstrate that this is the best of all possible worlds," and that it was necessary that some evil should be admitted, we are far enough from affirming that that faith to which, as we have said, the appeal is sure to be ultimately relegated, is a faith entirely without reason; or that it is destitute of those grounds of probability upon which alone an intelligent reliance on the truths, whether of natural or revealed theology, can be maintained. And here the immensely prevailing character of benevolent design, which pervades the universe, contrasted with the fact that evil always appears either simply concomitant, or involved as a consequence, never as an ultimate end, and that an apparent evil is often found to be connected with real good, is of incalculable benefit as suggesting an approximate solution. And this confidence is yet further increased, when we see that in proportion as our knowledge advances, many of the ancient objections against the wisdom, and some against the goodness of the constitution of the universe disappear ;-that they were in fact nothing more than the offspring of ignorance. We thus learn to believe that all would vanish in like manner if we were but omniscient. The course of reasoning is much the same as that by which we experimentally establish the first law of motion; it is but an approximate solution, yet conclusive: or we are led to suppose that the anomalies which we behold, are like those regressions of the planets which so much perplexed the early astronomers, and which arise from our seeing them from a false centre of observation. Place us in the true centre of the system, and, as science has now shown, all these irregularities disappear. Thus may it also be in the moral world.

"All discord, harmony ill-understood,
All partial evil, universal good."