righteous become like suns and neither our sense nor our minds have ever tasted of anything approaching the joys witich God has laid up for those that love him.
f NSI70 aT eal peer CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE METAPHYSICS.
5 ™ ry ry int ca Me bl ir: Ai: (Hwy Ls Us CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO te ME PAPE Y SICs.
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Letbniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels...Being at a place lately for several days with nothing to do, I wrote out a short discourse on Metaphysics on which I should be very glad to have the opinion of Mons. Arnaud.* For the questions in regard to grace, in regard to the relations of God with created beings, in regard to the nature of mir- acles,, the cause; of sin,. the. origin of. evil,:-the immortality of the soul, ideas, etc., are discussed in a way which seems to offer new points of approach fitted to clear up some great difficulties. I enclose herewith a summary of the articles which it con- tains, as I have not had time to make a clean copy of the whole. | I therefore beg Your Serene Highness to send him this summary, requesting him to look it over and givé his judgment upon it. For,as /he).excels equally in Theology and in Philosophy, in erudition and in power of thought, I know of no one who ts better fitted to give an opinion upon it. I am very desirous to have a critic as careful, as enlightened and as open to reason as is Monsieur Arnaud, being myself also a person the most disposed in the world to submit to reasoning.
* Leibniz always used the form Arnaud.—Trans.
68 CORRESPONDENCE.
Perhaps Mons. Arnaud will not find this outline wholly unworthy of his consideration, especially since he has been somewhat occupied in the exam- ination of these matters. If he finds obscurities I will explain myself sincerely and frankly, and if he finds me worthy indeed of his instruction I shall try to behave in such a way that he shall find no cause for being dissatisfied on that point. I beg Your Serene Highness to enclose this with the summary which I am sending and to forward them both to Mons. Arnaud.
SUMMARY OF THE DISCOURSE ON META- PHY si¢s 1. Concerning the divine perfection and that God does everything in the most desirable way.
2. Against those who hold that there is in the works of God no goodness, or that the principles of goodness and beauty are arbitrary.
3. Against those who think that God might have made things better than he has.
4. That love for God demands on wur part com- plete satisfaction with and acquiescence in that which he has done.
5. In what the principles of the perfection of the divine conduct consist and that the simplicity of the means counterbalances the richness of the effects: 6. That God does nothing which is not orderly and that it is not even possible to conceive of events which are not regular.
7. That miracles conform to the general order although they go against the subordinate regula- LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. 69 tions; concerning that which God desires or permits and concerning general and particular intentions.
8. In order to distinguish between the activities of God and the activities of created things, we must explain the conception of an individual substance.
g. That every individual substance expresses the whole universe in its own manner, and that in its full concept is included all its experiences together with all the attendant circumstances and the whole sequence of exterior events.
10. That the belief in substantial forms has a cer- tain basis in fact but that these forms. effect no changes tn the phenomena and must not be employed for the explanation of particular events.
11. That the opinions of the theologians and of the so-called scholastic philosophers are not to be wholly despised.
12, That the conception of the: extension of a body is in a way imaginary and does not constitute the substance of the body.
13. As the individual concept of each person includes once for all everything which can ever happen to him, in it can be seen a@ priori the evi- dences or the reasons for the reality of each event and why one happened sooner than the other. But these events, however certain, are nevertheless contingent being based on the free choice of God and of his creatures. It is true that their choices always have their reasons but they incline to the choices under no compulsion of necessity.
14. God produces different substances according to the different views which he has of the worlt and by the intervention of God the appropriate nature of each substance brings it about that what 70 CORRESPONDENCE, happens to one corresponds to what happens to all the others without, however, their acting upon one another directly.
Is. The action of one finite substance upon another consists only in the increase in the degree of the expression of the first combined with a decrease in that of the second, in so far as God has in advance fashioned them so that they should accord.
16. The extraordinary intervention of God is not excluded in that which our particular essences express because this expression includes every- thing. Such intervention however goes beyond the power of our natural being or of our distinct expression because these are finite and follow cer- tain subordinate regulations, 17. An example of a subordinate regulation in the law of nature which demonstrates that God always preserves the same amount of force but not the same quantity of motion; against the Cartesians and many others.
18. The distinction between force and the quantity of motion is, among other reasons, important as showing that we must have recourse to metaphysical considerations in addition to discussions of exten- sion, if we wish to explain the phenomena of matter.
19. The utility of final causes in physics.
20. A noteworthy disquisition by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo against the philosophers who were too materialistic.
21. If the mechanical laws depended upon geom- etry alone without metaphysical influences, the phe- ‘nomena would be very different from what they are.
22. Reconciliation of the two methods of expla- LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. ail nation, the one using final causes and the oth, effi- cient causes, thus satisfying both those who explain nature mechanically and also those who have recourse to incorporeal natures.
23. Returning to immaterial substances we explain how God acts upon the understanding of spirits, and ask whether one always keeps the idea of what he thinks about.
24. What clear and obscure, distinct and con- fused, adequate and inadequate, intuitive and assumed knowledge is, and the definition of nom- ina!, real, causal and essential.
25. In what cases knowledge is added to mere contemplation of the idea.
26. Ideas are all stored up within us. Plato’s doctrine of reminiscence.
27. In what respect our souls can be compared to blank tablets and how conceptions are derived from the senses.
28. The only immediate object of our perceptions which exists outside of us is God and in him alone is our light.
29. Yet we think directly by means of our own ideas and not through God's.
30. How God inclines our souls without necessi- tating them; that there are no grounds for com- plaint; that we must not ask why Judas sinned because this free act is contained in his concept, the only question being why Judas the sinner is admitted to existence, preferably to other possible persons; concerning the original imperfection or limitation before the fall and concerning the differ- ent degrees of grace.
31. The motives for election, faith foreseen, par- 72 CORRESPONDENCE.
tial knowledge, the absolute decree and that the whole inquiry is reduced to the question why God has chosen and resolved to admit to existence such a possible person whose concept involves such a sequence of gifts of grace and of free acts. This at once overcomes all the difficulties.
32. Applicability of these principles in matters of piety and of religion.
33. Explanation of the inter-relation of soul and body which has been usually considered inexplica- ble and miraculous; also concerning the origin of confused perceptions.
34. The difference between spirits and other sub- stances, souls or substantial forms, and that the immortality which people wish for includes remem- brance.
35. Excellence of spirits; that God considers them preferably to the other created things; that spirits express God rather than the world while other simple substances express rather the worid than God.
36. God is the monarch of the most perfect repub- lic which is composed of all the spirits, and the felicity of this city of God is his principal purpose.
37. Jesus Christ has disclosed to men the mystery and the admirable laws of the Kingdom of Heaven and the greatness of the supreme happiness which God has prepared for those who love him.
1 Arnauld to Count Erust von Hessen-Rheinfels.
I have received, Monseigneur, the metaphysical thoughts which Your Highness sent me from Mr.
LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS, 73 Leibniz as a witness of his affection and his esteem for which I am very grateful to him. But I have been so busy ever since that only within the last three days have I been able to read his mis- sive.
And at the present time I have such a bad cold that all that I can do now is to tell Your Highness in a couple of words that I find in his thoughts so many things which frightened me and which if I am not mistaken almost all men would find so star- tling that I cannot see any utility in a treatise which would be evidently rejected by everybody.
I will instance for example what is said in Article 13: That the individual concept of every person involves once for all everything which will ever happen to him, etc. If this is so, God was free to create or not to create Adam, but supposing he decided to create him, all that has since happened to the human race or which will ever happen to it has occurred and will occur by a necessity more than fatal. For the individual concept of Adam involved that he would have so many children and the individual concepts of these children involved all that they would do and all the children that they would have; and so on. God has therefore no more liberty in regard to all that, provided he wished to create Adam, than he was free to create a nature incapable of thought, supposing that he wished to create me. I am not in a position to speak of this at greater length, but Mr. Leibniz will understand my meaning and it is possible that he will find no difficulties in the consequence which I have drawn. If he finds none, however, he has reason to fear that he will be alone in his position, 74 CORRESPONDENCE.
and were I wrong in this last statement I should be still sorrier.
I cannot refrain from expressing to Your High- ness my sorrow at his attachment to those opinions, which he has indeed felt could hardly be permitted © in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church would prohibit his entertaining them, and it is apparently this attachment that has prevented his entering the fold, notwithstanding the fact that Your Highness, if I remember rightly, brought him to recognize that there was no reasonable doubt as to its being the true church.* Would it not be better for him to leave those metaphysical speculations which can be of utility neither to himself nor to others, in order to apply himself seriously to the most im- portant matter he can ever undertake, namely, to assure his salvation, by entering into the Church from which new sects can form only by: rendering themselves schismatic? I read yesterday by chance one of Saint Augustine’s letters in which he answers various questions that were put forward by a Pagan who showed a desire to become a Chris- tian but who always postponed doing so. He says, at the end, what may be applied to our friend ‘There are numberless problems which are not to. be solved before one has faith and will not be solv ed in life without faith.’’
III — Leibniz to Count Erust von Hessen-Rheinfels, I. do not know what to say to M. A.’s letter, and * Leibniz remarks on the margin of Arnauld’s letter: ‘‘I have never endorsed this sentiment.’’ Interesting as indicating Leibuiz’s attitude toward Catholicism.—£d¢for.
LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. 75 I never should have thought that a person whose reputation is so great and so real and from whom we have such excellent Reflections on Morals and Logic would be so precipitate in his judgments. After this instance I am not surprised that some are angry at him. Nevertheless I think it well to be patient at times under the ill humor of one whose merit is extraordinary, provided his acts have no serious results and I believe that a judicious reply may dissipate a prejudice ill-founded. I anticipate this justice in M. A.
Whatever reason, however, I may have for com- plaint, I desire to suppress all reflections which are not essential to the matter in hand and which might serve to increase the ill-feeling, but I hope he will use the same moderation, in case he has the graciousness to act as my instructor. I am only able to assure him that he is quite mistaken in cer- tain of his conjectures, because people of good sense have judged otherwise regarding my positions, and that notwithstanding their encouragement I have not been over quick in publishing anything upon abstract subjects which are to the taste of few peo- ple, inasmuch as the public even has as yet heard almost nothing in regard to certain more plausible discoveries which I made several years ago.
I have written down these Meditations only in order to profit for my own sake by the criticisms of more able thinkers and in order to receive confi- dence or correction in the investigation of these most Important truths. It is true that some per- sons of intelligence have found my opinions accept- able, but Ishould be the first to warn them if I thought. there were the slightest evil effects from them.
76 CORRESPONDENCE, 76 CORRESPONDENCE, This declaration is sincere, and this will not be the first time that I have profited by the instruc- tion of enlightened persons. This is why I shall assuredly be under great obligations to M. A. in case I merit his having the goodness to deliver me from the errors which he thinks dangerous and of which, I declare.1t.in good faith, 1:am, unable:to see the evil. But I hope that he will use modera- tion, and that he will do me justice, because men deserve at least that no wrong be done to them through precipitate judgments.
He chooses one of my theses to show that it ts dangerous. But either I am incapable for the present of understanding the difficulty or else there is none init. This has enabled me to recover from my surprise and has made me think that M. Arnaud’s remarks are the result of misconceptions. I will try therefore to deflect him from that strange opinion, which he conceived a little too hurriedly.
I said in the 13th article of my summary that the individual concept of each person involved once forall, all that would ever happen to him. From that he draws this conclusion that all that happens to any person and even to the whole human race must occur by a necessity more than fatal, as though concepts and previsions rendered things necessary and as though a free act could not be included in the concept or perfect view which God has of the person who performs it. And he adds that per- haps I will not find difficulties in the conclusion which he draws. Yet I have expressly protested tn that same article that I do not admit such a conclu- sion. It must be then either that he doubts my sincerity for which I have given him no grounds or LEIBNIZ, ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. 19 else he has not sufficiently examined that which he controverts. I do not complain as much as it appears I] have a right to, because I remember that he was writing at atime when an indisposition did not permit him the liberty of his whole mind, as the letter itself witnesses. And I desire to have him know how much regard I have for him.
He says: “‘If this is true (that is to say that the individual concept of each person involves once for all all that will ever happen to him), God has not been free to create everything that has since happened to the human race, and all that will hap- pen to it for all eternity must occur through a necessity more than fatalistic.’’ (There issome fault in the copy but I have felt able to amend it as above.) ‘‘For the individual concept, Adam, has involved that he should have so many children and the individual concept of each one of these children has involved everything that they would do and all the children that they would have, and soon. There is therefore no more liberty in God regarding all that, supposing that he wished to create Adam, than there is to create a nature incapable of thought, supposing that he wished to create mie.’’
To these last words ought properly to have been added the proof of the consequence but it is quite evident that they confuse zecessitatem ex hypothest with absolute necessity. A distinction has always been made between God’s freedom to act absolutely and his obligation to act in virtue of certain resolu- tions already made. He hardly understands the case who does not take the whole into considera- tion. It is little consonant with God’s dignity to 78 CORRESPONDENCE.
conceive of him (with the pretext of assuring his freedom) like certain Socinians, as a human being who forms his resolutions according to circum- stances. These maintain that he would be no longer free to create what he found good if his first resolutions in regard to Adam or other men already involved a relationship to that which concerned their posterity. Yet all agree that God has regu- lated from all eternity the whole course of the universe without this fact diminishing his freedom in any respect. It is clear also that these objec- tors separate the will-acts of God one from another while his acts are in fact inter-related. For we must not think of the intention of God to create a certain man Adam as detached from all the other intentions which he has in regard to the children of Adam and of all the human race, as though God first made the decree to create Adam without any relation to his posterity. This, in my opinion, does away with his freedom in creating Adam’s posterity as seems best to him, and ts a very strange sort of reasoning. We must rather think that God, choosing not an indeterminate Adam but a par- ticular Adam, whose perfect representation is found among the possible beings in the Ideas of God and who is accompanied by certain individual circum- stances and among other predicates possesses also that of having in time a certain posterity,—God, I say, in choosing him, has already had in mind his posterity and chooses them both at the same time.
Iam unable to understand how there is any evil in this opinion. If God should act in any other way he would not act as God. I will give an illus- tration. A wise prince in choosing a general whose LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS 79 intimates he knows, chooses at the same time cer- tain colonels and captains whom he well knows this general will recommend and whom he will not wish to refuse to him for certain prudential reasons. This fact, however, does not at all destroy the absolute power of the prince nor his freedom. The same applies to God even more certainly.
Therefore to reason rightly we must think of God as having a certain more general and more compre- hensive intention which has regard to the whole order of the universe because the universe is a whole which God sees through and through with a single glance. This more general intention embraces virtually the other intentions touching what tran- spires in this universe and among these is also that of creating a particular Adam who is related to the line of his posterity which God has already chosen as such and we may even say that these particular intentions differ from the general intention only in a single respect, that is to say, as the situation of a city regarded from a particular point of view has its particular geometrical plan. These various intentions all express the whole universe in the same way that each situation expresses the city. In fact the wiser a man is, the less detached inten- tions does he have, and again the more views and intentions that one has the less comprehensive and inter-related they are.
Each particular intention involves a relation to all the others, so that they may be concerted together in the best way possible. Far from finding in this anything repellent, 1 think that the contrary view destroys the perfection of God. In my opinion one must be hard to please or else prejudiced when 80 CORRESPONDENCE.
he finds opinions so innocent or rather so reason- able, worthy of exaggerations so strange as those which were sent to Your Highness.
If what I said be thought over a little it will be found to be evident ex terminms: for by the indi- vidual concept, Adam, I mean of course a perfect representation of a particular Adam who has certain individual characteristics and is thus distinguished from an infinity of possible persons very similar to him yet for all that different from him (as ellipses always differ from the circle, however closely they may approach it). God has preferred him to these others because it has pleased God to choose pre- cisely such an arrangement of the universe, and everything which is a consequence of this resolu- tion is necessary only by a hypothetical necessity and by no means destroys the freedom of God nor that‘of the created ‘spirits. (There® 1s'a “possible Adam whose posterity is of a certain sort, and an infinity of other possible Adams whose posterity would be otherwise; now is it not true that these possible Adams (if we may speak of them thus) differ among themselves and that God has chosen only one who Is precisely ours? There are so many reasons which prove the impossibility, not to say the absurdity and even the impiety of the contrary view, that I believe all men are really of the same opinion when they think over a little what they are saying. Perhaps M. A. also, if he had not been prejudiced against me as he was at first, would not have found my propositions so strange and would not have deduced from them the consequences which he did.
LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. 81 tion and I am glad to see that the point which he has selected as the most startling, is in my opinion so. little so. I do not know, however, whether I will have the pleasure of bringing M. Arnaud to acknowledge it also. Among the thousand advan- tages of great intellectual ability there is this little defect, that those who are possessed of this great intellectual ability, having the right to trust to their opinions, are not easily changed. As for myself, who am not of this stamp, I glory in acknowledging that I have been taught, and I should even find pleas- ure in being taught, provided I could say it sincerely and without flattery.
In addition I wish M. Arnaud to know that I make no pretentions to the glory of being an inno- vator, as he seems to have understood my opinions. On the contrary I usually find that the most ancient and the most generally accepted opinions are the best. I think that one cannot be accused of being an innovator when he produces only certain new truths without overturning well established beliefs. This is what the Geometers are doing and all those who are moving forward. I do not know if it will be easy to indicate authorized opinions to which mine are opposed. That is why what M. Arnaud says concerning the church has nothing to do with these meditations of mine, and I hope that he does not wish to hold and that he will not be able to prove them to contain anything that can be considered as heretical in any church whatever. Yetif the Church to which he belongs is so prompt to censure, such a proceeding should serve as a notice to be on one’s guard. As soon as a person might wish to express some view which would have the slightest bearing 82 CORRESPONDENCE.
upon Religion and which might go a little beyond what is taught to children, he would be in danger of getting into difficulties or at least of having some church father as a sponsor, which is saying the same things 7# terminis. Yet even that would not be perhaps sufficient for complete safety, above all, when one has no means of support.
If Your Serene Highness were not a Prince whose intelligence is as great as is his moderation, I should have been on my guard in speaking of these things. To whom, however, do they relate better than to you, and since you have had the goodness to act as intermediary in this discussion, can we without imprudence have recourse to any other arbitrator? In so far as the concern is not so much regarding the truth of certain propositions as regarding their consequences and their being tolerated, I do not believe that you will approve so much vehemence over so small a matter. It is quite possible, how- ever, that M. A. spoke in those severe terms only because he believed that I would admit the conse- quence which he had reason to find so terrifying and that he will change his language after my explana- tion. To this, his own sense of justice will con- tribute as much as the authority of Your Highness.
I am, with devotion, etc.
IV Letbniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels.
I have received M. Arnaud’s verdict and I think it well to disabuse his mind by the enclosed reply in the form of a letter to Your Highness. But I LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS, 83 confess that I have had much difficulty in suppress- ing a desire as much to laugh as to express pity, inasmuch as the good man seems really to have lost a part of his mind and seems not to have been able to keep from crying out against everything as do those seized with melancholy to whom everything which they see or think of appears black. I have shown a good deal of moderation toward him but I have not avoided letting him quietly know that he is wrong. If he has the kindness to rescue me from the errors which he attributes to me and which he thinks to have seen in my writings, I wish that he would suppress the personal reflections and the severe expressions, which I have feigned not to notice out of the respect which I have for Your Serene Highness and also because of the respect which I have for the merits of the good man.
Yet Iam surprised at the difference which there is between our pretended Santons and those persons of the world who pretend to no such position and have much more the effect. Your Serene Highness is a Sovereign Prince and still you have shown to mea moderation which I wonder at, while M. Arnaud is a famous theologian whose meditations on religious subjects ought to have rendered him mild and char- itable, yet what he says seems often haughty, rough and full of severity. I am not surprised now that he has so easily fallen out with Father Malebranche and others who used to be his fast friends. Father Malebranche has published writings which M. Arnaud treated extravagantly almost as he has done in my case. The world has not always been of his opinions. He must take care, however, not to excite his bilious temper. It will deprive us of 84 CORRESPONDENCE.
all the pleasure and all the satisfaction which I had anticipated tn a mild and reasonable debate.
] believe he received my paper when he was in an ill humor and finding himself put to trouble by it, he wanted to revenge himself by a rebuff. I know that if Your Serene Highness had the leisure to con- sider the objection which he brought forward, you could not refrain from laughing at seeing the slight cause he had for making such tragic exclamations; quite as one would laugh on hearing an orator who should say every few minutes, ‘‘O coelum, O terra, O maria Neptuni.”’
I am glad that there is nothing more repellent, or more difficult in my thoughts than what he objects to. For according to him if what I say is true (namely that the individual concept or considera- tion of Adam, involves all that will happen to him and to his posterity), it follows that God will have no liberty any longer with respect to the human race. He imagines therefore that God is like a human being who forms his resolves in accordance with circumstances, while on the contrary, God, foreseeing and having regulated all things from all eternity, has chosen from the first the entire sequence and inter-relation of the universe and consequently not simply an Adam but such an Adam in regard to whom he foresaw that he would do such and such things and would have such and such children, with- out, however, this prevision of God’s, though ordained from all time, interfering at all with his freedom. On this point all theologians, excepting some Socinians who think of God as a human being, are agreed. And Iam surprised that the desire to find something repellent in my thoughts, prejudice LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD. HESSEN-RHEINFELS. 85 against which had engendered in his mind a con- fused and ill-directed idea, has led this learned man to speak against his own knowledge and convic- tions. For I am not so unfair as to imitate him and to impute to him the dangerous doctrine of those Socinians which destroys the sovereign per- fection of God, although he seems almost to incline to that doctrine in the heat of debate.
Every man who acts wisely considers all the cir- cumstances and bearings of the resolve which he makes, and this in accordance with the measure of his abilities. And God, who sees every thing per- fectly and with a single glance, can he have failed to make his plans in conformity with everything which he saw? And can he have chosen a particular Adam without considering and having ia mind all that has relations to him? Consequently it is ridic- ulous to say that this free resolve on God’s part deprives him of his liberty. Otherwise in order to be free one must need be ever undecided. Such are the thoughts which are repellent to Mr. Arnaud. We will see if through their consequences he will be able to derive something worse from them. Yet the most important reflection which I have made in the enclosed is that he himself some time ago expressly wrote to Your Serene Highness that no trouble was given to a man who was in their church or who wished to be in it, for his philosophical opinions and here is he now, forgetting this modera- tion, and losing control of himself overa trifle. It is therefore dangerous to consort with such people and Your Serene Highness sees how many precau- tions one should take. This was one of the very reasons why I communicated the summary to M.
86 CORRESPONDENCE, 86 CORRESPONDENCE, Arnaud, viz., to probe a little and to see what his behaviour would be. But sange montes et fumiga- dunt. As soon as one swings away the least amount from the positions of certain professors they burst forth into explosions and thunders.
I am very positive that the world will not be of his opinion but it is always well to be on one’s guard. Perhaps, however, Your Highness will nave a chance to let him know that to act in such a way, is to rebuke people unnecessarily, so that henceforth he may use a little more moderation. If Iam not mistaken Your Highness had a corre- spondence with him about the methods of restraint and I should like to learn the results of it.
I may add that milord has now gone to Rome and apparently will not return to Germany so soon as was thought. One of these days I am going to Wolfenbitel and will do my best to recover Your Highness’s book. It is said that M. Varillas has written a History of Modern Heresies.
Mastrich’s letter which Your Highness commun- icated to me regarding the conversions of Sedan seems quite reasonable. M. Maimburg, they say, reports that St. Gregory the Great also approved of this principle, namely that one should not trouble himself even if the conversion of Heretics was feigned, provided that thus their children were really gained over. But it is not permitted to kill some persons in order to gain others, although Charlemagne used almost exactly this method against the Saxons, forcing them to accept Religion with the sword at their throats. We have now here a Monsieur Leti who has brought us his History of Geneva in five volumes dedicated to the House of LEIBNIZ. ARNAULD, HESSEN-RHEINFELS, 87 Brunswick. I do not know what relationship he finds between the two. He says quite good things at times and is a good conversationalist.
Tam, ete.
V Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels.