dan destroyed in his mind all the good opinion he had had of the ancient histories. That statement, I say, will have no force in the minds of well-informed persons in overthrowing the authority of the history of Sleidan, the best part of which is a series of the public acts of the Diets and Assemblies, and of the writings authorized by the princes. And if there re mained the least scruple regarding it, it has just been removed by the excellent history of my distinguished friend, the late Mr. Von Seckendorf3 (in which I cannot, however, refrain 1 Leibnitz here refers, according to Schaarschmidt, to Jas. Heath's Flagel- Itan; or the Life and Death, Birth and Burial of Oliver, the late Usurper, London, Ki03, 8vo. In this book the Protector is generously slandered and abused. S. Carrington's 27*6 Hist, of the Life and Death of Oliver Cromwell, London, 1(>59, 8vo, is a panegyric, in which Cromwell is compared, among others, with Alexander the Great. An abridgment of Heath's book may be found in the " Harleian Miscellany," 1,279, ed. Park. It may be added that " the earliest lives of Cromwell were either brief chronicles of the chief events of his life or were panegyrics." — Tn.
3 Veit Ludwig von Seckendorf, 1G26-1G92, a distinguished German scholar and statesman, whose Commentarius historicus et apologeticus de Lutheran- 544 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. iv from disapproving the term " Lutlicranism " on the title-page, which a bad custom has authorized in Saxony), wherein the majority of the statements are justified by extracts from an immense number of pieces, drawn from the Saxon archives which he had at his disposal, although the Bishop of Meaux, who contested their validity, and to whom I sent it, merely replied to me that this book is horribly prolix; but I could wish that it were twice as large on the same scale. The more ample it is, the more hold it must give, since one has only to choose his passages; besides, there are some esteemed histori cal works which are much greater. For the rest, we do not always despise authors posterior to times of which they speak when what they relate is apparently otherwise. Some times, also, it happens that they preserve some most ancient pieces. For example, there has been doubt as to what family Suibert, Bishop of Bainberg, since Pope under the name of Clement II., belonged. An anonymous author of the history of Brunswick, who lived in the fourteenth century, named his family, and some persons learned in our history desired to pay no regard whatever to it; but I have had a chronicle much more ancient, not yet printed, in which the same statement is made with more details, from which it appears that he be longed to the family of the ancient allodial seigniors of Horn- bourg (not far from Wolfenbuttel), the territory of which was given by the last owner to the cathedral church of Halber- stadt.
§ 11. Ph. I do not wish you to think that I desired to lessen the authority and use of history by my remark. It is from this source that we receive with a convincing evidence a large ismo sive de Reformation?, Leipzig, 1602, 3 vols., fol., occasioned by and directed against the L'Histoire du LuthfSranisme, Paris, 16SO, of the Jesuit Maimbourg, is his most important work, and a rich storehouse of authentic materials for the history of the reformation from 1517-1547, drawn from documents contained in the Saxon archives, the writings of the reformers and their contemporaries, accompanied by a polemical and historical commentary. It. is the work of an able, philosophic mind, with scarcely a trace of the secta rian spirit. Leibnitz gives a brief account and estimate of the book in his letters to Bossnet, Jan. 8-18, and April 8-18, 1692 (cf. Foucher de Careil, (Euvrcs de Leibniz, 1, 228, 275, Dutens, Leibnit. op. om., 1. 52:i-4, 530-5:U). It is also referred to in Bossnet's letters to Leibnitz, Jan. 10, 1692 (F. 1, 22ii, D. 1, 522), March 26 or May 26, 1692 (F. 1. 25:!), and Leibnitz to Bossuet, without dates (F. 1, 223, 254-255). For further remarks of Leibnitz concerning it, cf.
en. xvi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 545 part of our useful truths. I see nothing more valuable than the records of antiquity remaining to us, and I wish we had more of them, and less corrupted. But it is always true that no copy raises itself higher than the certainty of its first original.
Tli. It is certain, that when we have a single ancient author as the authority for a fact, all those who have copied him add no weight thereto, or rather should be reckoned as nothing. It should be wholly as if what they said belonged to the number, TWJ/ aira£ Aeyo/xeVwv, of things which have been said only once, a collection of which Menage * wished to make. Moreover, to day, if a hundred thousand petty writers should repeat the slanders of Bolsec 2 (for example), a man of judgment would value it no more than the noise of goslings. Jurisconsults have written de fide historica; but the subject merits a more exact research, and some of these gentlemen have been too indulgent. As for that which is of great antiquity, some of the most noted facts are doubtful. Clever people have doubted, with reason, whether Romulus was the first founder of the city of Rome. There is dispute about the death of Cyrus, and besides, the discrepancy between Herodotus and Ctesias has spread doubt upon the history of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. That of Xebuchadnezzar, of Judith, and even of the Ahasuerus of Esther suffer from great difficulties. The Romans, when speaking of the gold of Toulouse, contradict the story of the defeat of the Gauls by Camillus. Above all, the particular and private history of peoples is without credit, unless it is taken from very ancient originals, and is suf ficiently in conformity with public history. This is why the '2 Jerome Hermes Bolsec, born at Paris, died 1G85, at Lyons, was a Carmel ite of Paris, who forsook his order, became a Protestant, fled to Italy and thence to Geneva, where he set up as a physician, but not meeting with the success he desired, gave himself up to theology, discoursed publicly on the doctrine of Predestination, advocating the views of Pelagius, and thus incur ring the censure of Calvin, was imprisoned and then banished by the Senate of Geneva, Dec. 29, 1551. He went thence to Bern, whither Calvin pursued him. These persecutions developed in him a violent hatred towards Calvin, which, after his return to the Catholic faith, he vented in his L'llistoire de la vie, m<£urs,actcs, doctrine et mort de Jean Calvin, Paris, 1577, 8vo. He also pub lished a similar work, L'llistoire de la vie, mumrs, doctrine et deportementx de Theodore de liezc, Paris, 1580, 8vo. Both works are merely pamphlets, with no historical authority. — TR.
546 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK iv stories told us of the ancient German, Gallic, British, Scotch, Polish, and other kings pass with reason as fabulous and made up. Trebeta, son of Ninus, founder of Treves, Bru tus, ancestor of the Britons, or Britains, are as real as the Amadis. The tales taken from certain story-tellers, which Trithemius,1 Aventin,2 and even Albinus3 and Sifrid Petri4 have taken the liberty to tell of the ancient princes of the Franks, Boii, Saxons, Frisians; and what Saxo Gramaticus and the Edda tell us of the remote antiquities of the north, cannot have more authority than what Kadlubko,5 the first Polish historian, says of one of their kings, a son-in-law of Julius Caesar. But when the histories of different peoples agree in instances where there is no appearance that one has copied another, it is a great sign of their truth. Such is the 1 Johann Trithemius, 1462-1516, abbot of Spanheim, whose Compendium, sivc brcviarium primi voluminisannalium,sive hi*toriarum,deorigine rerum et ffentis Francorum appeared at Mainz, 1515, reprinted, Paris, 1539. Leib nitz speaks of him in his Introd. in collectionem Scriptorum Hixtor. Bruns- vicensi inservientium, Dutens, 4, Pt. II., 4, 5. For an account of him, cf. Michaud, Bioy. Univ. Vol. 46, pp. 551-55!). —Tit.
2 Johann Thurmayr Aventimis, 1466-15.'!4, author of Annales Boiorum. His history, the materials of which were drawn from authentic sources, was finished in 1528, and published " with some important omissions" of passages adverse to the Roman Catholics by Zeigler in 1554. The omitted passages were afterwards restored by Nicolas Cisner in the Basle eel., 15SO. Leibnitz mentions him inhis Introd. in col. Script. Hixtor. Brunsvic., Dutens, 4, Pt. II.,4. — TR.
3 Alcuin, — Latin, Alcuinus or Albinus Flaccus, — c. 735-804, the instructor of Charlemagne, whose collected works, containing among other things some historical treatises, were first published by And. Duchesne, Paris, 1017, 1 vol., fol., and afterwards by Froben, Alcuini opera, post editionem ab And.Querce- tano curutdin, dr novo collata, emendata, aucta et illustrate*, 2 vols., fol., Ratisbon, 1777. Migne, Patrol., Vols. 100, 101, is a reprint of this ed. — TR.
4 Sifrid or Suffrid Petri, 1527-1597, a Dutch philologist of great learning, but deficient in critical ability and taste, was Professor of Latin and Greek in the University of Erfurt, 1557, of Law at Cologne, 1577, and of Canon Law at Louvain and Cologne, 1585. He was the historiographer of the States of Fries- land, and published De Frisiorum antiquitate et origine lib. III., Cologne, 1590; De Scriptoribu-s Frisise decades XVI. et semis, Cologne, 1593. His Historia veterum episcoporum Ultrajectinse sedis et comitum Ilollandise, appeared at Francker, 1612. — TR.
5 Vincent Kadlubek or Kodlubko, 1161-1223, bishop of Cracow, a Latin chronicler of the early history of Poland, whose Historia Polonica, Do- bromiel, 1612, 12mo, written with spirit, but in a barbarous style, throws much light on the events of his own time, but must be received with caution, as regards the early period, since he treated the early legendary stories, many of which closely resemble the Scandinavian sagas, as genuine history. The work is in four books and extends to the year 1202, and is true and faithful in relating events in Poland in the llth and 12th centuries. — TR.
en. xvi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 547 accord of Herodotus with the history of the Old Testament in many things, for example, when he speaks l of the battle of Megiddo between the king of Egypt, and the Syrians of Pales tine, i.e. the Jews, in which, according to the testimony of the sacred history we have of the Hebrews, King Josias was mortally wounded. The consent of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish historians with the Greeks, Romans, and other occi dentals gives pleasure to those who seek for facts; as also the testimony which the medals and superscriptions, remain ing from antiquity, render to the books which have come down from the ancients to us and which are, in reality, copies of copies. We must wait for what we shall yet learn of the history of China, until we are in a better condition to judge of it, and until it shall bear its credibility with itself. The use of history consists principally in the pleasure there is in knowing origins, in the justice rendered to the men who have deserved well of other men, in the establishment of historical criticism, and especially of sacred history, which supports the foundations of revelation, and (putting also aside the geneal ogies and laws of princes and powers) in the useful teachings which the examples furnish us. I do not despise the thorough examination of antiquities, even to the smallest trifles; for sometimes the knowledge which the critics draw from them may be of use in more important matters. I consent, for ex ample, to the writing even of the entire history of clothing and of the tailor's art, from the garments of the Hebrew priests, or, if you please, from the peltries which God gave to the first bride and bridegroom at their departure from Paradise, to the top-knots and furbelows of our time, and to the union there with of all that can be drawn from ancient sculptures and from paintings also made some centuries after. I will furnish indeed, if any one desires it, the memoirs of a man of Augs burg of the past century, who is described with all the clothes which lie wore from his infancy up to the age of 63 years. I do not know who told me that the late Dnke of Aumont,2 a 1 Cf. Herodotus II. 159, and notes of Biihr and Rawlinson on the passage.
2 Lonis-Marie-Victor d'Aumont, 1032-170-1, a French scholar, numismatist, and " brigadier du roi " under Louis XIV. in the Low Countries, contributed much to the progress of the knowledge of medals, and was a member of the " Academic des inscriptions et Belles-Lettres." — TR.
548 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. iv great connoisseur of fine antiquities, had a similar curiosity. This may perhaps be of use in distinguishing the legitimate monuments from those which are not so, not to speak of other uses. And since men are allowed to play, they will still further be allowed to divert themselves with these kinds of work, if their essential duties do not suffer thereby. But I wish there might be some persons who would devote them selves preferably to drawing from history that which is more useful, as the extraordinary examples of virtue, remarks upon the conveniences of life, stratagems of politics and of war. And I wish that a kind of universal history were written which should indicate only such things, and some few others of more consequence; for sometimes one reads an extensive historical work, learned, well-written, suited also to the end of the author, and excellent of its kind, but which contains little useful instruction, by which I do not mean here simple morality, with which the " Theatrum vitae humanae " l and other such florileges are filled, but skill and knowledge of which everybody would not think in case of need. I wish also that an infinite number of things of this nature, by which we might profit, might be drawn from books of travel, and be arranged according to the order of the subjects. But it is astonishing that while so many useful things remain to be done, men amuse themselves almost always with what is already done, or with purely useless things, or at least with what is the least important, and I see little remedy therefor until the public is more concerned about them in more tranquil times.
§ 12. Ph. Your digressions give pleasure and profit. But from the probabilities of facts, let us come to those of opinions concerning things which do not fall under the senses. Such things are incapable of any testimony, for example, the exist ence and2 nature of spirits, angels, demons, etc., the material substances which are in the planets and other mansions3 of 1 Theodore Zwiuger, 1533-1588, a celebrated Swiss physician, whose Thea trum vitsB humanse, " a vast compilation of historical facts and anecdotes, and of curious and piquant observations," in preparing which he availed himself of the materials which his father-in-law, Lycosthenes [Conrad Wolffhart], 1518-1501, had collected and asked him to set in order, appeared at Basle, 2 Gerhardt reads: " de," a Ms. or typographical error; Erdmann, Jacques, and Janet have " et." — TR.
CH. xvi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 549 this vast universe; finally, upon the mode of operation of the majority of the works of nature, and of all these things we can have merely conjectures, wherein analogy1 is the great rule of probability. For being incapable of attestation, they can appear probable only so far as they agree more or less with established truths. As violent friction of two bodies produces heat and even tire, as the refractions of transparent bodies produce the appearance of colors, we think that fire consists in a violent agitation of the imperceptible parts, and that colors also, whose origin we do not see, come from a simi lar refraction; and finding that there is a gradual connection in all the parts of the creation that may be subject to human observation, without any considerable gap between any two, we have every reason to think that things rise also towards perfection gradually and by insensible degrees.2 It is difficult to say where the sensible and the rational begin, and what is the lowest degree of living things; it is like the increase or diminution of quantity in a regular cone. The difference is exceeding great between certain men and certain animals; but if we wish to compare the understanding and capacity of certain men and certain brutes, we shall find so little differ ence, that it will be very difficult to assert that the under standing of these men is clearer or more extended than that of these brutes. When, therefore, we observe such an insensi ble gradation between the parts of creation from man to the lowest parts beneath him, the rule of analogy makes us regard it as probable that there is a parallel gradation in the things above us and beyond the sphere of our observation, and this kind of probability is the broad foundation of rational hypotheses.3 1 In the case of natural phenomena beyond the reach of the sepses, analogy is the great rule of probability, the reasoning in general being hypothetical only, and the force and certainty of the conclusion therefrom being directly proportional to the reality and degree of the resemblance or similarity of the phenomena. Since Locke's and Leibnitz's day, great advance has been made in our knowledge of the nature of the materials existing in the various heav enly bodies, chiefly through the aid of the spectroscope and spectral analysis, not only strengthening and increasing the measure of probability in the appli cation of the conclusion from analogy to the conjectured conditions of other worlds, but in some cases and to a certain extent giving us well accredited positive knowledge in regard to their constitution. — TR.
2 Of'. A. C. Fraser, Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. 2, p. 380, note 2. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 18<>4. — TR.
3 The probable conclusion from analogy is a rational hypothesis, whose LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [I:K. iv Th. It is upon the ground of this analogy that Huygens, in his " Cosmotheoros," 1 judges that the condition of the other principal planets is quite similar to ours, excepting the differ ence which their different distance from the sun must cause: and Fontenelle,2 who had already before published his conver sations full of wit and knowledge on the plurality of worlds, hypothetical character consists in the fact that it is not a completely exhaus tive induction or a mathematical demonstration from the given data, therefore still problematical, and whose rationality consists in the fact that no known reason exists against the assumed instance, but on the contrary the analogy itself directly furnishes occasion for a provisional consideration of, if not a belief in, the hypothesis. — TR.
1 Cf. ante, p. 150, note 3. Huygen's Cosmotheoros, sive de terris c<jelestibus earumqiie ornatu conjectures — a speculation concerning the inhabitants of the planets, and the last work of the great physicist and mathematician — appeared posthumously, at the Hague, 1098, and in a German trans., Leipzig, 1703, just before Leibnitz wrote Bk. IV. of the New Essays, and in an English trans., entitled, The Celestial World discovered; or Conjectures concerning the Inhabitants, Plants, and Productions of the Worlds in the Planets, Lon don, 1699, 8vo; Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds, Glasgow, 1727, 12mo. The work is found in Huygens, Opera Omnia, Leyden, 1824, 2 vols., 2 Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, 1657-1757, a litterateur rather than a philosopher, who, nevertheless, according to Janet, " belongs to the history of philosophy, through the spirit of inquiry and criticism which animates his works," attempted, and successfully, in his Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, Paris, 1686, 12mo (a sixth Entretien was added in the Paris ed. of 1687, according to Brunet) to popularize the astronomical theories and doc trines of Copernicus and Descartes. The work is a fine illustration of the possibility of making science, without ceasing to be scientific, intelligible and interesting to the men of the world. Fontenelle became a member of the " Academic Francaise " in 1691, and, on the revival of the "Academie des Sci ences de Paris " in 1699, was nominated its perpetual secretary, and continued in that office for fifty-eight years, publishing each year a volume of the Histoire of this Academic, containing clear and orderly arranged extracts from or anal yses of the papers read before the Acade"»ne,(rftei\ accompanied with new and profound views of his own, together with Elor/es of the members dying in each year, among which is the Eloge de Leibniz, "a masterpiece," found in L' Histoire de V Academic Royale des Sciences de Paris, annee 1716; in Vol. 3, 1722, of the collection of these Eloyes, 69 in number, entitled Ilixtoire du renouvellement de I' Academic Royale des Sciences en 1699, et Eloycs historiqucs des Acaddnnciens morts depuis ce temps-la, 3 vols., Paris, 1708-1722; in (Enures de Fontenelle, 3 vols., La Haye, 1728-29, Vol. 3, pp. 232j259; new ed., 11 vols., Paris, 1766, Vol. 5, pp. 447-506; and in F. Bouillier, Elor/es de Fon tenelle avec une Introd. et des Notes, Paris, 1S83, pp. 103-134; cf. also Jacques, (Envres de Leibniz, Vol.2, pp. i-xxiv, Dutens, Leibnit. op. ow., Vol. 1, pp. xix-liii.
The Entretiens sur la pluralite des rnond"s is found in (Eur,-ps d" Fon tenelle, La Haye, 1728-172!), Vol. 1, pp. 149-2:54; new ed., Paris, 1766, Vol.2, pp. 1-190; there is a German trans, by Gottsched, 1751, Eng. trans, by Glan- vill, London, 1688, 1768, by A. Behn and others, London, 1801, and from the en. xvi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 651 has said some pretty things thereupon, and has discovered the art of enlivening a difficult1 subject. He would say, as it were, that a harlequin in the empire of the moon is altogether what it is here. It is true that we judge in a wholly different way of moons (which are satellites merely) than of the princi pal planets. Kepler2 has left a little book which contains an ingenious story upon the condition of the moon, and an Eng lishman,3 an homme d'esprit, has published the humorous de scription of a Spaniard (of his OAvn invention) whom some birds of passage transported to the moon, not to mention Cyrano,4 who since went to find this Spaniard. Some clever men, wish ing to present a beautiful picture of the other life, conduct very happy souls from world to world; and our imagination finds therein a part of the agreeable occupations which may be ascribed to genii. But however it may strive, I doubt if it can attain its object, because of the great interval between us and these genii, and the great variety found therein. And until we find telescopes like those Descartes made us hope for in order to discern parts of the moon's sphere no larger than our houses, we cannot determine what there is in a globe different from ours. Our conjectures will be more useful and " last and best " ed., with notes and a critical account of the author's writing by the astronomer Jerome de la Lancle, Paris, 1800, by Miss E. Gunning;, 1803. Fontenelle was author also of Dialogues des morts, Paris, 1683; L'Hixtoire des Oracles, Paris, 1687; Doutes sur le systenie physique des causes occasio- nelles, against Malebranche, Paris, 168(5. — Tit.
1 Jacques reads: " fort difficile." — Tn.
2 Cf. ante, p. 123, note 2. The book of Kepler here referred to by Leibnitz is his Somnium scu de astronomia lunarl, Francofurti, 1634, 4to, published after his death by his son, and found in Frisch, J. Kepleri opera oinnia, Vol. 8, Pt. I., pp. 21-39. The concluding paragraphs, pp. 38-39, are of a zoological and ethnological character. Michaud (Biog. Univ. 22, 313) says it is a philo sophical and allegorical romance, in which the author exposes the astronomical phenomena as they would appear to the inhabitants of the moon, who like ourselves think that they are at the centre of the universe, but who are not so well situated as we to raise themselves to the " idea " of the true system. Schaarschmidt states that Kepler had occupied himself with Plutarch's De facie in orhc, hmie (Eng. trans, in Plutarch's Morals, ed. Goodwin, 5, 234- 292 — the Moon-Da-mons, 289) and from the tales about the moon-da-mons therein contained related by Sylla, had derived his idea of a lunar geography.
3 Franc. Godwin. Cf. ante, p. 342, note 2. — TR.
4 Cf. ante, pp. 228, note 2; 399, note 3. The reference is to his Voyage dans fa lime. Cf. Theodicec, Pt. III., § 343; Gerhardt, 6, 318; Erdmann, 603 b; Jacques, 2, 268; Janet, 2, 359, 360; Dutens, 1, 364.— TR.
552 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv