1 Christine Pouiatowa, 1610-1644, a famous enthusiast, the daughter of a Polish noble and unfrocked monk, claimed in 1627-1628 that she had visions regarding the persecutions of the Evangelical Church which were soon to end in its triumph. Jan. 27, 1629, she fell into a lethargy so profound that they thought her dead; but at length awaking, she declared that her visions were ended, her mission complete. Chagrin at seeing her predictions denied at last caused her death. She wrote out her revelations in the order in which she said she had received them from heaven. Comenius (cf. ante, p. 466, note 2) translated them into Latin, and published them, together with those of Drabitius, Kotter, 1585-1047, and other enthusiasts, in his very rare Lux in Tenebrift, 1650, 1657, 4to, 1659, with title Historia revelationum Ch. Kotteri, Chr. Poniatovise, Nic. Drabitii, etc. (the only ed. known to Bayle, and the least rare and complete), 1665, 2 vols., 4to, also several other eds., more or less incomplete. The rarity of the work is due to the fact that Comenius, fearing on the one hand to disobey a divine command if he refused to trans late these prophecies out of the Bohemian or Czech language in which they had first appeared, and on the other of covering himself with ridicule if the event not far distant did not verify them, allowed but few copies to be printed. For further account of Poniatowa, cf. Adelung, Gesch. d. meitsch. Narrheit, 2 Cf. ante, p. 466, note 2. The Lux in Tenebris appeared in 1650. — TR.
3 Nicolas Drabitius or Drabicius, c. 1587-1671, a Bohemian-Moravian min ister at Drakatutz, who was compelled by the severity of the imperial edicts against the Protestants to retire to Lednitz in Hungary, turned to secular pursuits, became very dissipated, and was suspended from the ministry. In HK:8 he claimed to be inspired and to have divine revelations, the chief of which predicted the fall of the House of Austria in 1657, and the success of the expedition, which he urged upon Prince George II. Rakoczy of Transylvania, against Poland in the same year. Both predictions failed. Prince George was totally defeated July 16, 1657, and compelled to fight the Turks, roused to hostility by his attack on Poland, till his death, June 26, 1660. The House CH. xix] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 006 lost his army, a result which finally cost him the loss of his estates together with his life; and the poor Drabitius a long time after, at the age of eighty years, at last had his head cut off by the order of the emperor. Yet I do not doubt that there are people now who cause these predictions to be revived inaptly in the present conjuncture of disorders in Hungary, not consid ering that these pretended prophets spoke of the events of their time; in which respect they did almost as he who, after the bombardment of Brussels, published a loose sheet, in which there was a passage taken from a book of Mademoiselle Antoi nette, who did not wish to come into this city because (if I remember rightly) she had dreamed that she saw it on fire; but this bombardment happened a long time after her death. I knew a man who went to France during the war which was ter minated by the Peace of Nmiwegen to importune M. de Mon- tausier l and M. de Pomponne 2 upon the trustworthiness of the prophecies published by Comenius; and he would himself have believed himself inspired (I think), if he had happened to make his propositions in a time parallel to ours. This shows not only the little foundation, but also the danger of these wayward nesses. Histories are full of the bad effect of false or misunder stood prophecies, as may be seen in a learned and judicious dissertation, " De officio viri boni circa futura contingentia," which the late Jacobus Thomasius, a celebrated professor at Leipzig, formerly gave the public.3 It is true, however, that of Austria, resolving to rid itself of the pretended prophet, arrested him as a state criminal, tried and condemned him to death. His head and right hand were cut off and burned with a copy of his books, and the ashes thrown into the Danube, July 17, 1671. For further account, cf. Adelung, Gesch. d. mensch. Narrhcit, Vol. 2, pp. 27-f>2. — Tu.
1 Charles de Sainte-Maure, Marquis and then Duke de Montausier, 1610-1<'>90, to whom Louis XIV., in 1068, entrusted the education of the Dauphin, then seven years of age, for whose instruction he edited the Delphine Classics and a JRecite/l de maximes morales etpolitiques. — TR.
2 Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne or Pompone, 1018-1699, was am bassador to Sweden under Louis XIV., and concluded the Peace of Nimwegen, 1678-1<>7!>. His Memoires de Marquis de Pomponne appeared at Paris, 1861- asen, — Latin Thomasius, — 1622-1684, was for many years losophy and Eloquence in the University of Leipzig, the 'ientific study of the history of philosophy in Germany, and 3 Jacob Thon Professor of Ph founder of the s the first to rec< sertations. He nmend disputed questions in this subject as themes for dis- vas Leibnitz's first teacher in philosophy, early discerned the eminent abilities and promise of his subsequently very distinguished GOG LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv these persuasions sometimes produce a good effect and render great service, for God can make use of error to establish or maintain truth. But I do not believe that it is easily permitted us to make use of pious frauds for a good end; and as for the dogmas of religion, we have no need of new revelations; it is enough that we propose to ourselves salutary rules in order that Ave may be obliged to follow them, although the one proposing them performs no miracle. And although Jesus Christ was pro vided with miracles, he did not cease to refuse sometimes to per form them in order to please that perverse race who demanded signs, when he preached only virtue and what had already been taught by natural reason and the prophets.1 ]>npil, taught him to take a broad and, for that time, critical view of the history of philosophy, and introduced him early into the polemic against em piricism. The pupil regarded his teacher with reverent gratitude (cf. Leib nitz's letters to Thomasius, April 20-30, 1009, Gerhardt, Leibniz. Philos. Schrift., 1, 15, 20-27; to J. Christ. Wolf, Dec. 11, 1711, Dutens, 5, 447, Kortholt, Leibnit. Epixt., 1, 270; Leibnit. Vita a Jac. Bruckero script a, § ">, Dutens, 1, LVIII.-LXL, and Brucker, Philos. Hixtoria, 5, 336-340, Lipsiae, 1742-1707), and each prized the esteem and friendship of the other. Leibnitz sent Tho- masius his own early works for criticism (" Neqne vero laudem, sed examen peto," letter of April 20-30, KM!!), G. 1, 27); Thomasius presided when Leib nitz defended his DC. princ. iiuUv. for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy (cf. ante, p. 239, note 1), and when it was published wrote the Preface (for which cf. Dutens, 2, Pt. I., 11-14). For their correspondence, the preservation of Leibnitz's part of which we owe to the care of Thomasius, cf. Gerhardt, op. cit., 1, 1-39. Most important for the philosophy of Leibnitz, especially as regards the beginning of his independent speculations, and as a statement of principles from which he never departed but simply worked out into clearer and completer forms, is the letter of April 20-30, 1009, cf. G. 1, 15-27, Erd- mann, 48-.">4, Dutens, 4, 7-19, also Gulirauer, Leibniz' Dissert, de princ. indiv., p. 33. Leibnitz refers frequently to Thomasius; cf. for example, Thewlicee, The essay of Thomasius here referred to by Leibnitz is also cited, accord ing to Schaarschmidt, under the title J)e qfficio hominis circa nolitia.iH.futu- rorum contingentium, and, in his opinion, is probably the same as the one which Christian Thomasius, after his father's death, had printed in his Disser- tationcs LXIII. mar/nain purteni ad historiam pfdlosophicam et ecdesiasticam pcrtinentes, Halle, 1(593, 8vo, as Programma XXXVI., p. 390, under the title, De provisione circa futura contingent^. Thomasins was the author of a great number of dissertations, full of research and written with purity and elegance. One of them, Origines historise philosophical et ecclesiastical, Leip zig, 1005, 4to, ed. by Ch. Thomasius, Halle, 1099, 8vo, was for a long time the most accurate history of ancient philosophy. Brucker was greatly indebted to it. — TR.
1 Cf. ante, pp. 553, note 1, 582. Leibnitz, while admitting the possibility and on sufficient and proper evidence the actuality of miracles, nevertheless regards them from the philosophic point of view as exceptional and relatively en. xx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 607 CHAPTER XX OF EKKOK § 1. Ph. After having spoken of all the means which make us know or divine the truth, let us also say something about our errors and bad judgments. Men must often be mistaken since there are so many dissensions among them. The reasons of this may be reduced to these four: (1) the lack of proofs; (2) little skill in using them; (3) lack of will to make use of them; (4) false rules of probability. § 2. When I speak of the lack of proofs, I understand also those which we might find if we had the means and the opportunity, biit this it is which we most frequently lack. Such is the condition of men whose life is passed in seeking their subsistence: they are as little informed of what goes on in the world, as a draught horse who always goes by the same road may become skilled in the map of the country. They would require languages, reading, con versation, observations of nature and the experiments of art. § '.). Now, all this not agreeing with their condition, shall we say then that the bulk of men are led to happiness or misery only by blind chance? Must they abandon themselves to the current opinions and authorized guides in the country, even as regards eternal happiness or misery? Or will they be eternally unhappy to have been born rather in one country than in another? We must admit, however, that no one is so com pletely occupied with the care of providing for his subsistence as to have no time left to think of his soul and to be instructed in that which concerns religion, if he were to apply himself thereto as he does to less important things.
Tit. Suppose that men are not always in a condition to instruct themselves, and that not being able to give up with unimportant, and emphasizes, as here, the view that the essence of Christianity consists in its ethical content, a content intrinsically rational and accordant with nature. In addition to the authors referred to, ctntf, p. 55,'?, note 1, cf. Piinjer, Gfftch. d. chr/st. Religionsphilos., 1, H5! t-MO, 372-.S75, Ens. trans., •480-515, espec. 485-480, 501-504; and for an acute and able discussion of Miracles, their idea, office, etc., cf. E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, § 20, pp. 103-1W, Rochester, N. Y., Press of E. R. Andrews, 18&t. — TR.
608 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [inc. iv prudence the care of the subsistence of their family in order to investigate difficult truths, they are obliged to follow the opinions authorized among them, it will always be necessary to judge that in the case of those who have the true religion without having its proofs, internal grace will supply the lack of the motives of credibility, and charity makes ITS also judge, as I have already indicated to you, that God does for persons of good will, brought up among the thick darkness of the most dangerous errors, all that his goodness and justice demand, although perhaps in a way which is unknown to us. We have histories commended in the Roman church of persons who have been expressly raised up in order that salutary aid be not want ing. l?ut God can assist souls by the internal operation of the Holy Spirit, without the need of so great a miracle; and because it is good and consoling for the human race to put itself in the condition of the grace of God, only the good but sincere and serious will is needed. I admit that we have not indeed this good will without the grace of God, forasmuch as all natural or supernatural good comes from him; but it is always enough that we must only have the will, and that it is impos sible that God can demand a condition easier and more reason able.
§ 4. Ph. There are those who are sufficiently at their ease to have all the opportunities suited to illumine their doubts; but they are deterred from this by obstacles full of craftiness, which it is easy enough to see, while it is not necessary to display them in this place. § 5. I prefer to speak of those who lack the skill to avail themselves of the proofs which they have, so to speak, under their hand, and who cannot retain a long course of argu ment nor weigh all the circumstances. There are some people of a single syllogism, and there are some of two only. This is not the place to determine whether this imperfection arises from a natural difference of the souls themselves or of the organs, or whether it depends iipon the lack of exercise which polishes the natural faculties. It is sufficient for us here that it is visible, and that we have only to go from the palace or from the exchange to the hospitals and small houses to perceive it.
Tli. It is not the poor alone who are needy; certain rich people lack more than they, because these rich people demand too much and put themselves voluntarily in a kind of poverty en. xx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 609 which hinders them from applying themselves to important con siderations. Example does much here. One tries to conform to that of his equals, so that he is compelled to practise without showing a spirit of perverseness, and that makes it easy for him to become like them. It is very difficult to satisfy at the same time reason and custom. As for those who lack capacity, they are fewer perhaps in number than you think; I think that good sense with application can suffice for everything which does not demand promptness. I presuppose good sense, be cause I do not think you would demand the search for truth from the dwellers in small houses. It is true that there are not many Avho could not learn something of it, if we knew the means of so doing and what original difference exists between our souls (as I believe does in reality exist); it is always cer tain that one soul might go as far as another (but not perhaps so rapidly) if it were led as it should be.
§ (). Ph. There is another sort of people who lack only will. A strong attachment to pleasure, a constant application to what concerns their fortune, a general idleness or negligence, a par ticular aversion to study and meditation, prevents them from thinking seriously of the truth. There are even some who fear that a research free from all partiality would not be fa vorable to the opinions which most suit their prejudices and plans. We know persons who will not read a letter which they suppose brings bad news, and many people avoid agreeing upon their accounts or informing themselves of the state of their property, for fear of learning what they would desire always to be ignorant of. There are some who have large rev enues and employ them all in provisions for the body without dreaming of the means of perfecting the understanding. They take great care always to appear in a suitable and brilliant equipage, and they suffer without difficulty their soul to be covered with the wretched rags of prejudice and error, and its nakedness, i.e. its ignorance to appear as an eccentricity. Not to speak of the interest they ought to take in a future state, they do not in the least neglect what they are interested to know in the life they lead in this world. And it is strange that very often those who regard power and authority as an appanage of their birth or their fortune, carelessly abandon it to people of a condition inferior to theirs, but who surpass them 610 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. iv in knowledge. For it is very necessary that the blind be led by those who see, lest they fall into the ditch, and there is no worse slavery than that of the understanding.
Th. There is no more evident proof of the negligence of men as regards their true interests, than the little care they take to know and practise what agrees with their health, which is one of our greatest blessings; and although the great feel as much and more than others the bad effects of this negligence, they do not alter their course. As far as faith is concerned, many regard the thought which would lead to its discussion as a temptation of the devil, which they think they can the better surmount only by turning their minds to an entirely different thing. Men who only love pleasure, or who are attached to some occupation, are wont to neglect other matters. A player, a hunter, a drinker, a debauchee, and even a man curious about trifles, will lose his fortune and his property for lack of giving himself the trouble to institute a process or to speak to the men in a guard-house. There are some like the Emperor Ilonorius, who, wrhen the news of the destruction of Home was brought to him, thought it was his hen who bore this name, and this offended him more than the truth.1 It is desirable that men who have power have knowledge in pro portion; but if the details of the sciences, of the arts, of history and languages, should not be theirs, a solid and prac tised judgment and a knowledge of things equally great and general, in a word, summa rerum, might suffice. And as the Emperor Augustus had an abstract of the forces and needs of the State which he called Breviarium Imperil, he might have an abstract of human interests which would deserve to be called Enchiridion Sapient ive, if men would care for that which is of most importance to them.
§ 7. Ph. Finally, the majority of our errors arise from the false measures of probability which we take, whether by sus- 1 The anecdote here mentioned by Leibnitz is thus given by Giovanni Bat- tista Egnazio, 1473-1553, in his I)e Romania principibus, Lib. III., Venice, 15Ki, near the end of Book I. (cf. Hanrisins, Scriptores historix Romanes Latini retires, quse extant omnes, Heidelberg, 1743-1745, 3 vols., fol., Vol. 3, p. 025): " Quum mintiatum Honorio esset Ravenme Romam pcrditam, cre- diclit ille de pugnaoi Gallo, cni nomen erat Rom re, signiticatum esse: admira- tninque veheincuter tarn subito periisse eum quo cum paullo ante festivissime luserat." — Tit.
CH. xx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING Gil pending our judgment in spite of manifest reasons, or in giving it notwithstanding contrary probabilities. These false measures consist (1) in doubtful propositions taken as principles, (2) in the accepted hypotheses, (3) in the dominant passions or incli nations, (4) in authority. § 8. We ordinarily judge of truth by its conformity with what we regard as indisputable principles, and this makes us despise the testimony of others and indeed of our own senses when they appear contrary thereto: but before relying upon these with so much assurance, we should examine them with the utmost exactness. § 9. Children receive the propositions taught them by their father and mother, imrses, teachers and others who are about them, and these propositions having taken root, are regarded as sacred as a Urim and Thum- mim which God might himself have put in the soul. § 10. We have some difficulty in admitting that which clashes with these internal oracles, while we believe the greatest absurdities which agree with them. This appears in the extreme obstinacy which we notice in different men who believe strongly opinions as directly opposed as the articles of faith, although they are very often equally absurd. Take a man of good sense, but per suaded of this maxim that he must believe ivliat they of his communion believe, as they teach at Wittenberg or in Sweden, what disposition has he not to receive without difficulty the doctrine of consubstantiation, and to believe that one and the same thing is flesh and bread at the same time.
Tli. It is very apparent, sir, that you have not been suffi ciently instructed in the views of the Evangelicals,1 who admit the real presence of the body of our Lord in the Eucharist. They have explained a thousand times that they do not mean the consubstantiation of bread and wine with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and still less that one and the same thing is flesh and bread at the same time. They teach only that, in receiving the visible symbols, we receive in an invisible and supernatural manner the body of our Saviour, without its being enclosed in the bread; and the presence Avhich they mean is not local or spatial, so to speak, i.e. determined by the dimen sions of the present body, so that all that the senses can oppose 1 I.e. Lutherans. For the views and controversies regard! 71 g the Eucharist, and the Confessions alluded to in the remainder of this section, cf. the various Church Histories and Histories of Doctrine. — TR.
612 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv to it does not concern them. And in order to show that the inconveniences which may be derived from reason no longer affect them, they declare that what they mean by the substance of the body does not consist in extension or dimension; and they make no difficulty in admitting that the glorious body of Jesus Christ preserves a certain ordinary and local presence, but congruous with his position in the exalted place where he is found, altogether different from this sacramental presence herein questioned, or from his miraculous presence by which he governs the church, which causes him to be not everywhere like God, but there where he prefers to be. This is the view of the more moderate, so that, in order to show the absurdity of their doctrine, it would be necessary to show that the entire essence of the body consists only in extension, and in that which is solely measured thereby, which no one, so far as I know, has yet done. This whole difficulty also concerns not less the Reformers who follow the Gallican and Belgian confes sions, the declaration of the Council of Sendomir, composed of people of the two confessions, Augustan and Swiss, conformed to the Saxon confession, destined for the Council of Trent; the profession of faith of the Reformers who came to the Conference of Thorn, convoked under the authority of Yladislas, King of Poland, and the constant doctrine of Calvin and of Beza, who have declared the most distinctly and the most strongly of everybody that the symbols really furnish what they represent, and that we become participants in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Calvin, after having refuted those who content themselves with a metaphorical participation of thought or of seal and with a Tinion of faith, adds that we can say nothing sufficiently strong to establish its reality, that he is not ready to subscribe to, pro vided we avoid everything which looks to the circumscription of place or the diffusion of dimension; so that it appears that at bottom his doctrine was that of Melanchthon and even of Luther (as Calvin himself conjectured in one of his letters), except that in addition to the condition of the perception of the symbols with which Luther contents himself, he demands also the condition of faith, in order to exclude the participation of the unworthy. I have found Calvin so positive upon this real communion in a hundred places in his works, and even in his familiar letters, where there was 110 need of being so, that I do not see any reason to suspect artifice.
CH. *x] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 613 § 11. Ph. [I ask your pardon if I have spoken of these gentle men according to the common opinion. I remember now hav ing remarked that some very clever theologians of the Anglican church have been for this real participation. But from estab lished principles let us pass to the accepted hypotheses. Those who admit that they are only hypotheses often cease not to maintain them with warmth, almost as if assured principles, and to despise contrary probabilities. It would be unendurable to a learned professor to see his authority overturned in an instant by a new comer who should reject his hypotheses; his authority, I say, which has been in vogue for thirty or forty years, acquired by much labor at night, sustained by much Greek and Latin, confirmed by a general tradition and by a venerable beard. All the arguments which we can employ to convince him of the falsity of his hypothesis will be as little capable of prevailing upon his mind as the efforts Boreas made to compel the traveller to leave his cloak, which he held so much the more firmly as the wind blew with more violence.