fered from acute rheumatism and other painful disor- ders. Having much acquaintance with medicine, he tried novel remedies iipon himself, with no good result. He prolonged his studies almost to his last days, and died tranquilly, with scarcely a word, on Nov. 14, 171(5, having reached the age of " threescore and ten years." His monument at the gates of Hanover, erected by king George, bears the modest inscription Ossa Leihnitii.
Leibnitz was of medium height, and slender. He liad a large head, black hair, M'hich soon left him bald, and small ej^es. He was very short-sighted, but his vision was otherwise sound to the end of his days. His constitution was remarkably good, for he reached old age without serious malady, notwithstanding the strain to which it was subjected. He drank moderately, but ate much, especially at supper, and immediately after this heavy meal retired to rest. He was wholly irregu- lar in eating. He took his food whenever he was him- gry, usually in his library, without abandoning his books. Frequently he took his only repose in his chair, and occasionaUy pursued his reflections or researches, without change of place, for weeks — Fontenelle sa}-s for months. He read everj'thing — good books and bad books, and books on aU manner of subjects. He ex- tracted largely from the authors perused, and made co- pious annotations upon them. His memory was so te- nacious that he rarely recurred to these Adversaria. He sought intercourse with men of all occupations and of all grades of intelligence. Every work of God or man was an object of interest and regard to him. He stretched forth his hand to everything — the election of a king of Poland, the revival of the Crusades, the con- version of the heathen, the reunion of the churches, the codification of laws, the history of a dynasty and people, the constitution of the universe, the creation of new sciences, tlie derivation of words, the invention of a cal- culating machine, the projection of a universal language, the construction of wintlmills, or the improvement of pleasure carriages. The extent -of his correspondence was amazing, and may be conjectured from the list of distinguished correspondents culled by Brucker from the ampler catalogues of Feller and Ludovici. The courtesy of his epistles was as notable as their multitude. They were scattered over all civilized nations, and were on an endless diversity of topics, but they were uni- formly marked by deference for the persons and opin- ions of others. This gentleness sprung from an amiable and cheerful nature. It was cultivated and refined by intercourse with princes, and statesmen, and philoso- phers, and scholars, and also with the humblest classes of society. It was confirmed by his belief that no hon- est conviction can be entirely wrong. His conversation was easy and abundant — as full of charm as of instruc- tion. It may be conceded to Gibbon that completeness was sacrificed by Leibnitz to universality of acquire- ment; but, when aU bis gifts and accomplishments are embraced in one view, he may be justly deemed to merit the eulogy of his French editor, Jacques : " In point of speculative philosophy he is the greatest intellect of modern times ; and had but two equals, but no superiors, in antiquity."
Leibnitz was never married. He contemplated the experiment once, when he was fifty years of age ('• de quo scmel tantum in vita, aetate jam provectior, sed f^ustra cogitavit"). The lady asked time for reflection. The opportunity for reflection cooled the ardor of the jjhilosopher — the match was not decreed by any pre- established harmony, and the suit was not pressed.
The religious fervor of Leibnitz was undoubted, but he was negligent of the offices of religion. In his efforts to promote Cliristian unity, and to recognise only " one Lord, one faith, one baptism," he may have felt too keenly the defects of rival creeds, so as to accept from none the truth which seemed mutilated and imperfect in each.
Philosophi). — Tlic matliematical and scientific, the historical and juridical, the linguistic and miscellaneous speculations of Leibnitz have been noticed very inade-
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quately, but as fully as comports vrith the desig^i of this Cyclop«dia. His philosophy awaits and merits more precise coiisidoratioij. It must be premised that all his labors, however remote in appearaoce from philosophical speculation, were inspired and animated by his own pe- culiar scheme of doctrine, and were really fragmentary applications of his distinctive principles. Hence pro- ceeded that pervading spirit of reform which is mani- fested in all the departments of knowledge handled by him, and which was rewarded by numerous great tri- umphs in so many and such dissimilar directions. When details are neglected, the whole body of his writings is found to be connected by many lines of interdependence, and to be harmonized into unity by a common relation to the central thought around which his own reflections incessantly revolved. God is one, and there must be consistency, and concord in the creation of God. It is no easy task to discern this unity, and to detect the general scheme of the Leibnitzian philosophy. Leibnitz nowhere presents a symmetrical exposition of his whole doctrine. His ifomuldldijie, or rriitripia Pliilosophice, seu Theses in GratUtm Principis Euf/eidi, furnishes a clew to his system, but it is only a slender clew. Even if the Principes de la Nature et de la Grace be added as a sup- plement, the guiding thread is very frail. His views must be painfully gathered from elaborate treatises, from occasional essays, from scientific papers, from pass- ing hints, from explanations of controverted pouits, from elucidations of obscure or misapprehended state- ments, and from the series of his multifarious epistles. Here a principle is thrown out, there its applications are illustrated ; in one place an erroneous conclusion or a mistaken inference is corrected, in another, or in many others, fresh limitations or further expansions of a hy- pothesis are proposed. These different members of the imperfect whole are separated by months or years in the life of the author, or by hundreds of pages, or whole volumes in his collected works. It required the patient diligence of Christian Wolf to combine, complete, and organize in cumbrous quartos leaves scattered like the oracles of the Sibyl. Leibnitz had, indeed, no system to propound ; he had no thought of proraidgating a sys- tem or of establishing a sect. Yet his mind was thor- oughly systematic. The system which resulted from perfect coherence of thought was latent in his own mind from the beginning, and was consistently evolved as the occasion furnished the opportimity of presenting its several parts. The highest intellect attaches itself in- stinctivel}' to a principle, and allows accident to deter- mine ho^v far and when its consequences shall be im- rolk'd. Leibnitz only desired to reconcile the opinions of his illustrious predecessors ; to correct the errors and to supply the deficiencies which he recognised in the theory of his chief leader, Des Cartes, and to redress the evils which had flowed logically from those errors. The main design of his profound investigations was to give precision, harmony, and veracity to the immense stock of his own acquisitions and meditations. Had he reached the years of Methuselah he might have pro- posed a system, but it would have been simjily the rec- titication of Cartesianism, or the conciliation of Plato and Aristotle, of Buonaventura and Aquinas. It must be remembered that, of his two systematic treatises, one was published towards the close of his life, the other not till half a century after his death. His natural dis- position apparently inclined him to accumulate knowl- edge for its own sake, and to reflect uimn his acquisi- tions for his own satisfaction. He seemed to be impelled to jiul'lication only by some accidental stimulus. His wliole Ufe was a discipline and preparation for what he never found time to execute — never, perhaps, seriously thought of executing — a vast encyclopaidia embracing all that could be known by man. The hints thrown out in his long career, apt as they are for the construc- tion of a c<insistent globe of speculation, only indicate an inideveloped system, which is revealed by glimpses as the need or provocation of the moment inspired.