THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
concursus dei he substituted his famous doctrine of preestablished harmony. From his view-point development, or evolution, becomes a progressive growth of what already existed in embryo. There is nothing radically evil; and moral life is gradually advancing toward perfection. At all times the same reason dominates this process, but it too is caught up in this process of development. In this historical process nothing is lost. The present is " laden with the past and pregnant with the future" (cf. also Idealism, II., § 2). Leibnitz left no single work that adequately presents his philosophy. The best exposition of the monadology is a mere summary which he prepared for Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1714. His largest philosophical work was the Nouveaux essais sur V 'entendement humain (ed. R. E. Raspe, in (Euvres philosophiques, Amsterdam, 1765; Eng. transl., New Essays concerning Human Understanding , New York, 1896), which was written against Locke in 1704, but not published, owing to Locke's death.
The same intellectualism which Leibnitz exhibits in his metaphysical doctrine also dominates his religious views. While the core of all 3. Relig- religion is love toward God, this must ious Views, be reached by a process of cognition. For Leibnitz religion is not a matter of feeling but of the intellect; though it may be added that his desire for the immediate presence of God in the soul often brings him close to mysticism. He expressed himself frequently on religious questions, but his principal religious work is the Theodicee (a word coined by Leibnitz himself), which is an attempt to demonstrate the agreement of reason with faith. The full title is, Essais de theodicee sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberie de I'homme et I'origine du mal (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1710). The work originated as a polemic against Bayle's dictionary and was occasioned by the request of Queen Sophia Charlotte. In many ways it reflects the author's metaphysical doctrines, his optimism, and determinism. His doctrine, that this world is the best world which could possibly exist, leads him to a conception of evil which is essentially different from that held by the religious consciousness. Evil is to his mind the simple and natural result of the necessary limitation of every thing created: it is consequently something metaphysical, and not ethical. He does not reduce evil to the status of mere appearance, but seeks to prove that the world is better with evil in it that it would be without it. The world can not be rationally condemned on the basis of the very small portion of it actually known to us. It is to be viewed as an intelligent whole. Just as the astronomer, by taking the sun as his view-point, brought forth a beautiful solar system out of chaos, so the philosopher of the universe will transform it into a kingdom of reason, as soon as he learns " to put his eye in the sun." In a similar way, his doctrine of preestablished harmony leads him into a kind of determinism, in which the freedom of the will becomes lost in the metaphysical necessity, or at least loses its true ethical point. In general he considers Christianity only as the purest and noblest of all religions, as the religion of the wise made by Christ the religion »f all, as the natu-
ral religion raised by Clirist into a law. Nevertheless the book is written with great vigor and warmth nor did it fail to make a wide and deep impression. Another interesting side of Leibnitz's theological activity is his participation in the endeavors then made for the purpose of uniting
4. Efforts the different Christian denominations.
for Church The general feeling prevalent after the Union. end of the Thirty Years' War was favorable to such plans; and the subject was ably broached by Bossuet's Exposition de la doctrine de I'c'glise catholique (Paris, 1671), a defense of the Church of Rome, but conciliatory in its spirit, and very guarded in its expressions. Rojas de Spinola, a Franciscan monk of Spanish descent, and confessor to the Emperor Leopold, was a zealous champion of the project. He visited Hanover several times, at the instance of the emperor; and, as Duke Ernest August was willing to enter into negotiations, a conference was arranged between Rojas de Spinola on the one side, and Molanus and Leibnitz on the other. The results of the conference were received with great hopes, both in Hanover, and in Vienna and Rome. About 1686-90 Leibnitz outlined his plan of church-union in what is known as Systema theologicum (Paris, 1819; Eng. transl., A System of Theology, London, 1850), which was really a philosophical defense of Roman Catholicism. In 1691 he entered upon a long correspondence with Bossuet; but ultimately the authority of the Council of Trent, absolutely insisted upon by Bossuet, and absolutely rejected by Leibnitz, proved the rock on which all the plans and negotiations for a union between Romanism and Protestantism were wrecked. In the attempts of the courts of Berlin and Hanover to unite the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches, Leibnitz also took a prominent part. The agitation for union was begun in 1696, and in 1698 a conference was held at Hanover between the Prussian court-preacher Jablonski, on the one side, and Leibnitz and Molanus on the other. The plan for union was effected in outline, and the common name " Evangelical " was adopted; but political changes now caused the ardor of the statesmen to cool. In 1703 Frederick I. of Prussia took a further step by establishing at Berlin a Collegium Irenicum, consisting of Lutheran and Reformed theologians; but gradually interest in the plan died out, and Leibnitz himself withdrew from it. Toward the close of his life he became involved in a controversy with Samuel Clarke (see Clarke, Samuel, 4), who published the correspondence between them (London, 1717).
At present there is no complete edition of the works of Leibnitz, though an edition is in course of preparation under the auspices of the International Association of Sciences. The best collected editions are those of L. Dutens (6 vols., Geneva, 1768), 0. H. Pertz (12 vols., Hanover, 1843-63), and the unfinished edition by O. Klopp (1864-84). The philosophical works have been edited by J. E. Erdmann (2 vols., Berlin, 1S39-40), by P. Janet (2 vols., Paris, 1866), and by C. J. Gerhardt (7 vols., Berlin, 1875-90). Editions in English are, The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz Translated
with Notes by G. M. Duncan (New Haven,