THE LIFE AND WORK OF LEIBNIZ

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the son of a Leipzig University professor, was born in 1646, two years before the end of the Thirty Years' War. He was thoroughly educated – partly through his own efforts – in scholastic philosophy and in jurisprudence, including the Roman law (which was later to be important to his theory of justice). At an early age he attempted a correspondence with Hobbes, whom he was already beginning to see as his principal philosophical antagonist; but Hobbes never replied, in part, perhaps, because of Leibniz' left-handed compliments (‘certain men are … wrong in ascribing license and impiety to your hypotheses’). Following a brief period of service to the Elector of Mainz, Leibniz resided in Paris for a few years; here he first observed Louis XIV's expansionist policies, which he was afterwards to combat as a writer and as a diplomatist. In Paris, too, he expanded his interests to take in logic and mathematics, and made a number of important permanent friendships. Unable to secure the diplomatic post he wanted, Leibniz finally attached himself to the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg, rulers of the (soon-to-be) Electorate of Hanover, and became official apologist for and historian of this principality.

At Hanover Leibniz, in addition to his official duties and philosophical efforts, carried on a wide range of political activities and correspondences.