This short work, which is undated, is somewhat surprising in the use Leibniz makes of the Golden Rule, which he turns into a prudential political maxim. (The present translation omits a few passages which refer to writers who are no longer read at all; the original text is to be found in vol. II of Grua's Textes Inédits.)

The place of others is the true point of perspective in politics as well as in morality. And the precept of Jesus Christ to put oneself in another's place serves not only the object of which our Lord spoke, that is to say morality, in order to know our duties toward our neighbor, but also in politics, in order to know the intentions which our neighbor may have against us. One will never understand these [intentions] better than by putting himself in his place, or when one imagines oneself councilor and minister of state of an enemy or suspect prince. One thinks then what he could think or undertake, and what one could advise him to do. This fiction excites our thoughts, and has served me more than once in properly divining what was to be done. It may be, in truth, that one's neighbor is neither so malintentioned, nor so clear-sighted as I make him out; but the surest thing is to imagine things at their worst in politics, that is when it is a question of being careful and of being defensive, just as it is necessary to imagine [things] at their best in morality, when it is a question of harming and offending others.