The Meditation, together with the Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf, is the most important large-scale writing about justice which Leibniz produced. Though it is unfinished, and though the argument somehow never becomes quite as strong as it threatens to do from time to time, it still contains a good statement of his conviction that principles of right must be of the same kind as the ‘eternal truths’ of mathematics and logic, that there is a continuum between abstaining from evil and doing good, that divine justice must be of the same kind as human justice (differing only in the degree of its perfection), that communal property is desirable but unattainable etc. There are, in addition, passages commenting on Aristotle, Filmer, Hobbes, and others, which are of some interest; and the rejection of arguments in defense of slavery was liberal for its day. The Meditation must have been written, to judge from internal evidence, in c. 1703. (The original text is to be found in Mollat's Rechtsphilosophisches aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften; this version omits the word ‘I’ [je] which comes at the end of the ms. in the Hanover library, and which would have led into a longer conclusion which, for some reason, Leibniz did not write.)

To purge the science of the poison introduced into it by him and those who write as he does, I know but of one remedy; and that is by Definition, perpetual and regular definition, the grand prescription of those great physicians of the mind, Helvetius and before him Locke. Useful and legitimate definition which (not like his) explains terms less familiar by terms more familiar, terms more abstract by terms less abstract, terms with a larger assemblage of simple ideas belonging to them, by terms with an assemblage less extensive.

The reader is not to expect to see these Definitions supported by authorities. The writers we have seen hitherto, Coke, Hale, Hawkins, Wood, the list ending with our Author, very good Lawyers as Lawyers went, have been very poor philosophers. Locke (the Father of intellectual science) had not yet spoken to them, or had spoken to them in vain. It is not much wonder if he should have spoken to them in vain. Few works show greater marks of the want of these precautions than his own on Government. They were content as most men are content to ring the changes upon the words they have been used to, without knowing what they meant by them. Nothing has been, nothing will be, nothing ever can be done on the subject of Law that deserves the name of Science, till that universal precept of Locke, enforced, exemplified and particularly applied to the moral branch of science by Helvetius, be steadily pursued, ‘Define your words’.

Leibniz wrote the Manifesto during the War of the Spanish Succession to defend the rights of the House of Hapsburg to the throne of Spain, after the grandson of Louis XIV had brought Spain into the Bourbon orbit by being named King of Spain in the will of the last Hapsburg king, Charles II. In the Manifesto, Leibniz demonstrated his legal ability in a long proof of the illegality of the will of Charles II, to which he added an extremely effective, if somewhat exaggerated, account of French manners and morals, designed to prove that Spain would be ruined by the atheism and libertinism of France. This last section shows that Leibniz was a rather able (if early) sociologist, and that he perceived in 1703 some of the flaws in French society which much later writers (such as de Tocqueville) saw as the cause of the Revolution. And he anticipated Montesquieu in his dislike of the over-centralization of France since the time of Richelieu, and in his fear that the nobility had been made useless. (The present translation follows the version printed in vol. III of Foucher de Careil's edition of Leibniz; since the work is somewhat repetitious some passages, merely reenforcing arguments which are already clear, have been cut.)

Leibniz' critical remarks on the Abbé Bucquoi's Pensées sur l'Existence de Dieu – written in November 1711, between the publication of his Essais de Theodicée (1710) and his departure for the final visit to Vienna (1712) that yielded the Monadology and the Principles of Nature and Grace – are published here by generous permission of the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hanover.

They do not change our view of Leibniz' philosophy; but they do throw a little additional light on his doubts about Descartes' version of the ontological proof of the existence of God. They also provide an opportunity to recall some of the facts about the existence of the Abbé Bucquoi – one of the liveliest philosophical adventurers of Leibniz' day. But above all they show that Leibniz tried to discover a ‘universal’ idea of sovereignty that would work equally well in describing the sovereign perfection of God, the ‘sovereign’ perfection of geometrical figures and the (imperfect) sovereignty of mere earthly rulers. That demi-Platonic linking up of theology, geometry and politics – reminiscent of Meno, Euthyphro and Republic – constitutes half of Leibniz' practical thought; the other half is a ‘charity’ descended directly from St Paul.

Jean-Albert d'Archambaud, Comte de Bucquoi, ‘a fait du bruit’ – as the Biographie Universelle (1812) radically understates the matter – ‘par la singularité des ses aventures’.

This late piece contains a number of disconnected but characteristic observations on charity, honor, virtue, the doctrines of Aristotle and Hobbes, and other subjects which have a bearing on Leibniz' politics. Only those few passages having such a bearing are included here. (The original text is to be found in vol. V of Dutens' edition.)

1. The Letter on Enthusiasm contains a thousand beautiful thoughts: and I believe that raillery is a good protection against this vice; but I do not find it at all suitable for curing people of it. On the contrary, the contempt which is enveloped in raillery will be taken by them as affliction and persecution. I have remarked that when one rails at errors and absurdities in religious matters, one irritates infinitely the people who are favorably inclined toward it [religion], and that this is the true way to pass for an atheist in their minds. I don't know, either, whether the use of ridicule is a good touchstone, for the best and most important things can be turned to ridicule; and it is not always certain that truth will have those who laugh on its side, being most often hidden from vulgar eyes. I have already said that all raillery contains a little contempt; and it is not just that one try to make contemptible that which does not deserve it.

Division of our Author's Introduction

1. The subject of this examination, is a passage contained in that part of Sir W. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, which the Author has styled the Introduction. This Introduction of his stands divided into four Sections. The first contains his discourse ‘On the Studyof the Law’. The second, entitled ‘Of the Nature of Lawsin general’, contains his speculations concerning the various objects, real or imaginary, that are in use to be mentioned under the common name of Law. The third, entitled ‘Of the Laws of England’, contains such general observations, relative to these last mentioned Laws, as seemed proper to be premised before he entered into the details of any parts of them in particular. In the fourth, entitled, ‘Of the Countriessubject to the Laws of England’, is given a statement of the different territorial extents of different branches of those Laws.

What part of it is here to be examined

2. 'Tis in the second of these sections, that we shall find the passage proposed for examination. It occupies in the edition I happen to have before me, which is the first (and all the editions, I believe, are paged alike) the space of seven pages; from the 47th, to the 53d, inclusive.

This relatively early work (1679) was written for Johann Friedrich of Hanover (d. 1679) in the ‘mirror of princes’ style. Modelled partly on Pliny's Panegyricus, written for Trajan, the more fulsome and extravagant praises of Duke Johann are offset by a number of interesting passages on the proper education of princes, on the kinds of virtues which they ought to cultivate, which become particularly important when one recalls that Leibniz favored relatively absolute concentrated power and had to rely on princely virtue as the only check to arbitrary rule. The Portrait reveals Leibniz' extraordinarily wide acquaintance with classical writers, and contains a passage on the nature of justice which is, in many ways, his most radical pronouncement on that subject. (The original text is contained in vol. IV of Klopp's edition.)

Since the order of states is founded on the authority of those who govern them, and on the dependence of peoples, nature, which destines men for civil life, causes them to be born with different qualities, some to command, others to obey, so that the power of sovereigns in monarchies, and the inequality of those who command and those who obey in republics, are founded no less in nature than in law, and in virtue than in fortune: thus princes must be above their subjects by their virtue, and by their natural qualities, as they are above them by the authority which the laws give them to reign according to natural law and civil law – just as the first kings of the world, who, having been elevated to the governance of peoples through their virtue and their intellectual advantages, commanded as much by nature as by law, and by merit as by fortune.

THE TEXT

General. The attempt here is to present Locke's ‘text for posterity’ (see above, pp. 9–11) from the Christ's corrected copy. It has been set up in type from a photograph of that document. The compositors have in fact worked from printer's copy prepared for the press between 1698 and 1704 by Locke himself and by Coste. Locke's hand appears only occasionally after the first few pages, and Coste seems to have been copying rather than taking his dictation: it seems possible that he may have been copying from another, very similar exemplar, the hypothetical second master-copy which is discussed below.

The decision to reproduce the Christ's copy, modified only in such particulars as were absolutely necessary, was the simplest, most consistent solution to an intricate editorial problem. The reader has before him the version which would have satisfied Locke at the time of his death, or something as close to that version as the editor can make it. He has also a record, complete in all essentials, but not absolutely exhaustive, of all the variants from that final version which were seen by Locke, and then rejected by him at one correcting stage or other.

Documents used. In order to appreciate why the editor has ventured to alter the Christ's copy in any way whatsoever, it is necessary to record the documents from which he has worked.