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Updated: June 10, 2025
The parties were come to a complete understanding on the important articles of Justification, and the Eucharist; and it was admitted, both by Leibniz, and Molanus, that, in their view of the concern, an accommodation might be effected, between the Roman Catholic, and Lutheran churches, though the former, retained all her defined doctrines, and, in particular, all her doctrines, defined by the Council of Trent.
But on the whole Leibniz's writings suggest that the important decisions cut across all the Churches, and not between them. At the point of Louis XIV's highest success, the Protestant princes had no hope but in Catholic Austria, and Austria was distracted by Turkish pressure in the rear. Leibniz hoped to relieve the situation by preaching a crusade.
"JE NE MEPRISE PRESQUE RIEN" he says, with Leibniz: let us not overlook nor undervalue the PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any one, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil.
It reflects the world of men and books which Leibniz knew; it expresses the theological setting of metaphysical speculation which still predominated in the first years of the eighteenth century. Leibniz is remembered for his philosophy; he was not a professional philosopher. He was offered academic chairs, but he declined them.
The series of thoughts in this case is merely 'a series of names applicable to the same thing and meaning the same thing. This doctrine, as J. S. Mill remarks, is derived from Hobbes, whom Leibniz in consequence called plus quam nominalis. My belief that two and two make four explains why I give the same name to certain numbers; but the giving the name does not explain the belief.
Scholasticism was content to talk about it under the name of 'substantial form' or 'formal cause'. But the scholastic interpretation of the idea was hopelessly discredited by the new science, and the scholastic terms shared the discredit of scholastic doctrine. Leibniz wanted a term with a more general sound.
The Whole, that is to say, God, is this very relief for Leibniz, and the monads are these complementary plane views; for that reason he defines God as "the substance that has no point of view," or, again, as "the universal harmony," that is to say, the reciprocal complementarity of monads.
Where had he learned that standard of metaphysical adequacy which showed up the inadequacy of the new metaphysicians? His own disciples might be satisfied to reply, that he learnt it from Reason herself; but the answer will not pass with us. Leibniz reasoned, indeed, but he did not reason from nowhere, nor would he have got anywhere if he had.
This is an old difficulty in ethics. Many men have remarked that we quarrel over the "problem of evil," never over the "problem of good." That comes from the fact that good is a quality of experience which does not demand an explanation. When we are thwarted we begin to ask why. It was the evil in the world that set Leibniz the task of justifying the ways of God to man.
Throughout the Middle Ages, almost all the best intellects devoted themselves to formal logic, whereas in the nineteenth century only an infinitesimal proportion of the world's thought went into this subject. Nevertheless, in each decade since 1850 more has been done to advance the subject than in the whole period from Aristotle to Leibniz.
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