430 



LEHMANN LKIBMTZ. 



the prirate property of the legitimate ruling 

 Bonif) by which lite usurpation was attended. If 

 the previous sovereign, thcrclon-, is deposed, no one 

 can refuse to the p i>j'l< - the right of submitting, at 

 least for a season, to that power which has been 

 established in the plan- of the legitimate government, 

 especially when the latter lias ceased to struggle 

 apn the usurper, or cominues its resistance with- 

 out sufficient mean- This principle was nowhere 

 expressed so early and M> decidedly as in Britain ; 

 for nowhere has there been such a variety of govern- 

 ments, which were afterwards declared to be mere 

 usurpations, as there, during the contest, for 



nur years, between the houses of York and 

 Lancaster, and, subsequently at the time of the 

 commonwealth and of Cromwell. Hence the 

 British early learned to distinguish actual sove- 



y (government tie facto) from legal govern- 

 ment (government tie jure), and laid down the posi- 

 tion, lliat subjects were bound to yield obedience, 

 even to a usurper, as long as he is in full possession 

 of public power, and that they are equally guilty 

 of high treason in forming conspiracies against 

 such a usurper, as against the lawful monarch. 

 ( This is said by Sir Matthew Male, in his Pleas of 

 he Crown, i. 60; Blackstone, Commentaries, i. 370, 

 and iv. 77.) Accordingly, under Edward IV. of 

 York, when he had deprived the house of Lancaster 

 of the throne, in the person of Henry VI., persons 

 were punished, who had been guilty of treason 

 against the last king of the deposed house ; and an 

 express law of Henry VII., in the year 1495,declared 

 all persons innocent, who had promised or yielded 

 obedience to the king de facto (the usurper). Al- 

 though Charles II. numbered the years of his reign 

 from the death of his father (Jan. 30, 1649), yet all 

 the acts of the interregnum remained in full force, 

 unless they were necessarily repealed by the enact- 

 ment of new laws. In France, at the restoration, the 

 statesmen were obliged to adopt the same principle. 

 The idea of legitimacy is to be considered, moreover, 

 in reference to the limits of the power of sovereigns, 

 as well the natural and universal, as the positive 

 or conventional. Even the ancients distinguished 

 tyranny power without a just foundation (tyrannis 

 absyue titulo, or usurpation) from the unjust use of 

 power in itself legitimate (tyrannis exercitio) ; and, if 

 legitimacy is once viewed as a principle of national 

 law, it must necessarily be as much an object of 

 support, in this latter relation, as it is against usurpa- 

 tion and revolution. The maintenance of the existing 

 state of things is as much required iu this view as in 

 the others, and for a higher purpose. If the European 

 powers are justifiable in maintaining their monarchi- 

 cal principles, they are no less authorized to maintain 

 them in their purity; that is, as the means of legal 

 authority, and to prevent the ruin of those institutions 

 by which they are to be kept from degenerating into 

 despotism; or, if these institutions have already been 

 destroyed, to renew them, as prudence and the spirit 

 of the times will allow. This authority, which may 

 be deduced from a necessary duty, they have par- 

 ticularly when it is requisite to support an existing 

 government, by arms, against usurpation or the 

 violence of the mob. When this view of legitimacy 

 finds place among the practical principles of national 

 law (and it cannot be said to be rejected, as much 

 lias already been done in its spirit), an important 

 step will have been made towards the accomplishment 

 of the grand project of universal order, a universal 

 tribunal, and universal peace. See Make Brun's 

 Traiti de la Legitimite, &c., Paris, 1825 ; and the 

 articles Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress, Holy Alliance. 



I ANN, JOHN GEOROK ; a major in the royal 

 Saxon army, and the inventor of a method of topo- 



graphical drawing, which is called after his name. 

 He was the son of a miller iu humble circumstances, 

 and born May 11, 1705, at Baruth, in the former 

 Saxon electorate. His early education he received 

 from the village smith, and afterwards worked in the 

 mill. The recruiting officers, who often attacked the 

 lower class of people in disguise, waylaid him, and 

 carried him off to their quarters, as he was walking 

 to church. Lehmann soon distinguished himself by 

 liis industry and skill in writing and drawing. Iu 

 1793, he obtained his discharge, in order to devote 

 himself entirely to topographical labours, and sur- 

 veyed about 500 square miles in the Erzgebirge, 

 together with several private estates. The want of 

 the common facilities for surveying, led him to the 

 invention and application of those important rules, 

 which are found in the second volume of his work. 

 Lehmann also gained much experience in regard to 

 the origin and constitution of single elevations, and 

 of mountainous chains, and afterwards founded upon 

 it his mode of topographical drawing, translated into 

 English by Siborn. He made the campaigns under 

 Napoleon, in the Saxon army, and performed im- 

 portant services. Napoleon held him in high estima- 

 tion. By constant application to his profession, he 

 contracted a disease which finally terminated his life, 

 Sept. 6, 1811. His system is of great importance to 

 the soldier. It was published, after his death, by 

 professor Fischer, with Lehmann'slast improvements. 

 LEIBNITZ, GOTTFRIED WILHELM, baron of, one 

 of the most celebrated scholars and philosophers that 

 Germany has ever produced, was born at Leipsic, 

 July 3, 1646. His father, who was professor of 

 jurisprudence in that city, died before his son had 

 completed his sixth year. Leibnitz attended the 

 school of St Nicholas, in Leipsic, till he was fifteen 

 years old, without, however, adhering strictly to the 

 prescribed course, as he was devotedly attached to 

 Livy and Virgil, among the Latin writers. The latter 

 he knew almost entirely by heart, and, even in his 

 old age, he used to repeat whole books of his poems. 

 He was soon distinguished for rapidity of compre- 

 hension and facility of expression. At the age of 

 fifteen years, he began his academical course at 

 Leipsic, and, although his principal study was osten- 

 sibly law, he paid particular attention to mathematics 

 and philosophy, at that time taught by James 

 Thomasius. He passed one year at Jena, in order 

 to avail himself of the instructions of the celebrated 

 mathematician Ehrhard Weigel. After his return to 

 Leipsic, he studied the Grecian philosophy. He gave 

 a splendid proof of his progress, in his philosophical 

 dissertation De Principio Individuationis , which he 

 defended under Thomasius (1664), and which was 

 followed by several legal treatises, e. g. De Con- 

 ditionibus (1665), and by a remarkable philosophico- 

 mathematical treatise, De Arte combinatoria. In his 

 twentieth year, he presented himself to the legal 

 faculty, as a candidate for a doctorate, but was 

 refused on account of his youth, and received his 

 degree at Altorf. He was offered the place of 

 professor extraordinary of law, in that university, 

 but he preferred going to Nuremburg, where there 

 were many distinguished men. The baron Von 

 Boineburg, minister to the elector of Mentz, having 

 become acquainted with him, withdrew him from a 

 society of alchemists, in that city, with which he had 

 connected himself, and, promising him a place in the 

 service of the elector, induced him to fix himself at 

 Frankfort on the Maine. Here appeared, in 1067, 

 his Nova Afethodus discendee docendeeque Juris- 

 prudentia:, which is remarkable for its clear, and, at 

 the same time, profound views, and which, at the 

 request of his patron, was soon followed by a treatise, 

 in which he endeavoured to prove to the Poles, that 



