280 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



4. 



Leibniz's 



How have things come to be what they are ? What 

 is their history l in time ? 



The first great philosopher of modern times who seems 

 to have approached the question of the genesis of the 

 objects of nature in the modern scientific spirit was 

 Leibniz, who, in composing his local history of the 

 origin of the Guelphs and the antiquities of Brunswick, 

 pushed his researches into prehistoric times and made 

 use of the geological and mineralogical data supplied in 

 the Harz forest and mountains to arrive at conjectures 

 as to the past history of the earth. His ideas, based 

 upon local facts and observations on stratification 

 and fossil remains, were collected in a famous tract 

 entitled ' Protogsea,' which during his lifetime was only 

 known in abstract, 2 and was published in 1749, many 



(reprinted in the second volume of 

 Dutens' ' Leibnitii Opera Omnia,' 

 1768) ; the words of Leibniz him- 

 self in the ' Plan ' of his History 

 (quoted by Pertz, vol. i. p. xxiii) : 

 " Prsemittetur his annalibus quse- 

 dam dissertatio de antiquissimo 

 harum regionum statu qui ante 

 historicos ex naturae vestigiis haberi 

 potest" ; the address of Ehrenberg, 

 ' Ueber Leibnitzens Methode ' (Ber- 

 lin, 1845) ; the account in Guhr- 

 auer's ' Life of Leibniz ' (1846, vol. i. 

 p. 205, and an interesting note in the 

 appendix). Fontenelle.who knew of 

 the 'Protogaea' only by the abstract 

 (ed. 1693) in the Leipsic 'Acta,' 

 and from correspondence with Eck- 

 hardt, Leibniz's executor, says in 

 his 'Eloge de Leibniz": "II la 

 [viz., the History] faisait pre'ce'der 

 par une dissertation sur 1'etat de 

 I'Allemagne, tel qu'il e"tait avant 

 toutes les histoires et qu'on pouvait 

 le conjecturer par les monuments 

 naturels qui en e"taient restes ; des 

 coquillages pe"trifie"s dans les terres, 



1 Although the word "genesis," 

 through its use in the Scriptures, 

 has acquired the meaning of a nar- 

 rative of the origin or beginning of 

 things, this meaning is not neces- 

 sarily implied in the word yiyveff- 

 004, and the genetic view of nature, 

 or things in general, may limit it- 

 self to the study of observable, 

 actual change, renouncing alto- 

 gether the question of origins. 

 The German words, " werden " and 

 " geschehen," are in this respect less 

 ambiguous and less ambitious, and 

 many philosophers may accordingly 

 prefer "evolution" to "genesis." 



2 On the connection of Leibniz's 

 genetic studies with his History of 

 Brunswick, which expanded under 

 his hands into the ' Annales im- 

 perii occidentis Brunsvicenses ' 

 (edited by Pertz in the first three 

 volumes of 'Leibnizens Gesam- 

 melte Werke,' Hannover, 1843-47, 

 4 vols.), see the introduction by 

 Scheidt to his complete edition of 

 the 'Protogaea,' Gottingen, 1749 



