OF KNOWLEDGE. 



325 



has been generally admitted, emanated from Leibniz, and 

 this influence has, with important fluctuations, continued 

 up to the present day. One of the reasons why this 

 influence has again and again made itself felt is because 

 none of the great thinkers of ' modern times has studied 

 with such equal interest and sympathy the most opposite 

 lines of thought, and because hardly any one has been 

 qualified in the same degree by genius and education to 

 appreciate seemingly contradictory tendencies. Ancient 

 and modern, English, French, and Italian philosophies 

 were alike known to him ; he was a mathematician and 

 abstract thinker as well as a naturalist and historian, a 

 practical man of the world as well as a theorist. The 

 two great objects which he seems to have had in view all 

 through his life were, first, to reconcile apparently opposed 

 views, to harmonise existing differences in philosophy, 

 politics, and religion ; and secondly, to lead his theoretical 

 and abstract meditations into practical channels. 



Turning now to the special problem with which I am 

 dealing in this chapter, the problem of knowledge, we 

 find in the philosophy of Leibniz a great advance in nis 

 conception of the nature of Knowledge and the means 

 possessed by the human mind of acquiring it. With 

 Descartes the criterion of truth consisted in clearness of 

 thinking and immediate evidence, two qualities which 

 were nowhere more conspicuous than in the reasoning of 

 the mathematical sciences. 1 A similar predilection for 



1 This conception of Descartes 

 was more fully elaborated by Leib- 

 niz. What with Descartes was not 

 sufficiently distinguished received 

 in Leibniz's treatment a somewhat 

 more definite expression. He dis- 



tinguishes between what is clear 

 from what is also distinct. " Clear " 

 is opposed to "obscure," "dis- 

 tinct" to "confused." A notion is 

 clear if readily recognised ; it is 

 distinct if analysable into its parts 



