l30 DISSERTATION SECOND, {part n. 



In the imperfect outline which I have now sketched of 

 one of the most interesting periods in the history of hu- 

 man knowledge, much has been omitted, and many great 

 characters passed over, lost, as it were, in the splendour 

 of the two great luminaries which marked this epocha. 

 Newton and Leibnitz are so distinguished from the rest 

 even of the scientific world, that we can only compare 

 them with one another, though, in fact, no two intellec- 

 tual characters, who both reached the highest degree of ex- 

 cellence, were ever more dissimilar. 



For the variety of his genius, and the extent of his re- 

 search, Leibnitz is perhaps altogether unrivalled. A law- 

 yer, a historian, an antiquary, a poet, and a philologist, — 

 a mathematician, a metaphysician, a theologian, and I will 

 add a geologer, he has in all these characters produced 

 works of great merit, and in some of them of the highest 

 excellence. It is rare that original genius has so little 

 of a peculiar direction, or is disposed to scatter its efforts 

 over so wide a field. Though a man of great inventive 

 powers, he occupied much of his time in works of mere 

 labour and erudition, where there was nothing to invent, 

 and not much of importance to discover. Of his in- 

 ventive powers as a mathematician we have already 

 spoken ; as a metaphysician, his acuteness and depth are 

 universally admitted ; but metaphysics is a science in 

 which there are few discoveries to be made, and the 

 man who searches in it for novelty, is more likely to 

 find what is imaginary than what is real. The notion 

 of the Monads, those unextended units, or simple essen- 

 ces, of which, according to this philosopher, all things 

 corporeal and spiritual, material or intellectual, are form- 

 ed, will be readily allowed to have more in it of novel- 



