10 INTKODUCTION 



he will honourably keep them concealed as he has 

 promised, as in fact he has not made the slightest men- 

 tion of them. Leibniz also highly values the Theologico- 

 Political Treatise, on the subject of which he once wrote 

 the master a letter, if he is not mistaken V Spinoza, in 

 reply, recollects having some correspondence with Leibniz, 

 but Leibniz was at that time a counsellor at Frankfort, 

 and Spinoza would like to know, before entrusting his 

 writings to him, what he is doing in France, and he 

 would also like to have Tschirnhausen's opinion of 

 Leibni/, after a longer and more intimate acquaintance. 

 Spinoza's shyness had probably no other effect than to 

 whet the curiosity of Leibniz, and accordingly, when he 

 left Paris in October, 1676, he went for a week to 

 London (where he met for the first time Newton's friend 

 Collins) and then crossed to Amsterdam, where he stayed 

 four weeks with Schuller, eagerly reading and criticizing 

 every writing of Spinoza's which Schuller could give 

 him. At last, in November, Leibniz obtained an inter- 

 view with Spinoza at the Hague, where he seems to have 

 spent some time. They had many conversations together 

 regarding philosophical matters, of which Leibniz has 

 left hardly any record except the remark that i Spinoza 

 did not quite clearly see the defects of Descartes' 

 laws of motion : he was surprised when I began to show 

 him that they were inconsistent with the equality of 

 cause and effect 3 .' The persistence of Leibniz ultimately 

 induced Spinoza to show him the MS. of the Ethics 

 (or at least a portion of it), and he seems even to 

 have- had permission to make a copy of the leading 

 definitions, axioms, and propositions 3 . What at this time 

 most dissatisfied Leibniz was Spinoza's treatment of 

 Final Causes. His recent study of Plato had impressed 



1 Letter 70, Van Vloten and Land, vol. ii. p. 235. 

 Foucher de Careil, Refutation inedite de Spinoza, p. Ixiv. 

 Spinoza died in the following year, and soon afterwards the 

 Ethics was published. 



