PREFACE 



IN this country Leibniz has received less attention 

 than any other of the great philosophers. Mr. Merz 

 has given, in a small volume, a general outline of 

 Leibniz's thought and work, Professor Sorley has 

 written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica a remark- 

 ably clear, but brief, account of his philosophy, and 

 there are American translations of the Nouveaux 

 Essais and of some of his philosophical papers. That 

 is very nearly the whole of English writing about 

 him. Yet few philosophical systems stand so much 

 in need of exposition as that of Leibniz. His theories 

 have to be extracted from seven large volumes of 

 correspondence, criticism, magazine articles, and other 

 discursive writings, and it is only in recent years that 

 this material has been made fully available by the 

 publication of Gerhardt's edition. No complete and 

 detailed account of Leibniz's philosophy has hitherto 

 been published in English, and accordingly I have 

 written a very full Introduction to this book, with 

 illustrative foot-notes, consisting mainly of transla- 

 tions from Leibniz himself. 



The endeavour of the book is to make the 

 Monadology clear to students. I cannot agree with 

 Dillmann in treating it as of little importance. 



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