NEW ESSAYS ON THE HUMAN 1 UNDER- 

 STANDING. 1704. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SYSTEM OF PRE- 

 ESTABLISHED HARMONY. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



THE New Essays contain the fullest statement of Leibniz's 

 appreciation and criticism of Locke. Leibniz became ac- 

 quainted with the main outline of Locke's Essay, before it was 

 actually published in English, by means of an abstract of the 

 book, prepared by Locke, translated into French and published 

 in Le Clerc's Bibliofheque Universelle (1688), vol. 8, pp. 49 sqq. 

 When in 1690 the Essay itself was published Leibniz read it, 

 making notes as he went, and his criticisms were expressed in 

 various short papers, some of which were transmitted to Locke 

 through Thomas Burnet of Kemnay. Locke, however, seems 

 rather to have disparaged Leibniz's criticisms and he did not 

 count them worthy of a reply. Meanwhile Locke's Essay 

 passed through several editions, and in 1700 Coste's French 

 translation of it was published. This enabled Leibniz, whose 

 knowledge of English was somewhat imperfect, to make a 

 thorough study of the Essay, and after writing some papers on 

 special parts of it, he set himself to the task of preparing the 

 elaborate exposition and criticism of the Essay which was after- 

 wards published as the New Essays. The book was written 

 somewhat hurriedly and discontinuously, during scraps of 



1 G., with over-accuracy, omits ' human,' which Leibniz cannot 

 deliberately have intended to omit, for he includes it in the titles 

 of the first three books of the New Essays. 



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