NEW ESSAYS 359 



departed from the doctrine of these two ancient writers. 

 He is more popular, and I for my part am sometimes 

 compelled to be a little more acroamatic^ and abstract, 

 which is not of advantage to me, especially when a living 

 language is used. But I think that by introducing two 

 speakers, one of whom expounds opinions taken from 

 this author's Essay, while the other adds my observations, 

 I show the relation between us in a way that will be 

 more satisfactory to the reader than if I had put down 

 mere remarks, the reading of which would have been 

 constantly interrupted by the necessity of turning to his 

 book in order to understand mine. Nevertheless it will 

 be well also to compare our writings sometimes, and not 

 to judge of his opinions except from his own work, 

 although I have usually retained his expressions. It is 

 true that owing to the limitations involved in following 

 the thread of another person's argument and making 

 remarks upon it, I have been unable even to think of 

 achieving the graceful turns of which dialogue is sus- 

 ceptible ; but I hope that the matter will make up for 

 the defects of the style. 



8vva.fj.ei TTWS fffTi ra vorjTO. 6 vovs, a\\' fVT(\f)^eiq. ovSev, irplf av vorj. 8(t 

 8' OVTQJS (aOTTCp kv Ypa/^uaTe/oj < ftrjOev vTrdpxd fVTf\^ia yfypa/j.fj,evov 

 (De Anima, iii. 4. 429** 30). Cf. note 12, infra. In regard to Plato, 

 on the other handj Leibniz is probably thinking mainly of the 

 Platonic theory of reminiscence, according to which our knowledge 

 of realities, in so far as we can attain to it, is a recollection or 

 restoration of knowledge possessed by the soul in a previous state, 

 so that necessary and eternal truths are, in a sense, innate in us. 

 On the whole matter cf. Nolen, Quid Leibnizius Aristoteli debuerit, and 

 Trendelenburg, Hist. Beitrage, vol. ii. 



10 i. e. esoteric. See Aulus G-ellius, Nodes Atticae, xx. 5 (quoted 

 by Eitter and Preller, Hist. Phil. Graec. 298), where a distinction is 

 drawn between the exoteric and the ' acroatic ' writings of Aristotle. 

 Leibniz himself defines the word : ' The acroamatic way of philoso- 

 phizing is that in which all things are demonstrated, the exoteric 

 is that in which certain things are said without demonstra- 

 tion, and yet are confirmed by the consistency they have with 

 various other things and by probable [topicae] reasons (or even 

 reasons that might demonstrate, but are put forward only aa 



