PRINCIPLES OF NATURE AND OF 

 GRACE, FOUNDED ON REASON. 1714. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



THE Principles of Nature and of Grace has much in common 

 with the Monadology ; and, indeed, it reads like a preliminary 

 study, out of which the Monadology has been elaborated. They 

 seeni to have been written about the same time ; and Gerhardt 

 holds, against the view of previous editors, that the Principles 

 of Nature and of Grace is the treatise which was written for 

 Prince Eugene. It has been shown by Gerhardt that when 

 Nicholas Remond wrote to Leibniz from Paris in 1714, asking 

 for a condensed statement of his philosophy, Leibniz sent 

 him a copy of the Principles of Nature and of Grace, with a 

 letter in course of which he says : ' I now send you a little 

 discourse on my philosophy, which I have written here for 

 Prince Eugene of Savoy. I hope that this little work will help 

 to make my ideas better understood, when taken in connexion 

 with what I have written in the Journals of Leipzig, Paris and 

 Holland. The Leipzig papers are on the whole in the language 

 of the Scholastics; the others are more in the style of the 

 Cartesians; and in this last writing I have endeavoured to 

 express myself in a way which can be understood by those who 

 are not yet thoroughly accustomed to either of the other styles.' 

 (Letter of Aug. 26, 1714, quoted by Gerhardt, vi. 485 ; E. p. xxvii 

 and p. 704 a.) Kirchmann suggests that probably Leibniz 

 wrote the Principles of Nature and of Grace for Prince Eugene, 

 and afterwards, thinking it insufficient, worked it up into the 

 Monadology, which he gave to the Prince. The Principles of 

 Nature and of Grace was first published in the French journal, 

 L' Europe Savante, in November, 1718. 



There are three different MSS. of this work. The first of 



