440 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



a most sympathetic sovran with his consort — Frederick I and Sophia (a 

 princess of Hanover) — who assumed the royal title in 1700, and in the same 

 year issued a patent for the Prussian Academy, and very promptly too, for 

 the reform of the Calendar was urgent, and was siue to he adopted by all the 

 Protestant States in Germany. The building of an observatory for practical 

 astronomy was suggested by that of Greenwich, and was necessary for the 

 Calendar; the study of the purification of the vernacular was naturally 

 suggested by the French Academy, and both these models were now well 

 known- — indeed, Leibnitz had been made an honorary member of the Societies 

 both in London and Paris. 



But for the sake of finding further means, he even projected a practical 

 side to improve mechanical arts and agriculture, so that, had he been in 

 Dublin, he would have added our Eoyal DubHn Society to this Eoyal Irish 

 Academy. N'ot content with this success, Leibnitz embraced within his view 

 the foundation of some such body in every capital of i^orthem Europe, 

 especially that of Eussia, from which he hoped to reach the learning of 

 China, which seems then to have been much overrated. But everywhere 

 through Germany — at Dresden, at Frankfort, and particularly at Vienna — 

 he promoted the foimding of Academies, so that, though he did not live to see 

 it, there arose a whole network of them — most of which still exist — all due 

 to his scientific propaganda. 



It may interest us to consider how one man, however brilliaut and 

 versatile, could possibly exercise so vast an influence. I attribute much 

 of it to his having taken a leaf out of the book of the Jesuits, though they 

 were certainly no friends of 'ias.—Sedfo.s est et ab haste doceri. They had 

 discovered that in those days nations were to be con^-erted by converting the 

 nations' princes. Their influence then radiated from the throne all over the 

 country. So Leibnitz was perpetually dealiug with courts far more than 

 with the existing societies; and he brought his influence to bear more perhaps 

 as a politician than as a pure man of science. 



No more interesting example of the method of Leibnitz, and indeed of the 

 general course of the foundation of an Academy, is to be found than in the 

 history of the many attempts to make Vienna the centi'e of such a body.' A 

 German called Konrad Pickel, who also bears the name of Celt€S, had long 

 since foimded in Ofen a Literaria Sodalitas DaavMana, which, on his appoint- 

 ment as Professor in Vienna, he transferred fl490) to that city. It was 

 only a private society, but on very broad Hues, including Hungarians, 



r l^^f, ^ ^*' *"*'' ^'^"•"^^ly"! fie Geickichte de^- Gmndur.g imd der Wiyksamkeit der ha 

 txcnm Akademu dt, JTissaisc/iaflen. &c., by theii- sec.etan-, .Vifon; Hubei, in 1S97. 



