454 L E J B 
difcovery of this invention was afterwards the fubjeft of 
difpute for feveral years; and though, according to the 
opinion of fome, there are throng prefumptions in favour of. 
Leibnitz, that he was no plagiary, yet the glory of New¬ 
ton as the firft inventor, rpay be faid to have been efta- 
blilhed by it, beyond all queftion. See the article Flux¬ 
ions, vol. vii. p. 475. and Keill, vol. xi. p.652. 
While Leibnitz was in England, he received informa¬ 
tion of the death of his patron, the eleClor of Mentz, by 
which he loll his penfion. Upon this he returned to 
France; whence he wrote to Frederic duke ofBrunfwick- 
Lunenburg, informing him of his circumftances. That 
prince returned him a very gracious anfwer; and, as a 
pledge of his future favour, appointed him a member of 
his aulic council, with a regular (alary ; but he permitted 
him to continue at Paris till his arithmetical machine 
fhould be completed. In the year 1676, after another 
vifit to his mathematical friends in England, he' palled 
through Holland to Hanover, where he fettled, and took 
his place at the council-board. In this fituation, toge¬ 
ther with his civil labours, he diligently employed him- 
ielf in promoting the interefls of learning and knowledge, 
as well as in the purfuit of his philofophical lucubrations. 
In the year 1677, he brought to light fome difcoveries 
which he had made in mechanics and chemiltry; and 
wrote his Notitia Optica promota, defcribing a new method 
of polilhing optical glades, in a letter to Spinoza, who was 
an excellent optician. Several other memoirs of experi¬ 
ments and obfervations made by him, are preferved in the 
Acta Eruditorum of Leipfic; a work in which, from the 
year 1683, he had a condderable fhare. One of the moll 
■valuable pieces preferved in this periodical work, is his 
Thoughts on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas. 
In 1679, after the death of the duke of Brunfwick- 
Lunenbnrg, his fuccedor Ernett-Augultus, the bi(hop of 
Ofnaburg, (liowed our author the fame favour which his 
predecefior had done, and engaged him to write the hif- 
tbry of the houfe of Brunfwick. This work Leibnitz 
undertook, and employed himfelf, during feveral years, 
in travelling over Germany and Italy to collect materials; 
availing himfelf, at the fame time, of the opportunities 
which thefe journeys afforded him, for enlarging his know¬ 
ledge of nature and the arts. While he was in Italy, he 
met with an adventure, in which he was indebted for his 
life to his admirable prefence of mind. Paffing in a fmall 
bark from Venice to Mefola, a ftorm arofe ; during which 
the pilot, imagining that he was not underilood by a Ger¬ 
man, whom, being a heretic, he looked on as the caufe of 
the tempell, propofed to drip him of his clothes and mo¬ 
ney, and throw him overboard. Leibnitz, hearing this, 
without difcovering the lead emotion, drew a fet of beads 
from his pocket, and began turning them over with great 
deeming devoutnefs. The artifice fucceeded ; one of the 
tailors obferving to the pilot, that, fmce the man was no 
heretic, he ought not to be drowned. 
Leibnitz returned to Hanover in 169b, where he pur- 
fued with indefatigable indudry feveral obje&s of entirely- 
ilifferent kinds. He engaged further in mathematical 
and philofophical refearches; he maintained a theological 
difpute with Pellidon, in which he appeared the able ad¬ 
vocate for toleration; and, in 1693, lie publidied an im¬ 
portant and curious work on the law of nations, entitled. 
Codex Juris Gentium Diplomatics, &c. folio. No fooner was 
this elaborate work finilhed, than lie applied his thoughts 
to the great defign of renovating the fcience of meta- 
phyfics, and, particularly, of correcting and improving 
the philofophical notion of fubdance, as the means of ar¬ 
riving, in the mod dm pie way, at the knowledge of na¬ 
ture. With this view he wrote his treatife, De ipfa Na- 
tura, five Vi injila. He moreover conceived the idea of a 
new fcience of forces, in which the laws of mechanics, and 
the meafure of living forces, might be clearly defined. 
Of this fcience, which he called Dynamics, he inferted a 
fpecimen in the Acta Eruditorum. In the year 1695, he 
publilhed, in the Parifian Journal, a fpecimen of the new 
M I T Z. 
fydem of the nature and communication of fubdanees, and 
of the union between body and mind ; in which he un¬ 
folded his notion of a pre-ejlablijhed harmony between the 
body and foul of man, which afterwards fo much engaged 
the attention of philofophers. About the fame time he 
wrote his Thoughts on Locke’s Efiay on the human U11- 
derdanding, in which he controverts that philofopher’s 
opinions on innate ideas, fubdance, a vacuum, and other 
fubje&s ; communicated to the world his ingenious ma¬ 
thematical invention of the arithmetical binary; and wrote 
a reply to Bayle, in defence of his tloCirine of pre-eda- 
blilhed harmony. In 1698, Leibnitz publifhed “ Accel- 
fiones Hidoricse, quibus utilia fuperiorum Temporum il- 
luhrandis Scripra Monumentaque nondum ha&enus edita, 
inque iis Scriptores diu defiderati continentur,” in 2 vols. 
4to. and, in 1700, a fupplement to his valuable treatife on 
the lav/ of nations, entitled, “ Mantifla Codicis Juris Gen¬ 
tium Diplomatic!,” in folio. In the year lad mentioned, 
he was admitted a member of the Royal Academy of Sci¬ 
ences at Paris ; and, under the aufpices of the eleClor of 
Brandenburg, afterwards king of Prufiia, completed the 
eftablilhment of an Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Of 
this inditution he was appointed perpetual prefident; and, 
though his other engagements did not admit of his con- 
dant refidence there, he enriched the memoirs of the aca¬ 
demy with many valuable fcienfific and literary commu¬ 
nications. A fimilar inditution was attempted to be in¬ 
troduced by him at Drefden, and the plan of it received 
the approbation of the king of Poland ; but the troubles 
which foon afterwards broke out in that kingdom, pre¬ 
vented it from being carried into execution. Leibnitz 
likewife employed himfelf for a long time on the inven¬ 
tion of an univerfal language; but did not live to com¬ 
plete his dedgri. In the year 1707, he prefented to the 
public the firll volume of his collections for a hidory of 
the houfe of Brunfwick, entitled, Scriptores Rerum Rrunf- 
zvicenjium Illujlrationi infiervicntcs, &c. folio ; of which work 
a fecond volume appeared in 1710, and a third in 1711. 
While our author was occupied on the various fubjeCls 
which we have feen, he found leifure to complete and 
publilh a work, in which he explained, more fully than he 
had before done, the principles of his new fydem. It was 
entitled, Tkeodicaa, or a Didertation on the Goodnefs of 
God, the Liberty of Man, and the Origin of Evil; in 
2 vols. 8vo. 1710. In the fame year he fent into the world 
the firft volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of 
Sciences at Berlin, which derived a greater value from his 
various communications in the departments of hidory, 
antiquities, etymology, natural philofophy, mathematics, 
&c. Leibnitz’s writings had now for a long time rendered 
his name famous in every part of Europe ; and he had 
honours and rewards bedowed upon him by other 
princes befides the eleftors of Hanover and Brandenburg, 
In the year 1711, he was made auliq counfellorto the em¬ 
peror ; and the czar Peter the Great appointed him his 
privy-counfellor of judice, with a penfion of a thoufand 
ducats. He alfo undertook to edablifh an academy of 
fciences at Vienna ; but was prevented from completing 
that projeCt, according to fome writers, by the breaking 
out of the plague. But, whatever might be the caufe of 
his mifcarriage in this indance, the emperor rewarded him 
for his exertions with a penfion of two thoufand florins 3 
and afterwards gave him a promife of doubling that pen¬ 
fion, upon the condition of his coming to refide at Vi¬ 
enna ; which invitation he was inclined to accept, had he 
not been prevented by death. In the mean time, upon 
his return to Hanover in 1714, he found that the eleClor, 
who was then railed to the throne of Great Britain, had 
appointed Mr. Echard his colleague in writing the hif- 
tory of the houfe of Brunfwick ; the profecution of which 
had been confiderably interrupted by his ether fludies 
and engagements. About the clofe of the year, Leibnitz 
palled over to England, where he received new marks of 
favour and friendlhip from his Britannic majefty, and fre¬ 
quently made his appearance at court. During this vilif, 
at 
