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Article LEIBNIZ AND SPINOZA. ← Page 3 of 25 →
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Leibniz And Spinoza.
conception of the fact or doctrine in question , or his belief will be dim and indistinct itself ; in other Avords , he will have little or no belief about the matter ; make a clear statement , and I will tell you Avhether I believe it or not ; make an ambiguous statement or a misty statement , and I cannot tell whether I belieA r e it or not ; my certainty as to my belief depends on the
clearness of the proposition addressed to my intellect , and this is in no wise interfered Avith by over-refinements as to the nature of ideas or the nature of substance . The philosophical reader will be gratified Avith the depth displayed in this little tractate , and the sound thinker will be pleased to find that it has some practical utility . Into the divinity of the question we shall not
, for obvious reasons , enter , but pass on to the correspondence with M . TAbbe Eoucher . This divine and philosopher , Avhose writings—much valued when they appeared , —have now fallen into undeserved neglect , was one of the most favoured correspondents of Leibniz ; and although , in the vast multitude who shared that honourmany be found scarceldeserAing to
, may y be recorded as such , yet it is clear , from the tone of his letters , that among the distinguished Frenchmen of that clay Leibniz regards the Abbe Eoucher as one of the most worthy of the title . Perhaps the real reason Avhy this able man occupies so
small a space in the mind of the present age is that he was principally occupied Avith two subjects , one of which has long lost all its interest , and the other exhibits him on the wrong side ; the former was to prove that the school of Plato still survived in the French Academy , an attempt in Avhich it is needless to say that he completely failed , and which , had it been true ,
would have required no efforts of M . Eoucher to make it known . At the same time , so persuaded was Leibniz that the Abbe w as thoroughly versed in the doctrines of Plato and his disci ples , that he pressed urgently upon him to undertake an edition of the great Athenian , with notes and a translation : unhappily this advice Avas not taken ; but insteadM . Eoucher entangled
, himself in a metaphysical dispute Avith Malebranche , in which he makes certainly by no means the best figure of the two . He published a AA'ork AA'hich he entitled , " Critique de la Recherche de la Verite , " to which critique Malebranche replied with a degree of severity enough to put an end to most controversies . Eoucheron his partAvithout complaining of thisAvithdrew the
, , , preface Avhich had offended Malebranche , and the latter immediately withdrew the passages in which he had so severely reflected upon his critic . The editions in which the offensive portions are found are UOAV extremely rare , and as a literary curiosity , M . cle Careil has reprinted in an appendix the defence of Male-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Leibniz And Spinoza.
conception of the fact or doctrine in question , or his belief will be dim and indistinct itself ; in other Avords , he will have little or no belief about the matter ; make a clear statement , and I will tell you Avhether I believe it or not ; make an ambiguous statement or a misty statement , and I cannot tell whether I belieA r e it or not ; my certainty as to my belief depends on the
clearness of the proposition addressed to my intellect , and this is in no wise interfered Avith by over-refinements as to the nature of ideas or the nature of substance . The philosophical reader will be gratified Avith the depth displayed in this little tractate , and the sound thinker will be pleased to find that it has some practical utility . Into the divinity of the question we shall not
, for obvious reasons , enter , but pass on to the correspondence with M . TAbbe Eoucher . This divine and philosopher , Avhose writings—much valued when they appeared , —have now fallen into undeserved neglect , was one of the most favoured correspondents of Leibniz ; and although , in the vast multitude who shared that honourmany be found scarceldeserAing to
, may y be recorded as such , yet it is clear , from the tone of his letters , that among the distinguished Frenchmen of that clay Leibniz regards the Abbe Eoucher as one of the most worthy of the title . Perhaps the real reason Avhy this able man occupies so
small a space in the mind of the present age is that he was principally occupied Avith two subjects , one of which has long lost all its interest , and the other exhibits him on the wrong side ; the former was to prove that the school of Plato still survived in the French Academy , an attempt in Avhich it is needless to say that he completely failed , and which , had it been true ,
would have required no efforts of M . Eoucher to make it known . At the same time , so persuaded was Leibniz that the Abbe w as thoroughly versed in the doctrines of Plato and his disci ples , that he pressed urgently upon him to undertake an edition of the great Athenian , with notes and a translation : unhappily this advice Avas not taken ; but insteadM . Eoucher entangled
, himself in a metaphysical dispute Avith Malebranche , in which he makes certainly by no means the best figure of the two . He published a AA'ork AA'hich he entitled , " Critique de la Recherche de la Verite , " to which critique Malebranche replied with a degree of severity enough to put an end to most controversies . Eoucheron his partAvithout complaining of thisAvithdrew the
, , , preface Avhich had offended Malebranche , and the latter immediately withdrew the passages in which he had so severely reflected upon his critic . The editions in which the offensive portions are found are UOAV extremely rare , and as a literary curiosity , M . cle Careil has reprinted in an appendix the defence of Male-