The Courtier And The Heretic Part 10

Leibniz's strategy of containment achieved its finest expression in the context of the pair of related succession crises that convulsed European politics at the turn of the eighteenth century. With the approach of the death of the sickly King Charles II of Spain, Louis XIV maneuvered to place his grandson on the Spanish throne. The rest of Europe, not least the Hapsburgs, of course, had very different hopes for the future of Spain. Upon Charles II's death in 1700, Louis XIV and his Bourbon clan nonetheless claimed the Spanish crown, and there ensued a complex series of conflicts involving all the major powers of Europe and leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives across the continent.

At the same time, over in England, Queen Anne (sister-in-law of and successor to William) was having no luck in breeding an heir to the throne. Louis XIV, true to form, plotted to put one of the Catholic Stuarts in charge of England. Many feared that such an outcome would reduce England to a va.s.sal state of France. In what must count as a spectacular piece of genealogical luck, the alternative contender for the throne was none other than Leibniz's friend and patroness, Sophia, the Electress of Hanover, who happened to be the granddaughter of James I, the first Stuart king of England, and the closest Protestant in the line of succession.

For Leibniz, the prospect that France might now rule the two next most powerful countries in Europe represented a tremendous danger to civilization. He leapt into the succession crises on the side of all those who were opposed to Louis XIV. With his Manifesto for the Defense of the Rights of Charles III Manifesto for the Defense of the Rights of Charles III and other writings in favor of the Hapsburg candidate, he hoped to persuade the Spaniards to spurn the Sun King's efforts to claim their throne. With the and other writings in favor of the Hapsburg candidate, he hoped to persuade the Spaniards to spurn the Sun King's efforts to claim their throne. With the Considerations on the Question of the English Succession Considerations on the Question of the English Succession as well as in many of his letters, he struggled to advance the Hanoverian cause in England. as well as in many of his letters, he struggled to advance the Hanoverian cause in England.

Leibniz's animus toward Louis XIV marks an interesting paradox in his political thought. In his theoretical writings, Leibniz champions the idea of a continent-wide Christian republic under a single monarch. Given that Louis XIV was a monarch whose ambition it was to unite Europe under a single church, one might well wonder why the philosopher found him to be such a scourge. It wasn't just a matter of defending Germany from its most powerful neighbor, as it turns out; nor was Leibniz driven solely by the desire to install his employer on the throne of England. (Though he did advertise his willingness to move to London-rather too eagerly, in the view of his fellow courtiers-should the Hanoverians require his services there.) In fact, Leibniz viscerally opposed Louis XIV because he believed that the Sun King's brand of absolute monarchy represented a form of secular decadence: a corruption in which both reason and religion were reduced to mere show of words in the service of a thoroughly irreligious, deceitful, and self-interested ruling elite.

In his polemic against the Bourbon succession in Spain, for example, he paints a chilling picture of life in France: "The people are trampled upon without mercy and reduced to bread and water by t.i.thes, taxes, imposts...and all of this to serve the insatiability of a Court which cares not at all about the subjects which it already has, and which seeks only to augment the number of miserable people by extending its estates."

As he works his way up to the catalogue of horrors of the ancien regime ancien regime, Leibniz seems to reach a climax with the declaration that to admit the French to Spain would be "to open the door to dissoluteness and to libertinage." At last he reveals the thing that he fears most about Louis XIV: "The worst thing of all is that atheism walks today with its head up in France, that pretended great wits are in fas.h.i.+on there, and that piety is turned to ridicule." The atheistic spirit of France, he thunders, is a "venom" that none can resist. Wherever the Sun King sets foot, the poison spreads. The toxin to which Leibniz refers here, of course, consists of modern, materialistic, and atheistic ideas-ideas to which he himself was exposed during his years in Paris.

There can be little doubt just who, in Leibniz's mind, first manufactured these venomous ideas. In the New Essays New Essays, he at last puts a name to the deed. Spinoza, he acknowledges, led an exemplary life. But his followers are capable of "setting fire to the four corners of the earth." Worst of all are those ideas, the horrific ideas emanating from The Hague: "I find that similar ideas are stealing gradually into the minds of men of high station who rule the rest and on whom affairs depend, and slithering into fas.h.i.+onable books, and are inching everything towards the universal revolution with which Europe is threatened." In Leibniz's nightmare scenario, then, the corrupt rule of Louis XIV prepares the ground on which the slithering Spinozists flourish, and these serpents of materialism then spread their soul-destroying ideas and bring about a global revolution in which western civilization collapses into anarchy. The program at the core of all of Leibniz's political activities throughout his career can be summarized in a single slogan: Stop Spinoza.

Newton's Repulsive Law of Attraction Isaac Newton conceived the essentials of his version of the calculus during his anni mirabiles anni mirabiles of 16641666, when he was in his early twenties. For the next twenty years, he kept the discovery almost entirely to himself. It wasn't all that hard for him to do: he lived by himself in Cambridge, in a house where all the furnis.h.i.+ngs were colored red, he took his meals alone (when he could remember to eat), and he dutifully gave lectures to mostly empty cla.s.srooms. of 16641666, when he was in his early twenties. For the next twenty years, he kept the discovery almost entirely to himself. It wasn't all that hard for him to do: he lived by himself in Cambridge, in a house where all the furnis.h.i.+ngs were colored red, he took his meals alone (when he could remember to eat), and he dutifully gave lectures to mostly empty cla.s.srooms.

When Leibniz conceived the essentials of his version of the calculus in the autumn of 1675, he was not yet aware that Newton had achieved substantially the same results ten years previously. The next summer, through Henry Oldenburg's mediation, Newton informed Leibniz that he had come upon a method answering to the requirements of the calculus (though he did not provide details). Leibniz responded by divulging to Newton the basics of his own method. Both then kept their silence for another eight years. In 1684, incensed to learn that his old friend Tschirnhaus had tried to spill the beans about the calculus (and take credit for them, too), Leibniz published a sketch of his method in his famous article in the Acta Eruditorum Acta Eruditorum, "A New Method of Maxima and Minima and Also Tangents, and a Singular Kind of Calculus for Them."

A number of able mathematicians around Europe grasped the significance of Leibniz's discovery, and soon enough the courtier of Hanover, who was everything the Cambridge don was not in terms of human relations, commanded a frenzied web of calculus aficionados in Germany, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

In 1687, Newton published his Principia Mathematica Principia Mathematica, which is generally regarded as one of the two or three most important works in the history of science. In that work, he stakes his claim to independent discovery of the calculus (though he does not detail his method). He lets on that he had ten years earlier informed "that most skilled geometer G. W. Leibniz" of his discovery and "that famous person replied that he too had come across a method of this kind, had imparted his method to me, which hardly differed from mine except in words and notation." Leibniz made no objection to the claim, and indeed wrote to Newton urging "you, who are a perfect geometer, to continue as you have begun" and to publish the details of his method.

And there the affair should have ended. It was, at bottom, a case of bright minds thinking alike and of trees falling in forests with n.o.body to hear them, followed in good time by the appropriate mutual recognition of independent achievement. It all began to turn sour with the intervention of Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, a young, brilliant, and excitable Swiss mathematician who achieved a degree of personal intimacy with Newton unmatched by any other mortal and that has since raised more than a few prurient eyebrows. More than ten years after the publication of the Principia Principia, Fatio a.s.serted that Newton was the "first" inventor of the calculus. "As to whether Leibniz, its second inventor, borrowed anything from him," he added, "I prefer to let those judge who have seen Newton's letters and other ma.n.u.script papers...which I myself have examined."

For another decade the conflict simmered at a low boil, the antagonists and their seconds content to restrict themselves to unsavory insinuations. All-out war began in 1710, when an English writer published an article bluntly accusing Leibniz of plagiarism. Understandably outraged, Leibniz demanded an independent inquiry from the Royal Society. In 1712, the Society duly organized a commission, which delivered its verdict: the accusation of plagiarism stands. The de facto de facto chairman of the inquiry and author of its report on Leibniz was Isaac Newton. chairman of the inquiry and author of its report on Leibniz was Isaac Newton.

An anonymous article appeared in the German press defending Leibniz and reversing the charge: Newton, the unnamed author declaims, plagiarized Leibniz. Leibniz was forced to disown the article, claiming that it had been put out by a "zealous friend." But it soon became clear to all parties that the "zealous friend" in question was Leibniz himself. In England, meanwhile, appeared an anonymous review of the dispute, according to which Newton was the innocent victim of Leibniz's chicanery. The "anonymous" author, it turns out, was Newton himself.

The priority dispute over the calculus outlived even its two obstreperous protagonists and was not definitively put to rest until scholars finally set the record straight in the twentieth century. At first glance, the whole sorry affair seems to represent a case of supersized egos with undersized scruples clas.h.i.+ng in the context of overheated national rivalries and suboptimal publication practices. It was all those things, too, but it was also something else.

From the moment Principia Principia appeared, Leibniz demonstrated far greater anxiety about Newton's physics than his mathematics. In February 1689, shortly after reading Newton's work, Leibniz published another article in the appeared, Leibniz demonstrated far greater anxiety about Newton's physics than his mathematics. In February 1689, shortly after reading Newton's work, Leibniz published another article in the Acta Eruditorum Acta Eruditorum arguing that the movements of the planets may be explained in terms of a complex, invisible, and fluid vortex centered on the sun. The manifest purpose of the exercise was to provide an alternative to Newton's physics, according to which planetary movements are the consequence of the law of gravitational attraction. In order to make his claims appear independent of and even prior to Newton, incidentally, Leibniz a.s.serted that his knowledge of the arguing that the movements of the planets may be explained in terms of a complex, invisible, and fluid vortex centered on the sun. The manifest purpose of the exercise was to provide an alternative to Newton's physics, according to which planetary movements are the consequence of the law of gravitational attraction. In order to make his claims appear independent of and even prior to Newton, incidentally, Leibniz a.s.serted that his knowledge of the Principia Principia was only secondhand. As Newton later suspected, however, Leibniz was fibbing: notes made in his personal copy of the was only secondhand. As Newton later suspected, however, Leibniz was fibbing: notes made in his personal copy of the Principia Principia date from before the time he wrote the article. date from before the time he wrote the article.

Over the next two decades, Leibniz regularly took swipes at Newton's repugnant law of gravity. In 1710, ominously, he noted that the theologically suspect John Locke took great comfort in Newton's idea of action at a distance. By 1715, Locke and Newton were quite mixed up in Leibniz's mind. In his correspondence battle with Samuel Clarke-who was understood by all to represent his friend and neighbor Newton-Leibniz opened the attack on his antagonist in the priority dispute with the strange observation that "Natural religion seems to be very much in decline in England.... Several make souls corporeal, others make G.o.d himself corporeal: Mr. Locke and his followers are doubtful at least whether souls are not material and naturally perishable."

Why did Leibniz find Newton's law of attraction so repulsive? And why did he link it with Locke's conjectures about the materiality of the mind? In a letter to one of his French allies, Leibniz frankly acknowledges the anxiety that lay at the bottom of all his dealings with Newton: After [admitting the law of attraction], it will be permitted to imagine all the shams that one would want; one could give to matter the power of thought, and destroy the immateriality of the soul, which is one of the princ.i.p.al foundations of Natural Theology. Thus one sees that M. Locke, who is not very persuaded of this immateriality, seizes avidly on M. Newton's idea.

According to Leibniz's way of thinking, the chain of inferences is so obvious that it hardly needs stating: Newton's law of gravity implies that matter can move by itself, without the need for any mindlike principle of activity. But from this it follows that matter might acquire the force of thought. And, as the case of Locke shows, merely to suggest that matter might think is ipso facto ipso facto to destroy the immortality of the soul. Newtonian physics, in sum, is a Trojan horse: it conceals a horde of atheistic ideas that, if permitted entry, will overrun the citadel of European civilization. to destroy the immortality of the soul. Newtonian physics, in sum, is a Trojan horse: it conceals a horde of atheistic ideas that, if permitted entry, will overrun the citadel of European civilization.

Leibniz's attribution of such hideous designs to Newton is highly problematic, to say the least. The great physicist devoted much of his spare time to proving precisely those theological doctrines Leibniz accused him of subverting. In truth, the heresies that Leibniz attempted to pin on his rival in the priority dispute-that matter can move by itself; that matter can think; that the soul is material; that the soul is mortal-clearly belong to another philosopher. When Leibniz looked at Newton-no less than when he looked at Descartes and Locke-he saw Spinoza. And this fact, as much as the usual story about supersized egos facing off across the Channel, explains much of the strange intensity, if not the origin, of the most inglorious dispute in the history of mathematics.

The Yellow Peril In a Europe whose Eurocentrism was at its narrowest peak, it is eloquent testimony to the breadth of Leibniz's intellectual interests and to the sincerity of his desire to reconcile all of humanity in a single City of G.o.d that he took great interest in the history, religion, and philosophy of the Chinese. It has been said that the word "China" appears more frequently in his writings than "monad" or any of the other terms of his metaphysics.

Leibniz's fascination with the Middle Kingdom dates at least from the time of his epic voyage to Italy, where he met the Jesuit Claudio Grimaldi (16381712), who had spent seventeen years as a missionary in Beijing. The princ.i.p.al topic of discussion among European sinologists at the time was how to manage the proselytizing of the Christian religion in China. Should the local rites a.s.sociated with Confucianism be regarded as secular and therefore compatible with Christianity? Or are they in fact heathen rituals, deserving of harsh repression? Does Chinese religion include concepts compatible with the Christian G.o.d and the immortality of the soul? Or is it paganism-or, worse, atheism?

True to his peacemaking disposition, Leibniz took a very conciliatory stance. In his China writings, he maintains that missionaries should not attempt to suppress local traditions, but rather should incorporate any rites that did not directly contradict the Christian message. Furthermore, he offers a highly favorable judgment on the philosophy that underlies most of Chinese theology. His argument, in brief, is that Chinese philosophy, especially in its ancient form, looks very much like his own philosophy; and since he is a good Christian, so are the Chinese.

Specifically, he a.s.serts that most of the Chinese religious thinkers acknowledge a "supra-mundane intelligence" that the more astute ones have discovered the "soul" and that perhaps all that is lacking is to introduce them to the latest developments in Europe-"by acquainting them with the true systems of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm"-in order to include them within a universal Christian church. He even hints that the most sophisticated Chinese may be there already. The principle of the li li-a core concept in much of Chinese thought-may be read not just as the proposition that All is One, says Leibniz, but also as the proposition that One is All. This, of course, would render it a version of his own monadology, than which no finer specimen of Christian metaphysics may be conceived.

Alas, the melancholy monadologist notes with dismay, there is a "bad" version of philosophy afoot in China. This bad philosophy is almost entirely the work of modern Chinese thinkers-"heterodox and atheistic scholars...who are permitted in China to utter their impieties with impunity, at least orally."

These malevolent unbelievers, says Leibniz, manage to twist the true meaning of the principle of the li li. They deviously attempt to render the li li as "the soul of things as if it were their essence"-that is, as if it were some sort of universal Substance. They put forward the evil dogmas that everything occurs by "brutish necessity" and that there are no "spiritual substances." The bad Chinese philosophers, in other words, are retailing the execrable ideas Leibniz elsewhere attributes to a certain, infamous, European atheist. And, indeed, in summarizing his case against the Middle Kingdom's homegrown deviants, Leibniz at last identifies the real object of his concern: "One could perhaps claim that...one can conceive of [the as "the soul of things as if it were their essence"-that is, as if it were some sort of universal Substance. They put forward the evil dogmas that everything occurs by "brutish necessity" and that there are no "spiritual substances." The bad Chinese philosophers, in other words, are retailing the execrable ideas Leibniz elsewhere attributes to a certain, infamous, European atheist. And, indeed, in summarizing his case against the Middle Kingdom's homegrown deviants, Leibniz at last identifies the real object of his concern: "One could perhaps claim that...one can conceive of [the li li] as the prime form, that is, as the Soul of the World, of which the individual souls would only be modifications. This would follow the opinions of several ancients, the Averroists, and in a certain sense even the opinions of Spinoza." Elsewhere Leibniz describes Averroes (the Arab philosopher Ibn Rushd) as essentially a Spinozist avant la lettre avant la lettre; thus we may infer that the bad Chinese are Spinozists to a man.

"If by misfortune Atheism should prevail in Europe and become the doctrine of the most learned," just as it has in China, Leibniz goes on to say, then missionaries from China would have the right to look at ancient texts in Europe and "to ridicule the ridicule" of the Atheists. For all of his interest in China, it seems, Leibniz never quite managed to get Europe off his mind. China, in the final a.n.a.lysis, was a kind of laboratory experiment in modernization, a cautionary example of what might happen here at home, should Spinoza succeed.

Heal Thyself Leibniz's paranoia about Spinozism was a general feature of the age in which he lived. The universal impulse to expose Spinozistic conspiracies had something of the air of a highbrow witch-hunt (and it is interesting to note that the lowbrow variety was very much in fas.h.i.+on at the time, too). In more recent times, one could find an a.n.a.logue in the anti-Communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. A typical feature of such affairs, in any case, is that the accusations eventually fall on precisely those who make the accusations themselves. The case of Leibniz was no exception to the rule.

In 1712, a Dutch professor named Ruardus Andala published a tract accusing Leibniz of plagiarizing Spinoza. One of Andala's pupils followed suit with another book making essentially the same charge. In 1723, some years after Leibniz's death, the German theologian Joachim Lange a.s.serted that the entire system of the pre-established harmony was nothing but the Spinozan philosophy under a new name. (To be fair, however, it must be pointed out that Lange was of the sort who believed that the remote cause of all philosophy was Satan himself.) The suggestion that Leibniz had some deep and unacknowledged attachment to Spinozism soon spread beyond the bastions of orthodoxy. Gotthold Lessing, the eighteenth-century critic whose reading of Spinoza played a crucial role in reviving the philosopher's fame, said of Leibniz: "I fear that he was himself a Spinozist at heart." Johann Gottfried Herder, who sensibly declined any access to his subject's inscrutable interior, declared: "What Leibniz was in his heart I may not know; but his Theodicy Theodicy just as many of his letters show that, precisely in order not to be a Spinozist, he thought through his system." More recently, Bertrand Russell has said, in a typical a.n.a.lysis of the philosopher's notes: "Here, as elsewhere, Leibniz fell into Spinozism whenever he allowed himself to be logical; in his published works, accordingly, he took care to be illogical." just as many of his letters show that, precisely in order not to be a Spinozist, he thought through his system." More recently, Bertrand Russell has said, in a typical a.n.a.lysis of the philosopher's notes: "Here, as elsewhere, Leibniz fell into Spinozism whenever he allowed himself to be logical; in his published works, accordingly, he took care to be illogical."

The suggestion that Leibniz's mature philosophy retains some unstated attachment to Spinozism, however, invariably arouses controversy among those who care about such matters-as it should. In his mature metaphysics, after all, Leibniz contradicts every central doctrine of Spinoza's philosophy, and in his public and private comments on any number of other subjects he engages in ceaseless, if covert, warfare on Spinozism in all its forms. Given the obvious, then, one should ask: What grounds could there possibly be for suspecting a hidden link between Leibniz and his nemesis?

It is our good fortune that Leibniz had a chance to respond to the charges. In 1714, one of Leibniz's correspondents gently inquired whether perhaps there might be some Spinozism in the doctrines of the monadology. Leibniz's reply: On the contrary, it is precisely by means of the monads that Spinozism is destroyed. For there are as many true substances-as many living mirrors of the Universe, always subsisting, as it were, or concentrated Universes-as there are Monads; whereas, according to Spinoza, there is but one sole substance. He would be right, if there were no Monads.

On first reading, the meaning of Leibniz's words is plain enough: he unequivocally rejects the Spinozistic philosophy. On second reading, however, we seem to enter the labyrinth all over again. Here Leibniz draws an inference that is perhaps obvious from a consideration of his metaphysical system but that must nonetheless sound very troubling to the many who are not yet convinced of the truth of the monadology. For, as he now makes explicit, if the infinite, sizeless, windowless, mutually harmonized substances of which he writes do not exist, then Spinoza is correct. Not: that both he and Spinoza might be wrong; but: that if he is wrong, Spinoza is right right. At the very least, this represents a spectacular promotion for the philosopher of The Hague. After forty years of avoiding as much as possible the mention of his name and publicly dismissing his philosophy as so bad it need not be refuted, Leibniz suddenly declares that Spinoza-and not Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, or any other great philosopher from the past-offers the only real alternative to his own philosophy.

Even in his response to the charge of Spinozism, it seems, Leibniz could not shake the obsession that led to the charge in the first place. He had already sensed the presence of his rival in the most unexpected places-in Locke's Essay Essay, Newton's physics, Descartes's metaphysics, Louis XIV's politics, the history of Chinese philosophy-and now he saw it lurking in the shadow of his very own philosophical system, determined to break free should his own arguments fail to destroy it. The strange ubiquity of Spinoza in Leibniz's world, in fact, requires that we leave open the possibility that his restless vigilance on the matter perhaps followed from some awareness of just how close he was himself to succ.u.mbing to the danger; that he feared Spinozism so much because he thought that it just might be true true; and that, in a manner of speaking, he perceived the influence of his rival everywhere because he mistook the tint in his own spectacles for a certain dark aspect of the outside world.

16.

The Return of the Repressed Imagine a pair of friends returning separately from travels abroad, each describing a favorite city whose unp.r.o.nounceable name they have forgotten. Your friends are wildly different in character, background, and aesthetic sensibilities; not surprisingly, they seem to have taken an interest in wildly different cities. As your friends are quite compet.i.tive, furthermore, they soon take to criticizing each other's choices. Each celebrates the virtues of his city by contrasting them with the alleged failings of the other's. As the discussion progresses, however, you begin to suspect that they are talking about the same city. In fact, you hear nothing in what they say that could confirm that they are not not talking about the same city. Yet there is still no doubt that the city in question talking about the same city. Yet there is still no doubt that the city in question means means something very different to each of your friends; that the two something very different to each of your friends; that the two saw saw very different things in their travels. Now imagine that your friends are named Leibniz and Spinoza, and that instead of a particular city they are discussing the nature of the universe. The question then is: Do they share the same philosophy? Or, in other words, is philosophy about very different things in their travels. Now imagine that your friends are named Leibniz and Spinoza, and that instead of a particular city they are discussing the nature of the universe. The question then is: Do they share the same philosophy? Or, in other words, is philosophy about what what you see, or the you see, or the way way you see it? you see it?

G.o.d It is a startling fact that Spinoza considered and rejected something very like Leibniz's transcendent concept of G.o.d before the two philosophers met. In a letter dating from 1674, Spinoza writes: "He who affirms that G.o.d could have refrained from creating the world is declaring in an indirect way that it was made by chance, since it proceeded from an act of will which might not have been. Since this belief and this view is quite absurd, it is commonly and unanimously admitted that G.o.d's will is eternal and has never been indifferent." The idea that G.o.d has the option not to create the world, of course, is a defining feature of Leibniz's concept of divinity. Spinoza's critique of that concept begins with a premise with which Leibniz must agree: that G.o.d must have reasons for what it does. When G.o.d creates the world, Spinoza therefore infers, it cannot do so by whim or accident, but because some reason compels it to do so. Since that reason is always there-it is "eternal"-then it is "quite absurd," as Spinoza puts it, to speak of G.o.d as having the option not to create the world.

Spinoza's comments on a proto-Leibnizian concept of G.o.d antic.i.p.ate a set of criticisms later offered by others in direct response to Leibniz. The debate boils down to a simple question: Does Leibniz's G.o.d really have a choice? Many have argued that he does not. Leibniz seems to add fuel to the fire under his feet with comments such as "everything [is] settled in advance" and "G.o.d's decree [to actualize the best of all possible worlds] is immutable."

A version of the critique runs like this: How do we know that this is the best of all possible worlds? It cannot be because we observe it to be so-for, to sift through all possible worlds and rank them according to their merits requires the kind of omniscience that only G.o.d has. It must therefore be because the choice of the best of all possible worlds follows from G.o.d's nature. In other words, G.o.d chooses the best of all possible worlds because it is in his nature to be good. G.o.d could not do otherwise because if he did so he would not be good, and therefore he would not be G.o.d. But this implies that G.o.d does not have a choice at all. He must create this world, exactly as it is, if he is to deserve the name of G.o.d.

At this point in the argument, of course, the mature Leibniz would concede that a transcendent G.o.d must have a sufficient reason for his actions. But, the author of the Theodicy Theodicy would add, the reason for this world is a "moral" one and not a "metaphysical" one; specifically, it is the "principle of the best," to which G.o.d appeals in justifying his decision to create the world. Unfortunately for Leibniz, Spinoza has already antic.i.p.ated this response. People like Leibniz, he sneers in the would add, the reason for this world is a "moral" one and not a "metaphysical" one; specifically, it is the "principle of the best," to which G.o.d appeals in justifying his decision to create the world. Unfortunately for Leibniz, Spinoza has already antic.i.p.ated this response. People like Leibniz, he sneers in the Ethics Ethics, seem to posit something external to G.o.d that does not depend upon him, to which in acting G.o.d looks as if it were a model, or to which he aims, as if it were a fixed target. This is surely to subject G.o.d to fate; and no more absurd suggestion can be made about G.o.d, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of both the essence and the existence of things. So I need not spend any more time in refuting this absurdity.

Leibniz's G.o.d, according to Spinoza, is not a free agent, but rather is beholden to some preconceived idea about the good-"a fixed target." More generally, Spinoza's point is that Leibniz's transcendent G.o.d is not a G.o.d of reason of reason, for it must act in some arbitrary way, according to externally presented criteria over which it has no control. The only way out for those who believe in a G.o.d of reason, Spinoza implies, is to regard the "good" for which G.o.d allegedly aims as something internal to G.o.d's own nature. But this, of course, would be to accept a version of Spinoza's own concept of an immanent deity and reject the very idea that G.o.d chooses among possible worlds.

Spinoza's implicit critique of the distinction between "moral necessity" and "metaphysical necessity" was made quite explicit by Leibniz's later critics. In his exchange with Leibniz, for example, Samuel Clarke argues that "necessity, in philosophical questions, always signifies absolute necessity; hypothetical necessity hypothetical necessity and and moral necessity moral necessity are only figurative ways of speaking." The twentieth-century philosopher Arthur Lovejoy is even blunter: "The distinction Leibniz here attempts to set up [between moral necessity and brute metaphysical necessity] is manifestly without logical substance; the fact is so apparent that it is impossible to believe that a thinker of his powers can have been altogether unaware of it himself." But a good indication that the matter here runs much deeper than a simple logical error is that the literature is also not short of scholars willing to defend Leibniz's distinction. are only figurative ways of speaking." The twentieth-century philosopher Arthur Lovejoy is even blunter: "The distinction Leibniz here attempts to set up [between moral necessity and brute metaphysical necessity] is manifestly without logical substance; the fact is so apparent that it is impossible to believe that a thinker of his powers can have been altogether unaware of it himself." But a good indication that the matter here runs much deeper than a simple logical error is that the literature is also not short of scholars willing to defend Leibniz's distinction.

The trouble with Leibniz's transcendent G.o.d, expressed in the most general terms, concerns the very nature of the choice Leibniz asks G.o.d to make. Leibniz often seems to imply that G.o.d's choice is something like the selection of an entree from a menu of dishes. But, in fact, the nature of the choice G.o.d makes is very different from that faced by the typical restaurant patron. It is not a choice between this this and and that that, but between something something and and nothing nothing-or, more precisely, between anything at all and absolutely nothing. G.o.d's choice must take place outside, before, or beyond this (or any other possible) world. And yet it must be a rational choice; that is, it must involve comparing possible options and maximizing preferences. The question that troubles Leibniz's more acute critics is: Is such a transcendental choice conceivable? Is it possible to imagine a choice that takes place without also imagining a world within which to make it? Can you do it?

Leibniz, it seems, could not. Indeed, in the Theodicy Theodicy, he goes to the trouble of providing a detailed description of the "higher" world within which G.o.d's transcendental choice is allegedly made-namely, the fabulous, pyramid-shaped palace of all possible worlds. We may prefer to imagine a different setting-say, we could picture G.o.d shuffling cards in a weighty game of cosmic solitaire, or stopping in for a treat at a cosmic diner. Spinoza, for his part, had Leibniz's G.o.d either sculpting from a model or firing arrows at a bull's-eye. In any case, it seems impossible not to imagine some sort of scenario within which G.o.d's transcendental choice occurs. The question then arises: Who created this higher world? Who constructed that beautiful, baroque pyramid, the green felt card table, the bow and arrow-i.e., all the constraints, norms, and preferences according to which all possible worlds are defined and judged?

If we say that this higher world is G.o.d's creation, too, then we seem to acknowledge that there is only one possible world from which G.o.d may choose-namely, this higher world-and all the so-called possible worlds aren't really "worlds" at all, but merely features of the one true world created by G.o.d, like the blocks of a pyramid. At the end of that road lies Spinozism. If we say that this higher world has always been there and has always been the way it is, on the other hand, then we make G.o.d one of its creatures and we subject G.o.d to its rules, and he acts unfreely-i.e., according to its nature and not his own. In a sense, G.o.d is no longer G.o.d, but just a logical operator within the scheme of some preexisting nature. At the end of that road lies atheism-or, one could say, a form of Spinozism without Spinoza's belief in the divinity of nature.

Indeed, some such charge is what Spinoza implicitly levels at Leibniz. The label of "fatalism" that Spinoza hurls against (people like) Leibniz, ironically, is the same that Leibniz tosses at Spinoza in his later works. Had Spinoza lived long enough, he might have accused Leibniz of being a G.o.dless Spinozist-after clarifying that he himself was not one. Perhaps the most curious feature of Spinoza's implicit critique of Leibniz, though, is its tone. Spinoza's dismissal of a proto-Leibnizian concept of G.o.d as utterly absurd hardly suggests much room for negotiation on the subject from Spinoza's end. Indeed, his contemptuous treatment of the idea offers an intriguing clue as to how he might have responded if and when Leibniz let slip his commitment to it when they met in 1676.

Mind One might have hoped that Leibniz's theory of mind, as represented in his monadology, would lead us safely out of this labyrinth of Spinozistic Leibnizes and Leibnizian Spinozas. The monads, after all, are where Leibniz draws his line in the sand: Spinoza would be correct, if there were no monads. But this line in the sand turns out to be something of a mirage, too.

Leibniz's readers have frequently complained that the monads belong to a thoroughly deterministic cosmos, in which history unwinds like the ticking of a second hand through eternity. Arnauld-oddly echoing Spinoza-accuses Leibniz of propounding a view "more than fatalistic." "Once [G.o.d] has chosen," Leibniz acknowledges, once again adding fuel to the fire, "one must grant that everything is included in his choice, and that nothing can be changed." Life in Leibniz's world, practically speaking, would seem to be indistinguishable from life in Spinoza's world.

Leibniz, of course, responds that the monads' ignorance of their own true nature requires that they act as if they were free. That is, G.o.d knows Caesar will cross the Rubicon, but when Caesar stands on the banks of the river, he faces a momentous decision. Thus, Caesar, like the rest of us, has free will. The best reason to think that Leibniz's argument in favor of free will is as bad as it sounds is that it is indistinguishable from Spinoza's argument against against free will. This surprising coincidence is evident in a moment when Leibniz lets down his guard and speaks frankly. The will, he says, "has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them and they are oft-hidden, we believe we ourselves independent.... It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against the consideration of determinism, and which brings us to believe that there are difficulties where there are none." These words could have been simply lifted out of the free will. This surprising coincidence is evident in a moment when Leibniz lets down his guard and speaks frankly. The will, he says, "has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them and they are oft-hidden, we believe we ourselves independent.... It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against the consideration of determinism, and which brings us to believe that there are difficulties where there are none." These words could have been simply lifted out of the Ethics Ethics, where Spinoza writes that "men believe they are free...because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, yet ignorant of the causes that have determined them to desire and will." Leibniz was-and, at least in the privacy of his personal notebooks, understood himself to be-a determinist.

Of course, it is possible to be a determinist and still not be a Spinozist, and, at first glance, that is precisely the niche that Leibniz seems to want to occupy. Spinoza's determinism is closely linked to his doctrine of parallelism, according to which mind and body pursue parallel paths through life because they are the same thing viewed from different perspectives. Spinoza's determinism, in other words, translates into the claim that all of our mental acts may ultimately be mapped into physical processes, which themselves operate necessarily according to laws of cause and effect. Leibniz's determinism, on the other hand, arises from within the mind itself, and not from interaction between mind and body, for he allows no such interaction. That is, it is because all predicates are contained within the concept of a monad that it follows a predetermined path through life. According to the doctrine of pre-established harmony, mind and body move in parallel only because G.o.d has seen fit to harmonize the predetermined activities of independent mind-and body-substances, and not because they are two attributes of the same substance.

While the theoretical difference between Spinoza's parallelism and Leibniz's pre-established harmony is easy to understand, however, the practical implications of this difference are much harder to see. How, one should ask, might a neutral observer detect whether he happened to be in a Leibnizian universe rather than a Spinozan one? In both cases, after all, every mental act without exception occurs alongside a corresponding physical event. As a matter of principle, there would be no way to establish through any observation whether this apparent unity of mind and body is the consequence of an underlying ident.i.ty, as Spinoza suggests, or an amazing coincidence, as Leibniz argues. As early as 1712, and then again in the 1720s, Leibniz's critics said flatly that there was no way to tell the difference. In fact, they said, Leibniz's pre-established harmony is a plagiarism of Spinoza's doctrine of parallelism.

Leibniz, of course, insists all over again that his form of parallelism is different because, whether we observe so or not, it occurs by the will of G.o.d, not through the common ident.i.ty of mind and body in substance. But, unfortunately, this approach does not forestall the collapse into Spinozism for long. The pre-established harmony is the prime example of a choice that, according to Leibniz, is "morally" necessary but not "metaphysically" necessary. G.o.d has the metaphysical option, Leibniz implies, to create a disharmonious universe, even if it is morally inc.u.mbent upon him to favor a harmonious one. If, however, Leibniz's distinction between "moral" and "metaphysical" necessity is specious, then we would have to conclude that the pre-established harmony follows necessarily (tout court) from the nature of G.o.d, and that the parallelism in Leibniz's world is every bit as logically necessary as that which obtains in Spinoza's world.

Supposing we allow Leibniz the distinction between moral and metaphysical necessity, the question still remains: Is a "disharmonious" universe metaphysically possible, as he implies? According to Leibniz's principle that One is All, each individual monad entails the entire existing universe of monads, in the sense that its internal "mirror" replicates the activities of all the other monads, no matter how many or how far. Choose one monad, in other words, and you choose the entire universe. In a disharmonious universe, however, the "universe" within each monad would have nothing to do with the "universe" outside. A mind-monad might be in Paris, for instance, while its body is in Hanover (or, better, nowhere at all-for there is no obvious sense in which the body a monad thinks it has should refer to any outside monad at all). Choose two or more monads, in other words, and you choose two or more universes that have nothing to do with one another. But, if monads belong to universes that have nothing to do with one another, then they cannot be conceived of as belonging to the same universe. Even G.o.d, through whom all substances must be conceived, would not be able to imagine such disparate substances as belonging in any sense to the same universe. But if disharmonious monads do not belong to the same universe, then a disharmonious universe is not possible. And if a disharmonious universe is not possible, then Leibniz's G.o.d has only harmonious possible universes to choose from, which is to say that in all possible universes mind and body are harmonious, which is to say that the parallelism of mind and body exhibits just as much logical necessity in Leibniz's world as it does in Spinoza's.

The dangerous and unexpected convergence of Leibniz's views on the mind-body relation with Spinoza's also raises a worrisome challenge to his doctrine of personal immortality. To be sure, Leibniz ever and always avows his faith in personal immortality, and repeatedly chastises Spinoza and his proxies for their belief in "an immortality without memory." However, as a consequence of his commitment to a form of parallelism, Leibniz is forced to acknowledge that even in its before-and after-lives, the mind-monad remains tied to some parallel manifestation of body-monads. Before life, roughly speaking, we are something like seeds; after life, we reside in microscopic form somewhere in the ashes, for example. As a further consequence of his own parallelism, Leibniz is compelled to acknowledge that our faculties of perception are greatly influenced by the kinds of bodymonads with which we are surrounded. He hastens to add that even a mind-monad buried in a speck of ash will control some set of subordinate body-monads, thus forming an organic structure. But, Leibniz's a.s.surances about the fire-resistant properties of monads notwithstanding, many have found it difficult to believe that immortality as a cinder is all that it is cracked up to be. Perhaps understandably, the skeptics question whether the perceptive faculties of the average speck of ash may attain a degree of acuity sufficient to permit it to bask in the rewards or suffer the punishments that Leibniz insists must come its way in the course of its eternal afterlife.

The implosion of the doctrine of immortality reflects an even deeper crisis in Leibniz's thought concerning the very idea of individuality. In his effort to secure the absolute permanence and unity of the individual soul against all outside influence, Leibniz is forced to represent the body and all of its activities as the workings of an infinity of monads external to the individual mind-monad. The question then naturally arises: Why not ascribe to this outside infinity of monads all all of the attributes that we use to define our ident.i.ties-beginning with height and weight but not ending with our memories, preferences, and pa.s.sions? Instead of preserving the sanct.i.ty of the individual, Leibniz may be inadvertently engaged in a deconstruction of individuality itself-which, of course, is exactly what Spinoza accomplishes in his system. of the attributes that we use to define our ident.i.ties-beginning with height and weight but not ending with our memories, preferences, and pa.s.sions? Instead of preserving the sanct.i.ty of the individual, Leibniz may be inadvertently engaged in a deconstruction of individuality itself-which, of course, is exactly what Spinoza accomplishes in his system.

All of the suggestions that Leibniz is some sort of Spinozist can be mapped into the claim that monads are not true substances, as Leibniz maintains, but rather something more like modes of a single Substance. Leibniz himself acknowledges the centrality of the matter when he says that Spinoza would be right, if there were no monads. All of the challenges to the substantiality of monads in turn come down to a question about the relation between monads and G.o.d.

In his metaphysical system, Leibniz strives to maintain a delicate balance between G.o.d and the monads. For example, he avers that monads are eternal and indestructible-as indeed substances must be-but then turns around and allows that G.o.d can create them or annihilate them all in a flash. He grants monads freedom in their own eyes-which is as it should be for all substances-but then seems to take away their freedom in G.o.d's eyes. These and other tensions in the City of G.o.d come to a head in a simple question: Is G.o.d a monad?

It would seem a straightforward question, the sort to which the great monadologist would have a ready answer. Yet Leibniz is surprisingly cagey on the subject. His best hint comes in the phrase that G.o.d is the "monad of monads." One would have thought that, after three centuries of effort, the Leibniz scholars would have reached a consensus on just what Leibniz means by "the monad of monads." But such is not the case. Some argue that G.o.d must be a monad, others that he cannot be. In fact, there is no answer that works within the constraints of the Leibnizian system.

Consider the possibility that G.o.d is not a monad. This makes sense: since G.o.d chooses to "flash" the monads into existence, he must exist before the "flash." In that case, however, it follows that the monads exist and have their properties only in virtue of the properties and/or deeds of this flas.h.i.+ng, nonmonadic ent.i.ty. But if monads depend on some other ent.i.ty in this way, then they are not substances, for a substance by definition depends on nothing else to be what it is. Rather, the so-called monads must in fact be considered merely "modes" of substance. And since G.o.d is the only ent.i.ty that does not depend on some other ent.i.ty to be what it is, then G.o.d alone is substance. Hegel sums it up nicely: "There is a contradiction present. If the monad of monads, G.o.d, is the absolute substance, and individual monads are created through his will, their substantiality comes to an end." If G.o.d is not a monad, in short, then Leibniz is a Spinozist.

Needless to say, Leibniz would now rush to open the other door. So, consider the option that "the monad of monads" is indeed a monad. But, if G.o.d is a monad, then by definition he cannot interact with other monads, for otherwise he would determine their essence and they his. If he cannot interact with them, he cannot create them. As a monad, in fact, G.o.d may have concourse with his so-called creations only in a "virtual" way, by means of the pre-established harmony. If G.o.d acts only through the pre-established harmony, then he can't be said to create that either. And whatever it is that G.o.d does-if there is anything at all left for him to do-all of it follows with absolute, logical necessity from his monadic essence. That is, the fact that he will "create" this particular universe (if he can) is already contained within his concept, in the same way that "cross the Rubicon" is a necessary predicate of "Caesar." Indeed, given the lemma that to choose one monad is to choose its entire universe, it follows that once G.o.d exists, then the universe such as it is exists with rigorous necessity. So G.o.d can hardly be said to have a choice about anything-except insofar as, like Caesar, he is ignorant of his true nature. In short, if G.o.d is a monad, he isn't G.o.d at all; he's just another one of us. Russell alludes to this eventuality when he remarks that Leibniz's monadism should have impelled him to an even greater heresy than Spinozism. To put it crudely: if G.o.d is a monad, Leibniz is an atheist.

Salvation Those still hoping for a hard and fast distinction between the Leibnizian and Spinozan philosophies might look forward to building the fence somewhere along the path to salvation. After all, it seems embarra.s.singly obvious from their different lifestyles, if nothing else, that the two philosophers represent very different ideas about the nature of human happiness. Unfortunately, the differences between the two on salvation turn out to be no less elusive than the putative differences between monads and modes.

Leibniz's determinism inevitably draws him very close to Spinoza's ethical positions-and even opens him up to attack from the same, orthodox antagonists. For example, to the extent that G.o.d's decision to create the best of all possible worlds is "immutable," as Leibniz has it, then it would seem pointless to pray to him, just as it is pointless to pray to Spinoza's G.o.d in hopes of some alternative outcome of events. Inasmuch as everything a monad ever does is already contained within its concept, furthermore, then it would take a legalistic mind of tremendous power to demonstrate that monads commit sins of their own free will. Russell goes so far as to accuse Leibniz of "discreditable subterfuges" in his efforts to conceal the fact that all sin for him is "original sin, the inherent finitude of every created monad."

Leibniz attempts to finesse the issue by suggesting, for example, that monads can choose to do good by guiding their efforts according to the "presumptive will" of G.o.d. Exactly how one goes about presuming G.o.d's will Leibniz leaves somewhat unclear; but a Spinozist would undoubtedly infer that the "presumptive will" of G.o.d is a metaphorical way of alluding to the realization of our own essential and inherently finite natures, for that is what forms our contribution to the realization of G.o.d's plan for the universe. But this maximization of the individual conatus conatus, of course, is precisely the path Spinoza proposes to take in his Ethics Ethics.

Leibniz's tendency toward a Spinozism in ethics extends beyond his commitment to some form of determinism and penetrates into his very idea of self-realization, or happiness. Because it has a conatus conatus of sorts, each monad wants to "become what it is," as it were; and anything that contributes to this project of perfecting the self counts as pleasure, whereas whatever detracts from it is pain. "Pleasure is nothing but the feeling of an increase in perfection," explains Leibniz. But these words could easily have been lifted from Spinoza's of sorts, each monad wants to "become what it is," as it were; and anything that contributes to this project of perfecting the self counts as pleasure, whereas whatever detracts from it is pain. "Pleasure is nothing but the feeling of an increase in perfection," explains Leibniz. But these words could easily have been lifted from Spinoza's Ethics Ethics. The more "active" a monad is-which is to say, the more it realizes its own nature, as opposed to submitting pa.s.sively to the domination of other monads-the happier it is. "We will be happier the clearer our comprehension of things and the more we act in accordance with our proper nature, namely, reason," Leibniz clarifies. "Only to the extent that our reasonings are correct are we free and exempt from the pa.s.sions which are impressed upon us by surrounding bodies." It is pa.s.sages like this one-which, again, could simply have been cribbed from the Ethics Ethics-that lead Russell to suggest that, in his ethical philosophy, "Leibniz no longer shows great originality, but tends, with slight alterations of phraseology, to adopt (without acknowledgment) the views of the decried Spinoza." In fact, Leibniz's unswerving commitment to the guidance of reason leads him inexorably toward the identification of freedom and happiness that is the defining feature of Spinoza's ethics.

IN THEIR REPORTS on their travels into the very heart of things, Leibniz and Spinoza seem at first glance to describe radically different universes. One discovers a numberless horde of animated substances, the other a singular ma.s.s of undifferentiated substance; one finds souls that never die, the other no souls at all; one sees a world in which everything happens for a reason, the other a world in which everything just happens. on their travels into the very heart of things, Leibniz and Spinoza seem at first glance to describe radically different universes. One discovers a numberless horde of animated substances, the other a singular ma.s.s of undifferentiated substance; one finds souls that never die, the other no souls at all; one sees a world in which everything happens for a reason, the other a world in which everything just happens.

Yet, when we look for observable effects and practical consequences that might serve to distinguish the two worlds in question, the discrepancies seem to evaporate upon inspection. The world according to Leibniz is a reasonable one; it is a law-abiding, all-determining cosmos that is the proper subject of scientific investigation, a world unenc.u.mbered with inscrutable deities, where the individual remains for all practical purposes at the mercy of external forces, and in which we have the responsibility to seek happiness by realizing ourselves. The world Leibniz describes, in brief, is the one first properly observed by Spinoza.

Ultimately, the differences between the two philosophers have to do not with the nature of the world as each sees it, but with the meaning or value each ascribes to it. Spinoza identifies the law-abiding, all-determining nature that serves as the object of scientific investigation with G.o.d. Leibniz does not. Indeed, Leibniz's philosophy is at its clearest and most sincere in the negative. Its founding principle remains: Nature is not not G.o.d; that is to say, a Being that makes no choices and cannot be called good does not deserve the name of G.o.d. The monads exist for no other purpose than to make this negation, which remains standing even as the rest of Leibniz's philosophy collapses into something observationally indistinguishable from Spinozism. G.o.d; that is to say, a Being that makes no choices and cannot be called good does not deserve the name of G.o.d. The monads exist for no other purpose than to make this negation, which remains standing even as the rest of Leibniz's philosophy collapses into something observationally indistinguishable from Spinozism.

In this there is revealed something essential about the nature of Leibniz's philosophy and its peculiar relations.h.i.+p with that of Spinoza. The monadology is best understood as an attempt to show that one may grant the existence of a universe in every way indistinguishable from the one Spinoza describes and still cling to old hopes about G.o.d and immortality on the basis that these matters lie beyond the limits of anything that can be observed or proved by Spinoza and his ilk. Leibniz's avowed proof of the immateriality of the mind is really just an argument that Spinoza's materialism does not rule out the possibility of an undetectable spiritual force behind all apparently mechanical actions; his proof of the pre-established harmony is just an argument that the parallelism Spinoza observes can never be definitively shown to be the result of an ident.i.ty, rather than mere coincidence; his proof that the world has a designer is just an argument that Spinoza fails to prove absolutely that there is none; and his proof of the existence of a transcendent G.o.d is really just an argument that an immanent G.o.d is not a G.o.d. Leibniz's philosophy as a whole follows the pattern he established as a young man in his early defense of transubstantiation. In the final a.n.a.lysis, he does not leave us with a set of positive doctrines, but with a series of negations. His work amounts to a deconstruction of modern philosophy in general and of Spinozism in particular. It is defined by-and cannot exist without-that to which it is opposed. It is, in essence, a reactive philosophy.

Perhaps the best way to summarize Leibniz's problematically self-subverting position is to say that he was a Spinozist who did not believe in Spinoza's G.o.d. One logical outcome of such a position, of course, is precisely that toward which Leibniz tended whenever he attempted to distinguish himself from Spinoza: namely, that there is no G.o.d at all. The author of the system of the pre-established harmony spent a lifetime branding the author of the Ethics Ethics as an atheist; but it was Leibniz who sailed much closer to the winds of unbelief. as an atheist; but it was Leibniz who sailed much closer to the winds of unbelief.

All of which puts us in a better position to understand in general terms what transpired on those windy days in November 1676-even if the details of the event must remain forever beyond our knowledge. In a philosophical as well as a literal sense, Spinoza opened a door for Leibniz. He revealed to his visitor a reality that, for all practical purposes, the young man recognized as the world within which he situated his own philosophy. In frank and sometimes brutal language, he showed Leibniz what it means to be a modern philosopher. Yet Leibniz did not behold this reality in the same way that Spinoza did. When he looked into the black opal eyes of his host, he did not find a new divinity. He saw instead the death of G.o.d. His philosophy was in many respects an attempt to shut the door that he wished he had never opened. But it was too late: he was already standing on the other side.

17.

Leibniz's End The clouds began to gather over Leibniz's political career around the turn of the eighteenth century, sometime after the death of his second Hanoverian patron, the Elector Ernst August. The Elector's son and successor, Georg Ludwig, showed little appreciation for the court erudit erudit. He derided the aging philosopher as "a living dictionary" and "an archaeological find." Leibniz, it turns out, still appeared in public wearing the enormous wig and the baroque costume of his gilded youth in Paris. He had not noticed that in the intervening decades his style had long since gone out of fas.h.i.+on. In the eyes of the young n.o.bles at court, the natty dresser had become a nutty professor.

Mainly, Georg Ludwig complained about Leibniz's "invisible books." Decades had pa.s.sed since the philosopher undertook the project of tracing the genealogy of the House of Brunswick, but he had yet to produce a single volume on the subject. It probably didn't help that, when Georg Ludwig brought up the matter of the missing books, Leibniz turned around and said that he would be hard-pressed to find the time for the project unless, perchance, he should receive an annual pension of 2,000 thalers for life. He also put forward his conviction that he should be promoted to vice chancellor-the highest civil rank in the land.

Georg Ludwig was not amused. Irked by the philosopher's habit of vanis.h.i.+ng on long and unexplained journeys, he decreed that his living dictionary henceforth should seek his personal permission to leave Hanover. The Elector then took great pleasure in denying Leibniz's repeated requests for leave to travel. After a while, the fun wore off, and in order to save himself the trouble of having to turn down his minion's incessant pet.i.tions, the Elector effectively put Leibniz under house arrest until such time as he should have completed the promised history of the Brunswick clan.

But the wily philosopher snuck out anyway. At the age of sixty-two, he undertook a secret trip to Vienna. There he met with, among others, the amba.s.sador from the court of Peter the Great, with whom he discussed a plan for promoting the sciences in Russia. In letters posted back to the Elector and his mother, Sophia, from Vienna, however, he maintained that he was in the spa town of Karlsbad, tending to his ailing health. From Vienna, the errant philosopher next journeyed to Berlin in the company of the Russian amba.s.sador. In his letters back to Hanover, he retailed a novel story: having been rejuvenated by the mineral waters of Karlsbad, he said, he was now visiting some remote and inaccessible universities in Saxony in order to perform research for the history book. In Berlin, Leibniz dined with many more of the great and good, though he carefully avoided contact with the resident amba.s.sador from Hanover. Unfortunately, a member of the Russian emba.s.sy mischievously let slip to a member of the Hanoverian emba.s.sy that the great philosopher had been spotted enjoying himself immensely in Vienna.

Georg was furious. Sophia wrote to Leibniz somewhat tartly that her son was now offering a reward for anyone who could bring him in. The chastised courtier returned hastily to his place of employment, where the Elector personally rebuked him. Leibniz apparently did not take the message to heart, for in a long, written response to the Elector, he fabricated yet another story about his trip (this time he claimed that he b.u.mped into the Empress in Karlsbad, and she dragged him kicking to Vienna). He further complained vigorously that the Elector's att.i.tude toward him was most unkind, and he alerted his employer to a fact that he found disgraceful: the historian of the House of Brandenburg received a 3,000 thaler pension for his efforts-more than double what the Brunswickians were promisi