Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 227 bodies a store of real qualities and other real accidents, which not only are no moods of matter, but are real entities distinct from it?" 5 A particularly interesting feature of the book is its criticism of the usual attribution to Locke of the representative theory of perception. The first prong of this suggests that Locke "aligns the way of ideas with the . . . [Aristotelian-Thomistic] tradition . . . [of] perceptual realism" (p. 128). Being quite ignorant of the issues here I was completely misled for a time by a crucial misquotation; 6 and puzzled as to why the main weight of explaining and illustrating this tradition should be put on a reply from Descartes--a reply which not only is made to the objection of a Scholastic, but also, according to Kenny (as Yolton points out), is self-contradictory. I should, furthermore , have liked more explanation as to how Locke's criticism of Stillingfleet's belief that "a notion is the very thing itself existing in the understanding" does not constitute a rejection of the tradition that a phantasm, or notion, is "the object as existing in the mind" (p. 127). R. S. WOOLHOUSE University of York SSmtliche Schri/ten und Briefe. By Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Erste Reihe: Allgemeiner politischer und historischer Brie[wechsel, hrsg. yon dem Leibniz-Archiv der nieders ~ichsischen Landesbibliothek Hannover. Achter Band: 1692, bearbeitet von Kurt Mtiller, Gunter Scheel, u. Georg Gerber. (Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften , 1970) The appearance late in 1970 of another volume in the great Academy edition of Leibniz's complete collected works provides an occasion to judge the progress of this long-standing publishing enterprise, and to examine the high quality of the editorial work which so many generations of scholars have already devoted to it. This volume is the thirteenth of a projected eighty (or more) volumes. When an edition containing all Leibniz's published writings and the much greater mass of his unpublished manuscripts in the Hanover Archives was first projected by Klopp, Pertz, and others early in the nineteenth century, it was planned to separate the materials by subject-matter into distinct series, further separating Leibniz's correspondence from his books and papers. Editorial techniques have of course been greatly refined since that time, but the serial divisions are retained. Series ] contains Leibniz's general political and historical correspondence and therefore serves, among other things, as a historical and biographical guide to the other more specialized series. The present volume brings this correspondence to the end of the year 1692. Of the other series, three are still without published volumes--series III, containing the mathematical, scientific, and technological letters; V, containing the historical works; and VII, the mathematical and scientific (including the medical) writings. Two volumes have appeared in series IV, containing the political works to 1687. Of the two philosophical series, I1, given to the philosophical letters, now consists of only one volume, ending with 1685, while series VI, the philosophical writings, has at present three volumes, two of which cover the works from Leibniz's years in Leipzig and Mainz, before his 5 Robert Boyle, The Origin of Forms and Qualities (Works, ed. T. Birch. London: 1772. III, 16). "[T]he sun.., as it exists in the mind" (p. 127) should read "the sun as it exists in the sky." 228 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY visit to Paris in 1672; the third contains the Nouveaux Essais and related papers out of chronological order, being volume VII of this series. The correspondence between Leibniz and his friends and acquaintances published in this volume cover only the last eight months of 1692. It was edited by Professor Kurt Miiller and his associates at the Hanover Leibniz-Archiv. Since letters with philosophical content are not included, the volume contributes little to the understanding of Leibniz's thoughts. But as a vital portrayal of the great intricate international network of correspondence, by which scientific, theological, and philosophical viewpoints were exchanged as well as political news and diplomatic proposals, it serves to fill in many details in our knowledge of cultural and intellectual matters; the provincial capital of Hanover had now become another node, along with Paris, London, Mainz, Hamburg, Amsterdam...