An Unpublished Lecture by Leibniz on the Greeks as Founders of Rational Theology: Its Relation to His "Universal Jurisprudence"

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 205 AN UNPUBLISHED LECTURE BY LEIBNIZ ON THE GREEKS AS FOUNDERS OF RATIONAL THEOLOGY: ITS RELATION TO HIS "UNIVERSAL JURISPRUDENCE" Leibniz' lecture on the Greeks as the founders of rational theology--which was delivered by Leibniz himself at an "Academy" in Vienna on July 1, 1714, and which is published here for the first time through the generous permission of the LeibnizArchiv at the Nieders~ichsische Landesbibliothek in Hanoverl---is of course interesting as evidence of the breadth of his knowledge of the history of religious ideas. But from a philosophical point of view its main interest ties (1) in elaborating Leibniz' debt to Platonism--a debt which Leibniz made clear in his published letters to the French Platonist Remond but which receives reinforcement from this 1714 lecture;2 (2) in showing, more particularly, that Leibniz retied on Plato (and Aristotle) in developing a concept of "substance" which would remedy the defects of "materialism" and "mechanism " and explain the immortality of the soul "naturally," without recourse to "miracles" or to "faith"--a soul which could be a subject of divine justice in Leibniz' "universal jurisprudence";3 and (3) in showing what Leibniz meant when he spoke of the "eternal verities" being "in" the mind of God but not caused by the mind of God. It is, appropriately enough, from Leibniz' first extant letter to Remond (January 10, 1714) that we know something of the connection between (1) and (2) in the development of Leibniz' thought: in a famous passage Leibniz says that in his youth, having 1 Leibniz' lecture is listed as an unpublished Handschrift in Leben und Werk von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Eine Chronik, bearbeitet yon Kurt Miiller und Gisela Kr~Snert(Frankfurt am M., 1969), p. 245. For permission to publish the lecture here I am particularly grateful to Dr. G. UtermiShlen of the Leibniz-Archiv (Hanover, Germany), who has helped me with Leibniz MSS for a number of years. Publication would not have been possible without the generous assistance of Professor Fanny LeMoine of the University of Wisconsin Classics Department, who helped me to read and to transcribe the Latin MS; nor without the timely financial aid of the Graduate Research Committee at the University of Wisconsin, which granted me a term's leave with pay to work on my Leibniz studies in Hanover and London. Abbreviations: Duncan -- G. M. Duncan, trans., The Philosophical Works of Leibniz, 2nd ed. (New Haven, 1908). Dutens = Louis Dutens, God. Guil. Leibnitii... Opera Omnia (Geneva, 1768). F de C ---A. Foucher de Careil, Oeuvres de Leibniz (Paris, 1859-1875). Ger. ----C. I. Gerhardt, Die Philosophischen Schri/ten von G. IV. Leibniz (Berlin, 1875-1890). Loemker = Leroy Loemker, Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters (Chicago, 1956). Monadology (cited by propositions). NE :- New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. A. G. Langley (London, 1896) (cited by book, chapter and part, e.g., NE IV, iii, pt. 1). Riley = Patrick Riley, ed. and trans., The Political Writings of Leibniz (Cambridge, 1972). Theodicy -- Theodicy, trans. A. Farrer (New Haven, 1952) (cited by books and parts, e.g., Theodicy III, pt. 337). Cf. particularly Leibniz' letter to Remond of February 11, 1715, Ger. III, p. 637. 3 On Leibniz' "universal jurisprudence" see Riley, pp. 2 ft., esp. pp. 12 ft.; el. Leibniz' letter to Jacquelot (1703), Ger. III, p. 458. Cf. also G. Grua's Jurisprudence Universelle et Theodic~e scion Leibniz (Pads, 1956)---a magistral study by a scholar whose early death was a blow to Leibnizscholarship. 206 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY learned Aristotle and having found "contentment" in Plato and Plotinus, he began to deliberate at the age of 15 ([) whether he "would keep the substantial forms"; that after modem "mechanism" led him to the study of mathematics, he discovered that he could not find the "final causes" (derni~res raisons) of mechanism or the laws of motion in mathematics, that "it was necessary to return to metaphysics." It was this dissatisfaction with mechanism and materialism, Leibniz says, "which brought me to Enteleehies, from the material to the formal, and which finally made me understand 9 . . that the monads, or simple substances, are the only true substances, and that material things are only phenomena...