G. W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke ....• Correspondence Edited, with Introduction, by Roger Ariew Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/ Cambridge For DBA, DAA, and SAA Copyright © 2000 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 10 09 08 07 06 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 For further information, please address: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P. 0. Box 44937 Indianapolis, IN 46244-0937 www.hackettpublishing.com Cover design by Listen berger Design & Associates Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716. Correspondence I G.W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke; edited with an introduction, by Roger Ariew. p. em. ISBN 0-87220-524-X (pbk.)- ISBN 0-87220-525-8 (cloth). 1. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716- Correspondence. 2. Clarke, Samuel, 1675-1729-Correspondence. 3. Philosophers--Germany-Correspondence. 4. Philosophers-­ England-Correspondence. 5. Natural theology-Early works to 1900. 6. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642-1727. I. Clarke, Samuel. II. Ariew, Roger. III. Title. B2597 .A4 2000 193-dc21 99-052339 CIP ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-525-3 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-524-6 (pbk.) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum standard requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Contents Abbreviations ................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................... vii Leibniz, Caroline, Newton, and Clarke ... ........................................ vii Editor's Note ................ ... ....................... ...................................... xiv Clarke's Introduction...... .... .............................................................. 1 To Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales ................................... 1 Advertisement to the Reader ....................................................... ..... 3 The Correspondence ......................................................................... 4 Leibniz's First Letter, Being an Extract of a Letter Written in November, 1715 .... .. .. ............................................................. 4 Clarke's First Reply ... .. .... ............................................................ .... 5 Leibniz's Second Letter, Being an Answer to Clarke's First Reply .................... .. ............................................................... 7 Clarke's Second Reply ................................................................... 11 Leibniz's Third Letter, Being an Answer to Clarke's Second Reply .. .. .................... ..................... ...................... ................ 14 Clarke's Third Reply .. .. ........................... ....................................... 18 Leibniz's Fourth Letter, Being an Answer to Clarke's Third Reply.......................................................................... 22 Clarke's Fourth Reply .. .... ......................... ..................................... 29 Leibniz's Fifth Letter, Being an Answer to Clarke's Fourth Reply ..................... ...................................... 36 Clarke's Fifth Reply .................................. ..................... ................ 66 Appendices ........................ .. ............................................................ 88 A: Passages from Leibniz's Works That May Shed Light on Many Parts of the Previous Letters .... ................................... 88 B: Selections from Newton's Works ... .. .. .. ...................................... 95 1. Principia, Scholium to Definitions ......................................... 95 2. Principia, General Scholium ................................................ 101 3. Optics, end of Q!tery 31 ........................................................ 105 v Abbreviations AG G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, eds. and trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989) G G. W. Leibniz, Die phi/Qsophischen Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. (Berlin, 1875-1890; reprinted. Hildesheirn: Georg Olrns, 1978) GM G. W. Leibniz, Mathematische Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. (Berlin, 1849-1855; reprinted. Hildesheirn: Georg Olrns, 1962) H G. W. Leibniz, Theodicy, trans. E. M. Huggard (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1985) K Die Werke von Leibniz, ed. 0. Klopp, 11 vols. (Hanover, 1864- 1884; reprinted. Hildesheirn: Olrns, 1973) L G. W. Leibniz, PhikJsophical Papers and Letters, ed. and trans. L. Loernker (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969) VI Introduction Leibniz, Caroline, Newton, and Clarke In November of 1715, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the elderly librar­ ian, historian, and counselor to the House of Hanover in Lower Saxony, wrote a letter to Caroline, Princess of Wales, cautioning her about the odd cosmological-theological views of Sir Isaac Newton and his followers. This would seem an unusual event in international relations except that Leibniz had a long-standing relationship with Caroline, who was married to Georg August. The latter was Prince of Wales, Elector Prince of Hanover, and son of Leibniz's employer, Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover1 who, from 1714 on, was George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland. Caroline became Queen Consort in 1727 when Georg August ascended to the throne of England as George II;2 she was the third of three royal women who had befriended Leibniz.3 The whole court of Hanover had moved to London in 1714. However, Leibniz was not wel­ come there. Georg Ludwig had refused his request to join the royal family in England. The official reason was that he was to stay in Hanover until the history of the House of Hanover, which he was commissioned to write, was closer to completion.4 By 1714 there was great hostility at the 1. Elector Georg Ludwig was the third of Leibniz's employers in Hanover (from 1698 to Leibniz's death in 1716), the first having been Duke Johann Freid­ rich who first retained Leibniz (from 1676 to 1679) and the second his brother Duke, then Elector, Ernst August (Leibniz's employer from 1679 to 1698 and Georg Ludwig's father). 2. Caroline was the mother ofFrederick Louis, Prince of Wales, and thus grand­ mother of George III, "Old King George" of the American Revolution. For more on Caroline and the context for the correspondence, see Domenico Bertoloni Meli, "Caroline, Leibniz, and Clarke," Journal ofthe History ofIdeas 60 (1999): 469-86. 3. Including Georg Ludwig's sister Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Branden­ burg, then Queen of Prussia, and his mother Sophia, Electress of Hanover. 4. Ernst August had asked Leibniz to write a history of the House of Hanover in the 1680s. Leibniz took on the task with his customary zeal and optimism, that is, he took on much more than he could reasonably accomplish. The only finished manuscript of the history he left behind was its first volume, Protogaea, a treatise on natural history or geology. Leibniz intended to preface his history with a dis­ sertation on the state of Germany as it was prior to all histories, taking as evidence the natural monuments, shells petrified in earth, and stones with the imprint of fish or plants. He contemplated continuing his history by treating the oldest known VII viii G. W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke court to the then elderly counselor. He was often a subject of ridicule, treated as an old fossil, with his enormous black wig and once fashionable ornate clothes. The court may have been unhappy with his failure to finish the history of the House of Hanover,5 but it was also surely embarrassed by the protracted debate between him and Newton over the discovery of the calculus, which had taken on decidedly nationalistic overtones.6 Admittedly, the debate about the priority of the invention of the cal­ culus was not the only controversy of the final period of Leibniz's life, but it was certainly the most bitter. The first public blow in the dispute was probably delivered by Fatio de Dullier, who wrote an article in 1697 attributing the discovery to Newton and attacking Leibniz. The feud people, then the different peoples that succeeded one another, their languages, and the mixtures of these languages, to the extent that they can be judged by etymolo­ gies. The origins of the House would have begun with Charlemagne and continued with the Emperors descended from him and with the five Emperors of the House of Brunswick, encompassing the ancient history of Saxony through the House of Witikind, ofUpper Germany through the House of the Guelfs, and of Lombardy through the Houses of the Dukes and Marquis of Tuscany and Liguria, thus trac­ ing the descent of the Princes of Brunswick. After these origins would have come the genealogy of the House of the Guelfs, with a short history up to the seven­ teenth century; the genealogy would have been accompanied by those of the other great Houses, including the House of the Ghibellines, ancient and modern Aus­ tria, and Bavaria. To accomplish his design and to amass sufficient materials, Leib­ niz scoured the whole of Germany, visited ancient abbeys, searched town archives, and examined tombs and other antiquities. Although he never completed his his­ tory, we should not think that he balked at the project; one cannot look upon the masses of corollary materials he did publish and think that he was not committed to it. He left behind enough materials that G. H. Pertz, a Hanover librarian and editor ofLeibniz's works,