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LEIBNIZ, GOTTFRIED WILHELM (b. Leipzig,
Germany, 1 July 1646; d. Hannover, Germany,
14 November 1716), mathematics, philosophy, metaphysics.
By the end of November Leibniz had arrived in
Hannover, where he was initially a member of the
duke's personal staff. He acted as adviser and librarian,
as well as consulting on various engineering
projects. (One of these, a scheme to increase the yield
of the Harz silver mines by employing windmillpowered
pumps, was put into operation in 1679, but
failed a few years later, through no fault of the
engineering principles involved.) Leibniz was soon
formally appointed a councillor at court, and when
Johann Friedrich died suddenly in 1679 to be succeeded
by his brother Ernst August (in March 1680),
he was confirmed in this office. Sophia, the wife of the
new duke, became Leibniz' philosophical confidante;
Ernst August commissioned him to write a genealogy
of the house of Brunswick, Annales imperii occidentes
Brunsvicenses, to support the imperial and dynastic
claims of that family. Leibniz' researches on this
subject involved him in a series of scholarly travels;
his princely support opened the doors of archives and
libraries, and he was enabled to meet and discuss
science with eminent men throughout Europe.
Leibniz left Hannover in October 1687 and traveled
across Germany; in Munich he found an indication
that the Guelphs were related to the house of Este,
an important point for his genealogy. In May 1688
he arrived in Vienna; in October of that year he had
an audience with Emperor Leopold I, to whom he
outlined a number of plans for economic and scientific
reforms. He also sought an appointment at the
Austrian court, which was granted only in 1713. He
then proceeded to Venice and thence to Rome. He
hoped to meet Queen Christina, but she had died;
he did become a member of the Accademia Fisicomatematica
that she had founded. In Rome, too,
Leibniz met the Jesuit missionary Claudio Filippo
Grimaldi, who was shortly to leave for China as
mathematician to the court of Peking; Grimaldi
awakened in Leibniz what was to become a lasting
interest in Chinese culture. Returning north from
Rome, Leibniz stopped in Florence for a lively exchange
on mathematical problems with Galileo's
pupil Viviani; in Bologna he met Malpighi.
On 30 December 1689 Leibniz reached Modena,
his ultimate destination, and set to work in the ducal
archives which had been opened to him. (Indeed, he
threw himself into his genealogical research with such
fervor that he afflicted himself with severe eyestrain.)
He interrupted his work long enough to arrange a
marriage between Rinaldo d'Este of Modena and
Princess Charlotte Felicitas of Brunswick-Lüneburg
(celebrated on 2 December 1695), but by February
1690 he was able to prove the original relatedness of
the house of Este and the Guelph line, and his research
was complete. He returned to Hannover,
making various stops along the way; his efforts were
influential in the elevation of Hannover to electoral
status (1692) and earned Leibniz himself an appointment
as privy councillor.
Elector Ernst August died in January 1698 and his
successor, Georg Ludwig, although urging Leibniz to
complete the history of his house, nevertheless
declined to make any other use of his services.
Leibniz found support for his project in other courts,
however, particularly through the patronage of
Sophia Charlotte, daughter of Ernst August and
Sophia and electress of Brandenburg. At her invitation
Leibniz went to Berlin in 1700, in which year, on his
recommendation, the Berlin Academy was founded.
Leibniz became its president for life. Sophia Charlotte
died in 1705; Leibniz made his last visit to Berlin in
1711. He persisted in his efforts toward religious,
political, and cultural reforms, now hoping to influence
the Hapsburg court in Vienna and Peter the
Great of Russia. In 1712 Peter appointed him privy
councillor, and from 1712 to 1714 he served as
imperial privy councillor in Vienna.
On 14 September 1714 Leibniz returned to Hannover;
he arrived there three days after Georg Ludwig
had left for England as King George I. Leibniz
petitioned for a post in London as court historian, but
the new king refused to consider it until he had
finished his history of the house of Brunswick.
Leibniz, plagued by gout, spent the last two years of
his life trying to finish that monumental work. He died
on 14 November 1716, quite neglected by the noblemen
he had served. He never married.
FREDERICK KREILING
LEIBNIZ: Physics, Logic, Metaphysics
The special problems for any comprehensive
treatment of the scientific investigations of Leibniz
arise, on the one hand, from the fact that essential
parts of his work have not been edited and, on the
other hand, from the universality of his scientific
interests. In view of this diversity of interests and the
fragmentary, or rather encyclopedic, character of his
work, the expositor is confronted with the task of
achieving, at least in part, what Leibniz himself,
following architectonic principles (within the framework
of a scientia generalis), was unable to accomplish.
Leibniz is a striking example of a man whose
universal interests (in his case ranging from physics
through theory of law, linguistic philosophy, and
historiography to particular questions of dogmatic
theology) hindered rather than aided specialized
