Leibniz on Natural History and National History

Here we have in mind first and foremost the prevailing view among scholars of the history of philosophy, who still often take Leibniz to have been above all a metaphysician and logician. Of course, there is also a great deal of scholarship recognizing Leibniz's huge contribution to history as a discipline. See for example Davillé Louis , Leibniz historien: Essai sur l'activité et la méthode historiques de Leibniz (Paris, 1909); Conze Werner , Leibniz als Historiker (Berlin, 1951); Spitz Lewis W. , “The significance of Leibniz for historiography”, Journal of the history of ideas, xiii (1952), 1952–48; Scheel Günter , “Leibniz als Historiker des Welfenhauses”, in Totok Wilhelm Haase Carl (eds), Leibniz: Sein Leben — Sein Wirken — Seine Welt (Hanover, 1967), 227–76; Scheel , “Leibniz und die geschichtliche Landeskunde Niedersachsens”, Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, xxxviii (1966), 1966–85; Scheel , “Leibniz und die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft um 1700”, in Hammer Karl Voss Jürger (eds), Historische Forschung im 18. Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1976), 82–101; Schröcker Alfred , “Die deutsche Genealogie im 17. Jahrhundert zwischen Herrscherlob und Wissenschaft: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von G. W. Leibniz”, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, lix (1977), 1977–44; Benz Stefan , “Historiker um Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz”, Leibniz und Niedersachsen: Tagung anlässlich des 350. Geburtstages von G. W. Leibniz, Wolfenbüttel, 1996 (Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte 28, ed. by Breger Herbert Niewöhner; Friedrich Stuttgart, 1999), 148–72. It is also important to note that the editors of the Akademie Edition of Leibniz's work have long recognized the significance of Leibniz's work as a historian, dedicating Series I of the edition to Leibniz's vast political and historical correspondences (see Leibniz G. W. , Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (ed. by Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften; Darmstadt and Leipzig, 1923–)). Finally, more recently, Malte-Ludolf Babin and Gerd van den Heuvel have edited a comprehensive, if not complete, volume of Leibniz's writings on history. See Leibniz G. W. , Schriften und Briefe zur Geschichte, ed. by Babin M.-L. van den Heuvel G. (Hanover, 2004).

Leibniz G. W. , Sbornik pisem i memorialov Leïbnitsa otnosyashchikhsya k Rossii i Petru Velikomu, ed. by Ger'e V. I. (St Petersburg, 1873), 38. All translations are the author's unless otherwise indicated.

Ibid., 96.

See Schiebinger Londa , Plants and empire: Colonial bioprospecting in the Atlantic world (Cambridge, MA, 2004).

See in particular Wakefield Andre , The disordered police state: German cameralism as science and practice (Chicago, 2009), particularly chap. 2, “Science and silver for the Kammer”. From the same author, see also “Books, bureaus, and the historiography of cameralism”, European journal of law and economics, xix (2005), 2005–20. For an excellent treatment of another, slightly later figure's natural-historical prospecting and of its basis in the advancement of a cameralist system, see Koerner Lisbet , Linnaeus: Nature and nation (Cambridge, MA, 2005). The fiscal exigencies behind Leibniz's prospecting cannot be treated in any detail in this article, but surely deserves to be developed more fully in future studies.

See Schiebinger Londa , “Forum introduction: The European colonial science complex”, Isis, xcvi (2005), 52–5. See also the papers in Part III (“Knowledge production: Local contexts, global empires”) of Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos, Kristin Huffine, and Kevin Sheehan, Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500–1800 (Stanford, 2009), for a variety of arguments to the effect that, in the history of colonial science, ‘local’ is not always the same thing as ‘colonial’, insofar as there were always also specific exigencies in the Europeans sites of reception of colonial scientific data.

Bleichmar Daniela , “Books, bodies, and fields: Sixteenth-century transatlantic encounters with New World materia medica”, in Schiebinger Londa Swan Claudia (eds.), Colonial botany: Science, commerce, and politics in the early modern world (Philadelphia, 2005), 83–99, p. 83.

Leibniz's personal involvement in prospecting did however take him at least as far as Rome, with numerous detours of natural-historical interest along the way. For a meticulous account of this journey and the sundry knowledge projects it included, see Robinet André , G. W. Leibniz: Iter italicum (mars 1689-mars 1690): La dynamique de la République des Lettres (Florence, 1988).

Smith Justin E. H. , Divine machines: Leibniz and the sciences of life (Princeton, 2010), Appendix 1, §12. Comparing non-European native knowledge to local folk knowledge was a commonplace among colonial bioprospectors. Thus Jacobus Bontius writes of an instance of herbal knowledge in the East Indies: “This herb is considered sacred among the old Indian women (which they have in common with our own old women)” (Bontius, Tropische geneeskunde, in Opuscula selecta Neerlandicorum de arte medica, x (Amsterdam, 1931), 396–7; cited in Cook Harold J. , Matters of exchange: Commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch Golden Age (Yale, 2007), 207).

Ger'e , (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), 275.

Ibid., 47.

There has been much important scholarly work on the interest of particular things in the colonial science of the early modern period. Likely of most importance in recent years has been Cook, Matters of exchange (ref. 9).

Duchesneau François , Leibniz, le vivant, et l'organisme (Paris, 2010), 153. For a sustained discussion of Leibniz's empiricism and its limits, see Duchesneau François Smith Justin E. H. , Introduction to G. W. Leibniz, The Leibniz—Stahl controversy, ed. and transl. by Duchesneau François Smith Justin E. H. (New Haven, 2012); see also Smith , Divine machines (ref. 9).

Cavazza M. , “La corrispondenza inedita tra Leibniz, Domenico Guglielmini, Gabriele Manfredi”, in Cavazza M. (ed.), Rapporti di scienzati europei con lo studio bolognese fra '600 e '700: Studi e memorie per la storia dell'Università di Bologna, vi (Bologna, 1987), 72; cited in Duchesneau, Leibniz, le vivant, et l'organisme (ref. 13), 154.

Manuscript LH III 1, ff. 1–3, held at the Leibniz Archive of the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hanover.

“La rélation, et la figure d'un chevreuil coëffé d'une manière fort extraordinaire”, in Journal des s&çavans, 5 July 1677, 166–8.

On this point, see in particular Dutz K. D. , “‘Lingua Adamica nobis certe ignota est’: Die Sprachursprungsdebatte und Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz”, in Joachim G. von Rahden W. (eds.), Theorien vom Ursprung der Sprache (Berlin, 1988), 204–40.

The literature on the metaphysical foundations of Leibniz's theory of natural order is too vast to be able to mention even a fraction of it here. Three of the most prominent titles from the past twenty years will suffice however: Adams Robert Merrihew , Leibniz: Determinist, theist, idealist (Oxford, 1994); Rutherford Donald , Leibniz and the rational order of nature (Cambridge, 1995); Garber Daniel , Leibniz: Body, substance, monad (Oxford, 2009).

A vast literature exists on Leibniz's contributions to the various branches of the science of language. To cite just a few important studies that treat his work in ethnolinguistics (as opposed to more theoretical domains such as semantics and artificial languages), see von der Schulenberg Sigrid , Leibniz als Sprachforscher (Frankfurt am Main, 1973); Gensini Stefano , De linguis in universum: On Leibniz's ideas on language. Five essays (Münster, 2000); see also Gensini , “Leibniz, Eckhart and the Grammarians: The aims and methods of ‘harmonic’ etymology”, in Dutz K. D. (ed.), Individuation, Sympnoia pánta, Harmonia, Emanation: Festgabe für Heinrich Schepers zum 75. Geburtstag (Münster, 2000). For a focused account of Leibniz on the origins of linguistic diversity, see Dutz , “‘Lingua Adamica nobis certe ignota est’” (ref. 17). For a treatment of Leibniz's understanding of the importance of etymology to linguistics, see Aarsleff Hans , “The study and use of etymology in Leibniz”, From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the study of language and intellectual history (Minneapolis, 1982), 84–100. On Leibniz on the German language (which was, in the end, the language most important to his ethnoprospecting endeavours qua cameral employee of the Elector of Hannover), see Belaval Yvon , “Leibniz et la langue allemande”, Etudes leibniziennes (Paris, 1976), 3–36.

There are several editions of Leibniz's principal contribution to geology, but all of them may be traced back to the 1749 edition compiled and published by Christian Ludwig Scheidt, the Summi polyhistoris Godefridi Gvilelmi Leibnitii Protogaea, sive, De prima facie telluris et antiquissimae historiae vestigiis in ipsis naturae monumentis dissertatio (Göttingen). More recently, Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield have provided an excellent edition and translation. See Leibniz G. W. , Protogaea, transl. and ed. by Cohen Claudine Wakefield Andre (Chicago, 2008).

Leibniz G. W. , Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, ed. by Gerhardt C. I. (7 vols, Berlin, 1875–90; hereafter ‘G’), v, 318.

There are several useful overviews of Leibniz's relations with Peter the Great and of his interest in Russia. See in particular Moritz Posselt C. , Peter der Grosse und Leibnitz (Tartu and Moscow, 1843); Ger'e V. I. , Leïbnits i ego vek (St Petersburg, 1868); Benz Ernst , Leibniz und Peter der Grosse (Berlin, 1947); Chuchmarev V. I. , “G. V. Leïbnits i russkaia kul'tura 18 stoletiia”, Vestnik istorii mirovoi kul'tury, iv (1957), 1957–32; Gale George , “Leibniz, Peter the Great, and the modernization of Russia, or, Adventures of a philosopher-king in the East”, Divinatio, xxii (2005), 2005–36; Katasonov Vladimir , “The Utopias and the realities: Leibniz' plans for Russia”, in Leibniz und Europa, Vorträge VI (Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress, ii (1994)), 178–82; Kirsanov Vladimir S. , “Leibniz' ideas in the Russia of the 18th century”, ibid., 183–90; Utermöhlen Gerda , “Leibniz im brieflichen Gespräch über Rußland mit A. H. Francke und H. W. Ludolf”, ibid., 304–9. For a very useful account of the diplomatic and political stakes of Leibniz's service to, or effort to serve, various sovereigns, see Robinet André , Le meilleur des mondes par la balance de l'Europe (Paris, 1994). None of these studies attempts to place Leibniz's interest in the flora and fauna, as well as in the non-Russian peoples of the Russian empire, within the context of his more global and general interest in colonial prospecting.

Perkins Franklin , Leibniz and China: A commerce of light (Cambridge, 2005).

The literature on the impact of the American and Atlantic worlds on European science is vast, and growing. See, in particular, Delbourgo James Dew Nicholas (eds), Science and empire in the Atlantic world (London, 2008); Cañizares-Esguerra Jorge , Nature, empire, and nation: Explorations of the history of science in the Iberian world (Stanford, 2007).

Leibniz , Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (ref. 1), ser. IV, i, 408–9.

Ibid.

Sprat Thomas , History of the Royal-Society of London: For the improving of natural knowledge (London, 1667), 212–13.

See Dascal Marcelo , “One Adam and many cultures: The role of political pluralism in the best of possible worlds”, in Dascal M. Yakira E. (eds.), Leibniz and Adam (Tel Aviv, 1993), 387–409.

See Fenves Peter , “Imagining an inundation of Australians; or, Leibniz on the principles of grace and race”, in Race and racism in modern philosophy, ed. by Valls A. (Ithaca, NY, 2005), 73–89.

See Abulafia David , The discovery of mankind: Atlantic encounters in the age of Columbus (New Haven, 2008).

For informative treatments of this project, see Hamm E. P. , “Knowledge from underground: Leibniz mines the Enlightenment”, Earth sciences history, xvi (1997), 77–99; Wakefield Andre Cohen Claudine , Introduction to Leibniz G. W. , Protogaea (ref. 20); Elster Jon , Leibniz et la formation de l'esprit capitaliste (Paris, 1975), particularly chap. 3, “Les mines de Harz”; Gottschalk Jürgen , “Technische Verbesserungsvorschläge im Oberharzer Bergbau”, in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Das wirken des großen Universalgelehrten als Philosoph, Physiker, Techniker, ed. by Propp K. Stein E. (Hanover, 2000), 109–32. For a general discussion of the interwovenness of history and earth science in early modern Europe, see Rappaport Rhoda , When geologists were historians (Ithaca, 1997).

Leibniz G. W. , Die Leibniz-Handschriften, ed. by Bodemann E. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1895), 231.

One of Conring's greatest preoccupations in this work is with the giants supposed to have previously occupied the region of Germany he is describing. Conring adduces palaeontological evidence of their presence there, which, we may presume, in fact consisted in nothing other than dinosaur fossils. Leibniz as well is interested in the hominoid giants that once ruled the earth, and he treats them both as a subject for palaeontology, as in the Protogaea, and also as part of his project of ethnohistory, tracing the origins of the current inhabitants of Europe. On the latter, see his “Letter to a friend, on the Titans and Giants originating from Scythia” (G. G. Leibnitii Opera omnia, ed. by Dutens Louis (Geneva, 1768; hereafter ‘Dutens’), iv/2, 209–10).

Schiebinger , Plants and empire (ref. 4), 75–6.

Ibid., 81.

Ibid., 81–2.

Bontius , Tropische geneeskunde, 94–95; cited in Cook , Matters of exchange (ref. 9), 203.

Dutens , op. cit. (ref. 33), ii/2, 110–19.

See Görlich Ekkehard , Leibniz als Mensch und Kranker (Hanover, 1987).

Müller Kurt Krönert Gisela , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Leben und Werk. Eine Chronik (Frankfurt am Main, 1969), 132.

Ibid.

Piso Wilhelm , Historia naturalis Brasiliae…: In qua non tantum plantae et animalia, sed et indigenarum morbi, ingenia et mores describuntur et iconibus supra quingentas illustrantur (Amsterdam, 1648), 8.

Ibid., 8.

Dutens , op. cit. (ref. 33), ii/2, 111.

Ibid.

Smith , Divine machines (ref. 9), Appendix 5, §V.

Leibniz's official charge was to help advance the sciences in Russia, a task that led to the foundation of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences shortly after his death. For an excellent characterization of the sciences in Russia in this period, and of Leibniz's crucial role in shaping them, see Werrett Simon , “An odd sort of exhibition: The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in enlightened Russia”, Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge University, 2000.

Leibniz's project for an ethnolinguistic map of the Russian empire dovetailed with an intense interest in Russia in that period for geographical surveying of a more traditional variety. See, e.g., Lebedev D. M. , Geografiia v Rossii petrovskogo vremeni (Moscow, 1950). For an unsurpassed documentary account of Peter's sundry scientific projects, including geography, and including many in which Leibniz had a hand, see Tumanskii F. V. , Sobranie raznykh zapisok o sochinenii, sluzhashchikh k dostavleniiu polnogo svedeniia o zhisni i deiatel'nosti Petra Velikogo (St Petersburg, 1787).

Leibniz G. W. , Otium hanoveranum, sive Miscellanea ex ore & schedis illustris Viri, piae memoriae Godofr. Guilielm. Leibnitii, ed. by Feller Joachim Friedrich (Leipzig, 1718), 158.

Ger'e , (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), 51.

Leibniz , Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (ref. 1), ser. I, 13, 544.

Ger'e , (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), 88.

In part, Leibniz's interest in ‘primitive’ languages could be motivated by a belief that they are better at capturing the essences of things. He is a staunch opponent of the Adamic theory of language, according to which the first language spoken by the first man was one that perfectly captured and reflected the essences of the things themselves, but at the same time he does believe that at its most primitive language is to some extent able to reflect essences, insofar as words are coined onomatopoieically. A false but interesting etymology offered by Leibniz in the New essays of 1704 provides a nice example of this: Leibniz believes that the word ‘quek’ — Which in old German signifies that which is living and which has modern cognates such as ‘Quecksilber’, ‘erquicken’, and the English ‘quick’ (as in ‘the quick and the dead’) — Comes directly from the sound made by frogs (G, v, 261). In this and other cases, a word may be said to be primitive or natural when it reflects something real about at least the audible aspect of a thing's existence.

Nouveaux essais, Book III, chap. 9, G, v, 318.

Müller Max wrote of Leibniz's contribution to Russian linguistics: “[the linguist Friedrich von] Adelung started out from collections of words that had been compiled under the auspices of the Russian government. But for these collections it is clearly Leibniz who must be thanked. Although Peter the Great had neither time nor inclination for philological studies, his government always kept in view the plan to collect all of the languages of the Russian Empire” (Vorlesungen über die Wissenschaft der Sprache, 119; Ger'e (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), p. xxv).

Ger'e , (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), 50.

Ibid., 286.

Ibid., 275.

Ibid., 278.

Ibid., 1.

Ibid., 275.

Ibid., 278.

Ibid., 45.

Ibid., 42.

Dutens , op. cit. (ref. 33), iv/2, 206–7.

Ibid.

Ibid.

On the history of the standardization of type specimens in botany, see Daston Lorraine , “Type specimens and scientific memory”, Critical inquiry, xxxi/1 (2004), 153–82.

Smith , Divine machines (ref. 9), Appendix 5, §111.

Ibid., Appendix 5, §VI.

Ger'e , (ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov (ref. 2), 275.