ABSTRACT
The appearance in the world of a genuinely new philosophy is at all times an event of very great importance. More particularly is this the case when the new philosophy embodies the prevailing temper of the age better than any of its older rivals; for in that case it is likely to establish itself in popular favour, to colour the thoughts of the educated and half-educated public, and to strengthen those elements in the mental atmosphere to which it owes its success. It would be a mistake to suppose that new philosophies are always adapted to the age in which they appear; but when they are not, they fail to win wide acceptance whatever their other merits may be. Spinoza, for example, deserved success as well as Leibniz; yet his works were almost wholly neglected until more than a century after his death, because the political and intellectual milieu was not one in which they could thrive. Leibniz, on the contrary, gave scope to the love of calculation which men derived from the discoveries of his time, and represented the world as a hierarchy of systems, each exactly like the Holy Roman Empire; his system, therefore, ruled the
German mind until the ferment which preceded the French Revolution set men’s thoughts running in new channels.
