ABSTRACT
Leibniz was one of the supreme intellects of all time, but as a human being he was not admirable. In Germany, Leibniz had been taught a neo-scholastic Aristotelian philosophy, of which he retained something throughout his later life. Like Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz based his philosophy on the notion of substance, but he differed radically from them as regards the relation of mind and matter, and as regards the number of substances. Leibniz brought into their final form the metaphysical proofs of God's existence. Leibniz's solution of the problem of evil, like most of his other popular doctrines, is logically possible, but not very convincing. Leibniz was a firm believer in the importance of logic, not only in its own sphere, but as the basis of metaphysics. Leibniz based philosophy upon two logical premisses, the law of contradiction and the law of sufficient reason. Leibniz is the best example of a philosopher who uses logic as a key to metaphysics.
