ABSTRACT
Gottfried Leibniz might have been a greater philosopher, and perhaps a greater man, if he had needed to struggle to greatness. As it was, he achieved reputation and honour, in more fields than one, with an ease that astonished his contemporaries, and in some respects turned his head. When Leibniz was fifteen, he entered the University of Leipzig as a law-student. The first part of his course, which occupied a period of two years, consisted chiefly of philosophy. His masters belonged to the old school; their pupil, already bursting with knowledge, soon found that he belonged to the new. A change now came over Leibniz’s fortunes which was thereafter to determine the course of his life. According to Leibniz, even the simplest of monads is endowed with the faculty of perception. At first this perception is both elementary and confused; later it expresses itself more perfectly in thought and finally in self-consciousness.
