Selecting Leibniz
Editing Leibniz is a little like stepping into an enormous, dimly lit archive where every drawer contains something intriguing, unfinished, or unexpectedly brilliant. His first decade in Hanover (1677–1686) is especially rich: a period of intellectual acceleration in which metaphysics, theology, logic, natural philosophy, and political thought all jostle for space on the page. If it were possible, I would have included everything he wrote in those years. But even three large volumes have limits, and selecting what to include meant making choices—sometimes difficult, sometimes surprisingly easy, but always guided by a clear sense of purpose.
The aim of the new edition is to present Leibniz’s philosophical writings in a focused sense: essays, drafts, fragments, and book-length works that express his own thinking directly, rather than reading notes, book reports, or correspondence. The exclusion of the latter kinds of writing is not a judgement on their value. Leibniz’s letters, in particular, are often philosophically rich. But a selection must have boundaries, and these volumes are shaped by the need to highlight the development of his ideas rather than to reproduce the full texture of his working life.
Within those boundaries, the goal was completeness where completeness truly matters. All of Leibniz’s metaphysical writings from 1677 to 1686 are included in the Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy, Ethics, and Jurisprudence volume, and all of his writings on religion and theology from the same period appear in the Religion and Theology volume. These two areas form the backbone of his early Hanoverian thought, and the volumes reflect that.
For other major topics—Universal Language, the Characteristic, Logic, Encyclopaedia, General Science, Natural Philosophy, Ethics, and Jurisprudence—the selection aims for breadth and depth rather than totality. The majority of relevant pieces are included, enough to show the evolution of each project and its connections to Leibniz’s mathematical and scientific work, without turning the edition into a general repository of everything he touched.
Some exclusions were straightforward. A number of texts that have been assigned to the 1677–1686 period almost certainly belong elsewhere. For example:
- “On the General Relation of All Things”, previously dated to 1686, clearly reflects Leibniz’s early eighteenth‑century notion of organism.
- “Proverb”, previously dated anywhere between 1677 and 1716, is an extract from a 1696 book—so it must be from 1696 or later.
- “On Defending Against Dispersing of the Soul”, previously dated to winter 1685/1686, is written on the back of a draft letter from mid‑January 1687.
- “Idolatries Revived Among Christians”, previously dated anywhere between 1677 and 1716, is simply Leibniz’s Latin summary of material John Toland wrote in 1701 and published in 1704.
Selecting Leibniz, then, is not merely a matter of choosing texts; it is a matter of reconstructing a decade of intellectual life with fidelity and clarity. These volumes aim to show Leibniz thinking in real time—experimenting, revising, and building the foundations of the philosophy that would later make him famous.
— Lloyd Strickland, 5.iii.2026
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