Leibnitz on Bacon. 239

not a metaphysician alone but a jurisconsult, mathema-
tician, naturalist, linguist, and critic, the rival of Locke
as of Newton, the precursor of Cuvier, Savigny, and
Grimm—it is Leibnitz who has shown the most thorough
appreciation of the Baconian philosophy. He conceived
his own Monadism, which has been said to have "rescued
Cartesianism from the abyss of passivity into which it
threatened to fall/' to be akin to the doctrine of the
f De Principiis,' and expressed his belief in the assertion,
" We do well to think highly of Vernlam, for his hard
sayings have in them a deep meaning." Elsewhere he
declares that Bacon recalls philosophy from space to
earth and life, and has first put the art of experiment
into precepts; and, classing him in some respects with
Descartes, says that, as compared with the former, the
latter " creeps on the ground." The effect of this
acknowledged influence is apparent by the anonymous
tract, "Gulielmi Placiti 'Plus Ultra/ sive initia et speci-
mena scientise goneralis, de instaundione et anymentis
scieiitiarum, ac de proficiendit inerite, rerumque iuvcn-
tione ad publicam felicitatein ;" the conclusion of which
was designed to convey an exhortation to those worthy
to increase the happiness of the race. In another work
he refers to the 'De Augmentis' as chief among the
writings of the reformers who had in his youth directed
him to the right path. But the most important appli-
cation of the Baconian method mailo by Leibnitz is his
reform of the Science of Language ; his decisive con-
futation of the presumption that all dialects must bo
offshoots of Hebrew; his assertion that " this study
must be conducted on the same principles as those of the
exact sciences, beginning from the languages best known