322 LEHMANN LEIBNITZ LEHMANN, Charles Ernest Rodolpbe Henri, a French painter, of German origin, born in Kiel, Holstein, April 14, 1814. He studied un- der his father and under Ingres in Paris. He exhibited a religious picture in 1835, followed by many other works, among which are por- traits and mural paintings for the hotel de ville and other public buildings. His pictures are valued for their fine coloring and expression. In 1864 he became a member of the academy of fine arts. His brother RODOLPHE (born in 1819), who resides in Rome, excels in Italian genre pictures and landscapes. LEIBNITZ, or Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, a German philosopher, born in Leipsic at the beginning of July, 1646, died in Hanover, Nov. 14, 1716. His father, a professor in the university, died when he was six years old. He enjoyed by the care of his mother the best privileges of education which Germany then afforded, but declares that he was for the most part self-taught, and relates that he would withdraw from school to shut him- self up whole days in his father's library. At the St. Nicholas gymnasium in Leipsic he incurred the remonstrances of his masters by learning Latin and reading the classics in ad- vance of the regular course. Before he was 12, he says, he " understood the Latin authors very well, had begun to lisp Greek, and wrote verses with singular success." He was already study- ing the greatest modern as well as ancient phi- losophers, was comparing Bacon and Descartes with Aristotle and Plato, and was aiming to grasp the unity of all the sciences. At the age of 15 he entered the university of Leipsic, ap- plied himself chiefly to mathematics, philoso- phy, and law, continued his studies for a short time at Jena, returned to Leipsic, and produced remarkable theses on occasion of receiving his degrees. His treatise De Principio Indi- vidui, his academic exercise on becoming bache- lor of philosophy, is perhaps the most extra- ordinary demonstration of erudition and power of thought ever achieved by a youth of IT. It was the fruit of severe boyish deliberation whether or not he should give up the substan- tial forms of the schoolmen, prefigured his future philosophy by its vivid statement of individuality as the fundamental principle of ontology, and was the last noticeable work written in the sense and style of scholasticism. In it he declares for nominalism. His three theses on becoming bachelor and licentiate of law were published, and he wished to crown his studies in jurisprudence with the degree of doctor ; but this was refused him on pretence of his youth by the superiors of the college, whose ill will he had in some way incurred. He therefore left his native city, never to return. At the university of Altdorf he maintained his thesis for the doctorate in 1666 with so bril- liant success that a professorship was imme- diately offered him, which he declined. He fell in with a society of Rosicrncians and al- chemists at Nuremberg, became their secre- tary, recorded their experiments, and explored the hermetic authors for revelations concern- ing the philosopher's stone, but was soon ready for more hopeful labors. In 1667 he met the baron of Boyneburg, ex-chancellor of the elec- tor of Mentz, who was captivated by his genius, and invited him to Frankfort, where he imme- diately composed his Nova Methodus Discendce Docendceque Jurisprudents (1668), in which he shows his admiration of the Roman law and proposes the registry of all its enactments in chronological order. In the following year ap- peared his Corporis Juris Reconcinnandi Ra- tio, in which the arrangement of Justinian is disapproved, and all law is reduced to nine heads : general principles of rights and actions, rights of persons, judgments, real rights, con- tracts, successions, crimes, public rights, and sacred rights. In the treatment of these de- partments he proposes to retain the texts of the Corpus Juris Civilis, but to follow the method of the Pandects rather than of the In- stitutes. The versatile genius and various pur- suits of Leibnitz soon withdrew him from the science of philosophical jurisprudence. "He did but pass over that kingdom," says Lenni- nier, " and he reformed and enlarged it." In 1669 he produced, at the instance of Boyne- burg, an anonymous treatise in favor of the claims of the prince of Neuburg to the vacant throne of Poland, in reward for which he was made councillor of the elector of Mentz. This office, which he retained three years, furnished him leisure to prosecute vast studies in poli- tics, physics, and philosophy. He extended his fame as a philosopher by republishing and annotating the Antibarbarm PMlosophus of Nizolius (1670), in which he ranks Aristotle above Descartes ; wrote a theological argument in defence of the Trinity, Sacrosancta Trinitas (1671), aimed against the Polish Socinian Wis- sowatius, who had procured the erection of a temple to the harmony of the three Christian confessions ; addressed to the academy of sci- ences of Paris and to the royal society of Lon- don two remarkable memoirs on the laws of motion ; and entered into correspondence with Spinoza by sending him an account of the pro- gress of optics. One of his projects at this time was for a reunion of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, concerning which he had a long correspondence with Bossuet. In 1672 he was sent by Boyneburg to accom- pany his son to Paris, then the residence of the most learned men of the age under the patron- age of Louis XIV. Associated with Cassini, Huygens, and others, he devoted himself espe- cially to mathematics and physics, and estab- lished a European reputation by bold and stri- king thoughts in all departments of learning. To Colbert he presented a new arithmetical machine, an improvement on that of Pascal, which was favorably noticed by the academy of sciences. To the king he addressed a me- morial for an expedition to Egypt, an eminent instance of political foresight. " The con-
