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Theodicy
Essays on the Goodness of God the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
G.W. LEIBNIZ
Edited with an Introduction by Austin Farrer, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford
Translated by E.M. Huggard from C.J. Gerhardt's Edition of the Collected Philosophical Works, 1875-90
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Published 1985 by Open Court Publishing Company, Peru, Illinois 61354. This edition first published 1951 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, London. Second printing 1988 Third printing 1990 Fourth printing 1993 Fifth printing 1996
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716. Theodicy: essays on the goodness of God, the freedom of man, and the origin of evil.
Translation of: Essais de Theodicee. Includes index. 1. Theodicy--Early works to 1800. I. Title. B2590.E5 1985 231'.8 85-8833 ISBN O-87548-437-9
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CONTENTS
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION page 7 PREFACE 49 PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION ON THE CONFORMITY OF FAITH WITH 73 REASON ESSAYS ON THE JUSTICE OF GOD AND THE FREEDOM OF MAN IN THE 123, 182, 276 ORIGIN OF EVIL, IN THREE PARTS APPENDICES SUMMARY OF THE CONTROVERSY, REDUCED TO FORMAL ARGUMENTS 377 EXCURSUS ON THEODICY, Sec. 392 389 REFLEXIONS ON THE WORK THAT MR. HOBBES PUBLISHED IN 393 ENGLISH ON 'FREEDOM, NECESSITY AND CHANCE' OBSERVATIONS ON THE BOOK CONCERNING 'THE ORIGIN OF EVIL', 405 PUBLISHED RECENTLY IN LONDON CAUSA DEI ASSERTA 443 INDEX 445
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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
I
Leibniz was above all things a metaphysician. That does not mean that his head was in the clouds, or that the particular sciences lacked interest for him. Not at all--he felt a lively concern for theological debate, he was a mathematician of the first rank, he made original contributions to physics, he gave a realistic attention to moral psychology. But he was incapable of looking at the objects of any special enquiry without seeing them as aspects or parts of one intelligible universe. He strove constantly after system, and the instrument on which his effort relied was the speculative reason. He embodied in an extreme form the spirit of his age. Nothing could be less like the spirit of ours. To many people now alive metaphysics means a body of wild and meaningless assertions resting on spurious argument. A professor of metaphysics may nowadays be held to deal handsomely with the duties of his chair if he is prepared to handle metaphysical statements at all, though it be only for the purpose of getting rid of them, by showing them up as confused forms of something else. A chair in metaphysical philosophy becomes analogous to a chair in tropical diseases: what is taught from it is not the propagation but the cure.
Confidence in metaphysical construction has ebbed and flowed through philosophical history; periods of speculation have been followed by periods of criticism. The tide will flow again, but it has not turned yet, and [8] such metaphysicians as survive scarcely venture further than to argue a case for the possibility of their art. It would be an embarrassing task to open an approach to Leibnitian metaphysics from the present metaphysical position, if there is a present position. If we want an agreed starting-point, it will have to be historical.