7 - Memoir for Enlightened Persons of Good Intention (mid-1690s)

Summary

This piece, probably written during the 1690s (to judge from internal evidence), is one of the fullest statements of Leibniz' general purposes as a statesman, scholar, scientist, etc. Though some of the earlier paragraphs are a bit simple and ‘optimistic’ in the bad sense of the word, the Memoir improves markedly as it moves on; and toward the end there are trenchant attacks on sectarianism, and good statements of Leibniz' belief that working for the common good is the highest human duty. (The present translation follows the text in vol. X of Klopp's edition of Leibniz.)

1. It is uncommon to meet persons to whom this memoir is suited. There are still some of them, for all that, and perhaps more than one thinks, though one does not always have the occasion to know them. And it is for them that I have drawn it up.

2. I find that even enlightened men of good intention usually let themselves be carried away by the torrent of general corruption, and do not think with enough skill about the means to pull themselves out of it and do some good.

3. […]