Leibniz and the Present View of Freedom

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the many-sided founder of German philosophy, was born, 1646, in Leipsic, studied there and at Jena, received his degree in Altorf, and was then, through his acquaintance with Boyneburg, drawn into the diplomatic service, pursuing political and scientific plans of his own, he travelled as a member of an embassy to Paris and London, with an incidental visit to Spinoza in The Hague, and then entered the service of the court of Hanover and Brunswick as librarian and court historian. In all these positions he was active in his public and diplomatic capacity in the interests of the German national spirit and of peace between the Confessions. Later he lived at the court of the first Prussian Queen Sophie Charlotte, a Hanoverian princess, in Charlottenberg and Berlin, where the Academy was founded under his direction; afterwards he lived for some time in Vienna, to consult archives. Here he gave the stimulus for the foundation of an academy, a project which was later carried out, and the St. Petersburg Academy was also due to his influence. He died, 1716, at Hanover.