considered as members of society, in regard to individual belief or opinion, which the moral law demands, and which reason and experience approve, as best fitted to secure the most extensive diffusion of truth; and in subordination to which all special social organization, civil and ecclesiastical, ought to be regulated. The full solution of this great problem is still among those left to exercise the minds of the men of this or of some future age.
Throughout the forty years of his connexion with the Court of Hanover, Leibnitz maintained his literary intercourse with unabated energy. In this period he settled and extended the foundations of the literary republic of Europe. In 1687, he travelled up the Rhine, ransacked the libraries and archives of Bavaria, Bohemia, and Vienna, and promoted his acquaintance with learned men. In 1689, he went to Italy, and gained free access to the Vatican and Barberini libraries. His intercourse with the Jesuits and other religious Orders, was all turned to the account of adding to his stores of learning. After visiting Rome, he travelled through Italy, and returned to Hanover in 1690, only to resume his labours in the Royal library, of which he had been appointed keeper. In 1700, he was the means of founding the famous Berlin Academy of Sciences, meant by him to be a centre of German literary and scientific intercourse and effort. He was unfortunately unsuccessful in his endeavour to establish at Vienna another institute of the same kind, and on a still more comprehensive plan. He was much interested in the civilisation of the rising
