faith in the omnipotence of deduction,—on the richly suggestive ideas which this mighty thinker has contributed to philosophy,—and, on the unity of a system which sublimely designs to harmonize the spiritual with the sensible world.
Leibnitz formed scholars, rather than a school. His system is essentially an eclectic one, and the whole tendency of his mind was opposed to merely national and sectarian distinctions, against which the extreme comprehensiveness of his genius gave him an instinctive repugnance, while his own fruitful mind rendered the most obscure system suggestive, and therefore worthy of being regarded with favourable indulgence. His sanguine spirit delights to discern a progress in the retrospect of the whole history of philosophy. In the early eastern systems, he finds noble ideas of God and the universe. In Greece he sees these reduced to a dialectic form. The early fathers appear to him to cast aside the corruptions of the Greek philosophy, while the schoolmen employ it in the service of Christianity. In modern times philosophy has become more free and ardent, and better directed than ever, and would, he thinks, be more successful than it has been, but for the evil spirit of sectarianism.
"There is only one permitted sect of all," says Leibnitz, "the sect of searchers after truth. The Aristotelians and Cartesians fail, not for want of talent, but because of their sectarianism. The imagination, which has been long under the spell of a single melody, cannot readily listen to another. He who has for years travelled the same beaten track, becomes unobservant of the sur-
