Character Catalog

First published article on differential calculus, appearing in the Acta Eruditorum. It introduces the notation dx and dy, which became standard throughout continental Europe.

Founding text of Leibnizian philosophy, laying out his conception of God, individual substances, and the relationship between soul and body. Never published during his lifetime.

Article publicly presenting for the first time the pre-established harmony, the theory according to which the soul and body each follow their own laws without direct interaction.

The only major philosophical work published during his lifetime. Leibniz justifies the goodness of God despite the existence of evil, asserting that our world is 'the best of all possible worlds'.

A synthesis of 90 paragraphs on Leibnizian metaphysics, describing the universe as composed of monads — simple, indivisible substances each reflecting the entire universe.

A companion text to the Monadology, accessible to a broad educated audience, setting out the fundamental principles of Leibniz's natural and theological philosophy.

A point-by-point response to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Leibniz defends innatism against empiricism and argues that the intellect itself is innate knowledge.

God having chosen the most perfect world, he has brought it about that everything which happens in this world is connected to everything else according to the laws of nature.

Monads are the true Atoms of Nature and, in a word, the Elements of things. There are no windows through which anything could enter or leave.

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself.

This world is the best of all possible worlds, not because there is no evil in it, but because God chose the one in which good outweighs evil the most.

Sit axis AX, et curvae plures, ut VV, WW, YY, ZZ, quarum ordinatae, ad axem normales, VX, WX, YX, ZX, vocentur respective v, w, y, z.

Leibniz's birthplace, where he was born in 1646 and received his early education. It was in this Protestant intellectual hub that he developed his passion for philosophy and languages.

Leibniz stayed here from 1672 to 1676 on a diplomatic mission. He met the greatest European scholars of the time, discovered Pascal's work, and developed his own methods of calculus.

The city where Leibniz spent most of his adult life as librarian and advisor to the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He died there in 1716 and his archives are still preserved there.

Leibniz founded the Prussian Academy of Sciences here in 1700, of which he was the first president. This project reflects his vision of organizing knowledge in the service of states.

Leibniz met Spinoza here in 1676 during his return journey to Hanover. These philosophical conversations profoundly shaped his thinking on God and nature.

Mechanical calculator designed by Leibniz around 1673, capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It embodies his ambition to mechanize mathematical reasoning.

Leibniz's everyday tool, with which he maintained an enormous correspondence — over 15,000 letters — with scholars across Europe. His sheets covered in notes bear witness to a mind in perpetual motion.

Leibniz published very little during his lifetime; the bulk of his thought remains in thousands of handwritten sheets preserved in Hanover. These drafts reveal a genius who thought by writing.

As a princely adviser, Leibniz took a keen interest in geopolitics and universal history. Maps and globes adorned the studies of scholars of his era.

A symbol of the learned seventeenth century, the watch illustrates the Leibnizian metaphor of the universe as a perfectly regulated clock set by God according to pre-established harmony.

Leibniz was a voracious reader from childhood; he had access to his father's library and read Aristotle, Descartes, Pascal and Hobbes even before university.