back to first principles, and of following consequences intrepidly to their issues. In these labours of this early period, we have a fair specimen of the whole intellectual life of Leibnitz. They are, moreover, eminently characteristic of the National Philosophy which he originated.
Owing to a difference with the University authorities, Leibnitz left Leipsic, and his native country of Saxony, and in 1666 went to the University of Altdorf. There he received his degree in law the same year. He thus belongs to that class of distinguished philosophers who have been bred to the legal profession. The philosophy of law naturally attracted his thoughts. At the age of twenty-one, he published a tract on jurisprudence, which forms an epoch in that science. "There was only one man in the world," says Hallam, "who could have left so noble a science as philosophical jurisprudence for pursuits of a still more exalted nature, and for which he was still more gifted; and that man was Leibnitz. He passed onwards to reap the golden harvests of other fields."
After leaving the University, he led a somewhat desultory life for several years. During the interval between 1666 and 1676, he visited several of the German universities, which must have served to confirm his academical tendencies. A professorial chair was soon within his reach, but was declined by one whose projects of Reform in Philosophy were too comprehensive to be confined within the narrow limits of a University. In 1667 he removed to Frankfort, where he became Secre-
