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30
LEIBNIZ AS A POLITICIAN

German and Latin, with translations, by his own or other hands, into different European tongues—gathered into their editions of his works by Klopp and Foucher de Careil, and supplemented by the researches of Pfleiderer. One tractate discusses the necessity of pausing when things were going badly against the Turks, and when the great Elector of Brandenburg was still in one of those spiral phases of his policy which give so much trouble to historians convinced of his mission—a necessity which led to the Truce of Ratisbon in 1684. Another is concerned with the French declaration of war in 1688, answered by a counter-manifesto on the part of the Emperor Leopold, which was misattributed to Leibniz by his biographer Guhrauer, but which was dissected in a memorandum certainly written by him for the use of the imperial ministers and summing up, with not less force than elaboration (it extends through twenty chapters) the whole case against France as guilty of a systematic violation of the public law of nations.

A third treats the outlook at the end of the campaign of 1791 (written after the battle of Fleurus), when a new effort seemed necessary if the cause was not to collapse, and Leibniz in a series of "consultations" showed how closely he had followed both the conduct of the war and the attitude of the allies and neutrals towards it. These are but specimens of the efforts of his indefatigable pen in the period of his service under Ernest Augustus; and I only wish I had time to illustrate the completeness, the vigour and the general effectiveness (that I think is the right word) of these productions.

In 1698 Ernest Augustus was succeeded as Elector by his son George Lewis; but, largely no doubt because of Leibniz's devoted attachment to the widowed Electress Sophia, and her continuous pleasure in his society and correspondence, he remained in the service of the House. But the marriage of her daughter Sophia Charlotte to the Elector Frederick of Brandenburg (afterwards King Frederick I of Prussia) had already for some