LEIBNIZ (GOTTFRIED WILHELM)

Autograph letter signed ("Leibniz") to Thomas Burnett ("Monsieur"), in French, [Hanover, 3 December 1703]

Footnotes

'UN DES PLUS BEAUX LIVRES PHILOSOPHIQUES DE CE TEMPS': LEIBNIZ ON LOCKE, & HIS FRIEND'S RELEASE FROM THE BASTILLE.

In the latter part of this letter to his friend Thomas Burnett, Leibniz notes he is re-reading Locke in a new French translation and whilst he sometimes finds him "too superficial", he concludes here that it is "...one of the finest philosophical books of our time...". Much has been written on the relationship between Leibniz and Locke. For years, Burnett had acted as an intermediary between the two and has been described as having a significant influence on the way that the men viewed each other. Despite Leibniz's stellar reputation in European intellectual circles, Locke refused to reply directly to Leibniz's responses to his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1689, and indeed professed to be rather intellectually disappointed in Leibniz. It has been argued that some of Leibniz's papers written between 1695 and 1700 in response to Locke were in fact a response to Burnett's interpretation of Locke, and even that Burnett mistakenly ascribed works to Locke that were by others (Stewart Duncan, Toland and Locke in the Leibniz-Burnett Correspondence, September 2017, online). According to Nicholas Jolley, Burnett '...clearly had a stake in playing up his contacts with Locke, and in emphasizing Locke's good will, for he wished to come across to Leibniz as a valuable correspondent with access to inside sources of information. But even if we allow for an element of ingratiation on Burnett's part, it still seems to be the case that Locke's personal attitude towards Leibniz was not as distant or as aloof as... might suggest...' citing Locke's interest in Leibniz's metaphysical theories, his wish to know his opinion on his controversial exchange with Stillingfleet and even his offer to obtain for him an ecclesiastical benefice in England as examples (Nicholas Jolley, Leibniz and Locke, 1984, p.38-41). Leibniz in turn was clearly interested in Locke's views on a wide range of topics including money, education and politics and not just religion. In response to our letter, Burnett wrote back to Leibniz encouraging him to compose a full-scale commentary of the Essay (Jolley, p.44).

At the time of writing, Thomas Burnett had been recently released from a fourteen-month imprisonment in the Bastille, and much of the letter is taken up with informing him of the circumstances of his release and describing how Leibniz had employed his considerable influence and web of connections to that end. Burnett had been passing through Paris in uncertain times. The succession crisis in England prompted by the death of Queen Anne's only surviving child in 1700 meant that the next protestant in line to the English throne was Leibniz's patron, the Electress Sophia and, with the French favouring Anne's half-brother James as heir, Anne was to declare war on France in May 1702, just six weeks after Burnett was arrested. Anyone with a close connection to the Hanoverian court was therefore under suspicion and prey to "certain spies who haunted Paris taverns", and the only crime Burnett was guilty of was perhaps not having a passport. On his release, he wrote to Leibniz from Geneva on 5 November 1703 describing the circumstances of his arrest and his ordeal: '...they accused me of nothing despite the fact they interrogated me about everything... To tell you I suffered in this prison would be a long story... I noted myself that they insisted on these two points in particular... my relationship with the Bishop of Salisbury and the honour of being given such a good reputation at the Courts of Hanover and Berlin...' (Susan Burnett, p.13-14). This account prompted our reply from Leibniz which bears the pencilled date of 1704. Gerhardt, however, places it as having been written from Hanover on 3 December 1703.

Our letter is published in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Allemeiner politischer und historischer Briefwechsel, Akademie Verlag, 1998 (no.412, p.705-710), in Gerhardt, C. J., Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1887, vol. 3, no. XXVI, p. 289, and partly quoted from in Susan Burnett, Without Fanfare: The Story of my Family, 1994, p.16-18 and elsewhere. It has been held in the archive at Kemnay House, Aberdeenshire, until now.

Provenance: Thomas Burnett, 2nd of Kemnay (1656-1729); and thence by descent.