Source:

Die philophischen schriften von Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz, vol. I
C. I. Gerhardt (ed)
p 355-356


Date: 13 December 1698

Translated from the French


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NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE TO LEIBNIZ


[G I p355]

     I received with much joy the letter that Father Torelli sent to me on your behalf, and I am extremely obliged to you for remembering me. I am very much persuaded, Sir, that the friendship with which you honour me is not inconstant like those which are only founded on fickle passions. It is only the love of truth that binds hearts close together. And as you do me this justice of believing that I have some love for it, I am persuaded that the love you have for it will always spread as far as your very humble servant. The particular obligations that all its disciples have to you, because of the new views you have given to them in order to advance in the sciences, do not allow them to be indifferent as regards your merit; and if there are some who are so, or appear so, they wrong only themselves, at least in the mind of clever people. The method of the infinitely small, of which you are the inventor, is a discovery so beautiful and fecund that it alone will make you immortal in the mind of the learned. But what would the integral calculus not be capable of, if you wanted to pass on to geometers a part of what you know about it? Remember, Sir, that you are obliged by it, as it were, and that we impatiently await the work De scientia infiniti1 which you have promised us. The ingratitude of the ignorant or of jealous minds should not deprive your admirers of the good that you can do for them, without becoming less rich in it; and the truth, which you love, does not tolerate being treated in the same way as the miserly treat their riches. You know better than me, Sir, what I have the honour to say to you, and I am convinced that you will appreciate in me this ardour which makes me press you and importune you to release me from my ignorance.
     Having some spare time while in the country, I reread the small, mediocre treatise on the communication of motion,2 and wanting to satisfy myself on the third law, I realized that it was not possible to match experience with Descartes' principle that absolute motion always remains the same. I have therefore thoroughly altered this treatise, for I am now convinced that absolute motion continually increases and decreases, and that there is only the motion of the same part which is always conserved in the [G I p356] impact. I have therefore thoroughly corrected this treatise, but I still do not know when it will be reprinted. I tell you this, Sir, so that you continue to be convinced that I genuinely seek the truth, and that I deserve, partly by this disposition of my mind, that you continue to love me as much as I honour you. There is nothing new, it seems to me, on mathematics and physics, except for the History of the Academy of Sciences, which Mr Hamel has given us in Latin. People are occupied with refuting quietism and the so-called pure love. I was even urged, despite myself, to write on this matter. A year ago I wrote a short treatise on the love of God, to which I added three letters to Father Lami, Benedictine, which I was told was printed by Plaignard in Lyon.3 It is still not here. And as it is published without privilege, I do not know if it will come freely to Paris. I say nothing to you about the Marquis de Hospital, since he told me that he would write to you, and perhaps I will put this letter in with his. I am, Sir, with much respect etc.
     From Paris, 13 December 1698.




NOTE:

1. 'On the science of infinity'.
2. Nicolas Malebranche, Des loix de la communication des mouvemens (Paris, 1692).
3. Nicolas Malebranche, Traité de l'amour de Dieu, en quel sens il doit être désintéressé (Lyon, 1697).


© Lloyd Strickland 2004