Source:

Sämtliche schriften und briefe series VI volume 4
Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed)
pp 674-677


Date: April - October 1686 (?)

Translated from the Latin


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LEIBNIZ: PLUS ULTRA


[A VI 4, p674]

PLUS ULTRA1
or, beginnings and samples
OF THE GENERAL SCIENCE
concerning the renewal and increase of knowledge,
and also concerning perfecting the mind and the discovery of things
for public happiness

[A VI 4, p675]

Arrangement of the work

     1) The reasons that compelled the author to write; where also [is treated] why he has concealed his name. The friendship of great princes and their like-minded opinions.
     2) History of erudition.
     3) On the present state of erudition, that is, on the Republic of Letters.
     4) On the evils men suffer from their own fault. On those things which have been usefully discovered to assist human life.
     5) On procuring the happiness of men.
     6) On the correction of Scholastics and the reason for study, where also [is treated] on schools.
     7) On the renewal of the sciences, where [is placed material] on systems and their authors, and on the demonstrative encyclopaedia to be put together.
     On languages and rational grammar.
     8) Elements of eternal truth, and on the art of demonstrating in all disciplines as in mathematics.
     9) On a new sort of general calculus, with whose assistance all disputes are resolved among those who assent to it; it is the Kabbalah of the wise.
     10) On the art of inventing.
     11) On synthesis, that is, the combinatorial art.
     12) On analysis.
     On characteristics.
     13) On specific combinatory, that is, on the science of forms or qualities in general or on the similar and dissimilar.
     14) On specific analysis, that is, on the science of quantities in general, or on the great and small.
     15) On the general mathematics composed from the preceding two.
     16) On arithmetic.
     17) On algebra.
     18) On geometry.
     19) On optics.

[A VI 4, p676]

     20) Phorography (of which tornatoria is a species), that is, on the vestiges of motion.
     22)2 Dynamics, that is, on the cause of motions, or on cause and effect, and potency and actuality.
     23) On the resistance of solids.
     24) On the motions of liquids.
     Nautics, where [is treated] the new laws of rhombus [lines].
     25) Mechanics, from the compass and use of the preceding.
     26) Elements of physics, on the causes of qualities and the way sensing occurs.
     27) Physical astronomy concerning the system of the world, or the principles of bodies.
     28) Special physics concerning the things all around us.3
     29) On meteors.
     29)4 On dry lands and the nature of minerals.
     30) On plants.
     31) On animals.
     31) On medicine.
     Provisional medicine.
     On different craftsmen.
     On the nature of the mind and the passions of the soul.
     Politics, that is, on governing men.
     On the sufficiency of things and on commerce and manufactured things, that is, economics, where [is treated] whether it is possible to discover the means by which the few have equal power to the multitude.
     On warfare.
     On jurisprudence, where [is treated] on the law of nature and of peoples, and likewise different positive laws.

[A VI 4, p677]

     Especially on Roman law and on ecclesiastic law.
     On public law and on fetial law.
     On the best commonwealth.
     Natural theology.
     On the truth of the Christian religion.
     On the concord of Christians and the conversion of gentiles.
     On a society of God-lovers.




NOTES:

1. The title means something like "Yet further" or "Further beyond."
2. The mistake in numbering is Leibniz's.
3. In the margin Leibniz wrote here: "games of nature."
4. The mistake in numbering is Leibniz's.



© Lloyd Strickland 2020