Source:

Sämtliche schriften und briefe series IV volume 7
Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed)
p 863



Date: after June 1690

Translated from the French



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LEIBNIZ: ON STUDIOUS PEOPLE


[A IV 5, p502]

One of the things that surprises me is that studious people who apply themselves intensely to analysis do not yield anything new, for example the late Father Prestet,1 Reverend Father Malebranche's friend. I think this happens in part because they follow too closely the road that others have already taken. One has to deviate from the main road to find something, much like a traveller who goes to Greece to find inscriptions that others have not yet observed.





NOTES:

1. That is, the priest and mathematician Jean Prestet (1648-1690).



© Lloyd Strickland 2021