To the tendencies thus manifested toward a just estimation and peaceful reconciliation of opposing standpoints, Leibnitz remained true in all the fields to which he devoted his activity.  Thus, in the sphere of religion, he took an active part in the negotiations looking toward the reunion of the Protestant and Catholic Churches, as well as in those concerning the union of the Lutheran and the Reformed.  Himself a stimulating man, he yet needed stimulation from without.  He was an astonishingly wide reader, and declared that he had never found a book that did not contain something of value.  With a ready adaptability to the ideas of others he combined a remarkable power of transformative appropriation; he read into books more than stood written in them.  The versatility of his genius was unlimited:  jurist, historian, diplomat, mathematician, physical scientist, and philosopher, and in addition almost a theologian and a philologist—­he is not only at home in all these departments, because versed in them, but everywhere contributes to their advancement by original ideas and plans.  In such a combination of productive genius and wealth of knowledge Aristotle and Leibnitz are unapproached.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646 at Leipsic, where his father (Friederich Leibnitz, died 1652) was professor of moral philosophy; in his fifteenth year he entered the university of his native city, with law as his principal subject.  Besides law, he devoted himself with quite as much of ardor to philosophy under Jacob Thomasius (died 1684, the father of Christian Thomasius), and to mathematics under E. Weigel in Jena.  In 1663 (with a dissertation entitled De Principio Individui) he became Bachelor, in 1664 Master of Philosophy, and in 1666, at Altdorf, Doctor of Laws, and then declined the professorship extraordinary offered him in the latter place.  Having made the acquaintance of the former minister of the Elector of Mayence, Freiherr von Boineburg, in Nuremberg, he went, after a short stay at Frankfort-on-the-Main, to the court of the Elector at Mayence, at whose request he devoted himself to the reform of legal procedure, besides writing, while there, on the most diverse subjects.  In 1672 he went to Paris, where he remained during four years with the exception of a short stay in London.  The special purpose of the journey to Paris—­to persuade Louis XIV to undertake a campaign in Egypt, in order to divert him from his designs upon Germany—­was not successful; but Leibnitz was captivated by the society of the Parisian scholars, among them the mathematician, Huygens.  From the end of 1676 until his death in 1716 Leibnitz lived in Hanover, whither he had been called by Johann Friedrich, as court councillor and librarian.  The successor of this prince, Ernst August, who, with his wife Sophie, and his daughter Sophie Charlotte, showed great kindness to the philosopher, wished him to write a history of the princely house of Brunswick; and a journey which he made in order to study for this purpose was extended as far as Vienna and Rome.  Upon his return he took charge of the Wolfenbuettel library in addition to his other engagements.