the sure measure of omnipotence," [3] and those who "believe, with
the latter, that the human mind is to the rays of the primal Truth
what a night-bird is to the sun." [4]

[Footnote 3:
"Stimai gia che 'I mio saper misura
Certa fosse e infallibile di quanto
Puo far l'alto Fattor della natura."
Tasso, _Gerus_, xiv. 45.]

[Footnote 4:
"Augel notturno al sole
E nostra mente a' rai del primo Vero."
_Ib_. 46.]

Voltaire pronounced him "le savant le plus universel de l'Europe,"
but characterized his metaphysical labors with the somewhat
equivocal compliment of "metaphysicien assez delie pour vouloir
reconcilier la theologie avec la metaphysique." [5]

[Footnote 5: "On sait que Voltaire n'aimait pas Leibnitz.
J'imagine que c'est le chretien qu'il detestait en lui."
--Ch. Waddington.]

Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebrities, has produced no
other who fulfils so completely the type of the _Gelehrte_,--a type
which differs from that of the _savant_ and from that of the scholar,
but includes them both. Feuerbach calls him "the personified thirst
for Knowledge"; Frederic the Great pronounced him an "Academy of
Sciences"; and Fontenelle said of him, that "he saw the end of things,