THE LIFE

one could boldly say that [his published work] is a small thing in comparison to those projects to which he was putting the finishing touches when death surprised him. For a long time, without being old, he felt all the infirmities of old age, and through constant study, he had rendered himself physically unable to continue studying for much longer (a).

These two Professors Erhard Weigel and Johann Andreas Bose, mentioned on the previous page. were in the prime of their lives and their reputations when Mr. Leibniz arrived at the University of Jena. If one examines with attention the method he followed in all his writings, one will see that it was upon the foundations of Weigel and Bose that he was formed. The sublimity of his genius led him further, it is true; but he always walked along the same paths that these two guides had traced for him.

Mr. Leibniz also takes Law lessons from Falkner.

Mathematics and History The subjects taught by Weigel and Bose respectively. not being sufficient to fill the insatiable curiosity of Mr. Leibniz, he also took lessons from Falkner Johann Friedrich Falkner, a professor of law at Jena., a Professor of Law. This is how he employed his sixteenth year. Returning to his homeland Leipzig, where Leibniz was born and had previously studied. at the start of his seventeenth year, he defended a thesis there under Thomasius Jakob Thomasius (1622–1684), a renowned philosopher and Leibniz's mentor., his former master, and went from there to Brunswick to greet the maternal uncle of whom we have already spoken, and to conclude some family business with him. This trip was not long, and served only to make him resume his work with an ardor—

(a) See regarding Bose, Mr. Fabricius, History of his Library original: "Historia Bibliothecæ suæ", Part V, page 230.