PREFACE.

...I would attempt to demonstrate the predicate, deriving it from the determinations of the subject through legitimate reasoning, and I would try to reduce principles through repeated demonstrations to those that are indemonstrable referring to axioms or basic truths that cannot be proven further; by this very work I learned that in every kind of truth, just as in Mathematics Mathematics original: Mathesis; often used by Wolff to refer to the broader science of quantities and the rigorous logical method used by mathematicians., one eventually arrives at the principles of First Philosophy original: Philosophia prima; synonymous here with Ontology.. Thus, I had no doubt that neither Philosophy, nor much less those things which belong to the commonly called Higher Faculties Higher Faculties In the 18th-century university, these were the professional schools of Theology, Law, and Medicine., can be handed down by a scientific method scientific method original: methodo scientifica; for Wolff, this means a rigorous, demonstrative method where every step is proven from prior certainties. so as to become both certain and useful, until First Philosophy has been reduced to that same form.

Finally, when I first examined with singular zeal the discoveries of mathematicians, both ancient and modern, and then also those of physicists—especially in experimental philosophy the branch of science based on observation and experiment rather than pure reasoning—to see how they were deduced, or at least could have been deduced, from certain other presuppositions through specific analytical techniques; I understood that the general precepts of the Art of Discovery Art of Discovery original: Artis inveniendi; the systematic method for finding new truths or solving problems. must also be demonstrated from ontological notions. In due time, I shall provide eyewitness proof of this when I set forth the Art of Discovery and reduce the famous inventions that currently exist to their own rules. Indeed, when I was forming a certain concept and investigating some examples of the Logic of Probabilities Logic of Probabilities original: Logicae probabilium; a field Leibniz promoted to handle reasoning in situations where absolute certainty is not possible., which Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the great German philosopher and mathematician who was Wolff's mentor and predecessor. several times noted was still missing; I found no less that without ontological notions...