as the finest example of how men can learn to know nature by means of experiments and conclusions derived from experiments, they may also serve as an example of how we should neither experiment nor draw conclusions, of how nothing at all can be learned. A miserable kind of experience like this itself contradicts itself through nature, for nature is more excellent than it appears in this wretched experience: both nature itself and experience, when carried a little further, contradict it. Hence, of all the splendid discoveries of Newton in optics, none now remain excepting one—the division of light into seven colours. This is partly because the conception of whole and part come into play, and partly from an obdurate closing of the eyes to the opposite side. From this empirical method in Philosophy, we shall now pass on to Leibnitz. C. THIRD SECTION. The third development of the philosophy of the understanding is that represented by Leibnitz and Wolff. If Wolff’s metaphysics is divested of its rigid form, we have as a result the later popular philosophy. 1. LEIBNITZ. As in other respects Leibnitz represents the extreme antithesis to Newton, so in respect of philosophy he presents a striking contrast to Locke and his empiricism, and also to Spinoza. He upholds thought as against the perception of the English school, and in lieu of sensuous Being he maintains Being for thought to be the essence of truth, just as Boehme at an earlier time upheld implicit Being. While Spinoza asserted the universality, the oneness of substance merely, and while with Locke we saw infinite determinations made the basis, Leibnitz, by means of his fundamental principle of individuality, brings out the essentiality of the opposite aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy, existence for self, the monad, but the monad regarded as the absolute Notion, though perhaps not yet as the “I.” The opposed principles, which were forced asunder, find their completion in each other, since Leibnitz’s principle of individuation completed Spinoza’s system as far as outward aspect goes.