XXIII, 468 ff.: Herder has written an essay on Leibniz in which he reviews the work of the latter under the following heads: _Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz_: (1) _Theologie und Religion_; (2) _Rechtsgelehrsamkeit und Politik_; (3) _Geschichte, Alterthümer, Sprachen_; (4) _Mathematik und Physik_; and (5) _Die erste Philosophie_. Herder’s own comments in certain parts of this series of expositions are important in this connection. 1. _Theology and religion._—Leibniz’ proof of Christianity Herder finds was based upon natural religion; after firmly laying the foundation of this natural religion, one should show the necessity of a revealed religion, then the superior beauty of the Christian religion, surpassing as it does all other religions. Leibniz sees atheism as well as materialism, to say nothing of the disparagement or mockery of Christendom, as the herald of a barbarism with which is bound up the decay of honor and morality. Herder’s comment upon this is: How faithfully have succeeding times proved this to be true! Leibniz, he continues, would rejoice if he could see the Bible so clarified, every one of its books interpreted in the light and spirit of its own time and above all the subtleties foreign to the sense and content of Christianity removed—all this, such as it was in his own day, is Herder’s idea. Important to note here is the return to nature as a foundation for Christianity, and to natural environment for the interpretation of Christian teachings. 2. _Jurisprudence and statesmanship._—Here Herder finds that Leibniz became a real teacher _der Völker_ through his work, _Codex des allgemeinen Völkerrechts_. Just as Leibniz in his opposition to Puffendorf founds man’s natural rights upon eternal principles of right and reason, so he carries these on into the so-called “voluntary rights of peoples” to which he adds in the Christian Republic a divine, positive right. This divine, positive right Herder admits was, in the beginnings of the Christian republic, conceived of as being embodied in the emperor as head of the state. But, says he, Leibniz’ great thought was true; true in the sense that this divine, positive right is that which made itself evident long before the French Revolution. He asks, Does Christendom teach anything other than pure humanity? It must be founded upon humanity which is also Leibniz’ _Codex des Völkerrechts_. It is clear, continues the commentator, that what a nation demands or wishes from another it must also offer; force, faithlessness, and bold arrogance of one toward the other enrage all nations. This _Codex des Völkerrechts_ is written in the breasts of all human beings. Wherever his view was unobstructed, he saw clearly the political relationships of Europe, and prophesied much that followed. The natural rights of mankind to be applied to humanity through states and nations, then, is what Herder notes at this point in Leibniz.