Life of Godfrey William Von Leibnitz Author:John Milton Mackie, Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1845 Original Publisher: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com wh... more »ere you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. Leibnitz enters the University of Leipsic -- Reads Descartes, and rejects the scholastic philosophy -- Adam Scherzer and Jacob Thomasius -- Pursuits and writings of Leibnitz at the University -- He reads the writings of Lord Bacon, and other modern philosophers -- Becomes a Nominalist -- Enters upon the study of jurisprudence as a profession -- Goes to the University of Jena -- Vosius, and Erhard Weigel -- Leibnitz returns to the University of Leipsic -- Becomes master in philosophy -- Death of his mother -- He visits his relatives i Brunswick -- ; Essays written by him -- He is refused the degree of Doctor of Laws -- 'Esttes himself from Saxony. At the age of fifteen, already a learned scholar and a self-taught thinker, Leibnitz entered the University of his native city. There, as before at the preparatory school, he was principally his own teacher, and adhered to the same methods of investigation which he had already applied with so much success to the study of logic. " Two things," says Leibnitz, in his Fragment of Personal Confessions, " were of special service to me, even from boyhood; first, that I was strictly a self-taught scholar; and secondly, that in the study of every science, even at the outset, and before I had made myself thoroughly acquainted with what was commonly Imown andreceived in it, I sought to make original discoveries. By this course, I secured the advantage of not encumbering my mind with things of no value, which depended on authority, rather than intrinsic merit; and, also, that of never being satisfied until I had...« less