Stony Brook University

laws of the State, i.e., the laws that regulate the lawmaker in advance of the establishment
of the State.
Leibniz may also have Plato’s Statesman 18 in mind, where the stranger
distinguishes the one true constitution (the city-state ruled by the right exercise of
political power) from mere imitations. The true constitution stands as a normative model
for the laws of any existing state. This succinctly expresses, I think, the overall aim of
Leibniz’s science of jurisprudence in its relation to “facts.” Jurisprudence is a
normatively grounding science designed to regulate the State “in advance” of custom,
positive law, and sovereign power. Thus, it is necessary to establish the essence of the
law, so that the State can be modeled accordingly, rather than on the contingencies of
law, as it happens to develop. This thought that the essence of law must be established a
priori corresponds with a late revision to §1 above: “with this knowledge they commonly
call the distinction between Essence and Existence, and is observed by Plato in the
Republic as the sought-after form, and what is hoped for in the Laws.” 19
For Leibniz, however, the sphere of jurisprudence encompasses much more: not
only does jurisprudence regulate political power but divine power, as well. 20 This is
expressed in his striking claim that “natural theology is a species of jurisprudence.” 21
What can this mean? We must first understand that the faculties of jurisprudence and
theology share a “wonderful similarity,” since both share the same two sources: (1)
reason, the source of natural theology and natural law, and (2) scripture, the source of
positive laws, both divine and human. 22 However, it is crucial to distinguish the grounds
be closely representative of Leibniz’s philosophy of right, law, morals, politics, and psychology: “Mankind
must either give themselves a law and regulate their lives by it, or live no better than the wildest of beasts,
and that for the following reason. There is no man whose natural endowments will ensure that he shall both
discern what is good for mankind as a community and invariably be both able and willing to put the good
into practice when he has perceived it. It is hard, in the first place, to perceive that a true social science
must be concerned with the community, not with the individual—common interest tending to cement
society as private to disrupt it—and that it is to the advantage of community and individual at once that
public well-being should be considered before private. Again, even one who had attained clear perception
of this principle as a point of scientific theory, if subsequently placed in a position of irresponsible
autocratic sovereignty, would never prove loyal to his conviction, or spend his life in the promotion of the
public good of the state as the paramount object to which his own advantage must be secondary. His frail
human nature . . . will be bent beyond all reason on the avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure, and put
both these ends before the claims of the right and the good; in this self-caused blindness it will end by
sinking him and his community with him in the depths of ruin. I grant you readily that if ever, by God’s
mercy, a man were born with the capacity to attain this perception, he would need no laws to govern him.
No law or ordinance whatever has the right to sovereignty over true knowledge [my emphasis]. ‘Tis a sin
that understanding should be any creature’s subject or servant; its place is to be ruler of all, if only it is
indeed, as it ought to be, genuine and free. But, as things are, such insight is nowhere to be met with, except
in faint vestiges, and so we have to choose the second best, ordinance and law” (Laws 875a, c-d).
18
Statesman 297c-e. Busche (p. 406) cites 297e and 300c as possibly relevant to Leibniz’s meaning.
19
A.6.1.293. Z.6: “Hoc vulgo discrimen esse ajunt inter essentiam et existentiam scientiae, notantqve
Platonem in libris de Republica formam optatam, in Legibus sperabiliora exposuisse . . .”
20
This basically reflects Leibniz’s intellectualism, which is a recurring theme throughout his writings, as
we will see.
21
For the full passage, see below.
22
A.6.1.294.§4: “Merito autem partitionis nostrae exemplum à Theologia ad Jurisprudentiam transtulimus,
quia mira est utriusque Facultatis similitudo. Utraque enim duplex principium habet, partim rationem, hinc
Theologia Jurisprudentiaque naturalis . . . partim Scripturam seu librum quendam Authenticum Leges
positivas, illic Divinas, hic Humanas continentem.”
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