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09062_Field_TCGG T827.txt
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1996-03-19
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929b
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16 lines
is impossible for all their works to be preserved. I admit
that, and I do not entirely disapprove those little books in
fashion which are like the flowers of a springtime or like
the fruits of an autumn, scarcely surviving a year. If they
are well made, they have the effect of a useful
conversation, not simply pleasing and keeping the idle out
of mischief but helping to shape the mind and language.
Often their aim is to induce something good in men of our
time, which is also the end I seek by publishing this little
work . . . (110)
Leibniz here envisages the book as the natural successor,
as well as executioner, of scholastic philosophy, which might
yet return. The book as a spur to fame and as the engine of
immortality now seems to him in the utmost danger from “the
indefinite multitude of authors.” For the general run of books