Page:Leibniz as a Politician.djvu/16

 of practical politics; and on this head it is impossible to observe without interest some of us might add without sympathy which among the controversies of lesser moment Leibniz regards as mere matters of phrase and formula; while as to others he shows how not even all Catholics and all Protestants are agreed among themselves, and yet others seem to him to possess intrinsic importance, but not such as to outweigh the blessings of Christian reunion.

Louis XIV, at least, did not choose to fall behind Leopold I by rejecting as impossible a contingency against which, by his approval of the Bishop of Tina's initial proceedings, the Emperor had shown himself unwilling to shut the door. When, therefore, the Duchess Sophia put herself in communication on the subject with her sister, that queer saint the Abbess of Maubuisson near Paris, it was with the knowledge of the King of France that other persons were drawn into the correspondence, and that an exchange of letters ensued between Leibniz and Bossuet which, after being carried on for about four years, was dropped and again taken up for a short time in 1699, partly with the aid of the enthusiasm of Mme. de Brinon.

The earlier part of this correspondence was really little more than a continuous account rendered by Leibniz to Bossuet of the proceedings of Spinola, supplemented by arguments of his own; when, after Spinola's death, it was taken up once more, Leibniz explained in a letter to the Elector, George Lewis (afterwards King George I), why this last opportunity should in his judgment not be rejected. His hopes were small, but it was well to do so much for Christian charity, and if possible to induce the Church of Rome or some representative Roman theologians, to agree to a basis on which posterity might construct the most acceptable scheme of reunion that could be agreed upon, and which would anticipate future attempts at reunions in which everything would be sacrificed. The hope, as we know, was futile; the political horizon, which had