Tentamen Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes

Abstract

Leibniz agreed with the Cartesians that natural events are to be explained mechanistically, but he insisted that the consideration of final causes was of significance in the derivation of mechanical laws themselves. As example he submitted a demonstration of the laws of refraction and reflection as a special case, maximally determined, of an infinite number of possible laws. His argument, historically important as the beginning of the famous dispute on the principle of least action in the 18th century, and the revived interest in a principle of the extremum today, was first published in the Acta eruditorum in June, 1682.1 This clear and concise formulation is obviously later. The form and content suggest that it may be a continuation of the Specimen dynamicum (No. 46). The mention of the celebrated brachistochrone problem dates it after June, 1696, however, when John Bernoulli first proposed this problem. The essay remained unpublished until Gerhardt included it in his edition.