The Priest was preparing a man for his long day's journey into night. Whispering firmly, the Priest said, "Denounce the devil! Let him know how little you think of him!"
The dying man said nothing.
The priest repeated his order.
Still the man said nothing.
The priest asked, "Why do you refuse to denounce the devil and his evil?"
The dying man said, "Until I know for sure where I'm heading, I don't think I ought to aggravate anybody."
Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizDied 14 Nov 1716 at age 70 (born 1 Jul 1646). German philosopher, mathematician and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician, and also distinguished for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. Through meeting with such scholars as Christiaan Huygens in Paris and with members of the Royal Society, including Robert Boyle, during two trips to London in 1673 and 1676, Leibniz was introduced to the outstanding problems challenging the mathematicians and physicists of Europe. Leibniz's independently discovered differential and integral calculus (published 1684), but became involved in a bitter priority dispute with Isaac Newton, whose ideas on the calculus were developed earlier (1665), but published later (1687). |
