The essays included in this volume are a mixture of old and new. Three
of them make their first appearance in print on this occa- sion (Nos
III, IV, and V). The remaining four are based upon materials previously
published in learned journals or anthologies. (However, these previously
published papers have been revised and, generally, expanded for
inclusion here.) Detailed acknowl- edgement of prior publications is
made in the notes to the relevant articles. I am grateful to the editors
of these several publications for their kind permission to use this
material. I am grateful to an anonymous reader for the Western Ontario
Series for some useful corrigenda. And I should like to thank John Horty
and Lily Knezevich for their help in seeing this material through the
press. NICHOLAS RESCHER Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania May, 1980 xi
INTRODUCTION The unifying theme of these essays is their concern with
Leibniz's metaphysics of nature. In particular, they revolve about his
cos- mology of creation and his conception of the real world as one
among infinitely many equipossible alternatives.