Leibniz on the limitations of mathematical physics

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/

"I discovered Aristotle as a lad, and even the Scholastics did not repel me; 
even now I do not regret this. 
But then Plato too, and Plotinus, gave me some satisfaction, not to mention 
other ancient thinkers whom 
I consulted later. After finishing the trivial schools, I fell upon the 
moderns, and I recall walking in a grove
on the outskirts of Leipzig called the Rosental, at the age of fifteen, and 
deliberating whether to preserve
substantial forms or not. Mechanism finally prevailed and led me to apply 
myself to mathematics…. 

But when I looked for the ultimate reasons for mechanism, and even for the laws 
of motion, I was greatly 
surprised to see that they could not be found in mathematics but that I should 
have to return to metaphysics. "

Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]
See my Leibniz site at
http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough

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