There it stands, legible to this day: and if any of the human species should again think of reading it, I believe it will be found a reasonable, solid and decisive Paper; of steadfast, openly articulate, by no means insolent, tone; considerably modifying Maupertuis's Law of Thrift, or Minimum of Action;--fatal to the claim of its being a 'Sublime Discovery,' or indeed, so far as TRUE, any discovery at all.

[In--Acta Eruditorum--( Lipsiae, 1751):--"De universali Principio AEquilibrii et Motus."-- By no means uncivil to Maupertuis; though obliged to controvert him.

For example:--"Quoe itaque de Minima Actionis in modificationibus modum obtinente in genere proferuntur vehementer laudo;" "continent nempe facundum longeque pulcherrimum Dynamices sublimioris principium, cujus vim in difficillimis quoestionibus soepe expertus fui."-- ] By way of finis to the Paper, there is given, what proves extremely important to us, an Excerpt from an old LETTER OF LEIBNITZ'S; which perhaps it will be better to present here IN CORPORE, as so much turned on it afterwards.

Konig thus winds up:-- "I add only a word, in finishing; and that is, that it appears Mr.
Leibnitz had a theory of Action, perhaps much more extensive than one would suspect at present.

There is a Letter written by him to Mr.
Hermann [an ancient mathematical sage at Basel], where he uses these expressions: 'Action, is not what you think; the consideration of Time enters into it; Action is as the product of the mass by the space and the velocity, or as the time by the VIS VIVA.