Russell and Leibniz on the Classification of Propositions

We owe Russell’s book on Leibniz to a very improbable series of events, of which surely the most improbable of all was that McTaggart was getting married. It was McTaggart who was scheduled to give the lectures on Leibniz that Russell ended up giving at Trinity College, Cambridge during Lent Term of 1899 and it was McTaggart’s marriage that prevented him from giving them. Now getting married (even for McTaggart) would not normally be so traumatic an event as to prevent one from lecturing, butMcTaggart’s brideto- be was a New Zealander.