L. M. Picard asked:
> I have been searching for the most widely quoted of form of "Let us
> calculate". Leibniz is said to have written this in Dissertio de
> Arte Combinatoria, 1666:
>
> If controversies were to arise, "there would be no more need of
> disputation between two philosophers than between two
> accountants. For it would suffice to take their pencils in their
> hands, and say to each other: Let us calculate."
>
> L. M. Picard
S. Probst answered:
> This form of "calculemus" is printed in:
> Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
> (ed. C. J. Gerhardt), Volume 7, Berlin, 1890, p. 200 in a group of
> texts [Vorarbeiten zur allgemeinen Charakteristik], title by
> Gerhardt:
> "... quando orientur controversiae, non magis disputatione opus erit
> inter duos philosophos, quam inter duos Computistas. Sufficiet enim
> calamos in manus sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito
> si placet amico) dicere: c a l c u l e m u s."
> Similar expressions occur in other texts printed in the same volume
> pp. 64-65 and 125.
These 3 texts are now also printed in the recently published:
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, S"amtliche Schriften und Briefe: Reihe VI:
Philosophische Schriften, Volume 4: 1677- Juni 1690, Berlin,
1999, pp. 913, 443, 492-493.
With best regards
Siegmund Probst