The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz (1890)

Abstract

A collection (Duncan ed., 1890) of the short metaphysical writings and letters — to Arnauld, the New System, the correspondences — in which the doctrine of simple substances, pre-established harmony, the principles of sufficient reason and of indiscernibles, and the best-of-all-possible-worlds thesis take shape.

Testo originale inglese · Delphi Classics, 2025 · pubblico dominio

LETTER FROM LEIBNITZ TO ARNAULD IN WHICH HE STATES HIS PERSONAL VIEWS ON METAPHYSICS AND PHYSICS. 1690.

[From the French.]

SIR — I am HOW on the point of returning home after a long journey, undertaken at the order of my prince for the purpose of historical researches, in which I found certificates, titles and indubitable proofs sufficient to justify the common origin of the illustrious houses of Brunswick and Este, which Messrs. Justel, du Cange and others had good reasons for calling in question, because there were contradictions and falsities in the historians of Este in this respect, together with an utter confusion of times and persons. At present I think of returning and resuming my former course of life, and having written to you two years ago shortly before ml departure, I take the same liberty to-day, to inform myself of your health, and to make known to you how the idea of your eminent merit is always present in my mind. When I was at Rome I saw the denunciation of a new heresy attributed to you, or to your friends, and afterwards I saw the letter of reverend Father Mabillon to one of ml friends, in which there was the statement that the defense by the reverend Father Le Tellier of the missionaries against the practical morals of the Jesuits, had given to many people impressions favorable to these Fathers, but that he had heard that you had replied to it and that it was said that you had overthrown by geometrical reasoning the arguments of that Father. All of which leads me to think that you are still in condition to lender service to the public, and I pray God that it may be so for a long time to come. It is true that this is to my interest, but it is a praiseworthy interest which may give me the means of learning, whether it be in common with all others who shall read your works, or personally, when your judgments shall instruct me — if the little leisure you have may permit me again to hope sometimes for that advantage.

As this voyage has in part served to relieve my mind from its ordinary occupations, I have had the satisfaction of conversing on matters of science and erudition with several able men, and I have communicated my personal views, which you know, to some in order to profit by their doubts and difficulties; and there have been some who, not satisfied with the common doctrines, have found an extraordinary satisfaction in some of my views. This has led me to write them down that they may he the more easily communicated, and perhaps I shall cause some copies to be printed some day without my name, merely to send them to my friends in order that I may have their judgment on them. I would like you to be able to examine them first, and for that reason I have made the following abstract:

Body is an aggregate of substances, and not properly speaking one substance. It must he, consequently, that everywhere in body there are found indivisible substances, ingenerable and incorruptible, having something corresponding to souls. That all these substances have always been and always will be united to organic bodies differently transformable. That each of these substances contains in its nature legem continuationis seriei suarum operationmn and all that has happened or will happen to it. That all its actions come from its own depths, except dependence on God. That each substance expresses the entire universe, but one more distinctly than an other, especially each as regards certain things and according to its own point of view. That the union of soul with body, and the operation also of one substance or another consists merely in that perfect mutual accord, expressly established by order of the first creation, in virtue of which each substance following its own laws agrees in what the others demand; and the operations of the one follow or accompany thus the operation or change of the other. That intelligences or souls capable of reflection and of the knowledge of eternal truths and of God, have many privileges which exempt them from the vicissitudes of bodies. That for them moral laws must be added to physical. That all things are made principally for them. That they form together the republic of the universe, of which God is the monarch. That there is a perfect justice and police observed in this city of God, and that there is no wrong action without chastisement, nor good action without proportioned recompense. That the more we come to know things, the more we will find them beautiful and conformed to that which a sage would desire. That we should always be content with the order of the past, because it is conformed to the absolute will of God which is known by the event; but that we must try to render the future as far as it depends on us, conformable to the presumptive will of God or to his commandments; to beautify our Sparta and to labor to do good, without being depressed, however, when success fails, and this in the firm belief that God can discover the times most suited for changes for the better. That those who are not satisfied with the order of things cannot boast of loving God as he should be loved. That justice is but the love of the sage. That love is a universal benevolence which the sage fulfils conformably to the measure of reason, to the end of obtaining lasting contentment, which consists in a continual advance to greater perfection, or at least in the variation of a like degree of perfection.

As regards physics, it is necessary to understand the nature of force, a thing entirely different from motion, which is something more relative. That this force is to be measured by the quantity of effect. That there is an absolute force, a directive force and a respective force. That each of these forces continues in the same degree in the universe, or in each machine not in communication with others, and that the two latter forces, taken together, compose the first or absolute. But that the same quantity of movement Is not preserved, since I show that otherwise the perpetual movement would be all found, and that the effect would be more powerful than its cause.

It is now some time ago that I published in the Leipsic Ada an essay on physics, to find the physical cause of the movements of the stars. I lay down as basis that all movement of a solid in a liquid, taking place in a curved line or the velocity of which is continually changing, comes from the movement of the liquid itself; whence I draw the inference that the stars have conforming but fluid orbits. I have demonstrated an important general proposition, viz: that every body that moves with a circulation which is harmonious (i. e. such that the distances from the center being in arithmetical progression the velocities are in harmonious progression, or reciprocal to the distances), and which furthermore has a paracentric movement, that is, of gravity or of levity as regards the same center (a certain law which this attraction or repulsion keeps), the said body has the areas necessarily as the times, just as Kepler observed among the planets. Then considering ex observationibus, that this movement is elliptic, I find that the laws of paracentric motion, which motion joined to harmonious circulation describes ellipses, must be such that the gravitations are reciprocally as the squares of the distances; i. e. as the illuminations ex sole.

I shall say nothing to you of my calculus of increments or differences, by which I determine the tangents, without eliminating the irrational quantities and fractions even when the unknown quantity is involved in them, and I subject quadratics and the transcendent problems to analysis. And I will not speak either of an entirely new analysis which belongs to geometry and is entirely different from algebra; and still less of some other things on which I have not yet had time to prepare essays. All of which I should like to be able to explain to you in few words, in order to have your opinion, which would be of greatest use to me, on them; if you had as much leisure as I have deference for your judgment. But your time is too precious, and my letter is already sufficiently long. Therefore I close here, and am, sir,

Your obedient and humble servant,

LEIBNITZ.

Venice, March 23, 1690.

LETTER ON THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE ESSENCE OF BODY CONSISTS IN EXTENSION. 1691.

[From the French.]

YOU ASK, SIR, the reasons which I have for believing that the idea of body or of matter is other than that of extension. It is true, as you say, that many able men are to-day of the opinion that the essence of body consists in length, breadth and depth. Nevertheless there are still others who cannot be accused of too much attachment to scholasticism, who are not content with this opinion.

M. Nicole, in a certain place in his Essais, states that he is of this number and it seems to him that there is more of bias than of insight in those who do not appear repelled by the difficulties which are therein encountered.

It would require a very full discourse to explain clearly what I think on the subject. However, here are some considerations which I submit to your judgment, and I beg you to make it known to me.

If the essence of body consisted in extension, this extension alone ought to be sufficient to account for all the properties of body. But this is not so. We notice in matter a quality, called by some natural inertia, by which body resists movement in a certain way; so that it is necessary to employ some force to set it in motion (even making abstraction of the weight), and a large body is moved with more difficulty than a small body. For example:

if body A, in motion, encounters body B, at rest, it is evident that if body B were indifferent to motion or to rest, it would allow itself to be pushed by body A without resisting it, and without decreasing the velocity or changing the direction of body A; and after their meeting A would continue its path and B would go in company with it, preceding it. But it is not thus in nature. The larger body B is, the more it will decrease the velocity with which body A moves, even to compelling it to retrograde if B is much larger than A. Now if there were nothing in bodies but extension, or situation, that is, that which geometricians recognize in them, joined to the one notion of change; this extension would be entirely indifferent respecting this change, and the results of the meeting of bodies would be explained by the mere geometrical composition of movements; that is to say, the body after the meeting would advance with a movement composed of the impression which it had before the shock and of that which it received from the concurrent, in order not to hinder it; that is, in this case of meeting it would go with the difference of the two velocities and from the side of the direction.

As the velocity of 2 A 3 A, or 2 B 3 B, in figure II, is the difference between 1A 2 A and 1B 2B; and in the case of contact, figure III, when the quickest should touch a slower one which precedes it, the slower would receive the velocity of the other, and in general they would proceed always together after the meeting; and in particular, as I said at the beginning, that one which is in motion would carry forward the one in repose, without receiving any diminution of its speed, and without the size, equality or inequality of the two bodies changing in any respect; a thing utterly irreconcilable with experience. And even if we should suppose that size ought to make a change in the movement we should have no principle for determining the means of estimating it in detail, and for knowing the resulting direction and velocity. In any case we should incline to the opinion of the conservation of motion; whereas I believe that I have proved that the same force is preserved, and that its quantity is different from the quantity of the motion.

All this shows that there is in matter something other than what is purely geometrical; that is, than - extension and its change pure and simple. And when we consider it well we perceive that there must he joined to it some higher or metaphysical notion, to wit: that of substance, action and force and that these notions show that everything which suffers must act reciprocally, and that everything which acts must suffer some reaction; and consequently that a body at rest cannot he carried along by another in motion without changing something of the direction and of the velocity of the agent.

I agree that naturally every body is extended, and that there is no extension without body. Nevertheless the notions of place, of space, of pure extension, must not be confounded with the notion of substance which besides extension includes resistance, that is action and passion.

This consideration seems to me important, not only in order to know the nature of extended substance, but also in order not to slight in physics the higher and immaterial principles, to the prejudice of piety. For although I am persuaded that everything takes place mechanically in corporeal nature I do not cease to believe also that even the principles of mechanics, that is, the first laws of motion, have a more exalted origin than that which pure mathematics can furnish. And I imagine that if this were better known or more considered many pious persons would not have such a bad opinion of the corpuscular philosophy, and modern philosophers would better join the knowledge of nature with that of its author.

I do not enlarge upon other reasons touching the nature of body for that would lead me too far.

[Extract from a Letter in Support of what he published in the “Journal des Savans” of June 18, 1691. 1693.]

To prove that the nature of the body does not consist in, extension I made use of an argument explained in the Journal des Savans of June 18, 1691, the gist of which is that we cannot explain by mere extension the natural inertia of bodies; that is, that which causes matter to resist movement, or in other words that which brings it about that a body which is already in motion cannot carry along with it another which is at rest, without being retarded thereby. For extension in itself, being indifferent to movement and to rest, nothing ought to hinder the two bodies from going along together with all the velocity of the first, which it tries to impress upon the second. To this, answer is made in the Journal of July 16th of the same year (as I learned only a short time ago), that really body ought to be indifferent to movement or to rest, supposing that its essence consists only in being extended; but that nevertheless a body impelling another must be retarded by it (not because of extension but because of force), because the same force which was applied to one of the bodies is now applied to both. Now the force which moves one of the bodies with a certain velocity must move the two together with less velocity. It is as if it were said in other words that body, if it consist in extension, ought to be indifferent to motion, but that in reality not being indifferent to it, since it resists that which ought to give it motion, it is necessary to employ, in addition to the notion of extension, that of force. Thus this reply grants just what I wish. And in truth those who are in favor of the system of Occasional Causes have already clearly perceived that force and the laws of motion which depend on it, cannot be drawn from extension alone, and as they have taken for granted that there is only extension in matter, they have been obliged to deny to it force and action and to have recourse to the general cause, which is the pure will and action of God. As to which it may be said that they have very well reasoned ex hypothesi. But the hypothesis has not yet been proved; and as the conclusion appears not to accord in physics, there is more probability for saying that there is a mistake in the hypothesis (which moreover involves many other difficulties), and that there must be recognized in matter something more than what consists in the mere relation of extension; which, like space, is incapable of action and of resistance, these pertaining only to substances. Those who hold that extension itself is a substance reverse the order of words as well as of thoughts. Besides extension, there must be a subject which is extended, that is, a substance to which it belongs to be repeated or continued. For extension signifies only a repetition or continued multiplication of that which is extended; a plurality, continuity and co-existence of parts; and hence extension is not sufficient to explain the nature of the extended or repeated substance, the notion of which is anterior to that of its repetition.

ANIMADVERSIONS ON DESCARTES’ PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY. 1692.

[From the Latin.]

ON ARTICLE 1. As to what is said by Descartes, that we must doubt all things in which there is the least uncertainty, it would be preferable to express it by this better and more expressive precept: We ought to think what degree of acceptance or dissent everything merits; or more simply, We ought to inquire after the reasons of any dogma. Thus the Cartesian wranglings concerning doubt would cease. But perhaps the author preferred παραδοξολογειν, in order that he might excite the listless reader by novelty. But I could wish that he himself had remembered his own precept, or rather, that he had conceived its true force. We shall explain it and its use best by the example of the geometers. It is agreed among them that there are axioms or postulates, on the truth of which all other things rests. We admit these, both because they immediately satisfy the mind and because they are verified by numberless examples; and nevertheless it would be of importance to the perfection of science that they be demonstrated. This, Apollonius and Proclus in olden time and recently Robervallius, among others, have attempted. And certainly just as Euclid wished to demonstrate that two sides of a triangle taken together are greater than the third (as a certain one of the ancients jestingly said, even asses know enough to go after their food by a straight line, not by a roundabout way), because indeed he wished that geometrical truths should rest not on images of the senses but on reasons; so also he could have demonstrated that two right lines (which if extended do not meet) can have only one common point, if he had had a good definition of right. And I know that the demonstrating of axioms is of great use to a true analysis or art of discovery. Thus if Descartes had wished to follow what is best in his precept, he ought to have labored toward demonstrating the principles of the sciences, and to have done in philosophy what Proclus wished to do in geometry where it is less necessary. But it seemed preferable to our author to have applause, rather than to have certainty. Nor would I blame him for being content with probability, if he had not aroused our minds by such a great profession of strictness: but I blame Euclid much less when he makes assumptions without proof, for he maintained that we know that if a few hypotheses are admitted, all else is sure and thus equal to them in trustworthiness. If Descartes or other philosophers had done something similar to this, we would not be troubled. And the skeptics also, who condemn the sciences on the pretext that they use principles not immediately demonstrated, ought to regard this as said to them. I, on the contrary, hold that the geometers ought rather to be praised because they prop up the sciences by these, as it were, pegs, and devise an art of proceeding and of deducing many things from few; for if they had wished to defer the invention of theorems or problems until all axioms or postulates had been demonstrated, we should perhaps to-day have no geometry.

ON ARTICLE 2. For the rest I do not see of what use it is to consider doubtful things as false. This would not be to cast aside prejudices, but to change them. But if fiction is so understood, it must not be abused, as, for example, when later on in Article 8 a paralogism will seem to arise when the distinction of the mind from the body is discussed.

ON ARTICLE 4. Moreover we can neither know nor ought we to desire anything of sensible things than that they harmonize as well among themselves as with indubitable reasons and in such a way that future things may, in a certain degree, be foreseen from past things. Any other truth or reality will be sought in them in vain than that which this vouches for, nor ought skeptics ask anything else nor the dogmatics promise it.

ON ARTICLE 5. We cannot otherwise doubt of mathematical demonstrations except as error may be feared in the reckoning of arithmeticians. This cannot be remedied except by examining the reckoning often, or by different reckonings, confirming proofs being added. This weakness of the human mind, arising from want of attention and of memory, cannot be perfectly removed, and what is adduced by Descartes as a remedy is useless. The same thing suffices as guarantee in other departments which suffices in mathematics; indeed all reasoning, even the Cartesian, however proved or accurate, will yet he subject to this doubt, whatever may finally be thought of any powerful deceptive genius or of the difference between sleep and wakefulness.

ON ARTICLE 6. We have free will not in thinking but in acting. It is not in my will whether honey shall seem to be sweet or bitter, but neither is it in the power of my will whether a theorem proposed to me shall seem true or false, but it is a matter of consciousness alone to consider what seems so. Whoever has affirmed anything is conscious either of a present feeling or reason, or, at least, of a present memory renewing a past feeling or a perception of a past reason; although we are often deceived in this by failure of memory or lack of attention. But consciousness of anything present or past assuredly does not belong to our will. We know that this one thing is in the power of our faculty of will; namely, that it may command attention and zeal, and thus, although it may not make an opinion in us, it can nevertheless indirectly contribute to it. So it happens that often men finally believe that what they wish is true, after they have accustomed the mind to attending most of all to those things which favor it; in which way they bring about that it satisfies not only the will but also consciousness. Cf. Art. 31.

ON ARTICLE 7. I think therefore I am is well remarked by Descartes to be among first truths. But it was but just that he should not neglect others equal to this. In general, therefore, it may be said: Truths are either of fact or of reason. The first of the truths of reason is, as Aristotle rightly observed, the principle of contradiction or, what amounts to the same thing, of identity. First truths of fact are as many as the immediate perceptions, or those of consciousness, so to speak. Moreover not only am I conscious of my thinking but also of my thoughts. Nor is it more certain that I think than that this or that is thought by me. Thus first truths of fact may be not inconveniently referred to these two, I think, and Various things are thought by me. Whence it follows not only that I am but also that I am affected in various ways.

ON ARTICLE 8. This is not valid: “I am able to assume or imagine that no corporeal things exist but I am not able to imagine that I do not exist or that I do not think; therefore I am not corporeal, nor is thought a mode of body.” And I marvel that such an able man could attribute so much to so light a sophism; certainly he adds nothing more in this article. What he brings forward in his Meditations will be examined in its proper place. He who thinks that the mind is corporeal, will not admit that you can affirm that no corporeal things exist; but he will admit this, that you can doubt (as long as you are ignorant of the nature of the mind) whether corporeal things exist or do not exist; and since, nevertheless, you see clearly that your mind does exist, he will concede that this one thing thence follows, namely that you can doubt whether the mind is corporeal; nor will anything further be wrested by any tortures from this argument. But this furnished a handle to the paralogism in Art. 2 above, the liberty being assumed of rejecting what is doubted as if it were false, as if it were admissible to assume that there are no corporeal things because it can be doubted whether they exist, which ought not be conceded. It would be otherwise if we knew the nature of the mind as perfectly as we know its existence, for thus whatever did not appear in it, it would be agreed was not in it.

ON ARTICLE 13. I have already remarked, on Art. 5, that the errors which may arise from want of memory or attention and which occur also in arithmetical calculations (even after a perfect method has been found as in numbers) are recounted here to no purpose, since no art can be devised in which they are not to be feared, especially when the reasoning must be long drawn out; and that therefore we must have recourse to examinations. As for the rest, God seems to be summoned hither for a sort of show or pomp; not to mention that the strange fiction or doubt, whether we are not made to err even in matters most evident, ought to move no one, since the nature of evidence is against it and the experiences and successes of all life are contrary to it. And if ever this doubt could justly be raised, it would be absolutely insuperable; it would confront even Descartes himself and every one else even when presenting the most evident things; this I say, not to mention that it must be known that this doubt is not established by denying; God nor removed by introducing him. For even if there were no God, provided it were possible for us to continue to exist, there would be no reason for our being less capable of truth; and although it be conceded that there is a God, it does not therefore follow that a creature exceedingly fallible and imperfect does not exist, especially when it may be that its imperfection is not native, but perhaps superinduced by a great sin, as Christian theologians teach concerning original sin, yet so that this sin cannot be imputed to God. Moreover although God does not seem to be here aptly introduced, I think, nevertheless, but in a different way, that true knowledge of God is the principle of higher wisdom; for God is not less the first cause than the ultimate reason of things; nor are things known better than from their causes and reasons.

ON ARTICLE 14. The argument for the existence of God drawn from the notion itself of him, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, first, so far as is known, discovered and stated in his extant Liber contra Insipientem. And it was examined here and there by the writers of the scholastic theology and by Aquinas himself, whence Descartes, not without study of it, seems to have borrowed it. This reasoning possesses some beauty but is nevertheless imperfect. The argument amounts to this: Whatever may be demonstrated from the notion of a thing, that can be attributed to the thing. Now from the notion of most perfect or greatest being, existence can be demonstrated. Therefore existence can be attributed to the most perfect being (God), or God exists. The assumption is proved: Most perfect or greatest being includes all perfections, therefore existence also, which undoubtedly is of the number of perfections, since to exist is more or greater than not to exist. Thus far the argument. But if perfection or magnitude had been omitted, the argument might have been constructed even more strictly and more closely in this way. Necessary being exists (or being to whose essence existence belongs, or being of itself exists), as is evident from the terms. Now God is such a being (from the definition of God); therefore God exists. These arguments are valid, provided it be admitted that most perfect or necessary being is possible, and does not imply contradiction, or, what is the same thing, that the essence from which existence follows is possible. But as long as this has not been demonstrated, it certainly ought not to be thought that the existence of God has been perfectly demonstrated by such an argument. And, generally, it ought to be known (as I formerly urged), that from a definition nothing can be safely inferred concerning the thing defined, so long as it is not established that the definition expresses something possible. For if perchance, it implies some hidden contradiction, it might happen that something absurd would be deduced from it. Meanwhile from this argument we become acquainted with this wonderful privilege of the divine nature that provided it be possible it exists of itself, which is not sufficient for proving existence in other things. There only remains for the geometrical demonstration of the divine existence that till possibility of God be demonstrated with accurate severity in geometrical rigor. Meanwhile the existence of that which only lacks possibility receives great faith: as for the rest, that there is some necessary thing is evident from the fact that contingent things exist.

On ARTICLE 18. We have an idea of a most perfect being, and therefore the cause of this idea (that is, the most perfect being) exists. This which is Descartes’ second argument, is even more doubtful than the possibility of God. It is denied also by many of those who with great zeal acknowledge that God is not only possible but that he exists. Nor is it true, what I remember Descartes somewhere says, that when we speak of something, understanding what we say, we have the idea of the thing. For it often happens that we combine incompatibles, as when we think of quickest motion, which is admitted to be impossible and therefore lacks idea; and nevertheless we admit that we speak of this with understanding. Indeed it has been explained by me elsewhere that we often only confusedly think that of which we speak, and are not conscious of an idea existing in our mind unless we understand the thing and resolve it as far as is sufficient.

ON ARTICLE 20. The third argument is burdened with this same vice, as well as others, since it assumes that the idea of the highest perfection of God is in us, and hence it concludes that God exists, since we who have this idea exist.

On ARTICLE 21. From the fact that we now are, it follows that we shall still hereafter be, unless a reason of change exists. So unless it were established elsewhere that we could not even exist unless by favor of God, nothing would be proved for the existence of God from our duration; as if indeed one part of this duration could be wholly independent of the other; which is not to be admitted.

On ARTICLE 26. Although we are finite, we may nevertheless know many things concerning the infinite, as concerning asymptotic lines or those which produced ad infinitum always approach but never meet; concerning infinite spaces not greater than a finite length as respects area; concerning the last members of series which are infinite. Otherwise we should know nothing certain concerning God either. Moreover it is one thing to know something of a thing, another to comprehend the thing, that is, to have in our power whatever lies hidden in the thing.

ON ARTICLE 28. As to what pertains to the ends which God proposed to himself, I clearly think both that those ends of God are to be known and to be investigated with great profit and that contempt of this inquiry is not free from peril or suspicion. And, in general, as often as we see that something has remarkable uses, we may safely assert that among others this end also, namely, that he might furnish these uses, was proposed to God when producing this thing, since he both knew and procured this use of the thing. Elsewhere I have noted and shown by examples that certain hidden physical truths of great moment, which cannot be so easily known through efficient causes, might be disclosed by the consideration of final cause.

ON ARTICLE 30. Even if we admit a perfect substance, which is undoubtedly not the cause of imperfections, the true or fictitious grounds for doubting which Descartes introduced are not thus removed, as I have already noticed, Art. 13.

ON ARTICLES 31, 35. That errors depend more upon the will than upon the intellect, I do not admit. To believe that true which is false or that false which is true when this may be known by investigating, this is to err. So also’ through consciousness or memory certain perceptions or reasons arise, and therefore do not depend on the will except in so far as in some indirect way, and sometimes even unknown to us, it may happen that we seem to ourselves to see those things which we will. Cf. Art. 6. We judge therefore not because we will but because it appears And as for the saying that the will is wider than the intellect, this is more sounding than true; in a word, I may say it is but trappings for the people. We will nothing except it appear to the intellect. The origin of all errors is the same, that which is observed as the reason of errors of reckoning among arithmeticians. For it often happens from a defect of attention or memory that we do what we ought not to do, or leave undone what we ought to do, or think that we have done what we have not done or that we have not done what we have done. So it happens that in reckonings (to which reasoning corresponds in the mind) the right figures are not set down, wrong ones are put down, something is passed over among the things which ought to be taken into account, the method is disturbed. Our mind, indeed, wearied or distracted, does not, for its present operations, sufficiently attend to the matter; or, by an error of memory, it assumes as if formerly proved that which only adheres to us deeply because it has been often inculcated or fixedly regarded or eagerly desired. The remedy also for our errors is the same as that for the errors of reckoning, namely, that we attend to the matter and to the form, that we proceed slowly, that we repeat and vary the operation, that we institute examinations or proofs, that we divide longer reasonings into parts, by which the mind may breathe, and that we confirm each part, as may be, by particular proofs. And since we must in action sometimes be hurried, the great thing is to have acquired presence of mind for one’s self by force of habit, just as those have done who in the midst of tumult and even without writing or calculations are none the less able to compute large numbers, so that the mind is not easily distracted either by the external senses or by its own imaginations or emotions, but always rises above what it is doing and retains the lower of regarding, or, as we commonly say, of turning itself back upon itself, so that presently, in place of an external admonisher it may say, “See what you are doing, say why you are here, the hour passes.” The Germans admirably call this sich begreiffen; the French not less happily, s’aviser, as if it were to warn one’s self, to suggest to one’s self, as the nomenclators suggested to Roman candidates the names and merits of citizens worthy to be taken, as the prompter suggests to the comedian the initial words of the rest of the piece, as a certain youth suggested to Philip, king of Macedon, “Remember you are mortal.” But this turning of the mind, s’aviser, is not in our power nor in the election of our will; on the contrary it must first occur to the intellect, and it depends on the present degree of our perfection. It belongs to the will in advance to strive zealously that the mind be well prepared which is advantageously done both by the consideration of the experiences and losses or dangers of others, and also by the use of our own, but (as is allowable) this is at the risk of the loss of time or at least of a light or ludicrous injury; but at the same time there is the accustoming of the mind to a certain order and method of thinking so that afterwards it may occur, when it is needed, as if voluntarily. There nevertheless are errors which without guilt escape or are not avoided. Where we are In trouble not by defect of judgment but by want of memory or ability we are not so much in error as we are ignorant, for we cannot bring it about that we may either know or remember what we will. That kind of directing the mind suffices by which we tight against lack of attention, and as often as memory repeats to us past proofs which perchance were in reality none, we have a confused recollection which is suspicions; and either we repeat the inquiry if it may be done and the matter is important, or we do not rely on past care unless it is sufficiently tested.

ON ARTICLE 37. The highest perfection of man is not more that he acts freely than that he acts with reason; or rather, both are the same, since the freer one is the less is the use of reason disturbed by the violence of the emotions.

ON ARTICLE 39. To ask whether there is liberty in our will is the same as to ask whether choice is in our will. Free and voluntary mean the same thing. For free is the same as spontaneous with reason; and to will is to be carried to action by a reason perceived by the intellect; moreover the more unconditional the reason is and the less the impulse has of bare and confused perception mixed with it, the freer the action is. To abstain from judgments does not belong to our will but to the intellect suggesting some attention to itself, as has been already said on Art. 35.

ON ARTICLE 40. If anyone thinking that God has preordained all things and nevertheless that he himself is free, and his arguments exhibiting conflict among themselves, makes this one reply, as Descartes orders; namely: that his mind is finite and cannot comprehend such things, he seems to me to reply to the conclusion, not to the argument, and to cut, not to untie, the knot. The question is not whether you comprehend the thing itself, but rather whether you do not comprehend your absurdity on my showing it. There must certainly be a contradiction also in the mysteries of faith not less than in the mysteries of nature. Therefore if you wish to excel as a philosopher, it behooves that you take up the argument, which one of your opponents infers with some appearance of truth from your assertions, and point out the defect in it, which assuredly can al ways be done, unless you have erred.

ON ARTICLES 43, 45, 46. I have elsewhere called attention to the fact that there is no great use in this rule which is laid down, of approving only what is clear and distinct, unless better marks of clear and distinct are brought forward than those which Descartes gave. The rules of Aristotle and the geometers are better, namely: That we should admit nothing, principles (i. e. first truths and hypotheses) of course excepted, unless proved by legitimate argument; legitimate, I say, that is, burdened neither with defect of form nor of matter. But it is a defect of matter if anything except principles or again things proved from principles by legitimate argument, be assumed. But I understand the right form to be not only the common syllogistic form, but also any other predemonstrated which concludes by force of its own disposition; which also the forms of the operations of the arithmeticians and algebraists, the forms of the book-keepers, indeed also, in some degree, the forms of judiciary process, do: for occasionally we are content to proceed with a certain degree of resemblance. Nevertheless the part of logic, especially useful in life for estimating degrees of probability, remains still to be discussed, concerning which not a few things have been noted down by me. On form, compare further what is said on Art. 75.

ON ARTICLES 47, 48. Some one, I know not who (I think it was Comenius), formerly rightly criticized Descartes for promising, Art. 47, summarily to enumerate all simple notions, and yet directly in the following Article 48, he deserts us, and, some being named, he adds: and the like; besides which the larger part of those which he does name are not simple. This is an inquiry of greater moment than is thought.

Ox ARTICLE 50. Truths entirely simple but which nevertheless are not admitted on account of the prejudged opinion of men, we must take especial pains to demonstrate by those more simple.

ON ARTICLE 51. I do not know whether the definition of substance as that which needs the concurrence of God alone to exist is appropriate for any created substance known to us, unless interpreted in some less common meaning. For not only do we need other substances, but we need also much more accidents. Since therefore substance and accident mutually need each other, there is need of other marks for discriminating substance from accident; among which may be this, that although the substance may need some accident it often nevertheless does not need a determinate one but when this one is taken away is content with the substitution of another; the accident, however, not only needs some substance in general but also that one of its own in which it is once present, so that it may not change it. Nevertheless there remain other things to be said elsewhere concerning the nature of substance, of greater moment and of more profound discussion.

ON ARTICLE 52. I confess that there is one principle of substance and one attribute of it, expressing its essence; but I do not know whether it can be explained in words, and those few, so that if you understand individual substance, other kinds of substances may be explained by definitions. But that extension constitutes till common nature of corporeal substance I see asserted by many with great confidence, never proved. Certainly neither motion nor action nor resistance nor passion is thence derived; nor do the laws of nature which are observed in the motion and conjunction of bodies come from the mere notion of extension, as I have elsewhere shown. And indeed the notion of extension is not primitive but resolvable. For it is required in extension that there be a whole continuum, in which many things exist at once. And, to speak farther, to extension indeed, the notion of which is relative, something is required which is extended or continued, as in milk whiteness, in body that itself which makes its essence: the repetition of this (whatever it may be) is extension. And I certainly agree with Huygens (whose opinion in natural philosophy and mathematics is of great weight with me) that the conception of a vacant space and of mere extension is the same; nor in my opinion can mobility itself or αντιτυπια be understood of mere extension but of the subject of extension, by which place is not only constituted but also tilled.

ON ARTICLE 54. I do not remember that as yet it has been perfectly demonstrated either by our author or by his partisans that thinking substance is devoid of extension or extended substance of thought, so that thence it is evident that the one attribute is not required for the other in the same subject nor indeed can consist with it. Nor is this surprising; for the author of the book, Search After Truth (in which some excellent things are said), correctly remarks that no distinct notion of thought is offered by the Cartesians, and thus it is not strange if what is involved in it is not clear to them.

ON ARTICLES 60, 61. To deny a real distinction between modes is not a necessary change of the received use of words. For hitherto it has been held that modes exist between things, and they have been seen to really differ, as a spherical wax figure from a square one; certainly there is a true change from one figure to the other, and thus it has a real foundation.

Ox ARTICLE 63. To conceive thought and extension as the thinking substance itself or the extended substance itself seems to me neither right nor possible. This device is suspicions and like that by which doubtful things were commanded to be considered false. Minds are prepared by these distortions of things for pertinacity and for false reasonings.

Ox ARTICLES 65 TO 68. Descartes performed a useful service after the ancients in eradicating that prejudice by which we regard heat, color and other phenomena as something outside of us; when it is evident that what seemed very hot is soon felt by the same hand to be tepid; and he who observes a green color in a pulverized mixture, his eye being presently assisted, no longer perceives a green color but a mixture of yellow and blue, and, with a better equipment or other experiences or reasons, the causes of these two may be perceived; from which it appears that no such thing exists outside of us, the phantasm of which hovers before our imagination. We are ordinarily like boys who are persuaded that a golden pot is to be found at the very end of the rainbow where it touches the earth, which in vain they try to find by running.

Ox ARTICLES 71 TO 74. On the causes of errors we have said something above, on Arts. 31 and 35. From these also the reason for the present ones may be given. For the prejudices of infancy have to do with unproved assertions. Fatigue, moreover, lessens attention; and ambiguity of words belongs to the abuse of signs and makes an error in form; and thus it is as if (as the German proverb says) X were put in place of V in a calculation, or as if a quack doctor in a prescribed formula should select sandarach instead of dragon’s blood.

Ox ARTICLE 75. It seems to me fair that we should give to the ancients each one his due, nor by a silence, malignant and injurious to ourselves, conceal their merits. Those things which Aristotle prescribed in his Logic, although not sufficient for discovery are nevertheless almost sufficient for judging; at least where he treats of necessary consequences; and it is important that the conclusions of the human mind be established as if by certain mathematical rules. And it has been noted by me that those who admit false reasonings in serious things oftener sin in logical form than is commonly believed. Thus in order to avoid all errors there is need of nothing else than to use the most common rules of logic with great constancy and severity. But since the complication of things often does not admit of this pedantry, we hence furnish, in the sciences and in things to be done, certain special logical forms, which ought to be demonstrated beforehand by those general rules; the nature of each subject being taken into account; just as Euclid had a certain logic of his own concerning conversions, compositions, divisions of reasons, established first in the special book on elements, and afterwards ruling in the whole geometry. And thus brevity and certainty are at once regarded; and the more there are of these, the more there is of science and of whatever there is that is refined. Those things are to be added which we have noted on Articles 43 et seq. concerning reasonings which are said to be made in form and which extend farther than is commonly believed.

ON PART II.

ON ARTICLE 1. The argument by which Descartes seeks to demonstrate that material things exist is weak; it were better therefore not to try. The gist of the argument is this: The reason why we believe in material things is external to us, and hence either from God or from another or from things themselves; not from God, if no things exist, for he would be a deceiver; not from another, this he has forgotten to prove; therefore from themselves, therefore they themselves exist. It might be replied, that a sensation may be from an other than God, who as he permits all other evils for certain weighty reasons’ so may permit this deceiving of us without having the character of a deceiver, especially as it is joined with no injury, since it would rather be unpleasant to us not to be deceived. Besides the deception therein, which the argument conceals, is that it may be that the perceptions are from God or from another but that the judgment (concerning the cause of the sensation, whether it be from a real object outside of us), and hence the deception, comes from ourselves. Just as happens also when colors and other things of this sort are considered as real objects. Besides souls might have merited by previous sins that they lead this life full of deception where they snatch at shadows for things; to which the Platonists do not seem to be averse, to whom this life seemed as a sleep in the cave of Morpheus, the mind being demented by Lethean draughts before it came thither.

ON ARTICLE 4. That body consists in extension alone Descartes tries to demonstrate by an enumeration of the other attributes which he removes, but it ought to have been shown that the enumeration is sufficient; then not all are well removed, certainly those who admit atoms, that is bodies of greatest hardness, denied that hardness consists in this, namely, that the body does not yield to the motion of the hands, but rather in this, that it preserves its form. And those who place the essence of body in αντιτυπια, or impenetrability, do not derive its notion from our hands or senses but from the fact that it does not give place to another homogeneous body unless it itself can go elsewhere. Just as if we imagine that against a cube there run six other cubes precisely similar to and resembling the first, so that each one of them with one of its sides accurately coincides with one side of the intercepting cube; on this supposition it would be impossible for either the intercepting cube itself or a part of it to be moved, whether it be understood as flexible or as rigid. But if that middle cube be held to be penetrable extension or empty space then the six concurring cubes will oppose their angles to each other mutually; if however they are flexible, nothing will prevent the middle parts of these from breaking into the intercepting cubical space. Whence also we understand what is the difference between hardness, which belongs to certain bodies, and impenetrability, which belongs to all; which latter Descartes ought to have remembered not less than hardness.

ON ARTICLES 5, 6, 7. Descartes has excellently explained that rarefaction and condensation such as we perceive by the senses may take place although neither interspersed vacuum nor a change of dimensions of the same part of matter be admitted.

ON ARTICLES 8 TO 19. Not a few of those who defend a vacuum consider space as a substance, nor can they be refuted by the Cartesian arguments; other principles are needed to end this dispute. They will admit that quantity and number do not exist outside of the things to which they are attributed, but they will deny that space or place is quantity of body, and they will rather believe that it has quantity or capacity and that body is equal to it in content. Descartes had to show that internal space or place does not differ from the substance of body. Those who are contrary minded will defend themselves by the common notion of mortals who think that body succeeding body passes over the same space and the same place which has been deserted by a previous body; but this cannot be said if space coincides with the substance itself of body. Although to have a certain situation or to be in a given place is an accident of body they will nevertheless no more admit that place itself is an accident of body than that as contact is an accident, so also what is touched is an accident. And indeed Descartes seems to me not so much to bring forward good reasons for his own opinion as to reply to opposing arguments; which in this place he does not unskillfully. And he often employs this artifice in place of demonstration. But we expected something more and if I am not mistaken we were commanded to expect more. To nothing, it must be confessed, there is no extension, and this may be rightly hurled against those who make space an imaginary something. But those to whom space is a substance are not affected by this argument; they would indeed be affected if Descartes had shown above, what he here assumes, that every extended substance is body.

ON ARTICLE 20. The author does not seem satisfactorily to oppose atoms. Their defenders concede that they may be divided as well in thought as by divine power. But whether bodies which have a firmness inseparable to the forces of nature (which is the true notion of atom among them) can exist naturally, is a question which Descartes (what I wonder at) does not even touch upon in this place, and nevertheless he here declares that atoms have been overthrown by him, and he assumes it in the whole course of his work. We shall have more to say on atoms on Article 54.

ON ARTICLES 21, 22, 23. That the world has no limits of extension and thus can only be one, then that all matter everywhere is homogeneous and is not distinguished except by motions and figures, are opinions which are here built upon the proposition, which is neither admitted by all nor demonstrated by the author, that extension and body are the same thing.

ON ART. 25. If motion is nothing but change of contact or immediate vicinity, it follows that it can never be determined which thing is moved. For as in astronomy the same phenomena are presented in different hypotheses, so it is always permissible to ascribe real motion to either one or other of those bodies which change among themselves vicinity or situation; so that one of these bodies being arbitrarily chosen as if at rest or, for a given reason moving in a given line, it may be geometrically determined what motion or rest must be ascribed to the others so that the given phenomena may appear. Hence if there is nothing in motion but this respective change, it follows that no reason is given in nature why motion must be ascribed to one thing rather than to others. The consequence of this will be that there is no real motion. Therefore in order that a thing can he said to be moved, we require not only that it change its situation in respect to others, but also that the cause of change, the force or action, be in it itself.

[The remarks on the rest of the book, excepting those on Articles 45 and 64. are omitted here as being of little philosophical interest. They treat principally of Descartes’ opinions as to the laws of motion.]

ON ARTICLE 45. Before I undertake to examine the special laws of motion laid down by our author, I will give a general criterion, or Lydian stone as it were, by which they may be examined, which I am accustomed to call the law of continuity. I have recently explained it elsewhere, but it must be repeated here and amplified. Certainly when two hypotheses or two different data continually by turns approach until at length one of them ends in the other, it must be also that the quaesita aut eventa of both by turns continually approach one another, and finally, that one vanishes in the other, and vice versa. Thus it is with ellipses one focus of which remains unmoved, if the other focus recedes from it more and more, then the new ellipses which are thus produced will continually approach a parabola and finally wholly vanish in it, since Indeed the distance of the receding focus will have become immeasurable. Whence both the properties of Inch ellipses will approach more and more to the properties of a parabola so far even that they finally vanish in them, and also a parabola may be considered as an ellipse one focus of which is infinitely distant, and hence all the properties of ellipses may he also verified of a parabola as if of such an ellipse. And indeed geometry is full of examples of this kind; but nature, the most wise Author of which employs the most perfect geometry, observes the same, otherwise no ordered progress would be preserved in it. Thus motion gradually decreasing finally vanishes into rest, and inequality continually diminished ends in true equality, so that rest in ay be regarded as infinitely slight motion or as infinite slowness, and equality as Infinitely slight inequality; and for this reason whatever may be demonstrated either of motion in general or of inequality in general must also according to this interpretation be verified of rest or of equality, so that the law of rest or of equality may in a certain way be conceived as a special case of the law of motion or of inequality. But if this does not follow, it must be considered as certain that the rules are awkward and badly conceived.

ON ARTICLE 64. The author closes the Second and General Part concerning the principles of material things with a certain admonition which seems to me to need restriction. He says truly that in order to explain the phenomena of nature there is no need of other principles than those found in abstract mathematics or in the theory of magnitude, figure and motion. Nor does he recognize any other matter than that which is the subject of geometry. I indeed fully assent that all the special phenomena of nature can be explained mechanically if they are sufficiently examined by us, nor can the causes of material things be understood in any other way. But I think also that this ought to be repeatedly considered, that the very mechanical principles and hence the general laws of nature are derived from higher principles, nor can they be explained by the mere consideration of quantity and of that which is geometrical, but that there is rather in them something metaphysical, independent of the notions which the imagination presents and which must be referred to a substance destitute of extension. For in addition to extension and its variations there is in matter force itself or power of acting which forms a transition from metaphysics to nature, from material things to immaterial. This force has its own laws derived from principles not of mere absolute and, so to speak, brute necessity as in mathematics but of perfect reason. But these being embraced together in a general discussion, afterwards when a reason is given for the phenomena of nature, all can be explained mechanically, and as vainly as fundamental (archaei) perceptions and desires, and operating ideas, and forms of substances, and souls also are then employed, so vainly would we call in the universal cause of all, as a Deus ex machina, to explain each natural thing by his simple will, which I remember the author of Philosophia Mosaica does, the words of Sacred Scripture being badly understood. He who will consider this properly will hold a middle position in philosophy and will satisfy theology no less than physics, and he will understand that it was not so much a sin of the schoolmen to hold the doctrine of intelligible forms as to apply it as they did, at the time when the inquiry was rather of the modifications and instruments of substance and its manner of acting, that is, its mechanism. Nature has as it were an empire within an empire, and so to say a double kingdom, of reason and of necessity, or of forms and of particles of matter; for just as all things are full of spirits, so also they are full of organized bodies. These realms without confusion between them are governed each by its own law, nor is the reason of perception and of desire in the modifications of extension, any more than the reason of nutrition and of other organic functions are to be found in forms or spirits. But this highest substance, which is the universal cause of all, brings it about by his infinite wisdom and power that these two very different series are referred to the same corporeal substance and perfectly harmonize between themselves just as if one was controlled by the influence of the other; and if you observe the necessity of matter and the order of efficient powers, you observe that nothing happens without a cause satisfying the imagination and except on account of the mathematical laws of mechanism; or if you regard the circle of ends as a golden chain and of forms as an intelligible world, the apexes of ethics and of metaphysics being joined in one on account of the perfection of the supreme author, you notice that nothing can be done without the highest reason. For GOD and eminent form and first efficient are the same, and he is the end or final reason of things. Moreover it is our part to reverence his footprints in things, and not only to admire his instruments in operating and the mechanical cause of material things, but also the higher uses of admirable ingenuity, and as we recognize God as the architect of bodies so also to recognize him especially as the king of minds and his intelligence as ruling all things for the best, which constitutes the most perfect Republic of the Universe under the most powerful and wisest of Monarchs. Thus in the particular phenomena of nature and in the connection of each consideration, we shall consult equally utility of life and perfection of mind, and wisdom no less than piety.

LEIBNITZ’S REPLY TO THE EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF M. FOUCHER, CANON OF DIJON, PUBLISHED IN THE “JOURNAL” OF MARCH 10. 1693.

[From the French.]

ONE OUGHT TO be very glad, sir, that you give a reasonable meaning to the doubt of the Academicians. It is the best apology that you could make for them. I shall be charmed to see sometime their views digested and made clear by your pains. But you will be obliged from time to time to lend them some ray of your light, as you have begun to do.

It is true that I wrote two little discourses, twenty years ago, one on the theory of abstract motion, wherein I considered it as outside of the system, as if it were a thing purely mathematical; the other on the hypothesis of concrete and systematic motion, such as really is met with in nature. There may he some good in them since you with others judge so. However there are many points on which I believe that I am better instructed at present, and among others I explain to-day indivisibles in an entirely different way. That was the attempt of a young man who had not yet fathomed mathematics. The laws of abstract motion which I gave at that time would really hold good if there was nothing else in body but what is conceived there according to Descartes and even according to Gassendi. But as I have found that nature treats body quite differently as regards motion it is one of my arguments against the received notion of the nature of body, as I have indicated in the Journal des Savons of June 2, 1692.

As regards indivisibles, when by that word is understood simple extremities of time or of line, new extremities could not be conceived in them, nor actual nor pretended parts. Thus points are neither large nor small, and there needs no leap to pass them. However, although there are such indivisibles everywhere, continuity is not composed of them, as the objections of the sceptics appear to suppose. In my opinion these objections have nothing insurmountable about them, as will be found by reducing them to form. Gregory of St. Vincent has well shown by the calculations even of divisibility ad infinitum, the place where Achilles ought to overtake the tortoise which precedes him, according to the proportion of velocities. Thus geometry serves to dissipate these apparent difficulties.

I am so much in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that it affects it everywhere in order better to mark the perfections of its author. So I believe that there is no part of matter which is not, I do not say divisible, but actually divided; and consequently the least particle must be regarded as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE ABBE NICAISE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESCARTES. 1793.

[From the French.]

I HONOR EXCEEDINGLY the Bishop d’Avranches, and I beg you, sir, to give him my respects when occasion offers. One of my friends in Bremen having sent me the book of Herr Swelling, professor there, against the censure of that illustrious prelate, in order to have my opinion of it, I replied that the best answer that the Cartesians could make would be to profit by the advice of d’Avranches; to emancipate themselves from the spirit of sect, always contrary to the advancement of the sciences; to unite to the reading of the excellent works of Descartes that of some other great men, ancient and modern; not to despise antiquity, whence Descartes has taken a good part of his best thoughts; to give themselves to experiments and to demonstrations in place of those general reasonings which serve but to support idleness and to cover up ignorance; to try to make some advance and not to content themselves with being simple paraphrasera of their master, and not to neglect or despise anatomy, history, the languages, criticism, for want of knowing their importance and value; not to imagine that we know all that is necessary or all we may hope to; finally, to be modest and studious, in order not to draw upon themselves this apt saying: Ignorantia inflat. I shall add that I do not know how or by what star, the influence of which is the enemy of every sort of secret, the Cartesians have done almost nothing that is new, and that almost all the discoveries have been made by persons not of the sect. I know but the little pipes of M. Rohault, which do not deserve the name of a Cartesian discovery. It seems that those who attach themselves to a single master abase themselves by this kind of slavery and conceive almost nothing except in imitation of him. I am sure that if Descartes had lived longer he would have given us many important things. This shows us either that it was rather his genius than his method, or else that he has not published his method. In fact I remember having read in one of his letters that he intended simply to write a discourse on his method, and to give some examples of it; but that he had no intention of publishing it. Thus the Cartesians who think that they have the method of their master deceive themselves very much. Nevertheless, I imagine that this method was not so perfect as we are made to believe. I think so from his geometry. This is, without doubt, his strong point; nevertheless we know to-day that it is very far from going as far as it ought to go and as he said it went. The most important problems need a new sort of analysis entirely different from his, examples of which I myself have given. It seems to me that Descartes did not sufficiently penetrate the important truths of Kepler on astronomy which the course of time has verified. His “Man” is very different from the true man, as M. Stenon and others have shown it to be. The knowledge he had of salts and chemistry was very meagre; this is the reason that what he says thereon, as well as on minerals, is mediocre. The metaphysics of this author, although it has some fine traits is intermingled with great paralogisms, and has some very weak passages. I have discovered the source of his errors as to the laws of motion, and although I esteem very highly his physics it is not because I regard it as true, except in some particular things, but because I consider it as an admirable model and as an example of what could and ought now to be produced on principles more solid than experiments have thus far furnished us with. In a word, I esteem Descartes very highly, but very often it is not permitted me to follow him. I have in the past made remarks on the first and second parts of his “Principles.” The parts comprise, in epitome, his general philosophy, in which I have most often been obliged to separate myself from him. The following parts come to the detail of nature, which is not yet so easily explained. This is why I have not yet touched it. But I do not know how I have been insensibly led to entertain you so long on this subject.

ON THE REFORM OF METAPHYSICS AND OF THE NOTION OF SUBSTANCE. 1694.

[From the Latin.]

I SEE THAT most of those who devote themselves with pleasure to the study of mathematics entertain a dislike for that of metaphysics because in the former they find clearness and in the latter obscurity. I think that the principal reason of this is that general notions, which are believed to be perfectly known by all, have become ambiguous and obscure by the negligence of men and by the inconsistency of their thoughts, and that what are ordinarily given as definitions are not even nominal definitions, because they explain absolutely nothing. And it is not to be wondered at that this evil has spread into the other sciences, which are subordinate to this first and architectonic science. Thus we have subtile distinctions in place of clear definitions, and in place of truly universal axioms we have general rules which are more often broken by exceptions than supported by examples. And yet men by a sort of necessity frequently make use of metaphysical terms, and flatter themselves that they understand what they have learned to say. And it is manifest that the true and fruitful meanings not only of substance but also of cause, of action, of relation, of similarity and most other general terms, he for the most part hidden. Whence it is not surprising that this queen of the sciences, which is called first philosophy and which Aristotle defined as the science desired or to be sought for remains to-day in the number of the sciences sought. Plato, it is true, often in his Dialogues inquires into the value of notions; Aristotle does the same in his books entitled Metaphysics; nevertheless, without much apparent profit. The later Platonists fall into monstrosities of language, and the disciples of Aristotle, especially the Scholastics, were more desirous of raising questions than of answering them. In our day some illustrious men have also devoted themselves to the first philosophy, but up to the present time without much success. It cannot be denied that Descartes brought to it many excellent things; that he has above all the merit of having renewed Platonic study by turning the mind away from the things of sense and of having afterwards employed usefully academic scepticism; but soon, by a sort of inconsistency or of impatience to affirm, he was led astray, no longer distinguishing the certain from the uncertain, and hence making the nature of corporeal substance incorrectly consist in extension and holding a false conception of the union of the soul and the body, the cause of which was that the nature of substance in general was not understood. For he had proceeded at a bound, as it were, to the solution of the gravest questions, without having explained the notions which they implied. Hence, nothing shows more clearly how far his metaphysical meditations are removed from certainty than the writing in which, at the prayer of Mersenne and others, he vainly tried to clothe them with a mathematical garb. I see also that other men gifted with rare penetration have broached metaphysics and treated some parts of it with profoundness, but enveloping them with so much obscurity that they appear to surmise rather than to prove. But metaphysics, it seems to me, has more need of clearness and certainty than even the mathematics, because the latter carry with them their proofs and corroborations which is the principal cause of their success; whereas in metaphysics we are deprived of this advantage. Therefore a certain particular plan is necessary in exposition which, like the thread in the Labyrinth, serves us, no less than the method of Euclid, for resolving our problems after the manner of calculus, preserving, nevertheless, always the clearness which even in common conversation should not be sacrificed.

How important these things are is apparent, especially from the notion of substance which I give, because it is so fruitful that from it first truths, even those which concern God and souls and the nature of bodies, follow; truths in part known but not sufficiently proved; in part unknown up to this time but which would be of the greatest usefulness in the other sciences. To give a foretaste of them, it is sufficient for me to say that the idea of energy or virtue, called by the Germans kraft, and by the French la force, and for the explanation of which I have designed a special science of dynamics, adds much to the understanding of the notion of substance. For active force differs from the bare power familiar to the schools, in that the active power or faculty of the scholastics is nothing else than the possibility ready to act, which has nevertheless need, in order to pass into action, of an external excitation, and as it were of a stimulus. But active force includes a sort of act, which is midway between the faculty of acting and the action itself, and involves an effort, and thus of itself passes into operation; nor does it need aid other than the removal of impediments. This may be illustrated by the example of a heavy hanging body straining the rope which sustains it, or a tense bow. For although gravity or elastic force may and must be explained mechanically from the motion of ether, nevertheless the final reason of motion in matter is the force impressed upon it at the creation, a force inherent in every body, but which is variously limited and confined in nature by the very meeting of bodies. I say, then, that this property of acting resides in every substance, that always some sort of action is born of it; and that, consequently, corporeal substance, no less than spiritual, never ceases to act; a truth which those who place its essence in mere extension or even in impenetrability, and who have imagined that they conceived of body absolutely at rest, seem not to have sufficiently understood. It will appear also from our meditations that a created substance receives from another created substance, not the force itself of acting but only the limits and determination of an already pre-existent tendency or virtue of acting. I omit here other considerations useful for the solution of the difficult problem concerning the mutual operation of substances.

A NEW SYSTEM OF NATURE, AND OF THE INTERACTION OF SUBSTANCES, AS WELL AS OF THE UNION WHICH EXISTS BETWEEN THE SOUL AND THE BODY. 1695.

[From the French.]

1. I CONCEIVED this System many years ago and communicated it to some learned men, and in particular to one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of our time, who, having been informed of some of my opinions by a very distinguished person, had found them highly paradoxical. When, however, he had received my explanations, he withdrew his condemnation in the most generous and edifying manner; and, having approved a part of my propositions, he ceased censuring the others with which he was not yet in accord. Since that time I have continued my meditations as far as opportunity has permitted, in order to give to the public only thoroughly examined views, and I have also tried to answer the objections made against my essays in dynamics, which are related to the former. Finally, as a number of persons have desired to see my opinions more clearly explained, I have ventured to publish these meditations although they are not at all popular nor fit to be enjoyed by every sort of mind. I have been led to do this principally in order that I might profit by the judgments of those who are learned in these matters, inasmuch as it would be too inconvenient to seek and challenge separately those who would be disposed to give the instructions which I shall always be glad to receive, provided the love of truth appears in them rather than passion for opinions already held.

2. Although I am one of those who have worked very hard at mathematics I have not since my youth ceased to meditate on philosophy, for it always seemed to me that there was a way to establish in it, by clear demonstrations, something stable. I had penetrated well into the territory of the scholastics when mathematics and modern authors induced me while yet young to withdraw from it. Their fine ways of explaining nature mechanically charmed me; and, with reason, I scorned the method of those who employ only forms or faculties, by which nothing is learned. But afterwards, when I tried to search into the principles of mechanics to find proof of the laws of nature which experience made known, I perceived that the mere consideration of an extended mass did not suffice and that it was necessary to employ in addition the notion of force, which is very easily understood although it belongs to the province of metaphysics. It seemed to me also that the opinion of those who transform or degrade animals into simple machines, notwithstanding its seeming possibility, is contrary to appearances and even opposed to the order of things.

3. In the beginning, when I had freed myself from the yoke of Aristotle, I occupied myself with the consideration of the void and atoms, for this is what best fills the imagination; but after many meditations I perceived that it is impossible to find the principles of true ‘unity in mere matter, or in that which is only passive, because there everything is but a collection or mass of parts ad infinitum. Now, multiplicity cannot have its reality except from real unities, which originate otherwise and are entirely different things from the points of which it is certain the continuum could not be composed. Therefore, in order to find these real unities I was compelled to resort to a formal atom, since a material being could not be at the same time material and perfectly indivisible, or in other words, endowed with true unity. It became necessary, therefore, to recall and, as it were, reinstate the substantial forms, so decried now-a-days, but in a way to render them intelligible, and distinguish the use which ought to be made of them from the abuse which had befallen them. I found then that their nature is force and that from this something analagous to sensation and desire results, and that therefore it was necessary to conceive them similarly to the idea which we have of souls. But as the soul ought not to be employed to explain the details of the economy of the animal body, likewise I judged that it was not necessary to employ these forms to explain particular problems in nature although they are necessary in order to establish true general principles. Aristotle calls them the first entelechies. I call them, perhaps more intelligibly, primitive forces which contain in themselves not only the act or complement of possibility, but also an original activity.

4. I saw that these forms and these souls ought to be indivisible, just as much as our mind, as in truth I remembered was the opinion of St. Thomas in regard to the souls of brutes. But this innovation renewed the great difficulties in respect to the origin and duration of souls and of forms. For every simple substance which has true unity cannot begin or end except by miracle; it follows, therefore, that it cannot begin except by creation, nor end except by annihilation. Therefore, with the exception of the souls which God might still be pleased to create expressly, I was obliged to recognize that the constitutive forms of substances must have been created with the world, and that they must exist always. Certain scholastics, like Albertus Magnus and John Bacon, had also foreseen a part of the truth as to their origin. And the matter ought not to appear at all extraordinary for only the same duration which the Gassendists accord their atoms is given to these forms.

5. I was of the opinion, nevertheless, that neither spirits nor the rational soul, which belong to a superior order and have incomparably more perfection than these forms implanted in matter which in my opinion are found everywhere — being in comparison with them, like little gods made in the image of God and having within them some rays of the light of divinity, ought to be mixed up indifferently or confounded with other forms or souls. This is why God governs spirits as a prince governs his subjects, and even as a father cares for his children; while he disposes of the other substances as an engineer manipulates his machines. Thus spirits have peculiar laws which place them above the changes which matter undergoes, and indeed it may be said that all other things are made only for them, the changes even being adapted to the felicity of the good and the punishment, of the bad.

6. However, to return to ordinary forms or to material souls [ames brutes], the duration which must be attributed to them in place of that which had been attributed to atoms, might raise the question as to whether they pass from body to body, which would be metempsychosis — very like the belief of certain philosophers in the transmission of motion and of the species. But this fancy is very far removed from the nature of things. There is no such passage; and here it is that the transformations of Swammerdam, Malpighi and Leewenhoeck, who are the best observers of our time, have come to my aid and have made me admit more easily that the animal and every other organized substance does not at all begin when we think it does, and that its apparent generation is only a development and a sort of augmentation. Also I have noticed that the author of the Search after Truth [i.e. Malebranche], Rigis, Hartsoeker and other able men, have not been far removed from this opinion.

7. But the most important question of all still remained: What do these souls or these forms become after the death of the animal or after the destruction of the individual of the organized substance? It is this question which is most embarrassing, all the more so as it seems unreasonable that souls should remain uselessly in a chaos of confused matter. This obliged me finally to believe that there was only one reasonable opinion to hold, namely, that not only the soul but also the animal itself and its organic machine were preserved, although the destruction of its gross parts had rendered it so small as to escape our senses now just as much as it did before it was born. Also there is no person who can accurately note the true time of death, which can be considered for a long time solely as a suspension of visible actions, and indeed is never anything else in mere animals; witness the resuscitation of drowned flies after being buried under pulverized chalk, and other similar examples, which make it sufficiently clear that there would be many more resuscitations and of far more intricacy if men were in condition to set the machine going again. And apparently it was of something of this sort that the great Democritus, atomist as he was, spoke, although Pliny makes sport of the idea. It is then natural that the animal having, as people of great penetration begin to recognize, been always living and organized, should so remain always. And since, therefore, there is no first birth nor entirely new generation of the animal, it follows that there will be no final extinction nor complete death taken in its metaphysical rigor, and that in consequence instead of the transmigration of souls there is only a transformation of one and the same animal, according as its organs are folded differently and more or less-developed.

8. Nevertheless, rational souls follow very much higher laws and are exempt from all that could make them lose the quality of being citizens in the society of spirits, God having planned for them so well, that all the changes in matter cannot make them lose the moral qualities of, their personality. And it can be said that everything tends to the perfection not only of the universe in general but also of those creatures in particular who are destined to such a measure of happiness that the universe finds itself interested therein, by virtue of the divine goodness which communicates itself to each one, according as sovereign wisdom permits b. As regards the ordinary body of animals and of other corporeal substances, the complete extinction of which has up to this time been believed in, and the changes of which depend rather upon mechanical rules than upon moral laws, I remarked with pleasure that the author of the book On Diet, which is attributed to Hippocrates, had foreseen something of the truth when he sail in express terms that animals are not born and do not die, and that the things which are supposed to begin and to perish only appear and disappear. This was also the opinion of Parmenides and of Melissus, according to Aristotle, for these ancients were more profound than is thought.

9. I am the best disposed in the world to do justice to the moderns; nevertheless I think they have carried reform too far, for instance, in confounding natural things with artificial, for the reason that they have not had sufficiently high ideas of the majesty of nature. They conceive that the difference between its machines and ours is only that of large to small. This caused a very able man, author of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, to say recently that in regarding nature close at hand it is found less admirable than had been believed, being only like the workshop of an artisan. I believe that this does not give a worthy idea of it and that only our system can finally make men realize the true and immense distance which there is between the most trifling productions and mechanisms of the divine wisdom and the greatest masterpieces of the art of a finite mind, this difference consisting not merely in degree but also in kind. It must then be known that the machines of nature have a truly infinite number of organs and that they are so well protected and so proof against all accidents that it is not possible to destroy them. A natural machine remains a machine even to its least parts and, what is more, it remains always the same machine it has been, being only transformed by the different folds it receives, and sometimes expanded, sometimes compressed and, as it were, concentrated when believed to be lost.

10. Farther, by means of the soul or of form there arises a true unity which answers to what we call the I in us, that which could take place neither in the machines of art nor in the simple mass of matter however well organized it might be, which can only he considered as an army, or as a herd of cattle, or as a pond full of fish, or as a watch composed of springs and wheels. Nevertheless, if there were not real substantial unities there would be nothing substantial or real in the mass. It was this which forced Cordemoi to abandon Descartes, and to embrace Democritus’ doctrine of the Atoms, in order to find a true unity. But atoms of matter are contrary to reason, leaving out of account the proof that they are made up of parts, for the invincible attachment of one part to another (if such a thing could be conceived or with reason supposed) would not at all destroy their diversity. Only atoms of substance, i. e. unities which are real and absolutely destitute of parts, are sources of actions and the absolute first principles of the composition of things, and, as it were, the last elements of the analysis of substances. They might be called metaphysical points; they possess a certain vitality and a kind of perception, and mathematical points are their points of view to express the universe. But when corporeal substances are compressed all their organs together form a physical point to our sight. Thus physical points are only indivisible in appearance; mathematical points are so in reality but they are merely modalities; only metaphysical points or those of substance (constituted by forms or souls) are exact and real, and without them there would be nothing real, for without true unities there could not be multiplicity.

11. After having established these propositions I thought myself entering into port, but when I came to meditate on the union of the soul with the body I was as if cast back into the open sea. For I found no way of explaining how the body can cause anything to pass into the soul, or vice versa; nor how one substance can communicate with another created substance. Descartes gave up the attempt on that point, as far as can be learned from his writings, but his disciples seeing that the common view was inconceivable, were of the opinion that we perceive the qualities of bodies because God causes thoughts to arise in the soul on the occasion of movements of matter; and when the soul wished to move the body in its turn they judged that it was God who moved it for the soul. And as the communication of motions again seemed to them inconceivable, they believed that God gave motion to a body on the occasion of the motion of another body. This is what they call the system of Occasional Causes which has been much in vogue on account of the beautiful remarks of the author of the Search after Truth.

12. It must be confessed that the difficulty has been well penetrated when the not-possible is stated, but it does not appear that it is done away with by explaining what actually takes place. It is indeed true that there is no real influence of one created substance upon another, speaking in metaphysical strictness, and that all things with all their realities are continually produced by the power of God; but in resolving problems it is not enough to employ a general cause and to call in what is called the Deux ex Machina. For when this is done and there is no other explanation which can he drawn from secondary causes, it is, properly, having recourse to miracle. In philosophy it is necessary to try to give reasons by making known in what way things are done by divine wisdom, in conformity to the idea of the subject concerned.

13. Being then obliged to admit that it is not possible for the soul or any true substance to receive any influence from without, if it be not by the divine omnipotence I was led insensibly to an opinion which surprised me but which appears inevitable and which has in truth great advantages and many beauties. It is this: it must then be said that God created the soul, or every other real unity, in the first place in such a way that everything with it comes into existence from its own substance through perfect spontaneity as regards itself and in perfect harmony with objects outside itself. And that thus our internal feelings (i. e. those within the soul itself and not in the brain or finer parts of the body), being only phenomena consequent upon external objects or true appearances, and like well-ordered dreams, it is necessary that these internal perceptions within the soul itself come to it by its own proper original constitution, i. e. by the representative nature (capable of expressing beings outside itself by relation to its organs), which has been given it at its creation and which constitutes its individual character. This brings it about that each of these substances in its own way and according to a certain point of view, represents exactly the entire universe, and perceptions or impressions of external things reach the soul at the proper point in virtue of its own laws, as if it were in a world apart, and as if there existed nothing but God and itself (to make use of the manner of speaking of a certain person of great elevation of mind, whose piety is well known); there is also perfect harmony among all these substances, producing the same effects as if they communicated with each other by a transmission of kinds or of qualities, as philosophers generally suppose.

Farther, the organized mass, within which is the point of view of the soul, being expressed more nearly by it, finds itself reciprocally ready to act of itself following the laws of corporeal machines, at the moment when the soul wills it, without either one troubling the laws of the other, the nerves and the blood having just at that time received the impulse which is necessary in order to make them respond to the passions and perceptions of the soul; it is this mutual relationship, regulated beforehand in every substance of the universe, which produces what we call their intercommunication and alone constitutes the un ion between the soul and body. And we may understand from this now the soul has its seat in the body by an immediate presence which could not be greater, for it is there as the unit is in the complex of units, which is the multitude.

15. This hypothesis is very possible. For why could not God give to a substance in the beginning a nature or internal force which could produce in it to order (as in a spiritual or formal automaton, but free here since it has reason to its share), all that which should happen to it; that is to say all the appearances or expressions it should have, and that without the aid of any creature? All the more as the nature of the substance necessarily demands and essentially includes a progress or change, without which it would not have power to act. And this nature of the soul, being representative, in a very exact (although more or less distinct) manner, of the universe, the series of representations which the soul will produce for itself will naturally correspond to the series of changes in the universe itself; as, in turn, the body has also been accommodated to the soul, for the encounters where it is conceived as acting from without, This is the more reasonable as bodies are only made for those spirits which are capable of entering into communion with God and of celebrating His glory. Thus from the moment the possibility of this hypothesis of harmonies is perceived, we perceive also that it is’ the most reasonable and that it gives a marvellous idea of the harmony of the universe and of the perfection of the works of God.

16. This great advantage is also found in it, that instead of saying that we are FREE only in appearance and in a way practically sufficient, as many persons of ability have believed, it must rather be said that we are only enchained in appearance, and that according to the strictness of metaphysical expressions we are in a state of perfect independence as respects the influence of all other creatures. This again places in a marvellous light the immortality of the soul and the always uniform preservation of our individuality regulated perfectly by its own nature beyond the risk of all accidents from without, whatever appearance there may be to the contrary. Never has a system so clearly proved our high standing. Every spirit, being like a separate world sufficient to itself, independent of every other creature, enclosing the infinite, expressing the universe, is as durable, as stable and as absolute as the universe of creatures itself. Therefore we ought always to appear in it in the way best fitted to contribute to the perfection of the society of all spirits, which makes their moral union in the city of God. Here is found also a new proof of the existence of God, which is one of surprising clearness. For this perfect harmony of so many substances which have no communication with each other, can only come from a common cause.

17. Besides all these advantages which render this system commendable, it can also be said that this is more than an hypothesis, since it hardly seems possible to explain the facts in any other intelligible manner, and since several great difficulties which have exercised the mind up to this time, seem to disappear of themselves as soon as this system is well understood. The customary ways of speaking can still be retained. For we can say that the substance, the disposition of which explains the changes in others in an intelligible manner (in this respect, that it may be supposed that the others have been in this point adapted to it since the beginning, according to the older of the decrees of God), is the one which must be conceived of as acting upon the others. Also the action of one substance upon another is not the emission or transfer of an entity as is commonly believed, and cannot be understood reasonably except in the way which I have just mentioned. It is true that we can easily conceive in matter both emissions and receptions of parts, by means of which we are right in explaining mechanically all the phenomena of physics; but as the material mass is not a substance it is apparent that action as regards substance itself can only be what I have just said.

18. These considerations, however metaphysical they may appear, have yet a marvellous use in physics in establishing the laws of motion, as our Dynamics can make clear. Tor it can be said that in the collision of bodies, each one suffers only by reason of its own elasticity, because of the motion which is already in it. And as to absolute motion, it can in no way be determined mathematically, since everything terminates in relations; therefore there is always a perfect equality of hypotheses, as in astronomy, so that whatever number of bodies may be taken it is arbitrary to assign repose of a certain degree of velocity to any one that may be chosen, without being refuted by the phenomena of straight, circular and composite motion. Nevertheless it is reasonable to attribute to bodies real movements, according to the supposition which explains phenomena in the most intelligible manner, since this description is in conformity to the idea of action which I have just established.

THE REPLY OF M. FOUCHER TO LEIBNITZ CONCERNING HIS NEW SYSTEM OF THE INTERACTION OF SUBSTANCES. 1695.

[From the French.]

ALTHOUGH YOUR SYSTEM is not new to me, sir, and although I made known to you, in part, my opinion in replying to a letter which you wrote me on this subject more than ten years ago, still I will not fail to tell you again what I think of it, since you ask me anew.

The first part aims only to make known in all substances the unities which constitute their reality and distinguish them from others, and form, to speak after the manner of the school, their individuation; this is what you remark first on the subject of matter or extension. I agree with you that it is right to inquire after the unities which form the composition and the reality of extension, for without this, as you very justly remark, an always divisible extension is only a chimerical compound, the principles of which do not exist since without unities no true multitude is possible. Nevertheless, I wonder that people are indifferent on this subject, for the essential principles of extension cannot exist really. In truth, points without parts cannot be in the universe, and two points joined together form no extension; it is impossible that any length can subsist without breadth, or any surface without depth. And it is of no use to bring forward physical points, for these points are extended and involve all the difficulties which we should like to avoid. But I will not longer delay on this subject on which you and I have already had a discussion in the Journal of the sixteenth of March, 1693, and of the third of August of the same year.

You introduce on the other hand another kind of unities which, strictly speaking, are unities of composition or of relation, and which respect the perfection or completion of a whole which, being organic, is destined for certain functions; for example, a clock is one, an animal is one; and you believe that you can give the name of substantial forms to the natural unities of animals and of plants, so that these unities shall form their individuation in distinguishing them from every other compound. It seems to me that you are right in giving animals a principle of individuation other than that which is usually given them, which is only through relation to external accidents. In reality this principle must be internal, as much on the part of their soul as of their body, but whatever disposition there may be in the organs of the animal, that does not suffice to render it sensible. For finally all this concerns merely the organic and mechanical composition, and I do not see that you are thereby justified in constituting a sensitive principle in brutes differing substantially from that of men. And after all it is not without reason that the Cartesians acknowledge that if we admit a sensitive principle capable of distinguishing good from evil, it is consequently necessary also to admit in them reason, discernment and judgment. So, allow me to say to you, sir, that this does not solve the difficulty, either.

We come to your concomitance which forms the principal and second part of your system. We will admit that God, that great artisan of the universe, can adjust all the organic parts of the body of a man so well that they shall be capable of producing all the movements which the soul joined to this body might wish to produce in the course of its life, without its having the power to change these movements or to modify them in any way. And, reciprocally, God can produce a contrivance in the soul (be it a machine of a new kind or not), by means of which all the thoughts and modifications which correspond to these movements shall arise successively at the same moment that the body shall perform its functions. And I admit that this is not more impossible than to make two clocks agree so well and go so uniformly that at the moment when clock A shall strike twelve clock B also strikes, so that one would imagine that the two clocks are regulated by the same weight or the same spring. But after all, to what can this great artifice in substances serve if not to make men believe that the one acts upon the other, although this is not true? In reality, it seems to me that this system is hardly more advantageous than that of the Cartesians; and if we are right in rejecting theirs because it uselessly supposes that God, considering the movements which he himself produces in the body, produces also in the soul thoughts which correspond to these movements, as if it were not more worthy of him to produce all at once the thoughts and modifications of the soul without needing bodies to serve as regulators and so to speak, inform him what he ought to do — shall we not have reason to inquire of you why God does not content himself with producing all the thoughts and modifications of the soul (whether he do it immediately or by contrivance, as you will), without there being useless bodies which the mind can neither move nor know? Even to such an extent that although no movement should take place in the body, the soul would not cease to think always that there was one; just as those who are asleep think that they are moving their members and are walking, when nevertheless those members are at rest and do not move at all. Thus, during the waking state, souls would remain always persuaded that their bodies would move according to their desires, although, nevertheless, these vain and useless masses would be inactive and would remain in a continuous lethargy. Truly, sir, do we not see that these opinions are made expressly and that these ex post facto systems have been invented only to save certain principles which have been adopted? In fact, the Cartesians, supposing that there is nothing in common between spiritual and corporeal substances, cannot explain how one acts on the other; and consequently they are compelled to say what they do. But you, sir, who could free yourself by other ways, I am surprised that you embarrass yourself with their difficulties. For who does not see that when a balance is in equilibrium and inactive, if a new weight is added to one of the sides, forthwith movement appears and one of the counterweights makes the other rise in spite of the effort which the latter makes to descend. You conceive that material beings are capable of efforts and of movement; and it follows very naturally that the strongest effort must surpass the weakest. On the other hand you recognize also that spiritual beings may make efforts; and as there is no effort which does not suppose some resistance, it is necessary either that this resistance be stronger or weaker; if stronger, it overcomes; if weaker, it yields. Now it is not impossible that the mind making an effort to move the body finds it endowed with a contrary effort which resists — sometimes more, sometimes less, and this suffices to cause it to suffer thereby. It is thus St. Augustine, in his books on music, explains of set purpose the aetion of spirits on bodies.

I know that there are many other questions to be raised before resolving from first principles all those which might be agitated; so true is it that one ought to observe the laws of the academicians, the second of which forbids the calling in question those things which one easily sees cannot be decided, such as are almost all those of which we have just spoken; not that these questions are absolutely insoluble but because they can only be solved in a certain order, which requires that philosophers begin by agreeing as to the infallible mark of truth, and confine themselves to demonstrating from first principles; and by waiting, one can always separate that which is conceived clearly and sufficiently from other points or subjects which embrace some obscurity.

This, sir, is what I can say at present of your system, without speaking of the other fine subjects of which you there incidentally treat, and which would merit particular discussion.

EXPLANATION OF THE NEW SYSTEM CONCERNING THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SUBSTANCES, TO SERVE AS A REPLY TO THE MEMOIR OF M. FOUCHER INSERTED IN THE “JOURNAL DES SAVANS” OF SEPTEMBER 12, 1695. 1696.

[From the French.]

I REMEMBER, SIR, that I believed I was fulfilling your wishes in communicating to you, many years ago, my philosophical hypothesis, although I assured you at the same time that I had not yet made up my mind to avow it. I asked for your opinion of it in exchange, but I do not remember to have received any objections from you; otherwise, teachable as I am, I should not have given you occasion to make the same objections to me twice. However, after the publication, they still come apropos. For I am not one of those in whom a prepossession takes the place of reason, as you will experience when you are able to bring forward some precise and weighty arguments against my opinions, a thing which apparently has not been your design on this occasion. You have wished to speak as a skillful academician and thus give opportunity for a thorough examination of these subjects.

I have not wished to explain here the principles of extension, but those of effective extension or of corporeal mass; and these principles, in my opinion, are real unities; that is, substances endowed with true unity. The unity of a clock, of which you make mention, is entirely different, with me, from that of an animal, which latter is capable of being a substance endowed with a true unity, like what we call the ego in us; whereas a clock is nothing but an assemblage. It is not in the disposition of the organs that I place the sensitive principle of animals, and I admit that it concerns only the corporeal mass. So it seems that you do not make me out to be wrong when I demand true unities and when for this reason I rehabilitate substantial forms. But when you seem to say that the soul of brutes must possess reason if feeling is ascribed to it you make use of a conclusion, the force of which I do not see.

You admit, with praiseworthy sincerity, that my hypothesis of harmony or of concomitance is possible. But you do not conceal a certain repugnance to it; undoubtedly because you have believed it purely arbitrary, not having been informed that it follows from my view of unities, for therein everything is connected. You demand then, sir, what purpose all this contrivance which I attribute to the author of nature may serve? As if one could attribute too much of it to him, and as if this exact correspondence which substances have among themselves by laws of their own which each one has received in the beginning, was not a thing admirably beautiful in itself and worthy of its author. You ask, too, what advantage I find herein. I might refer to what I have already said of it; nevertheless, I reply, in the first place, that when a thing cannot but be it is not necessary that, in order to admit it, we should demand of what use it is. Of what use is the incommensurability of the side with the diagonal? I reply, in the second place, that this correspondence serves to explain the communication of substances and the union of the soul with the body by laws of nature established beforehand, without having recourse either to a transmission of species, which is inconceivable, or to fresh assistance from God, which appears very unsuitable. For it must be understood that as there are laws of nature in matter, so there are like laws in souls or forms, and these laws effect what I have just stated.

I shall be asked, farther, whence it comes that God does not content himself with producing all the thoughts and modifications of the soul without these useless bodies which the soul, they say, can neither move nor know? The reply is easy. It is that God has willed that there should be more rather than fewer substances, and that he has thought it good that these modifications of the soul should answer to something external. There is no useless substance; they all cooperate in the design of God. I am unwilling, also, to admit that the soul does not know the body at all, although this knowledge is gained without the influence of one upon the other. I should even have no difficulty in saying that the soul moves the body; and as a Copernican speaks truly of the rising of the sun, a Platonist of the reality of matter, a Cartesian of the reality of sensible qualities, provided that he is rightly understood, so I believe that it is quite true to say that substances act, the one on the other, provided that it be understood that one is the cause of the changes in the other in consequence of the laws of harmony. As to the objection concerning the lethargy of bodies, that they would be inactive while the soul would think them in movement, this could not be, because of this same unfailing correspondence which the divine wisdom has established. I know no vain, useless and inactive masses of which you speak. There is action everywhere, and I establish that fact better than the received philosophy does, because I believe that there is no body without movement, nor substance without effort.

I do not understand in what the objection consists contained in the words, “In truth, sir, do not we see that these opinions are made expressly, and that these ex post facto systems have been invented only in order to save certain principles?” All the hypotheses are made expressly, and all the systems follow after, to save phenomena or appearances; but I do not see what the principles are of which I am said to be prepossessed, and which I wish to save. If this means that I am led to my hypothesis by a priori reasons or by certain principles, as is in truth the fact, it is rather praise for the hypothesis than an objection. It is usually sufficient that a hypothesis prove itself a posteriori, because it satisfies the phenomena; but when there are also reasons elsewhere and a priori, it is so much the better. But perhaps this means that having invented a new opinion I have been very glad to employ it, in order to give myself the airs of an innovator, rather than because I recognized any usefulness in it. I do not know, sir, whether you have a poor enough opinion of me to attribute these thoughts to me. For you know that I love the truth and that if I affected novelties so much I should be in more haste to produce them, especially those the solidity of which is recognized. But in order that those who do not know me so well may not give your words a meaning we would not like, it will be sufficient to say that in my opinion it is impossible to explain otherwise continual action conformable to the laws of nature, and that I believe that the usefulness of my hypothesis will be recognized by the difficulty which the most sharp-sighted philosophers of our time have found in the communication between minds and bodies, and even of corporeal substances among themselves; and I do not know if you have not found some there yourself. It is true that there are, in my opinion, efforts in all substances, but these efforts are properly only in the substance itself; and what follows in the others is only in virtue of a pre-established harmony (if I may be permitted to use this word), and in no wise by a real influence or by a transmission of some property or quality. As I have explained what action and passion are, you may infer also the meaning of effort and resistance.

You say you know, sir, that there are many other questions to be asked before those which we have just agitated can be decided. But perhaps you will find that I have already asked them, and I do not know whether your academicians have employed with greater rigor or with more effect than I what there is of good in their method. I highly approve of seeking to demonstrate truths from first principles; it is more useful than is thought, and I have put this precept into practice. So I approve of what you say on that head, and I would that your example would bring our philosophers to think of it as they should. I will add another reflection which seems to me important in making the reality and usefulness of my system better understood. You know that Descartes believed that the same quantity of motion is preserved in bodies. It has been shown that he was mistaken on that point, but I have made it apparent that it is always true that the same moving force, for which he had substituted the quantity of movement, is preserved. However, the changes which take place in bodies in consequence of the modifications of the soul embarrassed him, because they seemed to violate this law. He believed that he had found an expedient, which in truth is ingenious, by saying that we must distinguish between movement and direction, and that the soul cannot increase or diminish the moving force, but that it changes the direction or determination of the course of the animal spirits, and that it is in this way that voluntary movements take place. It is true that he was unwilling to explain how the soul acts to change the course of bodies, that which is as inconceivable as to say that it gives them movement, unless recourse is had with me to the pre-established harmony. But it should be known that there is another law of nature, which I have discovered and demonstrated, and which Descartes did not know. It is that not only is the same quantity of moving force preserved, but also the same quantity of direction towards whatever side in the world is taken. That is to say, drawing any straight line you please and taking also such and as many bodies as you please, you will find, in considering all these bodies together, without omitting any of those which act upon any one of those you have taken, that there will always be the same quantity of progress on the same side in all the parallels to the right line which you have taken, taking care to estimate the sum of the progress in omitting that of the bodies which move in the direction opposite to that of the bodies which move in the direction taken. This law, being just as beautiful and just as general as the other, no more deserves to be violated than the other; and this is avoided by my system, which preserves the force and the direction, and in a word all the natural laws of bodies, in spite of the changes which take place there, in consequence of those of the soul.

SECOND EXPLANATION OF THE SYSTEM OF THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SUBSTANCES. 1696.

[From the French.]

BY YOUR REFLECTIONS, sir, I see clearly that the thought which one of my friends has published in the Journal de Paris has need of explanation.

You do not understand, you say, how I could prove that which I advanced concerning the communication or harmony of two substances so different as the soul and the body. It is true that I believe that I have found the means of doing so, and this is how I propose to satisfy you. Imagine two clocks or watches which agree perfectly. Now, this may take place in three ways. The first consists in a mutual influence; the second is to have a skillful workman attached to them who regulates them and keeps them always in accord; the third is to construct these two clocks with so much art and accuracy as to assure their future harmony. Put now the soul and the body in place of these two clocks; their accordance may be brought about by one of these three ways. The way of influence is that of common philosophy, but as we cannot conceive of material particles which may pass from one of these substances into the other, this view must be abandoned. The way of the continual assistance of the creator is that of the system of occasional causes; but I hold that this is to make a Deus ex Machina intervene in a natural and ordinary matter, in which, according to reason, he ought not to cooperate except in the way in which he does in all other natural things. Thus there remains only my hypothesis; that is, the way of harmony. From the beginning God has made each of these two substances of such a nature that merely by following its own peculiar laws, received with its being, it nevertheless accords with the other, just as if there were a mutual influence or as if God always put his hand thereto in addition to his general cooperation. After this I have no need of proving anything, unless you wish to require me to prove that God is sufficiently skillful to make use of this prevenient contrivance, examples of which we see even among men. Now, taking for granted that he can do it, you easily see that this is the way most beautiful and most worthy of him. You suspected that my explanation would be opposed to the very different idea which we have of the mind and of the body; but you will presently clearly see that no one has better established their independence. For while it has been necessary to explain their communication by a kind of miracle, occasion has always been given to many people to fear that the distinction between the body and the soul was not as real as was believed, since in order to maintain it it was necessary to go so far. I shall not be at all sorry to sound enlightened persons concerning the thoughts which I have just explained to you.

THIRD EXPLANATION. EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF LEIBNITZ ON HIS PHILOSOPHICAL HYPOTHESIS AND THE CURIOUS PROBLEM PROPOSED BY HIS FRIENDS TO THE MATHEMATICIANS. 1696.

[From the French.]

SOME WISE AND penetrating friends, having considered my novel hypothesis concerning the great question of the union of soul and body, and having found it of importance have besought me to give some explanations of the difficulties which have been raised and which come from the fact that it has not been well understood.

I have thought that the matter might be rendered intelligible to every sort of mind by the following comparison:

Imagine two clocks or two watches which agree perfectly. Now this may happen in three ways. The first consists in the mutual influence of one clock on the other; the second, in the care of a man who attends thereto; the third, in their own accuracy.

The first way, which is that of influence, has been experimented on by the late M. Huygens, to his great astonishment. He had two large pendulums attached to the same piece of wood; the continual vibrations of these pendulums communicated similar vibrations to the particles of wood; but these different vibrations not being able to subsist very well in their order and without hindering each other, unless the pendulums agreed, it happened by a kind of marvel that even when their beats had been purposely disturbed they soon came again to beat together, almost like two chords which are in unison.

The second way of making two clocks, even although poor, always accord, would be to have a skillful workman who should see to it that they are kept in constant agreement. This is what I call the way of assistance.

Finally, the third way would be to make in the first place these two clocks with so much art and accuracy that we might be assured of their future accordance. This is the way of the pre-established agreement.

Put now the sold and the body in the place of these two clocks. Their harmony or sympathy will take place by one of these three methods. The way of influence is that of common philosophy; but as we cannot conceive of material particles or properties, or immaterial qualities, which can pass from one of these substances into the other, we are obliged to abandon this view. The way of assistance is that of the system of occasional causes; but I hold that this is making a Deus ex Machina intervene in a natural and ordinary matter, when, according to reason, he ought not to intervene except in the manner in which he cooperates in all the other affairs of nature.

Thus, there remains only my hypothesis; that is, the way of a harmony pre-established by a prevenient divine contrivance, which from the beginning has formed each of these substances in a way so perfect and regulated with so much accuracy that merely by following laws of its own, received with its being, it nevertheless agrees with the other, just as if there were mutual influence, or as if God in addition to his general cooperation constantly put his hand thereto.

After this I do not think I need to prove anything, unless it be that you wish me to prove that God has everything necessary to making use of this prevenient contrivance, examples of which we see even among men, according to their skill. And supposing that he can do it you see well that this is the most admirable way and the one most worthy of him.

It is true that I have yet other proofs but they are more profound, and it is not necessary to state them here.

REFLECTIONS ON LOCKE’S ESSAY ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 1696.

[From the French.]

I FIND SO many marks of unusual penetration in what Mr. Locke has given us on the Human Understanding and on Education, and I consider the matter so important, that I have thought that the time would not be badly employed which I should give to such profitable reading; all the more as I have myself deeply meditated concerning that which has to do with the foundations of our knowledge. It is for this reason that I have jotted down on this sheet some of the reflections which have occurred to me in reading his Essay on the Understanding. Of all researches, there is none more important, because it is the key to all others.

The first book considers mainly the principles said to be born with us. Mr. Locke does not admit them any more than he does innate ideas. He has undoubtedly had good reasons for putting himself in opposition on this point to ordinary prejudices, for the name of ideas and principles is extremely abused. Common philosophers make themselves principles at their fancy; and the Cartesians, who profess more accuracy, do not fail to intrench themselves behind so-called ideas of extension, of matter and of the soul, wishing in this way to exempt themselves from the necessity of proving what they advance, on the pretext that those who will meditate on these ideas will find in them the same thing that they do; that is to say, that those who will accustom themselves to their manner of thinking will have the same prepossessions, which is very true.

My opinion is, then, that nothing ought to be taken as primitive principles except experiences and the axiom of identity, or, what is the same thing, contradiction, which is primitive, since otherwise there would be no difference between truth and falsehood; and since all researches would cease at the start if to say yes or no were indifferent. We cannot, therefore, prevent ourselves from supposing this principle as soon as we wish to reason. All other truths are capable of proof, and I highly esteem Euclid’s method which, without stopping at what would be thought to be sufficiently proved by the so-called ideas, has proved, for example, that in a triangle one side is always less than the other two together. Yet Euclid was right in taking some axioms for granted, not as if they were truly primitive and undemonstrable, but because he would have come to a standstill if he had wished to draw conclusions only after an accurate discussion of principles. Thus he judged it proper to content himself with having pushed the proofs up to this small number of propositions, so that it can be said that if they are true, all that he says is also true. He has left to others the trouble of demonstrating these principles themselves which, besides, are already justified by experience; but in these matters this does not content us. This is why Appolonius, Proclus and others have taken the trouble to demonstrate some of Euclid’s axioms. This manner of proceeding ought to be imitated by philosophers in order to arrive finally at some established positions, even if they be but provisional, in the way of which I have just spoken.

As for ideas, I have given some explanation of them in a short essay entitled Meditationes de Cognitions, Veritate et Ideis, and I could have wished that Mr. Locke had seen and examined it; for I am one of the most docile of men, and nothing is more fitted to advance our thoughts than the considerations and remarks of persons of merit, when they are made with care and sincerity. Here I shall only say that true or real ideas are those of the possibility of whose fulfilment we are assured; the others are doubtful, or (in case of proof of impossibility), chimerical. How the possibility of ideas is proved as much a priori by demonstrations, by making use of the possibility of other simpler ideas, as a posteriori by experience; for what is, cannot fail to be possible. But primitive ideas are those the possibility of which is undemonstrable, and which indeed are nothing else than the attributes of God.

As regards the question, whether there are ideas and truths created with as, I do not consider it absolutely necessary for the beginning nor for the practice of the art of thinking, to decide it; whether they all come to us from without, or whether they come from us, we will reason correctly if we observe what I have just said on this subject and if we proceed with order and without prejudice. The question concerning the origin of oar ideas and of our maxims is not preliminary in philosophy, and we must have made great progress to be able to answer it well. I think, however, that I can say that our ideas, even those of sensible things, come from within the soul [de notre propre fond], of which you may judge by what I have published concerning the nature and interaction of substances and what is called the union of the soul with the body. For I have found that these things had not been well understood. I am in no wise in favor of the Tabula rasa of Aristotle; and there is something sound in what Plato called reminiscence. There is even something more, for we have not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts but also a presentiment of all our future thoughts. It is true that it is confusedly and without distinguishing them, very much as when I hear the sound of the ocean I hear that of all the waves In particular which make up the total sound, although it is without discerning one wave from another. And it is true in a certain sense, which I have explained, that not only our ideas but also our feelings, spring from within our own soul, and that the soul is more independent than is thought, although it is always true that nothing takes place in it which is not determined and that nothing is found in creatures which God does not continually create.

In the second book, which goes into the details of ideas, I confess that Mr. Locke’s reasons for proving that the soul is sometimes without thought do not seem to me convincing, unless he gives the name of thoughts to only those perceptions sufficiently noticeable to be distinguished and retained. I hold that the soul and even the body is never without action, and that the soul is never without some perception. Even in dreamless sleep we have some confused and dim feeling of the place where we are and of other things. But even if experience should not confirm it, I believe that it may be demonstrated. It is very much as when we cannot prove absolutely by experience whether there is a vacuum in space, and whether there is rest in matter. And yet questions of this kind seem to me, as well as to Mr. Locke, to be decided demonstratively.

I assent to the difference which he makes with great reason between matter and space. But as concerns the vacuum, many learned people have believed in it. Mr. Locke is of this number. I was almost persuaded of it myself, but I gave it up long ago. And the incomparable Mr. Huygens, who was also for a vacuum and for the atoms, began at last to reflect upon my reasons, as his letters can bear witness. The proof of a vacuum, taken from motion, of which Mr. Locke makes use, supposes that body is originally hard, and that it is composed of a certain number of inflexible parts. For in this case it would be true, whatever finite number of atoms might be taken, that motion could not take place without a vacuum, but all the parts of matter are divisible and pliable.

There are some other things in this second book which arrest me; for example, when it is said, chapter XVII, that infinity is to be attributed only to Space, Time and Number. I believe with Mr. Locke that, strictly speaking, it may be said that there is no space, no time and no number which is infinite, but that it is only true that however great may be a space, a time or a number, there is always another larger than it, ad infinitum; and that thus the true infinite is not found in a whole made up of parts. It is none the less, however, found elsewhere; namely, in the absolute, which is without parts and which has influence upon compound things because they result from the limitation of the absolute. Hence the positive infinite being nothing else than the absolute, it may be said that there is in this sense a positive idea of the infinite, and that it is anterior to that of the finite. For the rest, by rejecting a composite infinite, we do not deny what the geometricians, and especially the excellent Mr. Newton, prove de Seriebus infinitis.

As for what is said, chapter XXX, de ideis adaequatis, it is permissible to give to the terms the signification one finds apropos. Nevertheless, without finding fault with Locke’s meaning, I put degrees in ideas, according to which I call those adequate in which there is nothing more to explain very much as in numbers. Now all ideas of sensible qualities, as of light, color, heat, not being of this nature, I do not count them among the adequate; also it is not through themselves nor a priori, but by experience that we know their reality or possibility.

There are again many good things in the third book, where he treats of words or terms. It is very true that everything cannot be defined, and that sensible qualities have no nominal definition and may be called primitive in this sense; but they can none the less receive a real definition. I have shown the difference between these two kinds of definition in the meditation quoted above. The nominal definition explains the name by the marks of the thing; but the real definition makes known a priori the possibility of the thing defined. For the rest, I heartily approve of Mr. Locke’s doctrine concerning the demonstrability of moral truths.

The fourth or last book, which treats of the knowledge of truth, shows the use of what has just been said. I find in it, as well as in the preceding books, numberless beautiful reflections. To make fitting remarks upon them would be to make a hook as large as the work itself. It seems to me that the axioms in it are a little less considered than they deserve to be. It is apparently because, with the exception of those of the mathematicians, there are not ordinarily found any which are important and solid. I have tried to remedy this defect. I do not despise identical propositions, and I have found that they are of great service even in analysis. It is very true that we know our own existence by an immediate intuition, and that of God, by demonstration; and that a mass of matter, the parts of which are without perception, cannot make a whole which thinks. I do not despise the argument, invented some centuries ago by Anselm, which proves that the perfect being must exist; although I find something lacking in this argument, because it takes for granted that the perfect being is possible. For if this one point were proved in addition the whole demonstration would be complete.

As for the knowledge of other things, it is very well said that experience alone does not suffice for advancing sufficiently in physics. A penetrating mind will draw more conclusions from some very ordinary experiences than another could draw from the most choice; besides there is an art of experimenting and of interrogating, so to speak, nature. Yet it is always true that progress cannot be made in the details of physics except in proportion as one has experience.

Mr. Locke is of the opinion, held by many able men, that the forms of logic are of little use. I should be almost of the opposite opinion; and I have often found that paralogisms, even in mathematics, are faults of form. Mr. Huygens has made the same observation. Much might be said on this point, and many excellent things are despised because the use of which they are capable is not made of them. We are prompted to despise what we have learned in the schools. It is true that we there learn many useless things, but it is good to exercise the function della Crusca, that is, to separate the good from the bad. Mr. Locke can do it as well as anyone whatsoever; and in addition he gives us important thoughts of his own. He is not only an assayer, but he is also a transmuter, by the augmentation which he makes of good metal. If he continued to make a present of it to the public we should be greatly indebted to him.

ON THE ULTIMATE ORIGIN OF THINGS. 1697.

[From the Latin.]

IN ADDITION TO the world or aggregate of finite things, there is some unique Being who governs, not only like the soul in me, or rather like the Ego itself in my body, but in a much higher relation. For one Being dominating the universe not only rules the world but he creates and fashions it, is superior to the world, and, so to speak, extra mundane, and by this very fact is the ultimate reason of things. For the sufficient reason of existence can be found neither in any particular thing nor in the whole aggregate or series. Suppose a book on the elements of geometry to have been eternal and that others had been successively copied after it, it is evident that, although we might account for the present book by the book which was its model, we could nevertheless never, by assuming any number of books whatever, reach a perfect reason for them; for we may always wonder why such books have existed from all time; that is, why books are and why they are thus written. What is true of books is also true of the different states of the world, for in spite of certain laws of transformation a succeeding state is in a certain way only a copy of the preceding, and to whatever anterior state you may go back you will never find there a perfect reason why, forsooth, there is any world at all, and such a world as exists. For even if you imagine the world eternal, nevertheless since you posit nothing but a succession of states, and as you find a sufficient reason for them in none of them whatsoever, and as any number of them whatever does not aid you in giving a reason for them, it is evident that the reason must be sought elsewhere. For in eternal things it must be understood that even where there is no cause there is a reason which, in perduring things, is necessity itself or essence, but in the series of changing things, if it were supposed that they succeed each other eternally, this reason would be, as will soon be seen, the prevalence of inclinations where the reasons are not necessitating (by an absolute or metaphysical necessity the opposite of which would imply contradiction), but inclining. From which it follows that by supposing the eternity of the world, an ultimate extramundane reason of things, or God, cannot be escaped.

The reasons of the world, therefore, lie hidden in something extramundane different from the chain of states or series of things, the aggregate of which constitutes the world. We must therefore pass from physical or hypothetical necessity, which determines the posterior states of the world by the prior, to something which is absolute or metaphysical necessity, the reason for which cannot he given. For the present world is necessary, physically or hypothetically, but not absolutely or metaphysically. It being granted, indeed, that the world is such as it is, it follows that things may hereafter be such as they are. But as the ultimate origin must be in something which is metaphysically necessary, and as the reason of the existing can only be from the existing, there must exist some one being metaphysically necessary, or whose essence is existence; and thus there exists something which differs from the plurality of beings or from the world, which, as we have recognized and shown, is not metaphysically necessary.

But in order to explain a little more clearly how, from eternal or essential; or metaphysical truths, temporary, contingent or physical truths arise, we ought first to recognize that from the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, there is in possible things, that is, in the very possibility or essence, a certain need of existence, and, so to speak, some claim to existence; in a word, that essence tends itself towards existence. Whence it further follows that all possible things, whether expressing essence or possible reality, tend by equal right toward existence, according to their quantity of essence or reality, or according to the degree of perfection which they contain, for perfection is nothing else than quantity of essence.

Hence it is most clearly understood that among the infinite combinations of possibles and possible series, that one exists by which the most of essence or of possibility is brought into existence. And indeed there is always in things a principle of determination which is to be taken from the greatest and the smallest, or in such a way that the greatest effect is obtained with the least, so to speak, expenditure. And here the time, place, or as many say, the receptivity or capacity of ‘the world may be considered as the expenditure or the ground which can he most easily built upon, whereas the varieties of forms correspond to the commodiousness of the edifice and the multiplicity and elegance of its chambers. And it is with it in this respect as with certain games where all the spaces on a table are to be filled according to determined laws. Now, unless a certain skill be employed, you will be finally excluded by unfavorable spaces and forced to leave many more places empty than you can or wish. But there is a certain very easy way of filling the most possible space. Just as, therefore, if it is resolved to make a triangle, there being no other determining reason, it commonly happens that an equilateral results; and if it is resolved to go from one point to another without any further determination as to the way, the easiest and shortest path will be chosen; so it being once posited that being is better than not being, or that there is a reason why something should be rather than nothing, or that we must pass from the possibility to the act, it follows that even in the absence of every other determination the quantity of existence is as great as possible, regard being had to the capacity of the time and of the place (or to the possible order of existence), exactly as the squares are disposed in a given area in such a way that it shall contain the greatest number of them possible. From this it is now marvellously understood how in the very origin of things a sort of divine mathematics or of metaphysical mechanism was employed, and how the determination of the greatest quantity of existence takes place. It is thus that from all angles the determined angle in geometry is the right angle, and that liquids placed in heterogeneous positions take that form which has the most capacity, or the spherical; but especially it is thus that in ordinary mechanics itself, when several heavy bodies strive together the motion which results constitutes, on the whole, the greatest descent. For just as all the possibles tend by equal right to exist by reason of reality, so all weights tend by an equal right to descend by reason of their gravity; and as here a movement is produced which contains the greatest possible descent of heavy bodies, so there a world is produced in which is found realized the greatest number of possibles.

And thus we now have physical necessity from metaphysical; for although the world be not metaphysically necessary, in the sense that its contrary implies a contradiction or a logical absurdity, it is nevertheless physically necessary, or determined in such a way that its contrary implies imperfection or moral absurdity. And as possibility is the principle of essence, so perfection or the degree of essence (through which the greatest possible number is at the same time possible), is the principle of existence. Whence at the same time it is evident that the author of the world is free, although he makes, all things determinately; for he acts according to a principle of wisdom or of perfection. Indeed indifference arises from ignorance, and the wiser one is, the more determined one is to the highest degree of perfection.

But, you will say, however ingenious this comparison of a certain determining metaphysical mechanism with the physical mechanism of heavy bodies may appear, nevertheless it fails in this, that heavy bodies truly exist, whereas possibilities and essences prior to existence or outside of it are only fancies or fictions in which the reason of existence cannot be sought. I answer, that neither these essences nor these so-called eternal truths, are fictious but that they exist in a certain region of ideas, if I may thus speak, that is in God himself, the source of all essences and of the existence of all else. And the existence of the actual series of things shows sufficiently of itself that my assertion is not gratuitous. For since the reason is not found in this series, as we have shown above, but must be sought in metaphysical necessities or eternal truths, and since that which exists can only come from that, which existed, as we have remarked above, eternal truths must have their existence in a certain subject absolutely and metaphysically necessary, that is in God, through whom those things which otherwise would be imaginary, are, to speak barbarously but significantly, realized.

And in truth we discover that everything is done in the world according to the laws, not only geometrical but also metaphysical, of eternal truths; that is, not only according to material necessities, but also according to formal necessities; and this is true not only generally in that which concerns the reason, which we have just explained, of a world existing rather than non-existing, and existing thus rather than otherwise (a reason which can only be found in the tendency of the possible to existence); but if we descend to the special we see the metaphysical laws of cause, of power, of action holding good in admirable manner in all nature, and prevailing over the purely geometrical laws themselves of matter, as I found in accounting for the laws of motion: a thing which struck me with such astonishment that, as I have explained more at length elsewhere, I was forced to abandon the law of the geometrical composition of forces which I had defended in my youth when I was more materialistic.

Thus, therefore, we have the ultimate reason of the reality, as well of essences as of existences, in a Being who is necessarily much superior and anterior to the world itself, since it is from him that not only the existences which this world contains, but also the possibles themselves derive their reality. And this reason of things can be sought only in a single source, because of the connection which they all have with one another. But it is evident that it is from this source that existing things continually emanate, that they are and have been its products, for it does not appear why one state of the world rather than another, the state of to-day rather than that of to-morrow, should come from the world itself. We see, also, with the same clearness, how God acts, not only physically but freely; how the efficient and final cause of things is in him, and how he manifests not only his greatness and his power in the construction of the machine of the world, but also his goodness and his wisdom in the creation. And in order that no one should think that we confound here moral perfection or goodness with metaphysical perfection or greatness, or that the former is denied while the latter is granted, it must be known that it follows from what has been said that the world is most perfect, not physically, or, if you prefer, metaphysically, because that series of things is produced in which there is the most reality in action, but also that it is most perfect morally, because really moral perfection is physical perfection for souls themselves. Thus the world is not only the most admirable machine, but in so far as it is composed of souls, it is also the best republic, through which as much happiness or joy is brought to souls as is possible, in which their physical perfection consists.

But, you will say, we experience the contrary in this world, for often good people are very unhappy, and not only innocent brutes but also innocent men are afflicted and even put to death with torture; finally, the world, if you regard especially the government of the human race, resembles a sort of confused chaos rather than the well ordered work of a supreme wisdom. This may appear so at the first glance, I confess, but if you examine the thing more closely, it evidently appears from the things which have been alleged, that the contrary should be affirmed; that is, that all things and consequently souls attain to the highest degree of perfection possible. And in truth it is not proper to judge before having examined, as the jurisconsults say, the whole law. We know only a very small part of the eternity which extends into immensity; for the memory of the few thousands of years which history transmits to us are indeed a very little thing. And yet from an experience so short we dare to judge of the immense and of the eternal, like men who, born and brought up in a prison, or, if you prefer in the subterranean salt mines of the Sarmatae, think that there is no other light in the world than the lamp whose feeble gleam hardly suffices to direct their steps. Let us look at a very beautiful picture, and let us cover it in such a way as to see only a very small part of it, what else will appear in it however closely we may examine it and however near we may approach to it, except a certain confused mass of colors without choice and without art? And yet when we remove the covering and regard it from the proper point of view we will see that what appeared thrown on the canvas at haphazard has been executed with the greatest art by the author of the work. What the eyes discover in the picture, the ears discover in music. The most illustrious composers often introduce discords into their harmonies, in order to excite and pique, so to speak, the listener, who, anxious as to the outcome, is all the more pleased when soon all things are restored to order. Just as we rejoice to have passed through slight dangers and experienced small ills, whether because of a feeling of egotism, or because we find pleasure in the frightful images which tight-rope dances or leapings between swords present; so we partly loose laughing children, pretending to throw them far away from us, like the ape which, having taken Christian, king of the Danes, while still an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, carried him to the top of the roof, and when everybody was frightened brought him back laughing, safe and sound to his cradle. According to the same principle, it is insipid always to eat sweetmeats; we must mingle with them sharp, acid and even bitter things, which excite the taste. He who has not tasted bitter things has not merited sweet things and even will not appreciate them. It is the law even of joy that pleasure be not uniform, for it engenders disgust, renders us stupid and not joyous.

As to what we said, that a part may he disturbed without prejudice to the general harmony, it must not be understood as meaning that no account is made of the parts, or that it suffices that the entire world be perfect in measure, although it might happen that the human race should be unhappy, and that there should be in the universe no regard for justice, no heed taken of our lot, as some think who do not judge rightly enough of the whole of things. For it must be known that as in a well-constituted republic as much care as possible is taken of the good of the individual, so the universe cannot be perfect if individual interests are not protected as much as the universal harmony will permit. And here a better law could not be established than the very law of justice which wills that each one participate in the perfection of the universe and in a happiness of his own proportioned to his own virtue and to the good will he entertains toward the common good, by which that which we call the charity and love of God is fulfilled, in which alone, according to the judgment of the wisest theologians, the force and power of the Christian religion itself consists. And it ought not appear astonishing that so large a part should be given to souls in the universe since they reflect the most faithful image of the supreme Author, and hold to him not only the relation of machine to artificer, but also that of citizen to prince; and they are to continue as long as the universe itself; and in a manner they express and concentrate the whole in themselves so that it can be said that souls are whole parts.

As regards especially the afflictions of good people, we must hold for certain that there results for them a greater good, and this is not only theologically but physically true. So grain cast into the ground suffers before producing its fruit. And we may affirm, generally, that afflictions, temporarily evil, are in effect good, since they are short cuts to greater perfections. So in physics, liquors which ferment slowly take more time also to improve; whereas those the agitation of which is greater, reject certain parts with more force and are more promptly improved.

And we might say of this that it is retreating in order the better to leap forward (qu’on recede, pour mieux sauter).

We should therefore regard these considerations not merely as agreeable and consoling, but also as most true. And, in general, I feel that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier nor sweeter than truth.

REPLY TO REFLECTIONS, FOUND IN THE “JOURNAL DES SAVONS.”

OF THIS YEAR, RELATING TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF CERTAIN

PASSAGES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESCARTES. 1697.

[From the French.]

I AM accused of wishing to establish my reputation on the ruins of that of Descartes. I have a right to complain of this. Very far from wishing to ruin the reputation of this great man, I find that his real merit is not sufficiently known, because what is most excellent in him is not enough considered’ and imitated. Men fasten on the weakest passages because these are most easily understood by those who are not willing to give themselves the trouble of thinking profoundly and who yet would like to understand the foundation of things. This is why, to my great regret, his partisans add almost nothing to his discoveries, and this is the usual effect of the sectarian spirit in philosophy. As all my views are intent only upon the public good, I have said something from time to time to arouse them, well knowing that their penetration would lead them very far, if they did not believe that their master had done enough. I have always declared that I esteem Descartes exceedingly; there are few who approach him in genius. I know but Archimides, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Jung, Huygens, Newton, and a few others of such force; to whom Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Suisset, Cardan, Gilbert, Verulam, Campanella, Harvey, Pascal, and some others might be added. It is nevertheless true that Descartes has made use of artifice in order to profit by the discoveries of others, without wishing to appear indebted to them. He treated some excellent men in an unjust and unworthy way when they offended him, and he had an unbridled ambition to set himself up as a party chief. But this does not diminish the beauty of his thoughts. Far from approving those who despise him and who repay merit with ingratitude, it is this that I blame principally in Descartes, and still more in several of his partisans, whose misunderstood attachment for a single author nourishes prejudice and hinders them from profiting by the light of so many others. I am accustomed to say that the Cartesian philosophy is as it were the ante-chamber of the truth, and that it is difficult to penetrate far beyond without having passed through this; but one deprives himself of the true knowledge of the heart of things if he stops there.

As for the little of reputation which I am honored by having accorded me, I have not acquired it in refuting Descartes; I have no need of that means; law, history and letters contributed to it before I had thought of mathematics. And if our new analysis, the calculus of which I have propounded, surpasses that of Descartes as much and more than his surpassed preceding methods, his remains none the less very worthy of esteem, although it has been necessary for the progress of science to disabuse those who think it suffices for everything; which cannot better be done than by proposing to them problems, beautiful and attractive, and, for those who know their method, even simple, but which not one of the Cartesian analysts has been able to solve.

---

Let us come now to the heart of our dispute. I am not the first who has blamed Descartes for having rejected the search for final causes. Besides the Rev. Father Malebranche, the late Mr. Boyle did so with much zeal and solidity; not to speak of numerous other grave, moderate and well-disposed authors, men who otherwise make much of Descartes. The reply is here made that he banished final causes from physics, and that he was right in so doing, but that he would have been wrong if he had banished them from ethics: For the ‘whole good and the whole evil of our free actions depends upon their end. This reply is surprising. The question is not concerning our free actions, but concerning God and his wisdom, which appears among the things which Descartes ought not to have neglected. And the reply, far from excusing him, would charge, if it were true, that according to him final causes belong only to our free actions. But I suppose that this is not the view of the author of the Reflections, nor that of Descartes. Nevertheless, his silence might be prejudicial to his intention. He did not wish to avail himself of this means of proving the existence of God; he may be excused on this point, although many have blamed him for it; but he has not done well in otherwise everywhere passing by so important a point, which ought to have been employed in some passages of his Principles of Philosophy. If God is the author of things and if he is sovereignly wise, one could not very well reason as to the structure of the universe without making considerations of his wisdom enter therein, just as one could not well reason concerning a building without entering into the designs of the architect. I have adduced elsewhere an excellent passage from the Phaedo of Plato (which is the dialogue on the death of Socrates), where the philosopher Anaximander, who had posited two principles, an intelligent mind and matter, is blamed for not having employed this intelligence or this wisdom in the progress of his work, having contented himself with the figures and motions of matter; and this is exactly the case with our too materialistic modern philosophers.

But, it is said, in physics we do not ask why things are but how they are. I reply that both questions are there asked. Often we can better judge of the means by the end. Besides to explain a machine we could not do better than to state its design and to show how all its parts conduce thereto. This may even be useful in finding the origin of the intention. I wish that this method were employed also in medicine. The animal body is a machine, at once hydraulic, pneumatic and pyrobolic, the design of which is to maintain a certain motion; and by showing what conduces to this design and what is injurious to it, physiology as well as therapeutics, would be understood. Thus it is seen that final causes are of service in physics, not only to make us admire the wisdom of God, which is the principal reason, but also for knowing things and for managing them. I have elsewhere shown that whereas we may still dispute as to the efficient cause of light, which Descartes, as the most intelligent now acknowledge, has not sufficiently well explained, yet the final cause suffices for divining the laws which it follows, for provided we imagine that nature had as its design the conducting of rays from a given point to another given point by the easiest path, we find all these laws admirably, by simply employing, as I have done in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic, some lines of analysis — Molinenx thanked me for this in his Dioptrics, and he highly approved of the remark, which I made on the occasion, on the important use of final causes, which lead us to the consideration of Sovereign Wisdom, in showing us at the same time the laws of nature which are its consequence.

The author of the Reflections asks me to give the passage where Descartes says that matter receives successively all the forms of which it is capable. He has searched Articles 203 and 204 of the fourth part of his Principles for it. But it is found in Article 47 of the third part. I shall quote it in the words of the original Latin. The author remarks in the summary that the falsity of his suppositions regarding the origin of the world could not be injurious, and to prove it the better he adds: “Atque omnino parum refert quid hoc pacto supponatur, quia postea juxta leges naturae est mutandum. Et vix aliquid supponi potest, ex quo non idem effectua (quanquam fortasse operosius), per easdem naturae leges deduci possit. Cum earum ope materia formas omnes, quarum est capax, successive assumat, si formas istas ordine consideremus, tandem ad illam quae est hujusmodi poterimus devenire.” From this it may be judged whether I have imposed upon this author, and whether he does not say positively not only that matter can take, but also that it does take effectively as well as successively, all the forms of which it is susceptible, and that it is thus of little importance what suppositions are made. There is much to be said against this reasoning. In order to sustain it, it would be necessary to suppose that the same state of the universe returns always precisely after a certain period; since otherwise, a state of the world being taken which is posterior in fact to another, this latter state could never be deduced from the former, even if matter should; receive all the forms of which it is capable. But these periods involve other difficulties, so much so that thus all the infinite possibilities would have to occur in this finite, periodic interval; and all eternity could produce nothing new. To say, also, with Descartes, that he is at liberty to suppose almost anything he wishes, it would not suffice that each supposition or hypothesis should finally lead to our world; for it might be so distant and the passage from one to the other might be so long and so difficult that it would be impossible for the mind of man to follow it and to comprehend it. But the only proposition here in question is the one I have adduced, and the strange consequences of which I have noted: for if everything possible, and everything imaginable, however unworthy it be, some day comes to pass; if every fable or fiction has been or will become true history, there is naught but necessity, and no choice, no providence. And this consequence it is that the author of the Reflections does not disown, he having simply undertaken to disprove the proposition itself, which he did not find in the Principles of its author.

Nevertheless I am unwilling to attack the religion and piety of Descartes, as is unjustly imputed to me. I protested the contrary in express terms, for a doctrine may he dangerous, without the one circulating it, or the one following it, remarking the fact or approving its consequences. Nevertheless it is well to make them known, to the end that we may be on our guard against them, forasmuch as it clearly appears that Spinoza and some others have drawn them. For there are minds disposed to seize upon the worst passages, and ingenious in deducing the most dangerous conclusions. I would not have spoken of Spinoza if I had thought that what I wrote would be published, from the fear that it would be believed that I wished to cast odium upon the Cartesians, knowing well that they have sometimes been wronged by mistaken zeal. Nevertheless, since there is a desire to criticize my words it has been necessary to show that I have advanced nothing groundlessly. As one of the best uses of true philosophy, and particularly of physics, is to nourish piety and to lead us to God, I am not ill-pleased with those who have given me this occasion for explaining myself in a way which may make good impressions on some one; although I could wish that it had been done without attributing to me a passion and partiality, from which, perhaps, few people are more removed than I. To express in few words the feeling which I have toward an author whose reputation I am wrongly accused of wishing to ruin (an enterprise which would be as unjust as it is impossible), I will say that he who does not acknowledge the eminent merit of Descartes is not very penetrating; but that he who acknowledges and esteems none but him and those who follow him, will never amount to much.

ON NATURE IN ITSELF; OR, ON THE FORCE RESIDING IN CREATED THINGS, AND THEIR ACTIONS. 1698.

[From the Latin.]

(1). I HAVE recently received from the very illustrious John Christopher Sturm, a man especially meritorious for his work in mathematics and physics, the Apology which he published at Altorf in defence of his Dissertation, De Idolo Naturae, which Gunther Christopher Schelhammer, the eminent and beloved physician of Kiel, attacked in his hook on nature. As I have formerly examined the same question, and as I have had by letters some discussions on this subject with the eminent author of the Dissertation, mention of which he made in a way very gratifying to me in recalling publicly some details of our correspondence in the first volume of his Select Physics (Vol. I, Sec. 1, Chap. 3, epilog. §v, pp. 119, 120), I have been thereby but the more disposed to give serious attention to such an important subject, judging it necessary that my view and the whole question should be a little more distinctly set forth from those principles which I have already often indicated. This apologetic dissertation seemed to me to offer an opportunity favorable to my design, because it was easy to see that the author had there treated in a few words the essential points of the question. For the rest I do not take sides between these illustrious men.

(2) —. Two points especially, it seems to me, are in question: first, in what consists the nature which we are accustomed to attribute to things, the commonly received attributes of which, according to the judgment of the celebrated Sturm, savor a little of paganism; next, whether there is in creatures any ενεργεια, a thing which he appears to deny. As for the first point, concerning nature in itself, if we examine what it is and what it is not, I admit indeed that there is no soul of the universe; I even admit that these marvels, which happen every day and of which we are wont to say with reason that the work of nature is the work of an intelligence, are not to be attributed to certain created intelligences endowed with a wisdom and virtue proportioned to so great a matter; but that universal nature is, so to speak, the handiwork of God, and one so great that every natural machine (and this is the true but little observed difference between nature and art) is composed of really infinite organs, and consequently requires in the author and director infinite wisdom and power. This is why I hold the omniscient heat of Hippocrates and the soul-giving Cholco-goddess of Avicenna and the very wise plastic virtue of Scaliger and others and the hylarchic principle of Henry More, some of them impossible, others superfluous; and it is enough for me that the mechanism of things is constructed with’ so much wisdom that all these marvels come to pass through its very development, organized beings being evolved, I think, according to a preconceived plan. I am therefore of the opinion of the illustrious author when he rejects the figment of a certain created nature, whose wisdom forms and governs the mechanisms of bodies-’, but it does not hence follow, I believe, and reason does not admit, that all created, indwelling, active force must be rejected, (3.) We have just spoken of what it is not; let us now examine more closely what this nature is which Aristotle was not wrong in calling the principle of motion and of rest, although this philosopher seems to me to take the word in too broad a meaning, and understand by it not only local motion or rest in a place, but in general change and στασις or persistence. Whence, also, as I may say in passing, the definition which he gives of motion is truly obscure; it is, however, not so absurd as it seems to those who suppose that he meant to define only local motion. But let us return to the matter in hand. Robert Boyle, a man eminent and skilled in the accurate observation of nature, has written on nature in itself a little book, the thought of which, if I remember correctly, is summed up in this, that we ought to regard nature as being the very mechanism of bodies; which indeed may be proved ως εν πλατει; but if he had examined the thing with more αχριβεια he would have distinguished in the mechanism itself the principles from their derivatives. So it does not suffice, in order to explain a clock, to say that it is moved in a mechanical manner, without distinguishing whether it receives this impulse from a weight or from a spring. I have already declared more than once (what I think will be of profit in hindering the abusing of mechanical explanations of material things, to the prejudice of piety, as if matter could exist of itself and as if the mechanism had no need of any intelligence or of any spiritual substance) that the origin of the mechanism itself does not come merely from a material principle alone nor from mathematical reasons but from a certain higher principle, and, so to speak, metaphysical source.

(4.) One remarkable proof, among others, of this truth is that the foundation of the laws of nature must be made to consist not in this, that the same quantity of motion is preserved, as was commonly believed, but rather in this, that the same quantity of active power, still more (and I have discovered that this happens for an admirable reason), the same quantity of moving action must he preserved, the estimation of which must be very different from that which the Cartesians conceive under quantity of motion.

I have conferred on this subject, partly by letters, in part publicly, with two mathematicians of superior talent, and one of them embraced my opinion altogether; the other, after long and thorough examination, ended by renouncing all his objections and avowing frankly that he had not yet been able to find an answer to my demonstration. And I am all the more astonished to see that the illustrious man, in the edited portion of his Select Physics, in explaining the laws of motion, has admitted the common doctrine as if it did not permit of doubt (he has, however, recognized that it rests upon no demonstration but on a certain probability, and he has repeated it in this last dissertation, Chap. 3, § 2); but perhaps he wrote before my writings appeared and had not the time or the thought for revising his own, especially as he was persuaded that the laws of motion are arbitrary, which appears to me not at all according to reason. For I think that it is because of reasons determined by wisdom and order that God has been led to make the laws which we observe in nature; and hence it is evident, according to the remark which I formerly made on the occasion of an optical law and which the celebrated Molineux later highly approved in his Dioptrics, that final cause is not only useful to virtue and to piety in ethics and in natural theology, but that even in physics it serves to find and to discover hidden truths. So when the renowned Sturm, where he treats of final cause in his Select Physics, presented my doctrine among the hypotheses, I could have wished that he had sufficiently examined it in his criticism; for he would have found opportunity for saying in favor of the importance and richness of the argument many excellent things and such as are useful for piety.

(5.) But we must now examine what he says of the notion of nature in his apologetic dissertation, and what seems to us insufficient in it. He grants, Chap. IV, §§ 2, 3, and often elsewhere, that the movements which take place now are the result of the eternal lam once decreed by God, which law he calls soon after volition and command; and that there is no need of a new command from God, of a new volition, and still less of a new effort or of a sort of laborious operation (§ 3); and he repels as an unjust imputation on the part of his opponent the thought that God moves things as a wood-cutter does his two-edged axe, or as a miller governs his mill by retaining the waters or by turning them loose on the wheel. But in truth, as indeed it seems to me, this explanation does not suffice. For I ask if this volition or this command, or, if you prefer, this divine law, decreed originally, attributed to things only an extrinsic denomination; or if, in forming them, it created in them some permanent impression, or as Schelhammer, remarkable as well for his judgment as for his experience, well calls it, an indwelling lam (although it is most often unknown to the creatures in whom it resides), whence proceed all actions and all passions. The first appears to be the doctrine of the authors of the system of Occasional Causes, and especially of the very ingenious Malebranche; the latter is received (and as I believe rightly) as the most true.

(6.) And in truth since this past order does not exist at present, it can produce nothing now unless it then left after it some perduring effect, which now still continues and operates. And he who thinks otherwise renounces, if I judge rightly, all distinct explanation of things; and it can be said that anything is, by an equal title, the result of anything, if that which is absent in space and time can without intermedium operate here and now. Thus, it is not sufficient to say that in creating things in the beginning God willed that they should observe a certain law in their progress, if his will is conceived to have been so inefficacious that things, were not affected by it and no lasting effect was produced in them. And assuredly it is contrary to the notion of the divine power and will, which is pure and absolute, that God should will and nevertheless in willing produce or change nothing; that he is always acting and never effecting; that in a word he leaves no work. Without doubt, if nothing was impressed on creatures by this divine word, “Let the earth bring forth, let the animals multiply if after it things were not affected otherwise than if no command intervened, it follows (since there must be between the cause and the effect a certain connection, either immediate or mediate), either that nothing takes place now conformably to this mandate or that this mandate effecting so much in the present must be always renewed in the future, a consequence which the learned author, with reason, repels. But if, on the contrary, the law decreed by God left some trace of itself impressed on things; if things were so formed by the mandate as to render them fit to accomplish the will of the legislator, then it must be admitted that a certain efficacy, form or force, such as we are accustomed to call by the name of nature, is impressed on things, whence proceeds the series of phenomena according to the prescription of the first command.

(7.) But this indwelling force may, indeed be conceived distinctly but not explained by images; nor, certainly, ought it to be so explained any more than the nature of the soul, for force is one of those things which are not to be grasped by the imagination but by the understanding. Thus, when the author of the apologetic dissertation (Chap. 4, § 6) asks that the manner in which indwelling law operates in bodies ignorant of this law be explained to him by the imagination, I understand him to desire to have an explanation of it through the understanding; for otherwise, it might be believed that he demanded that sounds be painted and colors heard. Furthermore, if the difficulty of explaining things is sufficient for rejecting them, he therefore merits the imputation which he himself (Chap. 1, § 2) repels as unjust, of preferring to decide that everything is moved merely by a divine virtue rather than to admit, under the name of nature, something the nature of which is unknown to him. And certainly even Hobbes and others could claim with equal right that all things are corporeal, because they are persuaded that only bodies can be explained distinctly and by the imagination. But they themselves are justly refuted by the very fact that there is in things a power of acting which is not derived from imageable things, but merely to trace this to a mandate of God, which once given, in no wise affects things nor leaves any effect after it, so far from clearing up the difficulty, is rather to renounce the rôle of the philosopher and to cut the Gordian knot with the sword. For the rest, a more distinct and correct explanation of active force than has up to this time been given, may be drawn from our Dynamics, in which we give an interpretation of the laws of nature and of motion, which is true and in accordance with things.

(8.) But if some defender of the new philosophy which introduces the inertia and torpor of things, goes so far as to take away from the commands of God all durable effect and all efficacy for the future, and has no scruples in requiring of God incessantly renewed efforts (that which Sturm prudently declares he is averse to), he himself may see how worthy he thinks this of God; moreover, he could not be excused unless he offered an explanation of why things themselves can last some time but the attributes of things which we understand under the name of nature cannot be lasting; why it may not be, furthermore, according to reason that just as the word fiat left something after it, namely, the persisting thing itself, so the not less admirable word of blessing has left also after it in things a certain fecundity or virtue of producing their acts and of operating, whence, if there is no obstacle, the operation results. That which I have explained elsewhere might be added to this if perchance it is not yet perfectly clear to all, that the very substance of things consists in their power of acting and suffering, whence it follows that not even durable things can be produced if a force of some duration cannot be imprinted upon them by the divine power. Thus it would follow that no created substance, no soul, would remain numerically the same; that nothing would be preserved by God, and consequently that all things would be only certain passing or evanescent modifications, and, so to speak, phantasms, of one permanent divine substance; and, what amounts to the same thing, that nature itself or the substance of all things, would be God; a pernicious doctrine, recently introduced into the world or renewed by a subtle but profane author. In truth, if corporeal things contained nothing but matter it would be quite true to say that they are in a flux and have nothing substantial, as the Platonists formerly very well recognized.

(9). Another question is whether we must say that creatures properly and truly act. This question is included in the first if we once understand that the indwelling nature does not differ from the power of acting and suffering. For there cannot be action without the power of acting, and on the other hand that potency is worthless which can never be exercised. Since, however, action and potency are none the less different things, the first successive, the second lasting, let us consider the action. Here, I confess, I find no little difficulty in explaining the thought of the learned Sturm. For he denies that created things act properly and of themselves, and, nevertheless, soon after, while admitting that they act, he does not wish that the comparison of creatures to an ax moved by a wood-cutter be attributed to him. I cannot draw from this anything certain nor do I find explained with sufficient clearness to what extent he recedes from the received opinions, or what distinct notion he has conceived in his mind of action, which, as the debates of the metaphysicians attest, is far from being obvious and simple. As for me, as far as I seem to have grasped the notion of action, the doctrine generally received in philosophy, that actions belong to subjects, follows from it and is established by it; and I think that this principle is so true that it may be inverted; so that not only is everything which acts a particular substance, but also every particular substance acts without cessation, not even excepting body itself, in which no absolute rest is ever found.

(10). But let us now examine a little more attentively the opinion of those who take away from created things true and individual action; a thing which Robert Fludd, author of the Philosophia Mosaica, formerly did, and also now some Cartesians do who think that it is not at all the things which act, but indeed God, on occasion of things and according to the aptitude of things; and thus things are occasions not causes; they receive, but do not effect or produce. After Cordemoi, de La Forge and other Cartesians had proposed this doctrine, Malebranche, with his superior mind, lent it the lustre of his style; but no one, in my opinion, has presented solid proofs. Certainly if this doctrine is pushed to the point of suppressing even the immanent actions of substances (a view which the illustrious Sturm in his Select Physics, Bk. I, ch. iv, Epilo. §11, p. 176, rightly rejects, and in this he gives proof of much circumspection), then nothing in the world appears to be more contrary to reason. In truth, who will question that the mind thinks and wills, and that many thoughts and volitions in us are elicited from! ourselves, and that we are endowed with spontaneity? This would be not only to deny human liberty and to make God the cause of evil, but also to contradict the testimony of our inmost experience and of our conscience; through which we feel that those things are ours, which, without any kind of reason, our adversaries would transfer to God. But if we attribute to our soul the indwelling power of producing immanent actions, or, what is the same thing, of acting immanently, then nothing hinders, on the contrary, it is conformable to reason, that this same power should reside in other animated beings or forms, or, if you prefer, in the nature of substances; but if some one should think that in the nature of things as known to us only our souls are active, or that all power of acting immanently, and so to speak vitally, is joined with intellect, such assertions certainly rest on no ground, and can be defended only in opposition to the truth. As to what is to be believed concerning the transient actions of creatures, that will be explained better in another place, and has, in part, already been explained by us elsewhere: that is to say, the communication of substances or of monads has its source not in influx but in a concord proceeding from divine preformation; each substance, at the same time that it follows the indwelling power and laws of its own nature, being accommodated to the others; and it is in this that the union of the soul and body consists.

(11). Moreover, that bodies are of themselves inert is true if it is rightly understood, that is, that what is assumed to be in some way at rest cannot set itself in motion or allow itself without resistance to be set in motion by another body; any more than it can of itself change the rate of velocity or the direction which it once has, or allow it easily and without resistance to be changed by another body. And thus it must be confessed that extension, or what is geometrical in body if taken simply, has nothing in it which can give rise to action and to movement; on the contrary, matter rather resists motion by a certain natural inertia, as Kepler has well called it, so that it is not indifferent to motion and rest, as is generally thought, but it needs in order to move an active force proportionate to its size. Wherefore I make the very notion of materia prima, or of mass, consist in this very passive force of resistance (involving impenetrability and something more), which is always the same in body and proportioned to its size; and hence, I show that entirely different laws of motion follow than if there were in body and in matter itself only impenetrability together with extension; and that, as there is in matter a natural inertia opposed to motion, so in body itself, and what is more, in every substance, there is a natural constancy opposed to change. But this doctrine is not defended, but rather opposed, by those who deny action to things; for just as certain as it is that matter of itself does not begin motion, so certain is it (as very fine experiments on the motion communicated by a moving body show) that body retains of itself the impetus which it has once acquired, and that it is stable in its levity or makes an effort to persevere in that very series of changes which it has entered on. As these activities, or entelechies, cannot be modifications of primary matter or of mass, a thing essentially passive, as was recognized by the very judicious Sturm himself (as we shall see in the following paragraph), it may be inferred that there must be found in corporeal substance a first entelechy for activity; that is, a primitive motor force which being joined to extension (or what is purely geometrical) and to mass (or what is purely material) always indeed acts but nevertheless, in consequence of the meeting of bodies, is variously modified through effort and impetus. And it is this same substantial principle which is called soul in living beings, and substantial form in others; and so far as by its union with matter it constitutes a substance truly one, or one per se, it forms what I call a monad: since if these true and real unities are taken away only beings by aggregation will remain; nay, rather, it follows from this, that there will be no real entities in bodies. For although there are atoms of substance given, that is, our monads without parts, there are no atoms of mass, i. e. of the smallest extension, or ultimate elements, since the continuous cannot be formed of points. In short, no being is given which is the greatest in mass or infinite in extension, although there may always be some larger than others: but a being is given which is the greatest by intension of perfections or infinite in power.

(12). I see however that in this same apolegetic dissertation, ch. IV, § 7 et seq. the celebrated Sturm has undertaken to attack by certain arguments the motor force residing in bodies. “I shall abundantly here prove,” he says, “that corporeal substance is not even capable of any actively motor potency.” But I do not understand what a power not actively motor can be. Moreover, he says that he will employ two arguments, one drawn from the nature of matter and of body, the other from the nature of motion. The first amounts to this, that matter, in its nature and essentially, is a passive substance; and that thus it is no more possible to give it active force than it is for God to will that a stone, as long as it remains a stone, shall be living and rational, that is, not a stone; further, whatever qualities are posited in bodies are but modifications of matter, moreover (what I acknowledge is well said), a modification of a thing essentially passive cannot render this thing active. But it is easy to reply with the received and true philosophy that matter is to be understood as secondary or as primary; the secondary is a certain complete but not purely passive substance; the primary is purely passive but not complete, and consequently there must be added to it a soul, or form analogous to the soul, a primary entelexeia, that is, a certain effort or primitive power of acting, which is itself the indwelling law imprinted by divine decree. I do not think that such a view is repugnant to the illustrious and ingenious man who lately maintained that body is composed of matter and of spirit; provided that spirit is taken not for an intelligent thing (as in other cases is done) but for a soul or form analogous to the soul; not for a simple modification, but for something constituent, substantial and perduring, which I am accustomed to call monad, and which possesses a sort of perception and desire. Therefore this received doctrine, agreeing with the favorably explained dogma of the schoolmen, must be first refuted, in order that the argument of this illustrious man may have any weight. Whence also it is evident that we cannot admit, what he assumes, that whatever is in corporeal substance is but a modification of matter. For it is well known that according to received philosophy there are in the bodies of living beings souls which assuredly are not modifications. For although the illustrious man appears to maintain the contrary and to take away from the brutes all feeling, in the true meaning of the word, and soul, properly speaking, nevertheless, he cannot assume this opinion as the foundation of his demonstration until it itself has been proved. And I believe, on the contrary, that it is consistent neither with the order nor the beauty nor the reason of things, that this vital or immanently active principle should be only in a small part of matter, when greater perfection demands that it he in all. Nor does aught hinder souls, or at least forms analogous to souls, from being everywhere, although the dominant, and hence intelligent, souls, like the human, cannot be everywhere.

(13). The second argument, which the illustrious Sturm draws from the nature of motion, does not appear to me to be necessarily conclusive. He says that motion is only the successive existence of the thing in different places. Let us grant this provisionally, although we are not at all satisfied with it, and although it expresses rather the result of motion that its so-called formal reason; nevertheless motor force is not thus excluded. For a body is not only at the actual moment of its motion in the place assigned it, but it has also a tendency or effort to change its place so that the succeeding state follows of itself from the present by the force of nature; otherwise at the actual moment, and hence at any moment, body A, which is moved by body B, would in no wise differ from a body at rest; and from the opinion of the illustrious man, were it contrary to ours on this point, it would follow that there would be no difference whatever in bodies, because in the fullness of a mass in itself uniform no other difference can be assumed than that which respects the motion. Finally, it would further follow that there would be absolutely no variation in bodies, and that they would remain always in the same state. For if any portion of matter does not differ from another equal to and like it (which the illustrious Sturm must admit, since he does away with active forces, impulses, and all other qualities and modifications, except existence in this place, which would he successively another and another); if moreover the state at one instant does not differ from the state at another instant except by the transposition of portions of matter, equal and similar, and at every point fitting to each other, it evidently follows that, on account of the perpetual substitution of indiscernible things, it will be absolutely impossible to distinguish the states in the world of bodies at different moments. In truth, it would only he an extrinsic denomination by which one part of matter would be distinguished from another, that is, by the future, namely, that it would be later in another and still another place; but for the present state, there is no difference; and not even from the future could a well founded difference he drawn, because we could even later never arrive at any true present difference, since by no mark can one place be distinguished from another place, nor (on the hypothesis of the perfect uniformity in matter itself) matter from other matter of the same place. In vain also would we after motion have resort to figure. In a mass perfectly similar, indistinguishable and full, there arises no figure, nor limit and distinction of various parts, except from the motion itself. If then motion does not contain any mark of distinction it will impart none to figure; and as everything which is substituted for that which was, is perfectly equivalent, no one, even were he omniscient, could grasp the least indication of change, and consequently everything will be just as if no change and no distinction occurred in bodies: and we could never in this way account for the diverse appearances which we perceive. And it would be as if we should imagine two perfect concentric spheres, perfectly similar in themselves and in all their parts, one of which should be enclosed in the other so that not the least aperture should be left: then, if we suppose that the inner sphere is either in motion or at rest, not even an angel, to say nothing more, will be able to perceive any difference between the states at different times, and will have no sign by which to distinguish whether the inner sphere is at rest or in motion and according to what law the motion is. Moreover, not even the boundary of the spheres can be defined, because of the want both of aperture and of difference; just as in this case motion cannot be noticed because of the one lack of difference. Whence it must be considered as certain (although those who have not sufficiently penetrated into these things have little noticed it) that such things are foreign to the nature and order of things, and that (what is among the number of my new and greater axioms) there is nowhere any perfect similarity; whence it follows also that we find in nature neither corpuscles of an extreme hardness, nor a fluid of an extreme tenuity, nor subtile matter universally diffused, nor ultimate elements, called by some by the name of primary or secondary. It is, I believe, because he had understood something of this, that Aristotle, more profound in my opinion than many think, judged that in addition to local change there was need of alteration, and that matter would remain invariable. Moreover, this dissimilarity or diversity of qualities, and hence this alloiosis or alteration, which Aristotle did not sufficiently explain, comes from the diverse degrees and directions of efforts, and so from the modifications of indwelling monads. We can understand by this that there must necessarily he posited in bodies something besides a uniform mass and its not untimely transportation. Certainly, those who hold to atoms and a vacuum diversify matter at least in some degree by making it here divisible, there indivisible, full in one place, porous in another. But for a long time now I have understood (by laying aside the prejudices of youth) that atoms together with vacuum must be rejected. The celebrated author adds that the existence of matter through diverse moments is to be attributed to the divine will; why not then, he says, attribute to the same its existence here and now? I reply, that this, like all other things in so far as they involve some perfection, must undoubtedly be attributed to God; but just as this universal first cause which preserves all things does not destroy, but rather produces, the natural permanence, or once granted perseverance in existence, of the thing which begins to exist; so it will not destroy but rather strengthen the natural efficacy, or perseverance in action once communicated, of the thing set in motion.

(14) —. Many other things are met with in this apologetic dissertation which present difficulties, as what is said chapter IV, §11, concerning motion transmitted from one ball to another through several intermediaries, that the last ball is moved by the same force by which the first is moved, whereas, it seems to me, it is moved by an equivalent but not the same force; for (what may appear surprising), each ball repelled by the next impinging it is set in motion by its own force, viz. its elasticity. (I do not here discuss at all the cause of this elasticity, nor do I deny that it ought to be explained mechanically by the movement of an indwelling and unstable fluid). So also it will rightly seem surprising when he says, § 12, that a thing which cannot set itself in motion cannot of itself continue the motion. For it is evident rather that, as there is need of force to communicate motion, so, when the impulse is once given, so far from there being need of a new force to continue it there is rather need of a new force to stop it. For the question here is not of that preservation of motion by means of a universal cause necessary to things, which, as we have remarked, could not destroy the efficiency of things without taking away their existence.

(15) —. By this it will be again perceived that the doctrine of occasional causes defended by some (unless it be explained in such a way as to admit of modifications which, the illustrious Sturm has in part admitted and in part seems disposed to admit), is subject to dangerous consequences which are certainly not agreeable to its very learned defenders. For so far is it from augmenting the glory of God by doing away with the idola of nature, that on the contrary, by resolving all created things into simple modifications of a single divine substance, it seems, with Spinoza, to make of God the very nature of things; since that which does not act, that which lacks active force, that which is deprived of distinctive mark, and finally, of all reason and ground of permanence, can in no wise be a substance. I am thoroughly persuaded that the illustrious Sturm, a man remarkable for his piety and learning, is very far removed from these monstrosities. Thus there is no doubt but that he will either have to show clearly that there remains in things some substance or even some variation, without prejudice to his doctrine, or he will have to accept the truth.

(16). I have many reasons to suspect that I have not sufficiently grasped his meaning, nor he mine. He has somewhere admitted to me that a certain portion of divine power (that is, as I think, an expression, imitation, nearest effect; for the divine force itself can certainly not be divided into parts) can and even in a way must be regarded as possessed by and attributed to things. What he has transmitted to me and what he has repeated in his Select Physics, may be seen in the passage which I quoted at the beginning of this essay. If this be interpreted (as the terms seem to imply) in the sense in which we speak of the soul as a portion of the divine breath, then there is no longer any controversy between us. But what prevents me from affirming that such is his meaning, is that nowhere else do I see him propounding anything like it, nor advancing any deductions from it. I notice on the contrary, that his general views are little in harmony with this opinion, and that his apologetic dissertation goes into everything else. When indeed my views concerning indwelling force were first published in the month of March, 1694, in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipzig (views which my Essay on Dynamics published in the same in April, 1695, farther developed), he addressed to me by letter certain objection’s; but after having received my reply, he decided in a very friendly way that the only difference between us was in the manner of expressing ourselves. When I, remarking this, had brought some other things to his attention, he turning about declared there were many differences between us, which I recognized: and finally, these having been removed, he wrote me anew that there was no difference between us except in terms, a thing very agreeable to me. I have, therefore, wished, on the occasion of the recent apologetic dissertation, to so explain the matter that finally the opinion of each one of us and the truth of the same may the more easily be established. For the illustrious author possesses, moreover, such rare penetration and clearness of exposition, that I hope that no little light will be thrown by his zeal on this great subject. And consequently this work of mine will not be useless because it furnishes him the opportunity, with his wonted talent and force of judgment, to examine and to explain some things of importance in the present subject, which have up to this time been omitted by authors and by me. But these things will be supplemented, if I am not mistaken, by new, more profound, and more comprehensive principles, whence perhaps may come, some day, a reconstructed and amended system of philosophy midway between the formal and the material (and properly uniting and preserving both).

ETHICAL DEFINITIONS. 1697-1698.

[From the French.]

AS TO CHARITY or disinterested ‘love, on which I see embarrassing disputes have arisen, I think that one could not extricate one’s self better than by giving a true definition of love. I believe that in the preface to the work [Codex Diplomaticus Juris Gentium] which is known to you, sir, I have formerly so done in noting the source of justice. For JUSTICE is fundamentally nothing else than charity conformed to wisdom. CHARITY is universal benevolence. BENEVOLENCE is a disposition or inclination to love and it has the same relation to love that habit has to act. And LOVE is this act or active state of the soul which makes us find our pleasure in the happiness or satisfaction of others. This definition, as I have since noted, is capable of solving the enigma of disinterested love, and of distinguishing it from the bonds of interest or debauchery. I remember that in a conversation, which I had several years ago with the Count — and other friends, in which human love alone was spoken of, this difficulty was agitated, and my solution was found satisfactory. When one loves a person sincerely one does not seek one’s own advantage or a pleasure severed from that of the beloved person, but one seeks one’s pleasure in the contentment and in the felicity of this person. And if this felicity did not please in itself, but merely because of an advantage resulting therefrom to us, this would no longer be pure and sincere love. It must be then that pleasure is immediately, found in this felicity, and that grief is found in the unhappiness of the beloved person. For whatever produces pleasure immediately through itself is also desired for itself, as constituting (at least in part) the end of our wishes, and as something which enters into our own felicity and gives us satisfaction.

This serves to reconcile two truths which appear incompatible; for we do all for our own good, and it is impossible for us to have other feelings whatever we may say. Nevertheless we do not yet love altogether purely, when we seek the good of the beloved object not for itself and because it itself pleases us, but because of an advantage which we foresee from it. But it is apparent from the notion of love which we have just given that we seek at the same time our good for ourselves and the good of the beloved object for it itself, when the good of this object is immediately, finally (ultimato) and through itself our end, our pleasure and our good; as happens in regard to all the things wished for because they are pleasing in themselves, and are consequently good of themselves, even if one should have no regard to consequences; these are ends and not means.

Now divine love is infinitely above the loves of creatures, for other objects worthy of being loved constitute in fact part of our contentment or our happiness, in so far as their perfection touches us, while on the other hand the felicity of God does not compose a part of our happiness, but the whole. He is its source and not its accessory, and since the pleasures of lovable earthly objects can injure by their consequences, only the pleasure taken in the enjoyment of the divine perfections is surely and absolutely good, without danger or excess being possible.

These considerations show in what the true disinterestedness of pure love consists which cannot be severed from our own contentment and felicity, as M. de la Trappe has well remarked, because our true felicity embraces essentially the knowledge of the felicity of God and of the divine perfections, that is to say, the love of God. And consequently it is impossible to prefer one to the other by a thought founded in distinct notions. And to wish to sever one’s self from one’s self and from one’s own good is to play with words, or if you wish to go to the effects, it is to fall into an extravagant quietism, it is to desire a stupid, or rather affected and simulated inaction in which under pretext of resignation and of the annihilation of the soul swallowed up in God, one may go to libertinism in practice, or at least to a hidden speculative atheism, such as that of Averroes and of others more ancient who taught that our soul finally lost itself in the universal spirit, and that this is perfect union with God. Extract from a letter to Nicaise, 1697.

---

The error concerning pure love appears to be a misunderstanding, which as I have already said to you, sir, comes perhaps from not paying sufficient attention to forming definitions of terms.

To LOVE truly and disinterestedly is nothing else than to be led to find pleasure in the perfections or in the felicity of the object, and consequently to experience grief in what may be contrary to these perfections. This love has properly for its object substances susceptible of felicity; but some resemblance of this is found as regards objects which have perfections without being aware of it, as for example, a beautiful picture. He who finds pleasure in contemplating it and would find pain in seeing it ruined even if it should belong to another, would love it, so to speak, with a disinterested love. This could not be said of another who should merely have in view gain in selling it or the winning of applause by showing it, without for the rest caring whether or not it were ruined when it should no longer belong to him. This shows that pleasure and action cannot be taken away from love without destroying it, and that M. des Preaux in the beautiful verses which you sent me, was right both in recommending the importance of the divine love and in opposing a love which is chimerical and without effect. I have explained my definition in the preface of my Codex Diplomaticus Juris Gentium (published before these new disputes arose), because I had need of it in order to give the definition of JUSTICE, which in my opinion is nothing but charity regulated according to wisdom. Now CHARITY being a universal benevolence, and BENEVOLENCE being a habit of loving, it was necessary to define what it is to love. And since to LOVE is to have a feeling which makes us find pleasure in what conduces to the happiness Of the beloved object, and since wisdom (which makes the rule of justice) is nothing but the science of happiness, I showed by this analysis that happiness is the basis of justice, and that those who would give the true elements of jurisprudence, which I do not find laid down as they should be, ought to begin by establishing the science of happiness, which does not yet appear well determined, although books on Ethics are full of discourses on blessedness or the sovereign good.

As PLEASURE, which is nothing but the feeling of rare perfection, is one of the principal points of HAPPINESS, which in turn consists in a lasting condition of possession of what is necessary in order to taste pleasure, it were to be desired that the science of pleasures which the late M. Lautin meditated had been completed. — Extract from a letter to Nicaisse, 1698.

[The following Ethical Definitions, translated from the Latin, are undated.]

Justice is the charity of the wise.

Charity is general benevolence.

Benevolence is the habit of love.

To love anyone is to delight in his happiness.

Wisdom is the science of happiness.

Happiness is durable joy.

Joy is a state of pleasure.

Pleasure or delight is a sense of perfection, that is, a sense of something which helps or which sustains any power.

He is perfected whose power is augmented or helped.

Demonstrate this Hypothesis elsewhere:

The world is governed by the wisest and most powerful of monarchs, whom we call God.

Propositions.

The end or aim of God is his own joy or love of himself.

God created creatures, and especially those endowed with mind, for his own glory or from love of himself.

God created all things in accordance with the greatest harmony or beauty possible.

God loves all.

God bestows on all as much as is possible.

Neither hatred, nor wrath, nor sadness, nor envy, belong to God.

God loves to be loved or those loving him.

God loves souls in proportion to the perfection which he has given to each of them.

The perfection of the universe, or harmony of things, does not allow all minds to be equally perfect.

The question why God has given to this mind more perfection than to another, is among senseless questions, as if you should ask whether the foot is too large or the shoe pinching the foot is too small. And this is a mystery, ignorance of which has obscured the whole doctrine of the predestination and justice of God.

He who does not obey God is not the friend of God.

He who obeys God from fear is not yet the friend of God.

He who loves God above all things is at length the friend of God.

He who does not seek the common good does not obey God.

He who does not seek the glory of God does not obey God.

He who at the same time seeks the glory of God and the common good obeys God.

He who does not in his acts recognize God does not sufficiently love God.

He who is displeased by some things in the acts of God does not think God perfect.

He who thinks God does some things from absolute good pleasure, having no reason, or from irrational or indifferent liberty, does not think God perfect. -

He who thinks God acts in the best possible way acknowledges that God is perfect.

Whoever does not delight in the contemplation of the divine perfection does not love God.

All creatures serve the felicity or glory of God in the degree of their perfection.

Whoever against his will serves the felicity of God does not love God.

Whoever places his own felicity in relation with the divine felicity, loves himself and loves finally God.

He who loves God endeavors to learn his will.

He who loves God obeys God’s will.

He who loves God loves all.

Every wise man endeavors to do good to all.

Every wise man does good to many.

Every wise man is a friend of God.

The wiser one is the happier he is.

Every wise man is just.

Every just man is happy

ON THE CARTESIAN DEMONSTRATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 1700-1.

[From the French.]

IN TRUTH METAPHYSICS is natural theology, and the same God who is the source of all good is also the principle of all knowledge. This is because the idea of God embraces that of absolute being, that is to say, what is simple in our thoughts, from which all that we think takes its origin. Descartes had not considered the matter from this side; he gives two ways of proving the existence of God: the first is, that there is in us an idea of God, since we undoubtedly think of God and since we cannot think of anything without having the idea of it. Now if we have an idea of God and if it is a true one, that is, if it is of an infinite being and if it represents it faithfully, it cannot he caused by anything less, and consequently God himself must be its cause. He must therefore exist. The other argument is still shorter. It is that God is a being which possesses all perfections and consequently possesses existence which is in the number of perfections; hence he exists. It must be confessed that these arguments are a little suspicious because they advance too quickly and do violence to us without enlightening us; whereas true demonstrations are wont to fill the mind with some solid nourishment. However it is difficult to find the knot of the matter, and I see that a number of able men who have made objection to Descartes have passed this by.

Some have believed that there is no idea of God because he is not subject to the imagination, supposing that idea and image are the same thing. I am not of their opinion, and I well know that there is an idea of thought and of existence and of similar things of which there is no image. For we think of something and when we remark what made us recognize it, this, so far as it is in our soul, is the idea of the thing. This is why there is also an idea of what is not material or imaginable.

Others admit that there is an idea of God, and that this idea embraces all perfections, but they cannot understand how existence follows from it: be it because they do not admit that existence is of the number of perfections, or because they do not see how a simple idea or thought can imply existence outside of us. For myself I well believe that he who has acknowledged this idea of God and who fully sees that existence is a perfection, ought to avow that this perfection belongs to God. In fact I do not doubt the idea of God any more than his existence, on the contrary, I claim that I have a demonstration of it; but I would not that we flatter ourselves and persuade ourselves that we could succeed in so great a matter at so little cost. Paralogisms are dangerous in this matter; when they are not successful they rebound upon ourselves and strengthen the opposite party. I say then that we must prove with all imaginable accuracy that there is an idea of an all-perfect being, that is to say of God. It is true that the objections of those who think that they can prove the contrary because there is no image of God are as I have just shown worthless; but it must also be confessed that the proof which Descartes offers for establishing the idea of God is imperfect. How, he will say, can we speak of God without thinking of him. And could we think of God without having the idea of him? Yes, undoubtedly, we sometimes think of impossible things, and this has even been demonstrated; for example, Descartes held that the quadrature of the circle is impossible, and yet we do not cease to think of it and to draw consequences as to what would happen if it were possible. Motion of ultimate swiftness is impossible in any body whatever, for if it were supposed in a circle, for example, another concentric circle, surrounding the first and attached firmly to it, would be moved with a velocity still greater than the first, which consequently is not of the ultimate degree, contrary to what we have supposed. All this to the contrary notwithstanding, we think of this ultimate swiftness which has no idea since it is impossible. So the greatest of all circles is an impossible thing, and a number made up of all possible units is no less so: there is proof of it. And nevertheless we think of all this. This is why there is certainly room to doubt whether the idea of the greatest of all stars is to be trusted and whether it does not involve some contradiction; for I well understand, for example, the nature of motion and of swiftness, and what greatest is. But for all that I do not understand whether all this is compatible and whether there is a way of joining all this and making therefrom an idea of the greatest swiftness of which motion is capable. So although I know what star is, and what largest and most perfect are, nevertheless, I do not yet know whether there is not a hidden contradiction in joining all these together, as there is in fact in the other examples mentioned. That is to say, in a word, I do not know for all this whether such a star is possible; for if it were not there would be no idea of it. However, I confess, that God in this respect has a great advantage over all other things. For it is sufficient to prove that he is possible to prove that he exists, a thing not encountered anywhere else that I know of. Furthermore I infer from this that there is a presumption that God exists for there is always a presumption on the side of possibility; that is to say everything is held to be possible until its impossibility is proved. There is therefore also a presumption that God is possible, that is, that he exists, since in him existence is a consequence of the possibility. This may suffice for practical life but it is not sufficient for a demonstration. I have disputed much on this point with several Cartesians, but, finally, I have gotten some of the more able to frankly confess, after having understood the force of my arguments, that this possibility was still to be demonstrated. There are even some who after being challenged by me have undertaken to demonstrate this but they have not yet completed it. — Extract from an undated letter to (probably) the Grand Duchess Sophia.

I have not yet seen the work published at Basle in the year 1699, entitled Judicium de argumento Cartesii pro existentia Dei petito ab ejus idea; but having formerly casually examined the same argument in an essay On Knowledge, Truth and Ideas, inserted in the Acta of Leipzig, in the year 1684, I am curious to read what an able man says in the Histoire des Ouvorages des Savons, May, 1700, in favor of the arguments of Descartes and against the Latin work published at Basle. And I will say to you, sir, that I hold a position midway between the work and the reply. The author of the work believes that the argument is a sophism, the author of the reply considers it a demonstration, and I myself believe that it is an imperfect argument which tacitly takes for granted a proposition the proof of which, if added, would complete the demonstration. Thus the argument is not to be despised; it is at least a good beginning. Est aliquid prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.

Geometricians, who are the true masters of the art of reasoning, have seen that in order that demonstrations drawn from definitions may be good, it is necessary to prove, or at least postulate, that the notion embraced in the definition is possible. This is why Euclid placed among his postulata, that the circle is something possible, in asking that a circle, the center and radius of which are given, be described. The same precaution holds good in every sort of reasoning, and particularly in the argument of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (in Liber contra insipientem), quoted and examined by St. Thomas and other scholastics, and renewed by Descartes, which proves that God, being the greatest or most perfect being, embraces that perfection called existence, and that consequently he exists. To this it may be said that the reasoning is sound, supposing that the being sovereignly perfect or which embraces all perfections, is possible; and that it is the privilege of the divine nature (ms a se) that its essence comprises existence, that is, that it exists provided it is possible. And even omitting all mention of perfection it may be said that if necessary being is possible it exists. This is undoubtedly the most beautiful and the most important of modal propositions, because it furnishes a passage from power to act, and it is solely here that posse ad esse valet conseguentia. Also herein is found the principle of existences.

The author of the work opposes an example to Descartes, in reasoning as he does and reaching a false conclusion, for he says that existence is contained in the idea of a very perfect body (or one which comprises all perfection), hence such a body exists. To this, in my opinion, reply must he made that the idea of a very perfect being in this sense is impossible, for a body being limited by its essence cannot include all perfections. The work and the reply give themselves up a little too much to the terms and distinctions of real (or formal) and objective, essence and existence, whither I do not think it necessary to follow them. It is sufficient to remark that the author of the work having proposed to himself the reasoning of those who say that God must necessarily exist because it is not impossible that God be, has touched the essential point and has replied by no means badly that it does not follow that a thing is possible because we do’ not see its impossibility, our knowledge being limited. But this might have led him to think that the argument is not a sophism and that those who have proposed it have sinned only in concealing what they presuppose, instead of following the example of the geometricians, who have penetration and sincerity enough to see and expressly indicate the axioms and postulates of which they have need and which they presuppose.

The author of the reply, as far as I can understand him, does not enter sufficiently into this; he has good reason, p. 211, for rejecting this limitation: that wholly perfect being includes existence if it be supposed that there is a wholly perfect being, that is to say an actual. But if we understand it thus: if it be supposed that there is a wholly perfect being possible or among essences, the limitation is good. He is right in saying that it is not permissible to doubt things which are known to us under the pretext that our knowledge is limited. But this does not appear to be the meaning of the author of the work. I have already remarked in my essay, before mentioned, that the true mark of perfectly distinct knowledge is that the possibility of the notion in question can be proved a priori. Thus he is fundamentally wrong here in attributing to himself a clear and distinct notion when he cannot verify it by the mark which is essential to it. The example of the proposition that two and two are four is not applicable here because it can be demonstrated by definitions the possibility of which is recognized. — Extract from a letter to ——, 1700.

I have already elsewhere given my opinion concerning St. Anselm’s demonstration of the existence of God, renewed by Descartes; the substance of which is that that which embraces in its idea all perfections, or the greatest of all possible beings, comprehends also in its essence existence, since existence is in the number of perfections, and otherwise something could be added to that which is perfect. I hold a medium between those who take this reasoning for a sophism and the opinion of Reverend Father Lami, explained here, who considers it a complete demonstration. I admit then that it is a demonstration, but imperfect, which demands or supposes a truth which deserves to be further demonstrated. For it, is tacitly supposed that GOD, or the PERFECT BEING, is possible. If this point were again demonstrated, as it should be, it could be said that the existence of God was demonstrated geometrically a priori. And this shows what I have already said, that we cannot reason perfectly on ideas except by knowing their possibility to which geometricians have paid attention, but the Cartesians not sufficiently. However it can be said that this demonstration is none the less of importance, and so to speak, presumptive. For every being must be held possible until its impossibility is proved. I doubt however whether Reverend Father Lami was right in saying that it was adopted by the School. For the author of the marginal note remarks here very justly that St. Thomas had rejected it.

However this may be, a demonstration still more simple might be formed, not mentioning the perfections at all, so as not to be stopped by those who should venture to deny that all perfections are compatible, and consequently that the idea in question is possible. For by simply saying that God is a being of itself or primative, ens a se, that is, which exists by its essence it is easy to conclude from this definition that such a being, if it is possible, exists; or rather, this conclusion is a corollary which is derived immediately from the definition, and hardly differs from it. For the essence of the thing being only that which makes its possibility in particular, it is very clear that to exist by its essence, is to exist by its possibility. And if the being of itself were defined in terms still nearer, by saying that it is the being which must exist because it is possible, it is manifest that all which could be said against the existence of such a being, would be to deny its possibility.

On this subject we might again make a modal proposition, which would be one of the best fruits of all logic: namely, that if necessary being is possible, it exists. For necessary being and being by its essence are only one and the same thing. Thus the reasoning taken with this bias appears to have solidity; and those who will have it that from mere notions, ideas, definitions or possible essences, actual existence can never be inferred, in truth fall into what I have just said, namely, they deny the possibility of being of itself. But it is well to notice that this bias itself serves to show that they are wrong, and fills up finally the gap in the demonstration. For if being of itself is impossible, all beings by others are so also; since they exist ultimately only through being of itself; thus nothing could exist. This reasoning leads us to another important modal proposition, equal to the preceding, and which joined with it, completes the demonstration. It might be expressed thus: If necessary being is not, there is no being possible. It seems that this demonstration has not been carried so far up to this time. However I have also labored elsewhere to prove that the perfect being is possible.

I designed, sir, merely to write you in few words some trifling reflections on the memoirs which you sent me; but the variety of matters, the heat of meditation and the pleasure which I have taken in the generous design of the Prince who is the protector of this work, have earned me on. Pardon me for having been so lengthy, and I am, etc. — Extract from a letter to the editor of the Journal de Trevoux. 1701.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DOCTRINE OF A UNIVERSAL SPIRIT. 1702.

MANY INGENIOUS PERSONS have believed, and believe now, that there is but one spirit, which is universal and which animates all the universe and all its parts, each one in accordance with its structure and organs, just as the same breath of wind makes the various pipes of an organ give forth different sounds. And that thus when an animal has its organs well placed, it produces there the effect of an individual soul, but when the organs are spoiled, this individual soul again becomes nothingness, or returns, so to speak, into the ocean of the universal spirit.

Aristotle has seemed to many to hold a like opinion, which Averroes, a celebrated Arabian philosopher, has renewed. He believed that there was in us an intellectus agens or active understanding, and also an intellectus patiens or passive understanding: that the former, coming from without, was eternal and universal for all, but that the passive understanding was peculiar to each, and took its departure at the death of man. In the last two or three centuries, this has been the doctrine of some Peripatetics, as of Pomponatius, Contarenus and others; and traces of it are to be recognized in the late M. Naudé, as his letters and the Naudæana, which have been lately published, show. They taught this in secret to their most intimate and best qualified disciples, while in public they had the cleverness to say that this doctrine was in reality true according to philosophy, by which they understood that of Aristotle par excellence. but that it was false according to faith. Hence have finally arisen the disputes over double truth which the last Lateran Council condemned.

I have been told that Queen Christina had a decided leaning toward this opinion, and as M. Naudé, who was her librarian, was imbued with it, he probably communicated to her what he knew of the secret views of the celebrated philosophers with whom he had had intercourse in Italy. Spinoza, who admits only one substance, is not far removed from the doctrine of a single, universal spirit, and even the New Cartesians, who claim that God alone acts, establish it likewise without noticing it. Apparently Molinos and several other New Quietists, among others, a certain Joannes Angelus Silesius, who wrote before Molinos and some of whose works have recently been reprinted, and even Weigelius before them, embraced this opinion of the sabbath or rest of souls in God. This is why they believed that the cessation of particular functions was the highest state of perfection.

It is true that the Peripatetic philosophers did not make this spirit quite universal, for besides the intelligences, which according to them, animated the stars, they had an intelligence for this world here below; and this intelligence performed the part of the active understanding in the souls of men. They were led to this doctrine of an immortal soul common to all men, by false reasoning. For they took for granted that actual infinite multiplicity is impossible and that thus it was not possible that there should be an infinite number of souls, but that there must be nevertheless, if individual souls existed. For the world being, according to them, eternal, and the human race also, and new souls always being born, if these all continued to exist, there would now be an actual infinity. This reasoning passed among them for a proof. But it was full of false suppositions. For neither the impossibility of actual infinitude, nor that the human race has existed eternally, nor the generation of new souls, would be admitted, since the Platonists teach the preëxistence of souls, and the Pythagoreans teach metempsychosis, and claim that a certain determined number of souls remains ever and undergoes changes.

The doctrine of a universal spirit is good in itself, for all those who teach it admit in effect the existence of the divinity, whether they believe that this universal spirit is supreme — for in this case they hold that it is God himself —, or whether they believe with the Cabalists that God created it. This latter was also the opinion of Henry More, an Englishman, and of certain other modern philosophers, and especially of certain chemists who believed in a universal Arcbæus or world-spirit; and some have maintained that it was this spirit of the Lord which, as the beginning of Genesis says, “moved upon the waters.”

But when they go so far as to say that this universal spirit is the only spirit and that there are no souls or individual spirits, or at least that these individual souls cease to exist, I believe that they pass the limits of reason, and advance, without grounds, a doctrine of which they have not even a distinct notion. Let us examine a little the apparent reasons upon which they rest this doctrine which destroys the immortality of souls and degrades the human race, or rather, all living creatures, from that rank which belongs to them and which has commonly been attributed to them. For it seems to me that an opinion of so much importance ought to be proved, and that it is not sufficient to have imagined a supposition of this kind, which really is only founded on a very shocking comparison with the wind which animates musical organs.

I have showed above that the pretended demonstration of the Peripatetics who maintained that there was but one spirit, common to all men, is of no force, and rests only on false suppositions. Spinoza has pretended to prove that there is only one substance in the World, but these proofs are contemptible or unintelligible. And the New Cartesians, who believed that God alone is active, gave no proof of it; not to mention that Father Malebranche seemed to admit at least the internal action of individual spirits. One of the most apparent reasons which have been urged against individual souls, is the embarrassment as to their origin. The scholastic philosophers have disputed greatly over the origin of forms, among which they include souls. Opinions differed greatly as to whether there was an eduction of power from matter, as a statue is extracted from marble; or whether there was a traduction of souls so that a new soul should be born of a preceding soul as one fire is lighted from another; or whether souls already existed and only made themselves known after the generation of the animal; or finally whether souls were created by God every time there was a new generation.

Those who denied individual souls, believed that they were thereby freeing themselves from all difficulties, but this is cutting the knot instead of untying it, and there is no force in an argument which would run thus: the explanations of a doctrine have been various, hence the whole doctrine is false. This is the manner in which sceptics reason and if it were to be accepted, there would be nothing which could not be rejected. The experiments of our time lead us to believe that souls and even animals have always existed, although in small volume, and that generation is only a kind of growth; and in this way all the difficulties concerning the generation of souls and of forms, disappear. However we do not refuse God the right to create new souls or to give a higher degree of perfection to those which are already in nature, but we speak of what is ordinary in nature without entering into the particular economy of God in respect to human souls, which may have privileges since they are infinitely above those of animals.

In my opinion what has greatly contributed to incline ingenious persons toward the doctrine of a single universal spirit, is the fact that common philosophers gave currency to a theory, treating of separate souls and the functions of the soul independent of the body and of the organs, which they could not sufficiently justify; they had good reason for wishing to maintain the immortality of the soul as in accordance with divine perfections and true morality, but seeing that, in death, the organs visible in animals became disordered and finally spoiled, they believed themselves obliged to have recourse to separate souls, that is to say, to believe that the soul existed without any body, and did not even then cease to have its thoughts and activities. And in order to better prove this they tried to show that the soul, even in this life, has abstract thoughts, independent of material ideas. Now those who rejected this separate state and this independence, as contrary to experience and reason, were all the more compelled to believe in the extinction of the particular soul and the preservation of the single, universal spirit.

I have examined this matter carefully and I have proved that really there are in the soul some materials of thought or objects of the understanding which the external senses do not furnish, namely, the soul itself and its activities (nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse intellectus); and those who believe in a universal spirit will readily grant this, since they distinguish it from matter. I find, nevertheless, that there is never an abstract thought which is not accompanied by some images or material traces, and I have established a perfect parallelism between what takes place in the soul and what takes place in matter, having, shown that the soul with its activities is something distinct from matter, but that nevertheless it is always accompanied by organs which must correspond to it; and that this is reciprocal and always will be.

And as to the complete separation between soul and body, although I can say nothing beyond what is said in the Holy Scriptures of the laws of grace and of what God has ordained in respect to human souls in particular — since these are things which cannot he known through the reason and which depend upon revelation and upon God himself, nevertheless, I see no reason either in religion or in philosophy, which obliges me to give up the doctrine of the parallelism of the soul and the body, and to admit a perfect separation. For why might not the soul always retain a subtile body, organized in its fashion, and even resume some day, in the resurrection, as much as is necessary of its visible body, since we accord to the blessed a glorious body and since the ancient Fathers accorded a subtile body to the angels?

Moreover this doctrine is conformable to the order of nature, established through experience; for the observations of very skillful observers make us believe that animals do not begin when the ordinary person thinks they do, and that the seminal animals, or animated seeds, have existed ever since the beginning of things. Order and reason demand also that what has existed since the beginning should not end; and thus as generation is only the growth of a transformed and developed animal, so death will only he the diminution of a transformed and developed animal, while the animal itself will always remain, during the transformations, as the silkworm and the butterfly are the same animal. And it is well to remark here that nature has the skill and the goodness to reveal its secrets to us in a few little samples, to make us judge of the rest, since everything is correspondent and harmonious. It shows this also in the transformation of caterpillars and of some insects — for flies also come from worms — to make us divine that there are transformations everywhere. Experiments with insects have destroyed the common belief that these animals are engendered through nourishment, without propagation. It is thus also that nature has shown us in the birds a specimen of the generation of all animals by means of eggs, a fact which new discoveries have now established. Experiments also with the microscope have shown that the butterfly is only a development of the caterpillar; but, above all, that the seeds contain the plant or animal already formed, although afterward it needs transformation and nutrition or growth in order to become an animal perceptible to our ordinary senses. And as the smallest insects are also engendered by the propagation of the species, we must judge the same to be true of these little seminal animals, namely, that they themselves come from other seminal animals, even smaller, and so began to exist when the world did. This is in harmony with the Sacred Scriptures, which imply that seeds existed first of all.

Nature has given us an example in sleep and swoons, which ought to make us believe that death is not a cessation of all the functions, but only a suspension of certain of the more noticeable functions. And I have explained elsewhere an important point, which not having been sufficiently considered has the more easily inclined men to the opinion of the mortality of souls: namely, that a large number of minute perceptions, equal and interbalanced, having no background and no distinguishing marks, are not noticed and cannot he remembered. But to wish to conclude from this that the soul is then altogether without functions is the same thing as when the common people believe that there is a vacuum or nothing where there is no visible matter, and that the earth is without motion, because its motion is not noticeable, being uniform and without shocks. We have innumerable minute perceptions which we cannot distinguish; a great deafening noise, as, for example, the murmur of a whole assembled people, is composed of all the little murmurs of particular persons which we would not notice separately, but of which we have nevertheless a sensation, otherwise we would not be sensible of the whole. So when an animal is deprived of the organs capable of giving it sufficiently distinct perceptions, it does not at all follow that there do not remain to it smaller and more uniform perceptions, nor that it is deprived of all organs and all perceptions. The organs are only folded up and reduced to small volume, but the order of nature demands that everything redevelop, and, some day, return to a visible state, and that there be in these changes a certain well-regulated progress, which serves to make things ripen and become perfect. It appears that Democritus himself saw this resuscitation of animals, for Plotinus says that he taught a resurrection.

All these considerations show how not only individual souls, but also animals, exist, and that there is no reason to believe in an utter extinction of souls nor a complete destruction of the animal, and consequently that there is no need to have recourse to a single universal spirit and to deprive nature of its particular and existing perfections — which would be in reality also not to sufficiently consider its order and harmony. There are besides many things in the doctrine of a single, universal spirit which cannot be maintained and involve difficulties much greater than those of the common doctrine.

Here are some of them: you see, in the first place, that the comparison with the wind which makes various pipes sound differently, flatters the imagination, but explains nothing, or rather implies exactly the contrary. For this universal breath of the pipes is only a collection of a quantity of separate breaths; moreover each pipe is filled with its own air which can even pass from one pipe to another, so that this comparison would establish rather individual souls, and would even favor the transmigration of souls from one body to another, as the air can change pipes.

And if we imagine that the universal spirit is like an ocean, composed of innumerable drops, which are detached from it when they animate some particular organic body, but reunite themselves to the ocean after the destruction of the organs, you again form a material and gross idea which does not suit the subject and becomes entangled in the same difficulties as the breath. For as the ocean is a collection of drops, God would likewise be an assembly of all the souls, just as a swarm of bees is an assembly of these little animals; but as this swarm is not itself a real substance, it is clear that in this way the universal spirit would not be a true being itself, and instead of saying that it is the only spirit, we should have to say that it is nothing at all in itself, and that there are in nature only individual souls, of which it would be the mass. Moreover these drops, reunited to the ocean of the universal spirit after the destruction of the organs, would be in reality souls which would exist separated from matter, and we should fall back again into what we wished to avoid, especially if these drops retain something of their preceding state, or have still some functions and could even acquire more sublime ones in the ocean of the divinity or of the universal spirit. For if you wish that these souls, reunited to God, be without any function of their own, you fall into an opinion contrary to reason and all sound philosophy, as if any existing being could ever reach a state where it would be without any function or impression. For one thing because it is joined to another does not therefore cease to have its own particular functions, which joined with those of the other, produce the functions of the whole. Otherwise the whole would have none, if the parte had none. Besides I have elsewhere proved that every being retains perfectly all the impressions it has received, although these impressions may not be perceptible singly, because they are joined with so many others. So the soul reunited to the ocean of souls, would always remain the particular soul it had been while separated.

This shows that it is more reasonable and more in conformity with the custom of nature to allow individual souls to exist in the animals themselves, and not outside in God, and so to preserve not only the soul but also the animal, as I have explained above and elsewhere; and thus to allow individual souls to remain always in activity, that is, in the particular functions which are peculiar to them and which contribute to the beauty and order of the universe, instead of reducing them to the sabbath in God of the Quietists, that is to say, to a state of idleness and uselessness. For as far as the beatific vision of blessed souls is concerned, it is compatible with the functions of their glorified bodies, which will not cease to be, in their way, organic.

But if some one wished to maintain that there are no individual souls, not even when the function of feeling and of thought takes place with the aid of the organs, he would be refuted by our experience which teaches us, as it seems to me, that we are a something in particular, which thinks, which perceives, which wills; and that we are distinct from another something which thinks and which wills other things.

Otherwise we fall into the opinion of Spinoza, or of some other similar authors, who will have it that there is but one substance, namely God, which thinks, believes and wills one thing in me, but which thinks, believes and wills exactly the contrary in another; an opinion of which M. Bayle, in certain portions of his Dictionary, has well shown the absurdity.

Or, if there is nothing in nature but the universal spirit and matter, we would have to say that if it is not the universal spirit itself which believes and wills opposite things in different persons, it is matter which is different and acts differently; but if matter acts, of what use is the universal spirit? If matter is nothing but an original passive substance, or a passive substance only, how can these actions be attributed to it? It is therefore much more reasonable to believe that besides God, who is the supreme activity, there are a number of individual active beings, since there are a number of particular and opposite actions and passions, which could not be attributed to the same subject; and these active beings are the individual souls.

We know also that there are degrees in all things. There is an infinity of degrees between any movement and perfect repose, between hardness and a perfect fluidity which is without any resistance, between God and nothingness. There is likewise an infinity of degrees between any active being whatsoever and a purely passive being. Consequently it is not reasonable to admit but one active being, namely the universal spirit, with a single passive being, namely matter.

It must also be considered that matter is not a thing opposed to God, but that it is rather opposed to the limited active being, that is, to the soul or to form. For God from whom matter as well as form comes is the supreme being opposed to nothingness; and the purely passive is something more than nothingness, being capable of something, while nothing can be attributed to nothingness. Thus with each particular portion of matter must be connected the particular forms, — that is, souls and spirits, — which belong to it.

I do not wish here to recur to a demonstrative argument which I have employed elsewhere, and which is drawn from the unities or simple things, among which individual souls are included. For this unavoidably obliges us not only to admit individual souls, but also to avow that they are immortal by their nature, and as indestructible as the universe; and, what is more, that each soul is in its way a mirror of the universe, without any interruption, and that it contains in its depths an order corresponding to that of the universe itself. The souls diversify and represent the universe in an infinity of ways, all different and all true, and multiply it, so to speak, as many times as is possible, so that in this way they approach divinity as much as is possible, according to their different degrees, and give to the universe all the perfection of which it is capable.

After this, I do not see on what reason or probability the doctrine of individual souls can be combated. Those who do so, admit that what is in us is an effect of the universal spirit. But the effects of God are subsistent, not to say that even the modifications and effects of creatures are in a way durable, and that their impressions only unite without being destroyed. Therefore, if in accordance with reason and experience, as we have shown, the animal, with its more or less distinct perceptions and with certain organs, always subsists, and if consequently this effect of God subsists always in these organs, why would it not be permissible to call it the soul, and to say that this effect of God is a soul, immaterial and immortal, which imitates in a way the universal spirit? Since this doctrine, moreover, does away with all difficulties, as appears by what I have just said here and in other writings, which I have produced on these subjects.

ON THE SUPERSENSIBLE ELEMENT IN KNOWLEDGE, AND ON THE IMMATERIAL IN NATURE: A LETTER TO QUEEN CHARLOTTE OF PRUSSIA, 1702.

[From the French.]

MADAME:

The letter written not long since from Paris to Osnabrück and which I recently read, by your order, at Hanover, seemed to me truly ingenious and beautiful. And as it treats of the two important questions, Whether there is something in our thoughts which does not come from the senses, and Whether there is something in nature which is not material, concerning which I acknowledge that I am not altogether of the opinion of the author of the letter, I should like to be able to explain myself with the same grace as ‘he, in order to obey the commands and to satisfy the curiosity of your Majesty.

We use the external senses as, to use the comparison of one of the ancients, a blind man does a stick, and they make us know their particular objects which are colors, sounds, odors, flavors, and the qualities of touch, but they do not make us know what these sensible qualities are nor in what they consist. For example, whether red is the revolving of certain small globules which it is claimed cause light, whether heat is the whirling of a very fine dust, whether sound is made in the air as circles in the water when a stone is thrown into it, as certain philosophers claim; this is what we do not see. And we could not even understand how this revolving, these whirlings and these circles if they should be real should cause exactly these perceptions which we have of red, of heat, of noise. Thus it may be said that sensible qualities are in fact occult qualities, and that there must be others more manifest which can render the former more explicable. And far from understanding only sensible things, it is exactly these which we understand the least. And although they are familiar to us we do not understand them the better for that; as a pilot understands no better than another person the nature of the magnetic needle which turns toward the north, although he has it always before his eyes in the compass, and although he does not admire it any the more for that reason.

I do not deny that many discoveries have been made concerning the nature of these occult qualities, as, for example, we know by what kind of refraction blue and yellow are formed, and that these two colors mixed form green; but for all this we cannot yet understand how the perception which we have of these three colors results from these causes. Also we have not even nominal definitions of such qualities by which to explain terms. The purpose of nominal definitions is to give sufficient marks by which the thing may be recognized; for example, assayers have marks by which they distinguish gold from every other metal, and even if a man had never seen gold these signs might be taught him so that he would infallibly recognize it if he should some day meet with it. But it is not the same with these sensible qualities, and marks to recognize blue, for example, could not be given if we had never seen it. So that blue is its own mark, and in order that a man may know what blue is it must necessarily be shown to him.

It is for this reason that we are accustomed to say that the notions of these qualities are clear, for they serve to recognize them; but that these same notions are not distinct, because we cannot distinguish nor develope that which they include. It is I know not what of which we are conscious, but for which we cannot account. Whereas we can make another understand what a thing is of which we have some description or nominal definition, even although we should not have the thing itself at hand to show him. However we must do the senses the justice to say that, in addition to these occult qualities, they make us know other qualities which are more manifest and which furnish more distinct notions. And these are those which we ascribe to common sense, because there is no external sense to which they are particularly attached and belong. And here definitions of the terms or words employed may be given. Such is the idea of numbers, which is found equally in sounds, colors, and touches. It is thus that we perceive also figures, which are common to colors and to touches, but which we do not notice in sounds. Although it is true that in order to conceive distinctly numbers and even figures, and to form sciences of them, we must come to something which the senses cannot furnish, and which the understanding adds to the senses.

As therefore our soul compares (for example) the numbers and figures which are in colors with the numbers and figures which are found by the touch, there must be an internal sense, in which the perceptions of these different external senses are found united. This is what is called the imagination, which comprises at once the notions of the particular, which are clear but confused, and the notions of the common sense, which are clear and distinct. And these clear and distinct ideas which are subject to the imagination are the objects of the mathematical sciences, namely of arithmetic and geometry, which are pure mathematical sciences, and of the application of these sciences to nature, forming mixed mathematics. It is evident also that particular sensible qualities are susceptible of explanations and of reasonings only in so far as they involve what is common to the objects of several external senses, and belong to the internal sense. For those who try to explain sensible qualities distinctly always have recourse to the ideas of mathematics, and these ideas involve size or multitude of parts. It is true that the mathematical sciences would not be demonstrative, and would consist in a simple induction or observation, which would never assure us of the perfect generality of the truths there found, if something higher and which intelligence alone can furnish did not come to the aid of the imagination and the senses.

There are, therefore, objects of still other nature, which are not included at all in what is observed in the objects of the senses in particular or in common, and which consequently are not objects of the imagination either. Thus besides the sensible and imageable, there is that which is purely intelligible, as being the object of the understanding atone, and such is the object of my thought when I think of myself This thought of the Ego, which perceives sensible objects, and of my own action resulting therefrom, adds something to the objects of the senses. To think a color and to observe that one thinks it, are two very different thoughts, as different as the color is from the Ego which thinks it. And as I conceive that other beings may also have the right to say I, or that it could be said for them, it is through this that I conceive what is called substance in general, and it is also the consideration of the Ego itself which furnishes other metaphysical notions, as cause, effect, action, similarity, etc. and even those of logic and of ethics. Thus it can be said that there is nothing in the understanding which does not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or that which understands.

There are then three grades of notions: the simply sensible, which are the objects appropriate to each sense in particular; the sensible and at the same time intelligible, which pertain to the common sense; and the simply intelligible, which belong to the understanding. The first and the second are both imageable, but the third are above the imagination. The second and third are intelligible and distinct; but the first are confused, although they are clear or recognizable.

Being itself and truth are not known wholly through the senses, for it would not be impossible for a creature to have long and orderly dreams, resembling our life, of such a sort that everything which it thought it perceived through the senses would be but a mere appearance. There must therefore be something beyond the senses, which distinguishes the true from the apparent. But the truth of the demonstrative sciences is exempt from these doubts, and must even serve for judging of the truth of sensible things. For as able philosophers, ancient and modern, have already well remarked: — if all that I should think that I see should be but a dream, it would always be true that I who think while dreaming, would be something, and would actually think in many ways, for which there must always be some reason.

Thus what the ancient Platonists have observed is very true, and is very worthy of being considered, that the existence of sensible things and particularly of the Ego which thinks and which is called spirit or soul, is incomparably more sure than the existence of sensible things; and that thus it would not be impossible, speaking with metaphysical rigor, that there should be at bottom only these intelligible substances, and that sensible things should be but appearances. While on the other hand our lack of attention makes us take sensible things for the only true things. It is well also to observe that if I should discover any demonstrative truth, mathematical or otherwise, while dreaming (as might in fact be), it would be just as certain as if I had been awake. This shows us how intelligible truth is independent of the truth or of the existence outside of us of sensible and material things.

This conception of being and of truth is found therefore in the Ego and in the understanding, rather than in the external senses and in the perception of exterior objects.

There we find also what it is to affirm, to deny, to doubt, to will, to act. But above all we find there the force of the consequences of reasoning, which are a part of what is called the natural light. For example, from this premise, that no wise man is wicked, we may, by reversing the terms, draw this conclusion, that no wicked man is wise. Whereas from this sentence, that every wise man is praiseworthy, we cannot conclude by reversing it, that every one praiseworthy is wise but only that some praiseworthy ones are wise. Although we may always reverse particular affirmative propositions, for example, if some wise man is rich it must also he that some rich men are wise, this cannot he done in particular negatives. For example, we may say that there are charitable persons who are not just, which happens when charity is not sufficiently regulated; but we cannot infer from this that there are just persons who are not charitable; for in justice are included at the same time charity and the rule of reason.

It is also by this natural light that the axioms of mathematics are recognized; for example, that if from two equal things the same quantity he taken away the things which remain are equal; likewise that if in a balance everything is equal on the one side and on the other, neither will incline, a thing which we foresee without ever having experienced it. It is upon such foundations that we establish arithmetic, geometry, mechanics and the other demonstrative sciences, in which, in truth, the senses are very necessary, in order to have certain ideas of sensible things, and experiences are necessary to establish certain facts, and even useful to verify reasonings as by a kind of proof. But the force of the demonstrations depends upon intelligible notions and truths, which alone are capable of making us discern what is necessary, and which, in the conjectural sciences, are even capable of determining demonstratively the degree of probability, concerning certain given suppositions, in order that we may choose rationally among opposite appearances, the one which is greatest. Nevertheless this part of the art of reasoning has not yet been cultivated as much as it ought to be.

But to return to necessary truths, it is universally true that we know them only by this natural light, and not at all by the experiences of the senses. For the senses can very well make known in some way what is, but they cannot make known what ought to be or could not be otherwise.

For example, although we may have experienced numberless times that every massive body tends toward the centre of the earth and is not sustained in the air, we are not sure that this is necessary as long as we do not understand the reason of it. Thus we could not be sure that the same thing would occur in air at a higher altitude, at a hundred or more leagues above us, and there are philosophers who imagine that the earth is a magnet, and as the ordinary magnet does not attract the needle when a little removed from it, they think that the attractive force of the earth dues not extend very far either. I do not say that they are right, but I do say that one cannot go very certainly beyond the experiences he has had, if he is not aided by reason.

This is why the geometricians have always considered that what is only proved by induction or by examples in geometry or in arithmetic, is never perfectly proved. For example, experience teaches us that odd numbers continuously added together produce the square numbers, that is to say, those which come from multiplying a number by itself. Thus 1 and 3 make 4, that is to say 2 times 2, and 1 and 3 and 5 make 9, that is to say 3 times 3. And 1 and 3 and 5 and 7 make 16, that is 4 times 4. And 1 and 3 and 5 and 7 and 9 make 25, that is 5 times 5. And so on.

However, if one should experience it a hundred thousand times, continuing the calculation very far, he may reasonably think that this will always follow; but we do not therefore have absolute certainty of it, unless we learn the demonstrative reason which the mathematicians found out long ago. And it is on this foundation of the uncertainty of inductions, but carried a little too far, that an Englishman has lately wished to maintain that we can avoid death. For (said he) the consequence is not good, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather are dead and all the others who have lived before us; therefore we shall also die. For their death has no influence on us. The trouble is that we resemble them a little too much in this respect that the causes of their death subsist also in us. For the resemblance would not suffice to draw sure consequences without the consideration of the same reasons.

In truth there are experiments which succeed numberless times and ordinarily, and yet it is found in some extraordinary cases that there are instances where the experiment does not succeed. For example, if we should have found a thousand times that iron put all alone on the surface of water goes to the bottom, we are not sure that this must always happen. And without recurring to the miracle of the prophet Elisha who made the iron float, we know that an iron pot may he made so hollow that it floats, and that it can even carry besides a considerable weight, as do boats of copper or of tin. And even the abstract sciences like geometry furnish cases in which what ordinarily occurs no longer. For example, we ordinarily find that two lines which continually approach each other finally meet, and many people will almost swear that this could never be otherwise. And nevertheless geometry furnishes us with extraordinary lines, which are for this reason called asymptotes, which prolonged ad infinitum continually approach each other, and nevertheless never meet.

This consideration shows also that there is a light born with us. For since the senses and inductions could never teach us truths which are thoroughly universal, nor that which is absolutely necessary, but only that which is, and that which is found in particular examples; and since we nevertheless know necessary and universal truths of the sciences, a privilege which we have above the brutes; it follows that we have derived these truths in part from what is within us. Thus we may lead a child to these by simple interrogations, after the manner of Socrates, without telling him anything, and without making him experiment at all upon the truth of what is asked him. And this could very easily be practised in numbers and other similar, matters.

I agree, nevertheless, that in the present state the external senses are necessary to us for thinking, and that, if we had none, we could not think. But that which is necessary for something does not for all that constitute its essence. Air is necessary for life, but life is something else than air. The senses furnish us the matter for reasoning, and we never have thoughts so abstract that something from the senses is not mingled therewith; but reasoning requires something else in addition to what is from the senses.

As to the second question, whether there are immaterial substances, in order to solve it, it is first necessary to explain one’s self. Hitherto by matter has been understood that which includes only notions purely passive and indifferent, namely, extension and impenetrability, which need to be determined by something else to some form or action. Thus when it is said that there are immaterial substances, it is thereby meant that there are substances which include other notions, namely, perception and the principle of action or of change, which could not be explained either by extension or by impenetrability. These beings, when they have feeling, are called souls, and when they are capable of reason, they are called spirits. Thus if one says that force and perception are essential to matter he takes matter for corporeal substance which is complete, which includes form and matter, or the soul with the organs. It is as if it were said that there were souls everywhere. This might be true, and would not be contrary to the doctrine of immaterial substances. For it is not intended that these souls be outside of matter, but simply that they are something more than matter, and are not produced nor destroyed by the changes which matter undergoes, nor subject to dissolution, since they are not composed of parts.

Nevertheless it must be avowed also that there is substance separated from matter. And to see this, one has only to consider that there are numberless forms which matter might have received in place of the series of variations which it has actually received. For it is clear, for example, that the stars could move quite otherwise, space and matter being indifferent to every kind of motion and figure.

Hence the reason or universal determining cause whereby things are, and are as they are rather than otherwise, must be outside of matter. And even the existence of matter depends thereon, since we do not find in its notion that it carries with it the reason of its existence.

Now this ultimate reason of things, which is common to them all and universal by reason of the connection existing between all parts of nature, is what we call God, who must necessarily be an infinite and absolutely perfect substance. I am inclined to think that all immaterial finite substances (even the genii or angels according to the opinion of the ancient Church Fathers) are united to organs, and accompany matter, and even that souls or active forms are everywhere found in it. And matter, in order to constitute a substance which is complete, cannot do without them, since force and action are found everywhere in it, and since the laws of force depend on certain remarkable metaphysical reasons or intelligible notions, without being explicable by notions merely material or mathematical, or which belong to the sphere of the imagination.

Perception also could not be explained by any mechanism whatsoever. We may therefore conclude that there is in addition something immaterial everywhere in these creatures, and particularly in us, in whom this force is accompanied by a sufficiently distinct perception, and even by that light, of which I have spoken above, which makes us resemble in miniature the Divinity, as well by knowledge of the order, as by the ordering which we ourselves know how to give to the things which are within our reach, in imitation of that which God gives to the universe. It is in this also that our virtue and perfection consist, as our felicity consists in the pleasure which we take therein.

And since every time we penetrate into the depths of things, we find there the most beautiful order we could wish, even surpassing what we have therein imagined, as all those know who have fathomed the sciences; we may conclude that it is the same in all the rest, and that not only immaterial substances subsist always, but also that their lives, progress and changes are regulated for advance toward a certain end, or rather to approach more and more thereto, as do the asymptotes. And although we sometimes recoil, like lines which retrograde, advancement none the less finally prevails and wins.

The natural light of reason does not suffice for knowing the detail thereof, and our experiences are still too limited to catch a glimpse of the laws of this order. The revealed light guides us meanwhile through faith, but there is room to believe that in the course of time we shall know them even more by experience, and that there are spirits which know them already more than we do.

Meanwhile the philosophers and the poets, for want of this, have betaken themselves to the fictions of metempsychosis or of the Elysian Fields, in order to give some ideas which might strike the populace. But the consideration of the perfection of things or (what is the same thing) of the sovereign power, wisdom and goodness of God, who does all for the best, that is to say, in the greatest order, suffices to render content those who are reasonable, and to make us believe that the contentment ought to be greater, according as we are more disposed to follow order or reason.

X XIV.

AN EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN POINTS IN HIS PHILOSOPHY: AN EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO LADY MASHAM. 1704.

[From the French.]

AS I AM altogether in favor of the principle of uniformity, which I think nature observes in the heart of things while it varies in ways, degrees and perfections, my whole hypothesis amounts to recognizing in substances which are removed from our view and observation, something parallel to what appears in those which are within our reach. Thus, taking now for granted that there is in us a simple being endowed with action and perception, I think that nature would be little connected, if this particle of matter which forms human bodies were alone endowed with that which would make it infinitely different from the rest (even in physics) and altogether heterogeneous in relation to all other known bodies. This makes me think that there are everywhere present such active beings in matter, and that there is no difference between them except in the manner of perception. And as our own perceptions are sometimes accompanied by reflection and sometimes not, and as from reflection come abstractions and universal and necessary truths, no traces of which are to be seen in brutes and still less in the other bodies which surround us, there is reason for believing that this simple being which is in us and which is called soul is distinguished by this from those of other known bodies.

Whether now these principles of action and of perception be called FORMS, ENTELECHIES, SOULS, SPIRITS, or whether these terms be distinguished according to the notions one would like to attribute to them, the things will not thereby be changed. You will ask what these simple beings or these souls which I place in brutes and in the other creatures as far as they are organic, will become; I reply, that they must not be less inextinguishable than our souls, and that they cannot be produced or destroyed by the forces of nature.

But further, to preserve the analogy of the future or past as well as of other bodies with what we experience at present in our bodies, I hold that not only these souls or entelechies all have a sort of organic body with them proportioned to their perceptions but also that they will always have one, and have always had one, as long as they have existed; so that not only the soul but also the animal itself (or that which is analogous to soul and animal, not to dispute about names) remains. And that thus generation and death can only be developments and envelopments, some examples of which nature, according to its custom, shows us visibly to aid us in divining that which is hidden. And consequently neither iron nor fire nor any other violences of nature, whatever ravages they may make in the body of an animal, can prevent the soul from preserving a certain organic body, inasmuch as the ORGANISM, that is to say, order and artifice, is something essential to matter, produced and arranged by sovereign wisdom, and the production must always retain the traces of its author. This leads me to think also that there are no spirits entirely separated from matter except the first and sovereign being, and that the genii, however marvellous they may be, are always accompanied by bodies worthy of them. This must also be said of souls which nevertheless may be called separate by relation to this gross body. You see therefore, Madame, that all this is only to suppose that it is everywhere and Always just as with us and at present (the supernatural excepted), except degrees of perfections which vary; and I leave you to judge if an hypothesis at least simpler and more intelligible can be thought of.

This very maxim, not to suppose unnecessarily anything in creatures except what corresponds to our experiences, has led me to my System of the Preestablished Harmony. For we experience that bodies act among themselves according to mechanical laws, and that souls produce in themselves some internal actions. And we see no way of conceiving the action of the soul upon matter, or of matter upon the soul, or anything corresponding to it; it not being explicable by any machine whatever how material variations, that is to say, mechanical laws, cause perception to arise; nor how perception can produce change of velocity or of direction in animal spirits and other bodies, however subtile or gross they may be. Thus the inconceivability of another hypothesis as much as the good order of nature which is always uniform (without speaking here of other considerations), have made me believe that the soul and the body follow perfectly their laws, each one its own separately, without the laws of the body being troubled by the actions of the soul and without bodies finding windows through which to influence souls. It will be asked then whence comes this accord of the soul with the body. The defenders of occasional causes teach that God accommodates at each moment the soul to the body and the body to the soul. But it being impossible that this be other than miraculous, it is unsuited to a philosophy which must explain the ordinary course of nature, for it would be necessary that God should continually disturb the natural laws of bodies. This is why I believed that it was infinitely more worthy of the economy of God and of the uniformity and harmony of his work, to conclude that he has at the beginning created souls and bodies such that each following its own laws accords with the other. It cannot be denied that this is possible to him whose wisdom and power are infinite. In this I still only attribute to souls and to bodies for all time and everywhere what we experience in them every time that the experience is distinct, that is to say, mechanical laws in bodies and internal actions in the soul: the whole consisting only in the present state joined with the tendency to changes, which take place in the body according to the moving forces and in the soul according to the perceptions of good and evil.

The only surprising thing which follows from this is that the works of God are infinitely more beautiful and more harmonious than had been believed. And it may be said that the subterfuge of the Epicureans against the argument drawn from the beauty of visible things (when they say that among numberless productions of chance it is not to be marvelled at if some world like our own has succeeded passably) is destroyed, in that the perpetual correspondence of beings which have no influence one upon the other can only come from a common cause of this harmony. M. Bayle (who is profound), having meditated on the consequences of this hypothesis, acknowledges that one never exalted more what we call the divine perfections, and that the infinite wisdom of God, great as it is, is not too great to produce such a pre-established harmony, the possibility of which he seemed to doubt. But I made him consider that even men produce automata which act as if they were rational and that God (who is an infinitely greater artist or, rather, with whom everything is art as much as is possible), in order to make matter act as minds require, has traced out for it its path. So that after this we ought not to be more surprised at the fact that it acts with so much reason, than at the course of certain serpents in fireworks along an unseen cord, which shows that it is a man who manages them. The designs of God can only he grasped in proportion to the perfections found in them, and bodies being subjected to souls in advance in order to be accommodated to their voluntary actions, the soul in its turn is expressive of bodies in virtue of its primordial nature, being obliged to represent them by its involuntary and confused perceptions. Thus each one is the original or the copy of the other in proportion to the perfections or imperfections which it involves.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF LIFE, AND ON PLASTIC NATURES; BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SYSTEM OF PREËSTABLISHED HARMONY. 1705.

[From the French.]

AS THE DISPUTE which has arisen on plastic natures and on the principles of life has given celebrated persons who are interested in it occasion to speak of my system, of which some explanation seems to be demanded, I have thought it would be in place to add something to what I have already published on the subject in various passages of the Journals quoted by Bayle in his Dictionary, article Borarius. I really admit principles of life diffused throughout all nature, and immortal since they are indivisible substances or UNITS, as bodies are multitudes liable to perish by dissolution of their parts. These principles of life or these souls have perception or desire. When I am asked if there are substantial forms, I reply in making a distinction. For if this term is taken as Descartes takes it when he maintains against Regis that the rational soul is the substantial form of man, I will answer, Yes. But I answer, No, if the term is taken as those take it who imagine that there is a substantial form of a piece of stone, or of any other non-organic body; for the principles of life belong only to organic body. It is true (according to my system) that there is no portion of matter in which there are not numberless organic and animated bodies; under which I include not only animals and plants, but perhaps also other kinds which are entirely unknown to us. But for all this, it must not be said that each portion of matter is animated, just as we do not say that a pond full of fishes is an animated body, although a fish is.

However, my opinion on the principles of life is in certain points different from that hitherto taught. One of these points is that all have believed that these principles of life change the course of the motion of bodies, or at least give occasion to God to change it, whereas, according to my system, this course is not changed at all in the order of nature, God having pre-established it as it ought to be. The Peripatetics believed that souls had an influence on bodies and that according to their will or desire they gave some impression to bodies. And the celebrated authors who have given occasion for the present dispute, by their principles of life and their plastic natures, have held the same view, although they are not Peripatetics. We cannot say as much of those who have employed αρχαι, or hylarchic principles, or other immaterial principles under different names. Descartes having well recognized that there is a law of nature, according to which the same quantity of force is preserved (although he was deceived in its application in confounding quantity of force with quantity of motion), believed that we ought not to ascribe to the soul the power of increasing or diminishing the force of bodies, but simply that of changing their direction, by changing the course of the animal spirits. And those Cartesians, who have introduced the doctrine of Occasional Causes, believed that the soul not being able to exert any influence on body, it was necessary that God should change the course or direction of the animal spirits according to the volitions of the soul. But if at the time of Descartes the new law of nature, which I have demonstrated, had been known, which affirms that not only the same quantity of total force of bodies which are in communication, but also their total direction, is preserved, he would probably have discovered my system of Preestablished Harmony. For he would have recognized that it is as reasonable to say that the soul does not change the quantity of the direction of bodies, as it is reasonable to deny to the soul the power of changing the quantity of their force, both being equally contrary to the order of things and to the laws of nature, as both are equally inexplicable. Thus, according to my system, souls or the principles of life do not change anything in the ordinary course of bodies, and do not even give to God occasion to do so. Souls follow their laws which consist in a certain development of perceptions, according to the goods and the evils; and bodies also follow their laws, which consist in the laws of motion; and nevertheless these two beings of entirely different kind are in perfect accord, and correspond like two clocks perfectly regulated on the same basis, although perhaps of an entirely different construction. This is what I call Pre-established Harmony, which removes all notion of miracle from purely natural actions, and makes things run their course regulated in an intelligible manner; whereas the common system has recourse to absolutely inexplicable influences, and in that of Occasional Causes, God, by a sort of general law and as if by agreement, is obliged to change at each moment the natural course of the thoughts of the soul to accommodate them to the impressions of the body, and to disturb the natural course of the motions of bodies according to the volitions of the soul; that which can only be explained by a perpetual miracle, while I explain it quite intelligibly by the natures which God has established in things.

My system of Pre-established Harmony furnishes a new proof, hitherto unknown, of the existence of God, since it is quite manifest that the agreement of so many substances, of which the one has no influence upon the other, could only come from a general cause, on which all of them depend, and that this must have infinite power and wisdom to pre-establish all these harmonies. M. Bayle himself has thought that there never has been an hypothesis which so sets in relief the knowledge which we have of the divine wisdom. The system has moreover the advantage of preserving in all its rigor and generality the great principle of physics that a body never receives change in its motion except by another body in motion which impels it. Corpus non moveri nisi impulsum a corpore contiguo et moto. This law has been violated hitherto by all those who have admitted souls or other immaterial principles, all Cartesians included. The followers of Democritus, Hobbes, and some other thorough-going materialists, who have rejected all immaterial substance, having alone up to this time preserved this law have believed that they found therein ground for insulting other philosophers, as if they thus maintained a very irrational opinion. But the ground of their triumph has been but apparent and ad homimem; and far from serving them, it serves to confound them, and now, their illusion being discovered and their advantage turned against them, it seems that it may be said that it is the first time that the best philosophy shows itself also the most conformed in all respects to reason, nothing remaining which can be opposed to it. This general principle, although it excludes particular first movers, by making us deny this quality to soul or to immaterial created principles, leads us so much the more surely and clearly to the universal first mover, from whom comes equally the succession and harmony of perceptions. They are like two kingdoms, the one of efficient causes, the other of final; each of which separately suffices in detail for explaining all as if the other did not exist. But the one does not suffice without the other in what is general of their origin, for they emanate from a source in which the power which constitutes efficient causes and the wisdom which regulates final causes are found united. This maxim also, that there is no motion which has not its origin in another motion, according to laws of mechanics, leads us again to the first mover, because matter being indifferent in itself to all motion or rest, and nevertheless always possessing motion with all its force and direction, it could not have been put in it except by the author himself of matter.

There is still another difference between the opinions of other authors who favor the principles of life, and mine. It is that I believe at the same time both that these principles of life are immortal and that they are everywhere; whereas according to the common opinion the souls of brutes perish, and according to the Cartesians, man only has really a soul and even perception and desire; an opinion which will never be approved, and which has only been embraced because it was seen that it was necessary either to accord to brutes immortal souls or to avow that the soul of man might be mortal. But it ought rather to have been said that every simple substance being imperishable and every soul being consequently immortal, that which could not be reasonably refused, to brutes, cannot fail also to subsist always, although in a way very different from our own, since brutes, as far as can be judged, are lacking in that reflection which makes us think of ourselves. And we do not see why men have been so loath to accord to the bodies of other organic creatures immaterial, imperishable substances, since the defenders of atoms have introduced material substances which do not perish, and since the soul of the brute has no more reflection than an atom. For there is a broad difference between feeling which is common to these souls and the reflection which accompanies reason, since we have a thousand feelings without reflecting upon them; and I do not think that the Cartesians have ever proved or can prove that every perception is accompanied by consciousness. It is reasonable also that there may be substances capable of perception below us as there are above; and that our soul far from being the last of all is in a middle position from which one may descend and ascend, otherwise there would be a defect of order which certain philosophers call vacuum formarum. Thus reason and nature lead men to the opinion I have just propounded; but prejudices have turned them aside from it.

This view leads us to another where I am again obliged to diverge from the received opinion. It will be asked of those who are of my opinion what the souls of brutes will do after the death of the animal, and they will impute to us the dogma of Pythagoras who believed in the transmigration of souls, which not only the late M. Van Helmont, the younger, but also an ingenious author of certain Metaphysical Meditations, published at Paris, have wished to revive. But it must be known that I am far from this opinion, because I believe that not only the soul but also the same animal subsists. Persons very accurate in experiments have already in our day perceived that it may be doubted whether an altogether new animal is ever produced, and whether animals wholly alive as well as plants are not already in miniature in germs before conception. This doctrine being granted, it will be reasonable to think that what does not begin to live also does not cease to live, and that death like generation is only the transformation of the same animal which is sometimes augmented and sometimes diminished. This again reveals to us hitherto unthought-of marvels of divine contrivance. This is, that the machines of nature being machines even to their smallest parts are indestructible, by reason of the envelopment of one little machine in a greater ad infinitum. Thus one finds one’s self obliged at the same time to maintain the pre-existence of the soul as well as of the animal, and the substance of the animal as well as of the soul.

I have gradually been led to explain my view of the formation of plants and animals, since it appears from what I have just said that they are never formed altogether anew. I am therefore of the opinion of Cudworth (the greater part of whose excellent work pleases me extremely) that the laws of mechanics alone could not form an animal where there is nothing yet organized; and I find that with reason he is opposed to what some of the ancients have imagined on this subject and even Descartes in his L’Homme, the formation of which costs him so little, but which is also very far from being a real man. And I reinforce this opinion of Cudworth by presenting for consideration the fact that matter arranged by divine wisdom must be essentially organized throughout, and that thus there is a machine in the parts of the natural machine ad infinitum, and so many envelopes and organic bodies enfolded one within another that an organic body never could be produced altogether new and without any preformation; nor could an animal already existing be entirely destroyed. Thus I have no need to resort with Cudworth to certain immaterial plastic natures, although I remember that Julius Scaliger and other Peripatetics and also certain partisans of the Helmontian doctrine of Archæi have believed that the soul manufactures its own body. I may say of it non mi bisogna, e non mi basta, for the very reason of the preformation and organism ad infinitum which furnishes me the material plastic natures suited to the requirements of the case; whereas the immaterial plastic principles are as little necessary as they are little capable of satisfying the ease. For since the animals are never formed naturally of a non-organic mass, the mechanism incapable of producing de novo these infinitely varied organs can very well derive them through the development and through the transformation of a pre-existing organic body. Meanwhile those who employ plastic natures whether material or immaterial in no wise weaken the proof of the existence of God drawn from the marvels of nature, which appear particularly in the structure of animals, provided that these defenders of immaterial plastic natures, add a particular direction from God, and provided that those who with me make use of a material cause in assenting to plastic mechanism, maintain not only a continual preformation, but also an original divine pre-establishment. Thus whatever way we take we cannot overlook the divine existence in wishing to explain these marvels, which have always been admired but which have never been more apparent than in my system.

We see by this that not only the soul but also the annual must subsist always in the ordinary course of things. But the laws of nature are made and applied with so much order and so much wisdom that they serve more than one end, and God, who occupies the position of inventor and architect as regards the mechanism of nature, occupies the position of king and father to substances possessing intelligence, and of these the soul is a spirit formed after his image. And as regards spirits, his kingdom, of which they are the citizens, is the most perfect monarchy which can be invented; in which there is no sin which does not bring upon itself some punishment, and no good action without some recompense; in which everything tends finally to the glory of the monarch and the happiness of the subjects, by the most beautiful combination of justice and goodness which can be desired. Nevertheless I dare not assert anything positively either as regards pre-existence or as regards the details of the future condition of human souls, since God might make use of extraordinary ways in the kingdom of grace; nevertheless that which natural reason favors ought to be preferred, at least if Revelation does not teach us the contrary, a point which I do not here undertake to decide.

Before ending, it will perhaps be well to note, among the other advantages of my system, that of the universality of the laws which I employ, which are always without exception in my general philosophy: and it is just the opposite in other systems. For example, I have already said that the laws of mechanics are never violated in natural motions, that the same force is always preserved, as also the same direction, and that everything takes place in souls as if there were no body, and that everything takes place in bodies as if there were no souls; that there is no part of space which is not full; that there is no particle of matter which is not actually divided, and which does not contain organic bodies; that there are also souls everywhere, as there are bodies everywhere; that souls and the same animals always subsist; that organic bodies are never without souls, and that souls are never separated from all organic body; although it is nevertheless true that there is no portion of matter of which it can be said that it is always affected by the same soul. I do not admit then that there are naturally souls entirely separated, nor that there are created spirits entirely detached, from all body, in which I am of the opinion of several ancient Church Fathers. God only is above all matter, since he is its author; but creatures, free or freed from matter, would be at the same time detached from the universal concatenation, and like deserters from the general order. This universality of laws is confirmed by its great facility of explanation, since the uniformity, which I think is observed in all nature, brings about that everywhere else, in all time and in every place, it can be said that all is as it is here, to the degrees of greatness and of near perfection; and that thus those things which are farthest removed and most concealed are perfectly explained by the analogy of what is visible and near to us.

LETTER TO M. COSTE ON NECESSITY AND CONTINGENCY. 1707.

[From the French],

HANOVER, DEC. 19, 1707.

To M. COSTE, London:

I thank you very much for communicating to me the last additions and corrections of Locke, and I am pleased also to learn what you tell me of his last dispute with Limborch. The liberty of indifference, about which the dispute turns and my opinion of which you, sir, ask, consists in a certain subtilty which few people trouble themselves to understand and of which many people nevertheless reason. This carries us back to the consideration of necessity and of contingency.

A truth is necessary when the opposite involves contradiction, and when it is not necessary it is called contingent. It is a necessary truth that God exists, that all right angles are equal, etc. but that I myself exist, and that there are bodies in nature which show an angle actually right, are contingent truths. For the whole universe might be otherwise; time, space, and matter being absolutely indifferent to motions and forms. And God has chosen among an infinite number of possibles what he judged most fit. But since he has chosen, it must be affirmed that everything is comprised in his choice and that nothing could he changed, since he has once for all foreseen and regulated all; he who could not regulate things piecemeal and by fits and starts. Therefore the sins and evils which he has judged proper to permit for greater goods are comprised in his choice. This is the necessity, which can now be ascribed to things in the future, which is called hypothetical or consequent necessity (that is to say, founded upon the consequence of the hypothesis of the choice made), which does not destroy the contingency of things, and does not produce that absolute necessity which contingency does not allow. And nearly all theologians and philosophers (for we must except the Socinians) acknowledge the hypothetical necessity which I have just explained, and which cannot he combated without overthrowing the attributes of God and even the nature of things.

Nevertheless, although all the facts of the universe are now certain in relation to God, or (what amounts to the same thing) are determined in themselves and even linked among themselves, it does not follow that their connection is always truly necessary; that is to say, that the truth, which pronounces that one fact follows another, is necessary. And this must be applied particularly to voluntary actions. When a choice is proposed, for example to go out or not to go out, it is a question whether, with all the circumstances, internal and external, motives, perceptions, dispositions, impressions, passions, inclinations taken together, I am still in a contingent state, or whether I am necessitated to make choice, for example, to go out; that is to say, whether this proposition true and determined in fact, In all these circumstances taken together I shall choose to go out, is contingent or necessary. To this I reply that it is contingent, because neither I nor any other mind more enlightened than I, could demonstrate that the opposite of this truth implies contradiction. And supposing that by liberty of indifference is understood a liberty opposed, to necessity (as I have just explained it), I acknowledge this liberty for I am really of opinion that our liberty, as well as that of God and of the blessed spirits, is exempt not only from co-action but furthermore from absolute necessity, although it can not be exempt from determination and from certainty.

But I find that there is need of great precaution here in order not to fall into a chimera which shocks the principles of good sense, and which would be what I call an absolute indifference or an indifference of equilibrium, which some conceive in liberty, and which I believe chimerical. It must be observed then that that connection of which I just spoke is not necessary, speaking absolutely, but that it is none the less certainly true, and that in general every time that in all the circumstances taken together the balance of deliberation is heavier on the one side than on the other, it is certain and infallible that that side will carry the day. God or the perfect sage would always choose, the best that is known, and if one thing was no better than another, they would choose neither. In other intelligent substances passions often take the place of reason, and it can always be said in regard to the will in general that the choice follows the greatest inclination, under which I understand passions as well as reasons, true or apparent.

Nevertheless I see that there are people who imagine that we are determined sometimes for the side which is the less weighted, that God chooses sometimes the least good everything considered, and that man chooses sometimes without object and against all his reasons, dispositions, and passions, finally that one chooses sometimes without any reason which determines the choice. But this I hold to be false and absurd, since it is one of the greatest principles of good sense that nothing ever occurs without cause or determining reason. Thus when God chooses it is by reason of the Best, when man chooses it will be the side which shall have struck him most. If moreover he chooses that which he sees to be less useful and less agreeable, it will have become perhaps to him the most agreeable through caprice, through a spirit of contradiction, and through similar reasons of a depraved taste, which would none the less be determining reasons, even if they should not be conclusive reasons. And never can any example to the contrary be found.

Thus although we have a liberty of indifference which saves us from necessity, we never have an indifference of equilibrium which exempts us from determining reasons; there is always something which inclines us and makes us choose, but without being able to necessitate us. And just as God is always infallibly led to the best although he is not led necessarily (other than by a moral necessity), so we are always infallibly led to that which strikes us most, but not necessarily. The contrary not implying any contradiction, it was not necessary or essential that God should create nor that he should create this world in particular, although his wisdom and goodness has led him to it.

It is this that M. Bayle, very subtle as he has been, has not sufficiently considered when he thought that a case similar to the ass of Buridan was possible, and that a man placed in circumstances of perfect equilibrium could none the less choose. For it must be said that the case of a perfect equilibrium is chimerical and never occurs, the universe not being able to be parted or cut into parts equal and alike. The universe is not like an ellipse or other such oval which the straight line drawn through its centre can cut in two congruent parts. The universe has no centre and its parts are infinitely varied, thus the case will never occur where all will be perfectly equal and will strike equally from one side and from the other, and although we are not always capable of perceiving all the little impressions which contribute to determine us, there is always something which determines us between two contradictories, without the ease ever being perfectly equal on the one side and on the other.

Nevertheless, although our choice ex datis on all the internal and external circumstances taken together is always determined, and although for the present it does not depend upon us to change the will, it is none the less true that we have great power over our future wills by choosing certain objects of our attention and by accustoming ourselves to certain ways of thinking, and by this means we can accustom ourselves the better to resist impressions and the better make the reason act, to the end that we can contribute toward making ourselves will what we ought to.

For the rest I have elsewhere shown, that, regarding matters in a certain metaphysical sense, we are always in a state of perfect spontaneity, and that what is attributed to the impressions of external things comes only from confused perceptions in us which correspond to them, and which cannot but be given us at the start in virtue of the pre-established harmony which establishes the connection of each substance with all others.

If it were true, sir, that your Sevennese were prophets, that event would not be contrary to my hypothesis of the Pre-established Harmony and would even be in thorough agreement with it. I have always said that the present is big with the future and that there is a perfect connection between things however distant they may be one from another, so that one of sufficient penetration might read the one in the other. I should not even oppose one who should maintain that there are globes in the universe where prophecies are more common than on our own, as there will perhaps be a world in which dogs will have sufficiently good noses to scent their game at a thousand leagues, perhaps also there are globes in which genii have more freedom than here below to mix in the actions of rational animals. But when the question is to reason on what is actually practised here, our presumptive judgment must be founded on the custom of our globe, where prophetic views of this sort are very rare. We cannot swear that there are none, but we could wager that these in question are not such. One of the reasons which would most lead me to judge favorably of them would be the judgment of M. Fatio but it would be necessary to know his opinion without taking it from the newspaper. If you had with all due attention associated yourself with a gentleman with an income of £2000 sterling who prophesies in Greek, in Latin, and in French, although he only knows English well, there would be nothing to be said. So I beg you, sir, to enlighten me more on a matter so interesting and important. I am, etc.

REFUTATION OF SPINOZA, C. 1708.

[From the Latin.]

THE AUTHOR [WACHTER] passes on (ch. 4) to Spinoza, whom he compares with the cabalists. Spinoza (Eth. pt. 2, prop. 10, schol.) says: “Every one must admit that nothing is or can he conceived without God. For it is acknowledged by everyone that God is the sole cause of all things, of their essence as well as of their existence; that is, God is the cause of things, not only in respect to their being made (secundum, fieri), but also in respect to their being (secundum esse).” This, from Spinoza, the author [Wachter] appears to approve. And it is true that we must speak of created things only as permitted by the nature of God. But I do not think that Spinoza has succeeded in this. Essences can in a certain way be conceived of without God, but existences involve God. And the very reality of essences by which they exert an influence upon existences is from God. The essences of things are co-eternal with God. And the very essence of God embraces all other essences to such a degree that God cannot be perfectly conceived without them. But existence cannot be conceived of without God, who is the final reason of things.

This axiom, “To the essence of a thing belongs that without which it can neither be nor be conceived,” is to be applied in necessary things or in species, but not in individuals or contingent things. For individuals cannot be distinctly conceived. Hence they have no necessary connection with God, but are produced freely. God has been inclined toward these by a determining reason, but he has not been necessitated.

Spinoza (de Emend. Intel. p. 374) places among fictions the dictum, “Something can be produced from nothing.” But, in truth, modes which are produced, are produced from nothing. Since there is no matter of modes, assuredly neither the mode, nor a part of it, has preëxisted, but only another mode which has disappeared and to which this present one has succeeded.

The cabalists seem to say that matter, on account of the vileness of its essence, can neither be created nor can it exist; hence, that there is absolutely no matter, or that spirit and matter, as Henry More maintains in his cabalistic theses, are one and the same thing. Spinoza, likewise, denies that God could have created any corporeal and material mass to be the subject of this world, “because,” he says, “those who differ do not know by what divine power it could have been created.” There is some truth in these words, but I think it is not sufficiently understood. Matter does, in reality, exist, but it is not a substance, since it is an aggregate or resultant of substances: I speak of matter as far as it is secondary or of extended mass, which is not at all a homogeneous body. But that which we conceive of as homogeneous and call primary matter is something incomplete, since it is merely potential. Substance, on the contrary, is something full and active.

Spinoza believed that matter, as commonly understood, did not exist. Hence he often warns us that matter is badly defined by Descartes as extension (Ep. 73), and extension is poorly explained as a very vile thing which must be divisible in place, “since (de Emend. Intel. p. 385) matter ought to be explained as an attribute expressing an eternal and infinite essence.” I reply that extension, or if you prefer, primary matter, is nothing but a certain indefinite repetition of things as far as they are similar to each other or indiscernible. But just as number supposes numbered things, so extension supposes things which are repeated, and which have, in addition to common characteristics, others peculiar to themselves. These accidents, peculiar to each one, render the limits of size and shape, before only possible, actual. Merely passive matter is something very vile, that is, wanting in all virtue, but such a thing consists only in the incomplete or in abstraction.

Spinoza (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 13, corol. and prop. 15, schol.) says: “No substance, not even corporeal substance, is divisible.” This statement is not surprising according to his system, since he admits but one substance; but it is equally true in mine, although I admit innumerable substances, for, in my system, all are indivisible or monads.

He says (Eth. pt. 3, prop. 2, schol.) that “the mind and the body are the same thing, only expressed in two ways,” and (Eth. pt. 2, prop. 7, schol.) that “thinking substance and extended substance are one and the same, known now under the attribute of thought, now under that of extension.” He says in the same scholitun, “This, certain Hebrews seem to have seen as through a cloud, who indeed maintain that God, the intellect of God, and the things known by it, are one and the same.” This is not my opinion. Mind and body are not the same any more than are the principle of action and that of passion. Corporeal substance has a soul and an organic body, that is, a mass made up of other substances. It is true that the same substance thinks and has an extended mass joined to it, but it does not consist of this mass, since all this can he taken away from it, without altering the substance; moreover, every substance perceives, but not every substance thinks. Thought indeed belongs to the monads, especially all perception, but extension belongs to compounds. It can no more be said that God and the things known by God are one and the same thing than that the mind and the things perceived by the mind are the same. The author [Wachter] believes that Spinoza posited a common nature in which the attributes thought and extension reside, and that this nature is spiritual; but there is no extension belonging to spirits unless the word he taken in a broader sense for a certain subtile animal such as angels were regarded by the ancients.. The author [Wachter] adds that mind and body are the modes of these attributes. But how, I ask, can the mind be the mode of thought, when it is the principle of thought? Thus the mind should rather be the attribute and thought the modification of this attribute. It is astonishing also that Spinoza, as was seen above (de Emend. Intel. p. 385), seems to deny that extension is divisible into and composed of parts; which has no meaning, unless, perchance, like space, it is not a divisible thing. But space and time are orders of things and not things.

The author [Wachter] rightly says, that God found in himself the origins of all things, as I remember Julius Scaliger once said that “things are not produced by the passive power of matter but by the active power of God.”. And I assert this of forms or of activities or entelechies.

What Spinoza (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 34) says, that “God is, by the same necessity, the cause of himself and the cause of all things,” and (Polit. Tract. p. 270, c. 2, no. 2) that “the power of things is the power of God,” I do not admit. God exists necessarily, but he produces things freely, and the power of things is produced by God but is different from the divine power, and things themselves operate, although they have received their power to act.

Spinoza (Ep. 21) says: “That everything is in God and moves in God, I assert with Paul and perhaps with all other philosophers, although in a different manner. I would even dare to say that this was the opinion of all the ancient Hebrews, so far as it can be conjectured from certain traditions, although these are in many ways corrupted.” I think that everything is in God, not as the part in the whole, nor as an accident in a subject, but as place, yet a place spiritual and enduring and not one measured or divided, is in that which is placed, namely, just as God is immense or everywhere; the world is present to him. And it is thus that all things are in him; for he is where they are and where they are not, and he remains when they pass away and he has already been there where they come.

The author [Wachter] says that it is the concordant opinion of the cabalists that God produced certain things mediately and others immediately. Whence he next speaks of a certain created first principle which God made to proceed immediately from himself and by the mediation of which all other things have been produced in series and in order, and this they are wont to salute by various names: Adam Cadmon, Messiah, the Christ, λογος;, the word, the first-born, the first man, the celestial man, the guide, the shepherd, the mediator, etc. Elsewhere he gives a reason for this assertion. The fact itself is recognized by Spinoza, so that nothing is wanting except the name. “It follows,” he says (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 28, schol.), “in the second place, that God cannot properly be called the remote cause of individual things, except to distinguish these from those which God produces immediately or rather which follow from his absolute nature.” Moreover what those things are which are said to follow from the absolute nature of God, he explained (prop. 21) thus: “All things which follow from the absolute nature of any attribute of God must exist always and be infinite or are eternal and infinite through the same attribute.” — These propositions of Spinoza, which the author cites, are wholly without foundation. God produces no infinite creature, nor could it be shown or pointed out by any argument in what respect such a creature would differ from God.

The theory of Spinoza, namely, that from each attribute there springs a particular infinite thing, from extension a certain something infinite in extension, from thought a certain infinite understanding, arises from his varied imagination of certain heterogeneous divine attributes, like thought and extension, and perhaps innumerable others. For in reality extension is not an attribute of itself since it is only the repetition of perceptions. An infinitely ex, tended thing is only imaginary: an infinite thinking being is God himself. The things which are necessary and which proceed from the infinite nature of God, are the eternal truths. A particular creature is produced by another, and this again by another. Thus, therefore, by no conception, could we reach God even if we should suppose a progress ad infinitum, and, notwithstanding, the last no less than the one which precedes is dependent upon God.

Tatian says, in his Oration to the Greeks, that there is a spirit dwelling in the stars, the angels, the plants, the waters and men, and that this spirit, although one and the same, contains differences in itself. But this doctrine I do not approve. It is the error of the world-soul universally diffused, and which, like the air in pneumatic organs, makes different sounds in different organs. Thus when a pipe is broken, the soul will desert it and will return into the world-soul. But we must know that there are as many incorporeal substances, or if you will, souls, as there are natural, organic machines.

But what Spinoza (Eth. pt. 2, prop. 13, schol.) says: “All things, although in different degrees, are animated,” rests upon another strange doctrine, “for,” he says, “of everything there is necessarily in God an idea, of which God is the cause, in the same way as there is an idea of the human body.” But there is plainly no reason for saying that the soul is an idea. Ideas are something purely abstract, like numbers and figures, and cannot act. Ideas are abstract and numerical: the idea of each animal is a possibility, and it is an illusion to call souls immortal because ideas are eternal, as if the soul of a globe should be called eternal because the idea of a spherical body is eternal. The soul is not an idea, but the source of innumerable ideas, for it has, besides the present idea, something active, or the production of new ideas. But according to Spinoza, at any moment the soul will be different because the body being changed the idea of the body is different. Hence it is not strange if he considers creatures as transitory modifications. — The soul, therefore, is something vital or something containing active force.

Spinoza (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 16) says: “From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite modes, that is to say, all things which can fall under infinite intellect.” This is a most false opinion, and this error is the same as that which Descartes insinuated, viz. that matter successively assumes all forms. Spinoza begins where Descartes ended, in Naturalism. He is wrong also in saying (Ep. 58) that “the world is the effect of the divine nature,” although he almost adds that it was not made by chance. There is a mean between what is necessary and what is fortuitous, namely, what is free. The world is a voluntary effect of God, but on account of inclining or prevailing reasons. And even if the world should be supposed perpetual nevertheless it would not be necessary. God could either not have created it or have created it otherwise, but he was not to do it. Spinoza thinks (Ep. 49) that “God produces the world by that necessity by which he knows himself.” But it must be replied that things are possible in many ways, whereas it was altogether impossible that God should not know himself. — Spinoza says (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 17, schol.): “I know that there are many who believe that they can prove that sovereign intelligence and free will belong to the nature of God; for they say they know nothing more perfect to attribute to God than that which is the highest perfection in us… Therefore, they prefer to assert that God is indifferent to all things, and that he creates nothing except what he has decided, by some absolute will, to create. But I think I have shown (Prop. 16) sufficiently clearly that all things follow from the sovereign power of God by the same necessity; in the same way as it follows from the nature of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two right angles.” — From the first words it is evident that Spinoza does not attribute to God intellect and will. He is right in denying that God is indifferent and that he decrees anything by absolute will: he decrees by a will which is based on reasons. That things proceed from God as the properties of a triangle proceed from its nature is proved by no argument, besides there is no analogy between essences and existing things.

In the scholium of Proposition 17, Spinoza says that “the intellect and the will of God agree with ours only in name, because ours are posterior and God’s are prior to things;” but it does not follow from this, that they agree only in name. Elsewhere, nevertheless, he says that “thought is an attribute of God, and that particular modes of thought must be referred to it (Eth. pt. 2, prop. 1).” But the author [Wachter] thinks that he is speaking there of the external word of God, because he says (Eth. pt. 5) “that our mind is a part of the infinite intellect.”

“The human mind,” says Spinoza (Eth. pt. 5, prop. 23, proof), “cannot he entirely destroyed with the body, but there remains something of it which is eternal. But this has no relation to time, for we attribute duration to the mind only during the duration of the body.” In the scholium following, he adds, “This idea which expresses the essence of the body under the form of eternity [sub specie aeternitatis] is a certain mode of thought which belongs to the essence of the mind and which is necessarily eternal, etc.” This is illusory. This idea is like the figure of the sphere, the eternity of which does not prejudge its existence, since it is but the possibility of an ideal sphere. Thus it is saying nothing to say that “our mind is eternal in so far as it expresses the body under the form of eternity,” and it would be likewise eternal because it understands eternal truths as to the triangle. “Our soul has no duration nor does time relate to anything beyond the actual existence of the body.” Thus Spinoza, l. c. who thinks that the mind perishes with the body because he believes that only a single body remains always, although this can be transformed.

The author [Wachter] adds: “I do not see that Spinoza has anywhere said positively that minds migrate from one body into another, and into different dwellings and various regions of eternity. Nevertheless it might be inferred from his thought.” But he errs. The same soul, to Spinoza, cannot be the idea of another body, as the figure of a sphere is not the figure of a cylinder. The soul, to Spinoza, is so fugitive, that it does not exist even in the present moment, and the body too only exists in idea. Spinoza says [Eth. pt. 5, prop. 2) that “memory and imagination disappear with the body.” But I for my part think that some imagination and some memory always remain, and that, without them, there would be no soul. It must not be believed that the mind exists without feeling or without a soul. A reason without imagination and memory is a conclusion without’ premises. Aristotle, also, thought that vow, mind, or the acting intellect remains, and not the soul. But the soul itself acts and the mind is passive.

Spinoza (de Emend. Intel. p. 384) says, “The ancients never, to my knowledge, conceived, as we do here, a soul acting according to certain laws and like a spiritual automat’ (he meant to say automaton). The author [Wachter] interprets this passage of the soul alone and not of the mind, and says that the soul acts according to the laws of motion and according to external causes. Both are mistaken. I say that the soul acts spontaneously and yet like a spiritual automaton; and that this is true also of the mind. The soul is not less exempt than the mind from impulses from external things, and the soul no more than the mind acts determinately; as in bodies everything is done by motions according to the laws of force, so in the soul everything is done through effort or desire, according to the laws of the Good. The two realms are in harmony. It is true, nevertheless, that there are certain things in the soul which cannot be explained in an adequate manner except by external things, and so far the soul is subject to the external; but this is not by a physical influx, but so to speak by a moral, in so far, namely, as God, in creating the mind, had more regard to other things than to it itself. For in the creation and preservation of each thing he has regard to all other things.

Spinoza is wrong in calling [Eth. pt. 3, 9, schol.] the will the effort of each thing to persist in its being; for the will tends toward more particular ends and a more perfect mode of existence. He is wrong also in saying [pt. 3, prop. 7] that the effort is identical with the essence, whereas the essence is always the same and efforts vary. I do not admit that affirmation is the effort of the mind to persist in its being, that is, to preserve its ideas. We have this effort even when we affirm nothing. Moreover, with Spinoza, the mind is an idea, it does not have ideas. He is also wrong in thinking that affirmation or negation is volition, since, moreover, volition involves, in addition, the reason of the Good.

Spinoza (Ep. 2, ad Oldenb.) says that “the will differs from this or that volition, just as whiteness from this or that white color: consequently, will is not the cause of volition, as humanity is not the cause of Peter and of Paul. Particular volitions have therefore need of another cause. The will is only an entity of reason.” So Spinoza. But we take the will for the power of choosing, the exercise of which is the volition. Therefore it is indeed by the will that we will; but it is true that there is need of other special causes to determine the will, namely, in order that it produce a certain volition. It must be modified in a certain manner. The will does not therefore stand to volitions as the species or the abstract of the species to individuals. Mistakes are not free nor acts of will, although often we concur in our errors by free actions.

Further, Spinoza says (Tract. Polit. c. 2, no. 6), “Men conceive themselves in nature as an empire within an empire (Malcuth in Malcuth, adds the author). For they think that the human mind is not the product of natural causes, but that it is immediately created by God so independent of other things that it has absolute power of determining itself and of using rightly its reason. But experience proves to us over-abundantly that it is no more in our power to have a sound mind than to have a sound body.” So Spinoza. In my opinion, each substance is an empire within an empire; but harmonizing exactly with all the rest it receives no influence from any being except it be from God, but, nevertheless, through God, its author, it depends upon all the others. It comes immediately from God and yet it is created conformed to the other things. For the rest, not all things are equally in our power. For we are inclined more to this or to that. Malcuth, or the realm of God, does not suppress either divine or human liberty, but only the indifference of equilibrium, as they say who think there are no reasons for those actions which they do not understand.

Spinoza thinks that the mind is greatly strengthened if it knows that what happens happens necessarily: but by this compulsion he does not render the heart of the sufferer content nor cause him to feel his malady the less. He is, on the contrary, happy if he understands that’ good results from evil and that those things which happen are the best for us if we are wise.

From what precedes it is seen that what Spinoza says on the intellectual love of God (Eth. pt. 4, prop. 28) is only trappings for the people, since there is nothing loveable in a God who produces without choice and by necessity, without discrimination of good and evil. The true love of God is founded not in necessity but in ‘goodness. Spinoza (de Emend. Intel. p. 388), says that “there is no science, but that we have only experience of particular things, that is, of things such that their existence has no connection with their essence, and which, consequently, are not eternal truths.” — This contradicts what he said elsewhere, viz: that all things are necessary, that all things proceed necessarily from the divine essence. Likewise he combats (Eth. pt. 2, prop. 10, schol.) those who pretend that the nature of God belongs to the essence of created things, and yet he had established before [Eth. pt. 1, prop. 15] that things do not exist and cannot be conceived without God, and that they necessarily arise from him. He maintains (Eth. pt. 1, prop. 21), for this reason, that finite and temporal things cannot be produced immediately by an infinite cause, but that (Prop. 28) they are produced by other causes, individual and finite. But how will they finally then spring from God? for they cannot come from him mediately in this case, since we could never reach in this way things which are not similarly produced by another finite thing. It cannot, therefore, be said that God acts by mediating second causes, unless he produces second causes. Therefore, it is rather to be said that God produces substances and not their actions, in which he only concurs.

REMARKS ON THE OPINION OF MALEBRANCHE THAT WE SEE ALL THINGS IN GOD, WITH REFERENCE TO LOCKE’S EXAMINATION OF IT. 1708.

[From the French.]

THERE IS, IN the posthumous works of Locke published at London in 1706, 8vo. an examination of the opinion of Malebranche that we see all things in God. It is acknowledged at the start that there are many nice thoughts and judicious reflections in the book on The Search after Truth, and that this made him hope to find therein something satisfactory on the nature of our ideas. But he has remarked at the beginning (§ 2) that this Father [Malebranche] makes use of what Locke calls the argumentum ad ignorantiam, in pretending to prove his opinion, because there is no other means of explaining the thing; but according to Mr. Locke, this argument loses its force when the feebleness of our understanding is considered. I am nevertheless of opinion that this argument is good if one can perfectly enumerate the means and exclude all but one. Even in Analysis, M. Frenicle employed this method of exclusion, as he called it. Nevertheless Locke is right in saying that it is of no use to say that this hypothesis is better than the other, if it is found not to explain what one would like to understand and even to involve things which cannot harmonize.

After having considered what is said in the first chapter of the second part of hook third, where Malebranche claims that what the soul can perceive must be in immediate contact with it, Mr. Locke asks (§ 3, 4.) what it is to be in immediate contact, this not appearing to him intelligible except in bodies. Perhaps it might be, replied that one acts immediately on the other. And as Malebranche, admitting that our bodies are united to our souls, adds that it is not in such a way that the soul perceives it, he is asked (§ 5.) to explain that act of union or at least in what it differs from that which he does not admit? Father Malebranche will perhaps say that he does not know the union of the soul with the body except by faith, and that the nature of body consisting in extension alone, nothing can be deduced therefrom toward explaining the soul’s action on the body. He grants an inexplicable union, but he demands one which shall serve to explain the commerce of the soul and body. He claims also to explain why material beings could not be united with the soul as is demanded; this is because these beings being extended and the soul not being so, there is no relation between them. But thereupon Locke asks very apropos (§ 7.) if there is any more relation between God and the soul. It seems indeed that the Reverend Father Malebranche ought to have urged not the little relation, but the little connection, which appears between the soul and the body, while between God and the creatures there is a connection such that they could not exist without him.

When the Father says (§ 6.) that there is no purely intelligible substance except God, I declare that I do not sufficiently understand him. There is something in the soul that we do not distinctly understand; and there are many things in God that we do not at all understand.

Mr. Locke (§ 8.) makes a remark on the end of the Father’s chapter which is tantamount to my views; for in order to show that the Father has not excluded all the means of explaining the matter, he adds: “If I should say that it is possible that God has made our souls such and has so united them to bodies that at certain motions of the body the soul should have such and such perceptions but in a manner inconceivable to us, I should have said something as apparent and as instructive as that which he says.” Mr. Locke in saying this seems to have had in mind my system of Pre-established Harmony, or something similar.

Mr. Locke objects (§ 20.) that the sun is useless if we see it in God. As this argument applies also against my system, which claims that we see the sun in us, I answer that the sun is not made solely for us and that God wishes to show us the truth as to what is without us.

He objects also (§22.) that he does not conceive how we could see something confusedly in God, where there is no confusion. One might answer that we see things confusedly when we see too many of them at a time.

Father Malebranche having said that God is the place of spirits as space is the place of bodies, Mr. Locke says (§ 25.) that he does not understand a word of this. But he understands at least what space, place and body are. He understands also that the Father draws an analogy between space, place, body and between God, place, spirit. Thus a good part of what he here says is intelligible. It may merely be objected that this analogy is not proven, although some relations are easily perceived which might give occasion for the comparison. I often observe that certain persons seek by this affectation of ignorance to elude what is said to them as if they understood nothing; they do this not to reproach themselves, but either to reproach those speaking, as if their jargon was unintelligible, or to exalt themselves above the matter and those who tell it, as if it was not worthy of their attention.

Nevertheless Mr. Locke is right in saying that the opinion of Father Malebranche is unintelligible in connection with his other opinions, since with him space and body are the same thing. The truth has escaped him here and he has conceived something common and immutable, to which bodies have an essential relation and which indeed produces their relation to one another. This order gives occasion for making a fiction and for conceiving space as an immutable substance; but what there is real in this notion relates to simple substances (under which spirits are included), and is found in God, who unites them.

The Father saying that ideas are representative beings, Mr. Locke asks (§ 26.) If these beings are substances, modes or relations? I believe that it may be said that they are nothing but relations resulting from the attributes of God.

When Mr. Locke declares (§31.) that he does not understand how the variety of ideas is compatible with the simplicity of God, it appears to me that he ought not raise an objection on this score against Father Malebranche, for there is no system which can make such a thing comprehensible. We cannot comprehend the incommensurable and a thousand other things, the truth of which we nevertheless know, and which we are right in employing to explain others which are dependent on them. There is something approaching to this in all simple substances; where there is variety of affections in unity of substance.

The Father maintains that the idea of the infinite is prior to that of the finite. Mr. Locke objects (§ 34.) that a child has the idea of a number or of a square sooner than that of the infinite. He is right in taking the ideas for images; but in taking them as the foundations of notions, he will find that in the continuum the notion of an extended, taken absolutely, is prior to the notion of an extended where the modification is added. This must he further applied to what is said in §§ 42. and 46.

The argument of the Father which Mr. Locke examines (§40.), that God alone, being the end of spirits, is also their sole object, is not to be despised. It is true that it needs something in order to be called a demonstration. There is a more conclusive reason which shows that God is the sole immediate external object of spirits, and that is that there is naught but he which can act on them.

It is objected (§ 41.) that the Apostle begins with the knowledge of the creatures in order to lead to God and that the Father does the contrary. I believe that these methods harmonize. The one proceeds a priori, the other a posteriori; and the latter is the more common. It is true that the best way to know things is through their causes; but this is not the easiest. It requires too much attention to things of sense.

In replying to § 34. I have noticed the difference there is between image and idea. It seems that this difference is combated (§ 38.) by finding difficulty in the difference which there is between image [sentiment] and idea. But I think that the Father understands by image [sentiment] a perception of the imagination, whereas there may be ideas of things which are not sensible nor imageable. I affirm that we have as clear an idea of the color of the violet as of its figure (as is objected here) but not as distinct nor as intelligible.

Mr. Locke asks if an indivisible and unextended substance can have at the same time different modifications relating to inconsistent objects. I reply, Yes. That which is inconsistent in the same object is not inconsistent in the representation of different objects, conceived at the same time. It is not therefore necessary that there he different parts in the soul as it is not necessary that there be different parts in a point although different angles come together there.

It is asked with reason (§ 43.) how we know the creature if we do not see immediately aught but God? Because the objects, the representation of which God causes us to have, have something which resembles the idea we have of substance, and it is this which makes us judge that there are other substances.

It is supposed (§ 46.) that God has the idea of an angle which is the nearest to the right angle, but that he does not show it to anyone, however one may desire to have it. I reply that such an angle is a fiction, like the fraction nearest to unity, or the number nearest to zero, or the least of all numbers. The nature of continuity does not permit any such thing.

The Father had said that we know our soul by an inner feeling of consciousness, and that for this reason the knowledge of our soul is more imperfect than that of things, which we know in God. Mr. Locke then remarks very apropos (§ 47.) that the idea of our soul being in God as well as that of other things, we should see it also in God. The truth is that we see all things in ourselves and in our souls, and that the knowledge which we have of the soul is very true and just provided that we attend to it; that it is by the knowledge which we have of the soul that we know being, substance, God himself, and that it is by reflection on our thoughts that we know extension and bodies; that it is nevertheless true that God gives us all there is that is positive in this, and all perfection therein involved, by an immediate and continual emanation, by virtue of the dependence on him which all creatures have, and it is thus that a good meaning may be given to the phrase that God is the object of our souls and that we see all things in him.

Perhaps the design of the Father in the saying which is examined (§ 53.), that we see the essences of things in the perfections of God and that it is the universal reason which enlightens us, tends to show that the attributes of God are the bases of the simple notions which we have of things, — being, power, knowledge, diffusion, duration, taken absolutely, being in him and not being in creatures save in a limited way.

LETTER TO WAGNER ON THE ACTIVE FORCE OF BODY, ON THE SOUL AND ON THE SOUL OF BRUTES. 1710.

[From the Latin.]

1. I WILLINGLY reply to the inquiries you make as to the nature of the soul, for I see from the doubt which you present that my view is not sufficiently clear to you, and that this is due to some prejudgment drawn from my essay, inserted in the Acta Eruditorum, wherein I treated, in opposition to the illustrious Sturm, of the active force of body. You say that I have not there sufficiently vindicated active force for matter, and while I attribute resistance to matter I have also attributed reaction to the same, and consequently action; since therefore there is everywhere in matter an active principle, this principle seems to suffice for the actions of brutes, nor is there need in them of an incorruptible soul.

2. I reply, in the first place, that the active principle is not attributed by me to bare or primary matter, which is merely passive, and consists only in antitypia and extension; but to body or to clothed or secondary matter which in addition contains a primitive entelechy or active principle. I reply, secondly, that the resistance of bare matter is not action, but mere passion, inasmuch as it has antitypia or impenetrability, by which indeed it resists whatever would penetrate it but does not react, unless there be added an elastic force, which must be derived from motion, and therefore the active force of matter must be superadded. I reply, thirdly, that this active principle, this first entelechy, is, in fact, a vital principle, endowed also with the faculty of perception, and incorruptible, for reasons recently stated by me. And this is the very thing which in brutes I hold for their soul. While, therefore, I admit active principles superadded everywhere in matter, I also posit, everywhere disseminated through it, vital or percipient principles, and thus monads, and, so to speak, metaphysical atoms wanting parts and incapable of being produced or destroyed naturally.

3. You next ask my definition of soul. I reply that soul may be employed in a broad and in a strict sense. Broadly speaking, soul will be the same as life or vital principle, that is, the principle of internal action existing in the simple thing or monad, to which external action corresponds. And this correspondence of internal and external, or representation of the external in the internal, of the composite in the simple, of multiplicity in unity, constitutes in reality perception. But in this sense, soul is attributed not only to animals but also to all other percipient beings. In the strict sense, soul is employed as a nobler species of life, or sentient life, where there is not only the faculty of perceiving, but in addition that of feeling, inasmuch, indeed, as attention and memory are joined to perception. Just as, in turn, mind is a nobler species of soul, that is, mind is rational soul, where reason or ratiocination from universality of truths is added to feeling. As therefore mind is rational soul, so soul is sentient life, and life is perceptive principle. I have shown, moreover, by examples and arguments, that not all perception is feeling, but that there is also insensible perception. For example, I could not perceive green unless I perceived blue and yellow, from which it results. At the same time, I do not feel blue and yellow unless perchance a microscope is employed.

4. You will remember, moreover, that according to my opinion, not only are all lives, all souls, all minds, all primitive entelechies, everlasting, but also that to each primitive entelechy or each vital principle there is perpetually united a certain natural machine, which comes to us under the name of organic body: which machine, moreover, even although it preserves its form in general, remains in flux, and is, like the ship of Theseus, perpetually repaired. Nor therefore can we be certain that the smallest particle of matter received by us at birth, remains in our body, even although the same machine is by degrees completely transformed, augmented, diminished, involved or evolved. Hence, not only is the soul everlasting, but also some animal always remains, although no particular animal ought to be called everlasting, since the animal species does not remain; just as the caterpillar, and the butterfly are not the same animal, although the same soul is in both. Every natural machine, therefore, has this quality, that it is never completely destructible, since, however thick a covering may be dissolved, there always remains a little machine not yet destroyed, like the costume of Harlequin, in the comedy, to whom, after the removal of many tunics, there always remained a fresh one. And we ought to be the less astonished at this for this reason, that nature is everywhere organic and ordered by a most wise author for certain ends, and that nothing in nature ought to be criticized as unpolished, although it may sometimes appear to our senses as but a rude mass. Thus therefore we escape all the difficulties which arise from the nature of a soul absolutely separated from all matter; so that, in truth, a soul or an animal before birth or after death does not differ from a soul or an animal living the present life except in condition of things and degrees of perfections, but not by entire genus of being. And likewise I think that Genii are minds endowed with bodies very penetrating and suitable for action, which perhaps they are able to change at will, whence they do not deserve to be called even animals. Thus all things in nature are analogous, and the subtile may be understood from the coarse, since both are constituted in the same way. God alone is substance really separated from matter, since he is actus purus, endowed with no passive power, which, wherever it is, constitutes matter. And, indeed, all created substances have antitypia, by which it happens naturally that one is outside the other, and so penetration is excluded.

5. But although my principles are very general and hold not less in man than in brutes, yet man stands out marvellously above brutes and approaches the Genii, because from the use of reason he is capable of society with God, and thus of reward and of punishment in the divine government. And therefore he preserves not only life and soul like the brutes, but also self-consciousness and memory of a former state, and, in a word, personality. He is immortal, not only physically but also morally, whence in the strict sense immortality is attributed only to the human soul. For if a man did not know that in the other life rewards or punishments would be awarded him for this life, there would really be no punishment, no reward, and as regards morals, it would be just as if I were extinguished and another, happier or unhappier, should succeed me. And thus I hold that souls, latent doubtless in seminal animalcules from the beginning of things, are not rational until, by conception, they are destined for human life; but when they are once made rational and rendered capable of consciousness and of society with God, I think that they never lay aside the character of citizens in the Republic of God; and since it is most justly and beautifully governed, it is a consequence that by the very laws of nature, on account of the parallelism of the kingdom of grace and of nature, souls by the force of their own actions are rendered more fit for rewards and punishments. And in this sense it may be said that virtue brings its own reward and sin its own punishment, since by a certain natural consequence, before the last state of the soul, according as it departs atoned for or unatoned for, there arises a certain natural divergence, preordained by God in nature and with divine promises and threats, and consistent with grace and justice; the intervention also being added of Genii, good or bad according as we have associated with either, whose operations are certainly natural although their nature is sublimer than ours. “We see, indeed, that a man awaking from a profound sleep, or even recovering from apoplexy, is wont to recover the memory of his former state. The same must be said of death, which can render our perceptions turbid and confused but cannot entirely blot them from memory, the use of which returning, rewards and punishments take place. Thus the Saviour compared death to sleep. Moreover the preservation of personality and of moral immortality cannot be attributed to brutes incapable of the divine society and law.

6. No one, therefore, need fear dangerous consequences from this doctrine, since rather a true natural theology, not only not at variance with revealed truth but even wonderfully favorable to it, may be demonstrated by most beautiful reasoning from my principles. Those indeed who deny souls to brutes and all perception and organism to other parts of matter, do not sufficiently recognize the Divine Majesty, and introduce something unworthy of God, unpolished, that is, a void of perfections or forms, which you may call a metaphysical void, which is no less to be rejected than a material or physical void. But those who grant true soul and perception to brutes and yet affirm that their souls can perish naturally, take away thus from us the demonstration which shows that our minds cannot perish naturally, and fall into the dogma of the Socinians, who think that souls are preserved only miraculously or by grace, but believe that by nature they ought to perish; which is to rob natural theology of its largest part. Besides, the contrary can be completely demonstrated, since a substance wanting parts cannot naturally be destroyed.

Wolfenbuttel, June 4, 1710.

THE THEODICY.

ABRIDGMENT OF THE ARGUMENT REDUCED TO SYLLOGISTIC FORM.

[From the French.]

SOME intelligent persons have desired that this supplement should he made [to the Theodicy], and I have the more readily yielded to their wishes as in this way I have an opportunity to again remove certain difficulties and to make some observations which were not sufficiently emphasized in the work itself.

I. Objection. Whoever does not choose the best is lacking in power, or in knowledge, or in goodness.

God did not choose the best in creating this world.

Therefore God has been lacking in power, or in knowledge, or in goodness.

Answer. I deny the minor, that is, the second premise of this syllogism; and our opponent proves it by this Prosyllogism. Whoever makes things in which there is evil, which could have been made without any evil, or the making of which could have been omitted, does not choose the best.

God has made a world in which there is evil; a world, I say, which could have been made without any evil, or the making of which could have been omitted altogether.

Therefore God has not chosen the best.

Answer. I grant the minor of this prosyllogism; for it must be confessed that there is evil in the world which God has made, and that it was possible to make a world without evil, or even not to create a world at all, for its creation depended on the free will of God; but I deny the major, that is, the first of the two premises of the prosyllogism, and I might content myself with simply demanding its proof; but in order to make the matter clearer, I have wished to justify this denial by showing that the best plan is not always that which seeks to avoid evil, since it may happen that the evil he accompanied by a greater good. For example, a general of an army will prefer a great victory with a slight wound to a condition without wound and without victory. We have proved this more fully in the large work by making it clear, by instances taken from mathematics and elsewhere, that an imperfection in the part may be required for a greater perfection in the whole. In this I have followed the opinion of St. Augustine, who has said a hundred times, that God permitted evil in order to bring about good, that is, a greater good; and that of Thomas Aquinas (in libr. II. sent. dist. 32, qu. I, art. 1), that the permitting of evil tends to the good of the universe. I have shown that the ancients called Adam’s fall felix culpa, a happy sin, because it had been retrieved with immense advantage by the incarnation of the Son of God, who has given to the universe something nobler than anything that ever would have been among creatures except for this. And in order to a clearer understanding. I have added, following many good authors, that it was in accordance with order and the general good that God gave to certain creatures the opportunity of exercising their liberty, even when he foresaw that they would turn to evil, but which he could so well rectify; because it was not right that, in order to hinder sin, God should always act in an extraordinary manner.

To overthrow this objection, therefore, it is sufficient to show that a world with evil might be better than a world without evil; but I have gone even farther in the work, and have even proved that this universe must be in reality better than every other possible universe.

II. Objection. If there is more evil than good in intelligent creatures, then there is more evil than good in the whole work of God.

Now, there is more evil than good in intelligent creatures.

Therefore there is more evil than good in the whole work of God.

Answer. I deny the major and the minor of this conditional syllogism. As to the major, I do not admit it at all, because this pretended deduction from a part to the whole, from intelligent creatures to all creatures, supposes tacitly and without proof that creatures destitute of reason cannot enter into comparison nor into account with those which possess it. But why may it not be that the surplus of good in the non-intelligent creatures which fill the world, compensates for, and even incomparably surpasses, the surplus of evil in the rational creatures? It is true that the value of the latter is greater; but, in compensation, the other are beyond comparison the more numerous, and it may be that the proportion of number and of quantity surpasses that of value and of quality.

As to the minor, that is no more to be admitted; that is, it is not at all to be admitted that there is more evil than good in the intelligent creatures. There is no need even of granting that there is more evil than good in the human race, because it is possible, and in fact very probable, that the glory and the perfection of the blessed are incomparably greater than the misery and the imperfection of the damned, and that here the excellence of the total good in the smaller number exceeds the total evil in the greater number. The blessed approach the Divinity, by means of the Divine Mediator, as near as may suit these creatures, and make such progress in good as is impossible for the damned to make in evil, approach as nearly as they may to the nature of demons. God is infinite, and the devil is limited; good may and does advance ad infinitum, while evil has its bounds. It is therefore possible, and is credible, that in the comparison of the blessed and the damned, the contrary of that which I have said might happen in the comparison of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures, takes place; namely, it is possible that in the comparison of the happy and the unhappy, the proportion of degree exceeds that of number, and that in the comparison of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures, the proportion of number is greater than that of value. I have the right to suppose that a thing is possible so long as its impossibility is not proved; and Indeed that which I have here advanced is more than a supposition.

But in the second place, if I should admit that there is more evil than good in the human race, I have still good grounds for not admitting that there is more evil than good in all intelligent creatures. For there is an inconceivable number of genii, and perhaps of other rational creatures. And an opponent could not prove that in all the City of God, composed as well of genii as of rational animals without number and of an infinity of kinds, evil exceeds good. And although in order to answer an objection, there is no need of proving that a thing is, when its mere possibility suffices; yet, in this work, I have not omitted to show that it is a consequence of the supreme perfection of the Sovereign of the universe, that the kingdom of God be the most perfect of all possible states or governments, and that consequently the little evil there is, is required for the consummation of the immense good which is there found.

How, it is always impossible not to sin; or, in other words, every sin is necessary.

Therefore, it is always unjust to punish.

The minor of this is proved thus:

1. Prosyllogism. All that is predetermined is necessary. Every event (and consequently sin also) is necessary.

Again this second minor is proved thus:

2. Prosyllogism. That which is future, that which is foreseen, that which is involved in the causes, is predetermined.

Every event is such.

Therefore, every event is predetermined.

Answer. I admit in a certain sense the conclusion of the second prosyllogism, which is the minor of the first; but I shall deny the major of the first prosyllogism, namely, that every thing predetermined is necessary; understanding by the necessity of sinning, for example, or by the impossibility of not sinning, or of not performing any action, the necessity with which we are here concerned, that is, that which is essential and absolute, and which destroys the morality of an action and the justice of punishments. For if anyone understood another necessity or impossibility, namely, a necessity which should be only moral, or which was only hypothetical (as will be explained shortly); it is clear that I should deny the major of the objection itself. I might content myself with this answer and demand the proof of the proposition denied; but I have again desired to explain my procedure in this work, in order to better elucidate the matter and to throw more light on the whole subject, by explaining the necessity which ought to be rejected and the determination which must take place. That necessity which is contrary to morality and which ought to be rejected, and which would render punishment unjust, is an insurmountable necessity which would make all opposition useless, even if we should wish with all our heart to avoid the necessary action, and should make all possible efforts to that end. Now, it is manifest that this is not applicable to voluntary actions, because we would not perform them if we did not choose to. Also their prevision and predetermination is not absolute, but it supposes the will: if it is certain that we shall perform them, it is not less certain that we shall choose to perform them. These voluntary actions and their consequences will not take place no matter what we do or whether we wish them or not; but, through that which we shall do and through that which we shall wish to do, which leads to them. And this is involved in prevision and in predetermination, and even constitutes their ground. And the necessity of such an event is called conditional or hypothetical, or the necessity of consequence, because it supposes the will, and the other requisites; whereas the necessity which destroys morality and renders punishment unjust and reward useless, exists in things which will be whatever we may do or whatever we may wish to do, and, in a word, is in that which is essential; and this is what is called an absolute necessity. Thus it is to no purpose, as regards what is absolutely necessary, to make prohibitions or commands, to propose penalties or prizes, to praise or to blame; it will be none the less. On the other hand, in voluntary actions and in that which depends upon them, precepts armed with power to punish and to recompense are very often of use and are included in the order of causes which make an action exist. And it is for this reason that not only cares and labors but also prayers are useful; God having had these prayers in view before he regulated things and having had that consideration for them which was proper. This is why the precept which says ora et labora (pray and work), holds altogether good; and not only those who (under the vain pretext of the necessity of events) pretend that the care which business demands may be neglected, but also those who reason against prayer, fall into what the ancients even then called the lazy sophism. Thus the predetermination of events by causes is just what contributes to morality instead of destroying it, and causes incline the will, without compelling it. This is why the determination in question is not a necessitation — it is certain (to him who knows all) that the effect will follow this inclination; but this effect does not follow by a necessary consequence, that is, one the contrary of which implies contradiction. It is also by an internal inclination such as this that the will is determined, without there being any necessity. Suppose that one has the greatest passion in the world (a great thirst, for example), you will admit to me that the soul can find some reason for resisting it, if it were only that of showing its power. Thus, although one may never be in a perfect indifference of equilibrium and there may be always a preponderance of inclination for the side taken, it, nevertheless, never renders the resolution taken absolutely necessary.

IV. Objection. Whoever can prevent the sin of another and does not do so, but rather contributes to it although he is well informed of it, is accessory to it.

God can prevent the sin of intelligent creatures; but he does not do so, and rather contributes to it by his concurrence and by the opportunities which he brings about, although he has a perfect knowledge of it.

Hence, etc.

Answer. I deny the major of this syllogism. For it is possible that one could prevent sin, but ought not, because he could not do it without himself committing a sin, or (when God is in question) without performing an unreasonable action. Examples have been given and the application to God himself has been made. It is possible also that we contribute to evil and that sometimes we even open the road to it, in doing things which we are obliged to do; and, when we do our duty or (in speaking of God) when, after thorough consideration, we do that which reason demands, we are not responsible for the results, even when we foresee them. We do not desire these evils; but we are willing to permit them for the sake of a greater good which we cannot reasonably help preferring to other considerations, and it is a consequent will, which results from antecedent wills, by which we will the good. I know that some persons, in speaking of the antecedent and consequent will of God, have understood by the antecedent that which wills that all men should be saved; and by the consequent, that which wills, in consequence of persistent sin, that they should be damned. But these are merely illustrations of a more general idea, and it may be said for the same reason that God, by his antecedent will, wills that men should not sin; and by his consequent or final and decreeing will (that which is always followed by its effect), he wills to permit them to sin, this permission being the result of superior reasons. And we have the right to say in general that the antecedent will of God tends to the production of good and the prevention of evil, each taken in itself and as if alone (particulariter et secundum quid, Thom. I, qu. 19, art. 6), according to the measure of the degree of each good and of each evil; but that the divine consequent or final or total will tends toward the production of as many goods as may be put together, the combination of which becomes in this way determined, and includes also the permission of some evils and the exclusion of some goods, as the best possible plan for the universe demands. Arminius, in his Anti-perkinsus, has very well explained that the will of God may be called consequent, not only in relation to the action of the creatures considered beforehand in the divine understanding, but also in relation to other anterior acts of will. But this consideration of the passage cited from Thomas Aquinas, and that from Scotus (I. dist. 46, qu. XI), is enough to show that they make this distinction as I have done here. Nevertheless, if anyone objects to this use of terms let him substitute deliberating will, in place of antecedent, and final or decreeing will, in place of consequent. For I do not wish to dispute over words.

God produces all that is real in sin. Hence, God is the cause of sin.

Answer. I might content myself with denying the major or the minor, since the term real admits of interpretations which would render these premises false. But in order to explain more clearly, I will make a distinction. Real signifies either that which is positive only, or, it includes also privative beings: in the first case, I deny the major and admit the minor; in the second case, I do the contrary. I might have limited myself to this, but I have chosen to proceed still farther and give the reason for this distinction. I have been very glad therefore to draw attention to the fact that every reality purely positive or absolute is a perfection; and that imperfection comes from limitation, that is, from the privative: for to limit is to refuse progress, or the greatest possible progress. Now God is the cause of all perfections and consequently of all realities considered as purely positive. But limitations or privations result from the imperfection of creatures, limiting their receptivity. And it is with them as with a loaded vessel which the river causes to move more or less slowly according to the weight winch it carries: thus’ its speed depends upon the river, but the retardation which limits this speed comes from the load. Thus in the Theodicy, we have shown how the creature, in causing sin, is a defective cause; how errors and evil inclinations are born of privation; and how privation is accidentally efficient; and I have justified the opinion of St. Augustine (lib. I. ad Simpl. qu. 2) who explains, for example, how God makes the soul obdurate, not by giving it something evil, but because the effect of his good impression is limited by the soul’s resistance and by the circumstances which contribute to this resistance, so that he does not give it all the good which would overcome its evil. Nec, inquuit, ab illo erogatur aliquid quo homo fit deterior, sed tantum quo fit melior non erogatur. But if God had wished to do more, he would have had to make either other natures for creatures, or other miracles to change their natures, things which the best plan could not admit. It is as if the current of the river must be more rapid than its fall admitted or that the boats should be loaded more lightly, if it were necessary to make them move more quickly. And the original limitation or imperfection of creatures requires that even the best plan of the universe could not be exempt from certain evils, but only those moreover, which are to result in a greater good. There are certain disorders in the parts which marvellously enhance the beauty of the whole; just as certain dissonances, when properly used, render the harmony more beautiful. But this depends on what has already been said in answer to the first objection.

VI. Objection. He who punishes those who have done as well as it was in their power to do, is unjust.

God does so.

Hence, etc.

Answer. I deny the minor of this argument and I believe that God always gives sufficient aid and grace to those who have a good will, that is, to those who do not reject this grace by new sin. Thus I do not admit the damnation of infants who have died without baptism or outside of the church; nor the damnation of adults who have acted according to the light which God has given them. And I believe that if any one has followed the bight which has been given him, he will undoubtedly receive greater light when he has need of it, as the late M. Hulseman, a profound and celebrated theologian at Leipsic, has somewhere remarked; and if such a man has failed to receive it during his life time he will at least receive it when at the point of death.

VII. Objection. He who gives only to some, and not to all, the means which produce in them effectively a good will and salutary final faith, has not sufficient goodness.

God does this.

Hence, etc.

Answer. I deny the major of this. It is true that God could overcome the greatest resistance of the human heart and does it, too, sometimes, he it by internal grace, be it by external circumstances which have a great effect on souls; but he does not always do this. Whence comes this distinction? it may be asked, and why does his goodness seem limited? It is because, as I have already said in answering the first objection, it would not have been in order always to act in an extraordinary manner, and to reverse the connection of things. The reasons of this connection, by means of which one is placed in more favorable circumstances than another, are hidden in the depths of the wisdom of God; they depend upon the universal harmony. The best plan of the universe, which God could not fail to choose, made it so. We judge from the event itself, since God has made it, that it was not possible to do better. Far from being true that this conduct is contrary to goodness, it is supreme goodness which led him to it. This objection with its solution might have been drawn from what was said in regard to the first objection; but it seemed useful to touch upon it separately.

God cannot fail to choose the best.

Hence, God is not free.

Answer. I deny the major of this argument; it is rather true liberty and the most perfect, to be able to use one’s free will for the best, and to always exercise this power without ever being turned from it either by external force or by internal passions, the first of which causes slavery of the body, the second, slavery of the soul. There is nothing less servile than to be always led toward the good, and always by one’s own inclination, without any constraint and without any displeasure. And to object therefore that God had need of external things, is only a sophism. He created them freely; but having proposed to himself an end, which is to exercise his goodness, wisdom determined him to choose those means best fitted to attain this end. To call this a need is to take that term in an unusual sense which frees it from all imperfection, just as when we speak of the wrath of God.

Seneca has somewhere said that God commanded but once but that he obeys always, because he obeys laws which he willed to prescribe to himself; semel jussit, semper paret. But he had better have said that God always commands and that he is always obeyed; for in willing, he always follows the inclination of his own nature, and all other things always follow his will. And as this will is always the same, it cannot be said that he obeys only that will which he formerly had. Nevertheless, although his will is always infallible and always tends toward the best, the evil, or the lesser good, which he rejects, does not cease to be possible in itself; otherwise the necessity of the good would be geometrical (so to speak), or metaphysical and altogether absolute; the contingency of things would be destroyed, and there would be no choice. But this sort of necessity, which does not destroy the possibility of the contrary, has this name only by analogy; it becomes effective, not by the pure essence of things, but by that which is outside of them, above them, — namely, by the will of God. This necessity is called moral, because, to the sage, necessity and what ought to be are equivalent things; and when it always has its effect, as it really has in the perfect sage, that is, in God, it may be said that it is a happy necessity. The nearer creatures approach to it, the nearer they approach to perfect happiness. Also this kind of necessity is not that which we try to avoid and which destroys morality, rewards and praise. For that which it brings, does not happen whatever we may do or will, but because we will it well. And a will to which it is natural to choose well, merits praise so much the more; also it carries its reward with it, which is sovereign happiness. And as this constitution of the divine nature gives entire satisfaction to him who possesses it, it is also the best and the most desirable for the creatures who are all dependent on God. If the will of God did not have for a rule the principle of the best, it would either tend toward evil, which would be the worst; or it would be in some way indifferent to good and to evil, and would be guided by chance: but a will which would allow itself always to act by chance, would not be worth more for the government of the universe than the fortuitous concourse of atoms, without there being any divinity therein. And even if God should abandon himself to chance only in some cases and in a certain way (as he would do, if he did not always work towards the best and if he were capable of preferring a lesser good to a greater, that is, an evil to a good, since that which prevents a greater good is an evil), he would be imperfect, as well as the object of his choice; he would not merit entire confidence; he would act without reason in such a case, and the government of the universe would be like certain games, equally divided between reason and chance. All this proves that this objection which is made against the choice of the best, perverts the notions of the free and of the necessary, and represents to us even the best as evil; to do which is either malicious or ridiculous.

ON WISDOM — THE ART OF REASONING WELL, THE ART OF DISCOVERY, THE ART OF REMEMBERING.

[From the French.]

WISDOM IS A perfect knowledge of the principles of all the sciences and of the art of applying them. I call principles all the fundamental truths which suffice for drawing thence all conclusions in case of need, after some exercise and with some little application. In a word, that which serves to lead the mind to regulate the manners, to subsist honestly, and everywhere, even if one were amid barbarians, to preserve the health, to perfect one’s self in every kind of thing of which one may have need, and to provide, finally, the conveniences of life. The art of applying these principles to exigencies, embraces the art of judging well or reasoning, the art of discovering unknown truths, and finally, of remembering what one knows, in the nick of time and when one has need of it.

THE ART OF REASONING WELL consists in the following maxims:

1. Nothing is ever to be recognized as true but what is so manifest that no ground for doubt can he found. This is why it will be well, in beginning one’s investigations, to imagine one’s self interested in sustaining the contrary, in order to see if this incitement could not arouse one to find that the matter has something solid to be said in its favor. For prejudices must be avoided and nothing he ascribed to things but what they include. But also one must never be opinionated.

2. When there appears to be no means of attaining this assurance, we must, in waiting for greater fight, content ourselves with probability. But we must distinguish the degrees of probability and we must remember that all that we infer from a principle which is but probable must hear the marks of the imperfection of its source, especially when several probabilities must he supposed in order to reach this conclusion, for it thereby becomes still less certain than was each probability which serves it as basis.

3. To infer one truth from another, a certain connection, which shall be without interruption, must he observed. For as one may feel sure that a chain will hold when he is assured that each separate link is of good material and that it clasps the two neighboring links, viz: the one preceding and the one following it, so we may he sure of the accuracy of the reasoning when the matter is good, that is to say, when nothing doubtful enters into it, and when the form consists in a perpetual concatenation of truths which allows of no gap. For example, A is B and B is C and C is D, hence A is D. This concatenation will always teach us never to put in the conclusion more than there was in the premises.

THE ART OF DISCOVERY consists in the following maxims:

1. In order to know a thing we must consider all the requisites of that thing, that is to say, all that which suffices to distinguish it from every other thing. This is what is called definition, nature, reciprocal property.

2. Having once found a means of distinguishing it from every other thing, this same first rule must be applied to the consideration of each condition or requisite which enters into this means, and all the requisites of each requisite must be considered. And this is what I call true analysis or distribution of the difficulty into several parts.

3. When we have pushed the analysis to the end, that is to say, when we have considered the requisites which enter into the consideration of the thing proposed and even the requisites of the requisites, and when we have finally come to the consideration of some natures which are understood only through themselves, which are without requisites and which need nothing outside of themselves in order to be conceived, we have reached a perfect knowledge of the thing proposed.

4. When the thing deserves it, we must try to have this perfect knowledge present in the mind all at once, and this is done by repeating the analysis several times until it seems to us that we see the whole of it at a single glance of the mind. And for this result a certain gradation in repetition must be observed.

5. The mark of perfect knowledge is when nothing presents itself in the thing in question for which we cannot account and when there is no conjuncture the outcome of which we cannot predict beforehand. It is very difficult to carry through an analysis of things, but it is not so difficult to complete the analysis of truths of which we have need. Because the analysis of a truth is completed when its demonstration has been found, and it is not always necessary to complete the analysis of the subject or predicate in order to find the demonstration of a proposition. Most often the beginning of the analysis of a thing suffices for the analysis or perfect knowledge of the truth which we know of the thing.

6. We must always begin our investigations with the easiest thing, such as the most general and the simplest, likewise those on which it is easy to make experiments and to find their reason, such as numbers, lines, motions.

7. We must proceed in order, and from easy things to those which are difficult, and we must try to discover some progression in the order of our meditations, so that we may have nature itself as our guide and voucher.

8. We must try to omit nothing in all our distributions or enumerations. For this, dichotomies by opposite members are very useful.

9. The first of several analyses of different particular matters will be the catalogue of simple thoughts, or those which are not far removed from simple.

10. Having the catalogue of simple thoughts we shall be in position to recommence a priori and to explain the origin of things, beginning at their source, in a perfect order and in a combination or synthesis absolutely complete. And this is all that our mind can do in the state in which it is at present.

THE ART OF REMEMBERING in the nick of time and when it is needed what one knows, consists in the following observations:

1. We must accustom ourselves to be present-minded, that is to say, to be able to meditate just as well in a tumult, on occasion, and in danger, as in our cabinet. This is why we must test ourselves on occasions and even seek them; with this precaution, however, that we do not expose ourselves without good reason to irreparable evil. In the meanwhile it is good to exercise ourselves on occasions when the danger is imaginary or small, as in our sport, conversations, conferences, exercises, and comedies.

2. We must accustom ourselves to enumerations. This is why it is well to exercise ourselves in collecting all possible cases of the matter in question, all the species of a genus, all the conveniences or inconveniences of a means, all possible ways of aiming at some end.

3. We must accustom ourselves to distinctions; namely, two or more very similar things being given, to find on the spot all their differences.

4. We must accustom ourselves to analogies; namely, two or more very different things being given to find their resemblances.

5. We must be able to adduce on the spot things which closely resemble the given thing or which are very different from it. For example, when one denies some general maxim, it is well if I can adduce on the spot some examples. And when another quotes some maxim against me, it is well if I can forthwith oppose an instance to him. When one tells me a story, it is well if I can adduce then and there a similar one.

6. When there are truths or knowledges in which the natural connection of the subject with its predicate is not known to us, as happens in matters of fact and in truths of experience, in order to retain them we must make use of certain artifices, as for example, for the specific properties of simple, natural, civil and ecclesiastical history, geography, customs, laws, canons, languages. I see nothing so fitted to make us retain these things as burlesque verses and sometimes certain figures; also hypotheses invented to explain them in imitation of natural things (as an appropriate etymology, true or false, for languages — Régula mundi, in imagining certain orders of providence for history).

7. Finally, it is well to make an inventory in writing of the knowledges which are the most useful, with a register or alphabetical table. And finally a portable manual must be drawn therefrom of what is most necessary and most ordinary.

THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURE AND OF GRACE. 1714.

[From the French.]

1. SUBSTANCE IS being, capable of action. It is simple or compound. Simple substance is that which has no parts. Compound substance is a collection of simple substances or monads. Monas is a Greek word which signifies unity, or that which is one.

Compounds, or bodies, are multitudes; and simple substances, lives, souls, spirits are unities. And there must be simple substances everywhere, because without simple substances there would be no compounds; and consequently all nature is full of life.

2. Monads, having no parts, cannot be formed or decomposed. They cannot begin or end naturally; and consequently last as long as the universe, which will indeed be changed but will not be destroyed. They cannot have shapes; otherwise they would have parts. And consequently a monad, in itself and at a given moment, could not be distinguished from another except by its internal qualities and actions, which can be nothing else than its perceptions (that is, representations of the compound, or of what is external, in the simple), and its appetitions (that is, its tendencies from one perception to another), which are the principles of change. For the simplicity of substance does not prevent multiplicity of modifications, which must be found together in this same simple substance, and must consist in the variety of relations to things which are external. Just as in a centre or point, altogether simple as it is, there is found an infinity of angles formed by lines which there meet.

3. Everything in nature is full. There are everywhere simple substances, separated in reality from each other by activities of their own which continually change their relations; and each simple substance, or monad, which forms the centre of a compound substance (as, for example, of an animal) and the principle of its unity, is surrounded by a mass composed of an infinity of other monads, which constitute the body proper of this central monad; and in accordance with the affections of this it represents, as a centre, the things which are outside of itself. And this body is organic, when it forms a sort of automaton or natural machine: which is a machine not only in its entirety, but also in its smallest perceptible parts. And as, because of the plenitude of the world, everything is connected and each body acts upon every other body, more or less according to the distance, and by reaction is itself affected thereby; it follows that each monad is a mirror, living or endowed with internal activity, representative according to its point of view of the universe, and as regulated as the universe itself. And perceptions in the monad spring one from the other, by the law of appetites or by the final causes of good and evil, which consist in visible, regulated or unregulated perceptions; just as the changes of bodies and external phenomena spring one from another, by the laws of efficient causes, that is, of movements. Thus there is perfect harmony between the perceptions of the monad and the movements of bodies, established at the beginning between the system of efficient causes and that of final causes. And in this consists the accord and physical union of the soul and body, although neither one can change the laws of the other.

4. Each monad, with a particular body, makes a living substance. Thus there is not only life everywhere, provided with members or organs, but also there is an infinity of degrees in monads, some dominating more or less over the others. But when the monad has organs so adjusted that by means of them there is clearness and distinctness in the impressions which it receives and consequently in the perceptions which represent them (as, for example, when by means of the shape of the humors of the eyes, the rays of light are concentrated and act with more force); this can extend even to feeling [sentiment], that is, even to a perception accompanied by memory, that is, one a certain echo of which remains a long time to make itself heard upon occasion; and such a living being is called an animal, as its monad is called a soul. And when this soul is elevated to reason it is something more sublime and is reckoned among spirits, as will soon be explained.

It is true that animals are sometimes in the condition of simple living beings, and their souls in the condition of simple monads, namely, when their perceptions are not sufficiently distinct to be remembered, as happens in a profound, dreamless sleep, or in a swoon. But perceptions which have become entirely confused must be re-developed in animals, for reasons which I shall shortly (§ 12) enumerate. Therefore it is well to make a distinction between the perception, which is the internal condition of the monad representing external things, and apperception, which is consciousness or the reflective knowledge of this internal state; the latter not being given to all souls, nor at all times to the same soul. And it is for want of this distinction that the Cartesians have failed, taking no account of the perceptions of which we are not conscious as people take no account of imperceptible bodies. It is this also which made the same Cartesians believe that only spirits are monads, that there is no soul of brutes, and still less other principles of life.

And as they shocked too much the common opinion of men by refusing feeling to brutes, they have, on the other hand, accommodated themselves too much to the prejudices of the multitude, by confounding a long swoon, caused by a great confusion of perceptions, with death strictly speaking, where all perception would cease. This confirmed the ill-founded belief in the destruction of some souls, and the bad opinion of some so-called strong minds, who have contended against the immortality of our soul.

5. There is a continuity in the perceptions of animals which bears some resemblance to reason; but it is only founded in the memory of facts, and not at all in the knowledge of causes. Thus a dog shuns the stick with which it has been beaten, because memory represents to it the pain which the stick has caused it. And men in so far as they are empirics, that is to say, in three-fourths of their actions, act simply as brutes. For example, we expect that there will be daylight to-morrow, because we have always had the experience; only an astronomer foresees it by reason, and even this prediction will finally fail when the cause of day, which is not eternal, shall cease. But true reasoning depends upon necessary or eternal truths, such as those of logic, numbers, geometry, which establish an indubitable connection of ideas and unfailing consequences. The animals in which these consequences are not noticed, are called brutes; but those which know these necessary truths are properly those which are called rational animals, and their souls are called spirits. These souls are capable of performing acts of reflection, and of considering that which is called the ego, substance, monad, soul, spirit, in a word, immaterial things and truths. It is this which renders us capable of the sciences and of demonstrative knowledge.

6. Modem researches have taught us, and reason approves of it, that living beings whose organs are known to us, that is to say, plants and animals, do not come from putrefaction or from chaos, as the ancients believed, but from pre-formed seeds, and consequently by the transformation of pre-existing living beings. There are animalcules in the seeds of large animals, which by means of conception assume a new dress which they make their own and by means of which they can nourish themselves and increase their size, in order to pass to a larger theatre and to accomplish the propagation of the large animal. It is true that the souls of spermatic human animals are not rational and do not become so until conception determines these animals to the human nature. And as generally animals are not born altogether in conception or generation, neither do they perish altogether in what we call death; for it is reasonable that what does not begin naturally, should not end either in the order of nature. Therefore, quitting their mask or their rags, they merely return to a more subtile theatre where they can, nevertheless, be just as sensitive and just as well regulated as in the larger. And what we have just said of large animals, takes place also in the generation and death of smaller spermatic animals, in comparison with which the former may pass for large; for everything extends ad infinitum in nature.

Thus not only souls, but also animals, are ingenerable and imperishable: they are only developed, unfolded, reclothed, unclothed, transformed: souls never quit their entire body and do not pass from one body into another which is entirely new to them.

There is therefore no metempsychosis, but there is metamorphosis; animals change, take and leave only parts: the same thing which happens little by little and by small invisible particles but continually in nutrition, and suddenly, visibly but rarely in conception or death, which cause a gain or loss of everything at one time.

7. Up to this time we have spoken as simple physicists: now we must advance to metaphysics by making use of the great principle, little employed in general, which teaches that nothing happens without a sufficient reason; that is to say, that nothing happens without its being possible for him who should sufficiently understand things, to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. This principle laid down, the first question which should rightly be asked, would be, Why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Further, suppose that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason why they must exist so and not otherwise.

8. Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe could not be found in the series of contingent things, that is, of bodies and of their representations in souls; for matter being indifferent in itself to motion and to rest and to this or another motion, we could not find the reason of motion in it, and still less of a certain motion. And although the present motion which is in matter, comes from the preceding motion, and that from still another preceding, yet in this way we should never make any progress, go as far as we might; for the same question would always remain.

Therefore it must be that the sufficient reason which has no need of another reason, be outside this series of contingent things and be found in a substance which is its cause, or which is a necessary being, carrying the reason of its existence within itself; otherwise we should still not have a sufficient reason in which we could rest. And this final reason of things is called God.

9. This simple primitive substance must contain in itself eminently the perfections contained in the derivative substances which are its effects; thus it will have perfect power, knowledge and will: that is, it will have omnipotence and sovereign goodness. And as justice, taken generally, is only goodness conformed to wisdom there must too be sovereign justice in God. The reason which has caused things to exist by him, makes them still dependent upon him in existing and in working: and they are continually receiving from him that which gives them some perfection; but the imperfection which remains in them, comes from the essential and original limitation of the creature.

10. It follows from the supreme perfection of God, that in creating the universe he has chosen the best possible plan, in which there is the greatest variety together with the greatest order; the best arranged ground, place, time; the most results produced in the most simple ways; the most of power, knowledge, happiness and goodness in the creatures that the universe could permit. For since all the possibles in the understanding of God laid claim to existence in proportion to their perfections, the actual world, as the resultant of all these claims, must he the most perfect possible. And without this it would not be possible to give a reason why things have turned out so rather than otherwise.

11. The supreme wisdom of God compelled him to choose the laws of movement best adjusted and most suited to abstract or metaphysical reasons. He preserves there the same quantity of total and absolute force, or of actions; the same quantity of respective force or of reaction; lastly the same quantity of directive force. Farther, action is always equal to reaction, and the whole effect is always equivalent to the full cause. And it is not surprising that we could not by the mere consideration of the efficient causes or of matter, account for those laws of movement which have been discovered in our time, and a part of which have been discovered by myself. For I have found that it was necessary to have recourse to final causes, and that these laws do not depend upon the principle of necessity, like logical, arithmetical and geometrical truths, but upon the principle of fitness, that is, upon the choice of wisdom. And this is one of the most efficacious and evident proofs of the existence of God, to those who can examine these matters thoroughly.

‘ 12. It follows, farther, from the perfection of the supreme author, that not only is the order of the entire universe the most perfect possible, but also that each living mirror representing the universe in accordance with its point of view, that is to say, that each monad, each substantial centre, must have its perceptions and its desires as well regulated as is compatible with all the rest. Whence it follows, still farther, that souls, that is, the most dominating monads, or rather, animals, cannot fail to awaken from the state of stupor in which death or some other accident may put them.

13. For everything in things is regulated once for all with as much order and harmony as is possible, supreme wisdom and goodness not being able to act except with perfect harmony. The present is big with the future, the future could he read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near. One could become acquainted with the beauty of the universe in each soul, if one could unfold all its folds, which only develop visibly in time. But as each distinct perception of the soul includes innumerable confused perceptions which comprise the whole universe, the soul itself knows the things of which it has perception only so far as it has distinct and clear perceptions of them.

Each soul knows the infinite, knows all, but confusedly. As in walking on the sea-shore and hearing the great noise which it makes, I hear the individual sounds of each wave, of which the total sound is composed, but without distinguishing them; so our confused perceptions are the result of the impressions which the whole universe makes upon us. It is the same with each monad. God alone has a distinct consciousness of everything, for he is the source of all. It has been well said that he is as centre everywhere, but that his circumference is nowhere, since without any withdrawal from this centre, everything is immediately present to him.

14. As regards the rational soul, or spirit, there is something in it more than in the monads, or even in simple souls. It is not only a mirror of the universe of creatures, but also an image of the Divinity. The spirit has not only a perception of the works of God, but it is even capable of producing’ something which resembles them, although in miniature. For, to say nothing of the marvels of dreams where we invent without trouble, and even involuntarily, things which when awake we should have to think a long time in order to hit upon, our soul is architectonic in its voluntary actions also, and, discovering the sciences according to which God has regulated things (pondéré, mensura, numéro, etc.), it imitates, in its department and in the little world where it is permitted to exercise itself, what God does in the large world.

15. This is why all spirits, whether of men or of genii, entering by virtue of reason and of the eternal truths into a sort of society with God, are members of the City of God, that is to say, of the most perfect state, formed and governed by the greatest and best of monarchs; where there is no crime without punishment, no good actions without proportionate recompense; and finally as much virtue and happiness as is possible; and this is not by a derangement of nature, as if what God prepares for souls disturbed the laws of bodies, but by the very order of natural things, in virtue of the harmony pre-established for all time between the realms of, nature and of grace, between God as Architect and God as Monarch; so that nature leads to grace and grace, while making use of nature, perfects it.

16. Thus although reason cannot teach us the details, reserved to Revelation, of the great future, we can be assured by this same reason that things are made in a manner surpassing our desires. God also being the most perfect and most happy, and consequently, the most lovable of substances, and truly pure love consisting in the state which finds pleasure in the perfections and happiness of the loved object, this love ought to give us the greatest pleasure of which we are capable, when God is its object.

17. And it is easy to love him as we ought, if we know him as I have just described. For although God is not visible to our external senses, he does not cease to be very lovable and to give very great pleasure. We see how much pleasure honore give men, although they do not at all consist in the qualities of the external senses.

Martyrs and fanatics (although the affection of the latter is ill-regulated), show what pleasure of the spirit can accomplish; and what is more, even sensuous pleasures are reduced to confusedly known intellectual pleasures.

Music charms us, although its beauty only consists in the harmony of numbers and in the reckoning of the beats or vibrations of sounding bodies, which meet at certain intervals, of which we are not conscious and which the soul does not cease to make. The pleasures which sight finds in proportions are of the same nature; and those caused by the other senses amount to almost the same thing, although we cannot explain it so clearly.

18. It may be said that even from the present time on, the love of God makes us enjoy a foretaste of future felicity. And although it is disinterested, it itself constitutes our greatest good and interest even if we should not seek it therein and should consider only the pleasure which it gives, without regard to the utility it produces; for it gives us perfect confidence in the goodness of our author and master, producing a true tranquillity of mind; not like the Stoics who force themselves’ to patience, but by a present content which assures us of future happiness. And besides the present pleasure, nothing can be more useful for the future; for the love of God fulfils our hopes, too, and leads us in the road of supreme happiness, because by virtue of the perfect order established in the universe, everything is done in the best possible way, as much for the general good as for the greatest individual good of those who are convinced of this and are content with the divine government; this conviction cannot he wanting to those who know how to love the source of all good. It is true that supreme felicity, by whatever beatific vision or knowledge of God it be accompanied, can never be full; because, since God is infinite, he cannot be wholly known. Therefore our happiness will never, and ought not, consist in full joy, where there would be nothing farther to desire, rendering our mind stupid; but in a perpetual progress to new pleasures and to new perfections.

THE MONADOLOGY. 1714.

[From the French.]

1. THE MONAD of which we shall here speak is merely a simple substance, which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts.

2. And there must he simple substances, since there are compound substances, for the compound is only a collection or aggregatum of simple substances.

3. How where there are no parts, neither extension, figure nor divisibility is possible. And these monads are the true atoms of nature, and, in a word, the elements of things.

4. Dissolution also is not at all to be feared, and there is no conceivable way in which a simple substance can perish naturally.

5. For the same reason there is no way in which a simple substance can begin naturally, since it cannot be formed by composition.

6. Thus it may he said that the monads can only begin or end all at once, that is to say, they can only begin by creation and end by annihilation; whereas that which is compound begins or ends by parts.

7. There is also no way of explaining how a monad can he altered or changed internally by any other creature, for nothing can he transposed within it, nor can there he conceived in it any internal movement which can he excited, directed, augmented or diminished within it as can be done in compounds, where there is change among the parts. The monads have no windows through which anything can enter or depart. The accidents cannot detach themselves or go forth from the substances, as did formerly the sensible species of the Schoolmen. Likewise neither substance nor accident can enter a monad from without.

8. Nevertheless, the monads must have some qualities, otherwise they would not even he entities. And if simple substances did not differ at all in their qualities there would be no way of perceiving any changes in things, since what is in the compound can only come from the simple ingredients, and if the monads were without qualities they could not be distinguished the one from the other, since also they do not differ in quantity. Consequently, a plenum being supposed, each place in any movement could receive only the equivalent of what it had had before, and one state of things would not be distinguishable from (another.

9. Moreover it is necessary that each monad should differ from every other. For never in nature are two beings exactly alike and such that it is not possible to find an internal difference or one founded upon an intrinsic connotation.

10. I take it also for granted that every created being, and consequently the created monad also, is subject to change, and even that this change is continual in each.

11. It follows from what has just been said, that the natural changes of the monads proceed from an internal principle, since an external cause could not influence their interior.

12. But besides the principle of change, there must be a detail of that which changes, which forms, so to speak, the specification and variety of the simple substances.

13. This detail must involve multitude in the unity or in the simple. For since every natural change is made by degrees, something changes and something remains; consequently, there must be in the simple substance a plurality of affections and of relations, although not of parts.

14. The transient state, which involves and represents multitude in unity or in the simple substance, is only what we call perception, which must be distinguished from apperception or from consciousness, as will appear in what follows. Here it is that the Cartesians especially failed, having made no account of the perceptions of which we are not conscious. It is this also which made them suppose that spirits only are monads and that there are no souls of brutes or of other entelechies. They, with the vulgar, have also confounded a long state of unconsciousness with death strictly speaking, and have therefore agreed with the old scholastic prejudice of entirely separate souls, and have even confirmed weaker minds in their belief in the mortality of the soul.

15. The action of the internal principle which causes the change or the passage from one perception to another, may be called appetition; it is true that the desire cannot always completely attain to the whole perception toward which it tends, but it always attains to something of it and arrives at new perceptions.

16. We experience in ourselves multitude in a simple substance, when we find that the most trifling thought of which we are conscious involves variety in the object. Thus all those who admit that the soul is a simple substance must also admit this multitude in the monad, and M. Bayle ought not to find in it ‘the difficulties which he mentions in his Dictionary, article Rorarius.

17. We must confess, moreover, that perception and that which depends on it are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions. And, supposing that there were a machine so constructed as to cause thought, feeling and perception, we could conceive of it as enlarged and yet preserving the same proportions, so that we might enter it like a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never any thing by which to explain a perception. It must be sought for, therefore, in the simple substance and not in the compound or machine. Nothing but this, also, can be found in the simple substance; and it is in this alone that all the internal actions of simple substances consist.

18. The name of entelechies might be given to all simple substances or created monads, for they have within themselves a certain perfection; there is a certain sufficiency which renders them the sources of their internal actions, and so to speak, incorporeal automata.

19. If we choose to give the name soul to everything that has perceptions and desires in the general sense which I have just explained, all simple substances or created monads may be called souls, but as feeling is something more than a simple perception, I consent that the general name of monads or entelechies shall suffice for those simple substances which have only perception, and that only those substances shall be called souls whose perception is more distinct and is accompanied by memory.

20. For we experience in ourselves a state in which we remember nothing and have no distinguishable perceptions, as, for instance, when we fall in unconsciousness or when we are overpowered by a profound and dreamless sleep. In this state the soul does not differ sensibly from a simple monad; but as this state is not continuous and as the soul frees itself from it, it is something more than a mere monad.

21. And it does not at all follow that therefore the simple sub stance is without any perception. This is indeed impossible, for the reasons mentioned above; for it cannot perish, nor can it subsist without some affection, which is nothing else than perception; but when there is a great number of minute perceptions, where nothing is distinct, we are stunned, as when we turn continually in the same direction many times in succession, whence arises a dizziness which may make us lose consciousness, and which does not allow us to see anything distinctly. So death may for a time produce this condition in animals.

22. And as every present state of a simple substance is naturally the consequence of its preceding state, so its present is big with its future.

23. Therefore, since on being awakened from a stupor, we are aware of our perceptions, we must have had them immediately before although we were entirely unconscious of them; for one perception can only come naturally from another perception as one motion can only come naturally from another motion.

24. From this we see that if there were nothing distinct, nothing, so to speak, in relief and of a higher flavor, in our perceptions, we should always be in a dazed state. This is the condition of the naked monad.

25. So also we see that nature has given to animals higher perceptions, by the pains she has taken to furnish them with organs which collect, many rays of light or many undulations of air, in order to render them more efficacious by their union. There is something of the same kind in odor, in taste, in touch and perhaps in a multitude of other senses which are unknown to us. I shall presently explain how that which takes place in the soul represents that which occurs in the organs.

26. Memory furnishes souls with a sort of consecutiveness which imitates reason, but which ought to be distinguished from it. We observe that animals, having the perception of something which strikes them and of which they have had a similar perception before, expect, through the representations of their memory, that which was associated with it in the preceding perception, and experience feelings similar to those which they had had at that time. For instance, if we show dogs a stick, they remember the pain it has caused them and whine and run.

27. And the powerful imagination which strikes and moves them, arises either from the magnitude or the multitude of preceding perceptions. For often a strong impression produces all at once the effect of a long continued habit, or of many times repeated moderate perceptions.

28. Men act like the brutes in so far as that the consecutiveness of their perceptions only results from the principle of memory, resembling the empirical physicians who practice without theory, and we are simple empirics in three-fourths of our actions. For example, when we expect that there will be daylight to-morrow, we are acting as empirics, because that has up to this time always taken place. It is only the astronomer who judges of this by reason.

29. But the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths is what distinguishes us from mere animals and furnishes us with reason and the sciences, by raising us to a knowledge of ourselves and of God. This is what we call the reasonable soul or spirit within us.

30. It is also by the knowledge of necessary truths, and by their abstractions, that we rise to acts of reflection, which make us think of that which calls itself “If and consider that this or that is within us; and it is thus that, in thinking of ourselves, we think of being, of substance, simple or compound, of the immaterial and of God himself, conceiving that what with us is limited is with him without limit. These reflective acts furnish the principal objects of our reasonings.

31. Our reasonings are founded on two great principles, that of contradiction, by virtue of which we judge that to be false which involves it, and that true, which is opposed or contradictory to the false.

32. And that of the sufficient reason, by virtue of which we consider that no fact can be real or existent, no statement true, unless there be a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise, although most often these reasons cannot be known to us.

33. There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible, and those of fact are contingent and their opposite, is possible. When a truth is necessary its reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths until we reach those which are primitive.

34. It is thus that mathematicians by analysis reduce speculative theorems and practical canons to definitions, axioms and postulates.

35. Finally there are simple ideas, definitions of which cannot be given; there are also axioms and postulates, in a word, primary principles, which cannot be proved and indeed need no proof, and these are identical propositions, the opposite of which contains an express contradiction.

36. But there must also be a sufficient reason for contingent truths, or those of fact, — that is, for the series of things diffused through the universe of created objects — where the resolution into particular reasons might run into a detail without limits, on account of the immense variety of objects and the division of bodies ad infinitum. There is an infinity of figures and of movements, present and past, which enter into the efficient cause of my present writing, and there is an infinity of trifling inclinations and dispositions, past and present, of my soul, which enter into the final cause.

37. And as all this detail only involves other contingents, anterior or more detailed, each one of which needs a like analysis for its explanation, we make no advance, and the sufficient or final reason must be outside of the sequence or series of this detail of contingencies, however infinite it may be.

38. And thus it is that the final reason of things must be found in a necessary substance, in which the detail of changes exists only eminently, as in their source, and this it is which we call GOD.

39. Now this substance being the sufficient! reason of all this detail, which also is linked together throughout, there is but one God, and this God suffices.

40. We may judge also that this supreme substance, which is unique, universal and necessary, having nothing outside of itself which is independent of it, and being the simple series of possible being, must be incapable of limitations and must contain as much of reality as is possible.

41. Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, perfection being only the magnitude of positive reality taken in its strictest meaning, setting aside the limits or bounds in that which is limited. And there where there are no limits, that is, in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.

42. It follows also that creatures have their perfections from the influence of God, but that their imperfections arise from their own nature incapable of existing without limits. For it is by this that they are distinguished from God.

43. It is also true that in God is the source not only of existences but also of essences, so far as they are real, or of that which is real in the possible. This is because the understanding of God is the region of eternal truths, or of the ideas on which they depend, and because, without him, there would be nothing real in the possibilities, and not only nothing existing but also nothing possible.

“. Nevertheless, if there is a reality in the essences or possibilities or in the eternal truths, this reality must be founded in something existing and actual; consequently in the existence of the necessary being in whom essence involves existence or with whom it is sufficient to be possible in order to be actual.

45. Hence God (or the necessary being) alone has this privilege that he must exist if it is possible. And since nothing can hinder the possibility of that which possesses no limitations, no negation, and, consequently, no contradiction, this alone is sufficient to establish the existence of God à priori. We have also proved it by the reality of the eternal truths. But we have just proved it also à posteriori, since contingent beings exist which can only have their final or sufficient reason in a necessary being who has the reason of his existence in himself.

46. But it must not be imagined, as is sometimes done, that the eternal truths, being dependent upon God, are arbitrary and depend upon his will, as Descartes seems to have conceived, and afterwards M. Poiret. This is true only of contingent truths, the principle of which is fitness or the choice of the best, whereas necessary truths depend solely on his understanding and are its internal object.

47. Thus God alone is the primitive unity or the original simple substance; of which all monads, created or derived, are the products, and are born, so to speak, from moment to moment by continual fulgurations of the Divinity, limited by the receptivity of the creature, to which limitation is essential.

48. In God is Power, which is the source of all; then Knowledge, which contains the detail of ideas; and finally Will, which effects changes or products according to the principle of the best. It is this which corresponds to what in created monads forms the subject or basis, the perceptive and the appetitive faculty. But in God these attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect, and in the created monads or in the entelechies (or perfectihabies, as Harmolaus Barbaras translated the word), they are only imitations proportioned to their perfection.

49. The creature is said to act externally in so far as it is perfect, and to suffer from another in so far as it is imperfect. Thus action is attributed to the monad in so far as it has distinct perceptions, and passion in so far as it has confused perceptions.

50. And one creature is more perfect than another in that there is found in it that which serves to account à priori for what takes place in another, and it is in this way that it is said to act upon another.

51. But in simple substances the influence of one monad, upon another is purely ideal, since it can take effect only through the introduction of God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God a monad may demand with reason that God in regulating the others from the commencement of things, have regard to it. For since a created monad can have no physical influence upon the interior of another, it is only in this way that one can be dependent upon another.

52. And hence it is that the actions and passions of creatures are mutual. For God, in comparing two simple substances, finds in each one reasons which compel him to adjust the other to it, and consequently that which in certain respects is active, is according to another point of view, passive; active in so far as that what is known distinctly in it, serves to account for that which takes place in another; and passive in so far as the cause of what takes place in it, is found in that which is distinctly known in another.

53. Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the idea of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must he a sufficient reason for the choice of God, which determines him for one rather than for another.

54. And this reason can only he found in the fitness, in the degrees of perfection, which these worlds contain, each possible world having a right to claim existence according to the measure of perfection which it possesses.

55. And this is the cause of the existence of the Best, which wisdom makes known to God, which his goodness chooses and which his power produces.

56. Now this connection, or this adaptation of all created things to each and of each to all, brings it about that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a living, perpetual mirror of the universe.

57. And as the same city regarded from different sides appears entirely different and in perspective is as if ‘multiplied, so also it happens that, because of the infinite multiplicity of simple substances, there are as it were so many different universes, which are nevertheless only the perspectives of a single one, from the different points of view of each monad.

58. And this is the way to obtain as great a variety as possible, but with the greatest possible order; that is, it is the way to obtain as much perfection as possible.

59. Thus this hypothesis (which I dare to assert is demonstrated) is the only one which brings into relief the grandeur of God. M. Bayle recognized this, when in his Dictionary (Art. Rorarius) he objected to it; where indeed he was tempted to believe that I accorded to God more than was possible. But he can state no reason why this universal harmony which brings it about that each substance expresses exactly all others by the relations which it sustains to them, is impossible.

60. Besides, we can see in what I have just said à priori reasons why things could not be otherwise, because God, in regulating all, has regard to each part, and particularly to each monad, since, its nature being representative, nothing can limit it to representing only a part of things; although it may be true that this representation is but confused as regards the detail of the whole universe, and can be distinct only in the case of a small part of things, that is to say, in the case of those which are nearest or largest in relation to each of the monads — otherwise each monad would be a divinity.

It is not in the object but only in the modification of the knowledge of the object, that monads are limited. They all tend confusedly toward the infinite, toward the whole, but they are limited, and distinguished by their degrees of distinct perceptions.

61. And in this respect compound substances symbolize with simple substances. For since the world is a plenum, making all matter connected, and since in a plenum every movement has some effect on distant bodies in proportion to their distance, so that each body is affected not only by those which touch it and feels in some way all that happens to them but also by their means is affected by those which touch the first with which it is in immediate contact, it follows that this communication extends to any distance whatever. Consequently, each body feels all that passes in the universe, so that he who sees all, could read in each that which passes everywhere else, and even that which has been or shall be, perceiving in the present that which is removed in time as well as in space; συμπνοια παντα, said Hippocrates. But a soul can read in itself only that which is distinctly represented in it. It cannot develop its laws all at once, for they reach into the infinite.

62. Thus, although each created monad represents the entire universe, it represents most distinctly the body which is particularly appropriated to it and of which it forms the entelechy; and as this body represents the whole universe by the connection of all matter in a plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe by representing that body which especially belongs to it.

63. The body belonging to a monad, which is its entelechy or soul, constitutes, with the entelechy, what may be called a living being, and with the soul, what may be called an animal. Now this body of a living being or of an animal is always organic, for since every monad is in its way a mirror of the universe, and since the universe is arranged in perfect order, there must also be order in the representative, that is, in the perceptions of the soul, and hence in the body, according to which the universe is represented in it.

64. Thus each organic body of a living being is a kind of divine machine or natural automaton, which infinitely surpasses all artificial automata, because a machine which is made by man’s art is not a machine in each one of its parts; for example, the tooth of a brass wheel has parts or fragments which to us are no longer artificial and have nothing in themselves to show the use to which the wheel was destined in the machine. But nature’s machines, that is, living bodies, are machines even in their smallest parts ad infinitum. Herein lies the difference between nature and art, that is, between the divine art and ours.

65. And the author of nature has been able to contrive these divine and infinitely marvellous works of art, because each portion of matter is not only divisible ad infinitum, as the ancients perceived, but also each part is actually endlessly subdivided into parts of which each has its own motion: otherwise it would be impossible for each portion of matter to express the universe.

66. Hence we see that there is a world of creatures, of living beings, of animals, of entelechies, of souls, in the smallest particle of matter.

67. Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors is also such a garden or such a pond.

68. And although the earth or air embraced between the plants of the garden, or the water between the fish of the pond, is neither plant nor fish, they yet contain more of them, but for the most part so tiny as to be to us imperceptible.

69. Therefore there is nothing uncultivated, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe, no chaos, no confusion except in appearance. Just as a pond would appear from a distance in which we might see the confused movement and swarming, so to speak, of the fishes in the pond, without perceiving the fish themselves.

70. We see thus that each living body has a ruling entelechy which is the soul in the animal, but the members of this living body are full of other living beings — plants, animals — each of which has also its entelechy or governing soul.

71. But it must not be imagined, as has been done by some people who have misunderstood my thought, that each soul has a mass or portion of matter appropriated to it or united to it forever, and that hence it possesses other inferior living beings destined to its service forever. For all bodies are, like rivers, in a perpetual flux, and parts are entering into them and departing from them continually.

72. Thus the soul changes its body only gradually and by degrees, so that it is never deprived of all its organs at once. There is often a metamorphosis in animals, but never metempsychosis nor transmigration of souls. There are also no entirely separate souls, nor genii without bodies. God alone is wholly without body.

73. For which reason also, it happens that there is, strictly speaking, neither complete generation nor entire death, where the soul is separated from the body. What we call generation is development or increase, as also what we call death is envelopment and diminution.

74. Philosophers have been greatly puzzled over the origin of forms, entelechies, or souls; but to-day, when we know by exact investigations of plants, insects and animals, that organic bodies in nature are never produced from chaos or from putrefaction, but always from seeds, in which there was undoubtedly some pre-formation, it has been thought that not only the organic body was already there before conception, but also a soul in this body, and, in a word, the animal itself; and that by means of conception this animal has merely been disposed to a greater transformation, in order to become an animal of another kind. Something similar is seen outside of generation, as when worms become flies, and caterpillars, butterflies.

75. The animals, some of which are raised by conception to the grade of larger animals, may be called spermatics; but those among them, which remain in their class, that is, the most part, are born, multiply, and are destroyed like the larger animals, and there is only a small number of chosen ones, which pass to a larger theatre.

76. But this were only half the truth; I have therefore thought that if the animal never has a natural beginning, it cannot end naturally; and that not only will there be no generation, but also no utter destruction, or death strictly speaking. And these reasonings, made à posteriori and drawn from experience, harmonize perfectly with principles deduced à priori, as above.

77. Thus it may be said that not only the soul (mirror of an indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself, although its machine often perishes in part and takes on or puts off organic spoils.

78. These principles have given me the means of explaining naturally the union or rather the conformity of the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own peculiar laws and the body also follows its own laws, and they meet by virtue of the pre-established, harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe.

79. Souls act according to the laws of final causes, by appetitions, ends and means. Bodies act in accordance with the laws of efficient causes or of motion. And the two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are in harmony with each other.

80. Descartes recognized that souls cannot give any force to bodies, because there is always the same quantity of force in matter; nevertheless he believed that the soul could change the direction of bodies. But it was because, in his day, the law of nature which enforces the conservation of the total direction in matter, was not known. If he had known this, he would have lighted upon my system of the pre-established harmony.

81. By this system it comes about that bodies act as if (what is impossible) there were no souls, and that souls act as if there were no bodies, and that both act as if each influenced the other.

82. As to spirits or rational souls, although I find that the same thing which I have stated — namely, that animals and souls begin only with the world and end only with the world — holds good at bottom with regard to all animals and living things, yet there is this peculiarity in rational animals, that their spermatic animalcules, as such, have only ordinary or sensitive souls, but as soon as those which are, so to speak, elected, attain by actual conception to human nature, their sensitive souls are elevated to the rank of reason and to the prerogative of spirits, 83. Among other differences which exist between ordinary souls and spirits, a part of which I have already mentioned, there is furthermore, this, that souls in general are the living mirrors or images of the universe of creatures, but spirits are in addition images of the Divinity itself, or of the author of nature, able to know the system of the universe and to imitate something of it by architectonic samplings, since every spirit is as a little divinity in its own department.

83. Hence it comes about that spirits are capable of entering into a sort of society with God, and that he is, in relation to them, not only what an inventor is to his machines (as God is in relation to the other creatures), but also what a prince is to his subjects and even a father to his children.

84. Whence it is easy to conclude that the assembly of all spirits must compose the City of God, that is, the most perfect state which is possible, under the most perfect of monarchs.

85. This City of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural world, and the highest and most divine of the works of God; it is in this that the glory of God truly consists, for he would have none if his greatness and goodness were not known and admired by spirits. It is, too, only in relation to the divine city that he possesses, properly, goodness; while his wisdom, and power are everywhere manifest.

86. As we have above established perfect harmony between two natural kingdoms, the one of efficient, the other of final causes, we should also notice here another harmony between the physical kingdom of nature and the moral kingdom of grace; that is, between God considered as the architect of the mechanism of the universe, and God, considered as monarch of the divine city of spirits.

87. This harmony makes all things progress toward grace by natural methods. This globe, for example, must be destroyed and repaired by natural means, at such times as the government of spirits may demand it, for the punishment of some and the reward of others.

88. It may be said, farther, that God as architect satisfies in every respect God as legislator, and that therefore sins, by the decree of nature and by virtue even of the mechanical structure of things, must carry their punishment with them; and that in the same way, good actions will obtain their rewards by mechanical ways through their relation to bodies, although this may not and ought not always happen immediately.

89. Finally, under this perfect government, there will be no good action without reward, no bad action without punishment, and everything must result for the well-being of the good, that is, of those who are not discontented in this great State, who, after having done their duty, trust in providence, and who love and imitate as they ought the author of all good, pleasing themselves with the contemplation of his perfections, — according to the nature of truly pure love, which takes pleasure in the happiness of the loved one. This is what causes wise and virtuous persons to work at all which seems conformable to the divine will, presumptive or antecedent, and yet to content themselves with that which God in reality sends by his secret, consequent and decisive will, recognizing that if we could sufficiently comprehend the order of the universe we would find that it surpassed all the wishes of the wisest, and that it is impossible to render it better that it is, not only for all in general, but also for ourselves in particular, if we are attached, as we should be, to the author of all, not only as the architect and efficient cause of our being, but also as our master and final cause, who ought to be the sole aim of our volition, and who can alone secure our happiness.

ON THE DOCTRINE OF MALEBRANCHE. A LETTER TO M. REMOND DE MONTMORT, CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE BOOK OF FATHER TERTRE AGAINST FATHER MALEBRANCHE. 1715.

[From the French.]

SIR, I HAVE just received your package, and I thank you for the interesting articles which you have sent me. I say nothing on the continuation of Homer; but as, after the sacred books, he is the most ancient of all the authors whose works remain to us, I wish that some one would undertake to clear up the historical and geographical difficulties which remote antiquity has produced in these works, and principally in the Odyssey, relating to ancient geography; for, however fabulous the travels of Ulysses may be, it is nevertheless certain that Homer carried him into countries then spoken of but which it is difficult now to recognize.

I pass to the philosophical articles which relate to the Reverend Father Malebranche (whose loss I greatly regret), and which tend to elucidate the natural theology of the Chinese. The Refutation of the system of this Father, divided into three small volumes, is without doubt from a man of ability, for it is clear and ingenious. I even approve of a part of it, but part of it is too extreme. Too much divergence is here shown from the views of Descartes and of Father Malebranche, even when they receive a good meaning. It should be time to give up these enmities, which the Cartesians have perhaps drawn upon themselves by showing too much contempt for the ancients and for the schoolmen, in whom there is nevertheless solidity meriting our attention. Thus justice ought to be shown on the one side and on the other, and we are to profit by the discoveries of both, as it is right to reject that which each advances without foundation.

1. It is right to refute the Cartesians when they say that the soul is nothing but thought; as also when they say that matter is nothing but extension. For the soul is a subject or concretum which thinks, and matter is an extended subject or subject endowed with extension. This is why I hold that space must not be con founded with matter, although I agree that naturally there is no void space; the scholastics are right in distinguishing the concretes and the abstracts, when it is a matter of exactness.

2. I concede to the Cartesians that the soul actually always thinks, but I do not grant that it is conscious of all these thoughts. For our great perceptions and our great appetites of which we are conscious, are composed of innumerable little perceptions and little inclinations of which we cannot be conscious. And it is in the insensible perceptions that the reason is found of what passes in us; as the reason of what takes place in sensible bodies consists in insensible movements.

3. There is good reason also for refuting Reverend Father Malebranche especially when he maintains that the soul is purely passive. I think I have demonstrated that every substance is active, and especially the soul. This is also the idea which the ancients and the moderns have had of it; and the entelechy of Aristotle, which has made so much noise, is nothing else but force or activity; that is, a state from which action naturally flows if nothing hinders it. But matter, primary and pure, taken without the souls or lives which are united to it, is purely passive; properly speaking also it is not a substance, but something incomplete. And secondary matter, as for example, body, is not a substance, but for another reason; which is, that it is a collection of several substances, like a pond full of fish, or a flock of sheep; and consequently it is what is called unum per accidens, in a word, a phenomenon. A true substance, such as an animal, is composed of an immaterial soul, and an organized body; and it is the compound of these two which is called unum per se.

4. As to the efficiency of second causes, it is again right to maintain it against the opinion of this Father. I have demonstrated that each simple substance, or monad (such as souls), follows its own laws in producing its actions, without being capable of being troubled therein by the influence of another created simple substance; and that thus bodies do not change the ethico-logical laws of souls, any more than souls change the physico-mechanical laws of bodies. This is why second causes really act, but without any influence of one created simple substance upon another; and souls harmonize with bodies and among themselves, in virtue of the preëstablished harmony, and not at all by a mutual physical influence; except in the case of the metaphysical union of the soul and its body which makes them compose unum, per se, an animal, a living being.. It has been right, therefore, to refute the opinion of those who deny the action of second causes; but it must be done without renewing false influences, such as the species of the school.

5. Father Malebranche made use of this argument: That extension not being a mode of being of matter, must be its substance. The author of the Refutation (Vol. I, p. 91), distinguishes between the positive modes of being; and he claims that extension is one of the modes of being of the second sort, which he thinks can be conceived by themselves. But these are not positive modes of being; they all consist in the variety of limitations, and all cannot be conceived save by the being of which they are the modes and ways. And as to extension it may be said that it is not a mode of being of matter, and nevertheless is not a substance either. What is it, then? you will ask, sir. I reply that it is an attribute of substances, and there is a clear difference between attributes and modes of being.

6. It appears to me, also, that the author of the Refutation does not well combat the opinion of’ the Cartesians on the infinite, which they with reason consider as prior to the finite, and of which the finite is but a limitation. He says (p. 303 of Vol. I), that if the mind had a clear and direct view of the infinite, Father Malebranche would not have had need of so much reasoning to make us think of it. But by the same argument he would reject the very simple and very natural knowledge we have of the Divinity. These kinds of objections amount to nothing, for there is need of labor and application in order to give to men the attention necessary for the simplest notions, and this end will only be reached by recalling them from their dissipation to themselves. It is also for this reason that the theologians who have composed works on eternity, have much need of discourse, of comparisons and of examples to make it well understood; although there is nothing more simple than the notion of eternity. But it is because, in such matters, all depends on attention. The author adds (Vol. I, p. 301), that in the pretended knowledge of the infinite, the mind sees merely that lengths may be put end to end and repeated as many times as is wished. Very good; but this author should consider that to know that this repetition can always be made, is already to know the infinite.

7. The same author examines in his second volume the natural theology of Father Malebranche; but his performance appears to me overdone, although he declares that he merely presents the doubts of others. The Father saying that God is being in general, this is taken for a vague and notional being, as is the genus in logic; and little more is needed to accuse Malebranche of atheism. But I think that the Father understood not a vague and indeterminate being, but absolute being, which differs from particular limited beings as absolute and boundless space differs from a circle or square.

8. There is more likelihood of combating the opinion of Malebranche on ideas. For there is no necessity (seemingly) for taking them for something external to us. It is sufficient to regard ideas as notions, that is to say, as modifications of our soul. It is thus that the schoolmen, Descartes, and Arnauld, regard them. But as God is the source of possibilities and consequently of ideas, the. Father may be excused and even praised for having changed the terms and given to ideas a more exalted signification, in distinguishing them from notions and in taking them for perfections in God which we participate in by our knowledge. This mystical language of the Father was not then necessary; but I find it useful, for it better brings before the mind our dependence on God. It even seems that Plato, speaking of ideas, and St. Augustine, speaking of truth, had kindred thoughts, which I find very remarkable; and this is the part of Malebranche’s system which I should like to have retained, with the phrases and formulas which depend on it, as I am very glad that the most solid part of the theology of the mystics is preserved. And far from saying with the author of the Refutation (Vol. 2, p. 304), that the system of St. Augustine is a little infected with the language and opinions of the Platonists; I would say that it is thereby enriched and set in relief.

9. I say almost as much of the opinion of Father Malebranche when he affirms that we see all things in God. I say that it is an expression which may be excused and even praised, provided it be rightly taken; for it is easier to fall into mistake in this than in the preceding article on ideas. It is, therefore, well to observe that not only in Malebranche’s system but also in mine, God alone is the immediate external object of souls, exercising upon them a real influence. And although the current school seems to admit other influences, by means of certain species, which it believes that objects convey into the soul, it does not fail to recognize that all our perfections are a continual gift of God, and a limited participation in his infinite perfection. This suffices to show that what there is true and good in our knowledge is still an emanation from the light of God, and that it is in this sense that it may be said, that we see all things in God.

10. The third volume refutes the system of revealed theology of Father Malebranche, in reference especially to grace and predestination. But as I have not sufficiently studied the particular theological opinions of the author, and as I think I have sufficiently elucidated the matter in my essay La Théodicée, I excuse myself from entering upon it at present.

It would now remain to speak to you, sir, of the natural theology of the Lettres Chinois, according to what the Jesuit Father Longobardi and Father Antoine de St. Marie, of the Minorite order, report to us thereon in the treatises which you have sent me, in order to have my opinion of them; as well as of the mode which Reverend Father Malebranche has employed to give to a cultivated Chinaman some insight into our theology. But this requires a separate letter; this which I have just written being already sufficiently long. Referring for the rest to my preceding letter, I am zealously, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant,

Hanover, Nov. 4, 1715.

LEIBNITZ.

LETTERS TO SAM. CLARKE.

MR. LEIBNITZ’S FIRST PAPER: Being an Extract of a Letter written in November, 1715.

1. NATURAL RELIGION itself seems to decay [in England] very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal Being.

2. Mr. Locke, and his followers, are uncertain at least, whether the soul be not material, and naturally perishable.

3. Sir Isaac Newton says, that space is an organ, which God makes use of to perceive things by. But if God stands in need of any organ to perceive things by, it will follow, that they do not depend altogether upon him, nor were produced by him.

4. Sir Isaac Newton, and his followers, have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God’s making, is so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as a clockmaker mends his work; who must consequently be so much the more unskillful a workman, as he is oftener obliged to mend his work and to set it right. According to my opinion, the same force and vigor remains always in the world, and only passes from one part of matter to another, agreeably to the laws of nature, and the beautiful pre-established order. And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God.

MR. LEIBNITZ’S SECOND PAPER: BEING AN ANSWER TO DR. CLARKE’S

First Reply.

1. IT IS rightly observed in the paper delivered to the Princess of Wales, which her Royal Highness has been pleased to communicate to me, that, next to corruption of manners, the principles of the materialists do very much contribute to keep up impiety. But I believe the author had no reason to add, that the mathematical principles of philosophy are opposite to those of the materialists. On the contrary, they are the same; only with this difference, that the materialists, in imitation of Democritus, Epicurus, and Holies, confine themselves altogether to mathematical principles, and admit only bodies; whereas the Christian mathematicians admit also immaterial substances. Wherefore, not mathematical principles (according to the usual sense of that word) but metaphysical principles ought to be opposed to those of the materialists. Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle in some measure, had a knowledge of these principles; but I pretend to have established them demonstratively in my Theodicaea, though I have done it in a popular manner. The great foundation of mathematics, is the principle of contradiction or identity, that is, that a proposition cannot he true and false at the same time; and that therefore A is A, and cannot be not A. This single principle is sufficient to demonstrate every part of arithmetic and geometry, that is, all mathematical principles. But in order to proceed from mathematics to natural philosophy, another principle is requisite, as I have observed in my Theodicaea: I mean, the principle of a sufficient reason, vis: that nothing happens without a reason why it should he so, rather than otherwise. And therefore Archimedes being desirous to proceed from mathematics to natural philosophy, in his book De Æquililrio, was obliged to make use of a particular case of the great principle of a sufficient reason. He takes it for granted, that if there he a balance, in which every thing is alike on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two ends of that balance, the whole will be at rest. ’Tis because no reason can be given, why one side should weigh down, rather than the other. Now, by that single principle, vis: that there ought, to le a sufficient reason why things should le so, and not otherwise, one may demonstrate the being of a God, and all the other parts of metaphysics or natural theology; and even, in some measure, those principles of natural philosophy, that are independent upon mathematics: I mean, the dynamic principles, or the principles of force.

2. The author proceeds and says, that according to the mathematical principles, that is, according to Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy (for mathematical principles determine nothing in the present case,) matter is the most inconsiderable part of the universe. The reason is, because he admits empty space, besides matter; and because, according to his notions, matter fills up only a very small part of space. But Democritus and Epicurus maintained the same thing: they differed from Sir Isaac Newton, only as to the quantity of matter; and perhaps they believed there was more matter in the world, than Sir Isaac Newton will allow: wherein I think their opinion ought to be preferred; for, the more matter there is, the more God has occasion to exercise his wisdom and power. Which is one reason, among others, why I maintain that, there is no vacuum at all.

3. I find, in express words, in the Appendix to Sir Isaac Newton’s Optics, that space is the sensorium of God. But the word sensorium hath always signified the organ of sensation. He, and his friends, may now, if they think fit, explain themselves quite otherwise: I shall not be against it.

4. The author supposes that the presence of the soul is sufficient, to make it perceive what passes in the brain. But this is the very thing which Father Malebranche, and all the Cartesians deny; and they rightly deny it. More is requisite besides bare presence, to enable one thing to perceive what passes in another. Some communication, that may be explained; some sort of influence, is requisite for this purpose. Space, according to Sir Isaac Newton, is intimately present to the body contained in it, and commensurate with it. Does it follow from thence, that space perceives what passes in a body; and remembers it, when that body is gone away? Besides, the soul being indivisible, it’s immediate presence, which may be imagined in the body, would only be in one point. How then could it perceive what happens out of that point? I pretend to be the first, who has shown how the soul perceives what passes in the body.

5. The reason why God perceives every thing, is not his bare presence, but also his operation. ’Tis because he preserves things by an action, which continually produces whatever is good and perfect in them. But the soul having no immediate influence over the body, nor the body over the soul, their mutual correspondence cannot he explained by their being present to each other.

6. The true and principal reason why we commend a machine, is rather grounded upon the effects of the machine, than upon its cause. We don’t enquire so much about the power of the artist, as we do about his skill in his workmanship. And therefore the reason alleged by the author for extolling the machine of God’s making, grounded upon his having made it entirely, without wanting any materials to make it of; that reason, I say, is not sufficient. ’Tis a mere shift the author has been forced to have recourse to: and the reason why God exceeds any other artist, is not only because he makes the whole, whereas all other artists must have matter to work upon. This excellency in God, would be only on the account of power. But God’s excellency arises also from another cause, viz: wisdom, whereby his machine lasts longer, and moves more regularly, than those of any other artist whatsoever.

He who buys a watch, does not mind whether the workman made every part of it himself, or whether he got the several parts made by others, and did only put them together; provided the watch goes right. And if the workman had received from God even the gift of creating the matter of the wheels; yet the buyer of the watch would not be satisfied, unless the workman had also received the gift of putting them well together. In like manner, he who will be pleased with God’s workmanship, cannot be so, without some other reason than that which the author has here alleged.

7. Thus the skill of God must not be inferior to that of a workman; nay, it must go infinitely beyond it. The bare production of every thing, would indeed show the power of God; but it would not sufficiently show his wisdom. They who maintain the contrary, will fall exactly into the error of the materialists, and of Spinoza, from whom they profess to differ. They would, in such case, acknowledge power, but not sufficient wisdom, in the principle or cause of all things.

8. I do not say, the material world is a machine, or watch, that goes without God’s interposition; and I have sufficiently insisted, that the creation wants to be continually influenced by its Creator.

But I maintain it to be a watch, that goes without wanting to be mended by him: otherwise we must say, that God bethinks himself again. No; God has foreseen everything; he has provided a remedy for everything before-hand; there is in his works a harmony, a beauty, already pre-established.

9. This opinion does not exclude God’s Providence, or his government of the world: on the contrary, it makes it perfect. A true Providence of God, requires a perfect foresight. But then it requires moreover, not only that he should have foreseen everything; but also that he should have provided for everything beforehand, with proper remedies: otherwise, he must want either wisdom to foresee things, or power to provide against them. He will be like the God of the Socinians, who lives only from dap to day, as Mr. Jurieu says. Indeed God, according to the Socinians, does not so much as foresee inconveniences; whereas, the gentlemen I am arguing with, who put him upon mending his work, say only, that he does not provide against them. But this seems to me to be still a very great imperfection. According to this doctrine, God must want either power, or good will.

10. I don’t think I can be rightly blamed, for saying that God is intelligentia supramundana. Will they say, that he is intelligentia mundana; that is, the soul of the world? I hope not. However, they will do well to take care not to fall into that notion unawares.

11. The comparison of a king, under whose reign everything should go on without his interposition, is by no means to the present purpose; since God preserves everything continually, and nothing can subsist without him. His kingdom therefore is not a nominal one. ’Tis just as if one should say, that a king, who should originally have taken care to have his subjects so well educated, and should, by his care in providing for their subsistence, preserve them so well in their fitness for their several stations, and in their good affection towards him, as that he should have no occasion ever to be amending anything amongst them; would be only a nominal king.

12. To conclude. If God is obliged to mend the course of nature from time to time, it must be done either super naturally or naturally. If it be done supernaturally, we must have recourse to miracles, in order to explain natural things: which is reducing an hypothesis ad absurdum: for, everything may easily be accounted for by miracles. But if it be done naturally, then God will not be intelligentia supramundama: be will be comprehended under the nature of things; that is, he will be the soul of the world.

MR. LEIBNITZ’S THIRD PAPER: Being an Answer to Dr. Clarke’s

Second Reply.

1. According to the usual way of speaking, mathematical principles concern only mere mathematics, viz: numbers, figures, arithmetic, geometry. But metaphysical principles concern more general notions, such as are cause and effect.

2. The author grants me this important principle; that nothing happens without a sufficient reason, why it should he so, rather than otherwise. But he grants it only in words, and in reality denies it. Which shows that he does not fully perceive the strength of it. And therefore he makes use of an influence, which exactly falls in with one of my demonstrations against real absolute space, which is an idol of some modern Englishmen. I call it an idol, not in a theological sense, but in a philosophical one; as Chancellor Bacon says, that there are idola tribus, idola specus.

3. These gentlemen maintain therefore, that space is a real absolute being. But this involves them in great difficulties; for such a being must needs be eternal and infinite. Hence some have believed it to be God himself, or, one of his attributes, his immensity. But since space consists of parts, it is not a thing which can belong to God.

4. As for my own opinion, I have said more than once, that I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is; that I hold it to be an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions. For space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order of things which exist at the same time, considered as existing together; without inquiring into their particular manner of existing. And when many things are seen together, one perceives that order of things among themselves.

5. I have many demonstrations, to confute the fancy of those who take space to be a substance, or at least an absolute’ being. But I shall only use, at the present, one demonstration, which the author here gives me occasion to insist upon. I say then, that if space was an absolute being, there would something happen, for which it would be impossible there should be a sufficient reason.

Which is against my Axiom. And I prove it thus. Space is something absolutely uniform; and, without the things placed in it, one point of space does not absolutely differ in any respect whatsoever from another point of space. Now from hence it follows, (supposing space to be something in itself, besides the order of bodies among themselves,) that ’tis impossible there should be a reason, why God, preserving the same situations of bodies among themselves, should have placed them in space after one certain particular manner, and not otherwise; why everything was not placed the quite contrary way, for instance, by changing east into west. But if space is nothing else, but that order or relation; and is nothing at all without bodies, but the possibility of placing them; then those two states, the one such as it now is, the other supposed to be the quite contrary way, would not at all differ from one another. Their difference therefore is only to be found in our chimerical supposition of the reality of space in itself. But in truth the one would exactly be the same thing as the other, they being absolutely indiscernible; and consequently there is no room to enquire after a reason of the preference of the one to the other.

6. The case is the same with respect to time. Supposing any one should ask, why God did not create everything a year sooner; and the same person should infer from thence, that God has done something, concerning which ’tis not possible there should be a reason, why he did it so, and not otherwise: the answer is, that his inference would be right, if time was any thing distinct from things existing in time. For it would be impossible there should be any reason, why things should be applied to such particular instants, rather than to others, their succession continuing the same. But then the same argument proves, that instants, considered without the things, are nothing at all; and that they consist only in the successive order of things: which order remaining the same, one of the two states, viz. that of a supposed anticipation, would not at all differ, nor could be discerned from, the other which now is.

7. It appears from what I have said, that my axiom has not been well understood; and that the author denies it, tho’ he seems to grant it.’ Tis true, says he, that there is nothing without a sufficient reason why it is, and why it is thus, rather than otherwise: but he adds, that this sufficient reason, is often the simple or mere will of God: as, when it is asked why matter was not placed otherwise in space; the same situations of bodies among themselves being preserved. But this is plainly maintaining, that God wills something, without any sufficient reason for his will: against the axiom, or the general rule of whatever happens. This is falling back into the loose indifference, which I have confuted at large, and showed to be absolutely chimerical even in creatures, and contrary to the wisdom of God, as if he could operate without acting by reason.

8. The author objects against me, that if we don’t admit this simple and mere will, we take away from God the power of choosing, and bring in a fatality. But the quite contrary is true. I maintain that God has the power of choosing, since I ground that power upon the reason of a choice agreeable to his wisdom. And ’tis not this fatality, (which is only the wisest order of Providence) but a blind fatality or necessity, void of all wisdom and choice, which we ought to avoid.

9. I had observed, that by lessening the quantity of matter, the quantity of objects, upon which God may exercise his goodness, will be lessen’d. The author answers, that instead of matter, there are other things in the void space, on which God may exercise his goodness. Be it so: tho’ I don’t grant it; for I hold that every created substance is attended with matter. However, let it be so: I answer, that more matter was consistent with those same things; and consequently the said objects will be still lessened. The instance of a greater number of men, or animals, is not to the purpose; for they would fill up place, in exclusion of other things.

10. It will be difficult to make me believe, that sensorium does not, in its usual meaning, signify an organ of sensation.

11. The mere presence of a substance, even an animated one, is not sufficient for perception. A blind man, and even a man whose thoughts are wandering, does not see. The author must explain, how the soul perceives what is without itself.

12. God is not present to things by situation, but by essence: his presence is manifested by his immediate operation. The presence of the soul is quite of another nature. To say that it is diffused all over the body, is to make it extended and divisible. To say it is, the whole of it, in every part of the body, is to make it divided from itself. To fix it to a point, to diffuse it all over many points, are only abusive expressions, idola tribus.

13. If active force should diminish in the universe, by the natural laws which God has established; so that there should be need for him to give a new impression in order to restore that force, like an artist’s mending the imperfections of his machine; the disorder would not only be with respect to us, but also with respect to God himself. He might have prevented it, and taken better measures to avoid such an inconvenience: and therefore, indeed, he has actually done it.

14. When I said that God has provided remedies beforehand against such disorders, I did not say that God suffers disorders to happen, and then finds remedies for them; but that he has found a way beforehand to prevent any disorders happening.

15. The author strives in vain to criticize my expression, that God is intelligentia supramundana. To say that God is above the world, is not denying that he is in the world.

16. I never gave any occasion to doubt, but that God’s conservation is an actual preservation and continuation of the beings, powers, orders, dispositions, and motions of all things: and I think I have perhaps explained it better than many others. But, says the author, this is all that I contended for. To this I answer; your humble servant for that, sir. Our dispute consists in many other things. The question is, whether God does not act in the most regular and most perfect manner? whether his machine is liable to disorder, which he is obliged to mend by extraordinary means? whether the will of God can act without reason? whether space is an absolute being? also concerning the nature of miracles; and many such things, which make a wide difference between us.

17. Divines will not grant the author’s position against me, viz. that there is no difference, with respect to God, between natural and supernatural: and it will be still less approved by most philosophers. There is a vast difference between these two things; but it plainly appears, it has not been duly consider’d. That which is supernatural exceeds all the powers of creatures. I shall give an instance, which I have often made use of with good success. If God would cause a body to move free in the aether round about a certain fixed center, without any other creature acting upon it: I say, it could not be done without a miracle; since it cannot be explained by the nature of bodies. For, a free body does naturally recede from a curve in the tangent. And therefore I maintain, that the attraction of bodies, properly so called, is a miraculous thing, since it cannot be explained by the nature of bodies.

MR. LEIBNITZ’S FOURTH PAPER; BEING AN ANSWER TO DR. CLARKE’S

Third Reply.

1. IN THINGS absolutely indifferent, there is no [foundation for] choice; and consequently no election, nor will; since choice must he founded on some reason, or principle.

2. A mere wid without any motive, is a fiction, not only contrary to God’s perfection, but also chimerical and contradictory; inconsistent with the definition of the will, and sufficiently confuted in my Theodicaea.

3. ’Tis a thing indifferent, to place three bodies, equal and perfectly alike, in any order whatsoever; and consequently they will never be placed in any order, by him who does nothing without wisdom. But then, he being the author of things, no such things will be produced by him at all; and consequently there are no such things in nature.

4. There is no such thing as two individuals indiscernible from each other. An ingenious gentleman of my acquaintance, discoursing with me, in the presence of her Electoral Highness the Princess Sophia, in the garden of Herrenhausen, thought he could find two leaves perfectly alike. The princess defied him to do it, and he ran all over the garden a long time to look for some; but it was to no purpose. Two drops of water, or milk, viewed with a microscope, will appear distinguishable from, each other. This is an argument against atoms; which are confuted, as well as a vacuum, by the principles of true metaphysics.

5. Those great principles of’ a sufficient reason, and of the identity of indiscernibles, change the state of metaphysics. That science becomes real and demonstrative by means of these principles; whereas before, it did generally consist in empty words.

6. To suppose two things indiscernible, is to suppose the same thing under two names. And therefore to suppose that the universe could have had at first another position of time and place, than that which it actually had; and yet that all the parts of the universe should have had the same situation among themselves, as that which they actually had; such a supposition, I say, is an impossible fiction.

7. The same reason, which shows that extramundane space is imaginary, proves that all empty space is an imaginary thing; for they differ only as greater and less.

8. If space is a property or attribute, it must be the property of some substance. But what substance will that bounded empty space he an affection or property of, which the persons I am arguing with, suppose to be between two bodies?

9. If infinite space is immensity, finite space will be the opposite to immensity, that is, ‘twill be mensurability, or limited extension. Now extension must be the affection of some thing extended. But if that space be empty, it will be an attribute without a subject, an extension without any thing extended. Wherefore by making space a property, the author falls in with my opinion, which makes it an order of things, and not any thing absolute.

10. If space is an absolute reality; far from being a property or an accident opposed to substance, it will have a greater reality than substances themselves. God cannot destroy it, nor even change it in any respect. It will be not only immense in the whole, but also immutable and eternal in every part. There will be an infinite number of eternal things besides God.

11. To say that infinite space has no parts, is to say that it does not consist of finite spaces; and that infinite space might subsist, though all finite space should be reduced to nothing. It would be, as if one should say, in the Cartesian supposition of a material extended unlimited world, that such a world might subsist, though all the bodies of which it consists, should be reduced to nothing.

12. The author ascribes parts to space, p. 19 of the 3d edition of his Defense of the Argument against Mr. Dodwell; and makes them inseparable one from another. But, p. 30 of his Second Defense, he says they are parts improperly so-called: which may be understood in a good sense.

13. To say that God can cause the whole universe to move forward in a right line, or in any other line, without making otherwise any alteration in it, is another chimerical supposition. For, two states indiscernible from each other, are the same state; and consequently, ’tis a change without any change. Besides, there is neither rhyme nor reason in it. But God does nothing without reason; and ’tis impossible there should he any here. Besides, it would be agendo nihil agere, as I have just now said, because of the indiscernibility.

14. These are idola tribus, mere chimeras, and superficial imaginations. All this is only grounded upon the supposition, that Imaginary space is real.

15. It is a like fiction, (that is) an impossible one, to suppose that God might have created the world some millions of years sooner. They who run into such kind of fictions, can give no answer to one that should argue for the eternity of the world. For since God does nothing without reason, and no reason can be given why he did not create the world sooner; it will follow, either that he has created nothing at all, or that he created the world before any assignable time, that is, that the world is eternal. But when once, it has been shown, that the beginning, whenever it was, is always the same thing; the question, why it was not otherwise ordered, becomes needless and insignificant.

16. If space and time were anything absolute, that is, if they were anything else, besides certain orders of things; then indeed my assertion would be a contradiction. But since it is not so, the hypothesis [that space and time are anything absolute] is contradictory, that is, ’tis an impossible fiction.

17. And the case is the same as in geometry; where by the very supposition that a figure is greater than it really is, we sometimes prove that it is not greater. This indeed is a contradiction; but it lies in the hypothesis, which appears to be false for that very reason.

18. Space being uniform, there can be neither any external nor internal reason, by which to distinguish its parts, and to make any choice among them. For, any external reason to discern between them, can only be grounded upon some internal one. Otherwise we should discern what is indiscernible, or choose’ without discerning. A will without reason, would be the chance of the Epicureans. A God, who should act by such a will, would be a God only in name. The cause of these errors proceeds from want of care to avoid what derogates from the divine perfections.

19. When two things which cannot both be together, are equally good; and neither in themselves, nor by their combination with other things, has the one any advantage over the other; God will produce neither of them.

20. God is never determined by external things, but always by what is in himself; that is, by his knowledge of things, before any thing exists without himself.

21. There is no possible reason, that can limit the quantity of matter; and therefore such limitation can have no place.

22. And supposing an arbitrary limitation of the quantity of matter, something might always be added to it without derogating from the perfection of those things which do already exist; and consequently something must always be added, in order to act according to the principle of the perfection of the divine operations.

23. And therefore it cannot be said, that the present quantity of matter is the fittest for the present constitution of things. And supposing it were, it would follow that this present constitution of things would not be the fittest absolutely, if it hinders God from using more matter. It were therefore better to choose another constitution of things, capable of something more.

24. I should be glad to see a passage of any philosopher, who takes sensorium in any other sense than Goclenius does.

25. If Scapula says that sensorium is the place in which the understanding resides, he means by it the organ of internal sensation. And therefore he does not differ from Goclenius.

26. Sensorium has always signified the organ, of sensation. The glandula penealis would be, according to Cartesius, the sensorium, in the above-mentioned sense of Scapula.

27. There is hardly any expression less proper upon this subject, than that which makes God to have a sensorium. It seems to make God the soul of the world. And it will be a hard matter to put a justifiable sense upon this word, according to the use Sir Isaac Newton makes of it.

28. Though the question be about the sense put upon that word by Sir Isaac Newton, and not by Goclenius; yet I am not to blame for quoting the philosophical dictionary of that author, because the design of dictionaries is to show the use of words.

29. God perceives things in himself. Space is the place of things, and not the place of God’s ideas: unless we look upon space as something that makes an union between God and things, in imitation of the imagined union between the soul and the body; which would still make God the soul of the world.

30. And indeed the author is much in the wrong, when he compares God’s knowledge and operation, with the knowledge and operation of souls. The soul knows things, because God has put into it a principle representative of things without. But God knows things, because he produces them continually.

31. The soul does not act upon things, according to my opinion, any otherwise than because the body adapts itself to the desires of the soul, by virtue of the harmony, which God has pre-established between them.

32. But they who fancy that the soul can give a new force to the body; and that God does the same in the world, in order to mend the imperfections of his machine; make God too much like the soul, by ascribing too much to the soul, and too little to God.

33. For, none but God can give a new force to nature; and he does it only supernaturally. If there was need for him to do it in the natural course of things; he would have made a very imperfect work. At that rate, he would be with respect to the world, what the soul, in the vulgar notion, is with respect to the body.

34. Those who undertake to defend the vulgar opinion concerning the soul’s influence over the body, by instancing in God’s operating on things external; make God still too much like a soul of the world. To which I add, that the author’s affecting to find fault with the words, intelligentia supramundana, seems also to incline that way.

35. The images, with which the soul is immediately affected, are within itself; but they correspond to those of the body. The presence of the soul is imperfect, and can only be explained by that correspondence. But the presence of God is perfect, and manifested by his operation.

36. The author wrongly supposes against me, that the presence Of the soul is connected with its influence over the body; for he knows, I reject that influence.

37. The soul’s being diffused through the brain, is no less inexplicable, than its being diffused through the whole body. The difference is only in more and less.

38. They who fancy that active force lessens of itself in the world, do not well understand the principal laws of nature, and the beauty of the works of God.

39. How will they he able to prove, that this defect is a consequence of the dependence of things?

40. The imperfection of our machines, which is the reason why they want to be mended, proceeds from this very thing, that they do not sufficiently depend upon the workman. And therefore the dependence of nature upon God, far from being the cause of such an imperfection, is rather the reason why there is no such imperfection in nature, because it depends so much upon an artist, who is too perfect to make a work that wants to be mended. ’Tis true that every particular machine of nature, is, in some measure, liable to be disordered; but not the whole universe, which cannot diminish in perfection.

41. The author contends, that space does not depend upon the situation of bodies. I answer: ’Tis true, it does not depend upon such or such a situation of bodies; but it is that order, which renders bodies capable of being situated, and by which they have a situation among themselves when they exist together; as time is that order, with respect to their successive position. But if there were no creatures, space and time would be only in the ideas of God.

42. The author seems to acknowledge here, that his notion of a miracle is not the same with that which divines and philosophers usually have. It is therefore sufficient for my purpose, that my adversaries are obliged to have recourse to what is commonly called a miracle.

43. I am afraid the author, by altering the sense commonly put upon the word miracle, will fall into an inconvenient opinion. The nature of a miracle does not at all consist in usefulness or unusefulness; for then monsters would be miracles.

“. There are miracles of an inferior sort, which an angel can work. He can, for instance, make a man walk upon the water without sinking. But there are miracles, which none but God can work; they exceeding all natural powers. Of which kind, are creating and annihilating.

45. ’Tis also a supernatural thing, that bodies should attract one another at a distance, without any intermediate means; and that a body should move around, without receding in the tangent, though nothing hinder it from so receding. For these effects cannot be explained by the nature of things.

46. Why should it be impossible to explain the motion of animals by natural forces? Though indeed, the beginning of animals is no less inexplicable by natural forces, than the beginning of the world.

P. S. — All those who maintain a vacuum, are more influenced by imagination than by reason. When I was a young man, I also gave in to the notion of a vacuum and atoms; but reason brought me into the right way. It was a pleasing imagination. Men carry their inquiries no farther than those two things: they (as it were) nail down their thoughts to them: they fancy, they have found out the first elements of things, a non plus ultra. We would have nature to go no farther; and to be finite, as our minds are: but this is being ignorant of the greatness and majesty of the author of things. The least corpuscle is actually subdivided in infinitum, and contains, a world of other creatures, which would be wanting in the universe, if that corpuscle was an atom, that is, a body of one entire piece without subdivision. In like manner, to admit a vacuum in nature, is ascribing to God a very imperfect work: ’tis violating the grand principle of the necessity of a sufficient reason; which many have talked of, without understanding its true meaning; as I have lately shown, in proving, by that principle, that space is only an order of things, as time also is, and not at all an absolute being. To omit many other arguments against a vacuum and atoms, I shall here mention those which I ground upon God’s perfection, and upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. I lay it down as a principle, that every perfection, which God could impart to things without, derogating from their other perfections, has actually been imparted to them. Now, let us fancy a space wholly empty. God could have placed some matter in it, without derogating in any respect from all other things: therefore he hath actually placed some matter in that space: therefore, there is no space wholly empty: therefore all is full. The same argument proves that there is no corpuscle, but what is subdivided. I shall add another argument, grounded upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. ’Tis impossible there should be any principle to determine what proportion of matter there ought to be, out of all the possible degrees from a plenum to a vacuum, or from a vacuum to a plenum. Perhaps it will be said, that the one should be equal to the other: but, because matter is more perfect than a vacuum, reason requires that a geometrical proportion should be observed, and that there should be as much more matter than vacuum, as the former deserves to have the preference before the latter. But then there must be no vacuum at all; for the perfection of matter is to that of a vacuum, as something to nothing. And the case is the same with atoms: What reason can any one assign for confining nature in the progression of subdivision? These are fictions merely arbitrary, and unworthy of true philosophy. The reasons alleged for a vacuum, are mere sophisms.

MR. LEIBNITZ’S FIFTH PAPER: BEING AN ANSWER TO DR. CLARKE’S

Fourth Reply.

TO § 1 and 2, of the foregoing paper [Clarke’s Fourth Reply.]

1. I shall at this time make a larger answer; to clear the difficulties; and to try whether the author be willing to hearken to reason, and to show that he is a lover of truth; or whether he will only cavil, without clearing anything.

2. He often endeavors to impute to me necessity and fatality; though perhaps no one has better and more fully explained, than I have done in my Theodicaea, the true difference between liberty, contingency, spontaneity, on the one side; and absolute necessity, chance, coaction, on the other. I know not yet, whether the author does this, because he will do it, whatever I may say; or whether he does it, (supposing him sincere in those imputations,) because he has not yet duly considered my opinions. I shall soon find what I am to think of it, and I shall take my measures accordingly.

3. It is true, that reason in the mind of a wise being, and motives in any mind whatsoever, do that which answers to the effect produced by weights in a balance. The author objects, that this notion leads to necessity and fatality. But he says so, without proving it, and without taking notice of the explications I have formerly given, in order to remove the difficulties that may be raised upon that head.

4. He seems also to play with equivocal terms. There are necessities, which ought to be admitted. For we must distinguish between an absolute and an hypothetical necessity. We must also distinguish between a necessity, which takes place because the opposite implies a contradiction; (which necessity is called logical, metaphysical, or mathematical;) and a necessity which is moral, whereby a wise being chooses the best, and every mind follows the strongest inclination.

5. Hypothetical necessity is that, which the supposition or hypothesis of God’s foresight and pre-ordination lays upon future contingents. And this must needs be admitted, unless we deny, as the Socinians do, God’s foreknowledge of future contingents, and his providence which regulates and governs every particular thing.

6. But neither that foreknowledge, nor that pre-ordination, derogate from liberty. For God, being moved by his supreme reason to choose, among many series of things or worlds possible, that, in which free creatures should take such or such resolutions, though not without his concourse; has thereby rendered every event certain and determined once for all; without derogating thereby from the liberty of those creatures: that simple decree of choice, not at all changing, but only actualizing their free natures, which he saw in his ideas.

7. As for moral necessity, this also does not derogate from liberty. For when a wise being, and especially God, who has supreme wisdom, chooses what is best, he is not the less free upon that account: on the contrary, it is the most perfect liberty, not to be hindered, from acting in the best manner. And when any other chooses according to the most apparent and the most strongly inclining good,, he imitates therein the liberty of a truly wise being, in proportion to his disposition. Without this, the choice would be a blind chance.

8. But good, either true or apparent; in a word, the motive, inclines without necessitating; that is, without imposing an absolute necessity. For when God (for instance,) chooses the best; what he does not choose, and is inferior in perfection, is nevertheless possible. But if what he chooses, was absolutely necessary; any other way would be impossible: which is against the hypothesis. For God chooses among possibles, that is, among many ways, none of which implies a contradiction.

9. But to say, that God can only choose what is best; and to infer from thence, that what he does not choose, is impossible; this, I say, is confounding of terms: ’tis blending power and will, metaphysical necessity and moral necessity, essences and existences. For what is necessary, is so by its essence, since the opposite implies a contradiction; but a contingent which exists, owes its existence to the principle of what is best, which is a sufficient reason for the existence of things. And therefore I say, that motives incline without necessitating; and that there is a certainty and infallibility, but not an absolute necessity in contingent things. Add to this, what will be said hereafter, Nos. 73 and 76.

10. And I have sufficiently shown in my Theodicaea, that this moral necessity is a good thing, agreeable to the divine perfection agreeable to the great principle or ground of existences, which is that of the want of a sufficient reason: whereas absolute and metaphysical necessity, depends upon the other great principle of our reasonings, vis. that of essences; that is, the principle of identity or contradiction: for what is absolutely necessary, is the only possible way, and its contrary implies a contradiction.

11. I have also shown, that our will does not always exactly follow the practical understanding; because it may have or find reasons to suspend its resolution till a further examination.

12. To impute to me after this, the notion of an absolute necessity, without having anything to say against the reasons which I have just now alleged, and which go to the bottom of things, perhaps beyond what is to be seen elsewhere; this, I say, will be an unreasonable obstinacy.

13. As to the notion of fatality, which the author lays also to my charge; this is another ambiguity. There is a fatum Mahometanum, a fatum stoicum, and &c fatum Christianum. The Turkish fate will have an effect to happen, even though its cause should be avoided; as if there was an absolute necessity. The Stoical fate will have a man to be quiet, because he must have patience whether he will or not, since ’tis impossible to resist the course of things. But ’tis agreed, that there is fatum Christianum, a certain destiny of every thing, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God. Fatum is derived from fari; that is to pronounce, to decree; and in its right sense, it signifies the decree of providence. And those who submit to it through a knowledge of the divine perfections, whereof the love of God is a consequence; have not only patience, like the heathen philosophers, but are also contented with what is ordained by God, knowing he does every thing for the best; and not only for the greatest good in general, but also for the greatest particular good of those who love him.

14. I have been obliged to enlarge, in order to remove ill-grounded imputations once for all; as I hope I shall he able to do by these explications, so as to satisfy equitable persons. I shall now come to an objection raised here, against my comparing the weights of a balance with the motives of the will. ’Tis objected, that a balance is merely passive, and moved by the weights; whereas agents intelligent, and endowed with will, are active. To this I answer, that the principle of the want of a sufficient reason is common both to agents and patients: they want a sufficient reason of their action, as well as of their passion. A balance does not only not act, when it is equally pulled on both sides; but the equal weights likewise do not act when they are in an equilibrium, so that one of them cannot go down without the other’s rising up as much.

15. It must also he considered, that, properly speaking, motives do not act upon the mind, as weights do upon a balance; but ’tis rather the mind that acts by virtue of the motives, which are its dispositions to act. And therefore to pretend, as the author does here, that the mind prefers sometimes weak motives to strong ones, and even that it prefers that which is indifferent before motives: this, I say, is to divide the mind from the motives, as if they were without the mind, as the weight is distinct from the balance; and as if the mind had, besides motives, other dispositions to act, by virtue of which it could reject or accept the motives. Whereas, in truth, the motives comprehend all the dispositions, which the mind can have to act voluntarily; for they include not only the reasons, but also the inclinations arising from passions, or other preceding impressions. Wherefore, if the mind should prefer a weak inclination to a strong one, it would act against itself, and otherwise than it is disposed to act. Which shows that the author’s notions, contrary to mine, are superficial, and appear to have no solidity in them, when they are well considered.

16. To assert also, that the mind may home good reasons to act, when it has no motives, and when things are absolutely indifferent, as the author explains himself here; this, I say, is a manifest contradiction. For if the mind has good reasons for taking the part it takes, then the things are not indifferent to the mind.

17. And to affirm that the mind will act, when it has reasons to act, even though the ways of acting were absolutely indifferent: this, I say, is to speak again very superficially, and in a manner that cannot he defended. For a man never has a sufficient reason to act, when he has not also a sufficient reason to act in a certain particular manner; every action being individual, and not general, nor abstract from its circumstances, but always needing some particular way of being put in execution. Wherefore, when there is a sufficient reason to do any particular thing, there is also a sufficient reason to do it in a certain particular manner; and consequently, several manners of doing it are not indifferent. As often as a man has sufficient reasons for a single action, he has also sufficient reasons for all its requisites. See also what I shall say below, No. 66.

18. These arguments are very obvious: and ’tis very strange to charge me with advancing my principle of the want of a sufficient reason, without any proof drawn either from the nature of things, or from the divine perfections. For the nature of things requires, that every event should have beforehand its proper conditions, requisites, and dispositions, the existence whereof makes the sufficient reason of such event.

19. And God’s perfection requires, that all his actions should be agreeable to his wisdom; and that it may not be said of him, that he has acted without reason; or even that he has preferred a weaker reason before a stronger.

20. But I shall speak more largely at the conclusion of this paper, concerning the solidity and importance of this great principle, of the want of a sufficient reason in order to every event; the overthrowing of which principle, would overthrow the best part of all philosophy. ’Tis therefore very strange that the author should say, I am herein guilty of a petitio principii; and it plainly appears he is desirous to maintain indefensible opinions, since he is reduced to deny that great principle, which is one of the most essential principles of reason.

To § 3 and 4.

21. It must be confessed, that though this great principle has been acknowledged, yet it has not been sufficiently made use of. Which is, in great measure, the reason why the prima philosophia has not been hitherto so fruitful and demonstrative, as it should have been. I infer from that principle, among other consequences, that there are not in nature two real, absolute beings, indiscernible from each other; because if there were, God and nature would act without reason, in ordering the one otherwise than the other; and that therefore God does not produce two pieces of matter perfectly equal and alike. The author answers this conclusion, without confuting the reason of it; and he answers with a very weak objection. That argument, says he, if it was good, would prove that it would be impossible for God to create any matter at all. For, the perfectly solid parts of matter, if we take them of equal figure and dimensions, (which is always possible in supposition), would, be exactly alike. But ’tis a manifest petitio principii to suppose that perfect likeness, which, according to me, cannot be admitted. This supposition of two indiscernibles, such as two pieces of matter perfectly alike, seems indeed to be possible in abstract terms; but it is not consistent with the order of things, nor with the divine wisdom, by which nothing is admitted without reason. The vulgar fancy such things, because they content themselves with incomplete notions. And this is one of the faults of the atomists.

22. Besides; I don’t admit in matter, parts perfectly solid, or that are the same throughout, without any variety or particular motion in their parts, as the pretended atoms are imagined to be. To suppose such bodies, is another popular opinion ill-grounded. According to my demonstrations, every part of matter is actually subdivided into parts differently moved, and no one of them is perfectly like another.

23. I said, that in sensible things, two, that are indiscernible from each other, can never be found; that (for instance) two leaves in a garden, or two drops of water, perfectly alike, are not to be found. The author acknowledges it as to leaves, and perhaps as to drops of water. But he might have admitted it, without any hesitation, without a perhaps, (an Italian would say, senza forse,) as to drops of water likewise.

24. I believe that these general observations in things sensible hold also in proportion in things insensible, and that one may say, in this respect, what harlequin says in the Emperor of the Moon; His there, just as ’tis here. And ’tis a great objection against indiscernables, that no instance of them is to be found. But the author opposes this consequence, because (says he) sensible bodies are compounded; whereas he maintains there are insensible bodies which are simple. I answer again that I don’t admit simple bodies. There is nothing simple, in my opinion, but true monads, which have neither parts nor extension. Simple bodies, and even perfectly similar ones, are a consequence of the false hypothesis of a vacuum and of atoms, or of lazy philosophy, which does not sufficiently carry on the analysis of things, and fancies it can attain to the first material elements of nature, because our imagination would be therewith satisfied.

25. When I deny that there are two drops of water perfectly alike, or any two other bodies indiscernible from each other; I don’t say, ’tis absolutely impossible to suppose them; but that ‘tie a thing contrary to the divine wisdom, and which consequently does not exist.

To § 5 and 6.

26. I own, that if two things perfectly indiscernible from each other did exist, they would be two; but that supposition is false, and contrary to the grand principle of reason. The vulgar philosophers were mistaken, when they believed that there are things different solo numero, or only because they are two; and from this error have arisen their perplexities about what they called the principle of individuation. Metaphysics have generally been handled like a science of mere words, like a philosophical dictionary, without entering into the discussion of things. Superficial philosophy, such as is that of the atomists and vacuists, forges things, which superior reasons do not admit. I hope my demonstrations will change the face of philosophy, notwithstanding such weak objections as the author raises here against me.

27. The parts of time or place, considered in themselves, are ideal things; and therefore they perfectly resemble one another, like to abstract units. But it is not so with two concrete ones, or with two real times, or two spaces filled up, that is, truly actual.

28. I don’t say that two points of space are one and the same point, nor that two instants of time are one and the same instant, as the author seems to charge me with saying. But a man may fancy, for want of knowledge, that there are two different instants, where there is but one: in like manner as I observed in the 17th paragraph of the foregoing answer, that frequently in geometry we suppose two, in order to represent the error of a gainsayer, when there is really but one. If any man should suppose that a right line cuts another in two points; it will be found after all, that those two pretended points must coincide, and make but one point.

29. I have demonstrated, that space is nothing else but an order of the existence of things, observed as existing together; and therefore the fiction of a material finite universe, moving forward in an infinite empty space, cannot he admitted. It is altogether unreasonable and impracticable. For, besides that there is no real space out of the material universe; such an action would be without any design in it: it would be working without doing anything, agendo nihil agere. There would happen no change, which could be observed by any person whatsoever. These are imaginations of philosophers who have incomplete notions, who make space an absolute reality. Mere mathematicians, who are only taken up with the conceits of imagination, are apt to forge such notions; but they are destroyed by superior reasons.

30. Absolutely speaking, it appears that God can make the material universe finite in extension; but the contrary appears more agreeable to his wisdom.

31. I don’t grant, that every finite is movable. According to the hypothesis of my adversaries themselves, a part of space, though finite, is not movable. What is movable, must be capable of changing its situation with respect to something else, and to be in a new state discernible from the first: otherwise the change is but a fiction. A movable finite, must therefore make part of another finite, that any change may happen which can be observed.

32. Cartesius maintains, that matter is unlimited; and I don’t think he has been sufficiently confuted. And though this be granted him, yet it does not follow that matter would be necessary, nor that it would have existed from all eternity; since that unlimited diffusion of matter, would only be an effect of God’s choice judging that to be the better.

To § 7.

33. Since space in itself is an ideal thing, like time; space out of the world must needs be imaginary, as the schoolmen themselves have acknowledged. The case is the same with empty space within the world; which I take also to be imaginary, for the reasons before alleged.

34. The author objects against me the vacuum discovered by Mr. Guerike of Magdeburg, which is made by pumping the air out of a receiver; and he pretends that there is truly a perfect vacuum, ora space without matter (at least in part), in that receiver. The Aristotelians and Cartesians, who do not admit a true vacuum, have said in answer to that experiment of Mr. Guerike, as well as to that of Torricellius of Florence (who emptied the air out of a glass-tube by the help of quicksilver), that there is no vacuum at all in the tube or in the receiver: since glass has small pores, which the beams of light, the effluvia of the loadstone, and other very thin fluids may go through. I am of their opinion: and I think the receiver may be compared to a box full of holes in the water, having fish or other gross bodies shut up in it; which being taken out, their place would nevertheless be filled up with water. There is only this difference; that though water be fluid and more yielding than those gross bodies, yet it is as heavy and massive, if not more, than they: whereas the matter which gets into the receiver in the room of the air, is much more subtile. The new sticklers for a vacuum allege in answer to this instance, that it is not the grossness of matter, but its mere quantity, that makes resistance; and consequently that there is of necessity more vacuum, where there is less resistance. They add, that the subtileness of matters has nothing to do here; and that the particles of quicksilver are as subtile and fine as those of water and yet that quicksilver resists above ten times more. To this I reply, that it is not so much the quantity of matter, as its difficulty of giving place, that makes resistance. For instance; floating timber contains less of heavy matter, than an equal bulk of water does; and yet it makes more resistance to a boat, than the water does.

35. And as for quicksilver; ’tis true, it contains about fourteen times more of heavy matter, than an equal bulk of water does; but it does not follow, that it contains fourteen times more matter absolutely. On the contrary, water contains as much matter; if we include both its own matter, which is heavy; and the extraneous matter void of heaviness, which passes through its pores. For, both quicksilver and water, are masses of heavy matter, full of pores, through which there passes a great deal of matter void of heaviness [and which does not sensibly resist]; such as is probably that of’ the rays of light, and other insensible fluids; and especially that which is itself the cause of the gravity of gross bodies, by receding from the center towards which it drives those bodies. For, it is a strange imagination to make all matter gravitate, and that towards, all other matter, as if each body did equally attract every other body according to their masses and distances’; and this by an attraction properly so called, which is not derived from an occult impulse of bodies: whereas the gravity of sensible bodies towards the center of the earth, ought to be produced by the motion of some fluid. And the case must be the same with other gravities, such as is that of the planets towards the sun or towards each other. [A body is never moved naturally except by another body which impels it by touching it; and afterwards it advances until it is stopped by another body which touches it. Every other operation on bodies is either miraculous or imaginary.]

To § 8 and 9.

36. I objected, that space, taken for something real and absolute without bodies, would be a thing eternal, impassible, and independent upon God.. The author endeavors to elude this difficulty, by saying that space is a property of God. In answer to this, I have said, in my foregoing paper, that the property of God is immensity; but that space (which is often commensurate with bodies), and God’s immensity, are not the same thing.

37. I objected further, that if space be a property, and infinite space be the immensity of God; finite space will be the extension or mensurdbility of something finite. And therefore the space taken up by a, body, will be the extension of that body. Which is an absurdity; since a body can change space, but cannot leave its extension.

38. I asked also: if space is a property, what thing will an empty limited space, (such as that which my adversary imagines in an exhausted receiver), be the property of? It does not appear reasonable to say, that this empty space either round or square, is a property of God. Will it be then perhaps the property of some immaterial, extended, imaginary substances, which the author seems to fancy in the imaginary spaces?

39. If space is the property or affection of the substance, which is in space; the same space will be sometimes the affection of one body, sometimes of (mother body, sometimes of an immaterial substance, and sometimes perhaps of God himself, when it is void of all other substance material or immaterial. But this is a strange property or affection, which passes from one subject to another. Thus subjects will leave off their accidents, like clothes; that other subjects may put them on. At this rate, how shall we distinguish accidents and substances?

40. And if limited spaces are the affections of limited, substances, which are in them; and infinite space be a property of God; a property of God must (which is very strange), be made up of the affections of creatures; for all finite spaces taken together make up infinite space.

41. But if the author denies, that limited space is an affection of limited things; it will not be reasonable neither, that infinite space should be the affection or property of an infinite thing. I have suggested all these difficulties in my foregoing paper; but it does not appear that the author has endeavored to answer them.

42. I have still other reasons against this strange imagination, that space is a property of God. If it be so, space belongs to the essence of God. But space has parts: therefore there would be parts in the essence of God. Spectatum admissi.

43. Moreover, spaces are sometimes empty, and sometimes filled up. Therefore there will be in the essence of God, parts sometimes empty and sometimes full, and consequently liable to a perpetual change. Bodies, filling up space, would fill up part of God’s essence, and would be commensurate with it; and in the supposition of a vacuum, part of God’s essence will be within the receiver. Such a God having parts, will very much resemble the Stoic’s God, which was the whole universe considered as a divine animal.

“. If infinite space is God’s immensity, infinite time will be God’s eternity; and therefore we must say, that what is in space, is in God’s immensity, and consequently in his essence; and that what is in time, is also in the essence of God. Strange expressions; which plainly show, that the author makes a wrong use of terms.

45. I shall give another instance of this. God’s immensity makes him actually present in all spaces. But now if God is in space, how can it be said that space is in God, or that it is a property of God? We have often heard, that a property is in its subject; but we never heard, that a subject is in its property. In like manner, God exists in all time. How then can time be in God; and how can it be a property of God? These are perpetual alloglossies.

46. It appears that the author confounds immensity, or the extension of things, with the space according to which that extension is taken. Infinite space is not the immensity of God; finite space is not the extension of bodies: as time is not their duration. Things keep their, extension, but they do not always keep their space. Everything has its own extension, its own duration; but it has not its own time, and does not keep its own space.

47. I will here show, how men come to form to themselves the notion of space. They consider that many things exist at once, and they observe in them a certain order of co-existence, according to which the relation of one thing to another is more or less simple. This order is their situation or distance. When it happens that one of those co-existent things changes its relation to a multitude “of others, which do not change their relation among themselves; and that another thing, newly come, acquires the same relation to the others, as the former had; we then say it is come into the place of the former; and this change, we call a motion in that body, wherein is the immediate cause of the change. And though many, or even all the co-existent things, should change according to certain known rules of direction and swiftness; yet one may always determine the relation of situation, which every co-existent acquires with respect to every other co-existent; and even that relation, which any other co-existent would have to this, or which this would have to any other, if it had not changed, or if it had changed any otherwise. And supposing, or feigning, that among those co-existents, there is a sufficient number of them, which have undergone no change; then we may say, that those which have such a relation to those fixed existents, as others had to them before, have now the same place which those others had. And that which comprehends all those places, is called space. Which shows, that in order to have an idea of place, and consequently of space, it is sufficient to consider these relations, and the rules of their changes, without needing to fancy any absolute reality out of the things whose situation we consider, and, to give a kind of definition: place is that, which we say is the same to A, and to B, when the relation of the existence of B, with C, E, F, G, &c. agrees perfectly with the relation of the co-existence, which A had with the same C, E, E, G, disc. supposing there has been no cause of change in C, E, F, G, &c. It might be said also, without entering into any further particularity, that place is that, which is the same in different moments to different existent things, when their relations of co-existence with certain other existents, which are supposed to continue fixed from one of those moments to the other, agree entirely together. And fixed existents are those, in which there has been no cause of any change of the order of their co-existence with others; or (which is the same thing), in which there has been no motion. Lastly, space is that which results from places taken together. And here it may not be amiss to consider the difference between place, and the relation of situation, which is in the body that fills up the place. For, the place of A and B, is the same; whereas the relation of A to fixed bodies, is not precisely and individually the same, as the relation which B (that comes into its place) will have to the same fixed bodies; but these relations agree only. For two different subjects, as A and B, cannot have precisely the same individual affection; it being impossible, that the same individual accident should be in two subjects, or pass from one subject to another. But the mind not contented with an agreement, looks for an identity, for something that should be truly the same; and conceives it as being extrinsic to the subject: and this is what we here call place and space. But this can only be an ideal thing; containing a certain order, wherein the mind conceives the application of relations. In like manner, as the mind can fancy to itself an order made up of genealogical lines, whose bigness would consist only in the number of generations, wherein every person would have his place: and if to this one should add the fiction of a metempsychosis, and bring in the same human souls again; the persons in those lines might change place; he who was a father, or a grand-father, might become a son, or a grand-son, &c. And yet those genealogical places, lines, and spaces, though they should express real truths, would only be ideal things. I shall allege another example, to show how the mind uses, upon occasion of accidents which are in subjects, to fancy to itself something answerable to those accidents, out of the subjects. The ratio or proportion between two lines L and M, may be conceived three several ways; as a ratio of the greater L to the lesser M; as a ratio of the lesser M to the greater L; and lastly, as something abstracted from both, that is, as the ratio between L and M, without considering which is the antecedent, or which the consequent; which the subject, and which the object. And thus it is, that proportions are considered in music. In the first way of considering them, L the greater; in the second, M the lesser, is the subject of that accident, which philosophers call relation. But, which of them will be the subject, in the third way of considering them? It cannot be said that both of them, L and M together, are the subject of such an accident; for if so, we should have an accident in two subjects, with one leg in one, and the other in the other; which is contrary to the notion of accidents. Therefore we must say that this relation, in this third way of considering it, is indeed out of the subjects; but being neither a substance, nor an accident, it must be a mere ideal thing, the consideration of which is nevertheless useful. To conclude: I have here done much like Euclid, who not being able to make his readers well understand what ratio is absolutely in the sense of geometricians; defines what are the same ratios. Thus, in like manner, in order to explain what place is, I have been content to define what is the same place. Lastly; I observe, that the traces of movable bodies, which they leave sometimes upon the immovable ones on which they are moved; have given men occasion to form in their imagination such an idea, as if some trace did still remain, even when there is nothing unmoved. But this is a mere ideal thing, and imports only, that if there was any unmoved thing there, the trace might be marked out upon it. And ’tis this analogy, which makes men fancy places, traces and spaces; though those things consist only in the truth of relations, and not at all in any absolute reality.

48. To conclude. If the space (which the author fancies) void of all bodies, is not altogether empty; what is it then full of? Is it full of extended spirits perhaps, or immaterial substances, capable of extending and contracting themselves; which move therein, and penetrate each other without any inconveniency, as the shadows of two bodies penetrate one another upon the surface of a wall? Methinks I see the revival of the odd imaginations of Dr. Henry More (otherwise a learned and well-meaning man), and of some others, who fancied that those spirits can make themselves impenetrable whenever they please. May, some have fancied, that man in the state of innocency, had also the gift of penetration; and that he became solid, opaque, and impenetrable by his fall. Is it not overthrowing our notions of things, to make God have parts, to make spirits have extension? The principle of the want of a sufficient reason does alone drive away all these spectres of imagination. Men easily run into fictions, for want of making a right use of that great principle.

To § 10.

49. It cannot be said, that [a certain] duration is eternal; but that things, which continue always, are eternal, [by gaining always new duration.] Whatever exists of time and of duration, [being successive] perishes continually: and how can a thing exist eternally, which, (to speak exactly,) does never exist at all? For, how can a thing exist, whereof no part does ever exist? Nothing of time does ever exist, but instants; and an instant is not even itself a part of time. Whoever considers these observations, will easily apprehend that time can only be an ideal thing. And the analogy between time and space, will easily make it appear, that the one is as merely ideal as the other. [However, if by saying that the duration of a thing is eternal, is merely understood that it lasts eternally, I have no objection.]

50. If the reality of space and time, is necessary to the immensity and eternity of God; if God must be in space; if being in space, is a property of God; he will, in some measure, depend upon time and space, and stand in need of them. For I have already prevented that subterfuge, that space and time are [in God and as it were] properties of God. [Could the opinion which should affirm that bodies move about in the parts of the divine essence be maintained?]

To § 11 and 12.

51. I objected that space cannot be in God, because it has parts. Hereupon the author seeks another subterfuge, by departing from the received sense of words; maintaining that space has no parts, because its parts are not separable, and cannot be removed from one another by discerption. But ’tis sufficient that space has parts, whether those parts be separable or not; and they may be assigned in space, either by the bodies that are in it, or by lines and surfaces that may be drawn and described in it.

52. In order to prove that space, without bodies, is an absolute reality; the author objected, that a finite material universe might move forward in space. I answered, it does not appear reasonable that the material universe should be finite; and, though we should suppose it to be finite; yet ’tis unreasonable it should have motion any otherwise, than as its parts change their situation among themselves; because such a motion would produce no charge that could he observed, and would be without design. ’Tis another thing, when its parts change their situation among themselves; for then there is a motion in space; but it consists in the order of relations which are changed. The author replies now, that the reality of motion does not depend upon being observed; and that a ship may go forward, and yet a man, who is in the ship, may not perceive it. I answer, motion does not indeed depend upon being observed; but it does depend upon being possible to be observed. There is no motion, when there is no change that can be observed. And when there is no change that can be observed, there is no change at all. The contrary opinion is grounded upon the supposition of a real absolute space, which I have demonstratively confuted by the principle of the want of a sufficient reason of things.

53. I find nothing in the eighth definition of the Mathematical Principles of Nature, nor in the scholium belonging to it, that proves, or can prove, the reality of space in itself. However, I grant there is a difference between an absolute true motion of a body, and a mere relative change of its situation with respect to another body. For when the immediate cause of the change is in the body, that body is truly in motion; and then the situation of other bodies, with respect to it, will be changed consequently, though the cause of that change be not in them. ’Tis true that, exactly speaking, there is not any one body, that is perfectly and entirely at rest; but we frame an abstract notion of rest, by considering the thing mathematically. Thus have I left nothing unanswered, of what has been alleged for the absolute reality of space. And I have demonstrated the falsehood of that reality, by a fundamental principle, one of the most certain both in reason and experience; against which, no exception or instance can be alleged. Upon the whole, one may judge from what has been said, that I ought not to admit a movable universe; nor any place out of the material universe.

54. I am not sensible of any objection, but what I think I have sufficiently answered. As for the objection that space and time are quantities, or rather things endowed with quantity; and that situation and order are not so: I answer, that order also has its quantity; there is in it, that which goes before, and that which follows; there is distance or interval. Relative things have their quantity, as well as absolute ones. For instance, ratios or proportions in mathematics, have their quantity, and are measured by logarithms; and yet they are relations. And therefore though time and space consist in relations, yet they have their quantity.

To § 15.

55. As to the question, whether God could have created the world sooner; ’tis necessary here to understand each other rightly. Since I have demonstrated, that time, without things, is nothing else but a mere ideal possibility; ’tis manifest, if any one should say that this same world, which has been actually created, might have been created sooner, without any other change; he would say nothing that is intelligible. For there is no mark or difference, whereby it would be possible to know, that this world was created sooner. And therefore, (as I have already said), to suppose that God created the same world sooner, is supposing a chimerical thing. ’Tis making time a thing absolute, independent upon God; whereas time must co-exist with creatures, and is only conceived by the order and quantity of their changes.

56. But yet absolutely speaking, one may conceive that an universe began sooner, than it actually did. Let us suppose our universe, or any other, to be represented by the figure A F; and that the ordinate A B represents its first state; and the ordinates C D, E F, its following states: I say, one may conceive that such a world began sooner, by conceiving the figure prolonged backwards, and by adding to it S R A B S. For thus, things being increased, time will be also increased. But whether such an augmentation be reasonable and agreeable to God’s wisdom, is another question, to which we answer in the negative; otherwise God would have made such an augmentation. It would be — like as

Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinamJungere si velit.

The case is the same with respect to the destruction [duration — Ger.] of the universe. As one might concern something added to the beginning, so one might also conceive something taken off towards the end. But such a retrenching from it, would be also unreasonable.

57. Thus it appears how we are to understand, that God created things at what time he pleased; for this depends upon the things, which he resolved to create. But things being once resolved upon, together with their relations; there remains no longer any choice about the time and the place, which of themselves have nothing in them real, nothing that can distinguish them, nothing that is at all discernible.

58. One cannot therefore say, as the author does here, that the wisdom of God may have good reasons to create this world at such or such a particular time: that particular time, considered without the things, being an impossible fiction; and good reasons for a choice, being not to be found, where everything is indiscernible.

59. When I speak of this world, I mean the whole universe of material and immaterial creatures taken together, from the beginning of things. But if any one mean only the beginning of the material world, and suppose immaterial creatures before it; he would have somewhat more reason for his supposition. For time then being marked by things that existed already, it would be no longer indifferent; and there might be room for choice. And yet indeed, this would be only putting off the difficulty. For, supposing the whole universe of immaterial and material creatures together, to have a beginning; there is no longer any choice about the time, in which God would place that beginning.

60. And therefore one must not say, as the author does here, that God created things in what particular space, and at what particular time he pleased. For, all time and all spaces being in themselves perfectly uniform and indiscernible from each other, one of them cannot please more than another.

61. I shall not enlarge here upon my opinion explained elsewhere, that there are no created substances wholly destitute of matter. For I hold with the ancients, and according to reason, that angels or intelligences, and souls separated from a gross body, have always subtile bodies, though they themselves he incorporeal. The vulgar philosophy easily admits all sorts of fictions: mine is more strict.

62. I don’t say that matter and space are the same thing. I only say, there is no space, where there is no matter; and that space in itself is not an absolute reality. Space and matter differ, as time and motion. However, these things, though different, are inseparable.

63. But yet it does not at all follow, that matter is eternal and necessary; unless we suppose space to be eternal and necessary; a supposition ill-grounded in all respects.

To § 16 and 17.

61. I think I have answered everything; and I have particularly replied to that objection, that space and time have quantity, and that order has none. See above, Number 51.

62. I have clearly shown that the contradiction lies in the hypothesis of the opposite opinion, which looks for a difference where there is none. And it would be a manifest iniquity to infer from thence, that I have acknowledged a contradiction in my own opinion.

To § 18.

66. Here I find again an argument, which I have overthrown above, Number 17. The author says, God may have good reasons to make two cubes perfectly equal and alike: and then (says he) God must needs assign them their places, though every other respect be perfectly equal. But things ought not to be separated from their circumstances. This argument consists in incomplete notions. God’s resolutions are never abstract and imperfect: as if God decreed, first, to create the two cubes; and then, made another decree where to place them. Men, being such limited creatures as they are, may act in this manner. They may resolve upon a thing, and then find themselves perplexed about means, ways, places, and circumstances. But God never takes a resolution about the ends, without resolving at the same time about the means, and all the circumstances. Nay, I have shown in my Theodicaea, that properly speaking, there is but one decree for the whole universe, whereby God resolved to bring it out of possibility into existence. And therefore God will not choose a cube, without choosing its place at the same time; and he will never choose among indiscernibles.

67. The parts of space are not determined and distinguished, but by the things which are in it: and the diversity of things in space, determines God to act differently upon different parts of space. But space without things, has nothing whereby it may be distinguished; and indeed not anything actual.

68. If God is resolved to place a certain cube of matter at all, he is also resolved in which particular place to put it. But ’tis with respect to other parts of matter; and not with respect to bare space itself, in which there is nothing to distinguish it.

69. But wisdom does not allow God to place at the same time two cubes perfectly equal and alike; because there is no way to find any reason for assigning them different places. At this rate, there would be a will without a motive.

70. A will without motive (such as superficial reasoners suppose to be in God), I compared to Epicurus’s chance. The author answers; Epicurus’s chance is a blind necessity, and not a choice of will. I reply, that Epicurus’s chance is not a necessity, but something indifferent. Epicurus brought it in on purpose to avoid necessity. ’Tis true, chance is blind; but a will without motive would be no less blind, and no less owing to mere chance.

To § 19.

71. The author repeats here, what has been already confuted above, Number 21; that matter cannot be created, without God’s choosing among indiscernibles. He would be in the right, if matter consisted of atoms, similar particles, or other the like fictions of superficial philosophy. But that great principle, which proves there is no choice among indiscernibles, destroys also these ill-contrived fictions.

To § 20.

72. The author objected against me in his third paper (Numbers 7 and 8); that God would not have in himself a principle of acting, if he was determined by things external. I answered, that the ideas of external things are in him: and that therefore he is determined by internal reasons, that is, by his wisdom. But the author here will not understand, to what end I said it.

73. He frequently confounds, in his objections against me, what God will not do,’ with what he cannot do. See above, Number 9 [and below Number 76]. For example; God can do everything that is possible, but he will do only what is best. And therefore I don’t say, as the author here will have it, that God cannot limit the extension of matter; but ’tis likely he will not do it, and that, he has thought it better to set no bounds to matter.

74. From extension to duration, non valet consequentia. Though the extension of matter were unlimited, yet it would not follow that its duration would be also unlimited; nay even à parte ante, it would not follow, that it had no beginning. If it is the nature of things in the whole, to grow uniformly in perfection; the universe of creatures must have had a beginning. And therefore, there will be reasons to limit the duration of things, even though there were none to limit their extension. Besides, the world’s having a beginning, does not derogate from the infinity of its duration à parte post; but bounds of the universe would derogate from the infinity of its extension. And therefore it is more reasonable to admit a beginning of the world, than to admit any bounds of it; that the character of its infinite author, may be in both respects preserved.

75. However, those who have admitted the eternity of the world, or, at least, (as some famous divines have done), the possibility of its eternity; did not, for all that, deny its dependence upon God; as the author here lays to their charge, without any ground.

To § 22, 23.

76. He here further objects, without any reason, that, according to my opinion, whatever God can do, he must needs have done. As if he was ignorant, that I have solidly confuted this notion in my Theodicaea; and that I have overthrown the opinion of those, who maintain that there is nothing possible but what really happens; as some ancient philosophers did, and among others Diodorus in Cicero. The author confounds moral necessity, which proceeds from the choice of what is best with absolute necessity: he confounds the will of God, with his power. God can produce everything that is possible, or whatever does not imply a contradiction; but he wills only to produce what is the best among things possible. See what has been said above, Number 9 [and Number 74.]

77. God is not therefore a necessary agent in producing creatures, since he acts with choice. However, what the author adds here, is ill-grounded, viz. that a necessary agent would not be an agent at all. He frequently affirms things boldly, and without any ground; advancing [against me] notions which cannot he proved.

To § 24-28.

78. The author alleges, it was not affirmed that space is God’s sensorium, but only as it were his sensorium. The latter seems to be as improper, and as little intelligible, as the former.

To § 29.

79. Space is not the place of all things; for it is not the place of God. Otherwise there would be a thing co-eternal with God, and independent upon him; nay, he himself would depend upon it, if he has need of place.

80. Nor do I see, how it can be said, that space is the place of ideas; for ideas are in the understanding.

81. ’Tis also very strange to say, that the soul of man is the soul of the images it perceives. The images, which are in the understanding, are in the mind: but if the mind was the soul of the images, they would then be extrinsic to it. And if the author means corporeal images, how then will he have a human mind to be the soul of those images, they being only transient impressions in a body belonging to that soul?

82. If ’tis by means of a sensorium, that God perceives what passes in the world; it seems that things act upon him; and that therefore he is what we mean by a soul of the world. The author charges me with repeating objections; without taking notice of the answers; but I don’t see that he has answered this difficulty. They had better wholly lay aside this pretended sensorium.

To § 30.

83. The author speaks, as if he did not understand, how, according to my opinion, the soul is a representative principle. Which is, as if he had never heard of my pre-established harmony.

84. I don’t assent to the vulgar notions, that the images of things are conveyed by the organs [of sense] to the soul. For, it is not conceivable by what passage, or by what means of conveyance, these images can be carried from the organ to the soul. This vulgar notion in philosophy is not intelligible, as the new Cartesians have sufficiently shown. It cannot he explained, how immaterial substance is affected by matter: and to maintain an unintelligible notion thereupon, is having recourse to the scholastic chimerical notion of I know not what inexplicable species intentionales, passing from the organs to the soul. Those Cartesians saw the difficulty; but they could not explain it. They had recourse to a [certain wholly special] concourse of God, which would really be miraculous. But, I think, I have given the true solution of that enigma.

85. To say that God perceives what passes in the world, because he is present to the things, and not by [the dependence which the continuation of their existence has upon him and which may be said to involve] a continual production of them; is saying something unintelligible. A mere presence or proximity of co-existence, is not sufficient to make us understand, how that which passes in one being, should answer to what passes in another.

86. Besides; this is exactly falling into that opinion, which makes God to be the soul of the world; seeing it supposes God to perceive things, not by their dependence upon him, that is, by a continual production of what is good and perfect in them; but by a kind of perception, such as that by which men fancy our soul perceives what passes in the body. This is a degrading of God’s knowledge very much.

87. In truth and reality, this way of perception is wholly chimerical, and has no place even in human souls. They perceive what passes without them, by what passes within them, answering to the things without; in virtue of the harmony, which God has preestablished by the most beautiful and the most admirable of all his productions; whereby every simple substance is by its nature (if one may so say), a concentration, and a living mirror of the whole universe, according to its point of view. Which is likewise one of the most beautiful and most undeniable proofs of the existence of God; since none but God, viz. the universal cause, can produce such a harmony of things. But God himself cannot perceive things by the same means whereby he makes other beings perceive them. He perceives them, because he is able to produce that means. And other beings would not be caused to perceive them, if he himself did not produce them all harmonious, and had not therefore in himself a representation of them; not as if that representation came from the things, but because the things proceed from him, and because he is the efficient and exemplary cause of them. He perceives them, because they proceed from him; if one may be allowed to say, that he perceives them: which ought not to be said, unless we divest that word of its imperfection; for else it seems to signify, that things act upon him. They exist, and are known to him, because he understands and wills them; and because what he wills, is the same, as what exists. Which appears so much the more, because he makes them to be perceived by one another; and makes them perceive one another in consequence of the natures which he has given them once for all, and which he keeps up only according to the laws of every one of them severally; which, though different one from another, yet terminate in an exact, correspondence of the results of the whole. This surpasses all the ideas, which men have generally framed concerning the divine perfections, and the works of God; and raises [our notion of ] them, to the highest degree; as Mr. Bayle has acknowledged, though he believed, without any ground, that it exceeded possibility.

88. To infer from that passage of Holy Scripture, wherein God is said to have rested from his works, that there is no longer a continual production of them; would be to make a very ill use of that text. ’Tis true, there is no production of new simple substances: but it would be wrong to infer from thence, that God is, now in the world, only as the soul is conceived to be in the body, governing it merely by his presence, without any concourse being necessary to continue its existence.

To § 31.

89. The harmony, or correspondence between the soul and the body, is not a perpetual miracle; but the effect or consequence of an original miracle worked at the creation of things; as all natural things are. Though indeed it is a perpetual wonder, as many natural things are.

90. The word, pre-established harmony, is a term of art, I confess; but ’tis not a term that explains nothing, since it is made out very intelligibly; and the author alleges nothing, that shows there is any difficulty in it.

91. The nature of every simple substance, soul, or true monad, being such, that its following state is a consequence of the preceding one; here now is the cause of the harmony found out. For God needs only to make a simple substance become once and from the beginning, a representation of the universe, according to its point of view, since from thence alone it follows, that it will be so perpetually; and that all simple substances will always have a harmony among themselves, because they always represent the same universe.

To § 32.

92. ’Tis true, that, according to me, the soul does not disturb the laws of the body, nor the body those of the soul; and that the soul and body do only agree together; the one acting freely, according to the rules of final causes; and the other acting mechanically, according to the laws of efficient causes. But this does not derogate from the liberty of our souls, as the author here will have it. For, every agent which acts [with choice — Ger.] according to final causes, is free, though it happens to agree with an agent acting only by efficient causes without knowledge, or mechanically; because God, foreseeing what the free cause would do, did from the beginning regulate the machine in such manner, that it cannot fail to agree with that free cause. Mr. Jaquelot has very well resolved this difficulty, in one of his books against Mr. Bayle; and I have cited the passage, in my Theodicaea, Part I, § 63. I shall speak of it again below, Number 124.

To § 33.

93. I don’t admit, that every action gives a new force to the patient. It frequently happens in the concourse of bodies, that each of them preserves its force; as when two equal hard bodies meet directly. Then the direction only is changed, without any change in the force; each of the bodies receiving the direction of the other, and going back with the same swiftness it came.

94. However, I am far from saying that it is supernatural to give a new force to a body; for I acknowledge that one body does frequently receive a new force from another, which loses as much of its own. But I say only, ’tis supernatural that the whole universe of bodies should receive a new force; and consequently that one body should acquire any new force, without the loss of as much in others. And therefore I say likewise, ’tis an indefensible opinion to suppose the soul gives, force to the body; for then the whole universe of bodies would receive a new force.

95. The author’s dilemma here, is ill-grounded; viz. that according to me, either a man must act supernaturally, or he a mere machine, like a watch. For, man does not act supernaturally: and his body is truly a machine, acting only mechanically; and yet his soul is a free cause.

To § 34 and 35.

96. I here refer to what has been or shall he said in this paper, Number 82, 86, and 111: concerning the comparison between God and a soul of the world; and how the opinion contrary to mine, brings the one of these too near to the other.

To § 36.

97. I here also refer to what I have before said, concerning the harmony between the soul and the body, Number 89, &c.

To § 37.

98. The author tells us, that the soul is not in the brain, but in the sensorium; without saying what that sensorium is. But supposing that sensorium to be extended, as I believe the author understands it; the same difficulty still remains, and the question returns, whether the soul be diffused through that whole extension, be it great or small. For, more or less in bigness, is nothing to the purpose here.

To § 38.

99. I don’t undertake here to establish my Dynamics, or my doctrine of forces: this would not be a proper place for it. However, I can very well answer the objection here brought against me. I have affirmed that active forces are preserved in the world [without diminution]. The author objects, that two soft or unelastic bodies meeting together, lose some of their force. I answer, no. ’Tis true, their wholes lose it with respect to their total motion; but their parts receive it, being shaken [internally] by the force of the concourse. And therefore that loss of force, is only in appearance. The forces are not destroyed, but scattered among the small parts. The bodies do not lose their forces; but the case here is the same, as when men change great money into small. However, I agree that the quantity of motion does not remain the same; and herein I approve what Sir Isaac Newton says, page 341 of his Optics, which the author here quotes. But I have shown elsewhere, that there is a difference between the quantity of motion, and the quantity of force.

To § 39.

100. The author maintained against me, that force does naturally lessen in the material universe; and that this arises from the dependence of things, (Third Reply, § 13 and 14). In my third answer, I desired him to prove that this imperfection is a consequence of the dependence of things. He avoids answering my demand; by falling upon an incident, and denying this to be an imperfection. But whether it be an imperfection or not, he should have proved that ’tis a consequence of the dependence of things.

101. However; that which would make the machine of the world as imperfect, as that of an unskillful watchmaker; surely must needs be an imperfection.

102. The author says now, that it is a consequence of the inertia of matter. But this also, he will not prove. That inertia, alleged here by him, mentioned by Kepler, repeated by Cartesius [in his letters], and made use of by me in my Theodicaea, in order to give a notion [and at the same time an example] of the natural imperfection of creatures; has no other effect, than to make the velocities diminish, when the quantities of matter are increased: but this is without any diminution of the forces.

To § 40.

103. I maintained, that the dependence of the machine of the world upon its divine author, is rather a reason why there can be no such imperfection in it; and that the work of God does not want to be set right again; that it is not liable to be disordered; and lastly, that it cannot lessen in perfection. Let any one guess now, how the author can hence infer against me, as he does, that, if this be the case, then the material world must be infinite and eternal, without any beginning; and that God must always have created as many men and other kinds of creatures, as can possibly he created.

To § 41.

104. I don’t say, that space is an order or situation, which makes, things capable of being situated: this would be nonsense. Any one needs only consider my own words, and add “them to what I said above, (Number 47) in order to show how the mind comes to form to itself an idea of space, and yet that there needs not be any real and absolute being answering to that idea, distinct from the mind, and from all relations. I don’t say therefore, that space is an order or situation, but an order of situations; or [an order] according to which, situations are disposed; and that abstract space is that order of situations, when they are conceived as being possible. Space is therefore something [merely] ideal. But, it seems, the author will not understand me. I have already, in this paper, (.Number 54) answered the objection, that order is not capable of quantity.

105. The author objects here, that time cannot be an order of successive things, because the quantity of time may become greater or less, and yet the order of successions continue the same. I answer: this is not so. For if the time is greater, there will be more successive and like states interposed; and if it be less, there will be fewer; seeing there is no vacuum, nor condensation, nor penetration (if I. may so speak), in times, any more than in places.

106. ’Tis true, [I maintain that] the immensity and eternity of God would subsist, though there were no creatures; but those attributes would have no dependence either on times or places. If there were no creatures, there would be neither, time nor place, and consequently no actual space. The immensity of God is independent upon space, as his eternity is independent upon time. These attributes signify only [in respect to these two orders of things], that God would be present and co-existent with all the things that should exist. And therefore I don’t admit what’s here alleged, that if God existed alone, there would be time and space as there is now; whereas then, in my opinion, they would be only in the ideas of God as mere possibilities. The immensity and eternity of God are things more transcendent, than the duration and extension of creatures; not only with respect to the greatness, but also to the nature of the things. Those divine attributes do not imply the supposition of things extrinsic to God, such as are actual places and times. These truths have been sufficiently acknowledged by divines and philosophers.

To § 42.

107. I maintained, that an operation of God, by which he should mend the machine of the material world, tending in its nature (as this author pretends) to lose all its motion, would be a miracle. His answer was; that it would not be a miraculous operation, because it would be usual, and must frequently happen. I replied; that ’tis not usualness or unusualness, that makes a miracle properly so called, or a miracle of the highest sort; but its surpassing the powers of creatures; and that this is the [general] opinion of divines and philosophers: and that therefore the author acknowledges at least, that the thing he introduces, and I disallow, is, according to the received notion, a miracle of the highest sort, that is, one which surpasses all created powers: and that this is the very thing which all men endeavor to avoid in philosophy. He answers now, that this is appealing from reason to vulgar opinion. But I reply again, that this vulgar opinion, according to which we ought in philosophy to avoid, as much as possible, what surpasses the natures of creatures; is a very reasonable opinion. Otherwise nothing will be easier than to account for anything by bringing in the Deity, Deum ex machina, without minding the natures of things.

108. Besides; the common opinion of divines, ought not to be looked upon merely as vulgar opinion. A man should have weighty reasons, before he ventures to contradict it; and I see no such reasons here.

109. The author seems to depart from his own notion, according to which a miracle ought to be unusual; when, in § 31, he objects to me (though without any ground), that, the pre-established harmony would be a perpetual miracle. Here, I say, he seems to depart from his own notion; unless he had a mind to argue against me ad hominem.

To § 43.

110. If a miracle differs from what is natural, only in appearance and with respect to us; so that we call that only a miracle, which we seldom see; there will be no internal real difference, between a miracle and what is natural; and at the bottom, every thing will be either equally natural, or equally miraculous. Will divines like the former, or philosophers the latter?

111. Will not this doctrine, moreover, tend to make God the soul of the world; if all his operations are natural, like those of our souls upon our bodies? And so God will be a part of nature.

112. In good philosophy, and sound theology, we ought to distinguish between what is explicable by the natures and powers of creatures, and what is explicable only by the powers of the infinite substance. We ought to make an infinite difference between the operation of God, which goes beyond the extent of natural powers; and the operations of things that follow the law which God has given them, and which he has enabled them to follow by their natural powers, though not without his assistance.

113. This overthrows attractions, properly so called, and other operations inexplicable by the natural powers of creatures; which kinds of operations, the assertors of them must suppose to be effected by miracle; or else have recourse to absurdities, that is, to the occult qualities of the schools; which some men begin to revive under the specious name of forces; but they bring us back again into the kingdom of darkness. This is, inventa fruge, glandibus vesci.

114. In the time of Mr. Boyle, and other excellent men, who flourished in England under Charles the lid, nobody would have ventured to publish such chimerical notions. I hope that happy time will return under so good a government as the present [and that minds a little too much carried away by the misfortune of the times will betake themselves to the better cultivation of sound learning]. Mr. Boyle made it his chief business to inculcate, that everything was done mechanically in natural philosophy. But it is men’s misfortune to grow, at last, out of conceit with reason itself, and to be weary of light. Chimeras begin to appear again, and they are pleasing because they have something in them that is wonderful. What has happened in poetry, happens also in the philosophical world. People are grown weary of rational romances, such as were the French Clelia, or the German Aramene; and they are become fond again of the tales of fairies.

115. As for the motions of the celestial bodies, and even the formation of plants and animals; there is nothing in them that looks like a miracle, except their beginning. The organism of animals is a mechanism, which supposes a divine preformation. What follows upon it, is purely natural, and entirely mechanical.

116. Whatever is performed in the body of man, and of every animal, is no less mechanical, than what is performed in a watch.

The difference is only such, as ought to be between a machine of divine invention, and the workmanship of such a limited artist as man is.

To § 44.

117. There is no difficulty among divines, about the miracles of angels. The question is only about the use of that word. It may he said that angels work miracles; but less properly so called, or of an inferior order. To dispute about this, would be a mere question about a word. It may be said that the angel, who carried Habakkuk through the air, and he who troubled the water of the pool of Bethesda, worked a miracle. But it was not a miracle of the highest order; for it may be explained by the natural powers of angels, which surpass those of man.

To § 45.

118. I objected, that an attraction, properly so called, or in the scholastic sense, would be an operation at a distance, without any means intervening. The author answers here, that an attraction without any means intervening, would be indeed a contradiction. Very well! But then what does he mean, when he will have the sun to attract the globe of the earth through an empty space? Is it God himself that performs it? But this would be a miracle, if ever there was any. This would surely exceed the powers of creatures.

119. Or, are perhaps some immaterial substances, or some spiritual rays, or some accident without a substance, or some kind of species intentionalis, or some other I know not what, the means by which this is pretended to be performed? Of which sort of things, the author seems to have still a good stock in his head, without explaining himself sufficiently.

120. That means of communication (says he) is invisible, intangible, not mechanical. He might as well have added, inexplicable, unintelligible, precarious, groundless, and unexampled.

121. But it is regular, (says the author), it is constant, and consequently natural. I answer; it cannot be regular, without being reasonable; nor natural, unless it can be explained by the natures of creatures.

122. If the means, which causes an attraction properly so called, be constant, and at the same time inexplicable by the powers of creatures, and yet be true; it must be a perpetual miracle: and if it is not miraculous, it is false. ’Tis a chimerical thing, a scholastic occult quality.

123. The case would be the same, as in a body going round without receding in the tangent, though nothing that can be explained, hindered it from receding. Which is an instance I have already alleged; and the author has not thought fit to answer it, because it shows too clearly the difference between what is truly natural on the one side, and a chimerical occult quality of the schools on the other.

To § 46.

124. All the natural forces of bodies, are subject to mechanical laws; and all the natural powers of spirits, are subject to moral laws. The former follow the order of efficient causes; and the latter follow the order of final causes. The former operate without liberty, like a watch; the latter operate with liberty, though they exactly agree with that machine, which another cause, free and superior, has adapted to them beforehand. I have already spoken of this, above, No. 92.

125. I shall conclude with what the author objected against me at the beginning of this fourth reply: to which I have already given an answer above (Number 18, 19, 20). But I deferred speaking more fully upon that head, to the conclusion of this paper. He pretended, that I have been guilty of a petitio principii. But, of what principle, I beseech you? Would to God, less clear principles had never been laid down. The principle in question, is the principle of the want of a sufficient reason; in order to any thing’s existing, in order to any event’s happening, in order to any truth’s taking place. Is this a principle, that wants to be proved? The author granted it, or pretended to grant it, Number 2, of his third paper; possibly, because the denial of it would have appeared too unreasonable. But either he has done it only in words, or he contradicts himself, or retracts his concession.

126. I dare say, that without this great principle, one cannot prove the existence of God, nor account for many other important truths.

127. Has not everybody made use of this principle, upon a thousand occasions. ’Tis true, it has been neglected, out of carelessness, on many occasions: but that neglect has been the true cause of chimeras; such as are (for instance), an absolute real time or space, a vacuum, atoms, attraction in the scholastic sense, a physical influence of the soul over the body, and a thousand other fictions, either derived from erroneous opinions of the ancients, or lately invented by modern philosophers.

128. Was it not upon account of Epicurus’s violating this great principle, that the ancients derided his groundless declination of atoms? And I dare say, the scholastic attraction, revived in our days, and no less derided about thirty years ago, is not at all more reasonable.

129. I have often defied people to allege an instance against that great principle, to bring any one uncontested example wherein it fails. But they have never done it, nor ever will. ’Tis certain, there is an infinite number of instances, wherein it succeeds, [or rather it succeeds] in all the known cases in which it has been made use of. From whence one may reasonably judge, that it will succeed also in unknown cases, or in such cases as can only by its means become known: according to the method of experimental philosophy, which proceeds a posteriori; though the principle were not perhaps otherwise justified by bare reason, or a priori.

130. To deny this great principle, is likewise to do as Epicurus did; who was reduced to deny that other great principle, viz. the principle of contradiction; which is, that every intelligible enunciation must be either true, or false. Chrysippus undertook to prove that principle against Epicurus; but I think I need not imitate him. I have already said, what is sufficient to justify mine: and I might say something more upon it; but perhaps it would be too abstruse for this present dispute. And, I believe, reasonable and impartial men will grant me, that having forced an adversary to deny that principle, is reducing him ad absurdum.