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3S'S'^.'^3. 



^ 




HARVARD 

COLLEGE 
LIBRARY 




GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS 



ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS. 



EDITED BT 



GEORGE S. MORRIS. 



LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING 
THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



.sLJillBNIZ,^ 



NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE 
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 

A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 



/ 
By JOHN DEWEY/ Ph.D., 

/ 
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 

MICHIGAN, AND PROFESSOR (K1.ECT) OF MENTAL AND 

MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THK UNIVERSITY 

nv MTVNK80TA 



CHICAGO: 
SCOTT, FOBESMAN AND COMPANY 

190S 



V(/\:'i:y./.S3.5 



IIAIVAIDC0UE6E IIMAIV 

GIFT OF 

RAIPN BAKTM FCHRY 

JUN 8 1940 



Copyright, 1888, 
By S. C Griggs and Company. 



PREFACE. 



'T^HE purpose of the series of which the 
■^ present volume is one, is not, as will be 
seen l)y reference to the statement in the in- 
itial volume, to sum up in toto the system 
of any philosopher, but to give a "critical ex- 
position" of some one masterpiece. In treat- 
ing the " Nouveaux Essais " of Leibniz, I have 
found myself obliged, at times, to violate the 
. letter of this expressed intention, in order to 
fulfil its spirit. The " Nouveaux Essais," in 
spite of its being one of the two most extended 
philosophical writings of Leibniz, is a compen- 
dium of comments, rather than a connected 
argument or exposition. It has all the sug- 
gestiveness and richness of a note-book, but 
with much also of its fragmentariness. I have 
therefore b^en obliged to supplement my ^.c- 



VI PREFACE. 

count of it by constant references to the other 
writings of Leibniz, and occasionally to take 
considerable liberty with the order of the treat- 
ment of topics. Upon the whole, this book 
will be found, 1 hope, to be a faithful reflex 
not only of Leibniz's thought, but also of hi»' 
discussions in the ^' Nouveaux Essais." 

In the main, the course of philosophic thought 
since the tiniQ pf Leibniz has been such as 
to render almost self-evident his limitations, 
and to suggest needed corrections and ampli- 
fications. Indeed, it is much easier for those 
whose thoughts follow the turn that. Kant 
has given modern thinking to appreciate the 
defects of Leibniz than to realize his great- 
ness. I have endeavored, therefore, in the body 
of the work, to identify my thought with that 
of Leibniz as much as possible, to assume 
his standpoint and method, and, for the most 
part, to confine express criticism upon his lim- 
itations to the final chapter. In particular, I 
have attempted to bring out the relations 
of philosophy to the growing science of his 



PREFACE. ^i 

times, to state the doctrine of pre-established 
harmony as h^ himself meant it, and to give 
something like consistency and coherency to 
his doctrine of material existence and of na- 
ture. This last task seemed especially to re- 
quire doing. I have also endeavoi^ed to keep 
in mind, throughout, Leibniz's relations to 
Locke, and to show the "Nouveaux Essais" 
as typical of the distinction between charac- 
teristic British and German thought. 

JOHN DEWEY. 

May, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK I. 
' The Man. 

PAGB 

His Parents 1 

His Early Education 2 

His University Training at Leipsic 4 

At Jena »: . 8 

At the University of Altdorf 10 

His Removal to Frankfurt 10 

His Mission to Paris 11 

Discovery of the Calculus '. . . . . 12 

Librarian at Hanover . '. 13 

His Activities * ... 14 

His Philosophic Writings 15 

His Ecclesiastic and Academic Projects ...... 17 

His Later Years and Death 18 

CHAPTER n. 

Sources of his Philosophy. 

Character of the Epoch into which Leibniz was born . 20 

The Thought of the Unity of the World 23 

The two Agencies which formed Leibniz's Philosophy . 24 

The Cartesian Influences 26 

Rationalistic Method 28 

Mechanical Explanatiou of Nature ..,,... 30 



X CONTENTS. 

Application of Mathematics **. . . 32 

Idea of Evolution 33 

Interpretation of these Ideas 35 

Idea of Activity or Entelechy 39 

Idea of Rationality 40 

Idea of Organism 42 

CHAPTEE III. 
The F&oblem and its Solution. 

Unity of Leibniz's Thought 43 

Relation of Universal and Individual . . . . j . . 44 

Descartes' Treatment of this Question .... . . 46 

Spinoza's Treatment of it .......... 48 

Leibniz's Solution 50 

All Unity is Spiritual 53 

And Active 54 

Is a Representative Individual 56 

' Contrast of Monad and Atom 58 

Pre-established Harmony reconciles Universal and In- 
dividual .59 

Meaning of this Doctrine 62 

CHAPTER IV. 

Locke and Leibniz. — Innate Ideas. 

Necessity of Preliminary Account of Leibniz's Philosophy 66 

Locke's Empiricism 67 

Leibniz's Comments upon Locke 69 

The Controversies of Leibniz 72 

The Essay on the Human Undei^tanding ....'. 73 

Locke's Denial of Innate Ideas 75 

Depending upon 

(1) His Mechanical Conception of Innate Ideas . 77 



CONTENTS. xi 

Leibiiiz undermines this by substituting an Organic 
Conception 80 

And upon 

(it) His Mechanical Conception of Consciousness . 84 

Leibuiz refutes this by his Theory of Unconscious 
Intelligence 85 



CHAPTER V. 

Sensation and £xp£rience. 

Importance of Doctrine regarding Sensation .... 87 

The Two Elements of Locke's Notion of Sensatiou . . 89 
Its Relation to the Object producing it; Primary and 

Secondary Qualities 91 

Locke criticized as to his Account 

(1) Of the Production of Sensation 92 

(2) Of its Function in Knowledge 95 

The Meaning of Physical Causation 97 

Bearing of this Doctrine upon Relation of Soul and Body 98 

Criticism of Locke's Dualism 98 

Leibniz's Monism 101 

Summary of- Discussiou 103 

Leibniz on the Relation of Sensations to Objects 

occasioning them 105 

Nature of Experience 106 

Distinction of Empirical from Rational Knowledge . . 107 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Ihfulses and the Will. 

The Doctrine of Will depends upon that of Intelligence 109 
The Character of Impulse Ill 



XU CONTENTS. 

Of Desire . ; 112 

Half-Puiiis and Pleasures ^ l\:\ 

The Outcome of Desire 115 

Nature of Moral Action 117 

Of Freedom 118 

(1) Freedom as Contingency ......... 110 

Limitation of this Principle 1-21 

^ (2) Freedom as Spontaneity 12.5 

This Principle is too Broad to be a Moral 

Principle 125 

(3) True Freedom is Rational Action .... 125 
Our Lack of Freedom is due to our Sensuous Nature . .12^ 

Innate Practical Principles . . . 129 

Moral Science is Demonstrative ...130 



CHAPTER VII. 

Matter and its Relation to Spirit. 

Locke's Account of Matter and Allied Ideas the Foua- 
dation of the Philosophy of Nature Characteristic of 

British Empiricism . ... . ., 132 

Space and Matter wholly Distinct Ideas . . . . . 134 

Leibniz gives Matter a Metaphysical Basis .... 137 

Ordinary Misunderstanding of Leibniz's Ideas of Matter 138 

Matter is not composed of Monads . . 139 

Matter is the Passive or Conditioned Side of Monads . 140 
Passivity equals " Confused Representations," i. e. In- 
complete Development of Reason 144 

Matter is logically Necessary from Leibniz's Principles 145 
Bearing of Discussion upon Doctrine of Pre-established 

Harmony • • • 146 

Summary . , ,...,,.. 14/ 



CONTENTS. Xlli 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Material Phenomena and their Reality. 

What is the Connection between Matter as Metaphysi- 
cal and as Physical ? '. . . 151 

The Latter is the "Image" of the Former .... 151 

I Leibniz's Reaction from Cartesian Theory 152 

His Objections are (1) Physical and (2) Logical . . 153 

(1) Motion is Source of Physical Qualities of Bodies . 155 

Hence there are no Atoms . 158 

Secondary Qualities as well as Primary depend upon 

Motion 160 

(2) What is the Subject to which the Quality of Exten- 
sion belongs? 161 

It is the Monad as Pasnive 162 

Space and Time connect the Spiritual and the Sensible . 164 
Distinction between Space and Time, and Extension 

and Duration 166 

Space and Time are Relations 167 

Leibniz's Controversy with Clarke 168 

Leibniz denies that Space and Time are Absolute . . 170 

What is the Reality of Sensible Phenomena? .... 173 
It consists 

(1) In their Regularity . \H 

(2) In their Dependence upon Intelligence and 

Will 175 

Leibniz and Berkeley 177 

CHAPTER IX. 

Some Fundamental Conceptions. 

Locke's Account of Substance as Static . . . . .179 

The Distinction between Reality and Phenomena . . 180 

Leibniz's Conception of Substance as Dynamic . . . 181 



XIV CONTJSKTS. 

His Specific Crilicisms upon Locke ....... 182 

The Categories of Identity and Difference Locke also 

explains in a Mechaoical Way 183 

Leibniz regards them as Internal and as Organic to 

each other 184 

Locke gives a Quantitative Notion of Infinity • . . 188 
And lience makes our Idea of it purely Negative . . . 189 
Leibniz denies that the True Notion of Infinity is Quan- 
titative 189 

He also denies Locke's Account of the Origin of the In- 
definite 192 

In (general, Locke has a Mechanical Idea, Leibniz a 
Spiritual, of these Categories 193 

CHAPTER X. 
■Thb Nature and Extent op Knowledge. 

Locke's Definition and Classification of Knowledge . . 196 

Leibniz's Criticism 197 

Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant regarding Knowledge of 
Objects 198 

The Degrees of Knowledge, — Intuitive, Demonstrative, 
and Seusitive 199 

Locke's Contradictory Theories regarding the Origin of 
Knowledge 202 

Locke starts both with the Individual as given to Con- 
sciousness and with the Unrelated Sensation . . . 204 

Either Theory makes Relations or " Universals " Unreal 205 

As to the Extent of Knowledge, that of Identity is Wide, 
but Trifling 205 

Tlu^t of Re^l Being includes God, Soul, and Matter, but 
only as to their Existence 206 

And «ven this at tlie Expense of contradicting his Defi- 
nition of Knowledge 206 



J CONTRNTS. XV 

Knowledge of Co-existence is either Trifling or Impos- 
sible . , 207 

Leibniz rests upon DIstiuetionof ContingMit and Rational 

Truth 209 

Tlje Former may become the Latter, and is then Demon- 
strative ......' 210 

The Means of this Trausfonnatiou are Mathematics and 

Classification 215 

There are Two Principles, — One of Contradiction . .217 

The Other of Sufficient Reason 218 

The Latter leads us to God as the Supreme Intelligence 

and the Final Condition of Contingent Fact . . . 219 

The Four Stages of Knowledge 222 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Theology op Leibniz. 

Leibniz's Three Arguments for the Existence of God . 224 

The VaIuc of the Ontological 225 

The Cosmological 226 

The Teleological 220 

The Attributes of God 227 

The RehitioD of God to the World, his Creating Activity 228 

Creation involves Wisdom and Goodness as well as Power 229 
The Relation of God to Intelligent Spirits : they form a 

. Moral Community 230 

Leibmz as the Founder of Modem German Ethical Sys- 
tems 231 

Th^ End of Morality is Happiness^as Self-realization . 232 

The Three Stages of Natural Right 234 

The Basis of Both Leib»i//s Etiilcs and Political Philos- 
ophy is Man's Relation to God 230 

His Esthetics liave the Same Basis 237 

Man's Spirit as Architectonic 2'N 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK XII. 
Criticism and Conclusion. 

Leibniz's Fundamental Contradiction is between his 
Metliod and his Subject Matter 240 

The Use which Leibniz makes of the Principle of Snffi- 
cienl Reason reveals this Contradiction 242 

The Contradiction is between the Ideas of Formal and 
of Concrete Unity 243 

From this Contradiction flow 

( 1 ) The Contradiction in the Notion of Individuality 240 
Which becomes purely Negative ..... 247 
The Negative he interprets as merely Privative 249 

(2) The Contradiction in his Conception of God has 

the Same Source 250 

He really lias Three Definitions of God . . 250 
One results in Atomism, another in Pantheism 25 1 
The Third in a Cojiception of the Organic Har- 
mony of the Infinite and Finite . . . . 252 

(3) The Contradiction between the Real and the 

Ideal in the Monads has the Same Source . 2515 

(4) As have also the Contradictions in the Treat- 

ment of the Relations of Matter and Spirit 25 1- 

(5) And finally, his Original Conti-adiction leads to 

a Contradictory Treatment of Knowledge ,. 257 

Summary as to the Positive Value of Leibniz .... 259 

The Influence of Leibniz's Philosophy ..;... 261 

Especially upon Kant 262 

Kant claims to be the True Apologist for Leibniz^ » . 263 
(1) As to the Doctrine of Sufficient Reason* and 

Contradiction . . . . . *. . .' . .263 
^ Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Dis- 
tinction between Analytic and •Synthetic 

Judgment . 2(J6' 



CONTKXTS. 

^''I'ieli Kant f.. i ' ■ • • • ^J'iO 

i^ndestaudiug and Sense •. . . ofiO 

l*r";''* ^''*^^"'-- «f ^'- Under-' 
•Conclusion *" *^^ ^^^^s o^ Reason ... 270 

■'•••••.•... '272 



LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS 



CONCERNING 



THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MAN. 

** TTE who knows me only by my writings does 
Xl not know me," said Leibniz. These words 
— true, indeed, of every writer, but true of Leib- 
niz in a way which gives a peculiar interest and 
charm to his life — must be our excuse for pref- 
acing what is to be said of his " New P^ssays con- 
cei'ning the Human Understanding " with a brief 
biographical sketch. 

Gottfried Wilhehn Leibniz was born in Leipzig 
June 21, 1646. JIjsi father^ who died when Leibniz 
was only six years old, was a professor in the uni- 
versity and a notary of considerable practice. From 
him the future philosopher seems to have derived his 
extraordinary industry and love of detail. Such ac- 
counts as we have of him show no traces of the 
wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a 
diligent, plodding, faithful, and religious man, a 
thoroughly conscientious husband, jurist, and pro- 
fessor. Nor in the lines of physical heredity can 
1 



2 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his 
mother's endowments. The fact, however, that she 
was patient in all trial, living in peace with her neigh- 
bors, anxious for unity and coocord with all people, 
even with those not well disposed to her, throws great 
light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz's ethical 
nature. As in so many cases, it is the inherited 
moral characteristics which form the basis of the 
intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a 
moral trait in Leibniz's mother became in him the 
hunger for a harmonious and unified mental world ; 
the father's devotion to detail showed itself as the 
desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive 
as it was inter-related. 

Left without his father, he was by the advice of a 
discerning friend allowed free access to the library. 
Leibniz never ceased to count this one of the greatest 
fortunes of his life. Writing in after years to a 
friend, he says : — 

'' When I lost my father, and was left with- 
out any direction in my studies, I had the luck 
to get at books in all languages, of all religions, 
upon all sciences, and to read them without any 
regular order, just as my own impulse led me. 
From this I obtained the great advantage that I 
was freed from ordinary prejudices, and introduced 
to many things of which I should otherwise never 
have thought." 

In a philosophical essay, in which he describes 
himself under the name of Gulielmus Pacidius, he 
says: — 



THE MAN. 3 

-V."Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who 
lost his father in his early years, was led to 
study through the innate tendency of his spirit; 
and the freedom with which he moved about in 
the sciences was equal to this innate impulse. 
He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a 
library, staying there sometimes whole days, and, 
hardly stammering Latin, he took up every book 
which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them 
without any choice, he sipped now here, now there, 
lost himself in one, skipped over another, as the 
clearness of expression or of content attracted him. 
He seemed to be directed by the ToUe et lege of a 
higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he 
gave himself up to the ancients, in whom he at first 
understood nothing, by degrees a little, finally all 
that was really necessary, until he assumed not only 
a certain coloring of their expression, but also of 
their thought, — just as those who go about in the 
sun, even while they are occupied with other things, 
get sun-browned.'^ 

And he goes on to tell us that their influence 
always remained with him. Their human, their 
important, their comprehensive ideas, grasping the 
whole of life in one image, together with their 
clear, natural, and transparent mo^e of expression, 
adapted precisely to their thoughts, seemed to him 
to be in the greatest contrast with the writings of 
moderns, without definiteness or order in expres- 
sion, and without vitality or purpose in thought, — 
*' written as if for another world." Thus Leibniz 



4 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

learned two of the great lessons of his life, — to 
seek always for clearness of diction and for per- 
tinence and purpose of ideas. 

Historians and poets first occupied him ; but when 
in his school-life, a lad of twelve or thirteen years, 
he came to the study of logic, he was greatly struck, 
""he says, by the " ordering and analysis of thoughts 
which he found there." He gave himself up to 
making tables of categories and predicaments, an- 
alyzing each book that he read into suitable topics, 
and arranging these into classes and sub- classes. 
We can imagine the astonishment of his playmates 
as he burst upon them with a demand to classify 
this or that idea, to find its appropriate predica- 
ment. Thus he was led naturally to the philosophic 
books in his father's library, — to Plato and to 
Aristotle, to the Scholastics. kSuarez, in particular, 
among the latter, he read ; and traces of his influ- 
ences are to be found in the formulation of his own 
philosophic system. At about this same time he 
took great delight in the theological works with 
which his father's library abounded, reading with 
equal ease and pleasure the writings of the Lutherans 
and of the Eeformed Church, of the Jesuits and 
the Jansenists, of the Thomists "and the Arminians. 
The result was, he tells us, that he was strengthened 
in the Lutheran faith of his family, but, as we may 
easily imagine from his after life, made tolerant of 
all forms of faith. 

In 1661 the boy Leibniz, fifteen years old, entered 
the. University of Leipzig. If we glance back upon 



THE MAN. _^ 5 

his attainments, we find him tlioroughly at home in 
Latin, having made good progress in Greek, ac- 
quainted with the historians and poets of antiquity, 
acquainted with the contemporary range of science, 
except in mathematics and physics, deeply read 
and interested in ancient and scholastic philosophy 
I And in the current theological discussions. Of him- 
'self he says : — 

'•• Two things were of extraordinary aid to me*: in 
the first place, I was self-taught ; and in the second, 
as soon as I entered upon any science I sought for 
something new, even though I did not as yet thor- 
oughly understand the old. I thus gained two 
things : I did not fill my mind with things empty and 
to be unlearned afterwards, — things resting upon 
the assertion of the teacher, and not upon reason ; 
and secondly, I never rested till I got down to the 
very roots of the science and reached its principles." 

While there is always a temptation to force 
the facts which we know of a man's early life, 
so as to make them seem to account for what 
appears in mature years, and to find symbolisms 
and analogies which do not exist, we are not going 
astray, I think, if we see foreshadowed in this 
early education of Leibniz the two leading traits of 
his later thought, — universality and individuality. 
The range of Leibniz's investigations already marks 
him as one who will be content with no fundamental 
principle which does not mirror the universe. The 
freedom with which he carried them on is testimony 
to the fact that even at this age the idea of self- 



6 LEIBNIZS NEW ESSAYS. 

development, of individual growth from within, was 
working upon him. In the fact, also, that he was 
self-taught we find doubtless the reason that he 
alone of the thinkers of this period did not have to 
retrace his steps, to take a hostile attitude towards 
the ideas into which he was educated, and to start 
anew upon a foundation then first built. The de- 
velopment of the thought of Leibniz is so gradual, 
continuous, and constant that it may serve as a 
model of the law by which the " monad" acts. Is 
not his early acquaintance with ancient literature 
and mediaeval philosophy the reason that he could 
afterwards write that his philosophical system J' con- 
nects Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Des- 
cartes, the Scholastics with the moderns, theology 
and morals with reason " ?J And who can fail to see 
in the impartiality, the comprehensiveness, of his 
self-education the prophecy of the time when he can 
write of his ideal that;" there are united in them, as 
in a centre of perspective, the ideas of the Sceptics 
in attributing to sensible things only a slight degree 
of reality ; of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, tvho 
reduce ail to harmonies, numbers, and ideas ; of 
Parmenides and Plotinus, with their One and All i 
of the Stoics, with their notion of necessity, com- 
patible with the spontaneity of other schools ; of the 
vital philosophy of the Cabalists, who find feeling 
everywhere ; of the forms and entelechies of Aris- 
totle and the Schoolmen, united with the mechanical 
explanation of phenomena according to Democriti^e 
and the moderns " ? ' 



THE MAN. 7 

But we must hurry along over the succeeding 
years of his life. In the university the study of 
law was his principal occupation, as he had decided 
to follow in the footsteps of his father. It cannot 
be said that the character of the instruction or of 
the instructors at Leipzig was such as to give much 
nutriment or stimulus to a mind like that of Leib- 
niz. He became acquainted there, however, with 
the Italian philosophy of the sixteenth century, — 
a philosophy which, as formulated by Cardanus 
and Campanella, formed the transition from Scho- 
lastic philosophy to the "mechanical" mode of 
viewing the universe. He had h ere also. .his £rst 
introduction to Descartes. The consequences of 
the new vision opened to Leibniz must be told in his 
own words : " I was but a child when I came to 
know Aristotle ; even the Scholastics did not frighten 
me ; and I in no way regret this now. Plato and 
Plotinus gave me much delight, not to speak of 
other philosophers of antiquity. Then I fell in 
with the writings of modern philosophy, and I re- 
call the time when, a boy of fifteen years, I went 
walking in a little wood near Leipzig, the Rosenthal, 
in order to consider whether I should hold to the 
doctrine of substantial forms. Finally the mechan- 
ical theory conquered, and thus I was led to the 
study of the mathematical sciences." 

To the study of the mathematical sciences ! 
Surely words of no mean import for either the fu- 
ture of Leibniz or of mathematics. But his Leipzig 
studies did not take him very far in this new direc- 



8 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

tiou. Only the elements of Euclid were taught 
there, and these by a lecturer of such confused style 
that Leibniz seems alone to have understood them. 
In Jena, however, where he went for a semester, 
things were somewhat better. Weigel, a mathema- 
tician of some fame, an astronomer, a jurist, and a 
philosopher, taught there, and introduced Leibniz 
into the lower forms of analysis. But the Thirty 
Years' War had not left Germany in a state of high 
culture, and in after years Leibniz lamented the 
limitations of his early mathematical training, re- 
marking that if he had spent his youth in Paris, he 
would have enriched science earlier. By 1666 Leib- 
niz had finished his university career, having in 
previous years attained the degrees of l)achelor of 
philosophy and master of philosophy. It is signifi- 
cant that for the first he wrote a thesis upon the 
principle of individuation, — the principle which in 
later years became the basis of his philosophy. 
This early essay, however, is rather an exhibition 
of learning and of dexterity in handling logical 
methods than a real anticipation of his after- 
thought. 

For his second degree, he wrote a thesis upon the 
application of philosophic ideas to juridic proced- 
ure, — considerations which never ceased to occupy 
liim. At about the same time appeared his earliest 
independent work, '' De Arte Combinatoria." From 
i)is study of mathematics, and especially of alge- 
braic methods, Leibniz had l)ecome convinced that 
the source of all science is, — first, analysis ; second, 



« ^ THE MAN. 9 

symbolic representation of the fundamental con- 
cepts, the symbolism avoiding the ambiguities and 
vagueness of language : and thirdly, the synthesis 
and interpretation of the symbols. It seemed to 
Leibniz that it ought to be possible to tind the sim- 
plest notions in all the sciences, to discover general 
rules for calculating all their varieties of combina- 
tion, and thus to attain the same certainty and 
generality of result that characterize mathematics. 
Leibniz never gave up this thought. Indeed, in 
spirit his pliilosophy is but its application, with the 
omission of symbols, on the side of the general no- 
tions fundamental to all science. It was also the idea 
of his age, — the idea that inspired Spinoza and the 
Aufkldruvg^ the idea that inspired philosophical 
thinking until Kant gave it its death-blow by 
demonstrating the distinction between the methods 
of philosophy and of mathematical and physical 
science. 

In 1666 Leibniz should have received his double 
doctorate of philosoi)hy and of law ; but i)etty jeal- 
ousies and personal fears prevented his presenting 
himself for the examination. Disgusted with his 
treatment, feeling that the ties that bound him to 
Leipzig were severed by the recent death of his 
mother, anxious to study mathematics further, and, 
as he confesses, desiring, with the natural eager- 
ness of youth, to see more of the world, he left 
Leipzig forever, and entered upon his Wandcrjalire, 
He was prepared to be no mean citizen of the world. 
In his education he had t^one from the historians to 



10 tEIBNlZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

the poets, from the poets to the philosophers and 
the Scholastics, from them to the theologians and 
Church Fathers, then to the jurists, to the mathema- 
ticians, and then again to philosophy and to law. 

He first directed his steps to the University of 
Altdorf ; here he obtained his doctorate in law, and 
was offered a professorship, which he declined, — 
apparently because he felt that his time was not yet 
come, and that wlien it should come, it would not 
be in the narrow limits of a country village. From 
Altdorf he went to Nurnberg ; here all that need 
concern us is the fact that he joined a society of 
alchemists {fraternUas roseoecrucis) , and was made 
their secretary. Hereby he gained three things, — 
a knowledge of chemistry ; an acquaintance with a 
number of scientific men of different countries, with 
whom, as secretary, he carried on correspondence ; 
and the friendship of Boineburg, a diplomat of the 
court of the Elector and Archbishop of Mainz. 
TMs friendship was the means of his removing to 
Frankfurt. Here, under the direction of the Elec- 
tor, he engaged in remodelling Roman law so as to 
adapt it for German use, in writing diplomatic 
tracts, letters, and essays upon theological matters, 
and in editing an edition of Nizolius, — a now for- 
gotten philosophical writer. One of the most note- 
worthy facts in connection with this edition is that 
Leibniz pointed out the fitness of the German lan- 
guage for philosophical uses, and urged its em- 
ployment, — a memorable fact in connection with 
me later development of German thought. Another 



THE MAN. 11 

important tract which he wrote was one urging the 
alliance of all the German States for the purpose 
of advancing theii* internal and common interests. 
Here, as so often, Leibniz was almost two centuries 
in advance of his times. But the chief thing in 
connection with the stay of Leibniz at Mainz was 
the cause for which he left it. Louis XIV. had 
^broken up the Triple Alliance, and showed signs of 
attacking Holland and the German Empire. It was 
then proposed to him that it would be of greater 
glory to himself and of greater advantage to France 
that he should move against Tui*key and Egypt. 
The mission of presenting these ideas to the great 
king was intrusted to Leibniz, and in 1672 he went 
to Paris. 

The plan failed completely, — so completely that 
rve need say no more about it. But the journey 
\o Paris was none the less the turning-point in the 
career of Leibniz. It brought him to the centre 
of intellectual civilization, — to a centre compared 
with which the highest attainments of disrupted 
and disheartened Germany were comparative bar- 
barism. Moliere was still alive, and Racine was at 
the summit of his glory. Leibniz became acquainted 
with Arnaud, a disciple of Descartes, who initiated 
him into the motive and spirit of his master. Car- 
tesianism as a system, with its scientific basis and 
its speculative consequences, thus first became to 
him an intellectual reality. And, perhaps most 
important of all, he met Huygens, who became his 
teacher and inspirer both in the higher forms of 



J 2 ^ LKIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

mathematics and in their application to the inter- 
.pretation and expression of physical phenomena. 
His diplomatic mission took him also to London, 
where the growing world of mathematical science 
was opened yet wider to him. The name of Sir 
Isaac Newton need only be giverf to show what this 
meant. From this time one of the greatest glories 
of Leibniz's life dates, — a glory, however, which 
during his lifetime was embittered by envy and 
unappreciation, and obscured by detraction and 
malice, — the invention of the infinitesimal cal- 
culus. It would be interesting, were this the place, 
to trace the history of its discovery, — the gradual 
steps which led to it, the physical facts as well as 
mathematical theories which made it a necessity; 
but it must suflice to mention that these were such 
that the discovery of some general mode of ex- 
))ressing and interpreting the newly discovered facts 
of Nature was absolutely required for the further 
advance of science, and that stei)s towards the intro- 
duction of the fundi) mental ideas of the calculus 
had already been taken, — notably by Keppler, by 
Cavalieri, and ]>y Wallis. It would be interesting 
to follow also the course of the controversy with 
Newton, — a controversy which in its method of 
conduct reflects no credit upon the names of either. 
But this can l)e summed up ])y saying that it is now 
generally admitted that absolute priority })elongs to 
Newton, but that entire indei)endence and originality 
characterize none the less the work of Leibniz, and 
that the method of approacli and statement of the 



THE MAN. 13 

latter are the more philosophical and general, and, 
to use the words of the judicious summary of Merz, 
" Newton cared more for the results than the prin- 
ciple, while Leibniz was in search of fundamental 
principles, and anxious to arrive at simplifications 
and generalizations." 

' The death of Boineburg removed the especial rea- 
sons for the return of Leibniz to Frankfurt, and in 
1676 he accepted the position of librarian and pri- 
vate councillor at the court of Hanover. It arouses 
our interest and our questionings to know that on 
his journey back he stopped at the Hague, and there 
met face to face the other future great philosopher 
of the time, Spinoza. But our questionings meet 
no answer. At Hanover, the industries of Leibniz 
were varied. An extract from one of his own let- 
ters, though written at a somewhat later date, will 
give the best outline of his activities. 

"It is incredible how scattered and divided are 
my occupations. I burrow through archives, inves- 
tigate old writings, and collect unprinted manu- 
scripts, with a view to throwing light on the history 
of Brunswick. I also receive and write a countless 
number of letters. I have so much that is new in 
mathematics, so many thoughts in philosophy, so 
many literary observations which I cannot get into 
Bhape, that in the midst of my tasks I do not know 
where to begin, and with Ovid am inclined to cry 
out : ' My riches make me poor.' I should like to 
give a description of my calculating-machine ; but 
time fails. Above all else I desire to complete my 



/4 Leibniz's new essays. 

Dynamics, as I think that I have finally discovered 
the true laws of material Nature, by whose means 
problems about bodies which are out of reach of 
rules now known may be solved. Friends* are 
urging me to publish my Science of the Infinite, 
containing the basis of my new analysis. I have 
also on hand a new Characteristic, and many general 
considerations about the art of discovery. But all 
these works, the historical excepted, have to be 
done at odd moments. Then at the court all sorts 
of things are expected. I have to answer ques- 
tions on points in international law ; on points 
concerning the rights of the various princes in the 
Empire: so far I have managed to keep out of 
questions of private law. With all this I have had 
to carry on negotiations with the bishops of Neustadt 
and of Meaux [Bossuet], and with Pelisson and 
others upon religious matters." 

It is interesting to note how the philosophic spirit, 
the instinct for unity and generality, showed itself 
even in the least of Leibniz's tasks. The Duke of 
Bninswick imposed upon Leibniz the task of draw- 
ing up a genealogical table of his House. Under 
Leibniz's hands this expanded into a history of the 
House, and this in turn was the centre of an impor- 
tant study of the German Empire. It was impossible 
that the philosopher, according to whom every real 
being reflected the whole of the universe from its 
point of view, should have been able to treat even a 
slight phase of local history without regarding it in 
its relations to the history of the world. Similarly 



THE MAN. 15 

some miniBg operations in the Harz Mountains 
called the attention of Leibniz to geological matters. 
The result was a treatise called " Protogaa," in 
which Leibniz gave a history of the development of 
the earth. Not content with seeing in a Brunswick 
mountain an epitome of the world's physical forma- 
tion, it was his intention to make this an introduc- 
tion to his political history as a sort of geographical 
background and foundation. It is interesting to 
note that the historical studies of Leibniz took him 
on a three years* journey, from 1687 to 1690, 
through the various courts of Europe, — a fact which 
not only had considerable influence upon Leibniz 
himself, but which enabled him to give stimulus to 
scientific development in more ways and places than 
one. 

His philosophical career as an author begins for 
the most part with his return to Hanover in 1690. 
This lies outside of the scope of the present chapter, 
but here is a convenient place to call attention to the 
fact that for Leibniz the multitude of his other 
duties was so great that his philosophical work was 
the work "of odd moments." There is no syste- 
matic exposition ; there are a vast number of letters, 
of essays, of abstracts and memoranda published in 
various scientific journals. His philosophy bears 
not only in form, but in substance, traces of its hap- 
hazard and desultory origin. Another point of 
interest in this connection is the degree to which, in 
form, at least, his philosophical writings bear the 
impress of his cosmopolitan life. Leibniz had seen 



16 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

tx>o much of the world, too much of coui*ts, for his 
thoughts to take the rigid and unbending form of 
geometrical exposition suited to the lonely student 
of the Hague. Nor was the regular progression and 
elucidation of ideas adapted to the later Germans, 
almost without exception university professors, 
suited to the man of affairs. There is everywhere 
in Leibniz the attempt to adapt his modes of state- 
ment, not only to the terminology, but even to the 
ideas, of the one to whom they are addressed. There 
is the desire to magnify points of agreement, to mini- 
mize disagreements, characteristic of the courtier and 
the diplomat. His comi>i*eheusiveness is not only 
a comprehensiveness of thought, but of ways of ex- 
position, due very largely, we must think, to his cos- 
mopolitan education. The result has been to the 
great detriment of Leibniz's influence as a syste 
matic thinker, although it may be argued that it has 
aided his indirect and suggestive influence, the ab- 
sorption of his ideas l)y men of literature, by Goethe, 
above all by Lessing, and his stimulating effect 
upon science and philosophy. It is certain that the 
attempt to systematize his thoughts, as was done by 
Wolff, had for its result the disappearance of all 
that was profound and thought-exciting. 

If his philosophy thus reflects the manner of his 
daily life, the occupations of the latter were informed 
by the spirit of his philosophy. Two of the dearest 
interests of Leibniz remain to be mentioned, — one, 
the founding of academies ; the other, the reconciling 
of religious organizations. The former testifies to 



THE MAN. 17 

his desire for comprehensiveness, unity, and organi- 
zation of knowledge ; the latter to his desire for 
practical unity, his dislike of all that is opposed and 
isolated. His efforts in the religious direction were 
twofold. The first was to end the theological and 
political controversies of the time by the reunion of 
the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches. It 
was a plan which did the greatest honor to the pacific 
spirit of Leibniz, but it was predestined to failure. 
Both sides made concessions, — more concessions 
than we of to-day should believe possible. But the 
one thing the Roman Catholic Church would not con- 
cede was the one thing which the Protestant Church 
demanded, — the notion of authority and hierarchy. 
Indeed, it may be questioned whether the terms on 
which Leibniy conceived of their reunion do not 
point to the greatest weakness in his philosophy, — 
the tendency to overlook oppositions and to resolve 
all contradiction into differences of degree. Hardly 
had this plan fallen through when Leibniz turned 
to the project of a union of the Lutheran and Re- 
formed branches of the Protestant Church. This 
scheme was more hopeful, and while unrealized dur- 
ing the life of our philosopher, was afterwards 
accomplished. 

It is noteworthy that even before Leibniz went to 
Paris and to London he had conceived the idea of 
a society of learned men for the investigation, the 
system atization, and the publication of scientific 
truth in all its varied forms, — a society which 
should in breadth include the whole sphere of 



18 Leibniz's new essays. 

sciences, but should not treat them as so many iso- 
lated disciplines, but as members of one system. 
This idea was quickened when Leibniz saw the 
degree in which it had already been realized in the 
two great world-capitals. He never ceased to try to 
introduce similar academies wherever he had influ- 
ence. In 1700 his labors bore their fruit in one 
instance. The Academy at Berlin was founded, 
and Leibniz was its first, and indeed lif^-long, 
president. But disappointment met him at Vienna, 
Dresden, and St. Petersburg, where he proposed 
similar societies. 

Any sketch of Leibniz's life, however brief, would 
be imperfect which did not mention the names at 
least of two remarkable women, — remarkable in 
themselves, and remarkable in their friendship 
with Leibniz. These were Sophia, graiid-daughter 
of James I. of England (and thus the link by 
which the House of Brunswick finally came to 
rule over Great Britain) and wife of the Duke of 
Brunswick, and her daughter Sophia Charlotte, 
wife of the first king of Prussia. The latter, 
in particular, gave Leibniz every encouragement. 
She was personally deeply interested in all theo- 
logical and philosophical questions. Upon her 
death-bed, in 1705, she is said to have told those 
about her that they were not to mourn for her, as 
she should now be able to satisfy her desire to 
learn about things which Leibniz had never suf- 
ficiently explained. 

Her death marks the beginning of a period in 



^IIE MAN. 19 

Leibniz's life which it is not pleasant to dwell 
upon. New rulers arose that knew not Leibniz. 
It cannot be said that from this time till his death 
in Hanover in 1716 Leibniz had much joy or sat- 
isfaction. His best friends were dead; his po- 
litical ambitions were disappointed ; he was sus- 
pected of coldness and unfriendliness by the courts 
both of Berlin and Hanover ; Paris and Vienna 
were closed to him, so far as any wide influence 
was concerned, by his rjeligious faith ; the con- 
troversy with the friends of Newton still followed 
him. He was a man of the most remarkable in- 
tellectual gifts, of an energy which could be sat- 
isfied only with wide fields of action ; and he found 
himself shut in by narrow intrigue to a petty round 
of courtly oflScialism. It is littlo wonder that the 
following words fell from his lips : " Germany is 
the only country in the world that does not know 
how to recognize the fame of its children and to 
make that fame immortal. It forgets itself ; it for- 
gets its own, unless foreigners make it mindfnl of 
its own treasures." A Scotch friend of Leibniz, 
who happened to be in Hanover when he died, wrote 
that Leibniz "was buried more like a robber than 
what he really was, — the ornament of his country." 
Such was the mortal end of the greatest intellectual 
genius since Aristotle. But genius is not a matter 
ta be bounded in life or in death by provincial 
courts. Leibniz remains a foremost citizen in that 
** Kingdom of Spirits " in whose formation he found 
the meaning of the world. 



20 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 

I 

WHAT is true of all men is true of phi- 
losophers, and of Leibniz among them. 
Speaking generally, what they are unconsciously 
and funddmentally, they are through absorption of 
their antecedents and surroundings. What they 
are consciously and reflectively, they are through 
their reaction upon the influence of heredity and 
environment. But there is a spiritual line of de- 
scent and a spiritual atmosphere ; and in speaking 
of a philosopher, it is with this intellectual heredity 
and environment, rather than with the physical, 
that we are concerned. Leibniz was born into a 
period of intellectual activity the most teeming 
with ideas, the most fruitful in results, of any, 
perhaps, since the age of Pericles. We pride « 
ourselves justly upon the activity of our own cen- 
tury, and in diffusion of intellectual action and 
wide-spread application of ideas the age of Leibniz 
could not compare with it. But ours is the age 
of diffusion and application, while his was one of 
fermentation and birth. 

Such a period in its earlier days is apt to be 
turbid and unsettled. There is more heat of fric- 
tion than calm light. And such had been the cas« 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 21 

in the hundred years before Leibniz. But when he 
arrived at intellectual maturity much of the crudity 
had disappeared. The troubling of the waters of 
thought had ceased ; they were becoming clarified. 
Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, each had crystallized • 
something out of that seething and chaotic mass of 
new ideas which had forced itself into European 
consciousness. Men had been introduced into a 
new world, and the natural result had been feelings 
of strangeness, and the vagaries of intellectual 
wanderings. But by the day of Leibniz the in- 
tellectual bearings had been made out anew, the 
new mental orientation had been secured. 

The marks of this " new spiritual picture of the 
universe" are everywhere to be seen in Leibniz. 
His philosophy is the dawning consciousness of the 
modern world. In it we see the very conception 
and birth of the modern interpretation of the world. 
The history of thought is one continuous testimony v 
to the ease with which we become hardened to ideas 
through custom. Ideas are constantly precipitating 
themselves out of the realm of ideas into that of 
ways of thinking and of viewing the universe. The 
problem of one century is the axiom of another. 
What one generation stakes its activity upon in- 
vestigating is quietly taken for granted by the 
next. And so the highest reach of intellectual 
inspiration in the sixteenth century is to-day the 
ordinary food of thought, accepted without an 
inquiry as to its source, and almost without a sus- 
picion that it has a recent historic origin. We have 



"22 LEIBNIZ'S :ne\v essays. 

to go to Bacon or to Leibniz to see the genesis and 
growth of those ideas which to-day have become 
materialized into axiomatic points of view and into 
hard-and-fast categories of thought. In reading 
Leibniz the idea comes over us in all its freshness 
that there was a time when it was a discovery that 
the world is a universe, made after one plan and 
of one stuff. The ideas of inter-relation, of the. 
harmony of law, of mutual dependence and cor- 
respondence, were not always the assumed starting- 
points of thought; they were once the crowning 
discoveries of a philosophy aglow and almost in- 
toxicated with the splendor of its far-reaching 
generalizations. I take these examples of the unity 
of the world, the continuity and interdependence of 
all within it, because these are the ideas which come 
to their conscious and delighted birth in the phi- 
losophy of Leibniz. We do not put ourselves into 
the right attitude for understanding his thought 
until we remember that these ideas — the commonest 
tools of our thinking — were once new and fresh, 
and in their novelty and transforming strangeness 
were the products of a philosophic interpretation 
of experience. P^xcept in that later contemporary 
of Leibniz, the young and enthusiastic Irish idealist, 
Berkeley, I know bf no historic thinker in whom the 
birth- throes (joyous, however) of a new conception 
of the world are so evident as in Leibniz. But 
while in Berkeley what we see is the young man 
carried away and astounded by the grandeur and 
simplicity of a *' new way of ideas" which he has 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 23 

discovered, what we see in Leibniz is the mature 
man penett'ated throughout his being with an idea 
which in its unity answers to the unity of the world, 
and which in its complexity answers, tone to tone, 
to the complex harmony of the world. 

The familiarity of the ideas which we use hides 
their grandeur from us. The unity of the world is 
a matter of course with us ; the dependent order 
of all within it a mere starting-point upon which 
to base our investigations. But if we will put our- 
selves in the position of Leibniz, and behold, not 
the new planet, but the new universe, so one, so 
linked together, swimming into our keii, we shall 
feel something of the same exultant thrill that 
Leibniz felt, — an exultation not indeed personal 
in its nature, but which arises from the expansion 
of the human mind face to face with an expanding 
world. The spirit which is at the heart of the 
philosophy of Leibniz is the spirit which speaks 
in the following words : " Quin imo qui unam par- 
tem materiae comprehenderet, idem comprehenderet 
totum universum ob eandem ir^pLx^prp-iv quam dixi. 
Mea principia talia sunt, ut vix a se invicem develli 
possint. Qui unum bene novit, omnia novit." It 
is a spirit which feels that the secret of the universe 
has been rendered up to it, and which breathes 
a buoyant optimism. And if we of the nineteenth 
century have chosen to bewail the complexity of 
the problem of life, and to run hither and thither 
multiplying " insights" and points of view till this 
enthusiastic confidence in reason seems to us the 



24 LEIBNIZ'S XEW ESSAYS. 

rashness of an ignorance which does not compre- 
hend the problem, and the unity in which Leibniz 
rested appears cold and abstract beside the mani- 
fold richness of the world, we should not forget that 
after all we have incorporated into oui* very mental 
structure the fundamental thoughts of Leibniz, — 
the thoughts of the rationality of the universe and 
of the "reign of. law." 

What was the origin of these ideas in the mind 
of Leibniz ? What influences in*the philosophic suc- 
cession of thinkers led him in this direction ? What 
agencies acting in the intellectual world about him 
shaped his ideal reproduction of reality? Two 
causes above all others stand out with proniinence, 
— one, the discoveries and principles of modern 
physical science ; the otlier, that interpretation of 
experience which centuries before had been formu- 
lated by Aristotle. Leibniz has a double interest 
for those of to-day who reverence science and- who 
hold to the historical method. His philosophy was 
an attempt to set in order the methods and prin- 
ciples of that growing science of nature which even 
then was transforming the emotional and mental 
life of Europe ; and the attempt was guided every- 
where by a profound and wide-reaching knowledge 
of the history of philosophy. On the first point 
Leibniz was certainly not alone. Bacon, Hobbes, 
Descartes, Spinoza, each felt in his own way the 
fructifying touch of the new-springing science, and 
had attempted under its guidance to interpret the 
facts of nature and of man. But Leibniz stood 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 25 

alone in his interest in the liistory of thought. He 
stands alone indeed till he is greeted by his com- 
peers of the nineteenth century. To Bacon pre- 
vious philosophy — the .Greek, the scholastic — was 
an " eidol of the theatre." The human mind must be 
freed from its benumbing influence. To Descartes 
it was useless rubbish to be cleared away, that we 
might get a tabula rasa upon which to make a fresh 
start. And shall Locke and the empirical English 
school, or Reid and the Scotch school, or even Kant, 
be the first to throw a stone at Bacon and Descartes ? 
It was reserved to Leibniz, with a genius almost^ 
two centuries in advance of his times, to penetrate 
the meaning of the previous development of re- 
flective thought. It would be going beyond our 
brief to claim that Leibniz was interested in this as 
a historical movement, or that he specially concerned 
himself with the genetic lines which connected the 
various schools of thought. But we should come' 
short of our duty to Leibniz if we did not recognize 
his conscious and largely successful attempt to ap- 
prehend the core of trftth in all systems, however 
alien to his own, and to incorporate it into his 
own thinking. 

Nothing could be more characteristic of Leibniz 
than his saying, "I find that most systems arc 
right in a good share of that which they advance, 
but not so much in what they deny ; " or than this 
other statement of his, " We must not hastily be- 
lieve that which the mass of men, or even of authori- 
ties, advance, but each must demand for himself the 



20 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

proofs of the thesis sustained. Yet long research 
generally convinces that the old and received opin- 
ions are good, provided they be interpreted justly." 
It is in the profound union in Leibniz of the prin- 
ciples which these quotations image that his abiding 
worth lies. Leibniz was interested in affirmations, 
not in denials. He was interested in securing the 
union of the modern method^ the spirit of original 
research and independent judgment, with the con- 
served results of previous thought. Leibniz was a 
man .of his times ; that is to say, he was a scien- 
tific man, — the contemporary, for example, of men 
as different as Bernouilli, Swammerdam, Huygens, 
and Newton, and was himself actively engstged in 
the prosecution of mathematics, mechanics, geology, 
comparative philology, and jurisprudence. But he 
was also a man of Aristotle's times, — that is to say, 
a philosopher, not satisfied until the facts, principles, 
and methods of science had received an interpreta- 
tion which should explain and unify them. 

Leibniz's acquaintance with the higher forms of 
mathematics was due, as we have seen, to his ac- 
quaintance with Huygens. As he made the acquain- 
tance of the latter at the same time that he made 
the acquaintance of the followers of Descartes, it 
is likely that he received his introduction to the 
higher developments of the scientific interpretation 
of nature and of the philosophic interpretation of 
science at about the same time. For a while, then, 
Leibniz was a Cartesian ; and he never ceased to 
call the doctrine of Descartes the antechamber of 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 27 

truth. What were the ideas which he received from 
Descartes? Fundamentally they were two, — one 
about the method of truth, the other about the 
substance of truth. He received the idea that the 
method of philosophy consists in the analysis of any 
complex group of ideas down to simple ideas which 
shall be perfectly clear and distinct ; that all such 
clear and distinct ideas are true, and may then be 
used for the synthetic reconstruction of any body 
of truth. Concerning the substance of philosophic 
truth, he learned that nature is to be interpreted 
mechanically, and that the instrument of this me- 
chanical interpretation is mathematics. I have used 
the term " received " in speaking of tlie relation of 
Leibniz to these ideas. Yet long before this time 
we might see him giving himself up to dreams about 
a vast art of combination which should reduce all 
the ideas concerned in any science to their simplest 
elements, and then combine them to any degree of 
complexity. We have already seen him giving us a 
picture of a boy of fifteen gravely disputing with 
himself whether he shall accept the doctrine of forms 
and final causes, or of physical causes, and as grave- 
ly deciding that he shall side with the " moderns ; " 
and that boy was himself. In these facts we have 
renewed confirmation of the truth that one mind 
never receives from another anything excepting the 
stimulus, the reflex, the development of ideas which 
have already possessed it. But when Leibniz, with 
his isolated and somewhat ill-digested thoughts, 
came in contact with that systematized and con- 



28 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

nected body of doctrines which the Cartesians 
presented to him in Paris, his ideas were quick- 
ened, and he felt the necessity — that final mark 
of the philosophic mind — of putting them in 
order. 

About the method of Descartes, which Leibniz 
adopted from him, or rather formulated for himself 
under the influence of Descartes, not much need be 
said. It was the method of Continental thought till 
the time of Kant. It was the mother of the philo- 
sophic systems of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. 
It was equally the mother of the German Aujklarung 
and the French eclair cissement. Its fundamental 
idea is the thought upon which Rationalism every- 
where bases itself. It says : Reduce everything to 
simple notions. Get clearness ; get distinctness. 
Analyze the complex. Shun the obscure. Dis- 
cover axioms ; employ these axioms in connection 
with tlie simple notions, and build up from them. 
Whatever can be treated in this way is capable of 
proof, and only this. Leibniz, I repeat, possessed 
this method in common witli Descartes and Spinoza. 
The certainty and demonstrativeness of mathematics 
stood out in the clearest contrast to the uncertainty, 
the obscurity, of all other knowledge. And to them, 
as to all before the days of Kant, it seemed beyond 
doubt that the method of mathematics consists in 
the analysis of notions, and in their synthesis through 
the medium of axioms, which are true because iden- 
tical statements ; while the notions are true because 
clear and distinct. 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 29 

And yet the method led Leibniz in a very different 
direction. One of the fundamental doctrines, for 
example, of Leibniz is the existence everywhere 
of minute and obscure perceptions, — which are of 
the gi^eatest importance, but of which we, at least, 
can never have distinct consciousness. How is 
vhis factor of his thought, which almost approaches 
mysticism, to ])e reconciled with the statements just 
made? It is found in the different application 
which is made of the method. The object of Des- 
cartes is the erection of a new structure of truth upon 
a tabula rasa of all former doctrines. The object 
of Leibniz is the hUerpretation of an old body oj 
truth by a method which shall reveal it in its clearest 
light. Descartes and Spinoza are ''rationalists" 
both in their method and results. Leibniz is a 
" rationalist " in his method ; but his application of 
the method is everywhere controlled by historic con- ^, 
siderations. It is, I think, impossible to over- 
emphasize this fact. Descartes was profoundly 
convinced that past thought had gone wrong, and 
that its results were worthless. Leibniz was as 
^profoundly convinced that its instincts had been 
right, and that the general idea of the world which 
it gave was correct. Leibniz would have given the 
heartiest assent to Goethe's saying, '' Das Wahre 
war schon Inngst gef unden." It was out of the ques- 
tion, then, that he should use the new method in any 
other than an interpreting way to bring out in a 
connected system and unity the true meaning of the 
subject-matter. 



1, 



30 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

So much of generality for the method of Leibnk. 
The positive substance of doctrine which he devel- 
oped under scientific influence affords matter for 
more discussion. Of the three influences which 
meet us here, two are still Cartesian; the third is 
from the new science of biology, although not yet 
answering to that name. These three influences are, 
in order: the idea that nature is to be explained 
mechanically ; that this is to be brought about 
through the application of mathematics ; and, from 
biology, the idea that all change is of the nature of 
^ continuous growth or unfolding. Let us consider 
each in this order. 

What is meant by the mechanical explanation of 
nature ? To answer a question thus baldly put, we 
must recall the kind of explanations which had satis- 
fied the scholastic men of science. They had been 
explanations which, however true, Leibniz sa^^s, as 
general principles, do not touch the details of the 
matter. The explanations of natural facts had been 
found in general principles, in substantial forces, iu 
occult essences, in native faculties. Now, the first 
contention of the founders of the modern scientific 
movement was that such general considerations are 
not verifiable, and that if they are, they are entirely 
aside from the point, — they fail to explain any 
given fact. Explanation must always consist in 
discovering an immediate connection between some 
fact and some co-existing or preceding fact. Ex- 
planation does not consist in referring a fact to a 
general power, it consists in referring it to an ante- 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 31 

cedent whose existence is its necessary condition. 
It was not left till the times of Mr. Huxley to poke 
fun at those who would explain some concrete pheno- 
menon by reference to an abstract principle ending 
in — ity. Leibniz has his word to say about those 
who would account for the movements of a watch 
by reference to a principle of horologity, and of 
mill-stones by a fractive principle. 

Mechanical explanation consists, accordingly, in 
making out an actual connection between two exist- 
ing facts. But this does not say very much. A 
connection of what kind ? In the first place, a con- 
nection of the same order as the facts observed. 
If we are explaining corporeal phenomena, we must 
find a corporeal link ; if we are explaining phenom- 
ena of motion, we must find a connection of motion. 
In one of his first philosophical works Leibniz, in 
taking the mechanical position, states what he means 
by it. In the "Confession of Nature against the 
Atheists " he says that it must be confessed to those 
who have revived the corpuscular theory of Democ- 
ritus and Epicurus, to Galileo, Bacon, Gassendi, 
Hobbes, and Descartes, that in explaining material 
phenomena recourse is to be had neither to God nor 
to any other incorporeal thing, form, or quality, 
but that all things are to be explained from the 
nature of matter and its qualities, especially from 
their magnitude, figure 9 and motion. The physics 
of Descartes, to which was especially due the spread 
of mechanical notions, virtually postulated the prob- 
lem: given a homogeneous quantity of matter, 



'S'2 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

endowed only with extension and mobility, to ac- 
count for all material phenomena. Leibniz accepts 
this mechanical view without reserve. 

.What has been said suggests the bearing of math- 
ematics in this connection. Extension and mobility 
may be treated by mathematics. It is indeed the 
business of the geometer to give us an analysis of 
figured space, to set before us all possible com- 
binations which can arise, assuming extension only. 
The higher analysis sets before us the results which 
inevitably follow if we suppose a moving point or 
any system of movements. Mathematics is thus 
the essential tool for treating physical phenomena 
as just defined. But it is more. The mechanical 
explanation of Nature not only requires such a de- 
velopment of mathematics as will make it applica- 
ble to the interpretation of physical facts, but the 
employment of mathematics is necessary for the 
very discovery of these facts. Exact observation 
was the necessity of the growing physical tscience ; 
and exact observation means such as will answer 
the question, IIoiv much? Knowledge of nature de- 
pends upon our ability to meamre her processes, — 
that is, to reduce distinctions of quality to those gf 
quantity. The only assurance that we can finally 
have that two facts are connected in such a way as 
to fulfil the requirements of scientific research, is 
that there is a complete quantitative connection • 
between them, so that one can be regarded as the 
other transformed. The advance of physical sci- 
ence from the days of Copernicus to the present 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 33 

has consisted, therefore, on one hand, in a develop- 
ment of mathematics which has made it possible to 
apply it in greater and greater measure to the dis- 
cussion and foi-mulation of the results of experi- 
ment, and to deduce laws which, when interpreted 
physically, will give new knowledge of fact ; and, 
on the other, to multiply, sharpen, and make pre- 
cise all sorts of devices by which the processes of 
nature may be measured. Tlie explanation of na- 
ture by natural processes ; the complete application 
of mathematics to nature, — these are the twov 
thoughts which, so far, we have seen to be funda- 
mental to the development of the philosophy of 
Leibniz. 

The third factor, and that which brings Leibniz 
nearer, perhaps, our own day than either of the oth- 
ers, is the growth of physiological science. Swam- 
merdam, Malpighi, Leewenhoek, — these are names 
which occur and recur in the pages of Leibniz. 
Indeed, he appears to be the first of that now long 
line of modern philosophers to be profoundly influ- 
enced by the conception of life and the categories 
of organic growth. Descartes concerned himself 
indeed with physiological problems, but it was only 
with a view to applying mechanical principle. The- 
idea of the vital unity of all organs of the body 
might seem to- be attractive to one fille(^ with the 
notion of the unity of all in God, and yfet Spinoza 
shows no traces of the influence of/the organic 
conception. Not until Kant's famou^^ definition of 
organism do we see another philosopher moved by 



34 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

\aii attempt to comprehend the categories of living 
stracture. 

• UBut it is the idea of organism, of life, which is 
radical to the thought of Leibniz. I do not think, 
however, that it can truly be said that he was led to 
the idea simply from the state of physiological in- 
vestigation at that time. Rather, he had already 
learned to think of the world as organic through 
and through, and found in the results of biology 
confirmations, apt illustrations of a truth of which 
he was already thoroughly convinced. His writings 
show that there were two aspects of biological sci- 
ence which especially interested him. One was the 
simple fact of organism itself, — the fact of the va- 
rious activities of different organs occurring in com- 
plete harmony for one end. This presented three 
notions very dear to the mind of Leibniz, or rather 

> three moments of the same idea, — the factors of 
activity, of unity brought about by co-ordinated 
action, and of an end which reveals the meaning of 
the activity and is the ideal expression of the unity. 
The physiologists of that day were also occupied 
with the problem of growth. The generalization 
that all is developed ab ovo was just receiving uni- 
versal attention. The question which thrust itself 
upon science for solution was the mode by which ova, 
apparently homogeneous in structure, developed 
into the various forms of the organic kingdom. 
The answer given was "evolution." But evo- 
lution had not the meaning which the term has 
to-day. By evolution was meant that the whole 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 35 

complex structure of man, for example, was vir- 
tually contained in the germ, and that the apparent 
phenomenon of growth was not the addition of any- 
thing from without, but simply the unfolding and 
magnifying of that already existing. It was the 
doctrine which afterwards gave way to the epigen- 
esis theory of Wolff, according to which growth is 
not mere unfolding or unwrapping, but progressive 
differentiation. The " evolution " theory was the 
scientific theory of the times, however, and was 
warmly espoused by Leibniz. To him, as we shall 
see hereafter, it seemed to give a key which would 
unlock one of the problems of the universe. 

Such, then, were the three chief generalizations 
which Leibniz found current, and which most deeply 
affected him. But what use did he make of them? 
He did not become a philosopher by letting them 
lie dormant in his mind, nor by surrendering him- 
self passively to them till he could mechanically 
apply them everywhere. He was a philosopher 
only in virtue of the active attitude which his mind 
took towards them. He could not simply accept 
them at their face-value ; he must ask after the 
source of their value, the royal stamp of meaning 
which made them a circulatory medium. That is to 
say, he had to interpret these ideas, to see what 
they mean, and what is the basis of their validity. 

Not many men have been so conscious of just the 
bearings of their own ideas and of their source as 
was he. He often allows us a direct glimpse into 
the method of his thinking, and nowhere more than 



36 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

when he says : *' Those who give themselves up to 
the details of science usually despise abstract and 
general researches. Those who go into universal 
principles rarely care for particular facts. But I 
equally esteem both." Leibniz, in other words, was 
equally interested in the application of scientific 
principles to the explanation of the details of nat- 
ural phenomena, and in the bearing and meaning of 
the principles themselves, — a rare combination, in- 
deed, but one, which existing, stamps the genuine 
philosopher. Leibniz substantially repeats this idea 
when he says: "Particular effects must be ex- 
' plained mechanically ; but the general principles of 
physics and mathematics depend upon metaphy- 
sics." And again: " All occurs mechanically ; but 
the mechanical principle is not to be explained from 
material and mathematical considerations, but it 
flows from a higher and a metaphysical source." 

As a man of science, Leibniz might have stopped 
short with the ideas of mechanical law, of the ap- 
plication of mathematics, and of the continuity of 
development. As a philosopher he could not. 
There are some scientific men to whom it. always 
seems a perversion of their principles to attempt to 
carry them any beyond their application to. the de- 
tails of the subject. They look on in a bewildered 
and protesting attitude when there is suggested the 
necessity of any further inquiry. Or perhaps they 
dogmatically deny the possibility of any such inves- 
tigation, and as dogmatically assume the sufficiency 
of their principles for the decision of all possible 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 37 

problems. But bewildered fear and dogmatic as- 
sertion are equally impotent to fix arbitrary limits 
to human thought. Wherever there is a subject 
that has meaning, there is a field which appeals to 
mind, and the mind will not cease its endeavors till 
it has made out what that meaning is, and has made 
it out in its entirety. So the three principles already 
spoken of were but the starting-points, the stepping- 
stones of Leibniz's philosophic thought. While to , 
physical science they are solutions, to philosophy 
they are problems ; and as such Leibniz recognized 
them. What solution did he give? 

So far as the principle of mechanical explanation 
is concerned, the clew is given by considering the 
factor upon which he laid most emphasis, namely, 
motion. Descartes had said that the essence of the 
physical world is extension. " Not so" replied 
Leibniz ; ^' it is motion." These answers mark two 
typical ways of regarding nature. According to 
one, nature is something essentially rigid and static ; 
whatever change in it occurs, is a change of form, 
of arrangement, an external modification. Accord- 
ing to. the other, nature is something essentially 
dynamic and active. Change according to law is 
its very essence. Form, arrangement are only the 
results of this internal principle. And so to Leibniz, 
extension and the spatial aspects of physical exis- 
tence were only secondary, they were phenomenal. 
The primary, the real fact was motion. 

The considerations which led him to this conclu- 
sion are simple enough. It is the fact already men- 



38 -LEIBNIZ^S NEW ESSAYS. 

tioned, that explanation always consists in reducing 
phenomena to a law of motion which connects them. 
Descartes himself had not succeeded in writing his 
physics without everywhere using the conception of 
motion. But motion cannot be got out of the idea 
of extension. Geometry will not give us activity. 
What is this, except virtually to admit the insuffi- 
ciency of purely statical conceptions ? Leibniz found 
himself confirmed in this position by the fact that 
the more logical of the followers of Descartes had 
recognized that motion is a supei-fluous intruder, if 
extension be indeed the essence of matter, and there- 
fore had been obliged to have recourse to the imme- 
diate activity of God as the cause of all changes. 
But this, as Leibniz said, was simply to give up 
■ the very idea of mechanical explanation, and to 
fall back into the purely general explanations of 
scholasticism. 

" This is not the place for a detailed exposition of 
the ideas of Leibniz regarding matter, motion, and 
extension. We need here only recognize that he 
saw in motion the final reality of the physical uni- 
verse. But what about motion? To many, perhaps 
the majority, of minds to-day it seems useless or 
absurd, or both, to ask any question al>out motion. 
It is simply an ultimate /oc^, to which all other facts 
are to be reduced. We are so familiar with it as a 
solution of all physical problems that we are con- 
fused, and fail to recognize it when it appears in 
the guise of a problem. But, I repeat, philosophy 
cannot stop with facts, however ultimate. It must 



THE SOURCES OF HIS I'UILOSOPHY. 39 

also know something about the meaning, the signifi- 
cance, in short the ideal bearing, of facts. From 
the point of view of philosophy, motion has a cer- 
tain function in the economy of the universe ; it is^ 
as Aristotle saw, something ideal. 

The name of Aristotle suggests the principles 
which guided Leibniz in his interpretation of the 
fact of motion. The thought of Aristotle moves 
about the two poles of potentiality and actuality. 
Potentiality is not mere capacity ; it is being in an 
undeveloped, imperfect stage. Actuality is, as the_ 
word suggests, activity. Anything is potehtial in 
so far as it does not manifest itself in action ; it is ^ 
actual so far as it does thus show forth its being. 
Now, movement, or change in its most general sense, 
is that by which the potential comes to the realiza- 
tion of its nature, and functions as an activity. 
Motion, then, is not an ultimate fact, but is subor- 
dinate. It exists for an end. It is that by which 
existence realizes its idea ; that is, its proper type 
of action. 

Now Leibniz does not formally build upon these ' 
distinctions ; and yet he is not very far removed 
from Aristotle. Motion, he is never weary of re- 
peating, means force, means energy, means activity. 
To say that the essence of nature is motion, is to 
say that the natural world finally introduces us to 
the supremacy of action. Reality is activity. Suh- 
stance c*est V action. That is the key-note and the 
battle-cry of the Leibnizian philosophy. Motion is- 
that by which being expresses its nature, fulfils its 



40 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

, purpose, reveals its idea. In short, the specific 
scientific conception of motion is by Leibniz trans- 
formed into the philosophic conception of force, of 
activity. In motion he sees evidence of the fact 
that the universe is radically dynamic. 

In the applicability of mathematics to the inter- 
pretation of nature Leibniz finds witness to the 
continuity and order of the world. We have be- 
come so accustomed to the fact that mathematics 
may be directly employed for the discussion and 
formulation of physical investigations that we for- 
get what is implied in it. It involves the huge as- 
sumption that the world answers to reason ; so that 
whatever the mind finds to be ideally true may be 
taken for granted to be physically true also. But 
in those days, when the correlation of the laws of 
the world and the laws of mathematical reasoning 
was a fresh discovery, this aspect of the case could 
not be easily lost sight of. 

In fact it was this correlation which filled the 
Zeitgeist of the sixteenth century with the idea that 
it had a new organ for the penetration of nature, a 
new sense for learning its meaning. Descartes gives 
the following as the origin of his philosophy : ' ' The 
long chains of simple and easy reasons which geom- 
eters employ, even in their most complex demon- 
strations, made me fancy that all things which are 
the objects of human knowledge are similarly inter- 
dependent " To Leibniz also mathematics seemed 
to give a clew to the order, the interdependence, the 
harmonious relations, of the world. 



THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 41 

In this respect the feeling of Plato that God 
geometrizes found an echoing response in Leibniz. 
But the latter would hardly have expressed it in the 
same way. He would have preferred to say that 
God everywhere uses the infinitesimal calculus. In 
the applicability of the calculus to the discussion 
of physical facts, Leibniz saw two truths reflected, 
— that everything that occurs has its reason, its 
dependent connection upon something else, and that 
all is continuous and without breaks. While the 
formal principles of his logic are those of identity 
and contradiction, his real principles are those of 
suflScient reason and of continuity. Nature never 
makes leaps ; everything in nature has a sufficient 
reason why it is as it is : these are the philosophic 
generalizations which Leibniz finds hidden in the 
applicability of mathematics to physical science. 
Reason finds itself everywhere expressed in na- 
ture ; and the law of reason is unity in diversity, 
continuity. 

Let us say, in a word, that the con-elation between 
the laws of mathematics and of physics is the evi- 
dence of the rational character of nature. Nature 
may be reduced to motions ; and motions can be 
understood only as force, activity. But the laws 
which connect motions are fundamentally mathe- 
matical laws, — laws of reason. Hence force, ac- 
tivity, can be understood only as rational, as 
spiritual. Nature is thus seen to mean Activity, 
and Activity is seen to mean Intelligence. Further- 
more, as the fundamental law of intelligence is the 



42 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

production of difference in unity, the primary law 
of physical change must be the manifestation of this 
unity in difference, — or, as Leibniz interpreted it, 
continuity. In nature there are no breaks, neither 
of quantity nor of quality nor of relationship. The 
full force of this law we shall see later. 

Such an idea can hardly be distinguished from 
the idea of growth or develbpment; one passes 
naturally into the other. Thus it is equally proper 
to say that the third scientific influence, the concep- 
tion of organism and growth, is dominant in the 
Leibnizian thought, or that this is swallowed up 
and absorbed in the grand idea of continuity. The 
law of animal and vegetable life and the law of the 
universe are identified. The substance of the uni- 
verse is activity ; the law of the universe is inter- 
dependence. What is this but to say that the 
universe is an organic whole? Its activity is the 
manifestation of Jife, — nay, it is life. The laws of 
its activity reveal that continuity of development, 
that harmony ot inter-relation, which are everywhere 
the marks of life. The final and fundamental notion, 
therefore, by which Leibniz interprets the laws of 
physics and mathematics is that of Life. This is 
his regnant category. It is " that higher and meta- 
physical source " from which the very existence and 
principles of mechanism flow. The. perpetual and 
ubiquitous presence of motion reveals the pulsations 
of Life ; the correlation, the rationality, o'f these 
motions indicate the guiding presence of Life. This 
idea is the alpha and omega of his philosophy. 



THE rROBLEiM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 43 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 

LEIBNIZ, like every great man, absorbed into 
himself the various thoughts of his time, 
and in absorbing transformed them. He brought 
into a focus of brilliancy the diffused lights of 
truth shining here and there. He summed up in a 
pregnant and comprehensive category the scattered 
principles of his age. Yet we are not to suppose 
that Leibniz considered these various ideas one by 
one, and then patched them into an artificial unity 
of thought. Philosophies are not manufactured 
piecemeal out of isolated and fragmentary thoughts ; 
they grow from a single root, absorbing from their 
environment whatever of sustenance offers itself, 
and maturing in one splendid fruit of spiritual 
truth. It is convenient, indeed, to isolate various 
phases of truth, and consider them as distinct 
forces working to shape one final product, and as a 
convenient artifice it is legitimate. But it answers 
to no process actually occurring. Leibniz never 
surrendered his personal unity, and out of some 
one root-conception grew all his ideas. The prin- 
ciples of his times were not separate forces acting 
upon him, they were the foods of which he selected 



44 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

and assimilated such as were fitted to nourish his 
one great conception. 

But it is more than a personal unity which holds 
together the thinking of a philosopher. There is 
the unity of the problem, which the philosopher 
has always before him, and in which all particular 
ideas find their unity. All else issues from this 
and merges into it. The various influences which 
we have seen affecting Leibniz, therefore, got their 
effectiveness from the relation which he saw them 
-bear to the final problem of all thought. This is 
the inquiry after the unity of experience, if we 
look at it from the side of the subject ; the unity 
of reality, if we put it from the objective side. 
Yet each age states this problem in its own way, 
because it sees it in the light of some difficulty 
which has recently arisen in consciousness. At 
one time, the question is as to the relation of the 
one to the many ; at another, of the relation of 
the sensible to the intelligible world ; at another, 
of the relation of the individual to the universal. 
And this last seems to have been the way in which 
it specifically presented itself to Leibniz. This 
way of stating it was developed, though apparently 
without adequate realization of its meaning, by 
the philosophy of scholasticism. It stated the 
problem as primarily a logical question, — the re- 
lation of genera, of species, of individuals to each 
other. And the school-boy, made after the stamp 
of literary tradition, knows that there were two 
parties among the Schoolmen, — the Realists, and 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 45 

the l^ominalists ; one asserting, the other denying, 
the objective reality of universals. To regard this 
discussion as useless, is to utter the condemnation of 
philosophy, and to relegate the foundation of sci- 
ence to the realm of things not to be inquired into. 
To say that it is an easy matter to decide, is to as- 
sume the decision with equal ease of all the prob- 
lems that have vexed the thought of humanity. To 
us it seems easy because we have bodily incor- 
porated into our thinking the results of both the 
realistic and the nominalistic doctrines, without at- 
tempting to reconcile them, or even being conscious 
of the necessity of reconciliation. We assert in 
one breath that the individual is alone real, and in 
the next assert that only those forms of conscious- 
ness which represent something in the universe are 
to be termed knowledge. At one moment we say 
that universals are creations of the individual mind, 
and at the next pass on to talk of laws of nature, 
or even of a reign of law. In other words, we have 
learned to regard both the individual and the uni- 
versal as real, and thus ignoring the problem, think 
we have solved it. 

But to Leibniz the problem presented itself neither 
as a logical question, nor yet as one whose solution 
might be taken for granted. On the contrary, it 
was just this question : How shall we conceive the 
individual to be related to the universe? which 
seemed to him to be the nerve of the philosophic 
problem, the question whose right answer would 
solve the problems of religion, of morals, of the 



46 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

basis of science, as well as of the nature of reality. 
The importance of just this way of putting the 
question had been rendered evident by the prede- 
cessors and contemporaries of Leibniz, especially by 
Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. His more specific 
relations to the last-named will occupy us hereafter ; 
at present we must notice how the question stood 
at the hands of Descartes and Spinoza. 

Descartes had separated the individual from the 
universal. His philosophy began and ended with 
a dualism. I have just said that the problem of phi- 
losophy is the unity of experience. Yet we find that 
there have been thinkers, and those of the first rank, 
who have left the matter without discovering any 
ultimate unity, or rather who have made it the bur- 
den of their contention that we cannot explain the 
world without at least two disparate principles. But 
if we continue to look at the matter in this historical 
way, we shall see that this dualism has always been 
treated by the successors of such a philosopher, not 
as a solution, but as a deeper statement of the prob- 
lem. It is the function of dualistic philosophies to 
re-state the question in a new and more significant 
way. There are times when the accepted unity of 
thought is seen to be inadequate and superficial. 
Men are thrashing old straw, and paying themselves 
with ideas which have lost their freshnes's and their 
timeliness. There then arises a philosopher who 
goes deep, beyond the superficial unity, and who 
discovers the untouched problem. His it is to assert 
the true meaning of the question, which has been 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 47 

unseen or evaded. The attitude of dualism is thus 
always necessary, but never final. Its value is not 
in any solution, but in the generality and depth of the 
problem which it proposes, and which incites thought 
to the discovery of a unity of equal depth and com- 
. prehensiveness. 

Except for Descartes, then, we should not be con- 
scious of the gulf that yawns between the individual 
mind and the universe in front of it. He presented 
the opposition as between mind and matter. The 
essence of the former is thought ; of the latter, ex- 
tension. The conceptions are disparate and opposed. 
No interaction is possible. His disciples, more 
consistent than their master, called in a deus ex 
raachina^ — the miraculous intervention of God, — 
in order to account for the appearance of recipro- 
cal action between the universe of matter and the 
thinking individual. Thus they in substance ad- 
mitted the relation between them to be scientifically 
inexplicable, and had recourse to the supernatural. 
The individual does not act upon the universe to 
produce, destroy, or alter the. arrangement of any- 
thing. But upon the occasion of his volition God 
produces a corresponding material change. The 
world does not act upon the soul of the individual 
to produce thoughts or sensations. God, upon oc- 
casion of the external affection, brings them into 
being. With such thoroughness Descartes per- 
formed his task of separation. Yet the introduction 
of the deus ex macldna only complicated the prob- 
lem ; It introduced a third factor where two were 



48 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

already too many. What is the relation of God to 
Mind and to Matter ? Is it simply a third somewhat, 
equally distinct from both, or does it contain both 
within itself? 

Spinoza attempted to solve the problem in the 
latter sense. He conceived God to be the one sub- 
stance of the universe, possessing the two known 
attributes of thought and matter. These attributes 
are one in God ; indeed, he is their unity. This is 
the sole legitimate outcome of the Cartesian prob- 
lem stated as Descartes would have it stated. It 
overcomes the absoluteness of the dualism by dis- 
covering a common and fundamental unity, and at 
the same time takes the subject out of the realm 
of the miraculous. For the solution works both 
ways. It affects the nature of God, as well as of 
extension and thought. It presents him to us, 
not as a supernatural being, but as the unity of 
thought and extension. In knowing these as they 
are, we know God as he is. Spinoza, in other 
words, uses the conception of God in a different 
way from the Cartesians. The latter had treated 
him as the God of theology, — a being supernatu- 
ral ; Spinoza uses the conception as a scientific 
one, and speaks of Dens sive Natura, 

Leibniz recognized the unphilosophic character 
of the recourse to a deus ex machina as clearly as 
Spinoza, and yet did not accept his solution. To 
find out why he did not is the problem of the his- 
torian of thought. The one cause which stands out 
above all others is that in the unity of Spinoza all 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 49 

difference, all distinction, is lost. All particular 
existence^, whether things or persons, are modes of 
extension and thought. Their apparent existence 
is due to the imagination, which is the source of be- 
lief in particular things. When considered as they 
really are, — that is, by the understanding, — they 
vanish. The one substance, with its two unchanging 
attributes of thought and extension, alone remains. 
If it is a philosophic error to give a solution which 
permits of no unity, is it not equally a philosophic 
eiTor to give one which denies difference? So it 
seemed to Leibniz. The problem is to reconcile 
difference in unity, not to swallow up difference in 
a blank oneness, — to reconcile the individual with 
the universe, not to absorb him. 

The unsatisfactoriness of the solution appears 
if we look at it from another side. Difference 
implies change, while a unity in which all variety 
is lost implies quiescence. Change is as much an 
illusion of imagination to Spinoza as is variety. 
The One Reality is permanent. How repugnant the 
conception of a static universe was to Leibniz we 
have already learned. Spinoza fails to satisfy 
Leibniz, therefore, because he does not allow the 
conceptions of individuality and of activity. He 
presents a unity in which all distinction of indi- 
viduals is lost, and in which there is no room for 
change. But Spinoza certainly presented the prob- 
lem more clearly to Leibniz, and revealed more 
definitely the conditions of its solution. The search 
is henceforth for a unity which shall avoid the irre- 
4 



50 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

solvable dualism of Descartes, and yet shall allow 
free play to the principles of individuality and of 
activity. There must be, in short, a universe to 
which the individual beai's a real yet independent 
relation. What is this unity ? The answer, in the 
phraseology of Leibniz, is the monad. Spinoza 
would be right, said Leibniz, were it not for the 
existence of monads. I know there are some who 
have done Leibniz the honor of supposing that this 
is his way of saying, " Spinoza is wrong because 
I am right ; " but I cannot help thinking that the 
saying has a somewhat deeper meaning. What, 
then, is the nature of the monad? The answer to 
this question takes us back to the point where the 
discussion of the question was left at the end of 
chapter second. The nature of the monad is life. 
The monad is the spiritual activity which lives in 
absolute harmony with an infinite number of other 
monads. 

Let us first consider the reasons of Leibniz for 
conceiving th3 principle of unity as spiritual. Pri- 
marily it is because it is impossible to conceive of a * 
unity which is material. In the sensible world there 
is no unity. There are, indeed, aggregations, col- 
lections, which seem like unities ; but the very fact 
that these are aggregations shows that the unity is 
factitious. It is the very nature of matter to be in- 
finitely divisible : to say this is to deny the existence 
of any true principle of unity. The world of nature 
is the world of space and time ; and where in space 
or time shall we find a unity where we may rest? 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 51 

Every point in space, every moment in time, points 
beyond itself. It refers to a totality of which it is 
but a part, or, rather, a limitation. If we add re- 
sistance, we are not better situated. We have to 
think of something which resists ; and to this some- 
thing we must attribute extension, — that is to say, 
difference, plurality. Nor can we find any resistance 
which is absolute and final. There may be a body 
which is undivided, and which resists all energy now 
acting upon it ; Ibut we cannot fram« an intelligible 
idea of a body which is absolutely indivisible. To 
do so is to think of a body out of all relation to exist- 
ing forces, something absolutely isolated ; while the 
forces of nature are always relative to one another. 
That which resists does so in comparison with some 
opposing energy. The absolutely indivisible, on 
the other hand, would be that which could not be 
brought into comparison with other forces ; it would 
not have any of the attributes of force as we know 
it. In a word, whatever exists in nature is relative 
in space, in time, and in qualities to all else. It is 
made what it is by virtue of the totality of its rela- 
tions to the universe ; it has no ultimate principle of 
self-subsistent unity in it. 

'Nor do we fare better if we attempt to find ' 
unity in the world of nature as a whole. Nature 
has its existence as a whole in space and time. In- 
deed, it is only a way of expressing the totality of 
phenomena of space and time. It is a mere aggre- 
gate, a collection. Its very essence is plurality, 
difference. It is divisible without limit, and each 



52 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

of its divisions has as good a right to be called one 
as the whole from which it is broken off. We shall 
consider hereafter Leibniz's idea of infinity ; but it 
is easy to see that he must deny any true infinity to 
nature. An ultimate whole made up of parts is a 
contradictory conception ; and the idea of a quanti- 
tative infinite is equally so. Quantity means number, 
measure, limitation. We may not be able to assign 
number to the totality of occurrences in nature, nor 
to measure her every event. This shows that nature 
is indefinitely greater than any assignable quantity ; 
but it does not remove her from the category of 
quantity. As long as the world is conceived as 
that existing in space and time, it is conceived as 
that which has to be measured. As we saw in the 
last chapter, the heart of the mechanical theory of 
the world is in the application of mathematics to it. 
Since quantity and mathematics are correlative terms, 
the natural world cannot be conceived as infinite or 
as an ultimate unity. < 

In short, Leibniz urges and suggests in one form 
and another those objections to the mechanical 
theory of reality which later German philosophers 
have made us so familiar with. The objections are 
indeed varied in statement, but they all come to the 
impossibility of finding any unity, any wholeness, 
anything except plurality and partiality in that 
which is externally conditioned, — as everything is 
in nature. 

But the reasons as thus stated are rather negative 
than positive. They show why the ultimate unity 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 53 

cannot be conceived as material, rather than why it 
must be conceived as spiritual. The immediate evi- 
dence of its spiritual nature Leibniz finds in the 
perception of the one unity directly known to us, — 
the " me," the conscious principle within, which re- 
veals itself as an active force, and as truly one, since 
not a spatial or temporal existence. And this evi- 
dence he finds confirmed by the fact that whatever 
unity material phenomena appear to have comes to 
them through their perception by the soul. What- 
ever the mind grasps in one act, is manifested as 
one. 

But it is not in any immediate certainty of fact 
that Leibniz finds the best or completest demonstra- 
tion of the spiritual nature of the ultimate unity. 
This is found in the use which can be made of the 
hypothesis. The truest witness to the spiritual 
character of reality is found in the capacity of this 
principle to comprehend and explain the facts of ex- 
perience. With this conception the reason of things 
can be ascertained, and light introduced into what 
were otherwise a confused obscurity. And, indeed, 
this is the only suflBcient proof of any doctrine. It 
is not what comes before the formulation of a theory 
which proves it ; it is not the facts which suggest 
it, or the processes whicli lead up to it : it is what 
comes after the formation of the theory, — the uses 
that it can be put to ; the facts which it will render 
significant. The whole philosophy of Leibniz in its 
simplicity, width, and depth, is the real evidence of 
the truth of his philosophical principle. 



54 Leibniz's" xew essays. 

The monad, then, is a spiintual unity ; it is individ- 
ualized life. Unity, activity, individuality, are syn- 
onymous terms in'the vocabulary of Leibniz. Every 
unity is a true substance, containing within itself the 
source and law of its own activity. It is that which 
is internally determined to action. It is to be con- 
ceived after the analogy of the soul. It is an indi- 
visible unity, like " that particular something in us 
which thinks, apperceives and wills, and distin- 
guishes us in a way of its own from whatever else 
thinks and wills." Against Descartes, therefore, 
Leibniz stands for the principle of unity; against 
Spinoza, he upholds the doctrine of individuality, of 
diversity, of multiplicity. And the latter principle 
is as important in his thought as the former. Indeed, 
they are inseparable. The individual is the tnie 
unity. There is an infinite number of these indi- 
viduals, each distinct from every other. The law 
of specification, of distinction, runs through the 
universe. •Two beings cannot be alike. They are 
not individualized merely by their different positions 
in space or time ; duration and extension, on the 
contrary, ai-e, as we have seen, principles of rela- 
tivity, of connection. Monads are specified by an 
internal principle. Their distinct individuality is 
constituted by their distinct law of activity. Leibniz 
will not have a philosophy of abstract unity, repre- 
senting the universe as simple only, he will have a 
philosophy equal to the diversity, the manifold wealth 
of variety, in the universe. This is only to say that 
he will be faithful to his fundamental notion^ — that 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 55 

of Life. Life does not mean a simple unity like a 
mathematical one, it means a unity which is the 
harmony of the interplay of diverse organs, each 
following its own law and having its own function. 
When Leibniz says, God willed to have more monads 
rather than fewer, the expression is indeed one of 
naivete^ but the thought is one of unexplored depth. 
It is the thought that Leibniz repeats when he says, 
' ' Those who would reduce all things to modifications 
of one universal substance do not have sufficient re- 
gard to the order ^ the harmony of reality." Leibniz 
applies here, as everywhere, the principle of continu- 
ity, which is unity in and through diversity, hot the 
X>rinciple of bare oneness. There is a kingdom of 
monads, a realm truly infinite, composed of individ- 
ual unities or activities in an absolute continuity. 
Leibniz was one of the first, if not the first, to use 
just the expression ''uniformity of nature;" but 
even here he explains that it means ''uniform in 
variety, one in principle, but varied in manifes- 
tation." The world is to be as rich as possible. 
This is simply to say that distinct individuality as 
well as ultimate unity is a law of reality. 

But has not Leibniz fallen into a perilous po- 
sition? In avoiding the monotone of unity which 
characterizes tlie thought of Spinoza, has lie not 
fallen into a lawless variety of multiplicity, infinitely 
less philosophic than even the dualism of Descartes, 
since it has an infinity of ultimate principles instead 
of only two? If Spinoza sacrificed the individual 
to the universe, has not Leibniz, in his desire to 



56 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

emphasize the individual, gone to the other extreme? 
Apparently we are introduced to a universe that is 
a mere aggregate of an infinite multiplicity of 
realities, each independent of every other. Such 
a universe would not be a universe. It would be 
a chaos of disorder and conflict. We come, there- 
fore, to a consideration of the relation between 
these individual monads and the universe. We 
have to discover what lifts the monads out of their 
isolation and bestows upon them that stamp of uni- 
versality which makes it possible for them to enter 
into the coherent structure of reality : in a word, 
what is the universal content which the monad in 
its formal individuality bears and manifests? 

The way in which the question has just been 
stated suggests the Leibnizian answer. The mo- 
nad, indeed, in its form is thoroughly individual, 
having its own unique mode of activity ; . but its 
content, that which this activity manifests, is not 
peculiar to it as an individual, but is the substance 
or law of the universe. It is the very nature of 
the monad to be representative. Its activity con- 
sists in picturing or reproducing those _relations 
which make up the world of reality. In jl conscious 
soul, the ability thus to represent the_world is 
called ''perception," and thus Leib niz attributes, 
perception to all the monads. This is not to be 
understood as a conscious representatio n of reality 
to itself (for this the term " appercep tion " is re- 
served) , but it signifies that the very essence of the 
monad is to produce states which are notTts' own 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 57 

peculiar possessions, but which reflect the facts and 
relations j>f the. universe. Leibniz never wearies 
in finding new ways to express this purely repre- 
sentative character of the monad. The monads are 
little souls ;_ thej^&ye_m\rrors jof the world ; t hey 
are c oncentrations of the u nive rse, each expressin g 
it in its own way ; borrowings a term fro m scho - 
lastic ism, they are ^^ substantial forms." They are 
substantial , for they are indepe nden t unitie s ; they 
are forms, because the term " form" expresses, in 
Aristotelian pbraseol ogv, the type or law ol^omfi 
class of phenomena. The monad is an individual, 
but its whole content, its objectivity or reality, is 
the summation of the universe which it represents. 
It is individual, but whatever marks it as actual 
is some reproduction of the world. His recon- 
ciliation of the principles of individuality and 
universality is contained in the following words: 
[T" Each monad contains within itself an order 
corresponding to that of the universe, — indeed, the 
monads represent the universe in an infinity of 
ways, all dififerent, and all true, thus multiplying 
the universe as many times as is possible, approach- 
ing the divine as near as may be, and giving the 
world all the perfection of which it is capable.*' 
The monad is individual, for it represents reality in 
its own way, from its own point of view. It is 
universal, for its whole content is the order of the 
universe. 

New light is thus thrown upon the former state- 
ment that reality is activity, that the measure of 



58 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

v^a being is the action which it puts forth. That 
statement is purely formal. It leaves the kind of 
activity and its law wholly undetermined. But 
this relation of '' representativeness " which we have 
discovered gives definiteness. It is the law of the 
monad's action to mirror, to reflect, the universe ; 
its changes follow each other so as to Iwing about 
this reflection in the completest degree ix)ssible. 
The monad is literally the many in the one ; it is 
the answer to the inquiry of Greek philosophy. 
The many are not present by way of participation 
in some underlying essence, not yet as statically 
possessed by the one, as attributes are sometimes 
supposed to inhere in a substratum. The " many" 
is the manifestation of the activity of the '' one." 
The one and the many are related as form and 
content in an organic unity, which is activity. The 
essenc.e of a substance, says Leibniz, consists in 
tliat regular tencloiicy of action by which its phe- 
nomena follow one another in a certain order ; and 
that order, as he repeatedly states, is the order in 
which the universe itself is arranged. 

The activity of a monad may be advantageously 
compared to that of a supposed atom, granting, for 
the sake of the illustration, that there is such a thiug. 
Each is iu a state of change : the atom changes its 
place, the monad its representation, and each in the 
simplest and most uniform way that its conditions 
permit. How, then, is there such a similarity, such 
a monotony, in the change of an atom, and such 
variety and complexity in the change of a monad? 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 59 

It is because the atom has merely parts, or ex- 
ternal variety, while the monad has an internal 
variety. Multiplicity is organically wrought into 
its very being. It has an essential relation to all 
things in the universe ; and to say that this rela- 
tion is essential^ is to gay that it is Qng..whiclLXon- 
stitutes its very content, its being. Hence the cause 
of the changes of the monad, of their variety and 
complexity, is one with the cause of the richness, 
the profusion, the regulated variety of change in the 
universe itself. While we have employed a com- 
parison with atoms, this very comparison may serve 
to show us the impossibility of atoms as they are 
generally defined by the physicist turned philosopher. 
Atoms have no internal and essential relation to the 
world ; they have no internal connection witli any 
one thing in the world : and what is this but to say 
that they do not enter anywhere into the structure 
of the world ? By their very conception they are for- 
ever aliens, banished from any share or lot in the 
realm of reality. The idea which Leibniz never 
lets go, the idea which he always accentuates, is, 
then, the idea of an individual activity which in 
its continual change manifests as its own internal 
content and reality that reality and those hiws of, 
connection which make up the world itself. 

We are thus introduced naturally to the concep- ; 
tion which plays so large a part in the Leibnizian 
philosophy, that of pre-established harmony. This 
term simply names the fact, which we see" to be 
fundamental with Leibniz, — the fact that, while 



60 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

the form of every monad is individuality, a unique 
principle of action, its content is universal, the very 
being and laws of the world. For we must now 
notice more explicitly what has been wrapped up in 
the idea all along. There is no direct influence of 
monads upon each other. One cannot affect another 
causally. There is no actual interaction of one upon 
another. Expressed in that figurative language 
which was ever natural to Leibniz, the monads have 
no windows by which anything can get in or out. 
This follows, of course, from the mutual inde- 
pendence and individuality of the monads. They 
are a true democracy, in which each citizen has sov- 
ereignty. To admit external influences acting upon 
them is to surrender their independence, to deny 
their sovereignty. But we must remember the other 
half. This democracy is not after the Platonic con- 
ception of democracy, in which each does as it 
pleases, and in which there is neither order nor 
law, but the extremest assertion of individuality. 
What each sovereign citizen of the realm of reality 
expresses is precisely law. Each is an embodiment 
in its own way of the harmony, the order, of the 
whole kingdom. Each is sovereign because it is 
dynamic law, — law which is no longer abstract, 
but has realized itself in life. Thus another way of 
stating the doctrine of pre-established harmony is 
the unity of freedom and necessity. Each monaid 
is free because it is individual, because it follow^ 
the law of its own activity unhindered, unretarded, 
by others ; it is self-determined. But it is self- 



THE PROBI.EM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 61 

determined to show forth the order, the harmony, 
of the universe. There is nothing of caprice, of 
peculiarity, in the content of the monad. It shows 
forth order; it is organized by law; it reveals 
the necessary connections which constitute the uni- 
verse. The pre-established harmony is the unity of 
the individual and the universe ; it is the organic 
oneness of freedom and necessity. 

We see still further what it means when we learn 
that it is by this conception that Leibniz reconciles 
the conceptions of physical and final causation. 
There is no principle closer to the thought of Leibniz 
than that of the equal presence and efficiency every- 
where of both physical and final causes. Every fact 
which occurs is susceptible of a mechanical and of 
a rational explanation. It is necessarily connected 
with preceding states, and it has a necessary end 
which it is fulfilling. The complete meaning of this 
principle will meet us hereafter ; at present we must 
notice that it is one form of the doctrine of pre- 
established harmony. All things have an end be- 
cause they form parts of one system ; everything 
that occurs looks forward to something else and 
prepares the way for it, and yet it is itself mechani- 
cally conditioned by its antecedents. This is only 
another way of saying that there is complete har- 
mony between all beings in the universe ; so that 
each monad in fulfilling the law of its own existence 
contributes to the immanent significance of the uni- 
verse. The monads are co-ordinated in such a way 
that they express a common idea. There is a plan 



G2 LE1BNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

coinuiou to all, in which each has its own place. 
All are making towards one goal, expressing one 
purpose. The universe is an organism ; and Leib- 
niz would have applied to it the words which Milne- 
Edwards applied to the human organism, as I find 
them quoted by Lewes : " In the organism every- 
tliing seems to be calculated with one determined 
result in view ; and the harmony of the parts does 
not result from the influence which they exert upon 
one another, but from their co-ordination under the 
rule of a common force, a preconceived plan, a 
pre-existent force.'' That is to say, the universe 
is teleological, l)oth as a whole and in its parts; 
for there is a common idea animating it and ex- 
pressed by it ; it is mechanical, for this idea is 
realized and manifested by the outworking of 
forces. 

It ought to be evident even from this imperfect 
sketch that the Leibnizian theory of pre-established 
harmony is not that utterly artificial and grotesque 
doctrine which it is sometimes represented to be. 
The phrase "pre-established harmony " is, strictly 
speaking, tautologous. The term " pre-established " 
is superfluous. It means " existent." There is no 
real harmony which is not existent or pre-established. 
An accidental harmony is a contradiction in terms. 
It means a chaotic cosmos, an unordered order, a 
lawless law, or whatever else is nonsensical. 

Harmony, in short, means relation, means con- 
nection, means subordination and co-ordination, 
means adjustment, means a variety, which yet is 



THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION. 63 

one. The Leibnizian doctriue is not a factitious 
product of his imagination, nor is it a mechanical 
scheme for reconciling a problem which has no exis- 
tence outside of the bewildered brains of philoso- 
phers. It is an expression of the fact that the 
universe is one of order, of continuity, of unity ; it 
is the accentuating of this doctrine so that the very 
essence of reality is found in this ordered combina- 
tion ; it is the special application of this principle 
to the solution of many of the problems which '' the 
mind of man is apt to run into/' — the questions of 
the relation of the individual and the universal, of 
freedoni and necessity, of the physical and ma- 
terial, of the teleological and mechanical. We may 
not be contented with the doctrine as he presents 
it, we may think it to be rather a summary and 
highly concentrated statement of the- problem than 
its solution, or we may object to details in the carry- 
ing out of the doctrine. But we cannot deny that 
it is a genuine attempt to meet a genuine problem, 
and that it contains some, if not all, of the factors 
required for its adequate solution. To Leibniz must 
remain the glory of being the thinker to seize upon 
the perfect unity and order of the universe as its 
essential characteristic, and of arranging his thoughts 
with a view to discovering and expressing it. 

We have but to notice one point more, and our 
task is done so far as it serves to make plain the 
standpoint from whicii Leibniz criticised Locke. 
There is, we have seen, the greatest possible con- 
tinuity and complexity in the realm of monads. 



64 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

There is no break, quantitative nor qualitative. It 
follows that the human soul has no gulf set between 
it and what we call nature. It i6 only the highest, 
that is to say the most active and the most repre- ' 
sentative, of all monads. It stands, indeed, at 
the head of the scale, but not outside it. From 
the monad which reveals its presence in that stone 
which with blinded eyes we call dead, through that 
which acts in the plant, in the animal, up to that of 
man, there is no chasm, no interruption. Nay, man 
himself is but one link in the chain of spiritual 
beings which ends only in God. All monads are 
souls ; the soul of man is a monad which represents 
the universe more distinctly and adequately. The 
law which is enfolded in the lower monads is de- 
veloped in it and forms a part of its conscious 
activity. The universe, which is confusedly mirrored 
by the perception of the lower monad, is clearly 
brought out in the conscious apperception of man. 
The stone is representative of the whole world. An 
all-knowing intelligence might read in it relations 
to every other fact in the world, might see exem- 
plified the past history of the world, and prefigured 
the events to come. For the stone is not an isolated 
existence, it is an inter-organic member of a system. 
Change the slightest fact in the world, and in some 
way it is affected. The law of the universe is one 
of completed reciprocity, and this law must be 
mirrored in every existence of the universe. In- 
crease the activity, the representative power, until 
it becomes turned back, as it were, upon itself, 



THE PROBLEM, AND iTS SOLUTION. 65 

until the monad not only is a mirror, but knows 
itself as one, and you have man. The soul of man 
is the world come to consciousness of itself. The 
realm of monads in what we call the inorganic world 
and the lower organic realm shows us the monad 
let and hindered in its development. These realms 
attempt to speak forth the law of their being, and 
reveal the immanent presence of the universe ; but 
they do not hear their own voice, their utterance is 
only for others. In man the universe is manifested, 
and is manifested to man himself. 



66 LEIBNIZ'8 NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 

THE reader, impatient of what may have seemed 
an over-long introduction, has perhaps been 
asking when he was to be brought to the subject 
under consideration, — the relations of Leibniz to 
Locke. But it has been impossible to come to this 
question until we had formed for ourselves an out- 
line of the philosophical position of Leibniz. No- 
where in the " Nouveaux Essais" does Leibniz 
give a connected and detailed exposition of his phi- 
losophy, either as to his standpoint, his fundamental 
principles, or his method. 

Some preliminary view of his position is there- 
fore a necessity. The demand for this preliminary 
exposition becomes more urgent as we recognize 
that Leibniz's remarks upon Locke are not a critique 
of Locke from the standpoint of the latter, but are 
the application of his own philosophical conclusions. 
Criticism from within, an examination of a system 
of thought with relation to the consistency and co- 
herency of its results, the connection between these 
results and the method professedly employed, inves- 
tigation which depends not at all upon the position 
of the critic, but occupies itself with the internal 
relations of the system under discussion, — such 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 67 

criticism is a product of the present century. What 
we find in the " Nouveaux Essais " is a comparison 
of the ideas of Locke with those of Leibniz himself, 
a testing of the former by the latter as a standard, 
their acceptance when they conform, their rejection 
when they are opposed, their completion when they 
are in partial harmony. 

The value of this sort of criticism is likely to be 
small and evanescent. If the system used as a 
standard is meagre and narrow, if it is without 
comprehensiveness and flexibility, it does not repay 
after-examination. The fact that the " Nouveaux 
Essais " of Leibniz have escaped the oblivion of the 
philosophical criticism of his day is proof, if proof 
still be needed, of the reasoned basis, the width of 
grasp, the fertility of suggestion which characterize 
the thought of Leibniz. But the fact that the criti- 
cism is, after all, external and not internal has 
made necessary the foregoing extended account of 
his method and general results. 

On the other hand, what of Locke? How about 
him who is the recipient of the criticism? I assume 
that no extended account of his ideas is here neces- 
sary, and conceive myself to be justified in this 
assumption by the fact that we are already better • 
acquainted with Locke. This acquaintance, indeed,, 
is not confined to those who have expressly studied 
Locke. His thought is an inheritance into which 
every English-speaking person at least is born. 
Only he who does not think escapes* this inheritance.- 
Locke did the work which be had to do so thoroughly 



68 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

that every Englishman who will philosophize must 
either build upon Locke's foundations, or, with con- 
scious purpose, clear the ground before building for 
himself. And it would be difficult to say that the 
acceptance of Locke's views would influence one's 
thought more than their rejection. This must not, 
of course, be taken too literally. It may be that one 
who is a lineal descendant of Locke in the spiritual 
generations of thought would not state a single im- 
portant truth as Locke stated it, or that those who 
seek their method and results elsewhere have not 
repudiated the thought of Locke as expressly be- 
longing to him. 

But the fundamental principles of empiricism : its 
conception of intelligence as an individual pos- 
session ; its idea of reality as something over 
against and distinct from mind; its explanation 
of knowledge as a process of action and reaction 
between these separate things ; its account of our 
inability to know things as they really are, — these 
principles are congenital with our thinking. They 
are so natural that we either accept them as axio- 
matic, and accuse those who reject them of metaphys- 
ical subtlety, or, staggered perchance by some of 
their results, give them up with an effort. But it is 
an effort, and a severe one ; and there is none of us 
who can tell when some remnant of the conception 
of intelligence as purely particular and finite will 
catch him tripping. On the other hand^ we, realize 
much better than those who have behind them a 
Leibniz and a Kant, rather than a Locke and a Hume, 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 69 

the meaning and the thorough -going necessity of the 
universality of intelligence. Idealism must be in 
some ways arbitrary and superficial to him who has 
not had a pretty complete course of empiricism. ; 

Leibniz seems to have been impressed with the 
Essay on the Human Understanding at its first ap- 
pearance. As early as 1696 we find him writing a 
few pages of comment upon the book. Compared 
with his later critique, these early " reflections " seem 
colorless, and give the impression that Leibniz desired 
to minimize his differences from Locke rather than 
to set them forth in relief. Comparatively slight as 
were his expressions of dissent, they appear to have 
stung Locke when they reached him. Meantime 
Locke's book was translated into French, and made 
its way to a wider circle of readers. This seems to 
have suggested to Leibniz the advisability of pur- 
suing his comments somewhat further; and in the 
summer of 1703 he produced the work which now 
occupies us. A letter which Leibniz wrote at about 
this time is worth quoting at large for the light which 
it throws upon the man, as well as for suggesting 
the chief points in which he differed from Locke. 
Leibniz writes : — 

" I have forgotten to tell you that my comments 
upon the work of Locke are nearly done. As he 
has spoken in a chapter of his second book about 
freedom, he has given me an opportunity to dis- 
cuss that ; and I hope that I ipay have done it in 
such a way as will please you. Above all, I have 
laid it upon myself to save the immateriality of the 



70 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

soul, which Locke leaves doubtful. I justify also 
the existence of innate ideas, and show that the soul 
produces their ])erception out of itself. Axioms, 
too, I approve, 'while Locke has a low opinion of 
them. In contradiction to him, I show that the 
individuality of man, through which he preserves 
his identity, consists in the duration of the simple 
or immaterial substance which animates him ; that 
the soul is never without representations ; that there 
is neither a vacuum nor atoms ; that matter, or the 
passive principle, cannot be conscious, excepting 
as God unites with it a conscious substance. We 
disagree, indeed, in numerous other points, for I 
find that he rates too low the noble pliilosophy of 
the Platonic school (as Descartes did in part), and 
substitutes opinions which degrade us, 'and which 
may become hurtful to morals, though I am per- 
suaded that Locke's intention was thoroughly good. 
I have made these comments in leisure hours, when 
I have been journeying or visiting, and could not 
occupy myself with investigations requiring great 
pains. The work has continued to grow under my 
hands, for in almost every chapter, and to a greater 
extent than I hid thought possible, I have found 
matter for remark. You will be astonished when I 
tell you that I have worked upon this as upon some- 
thing which requires no great pains. But the fact 
is, that I long ago established the general principles 
of philosophic subjects in my mind in* a demon- 
strative way, or pretty nearly so, and that they do 
not require miic4i new consideration fx'om me," 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 71 

Leibniz goes on to add that he has put these 
reflections in the form of a dialogue that they may 
be more attractive ; has written them in the pop- 
ular language, rather than in Latin, that they may 
reach as wide a circle as the work of Locke ; and 
that he hopes to publish them soon, as Locke is 
already an old man, and he wishes to get them 
before the public while Locke may still reply. 

But unfortunately this last hope was destined to 
remain unrealized. Before the work of revision 
was accomplished, Locke died. Leibniz, in a letter 
written in 1714, alludes to his controversy with 
Locke as follows: " I do not like the thought of 
publishing refutations of authors who are dead. 
These should appear during their life, and be com- 
municated to them." Then, referring to his earlier 
comments, he says : " A few remarks escaped me, 
I hardly know how, and were taken to England. 
Mr. Locke, having seen them, spoke of them slight- 
ingly in a letter to Molineux. I am not astonished 
at it. We were somewhat too far apart in prin- 
ciple, and that which I suggested seemed paradox- 
ical to him." Leibniz, according to his conviction 
here expressed, never published his " Nouveaux 
Essais sur TEntendement Humain." Schaarschmidt 
remarks that another reason may have restrained 
him, in that he did not wish to carry on too many con- 
troversies at once with the English people. He had 
two on his hands then, — one with the Newtonians 
regarding the infinitesimal calculus ; the other with 
Bishop Clarke regarding the nature of God, of time 



72 ' LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

and space, of freedom, and cognate subjects. 
However, in 1765, almost fifty years after the 
death of Leibniz, his critique upon Locke finally 
appeared. 

It is somewhat significant that one whose ten- 
dency was conciliatory, who was eminently what 
the Germans delight to call him, a "mediator," 
attempting to unite the varied truths which he found 
scattered in opposed systems, should have had so 
much of his work called forth by controversy. 
Aside from the cases just mentioned, his other chief 
work, the Theodicy, is, in form, a reply to Bayle. 
Many of his minor pieces are replies to criticism or 
are developments of his own thought with critical 
reference to Descartes, Malebranche, and others. 
But Leibniz has a somewhat different attitude 
towards his British and towards his Continental 
opponents. With the latter he was always in sym- 
patliy, while they in turn gave whatever he uttered 
a respectful hearing. Their mutual critiques begin 
and end in compliments. But the Englishmen 
found the thought of Leibniz "paradoxical" and 
forced. It seemed to them wildly speculative, and 
indeed arbitrary guess-work, without any special 
reason for its production, and wholly unverifiable in 
its results. Such has been the fate of much of the 
best German thought since that time in the land of 
the descendants of Newton and Locke. But Leib- 
niz, on the other hand, felt as if he were dealing, 
in philosophical matters at least, with foemen hardly 
worthy of his steel. Locke, he says, had subtlety 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 73 

and address, and a sort of svperficial metaphysics ; 
but he was ignorant of the method of mathematics, — 
that is to say, from the standpoint of Leibniz, of 
the method of all science. We have already seen 
that he thought the examination of a work which 
had been the result of the continued labor of Locke 
was a matter for the leisure hours of his courtly 
visits. Indeed, he would undoubtedly have felt 
about it what he actually expressed regarding his 
controversy with Clarke, — that he engaged in it 

* * Liidus et jocus, quia in philosophia 
Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante pei-egi. " 

He regarded the English as superficial and without 
grasp of principles, as they thought him over-deep 
and over-theoretical. 

From this knowledge of the external circum- 
stances of the work of Leibniz and its relation to 
Locke, it is necessary that we turn to its internal 
content, to the thought of Leibniz as related to the 
ideas of Locke. The Essay on the Human Under- 
standing is, as the name implies, an account of the 
nature of knowledge. Locke tells us that it origi- 
nated in the fact that often, when he had been en- 
gaged in discussions with his friends, they found 
themselves landed in insoluble difficulties. This 
occurred so frequently that it seemed probable that 
they had been going at matters from the wrong side, 
and that before they attempted to come to conclu- 
sions about questions, they ought to examine the ca- 
pacity of intelligence, and see whether it is fitted 



74 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

to deal with siich questions. Locke, in a word, is 
another evidence of that truth which lies at the 
basis of all forms of philosophical thought, however 
opposed they may be to one another, — the truth that 
knowledge and reality are so organic to each other 
that to come to any conclusion about one, we must 
know something about the other. Reality equals 
objects known or knowable, and knowledge equals 
reality dissolved in ideas, — reality which has be- 
come translucent through its meaning. 

Locke's Essay is, then, an account of the origin, 
nature, extent, and limitations of human knowledge. 
Such is its subject-matter. What is its method? 
Locke himself tells us that he uses the " plain his- 
torical method.*' We do not have to resort to the 
forcing of language to learn that this word " his- 
torical " contains the key to his work. Every page 
of the Essay is testimony to the fact that Locke 
always proceeds by inquiring into the way and 
circumstances by which knowledge of the subject 
under consideration came into existence and into 
the conditions by which it was developed. Origin 
means with Locke, not logical dependence, but tem- 
poral production ; development means temporal 
succession. In the language of our day, Locke's 
Essay is an attempt to settle ontological questions 
by a psychological method. And as we have before 
noticed, Leibniz meets him, not by inquiry into the 
pertinence of the method or into the validity of 
results so reached, but by the more direct way of 
impugning his psychology, by substituting another 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 75 

theory of the nature of mind and of the way in 
which it works. 

The questions with which the discussion begins 
are as to the existence of innate ideas, and as to 
whether the soul always thinks, — questions which 
upon their face will lead the experienced reader of 
to-day to heave a sigh* in memory of hours wasted 
in barren dispute, and which will create a desire to 
turn elsewhere for matter more solid and more 
nutritive. But in this case, under the fonn which 
the discussion takes at the hands of Leibniz, the 
question which awaits answer under the meagre and 
worn-out formula of " innate ideas " is the function 
of intelligence in experience. 

Locke denies, and denies with great vigor, the 
existence of innate ideas. His motives in so doing 
are practical and theoretical. He sees almost every 
old idea, every, hereditary prejudice, every vested 
interest of thought, defended on the ground that 
it is an innate idea. Innate ideas were sacred, and 
everything which could find no defence before 
reason was an innate idea. Under such circum- 
stances he takes as much interest in demolishing 
them as Bacon took in the destruction of the 
" eidols." But this is but a small portion of the 
object of Locke. He is a thorough-going empiri- 
cist; and the doctrine of innate ideas appears to 
offer the greatest obstacle to the acceptance of the 
truth that all the furnishing of the intellect comes 
from experience. Locke's metaphors for the mind 
are that it Is a blank tablet, an empty closet, an 



76 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

unwritten book. The '' innate idea " is only a sen- 
tence written by experience, but which, deified by a 
certain school of philosophers, has come to be 
regarded as eternally imprinted upon the soul. 

Such, indeed, is Locke's understanding of the 
nature of innate ideas. He conceives of them as 
*' characters stamped^ as it were, upon the mind of 
man, which the soul has received in its first being 
and brings into the world with it ; " or they are 
'' constant impressions which the souls of men 
receive in their first beings." They are ''truths 
imprinted upon the soul." Having this conception 
of what is meant by " innate ideas," Locke sets 
himself with great vigor, and, it must be confessed, 
with equal success, to their annihilation. 

His argument is somewhat diffuse and scattered, 
but in substance it is as follows : Whatever is in 
the mind, the mind must be conscious of. " To be 
in the mind and not to be perceived, is all one as to 
say that anything is and is not in the mind." If 
there be anything in the mind which is innate, it 
must be present to the consciousness of all, and, it 
would seem, of all at all times, savages, infants, 
and idiots incUided. And as it requires little phil- 
osophical penetration to see that savages do not 
ponder upon the -principle that whatever is, is ; that 
infants do not dwell in their cradle upon the thought 
of contradiction, or idiots ruminate upon that of 
excluded middle, — it ought to be evident that such 
truths cannot be innate. Indeed, we must admit, 
with Locke, that probably few men ever come to 



LOCKE AND LEIBKIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 77 

the explicit consciousness of such ideas, and that 
these few are such as direct their miuds to the 
matter with some pains. Locke's argument may be 
summed up in his words: K these are not notions 
naturally imprinted, how can they be innate ? And 
if they are notions naturally im^jrinted, how can 
they be unknown? 

But since it may be said that these truths are in 
the mind, but in such a way that it is only when 
they are proposed that men assent to them, Locke 
goes on to clinch his argument. If this be true, it 
shows that the ideas are not innate ; for the same 
thing is true of a large number of scientific truths, 
those of mathematics and morals, as well as of 
purely sensible facts, as that red is not blue, sweet 
is not sour, etc., — truths and facts which no one 
calls innate. , Or if it be said that they are in the 
mind implicitly or potentially, Locke points out 
that this means either nothing at all, or else that 
the mind is capable of knowing them. If this is \ 
what is meant by innate ideas, then all ideas are : 
innate ; for certainly it cannot be denied that the j 
mind is capable of knowing all that it ever does 
know, or, as Locke ingenuously remarks, " nobody 
ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing / 
several truths." 

It is evident that the force of Locke's contention 
against innate ideas rests upon a certain theory 
regarding the nature of innate ideas and of the , 
relations of consciousness to intelligence. Besides 
tills, there runs through his whole polemic the 



78 Leibniz's new essays. 

assertion that, after all, innate ideas are useless, as 
experience, in the sense of impressions received 
from without, and the formal action of intelligence 
upon them, is adequate to doing all they are sup- 
posed to do. It is hardly too much to say that the 
nerve of Locke's argument is rather in this positive 
assertion than in the negations which he brings 
against this existence. Leibniz takes issue with 
him on each of these three points. He has another 
conception of the very nature of innate ideas ; he 
denies Locke's opinions about consciousness; he 
brings forward an opposed theory upon the relation 
of experience to reason. This last point we shall 
take up in a chapter by itself, as its importance ex- 
tends far beyond the mere question as to the exist- 
ence of ideas which may properly be called Innate. 
The other two questions, as to the real character of 
innate ideas and the relation of an idea^ to colsfious- 
ness, afford material to occup(y us for the present. 

The metaphor which Locke constantly uses is the 
clew to his conception of innate ideas. They are 
characters stamped or imprinted upon the mind, 
they exist in the mind. The mind would be just 
what it is, even if they had no existence. It would 
not have quite so much " in " it, but its own nature 
would not be changed. Innate ideas he conceiv es 
as bearing a purely external relation t o mind. They 
are not organic to it, nor necessary instrument s 
through which it expresses itself ; .they are mec ham- 
cally impressed upon it. But what the " intellec- 
tual " school had meant by innate ideas was precisely 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 79 

that the relation of ideas to intelligence is 7iot that of 
passive holding or containing on the side of mind, 
and of impressions or stamps on the side of the 
ideas. Locke reads the fundamental category of 
empiricism — mechanical relation, or external action ! 
— into the nature of innate ideas, and hence easily 
infers their absurdity. But the object of the up- 
holders of innate ideas had been precisely to deny 
that this category was applicable to the whole of 
intelligence. By an innate idea they meant an as- 
sertion ^Jhaldynaralc relation _of intelligence and 
some of^ its idea8_^ They meant to assert that intel- 
ligence has a structure, which necessarily functions j 
i n certa in ways^ While I^cke's highest conception i 
of an innate idea was fRatTt must be something ready 
made, dwelling in the mind prior to experience, 
Leibniz everywhere asserts that it is a connection 
and relation whTch forms the logical prius and th^ 
psychological basis of experience. He finds no 
diflSculty in admitting all there is of positive truth in 
■ Locke's doc trine ; namely, that we arenot conscious 
of these Jnnate ideas until a period later thanthat in 
which we are conscious of sensible facts, or, in many 
cases, are not conscious of them at all. This prior- 
ityln time of sensible experience to rational knowl- 
edge, however, can become a reason for denying the 
"innate" character of the latter only when we 
suppose that they are two entirely different orders 
of fact, one knowledge due ta experience, the other 
knowledge alrea dy formed and existing in the mind 
prior to " experience." 



80 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

Leibniz's conception of the matter is brought out 
when he says that it is indeed true that we be- 
gin with particular experiences rather than with 
general principles, but that the order of nature 
is the reverse, for the ground, the basis of the par- 
ticular truths is in the general ; the former being in 
reality only instances of the latter../ General prin- 
ciples, he says, enter into all our thoughts, and form 
their soul and interconnection. They are as neces- 
sary for thouglit as muscles and tendons are for 
walking, although we may not be conscious of their 
existence. This side of the teaching of Leibniz 
consists, accordingly, in the assertion tliat " innate ** 
knowledge and knowledge derived from experience 
are not two kinds of knowledge, but rather two 
ways of considering it. If we consider it as it 
comes to us, piecemeal and . fragmentary, a succes- 
sion of particular instances, to be gathered up at a 
future time into, general principles, and stated in a 
rational form, it is seen as empirical. But, after all, 
this is only a superficial and external way of looking 
at it. If we examine into it we shall see that there 
are contained in these transitory and particular ex- 
periences certain truths more general and funda- 
mental, which condition them, and at the same time 
constitute their meaning. 

If we inquire into the propriety of calling these 
truths " innate," we find it is because they are na- 
tive to intelligence, and are not acquisitions which 
it makes. Indeed, it may be said that they are in- 
telligence, so close and organic is their relation, 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 81 

juSt as the muscles, the tendons, the skeleton, are 
the body. Thus it is that Leibniz accepts the state- 
ment. Nihil est in intellectu quod nonfaerit in sensu, 
with the addition of the statement n/s/ ipse intellec- 
tus. The doctrine of the existence of innate ideas 
is thus shown to mean that intelligence exists with 
a real content which counts for something in the 
realm of experience. If we take intelligence and 
examine into its structure and ascertain its modes 
of expression, we find organically inherent in its 
activity certain conceptions like unity, pow^er, sub- 
stance, identity, etc., and these we call " innate." 
An idea, in short, is no longer conceived as some- 
thing existing in the mind or in consciousness ; it is 
an activity of intelligence. An innate idea is a 
necessary activity of intelligence ; that is, such 
an activity as enters into the framework of all 
experience. 

Leibniz thus succeeds in avoiding two errors into 
which philosophers whose general aims are much 
like his have fallen. One is dividing a priori and 
a posteriori trutlis from each other by a hard and 
fixed line, so that we are conceived to have some 
knowledge which comes wholly from experience, 
while there is another which comes wholly from rea- 
son. According to Leibniz, there is no thought so 
abstract that it does not have its connection with a 
sensible experience, or rather its embodiment in it. 
And, on the other hand, there is no experience so 
thoroughly sensuous that it does not bear in itself 
traces of its origin in reason. ^'All our thoughts 



82 Leibniz's new essays. 

come from the depths of the soul," says Leibniz; 
there are none that "come "to us from without. 
The other error is the interpretation of the existence 
of innate ideas or " intuitions " (as this school gen- 
erally calls them) in a purely formal sense. They 
are thus considered as truths contained in and some- 
how expressed by intelligence^ but yet not so con- 
nected with it that in knowing them we necessarily 
know intelligence itself. They are considered rather 
as arbitrary determinations of truths by a power 
whose own nature is conceivably foreign to truth, 
than as so many special developments of an activity 
which may indifferently be called "intelligence" or 
" truth." Leibniz, however, never fails to state that 
an innate truth is, after all, but one form or aspect 
of the activity of the mind in knowing. 

In this way, by bringing to light a deeper and 
richer conception of what in reality constitutes an 
innate idea, Leibniz answers Locke. His reply is 
indirect ; it consists rather in throwing a flood of 
new light upon the matter discussed, than in a pon- 
derous response and counter-attack. But when 
Leibniz touches upon the conception of a tabtUa 
rasa, of a mind which in itself is a mere blank, but 
has the capacity for knowing, he assumes the offen- 
sive. The idea of a bare capacity, a formal faculty, 
of power which does not already involve some actual 
content within itself, he repudiates as a relic of 
scholasticism. What is the soul, which has nothing 
until it gets it from without? The doctrine of a 
vacuum, an emptiness which is real, is always absurd ; 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 83 

and it is doubly so when to this vacuum is ascribed 
powers of feeling and thinking, as Locke does. Ac- 
cepting for the moment the metaphor of a tabula 
rasa^ Leibniz asks where we shall find a tablet which 
yet does not have some quality, and which is not a 
co-operating cause, at least, in whatever eflPects are 
produced upon it? The notion of a soul without 
thought, an empty tablet of the soAl, he says, is one 
of a thousand fictions of philosophers. He com- 
pares it with the idea of '' space empty of matter, 
absolute uniformity or homogeneity, perfect spheres 
of the second element produced by primordial perfect 
cubes, abstractions pure and simple, to which our 
ignorance and inattention give birth, but of which 
reality does not admit." If Locke admits then 
(as he does) certain capacities inherent in the soul, 
ke cannot mean the scholastic fiction of bare ca- 
pacity or mere possibility ; he must mean " real 
possibilities," — that is, capacities accompanied with 
some actual tendency, an inclination, a disposition, 
an aptitude, a preformation which determines our 
soul in a certain direction, and which makes it ne- 
cessary that the possibility becomes actual. And this 
tendency, this actual inclination of intelligence in 
one way rather than another, so that it is not a 
matter of indifference to intelligence what it pro- 
duces, is precisely what constitutes an innate idea. 
So Leibniz feels certain that at bottom Locke must 
agree with him in this matter if the latter is really in 
earnest in rejecting the '* faculties" of the scholastics 
and in wishing for a real explanation of knowledge. 



84 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

But the argument of Locke rests upon yet another 
basis. He founds his denial of innate ideas not 
only upon a static conception of their ready made 
existence ''in" the soul, but also upon an equally 
mechanical conception of consciousness. "Nothing 
can be in the mind which is not in consciousness." 
This statemeilt appears axiomatic to Locke, and by 
it he would settle the whole discussion. Regarding 
it, Leibniz remarks that if Locke has such a preju- 
clice as this, it is not surprising that he rejects innate 
ideas. But consciousness and mental activity are 
not thus, identical. To go no farther, the mere 
empirical fact of memory is sufficient to show the 
falsity of such an idea. Memory reveals that we 
have an indefinite amount of knowledge of which 
we are not always conscious. Rather than that 
knowledge and consciousness are one, it is true 
that actual consciousness only lays hold of an 
infinitesimal fraction of knowledge. But Leibniz 
does not rely upon the fact of memory alone. We 
must constantly keep in mind that to Leibniz the 
soul is not a form of being wholly separate from 
nature, but is the culmination of the system of 
reality. The reality is everywhere the monad, and 
the soul is the monad with the power of feeling, 
remembering, and connecting its ideas. The activ- 
ities of the monad, those representative changes 
which sum up and symbolize the universe, do not 
cease when we reach the soul. They are continued. 
If the soul has the power of attention, they are 
potentially conscious. Such as the soul actually 



LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ. — INNATE IDEAS. 85 

attends to, thus giving them relief and making 
them distinct, are actually conscious. But all of 
them exist. 

Thus it is that Leibniz not only denies the equiva- 
lence of soul and consciousness, but asserts that I 
the fundamental error of the psychology of the | 
Cartesians (and here, at least, Locke is a Cartesian) 1 
is in identifying them. He asserts that " uncon- 
scious ideas " are of as great importance in psychol- 
ogy as molecules are in physics. ' They are the link / 
between unconscious nature and the conscious soul. I 
Nothing happens all at once ; nature never makes 
jumps.; these facts stated in the law of continuity 
necessitate the existence of activities, which may 
be called ideas, since they belong to the soul and 
yet are not in consciousness. 

When, therefore, Locke asks how an innate idea 
can exist and the soul not be conscious of it, the 
answer is at hand. The "innate idea" exists as 
an activity of the soul by which it represents — that 
is, expresses — some relation of the universe, al- 
though we have not yet become conscious of what 
is contained or enveloped in this activity. To be- 
come conscious of the innate idea is to lift it from 
the sphere of nature to the conscious life of spirit. 
And thus it is, again, that Leibniz can asseil; that all 
ideas whatever proceed from the depths of the soul. 
It is because it is the very being of the soul as a 
monad to reflect " from its point of view " the world. 
In this way Leibniz brings the discussion regarding 
innate ideas out of the plane of examination into a 



80 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

matter of psychological fact into a consideration 
of the essential nature of spirit. An innate idea 
is now seen to be one of the relations by which the 
soul reproduces some relation which constitutes the 
universe of reality, and at the same time realizes its 
own individual nature. It is one reflection from 
that spiritual mirror, the soul. With this enlarged 
and transformed conception of an idea apt to be so 
meagre we may well leave the discussion. There 
has been one mind at least to which the phrase 
"innate ideas" meant sometliing worth contending 
for, because it meant something real. 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 87 



CHAPTEE V. 

SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 

A CAREFUL study of the various theories which 
have been held concerning sensation would 
be of as much interest and importance as an in- 
vestigation of any one point in the range of phi- 
losophy. In the theory of a philosopher about 
sensation we have the reflex of his fundamental 
categdry and the clew to his further doctrine. 
Sensation_jtanda_ on _Jthe.. border-line between the 
world of nature and the realm of soul ; and every 
advanc e in scienc ca^ every development of philos- 
ophy, leaves its unpress jn a change in the theory 
of se nsation. Apparently one of the simplest and 
most superficial of questions, in reality it is one of 
the most difficult and far-reaching. At first sight 
it seems as if it were a. sufldcient account of sensa- 
tion to say that an object affects the organ of sense, 
and thus impresses upon the mind the quality which 
it possesses. But this simple statement arouses a 
thi'ong of further questions : How is it possible 
that one substance, — matter, — should affect an- 
other, — mind ? How can a causal relation exist 
between them? Is the mind passive or active in 
this impression? How can an object convey un- 
changed to the mind a quality which it possesses ? 



88 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

Or is the sensational quale itself a product of the 
mind's activity? If so, what is the nature of the ob- 
ject which excites the sensation ? As known, it is 
only a icollection of sensuous qualities ; if these 
are purely mental, what becomes of the object? 
And if there is no object really there, what is it 
that excites the sensation? Such questionings 
might be continued almost indefinitely; but those 
given are enough to show that an examination of 
the nature and origin of sensation introduces us to 
the problems of the relation of intelligence and the 
world ; to the problem of the ultimate constitution 
of an object which is set over against a subject 
and which affects it ; and to the problem of the 
nature of mind, which as thus affected from with- 
out must be limited in its nature, but which as 
bearer of the whole known universe must be in 
some sen^e infinite. If we consider, not the mode 
of production of sensation, but its relation to knowl- 
edge, we find philosophical schools divided into two, 
— Sensationalists, and Rationalists. If we inquire 
into its functions, we find that the empiricist sees 
in it convincing evidence of the fact that all knowl- 
edge originates from a source extra mentem; that 
the intellectual idealist finds in it evidence of the 
gradual transition of nature into spirit; that the 
ethical idealist, like Kant and Fichte, sees in it 
the material of the phenomenal world, which is 
necessary in its opposition to the rational sphere 
in order that there may occur that conflict of pure 
law and sensuous impulse which alone makes mo- 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 89 

rality possible. We thus, realize that as we look 
at the various aspects of sensation, we are taken 
into the discussion of ontology, of the theory of 
knowledge and of ethics. 

Locke virtually recognizes the extreme importance 
of the doctrine of sensation, and his second book 
might almost be entitled " Concerning the Nature 
and Products of Sensation." On the other hand, 
one of the most characteristic and valuable portions 
of the reply of Leibniz is in his development of 
a theory of sensation which is thoroughly new, 
except as we seek for its germs in its thoughts of 
Plato and Aristotle. Acc ording to Locke, know l- 
edge origin ates from two s o iirces, — sensatiop an d 

reflection. Sen^atu)ns_are .^'.tbe impressions made 

on our senses by outward objects thjitjare extrinsic 
tothemind." V VKen th e mind ''comes to reflect 
on its own operations about the^ ideas got by sen- 
sation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of 
ideas," jt..gfita ideas. of reflection. 

If we leave out of account for the present the 
ideas of reflection, we find that the ideas which come 
through sensation have two main characteristics. 
First, in having sensations, the mind is passive ; 
its^parTis purely. Xficeptiye. The objects impress 
themselves upon the mind, they obtrude into con- 
sciousness, whether the mind will or not. There is 
a purely external relation existing between sensa- 
tion and the understanding. Jlhe ideas are offered 
to the mind, and the understanding cannot refuse 
to have them, cannot change them, blot them out, 
V 



00 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

nor create them, any more than a mirror can refuse, 
alter, or obliterate the images wbich objects produce 
in it. Sensation, in short, is a purely passive hav- 
ing of ideas. Secondly, every sensation is gimpk. 
Locke woul d say of sensati ons what Hume said of 
all ideas j» — every distinct sensation is a separat e 
existence. Every sensation is '_^|jncomp6undedj 
containing nothing but one uniform appearance, 
not being distinguishable into different ideas ." 
Knowledge is hencefo rth a process o f compoun d- 
ing, of repeating , com paring, and uniting -sensa- 
tion. Man's understanding '' ly ach es no _ further 
than to compound and divide the materials that 
are made to his hand." 

IthardW need be s aid that Locke has p-eat diffi - 
culty in keeping up this t horoughly ['atomic theory y 
of mind. It is a theory w hich makes all relations 
external ; they are, as Locke afterwards says, " su- 
perinduced" upon the facts. It makes it impos- 
sible to account for any appearance of unity and 
connection among ideas, and Locke quietly, and 
without any consciousness of the contradiction in- 
volved, introduces certain inherent relations into the 
structure of the ideas when he comes to his construc- 
tive work. '' Existence and unity are two ideas," he 
says, ''that are suggested to the understanding by 
every object without, and every idea within." 

At other places he introduces the idea of quality 
of a substance, effect of a cause, continued per- 
manence or identity into a sensation, as necessary 
constituents of it ; thus making a sensation a unity 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 91 

* 

of complex elements instead of an isolated bare 
notion. How far he could have got on in his ac- 
count of knowledge without this surreptitious qual- 
ifying of a professedly simple existence, may be 
seen by asking what would be the nature of a sen- 
sation which did not possess existence and unity, 
and 'Which was not conceived as the quality of a 
thing or as the effect of an external reality. 

This digression has been introduced at this point 
because the next character of a sensation which 
Locke discusses is its objective character, — its re- 
lation to the object which produces it. T o discours e 
of our_ideas_intfilligiblyt ^- says,, it will be con- 
venient to distinguish them as they are ideas in our 
minds and as they are modifications of matter in 
flie bodies_ that cause them. In other words, h& 
gives ujg all thought of considering ideas as simply 
mental modifications, and finds it necessary to take 
thenTTn their jrelations to objects. 

Taking them in this way, he finds that they are 
to be divided into two classes, of which one contains 
those ideas that are copies and resemblances of 
qualities in the objects, ideas "which are really in 
the object, whether we take notice of them or no," — 
in which case we have an idea of the thing as it is 
in itself ; while the other class contains those which 
are in no way resemblances of the objects which 
produce them, "having no more similitude than 
the idea of pain and of a sword." Thejbrmer. are^ 
EEH^-^^ qualities^ aud.are solidity, extensiou^jagure, 
motion or rest, and number ; while the secondary 



92 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

1^12^1 i tips ftrp junio rs, SDiells, and tastes. The form er 
ideas are produced by jinpulse of the bodie sjthem- 
selvesj wliich_simply eff ect a trans fe rence of thei r 
qualities over into the mi nd ; wh ile the secoq(Ift.ry 
qualities are arbitrarily annexed byjhe ^power of 
God to the objects whlphjex^iltfi, them . 

It will be noticed that there are two elements 
which make the sensation of Locke what it is. 
With reference to its production^ it is the effect 
which one substance, matter, has upon another sub-_ 
stance, mind, which is unlike it in nature, and be- 
tween which whatever relations exist, are thoroughly 
incomprehensible, so that, indeed, their connections 
with each other can be understood only by recourse 
to a tertium quid,, an omnipotent power jyjiich can 
arl)itrarily produce such collocations as^please it. 
With reference to its function, it is the isolated 
and " simple" (that is, non-relational) element out 
of which all actual forms of knowledge are made by 
composition and re-arrangement. 

Leibniz, without entering into explicit criticism of 
just these two points, develops his own theory with 
^reference to them. ' To Leibniz, .rgj^Jj^^^^^^^^^^^s 
' a system ; that is, it is of such a nature that its 
vai'ious_portions have an es sential and not merel }^ 
external relation to one another. Sensation is of 
course no exception. It is n ot a mere acciden t, 
nor yet a supernatural yoking of things naturally 
opposed. It has a meaning in that con nection of 
things which constitute the universe. It contri- 
butes to the significance of the world. It is one 



f J 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 93 

way in whic h those activities which make the real 
express themselves , ^tjias its place or reason in 
the totality of things, and this wTiether wejcqnsider 
its origin or its poaiijoji wi th regard to knowled g e. 
In a jword, while the characteristic gf Locke's theory / 
is that he conceives sensation as^iiijextgrnal rela- 
tion both .to reality, as mechanical ly produce d by 
it, ^nd. ta knowlfcdgg^. ag bgiog^Ifler gly ope o f tlie 
atomic elements which may enter into a compound, 
Leibnizj'egards re ality as organi c to sensat ion, and 
this in turn as organic to knowledge . We have^ 
here simply an illustration of the statement with 
which we set out; namely, that the treatment of 
sensation always reflects the fundamental philoso- 
phical category of the p'hilosopher. 

AH reality e xists in the for m of monads LJ no- 
nadsjire «mii p] ^ »" ^^^^ " ^'^« ^hogg. r.^^j^Hl J " J" C^L"^" » 
this acti on consists in representin g, a ccording to a 
certain law of succession, the universe. Various 
mo nads have various degrees of activity ; that is^ 

nf thfi pnwf^r nf rpflpotingr^bp ^orld. So much of 

Leibniz's general philosophical attitude it is neces- 
sary to recall, to understand what he means by 
^^ sensation ..", The generic name which is applied 
to this mirroring activity of the monads is "per- 
ception," which, as Leibniz often says, is to be care- 
fully distinguished from apperception^ which ij Jhe 
representation become conscious. P ercept ion maj^ 
be defined, therefore, as the inclusion of the man y 

nr mnlfjforrn^jio wnrhl of objppts) [ji XLUnitj (the 

Simple substance) . It was the_great defect of pre- 



94 Leibniz's new essays. 

vio us phi losophy that it '^ co nsi dered onl y jpirits or 
self-conscious beings as souls, ^' and had conse- 
quently recognized only co nscious perceptions . It 
had been o bl iged, therefore, to make an impassable 
gulf between mind and^ matter, and se nsations were. 
thus rendered inexplicable. But Leibniz finds his 
function as a philosopher in showing that these prob- 
lems, which seem insoluble, arise when we insist 
upon erecting into actual separations or differences 
of kind what really are only stages of develop- 
ment or differences of degree. A sensation is not 
an effect which one substance impresses upon 
another because God pleased that it should, or 
because of an incomprehensible incident^ in the 
original constitution of tilings. It is a higher 
development of that representative power which 
belongs to every real being. ^' 

Certain monads reach a state of development, 
or manifestation of activity, which is characterized 
by the possession of distinct organs. Such monads 
may be called, in a pre-eminent sense, " souls," and 
include all the higher animals as well as man. This 
possession of differentiated organs finds its analogue 
in the internal condition of the monad. What ap- 
pears externally as an organ of sense appears 
ideally as a conscious representative state which we 
call '' sensation." '' When," Leibniz says, " thejno- 
nad has its organs so developed tha t there is relief 
and differentiation in the impressions re ceived, and 
consequently in the i)erceptions which represent 
them, we have feeling or sensation ; that is, a per- 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 95 

ception ac companied by memo ry," to which at other 
times he adds "attention." Life, he says, "is ^- 
a perceptive principle; the soul is sen siti \^ lil!e. - ^ 
mind is rational sou l." And again he says in -^ 
substance that when the soul begins to have in- 
terests, and to regard one representation as of more 
value than others, it introduces relief into its per- 
ceptions, and those which stand out are called 
" sens ations ." 

This origin of sensations as higher developments 
of the representative activities of a monad condi- 
tions their relation to further processes of knowl- 
edge. The sensations are confused knowledge ; 
they are ideas in their primitive and most undiffer- 
entiated form. They constitute, as Leibniz some- 
where says, the vertigo of the conscious life. In 
every sentient organism multitudes of sensations 
are constantly thronging in and overpowering its , 
distinct consciousness. The soul is so flooded 
with ideas of everything in the world which has 
any relation to its body that it has distinct ideas of 
nothing. Higher knowledge, then, does not consist 
in compounding these sensations; that would lit- 
erally make confusion worse confounded. It con- 
sists in introducing distinctness into the previously 
confused sensations, — in finding out what they 
meanj that is, in finding out their bearin^i what 
they point to, and how they are related. Knowl-' 
edge is not an external process performed upon the . 
sensations, it is the development of their internal ' 
content. 



96 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

It follows, therefore, that sensation is organic to 
all forms of knowledge whatever. The monad, 
which is pure activity, that which culminates the 
scale of reality, has no confused ideas, and to it all 
knowledge is eternally rational, having no sensible 
traces about it. But every other monad, having its 
activity limit3d, has 13eas which come to it at first 
in a confused way, and which its activity afterwards 
differentiates. Thus it is that Lfdhniz can agree so 
heartily with the motto of the Sensationalist school, 

— that there is nothing inthe intellect which was not 
first in the sensory. But Leibniz uses this phrase 
as Aristotle would have done, having in mind the 
distinction between potentiality and actuality. In 
posse^ sensation is all knowledge ; but only in posse. 
And he, like Aristotle, interprets the relation between 
potentiality and actuality as one of a difference of 
activity. The potential is that w hi(^h he coTnefl real 
tliroiigli a dynamic process. The actual is capacity 
plus action. Sensation, in short, is spiritual activ- 
ity in an undeveloped and hence partial and limited 
condition. It is not, as Locke would have it, the 
real factor in all knowledge. 

The marks of sensation which Locke lays down, 

— their passivity, their simplicity, their position 
as the real element in knowledge, — Leibniz either 
denies, therefore, or accepts in a sense different 
from that of Locke. ' Strictly speakin g, se nsation 
is an activity of the'' mind. There are no win- 
dows thronojli which the soul receives impressions ?^^ 
Pur? passivity of any kind is a myth, as scholas- 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 97 

ti c fiction. Sensation is developed from the soul 
within 1 it is the, activ ity of reality made mani - 
fes t to itse^ . It is a higher kind of action than 
anything we find in minerals or in plants. Jf we^ 
look at sensation ideally, however, that is, according / 
to the position which it holds in the system of I 
knowledge, it is properly regarded as passive. It j 
represents the limitation, the unrealized (that is, A 
the no n-active) side of spiritual life. 

" Efficient causality " is a term which has its right- 
ful and legitimate use in physical science. Simply 
from the scientific point of view we are correct 
in speaking of objects as affecting the body, and 
the body, through its nervous system, as affecting 
the soul and producing sensations. But philos- 
ophy does not jnerely use categories, it explains 
them. And Leibniz contends that to explain the 
category of causality in a mechanical sense, to 
understand by it physical influence actually trans- 
ferred from one thing to another, is to make the ^ 
idea inexplicable and irrational. The true meaning 
of causality is ideal. It signifies the relative posi- 
tions which the objects concerned have in the har- 
monious system of reality. The body that is higher 
in the scale impresses the other ; that is to say, it 
dominates it or gives its law. There is no energy or 
quality which passes physically from one to the other. 
But one monad, as higher in the stage of devel- 
opment than another, makes an ideal demand upon 
that one. It places before the other its own more 
real condition. The less-developed monad, since its 



98 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

whole activity consists in representing the universe 
of reality, answers to this demand by developing 
the corresponding quality in itself. The category 
of harmonious or co-operative action is thus substi- 
tuted for that of external and mechanical influence. 
Physical causality when given a philosophiaJnter- 
pretation means organic development. The reality 
of a higher stage^is the^naore active : the m ore 
active has a greater content in that Jt__miinu:a-tha 
universe more fullyj^it manifests accord insfly mo re 
of the law of the univer se, and hence has aujdeal 
domination over that which is lower in the scale. 
It^is actiiftlly (th at is, \ ^ ftfitivit y) lyhflt thfi Sitixox is 
potentially. But as the entire._fixi8tence of the lat- 
ter is in representing or setting^forth the relations 
which make the world, its activity i s aroused to 
a corresponding production. Hence t he former i s 
called '* causcj," and thie latter " effect." 

This introduces us to the relation of soul and 
body, or, more generally stated, to the relation of 
mind and matter. It is the theory of co-operation, 
of liarmonious activity, which Leibniz substitutes 
for the theory which Descartes had formulated, ac- 
cording to which there are two opposed substances 
which can affect each other only through the medium 
of a deus ex inachina. Locke, on the other hand, 
took the Cartesian principle for granted, and thus 
enveloped himself in all the difficulties which sur- 
round the question of "mind and matter." Locke 
wavers between two positions, one of which is that 
there are two unknown substances, — the soul and 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 99 

the object in itself, — which, coming in contact, r 
prodiice sensations ; while the other takes the hy- 
pothetical attitude that there may be but one 
substance, — matter, — and that God, out of the 
plenitude of his omnipotence, has given matter a 
capacity which does not naturally belong to it, — that 
of producing sensations. / In either case, however, 
the final recourse is to the arbitrary power of God. 
There is no natural — that is, intrinsic and explicable 
\ — connection between the sensation and that which 
produces it. Sensation occupied the hard position 
which the mechanical school of to-day still allots it. 
It is that "inexplicable," "mysterious," "unac- 
countable " link between the domains of matter and 
niind of which no. rational account can be given, 
but which is yet the source of all that we know 
about matter, and the basis of all that is real in 
the mind! 

Leibniz, recognizing that reality is an organic 
whole, — not two parts with a chasm between them, j 
— says that "God does not arbitrarily give spb- ! 
stances whatever qualities may huppen, or that he \ : ' i 
may arbitrarily determine, but only such as are nat- jp ' . 
ural ; that is, such as are related to one another in an , ^ 
explicable way as modifications of the substance." v 
Leibniz feels sure that to introduce the idea of tlie ^ ' 
inexplicable, the purely supernatural, into the natural 
is to give up all the advantages which the modern me- 
chanical theory had introduced, and to relapse into 
the meaningless features of scholasticism. If the 
" supernatural" — that is, the essentially inexplica- 



100 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

ble — is introduced in this one ease, why should it 
not be in others ; why should we not return outright 
to the " fanatic philosophy which explains all facts 
by simply attributing them to God immediately or 
by way of miracle, or to the barbarian philosophy, 
which explains phenomena by manufacturing, ad 
hoc^ occult qualities or faculties, seemingly like lit- 
tle demons or spirits capable of performing, with- 
out ceremony, whatever is required, — as if watches 
marked time by their horodeictic power, without 
wheels, and mills ground grain, without grind- 
stones, by their fractive power"? In fact, says 
Leibniz, by introducing the inexplicable into our 
explanations "we fall into something worse than 
occult qualities, — we give up philosophy and rea- 
son ; we open asylums for ignorance and laziness, 
holding not only that there are qualities which we 
do not understand (there are, indeed, too many 
such) , but qualities which' the greatest intelligence, 
if God gave it all the insight possible, could not' 
understand, — that is, such as are in themselves with- 
out rhyme or reason. And indeed it would be a 
thing without rhyme or reason that God should 
perform miracles in the ordinary course of nature." 
And regarding the whole matter of introducing the 
inconceivable and the inexplicable into science, he 
says that '' while the conception of men is not the 
measure of God's power, their capacity of concep- 
tion is the measure of nature's power, since every- 
thing occurring in the natural order is capable of 
being understood by the created intelligence." Such 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 101 

being the thought of Leibniz regarding the virtual 
attempt to introduce in his day the unknowable into 
philosophy, it is evident that he must reject, from 
the root up, all theories of sensation which, like 
Locke's, make it the product of the inexplicable 
intercourse of two substances. 

For this doctrine, then, Leibniz substitutes that 
of an infinite number of substances, all of the same 
kind, all active, all developing from within, all con- 
spiring to the same end, but of various stages of 
activity, or bearing various relations of complete-, 
ness to the one end. 

Indeed, one and the same monad has various 
degrees of activity in itself ; that is, it represents 
more or less distinctly the universe according to its 
point of view. Its point of view requires of it, of 
course, primarily, a representation of that which is 
about it. Thus an infinity of states arises, each 
corresponding to some one of the multitude of ob- 
jects surrounding the monad. The soul has no con- . 
trol, no mastery, over these states. It has to take i 
them as they come ; with regard to them, the soul J 
appears passive. It appears so because it does not f 
as yet clearly distinguish them. It does not react 
upon them and become conscious of their meaning 
or thoroughly rational character. We shall after- 
wards see that "matter" is, with Leibniz, simply 
this passive or confused side of monads. It is the 
monad so far as it has not brought to light the 
rational activity which is immanent in it. At pres- j 
ent we need only notice that the body is simply the I 



102 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

part of matter or of passivity which limits the com- 
plete activity of any monad. So Leibniz says, '' in 
so far as the soul has perfection, it has distinct 
thoughts, and God has accommodated the body to 
the soul. So far as it is imperfect and its per- 
ceptions are confused, God has accommodated the 
soul to the body in such a way that the soul lets 
itself be inclined by the passions, which are bom 
from corporeal representations. It is by its con- 
fused thoughts (sensations) that the soul represents 
the bodies about it," just as, we may add, its dis- 
tinct thoughts represent the monads or souls about 
it, and, in the degree of their distinctness, God, the 
monad which is purus actus. 

Following the matter into more detail, we may 
say that since God alone is pure energy, knowing 
no limitation, God alone is pure spirit. Every 
finite soul is joined to an organic body. '* I do not 
admit," says Leibniz, " that there are souls entirely 
separate from matter, nor created spirits detached 
from body. . . . It is this body which the monad rep-' 
resents most distinctly ; But since this body expresses 
the entire universe by the connection of all matter 
throughout it, the soul represents the entire universe 
in representing the body which belongs to it most 
particularly." But according to the principle of 
continuity there must be in the least apparent por- 
tion of matter still " a universe of creatures, of 
souls, of entelechies. There is nothing sterile, 
nothing dead in the universe. It is evident from 
these considerations that every living body has a 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 103 

dominant entelechy, which is the soul in that body, \ 
but that the members of this living body are again 
full of other living beings and soiils," which, how- 
ever, since not of so high a grade, that is, not 
representing the universe so fully, appear to be 
wholly material and subject to the "dominant'' en- 
telechy ; namely, to the one which gives the law to 
the others by expressing more adequately the idea 
at which they only confusedly aim. Owing to the 
constant change of activity, however, these particles 
do not remain in constant subordination to the 
same entelechy (that is, do not form parts of the 
same body) , but pass on to higher or lower degrees 
of " evolution," and have their places taken by others 
undergoing similar processes of change. Thus '' all 
bodies are in a peqjetual flux, like rivers, with parts 
continually leaving aild entering in." Or, inter 
preting this figurative language, each monad is coor- 
tinually, in its process of development, giving_law 
to new and less developed monads, which therefore 
appear as its body. . The nature of matter in itself, 
and of its phenomenal manifestation in the body, 
are," however, subjects which find no explanation 
here, and which will demand explanation in another 
chapter. 

We may sum up Leibniz's theory of sensation by 
saying that it is a representative state developed by 
the self-activity of the soul ; that in itself it is a 
confused or " involved " grade of activity, and in 
its relation to the world represents the confused or 
passive aspects of existence ; that this limitation of 



■} 



104 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSA.YS. 

the monad constitutes matter, and in its necessary 
connection with the monad constitutes the body 
which is always joined to the finite soul ; that to 
this body are joined in all cases an immense num- 
ber of monads, whose action is subordinate to that 
of this dominant monad, and that it is the collec- 
tion of these which constitute the visible animal 
body. Thus if we look at sensation with regard to 
- the monad which pos sesses it, it is a^raduct of the 

c ^ body of the monad ; if we look at it w ith yftferenoe 

, ^^ ^to other monads, it represents or reflects thei r pas- 

sive or material side. This is evi dently ong aspect 

again ~of the pre-established harmony^ — an aspect 

^ • in which some of the narrower of Leibniz's critics 
have seen the whole meaning_of the doctrine ex- 
hausted. It is, howTver7 simply one of the many 
forms in which the harmony, the union of spiritual 
And mechanical, ideal and material, meets us. In 
truth, while in other systems th^ fact of sensation 
is a fact demanding some artificial mode of reconcil- 
ing " mind " and ** matter," or is else to be accepted 
as an inexplicable fact, in the system of Leibniz 
it is itself evidence that the spiritual and the me- 
chanical are not two opposed kinds of existence, 
but are organically united. It is itself the manifes- 
tation of the harmony of the ideal and the material, 
not something which requires that a factitious theory 
be invented for explaining their appearance of har- 
mony. Sensation has within itself the ideal element, 
for it is the manifestation, in its most undeveloped 
form, of the spiritual meaning of the universe. It 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 105 

has a mechanical element, for it expresses the limi- 
tation, the passivity, of the monad. 
" It is from this standpoint that Leibniz criticises 
what Locke says about the relation of sensations 
to the objects which produce them. Leibniz holds 
that all our sensations have a definite and natural 
connection with the qualities of objects, — the " sec- 
ondary " as well as the " primary." They all rep- 
resent certain properties of the object. 'Even the 
pain which the thrust of a needle gives us, while it 
does not resemble anything in the needle, does in 
some way represent or resemble motions going on 
in our body. This resemblance is not necessarily 
one of exact form, but just as the ellipse, hyperbola, 
and parabola are projections of the circle in the 
sense that there is a natural and fixed law of con- 
nection between them, so that every point of one 
corresponds by a certain relation with every point 
of the other, so the resemblance between the sensa- 
tion and the quality of the object is always in the 
• form of a fixed law of order, which, however un- 
known to us it may now be, is capable of being..— J 
found out. If we are to make any distinction be- 
tween "secondary" and "primary" sensations, it 
should be not that one presents qualities that are in 
the objects, and the other affections which exist only 
in us, but that the prima ry sensations (of numb er, 
form, 8iz e^_^j;g, ) repre sent the quali tjf>^ in a- Jis- 
tinct way, appealing to the rational activity o f 
intelligence^ while the secondary represent the qual- 



ities in a confusea way^'a way not going beyond 



106 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS 

t he effect upon the mind into relations, that is, mt o 
distinct knowledge. 
I This brings regularly before us the question of 
the relation of sensations to knowledge. We have 
seen enough already to know that Leibniz does not 
believe that knowledge begins with the simple (that 
is, unrelated), and then proceeds by a process of 
compounding. The sensation is not simple to Leib- 
niz, but thoroughly complex, involving confusedly 
witliin itself all possible relations. As relations are 
brought forth into distinct light out of this confusion, 
I knowledge ends rather than begins with the simple. 
I And again it is evident that Leibniz cannot believe 
j that knowledge begins and ends in experience, in 
I the sense in which both himself and Locke use tlie 
I word ; namely, as meaning the combination and suc- 
cession of impressions. 
\ " Experience," as they use the term, consists in 
sensations and their association, — " consecution " as 
Leibniz calls it. Experience is the stage of knowl- 
e'dge reached by animals, and in which the majority 
of men remain, — and indeed all men in the greater 
' part of their knowledge. Leibniz takes just the 
same position regarding the larger part of our 
knowledge which Hume takes regarding it all. It 
consists simply in associations of such a nature that 
when one part recurs there is a tendency to expect 
the recurrence of the other member. It resembles 
reason, but it is based on the accidental experience 
of events in a consecutive order, and not on knowl- 
edge of their causal connection. We all expect. the 

■ i 



P^. 



J, ^ 



SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE. 107 

sun to rise to-mon-ow ; but with all of us, excepting 
the astronomer^ such expectation is purely '' empir- 
ical/' being based on the images of past experiences 
which recur. The astronomer, however, sees into 
the grounds, that is, the reasons, of the expectation, 
and hence his knowledge is rational. 

Thus we have two gr ^dps^ ^f knnwIpHgrp^ — n^p ^jjv 
pirical, consisting Qf_ knowledg e of facts ; the other 
rational, being of the truths of rea son. The forme r 
is cont inge nt and jparticular^thejatterjs necessary. 
and_ univers al. Leibn iz insists, with a pertinacity 
which reminds us of Kant, that ''experience" can 
give instances or examples only, and that the fact that 
anything has happened in a given way any number 
of times in the past, can give no assurance that it 
will continue to do so in the future. There is 
nothing in the nature of the case which renders its 
exact opposite impossible. But a rational truth is- 
necessary, for its opposite is impossible, being. irra- 
tional or meaningless. This may not always be 
evident in the case of a complex rational truth ; but 
if it be analyzed into simpler elements, as a geo- 
metrical proposition into definitions, axioms, and 
postulates, the absurdity of its opposite becomes 
evident. Sensation, in ^ yonclusion, is the having ^ o f" 
confused ideas, — ideas corresponding to matte r. ' 
Experience is the assocfation of TEese^oSTusM 
ideas, and their association according to their ac- 
cidental juxtaposition in the life of the soul. It 
therefore is not only thoroughly sensible, but is 
also phenomenal. Its content is sensations ; its form 



108 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

' is contingent and particular consecution. Both f onn_ 
a nd fin ntent. accordingly, need to be rec o nstructed 
if they are to be w orthy of the na me of science or 
/ of know ledge . This is the position which LeiDnlz 
assumes as gainst the empiricist, Locke. The de- 
tails of this reconstruction, its method and result, 
we must leave till we come in the course of the 
argument again to the subject of knowledge. 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 109 



CHAPTER VL 

THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 

LOCKE, after discussing the subject of innate 
ideas in their relation to knowledge, goes on 
to discuss their practical side, or connection with 
will. We shall follow him in this as Leibniz does ; 
but we shall consider in connection with this, Leib- 
niz's general theory of will, which is developed 
partially in this chapter, but more completely in his 
critical remarks upon what Locke has to say of the 
notion of " power." Since the theory of morals is 
as closely connected with will as the theory of 
knowledge is with the intellect, we shall supplement 
this discussion with what Leibniz says upon the 
ethical question, drawing our material somewhat 
freely from his other writings. 

The doctrine of will which Leibniz propounds is in 
closest harmony with his conception of intelligence, 
and this not merely in the way of empirical juxta- 
position, but as the result of his fundamental prin- 
ciples. If we recall what has been said concerning / 
the monad, we shall remember that it is an activity, / 
but an activity with a content. It is a force, but a/ 
force which mirrors the universe. The content, 
that portion of reality which is reflected in the ac- 
tion, is knowledge, or the idea ; the activity which 



110 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ^ESSAYS. 

briugs this about is will, or the volition. They are 
related to each other as form and content. There 
is, strictly speaking, no " state " of mind ; there is 
only a tension, a pushing forward of mind. There 
is no idea which is not a volition. Will is thus used, 
in a very broad sense, as equivalent to action. 
Since, however, the activity of .the monad is in no 
case aimless, but has an end in view, the will is 
not mere activity in general, it is action towards 
some definite end. And since the end at which 
the monad aims is always the development of an 
idea, the reflection of some constituent of the uni- 
verse, the will is always directed towards and deter- 
mined by some idea of the intellect. 

We have seen, however, that there are various 
stashes in the reflecting power of the soul, or in the 
realization of intellect. Taking only the broadest 
division, there are perception and apperception; 
that is, there are the conscious and the unconscious 
mirroring of reality. We shall expect, then /to find 
two corresi)onding stages of volition. Leibniz calls 
these stages " appetition " and '' volition " in the nai- 
rower sense. The constant tendency in every. monad 
to go from one perception to another, — that is, the 
following of the law of development, — constitutes 
appetition. If joined to feeling, it constitutes in- 
stinct. Since, again, there are two degrees of ap- 
perc^eption, one of empirical, the other of r^-tional, 
consciousness, we shall expect to find two grades of 
volition proper, — one corresponding to action for 
conscious particular ends ; the other for ends which 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. Ill 

are proposed by reason, and are hence universal. 
In this chapter we shall simply expand and illus- 
trate these various propositions. 

/Sensations, looked at not as to what they repre- 
sent, but in themselves, are impulses. As such they 
constitute the lowest stage of will. Impulsive ac- 
tion then includes all such as occurs for an end 
which is unknown, or at best but dimly felt. Such 
action may be called blind, not in the sense that 
it is without reason, but in the sense that reason is 
not consciously present. We are not to think of 
this instinctive action, however, as if it were found 
simply in the animals. Much of human action is 
also impulsive ; probably, indeed, an impulsive fac- i 
tor is contained in our most rational willing. We 
are never able to take complete account of the 
agencies which are acting upon us. Along with the I 
reasons of which we are conscious in choosing, there 
are mingled faint memories of past experience, sub- 
conscious solicitations of the present, dim expecta- 
tions for the future. Such elements are decisive 
factors far more than we realize. 

Indeed, it is because of the extent to which such 
unconscious influences bear upon us and move us 
that there arises the idea of indifferent or unmoti- 
vated choice. Were both motive and choice un- 
conscious, the question as to whether choice were 
antecedently determined would not arise ; and were 
our motives and their results wholly in consciousness, 
the solution of the question would be evident. But 
when we are conscious of our choice, but are not 



112 Leibniz's new essays. 

conscious of our impulses and motives, we get the 
impression that our choice is unmotived, and hence 
come to believe in "indifferent freedom," — the 
ability to choose as we will. 

We shall shortly take up in more detail the 
theory of Leibniz regarding the freedom of will; 
and it is needful here to remark only that the con- 
ception which makes it consist in ability to choose 
without reason is in direct contradiction to his fun- 
damental thought, — namely, that there can be no 
activity which does not aim at some reflection of 
the universe, by which, therefore, it is determined. 
From the psychological point of view, it is interest- 
ing also to notice how Leibniz's theory of uncon- 
scious ideas enables him to dispose of the strongest 
argument for indifferent choice, — that drawn from 
the immediate " testimony" of consciousness. 

Upon the origin and nature of desires Leibniz has 
much more to say than about the impulses. His ac- 
count of the transition from impulse to desire is based 
upon the conception of unconscious ideas. Slight 
and imperceptible impulses are working upon us all 
the time. Indeed, they are a necessity; for the 
actual state of a soul or monad at any time is, of 
course, one of incompleteness. Our nature must 
always work to free itself from its hindrances and 
obtain its goal of complete development. But it 
will not do this unless there is some stimulus, some 
solicitation to induce it to overcome its limitation. 
There is found accordingly in our every condition a 
feeling of dissatisfaction, or, using Locke's word, of 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 113 

" uneasiness ; " and it is this which calls forth that 
activity which brings about a nearer approach to the 
soul's real good. But Leibniz differs from Locke in 
saying that this feeling of uneasiness is not a dis- 
tinct, or even in most cases a conscious, one. It is 
not pain, although it differs from pain only in de- 
gree. Uneasiness and pain are related to each other 
as appetite for food is to hunger, — the first suffices 
to stimulate us to satisfaction, but if the want is 
not met, results in actual pain ; if met, these " half 
pains " become tributary to pleasure itself. These 
unconscious stimuli to action result in actions which 
meet the want, and the aggregation of these satis- 
factions results in pleasure. In Leibniz's own 
words : — 

'' If these elements of pain were themselves tnie 
pains, we should always be in a state of misery, even in 
pursuing the good. But since there is always going 
on a summation of minute successes in overcoming 
these states of uneasiness, and these put us more 
and more at ease, there comes about a decided 
pleasure, which often has greater value even than 
the enjoyment of the good. ' Far, then, from regard- 
ing this uneasiness as a thing incompatible with 
happiness, I find that it is an essential condition of 
our happiness. For this does not consist in per- 
fect possession, which would make us insensible and 
stupid, but in a constant progress towards greater 
results, which must always be accompanied, accord- 
ingly, by this element of desire or uneasiness." 

And again he says that ' ' we enjoy all the advan- 
8 



114 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

tages of pain without any of its inconveniences. If 
tiie uneasiness should become too distinct, we should 
be miserable in our awaiting the good which relieves 
it r but as it is, there is a constant victory over these 
half-pains, which we always find in desire, and this 
gives us a quantity of half -pleasures, whose contin- 
uance and summation (for they acquire force like a 
moving body as it falls) result in a whole and true 
pleasure." In shoit, there is indeed an element of 
pain in all desire which stimulates us to action, and 
therefore to higher development. But oi'dinarily 
this element of pain is not present as such in con- 
sciousness, but is absorbed in the pleasure which 

.accompanies the realization of the higher gooil. 
Thus Leibniz, accepting and emphasizing the very 
same fact that served Schopenhauer as a psycho- 
logical base of pessimism, uses it as a foundation- 
stone of optimism. 

> But desire, or the conscious tendency towards 
something required as a good, accompanied by the 
dim feeling of uneasiness at its absence, does not 
yet constitute the complete act of volition. *' Sev- 
eral impulses and inclinations meet in forming the 
complete volition which is the result of their con- 
flict." In the concrete act of will there are con- 
tained impulses which push us towards some end 
whose nature is not known ; there is desire both in 
its inchoate stage, where pleasure and pain are not 
in consciousness, and in its formed state, where the 
pain and pleasure are definitely presented. Mixed 
with these desires and impulses are images of past 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 115 

experiences which call up the feelings which were for- 
merly attached to them, and thus there are aroused 
indirectly additional impulses and desires. ' Out 
of this complicated mass of impulses, desires, and 
feelings, both original and reproduced, comes the 
" dominant effort " which constitutes complete will. 
But what governs the production of this prevailing 
or dominant effort, which we may interpret as the 
act of choice ? The answer is simple : the result of 
the conflict of these various factors, the striking of 
the balance, is the choice. Some desire emerges 
from the confused -complex, and that desire is the 
final determination of the will. This desire may 
not in all cases be the strongest in itself, — that is, 
the one whose satisfaction will allay the greatest 
" uneasiness," for the others, taken together, may 
outweigh it ; it may, so to speak, have a plurality, 
but not a majority, of volitional forces on its side, — 
and in this case a fusion of opposing factors may 
defeat it. But in any event the result will be the 
algebraic sum of the various desires and impulses. 

It is not at all necessary, however, that the net ) 
outcome shall make itself apparent as a mechanical 
equivalent of the forces at work. The soul, Leibniz 
says, may use its skill in the formation of parties, 
so as to make this or that side the victor. How is 
this to be done, and still disallow the possibility of 
arbitrary choice? This problem is solved through 
action becoming deliberate. Deliberate action is 
impossible unless the soul has formed the habit of 
looking ahead and of arranging for modes of 



116 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

action which do not present themselves as immediate 
necessities. Only in this way can one look at the 
matter impartially and coolly; "at the moment of 
combat there is no time for discussion. Everything 
which then occurs throws its full force on the 
balance, and contributes to an outcome made up in 

I the same way as in mechanics." The formation of 
certain habits beforehand, therefore, is the secret 
of translating impulsive action into the deliberate 
sphere. 
S Of these habits the simplest consists in thinking 
only occasionally and incidentally of certain things. 
Imagination is the mother of desire. If we do not 
allow the imagination to dwell upon certain lines 
of thought, the probability of such thoughts acquir- 
ing sufficient force to become motives of weight is 
small. A still more effective method of regulating 
action is "to accustom ourselves to forming a 
train of thoughts of which reason, and not chance 
(that is, association), is the basis. We must get 
out of the tumult of present impressions, beyond 
our immediate surroundings, and ask: Die cur hicf 

\ respice finem!'* In other words, we must cross- 
question our impulses and desires, ' we must ask 
whence they come, that we may see how valid are 
the credentials which they offer. We must ask 
whither they tend, that we may measure them, not . 
by their immediate interest, but by their relation 
to an end. The desires are not to be taken at their 
face-value, but are to be weighed and compared. 
Such a process will evidently result in arresting 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 117 

instantaneous action. There will be a pause be- 
tween the presentation of the desires and the overt 
act. During this pause it may well occur that the 
examination to which the desires have been sub- 
ject has awakened contrary desires. The thought 
of the ignoble origin of a desire or of its repulsive, 
though remote, result will bring into action desires 
I of an opposed kind. Thus the soul regulates ac- 
tion, not as if, however, it had any direct influence 
over desires, but by its ability of bringing other 
desires into the field. The will, in short, is not 
opposed to desire, though rational desire may be 
opposed to sensuous desire. "By various artifices, 
then," Leibniz concludes, " we become masters of 
ourselves, and can make ourselves think and do 
that which we ought to will, and which reason or- 
dains." Such is the summary of Leibniz's analysis 
of the elements and mechanism of volition. There 
was not much psychology existing at the time which 
could aid him in such an acute and subtle account ; 
only in Aristotle could he have found much help. 
On the other hand, it has been so generally incor- 
porated into current psychology that we may seem 
to have wasted space in repeating truisms. 

Of moral action, however, we have as yet heard 
nothing. We have an account of a psychological 
mechanism ; but for what ethical end does this work, 
and by what method ? This question may best be 
answered by turning in more detail to the question 
of the " freedom of the will." Freedom in the 
sense of arbitrary choice Leibniz wholly rejects, as 



118 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

we have seen. It is inconsistent with at least two 
of his fundamental principles ; those, namely, of 
sufficient reason, and of continuity. " Everything 
that occurs must have a sufficient reason for its 
occurrence." This oft-repeated dictum of Leibniz, 
the Jogical way of stating the complete rationality 
of experience, would be shattered into fragments 
by collision with groundless choice. It conflicts 
equally (indeed for the same reason) with the prin- 
ciple of continuity. " The present is pregnant 
with the future." " Nature never makes leaps." 
*'An absolute equilibrium is a chimera." "The 
soul is never wholly at rest." _ These are only va- 
rious ways of saying that the notion of arbitrary 
or unmotivated choice rests upon the assumption 
that there is a complete break in the life of the 
soul, so that it is possible for something to hap- 
pen which bears no organic relation to anything 
that precedes. The notion of a state of the soul 
without motives, followed by the irruption of a 
certain line of conduct, the notion of an equilibrium 
broken by arbitrary choice, is simply the counterpart 
of the idea of a vacuum. All that makes Leibniz 
reject the latter conception makes it impossible for 
him to accept the former. 

This should not be interpreted to mean that 
Leibniz denied the " freedom of the will." What 
he denied is a notion of freedom which seemed to 
him at once unverifiable, useless, and irrational. 
There is a conception of freedom which Leibniz not 
only accepts, but insists upon. Such a notion of 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 119 

freedom is indeed his ethical ideal. Its three traits 
\are contingency, spontaneity, and rationality of 
.J^ction. How action can be at the same tin^e 
contingent and determined is perhaps difficult to 
understand ; but Leibniz takes the position that it 
is. His first step is to distinguish between phys- 
ical, mathematical, metaphysical, and moral ne- 
cessity. There are truths which are eternal, truths i 
which are absolutely necessary, because their op- 
posites involve contradiction. They cannot be 
violated without involving us in absurdity. There 
ai'e other truths which are '' positive," that is, or- 
dained for good reason. These truths may be' 
a priori^ or rational, and not merely empirical ; for 
they have been chosen for -reasons of advantage. 
God always chooses and ordains the best of a 
number of possibilities ; but he does it, not because 
the opposite is impossible, but because it is inferior. 
Truths whose opposites 'are impossible have met- 
aphysical and mathematical necessity. ' Positive 
truths have moral necessity. The principle of 
causation must be true ; the three interior angles 
of a triangle m?/s^ be equal to two right angles. 
But that God shall choose the better of two courses 
is a moral necessity only. It involves no absolute 
logical contradiction to conceive him choosing some 
other way. Upon moral necessity depends the 
physical. The particular laws of nature are ne- 
cessary, not because their opposites are logically ' 
absurd, but because these laws are most in ac- 
cordance with the general principles of good and 



120 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSA.YS. 

order, in agreement with which God chooses. Phys- 
ical and moral action is therefore in all cases 
contingent. (Contingency does not of itself, of 
coarse, constitute freedom, but conjoined with the 
characteristics of rationality and spontaneity, does 
so.) 
f Necessity, in short, is based upon, the principle 
of logical contradiction ; contingency upon that of 
sufficient reason. Since our actions are in no case 
necessitated in such a way that their opposite is 
self-contradictory, or, put positively, since our 
actions are always determined by the choice of that 
which seems best, our actions are contingent. 
Occasionally Leibniz puts the matter in a much 
simpler way, and one which brings out the essential 
element more clearly than the foregoing distinc- 
tion. Some facts are determined by the princi- 
ple of physical causation; others by that of final 
causation. Some, in other words, are necessary as 
the mechanical outcome of their antecedents ; others 
are necessary as involved in the reaching of a given 
end. It is simply the Aristotelian distinction be- 
• tween efficient and teleological causation. Human 
1 action is determined, since it always has a motive 
or reason ; it is contingent, because it springs from 
this reason and not from its temporal antecedents. 
It is, in short, determined, but it is also free. 

It does not require much analysis, however, to 
see that this distinction, in whatever way it be put, 
really has no significance, except as it points to the 
other marks of freedom, — spontaneity and rational- 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 121 

ity. As we shall see, Leibniz makes and can make 
no absolute distinction between truths of reason 
and truths of fact. The contingent and the neces- 
sary are one at bottom. To us with our limited 
intelligence it does indeed often appear as if no 
contradiction were involved in the former, — as if, 
for example, a man could turn either to right or left 
without there being any logical contradiction in 
either case ; but this is because of our defective 
insight. An intelligence cognizant of the whole 
matter could see that one action would contradict 
some truth involved in the constitution of the uni- 
verse. The source of the contingent and changing | 
is in the necessary and eternal. Thus it is that / 
although Leibniz at one time says that "neither 
one's self nor any other spirit more enlightened 
could demonstrate that the opposite of a given ac- 
tion (like going out in preference to staying in) 
involves contradiction," at another time he says 
that " a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances, 
internal and external, would enable any one to 
foresee" the decision in a given case. If that be 
so, any other action must be impossible ; that is, 
according to Leibniz's invariable logic, imply 
contradiction. 

We get the same result if we consider the rela- 
tion of final and efficient causes. It is only when 
speaking in u very general way that Leibniz opposes 
action as determined by precedent activities to that 
directed towards the attainment of an end. He 
does not really mean that some action is physical, 



122 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

while other is teleological. He cannot suppose that 
some •action has an antecedent cause, while other 
has a purpose. The very essence of his thought is 
that action is both mechanical and teleological; that 
all action follows in a law of order from precedent 
action, and th$it all fulfils a certain spiritual function. 
The distinction i^ not, with Leibniz, one between two 
kinds of action, but between two ways of looking 
at every action. The desire to go rather than to 
stay, has its etficient cause; the movements by 
which the desire is executed, have their final cause. 
Tlie truth of the matter seems to be that Leibniz in 
his desire to guard against being thought a fatalist, 
or one denying all freedom, uses tenns which are 
compatible only with a freedom of indifference. So 
in his statement that man*s action is free because. 
" contingent," he seems actuated rather by a wish to 
avoid the hateful term " necessity" than by consider- 
ations strictly in harmony with his own principles. 

Had he confined his use of the term " contingent," 
however, simply to re-stating the fact that human 
action is spontaneous, no such apparent conti*adic- 
tion would have presented itself. Human actions 
may be called contingent, as physical actions are 
not, because the latter always seem to be exter? 
nally determined, while the former are internally 
directed. Motions act from without ; motives from 
within. The cause of the falling of a stone lies out- 
side it ; the source of a desire which moves to action 
is from the mind itself. We are thus introduced to 
contingency as a. synonym of '' spontaneity." 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 123 

Kuno Fischer calls attention to the fact that 
Spinoza and Leibniz both use the same sort of il- 
lustration to show the non-arbitrary character of 
human action, but the same illustration with a dif- 
ference ; and in the difference he finds the dis- 
tinction between the two philosophies. Spinoza 
Isays.that a stone falling to the ground, if endowed 
with consciousness, might imagine itself following 
its own. will in falling. Leibniz says that a mag- 
netic needle similarly endowed might imagine that 
it turned towards the north simply because it wished. 
Both examples are used to illustrate the folly of 
relying upon the immediate "testimony" of con- 
sciousness. But the example of Spinoza, is that of 
an object, all whose movements are absolutely ne- 
cessitated from without ; the exajnple of Leibniz is 
that of an object whose activity, though following 
law, and not caprice, is apparently initiated from 
within. Of cpurse in reality the. movements of the 
magnetic needle are just as much externally con- 
ditioned as those of the stone ; but the appearance 
of self-action in the latter case may serve at least 
to exemplify what is meant by spontaneity as attri- 
buted to human action. 

It must be noticed at the outset that spontaneity 
belongs to every simple substance. We have only 
to recall the doctrine of monads. These suffer noth- 
ing from without, all their activity is the expression, 
is the unfolding, of their own law. "By nature," 
Leibniz says, " every simple substance has percep- 
tions, and its individuality consists in the permanent 



124 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

law which forms the succession of its perceptions, 
that are born naturally one of another. Hence 
it is not necessary for it to receive any physical 
influence from without ; and therefore the soul has 
in itself a perfect spontaneity in such a way that 
its actions depend only upon God and itself." Or 
if we put the matter in its connection with his 
psychology rather than with his metaphysics, it is 
true that our actions are determined by our mo- 
tives ; but motives are not forces without the soul, 
they are forces of the soul. In acting according 
to motives the soul is simply acting according to 
its own laws. A desire is not an impulsion from 
an external cause ; it is the expression of an in- 
ward tendency. To say that the soul acts from 
the strongest desire is simply to say, from this 
standpoint, that it manifests the most real part 
of itself, not that it obeys a foreign force. Im- 
pulses, desires, motives, are all psychical; they 
admit of no description or explanation except in 
their relation to the soul itself. Thus when Leibniz 
compares, as he often does, motives to weights act- 
ing upon a balance, we are to remember that the 
balance is not to be conceived as the soul, and 
the weights as energies outside it, but that this is 
only a way of picturing what is going on within 
the soul itself. The soul may be a mechanism, but 
it is a self-directing and self-executing mechan- 
ism. To say that human action is free because 
it is spontaneous, is to say that it follows an 
immanent principle, that it is independent of 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 125 

foreign influences, — in a word, that it is self- 
determined. 

But here again it seems as if Leibniz had stated 
a principle altogether too wide to throw any light 
upon the nature of moral freedom. Spontaneity is 
no more an attribute of human activity than it is 
of all real activity. Every monad, even the uncon- 
scious, as truly follows its own law without inter- 
ference from without as does man himself. If the 
spontaneity of action constitutes its morality, we 
are not in a condition to ascribe morality to man any 
more than to any real thing. We are thus thrown 
back again upon the conception of rationality as the 
final and decisive trait of freedom- and of ethical con- 
duct. Just as " contingency" gets a moral import 
only in connection with conscious ends of action, so 
"spontaneity" comes within the moral realm only 
when conjoined to reason. 

Why is th^re this close connection between reason 
and freedom? The reader has only to recall what 
was said of Leibniz's theory of causality to get a 
glimpse into their unity. Causality is not a matter 
of physical influence, but of affording the reason in 
virtue of which some fact is what it is. This ap- 
plies of course to the relation of the soul and the 
body. " So far as the soul is perfect and has dis- 
tinct ideas, God has accommodated the body to it ; 
so far as the soul is imperfect and its ideas are con- 
fused, God has accommodated the soul to the body. 
In the former case the body always responds to the 
demands of the soul ; in the latter the soul is moved 



126 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

by the passions which are born of the sensuous 
ideas. Each is thought to act upon the other in the 
measure of its perfection [that is, degree of activ- 
ity], since God has adjusted one thing to another 
accoi-ding to its perfection or imperfection. Activ- 
ity and i)assivity are always reciprocal in created 
things, because a portion of the reasons which serve 
to. explain what goes on is in one substance, and 
another portion in the other. This is what makes 
us call one active, the other passive." 

If we translate these ideas out of their somewhat 
scholastic phraseology, the meaning is that the self- 
activity of any substance is accurately measured by 
the extent to which it contains the reasons for its 
own actions ; and conversely, that it is dependent 
or enslaved just so far as it has its reasons beyond 
itself. Sensations, sensuous impulses, represent, 
as we have seen before, the universe only in a con- 
fused and inarticulate way. They are knowledge 
which cannot give an account of itself. They rep- 
resent, in short, that side of mind which may be 
regarded as affected, or the limitation of mind, — 
its want of activity. So far as the mind acts from 
these sensations and the feelings which accompany 
them, it is ideally determined from without ; it is a 
captive to its own states ; it is in a condition of pas- 
sivity. In all action, therefore, which occurs from 
a sensuous basis, the soul is rightly regarded as 
unfree. 

On the other hand, just in the degree in which 
distinctness is introduced into the sensations, so 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 127 

that they are not Bimply experienced as they come, 
but are related to one another so that their reason 
for existence, their spiritual meaning^, is ascertained, 
just in that degree is the soul master of itself. In 
Leibniz's own words: ''Distinct knowled«:e or in- ^ 
telligence has its place in the true use of reason, 
while the senses furnish confused ideas. Hence we 
can say that we are free from slavery just in the 
degree that we act with distinct knowledge, but are 
subject to our passions in just the degree that our 
ideas are confused ; " that is, not really representa- 
tive of things as they are. " Intelligence is the 
soul of liberty." 

This psychological explanation rests, of course, 
upon the foundation principle of the Leibnizian 
philosophy^ Spirit is the sole reality, and spirit 
is activity. But there are various degrees of ac- 
tivity, and each grade lower tha.n the purus actus 
'may be rightfully regarded as in 'so far passive. 
This relative passivity or unreality constitutes the 
materisll and hence the sensuous world. One who 
has not insight into truth, lives and acts in this 
world of comparative unreality; he is in bondage 
to it. From this condition of slavery only reason, 
the understanding of things as they are, can lift 
one. The rational man is free because he acts, in 
the noble words of Spinoza, sub specie cetermtatis. 
He acts in view of the eternal truth of things, — as 
God himself would act. 

God alone, it further follows, is wholly free. In 
him alone are understanding and will wholly one. 



128 Leibniz's new essays. 

In him the true and the -good are one ; while every 
created intelligence is subject in some degree to 
sensuous affection, to passion. *^In us, besides 
the judgment of the understanding, there is always 
mixed some unreal idea of the sensation which 
gives birth to passions and impulses, and these trav- 
erse the judgment of the practical understanding." 

I Freedom, in fine, is not a ready made garment with 
which all men are clothed to do with as they will. 
It is the ethical Ideal ; it is something to be attained ; 
it is action in conformity with reason, or insight 
into the spiritual nature of reality and into its laws ; 
it is not the starting-point, it is the goal. Only 
with a great price do men purchase such freedom. 
It will be noticed at once that Leibniz comes very 
close to Plato in his fundamental ethical ideas. The 
unity of virtue and reason, of virtue and freedom, — 
these are thoroughly Platoi^ic conceptions. To both 
Plato and Leibniz reason is the ethical ideal because 
it is the expression of, nay, rather, is the reality of 
the universe ; while all else is, as Leibniz says, 

*> imperfect or unreal, since it is not an activity, or, 
as Plato says, a mixture of Being and Non-Being. 
Again, to both man bears a similar relation to this 
spiritual reality. In Plato's words, he participates 

• in the Ideas ; in those of Leibniz he reflects, as a 
mirror, the universe. To both, in a word, the 
reality, the true-self of the individual, is the spiritual 
universe of which it is an organic member. To 
both, therefore, man obtains freedom or self-reali- 
zation only as he realizes his larger and more com- 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 129 

prehensive identity with the Reason of the universe. 
With both, knowledge is the good, ignorance is the 
evil. No man is voluntarily bad, but only through 
lack of knowledge of the true Good. Leibniz, 
however, with a more developed psychology, supple- 
ments Plato in the point where the latter had the 
most difficulty, — the possibility of the feelings or' 
of a love of pleasure overcoming knowledge of the 
good. This possibility Plato was compelled to 
deny, while Leibniz, by his subtle identifying of the 
passions with lack of knowledge, or with confused 
knowledge, can admit it. " It is an imperfection 
of our freedom," says Leibniz, ''which causes us 
to choose evil rather than good, — a greater evil 
rather than the less, the less good rather than the 
greater. This comes from the appearances of good 
and evil which deceive us ; but God, who is perfect 
knowledge, is always led to the true and to the best 
good, that is, to the true and absolute good." 

It only remains briefly to apply these conceptions 
to some specific questions of moral actions. Locke 
asks whether there are practical innate ideas, and 
denies them, as he denies theoretical. Leibniz, m 
replying, recognizes two kinds of " innate " prac- 
tical principles, one of which is to be referred td" 
the class of instincts, the other to that of maxlWs. *" 
Primarily, and probably wholly in almost all m^W, ' 
moral truths take the rank of instincts alone. "All* 
men aim at the Good ; it is impossible tb thinlc t)f '* 
man wilfully seeking his own evil. The 'ineth(?ds, " 
the means of reaching this Good, are implaiitSd" ?n^ 



130 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

"^men as instincts. These instincts, when brought to 
the light of reason and examined, become maxims 
of action ; they lose their particular and impulsLve 
character, and become universal and deliberate prin- 
ciples. ' Thus Leibniz is enabled to answer the va- 
rious objections which are always brought against 
any *' intuitive " theory of moral actions, — the va- 
riability of men's moral beliefs and conduct in dif- 
ferent countries and at different times. Common 
instincts, but at first instincts only, are present in 
I all men whenever and wherever they live. These 
instincts may readily be *' resisted by men's pas- 
sions, obscured by prejudice, and changed by cus- 
tom." The moral instincts are always the basis of 
moral action, but '* custom, tradition, education" 
become mixed with them. . Even when so con- 
founded, however, the instinct will generally pre- 
vail, and custom is, upon the whole, on the side of 
right rather than wrong, so that Leibniz thinks 
there is a sense in which all men have one common 
morality. 

But these moral instincts, even when pure, are 
not ethical science. This is innate, Leibniz says,| 
only in the sense in which arithmetic is innate, — 
it depends upon demonstrations which reason fur- 
nishes. Leibniz does not, then, opposp intuitive and 
demonstrative, as sometimes happens. Morality is 
practically intuitive in the sense that all men tend to 
aim at the Good, and have an instinctive feeling of 
what makes towards the Good. It is theoretically 
demonstrative, since it does not become a science 



THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL. 131 

untU Reason has an insight into the nature of the 
Good, and ascertains the fixed laws which are tiibu. 
tarj to it. Moral principles are not intuitive in 
the sense that they are immediately discovered as ^ 
separate principles by some one power of the soul 
called ^'^'conscience.*' Moral laws are intuitive, he 
says, *' as the consequences of our own develop- 
ment and our true well-being." Here we may. well 
leave the matter. What is to be said in detaU of 
I-eibniz*s ethics wUl find its congenial home in what 
we have to say of his theology. 



132. LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 

LOCKE'S account of innate ideas and of sensa- 
tion is only preparatory to a discussion of the 
ideas got by sensation. His explanation of the 
mode of knowledge leads -up to an explanation of 
the things known. He remains true to his funda- 
mental idea that before we come to conclusions 
about any matters we must * ' examine our own abil- 
ity." He deals first with ideas got by the senses, 
whether by some one or by their conjoint action. 
Of these the ideas of solidity, of extension, and of 
duration are of most concern to us. They form as 
near an approach to a general philosophy of nature 
as may be found anywhere in Locke. They are, too, 
the germ from which grew the ideas of matter, of 
space, and of time, which, however more compre- 
hensive in scope and more amply worked out in 
detail, characterize succeeding British thought, and 
which are reproduced to-day by Mr. Spencer. 

*' The idea of soliditywe r eceive by our touch>" 
*' The ideas we get by more than one sense are of 
space or extension, figure, rest, a nd motion ." These 
sentences contain the brief statement of the chief 
contention of the sensational school. Locke cer- 
tainly was not conscious when he wrote them 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 133 

that they were the expression of ideas which should 
resolve the world of matter and of space into a dis- 
solving series of accidentally associated sensations ; 
but such was none the less the case. When he 
^2l^.ti *' Tf ff"y ^"^ ^«^^ mf wh^t snlidjt y js^ I send NJ^ 
him to his senses to inform him," he is prepa ring 
the way for Berkeley, and for a denial o^alljealit^ 
be yond th e feelings of the m3ivI3uaijnind. When 
he says th^^lfp^e £et tLFidea of sjmce both by sight 
and touch," this statement, although appearing tru- 
istic, is none tlie less* tlie source oT^the contention^ 
of Hu me that even geom etry contai ns no necessary "^ 
or universal elements, but is an account of sen- 
sible appearances, relative, as are all matters of 
sensation. 

Lo cke's ideas may be aynopaized as follows! . It 
is a sufficient account of solidity to say that it is go t 
b y touch and that it ari ses from the resis tance found 
in^odies to the entrance of any other body. ^jTt 
is that which hinders the approach of two bodies^ 
when they are m oved tow ards o ne anothe r." If not. 
i dentical with matter, it is at all events its most es- 
sential property. " This^ j)f all "others seems "fhe 
iHeaTmo'stllllimately connected with and essential to 
bodj, so as no where else to be found or imagined, 
but only in matter." It is, moreover, the source of 
the other properties of matter. " Upon the. soiidity 
of bodies depend their mutual impulse, resistance, 
and protrusion." Solidity, again, " is so inseparable 
an idea from body that upon that depends its. filling 
of space, its contact, impulse, and communication 



134 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

of motion upon impulse/' It is to be distinguished, 
therefore, from hardness, for hardness is relative 
and derived, various bodies having various degrees 
of it; while solidity consists in utter exclusion of 
other bodies from the space possessed by any one, 
so that the hardest body has no more solidity than 
the softest. 

The close connection between solidity and matter 
makes it not only possible, but necessary, to distin- 
guish between matter and extension as against the 
Cartesians, who had identified them. In particular 
Locke notes three differences between these notions. 
Extension includes neither solidity nor resistance; 
its parts are inseparable from one another both really 
and mentally, and are immovable ; while matter has 
solidity, its parts are mutually separable, and may 
be moved in space. From this distinction between 
space and matter it follows, according to Locke, 
that there is such a thing as a vacuum, or that 
space is not necessarily a plenum of matter. Mat- 
ter is that which fills space ; but it is entirely indif- 
ferent to space whether or not it is filled. Space is 
occupied by matter, but there is no essential rela- 
tion between them. Solidity is the essence of mat- 
ter ; emptiness is the characteristic of space. " The 
idea of space is as distinct from that of solidity as 
it is from that of scarlet color. It is true, solidity 
cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet 
color exist without extension ; but this hinders not 
that they are distinct ideas " 

Thus there is fixed for us the id ea of space a s 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 135 

well as of matter. ' It is a distinct idea ; that is , 
absolute or independent in itself, havin p ; no intrinsic |t^ 
connection with phenomen a in spa>ce . Yet it is got . ., . 
through the senses. How that can b^^^^ matter jof >'-'' 
sensation which is not only not material, but ha s v 
no connection in its elf with matter^ T^ocke does -/' f 
not ex plai^ He thinks it suflficient to say that_ _g€ j , ' ' 
see distan ce between bodies of different color just ' 
a s plainly as we see the colors . / S pace is, therefor e, 
a purely imm ediate idea , containi ng no more org anic 
relation to intelligence than it^as to o^ ects. We get 
the notion of time as we do that of space, excepting 
that it is the observation of internal states and not 
of external objects which furnishes the material of 
the idea. Time has two elements, —succession an d 
duration. ^* Observing what p asses i n the min d, 
how of our ideas there in train. some constantly 
vanish, and others begin to aj)pearj^ we come by the 
idea of succession, and by observ ing a dist ance in 
the parts of this succession we ^et the idea of 
duration." Whether, however, time is something 
essentially empty, having no relation to the events 
which fill it, as space is essentially empty, without 
necessary connection with the objects which fill it, 
is a question Locke does not consider. In fact, the 
gist of his ideas upon this point is as follows : there 
is actually an objective space or pure emptiness ; 
employing our senses, we get the idea of this space. 
There is actually an objective time ; employing re- 
flection, we perceive it. There is not the slightest 
attempt to form a philosophy of them, or to shoTf 



136 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

their function in the construction of an intelligible 
world, except in the one point of the absolute inde- 
pendence of matter and space. 

It cannot be said that Leibniz criticises the minor 
points of Locke in such a way as to throw much 
light upon them, or that he very fully expresses his 
own ideas about them. ^ He contents himself with 
declaring that while the senses may give instances 
,of space, time, and matter, and may suggest to intel- 
ligence the stimuli upon which intelligence realizes 
these notions from itself, they cannot be the source 
of these notions themselves ; finding the evidence of 
this in the sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and pure 
physics. For these sciences deal with the notions 
of space, time, and matter, giving necessary and 
demonstrative ideas concerning them, which the 
senses can never legitimate. He further denies the 
supposed absoluteness or independence of space, 
matter, and motion. Admitting, indeed, the distinc- 
tion between extension and matter, he denies that 
this distinction suffices to prove the existence, or 
even the possibility, of a vacuum, and ends with a 
general reference to his doctrine of pre-established 
harmony, as serving to explain these matters more 
fully and more accurately. 

Leibniz has, however, a complete philosophy of 
nature. In his other writing, he explains the ideas 
of matter and force in their dependence upon his 
m.etaphysic, or doctrine of spiritual entelechies. The 
task does not at first sight appear an easy one. 
The reality, according to Leibniz, is purely spiritual, 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO, SPIRIT. 137 

does not exist in space nor time, and is a principle 
of activity following its own law, — that of reflect- 
ing the universe of spiritual relations. How from 
this world of ideal, unextended, and non-temporal 
dynamic realities we are to pass over to a material 
world of extension, with its static existence in 
space, and transitory passage in time, is a question 
challenging the whole Leibnizian system. It is a 
question, however, for which Leibniz himself has 
provided an answer. We may not regard it as 
adequate ; we may think that he has not truly 
derived the material world from his spiritual prin- 
ciples : but at all events he asked himself the 
question, and gave an answer. We shall investi- 
gate this answer by arranging what Leibniz has said 
under the heads of : matter as a metaphysical prin- 
ciple ; matter as a physical phenomenon ; and the 
relation of phenomena to absolute reality, or of 
the physical to the metaphysical. In connection 
with the second head, particularly, we shall find it 
necessary to discuss what Leibniz has said about 
\^space, time, and motion. 
' Wolff, who put the ideas of Leibniz into systematic 
shape, did it at the expense of almost all their 
significance. He took away the air of paradox, of 
remoteness, that characterized Leibniz's thought, 
and gave it a popular form. But its depth and sug- 
gestiveness vanished in the process. Unfortunately, 
Wolff's presentations of the philosophy of Leibniz 
have been followed by others, to whom it seemed 
a dull task to follow out the intricacies of a thought 



138 LEIBNIZ'S NEW. ESSAYS. 

nowhere systematically expressed. This has been 
especially the case as concerns the Leibnizian 
doctrine of matter. A superficial interpretatioa of 
'-^^ertain passages in Leibniz has led to an abnost 
/universal misunderstanding about it. Leibniz fre- 
quently says that since matter is composite or 
complex, it follows that there must be something 
simple as its basis, and this simple something is 
the monad. The misinterpretation just spoken of 
consists in supposing that Leibniz meant that mat- 
ter ais composite is made up of monads as simple ; 
that the monad and matter are facts of the same 
order, the latter being only an aggregate, or con- 
tinued collection of the former. It interpreted the 
conception of Leibniz in strict analogy with the 
atomic theory of Lucretius, excepting that it granted 
that the former taught that the ultimate atom, the 
component of all complex forms of matter, has 
position oniy, not extension, its essence consisting 
in its exercise of force, not in its mere space oc- 
cupancy. The monad was thus considered to be in 
space, or at least conditioned by space relations, 
as is a mathematical point, although not itself 
spatial in the sense of being extended. Monad and 
matter were thus represented as facts of the same 
kind or genus, having their difference only in their 
relative isolation or aggregation. 

But Leibniz repudiated this idea, and that not 

only by the spirit of his teaching, but in express 

words. Monads ^' are not ingr edients or constit - 

• uents of matter," he says, ' ' but only conditions of itj' 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 139 

" Monads can no more be said to be parts of bodi es, 
or to come in contact with them, or to compose >JjLL> 
them, than can souls or mathematical points." ^^ 
* VMonads per ge ha ve no situation releiJ;ly^J;Qjane 
another. " An increase in the number of created 
monads, he says again, if such a thing could be 
supposed, would no more increase the amount of 
matter in existence, than mathematical points added 
to a line would increase its length. And again: 
" There is no nearness or remoteness among mo- 
nads ; to say that they are gathered in a point or 
are scattered in space, is to employ mental fictions, ' 
in trying to imagine what can only he thought." The 
italicized words give the clew to the whole dis- 
cussion. To make monads of the same order as 
corporeal phenomena, is to make them sensible, or 
capable of being iinaged, or conditioned by space 
and time, — three phrases which are strictly cor- 
relative. But the monads can only be though t, — 
that iSj t heir qualilie s^re ideal, not sensible ; they 
can be realized_only^ by^jeaaoa*.. no t proj ecte d in 
forms having spati al o utline and temporal ha b- 
itation/ that is, in images. Monad s and material 
things^ in.. other words, are facts of two distinct 
orders ;. Ih ey a re related as the rational or sj^iritual^ 
and the j)hysical or sensible. Matter is no more 
composed of monads than it is of thoughts or_of^ 
logical princigles. As Leibniz says over and over 
again: Matter, space, time, motion are only phe- 
nomena, although phenomena bene fundata, — phe- 
nomena, that is, having their rational basis and 



140 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

condition. The monads, on the other hand, are 
not appearances, they are realities. 

Having freed our minds from the supposition 
that it is in any way possible to form an image or 
picture of the monad ; having realized that it is 
wholly false to suppose that monads occupy posi- 
tion in space, and then by their continuity fill it, 
and make extended matter, — we must attempt to 
frame a coiTect theory of the nature of matter and 
its relation to the monad. We shall do this only 
as we realize that '* matter," so far as it has any 
reality, or so far as it has any real fandamentum^ 
must be something ideal, or, in Leibniz's language, 
" metaphysical." As he says over and over again, 
the only realities fvff thf aiiKafon^oo ^vi. °|liritil1f^ 
units of a c tivity, to which the name ^* monad" i s 
given. In the inquiry, then, after such reality as 
matter may have, we must betake ourselves to this 
unit of living energy. 

Although every monad is active, it is not entirely 
active. There is, as we have already seen, an 
infinite scale of substances ; and since substance is 
equivalent to activity, this is saying that there is 
an infinite scale of activities. God alone is purus 
actus ^ absolute energy, untouched by passivity or 
receptivity. Every other being has th e element, of 
incompleteness, of . iuadeq uacy ; it does not c om- 
pletely represent the universe. In this passivity 
consists its finitude, so that Leibniz says that not 
even God himself could deprive monads ^oMt, for 
this wQuld be to make them equal to himself. In 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 141 

this passivity, incompleteness, or finitude, consi sts 
wh at we calljnatter. Leibniz says that he can un- 
derstand what Plato meant when he called matter, 
something essentially imperfect and transitory. Ev- 
ery finite monad is a union of two principles, — 
thoseof activity and of passivity . " I do not ad- 
'mit," says Leibniz, "that there are souls existing 
simply by themselves, or that there are created 
spirits detached from all body. God alone is 
above all matter, since he is its author ; creatures 
freed from matter would be at the same time de- 
tached from the universal connection of things, and, 
as it were, deserters from the general order." And 
again, " Beings have a nature which is both active 
and passive ; that is^ material and immaterial." 
And again, he says that every created monad re- 
quires both an entelechy, or principle of activity, 
and matter. '' Matter is essential to any entelech y. 
and c an never be separated from it^ giu ce matter 
C ompletes li^ ' in short, the term " monad "is eqiifva - 
Tpnt tn t.hp. tpj»m ^^ entelechy" only when applied j o 
God._ In every other monad, the entelechy, or en- 
"ftrgv. iR bnt onft faot^r. " Mg^tfc.ezvJli: .primitixajiaar 
sive power, completes the en t elechy^^ r primitive 
afitiye p()wer. so th at it becomes a perfect substance, 
ormonad." On the other hand, of course^ matter, 
as the passive principle, is a mere potentiality; ^or 
abstraction, considered in itself. It Js real only 
in its union with_the active principle. Matter, he 
says, " cannot exist without immaterial substances." 
" To every particular portion of matter belongs a 



142 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

particular form : that is, a souU a spirit /' To this 
element of nfatter, considered as an abstraction, in 
its distinction from soul, Leibniz, following the 
scholastics, and ultimately Aristotle, gives the 
name, " first" or " bare " matter. The same influ- 
ence is seen in the fact that he opposes this element 
' of matter to " form," or the active principle. 

Our starting-point, therefore, for the considera- 
tion of matter is the statement that it is receptivity, 
the capacity for being affected, which always con- 
stitutes matter. But what is meant by- " receptiv- 
ity " ? To answer 'this question we must return to 
what was said about the two activities of the monad, 
— representation, or perception, and appetition, — 
and to the difference between confused and distinct 
ideas. The mona ^^ han apppfifi/^n ar^ f «»» qq 4f /laf^i*- 

mines itself ff^m wif.hin tr^ oTian^P. gn far ^ it 

follows an int ernal principle of energy . It is rep- 
resentative an far asi it is dptprm^'^^^ froT Ti withou t, 
so far as it receives i mpressions from the universe. 
Yet we have^ lear ned to know that i n one sens e 
everything occurs from the sponta neity of the 
monad itself ; it receives no influenc e or influxus 
from without; everything "comes from it s own 
depths, or is appetition. Biit,"^oh the other hand, 
all that which so comes forth is only"a mirrormg or 
copying of the universe. The whole content of the 
appetition is representation. Al though the monad 
works spontaneously, it is none the less d etermine d 
in its activities to prodace onlyT6flfe<5tions or images 
of the^world. In this way appetition and represen- 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 143 

^tion appear to be identica l . The mona d is deter - 
mine d from within, indeed, but it is d etermined to 
exactly the same results as if wholly determined . 
from w]thqiTtT Wh at ligh t, then, can be thrown from, 
this distinction upon the nature of matterF 

None, unless we follow LeiFniz somewhat farther. 
If we do, we shall see that the soul is regarded as 
appetitive, or self -active, so far as it has clear and 
distinct ideas. Jf the monad reaches distinct cop - 
sdousness, it has knowledge of self , — that js, of the 
n ature of pure sp irit. — or, what ap;ain is equivalen t 
to this, of the na ture^ of r eality as it univer sally is. 
Such knowledge is knowledge of God, of substance, 
of unity, of pure activity ,'and of all the^innate ideas 
which elevate the confused perceptions of sense into 
science. Distinct consciousness is therefore equiv- 
alent to self-activity,, and this to recognition of God 
and the universal. But i f knowledge is conf used, it 
is not possible to see iFTn its relations^to self; it 
cannot be an alyzed ; the rational or ideal element 
in it |s concealed from view. In confused ideas , 
there toej_Jhe_goul appea rs to be pass ive ; being 
passive, to be determined from_ without. This de- 
termination from without is equivalent to that 
which is" opposed to spirit or reasouj and hence ap- 
pears as matter. Such is in^ outline the Leibnizian 
pBiTosophy. ""^^ 

It thus is clear that merely stating that matter is 
passivity in the monad is not the ultimate way of stat- 
ing its nat ure . F or pa ssivity means in reality^ nothing 
hut confused representations, — representations, that 



* 



%- 



7r\ -se 



144 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

is, whose significance is not perceive d. The true sig- 
nificance of every representation is found in its rela- 
tion to the ego, or pure self-acti vity which, through 
its dependent relation upon God, the absolute self- 
activity an d ego, prod.u ces t he rep resentation from 
its own ideal being. So far as the soul doesji ot 
have distinct recy gmtion^_of_rglatio n of all repre - 
se ntations to self , i^^ fee ls them as coming from 
without ; as f orei gn to spirit : in short, as matter . 
Leibniz thus employs e xactly the same languag e 
about lionTused ideas that he does about passivity , 
or matter . It is not possible that the monad should 
have distinct consciousness of itself as a mirror of 
the whole universe, he says, " for in that case every 
entelechy would be God." Again, " the soul would 
be God if it could enter at once and with distinct- 
ness into everything occurring within it." But it is 
necessary " that we should have passions which con- 
sist in confused ideas, in which there is something 
involuntary and unknown, and which represent the 
body and constitute our imperfection." Again, he 
speaks of matter as " the mixture (melange) of the 
effects of the infinite environing us." In that expres- 
sion is summed up his whole theory of matter. It is 
a mixture ; it is, that is to say, confused, aggregated, 
irresolvable into simple ideas. But it is a mixture 
of " effects of the infinite about us ;" that is, it takes 
its rise in the true, the real, the spiritual. It only 
fails to represent this as it actually is. Matter, in 
short, is a phenomenon depend ent upon inability to 
realize the entire spiritual character of reality. It 




MATTER. AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 145 

is spirit apprehended in a confused, hesitatinp[, an d 
passive manner. 

II Is^none the less a necessary phenomenon, for.it 
is involved in the idea of a continuous gradation of 
monads, in the distinction between the infinite and 
the finite, or, as Leibniz often prefers to put it, 
between the " creator " and the " created.". There is 
involved everywhere in the idea of Leibniz the con- 
ception of subordination ; of a hierarchy of forms, 
each of which receives the law of its action fi:pm the j^ 
next higher, and gives the law to the next lower. in. 
We hav e previously co ns idered the element of pas- *'^ 
-sivity or receptivity as relating only to the monad ^ 
which manifests it. T lPis ev ident , ho wever, that 
what is passive in one, implies something acti ve i n 
another. What on e receives^ is what another gives. 
The reciprocal influe nce of mona ds upon one another, 
therefore, as harmonious members of one system, 
f eqiiir es m atter . More strictly speakingj, this recip- 
roc al influe nce is matter. To take a way all rec_ep-( ' 
tivity, all passivity, from monads would be to isolate 
them from all relations with others ; it would be 
deprive them of all power of affecting or being 
fected by others. ' That is what Leibniz meant by 
expression already quoted, that if monads had not 
matter as an element in them, " they would be, as 
it were, deserters from the general order." The 
note of unity, of organic connection, which we found 
to be the essence of the Leibnizian philosophy, abso- 
lutely requires, therefore, matter, or passivity. 

It must be remembered that this reciprocal in- 
10 



f' 



A, 



3late 

)e to A 

y the / V\ 



146 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

fluence is ideal. As Leibniz remarks, ** When it is 
said that one monad is affected by another, this is 



to be understood concernrngf its representcUion of the 
other. For the Author of things has so accommo- 
dated them to one another that one^is said to suffer 
(or recei ve from the other\-jyhen its relative valug. 
gives wav to th at of the other." Or again,^/the 

;^ moflihcati^gg ot one monad are the ideal causes^ 
the modi fications of another monad, so far as there 
appear in on e the reasons on account ^^ ^ll^^^ ^^^ 
hrnnpht. about in the beprjnniny ppnfoi'n tn^j|j|.^|jj^pQ 
in another." 3 A nd most definitely of all ; >^ A/we a- 
ture. .ig_^led ac tive so far as it has perfection ; 

5 passive in so far as it is imperfect. One creature 

(' is more perfect than anQ theFsoTar~as there is foun cL 

\V/^^n it that which' serves t o render thp. rpofion. a priorL 

,, \ for that o ccurring in the other ; and it is in this way 

that it acts upon the other. ^ 

-rT^nVe are thus intro duced^, from a new point of 

/ view ami in a more concrete way, to the conception 
of pre-established harmony. The activity of one, 
the energy which gives the law to the other and 
makes it subordinate in the hierarchy of monads, 
is conceived necessarily as spirit, as soul; that 
which receives, which is rendered subordinate by 
the activity of the other, is body. The pre-estab- 
lished harmony is the fact that they are so related 
that one can receive the law of its activity from the 
' other. Leibniz is without doubt partially responsi- 
ble for the ordinary misconception of his views 
upon this point by reason of the illustration which he 



■7 



MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT. 147 

was accustomed to use ; namely, of two clocks so 
constructed that without any subsequent regulation 
each always kept perfect time with the other, — as 
much so as if there were some actual physical connec- 
tion between them. This seems to put soul and body, 
spirit and matter, as two co-ordinate substances, on 
the same level, with such natural opposition between 
them that some external harmony must arrange some 
unity of action. In causing this common idea of his 
theory of pre-established harmony, Leibniz has paid 
the penalty for attempting to do what he often re- 
proves in others, — imagining or presenting in sensi- 
ble form what can only be thought. But his other 
explanations show clearly enough that the pre-estab- 
lished harmony expresses, not a relation between 
two parallel substances, but a condition of depend- 
ence of lower forms of activity upon the higher for 
the law of their existence and activity, — in modern 
terms, it expresses the fact that phenomena are 
conditioned tipon noumena ; that material facts get 
their significance and share of reality through their 
relation to spirit. . . i 

We may sum up what has been said about matter 
as an element in the monad, or as a metaphysical 
principle, as follows : The existence of matter is not 
only not opposed to the fundamental ideas of Leib- 
niz, but is a necessary deduction from them. It is 
a necessity of the principle of continuity ; for this 
requires an infinity of monads, alike indeed in the 
universal law of their being, but unlike, each to 
each, in the specific coloring or manifestation of this 



\ 



148 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

law. The principle of organic unity requires that 
there be as many real beings as possible participat- 
ing in and contributing to it. It is necessary, again, 
in order that^there may be reciprocal influence or 
connection among the monads. Were it not for 
the material element in the monad, each .would be 
a God; if each were thus infinite and absolute, 
there would be so many principles wholly indepen- 
dent and isolated. The principle of harmony would 
be violated. So much for the necessity of the 
material factor. As to its nature, it is a principl e 
of passivity ; t hat is, of ideal receptivity, of conform - 
ity to a Taw apparently not self-imposed, but exter - 
hally lai^d down . This makes matter equivalent to 
a phenomenon ; that is to say, to the having of con- 
fused, imperfect, inadequate ideas. To. say that 
matter is correlative to confused ideas is to say that 
^there is no recognition of its relation to self or to 
spirit. As Leibniz sometimes puts it, since there 
is an infinity of beings in the universe, each one of 
which exercises an ideal influence upon every other 
one of the series, it is impossible that this other one 
should realize their full meaning ; they appear only 
as conf used ideas^ or as matter . To use language 
which Leibniz indeed does not employ, but which 
seems to convey his thought, the spirit^ not seeing 
" them as they really .are, d o es not find itself in them . 
But matter is thus not only the confused manifesta- 
tion or phenomenon of spirit, it is also its potential- 
ity. Passivity is always relative. It does not mean 
complete lack of activity ; that, as Leibniz says, is 



MATTER AND ITS KELATION TO SPIRIT. 149 

nothingness, and matter is not a form of notHing- 
ness. Leibniz even speaks of it as passive power: 
That is to say, there is an undeveloped or incom- 
plete activity in what appears as matter, and this 
may be, — if we admit an infinity of time, — must be 
developed. When developed it manifests itself as 
it really is, as spirit. Confused ideas, as Leibniz 
takes pains to state, are not a genus of ideas anti- 
thetical to distinct; they differ only in degree or 
grade. They are on their way to become distinct,, 
or else they are distinct ideas which have fallen 
back- into an " involved " state of being. Matter, 
therefore, is not absolutely opposed to spiiit, — on 
the one hand because it is the manifestation, the 
phenomenon, of spirit; on the other, because it .is 
the potentiality of spiiit, capable of sometime rea- 
lizing the whole activity implied in it, but now 
latent. 

Thus it is that Leibniz says that everything is 
" full" of souls or monads. What appears to be 
lifeless is in reality like a pond full of fishes, like a 
drop of water full of infusoria. Everything is* or- 
ganic down to the last element. More truly, there 
is no last element. There is a true infinity of 
organic beings wrapped up in the slightest speck 
of apparently lifeless matter. These illustrations, 
like many others which Leibniz uses, are apt to 
suggest that erroneous conception of the relation 
of monads to spirit which we were obliged, in 
Leibniz's name, to correct at the outset, — the idea, 
namely, that matter is composed, in a spatial or 



150 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

mechanical way, of monads. But after the forego- 
ing explanations we can see that what Leibniz 
means when he says that every portion of matter is 
full of entelechies or souls, like a garden full of 
plants, is that there is an absolute continuity of 
spiritual principles, each having its ideal relation 
with every other. There is no point of matter 
which does not represent in a confused way the 
entire universe. It is therefore as infinite in its 
activities as the universe. In idea also it is capa- 
ble of representing in distinct consciousness, or as 
a development of its own self-activity, each of 
these infinite activities. 

In a word, every created or finite being may be 
regarded as matter or as spirit, according as it is 
accounted for by its external relations, as the rea- 
sons for what happen in it are to be fpund elsewhere 
than in its own explicit activity, or according as it 
shows clearly in itself the reasons for its own modi- 
fications, and also accounts for changes occurring in 
other beings. The externally conditioned is mat- 
ter ; the internally conditioned, the self-explanatory, 
is self-active, or spirit. Since all external relations 
are finally dependent on organic ; since the ultimate 
source of all explanation must be that which is its 
own reason ; since the ultimate source of all activity 
must be that which is self-active, — the final reason 
or source of matter is spirit. 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 151 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 

WE have seen the necessity and nature of matter 
as deductions from the fundamental prin- 
ciples of Leibniz. We have seen that matter is 
a phenomenon or manifestation of spirit in an im- 
perfect and confused way. But why should it ap- 
pear as moving, as extended, as resisting, as having 
cohesion, with all the concrete qualities which always 
mark it? Is there any connection between these 
particular properties of matter as physical, and its 
"metaphysical" or ideal character? These are the 
questions which now occupy us. Stated more defi- 
nitely, they take the following form : Is there any 
essential connection between the properties of mat- 
ter as a metaphysical element, and its properties as 
a sensible fact of experience? Leibniz holds that 
there is. He does not, indeed, explicitly take the 
ground that we can deduce a priori all the charac- 
teristics of matter as a fact of actual experience 
from its rational notion, but he thinks we can find 
a certain analogy between the two, that the sensible 
qualities are images or reflexes of the spiritual quali- 
ties, witnessing, so far as possible, to their origin in 
pure energy. 



152 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

i\ His position is as follows : that which in the 
monad is activity or substantial, is, in sensible mat- 
ter, motion. That which in the monad is lack of a 
given activity, that which constitutes its subordinate 
position in the hierarchy of monads, is, in the sphere 
of material things, inertia. That which in the spir- 
itual world is the individuality of 'monads, making 
each forever ideally distinct from every other, is, in 
the phenomenal realm, resistance or impenetrability. 
The perfect continuity of monads in the mundus 
intelUgihilis has also its counterpart in the mundus 
sensibiUs in the diffusion or extension of physical 
things. 

Instead of following out this analogy directly, it 
will rather be found convenient to take up Leibniz's 
thought in its historical connection. We have 
already alluded to the fact that he began as a Car- 
tesian, and that one of the first ideas which repelled 
him from that system of thought was the notion 
that the essence of matter is extension. His earliest 
philosophical writings, as he was gradually coming 
to the thoughts which thereafter dominated him, 
are upon this point. In general, his . conclusions 
are as follows : If matter were extension, it would . 
be incapable of passion or of action. . Solidity, too, 
is' a notion entirely opposed to the conception of 
mere extension. The idea of matter as extension 
contradicts some of the known laws of motion. It 
requires' that the quantity of niotion remain un- 
changed whenever two bodies come in contact, 
while as matter of fact it is the (Juantity of en- 



MATKRIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. lo3 

ergy, that which the motion is capable of effecting, 
that remains unchanged ; or, as he more often piits 
the objection, the Cartesian notion of matter re- 
quires that matter be wholly indifferent to motion, 
that there be nothing in it which resists motion when 
imparted. ^But, says Leibniz, there is something 
Resisting, that to which Keppler gave the name 
"inertia.'' It is not found to be true if one body 
impacts upon another that the second moves without 
diminishing the velocity or changing the direction 
of the first. On the other hand, just in proportion 
to the size of the second body, it resists and changes 
the motion of the first, up to the point of causing 
the first to rebound if small in comparison. And 
when it was replied that the retardation- was due to 
the fact that the force moving the first body had 
now to be divided between two, Leibniz answered 
that this was simply to give up the contention, and 
besides the notion of extension to use that of force. 
If extension were the essence of matter, it should be 
possible to deduce all the properties of matter, or 
at least to account for them all, from it. But since, 
as just seen, this does not enable us to account for 
any of them, since for any of its concrete qualities 
we have to fall back on force, it is evident where 
the true essence of matter is to be found. 

Leibniz has another argumetit of a logical nature, 
as those already referred to are of a physical: 
"Those who claim that extension is a substance, 
reverse the order of words as well as of thoughts. 
Besides extension there must be a subject which is 



154 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

extended; that is to say, something to which it 
belongs to be repeated or continued. .For extension 
is nothing but a repetition or continued multiplicflr 
tion of that which is spread out, — it is a plurality, a 
continuity, a co-existence of parts. Consequently, 
extension does not suffice to explain the nature of 
the repeated or manifold substance, of which the 
notion is anterior to that of its repetition." Exten- 
sion, in other words, is nothing substantial, it is 
not something which can exist by itself ; it is only 
a quality, a property, a mode of being. It is 
always relative to something which has extension. 
As Leibniz says elsewhere : " I insist that extension 
is only an abstraction^ and requires something which 
is extended. It presupposes some quality, some 
attribute, some nature in a subject which is ex- 
tended, diffused, or continued. Extension is a dif- 
fusion of this quality. For example, in milk there is 
an extension or diffusion of whiteness ; in the dia- 
mond an extension or diffusion of hardness ; in 
body in general a diffusion of antitypia or mate- 
riality. There is accordingly in body something 
anterior to extension." 

From the physical side, therefore, we find it im- 
possible to account for the concrete properties of 
material phenomena from extension ; on the logical 
we find that the idea of extension is always relative 
to that which is extended. What is that which is 
to be considered as the bearer of extension and the 
source of physical qualities? We are led back to 
the point at which we left the matter in the last 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 155 

chapter. It is force, and force both passive and 
active. Leibniz uses the term " matter" in at least 
three senses : it is the metaphysical element of pas- 
sive force in the monad; it is the monad itself 
considered as, upon the whole, externally condi- 
tioned or unconscious ; and it is the phenomenon 
resulting from the aggregation of the monads in the 
second sense. The first is naked matter, and is a 
pure abstraction ; the second is the monad as mate- 
rial, as opposed to the monad, as soul ; the third is 
clothed, or second matter, or, concretely, body, cor- 
pus. The first is unreal by itself; the second is 
one phase of substance ; the third is not substantial, 
but is a reality, though a phenomenal one. It is 
from the substantial monad that we are to explain 
the two things now demanding explanation, — that 
element in bodies (matter in third sense) which 
is the source of their physical properties, and that 
which is the subject, the carrier, so to speak, of 
extension. 

That of which we are in search as the •source of the 
physical qualities of bodies is i^aotion. This is not / 
force, but its "image." It is force, says Leibniz, 
that " is the real element in motion ; that is to say, 
it is that element which out of the present state in- 
duces a change in the future state." As force, in 
other words, is the causal activity which effects the \ 
development of one " representation " of a monad out 
of another, so motion, in the realm of phenomena, 
is not only change, but change which is continuous 
and progressive, each new position being dependent 



156 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

upon the foregoing, and following' out of it abso- 
lutely without break. 

Motion, therefore, is the manifestation of the 
ideal unity of substance, — a unity not of mere 
static inherence, but of a continuous process of ac- 
tivity. It is from this standpoint that Leibniz ac- 
counts for the so-called transference of motion from 
one body to another upon contact. The ordinary 
view of this, which looks at it as if one body loses 
the motion which another body gains, Leibniz 
ridicules, saying that those who hold this view seem 
to think that motion is a kind of thing, resembling, 
perchance, salt dissolved in water, v ^e rig hWiew, 
on the other hand, doed' away with all appearance of 
mystery in the carrying over of motion from one 
body to another, for it recognizes that continuity is 
the very essence of motion, and that we do not 
have two things and a third process, but that the 
two bodies are phases or elements in one and the 
same system of movement. 

Starting from this idea of motion, then, Leibniz 
is to account for the actual qualities of matter as 
found in experience. These are the form, magni- 
tude, cohesion, resistance, and the purely sensible 
qualities of objects. " First '* matter, that is, ab- 
stract matter, may be conceived, according to Leib- 
niz, as perfectly homogeneous, a " subtle fluid /' in 
his words, without any distinction of parts or of so- 
lidity. But this is an abstract notion. It is what 
matter would be without motion. Motion neces- 
sarily differentiates this plenum of homogeneity, and 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 157 

thus causes distinctions of figure (that is, l)ounda- 
ries of parts) and varieties of cohesion, or the 
varying solidity and fluidity of bodies. The latter 
difference is indeed the ultimate one. / The prin ciple 
of ^ontiiM iity or gradation, as applied to motion, 
makes it necessary that motions should not be in 
any two places of exactly the same energy. The 
result is that the originlil fluid matter is everywhere 
differently divided. Motion, entering into the uni- 
form plenum, introduces distinction ; it causes so 
much of the matter as is affected by a given move- 
ment to collect together and form in appearance a 
coherent body, as opposed to surrounding bodies 
which are affected by different degrees of energy. 
But even this is only approximate ; the same princi- 
ple of continuity must be applied within any 
apparently coherent body ; its parts, while, in rela- 
tion to other bodies, they have the same amount of 
motion, are in relation to one another differently 
affected. There are no two having exactly the 
same motion ; if they had, there would be no dis- 
tinction between them ; and thus, according to the 
pr incipl e of Leibniz, they would be the same. 

It^follows at once from this that there is in the 
universe no body of absolute hardness or solidity, 
nor of entire softness or fluidity. A perfectly. solid 
body would be one whose system of motions could 
not be ^.ffected by any other system, — a body which 
by motion had separated itself from motion, or be- 
come absolute. This is evidently an idea which 
contradicts itself, for the very essence of motion is 



158 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

continuity or relation. /A body perfectly fluid, on 
the other hand, would be one in which there was 
no resistance offered to other motions, — a body, in 
other words, in which there are no movements 
that, entering into connection with one another, 
form a relative opposition to other movements. 
It would be a body isolated or out of relation with 
the general system of motions, and hence an im- 
possibility. There is no last term either of solidity 
or of fluidity. 

It equally follows as matter of course that there 
is no indivisible particle of-aaatteTj — no atom. 
The infinity of degrees of motion implies a corre- 
sponding division of matter. As already said, it is 
only in contrast with other relatively constant sys- 
tems of motion that any body is of uniform motion ; 
in reality there is everywhere throughout it variety 
of movement, and hence complete divisibility, or 
rather, complete division. If Leibniz were to em- 
ploy the term " atom " at all, it could be only in the 
sense of the modern dynamical theory (of which, 
indeed, he is one of the originators), according to 
which the atom is not defined by its spatial position 
and outlines, but, by the range pf its effects , as the 
centre of energies of infinite circumference. Correl- 
ative to the non-existence of the atom is the non- 
existence of the vacuum. The two imply each 
other. The hard, limited, isolated body, having no 
intrinsic relations with other bodies, must have room 
to come into external relations with them. This 
empty space, which is the theatre of such accidental 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 159 

contacts as may happen, is the vacuum. But 
if bodies are originally in connection^ with one 
another, if they are in reality hut .differentiations 
of varying degrees of motion within one system of 
motion, then there is no necessity for the vacuum, 
— nay, there is no place for it. The vacuum in this 
case could mean only a break, a chasm, in the order 
of nature. According to the theory of Leibniz, 
'* bodies^". are bul the_ dynamic divisions of the one 
energy that fills the universe ; their separateness is 
not an independent possession of any one of them 
or of all together, but is the result of relations to 
the entire system. Their apparent isolation is only 
by reason of their actual connections. To admit a 
vacuum anywhere, would thus be to deny the relat- 
edness of the parts separated by it. The theory of 
the atom and the vacuum are the two phases of 
the metaphysical assumption of an indefinite plu- 
rality of independent separate realities. The the- 
ory of Leibniz, resting as it does on the idea of 
a perfect unity of interrelated members, must deny 
both .at these.. aspects . 'Were we making an ex- 
tended analysis of the opposed view, it would be 
necessary to point out that it denies itself. For 
it is only through the vacuum that the atoms are 
isolated or independent, and the sole function of 
the vacuum is to serve as the background of the 
atoms. The atoms, are separated only in virtue of 
their connection, and the vacuum is what it is — 
piu-e emptiness — only on account of that which is 
in it. In short, the theory is only an abstract and 



160 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

incomplete way of grasping the thought of relation 
or mediated unity. 

We have thus discovered that all motions con- 
spire together, or form a system. But in their 
V unity they do not cease to be motions, or variously 
differentiated members. Through this differenti- 
ation, or mutual reac]fcion of motions, there comes 
about the appearance of boundaries, of separation. 
From these boundaries or terminations arise the 
form and size of bodies. From motion also proceeds 
the cohesion of bodies, in the sense that each re- 
lative system resists dissolution, or hangs together. 
Says Leibniz, '* The motions, since they are con- 
spiring, would be troubled by separation; and 
accordingly this can be accomplished only by 
violence and with resistance." Not only form, size, 
and stability depend upon motion, but also the 
sensible, the *' secondary " qualities. " It must 
not be supposed that color, pain, sound, etc., are 
arbitrary and without relation to their causes. It 
is not God's way to act with so Uttle reason and 
order. There is a kind of resemblance, not entire, 
but of relation, of order. We say, for example, 
* Light is in the fire,' since there are motions in the 
fire which are imperceptible in their separation, 
but which are sensible in their conjunction or con- 
fusion ; and this is what is made known in the idea 
of light." In other words, color, sound, etc., even 
pain, ai*e still the perception of motion, but in a 
confused way. We thus see how thoroughly Leibniz 
carries back all the properties of bodies to motion. 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 161 

To sum up, motion is the origin of the relative 
solidity^ the divi^lbl^n^aB, tlr^fdrm, the 'size, th©^ 
cohesion, or~aetive resistance of bodies, and of their 
properties as made known , to. us . in., immediate 
sensation. 

In all that has been said it has been implied that 
extension is already in existence ; " first matter" is 
supposed to fill all space, and motion to determine 
it to take upon itself its actual concrete properties. 
But this " first matter," when thus spoken of, l^as 
a somewhat mythological sound, even if it be ad- 
mitted that it is an abstraction. For how can an 
abstraction be extended in space, and how can Jt 
form, as it were, a background upon which. motion 
displays itself? The idea of " first matter" in ^ 
relation to. extension evidently demands explana- 
tion. In seeking this explanation^ we shall also 
learn about that "subject" which Leibniz said 
was necessarily presupposed in extension, , as a 
concrete thing is required for a quality. 

The! clew to the view of Leibniz upon , this point 
may be derived, I think, from the following quo- 
tations: — 

*' If it were possible to see what makes extension, 
that kind of extension which falls under our eyes 
at present would vanish, .and our minds. would 
perceive nothijig else than simple realities existing 
in mutual externality to one another. It would be 
as if we could distinguish the minute particles of 
matter variously disposed from which a- painted 
image is formed : if we could do it, the image, which 
11 



\ 



162 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

is nothing but a phenomenon, would vanish. . . . 
If we think of two simple realities as both existing 
at the same time, but distinct from one another, we 
look at them as if they were outside of one another, 
and hence conceive them as extended." 

The monads are outside of one another, not 
spatially, but ideally ; but this reciprocal distinction 
from one another, if it is to appear in phe- 
nomenal mode, must take the form of an image, 
and the image is spatial. But if the monads were 
pure activity, they would not take phenomenal form 
or appear in an image. They would always be 
thought just as they are, — unextended activities 
realizing the spiritual essence of the universe. But 
they are aot pure activity ; they are passive as welli 
It is in virtue of this passive element that the ideal 
externality takes upon itself phenomenal or sensible 
form, and thus appears as spatial externality. 

Leibniz, in a passage already quoted, refers to 
the diffusion of materiality or antitypia. This word, 
which is of frequent occurrence in the discussions 
of Leibniz, he translates generally as "impenetra- 
bility," sometimes as " passive resistance." It cor- 
responds to the solidity' or resistance of which 
Locke spoke as forming the essence ot matter. 
Antitypia is the representation by a monad of the 
passive element in- other monads. Leibniz sometimes 
speaks as if all created monads had in themselves 
antitypia, and hence extension ; but he noiore ac- 
curately 'e^tpresses it by saying that they -need 
{exigent) it. This is a technical term wbich h6 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REaLHY. ICS 

elsewhere uses to express the relation of the posr 
sible to the actual. The possible *' needs" the 
actual, not in the sense that it necessarily requires 
existence, but in the sense that when the actual 
gives it existence, it is the logical basis of the 
actual, — the actual, on the other hand, being its 
real complement. The passivity of the monad is 
therefore at once the logical basis and the possir 
bility of the impenetrability of matter. It is ow- 
ing to the passivity of the monad that it does not 
adequately reflect (that it is not transparent to, so 
to speak) the activities of other monads. In its 
irresponslveness, it fails to mirror them in itself. 
It may be said, therefore, to be impenetrable to 
them. They in turn, so far as they are passive, 
are impenetrable to it. Now the impenetrable is, 
ex vi terminis^ that which excludes, and that which 
excludes^ not in virtue of its active elastix3ity, but 
in virtue of its mere inertia, its dead weight, as it 
were, of resistance. But mutual exclusion of this 
passive sort constitutes that which is extencjedv 
Extension is the abstract quality of this , concrete 
subject. Such, in effect, is the deduction which 
Leibniz gives of body, or physical matter, from 
matter as metaphysical ; of matter as sensible or 
phenomenal, from matter as ideal or as- intelligible. 
If we put together what has been s^iid, it is <jleaj* 
that material phenomena (bodies, corpom, in Leib*- 
niz's phrase) simply repeat in another sphere the 
properties of the spiritual monad. There is a com- 
plete parallelism between every property, each, to. 



1 



164 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

each, and this necessarily ; for every property of 
** body " is in logical dependence upon, and a phe- 
nomenalization of, some spiritual or ideal quality. 
Motion is the source of all the dynamic qualities of 
body, and motion is the reflection of Force, that 
force which is Life. But this force in all finite forms 
is conditioned by a passive, unreceptive, unrespon- 
sive factor ; and this must also have its correlate in 
*' body." This correlate is primarily impenetrability, 
and secondarily extension. Thus it is that concrete 
body always manifests motion, indeed, but upon a 
background of extension, and against inertia. It 
never has free play; had it an unrestrained field 
of activity, extension would disappear, and spatial 
motion would vanish into ideal energy. On the 
other hand, were the essence of matter found in 
resistance or impenetrability, it would be wholly 
inert ; it would be a monotone of extension, without 
variety of form or cohesion. As Leibniz puts it 
with reference to Locke, " body " implies motion, 
or impetuosity, resistance, and cohesion. Motion is 
the active principle, resistance the passive ; while 
cohesion, with its various grades of completeness, 
which produce form, size, and solidity, is the result 
of their union. 

Leibniz, like Plato, has an intermediary between 
the rational and the sensible ; and as Plato found 
that it was mathematical relations that mediate 
between the permanent and unified Ideas and the 
i changing manifold objects, so Leibniz found that 
the relations of space and time form the natural 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 165 

transition from the sphere of monads to the world 
of bodies. As Plato found that it was the possi- 
bility of applying mathematical considerations to 
the world of images that showed the participation 
of Ideas in them, and constituted such reality as 
they had, 'so Leibniz found that space and time 
formed the element of order and regularity among 
sense phenomena, and thus brought them into kin- 
ship with the monads and made them subjects of 
science. It is implied in what is here said that 
Leibniz distinguished between space and time on 
the one hand, and duration and extension on the 
other. This distinction, which Leibniz draws re- 
peatedly and with great care, has been generally 
overlooked by his commentators. But it is evident 
that this leaves Leibniz in a bad plight. Mathe- 
matics, in its various forms, is the science of spatial 
and temporal relations. But if these are identical 
with the forms of duration and extension, they are 
purely phenomenal and sensible. The science of 
them, according to the Leibnizian distinction be- 
tween the absolutely real and the phenomenally 
real, would be then a science of the confused, the 
imperfect, and the transitory ; in fact, no science at 
all. But mathematics, on the contrary, is to Leib- 
niz the type of demonstrative, conclusive science. 
Space and time are, in his own words, "innate ideas," • 
and the entire science of them is the drawing out of the 
content of these innate — that is, rational, distinct, 
and eternal — ideas. But extension and duration are 
sensible experiences ; not rational, but phenomenal 5 

\ 



166 . LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

not distinct, but confused ; not eternal, but evanes- 
. cent. We may be sure that this contradiction would 
not.escape Leibniz, although it has many of his critics 
and historians. 
: It is true, however, that he occasionally uses the 

: ' terms as synonymous ; bat this where the distinction 
between thetn has no bearing on the argument in 
hand, and where the context determines in what 
• sense the term is used. The distinction which he 
actually makes, and to which he keeps when space 
and time are the subject of discussion, is that ex- 
tension and duration are qualities or predicates of 
objects And events, while space and time are rela- 

? tions, or orders of existence. Extension and dura- 
tion are,' as he says, the immensity^ the mass, the 
: continuation, the repetition, of some underlying 
subject. But space and time are the measure of the 
mass, the rule or law of the continuation, the order 
or mode of the repetition. Thus immediately after 
the passage already quoted, in which he says that 
extension in body is the diffusion of materiality, 
just as whiteness is the diffusion of a property of 
milk, he goes on to say " that extension is to space 
as duration to time. Duration and extension are 
attributes of things ; but space and time are to be 
considered, as it were, outside of things, and as 
serving to measure them." Still more definitely he 
says r '' Many confound the immensity -or extent 
of things with the space by means of which this 
extent is definedr Space is not the extension of 
body, any mpfe than duration is its time. Things 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REA^LITY. 167 

keep their extension, not always their space. Ev- 
erything has its own extent and duration; but it 
does not have a time of its own, nor keep for its 
own a space." Or, as he expresses the latter idea 
elsewhere, space is like number, in the sense that 
it is indifferent to spatial things, just as number is 
lindifferent to res numerata. Just as the number 
five is not a quality or possession of any object, or 

. group of objects, but expresses an order or relation 

■ among them, so a given space is not the, property 
of a thing, but expresses the order of its parts to 
one another. But extension, on the; other hand, is 
a property of the given objects. While Extension, 
therefore, must always belong to some a6tufil thing, 
space, as a relation, is as applicable to possible 

- things as to actual existences ; so that Leibniz 
sometimes says that time and space " express pos- 

: sibilities." They are that which makes it possible 
for a definite and coherent order of experiences 
to exist. They determine existence in some of 
its relations, and as such are logically prior to any 
given forms of existence ; while extent and duration 
are always qualities of some given fonn of existence, 
and hence logically derivative. Since time and 

. space " characterize possibilities " as well as actual- 
ities, it follows as a matter of course " that they are 
of the nature of eternal truths, which relate equally 
to the possible and to the existing." Being an eter- 
nal truth, space must have its place in that; which is 
simply the active unity of all eternal truths, — the 
mind of God. " Its truth and reality jare based. 



168 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

upon God. It is an order whose sonrce is God." 
Since God is punis cu^tasj he is the immediate, i\iQ 
efficient source only of that which partakes in some 
degree of his own nature, or is rational ; and here 
is another clear point of distinction between space 
and extension, between time and duration. 

But we must ask more in detail regarding their 
nature. Admitting that they are relations, ideal and 
prior to particular experiences, the question must be 
asked, What sort of relations are they ; how are they 
connected with the purely spiritual on one hand, and 
with the phenomenal on the other ? Leibniz's most 
extended answers to these questions are given in his 
controversy with Clarke. The latter took much the 
same position regarding the nature of space (though 
not, indeed, concerning the origin of its idea) as Locke, 
and the arguments which Leibniz uses against hun 
he might also have used, for the most part, against 
Locke. Locke and Clarke both conceived of space 
and time as wholly without intrinsic relation to ob- 
jects and events. It is especially against this po- 
sition that Leibniz argues, holding that space and 
time are simply orders or relations of objects and 
events, that space exists only where objects are ex- 
isting, and that it is the order of their co-existence, 
or of their possible co-existence ; while time exists 
only as events are occurring, and is the relation of 
their successipn. Clarke, on the other hand, speaks 
of the universe of objects as bounded by and mov- 
ing about in an empty space, and says that time 
existed before God created the finite world, so that 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 1C9 

the world came into a time already there to receive 
its on -goings, just as it fell into a space already 
there to receive its co-existences. 

To get at the ideas of Leibniz, therefore, we can- 
not do better than follow the course of this discus- 
sion. He begins by saying that both space and 
time are purely relative, one being the order of co- 
existences, the other of successions. Space charac- 
terizes in terms of possibility an order of things 
existing at the same time, so far as they exist in 
mutual relations (ensemble)^ without regard to their 
special modes of existence. As to the alternate 
doctrine that space is a substance, or something ab- 
solute, it contradicts the principle of sufficient reason. 
Were space something absolutely uniform, without 
things placed in it, there would be no difference be- 
tween one part and another, and it would be a mat- 
ter of utter indifference to God why he gave bodies 
certain positions in space rather than others ; simi- 
larly it would be a matter of indifference why he 
created the world when he did, if time were some- 
thing independent of events. In other words, the 
supposed absoluteness of space and time would 
render the action of God wholly without reason, 
capricious, and at haphazard. Similarly, it contra- 
dicts the principle of " indiscernibles," by which 
Leibniz means the principle of specification, or dis- 
tinction. According to him, to suppose two things 
exactly alike, is simply to imagine the same thing 
twice. Absolute uniformity, wholly undifferen- 
tiated, is a fiction impossible to realize in thought. 



170 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

" Space considered without objects has nothing in 
it to determine it ; it is accordingly nothing actual. 
The parts of space must be detennined and dis- 
tinguished by the objects which are in them." 
Finally, were space and time absolutely real things 
in themselves, they would be independent of God, 
and even limitations upon him. "They would be 
more substantial than substances. God would not 
be able to change or destroy them: They would be 
immutable and eternal in every part. Thus there 
would be an infinity of eternal things (these parts) 
independent of God.*' They would limit God be- 
cause he would be obliged to exist i/i them. Only 
by existing through this independent time would he 
be eternal ; only by extending through tliis inde- 
pendent space would he be omnipresent. Space 
and time thus become gods themselves. 

When Clarke declares that by the absoluteness 
of space and time he does not mean that they are 
themselves substances, but only properties, attri- 
butes of substance, Leibniz advances the same 
ai'guments in different fonn. If space were the 
property of the things that are in space, it would 
belong now to one substance, now to another, and 
when empty of all material substance, even to an 
immaterial substance, perhaps to God. " Truly a 
strange attribute which is handed about from 
one thing to another. Substances thus leave their 
accidents as if they were old clothes, and other 
substances put them on." Since these finite spaces 
are iu infinite space, and the latter is ao attribute 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 171 

of God, it must be that an attribute of -God is 
composed of parts, some of tbem empty, some full, 
some round, some square. So, too, .wbatever is 
in time would belp make one of tbe. attributes of 
Godi " Truly a strange God," says Leibniz, "this ^ 
Deity of parts " {ce Dieu d, parties) . Clarke's reply 
to this was that space and time are attributes of 
God and of God alone, not of things in space and 
time," — that, indeed, strictly speaking, there are no 
parts in Bpaee or in time ; they are absolutely one. 
This was virtually to give up the whole matter. It 
was to deny the existence of finite spaces and times, 
and to resolve them into an indefinite attribute of 
God. Such a view, as Leibniz points out, not only 
is contrary to experience, but affords no- aid in 
determining the actual concrete forms and situations 
of bodies, and durations and successions of events. 
The absolute space and time, having ho parts, are 
wholly out of relations to these concrete existences. 
The latter require, therefore, a space and a time 
that are relations or orders. Clarke's hypothesis 
is, as Leibniz says, wholly without use or function, 
and requires a theory like that of Leibniz to account 
for the actually determinate forms of experience. 
In his last reply Clarke shifts his ground again, 
and says that space and time are effects of God's 
existence; "they are the necessary results of his 
existence." " His existence is the cause of space 
and time." The death of Leibniz prevented any 
further reply. It is not hard to imagine, however, 
that in a general way his reply would have been to 



172 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

ask how space and time are at once attributes essen- 
tial and necessary to God, as constituting his im- 
mensity and eternity, and effects dependent upon 
his existence. To take this latter position, indeed, 
seems to abandon the position that they are ab- 
solute, and to admit that, like the rest of God*s 
creation, they are relative and finite. 

So much for Leibniz's polemic. Its meaning is 
that space and time have significance only with 
reference to things and events, that they are the 
intellectual, the ideal side of these objects and 
occurrences, being the relations which give them 
order and unity. A space which is not the space 
of objects, which is not space in and through ob- 
jects, is an inanity ; it is not spirit, it is not matter ; 
it is not a relation of either. It is nothingness 
magnified to infinity, and then erected into existence. 
And all for nothing ; for it does not enable us to 
account for a single concrete fact of experience. 
For this we must have recourse to relations and 
orders of existence. Space is therefore to be 
defined as the order which makes it possible for 
objects to have situation ; time as that which makes 
it possible for events to have dating, — not as if 
they were actually prior to them, and although 
nothings in themselves, yet capable of giving con- 
crete determination to things, but as actually the 
relations themselves, and as ideally necessary for 
the coherent experience of co-existent objects and 
of connected events. As Leibniz puts it epi- 
grammatically : "Space is the order of possible 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 173 

constants; time the order of inconstant possibilr 
ities." 

We have finished the exposition of the views 
of Leibniz about matter and material facts. One 
question, however, remains to be discussed, — a 
question which Leibniz's contemporary critics would 
not allow him to pass over in silence, even had he 
been so disposed. What is the reality of matter, 
of motion, of space, and of time? Since they are, 
as Leibniz says, only phenomena, not absolute 
realities, what distinguishes them from dreams, 
from illusions? What distinguishes sensible phe- 
nomena from capricious fantasies, and gives them 
reality? 

Leibniz begins his answer by pointing out that j 
the mere fact that bodies are phenomena does not 
make them unreal. To say that anything is phe- 
nomenal is to say that it is sensible; but ''.the 
senses make no declaration regarding metaphysical 
matters " such as truth and reality. . The senses, iif 
a word, only inform U9 that the experiences are there 
for the senses, that they are sensible. What is the 
ultimate nature of the sensible or the phenomenal, 
what is their reality, is a question wholly outside 
the province of sense. The questions of ultimate 
nature, of reality, are questions of metaphysics, and 
hence are to be decided by the reason, not by the 
senses. And Leibniz goes on to say that the truth- 
fulnei^ of the senses, since it concerns only the 
sensible, consists in the reciprocal agreement of 
sensible facts, and in that we are not deceived in 



174 • Leibniz's new essays 

reasoning from one to another. An isolated sense- 
experience could not be said to be either true or 
false, real or illusory. It would be true that it was 
experienced, and that is all that could be said about 
it. But since our experiences are not thus separated, 
but have a certain order, there arises what we may 
j call sensible reality and illusion. When the order 
between two facts. remains the same "in different 
times and places and in the experience of different 
men," we call these facts real. If, however, our 
experience cannot be repeated by ourselves or by 
other men when the same conditions (that is, con- 
• nections) are present, it is ifnreal, or false. It is 
" thus " the relation of phenomena which guarantees 
truth of fact regarding sensible objects." Con- 
stancy, regularity, justify us in ascribing reality; 
chaotic change and lack of orderly connection are 
a sign of unreality. Even our dreams have a 
reality ; for they have their connections and place 
I in experience. If we understood their connections 
we should even be able to explain their apparent 
lack of connection with the rest of experience. 
Leibniz: thinks that both the Academicians and 
Sceptics and their opponents erred in attempting 
to find gi'eater reality i\i sensible things than that 
of regular phenomena. Since our observations 
and judgments upon sensible phenomena are of 
such a nature that we can predict future phenomena 
and prepare for them, we have all the reality in 
them that can be had or asked for. Even if it be 
granted possible (as it must be on this basis) that, 



MATERIAL PItENOMENA AND 'THEIR: REALITY. 175 

metaphysically speaking, sense-experience is only 
a conneieted dream, it yet has a sufficient reality ; 
for we are not deceived in the measures taken 
with reference to phenomena, provided that we act 
on the ground of their observed harmonies and 
relations, i Thus while we are obliged to admit that 
'our se'nses inform us that there are hard, passive, 
extended, indivis:ible things, not perfectly contin- 
uous and not intellectual in their nature, and we 
know on metaphysical grounds that this information 
is not correct, we cannot say that our senses deceive 
us, for sense makes no statements regarding such^ 
matters. It is our reason that errs if it takes the 
information that the senses give as if it were a ^ 
declaration of r.eason itself. Sensible things have 
all the reality necessary for this range of experience, 
— practical^ — such regularity of co-existence and se- 
quence as allows us to act without being led astray. 
But if we regard senses-phenomena not merely in 
their connection with . one another, but in their 
dependence upon the absolute realities, we have 
still better justification for their icomparative reality, 
lliese phenomena are consequences of necessary 
and eternal truths. One endowed with a perfect 
knowledge of such truths would be able to deduce, 
a jsriori, the phenomena fiom them. The reality 
of sensible phenomena thus consists not merely in 
their connection with one another, but in the fact 
that they are connected as the laws of the intelli- 
gible world require. They follow not. only rules of 
co-existence and sequence ; but these rules may be 



176 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

brought under general laws of motion, which in tarn 
may be deduced from geometrical principles. These 
latter, however, are a priori; they are truths which 
L . are groimded in the very intelligence of God. The 
I sensible has its basis in the ideal. To state the 
same fact in another way, all sensible phenom- 
ena occur in time and space ; or rather, time 
and space are the orders, the relations, of phe- 
nomena occurring and existing. But, as we have 
just seen, time and space are ideal. A relation, as 
Leibniz points out, being neither attribute nor ac- 
cident, cannot be in the things which it relates, as 
their possession. In his own words, it cannot he 
conceived as if it had one leg in one object, the 
/ other leg in the other. A relation is not a material 
L bond, running through or cementing objects ; it is 
\ ideal, existing in the mind. And while it is true 
that space and time are the relations of objects .?ind 
events, it is. also true that if all objects and events 
were annihilated, space and time would continue 
to have their ideal existence in the intelligence of 
God as the eternal conditions of phenomena. They 
thus form the links between absolute reality and the 
reality of sensible existence. The principle of suf- 
ficient reason forms another link. It may be re- 
called that in discussing Leibniz's theory of volition 
we found that the will of God in relation to the 
sensible world is always determined by the choice 
of the better ; that in this consists the . controlling 
reason and regulative principle of all that occurs 
and exists. Thus for every fact in the sensible 



MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY. 177 

world there is connection with '^metaphysical," or 
'absolute, reality, not only through the medium of 
the intellectual relations of time and space, but 
through the dynamic intermediary of the divine will 
acting in accordance with the divine reasoily Sen- 
sible facts have, then, a reality, but a -dependent 
one. There would be no contradiction involved if 
they were not what they actually are. 

We may sum up the matter by saying that the 
reality of sensible phenomena consists in the con- 
stancy of the mutual order in which they exist, and 
in the dependence of this order upon the divine In- 
telligence and Will. In this respect, at least, 
Leibniz resembles the young Irish idealist, Berkeley, 
who only seven years after Leibniz wrote the " New 
Essays" composed- his "Principles of Human 
Knowledge," urging that the immediate reality of 
sense- phenomena consists in their "steadiness, 
order, and coherence," "in a constant uniform 
working," and that this "gives us a foresight 
which enables us to regulate oui* actions for the 
benefit of life." It was Berkeley also who wrote 
that their ultimate reality consists in their being 
ideas of a Divine Spirit. This was six years 
before the death of Leibniz. Yet it does not 
appear that Berkeley knew of Leibniz, and the only 
allusion to Berkeley which I have found in the 
writings of Leibniz shows that Leibniz knew only of 
that caricature of his views which has always been 
current, — that Berkeley was one who denied the 
existence of any external world. What he writes 
12 



178 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

is as follows: "As for liim in Ireland who qaes- 
tions the reality of ' bod.ies,' be seems neither to 
offer what is rational, nor sufficiently to explain his 
own ideas. I suspect tliat he is one of those men 
who are desirous of making themselves known 
through paradoxes/' 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 179 

CHAPTER IX. 

SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 

THE fundamental category of Locke, as of all 
who take simply a mechanica.! view of ex- 
perience, is that of substance. He had good reason 
to be surprised when the Bishop of Worcester ob- 
jected that Locke wished '' to discard substance out 
of the world." How can that be so-, Locke asks, 
when I say that '' our idea of body is an extended 
solid substance, and our idea of soul is of a sub- 
stance that thinks." And he adds, '' Nay, as long 
as there is any simple idea or sensible quality left, 
according to my way of arguing, substance cannot 
be discarded." Everything that. really exists, is, 
according to Locke, substance. But substance to 
Locke, as again to all who interpret the universe 
after sensible categories, is unknowable. For such 
categories allow only of external relations; they 
admit only of static existence. Substance, in this 
way of looking at it, must be distinct from its qual- 
ities, and must be simply the existing substratum in 
which they inhere. 

^Locke's account, of the way in which we get the 
idea, and of its nature, is as follows: "All the 
ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry come 



180 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

into my mind by sensation. The ideas of these 
qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by 
the mind to be by themselves inconsistent with ex- 
istence. They cannot subsist of themselves. Hence 
the mind perceives their necessary connection with 
inherence, or with being supported." Correlative 
to the idea of being supported is, of course, the 
idea of the support. But this idea " is not repre- 
sented to the mind by any clear and distinct idea ; 
the obscure and vague, indistinct idea of thing or 
something, is all that is left." Or yet more simply, 
" Taking notice that a certain number of simple ideas 
go together, and not imagining how these simple 
ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom our- 
selves to suppose some substratum wherein they do 
subsist, and from which they do result." Hence 
the only idea we have of it is of something which 
underlies known qualities. It is their " supposed, 
but unknown, support." 

If we translate these expressions into the ideas of 
to-day, we see that they are equivalent to the view 
of the world which is given us by scientific catego- 
ries when these categories are regarded not merely 
as scientific, but also as philosophic ; that is, ca- 
pable of interpreting and expressing the ultimate 
nature of experience. This modern view uses the 
words " things-in-themselves " (or absolute realities) 
and " phenomena." It says that we know nothing of 
existence as it is in itself, but only of its phenom- 
ena. Mind, matter, objects, are all substances, all 
equally substances, and all have their unknown 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 181 

essence and their phenomenal appearance. Such 
a distinction between the known and the unknown 
can rest, it is evident, only upon a separation be- 
tween reality and phenomena similar to that which 
Locke makes between substance and qualities. In 
knowing the latter, we know nothing of the former. 
Although the latter are called " phenomena," they do 
not really manifest the substantial reality ; they con- 
ceal it. This absolute distinction between substance 
and quality, between reality and phenomenon, rests, 
in turn, upon the hypothesis that reality is mere 
existence ; that is, it is something which is, and that 
ia all. It is a substratum ; it lies under, in a passive 
way, qualities ; it is (literally) substance ; it simply 
stands, inactively, und«r phenomena. It may, by 
possibility, have actions ; but it has them. Activi- 
ties are qualities which, like all qualities, are in 
external relation to the substance. Being, in other 
words, is the primary notion, and "being" means 
something essentially passive and merely enduring, 
accidentally and secondarily something acting. 
Here, as elsewhere, Locke is the father of the 
mechanical philosophy of to-day. 

We have already learned how completely Leibniz 
reverses this way of regarding reality. According 
to Locke, reality essentially is ; and in its being 
there is no ground of revelation of itself. It then 
acts ; but these actions, " powers, or qualities," since 
not flowing from the very being of substance, give no 
glimpse into its true nature. According to Leibniz, 
reality acts, and therefore is. Its being is conditioned 



182 . LEIBNIZ'S N5;W ESSAYS. 

itpou its activity. It' is not first there, and secondly 
acts ; but its " being there " is its activity. Since its 
very substance is activity, it is impossible that it 
should not manifest its true nature. Its every activity 
is a revelation of itself. It cannot hide itself as a 
passive subsistence behind qualities or phenomena. 
It must break forth into them. / On the other hand, 
since the qualities are not something which merely 
inhere in an underlying support, but are the various 
forms or modes of the activity which constitutes 
reality, they necessarily .reveal it. They are its 
revelations. There is here no need to dwell further 
on the original dynamic nature of substance ; what 
was said in the way of general exposition suflSces. 
It is only in its relations to Locke's view as just 
laid down that it now concerns us. 

In the first place, Leibniz points out that quali- 
ties are *' abstract," while substance is '' concrete." 
The qualities, from the very fact that they have no 
self-subsistence, are only relations, while the sub- 
stance, as that of which they are qualities, or from 
which they are abstractions, is concrete. It is, Leib- 
niz says, to invert the true order to take qualities or 
abstract terms as the best known and most easily 
comprehended, and " concretes " as unknown, and 
as having the most difficulty about them. "It is 
abstractions which give birth to almost all our diflS- 
culties," and Locke's error here is that he begins 
with abstractions, and takes them to be most open 
to intelligence. Locke's second error is separating 
so completely substance and attribute. "After 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 183 

having distinguished," says Leibniz, ''two things 
in substance, the attributes or predicates, and the 
common subject of these predicates, it is not to be 
wondered at that we cannot conceive anything in 
particular in the subject. This result is necessarj^, 
since we have separated all the attributes in which 
there is anything definite to be conceived. Hence 
to demand anything more than a mere unknown 
somewhat in the subject, is to contradict the suppo- 
sition which was made in making the abstraction 
and in conceiving separately the subject and its quali- 
ties or accidents." ' We are indeed ignorant of a 
subject from which abstraction has been made of all 
defining and characteristic qualities ; " but this igno- 
rance results from our demanding a sort of knowl- 
edge of which the object does not permit." In short, 
it is a credit to our knowledge, not an aspersion 
upon it, that we cannot know that which* is thor- 
oughly unreal, — a substance deprived of all attri- 
butes. This is, indeed, a remark which is applicable 
to the supposed unknowableness of pure Being, or 
Absolute Being, when it is defined as the absence of 
all relations (as is done, for example, by Mr. Spencer^ 
to-day) . 

Closely connected with the notion of substance 
are the categories of identity and diversity. These 
relations are of course to Locke thoroughly ex- 
ternal. It is "relation of time and place which 
always determines identity." " That that had one 
beginning is the same thing ; and that which had a 
different beginning in time and place from that, is 



184 LEIBlrtz'S NEW ESSAY& 

not the same, bat diverse." It is therefore easy 
to discover the principle of individaation. It ^' is 
existence itself, which determines a being of any 
sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable 
to two beings of the same kind." He applies this 
notion to organic being, including man, and to the 
personal identity of man. The identity of an oigan- 
ism, vegetable, brute, or human, is its continuoas 
organization ; 'Mt is the participation of the same 
continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of 
matter in succession vitally united to the same or- 
ganized body." Personal identity is constituted by 
a similar continuity of consciousness. ^^ It being 
the same consciousness that makes a man be him- 
self to himself, personal identity depends on that 
only." It *' consists not in the identity of sub- 
stance, but in the identity of consciousness." It 
will be noticed that Locke uses the notion of identity 
which he has already established to explain organic 
and personal unity. It is the ^^ same continued 
life," '' identity of consciousness," that constitute 
them. We are, hence, introduced to no new prin- 
ciple. Identity is even in personality a matter of 
temporal and spatial relations. 
, In the general account of the system" of Leibniz 
it was pointed out that it is characteristic of his 
thought to regard identity and distinction as internal 
principles, and as necessarily implied in each other. 
We need not go over that ground again, but simply 
see how he states his position with reference to what 
is quoted from Locke. These are his words : ** Be- 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 185 

sides the difference of place and time there is always 
necessary an internal principle [or law] of distinc- 
tion, so that while there may be several things of the 
same species, there are no two things exactly alike. 
Thus, although time and place (that is, relations to^ 
the external) aid us in distinguishing things, things 
do not cease to' be distinguished in themselves. 
The essence of identity and diversity does not con- 
sist in time and place, although it is true that di- 
versity of things is accompanied with that of time 
and place, since they carry along with them different 
impressions upon the thing ; " that is, they expose the 
thing to different surroundings. But in reality "it 
is things which diversify times and places from one 
another, for in themselves these are perfectly similai', ^ 
not being substances or complete realities." 

The principle of individuation follows, of course, '^ 
from this. '* If two individuals were perfectly 
similar and equal, that is, indistinguishable in 
themselves, there would be no principle of individ- 
uation ; there would not be two individuals." Thus 
Leibniz states his important principle of the ''iden- 
tity of indiscernibles," the principle that where there 
is not some internal differentiating principle which 
specifies the existence in this or that definite way, 
there is no individual. Leibniz here states, in effect, ^^ 
the principle of organic unity, the notion that con- 
crete imity is a unity 0/ differences, not from them. 
It is the principle which allows him at once to accept 
and transform the thought of Spinoza that all quali- 
fication or determination is negation. Spinoza, in * 



186 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

m 

Bpite of his intellectual greatness, conceived of dis- 
tinction or determination as external, and hence as 
external negation. But since oltimate reality £ul- 
mits of no external negation, it must be without dis- 
tinction, an all-inclusive one. But to Leibniz the 
negation is internal ; it is determination of its own 
being into the greatest possible riches. '' Things 
that are conceived as absolutely uniform and con- 
taining no variety are pure abstractions." *' Things 
indistinguishable in themselves, and capable of being 
distinguished only by external characteristics without 
internal foundation, are contrary to the most impor- 
tant principles of reason. The' truth is that every 
being is capable of change [or differentiation], and 
is itself actually changed in such a way that in 

^itself it differs from every other." 

/ As to organic bodies, so far as they are bodies, or 
corporeal, they are one and identical only in appear- 
ance. *' They are not the same an instant. . . . 
Bodies are in constant flux." " They are like a river 
which is always changing its water, or like the ship 
of Theseus which the Athenian^ are constantly re- 
l)iiiring." Such unity as they really possess is like 
nil uuity, — ideal or spiritual. "They remain the 
Hiiine individual by virtue of that same soul or spirit 
which constitutes the ' P2go ' in those individuals who 
think." '' P^xcept for the soul, there is neither the 
same life nor any vital union." As to. personal 
identity, Leibniz distinguishes between " physical 
or real" identity and "moral." In neither case, 
however, is it a unity which excludes plurality, an 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 187 

identity which does not comprehend diversity. 
*' Every spirit has," he says, "traces of all the 
impressions which it has ever experienced, and even 
presentiments of all that ever will happen. But 
these feelings are generally too minute to be distin- 
guished and brought into consciousness, though they 
may be sometime developed. This continuity and 
connection of perceptions makes up the real identity 
of the "individual, while apperceptions (that which 
is consciously apprehended of past experiences) 
constitute the moral identity and make manifest 
the real identity." We have had occasion before to 
allude to the part played in the Leibnizian philos- 
ophy by " minute perceptions " or *' imconscioys 
ideas." Of tjiem he says, relative to the present 
point, that '* insensible perceptions mark and even 
constitute the sameness of the individual, which- is 
characterized by the residua preserved from its pre- 
ceding states, as they form its connection with its 
present state. '^ If these connections are ''apper- 
ceived" or brought into distinct consciousness, 
there is moral identity as well. As he expresses 
it in one place: "The self {soi) is real and phys- 
ical identity ; the appearance of self, accompanied 
with truth, is personal identity." But the essential 
point in either case is that the identity is not that 
of a substance underlying modifications, nor of a 
consciousness which merely accompanies all mental 
states, but is the connection, the active continuity, 
or — in Kant's word — the synthesis, of all particular 
forms of the mental life. The self is not the most 



188 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

abstract unity of experience, it is the most organic. 
What Leibniz says of his monads generally is espe- 
cially true of the higher monads, — homan souls. 
*' They vary, up to infinity itself, with the greatest 
abundance, order, and beauty imaginable." Not a 
mathematical point, but life, is the type of Leibniz's 
conception of identity. 

In the order in which Locke takes up his topics 
(and in which Leibniz fellows him) we have omitted 
one subject, which, however, aiay find its natural 
place in the present connection, — ihe subject of 
infinity. In Locke's conception, the infinite is only 
a ceaseless extension or multiplication of the finite. 
He considers the topic immediately after the discus- 
sions of space, time, and number, and with good 
logic from his standpoint ; for " finite and infinite," 
he says, are " looked upon by the mind as the modes 
of quantity^ and are attributed, in their first desig- 
nation, only to those things which have parts and 
are capable of increase and diminution." This is 
true even of the application of the term *' infinite " to 
God, so far as concerns the attributes of duration 
and ubiquity ; and as applied to his other attributes 
the term is figurative, signifying that they are in- 
comprehensible and inexhaustible. Such being the 
idea of the infinite, it is attained as follows : There 
is no difficulty, says Locke, as to the way in 
which we come by the idea of the finite. Every 
obvious portion of extension and period of succes- 
sion which affects us is bounded. If we take one 
of these periods or portions, we find that we can 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 189 

double it, or " otherwise multiply it," as often as we 
wish, and that there is no reason to stop, nor are we 
one jot nearer the end at any point of the multi- 
plication than when we set out. " By repeating ad 
often as we will any idea of space, we get the idea 
of infinity ; by being able to repeat the idea of any 
length of duration, we come by the idea of eter- 
nity." There is a difference, then, between the 
ideas of the infinity of space, time, and number, 
and of an infinite space, time, and number. The 
former idea we have ; it is the idea that we can 
continue without end the process of multiplication 
or progression. The latter we have not ; it would 
be the idea of having completed the infinite multi- 
plication, it would be the result of the never-ending 
progression. And this is evidently a contradiction 
in terms. To sum the matter up, the term '' infinite " 
always relates to the notion of quantity. Quantity 
is that which is essentially capable of increase or 
decrease. There is then an infinity of quantity; 
there is no quantity which is the absolute limit to 
quantity. Such a quantity would be incapable of 
increase, and hence contradictory to quantity. But 
an actual infinite quantity (whether of space, time, 
or number) would be one than which there could 
be no greater ; and hence the impossibility of our 
having a positive idea of an actual or completed 
infinite. 

Leibniz's reply consists simply in carrying out 
this same thought somewhat further. It is granted ' 
that the idea of an infinite quantity of any kind is 



190 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

absurd and self -contradictory. But what does this 
prove, except that the notions of quantity and in- 
finity are incompatible with each other, that they 
contradict each other? Hence, instead of the infi- 
nite being a mode of quantity, it must be conceived 
as essentially distinct from and even opposed to 
quantity. Locke's argument is virtually a redtictio 
ad absurdum of the notion that the infinite is capa- 
ble of paints. In the few pages of comment which 
Leibniz in 1696 wrote upon Locke, this topic of the 
infinite is one of the few touched upon. His words 
upon that occasion were as follows ; *' I agree with 
Mr. Locke that, properly speaking, there is no space, 
time, nor number which is infinite ; and that it is 
only true that however great be a space, a time, or a 
number, there is always another which is still greater, 
and this without end ; and that, therefore^ the infi- 
nite is not to be found in a whole made up of parts. 
But it does not cease to exist : it is found in the 
absolute, which is without parts, and of which com- 
pound things [phenomena in space and time, or 
facts which may be numbered] are only limitations. 
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 the idea of the finite." In other words, while 
the infinite is to Locke an indefinite extension 
of the finite-, which alone is positively '' given," 
to Leibniz the infinite is the positive and real, and 
the finite is only in and by it. The finite is the 
negative. 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 191 

Leibniz amplifies this thought upon other occa- 
sions, as in his present more extended examination. 
"There is no infinite number, line, or quantity, if 
they are taken as true wholes." '' We deceive our- 
selves in trying to imagine an absolute space which 
should be an infinite whole, composed of parts. 
There is none such. It is an idea which implies 
contradiction j/ and all these ' infinites ' and ' infini- 
tesimals ' are of use only in geometry, as imaginary 
roots are in algebra." That which is ordinarily 
called the infinite, that is, the quantitative infinite, 
is in reality only the indefinite. " We involve 
ourselves in diflSculty when we talk about a series 
of numbers extending to infinity ; we imagine a last 
term, an infinite number, or one infinitely little. But 
these are only fictions. All number is finite and 
assignable [that is, of a certain definite quantity] ; 
every line is the same. ' Infinites ' and ' infinites- 
imals ' signify only quantities which can be taken 
as large' or as small as one wishes, simply for the 
purpose of showing that there is no error which can 
be assigned. Or we are to understand by the in- 
Vinitely little, the state of vanishing or com^lencing 
of a quantum after the analogy of a quantum already 
formed." On the other hand, the true infinite " is 
not an aggregate, nor a whole of parts ; it is not 
clothed with magnitude, nor does it consist in num- 
ber. . . . The Absolute alone, the indivisible infi- 
nite, has true unity, — I mean God." And as he 
sums up the matter: ''The infinite, consisting of 
parts, is neither one nor a whole; it cannot be 



192 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

brought und^r any notion of the mind except that 
of quantity. Only the infinite without parts is 
one, and this is not a whole [of parts] : this infi- 
nite is God." 

It cannot be admitted, however, that Locke has 
given a correct account of the origin of the notion 
of the quantitative infinite, or — to speak philosophi- 
^ cally, aqd not after the use of terms convenient in 
mathematics — the indefinite. According to him, its 
origin is the mere empii'ical repeating of a sensuous 
datum of time and space. According to Leibniz, 
this repetition, however long continued, can give 
no idea . beyond itself ; it can never generate the 
idea that the process of repetition may be continued 
without a limit. Here, as elsewhere, he objects that 
experience cannot guarantee notions beyond the 
limits of experience. Locke's process of repetition 
could tell us that a number had been extended up 
to a given point ; not that it could be extended with- 
out limit. The source of this latter idea must be 
found, therefore, where we find the origin of all 
extra-empirical notions, — in reason. *' Its origin is 
the same as that of universal and necessary truths." 
It is not the empirical process of multiplying, but the 
fact that the same reason for multiplying always ex- 
ists, that originates and guarantees the idea. "Take 
a straight line and prolong it in such a way that it is 
double the first. It is evident that the second, being 
perfectly similar to the first, can be itself doubled ; 
and we have a third, which in turn is similar to the 
preceding. The same reason always being present, 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 193 

it is not possible that the process should ever be 
brought to a stop. Thus the line can be prolonged 
* to infinity.' Therefore the idea of 'infinity' comes 
from the consideration of the identity of relation or 
of reason." 

The considerations which we have grouped to- 
gether in this chapter serve to show the fundamental 
philosophical difference between Locke and Leibniz. 
Although, taken in detail, they are self-explanatory, 
a few words may be permitted upon their unity and 
ultimate bearing. It is characteristic of Locke that 
he uses the same principle of explanation with ref- 
erence to the conceptions of substance, identity 
and diversity, and infinity, and that this principle 
is that of spatial and temporal relation. Infinity 
is conceived as quantitative, as the successive ad- 
dition of times and spaces ; identity and diversity 
are oneness and difference of existence as deter- 
mined by space and time ; substance is the under- 
lying static substratum of qualities, and, as such, 
is considered after the analogy of things exi&ting in 
space and through time. It must not be forgotten 
that Locke believed as thoroughly as Leibniz in the 
substantial existence of the world, of the human 
soul, and of God; in the objective continuity of 
the world, and th^ personal identity of man, and in 
the true infinity of God. Whatever negative or scep- 
tical inferences may have afterwards been drawn 
from Locke's premises were neither drawn nor 
dreamed of by him. His purpose was in essence 
one with that of Leibniz. 
X3 



194 Leibniz's new essays. 

But the contention of Leibniz is that when sub- 
stance, identity, and infinity are conceived of by me- 
chanical categories, or measured by the sensible 
standard of space and time, they lose then* meaning 
and their validity. According to Iiim such notions 
are spiritual in their nature, and to be spiritually 
conceived of. " Spiritual," however, does not mean 
opposed to the sensible ; it does not mean something 
to be known by a peculiar kind of intuition unlike 
our knowledge of anything else. It means t^e 
active and organic basis of the sensible, its signifi- 
cance and ideal purpose. It is known by knowing 
the sensible or mechanical as it really is ; that is, as 
it is completely, as a concretum, in Leibniz's phrase. 
Leibniz saw clearly that to make the infinite some- 
thing at one end of the finite, as its mere exter- 
nal limit, or something miraculously intercalated 
into the finite, was to deprive it of meaning, and, 
by making it unknowable, to open the way for its 
denial. To make identity consist in the removal of 
all diversity (as must be done if it be thought after 
the manner of external relations), is to reduce it 
to nothing, — as Hume, indeed, afterwards showed. 
Substance, which is merely a support behind quali- 
ties, is unknowable, and hence unverifiable. While, 
then, the aim of both Locke and Leibniz as regards 
these categories was the same, Leibniz saw what 
Locke did not, — that to interpret them after the 
manner of existence in space and time, to regard 
them (in Leibniz's terminology) as mathemiatical, 
and not as metaphysical, is to defeat that aim. The 



SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS. 195 

sole way to justify them, and in justifying them to 
give relative validity to the sensible and phenom- 
enal, is to demonstrate tlxeir spiritual and dynamic 
nature, to show them as conditioning space and 
time, and not as conditioned by them. 



196 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 

THE third book of Locke's Essay is upon words 
and language ; and in the order of treatment 
this would be the next topic for discussion. But 
much of what is said* in this connection both by 
Locke and by Leibniz is philological, rhetorical, and 
grammatical in character, and although not with- 
out interest in itself, is yet without any especial 
bearing upon the philosophical points in controversy. 
The only topics in this book demanding our atten- 
tion are general and particular terms; but these 
fall most naturally into the discussion of general 
and particular knowledge. In fact, it is not the 
terms which Locke actually discusses, but the ideas 
for which the terms stand. We pass on accordingly, 
without further ceremony, to the fourth book, which 
is concerning knowledge in general. Locke defines 
knowledge as "nothing but the perception of the 
connection and agreement, or disagreement and re- 
pugnancy, of any of our ideas." These agreements 
or disagreements may be reduced to four sorts, — 
Identity, or diversity ; Relation ; Co-existence, or 
necessary connection ; Real existence. The state- 
ment of identity and diversity is implied in all 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 197 

knowledge whatsoever. By them "the mind clearly 
and infallibly perceives each idea to agree with itself 
and be what it is, and all distinct ideas to disagree ; 
i, e., the one not to be the other." The agreement of 
relation is such knowledge as the mind derives from 
the comparison of its ideas. It includes mathemat- 
ical knowledge. The connection of co-existence 
^" belongs particularly to substances." Locke's ex- 
ample is that " gold is fixed," — by which we under- 
stand that the idea of fixedness goes along with that 
group of ideas which we call gold. All statements 
of fact coming under the natural sciences would fall 
into this class. The fourth sort is " that of actual 
and real existence agreeing to any idea." 

Leibniz's criticism upon these statements of 
Locke is brief and to the point. He admits Locke's 
definition of knowledge, qualifying it, however, by 
the statement that in much of our knowledge, per- 
haps in all that is merely empirical, we do not know 
the reason and connection of things and hence can- 
not be said to perceive the agreement or disagree- 
ment of ideas, but only to feel it confusedly. His . 
most important remark, however, is to the effect \ 
that relation is not a special kind of knowledge, but ; 
that all Locke's four kinds are varieties of relation. 
Locke's " connection" of ideas which makes knowl- 
edge is nothing but relation. And there are two 
kinds of relation, — those of " comparison " and of 
*' concourse." That of comparison states the iden- 
tity or distinction of ideas, either in whole or in part. 
That of concourse contains Locke's two classes of 



198 

co-existence and existence. '' When we say that a 
thing really exists, this existence is the predicate, 
— that is to say, a notion connected with the idea 
which is the subject ; and there is connection be- 
tween these two notions. The existence of an 
object of an idea may be considered as the con- 
course of this object with me. Hence comparison, 
which marks identity or divei*sity, and concourse of 
an object with jne (or with the ego) are the only 
forms of knowledge." 

Leibniz leaves the matter here ; but he only 
needed to develop what is contained in this state- 
ment to anticipate Berkeley and Kant in some of 
the most important of their discoveries. The con- 
tradiction which lies concealed in Locke's account is 
between his definition of knowledge in general, and 
knowledge of real existence in particular. One 
is the agreement or disagreement of ideas; the 
other is the agreement of an idea with an object. 
Berkeley's work, in its simplest form, was to re- 
move this inconsistency. He saw clearly that the 
"object" was an intruder here. If knowledge 
lies in the connection of ideas^ it is impossible to 
get outside the ideas to find an object with which 
they agree. Either that object is entirely unknown, 
or it is an idea. It is impossible, therefore,' to find 
the knowledge of reality in the comparison of an 
idea with an object. It must be in some property 
of the ideas themselves. 

Kant developed more fully the nature of this 
property, which constitutes the "objectivity" of 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 199 

our ideas. It is their connection with one another 
according to certain necessary forms of perception 
and rules of conception. In other words, the reality 
of ideas lies in their being connected by the neces- 
sary and hence universal relations of synthetic 
intelligence, or, as Kant often states it, in their 
agreement with the conditions of self-consciousness. 
It is not, I believe, unduly stretching either the letter 
or the spirit of Leibniz to find in that " concourse of 
the object with the ego " which makes its reality, the 
analogue of this doctrine of Kant ; it is at all events 
the recognition of the fact that reality is not to 
be found in the relating of ideas to unknown 
things, but in their relation to self-conscious in- 
telligence. The points of similarity between Kant 
and Leibniz do not end here. Leibniz's two re- 
lations of "comparison" and "concourse" are 
certainly the congeners of Kant's "analytic" and 
" synthetic" judgments. But Leibniz, as we shall 
see hereafter, trusts too thoroughly to the merely 
formal relations of identity and contradiction to 
permit him such a development of these two kinds 
of relation as renders Kant's treatment of them 
epoch-making. 

The discussion then advances to the subject of 
degrees of knowledge, of which Locke recognizes 
three, — intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive. In-^ 
tuitive knowledge is immediate knowledge, — rec- 
ognition of likeness or difference without the 
intervention of a third idea; it is the most 
certain and clear of all knowledge. In demonstra- 






200 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

'J 
live knowledge the agreement or disagreement j 

cannot be perceived directly, because the ideas can- , 
not be put together so as to show it. Hence the j 
mind has recoui-se to intermediaries. "And this I 
is what we call reasoning." Demonstrative rests 
on intuitive knowledge, because each intermediate ' 
idea used must be immediately perceived to be like I 
or unlike its neighboring idea, or it would itself ' 
need intermediates for its proof. Besides these two 
degrees of knowledge there is " another perception 
of the mind employed about the particular existence 
of finite things without us, which, going beyond 
bare probability, and yet not reaching perfectly to 
either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes 
under the name of knowledge." 

Leibniz's comments are again brief. The prim- 
itive truths which are known by intuition are to be 
divided into two classes, — truths of reason and of 
fact. The primitive truths of reason are necessary, 
and may be called identical, because they seem 
only to repeat the same thing, without teaching us 
anything. A is A. A is not non-A. Such prop- 
ositions are not frivolous or useless, because the 
conclusions of logic are demonstrated by means of 
identical propositions, and many of those of ge- 
ometry by the principle of contradiction. All the 
intuitive truths of reason may be said to be made 
known through the ' ' immediation " of ideas. The 
intuitive truths of fact, on the other hand, are con- 
tingent and are made known through the. '' immedi- 
ation" of feeling. In this latter class come such 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 201 

truths as the Cartesian, " I think, therefore I am.*' 
Neither class can be proved by anything more 
certain. 

Demonstration is defined by Leibniz as by Locke. 
The former recognizes, however, two sorts, — ana- 
lytic and synthetic.' Synthesis goes from the simple 
to the complex. There are many cases, however, 
where this is not applicable ; where it would be a 
task " equal to drinking up the sea to attempt to 
make all the necessary combinations. Here the 
method of exclusions should be employed, cutting 
off many of the useless combinations." If this 
cannot be done, then it is analysis which gives the 
clew into the labyrinth. He is also of the opinion 
that besides demonstration, giving certainty, there 
should be admitted an art of calculating prob- 
abilities, — the lack of which is, he says, a great 
defect in our present logic, and which would be 
more useful than a large part of our demonstrative 
sciences. 'As to sensitive knowledge, he agrees 
with Locke that there is such a thing as real knowl- 
edge of objects without us, and that this variety 
does not have the same metaphysical certainty as 
the other two ; but he disagrees regarding its cri- 
terion. According to* Locke, the criterion is simply 
the greater degree of vividness and force that sen- 
sations have as compared with imaginations, and 
the actual pleasures or pains which accompany 
them. Leibniz points out that this criterion, which 
in -reality is purely emotional, is of no great value, 
and states the principle of the reality of sensible 



202 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

phenomena which we have already given, repeating 
that it is found in the fx^nne<Aion of phenomena, and 
that *^ this connection is verified by means of the 
troths of reason, just as the phenomena of optics 
are explained by geometry." 

The discussion regarding "primitive truths," 
axioms, and maxims, as well as the distinction 
between truths of fact and of reason, has its most 
important bearing in Locke's next chapter. This 
chapter has for its title the "Extent of Human 
Knowledge," and in connection with the sixth 
chapter, upon universal propositions, and with the 
seventh, upon axioms, really contains the gist of 
the treatment of knowledge. It is here also that 
are to be considered chapters three and six of 
book third, having respectively as their titles, 
"Of General Terms," and "Of the Names of 
Substances." 

To understand Locke's views upon the extent 
and limitations of our knowledge, it is necessary 
to recur to his theory of its origin. If we compare 
what he says about the origin of ideas from sen- 
sations with what he says about the development 
of general knowledge from particular, we shall find 
that Locke unconsciously puts side by side two 
different, and even contradictory, theories upon this 
point. In the view already given when treating 
of sensation, knowledge originates from the com- 
bination, the addition, of the simple ideas furnished 
us by our senses. It begins with the «(imple, the 
unrelated, and advances to the complex. But ac- 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 203 

cording to the doctrine which he propounds in 
treating of* general terms, knowledge begins with 
the individual, which is already qualified by definite 
relations, and hence complex, and proceeds, by 
abstracting some of these qualities, towards the 
simple. Or, in Locke's own language, " ideas be- 
come general by separating from them the cir- 
cumstances of time and place and any other ideas 
that may determine them to this and that particular . 
existence." And, still more definitely, he says 
that general ideas are framed by "leaving out of 
the complex idea of individuals that which i^ pe- 
culiar to each, and retaining only what is common 
to them all." From this it follows that " general 
and universal belong not to the real existence of 
things, but are the inventions and creatures of the 
understanding." " When we quit particulars, the 
generals that rest are only creatures of our own 
making. . . . The signification they have is nothing 
but a relation that by the mind of man is added 
to them." And in language which reminds us of 
Kant, but with very different bearing, he says that 
relations are the workmanship of the understanding. 
The abstract idea of what is common to all the 
members of the class constitutes " nominal es- 
sence." This nominal essence, not being a par- 
ticular existence in nature, but the '' workmanship 
of the understanding," is to be carefully distin- 
guished from the real essence, " which is the being 
of anything whereby it is what it is." This real 
essence is evidently equivalent to the unknown 



204 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



I 



"substance" of which we have heard before. "It I 
is the real, internal, and iin known constitution of 
things." In simple or unrelated ideas and in modes 
the real and the nominal essence is the same; and 
hence whatever is (J^monstrated of one is demon- 
strated of the other. But as to substance it is differ- 
ent, the one being natural, the other artificial. The 
nominal essence always relates to sorts, or classes, 
and is a pattern or standard by which we classify 
objects. In the individual there is nothing es- 
sential, in this sense. " Particular beings, con- 
sidered barely in themselves, will be found to have 
all their qualities equally essential to them, or, 
which is more, nothing at all." As for the " real 
essence" which things have, " we only suppose its 
being without precisely knowing what it is." 

Locke here presents us with the confusion which, 
in one form or another, is alwa^^s found in empiri- 
cism, and which indeed is essential to it. Locke, 
like the ordinary empiricist, has no doubt of the 
existence of real things. His starting-point is the 
existence of two substances, mind and matter; 
while, further, there is a great number of sub- 
stances of each kind. Each mind and every sep- 
arate portion of matter is a distinct substance. 
This supposed deliverance of common sense Locke 
never called into question. Working on this line, 
all knowledge will consist in abstraction from the 
ready-made things presented to us in perception, 
" in leaving out from the complex idea of individ- 
uals" something belonging to them. But on the 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF. KNOWLEDGE. 205 

other hand, Locke never doubts that knowledge be- 
gins with sensation, and that, therefore, the process 
of knowledge is one of adding simple, unrelated 
elements. The two theories are absolutely opposed 
to each other, and yet one and the same philosoph- 
ical inference may be drawn from each; namely, 
'that only the particular is real, and that the uni- 
versal (or relations) is an artificial product, manu- 
factured in one case by abstraction from the real 
individual, in the other by compounding the real 
sensation. 

The result is, that when he comes to a discussion 
of the extent of knowledge, he admits knowledge of 
self, of God, and of " things," only by a denial of 
his very definition of knowledge, while knowledge 
of other conceptions, like those of mathematics, is 
not knowledge of reality, but only of ideas which 
we ourselves frame. All knowledge, that is to say, 
is obtained only either by contradicting his own 
fundamental notion, or by placing it in relations 
which are confessedly artificial and superinduced. 
It is to this point that we come. 

The proposition which is fundamental to the dis- 
cussion is that we have knowledge only where we 
perceive the agreemeirt or disagreement of ideas. 
Locke then takes up each of his four classes of con- 
nection, in order to ascertain the extent of knowl- 
edge in it. Our knowledge of " identity and diversity 
extends as far as our ideas," because we intuitively 
perceive every idea to be " what it is, and different 
from any other." Locke afterwards states, however, 



206 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

that all purely identical propositions are " trifling," 
that is, they contain no instruction ; they teach us 
nothing. Thus the first class of relations cannot 
be said to be of much avail. If we consider the 
fourth kind of knowledge, that of real existence, 
we have an intuitive knowledge of self, a demon- 
strative knowledge of God, and a sensitive knowl- 
edge of other things. /But sensitive knowledge, it 
must be noted, " does not extend beyond the objects 
actually present to our senses. " It can hardly be said, 
therefore, to assure us of the existence of objects at 
all. It only tells us what experiences are being at 
the time undergone. Furthermore, knowledge of all 
three (God, self, and matter), since of real being, 
and not of relations between ideas, contradicts his 
definition of knowledge. But perhaps we shall find 
knowledge more extended in the other classes. And 
indeed Locke tells us that knowledge of relations 
is the "largest field of our knowledge." It in- 
cludes morals and mathematics ; but it is to be 
noticed that, according to Locke, in both of these 
branches our demonstrations are not regarding facts, 
but regarding either " modes " framed by ourselves, 
or relations that are the creatures of our minds, — 
"extraneous and superinduced" upon the facts, as 
he says. He thus anticipates in substance, though 
not in phraseology, Hume's distinction between 
"matters of fact" and "connections of ideas," in 
the latter of which we may have knowledge, but 
not going beyond the combinations that we our- 
selves make. 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 207 

This leaves one class, that of co-existence, to be 
examined. Here, if anywhere, must knowledge, wor- 
thy of being termed scientific, be found. This class, 
it will be remembered, comprehends our knowledge 
concerning substances. But this extends, according 
to Locke, " a very little way." The idea of a sub- 
stance is a complex of various " simple ideas united 
in one subject and co-existing together." When 
we would know anything further concerning a sub- 
stance, we only inquire what other simple ideas, 
besides those already united, co-exist with them. 
Since there is no necessary connection, however, 
among these simple ideas, since each is, by its verj^ 
simplicity, essentially distinct from every other, or, 
as we have already learned, since nothing is essen- 
tial to an individual, we can never be sure that any 
idea really co-exists with others. Or, as Locke 
says, in physical matters we " can go no further 

than particular experience informs us of We 

can have no certain knowledge of universal truths 
concerning natural bodies." And again, " univereal 
propositions of whose truth and falsehood we have 
certain knowledge concern not existence ; " while, 
on the other hand, " particular atfirmations are only 
concerning existence, declaring only the accidental 
union or separation of ideas in things existing." 
This particular knowledge, it must be recalled, is, 
in turn, only sensitive, and thus extends not beyond 
the time when the sensation is had. 

We are not surprised then at learning from Locke 
that regarding bodies "we are not capable of 



208 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

scientific knowledge." " Natural philosophy is not 
capable of being made a science ; " or, as Locke else- 
where states it, knowledge regarding the nominal 
essence is "trifling" (Kant's analytic judgment); 
regarding the real essence is impossible. For ex- 
ample, when we say that all gold is fusible, this 
means either simply that fusibility is one of the 
ideas which we combine to get the general idea of 
gold, so that in making the given judgment we only 
expand our own notion ; or it means that the ''real" 
substance gold is always fusible. But this is a state- 
ment we have no right to make, and for two reasons : 
we do not know what the real substance gold is ; and 
even if we did, we should not know that fusibility 
always co-exists with it. The summary of the whole 
matter is that "general certainty is to be found only 
in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek it else- 
where, in experiment or observations without us, our 
knowledge goes not beyond particulars. " 

It has been necessary to give an account of 
Locke's views at this length because it is in his dis- 
cussion of the limitations and extent of knowledge 
that his theory culminates. While not working out 
his sensationalism as consistently as did Hume, he 
yet reduces knowledge to that of the existence of 
God and ourselves (whose natures, however, are 
unknown) , and to a knowledge of mathematical and 
moral relations, which, however, concerns only " the 
habitudes and relations of abstract ideas." We 
have now to see by what means Leibniz finds a 
wider sphere for certain and general knowledge by 






THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 209 

his theory of intellectualism than Locke can by his 
sensationalism. 

Leibniz's theory .of knowledge rests upon a dis- 
tinction between truths of fact, which are a posteriori 
and contingent, and truths of reason, which are a 
priori and necessary. In discussing his views re- 
garding experience, we learned that, according to 
him, all judgments which are empirical are also par- 
ticular, not allowing any inference beyond the given 
cases experienced. Experience gives only instances, 
not principles. If we postpone for the present the 
discussions of ti-uths of reason, by admitting that 
they may properly be said to be at once certain and 
universal, the question arises how in matters, of fact 
there can be any knowledge beyond that which 
Locke admits ; and the answer is, that so far as 
the mere existence and occurrence of these facts is 
concerned, there is neither demonstrative nor gen- 
eral knowledge. But the intelligence of man does 
not stop with the isolated fact ; it proceeds to in- 
quire into its cause, to ascertain its conditions, and 
thus to see into, not merely its actual existence, 
but its possibility. In Leibniz's language : " The 
real existence of things that are not necessary 
is a point of fact or history ; but the knowledge 
of possibilities or necessities (the necessary being 
that whose opposite is not possible) constitutes de- 
monstrative science.". In other words, it is the 
principle of causality, which makes us see a fact not 
as a mere fact, but as a dependent consequence ; 
which elevates knowledge, otherwise contingent and 
14 



210 Leibniz's new essays. 

particular, into the realm of the nniversal and 
apodictic. Underlying all "accidental union" is 
the real synthesis of causation. 

If we follow the discussion as it centres about the 
terms " nominal" and " real," it stands as follows: 
Leibniz objects to the use of the term " essence" in 
this connection, but is willing to accept that of "defi- 
nition ; " for, as he says, a substance can have but 
one essence, while there may be several definitions, 
which, however, all express the same essence. The 
essence is the possibility of that which is under con- 
sideration ; the definition is the statement of that 
which is supposed to be possible. ' The " nominal" 
definition, however, while it implies this possibility, 
does not expressly aflSrm it, — that is to say, it may 
always be doubted whether the nominal definition 
has any possibility (or reality) corresponding to it 
until experience comes to our aid and makes us 
know it a posteriori. A "real " definition, on the 
other hand, makes us know a priori the reality of 
the thing defined by showing us the mode of its 
production, " by exhibiting its cause or generation." 
Even our knowledge of facts of experience cannot 
be said, therefore, to be arbitrary, for we do not 
combine ideas just as we please, but "our combina- 
tions may be justified by reason which shows them 
to be possible, or by experience which shows them 
to be actual, and consequently also possible.** To 
take Locke's example about gold, " the essence of 
gold is that which constitutes it and gives it its 
sensible qualities, and these qualities, so far as they 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 211 

enable us to recognize it, constitute its nominal 
essence, while a real and causal definition would 
enable us to explain the contexture or internal dis- 
position. The nominal definition, however, is also 
real in one sense, — not in itself, indeed, since it does 
not enable us to know a priori the possibility or pro- 
duction of the body, but empirically real." 

It is evident from these quotatioril^ that what Leib- 
niz understands by '' possibility " is the condition or 
cause of a given fact ; and that, while Locke distin- 
guishes between particular, accidental and demon- 
strative, general knowledge as two opposed kinds, 
concerned with two distinct and mutually exclusive 
spheres, with Leibniz they are distinctions in the 
aspect of the same sphere of fact. In reality there 
is no combination of qualities accidental, as Locke 
thought that by far the greater part were ; in every 
empirical fact there is a cause or condition involved 
that is invariable, and that constitutes the reason 
of the fact. The " accidental" is only in the rela- 
tion of our ideas to objects, not in the objects 
themselves. There may be accidental mental as- 
sociations ; there are no accidental relations. In 
empirical, or a posteriori^ knowledge, so-called, the 
reason is there, but is not known. A priori knowl- 
edge, the real definition, disco veis and explicitly 
states this reason. Contingent knowledge is there- 
fore potentially rational ; demonstrative knowledge 
is the actual development of the reasons implicitly 
contained in experience. 

We may with advantage connect this discussion 



212 LEIBXIZ'S XEW ESSAYS. 

with the fundamental doctrine of Locke and Leibniz 
regarding intelligence and reality. To Locke, as we 
have seen, knowledge is essentially a matter of re- 
lations or connections ; bat relations are '' snperin- 
daced " and ^* extraneous " as regards the facts. 
Every act of knowledge constitutes, therefore, in 
some way a departure from the reality to be known. 
Knowledge and* fact are, by their very definition, 
opposed to one another. But in Leibniz's view in- 
telligence, or reason, enters into the constitution of 
reality ; indeed, it is reality. The relations which 
are the " creatures of the understanding " are, there- 
fore, not foreign to the material to be known, but are 
organic to it, forming its content. The process, 
then, in which the mind perceives the connections 
or relations of ideas or objects, is simply the pro- 
cess by which the mind comes to the consciousness 
of the real nature of these objects, not a process of 
*' superinducing " unreal ideas upon them. The diffi- 
culty of Locke is the difficulty of every theory of 
knowledge that does not admit an organic unity of 
the knowing mind and the known universe. The 
theory is obliged to admit that all knowledge is in tlie 
form of relations which have their source in intelli- 
gence. But being tied to the view that reality is 
distinct from intelligence, it is obliged to draw the 
conclusion that these relations are not to be found 
in actual existence, and hence that all knowledge, 
whatever else it may be, is unreal in the sense that 
it does not and cannot conform to actual fact. But, 
in the theory of Leibniz, the process of relating 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 213 

which is the. essence of knowledge is only the rea- 
lization on the part of the individual mind of the 
relations or reasons that eternally constitute re- 
ality. Since reality is, and is what it is, through 
intelligence, whatever relations intelligence rightly 
perceives are not "extraneous" to reality, but are" 
its " essence." As Leibniz says, " Truth consists in 
the relations between the objects of our ideas. This 
does not depend upon language, but is common to 
us with God, so that when God manifests a truth to 
us, we acquire what is already in his understanding. 
For although there is an infinite difference between 
his ideas and ours as to their perfection and extent, 
yet it is always true that as to the same relation 
they are identical. And it is in this relation that 
truth exists." To this may be added another state- 
ment, which throws still further light on this point : 
" Ideas are eternally in God, and are in us before 
we perceive them." 

We have now to consider somewhat more in detail 
the means by which the transformation of empirical 
into rational knowledge is carried on. Leibniz 
points out that the difficulty concerning scientific 
knowledge of sensible facts is not lack of data, but, 
in a certain sense, superfluity of data. It is not 
that we perceive no connections among objects, but 
that we perceive many which we cannot reduce to 
one another. " Our experiences," says Leibniz, 
" are simple only in appearance, for they are al- 
ways accompanied by circumstances connected with 
them, although these relations are not understood by 



214 J Leibniz's sew essays. 

us. Tliese circumstances furnish material capable 
of explanation and analysis. There is thus a sort 
of pl eonas m in our perceptions of sensible objects 
and qualities, since we have more than one idea of 
the same object. Gold can be nominally defined in 
vmany ways. Such definitions are only provisional " 
This is to say, empirical knowledge Will become ra- 
tional when it is ix)8sible to view any subject-mat- 
ter as a unity, instead of a multiplicity of varied 
aspects. And on this same subject he says, in an- 
otlier connection : " A great number of experiences 
cau furnish us data more than sufficient for scientific 
knowledge, provided only we have the ait of using 
these data." The aim of science is therefore, to 
discover the dynauiic unity which makes a whole 
of what appears to be a mere mass of accidentally 
connected circumstances. This unity of relations is 
the individual. 

It is thus evident that to Leibniz the individual is 
not the beginning of knowledge, but its goal. The 
individual is the organic, the dynamic unity of the 
variety of phases or notions presented us in sense- 
expeiieuce. Individuality is not " simplicity " in the 
yense of Locke ; that is, separation from all relations. 
It is complete connection of all relations. " It is im- 
possible for lis to have [complete] knowledge of indi- 
viduals, and to tind the means of determining exactly 
the individuality of anything ; for in individuality all 
circumstances are combined. Individuality envelops 
the infinite. Only so far as we know the infinite do 
we know the individual, on account of the influence 



THE NATUKE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 215 

(if this word be correctly understood) that all 
things in the universe exercise upon one another." 
Leibniz, in short, remains true to his conception of 
the monad as the ultimate reality ; for the monad, 
though an individual, yet has the universe as its con- 
tent. We shall be able, therefore, to render our 
sensible experiences rational just in the degree in 
which we can discover the underlying relations and 
dependencies which make them members of one 
individual. 

For the process of transformation Leibniz relies 
especially upon two methods, — those of mathematics 
and of classification. Of the former he here says but 
little ; but the entire progress of physical science 
since the time of Leibniz has been the justificsttion 
of that little. In the passage already quoted re- 
garding the need of method for using our sensible 
data, he goes on to say that the " infinitesimal 
analysis has given us the means of allying physics 
and geometry, and that dynamics has furnished us 
with the key to the general laws of nature." It is 
certainly competent testimony to the truth of Leib- 
niz's fundamental principles that he foresaw also 
the course which the development of biological 
science would take. 'No classification based upon 
resemblances, says Leibniz in effect, can be re- 
garded as wholly arbitrary, since resemblances are 
found in nature also. The only question is whether 
our classification is based upon superficial or funda- 
mental identities ; the superficial resemblances being 
such as are external, or the effects of some common 



216 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

cause, while the fundamental resemblances are such 
as are the cause of whatever other similarities are 
found. " It can be said that whatever we compare 
or distinguish with truth, nature differentiates, or 
makes agree, also ; but that nature has differences 
and identities which are better than ours, which we 
do not know. . . . TJie more we discover the genera- 
tion of species^ and the more we follow in our classi- 
fications the conditions that are required for their 
production, the nearer we approach the natural 
order." Oiir classifications, then, so far as they 
depend upon what is conditioned, are imperfect and 
provisional, although they cannot be said to be false 
(since " while nature may give us those more com- 
plete and convenient, it will not give the lie to those 
we have already") ; while so far as they rest upon 
what is causal and conditioning, they are true, gen- 
eral, and necessary. In thus insisting that classifi- 
cation should be genetic, Leibniz anticipated the 
great service which the theory of evolution has 
done for biological science in enabling science to 
form classes which are " natural ; " that is, based on 
identity of origin. 

Leibniz culminates his discussion of classification 
as a method of translating the empirical into the ra- 
tional, by pointing out that it rests upon the law of 
continuity ; and that this law contains two factors, — 
one equivalent to the axiom of the Realists, that na- 
ture is nowhere empty ; the other, to that of the Nom- 
inalists, that nature does nothing uselessly. " One 
of these principles seems to make nature a prodigal^ 



\ 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 217 

the other a miser ; and yet both are true if properly 
understood," says Leibpiz. " Nature is like a good 
manager, sparing where it is necessary, in order to 
be magnificent. It is magnificent in its effects, and 
economical in the causes used to produce them." 
In other words, classification becomes science when 
it presents us with both unity and difference. The 
principle of unity is that of nature as a miser and 
economical ; that of differentiation is the principle 
of nature as prodigal and magnificent. The thor- 
oughly differentiated unity is nature as self-specify- 
ing, or as an organic, not an abstract, unity. 

The gist of the whole matter is, then, that ex- 
perience presents us with an infinity of ideas, which 
may appear at first sight arbitrary and accidental, 
in their connections. This appearance, however, is 
not the fact. These ideas are the effects of certain 
causes ; and in ascertaining these conditions, we 
reduce the apparently unrelated variety of experi- 
ences to underlying unities, and these unities, like 
all real unities or simple beings, are spiritual and 
rational in nature. Leibniz's ordinary way of stating 
this is that the principle of trutjis of fact is that of 
sufficient reason. This principle Leibniz always 
treats as distinguished from that of identity (and 
contradiction) as the ruling category of truths of 
reason. And we shall follow him in discussing the 
two together. 

" Our reasonings are based on two leading prin- 
ciples, — that of contradiction, in virtiie of which 
we judge false all which contains contradiction, 



218 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

and trae that which is opposed or contradictorj to 
that which is false ; and that of sufficient reason, 
in virtue of which we jadge that no fact is true or 
actual, no proposition veritable, unless there is a 
sufficient reason why it is as it is, and not otherwise, 
although these reasons afie generally unknown to us. 
Thus there are two sorts of truths, — those of reason, 
and those of fact. The truths of reason are neces- 
sary, apd their opposites impossible ; while those of 
fact are contingent, and their opposites possible. 
When a truth is necessary, its reason can be dis- 
covered . by analysis, resolving it into ideas and 
truths that are simpler, until the primitive truths 
are arrived at. It is thus that the mathematicians 
proceed in reducing by analysis the theorems of 
speculation and the canons of practice into deGni- 
tions, axioms, and postulates. Thus they come to 
simple ideas whose definition cannot be given;, 
primitive truths that cannot be proved, and which 
do not need it, since they are identical propositions, 
whose opposite contains a manifest contradiction." 

" But in contingent truths — those of fact — the 
sufficient reason must be found ; namely, in the suc- 
cession of things which fill the created universe, — for 
otherwise the analysis into particular reasons would 
go into detail without limit, by reason of the im- 
mense variety of natural things, and of the infinite 
divisibility of bodies. There are an infinity of 
figures and of past and present movements which 
enter into the efficient cause of my present writing, 
and there are an infinity of minute inclinations and 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 219 

dispositions of my soul which enter into its final 
cause. And since all this detail contains only other 
contingent and particular antecedents, each of which 
has need of a similar analysis to account for it, we 
really make no progress by this analysis ; and it is 
'necessary that the final or sufficient reason be out- 
side the endless succession or series of contingent 
particulars, that it consist in a necessary being, in 
which this series of changes is contained only emi- 
nenter, as in its source. This necessary being and 
source is what we call God." 

In other words, the tracing of empirical facts to 
their causes and conditions does not, after all, render 
them wholly rational. The series of causes is end- 
less. Every condition is in turn conditioned. We 
are not so much solving the problem of the reason 
of a given fact, as we are stating the problem in 
©tiher terms as we go on in this series. Every solu- 
tion offers itself again as a problem, and this end- 
y lessly. If these truths of fact, then, are to be 
/rendered wholly rational, it must be in something 
which lies outside of the series considered as a 
series ; that is, something which is not an ante- 
cedent of any one of the "series, but is equally related 
to each and to all as their ground and source. 
This, considered as an argument for the existence 
of God, we shall deal with hereafter ; now we are 
concerned only with its bearing upon the relation 
of experience to the universality and necessity of 
knowledge. According to this, the ultimate mean- 
ing of facts is found in their relation to the divine 



220 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

intelligence ; for Leibniz is emphatic in insisting 
that the relation of God to experience is not one of 
bare will to creatures produced by this will (as Des- 
cartes had supposed) , but of a will governed wholly 
by Intelligence. As Leibniz states it in another 
connection, not only matters of fact, but mathe- 
matical truths, have the same final basis in the divine 
understanding. ^ 

'' Such truths, strictly speaking, are only condi- 
tional, and say that in case their subject existed 
they would be found such and such. But if it is 
again asked in what consists this conditional con- 
nection in which there is necessary reality, the reply 
is that it is in the relation of ideas. And by the fur- 
ther question. Where would be the ideas if no spmt 
existed ; and what would then become of the founda- 
tion of the certainty of such truths? — we are brought 
to the final foundation of truths ; namely, that su- 
preme and universal spirit, which must exist, and 
whose understanding is, in reality, the region of the 
eternal truths. And in order that it may not be 
thought that it is not necessary to have recourse to 
this region, we must consider that these necessary 
truths contain the determining reason and regulative 
principle of existence, and, in a word, of the laws 
of the universe. Thus these necessary truths, being 
anterior to the existences of contingent beings, must 
in turn be based upon the existence of a necessary 
substance." 

It is because facts are not mere facts, in short, but 
are the manifestation of a " determining reason and 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. ,221 

regulative principle " which finds its home in uni- 
versal intelligence, that knowledge of them can 
become necessary and general. 

The general nature of truths of reason and of 
their ruling principle, identity and contradiction, has 
already been given in the quotation regarding the 
principle of sufficient reason. It is Leibniz's con- 
tention that only in truths whose opposite is seen to 
involve self-contradiction can we have absolute cer- 
tainty, and that it is through connection with such 
eternal truths that the certainty of our other knowl- 
edge rests. It is thus evident why Leibniz insists, 
as against Locke, upon the great importance of 
axioms and maxims. They are important, not 
merely in themselves, but as the sole and indis- 
pensable bases of scientific truth regarding all mat- 
ters. Leibniz at times, it is true, speaks as if 
demonstrative and contingent truths were of them- 
selves, in principle, distinct, and even opposed. But 
he also corrects himself by showing that contingency 
is rather a subjective limitation than an objective 
quality. We, indeed, do not see that the truth " I 
exist," for example, is necessary, because we can- 
not see how its opposite involves contradiction. 
But " God sees how the two terms ' I' and * exist' 
are connected ; that is, why I exist." So far as we 
can see facts, then, from the standpoint of the 
divine intelligence, so far, it would appear, our 
knowledge is necessary. 

Since these axioms, maxims, or first truths are 
" innate," we are in a condition to complete (for 



222. Leibniz's new essays. 

the first time) the discussion of innate ideas. These 
ideas constitute, as we have learned, the essential 
content of the divine intelligence, and of ours so far 
as we liave realized our identity with God's under- 
standing. The highest form of knowledge, there- 
fore, is self -consciousness. This bears the same 
relation to necessary truths that the latter bear to 
experience. '' Knowledge of necessary and eternal 
truths," says Leibniz, "distinguishes us from simple 
animals, and makes us have reason and science, ek- 
rating us to the knoicledge of ourselves. We are thus 
developed to self -consciousness ; and in being con- 
scious of ourselves we are conscious of being, of 
substance, of the simple, of the spiritual, of God." 
And again he says that" those that know necessary 
truths are rational spirits, capable of self -conscious- 
ness, of recognizing what is termed Ego, substance, 
and monad. Thus they are rendered capable of 
demonstrative knowledge." "We are innate to 
ourselves ; and since we are beings, being is innate 
to us, for knowledge of it is implicit in that which 
we have of ourselves." 

Knowledge, in fine, may be regarded as an ascend- 
ing series of four terms. The first is constituted by 
sensations associated together in such a way that a 
relation of, antecedence and consequence exists be- 
tween them. This is " experience." The second 
stage comes into existence when we connect these 
experiences, not by mere relations of " consecution," 
but by their conditions, by the principle of causality, 
and especially by that of sufficient reason, which 



THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 223 

connects them with the supreme intelligence, God. 
This stage is science. /The third is knowledge of 
the axioms and necessary truths in and of them- 
selves, not merely as involved in science. / The 
fourth is self -consciousness, the knowledge of intel- 
ligence, in its intimate and universal nature, by 
which we know God, the mind, and all real sub- 
stance. In the order of time the stage of experience 
is first, and that of self-consciousness last. But in 
the lowest stage there are involved the others. The 
progress of knowledge consists in the development 
or unfolding of this unplicit content, till intelligence, 
spirit, activity, is clearly revealed as the source and 
condition of all. 



224 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 

ONE of the chapters concerning knowledge is 
entitled, '' The Knowledge that we have of 
God." This introduces us to the theology of Leib- 
niz and indirectly to the completion of those ethical 
doctrines already outlined in the chapter on will. 
Leibniz employs three arguments to prove the ex- 
istence of God : that of God as the sufficient reason 
of the world (substantially the cosmological proof) ; 
of God as the source of the pre-established harmony 
(an extension of the teleological proof) ; and the 
ontological. The latter he accepts as it came from 
the hands of Descartes, but insists that it requires 
an added argument before it ranks as anything 
more than presumptive proof. The Anselmic- 
Cartesian argument, as stated by Leibniz, is as 
follows : " God is defined as the greatest, or most 
perfect, of beings, or as a being of supreme gran- 
deur and perfection. But in the notion of a perfect 
being, existence must be included, since it is some- 
thing more to exist than not to exist. Or existence 
is a perfection, and hence must belong to the most 
perfect being ; otherwise some perfection would be 
lacking, which is contrary to the definition." Or 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 225 

as Descartes sometimes puts it, in the notion of 
anything like a tree, a mountain, a triangle, con- 
tingency is contained. We may conceive such an 
object to exist or not, as we like. ^ There is no 
necessity involved in our thought. But we cannot 
think of a perfect being except as existing. It 
does not rest with the decision of our thinking 
whether or not to include existence in this notion. 
We must necessarily think existence as soon as we 
think such a being. 

Leibniz takes a middle position, he says, between 
those who consider this a demonstrative argument, 
and those who regard it as a mere paralogism. It 
is pre-supposed by this argument that the notion 
of a Supreme Being is possible, or that it does not 
involve contradiction. This pre-supposition is to 
be proved. First, it is well to simplify the argu- 
ment itself. The Cartesian definition may be re- 
duced to this : " God is a being in whom existence 
and essence are one. From this definition it fol- 
lows as a corollary that such a being, if possible, 
exists. For the essence of a thing being just that 
which constitutes its possibility, it is evident that 
to exist by its essence is the same as to exist by its 
possibility. Being in itself, then, or God, may be 
most simply defined as the Being who must exist if 
he is possible." 

There are two ways of proving this last clause 
(namely, that he is possible) the direct and the in- 
direct. The indirect is employed against those who 
assert that from mere notions, ideas, definitions or 
X6 



226 Leibniz's new kssays. 

possible essences, it is not jx)ssible to infer actual 
existence. Such persons simply deny the possibility 
of being in itself. But if being-in-itself, or abso- 
lute being, is impossible, being-by-another, or rel- 
ative, is also impossible; for there is no "other" 
upon which it may depend. Nothing, in this case, 
could exist. Or if necessary being is not possible, 
there is no being possible. Put in another way, 
God is as necessary for ijossibility as for actual 
existence. If there is possibility of anything, there 
is God. This leads up to the direct proof ; for it 
follows that, if there be a possibility of God, — 
.tlie Being in whom existence and essence are one, 
—he exists. "God alone has such a position that 
existence is necessary, if possible. But since there 
can be nothing opposed to the possibility of a 
being without limit, — a l^eing therefore without 
negations and without contradiction, — this is suffi- 
cient to prove a priori the existence of God." In 
short, God being pure affirmation, pure self^identity, 
the idea of his Being cannot include contradiction, 
and hence is possible, — and since possible, ne- 
cessary. Of tliis conception of God as the purely 
self -identical, -without negation, we shall have 
something to say in the next chapter. 

The cosmological proof is, as we have already 
seen, that every cause in the world being at the 
same time an effect, it cannot be the sufficient reason 
of anything. The whole series is contingent, and 
requires a ground not prior to, but beyond, the 
series. The only sufficient reason of anything is 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 227 

that which is also the sufficient reason of itself, — 
absolute being. The teleological argument Leibniz 
invariably, I believe, presents in connection with 
the idea of pre-established harmony. "If the 
substances of experience," runs the argument, 
"had not received their being, both active and 
passive, from one universal supreme cause, they 
would be independent of one another, and hence 
would not exhibit that order, harmony, and beauty 
which we notice in nature. This argument pos- 
sesses only moral certainty which becomes demon- 
strative by the new kind of harmony wbtch I have 
introduced, — pre-established harmony. Since each 
substance expresses in its own way that which 
occurs beyond it, and can have no influence on. 
other particular beings, it is necessary that each 
substancie, before developing these phenomena 
from the depth of its own being, must have re- 
ceived this nature (this internal ground of ex- 
ternal phenomena) from a universal cause from 
whom all beings depend, and which effects that one 
be perfectly in accord with and corresponding to 
every other. This cannot occur except through 
a being of infinite knowledge and power." 

Having determined the existence of God, Leibniz 
states his attributes. These may be reduced to 
three. He is perfect in power, in wisdom, and in 
goodness. "Perfection is nothing other than the 
whole of positive reality separated from tbe limits 
and bounds of things. Where there ai-^ no limits, 
as in God, perfection is iabsoliitely infinite." 'mn 



228 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

Grod exists power ^ which is the source of all Tcnowl- 
edge J — which comprehends the realm of ideas, down 
to its minutest detail, — and will^ which directs all 
creations and changes according to the principle 
of the best." Or as he expands it at another time : 
"The supreme cause must be intelligent, for the 
existing world being contingent, and an infinity of 
other worlds being equally possible, it is necessary 
that the cause of the world take into consideration 
all these possible worlds in order to decide upon 
one. Now this relation of a substance to simple 
ideas must be the relation of understanding to its 
ideas, while deciding upon one is the act of will in 
choosing. Finally it is the- power of this substance 
which executes the volition. Power has its end in 
being ; Wisdom, or understanding, in truth ; and will 
in good. Thus the cause must be absolutely per- 
fect in power, wisdom, and goodness. His under- 
standing is the source of essences, and his will the 
origin of existences." 

This brings us to the relation of God to the 
world, or to an account of the creating activity of 
God. This may be considered to be metaphys-j 
ically, logically, or morally necessary. To say 
that it is metaphysically necessary is to say that 
it is the result of the divine essence, that it would 
imply a contradiction of the very being of God for 
the world not to be and not to be as it is. In short, 
the world becomes a mere emanation of power, 
since, as we have just learned, power and being are 
correlative. But this leaves out of account the 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 229 

divine understanding. Not all possible worlds 
emanate from God's being, but there is recognition 
of them and of their relations to one another. 
Were the world to proceed from the divine under- 
standing alone, however, it would be logically ne- 
cessary, — that is, it would bear the same relation to 
his understanding that necessary truths do. Its 
opposite would imply contradiction, not indeed of 
the being of God, but of his understanding. But 
the will of God plays the all-important part of 
choosing among the alternative worlds presented 
by reason, each of which is logically possible. One 
of these worlds, although standing on the same 
intellectual plane as the others, is morally better, — 
that is, it involves greater happiness and perfection 
to the creatures constituting it. God is guided 
then by the idea of the better (and this is the best 
possible) world. His will is not arbitrary in cre- 
ating : it does not work by a fiat of brute power. 
But neither is it fatalistic : it does not work by 
compulsory necessity. It is both free and neces- 
sary ; free, for it is guided by naught excepting 
God's bwn recognition of an end ; necessary, for 
God, being God, cannot morally act otherwise than 
by the principle of the better, — and this in con- 
tingent matters is the best. Hence the optimism 
of Leibniz, to which here no further allusion cdn be 
made. 

Since the best is precisely God himself, it is evi- 
dent that the created world will have, as far as 
possible^ his perfections. It would thus be possible 



230 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

to deduce from this conception of God and his 
relation to the world all those characteristics of the 
Leibnizian monadology which we formerly arrived 
at analytically. God is individual, but with an 
infinite' comprehensiveness. Each substance re- 
peaits these properties of the supreme substance. 
There is an infinity of such substances, in order 
that' the world may as perfectly as possible mirror 
the infinity of God. Each, so far as in it lies, re- 
. fleets the activity of God; for activity is the 
very essence of perfection. And thus we might go 
through with the entire list of the properties of the 
monad. 

To complete the present discussion, however,, it 
is enough to notice that intelligence and will must 
be found in every creature, and that thus we ac- 
count for the ** appetition " and the •' perception" 
that characterize even the lowest monad. The 
scale pf monads, however, would not be as complete 
as possible unless there were beings in whom ap- 
petition became volition, and perception, self-con- 
scious intelligence. Such monads will stand in 
quite other relation to God than the blind impulse- 
governed substances. " Spirits," says Leibniz, 
'' are capable of entering into community with God, 
and God is related to them not only as an inventor 
to his machine (as he is to other creatures) but as 
a piince to his subjects, or, better, as a father to his 
children. This society of spirits constitutes the 
city of God, — the most perfect state under the 
most perfect monarch. This city of God, this 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 231 

truly cosmopolitan monarchy, is a moral world 
within the natural. Among all the works of God 
it is the most sublime and divine. In it consists 
the true glory of God, for there would be no glory 
of God unless his greatness and goodness were 
known and admired by spirits ; and in his relation 
to this society, God for the fir§t time reveals his 
goodness, while he manifests everywhere his power . 
and wisdom. And as previously we demonstrated 
a perfect harmony between the two realms of nature, 
— those of efficient and final causes, — so must we 
here declare harmony between the physical realm 
of nature and the moral realm of grace,- — that is, 
between God as the architect of the mechanical 
world-structure, and God as the monarch of the 
world of spirits." God fulfils his creation, in other 
words, in a realm of spirits, and fulfils it because 
here there are beings who do not merely reflect him 
but who enter into relations of companionship with 
him, forming a community. This community of 
spirits with one another and with God is the moral 
world, and we are thus brought again to the ethics 
of Leibniz. 

It has been frequently pointed out that Leibniz 
was the first to give ethics the form which it has 
since kept in German philosophy, — the division into 
Natur-recht and Natur-moral, These terms are diffi- 
cult to give in English, but the latter corresponds to 
what is ordinarily called " moral philosophy," while 
the former is political philosophy so far as that has 
an ethic9.1 bearing. Or the latter may be said to 



232 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

treat of the moral ideal and of the moral motive and 
of duty in themselves, while the former deals with 
the social, the public, and in a certain sense the 
external, aspects of morality. 

PuflFendorf undoubtedly suggested this division to 
Leibniz by his classification of duties as external 
and internal, — the first comprehending natural and 
civil law, the second moral theology. But Puffen- 
dorf confined the former to purely external acts, 
excluding motives and intentions, and the latter to 
divine revelation. Both are "positive," and in 
some sort arbitrary, — one resting merely on the fact 
. that certain institutions obtain, the other on the 
fact that God has made certain declarations. To 
Leibniz, on the other hand, the will of God is in no 
sense the source of moral truths. The will of God 
does not create truth, but carries into effect the 
eternal truths of the divine understanding. Moral 
truths are like those of mathematics. And again, 
there is no such thing as purely external morality : 
it always contains an inner content, of which the 
external act is only the manifestation. Leibniz 
may thus be said to have made two discoveries, or 
rather re-discoveries : one, that there is a science ot\ 
morals, independent of law, custom, and positive 
right; the other, that the basis of both ''natural" 
and '' positive " morals is not the mere will of God, 
but is reason with its content of eternal truths. 

In morals the end is happiness, the means wis- 
dom. Happiness is defined, not as an occurrence, 
but as a condition, or state of being. " It is the con- 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. . 233 

dition of permanent joy. This does npt mean that 
the joy is actually felt every moment, but that one 
is in the condition to enjoy whenever he thinks of 
it, and that, in the interval, joyfulness arises from 
Ms activity and being." Pleasure, however, is not a 
state, but a feeling. It is the feeling of perfection, 
whether in ourselves or in anything else. It does 
not follow that we perceive intellectually either in 
what the perfection of the pleasant thing consists 
or in what way it develops perfection within us. It 
is enough that it be realized in feeling, so as to give 
us pleasure. Perfection is defined " as increase of 
being. As sickness is, as it were, a lowering and a 
falling off from health, so perfection is something 
which mounts above health. It manifests itself in 
power to act ; for all substance consists in a certain 
power, and the greater the power the higher and 
freer the substance. But power increases in the 
degree that the many manifests itself from one and 
in one, while the one rules many from itself and 
transforms them into self. But unity in plurality 
is nothing else than harmony ; and from this comes 
order or proportion, from which proceeds beauty, 
and beauty awakens love. Thus it becomes evident 
how happiness, pleasure, love, perfection, substance, 
power, freedom, harmony, proportion, and beauty 
are bound up in one another." 

From this condensed sketch, taken from Leibniz 
himself, the main features of his ethical doctrine 
clearly appear. When we were studying freedom 
we saw that it was not so much a starting-point 



234 LEIBNtZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

of the will as its goal and ideal. AVe saw also 
that true freedom is dependent upon knowledge, 
upon recognition of the eternal and universal. 
What we have here is a statement of that doctrine 
, jn terms of feeling and of will instead of knowledge. 
The end of man is stated to be happiness, hut the 
notion of happiness is developed in such a way that 
it is seen to be equivalent to the Aristotelian notiou 
of self-realization ; " it is development of substance, 
and substance is activity." It is the union of pne and 
the many ; and the one, according to the invariable 
doctrine of Leibniz, is the spiritual element, and tlie 
many is the real content which gives meaning to this 
rational unity. Happiness thus means perfection, 
and perfection a completely universalized individual. 
The motive toward the moral life is elsewhere stated 
to be love ; and love is defined as interest in per- 
fection, and hence culminates in love of God, the 
only absolute perfection. It also has its source 
in God, as the origin of perfection ; so that Leibniz 
says, Whoso loves God, loves all. ' 

Natural right, as distinguished from morals, is 
based upon the notion of justice, this being the 
outward manifestation of wisdom, or knowledge, — 
appreciation of the relation of actions to happiness. 
The definitions given by Leibniz are as follows: 
Just and unjust are what are useful or hannful to 
the public, — that is, to the community of spirits. 
This community includes first God, then humanity, 
then the state. These are so subordinated that, in 
cases of collision of duty, God, the universe of 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 235 

relations, comes before the profit of humanity, and 
this before the state. At another time Leibniz de- 
fines justice as social virtue, and says that there are 
as many kinds of "right" as there are kinds of- 
natural communities in which happiness is an end 
of action. A natural community is defined as one 
which rests upon desire and the i^ower of satisfying 
it, and includes three varieties, — domestic, civil, 
and ecclesiastic. " Right" is defined as that which 
sustains and develops any natural community. It 
is, in other words, the will for happiness united with 
insight into what makes happiness. 

Corresponding to the three forms of the social 
organism (as we should now call the " natural com- 
munity"), are the three kinds of jns, — jus strictum^ ' 
equity, and piety. Each of these has its correspond- 
ing prescript. That of jus strictum is to injure no 
one ; of equity, to render to each his own ; and of 
piety, to make the ethical law the law of conduct. 
Jus strictum includes the right of war and peace. 
The right of peace exists between individuals till 
one breaks it. The right of war exists between men 
and things. The victory of person over thing is 
prcyperty. Things thus come to possess the right 
of the person to whom they belong as against every 
other person ; that is, in the right of the person to 
himself as against the attacks of another (the right 
to peace) is included a right to his property. Jus 
strictum is, of course, in all cases, enforceable by 
civil law and the compulsory force which accom- 
panies it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to 



236 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

obligation in cases where there is no right of com- 
pulsion. Its law is, Be of aid to all, but to esuih 
according to his merits and his claims. Finally 
comes piety. The other two stages are limited. 
The lowest is negative, it wards off harm ; the sec- 
ond aims after happiness, but only within the limits 
of earthly existence. That we should ourselves bear 
misery, even the greatest, for the sake of others, 
and should subject the whole of this existence to 
something higher, cannot be proved excepting as 
we regard the society, or community, of our spirits 
with God. Justice with relation to God compre- 
hends all virtues. Everything that is, is from God ; 
and hence the law of all conduct is to use every- 
thing according to its place in the idea of God, ac- 
cording to its function in the universal harmony. 
It thus not only complements the other two kinds 
of justice but is the source of their inner ethical 
worth. " Strict justice " may conflict with equity. 
But God effects that what is of use to the public 
well-being — that is, to the universe and to human- 
ity — shall be of use also to the individual. Thus 
from the standpoint of God the moral is advanta- 
geous, and the immoral hurtful. Kant's indebted- 
ness to Leibniz will at once appear to one initiated 
into the philosophy of the former. 
. Leibniz never worked out either his ethics or his 
political philosophy in detail ; but it is evident that 
they both take their origin and find their scope in 
the fact of man's relationship to God, that they 
are both, in fact, accounts of the methods of 



\ 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 237 

realizing a universal but not a merely formal 
har^aony. For harmony is not, with Leibniz, an 
external arrangement, but is the very soul of being. 
Perfect harmony, or adaptation to the universe of \ 
relations, is the end of the individual, and man is 
informed of his progress toward this end by an inner 
sentiment of pleasure. 

It may be added that Leibniz's aesthetic theory, 
so far as developed, rests upon the same basis as his 
ethical, — namely, upon membership in the "city 
of God," or community of spiritual beings. This 
is implied, indeed, in a passage already quoted, 
where he states the close connection of beauty with 
harmony and perfection. The feeling of beauty is 
the recognition in feeling of an order, proportion, 
and harmony which are not yet intellectually de- 
scried. Leibniz illustrates by music, the dance, 
and architecture. This feeling of the harmonious 
also becomes an impulse to produce. As perception 
of beauty may be regarded as unexplained, or con- 
fused, perception of truth, so creation of beauty may 
be considered as undeveloped will. It is action on 
its way to perfect freedom, for freedom is simply 
activity with explicit recognition of harmony. 

We cannot do better than quote the conclusion of 
the matter from Leibniz'sl" Principles of Nature 
and of Grace," although, in part, it repeats what 
we have already learned. " There is something 
more in the rational soul, or spirit, than there is in 
the monad or even in the simple soul. Spirit is 
not only a mirror of the universe of creatures, but 



238 LEIBNIZ\s NEW ESSAYS. 

is also an image of the divine being. Spirit not 
only has a perception of the works of God, but is 
also capable of producing something which resem- 
I bles them, though on a small scale. To say nothing 
of dreams, in wliich we invent without trouble and 
without volition things upon which we must reflect a 
long time in order to discover in our waking state,— 
to say nothing of .this, our soul is architectonic in 
voluntary actions ; and, in discovering the sciences 
in accordance with which God has regulated all 
things {pondere, mensura, numero)^ it imitates in 
its department and in its own world of activity 
that which God does in the macrocosm. This is 
the reason why spirits, entering through reason and 
eternal truths into a kind of society with God, are 
members of the city of God, — that is, of the most 
l)erfect state, formed and governed by the best of 
mouarchs, in which there is no crime without punish- 
ment, and no good action without reward, and where 
there is as much of virtue and of happiness as may 
possibly exist. And this occurs not through a dis- 
turbance of nature, as if God's dealing with souls 
were in violation of mechanical laws, but by the 
very order of natural things, on account of the 
eternal, pre-established harmony between the king- 
doms of nature and grace, l>etween God as monarch 
and God as architect, since nature leads up to 
grace, and grace makes nature perfect in making 
use of it." 

No better sentences could be found with which to 
conclude this analysis of Leibniz. They a-esound 



THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ. 239 

not only with the grandeur and wide scope charac- 
teristic of his thought, but they contain his essen- 
tial idea, his pre-eminent ''note," — that of the 
harmony of the natural and the supernatural, the 
mechanical and the organic. The mechanical is to 
I.eibniz what the word signifies ; it is the mstru- 
mental^ and this in the full meaning of the term. 
Nature is instrumental in that it performs a func- 
tion, realizes a purpose, and instrumental in the 
sense that without it spirit, the organic, is an empty 
dream. The spiritual, on the other hand, is the 
meaning, the idea of nature. It perfects it, in that 
it makes it instrumental to itself, and thus renders 
it not the passive panorama of inere material force, 
but the manifestation of living spirit. 



210 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 

IN the exposition now completed we have in gen- 
eral taken for granted the truth and coherency 
of Leibniz's fundamental ideas, and have contented 
ourselves with an account of the principles and 
notions that flow from these ideas. The time has 
come for retracing our steps, and for inquuing 
whether the assumed premises can be thus unques- 
tioningly adopted. This final chapter, therefore, 
we shall devote to criticism of the basis of Leibniz's 
philosophy, not attempting to test it by a compar- 
ison with other systems, but by inquiring into its 
internal coherency, and by a brief account of the 
ways in which his successors, or at least one of 
them, endeavored to make right the points in which 
he appeared to fail. 

The fundamental contradiction in Leibniz is to be 
found, I believe, between the method which he 
adopted — without inquiry into its validity and scope 
— and the subject-matter, or perhaps better the atti- 
tude, to which he attempted to apply this method ; 
between, that is to say, the scholastic formal logic 
on the one hand and the idea of inter-relation de- 
rived from the development of scientific thought, on 



CEITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 241 

the other. Leibniz never thought of investigating 
the formal logic bequeathed by scholasticism, with 
a view to determining its adequacy as philosophic 
method. He adopted, as we have seen, the prin- 
ciples of identity and contradiction as sole prin- 
ciples of the only perfect knowledge. The type of 
knowledge is that which can be reduced to a series 
of identical propositions, whose opposite is seen to 
be impossible, because self-contradictory. Only 
knowledge in this form can be said to be demon- 
strative and necessary. As against Locke he justi- 
fied the syllogistic method of the schoolmen as the 
typical method of all rational truth. 

On the other hand, Leibniz, as we saw in the 
earlier chapters, had learned positively from the 
growth of science, negatively from the failures of 
Descartes and Spinoza, to look upon the universe 
as a unity of inter-related members, — as an organic 
unity, not a mere self-identical onenes's. Failing to 
see the cause of the failures of Descartes and Spi- 
noza in precisely their adoption of the logic of 
identity and contradiction as ultimate, he attempted 
to reconcile this method with the conception of 
organic activity. The result is constant conflict 
between the method and content of his philosophy, 
between its letter and its spirit. The contradiction 
is a twofold one. The unity of the content of his 
philosophy, the conception of organism or harmony, 
is a unity which essentially involves difference. The 
unity of his method is a formal identity which ex- 
cludes it. The unity, whose discovery constitutes 



242 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

Leibniz's great glory as a philosopher, is a unity of 
activity, a dynamic process. ■ The unity of formal 
logic is exclusive of any mediation or process, and 
is essentially rigid and lifeless. The result is that 
Leibniz is constantly wavering (in logical result, 
not of course in spirit) between two opposed eiTors, 
one of which is, in reality^, not different from Spi- 
nozisra, in that it regards all distinction as only 
phenomenal and unreal, while the other is akin to 
atomism, in that attempting to avoid the doctiine 
of the all-inclusive one, it does so only by supposmg 
a multitude of unrelated units, teimed monads. 
And thus the harmony, which in Leibniz's intention 
is the very content of reality, comes to be, in effect, 
an external arrangement between the one and the 
many, the unity and the distinction, in themselves 
incapable of real relations. Such were the results 
of Leibniz's failure, in Kantian language, to criticise 
his categories, in Hegelian language, to develop a 
logic, — the results of his assuming, without exam- 
ination, the validity of formal logic as. a method of 
truth. 

80 thoroughly is Leibniz imbued with the belief 
in its validity, that the very conception, that of 
sufficient reason, which should have been the means 
of saving him from his contradictions, is used in 
such a way as to plunge him deeper into them. 
The principle of sufficient reason may indeed be 
used as purely formal and external, — as equivalent 
to the notion that everything, no matter what, has 
some explanation. Thus employed, it simply de- 



CRITICISM AND COXCLUiilOX. .243 

Clares that everything has a reason, without in the 
least determining the what of that reason, — . its con- 
tent. This is what we mean by calling it formal. 
But this is not the way in which Leibniz conceives 
of it. According to him, it is not a principle of 
the external connection of one finite, or phenomenal, 
fact with another. It is a principle in the light of 
which the whole phenomenal world is to be viewed, 
declaring that its ground and meaning are to be 
found in reason, in self-conscious intelligence. As 
we have seen, k is equivalent, in Leibniz's case, to 
the notion that we have no complete nor necessary 
knowledge of the world of scientific fact until 
we have referred it to a conditioning " Supreme 
Spirit." 

Looked at in this way, we see that the unity 
which Leibniz is positively employing is an organic 
unity, a unity of intelligence involving organic refer- 
ence to the known world. But such a conception of 
sufl3cient reason leaves no place for the final validity 
of identity and non-contradiction; and therefore 
Leibniz, when dealing with his method, and not, as 
in the passages referred to, with his subject-matter, 
cannot leave the matter thus. To do so indeed 
would have involved a complete reconstruction of 
his philosophy, necessitating a derivation of all the 
categories employed from intelligence itself (that is, 
from the suflacient or conditioning reason). But the 
bondage to scholastic method is so great that Leib- 
niz can see no way but to measure intelligence by 
the ready-made principk of identity, and thus vir- 



244 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

tually (though not in purpose) to explain away the 
very principle of suiBcient reason. In Leibniz's 
words: "Contingent truths require an infinite 
analysis which only God can carry out. Whence 
by him alone are they known a priori and demon- 
stratively. For although the reason can always be 
found for some occurring state in a prior state, this 
reason again requires a reason, and we never arrive 
in the series to the ultimate reason. But this pro- 
gresaus ad infinitum takes (in us) the place of a 
sufficient reason, which can be found only outside 
the series in God, on whom all its members, prior 
and posterior depend, rather than upon one another. 
Whatever truths therefore, is incapable of analysis, 
and cannot be demonstrated from its own reasons ^ but 
has its vltimaie reason and certainty only from the 
divine mind, is not necessary. Everything that we 
call truths of fact come under this head, and this is 
the root' of their contingency." 

The sentences before Jhe one italicized repeat 
what we have learned before, and seem to convey 
the idea that the phenomenal world is that which 
does not account for itself, because not itself a self- 
determining reason, and which gets its ultimate ex- 
planation and ground in a self-sufficient reason, — 
God. But notice the turn given to the thought with 
the word " therefore." Therefore all truth incapable 
of analysis, — that is, of reduction to identical prop- 
ositions, whose opposite is impossible because self- 
contradictory, -^ all truth whose meaning depends 
upon not its bare identity, but upon its relation 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 245 

to the very content of all intelligence, is not ne- 
cessary, but contingent. Leibniz here distinctly 
opposes identical truths as necessary, to truth con- 
nected with reason as contingent. Synthetic refer- 
ence to the very structure of intelligence is thus 
made, not the ground of truth, but a blot upon its 
completeness and necessity. Perfect truth, it is im- 
plied in the argument, is self-identical, known by 
mere analysis of itself, and needs no reference to an 
organism of reason. The reference, therefore, to a 
principle of sufficient reason is simply a concession 
to the fragmentary and imperfect condition of all 
knowledge. Truth in itself is self-identical; but 
appearing to us only confusedly, we employ the 
idea of sufficient reason as a makeshift, by which 
we refer, in a mass, all that we cannot thus reduce 
to identical propositions, to an intelligence, or to a 
DexLS ex machina which can so reduce it. This is 
the lame and impotent conclusion. 

Leibniz's fundamental meaning is, no doubt, a 
coiTect one. He means that contingency of fact is 
not real, but apparent ; that it exists only because 
of our inability to penetrate the reason which would 
enable us completely to account for the facts under 
consideration. He means that if we could under- 
stand, sub specie aeternitatis, from the standpoint 
of universal intelligence, we should see every fact 
as necessary, as resulting from an intrinsic reason. 
But so thoroughly is he fettered by the scholastic 
method — that is, the method of formal logic — that 
he can conceive of this immanent and intrinsic 



246 LEIBNIZ'S XKW ESSAYS. 

reason which makes every fact a truth — that is, 
self-evident in its necessity — only as an analytic, 
self-contained identity. And herein lies his con- 
tradiction : his method obliges liim to conceive of 
ultimate intelligence as purely formal, simply as 
that which does not contradict itself, while the atti- 
tude of his thought and its concrete subject-matter 
compel him to think of intelligence as possessing 
a content, as the organic unity of a system of 
relations. 

From this contradiction flow the other contradic- 
tions of Leibniz, which we are now prepared to ex- 
amine in more detail. For his ideas are so much 
greater than his method that in almost every point 
there seems to be contradiction. His ideas per se 
mean one thing, and his ideas as interpreted by his 
method another. Take his doctrine of individuality, 
for instance. To some it has appeared that the 
great defect of the Leibnizian philosophy is its in- 
dividualism. Such conceive him simply to have 
carried out in his monadism the doctrine of the in- 
dividual isolated from the universe to its logical 
conclusions, and thereby to have rendered it absurd. 
In a certain sense, the charge is true. The monad, 
according to the oft-repeated statement, has no inter- 
course with the rest of the universe. It really ex- 
cludes all else. It acts as if nothing but itself and 
God were in existence. That is to say, the monad, 
being the self- identical, must shut out all intrinsic 
or real relations with other substances. Such rela- 
tions would involve a differentiating principle for 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 247 

which Leibniz's logic has no place. Each monad 
is, therefore, an isolated universe. But such a re- 
sult has no value for Leibniz. He endeavors to 
correct it by the thought that each monad idealbj 
includes the whole universe by mirroring it. And 
then to reconcile the real exclusion and the ideal in- 
clusion, he falls back on a Dens ex machina who 
arranges a harmony between them, foreign to the 
intrinsic nature of each. Leibniz's individualism, 
it is claimed, thus makes of his philosophy a syn- 
thesis, or rather a juxtaposition, of mutually con- 
tradictory positions, eacli of which appears true 
only as long as we do not attempt to think it to- 
gether with the other. 

There is, no doubt, truth in this representation. 
But a more significant way of stating the matter is, 
I think, that Leibniz's defect- is not in his individ- 
ualism, but in the defect of his conception of the 
individual. His individualism is more apparent 
than real. It is a negative principle, and negative 
in the sense of ^privative. The individuality of the 
monad is due to its incompleteness, to its imperfec- 
tions. It is really matter which makes monads 
mutually impenetrable or exclusive ; it is matter 
which distinguishes them from Goil, and thus from 
one another. Without the material element they 
would be lost in an undistinguished identity with 
God, the supreme substance. But matter, it must 
be remembered, is passivity ; and since activity is 
reality, or substance, matter is unsubstantial and 
unreal. The same results from a consideration of 



248 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

knowledge. Matter is always correlative to con- 
fused ideas. With the clearing up of knowledge, 
with making it rational, matter must disappear, so 
that to God, who is wholly reason, it must entirely 
, vanish. But this view varies only in words from 
that of Spinoza, to whom it is the imagination, as 
distinguished from the intellect, that is the source 
of particular and finite objects. I 

It is perhaps in his TheodMe^ in the treatment 
of the problem of evil, that his implicit Spinozism, 
or denial of individuality, comes out most clearly. 
That evil is negative, or privative, and consists in 
the finitude of the creature, is the result of the dis- 
cussion. What is this except to assert the unreality, 
the merely privative character, of the finite, and to 
resolve all into God? To take one instance out 
of many : he compares inertia to the original limi- 
tation of creatures, and says that as inertia is the 
obstacle to the complete mobility of bodies, so pri- 
vation, or lack, constitutes the essence of the imper- 
fection, or evil, of creatures. His metaphor is of 
boats in the current of a river, where the heavier 
one goes more slowly, owing to inertia. The force 
of the current, which is the same to ally and which 
is positive, suffering no diminution, is comparable 
to the activity of God, which also is perfect and 
positive. As the current is the positive source of 
all the movements of the bodies, and is in no way 
responsible for the retardation of some boats, so 
God is the source only of activities, — the perfec- 
tions of his creatures. " As the inertia of the boat 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 249 

is the cause of its slowness, so the limitations of its 
receptivity are the cause of the defects found in the 
action of creatures." Individuality is thus reduced 
to 4iiere limitation ; and the unlimited, the real which 
includes all reality, is God. We are thus placed in 
a double difficulty. This notion of an all-inclusive 
one contradicts the reality of mutually exclusive 
monads ; and we have besides the characteristic diffi- 
culty of Spinoza, — how, on the basis of this unlimit- 
ed, self -identical substance, to account for even the 
appearance of finitude, plurality and individuality. 

Leibniz's fundamental defect may thus be said to be 
that, while he realized, as no one before him had done, 
the importance of the conception of the negative^ 
he was yet unable to grasp the significance of the 
negative, was led to interpret it as merely privative 
or defective, and thus, finally, to surrender the very 
idea. Had not his method, his presupposition 
regarding analytic identity, bound him so com- 
pletely in its toils, his clear perception that it was 
the negative element that differentiated God from 
the universe, intelligence from matter, might have 
' brought him to a general anticipation not only of 
Kant, but of Hegel. But instead of transforming 
his method by this conception of negation, he al- 
lowed his assumed (/. e., dogmatic) method to evac- 
uate his conception of its significance. It was 
Hegel who was really sufficiently in earnest with 
the idea to read it into the very notion of intelli- 
gence as a constituent organic element, not as a^ 
mere outward and formal limitation. 



250 LEIBXIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

We liave already referred to the saying of Leibniz 
that the nioDad acts as if nothing existed but God 
and itself. The same idea is sometimes expressed 
by saying that God alone is the immediate or direct 
object of the monad. Both expressions mean that, 
while the monad excludes all other monads, such is 
not the case in its relation to God, but that it has 
an organic relation with him. We cannot keep 
from asking whether there is not another aspect 
of tlie contradiction here. How is it possible for 
the monad so to escape from its isolation that it 
can have communication with God more than with 
other substances? Or if it can have communica- 
tion with God, why cannot it equally bear real 
relations of community with other monads? And 
the answer is fo^nd in Leibniz's contradictory con^- 
ceptions of God. Of these conceptions thefe are 
at least three. When Leibniz is emphasizing his 
monadic theory, with its aspects of individuality 
and exclusion, (iod is conceived as the highest 
monad, as one in the series of monads, differing 
from the others only in the degree of its activity. 
He is the '* monad of monads " ; the most complete," 
active, and individualized of all. But it is evident 
that in this sense there can be no more intercourse 
between (iod and a monad than there is between 
one monad and another. Indeed, since God is 
purus actus without any passivity, it may be said 
that there is, if possible, less communication in this 
case than in tlie others. He is, as Leibniz says, what 
a monad without matter would be, '^ a deserter from 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 251 

the general order." He is the acme of isolation. 
This, of course, is the extreme development of the 
" individual" side of Leibniz's doctrine, resulting in 
a most pronounced atomism. Leibniz seems dimly 
conscious of this difficulty, and thus by the side of 
this notion of (iod he puts another. According to 
it, God is the source of all monads. The monads 
are not created by a choice of the best of all possible 
worlds, as his official theology teaches, but are the 
radiations of his divinity. Writing to Bayle, Leib- 
niz expresses himself as follows : ' ' The nature of 
substance consists in an active force of definite char- 
acter, from which phenomena proceed in orderly 
succession. This force was originally received by, 
and is indeed preserved to, every substance by the 
creator of all things, from whom all actual forces 
or perfections emanate bj a sort of continual crea- 
tion,** And in his Monadology he says: All *'the 
created or derived monads are the productions of 
God, and are born, as it were, by the contimtal fal- 
gurations of the divinity from instant to instant, 
bounded by the receptivity of the creature to which 
it is essential to be limited." What has become of 
the doctrine of monads (although the word is re- 
tained) it would be difficult to say. There is cer- 
tainly no individual distinction now between the 
created monads and God, and it is impossible to see 
why there should be individual distinctions between 
the various created monads. They appear to be all 
alike, as modes of the one comprehensive substance. 
Here we have the universal, or '' identity, " side of 



252 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

Leibniz's philosophy pushed to its logical outcome, 
— the doctrine of pantheism. 

His third doctrine of God is really a unity of the 
two previous. It is the doctrine that God is the 
harmony of the monads, — neither one among them 
nor one made up of them, but their organic unity. 
This doctrine is nowhere expressly stated in words 
(unless it be when he says that " God alone con- 
stitutes the relation and community of substances ") , 
but it runs through his whole system. According 
to this, God is the pre-established harmony. This 
conception, like that of harmony, may have either 
a mechanical interpretation (according to which God 
is the artificial, external point of contact of intelli- 
gence and reality, in themselves opposed) or an or- 
ganic meaning, according to which God is the unity 
of intelligence and reality. On this interpretation 
a^.one does the saying that God is the only imme- 
diate object of the monads have sense. It simply 
states that the apparent dualism between intelli- 
gence -and its object which is found in the world 
is overcome in God ; that the distinction between 
them is not the ultimate fact, but exists in and for 
the sake of a unity which transcends the differ- 
ence. According to this view, the opposition be- 
tween ideal inclusion and real exclusion vanishes. 
God is the harmony of the real and ideal, not a 
mere arrangement for bringing them to an under- 
standing with one another. Individuality and 
universality are no longer opposed conceptions, 
needing a tertium quid to relate them, but are 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 253 

organic factors of reality, and this, at the same . 
time, is intelligence. 

But admitting this conception as stating the im- 
plicit intention of Leibniz, the relation of monads to 
one another is wholly different from that which 
Leibniz gives. And to this point we now come. 
/If in God, the absolute, the real and the ideal are 
one, it is impossible that in substances, which have 
their being and significance only in relation to God, 
or this unity, the real and the ideal should be so 
wholly separated as Leibniz conceives. 

Leibniz's conception relative to this is, as we have 
seen, that there is no physical injluxus, or commer- 
cium^ of monads, but ideal consensus. Really each 
shuts out every other ; ideally^ or representatively, 
it includes every other. His positive thought in the 
matter is that a complete knowledge of any portion ^ 
of the universe would involve a perfect knowledge •' 
of the whole, so organic is the structure of the uni- 
verse. Each monad sums up the past history of the 
world, and is big with its future. This is the con- 
ception of inter-relation; the conception of all in 
one, and one as a member, not a part of a whole. 
It is the conception which Leibniz brought to birth, 
the conception of the thorough unity of the world. 
In this notion there is no denial of community of 
relation; it is rather the culmination of relation. 
There is no isolation. But according to his pre- 
supposed logic, individuality can mean only identity 
excluding distinction, — identity without intrinsic re- 
lation, and, as Leibniz is bound at all hazards to save 



2r)4 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

the notion of individuality, he is obliged to think 
of this inter-relation as only ideal, as the result of 
a predetermined tendency given at its creation to 
the self-identical monad by God. But of course 
Leibniz does not escape the contradiction between 
identity and distinction, between individuality and 
universality, by this means. He only transfers it 
to another realm. In the relation of the monad to 
God the diversity of its content, the real or universal 
element, is harmonized with the identity of its law» 
its ideal or individual factor. But if these elements 
do not conflict here, why should they in the relation 
of the monads to one another? Either there is 
already an immanent hai-mony between the indi- 
vidual and universal, and no external arrangement 
is needed to bring it about', or there is no such 
harmony, and therefore no relation possible be- 
tween God and the individual monad. One side 
of the Leibnizian philosophy renders the other side 
impossible. 

Another consequence of Leibniz's treatment of 
the negative as merely limitative is that he can find 
no distinction, excepting of degree, between nature 
and spirit. Such a conception is undoubtedly in 
advance of the Cartesian dualism, which regards 
them as opposed realms without any relation ; but 
it may be questioned whether it is as adequate a 
view as that wjiich regards them as distinct realms 
on account of relation. At all events, it leads to 
confusion in Leibniz's treatment of both material 
objects and self-conscious personalities. In the. 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION". 255 

former case his method of escape is a metaphor, — 
that objects apparently material are full of souls, or 
spirits. This may mean that the material is merely 
material only when considered in implicit abstrac- 
tion from the intelligence which conditions it, that 
the material, in truth, is constituted by some of the 
relations which in their completeness make up 
intelligence. This at least bears a consistent mean- 
ing. But it is not monadism ; it is not the doctrine 
that matter differs from spirit only in degree : it is 
the doctrine that they differ in kind, as the con- 
ditioned from the conditioning. At times, however, 
Leibniz attempts to carry out his monadism literally^ 
and the result is that he conceives matter as being 
itself endowed, in some unexplained way, with 
souls, or since this implies a dualism between mat- 
ter and soul, of being made up, composed, of souls. 
But as he is obliged to explain that this composition 
is not spatial, or physical, but only ideal, this doc- 
trine tends to resolve itself into the former. And 
thus we end where we began, — with a metaphor. 

On the other hand, there is a wavering treatment 
of the nature of spirit. At times it is treated as 
precisely on a level in kind with the monads that 
' ' compose " matter, differing only in the greater 
degree of its activity. But at other times it is 
certainly represented as standing on another plane. 
" The difference bet vveen those monads which express 
the world with consciousness and those which ex- 
press it unintelligently is as great as the difference 
between a mirror and one who sees." If Leibniz 



256 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYR 

means what he seems to imply by these words, it 
is plainly asserted that only the spiritual being is 
worthy of being called a monad, or individual, at all, 
and that material being is simply a dependent mani- 
festation of spirit. Again he says : " Not all en- 
telechies are, like our soul, images of God, — being 
made as members of a society or state of which he is 
chief, — but all are images of the universe.** In this 
distinction between self-conscious beings as images 
of God and unconscious monads as images of the 
universe there is again implied a difference of kind. 
That something is the image of the universe need 
mean only that it cannot be explained without its 
relations to the universe. To say that something 
is the image of God, must mean that it is itself 
spiritual and self-conscious. God alone is reason 
and activity. He alone has his reality in himself. 
Self-conscious beings, since members of a commu- 
nity with him, must participate in this reality in a 
way different in kind from those things which, at 
most, are only substances or objects, not subjects. 

Nor do the difficulties cease here. If matter be 
conceived, not as implied in the relations by which 
reason is realized in constituting the universe, but as 
itself differing from reason only in degree, it is 
impossible to account for its existence. Why should 
a less degree of perfection exist than is necessary? 
AVhy should not the perfect activity, God, complete 
the universe in himself? Leibniz's answer that an 
infinity of monads multiplies his existence so far as 
possible, may hold indeed of other spirits, who mirror 



CRITICISM AND COifCLUSION, 257 

aiia and live in one divine society, but is utterly in- 
applicable to those which fail to image him. Their 
existence, as material, is merely privative; it is 
merely the absence of the activity found in conscious 
spirit. How can this deprivation, this limitation, 
increase in any way the harmony and perfection of 
the universe? Leibniz's theory of the negative, in 
fine, compels him to put nature and spirit on the 
same level, as differing only in degree. This, so 
far from giving nature a reality, results in its being 
swallowed up in spirit, not as necessarily distinct 
from it and yet one with it, but as absorbed in it, 
since the apparent difference is only privative. Nor 
does the theory insure the reality of spirit. This, 
since one in kind with matter, is swallowed up 
along with it in the one substance, which is pos- 
itive and self -identical, — in effect, the Dens sive 
Natura of Spinoza. 

We have to see that this contradiction on the side 
of existence has its correlate on the side of knowl- 
edge, and our examination of this fundamental de- 
ficiency in Leibniz is ended. Sensation is on the 
side of intelligence what matter is on the side of 
reality. It is confused knowledge, as matter is 
imperfect activity or reality. Knowledge is perfect 
only when it is seen to be necessary, and by " neces- 
sary " is meant that whose opposite is impossible, or 
involves contradiction. In spite, therefore, of Leib- 
niz's thorough conviction that " matters of fact " — 
the subject-matter of physical science — are not ar- 
bitrary, he is yet obliged finally to agree with Locke 



258 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

that there is no certlliaty to be found in such knowl- 
edge, either as a whole or in any of its details. The 
element of sensatictn, of confused knowledge, cannot 
be eliminated. Hence it must alwa^^s be open to any 
one to object that it is only on account of this im- 
perfect factor of our knowledge that there appeai-s 
to be a physical world at .all, that tlie external 
world is an illusion produced by our sensations. 
And Leibniz himself, while claiming that the world 
of fact, as opposed to the realm of relations, 
possesses practical reality, is obliged to admit that 
metaphysically it may be only an orderly dream. 
The fact is that Leibniz unconsciously moves in 
the same circle, with relation to sensation and the 
material world, that confines Spinoza .with regard 
to imagination and particular multiple existences. 
Spinoza explains the latter from that imperfection 
of our intelligence which leads us to imagine rather 
than to think. But he accounts for the existence 
of imagination, when he comes to ti'eat that, as 
due to the plurality of particular things. So Leil>- 
niz, when an account of the existence of matter 
is demanded of him, refers to confused knowledge 
as its source, while in turn he explains the latter, 
or sensation, from the material element which sets 
bounds to the activity of spirit. Leibniz seems 
indeed, to advance upon Spinoza in admitting the 
reality of the negative factor in differentiating the 
purely self -identical, but he gives up what he 
has thus gained by interpreting the negation as 
passivity, or mere deprivation. 



CKITKJISM AND CONCLUSIO:>'. 259 

To sum np, it may be doubted wliotlier we have 
more to learu from Leibniz's successes or from his 
faihires. Leibniz's positive significance for us is 
in his clear recognition of the problems of modern 
philosoi)hy, and in his perception of the isolated 
elements of their solution. His ^negative signifi- 
cance is in- iiis clinging to a method which allowed 
liim only to juxtapose these elements without form- 
ing of them a true synthesis. There are a number 
of sides from which we may state Leibniz's realiza- 
tion of the problem. Perhaps that which distin- 
guishes Leibniz most clearly from Locke is their re- 
spective treatments of the relation of the physical 
to the spiritual, or, as the question presented itself 
mainly to them, of the " natural" to the "super- 
natural." To. Locke the supernatural was strictly 
miraculous ; it was, from our standpoint, mere 
power, or will. It might indeec^ be rational, but 
this reason was incapable of being apprehended by 
• us. Its distinction from the finite was so great 
that it could be conceived only as something pre- 
ceding and succeeding the finite in time, and mean- 
while as intercalating itself arbitrarily here and 
there into the finite ; as, for example, in the re- 
lation of soul and body, in the production of 
sensation, etc. In a word, Locke thought that 
the ends of philosophy, and with it of religion 
and morals, could be attained only by a complete 
separation of the " natural" and the '' supernatural." 
Leibniz, on the other hand, conceived the aim of 
philosophy to l)e the demonstration of their har- 



260 LEIBNIZ'S NEy ESSAYS. 

mony. This is evidenced by his treia,tment of the 
relations of the infinite and finite, of uiatter and 
spirit, of mechanical and final causation. And lie 
found the sought-for harmony in the fact tluit tlie 
spiritual is the reason, purpose, and function of 
the natural. The oft-quoted words of Lotze ex- 
press the thouglk of Leibniz : '* The mechanical 
is unbounded in range, but is subordinate in value." 
We cannot find some things that occur physically, 
and others that occur siipernaturally ; everytliing 
that occurs has its sufficient mechanical antecedents, 
but all that occurs has its significance, its purpose, 
in something that does not occur, but that eternally 
is — Reason. The raeclianical and the spiritual are 
not realms which here and thei*e come into out- 
ward contact. They are related as the conditioned 
and the conditioning. That, and not the idea of an 
artificial )}iodns vivendi^ is the true meaning of the 
pre-established harmony . 

In other words, Leibniz's great significance for us 
is the fact that, although he accepted in good faitli, 
and indeed as himself a master ui its methods, the 
results and principles of physical science, he re- 
mained a teleological idealist of the type of Aris- 
totle. But I liave not used the right words. It 
was not in spite of his acceptance of the scien- 
tific view of the world that he retained his faith in 
the primacy of purpose and reason. On the con- 
trary, he was an idealist because of his science, 
because only by the idea of an all-conditioning 
spiritual activity could he account for and make 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 261 

v«Ud scientific conceptions; he was a teleologist, 
because natural processes, with then- suuiming up 
in the notion of causality, were meauiugless except 
as manifesting an immanent purpose. 

There are other more technical ways of stating 
the bearing of Leibniz's work. We may say that 
he realized that the problem of philosophy con- 
sisted in giving due \Tilue to the notions of indi- 
viduality and universality, of identity and diffei*ence, 
or of the real and the ideal. In developing these 
ideas, however, we should only be repeating what has 
already .been said, and so we may leave the matter 
here. On the negative side we need only recall what 
was said a few pages back regarding the incom- 
patibility of Leibniz's method — the scholastic for- 
mal logic — with the content of his philosophy. The 
attempt to find a formal criterion of truth was 
hopeless ; it was worse than fruitless, for it led lo 
such an interpretation of concrete trutlis as to 
deprive them of their significance and as to land 
Leibniz in involved contradictions. 

To write a complete account of the influence of 
Leibniz's philosophy would be too large a task for 
these pages. If we were to include under tliis 
head all the ramifications of thought to which 
Leibniz stimulated, directly and ftndirectl}^, either 
by stating^ truths which some one worked out or 
by stating errors which incited some one to new 
points of view, we should have to sketch German 
philosophy since his time, — and not only tiie pro- 
fessional philosophy, but those wide aspects of 



262 LEIByiZ's NEW ESSAYS. 

thought wliich were reflected in Herder, Lessmg, 
and Goethe. It is enough to consider him as the 
forerunner of Kant. It has become so customary to 
represent Kant as working wholly on the problem 
which Hume presented, that his great indebtedness 
to Leibniz is overlooked. Because Hume aroused 
Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, it is supposed 
that Kant threw off the entii-e influence of the 
Leibnizian thought as vain dreams of his sleep. 
Such a representation is one-sided. It is truer to 
state that Hume challenged Kant to discover the 
method by which he could justify the results of 
Leibniz. In this process, the results, no doubt, 
took on a new form : results are always relative 
to method; but Kant never lost sight of the re- 
sultjs. In the main, he accepted the larger feat- 
ures of tlie Leibnizian conclusions, and, taught by 
Hume of the insutticiency of the method that .Leib- 
niz followed, searched for a method which should 
guarantee them. 

This aspect of Kant appears more fully in his 
lesser and somewhat controversial* writings than iu 
his classic works : and this, no doubt, is one reason 
that his indebtedness is so often overlooked. His 
close relation to Leibniz appears most definitely in 
his brochure entitlfed ^' Concerning a Discovery which 
renders Unnecessary all Critique of Pure Reason." 
A Woliiian, Eberhard by name, had " made the dis- 
covery " (to use Kant's words) " that the Leibnizian 
philosophy contained ji critique of reason just as 
well as the "modern, and accordingly contained 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 263 

everything that is true in the latter, and much else 
in addition." In his reply to this writing, Kant 
takes the position that those who claimed to be 
Leibnizians simply repeated the words of Leibniz 
without penetrating into his spirit, and . that con- 
sequently they misrepresented him on every impor- 
tant point. He, Kant, on the other hand, making 
no claim to use the terminology of Leibniz, was his 
true continuator, since he had only changed the 
doctrine of the latter so as to make it conform 
to the true intent of Leibniz, by removing its self- 
contradictions. He closes: '''The Critique of 
Pure Reason' may be regarded as the real apol- 
ogy for Leibniz, even against his own professed 
followers." 

Kant, in particular, names three points in which 
he is the true follower of Leibniz. The professed 
disciples of the latter insisted that the law of 
sufficient reason was an objective law, a law of 
nature. But, says Kant, it is so notorious, so self- 
evident, that no one can make a new discovery 
through this principle, that Leibniz can have meant 
it only as subjective. " For what does it mean to 
say that over and above the principle of contra- 
diction another principle must be employed? It 
means this : that, according to the principle of cour 
tradlction, only that can be known which is already 
contained in the notion of the object ; if anything 
more is to be known, it must be sought through the 
use of a special principle, distinct from that of 
contradiction. Since this last kind of knowledge 



264 LEIBNIZ*S NEW ESSAYS. 

is that of synthetic principles, Leibniz means just 
this: besides the principle of contradiction, or that 
of analytic judgments, there must be another, that 
of sufficient reason, for synthetic judgments. He 
thus pointed ou^, in a new and remarkable manner, 
that certain investigations in metaphysics were still 
to be made." In other words, Kant, by his dis- 
tinction of analytic and synthetic judgments, with 
their respective principles and spheres, carried out 
the idea of Leibniz regai-ding the principles of 
contradiction and sufficient reason w 

The second point concerns the relation of monads 
to material bodies. Eberhard, like the other pro- 
fessed Leibnizians, interpreted Leibniz ias saying 
that corporeal bodies, as composite, are actually 
made up out of monads, as simple. Kant, on the 
other hand, saw clearly that Leibniz was not think- 
ing of a relation of composition, but of condition; 
*' He did not mean the material world, but the sub- 
strate, the intellectual world which lies in the idea 
of reason, and in which everything must be thought 
as consisting of. simple substances." Eberhard's 
process, he says, is to begin with sense-phenomena, 
to find a simple element' as a part of the seiise- 
perceptions, and then to present this simple element 
as if it were spiritual and equivalent to the monad 
of Leibniz. Kant claims to follow the thought of 
Leibniz in regarding the simple not as an element 
in the sensuous, but as something super-sensuous^ 
the ground of the sensuous. Leibniz's mistake was 
that, not having worked out clearly the respective 



. CRITieiSM AND CONCLUSION. 265 

limits of the principles of identity and of sufficient 
reason, he supposed that we had a direct intellec- 
tual intuition of this super-sensuous, when in reality 
it is iinkiiowable^ 

The third group of statements concerns the 
principle of pre-established harmony. "Is it pos- 
sible;" a^ks KWnt, '" th^t Leibniz meant by tliis 
doctrine to assert the mere coincidence of two sub- 
stances wholly independent of each other by nature, 
and incapable thi-bitgh their own force of being 
brought into' 'community?" .''And his answer is 
that what Leibtitz really implied was not a harmoiiy 
between iiidep^ndeiit things, biit a harmony between 
modes of knowing, between ^ehse oh the! one hand 
and und^ystahdirig oti the other. The * ' Critique ■ of 
Pure Realson" caVried the discussion farther ' l»y 
pointing but its git)unds ; namely, that? without the 
unity o^ sense and understanding, no experience 
would be' i)DS8ible. Why there should be this har- 
mony, ivhy'we should have experience, this question 
it is impossible to answer, says Kant, — adding that 
Leibniz confessed as much when he called it a 
" pre-established " harmony, thus not explaining it, 
but only referring it to a highest cause. That 
Leibniz really means a harmony witliin intelligence, 
not a harmony of things by themselves, is made 
more clear, according to Kant, from the fact that 
it is applied also to the relation between the king- 
dom of nature and of grace, of final and of efficieiit 
causes. "Here the harmony is clearly not between' 
two independently existing external things, but be- 



266 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

tween wbat flows from our notions of nature {Na- 
turbegriffe) and of freedom {Freiheitsbegriffe) ; that 
is, between two distinct powers and principles 
within M«, — an agreement which can be explained 
only through the idea of an intelligent cause of the 
world. 

If we review these points in succession, the in- 
fluence of Leibniz upon Kant becomes more marked. 
As to the first one, it is well known that Kant's 
philosophy is based, upon, and revolves within, the 
distinction of analytic and synthetic judgments ; and 
this distinction Kant clearly refers to the Leibnizian 
distinction between the principles of contradiction 
and of sufficient reason, or of identity and differ- 
entiation. It is not meant that Kant came to this 
thought through the definitions of Leibniz ; on the 
contrary, Kant himself refere it to Hume's dis- 
tinction between matters of fact and relations of 
ideas. But when Kant had once generalized the 
thought of Hume, it fell at once, as into ready 
prepared moulds, into the categ^ories of Leibniz. 
He never escapes from the Leibnizian distinction. 
In his working of it out consists his greatness as 
the founder of modern thought; from his accept- 
ance of it as ultimate result his contradictions. 
That is to say, Kant did not merely receive the 
vague idea of sufficient reason : he so connected it 
with what he learned from Hume that he trans- 
formed it into the idea of synthesis, and f)roceeded 
to work out the conception of synthesis in the 
various notions of the understanding, or categories, 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION. 267 

as applicable to the material of sense.. What 
Leibniz bequeathed him was the undefined - idea 
that knowledge of matters of fact rests upon the 
principle of sufficient reason. What Kant did with 
this inheritance was to identify the wholly vague 
idea of sufficient reason with the notion that every 
fact of experience rests upon necessary synthetic^ 
connection, — that is, connection according tonotions 
of understanding with other facts, — and to deter- 
mine, so far as he could, the various forms of syn- 
thesis, or of sufficient reason. With Leibniz the 
principle remained essentially infertile, because it 
was the mere notion of the ultimate reference of 
experience to understanding. In the hands of 
Kant it became the instrument of revolutioniz- 
ing philosophy, because Kant showed the articu- 
late members of understanding by which experience 
is constituted, and described them in the act of 
constituting. 

So much for his working out of the thought. But 
on the other hand, Kant never transcended the ab- 
soluteness of the distinction between the principles 
of synthesis and analysis, of sufficient reason and 
contradiction. The result was that he regarded the 
synthetic principle as the principle only of our knowl- 
edge, while perfect knowledge he still considered to 
follow the law of identity, of mere analysis. He 
worked out the factor of negation, of differentiation, 
contained in the notion of synthesis, but limited it 
to synthesis upon .material of sense, presupposing 
that there is another kind of knowledge, not limited 



268 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

to sense, not depending ii|k>u the synthetic prin- 
ciple, but resting uix)n the principle of contradic- 
^ tion, or analysis, and that this kind is the type, the 
norm, of the only perfect knowledge. • In other 
words, while admitting the synthetic principle of 
diflferentiation as a necessary element within our 
knowledge, he held that on account of this element 
our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal realm. 
Leibniz's error was in supposing that the pure prin- 
ciples of the logical understanding, resting on con- 
tradiction, could give us knowledge of the noumenal 
world ; liis truth was in supposing that only by such 
prineiplesi could they be known. Thus, in sub- 
stance, Kant. . Like Leibniz, in short, he failed to 
transcend the absoluteness of the value of the scho- 
lastic method ; but he so worked out aaother and 
synthetic method, — the development of the idea of 
sufficient reason, — that he made it necessary for 
his successors to transcend it. 

The second point concerns the relations of the 
sensuous and the super- sensuous. Here, besides 
setting right the ordinary misconception of Leibniz, 
Kant did nothing but render him consistent wkh 
himself. Leibniz attempted to prove the existence 
of God, as we have seen, by the principles both of 
sufficient reason and contradiction. . Kant denies the 
validity of the proof by either method.' God is the 
sufficient cause, or reason, of the contingent sense 
world. But since Leibniz admits that this contin- 
gent world may, after all, ])e but a dream, how shall 
wfe rise from it to the notion of God? It is net 



curnciSM and coNCLrsiON. 269 

our dreams that demonstrate to us the existeuce of 
reality. Or, again, sense-knowledge is confused 
knowledge. How shall this knowledge, b}^ hypoth- 
esis imperfect, guarantee to us the existence of a 
perfect being? On the other hand, since the syn- 
thetic principle, or that of sufficient reason, is ne- 
cessary to give us knowledge of matters of fact, the 
principle of contradiction, while it may give us a 
consistent and even necessary notion of a supreme 
being, cannot give this notion reality. Leibniz, 
while admitting, with regard to all other matters 
of fact, that the principles of formal logic can give 
no unconditional knowledge, yet supposes that, 
witfi regard to the one unconditional reality, they 
are amply sufficient. Kant but renders him self- 
consistent on this point. 

It is, however, with regard to the doctrine of 
pre-established harmony that Kant's large measure 
of indebtedness to Leibniz is most apt to be over- 
looked. Kant's claim that Leibniz himself meant 
the doctrine in a subjective sense (that is, of a 
harmony between powers in our own intelligence) 
rather than objective (or between things out of 
relation to intelligence) seems, at first sight, to go 
far beyond the mark. However, when we recall 
that to Leibniz the sense world is only the confused 
side of rational thought, there is more truth in Kant's 
saying than appe.irA at this first sight. The har- 
mony is between sense and reason. But it may at 
least be said without qualification that Kant only 
translated into subjective terms, terms of intelli- 



270 LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS. 

^ence, what appears in Leibniz as objective. This 
is not the place to go into the details of Kant's con- 
ception of the relation of the material to the psy- 
chical, of the lx>dy and the soul. We may state, 
however, in his own woixis, that "the question is 
no longer as to the possibility of the association 
of the soul with other known and foreign substanitcs 
outside it, but as to the connection of the presenta- 
tions of inner sense with the modifications of our ex- 
ternal sensibility." It is a question, in short, of the 
harmony of two modes of our own presentation, not 
of the harmony of two independent things. And 
Kant not only thus deals with the fact of harmony, 
but he admits, as its possible source, just what Leib- 
niz claims to be its actual source ; namely, some one 
underlying reality, which Leibniz calls the monad, 
but to which Kant gives no name. " I can well 
suppose," says Kant, "that the substance to which 
through external sense extension is attributed, is 
also the subject of the presentations given to us by 
its inner sense: thus tkojt which in one respect is 
called material being iconld be in another respect 
thinking being.'* 

Kant treats similarly the problem of the relations 
of physical and final causes, of necessity and free- 
dom. Here, as in the case just mentioned, his main 
problem is to discover their harmony. His solution, 
again, is in the union, in our intelligence, of the un- 
derstanding — as the source of the notions which 
"make nature" — with the ideas of that reason 
which gives a " categorical imperative." The cause 



CRITICISM AND CONCLUSIOX. ^ 271 

of the possibility of this harmony between nature and 
freedom, between the sense world and the rational, 
he finds in a being, God, whose sole function in the ^ 
Kantian philosophy may be said to be to " pre-estab- 
lish '* it. I cannot believe that Kant, in postulating 
the problems of philosophy as the harmony of sense 
and understanding, of nature and freedom, and in 
liuding this harmony where he did, was not profound- 
ly influenced, consciously as well as unconsciously, 
by Leibniz. In fact, I do not think that we can 
understand the nature either of Kant's immense con- 
tributions to modern thought or of his inconsisten- 
cies, until we have traced them to their source in the 
Leibnizian philosophy, — admitting, on the other 
hand, that we cannot understand why Kant should 
have found necessary a new way of approach to 
the results of Leibniz, until we recognize to the 
full his indebtedness to Hume. It was, indeed, 
Hume that awoke him to his endeavors, but it was 
Leibniz who set before him the goal of these en- 
deavors. That the goal should appear somewhat 
transformed, when approached from a new point of 
view, was to be expected. But alas ! the challenge 
from Hume did not wholly awaken Kant. He still 
accepted without question the validity of the scho- 
lastic method, — the analytic principle of identity as 
the type of perfect knowledge, — although denying 
its sufficiency for human intelligence. Leibniz sug- 
gested, and suggested richly, the synthetic, the neg- 
ative aspect of thought ; Kant worked it out as a 
necessary, law of our knowledge ; it was left to his 



272 LEIBXIZ*S NEW KS8AYS. 

successors to work it out as a factor in the law of 
(Ul knowledge. 

It would be a grievous blunder to suppose that 
this iiual chapter annihilates the earlier ones ; that 
tlie failure of Leibniz as to method, though a fail- 
ure in a fundamental point, cancelled his splendid 
achievements. Such thoughts as that substance is 
activity ; that its process is measured by its end, its 
idea ; that the univei-se is an inter-related unit ; the 
thoughts of organism, of continuity, of uniformity 
of law, — introduced and treated as Leibniz treated 
them, — are imperishable. They are merabens of the 
growing consciousness, on the part of intelligence, of 
its own nature. There are but three or four names 
in the history of thought which can be placed by the 
side of Leibniz's in respect to the open largeness, the 
unexhausted fertility, of such thoughts. But it is 
not enough for intelligence to 4iave great thoughts 
nor even true thoughts. It is testimony to the sin- 
cerity and earnestness of intelligence that it cannot 
take even such thoughts as those of Leibniz on trust. 
It must know them ; it must have a method adequate 
to their demonstration. And in a broad sense, the 
work of Kant and of his successors was the discov- 
ery of a method which should justify the objective 
idealism of Leibniz, and which in its history has 
more than fulfilled this task. 



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