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 principles of his times were not separate forces acting upon
him, they were the foods of which he selected 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 relation 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 Nominalists; 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 science to the realm of things not to be inquired into. To say that
it is an easy matter to decide, is to assume the decision with equal
ease of all the problems that have vexed the thought of humanity. To
us it seems easy because we have bodily incorporated into our thinking
the results of both the realistic and the nominalistic doctrines,
without attempting 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 consciousness 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 universal 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 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 predecessors
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 philosophy 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 burden 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 problem. 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 freshness
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 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
comprehensiveness.
Except for Descartes, then, we should not be conscious 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, extension. The conceptions
are disparate and opposed. No interaction is possible. His disciples,
more consistent than their master, called in a _deus ex machina_,--the
miraculous intervention of God,--in order to account for the appearance
of reciprocal action between the universe of matter and the thinking
individual. Thus they in substance admitted 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 anything. 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 _occasion_ of the external affection, brings
them into being. With such thoroughness Descartes performed his task
of separation. Yet the introduction of the _deus ex machina_ only
complicated the problem; it introduced a third factor where two were
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 substance 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 problem stated as Descartes would have it stated. It
overcomes the absoluteness of the dualism by discovering 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 supernatural; Spinoza uses the conception as a scientific one,
and speaks of _Deus 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 historian
of thought. The one cause which stands out above all others is that in
the unity of Spinoza all difference, all distinction, is lost. All
particular existences, whether things or persons, are _modes_
of extension and thought. Their _apparent_ existence is due to the
imagination, which is the source of belief 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 error 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 individuals is lost,
and in which there is no room for change. But Spinoza certainly
presented the problem more clearly to Leibniz, and revealed more
definitely the conditions of its solution. The search is henceforth
for a unity which shall avoid the irresolvable 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
bears 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 the
principle of unity as spiritual. Primarily 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, collections,
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 infinitely 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? 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 resistance, we are not better situated. We
have to think of something which resists; and to this something 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;
but we cannot frame an intelligible idea of a body which is absolutely
indivisible. To do so is to think of a body out of all relation to
existing 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 relations 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. Indeed, it is only a way of expressing the totality of phenomena
of space and time. It is a mere aggregate, a collection. Its very
essence is plurality, difference. It is divisible without limit,
and each 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 quantitative 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 cannot be conceived as material, rather
than why it must be conceived as spiritual. The immediate evidence
of its spiritual nature Leibniz finds in the perception of the one
unity directly known to us,--the "me," the conscious principle within,
which reveals itself as an active force, and as truly one, since not a
spatial or temporal existence. And this evidence he finds confirmed by
the fact that whatever unity material phenomena appear to have comes to
them through their perception by the soul. Whatever 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 demonstration 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 experience. 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 sufficient 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
which 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.
The monad, then, is a spiritual unity; it is individualized
life. Unity, activity, individuality are synonymous 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 conceived
after the analogy of the soul. It is an indivisible unity, like
"that particular something in us which thinks, apperceives and
wills, and distinguishes 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 true unity. There is an infinite
number of these individuals, 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,
are, as we have seen, principles of relativity, 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, representing 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 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 _naïveté_,
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 regard
to the _order_, the _harmony_ of reality." Leibniz applies here, as
everywhere, the principle of continuity, which is unity in and through
diversity, not the principle of bare oneness. There is a kingdom of
monads, a realm truly infinite, composed of individual 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 manifestation." 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 position? In avoiding the
monotone of unity which characterizes the thought of Spinoza, has
he 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 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, therefore, 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 universality 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 monad, 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 consists
in picturing or reproducing those relations which make up the world of
reality. In a conscious soul, the ability thus to represent the world
is called "perception," and thus Leibniz attributes perception to all
the monads. This is not to be understood as a conscious representation
of reality to itself (for this the term "apperception" is reserved),
but it signifies that the very essence of the monad is to produce
states which are not its own peculiar possessions, but which reflect
the facts and relations of the universe. Leibniz never wearies in
finding new ways to express this purely representative character of the
monad. The monads are little souls; they are mirrors of the world; they
are concentrations of the universe, each expressing it in its own way;
borrowing a term from scholasticism, they are "substantial forms." They
are substantial, for they are independent unities; they are forms,
because the term "form" expresses, in Aristotelian phraseology, the
type or law of some 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 reconciliation
of the principles of individuality and universality is contained
in the following words: "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 different, and all true, thus
multiplying the universe as many times as is possible, approaching
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 statement that reality
is activity, that the measure of 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 bring about this reflection in
the completest degree possible. 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 essence of a
substance, says Leibniz, consists in that regular tendency of action
by which its phenomena 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 thing. Each is in 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? It is because the
atom has merely parts, or external 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 relation is essential, is to say that it is one
which constitutes 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 comparison 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 with 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 forever 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 laws of connection
which make up the world itself.
We are thus introduced naturally to the conception 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 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 independence
and individuality of the monads. They are a true democracy, in
which each citizen has sovereignty. 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 conception 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
monad is free because it is individual, because it follows the
law of its own activity unhindered, unretarded, by others; it is
self-determined. But it is self-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
universe. 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 everywhere 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 because
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
mechanically conditioned by its antecedents. This is only another way
of saying that there is complete harmony 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 universe. The monads
are co-ordinated in such a way that they express a common idea. There
is a plan common to all, in which each has its own place. All are
making towards one goal, expressing one purpose. The universe is
an organism; and Leibniz 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 everything 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,
both as a whole and in its parts; for there is a common idea animating
it and expressed 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 connection, means
subordination and co-ordination, means adjustment, means a variety,
which yet is one. The Leibnizian doctrine is not a factitious product
of his imagination, nor is it a mechanical scheme for reconciling a
problem which has no existence outside of the bewildered brains of
philosophers. 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
combination; 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 freedom and necessity, of the physical and material,
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 carrying 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 which Leibniz criticised
Locke. There is, we have seen, the greatest possible continuity and
complexity in the realm of monads. 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 is only the highest, that is to say the
most active and the most representative, 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 developed 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 the world, might see exemplified 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. Increase the activity, the
representative power, until it becomes turned back, as it were, upon
itself, 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.