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 Leibniz
and indirectly to the completion of those ethical doctrines already
outlined in the chapter on will. Leibniz employs three arguments to
prove the existence 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
grandeur and perfection. But in the notion of a perfect being,
existence must be included, since it is something 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 as Descartes sometimes puts
it, in the notion of anything like a tree, a mountain, a triangle,
contingency 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 argument itself. The Cartesian definition may
be reduced to this: "God is a being in whom existence and essence are
one. From this definition it follows 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 indirect. The indirect is employed
against those who assert that from mere notions, ideas, definitions or
possible essences, it is not possible to infer actual existence. Such
persons simply deny the possibility of being in itself. But if
being-in-itself, or absolute being, is impossible, being-by-another,
or relative, 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 possibility 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,--the
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 being therefore without negations and without
contradiction,--this is sufficient 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, necessary. Of this 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 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 possesses only moral certainty
which becomes demonstrative by the new kind of harmony which 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 substance, before
developing these phenomena from the depth of its own being, must have
received this nature (this internal ground of external 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 the limits and bounds of things. Where
there are no limits, as in God, perfection is absolutely infinite." "In
God exists _power_, which is the source of all _knowledge_,--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 perfect
in power, wisdom, and goodness. His understanding 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 metaphysically, 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
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 understanding alone,
however, it would be logically necessary,--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
creating: 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 necessary; free, for it is guided by naught excepting
God's own recognition of an end; necessary, for God, being God, cannot
_morally_ act otherwise than by the principle of the better,--and this
in contingent matters is the best. Hence the optimism of Leibniz, to
which here no further allusion can be made.
Since the best is precisely God himself, it is evident that the created
world will have, _as far as possible_, his perfections. It would thus
be possible 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 repeats 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, reflects 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 account for the "appetition" and the "perception" that
characterize even the lowest monad. The scale of monads, however,
would not be as complete as possible unless there were beings in
whom appetition became volition, and perception, self-conscious
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 prince 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 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 first
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
difficult 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 ethical bearing. Or the latter may be
said to 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.
Puffendorf 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
Puffendorf 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 of 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 wisdom. Happiness is defined,
not as an occurrence, but as a condition, or state of being. "It is
the condition of permanent joy. This does not 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 his 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 of the will
as its goal and ideal. We 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 in terms of feeling and of will
instead of knowledge. The end of man is stated to be happiness, but
the notion of happiness is developed in such a way that it is seen to
be equivalent to the Aristotelian notion of self-realization; "it is
development of substance, and substance is activity." It is the union
of one and the many; and the one, according to the invariable doctrine
of Leibniz, is the spiritual element, and the 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 perfection, 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 harmful 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 relations, comes before the profit of humanity,
and this before the state. At another time Leibniz defines 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 power 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 community"), are the three kinds of _jus_,--_jus
strictum_, equity, and piety. Each of these has its corresponding
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 _property_. 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 accompanies it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to
obligation in cases where there is no right of compulsion. Its law
is, Be of aid to all, but to each 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 second 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 comprehends all
virtues. Everything that is, is from God; and hence the law of all
conduct is to use everything according to its place in the idea of God,
according 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 humanity--shall be of use also to the individual. Thus
from the standpoint of God the moral is advantageous, and the immoral
hurtful. Kant's indebtedness 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 realizing a universal
but not a merely formal harmony. 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 æsthetic 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 descried. 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 confused, 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's "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 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 resembles them, though on a small scale. To say nothing
of dreams, in which 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 perfect state,
formed and governed by the best of monarchs, in which there is no crime
without punishment, 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 disturbance 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 kingdoms of nature and grace, between 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 resound not only with the grandeur and wide scope
characteristic of his thought, but they contain his essential idea,
his pre-eminent "note,"--that of the harmony of the natural and the
supernatural, the mechanical and the organic. The mechanical is to
Leibniz what the word signifies; it is the _instrumental_, and this
in the full meaning of the term. Nature is instrumental in that it
performs a function, 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 _mere_ material force, but the manifestation of
living spirit.