LEIBNITZ.
In the contemporaries Spinoza and Locke, the two schools of modern
philosophy, the Continental, starting from Descartes, and the English,
which followed Bacon, had reached the extreme of divergence and opposition,
Spinoza was a rationalistic pantheist, Locke, an empirical individualist.
With Leibnitz a twofold approximation begins. As a rationalist he sides
with Spinoza against Locke, as an individualist with Locke against Spinoza.
But he not only separated rationalism from pantheism, but also qualified
it by the recognition (which his historical tendencies had of themselves
suggested to him) of a relative justification for empiricism, since he
distinguished the factual truths of experience from the necessary truths of
reason, gave to the former a noëtical principle of their own, the principle
of sufficient reason, and made sensation an indispensable step to thought.
To the tendencies thus manifested toward a just estimation and peaceful
reconciliation of opposing standpoints, Leibnitz remained true in all the
fields to which he devoted his activity. Thus, in the sphere of religion,
he took an active part in the negotiations looking toward the reunion of
the Protestant and Catholic Churches, as well as in those concerning the
union of the Lutheran and the Reformed. Himself a stimulating man, he yet
needed stimulation from without. He was an astonishingly wide reader, and
declared that he had never found a book that did not contain something
of value. With a ready adaptability to the ideas of others he combined a
remarkable power of transformative appropriation; he read into books more
than stood written in them. The versatility of his genius was unlimited:
jurist, historian, diplomat, mathematician, physical scientist, and
philosopher, and in addition almost a theologian and a philologist--he is
not only at home in all these departments, because versed in them, but
everywhere contributes to their advancement by original ideas and plans. In
such a combination of productive genius and wealth of knowledge Aristotle
and Leibnitz are unapproached.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646 at Leipsic, where his father
(Friederich Leibnitz, died 1652) was professor of moral philosophy; in his
fifteenth year he entered the university of his native city, with law as
his principal subject. Besides law, he devoted himself with quite as much
of ardor to philosophy under Jacob Thomasius (died 1684, the father of
Christian Thomasius), and to mathematics under E. Weigel in Jena. In 1663
(with a dissertation entitled _De Principio Individui_) he became Bachelor,
in 1664 Master of Philosophy, and in 1666, at Altdorf, Doctor of Laws, and
then declined the professorship extraordinary offered him in the latter
place. Having made the acquaintance of the former minister of the Elector
of Mayence, Freiherr von Boineburg, in Nuremberg, he went, after a short
stay at Frankfort-on-the-Main, to the court of the Elector at Mayence, at
whose request he devoted himself to the reform of legal procedure, besides
writing, while there, on the most diverse subjects. In 1672 he went to
Paris, where he remained during four years with the exception of a short
stay in London. The special purpose of the journey to Paris--to persuade
Louis XIV to undertake a campaign in Egypt, in order to divert him from his
designs upon Germany--was not successful; but Leibnitz was captivated
by the society of the Parisian scholars, among them the mathematician,
Huygens. From the end of 1676 until his death in 1716 Leibnitz lived
in Hanover, whither he had been called by Johann Friedrich, as court
councillor and librarian. The successor of this prince, Ernst August, who,
with his wife Sophie, and his daughter Sophie Charlotte, showed great
kindness to the philosopher, wished him to write a history of the princely
house of Brunswick; and a journey which he made in order to study for this
purpose was extended as far as Vienna and Rome. Upon his return he took
charge of the Wolfenbüttel library in addition to his other engagements.
The marriage of the Princess Sophie Charlotte with Frederick of
Brandenburg, the first king of Prussia, brought Leibnitz into close
relations with Berlin. At his suggestion the Academy (Society) of Sciences
was founded there in 1700, and he himself became its first president. In
Charlottenburg he worked on his principal work, the _New Essays concerning
the Human Understanding_, which was aimed at Locke, but the publication of
which was deferred on account of the death of the latter in the interim
(1704), and did not take place until 1765, in Raspe's collective edition.
The death of the Prussian queen in 1705 interrupted for several years the
_Theodicy_, which had been undertaken at her request, and which did not
appear until 1710. In Vienna, where he resided in 1713-14, Leibnitz
composed a short statement of his system for Prince Eugen; this, according
to Gerhardt, was not the sketch in ninety paragraphs, familiar under the
title _Monadology_, which was first published in the original by J.E.
Erdmann in his excellent _Complete Edition of the Philosophical Works
of Leibnitz_, 1840, but the _Principles of Nature and of Grace_, which
appeared two years after the author's death in _L'Europe Savante_.
While Ernst August, as well as the German emperor and Peter the Great,
distinguished the philosopher, who was not indifferent to such honors, by
the bestowal of titles and preferments, his relations with the Hanoverian
court, which until then had been so cordial, grew cold after the Elector
Georg Ludwig ascended the English throne as George I. The letters
which Leibnitz interchanged with his daughter-in-law, gave rise to the
correspondence, continued to his death, with Clarke, who defended the
theology of Newton against him. The contest for priority between Leibnitz
and Newton concerning the invention of the differential calculus was later
settled by the decision that Newton invented his method of fluxions first,
but that Leibnitz published his differential calculus earlier and in a more
perfect form. The variety of pursuits in which Leibnitz was engaged was
unfavorable to the development and influence of his philosophy, in that it
hindered him from working out his original ideas in systematic form, and
left him leisure only for the composition of shorter essays. Besides the
two larger works mentioned above, the _New Essays_ and the _Theodicy_, we
have of philosophical works by Leibnitz only a series of private letters,
and articles for the scientific journals (the _Journal des Savants_ in
Paris, and the _Acta Eruditorum_ in Leipsic, etc.), among which may be
mentioned as specially important the _New System of Nature, and of the
Interaction of Substances as well as of the Union which exists between the
Soul and the Body_, 1695, which was followed during the next year by three
explanations of it, and the paper _De Ipsa Natura_, 1698. Previous to
Erdmann (1840) the following had deserved credit for their editions of
Leibnitz: Feller, Kortholt, Gruber, Raspe, Dutens, Feder, Guhrauer (the
German works), and since Erdmann, Pertz, Foucher de Careil, Onno Klopp, and
especially J.C. Gerhardt. The last named published the mathematical
works in seven volumes in 1849-63, and recently, Berlin, 1875-90, the
philosophical treatises, also in seven volumes.[1] In our account of the
philosophy of Leibnitz we begin with the fundamental metaphysical concepts,
pass next to his theory of living beings and of man (theory of knowledge
and ethics), and close with his inquiries into the philosophy of religion.
[Footnote 1: We have a life of Leibnitz by G.E. Guhrauer, jubilee edition,
Breslau, 1846 [Mackie's _Life_, Boston, 1845 is based on Guhrauer]. Among
recent works on Leibnitz, we note the little work by Merz, Blackwood's
Philosophical Classics, 1884, and Ludwig Stein's _Leibniz und Spinoza_,
Berlin, 1890, in which with the aid of previously unedited material the
relations of Leibnitz to Spinoza (whom he visited at The Hague on his
return journey from Paris) are discussed, and the attempt is made to trace
the development of the theory of monads, down to 1697. The new exposition
of the Leibnitzian monadology by Ed. Dillman, which has just appeared,
we have not yet been able to examine [The English reader may be referred
further to Dewey's _Leibniz_ in Griggs's Philosophical Classics, 1888, and
Duncan's _Philosophical Works of Leibnitz_ (selections translated,
with notes), New Haven, 1890, as well as to the work of Merz already
mentioned.--TR.]]
%1. Metaphysics: the Monads, Representation, the Pre-established Harmony;
the Laws of Thought and of the World.%
Leibnitz develops his new concept of substance, the monad,[1] in
conjunction with, yet in opposition to, the Cartesian and the atomistic
conceptions. The Cartesians are right when they make the concept of
substance the cardinal point in metaphysics and explain it by the concept
of independence. But they are wrong in their further definition of this
second concept. If we take independence in the sense of unlimitedness and
aseity, we can speak, as the example of Spinoza shows, of only one, the
divine substance. If the Spinozistic result is to be avoided, we must
substitute independent action for independent existence, self-activity
for self-existence. Substance is not that which exists through itself
(otherwise there would be no finite substances), but that which acts
through itself, or that which contains in itself the ground of its changing
states. Substance is to be defined by active force,[2] by which we mean
something different from and better than the bare possibility or capacity
of the Scholastics. The _potentia sive facultas_, in order to issue into
action, requires positive stimulation from without, while the _vis activa_
(like an elastic body) sets itself in motion whenever no external hindrance
opposes. Substance is a being capable of action (_la substance est un être
capable d'action_). With the equation of activity and existence (_quod non
agit, non existit_) the substantiality which Spinoza had taken away from
individual things is restored to them: they are active, consequently, in
spite of their limitedness, substantial beings (_quod agit, est substantia
singularis_). Because of its inner activity every existing thing is a
determinate individual, and different from every other being. Substance is
an individual being endowed with force.
[Footnote 1: According to L. Stein's conjecture, Leibnitz took the
expression Monad, which he employs after 1696, from the younger (Franc.
Mercurius) van Helmont.]
[Footnote 2: Francis Glisson (1596-1677, professor of medicine in Cambridge
and London) had as early as 1671, conceived substances as forces in his
treatise _De Natura Substantiae Energetica_. That Glisson influenced
Leibnitz, as maintained by H. Marion (Paris, 1880), has not been proven;
cf. L. Stein, p. 184.]
The atomists are right when they postulate for the explanation of
phenomenal bodies simple, indivisible, eternal units, for every composite
consists of simple parts. But they are wrong when they regard these
invisible, minute corpuscles, which are intended to subserve this purpose
as indivisible: everything that is material, however small it be, is
divisible to infinity, nay, is in fact endlessly divided. If we are to find
indivisible units, we must pass over into the realm of the immaterial and
come to the conclusion that bodies are composed of immaterial constituents.
Physical points, the atoms, are physical, but not points; mathematical
points are indivisible, but not real; metaphysical or substantial
points, the incorporeal, soul-like units, alone combine in themselves
indivisibility and reality--the monads are the true atoms. Together with
indivisibility they possess immortality; as it is impossible for them to
arise and perish through the combination and separation of parts, they
cannot come into being or pass out of it in any natural way whatever, but
only by creation or annihilation. Their non-spatial or punctual character
implies the impossibility of all external influence, the monad develops its
states from its own inner nature, has need of no other thing, is sufficient
unto itself, and therefore deserves the Aristotelian name, entelechy.
Thus two lines of thought combine in the concept of the monad. Gratefully
recognizing the suggestions from both sides, Leibnitz called Cartesianism
the antechamber of the true philosophy, and atomism the preparation for
the theory of monads. From the first it followed that the substances were
self-acting forces; from the second, that they were immaterial units.
Through the combination of both determinations we gain information
concerning the kind of force or activity which constitutes the being of the
monad: the monads are representative forces. There is nothing truly real in
the world save the monads and their representations [ideas, perceptions].
In discussing the representation in which the being and activity of the
monads consist, we must not think directly of the conscious activity of
the human soul. Representation has in Leibnitz a wider meaning than that
usually associated with the word. The distinction, which has become of the
first importance for psychology, between mere representation and conscious
representation, or between perception and apperception, may be best
explained by the example of the sound of the waves. The roar which we
perceive in the vicinity of the sea-beach is composed of the numerous
sounds of the single waves. Each single sound is of itself too small to be
heard; nevertheless it must make an impression on us, if only a small one,
since otherwise their total--as a sum of mere nothings--could not be
heard. The sensation which the motion of the single wave causes is a weak,
confused, unconscious, infinitesimal perception (_petite, insensible
perception_), which must be combined with many similar minute sensations
in order to become strong and distinct, or to rise above the threshold of
consciousness. The sound of the single wave is felt, but not distinguished,
is perceived, but not apperceived. These obscure states of unconscious
representation, which are present in the mind of man along with states of
clear consciousness, make up, in the lowest grade of existence, the whole
life of the monad. There are beings which never rise above the condition of
deep sleep or stupor.
In conformity with this more inclusive meaning, perception is defined as
the representation of the external in the internal, of multiplicity in
unity _(representatio multitudinis in unitate_). The representing being,
without prejudice to its simplicity, bears in itself a multitude of
relations to external things. What now is the manifold, which is expressed,
perceived, or represented, in the unit, the monad? It is the whole world.
Every monad represents all others in itself, is a concentrated all, the
universe in miniature. Each individual contains an infinity in itself
_(substantia infinitas actiones simul exercet_) and a supreme intelligence,
for which every obscure idea would at once become distinct, would be able
to read in a single monad the whole universe and its history--all that is,
has been, or will be; for the past has left its traces behind it, and
the future will bring nothing not founded in the present: the monad is
freighted with the past and bears the future in its bosom. Every monad is
thus a mirror of the universe,[1] but a living mirror (_miror vivant de
l'univers_), which generates the images of things by its own activity
or develops them from inner germs, without experiencing influences from
without. The monad has no windows through which anything could pass in or
out, but in its action is dependent only on God and on itself.
[Footnote 1: The objection has been made against Leibnitz, and not without
reason, that strictly speaking there is no content for the representation
of the monads, although he appears to offer them the richest of all
contents, the whole world. The "All" which he makes them represent is
itself nothing but a sum of beings, also representative. The objects of
representation are merely representing subjects; the monad A represents the
monads from B to Z, while these in turn do nothing more than represent one
another. The monad mirrors mirrors--where is the thing that is mirrored?
The essence of substance consists in being related to others, which
themselves are only points of relation; amid mere relativities we never
reach a real. That which prevented Leibnitz himself from recognizing this
empty formalism was, no doubt, the fact that for him the mere form of
representation was at once filled with a manifold experiential content,
with the whole wealth of spiritual life, and that the quantitative
differences in representation, which for him meant also degrees of feeling,
desire, action, and progress, imperceptibly took on the qualitative
vividness of individual characteristics. Moreover, it must not be
overlooked that the spiritual beings represent not merely the universe but
the Deity as well, hence a very rich object.]
All monads represent the same universe, but each one represents it
differently, that is, from its particular point of view--represents that
which is near at hand distinctly, and that which is distant confusedly.
Since they all reflect the same content or object, their difference
consists only in the energy or degree of clearness in their
representations. So far then, as their action consists in representation,
distinct representation evidently coincides with complete, unhindered
activity, confused representation with arrested activity, or passivity.
The clearer the representations of a monad the more active it is. To have
clear and distinct perceptions only is the prerogative of God; to the
Omnipresent everything is alike near. He alone is pure activity; all
finite beings are passive as well, that is, so far as their perceptions are
not clear and distinct. Retaining the Aristotelian-Scholastic terminology,
Leibnitz calls the active principle form, the passive matter, and makes the
monad, since it is not, like God, _purus actus_ and pure form, consist of
form (entelechy, soul) and matter. This matter, as a constituent of the
monad, does not mean corporeality, but only the ground for the arrest of
its activity. The _materia prima_ (the principle of passivity in the monad)
is the ground, the _materia secunda_ (the phenomenon of corporeal mass) the
result of the indistinctness of the representations. For a group of monads
appears as a body when it is indistinctly perceived. Whoever deprives the
monad of activity falls into the error of Spinoza; whoever takes away
its passivity or matter falls into the opposite error, for he deifies
individual beings.
No monad represents the common universe and its individual parts just as
well as the others, but either better or worse. There are as many
different degrees of clearness and distinctness as there are monads.
Nevertheless certain classes may be distinguished. By distinguishing
between clear and obscure perceptions, and in the former class between
distinct and confused ones--a perception is clear when it is sufficiently
distinguished from others, distinct when its component parts are thus
distinguished--Leibnitz reaches three principal grades. Lowest stand the
simple or naked monads, which never rise above obscure and unconscious
perception and, so to speak, pass their lives in a swoon or sleep. If
perception rises into conscious feeling, accompanied by memory, then
the monad deserves the name of soul. And if the soul rises to
self-consciousness and to reason or the knowledge of universal truth, it
is called spirit. Each higher stage comprehends the lower, since even in
spirits many perceptions remain obscure and confused. Hence it was an error
when the Cartesians made thought or conscious activity--by which, it is
true, the spirit is differentiated from the lower beings--to such a degree
the essence of spirit that they believed it necessary to deny to it all
unconscious perceptions.
From perception arises appetition, not as independent activity, but as a
modification of perception; it is nothing but the tendency to pass from one
perception to another (_l'appetit est la tendance d'une perception à
une autre_); impulse is perception in process of becoming. Where the
perceptions are conscious and rational appetition rises into will. All
monads are self-active or act spontaneously, but only the thinking ones are
free. Freedom is the spontaneity of spirits. Freedom does not consist in
undetermined choice, but in action without external compulsion according to
the laws of one's own being. The monad develops its representations out of
itself, from the germs which form its nature. The correspondence of
the different pictures of the world, however, is grounded in a divine
arrangement, through which the natures of the monads have from the
beginning been so adapted to one another that the changes in their states,
although they take place in each according to immanent laws and without
external influence, follow an exactly parallel course, and the result is
the same as though there were a constant mutual interaction. This general
idea of a _pre-established harmony_ finds special application in the
problem of the interaction between body and soul. Body and soul are like
two clocks so excellently constructed that, without needing to be regulated
by each other, they show exactly the same time. Over the numberless lesser
miracles with which occasionalism burdened the Deity, the one great miracle
of the pre-established harmony has an undeniable advantage. As one great
miracle it is more worthy of the divine wisdom than the many lesser ones,
nay, it is really no miracle at all, since the harmony does not interfere
with natural laws, but yields them. This idea may even be freed from its
theological investiture and reduced to the purely metaphysical expression,
that the natures of the monads, by which the succession of their
representations is determined in conformity with law, consist in nothing
else than the sum of relations in which this individual thing stands to all
other parts of the world, wherein each member takes account of all others
and at the same time is considered by them, and thus exerts influence
as well as suffers it. In this way the external idea of an artificial
adaptation is avoided. The essence of each thing is simply the position
which it occupies in the organic whole of the universe; each member is
related to every other and shares actively and passively in the life of
all the rest. The history of the universe is a single great process in
numberless reflections.
The metaphysics of Leibnitz begins with the concept of representation
and ends with the harmony of the universe. The representations were
multiplicity (the endless plurality of the represented) in unity (the unity
of the representing monad); the harmony is unity (order, congruity of the
world-image) in multiplicity (the infinitely manifold degrees of clearness
in the representations). All monads represent the same universe; each one
mirrors it differently. The unity, as well as the difference, could not be
greater than it is; every possible degree of distinctness of representation
is present in each single monad, and yet there is a single harmonic accord
in which the unnumbered tones unite. Now order amid diversity, unity in
variety make up the concept of beauty and perfection. If, then, this world
shows, as it does, the greatest unity in the greatest multiplicity, so that
there is nothing wanting and nothing superfluous, it is the most perfect,
the best of all possible worlds. Even the lowest grades contribute to the
perfection of the whole; their disappearance would mean a hiatus; and if
the unclear and confused representations appear imperfect when considered
in themselves, yet they are not so in reference to the whole; for just on
this fact, that the monad is arrested in its representation or is passive,
_i.e._, conforms itself to the others and subordinates itself to them, rest
the order and connection of the world. Thus the idea of harmony forms the
bridge between the Monadology and optimism.
As in regard to the harmony of the universe we found it possible to
distinguish between a half-mythical, narrative form of presentation and a
purely abstract conception, so we may make a similar distinction in the
doctrine of creation. This actual world has been chosen by God as the best
among many other conceivable worlds. Through the will of God the monads of
which the world consists attained their reality; as possibilities or
ideas they were present in the mind of God (as it were, prior to their
actualization), present, too, with all the distinctive properties and
perfections that they now exhibit in a state of realization, so that their
merely possible or conceivable being had the same content as their actual
being, and their essence is not altered or increased by their existence.
Now, since the impulse toward actualization dwells in every possible
essence, and is the more justifiable the more perfect the essence, a
competition goes on before God, in which, first, those monod-possibilities
unite which are mutually compatible or compossible, and, then, among the
different conceivable combinations of monads or worlds that one is ordained
for entrance into existence which shows the greatest possible sum of
perfection. It was, therefore, not the perfection of the single monad, but
the perfection of the system of which it forms a necessary part, that was
decisive as to its admission into existence. The best world was known
through God's wisdom, chosen through his goodness, and realized through his
power.[1] The choice was by no means arbitrary, but wholly determined by
the law of fitness or of the best (_principe du meilleur_); God's will must
realize that which his understanding recognizes as most perfect. It is at
once evident that in the competition of the possible worlds the victory of
the best was assured by the _lex melioris_, apart from the divine decision.
[Footnote 1: In regard to the dependence of the world on God, there is a
certain conflict noticeable in Leibnitz between the metaphysical interests
involved in the substantiality of individual beings, together with the
moral interests involved in guarding against fatalism, and the opposing
interests of religion. On the one side, creation is for him only an
actualization of finished, unchangeable possibilities, on the other, he
teaches with the mediaeval philosophers that this was not accomplished by a
single act of realization, that the world has need of conservation, _i.e._,
of continuous creation.]
This law is the special expression of a more general one, the principle
of sufficient reason, which Leibnitz added, as of equal authority, to the
Aristotelian laws of thought. Things or events are real (and assertions
true) when there is a sufficient reason for their existence, and for their
determinate existence. The _principium rationis sufficientis_ governs our
empirical knowledge of contingent truths or truths of fact, while, on
the other hand, the pure rational knowledge of necessary or eternal
(mathematical and metaphysical) truths rests on the _principium
contradictionis_. The principle of contradiction asserts, that is, whatever
contains a contradiction is false or impossible; whatever contains no
contradiction is possible; that whose opposite contains a contradiction
is necessary. Or positively formulated as the principle of identity,
everything and every representative content is identical with itself.[2]
Upon this antithesis between the rational laws of contradiction and
sufficient reason--which, however, is such only for us men, while the
divine spirit, which cognizes all things _a priori_, is able to reduce even
the truths of fact to the eternal truths--Leibnitz bases his distinction
between two kinds of necessity. That is metaphysically necessary whose
opposite involves a contradiction; that is morally necessary or contingent
which, on account of its fitness, is preferred by God to its (equally
conceivable) opposite. To the latter class belongs, further, the physically
necessary: the necessity of the laws of nature is only a conditional
necessity (conditioned by the choice of the best); they are contingent
truths or truths of fact. The principle of sufficient reason holds for
efficient as well as for final causes, and between the two realms there is,
according to Leibnitz, the most complete correspondence. In the material
world every particular must be explained in a purely mechanical way, but
the totality of the laws of nature, the universal mechanism itself, cannot
in turn be mechanically explained, but only on the basis of finality, so
that the mechanical point of view is comprehended in, and subordinated
to, the teleological. Thus it becomes clear how Leibnitz in the _ratio
sufficiens_ has final causes chiefly in mind.
[Footnote 2: Within the knowledge of reason, as well as in experiential
knowledge, a further distinction is made between primary truths (which
need no proof) and derived truths. The highest truths of reason are the
identical principles, which are self-evident; from these intuitive truths
all others are to be derived by demonstration--proof is analysis and, as
free from contradictions, demonstration. The primitive truths of experience
are the immediate facts of consciousness; whatever is inferred from them is
less certain than demonstrative knowledge. Nevertheless experience is not
to be estimated at a low value; it is through it alone that we can assure
ourselves of the reality of the objects of thought, while necessary truths
guarantee only that a predicate must be ascribed to a subject (_e.g._, a
circle), but make no deliverance as to whether this subject exists or not.]
To the broad and comprehensive tendency which is characteristic of
Leibnitz's thinking, philosophy owes a further series of general laws,
which all stand in the closest relation to one another and to his
monadological and harmonistic principles, viz., the law of continuity, the
law of analogy, the law of the universal dissimilarity of things or of the
identity of indiscernibles, and, finally, the law of the conservation of
force.
The most fundamental of these laws is the _lex continui_. On the one hand,
it forbids every leap, on the other, all repetition in the series of beings
and the series of events. Member must follow member without a break and
without superfluous duplication; in the scale of creatures, as in the
course of events, absolute continuity is the rule. Just as in the monad one
state continually develops from another, the present one giving birth
to the future, as it has itself grown out of the past, just as nothing
persists, as nothing makes its entrance suddenly or without the way being
prepared for it, and as all extremes are bound together by connecting
links and gradual transitions,--so the monad itself stands in a continuous
gradation of beings, each of which is related to and different from each.
Since the beings and events form a single uninterrupted series, there are
no distinctions of kind in the world, but only distinctions in degree. Rest
and motion are not opposites, for rest may be considered as infinitely
minute motion; the ellipse and the parabola are not qualitatively
different, for the laws which hold for the one may be applied to the other.
Likeness is vanishing unlikeness, passivity arrested activity, evil a
lesser good, confused ideas simply less distinct ones, animals men with
infinitely little reason, plants animals with vanishing consciousness,
fluidity a lower degree of solidity, etc. In the whole world similarity
and correspondence rule, and it is everywhere the same as here--between
apparent opposites there is a distinction in degree merely, and hence,
analogy. In the macrocosm of the universe things go on as in the microcosm
of the monad; every later state of the world is prefigured in the earlier,
etc. If, on the one side, the law of analogy follows as a consequence from
the law of continuity, on the other, we have the _principium (identitatis)
indiscernibilium_. As nature abhors gaps, so also it avoids the
superfluous. Every grade in the series must be represented, but none more
than once. There are no two things, no two events which are entirely alike.
If they were exactly alike they would not be two, but one. The distinction
between them is never merely numerical, nor merely local and temporal, but
always an intrinsic difference: each thing is distinguished from every
other by its peculiar nature. This law holds both for the truly real (the
monads) and for the phenomenal world--you will never find two leaves
exactly alike. By the law of the conservation of force, Leibnitz corrects
the Cartesian doctrine of the conservation of motion, and approaches the
point of view of the present day. According to Descartes it is the sum of
actual motions, which remains constant; according to Leibnitz, the sum of
the active forces; while, according to the modern theory, it is the sum of
the active and the latent or potential forces--a distinction, moreover, of
which Leibnitz himself made use.
We now turn from the formal framework of general laws, to the actual, to
that which, obeying these laws, constitutes the living content of the
world.
%2. The Organic World.%
A living being is a machine composed of an infinite number of organs. The
natural machines formed by God differ from the artificial machines made by
the hand of man, in that, down to their smallest parts, they consist of
machines. Organisms are complexes of monads, of which one, the soul, is
supreme, while the rest, which serve it, form its body. The dominant monad
is distinguished from those which surround it as its body by the greater
distinctness of its ideas. The supremacy of the soul-monad consists in this
one superior quality, that it is more active and more perfect, and clearly
reflects that which the body-monads represent but obscurely. A direct
interaction between soul and body does not take place; there is only a
complete correspondence, instituted by God. He foresaw that the soul at
such and such a moment would have the sensation of warmth, or would wish an
arm-motion executed, and has so ordered the development of the body-monads
that, at the same instant, they appear to cause this sensation and to
obey this impulse to move. Now, since God in this foreknowledge and
accommodation naturally paid more regard to the perfect beings, to the more
active and more distinctly perceiving monads than to the less perfect ones,
and subordinated the latter, as means and conditions, to the former
as ends, the soul, prior to creation, actually exercised an ideal
influence--through the mind of God--upon its body. Its activity is the
reason why in less perfect monads a definite change, a passion takes place,
since the action was attainable only in this way, "compossible" with this
alone.[1] The monads which constitute the body are the first and direct
object of the soul; it perceives them more distinctly than it perceives,
through them, the rest of the external world. In view of the close
connection of the elements of the organism thus postulated, Leibnitz, in
the discussions with Father Des Bosses concerning the compatibility of
the Monadology with the doctrine of the Church, especially with the real
presence of the body of Christ in the Supper, consented, in favor of
the dogma, to depart from the assumption that the simple alone could be
substantial and to admit the possibility of composite substances, and of a
"substantial bond" connecting the parts of living beings. It appears least
in contradiction with the other principles of the philosopher to assign the
rôle of this _vinculum substantiate_ to the soul or central monad itself.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Gustav Class, _Die metaphysischen Voraussetzungen des
Leibnizischen Determinismus_, Tübingen, 1874.]
Everything in nature is organized; there are no soulless bodies, no dead
matter. The smallest particle of dust is peopled with a multitude of living
beings and the tiniest drop of water swarms with organisms: every portion
of matter may be compared to a pond filled with fish or a garden full of
plants. This denial of the inorganic does not release our philosopher from
the duty of explaining its apparent existence. If we thoughtfully consider
bodies, we perceive that there is nothing lifeless and non-representative.
But the phenomenon of extended mass arises for our confused sensuous
perception, which perceives the monads composing a body together and
regards them as a continuous unity. Body exists only as a confused idea
in the feeling subject; since, nevertheless, a reality without the mind,
namely, an immaterial monad-aggregate, corresponds to it, the phenomenon
of body is a well-founded one _(phenomenon bene fundatum)_. As matter is
merely something present in sensation or confused representation, so space
and time are also nothing real, neither substances nor properties, but only
ideal things--the former the order of coexistences, the latter the order of
successions.
If there are no soulless bodies, there are also no bodiless souls; the soul
is always joined with an aggregate of subordinate monads, though not always
with the same ones. Single monads are constantly passing into its body,
or into its service, while others are passing out; it is involved in a
continuous process of bodily transformation. Usually the change goes on
slowly and with a constant replacement of the parts thrown off. If it takes
place quickly men call it birth or death. Actual death there is as little
as there is an actual genesis; not the soul only, but every living thing
is imperishable. Death is decrease and involution, birth increase and
evolution. The dying creature loses only a portion of its bodily machine
and so returns to the slumberous or germinal condition of "involution",
in which it existed before birth, and from which it was aroused through
conception to development. Pre-existence as well as post-existence must
be conceded both to animals and to men. Leuwenhoek's discovery of the
spermatozoa furnished a welcome confirmation for this doctrine, that all
individuals have existed since the beginning of the world, at least as
preformed germs. The immortality of man, conformably to his superior
dignity, differs from the continued existence of all monads, in that after
his death he retains memory and the consciousness of his moral personality.
%3. Man: Cognition and Volition.%
In reason man possesses reflection or self-consciousness as well as the
knowledge of God, of the universal, and of the eternal truths or _a priori_
knowledge, while the animal is limited in its perception to experience,
and in its reasoning to the connection of perceptions in accordance with
memory. Man differs from higher beings in that the majority of his
ideas are confused. Under confused ideas Leibnitz includes both
sense-perceptions--anyone who has distinct ideas alone, as God, has no
sense-perceptions--and the feelings which mediate between the former and
the perfectly distinct ideas of rational thought. The delight of music
depends, in his opinion, on an unconscious numbering and measuring of
the harmonic and rhythmic relations of tones, aesthetic enjoyment of
the beautiful in general, and even sensuous pleasure, on the confused
perception of a perfection, order, or harmony.
The application of the _lex continui_ to the inner life has a very wide
range. The principal results are: (1) the mind always thinks; (2) every
present idea postulates a previous one from which it has arisen; (3)
sensation and thought differ only in degree; (4) in the order of time, the
ideas of sense precede those of reason. We are never wholly without ideas,
only we are often not conscious of them. If thought ceased in deep sleep,
we could have no ideas on awakening, since every representation proceeds
from a preceding one, even though it be unconscious.
In the thoughtful _New Essays concerning the Human Understanding_ Leibnitz
develops his theory of knowledge in the form of a polemical commentary
to Locke's chief work.[1] According to Descartes some ideas (the pure
concepts) are innate, according to Locke none, according to Leibnitz all.
Or: according to Descartes some ideas (sensuous perceptions) come from
without, according to Locke all do so, according to Leibnitz none.
Leibnitz agrees with Descartes against Locke in the position that the mind
originally possesses ideas; he agrees with Locke against Descartes, that
thought is later than sensation and the knowledge of universals later
than that of particulars. The originality which Leibnitz attributes to
intellectual ideas is different from that which Descartes had ascribed and
Locke denied to them. They are original in that they do not come into the
soul and are not impressed upon it from without; they are not original in
that they can develop only from previously given sense-ideas; again, they
are original in that they can be developed from confused ideas only because
they are contained in them _implicite_ or as pre-dispositions.
Thus Leibnitz is able to agree with both his predecessors up to a certain
point: with the one, that the pure concepts have their origin within the
mind; with the other, that they are not the earliest knowledge, but are
conditioned by sensations. This synthesis, however, was possible only
because Leibnitz looked on sensation differently from both the others. If
sensation is to be the mother of thought, and the latter at the same time
to preserve its character as original, _i.e._, as something not obtained
from without, sensation must, first, include an unconscious thinking in
itself, and, secondly, must itself receive a title to originality and
spontaneity. As the Catholic dogma added the immaculate conception of the
mother to that of the Son, so Leibnitz transfers the (virginal) origin of
rational concepts, independent of external influence, to sensations. The
monad has no windows. It bears germinally in itself all that it is to
experience, and nothing is impressed on it from without. The intellect
should not be compared to a blank tablet, but to a block of marble in whose
veins the outlines of the statue are prefigured. Ideas can only arise from
ideas, never from external impressions or movements of corporeal parts.
Thus _all_ ideas are innate in the sense that they grow from inner germs;
we possess them from the beginning, not developed (_explicite_), but
potentially, that is, we have the capacity to produce them. The old
Scholastic principle that "there is nothing in the understanding which was
not previously in sense" is entirely correct, only one must add, except the
understanding itself, that is, the faculty of developing our knowledge
out of ourselves. Thought lies already dormant in perception. With the
mechanical position (sensuous representation precedes and conditions
rational thought) is joined the teleological position (sensuous
representations exist, in order to render the origin of thoughts possible),
and with this purposive determination, sensation attains a higher dignity:
it is more than has been seen in it before, for it includes in itself the
future concept of the understanding in an unconscious form, nay, it is
itself an imperfect thought, a thought in process of becoming. Sensation
and thought are not different in kind, and if the former is called a
passive state, still passivity is nothing other than diminished activity.
Both are spontaneous; thought is merely spontaneous in a higher degree.
[Footnote 1: A careful comparison of Locke's theory of knowledge with
that of Leibnitz is given by G. Hartenstein, _Abhandlungen der k. sächs.
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, Leipsic, 1865, included in Hartenstein's
_Historisch-philosophische Abhandlungen_, 1870.]
By making sensation and feeling the preliminary step to thought, Leibnitz
became the founder of that intellectualism which, in the system of Hegel,
extended itself far beyond the psychological into the cosmical field, and
endeavored to conceive not only all psychical phenomena but all reality
whatsoever as a development of the Idea toward itself. This conception,
which may be characterized as intellectualistic in its content, presents
itself on its formal side as a quantitative way of looking at the world,
which sacrifices all qualitative antitheses in order to arrange the
totality of being and becoming in a single series with no distinctions but
those of degree. If Leibnitz here appears as the representative of a view
of the world which found in Kant a powerful and victorious opponent, yet,
on the other hand, he prepared the way by his conception of innate ideas
for the Critique of Reason. By his theory of knowledge he forms the
transition link between Descartes and Kant, since he interprets necessary
truths not as dwelling in the mind complete and explicit from the start,
but as produced or raised into consciousness only on the occasion of
sensuous experience. It must be admitted, moreover, that this in reality
was only a restoration of Descartes's original position, _i.e._, a
deliverance of it from the misinterpretations and perversions which it
had suffered at the hands of adherents and opponents alike, but which
Descartes, it is true, had failed to render impossible from the start by
conclusive explanations. The author of the theory of innate ideas certainly
did not mean what Locke foists upon him, that the child in the cradle
already possesses the ideas of God, of thought, and of extension in full
clearness. But whether Leibnitz improved or only restored Descartes, it was
in any case an important advance when experience and thought were brought
into more definite relation, and the productive force in rational concepts
was secured to the latter and the occasion of their production to the
former.
The unconscious or minute ideas, which in noëtics had served to break the
force of Locke's objections against the innateness of the principles of
reason, are in ethics brought into the field against indeterminism. They
are involved whenever we believe ourselves to act without cause, from pure
choice, or contrary to the motives present. In this last case, a motive
which is very strong in itself is overcome by the united power of many in
themselves weaken The will is always determined, and that by an idea (of
ends), which generally is of a very complex nature, and in which the
stronger side decides the issue. An absolute equilibrium of motives is
impossible: the world cannot be divided into two entirely similar parts
(this in opposition to "Buridan's ass"). A spirit capable of looking us
through and through would be able to calculate all our volitions and
actions beforehand.
In spite of this admitted inevitableness of our resolutions and actions,
the predicate of freedom really belongs to them, and this on two grounds.
First, they are only physically or morally, not metaphysically, necessary;
as a matter of fact, it is true, they cannot happen otherwise, but their
opposite involves no logical contradiction and remains conceivable. To
express this thought the formula, often repeated since, that our
motives only impel, incite, or stimulate the will, but do not compel it
(_inclinant, non necessitant_), was chosen, but not very happily. Secondly,
the determination of the will is an inner necessitation, grounded in the
being's own nature, not an external compulsion. The agent determines
himself in accordance with his own nature, and for this each bears the
responsibility himself, for God, when he brought the monads out of
possibility into actuality, left their natures as they had existed before
the creation in the form of eternal ideas in His understanding. Though
Leibnitz thus draws a distinction between his deterministic doctrine and
the "fatalism" of Spinoza, he recognizes a second concept of freedom, which
completely corresponds to Spinoza's. A decision is the more free the more
distinct the ideas which determine it, and a man the more free the more he
withdraws his will from the influence of the passions, _i.e._, confused
ideas, and subordinates it to that of reason. God alone is absolutely free,
because he has no ideas which are not distinct. The bridge between the
two conceptions of freedom is established by the principle that reason
constitutes the peculiar nature of man in a higher degree than the sum of
his ideas; for it is reason which distinguishes him from the lower beings.
According to the first meaning of freedom man is free, according to the
second, which coincides with activity, perfection, and morality, he should
become free.
Morality is the result of the natural development of the individual. Every
being strives after perfection or increased activity, _i.e._, after more
distinct ideas. Parallel to this theoretical advance runs a practical
advance in a twofold form: the increasing distinctness of ideas, or
enlightenment, or wisdom, raises the impulse to transitory, sensuous
pleasure into an impulse to permanent delight in our spiritual perfection,
or toward happiness, while, further, it opens up an insight into the
connection of all beings and the harmony of the world, in virtue of which
the virtuous man will seek to promote the perfection and happiness of
others as well as his own, _i.e._, will _love_ them, for to love is to find
pleasure in the happiness of others. To promote the good of all, again,
is the same as to contribute one's share to the world-harmony and to
co-operate in the fulfillment of God's purposes. Probity and piety are the
same. They form the highest of the three grades of natural right, which
Leibnitz distinguishes as _jus strictum_ (mere right, with the principle:
Injure no one), _aequitas_ (equity or charity, with the maxim: To each
his due), and _probitas sive pietas_ (honorableness joined with religion,
according to the command: Lead an upright and morally pure life). They may
also be designated as commutative, distributive, and universal justice.
Belief in God and immortality is a condition of the last.
%4. Theology and Theodicy.%
God is the ground and the end of the world. All beings strive toward him,
as all came out from him. In man the general striving toward the most
perfect Being rises into conscious love to God, which is conditioned by the
knowledge of God and produces virtuous action as its effect. Enlightenment
and virtue are the essential constituents of religion; all else, as cultus
and dogma, have only a derivative value. Religious ceremonies are an
imperfect expression of the practical element in piety, as the doctrines of
faith are a weak imitation of the theoretical. It is a direct contradiction
of the intention of the Divine Teacher when occult formulas and ceremonies,
which have no connection with virtue, are made the chief thing. The points
in which the creeds agree are more important than those by which they are
differentiated. Natural religion has found its most perfect expression in
Christianity, although paganism and Judaism had also grasped portions of
the truth. Salvation is not denied to the heathen, for moral purity is
sufficient to make one a partaker of the grace of God. The religion of the
Jews elevated monotheism, which, it is true, made its appearance among the
heathen in isolated philosophers, but was never the popular religion, into
a law; but it lacked the belief in immortality. Christianity made the
religion of the sage the religion of the people.
Whatever of positive doctrine revelation has added to natural religion
transcends the reason, it is true, but does not contradict it. It contains
no principles contrary to reason (whose opposite can be proved), but, no
doubt, principles above reason, _i.e._, such as the reason could not have
found without help from without, and which it cannot fully comprehend,
though it is able approximately to understand them and to defend them
against objections. Hence Leibnitz defended the Trinity, which he
interpreted as God's power, understanding, and will, the eternity of the
torments of hell (which brought him the commendation of Lessing), and other
dogmas. Miracles also belong among the things the how and why of which we
are not in a position to comprehend, but only the that and what. Since the
laws of nature are only physically or conditionally necessary, _i.e._ have
been enacted only because of their fitness for the purposes of God, they
may be suspended in special cases when a higher end requires it.
While the positive doctrines of faith cannot be proved--as, on the other
hand, they cannot be refuted--the principles of natural religion admit of
strict demonstration. The usual arguments for the existence of God are
useful, but need amendment. The ontological argument of Descartes, that
from the concept of a most perfect Being his existence follows, is
correct so soon as the idea of God is shown to be possible or free from
contradiction. The cosmological proof runs: Contingent beings point to a
necessary, self-existent Being, the eternal truths especially presuppose an
eternal intelligence in which they exist. If we ask why anything whatever,
or why just this world exists, this ultimate ground of things cannot be
found within the world. Every contingent thing or event has its cause in
another. However far we follow out the series of conditions, we never reach
an ultimate, unconditioned cause. Consequently the sufficient reason for
the series must be situated without the world, and, as is evident from the
harmony of things, can only be an infinitely wise and good Being. Here the
teleological proof comes in: From the finality of the world we reason to
the existence of a Being, as the author of the world, who works in view
of ends and who wills and carries out that which is best,--to the supreme
intelligence, goodness, and power of the Creator. A special inferential
value accrues to this position from the system of pre-established
harmony--it is manifest that the complete correspondence of the manifold
substances in the world, which are not connected with one another by any
direct interaction, can proceed only from a common cause endowed with
infinite intelligence and power.
The possibility of proving the existence of one omnipotent and
all-beneficent God, and the impossibility of refuting the positive
dogmas, save the harmony of faith and reason, which Bayle had denied.
The conclusion of the _New Essays_ and the opening of the _Theodicy_ are
devoted to this theme. The second part gives, also against Bayle, the
justification of God in view of the evil in the world. _Si Deus est, unde
malum_? Optimism has to reckon with the facts of experience, and to show
that this world, in spite of its undeniable imperfections, is still the
best world. God could certainly have brought into actuality a world in
which there would have been less imperfection than in ours, but it would at
the same time have contained fewer perfections. No world whatever can exist
entirely free from evil, entirely without limitation--whoever forbids God
to create imperfect beings forbids him to create a world at all. Certain
evils--in general terms, the evil of finitude--are entirely inseparable
from the concept of created beings; imperfection attaches to every created
thing as such. Other evils God has permitted because it was only through
them that certain higher goods, which ought not to be renounced, could be
brought to pass. Think of the lofty feelings, noble resolves, and great
deeds which war occasions, think of national enthusiasm, readiness for
sacrifice, and defiance of death--all these would be given over, if war
should be taken out of the world on account of the suffering which it also
brings in its train.
If we turn from the general principles to their application in detail, we
find a separate proof for the inevitableness or salutary nature of each of
the three kinds of evil--the metaphysical evil of created existence, the
physical evil of suffering (and punishment), and the moral evil of sin.
Metaphysical evil is absolutely unavoidable, if a world is to exist at all;
created beings without imperfection, finiteness, limitation, are entirely
inconceivable--something besides gods must exist. The physical evil of
misery finds its justification in that it makes for good. First of all, the
amount of suffering is not so great as it appears to discontented spirits
to be. Life is usually quite tolerable, and vouchsafes more joy and
pleasure than grief and hardship; in balancing the good and the evil we
must especially remember to reckon on the positive side the goods of
activity, of health, and all that which affords us, perchance, no
perceptible pleasure, but the removal of which would be felt as an evil
(_Theodicy_, ii. § 251). Most evils serve to secure us a much greater good,
or to ward off a still greater evil. Would a brave general, if given the
choice of leaving the battle unwounded, but also without the victory, or of
winning the victory at the cost of a wound, hesitate an instant to choose
the latter? Other troubles, again, must be regarded as punishment for sins
and as means of reformation; the man who is resigned to God's will may be
certain that the sufferings which come to him will turn out for his good.
Especially if we consider the world as a whole, it is evident that the
sum of evil vanishes before the sum of good. It is wrong to look upon the
happiness of man as the end of the world. Certainly God had the happiness
of rational beings in mind, but not this exclusively, for they form only
a part of the world, even if it be the highest part. God's purpose has
reference rather to the perfection of the whole system of the universe. Now
the harmony of the universe requires that all possible grades of reality
be represented, that there should be indistinct ideas, sense, and
corporeality, not merely a realm of spirits, and with these, conditions
of imperfection, feelings of pain, and theoretical and moral errors are
inevitably given. The connection and the order of the world demands a
material element in the monad, but happiness without alloy can never be the
lot of a spirit joined to a body. Thirdly, in regard to moral evil also we
receive the assurance that the sum of the bad is much less than that of the
good. Then, moral evil is connected with metaphysical evil: created beings
cannot be absolutely perfect, hence, also, not morally perfect or sinless.
But, in return for this, there is no being that is absolutely imperfect,
none only and entirely evil. With this is joined the well-known principle
of the earlier thinkers, that evil is nothing actual, but merely
deprivation, absence of good, lack of clear reason and force of will. That
which is real in the evil action, the power to act, is perfect and good,
and, as force, comes from God--the negative or evil element in it comes
from the agent himself; just as in the case of two ships of the same size,
but unequally laden, which drift with the current, the speed comes from the
stream and the retardation from the load of the vessels themselves. God
is not responsible for sin, for he has only permitted it, not willed it
directly, and man was already evil before he was created. The fact that God
foresaw that man would sin does not constrain the latter to commit the
evil deed, but this follows from his own (eternal) being, which God left
unaltered when he granted him existence. The guilt and the responsibility
fall wholly on the sinner himself. The permission of evil is explained by
the predominantly good results which follow from it (not, as in physical
evil, for the sufferer himself, but for others)--from the crime of Sextus
Tarquinius sprang a great kingdom with great men (of. the beautiful myth in
connection with a dialogue of Laurentius Valla, _Theodicy,_ iii. 413-416).
Finally, reference is made again to the contribution which evil makes to
the perfection of the whole. Evil has the same function in the world as the
discords in a piece of music, or the shadows in a painting--the beauty is
heightened by the contrast. The good needs a foil in order to come out
distinctly and to be felt in all its excellence.
In the Leibnitzian theodicy the least satisfactory part is the
justification of moral evil. We miss the view defended in such grand
outlines by Hegel, and so ingeniously by Fechner, that the good is not
the flower of a quiet, unmolested development, but the fruit of energetic
labor; that it has need of its opposite; that it not merely must approve
itself in the battle against evil without and within the acting subject,
but that it is only through this conflict that it is attainable at all.
Virtue implies force of will as well as purity, and force develops only
by resistance. Although he does not appreciate the full depth of the
significance of pain, Leibnitz's view of suffering deserves more approval
than his questionable application to the ethical sphere of the quantitative
view of the world, with its interpretation of evil as merely undeveloped
good. But, in any case, the compassionate contempt of the pessimism of the
day for the "shallow" Leibnitz is most unjustifiable.