LEIBNITZ.
As empiricism sprang from the striving to subject the intellectual to
the material, to materialize the spiritual, so on the other hand,
idealism had its source in the effort to spiritualize the material, or
so to apprehend the conception of mind that matter could be subsumed
under it. To the empiric-sensualistic direction, mind was nothing but
refined matter, while to the idealistic direction matter was only
degenerated (_vergröbert_) mind (“a confused notion,” as Leibnitz
expresses it). The former, in its logical development, was driven to the
principle that only material things exist, the latter (as with Leibnitz
and Berkeley) comes to the opposite principle, that there are only souls
and their ideas. For the partial realistic standpoint, material things
were the truly substantial. But for the idealistic standpoint, the
substantial belongs alone to the intellectual world, to the Egos. Mind,
to the partial realism, was essentially void, a _tabula rasa_, its whole
content came to it from the external world. But a partial idealism
sought to carry out the principle that nothing can come into the mind
which had not at least been preformed within it, that all its knowledge
is furnished it by itself. According to the former view knowledge was a
passive relation, according to the latter was it wholly active. While,
in fine, a partial realism had attempted to explain the becoming in
nature for the most part through real, _i. e._ through mechanical
motives (_l’homme machine_ is the title of one of la Mettrie’s
writings), idealism had sought an explanation of the same through ideal
motives, _i. e._ teleologically. While the former had made its prominent
inquiry for moving causes, and had, indeed, often ridiculed the search
for a final cause; it is final causes toward which the latter directs
its chief aim. The mediation between mind and matter, between thought
and being, will now be sought in the final cause, in the teleological
harmony of all things (_pre-established harmony_). The standpoint of
Leibnitz may thus be characterized in a word.
_Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz_ was born in 1646, at Leipsic, where his
father was professor. Having chosen the law as his profession, he
entered the university in 1661, and in 1663 he defended for his degree
of doctor in philosophy, his dissertation _de principio individui_, a
theme well characteristic of the direction of his later philosophizing.
He afterwards went to Jena, and subsequently to Altdorf, where he became
doctor of laws. At Altdorf he was offered a professorship of
jurisprudence, which he refused. The rest of his life was unsettled and
desultory, spent for the most part in courts, where, as a versatile
courtier, he was employed in the most varied duties of diplomacy. In the
year 1672 he went to Paris, in order to induce Louis XIV. to undertake
the conquest of Egypt. He subsequently visited London, whence he was
afterwards called to Hanover, as councillor of the Duke of Brunswick. He
received later a post as librarian at Wolfenbüttel, between which place
and Hanover he spent the most of his subsequent life, though interrupted
with numerous journeys to Vienna, Berlin, etc. He was intimately
associated with the Prussian Electress, Maria Charlotte, a highly
talented woman, who surrounded herself with a circle of the most
distinguished scholars of the time, and for whom Liebnitz wrote, at her
own request, his _Theodicée_. In 1701, after Prussia had become a
kingdom, an academy was established at Berlin, through, his efforts, and
he became its first president. Similar, but fruitless attempts were made
by him to establish academies in Dresden and Vienna. In 1711 the title
of imperial court councillor, and a baronage, was bestowed upon him by
the emperor Charles VI. Soon after, he betook himself to Vienna, where
he remained a considerable period, and wrote his Monadology, at the
solicitation of Prince Eugene. He died in 1716. Next to Aristotle,
Leibnitz was the most highly gifted scholar that had ever lived; with
the richest and most extensive learning, he united the highest and most
penetrating powers of mind. Germany has reason to be proud of him,
since, after Jacob Boehme, he is the first philosopher of any note among
the Germans. With him philosophy found a home in Germany. It is to be
regretted that the great variety of his efforts and literary
undertakings, together with his roving manner of life, prevented him
from giving any connected exhibition of his philosophy. His views are
for the most part developed only in brief and occasional writings and
letters, composed frequently in the French language. It is hence not
easy to state his philosophy in its internal connection, though none of
his views are isolated, but all stand strictly connected with each
other. The following are the chief points:
1. THE DOCTRINE OF MONADS.—The fundamental peculiarity of Leibnitz’s
theory is its opposition to Spinozism. Substance, as the indeterminate
universal, was with Spinoza the only positive. With Leibnitz also the
conception of substance lay at the basis of his philosophy, but his
definition of it was entirely different. While Spinoza had sought to
exclude from his substance every positive determination, and especially
all acting, and had apprehended it simply as pure being, Leibnitz viewed
it as living activity and active energy, an example for which might be
found in a stretched bow, which moved and straightened itself through
its own energy as soon as the external hindrance was removed. That this
active energy forms the essence of substance is a principle to which
Leibnitz ever returns, and from which, in fact, all the other chief
points in his philosophy may be derived. From this there follow at the
outset two determinations of substance directly opposed to Spinozism;
first, that it is a single being, a monad; and second, that there are a
multiplicity of monads. The first follows because substance, in so far
as it exercises an activity similar to an elastic body, is essentially
an excluding activity, or repulsion; the conception of an individual or
a monad being that which excludes another from itself. The second
follows because the existence of one monad involves the existence of
many. The conception of one individual postulates other individuals,
which stand over against the one as excluded from it. Hence the
fundamental thesis of the Leibnitz philosophy in opposition to Spinozism
is this, viz., there is a multiplicity of individual substances or
monads.
2. THE MONADS MORE ACCURATELY DETERMINED.—The monads of Leibnitz are
similar to atoms in their general features. Like these they are
corpuscular units, independent of any external influence, and
indestructible by any external power. But notwithstanding this
similarity, there is an important and characteristic difference between
the two. First, the atoms are not distinguished from each other, they
are all qualitatively alike; but each one of the monads is different in
quality from every other, every one is a peculiar world for itself,
every one is different from every other. According to Leibnitz, there
are no two things in the world which are exactly alike. Secondly, atoms
can be considered as extended and divisible, but the monads are
metaphysical points, and actually indivisible. Here, lest we should
stumble at this proposition (for an aggregate of unextended monads can
never give an extended world), we must take into consideration
Leibnitz’s view of space, which, according to him, is not something
real, but only confused, subjective representation. Thirdly, the monad
is a representative being. With the atomists such a determination would
amount to nothing, but with Leibnitz it has a very important part to
play. According to him, in every monad, every other is reflected; every
monad is a living mirror of the universe, and ideally contains the whole
within itself as in a germ. In thus mirroring the world, however, the
monad is not passive but spontaneously self-active: it does not receive
the images which it mirrors, but produces them spontaneously itself, as
the soul does a dream. In every monad, therefore, the all-seeing and
all-knowing one might read every thing, even the future, since this is
potentially contained in the present. Every monad is a kind of God.
(_Parvus in suo genere Deus._)
3. THE PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY.—The universe is thus the sum of all the
monads. Every thing, every composite, is an aggregate of monads. Thus
every bodily organism is not one substance, but many, it is a
multiplicity of monads, like a machine which is made up of a number of
distinct pieces of mechanism. Leibnitz compared bodies to a fish-pond,
which might be full of living elements, though dead itself. The ordinary
view of things is thus wholly set aside; the truly substantial does not
belong to bodies, _i. e._ to the aggregates, but to their original
elements. Matter, in the vulgar sense, as something conceived to be
without mind, does not at all exist. How now must the inner connection
of the universe be conceived? In the following way. Every monad is a
representative being, and at the same time, each one is different from
every other. This difference, therefore, depends alone upon the
difference of representation: there are just as many different degrees
of representation as there are monads, and these degrees may be fixed
according to some of their prominent stages. The representations may be
classified according to the distinction between confused and distinct
knowledge. Hence a monad of the lowest rank (a monad _toute nue_) will
be one which _simply_ represents, _i. e._ which stands on the stage of
most confused knowledge. Leibnitz compares this state with a swoon, or
with our condition in a dreamy sleep, in which we are not without
representations, (notions)—for otherwise we could have none when
awaking—but in which the representations are so numerous that they
neutralize each other and do not come into the consciousness. This is
the stage of inorganic nature. In a higher rank are those monads in
which the representation is active as a formative vital force, though
still without consciousness. This is the stage of the vegetable world.
Still higher ascends the life of the monad when it attains to sensation
and memory, as is the case in the animal kingdom. The lower monads may
be said to sleep, and the brute monads to dream. When still farther the
soul rises to reason or reflection, we call it mind, spirit.—The
distinction of the monads from each other is, therefore, this, that each
one, though mirroring the whole and the same universe in itself, does it
from a different point of view, and, therefore, differently, the one
more, and the rest less perfectly. Each one is a different centre of the
world which it mirrors. Each one contains the whole universe, the whole
infinity within itself, and in this respect is like God, the only
difference being that God knows every thing with perfect distinctness,
while the monad represents it confusedly, though one monad may represent
it more confusedly than another. The limitation of a monad does not,
therefore, consist in its containing less than another or than God, but
only in its containing more imperfectly or in its representing less
distinctly.—Upon this standpoint the universe, in so far as every monad
mirrors one and the same universe, though each in a different way,
represents a drama of the greatest possible difference, as well as of
the greatest possible unity and order, _i. e._ of the greatest possible
perfection, or the _absolute harmony_. For distinction in unity is
harmony.—But in still another respect the universe is a system of
harmony. Since the monads do not work upon each other, but each one
follows only the law of its own being, there is danger lest the inner
harmony of the universe may be disturbed. How is this danger removed?
Thus, viz., every monad mirrors the whole and the same universe. The
changes of the collected monads, therefore, run parallel with each
other, and in this consists the harmony of all as pre-established by
God.
4. THE RELATION OF THE DEITY TO THE MONADS.—What part does the
conception of God play in the system of Leibnitz? An almost idle one.
Following the strict consequences of his system, Leibnitz should have
held to no proper theism, but the harmony of the universe should have
taken the place of the Deity. Ordinarily he considers God as the
sufficient cause of all monads. But he was also accustomed to consider
the final cause of a thing as its sufficient cause. In this respect,
therefore, he almost identifies God and the absolute final cause.
Elsewhere he considers the Deity as a simple primitive substance, or as
the individual primitive unity. Again, he speaks of God as a pure
immaterial actuality, _actus purus_, while to the monads belongs matter,
_i. e._ restrained actuality, striving, _appetitio_. Once he calls him a
monad, though this is in manifest contradiction with the determinations
otherwise assigned him. It was for Leibnitz a very difficult problem to
bring his monadology and his theism into harmony with each other,
without giving up the premises of both. If he held fast to the
substantiality of the monads, he was in danger of making them
independent of the Deity, and if he did not, he could hardly escape
falling back into Spinozism.
5. THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY is clearly explained on the standpoint
of the pre-established harmony. This relation, taking the premises of
the monadology, might seem enigmatical. If no monad can work upon any
other, how can the soul work upon the body to lead and move it? The
enigma is solved by the pre-established harmony. While the body and
soul, each one independently of the other, follows the laws of its
being, the body working mechanically, and the soul pursuing ends, yet
God has established such a concordant harmony of the two activities,
such a parallelism of the two functions, that there is in fact a perfect
unity for body and soul. There are, says Leibnitz, three views
respecting the relation of body and soul. The first and most common
supposes a reciprocal influence between the two, but such a view is
untenable, because there can be no interchange between mind and matter.
The second and occasional one (_cf._ § XXV. 1), brings about this
interchange through the constant assistance of God, which is nothing
more nor less than to make God a _Deus ex machina_. Hence the only
solution for the problem is the hypothesis of a pre-established harmony.
Leibnitz illustrates these three views in the following example. Let one
conceive of two watches, whose hands ever accurately point to the same
time. This agreement may be explained, first (the common view), by
supposing an actual connection between the hands of each, so that the
hand of the one watch might draw the hand of the other after it, or
second (the occasional view), by conceiving of a watch-maker who
continually keeps the hands alike, or in fine (the pre-established
harmony), by ascribing to each a mechanism so exquisitely wrought that
each one goes in perfect independence of the other, and at the same time
in entire agreement with it.—That the soul is immortal (indestructible),
follows at once from the doctrine of monads. There is no proper death.
That which is called death is only the soul losing a part of the monads
which compose the mechanism of its body, while the living element goes
back to a condition similar to that in which it was before it came upon
the theatre of the world.
6. The monadology has very important consequences in reference to THE
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. As the philosophy of Leibnitz, by its opposition to
Spinozism, had to do with the doctrine of being, so by its opposition to
the empiricism of Locke must it expound the theory of knowledge. Locke’s
Essay on the Human Understanding had attracted Leibnitz without
satisfying him, and he therefore attempted a new investigation in his
_Nouveaux Essais_, in which he defended the doctrine of innate ideas.
But this hypothesis of innate ideas Leibnitz now freed from that
defective view which had justified the objections of Locke. The
innateness of the ideas must not be held as though they were explicitly
and consciously contained in the mind, but rather the mind possesses
them potentially and only virtually, though with the capacity to produce
them out of itself. All thoughts are properly innate, _i. e._ they do
not come into the mind from without, but are rather produced by it from
itself. Any external influence upon the mind is inconceivable, it even
needs nothing external for its sensations. While Locke had compared the
mind to an unwritten piece of paper, Leibnitz likened it to a block of
marble, in which the veins prefigure the form of the statue. Hence the
common antithesis between rational and empirical knowledge disappears
with Leibnitz in the degrees of greater or less distinctness.—Among
these theoretically innate ideas, Leibnitz recognizes two of special
prominence, which take the first rank as principles of all knowledge and
all ratiocination,—the principle of contradiction (_principium
contradictionis_), and the principle of sufficient cause (_principium
rationis sufficientis_). To these, as a principle of the second rank,
must be added the _principium indiscernibilium_, or the principle that
there are in nature no two things wholly alike.
7. The most elaborate exhibition of Leibnitz’s theological views is
given in his _Théodicée_. The Théodicée, is, however, his weakest work,
and has but a loose connection with the rest of his philosophy. Written
at the instigation of a woman, it belies this origin neither in its form
nor in its content—not in its form, for in its effort to be popular it
becomes diffuse and unscientific, and not in its content, for it
accommodates itself to the positive dogmas and the premises of theology
farther than the scientific basis of the system of Leibnitz would
permit. In this work, Leibnitz investigates the relation of God to the
world in order to show a conformity in this relation to a final cause,
and to free God from the charge of acting without or contrary to an aim.
Why is the world as it is? God might have created it very differently.
True, answers Leibnitz, God saw an infinite number of worlds as possible
before him, but out of all these he chose the one which actually is as
the best. This is the famous doctrine of the best world, according to
which no more perfect world is possible than the one which is.—But how
so? Is not the existence of evil at variance with this? Leibnitz answers
this objection by distinguishing three kinds of evil, the metaphysical,
the physical, and the moral. The metaphysical evil, _i. e._ the
finiteness and incompleteness of things, is necessary because
inseparable from finite existence, and is thus independent of the will
of God. Physical evil (pain, &c.), though not independent of the will of
God, is often a good conditionally, _i. e._ as a punishment or means of
improvement. Moral evil or wickedness can in no way be charged to the
will of God. Leibnitz took various ways to account for its existence,
and obviate the contradiction lying between it and the conception of
God. At one time he says that wickedness is only permitted by God as a
_conditio sine qua non_, because without wickedness there were no
freedom, and without freedom no virtue. Again, he reduces the moral evil
to the metaphysical, and makes wickedness nothing but a want of
perfection, a negation, a limitation, playing the same part as do the
shadows in a painted picture, or the discords in a piece of music, which
do not diminish the beauty, but only increase it through contrast.
Again, he distinguishes between the material and the formal element in a
wicked act. The material of sin, the power to act, is from God, but the
formal element, the wickedness of the act, belongs wholly to man, and is
the result of his limitation, or, as Leibnitz here and there expresses
it, of his eternal self-predestination. In no case can the harmony of
the universe be destroyed through such a cause.
These are the chief points of Leibnitz’s philosophy. The general
characteristic of it as given in the beginning of the present section,
will be found to have its sanction in the specific exhibition that has
now been furnished.