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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human
+Understanding, by John Dewey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
+       A Critical Exposition
+
+Author: John Dewey
+
+Release Date: October 6, 2012 [EBook #40957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jana Srna, Adrian Mastronardi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.
+    Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They
+    are listed at the end of the text.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+  GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS
+  FOR
+  ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS.
+
+  EDITED BY
+  GEORGE S. MORRIS.
+
+  LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING
+  THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+
+
+
+  LEIBNIZ'S
+  NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE
+  HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+  A CRITICAL EXPOSITION.
+
+  By JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D.,
+
+  ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
+  MICHIGAN, AND PROFESSOR (ELECT) OF MENTAL AND
+  MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
+  OF MINNESOTA
+
+  CHICAGO:
+  SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
+  1902
+
+
+  Copyright, 1888,
+  By S. C. Griggs and Company.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The purpose of the series of which the present volume is one, is not,
+as will be seen by reference to the statement in the initial volume,
+to sum up _in toto_ the system of any philosopher, but to give a
+"critical exposition" of some one masterpiece. In treating the
+"Nouveaux Essais" of Leibniz, I have found myself obliged, at times,
+to violate the letter of this expressed intention, in order to fulfil
+its spirit. The "Nouveaux Essais," in spite of its being one of the
+two most extended philosophical writings of Leibniz, is a compendium
+of comments, rather than a connected argument or exposition. It has
+all the suggestiveness and richness of a note-book, but with much also
+of its fragmentariness. I have therefore been obliged to supplement my
+account of it by constant references to the other writings of Leibniz,
+and occasionally to take considerable liberty with the order of the
+treatment of topics. Upon the whole, this book will be found, I hope,
+to be a faithful reflex not only of Leibniz's thought, but also of his
+discussions in the "Nouveaux Essais."
+
+In the main, the course of philosophic thought since the time of
+Leibniz has been such as to render almost self-evident his limitations,
+and to suggest needed corrections and amplifications. Indeed, it is
+much easier for those whose thoughts follow the turn that Kant has
+given modern thinking to appreciate the defects of Leibniz than to
+realize his greatness. I have endeavored, therefore, in the body
+of the work, to identify my thought with that of Leibniz as much
+as possible, to assume his standpoint and method, and, for the most
+part, to confine express criticism upon his limitations to the final
+chapter. In particular, I have attempted to bring out the relations
+of philosophy to the growing science of his times, to state the
+doctrine of pre-established harmony as he himself meant it, and to give
+something like consistency and coherency to his doctrine of material
+existence and of nature. This last task seemed especially to require
+doing. I have also endeavored to keep in mind, throughout, Leibniz's
+relations to Locke, and to show the "Nouveaux Essais" as typical of the
+distinction between characteristic British and German thought.
+
+    JOHN DEWEY.
+
+_May_, 1888.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  The Man.
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  His Parents                                                          1
+
+  His Early Education                                                  2
+
+  His University Training at Leipsic                                   4
+
+  At Jena                                                              8
+
+  At the University of Altdorf                                        10
+
+  His Removal to Frankfurt                                            10
+
+  His Mission to Paris                                                11
+
+  Discovery of the Calculus                                           12
+
+  Librarian at Hanover                                                13
+
+  His Activities                                                      14
+
+  His Philosophic Writings                                            15
+
+  His Ecclesiastic and Academic Projects                              17
+
+  His Later Years and Death                                           18
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  Sources of his Philosophy.
+
+  Character of the Epoch into which Leibniz was born                  20
+
+  The Thought of the Unity of the World                               23
+
+  The two Agencies which formed Leibniz's Philosophy                  24
+
+  The Cartesian Influences                                            26
+
+  Rationalistic Method                                                28
+
+  Mechanical Explanation of Nature                                    30
+
+  Application of Mathematics                                          32
+
+  Idea of Evolution                                                   33
+
+  Interpretation of these Ideas                                       35
+
+  Idea of Activity or Entelechy                                       39
+
+  Idea of Rationality                                                 40
+
+  Idea of Organism                                                    42
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  The Problem and its Solution.
+
+  Unity of Leibniz's Thought                                          43
+
+  Relation of Universal and Individual                                44
+
+  Descartes' Treatment of this Question                               46
+
+  Spinoza's Treatment of it                                           48
+
+  Leibniz's Solution                                                  50
+
+  All Unity is Spiritual                                              53
+
+  And Active                                                          54
+
+  Is a Representative Individual                                      56
+
+  Contrast of Monad and Atom                                          58
+
+  Pre-established Harmony reconciles Universal and Individual         59
+
+  Meaning of this Doctrine                                            62
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  Locke and Leibniz.--Innate Ideas.
+
+  Necessity of Preliminary Account of Leibniz's Philosophy            66
+
+  Locke's Empiricism                                                  67
+
+  Leibniz's Comments upon Locke                                       69
+
+  The Controversies of Leibniz                                        72
+
+  The Essay on the Human Understanding                                73
+
+  Locke's Denial of Innate Ideas                                      75
+
+  Depending upon
+
+    (1) His Mechanical Conception of Innate Ideas                     77
+
+  Leibniz undermines this by substituting an Organic Conception       80
+
+  And upon
+
+    (2) His Mechanical Conception of Consciousness                    84
+
+  Leibniz refutes this by his Theory of Unconscious Intelligence      85
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  Sensation and Experience.
+
+  Importance of Doctrine regarding Sensation                          87
+
+  The Two Elements of Locke's Notion of Sensation                     89
+
+  Its Relation to the Object producing it: Primary and Secondary
+  Qualities                                                           91
+
+  Locke criticized as to his Account
+
+    (1) Of the Production of Sensation                                92
+
+    (2) Of its Function in Knowledge                                  95
+
+  The Meaning of Physical Causation                                   97
+
+  Bearing of this Doctrine upon Relation of Soul and Body             98
+
+  Criticism of Locke's Dualism                                        98
+
+  Leibniz's Monism                                                   101
+
+  Summary of Discussion                                              103
+
+  Leibniz on the Relation of Sensations to Objects
+  occasioning them                                                   105
+
+  Nature of Experience                                               106
+
+  Distinction of Empirical from Rational Knowledge                   107
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  The Impulses and the Will.
+
+  The Doctrine of Will depends upon that of Intelligence             109
+
+  The Character of Impulse                                           111
+
+  Of Desire                                                          112
+
+  Half-Pains and Pleasures                                           113
+
+  The Outcome of Desire                                              115
+
+  Nature of Moral Action                                             117
+
+  Of Freedom                                                         118
+
+    (1) Freedom as Contingency                                       119
+
+        Limitation of this Principle                                 121
+
+    (2) Freedom as Spontaneity                                       123
+
+        This Principle is too Broad to be a Moral Principle          125
+
+    (3) True Freedom is Rational Action                              125
+
+  Our Lack of Freedom is due to our Sensuous Nature                  128
+
+  Innate Practical Principles                                        129
+
+  Moral Science is Demonstrative                                     130
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  Matter and its Relation to Spirit.
+
+  Locke's Account of Matter and Allied Ideas the Foundation of the
+  Philosophy of Nature Characteristic of British Empiricism          132
+
+  Space and Matter wholly Distinct Ideas                             134
+
+  Leibniz gives Matter a Metaphysical Basis                          137
+
+  Ordinary Misunderstanding of Leibniz's Ideas of Matter             138
+
+  Matter is not composed of Monads                                   139
+
+  Matter is the Passive or Conditioned Side of Monads                140
+
+  Passivity equals "Confused Representations," _i. e._ Incomplete
+  Development of Reason                                              144
+
+  Matter is logically Necessary from Leibniz's Principles            145
+
+  Bearing of Discussion upon Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony     146
+
+  Summary                                                            147
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  Material Phenomena and their Reality.
+
+  What is the Connection between Matter as Metaphysical and as
+  Physical?                                                          151
+
+  The Latter is the "Image" of the Former                            151
+
+  Leibniz's Reaction from Cartesian Theory                           152
+
+  His Objections are (1) Physical and (2) Logical                    153
+
+  (1) Motion is Source of Physical Qualities of Bodies               155
+
+  Hence there are no Atoms                                           158
+
+  Secondary Qualities as well as Primary depend upon Motion          160
+
+  (2) What is the Subject to which the Quality of Extension
+  belongs?                                                           161
+
+  It is the Monad _as Passive_                                       162
+
+  Space and Time connect the Spiritual and the Sensible              164
+
+  Distinction between Space and Time, and Extension and Duration     166
+
+  Space and Time are Relations                                       167
+
+  Leibniz's Controversy with Clarke                                  168
+
+  Leibniz denies that Space and Time are Absolute                    170
+
+  What is the Reality of Sensible Phenomena?                         173
+
+  It consists
+
+    (1) In their Regularity                                          174
+
+    (2) In their Dependence upon Intelligence and Will               175
+
+  Leibniz and Berkeley                                               177
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  Some Fundamental Conceptions.
+
+  Locke's Account of Substance as Static                             179
+
+  The Distinction between Reality and Phenomena                      180
+
+  Leibniz's Conception of Substance as Dynamic                       181
+
+  His Specific Criticisms upon Locke                                 182
+
+  The Categories of Identity and Difference Locke also explains in
+  a Mechanical Way                                                   183
+
+  Leibniz regards them as Internal and as Organic to each other      184
+
+  Locke gives a Quantitative Notion of Infinity                      188
+
+  And hence makes our Idea of it purely Negative                     189
+
+  Leibniz denies that the True Notion of Infinity is Quantitative    189
+
+  He also denies Locke's Account of the Origin of the Indefinite     192
+
+  In General, Locke has a Mechanical Idea, Leibniz a Spiritual, of
+  these Categories                                                   193
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  The Nature and Extent of Knowledge.
+
+  Locke's Definition and Classification of Knowledge                 196
+
+  Leibniz's Criticism                                                197
+
+  Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant regarding Knowledge of Objects         198
+
+  The Degrees of Knowledge,--Intuitive, Demonstrative, and
+  Sensitive                                                          199
+
+  Locke's Contradictory Theories regarding the Origin of Knowledge   202
+
+  Locke starts both with the Individual as given to Consciousness
+  and with the Unrelated Sensation                                   204
+
+  Either Theory makes Relations or "Universals" Unreal               205
+
+  As to the Extent of Knowledge, that of Identity is Wide, but
+  Trifling                                                           205
+
+  That of Real Being includes God, Soul, and Matter, but only as to
+  their Existence                                                    206
+
+  And even this at the Expense of contradicting his Definition of
+  Knowledge                                                          206
+
+  Knowledge of Co-existence is either Trifling or Impossible         207
+
+  Leibniz rests upon Distinction of Contingent and Rational Truth    209
+
+  The Former may become the Latter, and is then Demonstrative        210
+
+  The Means of this Transformation are Mathematics and
+  Classification                                                     215
+
+  There are Two Principles,--One of Contradiction                    217
+
+  The Other of Sufficient Reason                                     218
+
+  The Latter leads us to God as the Supreme Intelligence and the
+  Final Condition of Contingent Fact                                 219
+
+  The Four Stages of Knowledge                                       222
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  The Theology of Leibniz.
+
+  Leibniz's Three Arguments for the Existence of God                 224
+
+  The Value of the Ontological                                       225
+
+  The Cosmological                                                   226
+
+  The Teleological                                                   226
+
+  The Attributes of God                                              227
+
+  The Relation of God to the World, his Creating Activity            228
+
+  Creation involves Wisdom and Goodness as well as Power             229
+
+  The Relation of God to Intelligent Spirits: they form a Moral
+  Community                                                          230
+
+  Leibniz as the Founder of Modern German Ethical Systems            231
+
+  The End of Morality is Happiness as Self-realization               232
+
+  The Three Stages of Natural Right                                  234
+
+  The Basis of Both Leibniz's Ethics and Political Philosophy is
+  Man's Relation to God                                              236
+
+  His Æsthetics have the Same Basis                                  237
+
+  Man's Spirit as Architectonic                                      238
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  Criticism and Conclusion.
+
+  Leibniz's Fundamental Contradiction is between his Method and his
+  Subject Matter                                                     240
+
+  The Use which Leibniz makes of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
+  reveals this Contradiction                                         242
+
+  The Contradiction is between the Ideas of Formal and of Concrete
+  Unity                                                              243
+
+  From this Contradiction flow
+
+    (1) The Contradiction in the Notion of Individuality             246
+
+        Which becomes purely Negative                                247
+
+        The Negative he interprets as merely Privative               249
+
+    (2) The Contradiction in his Conception of God has the Same
+    Source                                                           250
+
+        He really has Three Definitions of God                       250
+
+        One results in Atomism, another in Pantheism                 251
+
+        The Third in a Conception of the Organic Harmony of the
+        Infinite and Finite                                          252
+
+    (3) The Contradiction between the Real and the Ideal in the
+    Monads has the Same Source                                       253
+
+    (4) As have also the Contradictions in the Treatment of the
+    Relations of Matter and Spirit                                   254
+
+    (5) And finally, his Original Contradiction leads to a
+    Contradictory Treatment of Knowledge                             257
+
+  Summary as to the Positive Value of Leibniz                        259
+
+  The Influence of Leibniz's Philosophy                              261
+
+  Especially upon Kant                                               262
+
+  Kant claims to be the True Apologist for Leibniz                   263
+
+    (1) As to the Doctrine of Sufficient Reason and Contradiction    263
+
+        Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Distinction between
+        Analytic and Synthetic Judgment                              266
+
+    (2) As to the Relation of Monads and Matter                      268
+
+        Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Relation of the
+        Sensuous and Supersensuous                                   268
+
+    (3) And finally, as to the Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony   269
+
+        Which Kant transforms into Harmony between Understanding
+        and Sense                                                    269
+
+        And between the Categories of the Understanding and the
+        Ideas of Reason                                              270
+
+  Conclusion                                                         272
+
+
+
+
+LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN.
+
+
+"He who knows me only by my writings does not know me," said
+Leibniz. These words--true, indeed, of every writer, but true of
+Leibniz in a way which gives a peculiar interest and charm to his
+life--must be our excuse for prefacing what is to be said of his "New
+Essays concerning the Human Understanding" with a brief biographical
+sketch.
+
+Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig June 21, 1646. His
+father, who died when Leibniz was only six years old, was a professor
+in the university and a notary of considerable practice. From him the
+future philosopher seems to have derived his extraordinary industry
+and love of detail. Such accounts as we have of him show no traces of
+the wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a diligent,
+plodding, faithful, and religious man, a thoroughly conscientious
+husband, jurist, and professor. Nor in the lines of physical heredity
+can we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his mother's
+endowments. The fact, however, that she was patient in all trial,
+living in peace with her neighbors, anxious for unity and concord with
+all people, even with those not well disposed to her, throws great
+light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz's ethical nature. As in so
+many cases, it is the inherited moral characteristics which form the
+basis of the intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a moral
+trait in Leibniz's mother became in him the hunger for a harmonious and
+unified mental world; the father's devotion to detail showed itself
+as the desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive as it was
+inter-related.
+
+Left without his father, he was by the advice of a discerning friend
+allowed free access to the library. Leibniz never ceased to count this
+one of the greatest fortunes of his life. Writing in after years to a
+friend, he says:--
+
+"When I lost my father, and was left without any direction in my
+studies, I had the luck to get at books in all languages, of all
+religions, upon all sciences, and to read them without any regular
+order, just as my own impulse led me. From this I obtained the great
+advantage that I was freed from ordinary prejudices, and introduced to
+many things of which I should otherwise never have thought."
+
+In a philosophical essay, in which he describes himself under the name
+of Gulielmus Pacidius, he says:--
+
+"Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who lost his father in his early
+years, was led to study through the innate tendency of his spirit; and
+the freedom with which he moved about in the sciences was equal to this
+innate impulse. He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a library,
+staying there sometimes whole days, and, hardly stammering Latin, he
+took up every book which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them
+without any choice, he sipped now here, now there, lost himself in one,
+skipped over another, as the clearness of expression or of content
+attracted him. He seemed to be directed by the _Tolle et lege_ of a
+higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he gave himself up to the
+ancients, in whom he at first understood nothing, by degrees a little,
+finally all that was really necessary, until he assumed not only a
+certain coloring of their expression, but also of their thought,--just
+as those who go about in the sun, even while they are occupied with
+other things, get sun-browned."
+
+And he goes on to tell us that their influence always remained
+with him. Their human, their important, their comprehensive ideas,
+grasping the whole of life in one image, together with their clear,
+natural, and transparent mode of expression, adapted precisely to
+their thoughts, seemed to him to be in the greatest contrast with the
+writings of moderns, without definiteness or order in expression, and
+without vitality or purpose in thought,--"written as if for another
+world." Thus Leibniz learned two of the great lessons of his life,--to
+seek always for clearness of diction and for pertinence and purpose
+of ideas.
+
+Historians and poets first occupied him; but when in his school-life,
+a lad of twelve or thirteen years, he came to the study of logic,
+he was greatly struck, he says, by the "ordering and analysis
+of thoughts which he found there." He gave himself up to making
+tables of categories and predicaments, analyzing each book that he
+read into suitable topics, and arranging these into classes and
+sub-classes. We can imagine the astonishment of his playmates as
+he burst upon them with a demand to classify this or that idea, to
+find its appropriate predicament. Thus he was led naturally to the
+philosophic books in his father's library,--to Plato and to Aristotle,
+to the Scholastics. Suarez, in particular, among the latter, he read;
+and traces of his influences are to be found in the formulation of his
+own philosophic system. At about this same time he took great delight
+in the theological works with which his father's library abounded,
+reading with equal ease and pleasure the writings of the Lutherans
+and of the Reformed Church, of the Jesuits and the Jansenists, of the
+Thomists and the Arminians. The result was, he tells us, that he was
+strengthened in the Lutheran faith of his family, but, as we may easily
+imagine from his after life, made tolerant of all forms of faith.
+
+In 1661 the boy Leibniz, fifteen years old, entered the University of
+Leipzig. If we glance back upon his attainments, we find him thoroughly
+at home in Latin, having made good progress in Greek, acquainted with
+the historians and poets of antiquity, acquainted with the contemporary
+range of science, except in mathematics and physics, deeply read and
+interested in ancient and scholastic philosophy and in the current
+theological discussions. Of himself he says:--
+
+"Two things were of extraordinary aid to me: in the first place, I was
+self-taught; and in the second, as soon as I entered upon any science
+I sought for something new, even though I did not as yet thoroughly
+understand the old. I thus gained two things: I did not fill my mind
+with things empty and to be unlearned afterwards,--things resting
+upon the assertion of the teacher, and not upon reason; and secondly,
+I never rested till I got down to the very roots of the science and
+reached its principles."
+
+While there is always a temptation to force the facts which we know
+of a man's early life, so as to make them seem to account for what
+appears in mature years, and to find symbolisms and analogies which do
+not exist, we are not going astray, I think, if we see foreshadowed in
+this early education of Leibniz the two leading traits of his later
+thought,--universality and individuality. The range of Leibniz's
+investigations already marks him as one who will be content with
+no fundamental principle which does not mirror the universe. The
+freedom with which he carried them on is testimony to the fact
+that even at this age the idea of self-development, of individual
+growth from within, was working upon him. In the fact, also, that he
+was self-taught we find doubtless the reason that he alone of the
+thinkers of this period did not have to retrace his steps, to take
+a hostile attitude towards the ideas into which he was educated, and
+to start anew upon a foundation then first built. The development of
+the thought of Leibniz is so gradual, continuous, and constant that it
+may serve as a model of the law by which the "monad" acts. Is not his
+early acquaintance with ancient literature and mediæval philosophy
+the reason that he could afterwards write that his philosophical
+system "connects Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the
+Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morals with reason"? And
+who can fail to see in the impartiality, the comprehensiveness, of
+his self-education the prophecy of the time when he can write of his
+ideas that "there are united in them, as in a centre of perspective,
+the ideas of the Sceptics in attributing to sensible things only
+a slight degree of reality; of the Pythagoreans and Platonists,
+who reduce all to harmonies, numbers, and ideas; of Parmenides and
+Plotinus, with their One and All; of the Stoics, with their notion of
+necessity, compatible with the spontaneity of other schools; of the
+vital philosophy of the Cabalists, who find feeling everywhere; of the
+forms and entelechies of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, united with the
+mechanical explanation of phenomena according to Democritus and the
+moderns"?
+
+But we must hurry along over the succeeding years of his life. In
+the university the study of law was his principal occupation, as he
+had decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. It cannot be
+said that the character of the instruction or of the instructors at
+Leipzig was such as to give much nutriment or stimulus to a mind like
+that of Leibniz. He became acquainted there, however, with the Italian
+philosophy of the sixteenth century,--a philosophy which, as formulated
+by Cardanus and Campanella, formed the transition from Scholastic
+philosophy to the "mechanical" mode of viewing the universe. He had
+here also his first introduction to Descartes. The consequences of the
+new vision opened to Leibniz must be told in his own words: "I was but
+a child when I came to know Aristotle; even the Scholastics did not
+frighten me; and I in no way regret this now. Plato and Plotinus gave
+me much delight, not to speak of other philosophers of antiquity. Then
+I fell in with the writings of modern philosophy, and I recall the
+time when, a boy of fifteen years, I went walking in a little wood
+near Leipzig, the Rosenthal, in order to consider whether I should
+hold to the doctrine of substantial forms. Finally the mechanical
+theory conquered, and thus I was led to the study of the mathematical
+sciences."
+
+To the study of the mathematical sciences! Surely words of no mean
+import for either the future of Leibniz or of mathematics. But his
+Leipzig studies did not take him very far in this new direction. Only
+the elements of Euclid were taught there, and these by a lecturer
+of such confused style that Leibniz seems alone to have understood
+them. In Jena, however, where he went for a semester, things were
+somewhat better. Weigel, a mathematician of some fame, an astronomer,
+a jurist, and a philosopher, taught there, and introduced Leibniz
+into the lower forms of analysis. But the Thirty Years' War had not
+left Germany in a state of high culture, and in after years Leibniz
+lamented the limitations of his early mathematical training, remarking
+that if he had spent his youth in Paris, he would have enriched science
+earlier. By 1666 Leibniz had finished his university career, having
+in previous years attained the degrees of bachelor of philosophy and
+master of philosophy. It is significant that for the first he wrote
+a thesis upon the principle of individuation,--the principle which
+in later years became the basis of his philosophy. This early essay,
+however, is rather an exhibition of learning and of dexterity in
+handling logical methods than a real anticipation of his afterthought.
+
+For his second degree, he wrote a thesis upon the application
+of philosophic ideas to juridic procedure,--considerations which
+never ceased to occupy him. At about the same time appeared his
+earliest independent work, "De Arte Combinatoria." From his study of
+mathematics, and especially of algebraic methods, Leibniz had become
+convinced that the source of all science is,--first, analysis; second,
+symbolic representation of the fundamental concepts, the symbolism
+avoiding the ambiguities and vagueness of language; and thirdly,
+the synthesis and interpretation of the symbols. It seemed to Leibniz
+that it ought to be possible to find the simplest notions in all the
+sciences, to discover general rules for calculating all their varieties
+of combination, and thus to attain the same certainty and generality
+of result that characterize mathematics. Leibniz never gave up this
+thought. Indeed, in spirit his philosophy is but its application,
+with the omission of symbols, on the side of the general notions
+fundamental to all science. It was also the idea of his age,--the
+idea that inspired Spinoza and the _Aufklärung_, the idea that
+inspired philosophical thinking until Kant gave it its death-blow by
+demonstrating the distinction between the methods of philosophy and of
+mathematical and physical science.
+
+In 1666 Leibniz should have received his double doctorate of philosophy
+and of law; but petty jealousies and personal fears prevented his
+presenting himself for the examination. Disgusted with his treatment,
+feeling that the ties that bound him to Leipzig were severed by the
+recent death of his mother, anxious to study mathematics further,
+and, as he confesses, desiring, with the natural eagerness of youth,
+to see more of the world, he left Leipzig forever, and entered upon
+his _Wanderjahre_. He was prepared to be no mean citizen of the
+world. In his education he had gone from the historians to the poets,
+from the poets to the philosophers and the Scholastics, from them
+to the theologians and Church Fathers; then to the jurists, to the
+mathematicians, and then again to philosophy and to law.
+
+He first directed his steps to the University of Altdorf; here he
+obtained his doctorate in law, and was offered a professorship,
+which he declined,--apparently because he felt that his time was
+not yet come, and that when it should come, it would not be in
+the narrow limits of a country village. From Altdorf he went to
+Nürnberg; here all that need concern us is the fact that he joined a
+society of alchemists (_fraternitas roseæcrucis_), and was made their
+secretary. Hereby he gained three things,--a knowledge of chemistry; an
+acquaintance with a number of scientific men of different countries,
+with whom, as secretary, he carried on correspondence; and the
+friendship of Boineburg, a diplomat of the court of the Elector and
+Archbishop of Mainz. This friendship was the means of his removing
+to Frankfurt. Here, under the direction of the Elector, he engaged
+in remodelling Roman law so as to adapt it for German use, in writing
+diplomatic tracts, letters, and essays upon theological matters, and
+in editing an edition of Nizolius,--a now forgotten philosophical
+writer. One of the most noteworthy facts in connection with this
+edition is that Leibniz pointed out the fitness of the German language
+for philosophical uses, and urged its employment,--a memorable fact
+in connection with the later development of German thought. Another
+important tract which he wrote was one urging the alliance of
+all German States for the purpose of advancing their internal
+and common interests. Here, as so often, Leibniz was almost two
+centuries in advance of his times. But the chief thing in connection
+with the stay of Leibniz at Mainz was the cause for which he left
+it. Louis XIV. had broken up the Triple Alliance, and showed signs of
+attacking Holland and the German Empire. It was then proposed to him
+that it would be of greater glory to himself and of greater advantage
+to France that he should move against Turkey and Egypt. The mission of
+presenting these ideas to the great king was intrusted to Leibniz, and
+in 1672 he went to Paris.
+
+The plan failed completely,--so completely that we need say no
+more about it. But the journey to Paris was none the less the
+turning-point in the career of Leibniz. It brought him to the
+centre of intellectual civilization,--to a centre compared with
+which the highest attainments of disrupted and disheartened Germany
+were comparative barbarism. Molière was still alive, and Racine was
+at the summit of his glory. Leibniz became acquainted with Arnaud,
+a disciple of Descartes, who initiated him into the motive and spirit
+of his master. Cartesianism as a system, with its scientific basis and
+its speculative consequences, thus first became to him an intellectual
+reality. And, perhaps most important of all, he met Huygens, who became
+his teacher and inspirer both in the higher forms of mathematics
+and in their application to the interpretation and expression of
+physical phenomena. His diplomatic mission took him also to London,
+where the growing world of mathematical science was opened yet wider to
+him. The name of Sir Isaac Newton need only be given to show what this
+meant. From this time one of the greatest glories of Leibniz's life
+dates,--a glory, however, which during his lifetime was embittered by
+envy and unappreciation, and obscured by detraction and malice,--the
+invention of the infinitesimal calculus. It would be interesting, were
+this the place, to trace the history of its discovery,--the gradual
+steps which led to it, the physical facts as well as mathematical
+theories which made it a necessity; but it must suffice to mention that
+these were such that the discovery of some general mode of expressing
+and interpreting the newly discovered facts of Nature was absolutely
+required for the further advance of science, and that steps towards
+the introduction of the fundamental ideas of the calculus had already
+been taken,--notably by Keppler, by Cavalieri, and by Wallis. It
+would be interesting to follow also the course of the controversy
+with Newton,--a controversy which in its method of conduct reflects no
+credit upon the names of either. But this can be summed up by saying
+that it is now generally admitted that absolute priority belongs to
+Newton, but that entire independence and originality characterize
+none the less the work of Leibniz, and that the method of approach and
+statement of the latter are the more philosophical and general, and,
+to use the words of the judicious summary of Merz, "Newton cared more
+for the results than the principle, while Leibniz was in search of
+fundamental principles, and anxious to arrive at simplifications and
+generalizations."
+
+The death of Boineburg removed the especial reasons for the return of
+Leibniz to Frankfurt, and in 1676 he accepted the position of librarian
+and private councillor at the court of Hanover. It arouses our interest
+and our questionings to know that on his journey back he stopped at the
+Hague, and there met face to face the other future great philosopher
+of the time, Spinoza. But our questionings meet no answer. At Hanover,
+the industries of Leibniz were varied. An extract from one of his own
+letters, though written at a somewhat later date, will give the best
+outline of his activities.
+
+"It is incredible how scattered and divided are my occupations. I
+burrow through archives, investigate old writings, and collect
+unprinted manuscripts, with a view to throwing light on the
+history of Brunswick. I also receive and write a countless number of
+letters. I have so much that is new in mathematics, so many thoughts
+in philosophy, so many literary observations which I cannot get into
+shape, that in the midst of my tasks I do not know where to begin,
+and with Ovid am inclined to cry out: 'My riches make me poor.' I
+should like to give a description of my calculating-machine; but time
+fails. Above all else I desire to complete my Dynamics, as I think
+that I have finally discovered the true laws of material Nature, by
+whose means problems about bodies which are out of reach of rules now
+known may be solved. Friends are urging me to publish my Science of
+the Infinite, containing the basis of my new analysis. I have also on
+hand a new Characteristic, and many general considerations about the
+art of discovery. But all these works, the historical excepted, have
+to be done at odd moments. Then at the court all sorts of things are
+expected. I have to answer questions on points in international law;
+on points concerning the rights of the various princes in the Empire:
+so far I have managed to keep out of questions of private law. With all
+this I have had to carry on negotiations with the bishops of Neustadt
+and of Meaux [Bossuet], and with Pelisson and others upon religious
+matters."
+
+It is interesting to note how the philosophic spirit, the instinct
+for unity and generality, showed itself even in the least of Leibniz's
+tasks. The Duke of Brunswick imposed upon Leibniz the task of drawing
+up a genealogical table of his House. Under Leibniz's hands this
+expanded into a history of the House, and this in turn was the centre
+of an important study of the German Empire. It was impossible that
+the philosopher, according to whom every real being reflected the
+whole of the universe from its point of view, should have been able to
+treat even a slight phase of local history without regarding it in its
+relations to the history of the world. Similarly some mining operations
+in the Harz Mountains called the attention of Leibniz to geological
+matters. The result was a treatise called "Protogäa," in which Leibniz
+gave a history of the development of the earth. Not content with seeing
+in a Brunswick mountain an epitome of the world's physical formation,
+it was his intention to make this an introduction to his political
+history as a sort of geographical background and foundation. It is
+interesting to note that the historical studies of Leibniz took him on
+a three years' journey, from 1687 to 1690, through the various courts
+of Europe,--a fact which not only had considerable influence upon
+Leibniz himself, but which enabled him to give stimulus to scientific
+development in more ways and places than one.
+
+His philosophical career as an author begins for the most part with
+his return to Hanover in 1690. This lies outside of the scope of the
+present chapter, but here is a convenient place to call attention to
+the fact that for Leibniz the multitude of his other duties was so
+great that his philosophical work was the work "of odd moments." There
+is no systematic exposition; there are a vast number of letters, of
+essays, of abstracts and memoranda published in various scientific
+journals. His philosophy bears not only in form, but in substance,
+traces of its haphazard and desultory origin. Another point of
+interest in this connection is the degree to which, in form, at least,
+his philosophical writings bear the impress of his cosmopolitan
+life. Leibniz had seen too much of the world, too much of courts,
+for his thoughts to take the rigid and unbending form of geometrical
+exposition suited to the lonely student of the Hague. Nor was the
+regular progression and elucidation of ideas adapted to the later
+Germans, almost without exception university professors, suited to
+the man of affairs. There is everywhere in Leibniz the attempt to
+adapt his modes of statement, not only to the terminology, but even
+to the ideas, of the one to whom they are addressed. There is the
+desire to magnify points of agreement, to minimize disagreements,
+characteristic of the courtier and the diplomat. His comprehensiveness
+is not only a comprehensiveness of thought, but of ways of exposition,
+due very largely, we must think, to his cosmopolitan education. The
+result has been to the great detriment of Leibniz's influence as a
+systematic thinker, although it may be argued that it has aided his
+indirect and suggestive influence, the absorption of his ideas by men
+of literature, by Goethe, above all by Lessing, and his stimulating
+effect upon science and philosophy. It is certain that the attempt to
+systematize his thoughts, as was done by Wolff, had for its result the
+disappearance of all that was profound and thought-exciting.
+
+If his philosophy thus reflects the manner of his daily life,
+the occupations of the latter were informed by the spirit of
+his philosophy. Two of the dearest interests of Leibniz remain
+to be mentioned,--one, the founding of academies; the other, the
+reconciling of religious organizations. The former testifies to his
+desire for comprehensiveness, unity, and organization of knowledge;
+the latter to his desire for practical unity, his dislike of all
+that is opposed and isolated. His efforts in the religions direction
+were twofold. The first was to end the theological and political
+controversies of the time by the reunion of the Protestant and Roman
+Catholic Churches. It was a plan which did the greatest honor to the
+pacific spirit of Leibniz, but it was predestined to failure. Both
+sides made concessions,--more concessions than we of to-day should
+believe possible. But the one thing the Roman Catholic Church would not
+concede was the one thing which the Protestant Church demanded,--the
+notion of authority and hierarchy. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
+the terms on which Leibniz conceived of their reunion do not point to
+the greatest weakness in his philosophy,--the tendency to overlook
+oppositions and to resolve all contradiction into differences of
+degree. Hardly had this plan fallen through when Leibniz turned to
+the project of a union of the Lutheran and Reformed branches of the
+Protestant Church. This scheme was more hopeful, and while unrealized
+during the life of our philosopher, was afterwards accomplished.
+
+It is noteworthy that even before Leibniz went to Paris and to
+London he had conceived the idea of a society of learned men for the
+investigation, the systematization, and the publication of scientific
+truth in all its varied forms,--a society which should in breadth
+include the whole sphere of sciences, but should not treat them as so
+many isolated disciplines, but as members of one system. This idea
+was quickened when Leibniz saw the degree in which it had already
+been realized in the two great world-capitals. He never ceased to
+try to introduce similar academies wherever he had influence. In
+1700 his labors bore their fruit in one instance. The Academy at
+Berlin was founded, and Leibniz was its first, and indeed life-long,
+president. But disappointment met him at Vienna, Dresden, and
+St. Petersburg, where he proposed similar societies.
+
+Any sketch of Leibniz's life, however brief, would be imperfect which
+did not mention the names at least of two remarkable women,--remarkable
+in themselves, and remarkable in their friendship with Leibniz. These
+were Sophia, grand-daughter of James I. of England (and thus
+the link by which the House of Brunswick finally came to rule over
+Great Britain) and wife of the Duke of Brunswick, and her daughter
+Sophia Charlotte, wife of the first king of Prussia. The latter,
+in particular, gave Leibniz every encouragement. She was personally
+deeply interested in all theological and philosophical questions. Upon
+her death-bed, in 1705, she is said to have told those about her that
+they were not to mourn for her, as she should now be able to satisfy
+her desire to learn about things which Leibniz had never sufficiently
+explained.
+
+Her death marks the beginning of a period in Leibniz's life which it is
+not pleasant to dwell upon. New rulers arose that knew not Leibniz. It
+cannot be said that from this time till his death in Hanover in 1716
+Leibniz had much joy or satisfaction. His best friends were dead; his
+political ambitions were disappointed; he was suspected of coldness
+and unfriendliness by the courts both of Berlin and Hanover; Paris and
+Vienna were closed to him, so far as any wide influence was concerned,
+by his religious faith; the controversy with the friends of Newton
+still followed him. He was a man of the most remarkable intellectual
+gifts, of an energy which could be satisfied only with wide fields
+of action; and he found himself shut in by narrow intrigue to a petty
+round of courtly officialism. It is little wonder that the following
+words fell from his lips: "Germany is the only country in the world
+that does not know how to recognize the fame of its children and to
+make that fame immortal. It forgets itself; it forgets its own, unless
+foreigners make it mindful of its own treasures." A Scotch friend of
+Leibniz, who happened to be in Hanover when he died, wrote that Leibniz
+"was buried more like a robber than what he really was,--the ornament
+of his country." Such was the mortal end of the greatest intellectual
+genius since Aristotle. But genius is not a matter to be bounded in
+life or in death by provincial courts. Leibniz remains a foremost
+citizen in that "Kingdom of Spirits" in whose formation he found the
+meaning of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+What is true of all men is true of philosophers, and of Leibniz
+among them. Speaking generally, what they are unconsciously and
+fundamentally, they are through absorption of their antecedents
+and surroundings. What they are consciously and reflectively,
+they are through their reaction upon the influence of heredity
+and environment. But there is a spiritual line of descent and a
+spiritual atmosphere; and in speaking of a philosopher, it is with this
+intellectual heredity and environment, rather than with the physical,
+that we are concerned. Leibniz was born into a period of intellectual
+activity the most teeming with ideas, the most fruitful in results,
+of any, perhaps, since the age of Pericles. We pride ourselves justly
+upon the activity of our own century, and in diffusion of intellectual
+action and wide-spread application of ideas the age of Leibniz
+could not compare with it. But ours _is_ the age of diffusion and
+application, while his was one of fermentation and birth.
+
+Such a period in its earlier days is apt to be turbid and
+unsettled. There is more heat of friction than calm light. And such had
+been the case in the hundred years before Leibniz. But when he arrived
+at intellectual maturity much of the crudity had disappeared. The
+troubling of the waters of thought had ceased; they were becoming
+clarified. Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, each had crystallized something
+out of that seething and chaotic mass of new ideas which had forced
+itself into European consciousness. Men had been introduced into a
+new world, and the natural result had been feelings of strangeness,
+and the vagaries of intellectual wanderings. But by the day of Leibniz
+the intellectual bearings had been made out anew, the new mental
+orientation had been secured.
+
+The marks of this "new spiritual picture of the universe" are
+everywhere to be seen in Leibniz. His philosophy is the dawning
+consciousness of the modern world. In it we see the very conception and
+birth of the modern interpretation of the world. The history of thought
+is one continuous testimony to the ease with which we become hardened
+to ideas through custom. Ideas are constantly precipitating themselves
+out of the realm of ideas into that of ways of thinking and of viewing
+the universe. The problem of one century is the axiom of another. What
+one generation stakes its activity upon investigating is quietly taken
+for granted by the next. And so the highest reach of intellectual
+inspiration in the sixteenth century is to-day the ordinary food of
+thought, accepted without an inquiry as to its source, and almost
+without a suspicion that it has a recent historic origin. We have to
+go to Bacon or to Leibniz to see the genesis and growth of those ideas
+which to-day have become materialized into axiomatic points of view
+and into hard-and-fast categories of thought. In reading Leibniz the
+idea comes over us in all its freshness that there was a time when
+it was a discovery that the world is a universe, made after one plan
+and of one stuff. The ideas of inter-relation, of the harmony of law,
+of mutual dependence and correspondence, were not always the assumed
+starting-points of thought; they were once the crowning discoveries
+of a philosophy aglow and almost intoxicated with the splendor of its
+far-reaching generalizations. I take these examples of the unity of
+the world, the continuity and interdependence of all within it, because
+these are the ideas which come to their conscious and delighted birth
+in the philosophy of Leibniz. We do not put ourselves into the right
+attitude for understanding his thought until we remember that these
+ideas--the commonest tools of our thinking--were once new and fresh,
+and in their novelty and transforming strangeness were the products
+of a philosophic interpretation of experience. Except in that later
+contemporary of Leibniz, the young and enthusiastic Irish idealist,
+Berkeley, I know of no historic thinker in whom the birth-throes
+(joyous, however) of a new conception of the world are so evident as
+in Leibniz. But while in Berkeley what we see is the young man carried
+away and astounded by the grandeur and simplicity of a "new way of
+ideas" which he has discovered, what we see in Leibniz is the mature
+man penetrated throughout his being with an idea which in its unity
+answers to the unity of the world, and which in its complexity answers,
+tone to tone, to the complex harmony of the world.
+
+The familiarity of the ideas which we use hides their grandeur from
+us. The unity of the world is a matter of course with us; the dependent
+order of all within it a mere starting-point upon which to base
+our investigations. But if we will put ourselves in the position of
+Leibniz, and behold, not the new planet, but the new universe, so one,
+so linked together, swimming into our ken, we shall feel something of
+the same exultant thrill that Leibniz felt,--an exultation not indeed
+personal in its nature, but which arises from the expansion of the
+human mind face to face with an expanding world. The spirit which
+is at the heart of the philosophy of Leibniz is the spirit which
+speaks in the following words: "Quin imo qui unam partem materiæ
+comprehenderet, idem comprehenderet totum universum ob eandem
+περιχώρησιν quam dixi. Mea principia talia sunt, ut vix a se invicem
+develli possint. Qui unum bene novit, omnia novit." It is a spirit
+which feels that the secret of the universe has been rendered up to
+it, and which breathes a buoyant optimism. And if we of the nineteenth
+century have chosen to bewail the complexity of the problem of life,
+and to run hither and thither multiplying "insights" and points of
+view till this enthusiastic confidence in reason seems to us the
+rashness of an ignorance which does not comprehend the problem, and
+the unity in which Leibniz rested appears cold and abstract beside
+the manifold richness of the world, we should not forget that after
+all we have incorporated into our very mental structure the fundamental
+thoughts of Leibniz,--the thoughts of the rationality of the universe
+and of the "reign of law."
+
+What was the origin of these ideas in the mind of Leibniz? What
+influences in the philosophic succession of thinkers led him in this
+direction? What agencies acting in the intellectual world about him
+shaped his ideal reproduction of reality? Two causes above all others
+stand out with prominence,--one, the discoveries and principles of
+modern physical science; the other, that interpretation of experience
+which centuries before had been formulated by Aristotle. Leibniz has a
+double interest for those of to-day who reverence science and who hold
+to the historical method. His philosophy was an attempt to set in order
+the methods and principles of that growing science of nature which
+even then was transforming the emotional and mental life of Europe;
+and the attempt was guided everywhere by a profound and wide-reaching
+knowledge of the history of philosophy. On the first point Leibniz
+was certainly not alone. Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, each felt
+in his own way the fructifying touch of the new-springing science,
+and had attempted under its guidance to interpret the facts of nature
+and of man. But Leibniz stood alone in his interest in the history of
+thought. He stands alone indeed till he is greeted by his compeers
+of the nineteenth century. To Bacon previous philosophy--the Greek,
+the scholastic--was an "eidol of the theatre." The human mind must be
+freed from its benumbing influence. To Descartes it was useless rubbish
+to be cleared away, that we might get a _tabula rasa_ upon which to
+make a fresh start. And shall Locke and the empirical English school,
+or Reid and the Scotch school, or even Kant, be the first to throw a
+stone at Bacon and Descartes? It was reserved to Leibniz, with a genius
+almost two centuries in advance of his times, to penetrate the meaning
+of the previous development of reflective thought. It would be going
+beyond our brief to claim that Leibniz was interested in this _as_ a
+historical movement, or that he specially concerned himself with the
+genetic lines which connected the various schools of thought. But we
+should come short of our duty to Leibniz if we did not recognize his
+conscious and largely successful attempt to apprehend the core of truth
+in all systems, however alien to his own, and to incorporate it into
+his own thinking.
+
+Nothing could be more characteristic of Leibniz than his saying,
+"I find that most systems are right in a good share of that which
+they advance, but not so much in what they deny;" or than this other
+statement of his, "We must not hastily believe that which the mass
+of men, or even of authorities, advance, but each must demand for
+himself the proofs of the thesis sustained. Yet long research generally
+convinces that the old and received opinions are good, provided they
+be interpreted justly." It is in the profound union in Leibniz of
+the principles which these quotations image that his abiding worth
+lies. Leibniz was interested in affirmations, not in denials. He was
+interested in securing the union of the modern _method_, the spirit
+of original research and independent judgment, with the conserved
+_results_ of previous thought. Leibniz was a man of his times; that is
+to say, he was a scientific man,--the contemporary, for example, of men
+as different as Bernouilli, Swammerdam, Huygens, and Newton, and was
+himself actively engaged in the prosecution of mathematics, mechanics,
+geology, comparative philology, and jurisprudence. But he was also a
+man of Aristotle's times,--that is to say, a philosopher, not satisfied
+until the facts, principles, and methods of science had received an
+interpretation which should explain and unify them.
+
+Leibniz's acquaintance with the higher forms of mathematics was
+due, as we have seen, to his acquaintance with Huygens. As he made
+the acquaintance of the latter at the same time that he made the
+acquaintance of the followers of Descartes, it is likely that he
+received his introduction to the higher developments of the scientific
+interpretation of nature and of the philosophic interpretation of
+science at about the same time. For a while, then, Leibniz was a
+Cartesian; and he never ceased to call the doctrine of Descartes
+the antechamber of truth. What were the ideas which he received from
+Descartes? Fundamentally they were two,--one about the method of truth,
+the other about the substance of truth. He received the idea that the
+method of philosophy consists in the analysis of any complex group of
+ideas down to simple ideas which shall be perfectly clear and distinct;
+that all such clear and distinct ideas are true, and may then be used
+for the synthetic reconstruction of any body of truth. Concerning
+the substance of philosophic truth, he learned that nature is to be
+interpreted mechanically, and that the instrument of this mechanical
+interpretation is mathematics. I have used the term "received" in
+speaking of the relation of Leibniz to these ideas. Yet long before
+this time we might see him giving himself up to dreams about a vast
+art of combination which should reduce all the ideas concerned in
+any science to their simplest elements, and then combine them to any
+degree of complexity. We have already seen him giving us a picture
+of a boy of fifteen gravely disputing with himself whether he shall
+accept the doctrine of forms and final causes, or of physical causes,
+and as gravely deciding that he shall side with the "moderns;" and
+that boy was himself. In these facts we have renewed confirmation of
+the truth that one mind never receives from another anything excepting
+the stimulus, the reflex, the development of ideas which have already
+possessed it. But when Leibniz, with his isolated and somewhat
+ill-digested thoughts, came in contact with that systematized and
+connected body of doctrines which the Cartesians presented to him in
+Paris, his ideas were quickened, and he felt the necessity--that final
+mark of the philosophic mind--of putting them in order.
+
+About the method of Descartes, which Leibniz adopted from him, or
+rather formulated for himself under the influence of Descartes,
+not much need be said. It was the method of Continental thought
+till the time of Kant. It was the mother of the philosophic systems
+of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. It was equally the mother of
+the German _Aufklärung_ and the French _éclaircissement_. Its
+fundamental idea is the thought upon which Rationalism everywhere bases
+itself. It says: Reduce everything to simple notions. Get clearness;
+get distinctness. Analyze the complex. Shun the obscure. Discover
+axioms; employ these axioms in connection with the simple notions,
+and build up from them. Whatever can be treated in this way is capable
+of proof, and only this. Leibniz, I repeat, possessed this method in
+common with Descartes and Spinoza. The certainty and demonstrativeness
+of mathematics stood out in the clearest contrast to the uncertainty,
+the obscurity, of all other knowledge. And to them, as to all before
+the days of Kant, it seemed beyond doubt that the method of mathematics
+consists in the analysis of notions, and in their synthesis through the
+medium of axioms, which are true because identical statements; while
+the notions are true because clear and distinct.
+
+And yet the method led Leibniz in a very different direction. One of
+the fundamental doctrines, for example, of Leibniz is the existence
+everywhere of minute and obscure perceptions,--which are of the
+greatest importance, but of which we, at least, can never have
+distinct consciousness. How is this factor of his thought, which
+almost approaches mysticism, to be reconciled with the statements just
+made? It is found in the different application which is made of the
+method. The object of Descartes is the _erection of a new structure
+of truth_ upon a _tabula rasa_ of all former doctrines. The object of
+Leibniz is the _interpretation of an old body of truth_ by a method
+which shall reveal it in its clearest light. Descartes and Spinoza
+are "rationalists" both in their method and results. Leibniz is a
+"rationalist" in his method; but his application of the method is
+everywhere controlled by historic considerations. It is, I think,
+impossible to over-emphasize this fact. Descartes was profoundly
+convinced that past thought had gone wrong, and that its results were
+worthless. Leibniz was as profoundly convinced that its instincts had
+been right, and that the general idea of the world which it gave was
+correct. Leibniz would have given the heartiest assent to Goethe's
+saying, "Das Wahre war schon längst gefunden." It was out of the
+question, then, that he should use the new method in any other than an
+interpreting way to bring out in a connected system and unity the true
+meaning of the subject-matter.
+
+So much of generality for the method of Leibniz. The positive substance
+of doctrine which he developed under scientific influence affords
+matter for more discussion. Of the three influences which meet us here,
+two are still Cartesian; the third is from the new science of biology,
+although not yet answering to that name. These three influences are, in
+order: the idea that nature is to be explained mechanically; that this
+is to be brought about through the application of mathematics; and,
+from biology, the idea that all change is of the nature of continuous
+growth or unfolding. Let us consider each in this order.
+
+What is meant by the mechanical explanation of nature? To answer a
+question thus baldly put, we must recall the kind of explanations which
+had satisfied the scholastic men of science. They had been explanations
+which, however true, Leibniz says, as general principles, do not touch
+the details of the matter. The explanations of natural facts had been
+found in general principles, in substantial forces, in occult essences,
+in native faculties. Now, the first contention of the founders of the
+modern scientific movement was that such general considerations are
+not verifiable, and that if they are, they are entirely aside from the
+point,--they fail to explain any given fact. Explanation must always
+consist in discovering an immediate connection between some fact and
+some co-existing or preceding fact. Explanation does not consist in
+referring a fact to a general power, it consists in referring it to an
+antecedent whose existence is its necessary condition. It was not left
+till the times of Mr. Huxley to poke fun at those who would explain
+some concrete phenomenon by reference to an abstract principle ending
+in --ity. Leibniz has his word to say about those who would account for
+the movements of a watch by reference to a principle of horologity, and
+of mill-stones by a fractive principle.
+
+Mechanical explanation consists, accordingly, in making out an actual
+connection between two existing facts. But this does not say very
+much. A connection of what kind? In the first place, a connection of
+the same order as the facts observed. If we are explaining corporeal
+phenomena, we must find a corporeal link; if we are explaining
+phenomena of motion, we must find a connection of motion. In one of his
+first philosophical works Leibniz, in taking the mechanical position,
+states what he means by it. In the "Confession of Nature against the
+Atheists" he says that it must be confessed to those who have revived
+the corpuscular theory of Democritus and Epicurus, to Galileo, Bacon,
+Gassendi, Hobbes, and Descartes, that in explaining material phenomena
+recourse is to be had neither to God nor to any other incorporeal
+thing, form, or quality, but that all things are to be explained
+from the nature of matter and its qualities, especially from their
+magnitude, figure, and motion. The physics of Descartes, to which was
+especially due the spread of mechanical notions, virtually postulated
+the problem: given a homogeneous quantity of matter, endowed only with
+extension and mobility, to account for all material phenomena. Leibniz
+accepts this mechanical view without reserve.
+
+What has been said suggests the bearing of mathematics in this
+connection. Extension and mobility may be treated by mathematics. It is
+indeed the business of the geometer to give us an analysis of figured
+space, to set before us all possible combinations which can arise,
+assuming extension only. The higher analysis sets before us the results
+which inevitably follow if we suppose a moving point or any system of
+movements. Mathematics is thus the essential tool for treating physical
+phenomena as just defined. But it is more. The mechanical explanation
+of Nature not only requires such a development of mathematics as will
+make it applicable to the interpretation of physical facts, but the
+employment of mathematics is necessary for the very discovery of these
+facts. Exact observation was the necessity of the growing physical
+science; and exact observation means such as will answer the question,
+_How much?_ Knowledge of nature depends upon our ability to _measure_
+her processes,--that is, to reduce distinctions of quality to those of
+quantity. The only assurance that we can finally have that two facts
+are connected in such a way as to fulfil the requirements of scientific
+research, is that there is a complete quantitative connection between
+them, so that one can be regarded as the other transformed. The advance
+of physical science from the days of Copernicus to the present has
+consisted, therefore, on one hand, in a development of mathematics
+which has made it possible to apply it in greater and greater measure
+to the discussion and formulation of the results of experiment, and to
+deduce laws which, when interpreted physically, will give new knowledge
+of fact; and, on the other, to multiply, sharpen, and make precise all
+sorts of devices by which the processes of nature may be measured. The
+explanation of nature by natural processes; the complete application
+of mathematics to nature,--these are the two thoughts which, so far,
+we have seen to be fundamental to the development of the philosophy
+of Leibniz.
+
+The third factor, and that which brings Leibniz nearer, perhaps, our
+own day than either of the others, is the growth of physiological
+science. Swammerdam, Malpighi, Leewenhoek,--these are names which
+occur and recur in the pages of Leibniz. Indeed, he appears to be the
+first of that now long line of modern philosophers to be profoundly
+influenced by the conception of life and the categories of organic
+growth. Descartes concerned himself indeed with physiological problems,
+but it was only with a view to applying mechanical principles. The
+idea of the vital unity of all organs of the body might seem to
+be attractive to one filled with the notion of the unity of all in
+God, and yet Spinoza shows no traces of the influence of the organic
+conception. Not until Kant's famous definition of organism do we see
+another philosopher moved by an attempt to comprehend the categories of
+living structure.
+
+But it is the idea of organism, of life, which is radical to the
+thought of Leibniz. I do not think, however, that it can truly be said
+that he was led to the idea simply from the state of physiological
+investigation at that time. Rather, he had already learned to think of
+the world as organic through and through, and found in the results of
+biology confirmations, apt illustrations of a truth of which he was
+already thoroughly convinced. His writings show that there were two
+aspects of biological science which especially interested him. One
+was the simple fact of organism itself,--the fact of the various
+activities of different organs occurring in complete harmony for one
+end. This presented three notions very dear to the mind of Leibniz,
+or rather three moments of the same idea,--the factors of activity,
+of unity brought about by co-ordinated action, and of an end which
+reveals the meaning of the activity and is the ideal expression of
+the unity. The physiologists of that day were also occupied with the
+problem of growth. The generalization that all is developed _ab ovo_
+was just receiving universal attention. The question which thrust
+itself upon science for solution was the mode by which ova, apparently
+homogeneous in structure, developed into the various forms of the
+organic kingdom. The answer given was "evolution." But evolution had
+not the meaning which the term has to-day. By evolution was meant
+that the whole complex structure of man, for example, was virtually
+contained in the germ, and that the apparent phenomenon of growth was
+not the addition of anything from without, but simply the unfolding
+and magnifying of that already existing. It was the doctrine which
+afterwards gave way to the epigenesis theory of Wolff, according to
+which growth is not mere unfolding or unwrapping, but progressive
+differentiation. The "evolution" theory was the scientific theory of
+the times, however, and was warmly espoused by Leibniz. To him, as we
+shall see hereafter, it seemed to give a key which would unlock one of
+the problems of the universe.
+
+Such, then, were the three chief generalizations which Leibniz found
+current, and which most deeply affected him. But what use did he make
+of them? He did not become a philosopher by letting them lie dormant in
+his mind, nor by surrendering himself passively to them till he could
+mechanically apply them everywhere. He was a philosopher only in virtue
+of the active attitude which his mind took towards them. He could not
+simply accept them at their face-value; he must ask after the source of
+their value, the royal stamp of meaning which made them a circulatory
+medium. That is to say, he had to interpret these ideas, to see what
+they mean, and what is the basis of their validity.
+
+Not many men have been so conscious of just the bearings of their
+own ideas and of their source as was he. He often allows us a direct
+glimpse into the method of his thinking, and nowhere more than when
+he says: "Those who give themselves up to the details of science
+usually despise abstract and general researches. Those who go into
+universal principles rarely care for particular facts. But I equally
+esteem both." Leibniz, in other words, was equally interested in the
+application of scientific principles to the explanation of the details
+of natural phenomena, and in the bearing and meaning of the principles
+themselves,--a rare combination, indeed, but one, which existing,
+stamps the genuine philosopher. Leibniz substantially repeats this
+idea when he says: "Particular effects must be explained mechanically;
+but the general principles of physics and mathematics depend upon
+metaphysics." And again: "All occurs mechanically; but the mechanical
+principle is not to be explained from material and mathematical
+considerations, but it flows from a higher and a metaphysical source."
+
+As a man of science, Leibniz might have stopped short with the
+ideas of mechanical law, of the application of mathematics, and of
+the continuity of development. As a philosopher he could not. There
+are some scientific men to whom it always seems a perversion of their
+principles to attempt to carry them any beyond their application to the
+details of the subject. They look on in a bewildered and protesting
+attitude when there is suggested the necessity of any further
+inquiry. Or perhaps they dogmatically deny the possibility of any such
+investigation, and as dogmatically assume the sufficiency of their
+principles for the decision of all possible problems. But bewildered
+fear and dogmatic assertion are equally impotent to fix arbitrary
+limits to human thought. Wherever there is a subject that has meaning,
+there is a field which appeals to mind, and the mind will not cease
+its endeavors till it has made out what that meaning is, and has made
+it out in its entirety. So the three principles already spoken of were
+but the starting-points, the stepping-stones of Leibniz's philosophic
+thought. While to physical science they are solutions, to philosophy
+they are problems; and as such Leibniz recognized them. What solution
+did he give?
+
+So far as the principle of mechanical explanation is concerned,
+the clew is given by considering the factor upon which he laid
+most emphasis, namely, motion. Descartes had said that the essence
+of the physical world is extension. "Not so," replied Leibniz;
+"It is motion." These answers mark two typical ways of regarding
+nature. According to one, nature is something essentially rigid
+and static; whatever change in it occurs, is a change of form,
+of arrangement, an external modification. According to the other,
+nature is something essentially dynamic and active. Change according
+to law is its very essence. Form, arrangement are only the results
+of this internal principle. And so to Leibniz, extension and the
+spatial aspects of physical existence were only secondary, they were
+phenomenal. The primary, the real fact was motion.
+
+The considerations which led him to this conclusion are simple
+enough. It is the fact already mentioned, that explanation always
+consists in reducing phenomena to a law of motion which connects
+them. Descartes himself had not succeeded in writing his physics
+without everywhere using the conception of motion. But motion cannot
+be got out of the idea of extension. Geometry will not give us
+activity. What is this, except virtually to admit the insufficiency
+of purely statical conceptions? Leibniz found himself confirmed in
+this position by the fact that the more logical of the followers
+of Descartes had recognized that motion is a superfluous intruder,
+if extension be indeed the essence of matter, and therefore had been
+obliged to have recourse to the immediate activity of God as the cause
+of all changes. But this, as Leibniz said, was simply to give up the
+very idea of mechanical explanation, and to fall back into the purely
+general explanations of scholasticism.
+
+This is not the place for a detailed exposition of the ideas of Leibniz
+regarding matter, motion, and extension. We need here only recognize
+that he saw in motion the final reality of the physical universe. But
+what about motion? To many, perhaps the majority, of minds to-day it
+seems useless or absurd, or both, to ask any question about motion. It
+is simply an ultimate _fact_, to which all other facts are to be
+reduced. We are so familiar with it as a solution of all physical
+problems that we are confused, and fail to recognize it when it appears
+in the guise of a problem. But, I repeat, philosophy cannot stop with
+facts, however ultimate. It must also know something about the meaning,
+the significance, in short the ideal bearing, of facts. From the point
+of view of philosophy, motion has a certain function in the economy of
+the universe; it is, as Aristotle saw, something ideal.
+
+The name of Aristotle suggests the principles which guided Leibniz
+in his interpretation of the fact of motion. The thought of Aristotle
+moves about the two poles of potentiality and actuality. Potentiality
+is not _mere_ capacity; it is being in an undeveloped, imperfect
+stage. Actuality is, as the word suggests, activity. Anything is
+potential in so far as it does not manifest itself in action; it is
+actual so far as it does thus show forth its being. Now, movement, or
+change in its most general sense, is that by which the potential comes
+to the realization of its nature, and functions as an activity. Motion,
+then, is not an ultimate fact, but is subordinate. It exists for an
+end. It is that by which existence realizes its idea; that is, its
+proper type of action.
+
+Now Leibniz does not formally build upon these distinctions; and
+yet he is not very far removed from Aristotle. Motion, he is never
+weary of repeating, means force, means energy, means activity. To
+say that the essence of nature is motion, is to say that the natural
+world finally introduces us to the supremacy of action. Reality is
+activity. _Substance c'est l'action._ That is the key-note and the
+battle-cry of the Leibnizian philosophy. Motion is that by which being
+expresses its nature, fulfils its purpose, reveals its idea. In short,
+the specific scientific conception of motion is by Leibniz transformed
+into the philosophic conception of force, of activity. In motion he
+sees evidence of the fact that the universe is radically dynamic.
+
+In the applicability of mathematics to the interpretation of nature
+Leibniz finds witness to the continuity and order of the world. We
+have become so accustomed to the fact that mathematics may be directly
+employed for the discussion and formulation of physical investigations
+that we forget what is implied in it. It involves the huge assumption
+that the world answers to reason; so that whatever the mind finds to be
+ideally true may be taken for granted to be physically true also. But
+in those days, when the correlation of the laws of the world and the
+laws of mathematical reasoning was a fresh discovery, this aspect of
+the case could not be easily lost sight of.
+
+In fact it was this correlation which filled the _Zeitgeist_ of
+the sixteenth century with the idea that it had a new organ for the
+penetration of nature, a new sense for learning its meaning. Descartes
+gives the following as the origin of his philosophy: "The long chains
+of simple and easy reasons which geometers employ, even in their
+most complex demonstrations, made me fancy that all things which are
+the objects of human knowledge are _similarly interdependent_." To
+Leibniz also mathematics seemed to give a clew to the order, the
+interdependence, the harmonious relations, of the world.
+
+In this respect the feeling of Plato that God geometrizes found
+an echoing response in Leibniz. But the latter would hardly have
+expressed it in the same way. He would have preferred to say that God
+everywhere uses the infinitesimal calculus. In the applicability of the
+calculus to the discussion of physical facts, Leibniz saw two truths
+reflected,--that everything that occurs has its reason, its dependent
+connection upon something else, and that all is continuous and without
+breaks. While the formal principles of his logic are those of identity
+and contradiction, his real principles are those of sufficient reason
+and of continuity. Nature never makes leaps; everything in nature has
+a sufficient reason why it is as it is: these are the philosophic
+generalizations which Leibniz finds hidden in the applicability
+of mathematics to physical science. Reason finds itself everywhere
+expressed in nature; and the law of reason is unity in diversity,
+continuity.
+
+Let us say, in a word, that the correlation between the laws of
+mathematics and of physics is the evidence of the rational character
+of nature. Nature may be reduced to motions; and motions can be
+understood only as force, activity. But the laws which connect motions
+are fundamentally mathematical laws,--laws of reason. Hence force,
+activity, can be understood only as rational, as spiritual. Nature
+is thus seen to mean Activity, and Activity is seen to mean
+Intelligence. Furthermore, as the fundamental law of intelligence is
+the production of difference in unity, the primary law of physical
+change must be the manifestation of this unity in difference,--or,
+as Leibniz interpreted it, continuity. In nature there are no breaks,
+neither of quantity nor of quality nor of relationship. The full force
+of this law we shall see later.
+
+Such an idea can hardly be distinguished from the idea of growth or
+development; one passes naturally into the other. Thus it is equally
+proper to say that the third scientific influence, the conception of
+organism and growth, is dominant in the Leibnizian thought, or that
+this is swallowed up and absorbed in the grand idea of continuity. The
+law of animal and vegetable life and the law of the universe are
+identified. The substance of the universe is activity; the law of
+the universe is interdependence. What is this but to say that the
+universe is an organic whole? Its activity is the manifestation of
+life,--nay, it is life. The laws of its activity reveal that continuity
+of development, that harmony of inter-relation, which are everywhere
+the marks of life. The final and fundamental notion, therefore, by
+which Leibniz interprets the laws of physics and mathematics is that of
+Life. This is his regnant category. It is "that higher and metaphysical
+source" from which the very existence and principles of mechanism
+flow. The perpetual and ubiquitous presence of motion reveals the
+pulsations of Life; the correlation, the rationality, of these motions
+indicate the guiding presence of Life. This idea is the alpha and omega
+of his philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION.
+
+
+Leibniz, like every great man, absorbed into himself the various
+thoughts of his time, and in absorbing transformed them. He brought
+into a focus of brilliancy the diffused lights of truth shining here
+and there. He summed up in a pregnant and comprehensive category
+the scattered principles of his age. Yet we are not to suppose that
+Leibniz considered these various ideas one by one, and then patched
+them into an artificial unity of thought. Philosophies are not
+manufactured piecemeal out of isolated and fragmentary thoughts; they
+grow from a single root, absorbing from their environment whatever
+of sustenance offers itself, and maturing in one splendid fruit of
+spiritual truth. It is convenient, indeed, to isolate various phases
+of truth, and consider them as distinct forces working to shape one
+final product, and as a convenient artifice it is legitimate. But it
+answers to no process actually occurring. Leibniz never surrendered
+his personal unity, and out of some one root-conception grew all his
+ideas. The principles of his times were not separate forces acting upon
+him, they were the foods of which he selected and assimilated such as
+were fitted to nourish his one great conception.
+
+But it is more than a personal unity which holds together the thinking
+of a philosopher. There is the unity of the problem, which the
+philosopher has always before him, and in which all particular ideas
+find their unity. All else issues from this and merges into it. The
+various influences which we have seen affecting Leibniz, therefore,
+got their effectiveness from the relation which he saw them bear to the
+final problem of all thought. This is the inquiry after the unity of
+experience, if we look at it from the side of the subject; the unity
+of reality, if we put it from the objective side. Yet each age states
+this problem in its own way, because it sees it in the light of some
+difficulty which has recently arisen in consciousness. At one time,
+the question is as to the relation of the one to the many; at another,
+of the relation of the sensible to the intelligible world; at another,
+of the relation of the individual to the universal. And this last
+seems to have been the way in which it specifically presented itself
+to Leibniz. This way of stating it was developed, though apparently
+without adequate realization of its meaning, by the philosophy
+of scholasticism. It stated the problem as primarily a logical
+question,--the relation of genera, of species, of individuals to each
+other. And the school-boy, made after the stamp of literary tradition,
+knows that there were two parties among the Schoolmen,--the Realists,
+and the Nominalists; one asserting, the other denying, the objective
+reality of universals. To regard this discussion as useless, is to
+utter the condemnation of philosophy, and to relegate the foundation
+of science to the realm of things not to be inquired into. To say that
+it is an easy matter to decide, is to assume the decision with equal
+ease of all the problems that have vexed the thought of humanity. To
+us it seems easy because we have bodily incorporated into our thinking
+the results of both the realistic and the nominalistic doctrines,
+without attempting to reconcile them, or even being conscious of
+the necessity of reconciliation. We assert in one breath that the
+individual is alone real, and in the next assert that only those forms
+of consciousness which represent something in the universe are to be
+termed knowledge. At one moment we say that universals are creations of
+the individual mind, and at the next pass on to talk of laws of nature,
+or even of a reign of law. In other words, we have learned to regard
+both the individual and the universal as real, and thus ignoring the
+problem, think we have solved it.
+
+But to Leibniz the problem presented itself neither as a logical
+question, nor yet as one whose solution might be taken for granted. On
+the contrary, it was just this question: How shall we conceive the
+individual to be related to the universe? which seemed to him to be the
+nerve of the philosophic problem, the question whose right answer would
+solve the problems of religion, of morals, of the basis of science,
+as well as of the nature of reality. The importance of just this way
+of putting the question had been rendered evident by the predecessors
+and contemporaries of Leibniz, especially by Descartes, Spinoza, and
+Locke. His more specific relations to the last-named will occupy us
+hereafter; at present we must notice how the question stood at the
+hands of Descartes and Spinoza.
+
+Descartes had separated the individual from the universal. His
+philosophy began and ended with a dualism. I have just said that the
+problem of philosophy is the unity of experience. Yet we find that
+there have been thinkers, and those of the first rank, who have left
+the matter without discovering any ultimate unity, or rather who have
+made it the burden of their contention that we cannot explain the world
+without at least two disparate principles. But if we continue to look
+at the matter in this historical way, we shall see that this dualism
+has always been treated by the successors of such a philosopher, not
+as a solution, but as a deeper statement of the problem. It is the
+function of dualistic philosophies to re-state the question in a new
+and more significant way. There are times when the accepted unity of
+thought is seen to be inadequate and superficial. Men are thrashing old
+straw, and paying themselves with ideas which have lost their freshness
+and their timeliness. There then arises a philosopher who goes deep,
+beyond the superficial unity, and who discovers the untouched
+problem. His it is to assert the true meaning of the question,
+which has been unseen or evaded. The attitude of dualism is thus
+always necessary, but never final. Its value is not in any solution,
+but in the generality and depth of the problem which it proposes, and
+which incites thought to the discovery of a unity of equal depth and
+comprehensiveness.
+
+Except for Descartes, then, we should not be conscious of the gulf
+that yawns between the individual mind and the universe in front of
+it. He presented the opposition as between mind and matter. The essence
+of the former is thought; of the latter, extension. The conceptions
+are disparate and opposed. No interaction is possible. His disciples,
+more consistent than their master, called in a _deus ex machina_,--the
+miraculous intervention of God,--in order to account for the appearance
+of reciprocal action between the universe of matter and the thinking
+individual. Thus they in substance admitted the relation between
+them to be scientifically inexplicable, and had recourse to the
+supernatural. The individual does not act upon the universe to produce,
+destroy, or alter the arrangement of anything. But upon the _occasion_
+of his volition God produces a corresponding material change. The world
+does not act upon the soul of the individual to produce thoughts or
+sensations. God, upon _occasion_ of the external affection, brings
+them into being. With such thoroughness Descartes performed his task
+of separation. Yet the introduction of the _deus ex machina_ only
+complicated the problem; it introduced a third factor where two were
+already too many. What is the relation of God to Mind and to Matter? Is
+it simply a third somewhat, equally distinct from both, or does it
+contain both within itself?
+
+Spinoza attempted to solve the problem in the latter sense. He
+conceived God to be the one substance of the universe, possessing the
+two known attributes of thought and matter. These attributes are one
+in God; indeed, he is their unity. This is the sole legitimate outcome
+of the Cartesian problem stated as Descartes would have it stated. It
+overcomes the absoluteness of the dualism by discovering a common and
+fundamental unity, and at the same time takes the subject out of the
+realm of the miraculous. For the solution works both ways. It affects
+the nature of God, as well as of extension and thought. It presents
+him to us, not as a supernatural being, but as the unity of thought and
+extension. In knowing these as they are, we know God as he is. Spinoza,
+in other words, uses the conception of God in a different way from
+the Cartesians. The latter had treated him as the God of theology,--a
+being supernatural; Spinoza uses the conception as a scientific one,
+and speaks of _Deus sive Natura_.
+
+Leibniz recognized the unphilosophic character of the recourse to a
+_deus ex machina_ as clearly as Spinoza, and yet did not accept his
+solution. To find out why he did not is the problem of the historian
+of thought. The one cause which stands out above all others is that in
+the unity of Spinoza all difference, all distinction, is lost. All
+particular existences, whether things or persons, are _modes_
+of extension and thought. Their _apparent_ existence is due to the
+imagination, which is the source of belief in particular things. When
+considered as they really are,--that is, by the understanding,--they
+vanish. The one substance, with its two unchanging attributes of
+thought and extension, alone remains. If it is a philosophic error
+to give a solution which permits of no unity, is it not equally a
+philosophic error to give one which denies difference? So it seemed
+to Leibniz. The problem is to reconcile difference in unity, not to
+swallow up difference in a blank oneness,--to reconcile the individual
+with the universe, not to absorb him.
+
+The unsatisfactoriness of the solution appears if we look at it from
+another side. Difference implies change, while a unity in which all
+variety is lost implies quiescence. Change is as much an illusion of
+imagination to Spinoza as is variety. The One Reality is permanent. How
+repugnant the conception of a static universe was to Leibniz we have
+already learned. Spinoza fails to satisfy Leibniz, therefore, because
+he does not allow the conceptions of individuality and of activity. He
+presents a unity in which all distinction of individuals is lost,
+and in which there is no room for change. But Spinoza certainly
+presented the problem more clearly to Leibniz, and revealed more
+definitely the conditions of its solution. The search is henceforth
+for a unity which shall avoid the irresolvable dualism of Descartes,
+and yet shall allow free play to the principles of individuality and of
+activity. There must be, in short, a universe to which the individual
+bears a real yet independent relation. What is this unity? The answer,
+in the phraseology of Leibniz, is the _monad_. Spinoza would be right,
+said Leibniz, were it not for the existence of monads. I know there are
+some who have done Leibniz the honor of supposing that this is his way
+of saying, "Spinoza is wrong because I am right;" but I cannot help
+thinking that the saying has a somewhat deeper meaning. What, then,
+is the nature of the monad? The answer to this question takes us back
+to the point where the discussion of the question was left at the end
+of chapter second. The nature of the monad is life. The monad is the
+spiritual activity which lives in absolute harmony with an infinite
+number of other monads.
+
+Let us first consider the reasons of Leibniz for conceiving the
+principle of unity as spiritual. Primarily it is because it is
+impossible to conceive of a unity which is material. In the sensible
+world there is no unity. There are, indeed, aggregations, collections,
+which seem like unities; but the very fact that these are aggregations
+shows that the unity is factitious. It is the very nature of matter to
+be infinitely divisible: to say this is to deny the existence of any
+true principle of unity. The world of nature is the world of space
+and time; and where in space or time shall we find a unity where we
+may rest? Every point in space, every moment in time, points beyond
+itself. It refers to a totality of which it is but a part, or, rather,
+a limitation. If we add resistance, we are not better situated. We
+have to think of something which resists; and to this something we must
+attribute extension,--that is to say, difference, plurality. Nor can we
+find any resistance which is absolute and final. There may be a body
+which is undivided, and which resists all energy now acting upon it;
+but we cannot frame an intelligible idea of a body which is absolutely
+indivisible. To do so is to think of a body out of all relation to
+existing forces, something absolutely isolated; while the forces of
+nature are always relative to one another. That which resists does so
+in comparison with some opposing energy. The absolutely indivisible,
+on the other hand, would be that which could not be brought into
+comparison with other forces; it would not have any of the attributes
+of force as we know it. In a word, whatever exists in nature is
+relative in space, in time, and in qualities to all else. It is made
+what it is by virtue of the totality of its relations to the universe;
+it has no ultimate principle of self-subsistent unity in it.
+
+Nor do we fare better if we attempt to find unity in the world of
+nature as a whole. Nature has its existence as a whole in space and
+time. Indeed, it is only a way of expressing the totality of phenomena
+of space and time. It is a mere aggregate, a collection. Its very
+essence is plurality, difference. It is divisible without limit,
+and each of its divisions has as good a right to be called one as
+the whole from which it is broken off. We shall consider hereafter
+Leibniz's idea of infinity; but it is easy to see that he must deny
+any true infinity to nature. An ultimate whole made up of parts is a
+contradictory conception; and the idea of a quantitative infinite is
+equally so. Quantity means number, measure, limitation. We may not
+be able to assign number to the totality of occurrences in nature,
+nor to measure her every event. This shows that nature is indefinitely
+greater than any _assignable_ quantity; but it does not remove her from
+the category of quantity. As long as the world is conceived as that
+existing in space and time, it is conceived as that which has to be
+measured. As we saw in the last chapter, the heart of the mechanical
+theory of the world is in the application of mathematics to it. Since
+quantity and mathematics are correlative terms, the natural world
+cannot be conceived as infinite or as an ultimate unity.
+
+In short, Leibniz urges and suggests in one form and another those
+objections to the mechanical theory of reality which later German
+philosophers have made us so familiar with. The objections are indeed
+varied in statement, but they all come to the impossibility of finding
+any unity, any wholeness, anything except plurality and partiality in
+that which is externally conditioned,--as everything is in nature.
+
+But the reasons as thus stated are rather negative than positive. They
+show why the ultimate unity cannot be conceived as material, rather
+than why it must be conceived as spiritual. The immediate evidence
+of its spiritual nature Leibniz finds in the perception of the one
+unity directly known to us,--the "me," the conscious principle within,
+which reveals itself as an active force, and as truly one, since not a
+spatial or temporal existence. And this evidence he finds confirmed by
+the fact that whatever unity material phenomena appear to have comes to
+them through their perception by the soul. Whatever the mind grasps in
+one act, is manifested as one.
+
+But it is not in any immediate certainty of fact that Leibniz finds
+the best or completest demonstration of the spiritual nature of the
+ultimate unity. This is found in the use which can be made of the
+hypothesis. The truest witness to the spiritual character of reality
+is found in the capacity of this principle to comprehend and explain
+the facts of experience. With this conception the reason of things
+can be ascertained, and light introduced into what were otherwise a
+confused obscurity. And, indeed, this is the only sufficient proof of
+any doctrine. It is not what comes before the formulation of a theory
+which proves it; it is not the facts which suggest it, or the processes
+which lead up to it: it is what comes after the formation of the
+theory,--the uses that it can be put to; the facts which it will render
+significant. The whole philosophy of Leibniz in its simplicity, width,
+and depth, is the real evidence of the truth of his philosophical
+principle.
+
+The monad, then, is a spiritual unity; it is individualized
+life. Unity, activity, individuality are synonymous terms in the
+vocabulary of Leibniz. Every unity is a true substance, containing
+within itself the source and law of its own activity. It is that
+which is internally determined to action. It is to be conceived
+after the analogy of the soul. It is an indivisible unity, like
+"that particular something in us which thinks, apperceives and
+wills, and distinguishes us in a way of its own from whatever else
+thinks and wills." Against Descartes, therefore, Leibniz stands for
+the principle of unity; against Spinoza, he upholds the doctrine
+of individuality, of diversity, of multiplicity. And the latter
+principle is as important in his thought as the former. Indeed, they
+are inseparable. The individual is the true unity. There is an infinite
+number of these individuals, each distinct from every other. The law
+of specification, of distinction, runs through the universe. Two beings
+cannot be alike. They are not individualized merely by their different
+positions in space or time; duration and extension, on the contrary,
+are, as we have seen, principles of relativity, of connection. Monads
+are specified by an internal principle. Their distinct individuality is
+constituted by their distinct law of activity. Leibniz will not have
+a philosophy of abstract unity, representing the universe as simple
+only, he will have a philosophy equal to the diversity, the manifold
+wealth of variety, in the universe. This is only to say that he will be
+faithful to his fundamental notion,--that of Life. Life does not mean
+a simple unity like a mathematical one, it means a unity which is the
+harmony of the interplay of diverse organs, each following its own law
+and having its own function. When Leibniz says, God willed to have more
+monads rather than fewer, the expression is indeed one of _naïveté_,
+but the thought is one of unexplored depth. It is the thought that
+Leibniz repeats when he says, "Those who would reduce all things to
+modifications of one universal substance do not have sufficient regard
+to the _order_, the _harmony_ of reality." Leibniz applies here, as
+everywhere, the principle of continuity, which is unity in and through
+diversity, not the principle of bare oneness. There is a kingdom of
+monads, a realm truly infinite, composed of individual unities or
+activities in an absolute continuity. Leibniz was one of the first,
+if not the first, to use just the expression "uniformity of nature;"
+but even here he explains that it means "uniform in variety, one in
+principle, but varied in manifestation." The world is to be as rich as
+possible. This is simply to say that distinct individuality as well as
+ultimate unity is a law of reality.
+
+But has not Leibniz fallen into a perilous position? In avoiding the
+monotone of unity which characterizes the thought of Spinoza, has
+he not fallen into a lawless variety of multiplicity, infinitely
+less philosophic than even the dualism of Descartes, since it has
+an infinity of ultimate principles instead of only two? If Spinoza
+sacrificed the individual to the universe, has not Leibniz,
+in his desire to emphasize the individual, gone to the other
+extreme? Apparently we are introduced to a universe that is a mere
+aggregate of an infinite multiplicity of realities, each independent
+of every other. Such a universe would not be a universe. It would
+be a chaos of disorder and conflict. We come, therefore, to a
+consideration of the relation between these individual monads and
+the universe. We have to discover what lifts the monads out of their
+isolation and bestows upon them that stamp of universality which makes
+it possible for them to enter into the coherent structure of reality:
+in a word, what is the universal content which the monad in its formal
+individuality bears and manifests?
+
+The way in which the question has just been stated suggests the
+Leibnizian answer. The monad, indeed, in its form is thoroughly
+individual, having its own unique mode of activity; but its content,
+that which this activity manifests, is not peculiar to it as an
+individual, but is the substance or law of the universe. It is the
+very nature of the monad to be representative. Its activity consists
+in picturing or reproducing those relations which make up the world of
+reality. In a conscious soul, the ability thus to represent the world
+is called "perception," and thus Leibniz attributes perception to all
+the monads. This is not to be understood as a conscious representation
+of reality to itself (for this the term "apperception" is reserved),
+but it signifies that the very essence of the monad is to produce
+states which are not its own peculiar possessions, but which reflect
+the facts and relations of the universe. Leibniz never wearies in
+finding new ways to express this purely representative character of the
+monad. The monads are little souls; they are mirrors of the world; they
+are concentrations of the universe, each expressing it in its own way;
+borrowing a term from scholasticism, they are "substantial forms." They
+are substantial, for they are independent unities; they are forms,
+because the term "form" expresses, in Aristotelian phraseology, the
+type or law of some class of phenomena. The monad is an individual,
+but its whole content, its objectivity or reality, is the summation of
+the universe which it represents. It is individual, but whatever marks
+it as actual is some reproduction of the world. His reconciliation
+of the principles of individuality and universality is contained
+in the following words: "Each monad contains within itself an order
+corresponding to that of the universe,--indeed, the monads represent
+the universe in an infinity of ways, all different, and all true, thus
+multiplying the universe as many times as is possible, approaching
+the divine as near as may be, and giving the world all the perfection
+of which it is capable." The monad is individual, for it represents
+reality in its own way, from its own point of view. It is universal,
+for its whole content is the order of the universe.
+
+New light is thus thrown upon the former statement that reality
+is activity, that the measure of a being is the action which it
+puts forth. That statement is purely formal. It leaves the kind
+of activity and its law wholly undetermined. But this relation of
+"representativeness" which we have discovered gives definiteness. It
+is the law of the monad's action to mirror, to reflect, the universe;
+its changes follow each other so as to bring about this reflection in
+the completest degree possible. The monad is literally the many in the
+one; it is the answer to the inquiry of Greek philosophy. The many
+are not present by way of participation in some underlying essence,
+not yet as statically possessed by the one, as attributes are sometimes
+supposed to inhere in a substratum. The "many" is the manifestation of
+the activity of the "one." The one and the many are related as form
+and content in an organic unity, which is activity. The essence of a
+substance, says Leibniz, consists in that regular tendency of action
+by which its phenomena follow one another in a certain order; and that
+order, as he repeatedly states, is the order in which the universe
+itself is arranged.
+
+The activity of a monad may be advantageously compared to that of a
+supposed atom, granting, for the sake of the illustration, that there
+is such a thing. Each is in a state of change: the atom changes its
+place, the monad its representation, and each in the simplest and
+most uniform way that its conditions permit. How, then, is there such
+a similarity, such a monotony, in the change of an atom, and such
+variety and complexity in the change of a monad? It is because the
+atom has merely parts, or external variety, while the monad has an
+internal variety. Multiplicity is organically wrought into its very
+being. It has an _essential_ relation to all things in the universe;
+and to say that this relation is essential, is to say that it is one
+which constitutes its very content, its being. Hence the cause of the
+changes of the monad, of their variety and complexity, is one with the
+cause of the richness, the profusion, the regulated variety of change
+in the universe itself. While we have employed a comparison with atoms,
+this very comparison may serve to show us the impossibility of atoms as
+they are generally defined by the physicist turned philosopher. Atoms
+have no internal and essential relation to the world; they have no
+internal connection with any one thing in the world: and what is this
+but to say that they do not enter anywhere into the structure of the
+world? By their very conception they are forever aliens, banished from
+any share or lot in the realm of reality. The idea which Leibniz never
+lets go, the idea which he always accentuates, is, then, the idea of an
+individual activity which in its continual change manifests as its own
+internal content and reality that reality and those laws of connection
+which make up the world itself.
+
+We are thus introduced naturally to the conception which plays so
+large a part in the Leibnizian philosophy, that of pre-established
+harmony. This term simply names the fact, which we see to be
+fundamental with Leibniz,--the fact that, while the form of every
+monad is individuality, a unique principle of action, its content
+is universal, the very being and laws of the world. For we must
+now notice more explicitly what has been wrapped up in the idea all
+along. There is no direct influence of monads upon each other. One
+cannot affect another causally. There is no actual interaction of one
+upon another. Expressed in that figurative language which was ever
+natural to Leibniz, the monads have no windows by which anything can
+get in or out. This follows, of course, from the mutual independence
+and individuality of the monads. They are a true democracy, in
+which each citizen has sovereignty. To admit external influences
+acting upon them is to surrender their independence, to deny their
+sovereignty. But we must remember the other half. This democracy is not
+after the Platonic conception of democracy, in which each does as it
+pleases, and in which there is neither order nor law, but the extremest
+assertion of individuality. What each sovereign citizen of the realm
+of reality expresses is precisely law. Each is an embodiment in its own
+way of the harmony, the order, of the whole kingdom. Each is sovereign
+because it is dynamic law,--law which is no longer abstract, but has
+realized itself in life. Thus another way of stating the doctrine of
+pre-established harmony is the unity of freedom and necessity. Each
+monad is free because it is individual, because it follows the
+law of its own activity unhindered, unretarded, by others; it is
+self-determined. But it is self-determined to show forth the order, the
+harmony, of the universe. There is nothing of caprice, of peculiarity,
+in the content of the monad. It shows forth order; it is organized
+by law; it reveals the necessary connections which constitute the
+universe. The pre-established harmony is the unity of the individual
+and the universe; it is the organic oneness of freedom and necessity.
+
+We see still further what it means when we learn that it is by this
+conception that Leibniz reconciles the conceptions of physical and
+final causation. There is no principle closer to the thought of Leibniz
+than that of the equal presence and efficiency everywhere of both
+physical and final causes. Every fact which occurs is susceptible
+of a mechanical and of a rational explanation. It is necessarily
+connected with preceding states, and it has a necessary end which
+it is fulfilling. The complete meaning of this principle will meet
+us hereafter; at present we must notice that it is one form of the
+doctrine of pre-established harmony. All things have an end because
+they form parts of one system; everything that occurs looks forward
+to something else and prepares the way for it, and yet it is itself
+mechanically conditioned by its antecedents. This is only another way
+of saying that there is complete harmony between all beings in the
+universe; so that each monad in fulfilling the law of its own existence
+contributes to the immanent significance of the universe. The monads
+are co-ordinated in such a way that they express a common idea. There
+is a plan common to all, in which each has its own place. All are
+making towards one goal, expressing one purpose. The universe is
+an organism; and Leibniz would have applied to it the words which
+Milne-Edwards applied to the human organism, as I find them quoted
+by Lewes: "In the organism everything seems to be calculated with one
+determined result in view; and the harmony of the parts does not result
+from the influence which they exert upon one another, but from their
+co-ordination under the rule of a common force, a preconceived plan,
+a pre-existent force." That is to say, the universe is teleological,
+both as a whole and in its parts; for there is a common idea animating
+it and expressed by it; it is mechanical, for this idea is realized and
+manifested by the outworking of forces.
+
+It ought to be evident even from this imperfect sketch that the
+Leibnizian theory of pre-established harmony is not that utterly
+artificial and grotesque doctrine which it is sometimes represented
+to be. The phrase "pre-established harmony" is, strictly speaking,
+tautologous. The term "pre-established" is superfluous. It means
+"existent." There is no real harmony which is not existent or
+pre-established. An accidental harmony is a contradiction in terms. It
+means a chaotic cosmos, an unordered order, a lawless law, or whatever
+else is nonsensical.
+
+Harmony, in short, means relation, means connection, means
+subordination and co-ordination, means adjustment, means a variety,
+which yet is one. The Leibnizian doctrine is not a factitious product
+of his imagination, nor is it a mechanical scheme for reconciling a
+problem which has no existence outside of the bewildered brains of
+philosophers. It is an expression of the fact that the universe is
+one of order, of continuity, of unity; it is the accentuating of this
+doctrine so that the very essence of reality is found in this ordered
+combination; it is the special application of this principle to the
+solution of many of the problems which "the mind of man is apt to
+run into,"--the questions of the relation of the individual and the
+universal, of freedom and necessity, of the physical and material,
+of the teleological and mechanical. We may not be contented with the
+doctrine as he presents it, we may think it to be rather a summary
+and highly concentrated statement of the problem than its solution,
+or we may object to details in the carrying out of the doctrine. But
+we cannot deny that it is a genuine attempt to meet a genuine problem,
+and that it contains some, if not all, of the factors required for
+its adequate solution. To Leibniz must remain the glory of being the
+thinker to seize upon the perfect unity and order of the universe as
+its essential characteristic, and of arranging his thoughts with a view
+to discovering and expressing it.
+
+We have but to notice one point more, and our task is done so far as
+it serves to make plain the standpoint from which Leibniz criticised
+Locke. There is, we have seen, the greatest possible continuity and
+complexity in the realm of monads. There is no break, quantitative nor
+qualitative. It follows that the human soul has no gulf set between it
+and what we call nature. It is only the highest, that is to say the
+most active and the most representative, of all monads. It stands,
+indeed, at the head of the scale, but not outside it. From the monad
+which reveals its presence in that stone which with blinded eyes we
+call dead, through that which acts in the plant, in the animal, up
+to that of man, there is no chasm, no interruption. Nay, man himself
+is but one link in the chain of spiritual beings which ends only in
+God. All monads are souls; the soul of man is a monad which represents
+the universe more distinctly and adequately. The law which is enfolded
+in the lower monads is developed in it and forms a part of its
+conscious activity. The universe, which is confusedly mirrored by the
+perception of the lower monad, is clearly brought out in the conscious
+apperception of man. The stone is representative of the whole world. An
+all-knowing intelligence might read in it relations to every other
+fact the world, might see exemplified the past history of the world,
+and prefigured the events to come. For the stone is not an isolated
+existence, it is an inter-organic member of a system. Change the
+slightest fact in the world, and in some way it is affected. The law
+of the universe is one of completed reciprocity, and this law must be
+mirrored in every existence of the universe. Increase the activity, the
+representative power, until it becomes turned back, as it were, upon
+itself, until the monad not only is a mirror, but knows itself as one,
+and you have man. The soul of man is the world come to consciousness
+of itself. The realm of monads in what we call the inorganic world
+and the lower organic realm shows us the monad let and hindered in
+its development. These realms attempt to speak forth the law of their
+being, and reveal the immanent presence of the universe; but they do
+not hear their own voice, their utterance is only for others. In man
+the universe is manifested, and is manifested to man himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ.--INNATE IDEAS.
+
+
+The reader, impatient of what may have seemed an over-long
+introduction, has perhaps been asking when he was to be brought to the
+subject under consideration,--the relations of Leibniz to Locke. But
+it has been impossible to come to this question until we had formed for
+ourselves an outline of the philosophical position of Leibniz. Nowhere
+in the "Nouveaux Essais" does Leibniz give a connected and detailed
+exposition of his philosophy, either as to his standpoint, his
+fundamental principles, or his method.
+
+Some preliminary view of his position is therefore a necessity. The
+demand for this preliminary exposition becomes more urgent as we
+recognize that Leibniz's remarks upon Locke are not a critique of Locke
+from the standpoint of the latter, but are the application of his own
+philosophical conclusions. Criticism from within, an examination of
+a system of thought with relation to the consistency and coherency
+of its results, the connection between these results and the method
+professedly employed, investigation which depends not at all upon the
+position of the critic, but occupies itself with the internal relations
+of the system under discussion,--such criticism is a product of the
+present century. What we find in the "Nouveaux Essais" is a comparison
+of the ideas of Locke with those of Leibniz himself, a testing of the
+former by the latter as a standard, their acceptance when they conform,
+their rejection when they are opposed, their completion when they are
+in partial harmony.
+
+The value of this sort of criticism is likely to be small and
+evanescent. If the system used as a standard is meagre and narrow,
+if it is without comprehensiveness and flexibility, it does not repay
+after-examination. The fact that the "Nouveaux Essais" of Leibniz
+have escaped the oblivion of the philosophical criticism of his day is
+proof, if proof still be needed, of the reasoned basis, the width of
+grasp, the fertility of suggestion which characterize the thought of
+Leibniz. But the fact that the criticism is, after all, external and
+not internal has made necessary the foregoing extended account of his
+method and general results.
+
+On the other hand, what of Locke? How about him who is the recipient
+of the criticism? I assume that no extended account of his ideas
+is here necessary, and conceive myself to be justified in this
+assumption by the fact that we are already better acquainted with
+Locke. This acquaintance, indeed, is not confined to those who have
+expressly studied Locke. His thought is an inheritance into which
+every English-speaking person at least is born. Only he who does not
+think escapes this inheritance. Locke did the work which he had to do
+so thoroughly that every Englishman who will philosophize must either
+build upon Locke's foundations, or, with conscious purpose, clear the
+ground before building for himself. And it would be difficult to say
+that the acceptance of Locke's views would influence one's thought
+more than their rejection. This must not, of course, be taken too
+literally. It may be that one who is a lineal descendant of Locke in
+the spiritual generations of thought would not state a single important
+truth as Locke stated it, or that those who seek their method and
+results elsewhere have not repudiated the thought of Locke as expressly
+belonging to him.
+
+But the fundamental principles of empiricism: its conception of
+intelligence as an individual possession; its idea of reality as
+something over against and distinct from mind; its explanation of
+knowledge as a process of action and reaction between these separate
+things; its account of our inability to know things as they really
+are,--these principles are congenital with our thinking. They are so
+natural that we either accept them as axiomatic, and accuse those who
+reject them of metaphysical subtlety, or, staggered perchance by some
+of their results, give them up with an effort. But it is an effort, and
+a severe one; and there is none of us who can tell when some remnant
+of the conception of intelligence as purely particular and finite
+will catch him tripping. On the other hand, we realize much better
+than those who have behind them a Leibniz and a Kant, rather than a
+Locke and a Hume, the meaning and the thorough-going necessity of the
+universality of intelligence. Idealism must be in some ways arbitrary
+and superficial to him who has not had a pretty complete course of
+empiricism.
+
+Leibniz seems to have been impressed with the Essay on the Human
+Understanding at its first appearance. As early as 1696 we find
+him writing a few pages of comment upon the book. Compared with his
+later critique, these early "reflections" seem colorless, and give the
+impression that Leibniz desired to minimize his differences from Locke
+rather than to set them forth in relief. Comparatively slight as were
+his expressions of dissent, they appear to have stung Locke when they
+reached him. Meantime Locke's book was translated into French, and made
+its way to a wider circle of readers. This seems to have suggested to
+Leibniz the advisability of pursuing his comments somewhat further;
+and in the summer of 1703 he produced the work which now occupies us. A
+letter which Leibniz wrote at about this time is worth quoting at large
+for the light which it throws upon the man, as well as for suggesting
+the chief points in which he differed from Locke. Leibniz writes:--
+
+"I have forgotten to tell you that my comments upon the work of Locke
+are nearly done. As he has spoken in a chapter of his second book about
+freedom, he has given me an opportunity to discuss that; and I hope
+that I may have done it in such a way as will please you. Above all,
+I have laid it upon myself to save the immateriality of the soul, which
+Locke leaves doubtful. I justify also the existence of innate ideas,
+and show that the soul produces their perception out of itself. Axioms,
+too, I approve, while Locke has a low opinion of them. In contradiction
+to him, I show that the individuality of man, through which he
+preserves his identity, consists in the duration of the simple or
+immaterial substance which animates him; that the soul is never without
+representations; that there is neither a vacuum nor atoms; that matter,
+or the passive principle, cannot be conscious, excepting as God unites
+with it a conscious substance. We disagree, indeed, in numerous other
+points, for I find that he rates too low the noble philosophy of the
+Platonic school (as Descartes did in part), and substitutes opinions
+which degrade us, and which may become hurtful to morals, though I am
+persuaded that Locke's intention was thoroughly good. I have made these
+comments in leisure hours, when I have been journeying or visiting, and
+could not occupy myself with investigations requiring great pains. The
+work has continued to grow under my hands, for in almost every chapter,
+and to a greater extent than I had thought possible, I have found
+matter for remark. You will be astonished when I tell you that I have
+worked upon this as upon something which requires no great pains. But
+the fact is, that I long ago established the general principles of
+philosophic subjects in my mind in a demonstrative way, or pretty
+nearly so, and that they do not require much new consideration from
+me."
+
+Leibniz goes on to add that he has put these reflections in the form of
+a dialogue that they may be more attractive; has written them in the
+popular language, rather than in Latin, that they may reach as wide a
+circle as the work of Locke; and that he hopes to publish them soon,
+as Locke is already an old man, and he wishes to get them before the
+public while Locke may still reply.
+
+But unfortunately this last hope was destined to remain
+unrealized. Before the work of revision was accomplished, Locke
+died. Leibniz, in a letter written in 1714, alludes to his controversy
+with Locke as follows: "I do not like the thought of publishing
+refutations of authors who are dead. These should appear during their
+life, and be communicated to them." Then, referring to his earlier
+comments, he says: "A few remarks escaped me, I hardly know how, and
+were taken to England. Mr. Locke, having seen them, spoke of them
+slightingly in a letter to Molineux. I am not astonished at it. We
+were somewhat too far apart in principle, and that which I suggested
+seemed paradoxical to him." Leibniz, according to his conviction here
+expressed, never published his "Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement
+Humain." Schaarschmidt remarks that another reason may have restrained
+him, in that he did not wish to carry on too many controversies at once
+with the English people. He had two on his hands then,--one with the
+Newtonians regarding the infinitesimal calculus; the other with Bishop
+Clarke regarding the nature of God, of time and space, of freedom, and
+cognate subjects. However, in 1765, almost fifty years after the death
+of Leibniz, his critique upon Locke finally appeared.
+
+It is somewhat significant that one whose tendency was conciliatory,
+who was eminently what the Germans delight to call him, a "mediator,"
+attempting to unite the varied truths which he found scattered in
+opposed systems, should have had so much of his work called forth
+by controversy. Aside from the cases just mentioned, his other
+chief work, the Theodicy, is, in form, a reply to Bayle. Many of
+his minor pieces are replies to criticism or are developments of
+his own thought with critical reference to Descartes, Malebranche,
+and others. But Leibniz has a somewhat different attitude towards
+his British and towards his Continental opponents. With the latter
+he was always in sympathy, while they in turn gave whatever he
+uttered a respectful hearing. Their mutual critiques begin and end
+in compliments. But the Englishmen found the thought of Leibniz
+"paradoxical" and forced. It seemed to them wildly speculative,
+and indeed arbitrary guess-work, without any special reason for its
+production, and wholly unverifiable in its results. Such has been the
+fate of much of the best German thought since that time in the land of
+the descendants of Newton and Locke. But Leibniz, on the other hand,
+felt as if he were dealing, in philosophical matters at least, with
+foemen hardly worthy of his steel. Locke, he says, had subtlety and
+address, and a sort of _superficial_ metaphysics; but he was ignorant
+of the method of mathematics,--that is to say, from the standpoint of
+Leibniz, of the method of all science. We have already seen that he
+thought the examination of a work which had been the result of the
+continued labor of Locke was a matter for the leisure hours of his
+courtly visits. Indeed, he would undoubtedly have felt about it what
+he actually expressed regarding his controversy with Clarke,--that he
+engaged in it
+
+    "Ludus et jocus, quia in philosophia
+    Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi."
+
+He regarded the English as superficial and without grasp of principles,
+as they thought him over-deep and over-theoretical.
+
+From this knowledge of the external circumstances of the work of
+Leibniz and its relation to Locke, it is necessary that we turn to
+its internal content, to the thought of Leibniz as related to the
+ideas of Locke. The Essay on the Human Understanding is, as the name
+implies, an account of the nature of knowledge. Locke tells us that
+it originated in the fact that often, when he had been engaged in
+discussions with his friends, they found themselves landed in insoluble
+difficulties. This occurred so frequently that it seemed probable that
+they had been going at matters from the wrong side, and that before
+they attempted to come to conclusions about questions they ought to
+examine the capacity of intelligence, and see whether it is fitted to
+deal with such questions. Locke, in a word, is another evidence of that
+truth which lies at the basis of all forms of philosophical thought,
+however opposed they may be to one another,--the truth that knowledge
+and reality are so organic to each other that to come to any conclusion
+about one, we must know something about the other. Reality equals
+objects known or knowable, and knowledge equals reality dissolved in
+ideas,--reality which has become translucent through its meaning.
+
+Locke's Essay is, then, an account of the origin, nature, extent, and
+limitations of human knowledge. Such is its subject-matter. What is
+its method? Locke himself tells us that he uses the "plain historical
+method." We do not have to resort to the forcing of language to learn
+that this word "historical" contains the key to his work. Every page
+of the Essay is testimony to the fact that Locke always proceeds
+by inquiring into the way and circumstances by which knowledge of
+the subject under consideration came into existence and into the
+conditions by which it was developed. Origin means with Locke, not
+logical dependence, but temporal production; development means temporal
+succession. In the language of our day, Locke's Essay is an attempt to
+settle ontological questions by a psychological method. And as we have
+before noticed, Leibniz meets him, not by inquiry into the pertinence
+of the method or into the validity of results so reached, but by the
+more direct way of impugning his psychology, by substituting another
+theory of the nature of mind and of the way in which it works.
+
+The questions with which the discussion begins are as to the existence
+of innate ideas, and as to whether the soul always thinks,--questions
+which upon their face will lead the experienced reader of to-day to
+heave a sigh in memory of hours wasted in barren dispute, and which
+will create a desire to turn elsewhere for matter more solid and
+more nutritive. But in this case, under the form which the discussion
+takes at the hands of Leibniz, the question which awaits answer under
+the meagre and worn-out formula of "innate ideas" is the function of
+intelligence in experience.
+
+Locke denies, and denies with great vigor, the existence of innate
+ideas. His motives in so doing are practical and theoretical. He
+sees almost every old idea, every hereditary prejudice, every vested
+interest of thought, defended on the ground that it is an innate
+idea. Innate ideas were sacred, and everything which could find no
+defence before reason was an innate idea. Under such circumstances
+he takes as much interest in demolishing them as Bacon took in
+the destruction of the "eidols." But this is but a small portion
+of the object of Locke. He is a thorough-going empiricist; and the
+doctrine of innate ideas appears to offer the greatest obstacle to the
+acceptance of the truth that all the furnishing of the intellect comes
+from experience. Locke's metaphors for the mind are that it is a blank
+tablet, an empty closet, an unwritten book. The "innate idea" is only a
+sentence written by experience, but which, deified by a certain school
+of philosophers, has come to be regarded as eternally imprinted upon
+the soul.
+
+Such, indeed, is Locke's understanding of the nature of innate
+ideas. He conceives of them as "characters _stamped_, as it were,
+upon the mind of man, which the soul has received in its first being
+and brings into the world with it;" or they are "constant _impressions_
+which the souls of men receive in their first beings." They are "truths
+_imprinted_ upon the soul." Having this conception of what is meant by
+"innate ideas," Locke sets himself with great vigor, and, it must be
+confessed, with equal success, to their annihilation.
+
+His argument is somewhat diffuse and scattered, but in substance it
+is as follows: Whatever is in the mind, the mind must be conscious
+of. "To be in the mind and not to be perceived, is all one as to say
+that anything is and is not in the mind." If there be anything in the
+mind which is innate, it must be present to the consciousness of all,
+and, it would seem, of all at all times, savages, infants, and idiots
+included. And as it requires little philosophical penetration to
+see that savages do not ponder upon the principle that whatever is,
+is; that infants do not dwell in their cradle upon the thought of
+contradiction, or idiots ruminate upon that of excluded middle,--it
+ought to be evident that such truths cannot be innate. Indeed, we must
+admit, with Locke, that probably few men ever come to the explicit
+consciousness of such ideas, and that these few are such as direct
+their minds to the matter with some pains. Locke's argument may be
+summed up in his words: If these are not notions naturally imprinted,
+how can they be innate? And if they are notions naturally imprinted,
+how can they be unknown?
+
+But since it may be said that these truths are in the mind, but in such
+a way that it is only when they are proposed that men assent to them,
+Locke goes on to clinch his argument. If this be true, it shows that
+the ideas are not innate; for the same thing is true of a large number
+of scientific truths, those of mathematics and morals, as well as of
+purely sensible facts, as that red is not blue, sweet is not sour,
+etc.,--truths and facts which no one calls innate. Or if it be said
+that they are in the mind implicitly or potentially, Locke points
+out that this means either nothing at all, or else that the mind is
+_capable_ of knowing them. If this is what is meant by innate ideas,
+then all ideas are innate; for certainly it cannot be denied that the
+mind is capable of knowing all that it ever does know, or, as Locke
+ingenuously remarks, "nobody ever denied that the mind was capable of
+knowing several truths."
+
+It is evident that the force of Locke's contention against innate
+ideas rests upon a certain theory regarding the nature of innate ideas
+and of the relations of consciousness to intelligence. Besides this,
+there runs through his whole polemic the assertion that, after all,
+innate ideas are useless, as experience, in the sense of impressions
+received from without, and the formal action of intelligence upon
+them, is adequate to doing all they are supposed to do. It is hardly
+too much to say that the nerve of Locke's argument is rather in this
+positive assertion than in the negations which he brings against
+this existence. Leibniz takes issue with him on each of these three
+points. He has another conception of the very nature of innate ideas;
+he denies Locke's opinions about consciousness; he brings forward
+an opposed theory upon the relation of experience to reason. This
+last point we shall take up in a chapter by itself, as its importance
+extends far beyond the mere question as to the existence of ideas which
+may properly be called innate. The other two questions, as to the real
+character of innate ideas and the relation of an idea to consciousness,
+afford material to occupy us for the present.
+
+The metaphor which Locke constantly uses is the clew to his conception
+of innate ideas. They are characters stamped or imprinted upon the
+mind, they exist _in_ the mind. The mind would be just what it is,
+even if they had no existence. It would not have quite so much "in"
+it, but its own nature would not be changed. Innate ideas he conceives
+as bearing a purely external relation to mind. They are not organic
+to it, nor necessary instruments through which it expresses itself;
+they are mechanically impressed upon it. But what the "intellectual"
+school had meant by innate ideas was precisely that the relation of
+ideas to intelligence is _not_ that of passive holding or containing
+on the side of mind, and of impressions or stamps on the side of the
+ideas. Locke reads the fundamental category of empiricism--mechanical
+relation, or external action--into the nature of innate ideas, and
+hence easily infers their absurdity. But the object of the upholders
+of innate ideas had been precisely to deny that this category was
+applicable to the whole of intelligence. By an innate idea they meant
+an assertion of the dynamic relation of intelligence and some of its
+ideas. They meant to assert that intelligence has a structure, which
+necessarily functions in certain ways. While Locke's highest conception
+of an innate idea was that it must be something ready made, dwelling
+in the mind prior to experience, Leibniz everywhere asserts that it
+is a connection and relation which forms the logical prius and the
+psychological basis of experience. He finds no difficulty in admitting
+all there is of positive truth in Locke's doctrine; namely, that we are
+not conscious of these innate ideas until a period later than that in
+which we are conscious of sensible facts, or, in many cases, are not
+conscious of them at all. This priority in time of sensible experience
+to rational knowledge, however, can become a reason for denying the
+"innate" character of the latter only when we suppose that they are two
+entirely different orders of fact, one knowledge due to experience,
+the other knowledge already formed and existing in the mind prior to
+"experience."
+
+Leibniz's conception of the matter is brought out when he says that it
+is indeed true that we begin with particular experiences rather than
+with general principles, but that the order of nature is the reverse,
+for the ground, the basis of the particular truths is in the general;
+the former being in reality only instances of the latter. General
+principles, he says, enter into _all_ our thoughts, and form their
+soul and interconnection. They are as necessary for thought as muscles
+and tendons are for walking, although we may not be conscious of their
+existence. This side of the teaching of Leibniz consists, accordingly,
+in the assertion that "innate" knowledge and knowledge derived from
+experience are not two kinds of knowledge, but rather two ways of
+considering it. If we consider it as it comes to us, piecemeal and
+fragmentary, a succession of particular instances, to be gathered up at
+a future time into general principles, and stated in a rational form,
+it is seen as empirical. But, after all, this is only a superficial
+and external way of looking at it. If we examine into it we shall see
+that there are contained in these transitory and particular experiences
+certain truths more general and fundamental, which condition them, and
+at the same time constitute their meaning.
+
+If we inquire into the propriety of calling these truths "innate,"
+we find it is because they are native to intelligence, and are not
+acquisitions which it makes. Indeed, it may be said that they _are_
+intelligence, so close and organic is their relation, just as the
+muscles, the tendons, the skeleton, are the body. Thus it is that
+Leibniz accepts the statement, _Nihil est in intellectu quod non
+fuerit in sensu_, with the addition of the statement _nisi ipse
+intellectus_. The doctrine of the existence of innate ideas is thus
+shown to mean that intelligence exists with a real content which counts
+for something in the realm of experience. If we take intelligence
+and examine into its structure and ascertain its modes of expression,
+we find organically inherent in its activity certain conceptions like
+unity, power, substance, identity, etc., and these we call "innate." An
+idea, in short, is no longer conceived as something existing in the
+mind or in consciousness; it is an activity of intelligence. An innate
+idea is a necessary activity of intelligence; that is, such an activity
+as enters into the framework of all experience.
+
+Leibniz thus succeeds in avoiding two errors into which philosophers
+whose general aims are much like his have fallen. One is dividing _a
+priori_ and _a posteriori_ truths from each other by a hard and fixed
+line, so that we are conceived to have some knowledge which comes
+wholly from experience, while there is another which comes wholly
+from reason. According to Leibniz, there is no thought so abstract
+that it does not have its connection with a sensible experience,
+or rather its embodiment in it. And, on the other hand, there is no
+experience so thoroughly sensuous that it does not bear in itself
+traces of its origin in reason. "_All_ our thoughts come from the
+depths of the soul," says Leibniz; there are none that "come" to us
+from without. The other error is the interpretation of the existence
+of innate ideas or "intuitions" (as this school generally calls them)
+in a purely formal sense. They are thus considered as truths contained
+in and somehow expressed by intelligence, but yet not so connected with
+it that in knowing them we necessarily know intelligence itself. They
+are considered rather as arbitrary determinations of truths by a power
+whose own nature is conceivably foreign to truth, than as so many
+special developments of an activity which may indifferently be called
+"intelligence" or "truth." Leibniz, however, never fails to state that
+an innate truth is, after all, but one form or aspect of the activity
+of the mind in knowing.
+
+In this way, by bringing to light a deeper and richer conception of
+what in reality constitutes an innate idea, Leibniz answers Locke. His
+reply is indirect; it consists rather in throwing a flood of new
+light upon the matter discussed, than in a ponderous response and
+counter-attack. But when Leibniz touches upon the conception of a
+_tabula rasa_, of a mind which in itself is a mere blank, but has
+the capacity for knowing, he assumes the offensive. The idea of a
+bare capacity, a formal faculty, of power which does not already
+involve some actual content within itself, he repudiates as a relic
+of scholasticism. What is the soul, which has nothing until it gets
+it from without? The doctrine of a vacuum, an emptiness which is real,
+is always absurd; and it is doubly so when to this vacuum is ascribed
+powers of feeling and thinking, as Locke does. Accepting for the
+moment the metaphor of a _tabula rasa_, Leibniz asks where we shall
+find a tablet which yet does not have some quality, and which is not
+a co-operating cause, at least, in whatever effects are produced upon
+it? The notion of a soul without thought, an empty tablet of the soul,
+he says, is one of a thousand fictions of philosophers. He compares
+it with the idea of "space empty of matter, absolute uniformity
+or homogeneity, perfect spheres of the second element produced by
+primordial perfect cubes, abstractions pure and simple, to which our
+ignorance and inattention give birth, but of which reality does not
+admit." If Locke admits then (as he does) certain capacities inherent
+in the soul, he cannot mean the scholastic fiction of bare capacity
+or mere possibility; he must mean "real possibilities,"--that is,
+capacities accompanied with some actual tendency, an inclination, a
+disposition, an aptitude, a preformation which determines our soul in a
+certain direction, and which makes it necessary that the possibility
+becomes actual. And this tendency, this actual inclination of
+intelligence in one way rather than another, so that it is not a matter
+of indifference to intelligence what it produces, is precisely what
+constitutes an innate idea. So Leibniz feels certain that at bottom
+Locke must agree with him in this matter if the latter is really in
+earnest in rejecting the "faculties" of the scholastics and in wishing
+for a real explanation of knowledge.
+
+But the argument of Locke rests upon yet another basis. He founds
+his denial of innate ideas not only upon a static conception of their
+ready made existence "in" the soul, but also upon an equally mechanical
+conception of consciousness. "Nothing can be in the mind which is not
+in consciousness." This statement appears axiomatic to Locke, and by
+it he would settle the whole discussion. Regarding it, Leibniz remarks
+that if Locke has such a prejudice as this, it is not surprising that
+he rejects innate ideas. But consciousness and mental activity are not
+thus identical. To go no farther, the mere empirical fact of memory is
+sufficient to show the falsity of such an idea. Memory reveals that
+we have an indefinite amount of knowledge of which we are not always
+conscious. Rather than that knowledge and consciousness are one, it
+is true that actual consciousness only lays hold of an infinitesimal
+fraction of knowledge. But Leibniz does not rely upon the fact of
+memory alone. We must constantly keep in mind that to Leibniz the
+soul is not a form of being wholly separate from nature, but is the
+culmination of the system of reality. The reality is everywhere
+the monad, and the soul is the monad with the power of feeling,
+remembering, and connecting its ideas. The activities of the monad,
+those representative changes which sum up and symbolize the universe,
+do not cease when we reach the soul. They are continued. If the soul
+has the power of attention, they are potentially conscious. Such as
+the soul actually attends to, thus giving them relief and making them
+distinct, are actually conscious. But all of them exist.
+
+Thus it is that Leibniz not only denies the equivalence of soul and
+consciousness, but asserts that the fundamental error of the psychology
+of the Cartesians (and here, at least, Locke is a Cartesian) is in
+identifying them. He asserts that "unconscious ideas" are of as great
+importance in psychology as molecules are in physics. They are the link
+between unconscious nature and the conscious soul. Nothing happens all
+at once; nature never makes jumps; these facts stated in the law of
+continuity necessitate the existence of activities, which may be called
+ideas, since they belong to the soul and yet are not in consciousness.
+
+When, therefore, Locke asks how an innate idea can exist and the soul
+not be conscious of it, the answer is at hand. The "innate idea"
+exists as an activity of the soul by which it represents--that is,
+expresses--some relation of the universe, although we have not yet
+become conscious of what is contained or enveloped in this activity. To
+become conscious of the innate idea is to lift it from the sphere of
+nature to the conscious life of spirit. And thus it is, again, that
+Leibniz can assert that all ideas whatever proceed from the depths of
+the soul. It is because it is the very being of the soul as a monad
+to reflect "from its point of view" the world. In this way Leibniz
+brings the discussion regarding innate ideas out of the plane of
+examination into a matter of psychological fact into a consideration
+of the essential nature of spirit. An innate idea is now seen to be
+one of the relations by which the soul reproduces some relation which
+constitutes the universe of reality, and at the same time realizes its
+own individual nature. It is one reflection from that spiritual mirror,
+the soul. With this enlarged and transformed conception of an idea apt
+to be so meagre we may well leave the discussion. There has been one
+mind at least to which the phrase "innate ideas" meant something worth
+contending for, because it meant something real.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+A careful study of the various theories which have been held
+concerning sensation would be of as much interest and importance as
+an investigation of any one point in the range of philosophy. In the
+theory of a philosopher about sensation we have the reflex of his
+fundamental category and the clew to his further doctrine. Sensation
+stands on the border-line between the world of nature and the realm of
+soul; and every advance in science, every development of philosophy,
+leaves its impress in a change in the theory of sensation. Apparently
+one of the simplest and most superficial of questions, in reality
+it is one of the most difficult and far-reaching. At first sight it
+seems as if it were a sufficient account of sensation to say that
+an object affects the organ of sense, and thus impresses upon the
+mind the quality which it possesses. But this simple statement
+arouses a throng of further questions: How is it possible that
+one substance,--matter,--should affect another,--mind? How can a
+causal relation exist between them? Is the mind passive or active
+in this impression? How can an object convey unchanged to the mind
+a quality which it possesses? Or is the sensational _quale_ itself
+a product of the mind's activity? If so, what is the nature of the
+object which excites the sensation? As known, it is only a collection
+of sensuous qualities; if these are purely mental, what becomes of
+the object? And if there is no object really there, what is it that
+excites the sensation? Such questionings might be continued almost
+indefinitely; but those given are enough to show that an examination
+of the nature and origin of sensation introduces us to the problems
+of the relation of intelligence and the world; to the problem of
+the ultimate constitution of an object which is set over against a
+subject and which affects it; and to the problem of the nature of mind,
+which as thus affected from without must be limited in its nature,
+but which as bearer of the whole known universe must be in some sense
+infinite. If we consider, not the mode of production of sensation,
+but its relation to knowledge, we find philosophical schools divided
+into two,--Sensationalists, and Rationalists. If we inquire into its
+functions, we find that the empiricist sees in it convincing evidence
+of the fact that all knowledge originates from a source _extra mentem_;
+that the intellectual idealist finds in it evidence of the gradual
+transition of nature into spirit; that the ethical idealist, like Kant
+and Fichte, sees in it the material of the phenomenal world, which is
+necessary in its opposition to the rational sphere in order that there
+may occur that conflict of pure law and sensuous impulse which alone
+makes morality possible. We thus realize that as we look at the various
+aspects of sensation, we are taken into the discussion of ontology, of
+the theory of knowledge and of ethics.
+
+Locke virtually recognizes the extreme importance of the doctrine of
+sensation, and his second book might almost be entitled "Concerning the
+Nature and Products of Sensation." On the other hand, one of the most
+characteristic and valuable portions of the reply of Leibniz is in his
+development of a theory of sensation which is thoroughly new, except as
+we seek for its germs in its thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. According
+to Locke, knowledge originates from two sources,--sensation and
+reflection. Sensations are "the impressions made on our senses by
+outward objects that are extrinsic to the mind." When the mind "comes
+to reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by sensation,
+and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas," it gets ideas of
+reflection.
+
+If we leave out of account for the present the ideas of reflection,
+we find that the ideas which come through sensation have two main
+characteristics. First, in having sensations, the mind is passive;
+its part is purely receptive. The objects impress themselves upon
+the mind, they obtrude into consciousness, whether the mind will or
+not. There is a purely external relation existing between sensation
+and the understanding. The ideas are offered to the mind, and the
+understanding cannot refuse to have them, cannot change them, blot
+them out, nor create them, any more than a mirror can refuse, alter,
+or obliterate the images which objects produce in it. Sensation,
+in short, is a purely passive having of ideas. Secondly, every
+sensation is simple. Locke would say of sensations what Hume said of
+all ideas,--every distinct sensation is a separate existence. Every
+sensation is "uncompounded, containing nothing but one uniform
+appearance, not being distinguishable into different ideas." Knowledge
+is henceforth a process of compounding, of repeating, comparing, and
+uniting sensation. Man's understanding "reaches no further than to
+compound and divide the materials that are made to his hand."
+
+It hardly need be said that Locke has great difficulty in keeping up
+this thoroughly atomic theory of mind. It is a theory which makes all
+relations external; they are, as Locke afterwards says, "superinduced"
+upon the facts. It makes it impossible to account for any appearance
+of unity and connection among ideas, and Locke quietly, and without
+any consciousness of the contradiction involved, introduces certain
+inherent relations into the structure of the ideas when he comes to his
+constructive work. "Existence and unity are two ideas," he says, "that
+are suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every
+idea within."
+
+At other places he introduces the idea of quality of a substance,
+effect of a cause, continued permanence or identity into a sensation,
+as necessary constituents of it; thus making a sensation a unity of
+complex elements instead of an isolated bare notion. How far he could
+have got on in his account of knowledge without this surreptitious
+qualifying of a professedly simple existence, may be seen by asking
+what would be the nature of a sensation which did not possess existence
+and unity, and which was not conceived as the quality of a thing or as
+the effect of an external reality.
+
+This digression has been introduced at this point because the next
+character of a sensation which Locke discusses is its objective
+character,--its relation to the object which produces it. To
+discourse of our ideas intelligibly, he says, it will be convenient
+to distinguish them as they are ideas in our minds and as they are
+modifications of matter in the bodies that cause them. In other
+words, he gives up all thought of considering ideas as simply mental
+modifications, and finds it necessary to take them in their relations
+to objects.
+
+Taking them in this way, he finds that they are to be divided into
+two classes, of which one contains those ideas that are copies and
+resemblances of qualities in the objects, ideas "which are really in
+the object, whether we take notice of them or no,"--in which case we
+have an idea of the thing as it is in itself; while the other class
+contains those which are in no way resemblances of the objects which
+produce them, "having no more similitude than the idea of pain and of a
+sword." The former are primary qualities, and are solidity, extension,
+figure, motion or rest, and number; while the secondary qualities
+are colors, smells, and tastes. The former ideas are produced by
+impulse of the bodies themselves, which simply effect a transference
+of their qualities over into the mind; while the secondary qualities
+are arbitrarily annexed by the power of God to the objects which excite
+them.
+
+It will be noticed that there are two elements which make the sensation
+of Locke what it is. With reference to its _production_, it is the
+effect which one substance, matter, has upon another substance,
+mind, which is unlike it in nature, and between which whatever
+relations exist, are thoroughly incomprehensible, so that, indeed,
+their connections with each other can be understood only by recourse
+to a _tertium quid_, an omnipotent power which can arbitrarily produce
+such collocations as please it. With reference to its _function_, it
+is the isolated and "simple" (that is, non-relational) element out
+of which all actual forms of knowledge are made by composition and
+re-arrangement.
+
+Leibniz, without entering into explicit criticism of just these two
+points, develops his own theory with reference to them. To Leibniz,
+reality constitutes a system; that is, it is of such a nature that
+its various portions have an essential and not merely external
+relation to one another. Sensation is of course no exception. It is
+not a mere accident, nor yet a supernatural yoking of things naturally
+opposed. It has a meaning in that connection of things which constitute
+the universe. It contributes to the significance of the world. It
+is one way in which those activities which make the real express
+themselves. It has its place or reason in the totality of things, and
+this whether we consider its origin or its position with regard to
+knowledge. In a word, while the characteristic of Locke's theory is
+that he conceives sensation as in external relation both to reality,
+as mechanically produced by it, and to knowledge, as being merely
+one of the atomic elements which may enter into a compound, Leibniz
+regards reality as organic to sensation, and this in turn as organic
+to knowledge. We have here simply an illustration of the statement
+with which we set out; namely, that the treatment of sensation always
+reflects the fundamental philosophical category of the philosopher.
+
+All reality exists in the form of monads; monads are simple substances
+whose nature is action; this action consists in representing, according
+to a certain law of succession, the universe. Various monads have
+various degrees of activity; that is, of the power of reflecting
+the world. So much of Leibniz's general philosophical attitude it is
+necessary to recall, to understand what he means by "sensation." The
+generic name which is applied to this mirroring activity of the monads
+is "perception," which, as Leibniz often says, is to be carefully
+distinguished from apperception, which is the representation become
+conscious. Perception may be defined, therefore, as the inclusion of
+the many or multiform (the world of objects) in a unity (the simple
+substance). It was the great defect of previous philosophy that it
+"considered only spirits or self-conscious beings as souls," and
+had consequently recognized only conscious perceptions. It had been
+obliged, therefore, to make an impassable gulf between mind and matter,
+and sensations were thus rendered inexplicable. But Leibniz finds his
+function as a philosopher in showing that these problems, which seem
+insoluble, arise when we insist upon erecting into actual separations
+or differences of kind what really are only stages of development
+or differences of degree. A sensation is not an effect which one
+substance impresses upon another because God pleased that it should, or
+because of an incomprehensible incident in the original constitution of
+things. It is a higher development of that representative power which
+belongs to every real being.
+
+Certain monads reach a state of development, or manifestation of
+activity, which is characterized by the possession of distinct
+organs. Such monads may be called, in a pre-eminent sense, "souls,"
+and include all the higher animals as well as man. This possession of
+differentiated organs finds its analogue in the internal condition of
+the monad. What appears externally as an organ of sense appears ideally
+as a conscious representative state which we call "sensation." "When,"
+Leibniz says, "the monad has its organs so developed that there
+is relief and differentiation in the impressions received, and
+consequently in the perceptions which represent them, we have feeling
+or sensation; that is, a perception accompanied by memory," to which
+at other times he adds "attention." Life, he says, "is a perceptive
+principle; the soul is sensitive life; mind is rational soul." And
+again he says in substance that when the soul begins to have interests,
+and to regard one representation as of more value than others, it
+introduces relief into its perceptions, and those which stand out are
+called "sensations."
+
+This origin of sensations as higher developments of the representative
+activities of a monad conditions their relation to further processes
+of knowledge. The sensations are confused knowledge; they are ideas
+in their primitive and most undifferentiated form. They constitute,
+as Leibniz somewhere says, the vertigo of the conscious life. In every
+sentient organism multitudes of sensations are constantly thronging in
+and overpowering its distinct consciousness. The soul is so flooded
+with ideas of everything in the world which has any relation to
+its body that it has distinct ideas of nothing. Higher knowledge,
+then, does not consist in compounding these sensations; that would
+literally make confusion worse confounded. It consists in introducing
+distinctness into the previously confused sensations,--in finding out
+what they mean; that is, in finding out their bearings, what they point
+to, and how they are related. Knowledge is not an external process
+performed upon the sensations, it is the development of their internal
+content.
+
+It follows, therefore, that sensation is organic to all forms of
+knowledge whatever. The monad, which is pure activity, that which
+culminates the scale of reality, has no confused ideas, and to it
+all knowledge is eternally rational, having no sensible traces about
+it. But every other monad, having its activity limited, has ideas
+which come to it at first in a confused way, and which its activity
+afterwards differentiates. Thus it is that Leibniz can agree so
+heartily with the motto of the Sensationalist school,--that there is
+nothing in the intellect which was not first in the sensory. But
+Leibniz uses this phrase as Aristotle would have done, having
+in mind the distinction between potentiality and actuality. _In
+posse_, sensation is all knowledge; but only _in posse_. And he, like
+Aristotle, interprets the relation between potentiality and actuality
+as one of a difference of activity. The potential is that which
+becomes real through a dynamic process. The actual is capacity plus
+action. Sensation, in short, is spiritual activity in an undeveloped
+and hence partial and limited condition. It is not, as Locke would have
+it, the real factor in all knowledge.
+
+The marks of sensation which Locke lays down,--their passivity, their
+simplicity, their position as the real element in knowledge,--Leibniz
+either denies, therefore, or accepts in a sense different from that of
+Locke. Strictly speaking, sensation is an activity of the mind. There
+are no windows through which the soul receives impressions. Pure
+passivity of any kind is a myth, a scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+developed from the soul within; it is the activity of reality made
+manifest to itself. It is a higher kind of action than anything we find
+in minerals or in plants. If we look at sensation ideally, however,
+that is, according to the position which it holds in the system
+of knowledge, it is properly regarded as passive. It represents the
+limitation, the unrealized (that is, the non-active) side of spiritual
+life.
+
+"Efficient causality" is a term which has its rightful and legitimate
+use in physical science. Simply from the scientific point of view
+we are correct in speaking of objects as affecting the body, and the
+body, through its nervous system, as affecting the soul and producing
+sensations. But philosophy does not merely use categories, it explains
+them. And Leibniz contends that to explain the category of causality
+in a mechanical sense, to understand by it physical influence actually
+transferred from one thing to another, is to make the idea inexplicable
+and irrational. The true meaning of causality is ideal. It signifies
+the relative positions which the objects concerned have in the
+harmonious system of reality. The body that is higher in the scale
+impresses the other; that is to say, it dominates it or gives its
+law. There is no energy or quality which passes physically from one
+to the other. But one monad, as higher in the stage of development
+than another, makes an ideal demand upon that one. It places before
+the other its own more real condition. The less-developed monad, since
+its whole activity consists in representing the universe of reality,
+answers to this demand by developing the corresponding quality in
+itself. The category of harmonious or co-operative action is thus
+substituted for that of external and mechanical influence. Physical
+causality when given a philosophic interpretation means organic
+development. The reality of a higher stage is the more active: the
+more active has a greater content in that it mirrors the universe more
+fully; it manifests accordingly more of the law of the universe, and
+hence has an ideal domination over that which is lower in the scale. It
+is actually (that is, in activity) what the other is potentially. But
+as the entire existence of the latter is in representing or setting
+forth the relations which make the world, its activity is aroused to a
+corresponding production. Hence the former is called "cause," and the
+latter "effect."
+
+This introduces us to the relation of soul and body, or, more generally
+stated, to the relation of mind and matter. It is the theory of
+co-operation, of harmonious activity, which Leibniz substitutes for
+the theory which Descartes had formulated, according to which there
+are two opposed substances which can affect each other only through
+the medium of a _deus ex machina_. Locke, on the other hand, took the
+Cartesian principle for granted, and thus enveloped himself in all the
+difficulties which surround the question of "mind and matter." Locke
+wavers between two positions, one of which is that there are two
+unknown substances,--the soul and the object in itself,--which, coming
+in contact, produce sensations; while the other takes the hypothetical
+attitude that there may be but one substance,--matter,--and that
+God, out of the plenitude of his omnipotence, has given matter a
+capacity which does not naturally belong to it,--that of producing
+sensations. In either case, however, the final recourse is to the
+arbitrary power of God. There is no natural--that is, intrinsic and
+explicable--connection between the sensation and that which produces
+it. Sensation occupied the hard position which the mechanical school
+of to-day still allots it. It is that "inexplicable," "mysterious,"
+"unaccountable" link between the domains of matter and mind of which no
+rational account can be given, but which is yet the source of all that
+we know about matter, and the basis of all that is real in the mind!
+
+Leibniz, recognizing that reality is an organic whole,--not two parts
+with a chasm between them,--says that "God does not arbitrarily give
+substances whatever qualities may happen, or that he may arbitrarily
+determine, but only such as are natural; that is, such as are
+related to one another in an _explicable_ way as modifications of
+the substance." Leibniz feels sure that to introduce the idea of the
+inexplicable, the purely supernatural, into the natural is to give up
+all the advantages which the modern mechanical theory had introduced,
+and to relapse into the meaningless features of scholasticism. If the
+"supernatural"--that is, the essentially inexplicable--is introduced
+in this one case, why should it not be in others; why should we not
+return outright to the "fanatic philosophy which explains all facts by
+simply attributing them to God immediately or by way of miracle, or to
+the barbarian philosophy, which explains phenomena by manufacturing,
+_ad hoc_, occult qualities or faculties, seemingly like little
+demons or spirits capable of performing, without ceremony, whatever
+is required,--as if watches marked time by their horodeictic power,
+without wheels, and mills ground grain, without grindstones, by their
+fractive power"? In fact, says Leibniz, by introducing the inexplicable
+into our _explanations_ "we fall into something worse than occult
+qualities,--we give up philosophy and reason; we open asylums for
+ignorance and laziness, holding not only that there are qualities which
+we do not understand (there are, indeed, too many such), but qualities
+which the greatest intelligence, if God gave it all the insight
+possible, could not understand,--that is, such as are _in themselves_
+without rhyme or reason. And indeed it would be a thing without
+rhyme or reason that God should perform miracles in the ordinary
+course of nature." And regarding the whole matter of introducing the
+inconceivable and the inexplicable into science, he says that "while
+the conception of men is not the measure of God's power, their capacity
+of conception is the measure of _nature's_ power, since everything
+occurring in the natural order is capable of being understood by the
+created intelligence." Such being the thought of Leibniz regarding the
+virtual attempt to introduce in his day the unknowable into philosophy,
+it is evident that he must reject, from the root up, all theories of
+sensation which, like Locke's, make it the product of the inexplicable
+intercourse of two substances.
+
+For this doctrine, then, Leibniz substitutes that of an infinite number
+of substances, all of the same kind, all active, all developing from
+within, all conspiring to the same end, but of various stages of
+activity, or bearing various relations of completeness to the one end.
+
+Indeed, one and the same monad has various degrees of activity in
+itself; that is, it represents more or less distinctly the universe
+according to its point of view. Its point of view requires of it, of
+course, primarily, a representation of that which is about it. Thus
+an infinity of states arises, each corresponding to some one of the
+multitude of objects surrounding the monad. The soul has no control,
+no mastery, over these states. It has to take them as they come; with
+regard to them, the soul appears passive. It appears so because it does
+not as yet clearly distinguish them. It does not react upon them and
+become conscious of their meaning or thoroughly rational character. We
+shall afterwards see that "matter" is, with Leibniz, simply this
+passive or confused side of monads. It is the monad so far as it has
+not brought to light the rational activity which is immanent in it. At
+present we need only notice that the body is simply the part of matter
+or of passivity which limits the complete activity of any monad. So
+Leibniz says, "in so far as the soul has perfection, it has distinct
+thoughts, and God has accommodated the body to the soul. So far as it
+is imperfect and its perceptions are confused, God has accommodated the
+soul to the body in such a way that the soul lets itself be inclined by
+the passions, which are born from corporeal representations. It is by
+its confused thoughts (sensations) that the soul represents the bodies
+about it," just as, we may add, its distinct thoughts represent the
+monads or souls about it, and, in the degree of their distinctness,
+God, the monad which is _purus actus_.
+
+Following the matter into more detail, we may say that since God alone
+is pure energy, knowing no limitation, God alone is pure spirit. Every
+finite soul is joined to an organic body. "I do not admit," says
+Leibniz, "that there are souls entirely separate from matter, nor
+created spirits detached from body. . . . It is this body which
+the monad represents most distinctly; but since this body expresses the
+entire universe by the connection of all matter throughout it, the soul
+represents the entire universe in representing the body which belongs
+to it most particularly." But according to the principle of continuity
+there must be in the least apparent portion of matter still "a universe
+of creatures, of souls, of entelechies. There is nothing sterile,
+nothing dead in the universe. It is evident from these considerations
+that every living body has a dominant entelechy, which is the soul in
+that body, but that the members of this living body are again full of
+other living beings and souls," which, however, since not of so high
+a grade, that is, not representing the universe so fully, appear to be
+wholly material and subject to the "dominant" entelechy; namely, to the
+one which gives the law to the others by expressing more adequately
+the idea at which they only confusedly aim. Owing to the constant
+change of activity, however, these particles do not remain in constant
+subordination to the same entelechy (that is, do not form parts of the
+same body), but pass on to higher or lower degrees of "evolution,"
+and have their places taken by others undergoing similar processes
+of change. Thus "all bodies are in a perpetual flux, like rivers,
+with parts continually leaving and entering in." Or, interpreting
+this figurative language, each monad is continually, in its process
+of development, giving law to new and less developed monads, which
+therefore appear as its body. The nature of matter in itself, and of
+its phenomenal manifestation in the body, are, however, subjects which
+find no explanation here, and which will demand explanation in another
+chapter.
+
+We may sum up Leibniz's theory of sensation by saying that it is a
+representative state developed by the self-activity of the soul; that
+in itself it is a confused or "involved" grade of activity, and in
+its relation to the world represents the confused or passive aspects
+of existence; that this limitation of the monad constitutes matter,
+and in its necessary connection with the monad constitutes the body
+which is always joined to the finite soul; that to this body are joined
+in all cases an immense number of monads, whose action is subordinate
+to that of this dominant monad, and that it is the collection of these
+which constitute the visible animal body. Thus if we look at sensation
+with regard to the monad which possesses it, it is a product of the
+body of the monad; if we look at it with reference to other monads,
+it represents or reflects their passive or material side. This is
+evidently one aspect again of the pre-established harmony,--an aspect
+in which some of the narrower of Leibniz's critics have seen the whole
+meaning of the doctrine exhausted. It is, however, simply one of the
+many forms in which the harmony, the union of spiritual and mechanical,
+ideal and material, meets us. In truth, while in other systems the fact
+of sensation is a fact demanding some artificial mode of reconciling
+"mind" and "matter," or is else to be accepted as an inexplicable fact,
+in the system of Leibniz it is itself evidence that the spiritual
+and the mechanical are not two opposed kinds of existence, but are
+organically united. It is itself the manifestation of the harmony
+of the ideal and the material, not something which requires that
+a factitious theory be invented for explaining their appearance of
+harmony. Sensation has within itself the ideal element, for it is the
+manifestation, in its most undeveloped form, of the spiritual meaning
+of the universe. It has a mechanical element, for it expresses the
+limitation, the passivity, of the monad.
+
+It is from this standpoint that Leibniz criticises what Locke says
+about the relation of sensations to the objects which produce
+them. Leibniz holds that all our sensations have a definite and
+natural connection with the qualities of objects,--the "secondary"
+as well as the "primary." They all represent certain properties of the
+object. Even the pain which the thrust of a needle gives us, while it
+does not resemble anything in the needle, does in some way represent
+or resemble motions going on in our body. This resemblance is not
+necessarily one of exact form, but just as the ellipse, hyperbola,
+and parabola are projections of the circle in the sense that there
+is a natural and fixed law of connection between them, so that every
+point of one corresponds by a certain relation with every point of the
+other, so the resemblance between the sensation and the quality of the
+object is always in the form of a fixed law of order, which, however
+unknown to us it may now be, is capable of being found out. If we are
+to make any distinction between "secondary" and "primary" sensations,
+it should be not that one presents qualities that are in the objects,
+and the other affections which exist only in us, but that the primary
+sensations (of number, form, size, etc.) represent the qualities in
+a distinct way, appealing to the rational activity of intelligence,
+while the secondary represent the qualities in a confused way, a way
+not going beyond the effect upon the mind into relations, that is, into
+distinct knowledge.
+
+This brings regularly before us the question of the relation of
+sensations to knowledge. We have seen enough already to know that
+Leibniz does not believe that knowledge begins with the simple (that
+is, unrelated), and then proceeds by a process of compounding. The
+sensation is not simple to Leibniz, but thoroughly complex, involving
+confusedly within itself all possible relations. As relations are
+brought forth into distinct light out of this confusion, knowledge
+ends rather than begins with the simple. And again it is evident that
+Leibniz cannot believe that knowledge begins and ends in experience,
+in the sense in which both himself and Locke use the word; namely, as
+meaning the combination and succession of impressions.
+
+"Experience," as they use the term, consists in sensations and their
+association,--"consecution" as Leibniz calls it. Experience is the
+stage of knowledge reached by animals, and in which the majority
+of men remain,--and indeed all men in the greater part of their
+knowledge. Leibniz takes just the same position regarding the larger
+part of our knowledge which Hume takes regarding it all. It consists
+simply in associations of such a nature that when one part recurs
+there is a tendency to expect the recurrence of the other member. It
+resembles reason, but it is based on the accidental experience of
+events in a consecutive order, and not on knowledge of their causal
+connection. We all expect the sun to rise to-morrow; but with all of
+us, excepting the astronomer, such expectation is purely "empirical,"
+being based on the images of past experiences which recur. The
+astronomer, however, sees into the grounds, that is, the reasons, of
+the expectation, and hence his knowledge is rational.
+
+Thus we have two grades of knowledge,--one empirical, consisting
+of knowledge of facts; the other rational, being of the truths
+of reason. The former is contingent and particular, the latter is
+necessary and universal. Leibniz insists, with a pertinacity which
+reminds us of Kant, that "experience" can give instances or examples
+only, and that the fact that anything has happened in a given way
+any number of times in the past, can give no assurance that it will
+continue to do so in the future. There is nothing in the nature
+of the case which renders its exact opposite impossible. But a
+rational truth is necessary, for its opposite is impossible, being
+irrational or meaningless. This may not always be evident in the
+case of a complex rational truth; but if it be analyzed into simpler
+elements, as a geometrical proposition into definitions, axioms, and
+postulates, the absurdity of its opposite becomes evident. Sensation,
+in conclusion, is the having of confused ideas,--ideas corresponding
+to matter. Experience is the association of these confused ideas, and
+their association according to their accidental juxtaposition in the
+life of the soul. It therefore is not only thoroughly sensible, but is
+also phenomenal. Its content is sensations; its form is contingent and
+particular consecution. Both form and content, accordingly, need to be
+reconstructed if they are to be worthy of the name of science or of
+knowledge. This is the position which Leibniz assumes as against the
+empiricist, Locke. The details of this reconstruction, its method and
+result, we must leave till we come in the course of the argument again
+to the subject of knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL.
+
+
+Locke, after discussing the subject of innate ideas in their relation
+to knowledge, goes on to discuss their practical side, or connection
+with will. We shall follow him in this as Leibniz does; but we shall
+consider in connection with this, Leibniz's general theory of will,
+which is developed partially in this chapter, but more completely
+in his critical remarks upon what Locke has to say of the notion of
+"power." Since the theory of morals is as closely connected with will
+as the theory of knowledge is with the intellect, we shall supplement
+this discussion with what Leibniz says upon the ethical question,
+drawing our material somewhat freely from his other writings.
+
+The doctrine of will which Leibniz propounds is in closest harmony
+with his conception of intelligence, and this not merely in the way
+of empirical juxtaposition, but as the result of his fundamental
+principles. If we recall what has been said concerning the monad,
+we shall remember that it is an activity, but an activity with a
+content. It is a force, but a force which mirrors the universe. The
+content, that portion of reality which is reflected in the action,
+is knowledge, or the idea; the activity which brings this about is
+will, or the volition. They are related to each other as form and
+content. There is, strictly speaking, no "state" of mind; there is
+only a tension, a pushing forward of mind. There is no idea which
+is not a volition. Will is thus used, in a very broad sense, as
+equivalent to action. Since, however, the activity of the monad is
+in no case aimless, but has an end in view, the will is not _mere_
+activity in general, it is action towards some definite end. And since
+the end at which the monad aims is always the development of an idea,
+the reflection of some constituent of the universe, the will is always
+directed towards and determined by some idea of the intellect.
+
+We have seen, however, that there are various stages in the reflecting
+power of the soul, or in the realization of intellect. Taking
+only the broadest division, there are perception and apperception;
+that is, there are the conscious and the unconscious mirroring of
+reality. We shall expect, then, to find two corresponding stages of
+volition. Leibniz calls these stages "appetition" and "volition"
+in the narrower sense. The constant tendency in every monad to go
+from one perception to another,--that is, the following of the law
+of development,--constitutes appetition. If joined to feeling,
+it constitutes instinct. Since, again, there are two degrees of
+apperception, one of empirical, the other of rational, consciousness,
+we shall expect to find two grades of volition proper,--one
+corresponding to action for conscious particular ends; the other
+for ends which are proposed by reason, and are hence universal. In
+this chapter we shall simply expand and illustrate these various
+propositions.
+
+Sensations, looked at not as to what they represent, but in
+themselves, are impulses. As such they constitute the lowest stage
+of will. Impulsive action then includes all such as occurs for an
+end which is unknown, or at best but dimly felt. Such action may be
+called blind, not in the sense that it is without reason, but in the
+sense that reason is not consciously present. We are not to think of
+this instinctive action, however, as if it were found simply in the
+animals. Much of human action is also impulsive; probably, indeed,
+an impulsive factor is contained in our most rational willing. We are
+never able to take complete account of the agencies which are acting
+upon us. Along with the reasons of which we are conscious in choosing,
+there are mingled faint memories of past experience, subconscious
+solicitations of the present, dim expectations for the future. Such
+elements are decisive factors far more than we realize.
+
+Indeed, it is because of the extent to which such unconscious
+influences bear upon us and move us that there arises the idea
+of indifferent or unmotivated choice. Were both motive and choice
+unconscious, the question as to whether choice were antecedently
+determined would not arise; and were our motives and their results
+wholly in consciousness, the solution of the question would be
+evident. But when we are conscious of our choice, but are not conscious
+of our impulses and motives, we get the impression that our choice is
+unmotived, and hence come to believe in "indifferent freedom,"--the
+ability to choose as we will.
+
+We shall shortly take up in more detail the theory of Leibniz regarding
+the freedom of will; and it is needful here to remark only that the
+conception which makes it consist in ability to choose without reason
+is in direct contradiction to his fundamental thought,--namely, that
+there can be no activity which does not aim at some reflection of the
+universe, by which, therefore, it is determined. From the psychological
+point of view, it is interesting also to notice how Leibniz's theory
+of unconscious ideas enables him to dispose of the strongest argument
+for indifferent choice,--that drawn from the immediate "testimony"
+of consciousness.
+
+Upon the origin and nature of desires Leibniz has much more to say
+than about the impulses. His account of the transition from impulse
+to desire is based upon the conception of unconscious ideas. Slight
+and imperceptible impulses are working upon us all the time. Indeed,
+they are a necessity; for the actual state of a soul or monad at any
+time is, of course, one of incompleteness. Our nature must always work
+to free itself from its hindrances and obtain its goal of complete
+development. But it will not do this unless there is some stimulus,
+some solicitation to induce it to overcome its limitation. There is
+found accordingly in our every condition a feeling of dissatisfaction,
+or, using Locke's word, of "uneasiness;" and it is this which
+calls forth that activity which brings about a nearer approach to
+the soul's real good. But Leibniz differs from Locke in saying that
+this feeling of uneasiness is not a distinct, or even in most cases a
+conscious, one. It is not pain, although it differs from pain only in
+degree. Uneasiness and pain are related to each other as appetite for
+food is to hunger,--the first suffices to stimulate us to satisfaction,
+but if the want is not met, results in actual pain; if met, these "half
+pains" become tributary to pleasure itself. These unconscious stimuli
+to action result in actions which meet the want, and the aggregation of
+these satisfactions results in pleasure. In Leibniz's own words:--
+
+"If these elements of pain were themselves true pains, we should
+always be in a state of misery, even in pursuing the good. But since
+there is always going on a summation of minute successes in overcoming
+these states of uneasiness, and these put us more and more at ease,
+there comes about a decided pleasure, which often has greater value
+even than the enjoyment of the good. Far, then, from regarding this
+uneasiness as a thing incompatible with happiness, I find that it is
+an essential condition of our happiness. For this does not consist
+in perfect possession, which would make us insensible and stupid, but
+in a constant progress towards greater results, which must always be
+accompanied, accordingly, by this element of desire or uneasiness."
+
+And again he says that "we enjoy all the advantages of pain without any
+of its inconveniences. If the uneasiness should become too distinct,
+we should be miserable in our awaiting the good which relieves it; but
+as it is, there is a constant victory over these half-pains, which we
+always find in desire, and this gives us a quantity of half-pleasures,
+whose continuance and summation (for they acquire force like a moving
+body as it falls) result in a whole and true pleasure." In short,
+there is indeed an element of pain in all desire which stimulates
+us to action, and therefore to higher development. But ordinarily
+this element of pain is not present as such in consciousness, but
+is absorbed in the pleasure which accompanies the realization of the
+higher good. Thus Leibniz, accepting and emphasizing the very same fact
+that served Schopenhauer as a psychological base of pessimism, uses it
+as a foundation-stone of optimism.
+
+But desire, or the conscious tendency towards something required as a
+good, accompanied by the dim feeling of uneasiness at its absence, does
+not yet constitute the complete act of volition. "Several impulses and
+inclinations meet in forming the complete volition which is the result
+of their conflict." In the concrete act of will there are contained
+impulses which push us towards some end whose nature is not known;
+there is desire both in its inchoate stage, where pleasure and pain
+are not in consciousness, and in its formed state, where the pain
+and pleasure are definitely presented. Mixed with these desires and
+impulses are images of past experiences which call up the feelings
+which were formerly attached to them, and thus there are aroused
+indirectly additional impulses and desires. Out of this complicated
+mass of impulses, desires, and feelings, both original and reproduced,
+comes the "dominant effort" which constitutes complete will. But what
+governs the production of this prevailing or dominant effort, which we
+may interpret as the act of choice? The answer is simple: the result
+of the conflict of these various factors, the striking of the balance,
+_is_ the choice. Some desire emerges from the confused complex, and
+that desire is the final determination of the will. This desire may
+not in all cases be the strongest in itself,--that is, the one whose
+satisfaction will allay the greatest "uneasiness," for the others,
+taken together, may outweigh it; it may, so to speak, have a plurality,
+but not a majority, of volitional forces on its side,--and in this case
+a fusion of opposing factors may defeat it. But in any event the result
+will be the _algebraic_ sum of the various desires and impulses.
+
+It is not at all necessary, however, that the net outcome shall make
+itself apparent as a mechanical equivalent of the forces at work. The
+soul, Leibniz says, may use its skill in the formation of parties,
+so as to make this or that side the victor. How is this to be done,
+and still disallow the possibility of arbitrary choice? This problem
+is solved through action becoming deliberate. Deliberate action is
+impossible unless the soul has formed the habit of looking ahead and
+of arranging for modes of action which do not present themselves as
+immediate necessities. Only in this way can one look at the matter
+impartially and coolly; "at the moment of combat there is no time for
+discussion. Everything which then occurs throws its full force on the
+balance, and contributes to an outcome made up in the same way as in
+mechanics." The formation of certain habits beforehand, therefore, is
+the secret of translating impulsive action into the deliberate sphere.
+
+Of these habits the simplest consists in thinking only occasionally and
+incidentally of certain things. Imagination is the mother of desire. If
+we do not allow the imagination to dwell upon certain lines of thought,
+the probability of such thoughts acquiring sufficient force to become
+motives of weight is small. A still more effective method of regulating
+action is "to accustom ourselves to forming a train of thoughts of
+which reason, and not chance (that is, association), is the basis. We
+must get out of the tumult of present impressions, beyond our immediate
+surroundings, and ask: _Dic cur hic? respice finem!_" In other words,
+we must cross-question our impulses and desires, we must ask whence
+they come, that we may see how valid are the credentials which they
+offer. We must ask whither they tend, that we may measure them, not by
+their immediate interest, but by their relation to an end. The desires
+are not to be taken at their face-value, but are to be weighed and
+compared.
+
+Such a process will evidently result in arresting instantaneous
+action. There will be a pause between the presentation of the
+desires and the overt act. During this pause it may well occur that
+the examination to which the desires have been subject has awakened
+contrary desires. The thought of the ignoble origin of a desire or of
+its repulsive, though remote, result will bring into action desires of
+an opposed kind. Thus the soul regulates action, not as if, however, it
+had any direct influence over desires, but by its ability of bringing
+other desires into the field. The will, in short, is not opposed to
+desire, though rational desire may be opposed to sensuous desire. "By
+various artifices, then," Leibniz concludes, "we become masters of
+ourselves, and can make ourselves think and do that which we ought
+to will, and which reason ordains." Such is the summary of Leibniz's
+analysis of the elements and mechanism of volition. There was not much
+psychology existing at the time which could aid him in such an acute
+and subtle account; only in Aristotle could he have found much help. On
+the other hand, it has been so generally incorporated into current
+psychology that we may seem to have wasted space in repeating truisms.
+
+Of moral action, however, we have as yet heard nothing. We have an
+account of a psychological mechanism; but for what ethical end does
+this work, and by what method? This question may best be answered
+by turning in more detail to the question of the "freedom of the
+will." Freedom in the sense of arbitrary choice Leibniz wholly
+rejects, as we have seen. It is inconsistent with at least two of
+his fundamental principles; those, namely, of sufficient reason,
+and of continuity. "Everything that occurs must have a sufficient
+reason for its occurrence." This oft-repeated dictum of Leibniz, the
+logical way of stating the complete rationality of experience, would
+be shattered into fragments by collision with groundless choice. It
+conflicts equally (indeed for the same reason) with the principle of
+continuity. "The present is pregnant with the future." "Nature never
+makes leaps." "An absolute equilibrium is a chimera." "The soul is
+never wholly at rest." These are only various ways of saying that the
+notion of arbitrary or unmotivated choice rests upon the assumption
+that there is a complete break in the life of the soul, so that it
+is possible for something to happen which bears no organic relation
+to anything that precedes. The notion of a state of the soul without
+motives, followed by the irruption of a certain line of conduct, the
+notion of an equilibrium broken by arbitrary choice, is simply the
+counterpart of the idea of a vacuum. All that makes Leibniz reject the
+latter conception makes it impossible for him to accept the former.
+
+This should not be interpreted to mean that Leibniz denied the "freedom
+of the will." What he denied is a notion of freedom which seemed to him
+at once unverifiable, useless, and irrational. There is a conception
+of freedom which Leibniz not only accepts, but insists upon. Such a
+notion of freedom is indeed his ethical ideal. Its three traits are
+contingency, spontaneity, and rationality of action. How action can
+be at the same time contingent and determined is perhaps difficult
+to understand; but Leibniz takes the position that it is. His first
+step is to distinguish between physical, mathematical, metaphysical,
+and moral necessity. There are truths which are eternal, truths
+which are absolutely necessary, because their opposites involve
+contradiction. They cannot be violated without involving us in
+absurdity. There are other truths which are "positive," that is,
+ordained for good reason. These truths may be _a priori_, or rational,
+and not merely empirical; for they have been chosen for reasons of
+advantage. God always chooses and ordains the best of a number of
+possibilities; but he does it, not because the opposite is impossible,
+but because it is inferior. Truths whose opposites are impossible
+have metaphysical and mathematical necessity. Positive truths have
+moral necessity. The principle of causation _must_ be true; the three
+interior angles of a triangle _must_ be equal to two right angles. But
+that God shall choose the better of two courses is a moral necessity
+only. It invokes no absolute logical contradiction to conceive him
+choosing some other way. Upon moral necessity depends the physical. The
+particular laws of nature are necessary, not because their opposites
+are logically absurd, but because these laws are most in accordance
+with the general principles of good and order, in agreement with which
+God chooses. Physical and moral action is therefore in all cases
+contingent. (Contingency does not of itself, of course, constitute
+freedom, but conjoined with the characteristics of rationality and
+spontaneity, does so.)
+
+Necessity, in short, is based upon the principle of logical
+contradiction; contingency upon that of sufficient reason. Since our
+actions are in no case necessitated in such a way that their opposite
+is self-contradictory, or, put positively, since our actions are always
+determined by the choice of that which seems best, our actions are
+contingent. Occasionally Leibniz puts the matter in a much simpler way,
+and one which brings out the essential element more clearly than the
+foregoing distinction. Some facts are determined by the principle of
+physical causation; others by that of final causation. Some, in other
+words, are necessary as the mechanical outcome of their antecedents;
+others are necessary as involved in the reaching of a given end. It is
+simply the Aristotelian distinction between efficient and teleological
+causation. Human action is determined, since it always has a motive or
+reason; it is contingent, because it springs from this reason and not
+from its temporal antecedents. It is, in short, determined, but it is
+also free.
+
+It does not require much analysis, however, to see that this
+distinction, in whatever way it be put, really has no significance,
+except as it points to the other marks of freedom,--spontaneity
+and rationality. As we shall see, Leibniz makes and can make
+no absolute distinction between truths of reason and truths of
+fact. The contingent and the necessary are one at bottom. To us
+with our limited intelligence it does indeed often appear as if no
+contradiction were involved in the former,--as if, for example, a man
+could turn either to right or left without there being any logical
+contradiction in either case; but this is because of our defective
+insight. An intelligence cognizant of the whole matter could see that
+one action would contradict some truth involved in the constitution
+of the universe. The source of the contingent and changing is in the
+necessary and eternal. Thus it is that although Leibniz at one time
+says that "neither one's self nor any other spirit more enlightened
+could demonstrate that the opposite of a given action (like going out
+in preference to staying in) involves contradiction," at another time
+he says that "a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances, internal
+and external, would enable any one to foresee" the decision in a given
+case. If that be so, any other action must be impossible; that is,
+according to Leibniz's invariable logic, imply contradiction.
+
+We get the same result if we consider the relation of final and
+efficient causes. It is only when speaking in a very general way that
+Leibniz opposes action as determined by precedent activities to that
+directed towards the attainment of an end. He does not really mean
+that _some_ action is physical, while _other_ is teleological. He
+cannot suppose that some action has an antecedent cause, while other
+has a purpose. The very essence of his thought is that action is
+both mechanical and teleological; that all action follows in a law of
+order from precedent action, and that all fulfils a certain spiritual
+function. The distinction is not, with Leibniz, one between two kinds
+of action, but between two ways of looking at every action. The desire
+to go rather than to stay, has its efficient cause; the movements by
+which the desire is executed, have their final cause. The truth of
+the matter seems to be that Leibniz in his desire to guard against
+being thought a fatalist, or one denying all freedom, uses terms
+which are compatible only with a freedom of indifference. So in his
+statement that man's action is free because "contingent," he seems
+actuated rather by a wish to avoid the hateful term "necessity" than by
+considerations strictly in harmony with his own principles.
+
+Had he confined his use of the term "contingent," however, simply to
+re-stating the fact that human action is spontaneous, no such apparent
+contradiction would have presented itself. Human actions may be called
+contingent, as physical actions are not, because the latter always
+seem to be externally determined, while the former are internally
+directed. Motions act from without; motives from within. The cause of
+the falling of a stone lies outside it; the source of a desire which
+moves to action is from the mind itself. We are thus introduced to
+contingency as a synonym of "spontaneity."
+
+Kuno Fischer calls attention to the fact that Spinoza and Leibniz both
+use the same sort of illustration to show the non-arbitrary character
+of human action, but the same illustration with a difference;
+and in the difference he finds the distinction between the two
+philosophies. Spinoza says that a stone falling to the ground, if
+endowed with consciousness, might imagine itself following its own will
+in falling. Leibniz says that a magnetic needle similarly endowed might
+imagine that it turned towards the north simply because it wished. Both
+examples are used to illustrate the folly of relying upon the immediate
+"testimony" of consciousness. But the example of Spinoza is that of an
+object, all whose movements are absolutely necessitated from without;
+the example of Leibniz is that of an object whose activity, though
+following law, and not caprice, is apparently initiated from within. Of
+course in reality the movements of the magnetic needle are just as much
+externally conditioned as those of the stone; but the appearance of
+self-action in the latter case may serve at least to exemplify what is
+meant by spontaneity as attributed to human action.
+
+It must be noticed at the outset that spontaneity belongs to every
+simple substance. We have only to recall the doctrine of monads. These
+suffer nothing from without, all their activity is the expression,
+is the unfolding, of their own law. "By nature," Leibniz says, "every
+simple substance has perceptions, and its individuality consists in
+the permanent law which forms the succession of its perceptions, that
+are born naturally one of another. Hence it is not necessary for it to
+receive any physical influence from without; and therefore the soul has
+in itself a perfect spontaneity in such a way that its actions depend
+only upon God and itself." Or if we put the matter in its connection
+with his psychology rather than with his metaphysics, it is true that
+our actions are determined by our motives; but motives are not forces
+without the soul, they are forces _of_ the soul. In acting according to
+motives the soul is simply acting according to its own laws. A desire
+is not an impulsion from an external cause; it is the expression of an
+inward tendency. To say that the soul acts from the strongest desire
+is simply to say, from this standpoint, that it manifests the most
+real part of itself, not that it obeys a foreign force. Impulses,
+desires, motives, are all psychical; they admit of no description or
+explanation except in their relation to the soul itself. Thus when
+Leibniz compares, as he often does, motives to weights acting upon a
+balance, we are to remember that the balance is not to be conceived
+as the soul, and the weights as energies outside it, but that this is
+only a way of picturing what is going on _within_ the soul itself. The
+soul may be a mechanism, but it is a self-directing and self-executing
+mechanism. To say that human action is free because it is spontaneous,
+is to say that it follows an immanent principle, that it is independent
+of foreign influences,--in a word, that it is self-determined.
+
+But here again it seems as if Leibniz had stated a principle
+altogether too wide to throw any light upon the nature of moral
+freedom. Spontaneity is no more an attribute of human activity than it
+is of all real activity. Every monad, even the unconscious, as truly
+follows its own law without interference from without as does man
+himself. If the spontaneity of action constitutes its morality, we are
+not in a condition to ascribe morality to man any more than to any real
+thing. We are thus thrown back again upon the conception of rationality
+as the final and decisive trait of freedom and of ethical conduct. Just
+as "contingency" gets a moral import only in connection with conscious
+ends of action, so "spontaneity" comes within the moral realm only when
+conjoined to reason.
+
+Why is there this close connection between reason and freedom? The
+reader has only to recall what was said of Leibniz's theory of
+causality to get a glimpse into their unity. Causality is not a matter
+of physical influence, but of affording the reason in virtue of which
+some fact is what it is. This applies of course to the relation of the
+soul and the body. "So far as the soul is perfect and has distinct
+ideas, God has accommodated the body to it; so far as the soul is
+imperfect and its ideas are confused, God has accommodated the soul to
+the body. In the former case the body always responds to the demands
+of the soul; in the latter the soul is moved by the passions which
+are born of the sensuous ideas. Each is thought to act upon the other
+in the measure of its perfection [that is, degree of activity], since
+God has adjusted one thing to another according to its perfection or
+imperfection. Activity and passivity are always reciprocal in created
+things, because a portion of the reasons which serve to explain what
+goes on is in one substance, and another portion in the other. This is
+what makes us call one active, the other passive."
+
+If we translate these ideas out of their somewhat scholastic
+phraseology, the meaning is that the self-activity of any substance
+is accurately measured by the extent to which it contains the reasons
+for its own actions; and conversely, that it is dependent or enslaved
+just so far as it has its reasons beyond itself. Sensations, sensuous
+impulses, represent, as we have seen before, the universe only in a
+confused and inarticulate way. They are knowledge which cannot give
+an account of itself. They represent, in short, that side of mind
+which may be regarded as affected, or the limitation of mind,--its
+want of activity. So far as the mind acts from these sensations and
+the feelings which accompany them, it is ideally determined from
+without; it is a captive to its own states; it is in a condition of
+passivity. In all action, therefore, which occurs from a sensuous
+basis, the soul is rightly regarded as unfree.
+
+On the other hand, just in the degree in which distinctness is
+introduced into the sensations, so that they are not simply experienced
+as they come, but are related to one another so that their reason
+for existence, their spiritual meaning, is ascertained, just in
+that degree is the soul master of itself. In Leibniz's own words:
+"Distinct knowledge or intelligence has its place in the true use of
+reason, while the senses furnish confused ideas. Hence we can say that
+we are free from slavery just in the degree that we act with distinct
+knowledge, but are subject to our passions in just the degree that our
+ideas are confused;" that is, not really representative of things as
+they are. "Intelligence is the soul of liberty."
+
+This psychological explanation rests, of course, upon the foundation
+principle of the Leibnizian philosophy. Spirit is the sole reality,
+and spirit is activity. But there are various degrees of activity, and
+each grade lower than the _purus actus_ may be rightfully regarded as
+in so far passive. This relative passivity or unreality constitutes
+the material and hence the sensuous world. One who has not insight
+into truth, lives and acts in this world of comparative unreality;
+he is in bondage to it. From this condition of slavery only reason,
+the understanding of things as they are, can lift one. The rational
+man is free because he acts, in the noble words of Spinoza, _sub specie
+æternitatis_. He acts in view of the eternal truth of things,--as God
+himself would act.
+
+God alone, it further follows, is wholly free. In him alone are
+understanding and will wholly one. In him the true and the good are
+one; while every created intelligence is subject in some degree to
+sensuous affection, to passion. "In us, besides the judgment of the
+understanding, there is always mixed some unreal idea of the sensation
+which gives birth to passions and impulses, and these traverse the
+judgment of the practical understanding." Freedom, in fine, is not
+a ready made garment with which all men are clothed to do with as
+they will. It is the ethical ideal; it is something to be attained;
+it is action in conformity with reason, or insight into the spiritual
+nature of reality and into its laws; it is not the starting-point, it
+is the goal. Only with a great price do men purchase such freedom. It
+will be noticed at once that Leibniz comes very close to Plato in his
+fundamental ethical ideas. The unity of virtue and reason, of virtue
+and freedom,--these are thoroughly Platonic conceptions. To both Plato
+and Leibniz reason is the ethical ideal because it is the expression
+of, nay, rather, _is_ the reality of the universe; while all else is,
+as Leibniz says, imperfect or unreal, since it is not an activity, or,
+as Plato says, a mixture of Being and Non-Being. Again, to both man
+bears a similar relation to this spiritual reality. In Plato's words,
+he participates in the Ideas; in those of Leibniz he reflects, as a
+mirror, the universe. To both, in a word, the reality, the true-self
+of the individual, is the spiritual universe of which it is an organic
+member. To both, therefore, man obtains freedom or self-realization
+only as he realizes his larger and more comprehensive identity with the
+Reason of the universe. With both, knowledge is the good, ignorance is
+the evil. No man is voluntarily bad, but only through lack of knowledge
+of the true Good. Leibniz, however, with a more developed psychology,
+supplements Plato in the point where the latter had the most
+difficulty,--the possibility of the feelings or of a love of pleasure
+overcoming knowledge of the good. This possibility Plato was compelled
+to deny, while Leibniz, by his subtle identifying of the passions with
+lack of knowledge, or with confused knowledge, can admit it. "It is an
+imperfection of our freedom," says Leibniz, "which causes us to choose
+evil rather than good,--a greater evil rather than the less, the less
+good rather than the greater. This comes from the _appearances_ of good
+and evil which deceive us; but God, who is perfect knowledge, is always
+led to the true and to the best good, that is, to the true and absolute
+good."
+
+It only remains briefly to apply these conceptions to some specific
+questions of moral actions. Locke asks whether there are practical
+innate ideas, and denies them, as he denies theoretical. Leibniz,
+in replying, recognizes two kinds of "innate" practical principles,
+one of which is to be referred to the class of instincts, the other
+to that of maxims. Primarily, and probably wholly in almost all
+men, moral truths take the rank of instincts alone. All men aim
+at the Good; it is impossible to think of man wilfully seeking
+his own evil. The methods, the means of reaching this Good, are
+implanted in men as instincts. These instincts, when brought to the
+light of reason and examined, become _maxims_ of action; they lose
+their particular and impulsive character, and become universal and
+deliberate principles. Thus Leibniz is enabled to answer the various
+objections which are always brought against any "intuitive" theory
+of moral actions,--the variability of men's moral beliefs and conduct
+in different countries and at different times. Common instincts, but
+at first instincts only, are present in all men whenever and wherever
+they live. These instincts may readily be "resisted by men's passions,
+obscured by prejudice, and changed by custom." The moral instincts are
+always the basis of moral action, but "custom, tradition, education"
+become mixed with them. Even when so confounded, however, the instinct
+will generally prevail, and custom is, upon the whole, on the side of
+right rather than wrong, so that Leibniz thinks there is a sense in
+which all men have one common morality.
+
+But these moral instincts, even when pure, are not ethical
+science. This is innate, Leibniz says, only in the sense in which
+arithmetic is innate,--it depends upon demonstrations which reason
+furnishes. Leibniz does not, then, oppose intuitive and demonstrative,
+as sometimes happens. Morality is _practically_ intuitive in the sense
+that all men tend to aim at the Good, and have an instinctive feeling
+of what makes towards the Good. It is _theoretically_ demonstrative,
+since it does not become a science until Reason has an insight into the
+nature of the Good, and ascertains the fixed laws which are tributary
+to it. Moral principles are _not_ intuitive in the sense that they are
+immediately discovered as separate principles by some one power of the
+soul called "conscience." Moral laws are intuitive, he says, "as the
+_consequences_ of our own development and our true well-being." Here we
+may well leave the matter. What is to be said in detail of Leibniz's
+ethics will find its congenial home in what we have to say of his
+theology.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT.
+
+
+Locke's account of innate ideas and of sensation is only preparatory
+to a discussion of the ideas got by sensation. His explanation of the
+mode of knowledge leads up to an explanation of the things known. He
+remains true to his fundamental idea that before we come to conclusions
+about any matters we must "examine our own ability." He deals first
+with ideas got by the senses, whether by some one or by their conjoint
+action. Of these the ideas of solidity, of extension, and of duration
+are of most concern to us. They form as near an approach to a general
+philosophy of nature as may be found anywhere in Locke. They are, too,
+the germ from which grew the ideas of matter, of space, and of time,
+which, however more comprehensive in scope and more amply worked out
+in detail, characterize succeeding British thought, and which are
+reproduced to-day by Mr. Spencer.
+
+"The idea of solidity we receive by our touch." "The ideas we get
+by more than one sense are of space or extension, figure, rest,
+and motion." These sentences contain the brief statement of the chief
+contention of the sensational school. Locke certainly was not conscious
+when he wrote them that they were the expression of ideas which should
+resolve the world of matter and of space into a dissolving series of
+accidentally associated sensations; but such was none the less the
+case. When he writes, "If any one asks me what solidity is, I send him
+to his senses to inform him," he is preparing the way for Berkeley,
+and for a denial of all reality beyond the feelings of the individual
+mind. When he says that "we get the idea of space both by sight and
+touch," this statement, although appearing truistic, is none the less
+the source of the contention of Hume that even geometry contains
+no necessary or universal elements, but is an account of sensible
+appearances, relative, as are all matters of sensation.
+
+Locke's ideas may be synopsized as follows: It is a sufficient account
+of solidity to say that it is got by touch and that it arises from
+the resistance found in bodies to the entrance of any other body. "It
+is that which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moved
+towards one another." If not identical with matter, it is at all events
+its most essential property. "This of all others seems the idea most
+intimately connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere else
+to be found or imagined, but only in matter." It is, moreover, the
+source of the other properties of matter. "Upon the solidity of bodies
+depend their mutual impulse, resistance, and protrusion." Solidity,
+again, "is so inseparable an idea from body that upon that depends its
+filling of space, its contact, impulse, and communication of motion
+upon impulse." It is to be distinguished, therefore, from hardness, for
+hardness is relative and derived, various bodies having various degrees
+of it; while solidity consists in utter exclusion of other bodies from
+the space possessed by any one, so that the hardest body has no more
+solidity than the softest.
+
+The close connection between solidity and matter makes it not only
+possible, but necessary, to distinguish between matter and extension as
+against the Cartesians, who had identified them. In particular Locke
+notes three differences between these notions. Extension includes
+neither solidity nor resistance; its parts are inseparable from one
+another both really and mentally, and are immovable; while matter has
+solidity, its parts are mutually separable, and may be moved _in_
+space. From this distinction between space and matter it follows,
+according to Locke, that there is such a thing as a vacuum, or that
+space is not necessarily a plenum of matter. Matter is that which fills
+space; but it is entirely indifferent to space whether or not it is
+filled. Space is occupied by matter, but there is no essential relation
+between them. Solidity is the essence of matter; emptiness is the
+characteristic of space. "The idea of space is as distinct from that
+of solidity as it is from that of scarlet color. It is true, solidity
+cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet color exist without
+extension; but this hinders not that they are _distinct ideas_."
+
+Thus there is fixed for us the idea of space as well as of matter. It
+is a distinct idea; that is, absolute or independent in itself,
+having no intrinsic connection with phenomena _in_ space. Yet it is
+got through the senses. How that can be a matter of sensation which is
+not only not material, but has no connection in itself with matter,
+Locke does not explain. He thinks it sufficient to say that we see
+distance between bodies of different color just as plainly as we see
+the colors. Space is, therefore, a purely immediate idea, containing
+no more organic relation to intelligence than it has to objects. We
+get the notion of time as we do that of space, excepting that it is
+the observation of internal states and not of external objects which
+furnishes the material of the idea. Time has two elements,--succession
+and duration. "Observing what passes in the mind, how of our ideas
+there in train some constantly vanish, and others begin to appear,
+we come by the idea of succession, and by observing a distance in
+the parts of this succession we get the idea of duration." Whether,
+however, time is something essentially empty, having no relation to the
+events which fill it, as space is essentially empty, without necessary
+connection with the objects which fill it, is a question Locke does not
+consider. In fact, the gist of his ideas upon this point is as follows:
+there is actually an objective space or pure emptiness; employing our
+senses, we get the idea of this space. There is actually an objective
+time; employing reflection, we perceive it. There is not the slightest
+attempt to form a philosophy of them, or to show their function in the
+construction of an intelligible world, except in the one point of the
+absolute independence of matter and space.
+
+It cannot be said that Leibniz criticises the minor points of Locke
+in such a way as to throw much light upon them, or that he very
+fully expresses his own ideas about them. He contents himself with
+declaring that while the senses may give instances of space, time,
+and matter, and may suggest to intelligence the stimuli upon which
+intelligence realizes these notions from itself, they cannot be the
+source of these notions themselves; finding the evidence of this in the
+sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and pure physics. For these sciences
+deal with the notions of space, time, and matter, giving necessary
+and demonstrative ideas concerning them, which the senses can never
+legitimate. He further denies the supposed absoluteness or independence
+of space, matter, and motion. Admitting, indeed, the distinction
+between extension and matter, he denies that this distinction suffices
+to prove the existence, or even the possibility, of a vacuum, and ends
+with a general reference to his doctrine of pre-established harmony,
+as serving to explain these matters more fully and more accurately.
+
+Leibniz has, however, a complete philosophy of nature. In his other
+writing, he explains the ideas of matter and force in their dependence
+upon his metaphysic, or doctrine of spiritual entelechies. The task
+does not at first sight appear an easy one. The reality, according to
+Leibniz, is purely spiritual, does not exist in space nor time, and
+is a principle of activity following its own law,--that of reflecting
+the universe of spiritual relations. How from this world of ideal,
+unextended, and non-temporal dynamic realities we are to pass over to
+a material world of extension, with its static existence in space,
+and transitory passage in time, is a question challenging the whole
+Leibnizian system. It is a question, however, for which Leibniz himself
+has provided an answer. We may not regard it as adequate; we may think
+that he has not truly derived the material world from his spiritual
+principles: but at all events he asked himself the question, and gave
+an answer. We shall investigate this answer by arranging what Leibniz
+has said under the heads of: matter as a metaphysical principle; matter
+as a physical phenomenon; and the relation of phenomena to absolute
+reality, or of the physical to the metaphysical. In connection with the
+second head, particularly, we shall find it necessary to discuss what
+Leibniz has said about space, time, and motion.
+
+Wolff, who put the ideas of Leibniz into systematic shape, did it at
+the expense of almost all their significance. He took away the air
+of paradox, of remoteness, that characterized Leibniz's thought, and
+gave it a popular form. But its depth and suggestiveness vanished in
+the process. Unfortunately, Wolff's presentations of the philosophy
+of Leibniz have been followed by others, to whom it seemed a dull
+task to follow out the intricacies of a thought nowhere systematically
+expressed. This has been especially the case as concerns the Leibnizian
+doctrine of matter. A superficial interpretation of certain passages
+in Leibniz has led to an almost universal misunderstanding about
+it. Leibniz frequently says that since matter is composite or complex,
+it follows that there must be something simple as its basis, and this
+simple something is the monad. The misinterpretation just spoken of
+consists in supposing that Leibniz meant that matter as composite
+is made up of monads as simple; that the monad and matter are facts
+of the same order, the latter being only an aggregate, or continued
+collection of the former. It interpreted the conception of Leibniz in
+strict analogy with the atomic theory of Lucretius, excepting that it
+granted that the former taught that the ultimate atom, the component
+of all complex forms of matter, has position only, not extension,
+its essence consisting in its exercise of force, not in its mere space
+occupancy. The monad was thus considered to be _in_ space, or at least
+conditioned by space relations, as is a mathematical point, although
+not itself spatial in the sense of being extended. Monad and matter
+were thus represented as facts of the same kind or genus, having their
+difference only in their relative isolation or aggregation.
+
+But Leibniz repudiated this idea, and that not only by the spirit
+of his teaching, but in express words. Monads "are not ingredients
+or constituents of matter," he says, "but only _conditions_
+of it." "Monads can no more be said to be parts of bodies, or to
+come in contact with them, or to compose them, than can souls or
+mathematical points." "Monads _per se_ have _no_ situation relative
+to one another." An increase in the number of created monads, he says
+again, if such a thing could be supposed, would no more increase the
+amount of matter in existence, than mathematical points added to a
+line would increase its length. And again: "There is no nearness or
+remoteness among monads; to say that they are gathered in a point or
+are scattered in space, is to employ mental fictions, _in trying to
+imagine what can only be thought_." The italicized words give the clew
+to the whole discussion. To make monads of the same order as corporeal
+phenomena, is to make them sensible, or capable of being imaged,
+or conditioned by space and time,--three phrases which are strictly
+correlative. But the monads can only be thought,--that is, their
+qualities are ideal, not sensible; they can be realized only by reason,
+not projected in forms having spatial outline and temporal habitation,
+that is, in images. Monads and material things, in other words, are
+facts of two distinct orders; they are related as the rational or
+spiritual and the physical or sensible. Matter is no more composed of
+monads than it is of thoughts or of logical principles. As Leibniz says
+over and over again: Matter, space, time, motion are only phenomena,
+although phenomena _bene fundata_,--phenomena, that is, having their
+rational basis and condition. The monads, on the other hand, are not
+appearances, they are realities.
+
+Having freed our minds from the supposition that it is in any way
+possible to form an image or picture of the monad; having realized that
+it is wholly false to suppose that monads occupy position in space,
+and then by their continuity fill it, and make extended matter,--we
+must attempt to frame a correct theory of the nature of matter and
+its relation to the monad. We shall do this only as we realize that
+"matter," so far as it has any reality, or so far as it has any real
+_fundamentum_, must be something ideal, or, in Leibniz's language,
+"metaphysical." As he says over and over again, the only realities
+are the substances or spiritual units of activity, to which the name
+"monad" is given. In the inquiry, then, after such reality as matter
+may have, we must betake ourselves to this unit of living energy.
+
+Although every monad is active, it is not entirely active. There is,
+as we have already seen, an infinite scale of substances; and since
+substance is equivalent to activity, this is saying that there is an
+infinite scale of activities. God alone is _purus actus_, absolute
+energy, untouched by passivity or receptivity. Every other being has
+the element of incompleteness, of inadequacy; it does not completely
+represent the universe. In this passivity consists its finitude, so
+that Leibniz says that not even God himself could deprive monads of it,
+for this would be to make them equal to himself. In this passivity,
+incompleteness, or finitude, consists what we call matter. Leibniz says
+that he can understand what Plato meant when he called matter something
+essentially imperfect and transitory. Every finite monad is a union of
+two principles,--those of activity and of passivity. "I do not admit,"
+says Leibniz, "that there are souls existing simply by themselves,
+or that there are created spirits detached from all body. God alone is
+above all matter, since he is its author; creatures freed from matter
+would be at the same time detached from the universal connection
+of things, and, as it were, deserters from the general order." And
+again, "Beings have a nature which is both active and passive;
+_that is_, material and immaterial." And again, he says that every
+created monad requires both an entelechy, or principle of activity,
+and matter. "Matter is essential to any entelechy, and can never be
+separated from it, since matter _completes_ it." In short, the term
+"monad" is equivalent to the term "entelechy" only when applied
+to God. In every other monad, the entelechy, or energy, is but one
+factor. "Matter, or primitive passive power, completes the entelechy,
+or primitive active power, so that it becomes a perfect substance, or
+monad." On the other hand, of course, matter, as the passive principle,
+is a mere potentiality or abstraction, considered in itself. It is
+real only in its union with the active principle. Matter, he says,
+"cannot exist without immaterial substances." "To every particular
+portion of matter belongs a particular _form_; that is, a soul,
+a spirit." To this element of matter, considered as an abstraction,
+in its distinction from soul, Leibniz, following the scholastics, and
+ultimately Aristotle, gives the name, "first" or "bare" matter. The
+same influence is seen in the fact that he opposes this element of
+matter to "form," or the active principle.
+
+Our starting-point, therefore, for the consideration of matter
+is the statement that it is receptivity, the capacity for being
+affected, which always constitutes matter. But what is meant by
+"receptivity"? To answer this question we must return to what was said
+about the two activities of the monad,--representation, or perception,
+and appetition,--and to the difference between confused and distinct
+ideas. The monad has appetition so far as it determines itself
+from within to change, so far as it follows an internal principle
+of energy. It is representative so far as it is determined from
+without, so far as it receives impressions from the universe. Yet
+we have learned to know that in one sense everything occurs from
+the spontaneity of the monad itself; it receives no influence or
+influxus from without; everything comes from its own depths, or is
+appetition. But, on the other hand, all that which so comes forth is
+only a mirroring or copying of the universe. The whole content of the
+appetition is representation. Although the monad works spontaneously,
+it is none the less determined in its activities to produce only
+reflections or images of the world. In this way appetition and
+representation appear to be identical. The monad is determined from
+within, indeed, but it is determined to exactly the same results as if
+wholly determined from without. What light, then, can be thrown from
+this distinction upon the nature of matter?
+
+None, unless we follow Leibniz somewhat farther. If we do, we shall
+see that the soul is regarded as appetitive, or self-active, so far
+as it has clear and distinct ideas. If the monad reaches distinct
+consciousness, it has knowledge of self,--that is, of the nature of
+pure spirit,--or, what again is equivalent to this, of the nature
+of reality as it universally is. Such knowledge is knowledge of God,
+of substance, of unity, of pure activity, and of all the innate ideas
+which elevate the confused perceptions of sense into science. Distinct
+consciousness is therefore equivalent to self-activity, and this to
+recognition of God and the universal. But if knowledge is confused,
+it is not possible to see it in its relations to self; it cannot
+be analyzed; the rational or ideal element in it is concealed from
+view. In confused ideas, therefore, the soul appears to be passive;
+being passive, to be determined from without. This determination from
+without is equivalent to that which is opposed to spirit or reason, and
+hence appears as matter. Such is in outline the Leibnizian philosophy.
+
+It thus is clear that merely stating that matter is passivity
+in the monad is not the ultimate way of stating its nature. For
+passivity means in reality nothing but confused representations,--representations,
+that is, whose significance is not perceived. The true significance
+of every representation is found in its relation to the
+ego, or pure self-activity, which, through its dependent
+relation upon God, the absolute self-activity and ego, produces
+the representation from its own ideal being. So far as the
+soul does not have distinct recognition of relation of all
+representations to self, it feels them as coming from without; as
+foreign to spirit; in short, as matter. Leibniz thus employs exactly
+the same language about confused ideas that he does about passivity,
+or matter. It is not possible that the monad should have distinct
+consciousness of itself as a mirror of the whole universe, he says,
+"for in that case every entelechy would be God." Again, "the soul would
+be God if it could enter at once and with distinctness into everything
+occurring within it." But it is necessary "that we should have
+passions which consist in confused ideas, in which there is something
+involuntary and unknown, and which represent the body and constitute
+our imperfection." Again, he speaks of matter as "the _mixture_
+(_mélange_) of the effects of the infinite environing us." In that
+expression is summed up his whole theory of matter. It is a mixture;
+it is, that is to say, confused, aggregated, irresolvable into simple
+ideas. But it is a mixture of "effects of the infinite about us;"
+that is, it takes its rise in the true, the real, the spiritual. It
+only fails to represent this as it actually is. Matter, in short, is a
+phenomenon dependent upon inability to realize the entire spiritual
+character of reality. It is spirit apprehended in a confused,
+hesitating, and passive manner.
+
+It is none the less a necessary phenomenon, for it is involved in the
+idea of a continuous gradation of monads, in the distinction between
+the infinite and the finite, or, as Leibniz often prefers to put it,
+between the "creator" and the "created." There is involved everywhere
+in the idea of Leibniz the conception of subordination; of a hierarchy
+of forms, each of which receives the law of its action from the
+next higher, and gives the law to the next lower. We have previously
+considered the element of passivity or receptivity as relating only
+to the monad which manifests it. It is evident, however, that what
+is passive in one, implies something active in another. What one
+receives, is what another gives. The reciprocal influence of monads
+upon one another, therefore, as harmonious members of one system,
+requires matter. More strictly speaking, this reciprocal influence
+_is_ matter. To take away all receptivity, all passivity, from monads
+would be to isolate them from all relations with others; it would
+be to deprive them of all power of affecting or being affected by
+others. That is what Leibniz meant by the expression already quoted,
+that if monads had not matter as an element in them, "they would be,
+as it were, deserters from the general order." The note of unity, of
+organic connection, which we found to be the essence of the Leibnizian
+philosophy, absolutely requires, therefore, matter, or passivity.
+
+It must be remembered that this reciprocal influence is ideal. As
+Leibniz remarks, "When it is said that one monad is affected by
+another, this is to be understood concerning its _representation_ of
+the other. For the Author of things has so accommodated them to one
+another that one is said to suffer (or receive from the other) when
+its relative value gives way to that of the other." Or again, "the
+modifications of one monad are the ideal causes of the modifications
+of another monad, so far as there appear in one the reasons on account
+of which God brought about in the beginning certain modifications in
+another." And most definitely of all: "A creature is called active so
+far as it has perfection; passive in so far as it is imperfect. One
+creature is more perfect than another so far as there is found in
+it that which serves to _render the reason_, _a priori_, for that
+occurring in the other; and it is in this way that it acts upon the
+other."
+
+We are thus introduced, from a new point of view and in a more concrete
+way, to the conception of pre-established harmony. The activity of one,
+the energy which gives the law to the other and makes it subordinate in
+the hierarchy of monads, is conceived necessarily as spirit, as soul;
+that which receives, which is rendered subordinate by the activity
+of the other, is body. The pre-established harmony is the fact that
+they are so related that one can receive the law of its activity from
+the other. Leibniz is without doubt partially responsible for the
+ordinary misconception of his views upon this point by reason of the
+illustration which he was accustomed to use; namely, of two clocks so
+constructed that without any subsequent regulation each always kept
+perfect time with the other,--as much so as if there were some actual
+physical connection between them. This seems to put soul and body,
+spirit and matter, as two co-ordinate substances, on the same level,
+with such natural opposition between them that some external harmony
+must arrange some unity of action. In causing this common idea of
+his theory of pre-established harmony, Leibniz has paid the penalty
+for attempting to do what he often reproves in others,--imagining or
+presenting in sensible form what can only be thought. But his other
+explanations show clearly enough that the pre-established harmony
+expresses, not a relation between two parallel substances, but a
+condition of dependence of lower forms of activity upon the higher for
+the law of their existence and activity,--in modern terms, it expresses
+the fact that phenomena are conditioned upon noumena; that material
+facts get their significance and share of reality through their
+relation to spirit.
+
+We may sum up what has been said about matter as an element in the
+monad, or as a metaphysical principle, as follows: The existence of
+matter is not only not opposed to the fundamental ideas of Leibniz, but
+is a necessary deduction from them. It is a necessity of the principle
+of continuity; for this requires an infinity of monads, alike indeed
+in the universal law of their being, but unlike, each to each, in
+the specific coloring or manifestation of this law. The principle of
+organic unity requires that there be as many real beings as possible
+participating in and contributing to it. It is necessary, again, in
+order that there may be reciprocal influence or connection among the
+monads. Were it not for the material element in the monad, each would
+be a God; if each were thus infinite and absolute, there would be
+so many principles wholly independent and isolated. The principle of
+harmony would be violated. So much for the necessity of the material
+factor. As to its nature, it is a principle of passivity; that is, of
+ideal receptivity, of conformity to a law apparently not self-imposed,
+but externally laid down. This makes matter equivalent to a phenomenon;
+that is to say, to the having of confused, imperfect, inadequate
+ideas. To say that matter is correlative to confused ideas is to say
+that there is no recognition of its relation to self or to spirit. As
+Leibniz sometimes puts it, since there is an infinity of beings in
+the universe, each one of which exercises an ideal influence upon
+every other one of the series, it is impossible that this other one
+should realize their full meaning; they appear only as confused ideas,
+or as matter. To use language which Leibniz indeed does not employ,
+but which seems to convey his thought, the spirit, not seeing them as
+they really are, does not _find_ itself in them. But matter is thus not
+only the confused manifestation or phenomenon of spirit, it is also its
+potentiality. Passivity is always relative. It does not mean complete
+lack of activity; that, as Leibniz says, is nothingness, and matter
+is not a form of nothingness. Leibniz even speaks of it as passive
+_power_. That is to say, there is an undeveloped or incomplete activity
+in what appears as matter, and this may be,--if we admit an infinity
+of time,--must be developed. When developed it manifests itself as it
+really is, as spirit. Confused ideas, as Leibniz takes pains to state,
+are not a genus of ideas antithetical to distinct; they differ only in
+degree or grade. They are on their way to become distinct, or else they
+are distinct ideas which have fallen back into an "involved" state of
+being. Matter, therefore, is not absolutely opposed to spirit,--on the
+one hand because it is the manifestation, the phenomenon, of spirit;
+on the other, because it is the potentiality of spirit, capable of
+sometime realizing the whole activity implied in it, but now latent.
+
+Thus it is that Leibniz says that everything is "full" of souls or
+monads. What appears to be lifeless is in reality like a pond full of
+fishes, like a drop of water full of infusoria. Everything is organic
+down to the last element. More truly, there is no last element. There
+is a true infinity of organic beings wrapped up in the slightest speck
+of apparently lifeless matter. These illustrations, like many others
+which Leibniz uses, are apt to suggest that erroneous conception of the
+relation of monads to spirit which we were obliged, in Leibniz's name,
+to correct at the outset,--the idea, namely, that matter is composed,
+in a spatial or mechanical way, of monads. But after the foregoing
+explanations we can see that what Leibniz means when he says that
+every portion of matter is full of entelechies or souls, like a garden
+full of plants, is that there is an absolute continuity of spiritual
+principles, each having its ideal relation with every other. There
+is no point of matter which does not represent in a confused way the
+entire universe. It is therefore as infinite in its activities as
+the universe. In idea also it is capable of representing in distinct
+consciousness, or as a development of its own self-activity, each of
+these infinite activities.
+
+In a word, every created or finite being may be regarded as matter or
+as spirit, according as it is accounted for by its external relations,
+as the reasons for what happen in it are to be found elsewhere than in
+its own explicit activity, or according as it shows clearly in itself
+the reasons for its own modifications, and also accounts for changes
+occurring in other beings. The externally conditioned is matter;
+the internally conditioned, the self-explanatory, is self-active, or
+spirit. Since all external relations are finally dependent on organic;
+since the ultimate source of all explanation must be that which is
+its own reason; since the ultimate source of all activity must be that
+which is self-active,--the final reason or source of matter is spirit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY.
+
+
+We have seen the necessity and nature of matter as deductions from
+the fundamental principles of Leibniz. We have seen that matter is
+a phenomenon or manifestation of spirit in an imperfect and confused
+way. But why should it appear as moving, as extended, as resisting,
+as having cohesion, with all the concrete qualities which always mark
+it? Is there any connection between these particular properties of
+matter as physical, and its "metaphysical" or ideal character? These
+are the questions which now occupy us. Stated more definitely, they
+take the following form: Is there any essential connection between the
+properties of matter as a metaphysical element, and its properties as a
+sensible fact of experience? Leibniz holds that there is. He does not,
+indeed, explicitly take the ground that we can deduce _a priori_ all
+the characteristics of matter as a fact of actual experience from its
+rational notion, but he thinks we can find a certain analogy between
+the two, that the sensible qualities are images or reflexes of the
+spiritual qualities, witnessing, so far as possible, to their origin in
+pure energy.
+
+His position is as follows: that which in the monad is activity or
+substantial, is, in sensible matter, motion. That which in the monad
+is lack of a given activity, that which constitutes its subordinate
+position in the hierarchy of monads, is, in the sphere of material
+things, inertia. That which in the spiritual world is the individuality
+of monads, making each forever ideally distinct from every other, is,
+in the phenomenal realm, resistance or impenetrability. The perfect
+continuity of monads in the _mundus intelligibilis_ has also its
+counterpart in the _mundus sensibilis_ in the diffusion or extension of
+physical things.
+
+Instead of following out this analogy directly, it will rather be
+found convenient to take up Leibniz's thought in its historical
+connection. We have already alluded to the fact that he began as
+a Cartesian, and that one of the first ideas which repelled him
+from that system of thought was the notion that the essence of
+matter is extension. His earliest philosophical writings, as he was
+gradually coming to the thoughts which thereafter dominated him,
+are upon this point. In general, his conclusions are as follows:
+If matter were extension, it would be incapable of passion or of
+action. Solidity, too, is a notion entirely opposed to the conception
+of mere extension. The idea of matter as extension contradicts some
+of the known laws of motion. It requires that the quantity of motion
+remain unchanged whenever two bodies come in contact, while as matter
+of fact it is the quantity of energy, that which the motion is capable
+of effecting, that remains unchanged; or, as he more often puts the
+objection, the Cartesian notion of matter requires that matter be
+wholly indifferent to motion, that there be nothing in it which resists
+motion when imparted. But, says Leibniz, there is something resisting,
+that to which Keppler gave the name "inertia." It is not found to be
+true if one body impacts upon another that the second moves without
+diminishing the velocity or changing the direction of the first. On
+the other hand, just in proportion to the size of the second body,
+it resists and changes the motion of the first, up to the point of
+causing the first to rebound if small in comparison. And when it was
+replied that the retardation was due to the fact that the force moving
+the first body had now to be divided between two, Leibniz answered
+that this was simply to give up the contention, and besides the notion
+of extension to use that of force. If extension were the essence of
+matter, it should be possible to deduce all the properties of matter,
+or at least to account for them all, from it. But since, as just seen,
+this does not enable us to account for any of them, since for any of
+its concrete qualities we have to fall back on force, it is evident
+where the true essence of matter is to be found.
+
+Leibniz has another argument of a logical nature, as those already
+referred to are of a physical: "Those who claim that extension is a
+substance, reverse the order of words as well as of thoughts. Besides
+extension there must be a subject which is extended; that is to
+say, something to which it belongs to be repeated or continued. For
+extension is nothing but a repetition or continued multiplication
+of that which is spread out,--it is a plurality, a continuity, a
+co-existence of parts. Consequently, extension does not suffice to
+explain the nature of the repeated or manifold substance, of which the
+notion is anterior to that of its repetition." Extension, in other
+words, is nothing substantial, it is not something which can exist
+by itself; it is only a quality, a property, a mode of being. It is
+always relative to something which has extension. As Leibniz says
+elsewhere: "I insist that extension is only an _abstraction_, and
+requires something which is extended. It presupposes some quality,
+some attribute, some nature in a subject which is extended, diffused,
+or continued. Extension is a diffusion of this quality. For example,
+in milk there is an extension or diffusion of whiteness; in the diamond
+an extension or diffusion of hardness; in body in general a diffusion
+of antitypia or materiality. There is accordingly in body something
+anterior to extension."
+
+From the physical side, therefore, we find it impossible to account
+for the concrete properties of material phenomena from extension; on
+the logical we find that the idea of extension is always relative to
+that which is extended. What is that which is to be considered as the
+bearer of extension and the source of physical qualities? We are led
+back to the point at which we left the matter in the last chapter. It
+is force, and force both passive and active. Leibniz uses the term
+"matter" in at least three senses: it is the metaphysical element of
+passive force _in_ the monad; it is the monad itself considered as,
+upon the whole, externally conditioned or unconscious; and it is the
+phenomenon resulting from the aggregation of the monads in the second
+sense. The first is naked matter, and is a pure abstraction; the second
+is the monad as material, as opposed to the monad, as soul; the third
+is clothed, or second matter, or, concretely, body, _corpus_. The first
+is unreal by itself; the second is one phase of substance; the third
+is not substantial, but is a reality, though a phenomenal one. It
+is from the substantial monad that we are to explain the two things
+now demanding explanation,--that element in _bodies_ (matter in third
+sense) which is the source of their physical properties, and that which
+is the subject, the carrier, so to speak, of extension.
+
+That of which we are in search as the source of the physical qualities
+of bodies is motion. This is not force, but its "image." It is force,
+says Leibniz, that "is the real element in motion; that is to say,
+it is that element which out of the present state induces a change in
+the future state." As force, in other words, is the causal activity
+which effects the development of one "representation" of a monad out
+of another, so motion, in the realm of phenomena, is not only change,
+but change which is continuous and progressive, each new position
+being dependent upon the foregoing, and following out of it absolutely
+without break.
+
+Motion, therefore, is the manifestation of the ideal unity of
+substance,--a unity not of mere static inherence, but of a continuous
+process of activity. It is from this standpoint that Leibniz accounts
+for the so-called transference of motion from one body to another upon
+contact. The ordinary view of this, which looks at it as if one body
+loses the motion which another body gains, Leibniz ridicules, saying
+that those who hold this view seem to think that motion is a kind of
+thing, resembling, perchance, salt dissolved in water. The right view,
+on the other hand, does away with all appearance of mystery in the
+carrying over of motion from one body to another, for it recognizes
+that continuity is the very essence of motion, and that we do not have
+two things and a third process, but that the two bodies are phases or
+elements in one and the same system of movement.
+
+Starting from this idea of motion, then, Leibniz is to account for
+the actual qualities of matter as found in experience. These are
+the form, magnitude, cohesion, resistance, and the purely sensible
+qualities of objects. "First" matter, that is, abstract matter,
+may be conceived, according to Leibniz, as perfectly homogeneous, a
+"subtle fluid," in his words, without any distinction of parts or of
+solidity. But this _is_ an abstract notion. It is what matter would
+be without motion. Motion necessarily differentiates this plenum
+of homogeneity, and thus causes distinctions of figure (that is,
+boundaries of parts) and varieties of cohesion, or the varying solidity
+and fluidity of bodies. The latter difference is indeed the ultimate
+one. The principle of continuity or gradation, as applied to motion,
+makes it necessary that motions should not be in any two places of
+exactly the same energy. The result is that the original fluid matter
+is everywhere differently divided. Motion, entering into the uniform
+plenum, introduces distinction; it causes so much of the matter as is
+affected by a given movement to collect together and form in appearance
+a coherent body, as opposed to surrounding bodies which are affected
+by different degrees of energy. But even this is only approximate;
+the same principle of continuity must be applied within any apparently
+coherent body; its parts, while, in relation to other bodies, they have
+the same amount of motion, are in relation to one another differently
+affected. There are no two having exactly the same motion; if they had,
+there would be no distinction between them; and thus, according to the
+principle of Leibniz, they would be the same.
+
+It follows at once from this that there is in the universe no body of
+absolute hardness or solidity, nor of entire softness or fluidity. A
+perfectly solid body would be one whose system of motions could not be
+affected by any other system,--a body which by motion had separated
+itself from motion, or become absolute. This is evidently an idea
+which contradicts itself, for the very essence of motion is continuity
+or relation. A body perfectly fluid, on the other hand, would be one
+in which there was no resistance offered to other motions,--a body,
+in other words, in which there are no movements that, entering into
+connection with one another, form a relative opposition to other
+movements. It would be a body isolated or out of relation with the
+general system of motions, and hence an impossibility. There is no last
+term either of solidity or of fluidity.
+
+It equally follows as matter of course that there is no indivisible
+particle of matter,--no atom. The infinity of degrees of motion
+implies a corresponding division of matter. As already said, it is
+only in contrast with other relatively constant systems of motion
+that any body is of uniform motion; in reality there is everywhere
+throughout it variety of movement, and hence complete divisibility, or
+rather, complete division. If Leibniz were to employ the term "atom"
+at all, it could be only in the sense of the modern dynamical theory
+(of which, indeed, he is one of the originators), according to which
+the atom is not defined by its spatial position and outlines, but,
+by the range of its effects, as the centre of energies of infinite
+circumference. Correlative to the non-existence of the atom is the
+non-existence of the vacuum. The two imply each other. The hard,
+limited, isolated body, having no intrinsic relations with other
+bodies, must have room to come into external relations with them. This
+empty space, which is the theatre of such accidental contacts as may
+happen, is the vacuum. But if bodies are originally in connection
+with one another, if they are in reality but differentiations of
+varying degrees of motion within one system of motion, then there
+is no necessity for the vacuum,--nay, there is no place for it. The
+vacuum in this case could mean only a break, a chasm, in the order
+of nature. According to the theory of Leibniz, "bodies" are but the
+dynamic divisions of the one energy that fills the universe; their
+separateness is not an independent possession of any one of them
+or of all together, but is the result of relations to the entire
+system. Their apparent isolation is only by reason of their actual
+connections. To admit a vacuum anywhere, would thus be to deny the
+relatedness of the parts separated by it. The theory of the atom and
+the vacuum are the two phases of the metaphysical assumption of an
+indefinite plurality of independent separate realities. The theory
+of Leibniz, resting as it does on the idea of a perfect unity of
+interrelated members, must deny both of these aspects. Were we making
+an extended analysis of the opposed view, it would be necessary to
+point out that it denies itself. For it is only _through_ the vacuum
+that the atoms are isolated or independent, and the sole function of
+the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms are
+separated only in virtue of their connection, and the vacuum is what it
+is--pure emptiness--only on account of that which is in it. In short,
+the theory is only an abstract and incomplete way of grasping the
+thought of relation or mediated unity.
+
+We have thus discovered that all motions conspire together, or
+form a system. But in their unity they do not cease to be motions,
+or variously differentiated members. Through this differentiation,
+or mutual reaction of motions, there comes about the appearance of
+boundaries, of separation. From these boundaries or terminations
+arise the form and size of bodies. From motion also proceeds the
+cohesion of bodies, in the sense that each relative system resists
+dissolution, or hangs together. Says Leibniz, "The motions, since they
+are conspiring, would be troubled by separation; and accordingly this
+can be accomplished only by violence and with resistance." Not only
+form, size, and stability depend upon motion, but also the sensible,
+the "secondary" qualities. "It must not be supposed that color, pain,
+sound, etc., are arbitrary and without relation to their causes. It is
+not God's way to act with so little reason and order. There is a kind
+of resemblance, not entire, but of relation, of order. We say, for
+example, 'Light is in the fire,' since there are motions in the fire
+which are imperceptible in their separation, but which are sensible
+in their conjunction or confusion; and this is what is made known in
+the idea of light." In other words, color, sound, etc., even pain,
+are still the perception of motion, but in a confused way. We thus see
+how thoroughly Leibniz carries back all the properties of bodies to
+motion. To sum up, motion is the origin of the relative solidity, the
+divisibleness, the form, the size, the cohesion, or active resistance
+of bodies, and of their properties as made known to us in immediate
+sensation.
+
+In all that has been said it has been implied that extension is already
+in existence; "first matter" is supposed to fill all space, and motion
+to determine it to take upon itself its actual concrete properties. But
+this "first matter," when thus spoken of, has a somewhat mythological
+sound, even if it be admitted that it is an abstraction. For how can
+an abstraction be extended in space, and how can it form, as it were,
+a background upon which motion displays itself? The idea of "first
+matter" in its relation to extension evidently demands explanation. In
+seeking this explanation we shall also learn about that "subject" which
+Leibniz said was necessarily presupposed in extension, as a concrete
+thing is required for a quality.
+
+The clew to the view of Leibniz upon this point may be derived, I
+think, from the following quotations:--
+
+"If it were possible to see what makes extension, that kind of
+extension which falls under our eyes at present would vanish, and
+our minds would perceive nothing else than simple realities existing
+in mutual externality to one another. It would be as if we could
+distinguish the minute particles of matter variously disposed from
+which a painted image is formed: if we could do it, the image, which is
+nothing but a phenomenon, would vanish. . . . If we think of two
+simple realities as both existing at the same time, but distinct from
+one another, we look at them as if they were outside of one another,
+and hence conceive them as extended."
+
+The monads are outside of one another, not spatially, but ideally;
+but this reciprocal distinction from one another, if it is to appear
+in phenomenal mode, must take the form of an image, and the image is
+spatial. But if the monads were pure activity, they would _not_ take
+phenomenal form or appear in an image. They would always be thought
+just as they are,--unextended activities realizing the spiritual
+essence of the universe. But they are not pure activity; they are
+passive as well. It is in virtue of this passive element that the ideal
+externality takes upon itself phenomenal or sensible form, and thus
+appears as spatial externality.
+
+Leibniz, in a passage already quoted, refers to the diffusion
+of materiality or _antitypia_. This word, which is of frequent
+occurrence in the discussions of Leibniz, he translates generally as
+"impenetrability," sometimes as "passive resistance." It corresponds to
+the solidity or resistance of which Locke spoke as forming the essence
+of matter. Antitypia is the representation by a monad of the passive
+element in other monads. Leibniz sometimes speaks as if all created
+monads had in themselves antitypia, and hence extension; but he more
+accurately expresses it by saying that they need (_exigent_) it. This
+is a technical term which he elsewhere uses to express the relation of
+the possible to the actual. The possible "needs" the actual, not in
+the sense that it _necessarily_ requires existence, but in the sense
+that when the actual gives it existence, it is the logical basis of the
+actual,--the actual, on the other hand, being its real complement. The
+passivity of the monad is therefore at once the logical basis and
+the possibility of the impenetrability of matter. It is owing to the
+passivity of the monad that it does not adequately reflect (that it is
+not transparent to, so to speak) the activities of other monads. In
+its irresponsiveness, it fails to mirror them in itself. It may be
+said, therefore, to be impenetrable to them. They in turn, so far as
+they are passive, are impenetrable to it. Now the impenetrable is,
+_ex vi terminis_, that which excludes, and that which excludes, not in
+virtue of its active elasticity, but in virtue of its mere inertia,
+its dead weight, as it were, of resistance. But mutual exclusion of
+this passive sort constitutes that which is extended. Extension is
+the abstract quality of this concrete subject. Such, in effect, is the
+deduction which Leibniz gives of body, or physical matter, from matter
+as metaphysical; of matter as sensible or phenomenal, from matter as
+ideal or as intelligible.
+
+If we put together what has been said, it is clear that material
+phenomena (bodies, _corpora_, in Leibniz's phrase) simply repeat
+in another sphere the properties of the spiritual monad. There
+is a complete parallelism between every property, each to each,
+and this necessarily; for every property of "body" is in logical
+dependence upon, and a phenomenalization of, some spiritual or ideal
+quality. Motion is the source of all the dynamic qualities of body, and
+motion is the reflection of Force, that force which is Life. But this
+force in all finite forms is conditioned by a passive, unreceptive,
+unresponsive factor; and this must also have its correlate in
+"body." This correlate is primarily impenetrability, and secondarily
+extension. Thus it is that concrete body always manifests motion,
+indeed, but upon a background of extension, and against inertia. It
+never has free play; had it an unrestrained field of activity,
+extension would disappear, and spatial motion would vanish into
+ideal energy. On the other hand, were the essence of matter found in
+resistance or impenetrability, it would be wholly inert; it would be a
+monotone of extension, without variety of form or cohesion. As Leibniz
+puts it with reference to Locke, "body" implies motion, or impetuosity,
+resistance, and cohesion. Motion is the active principle, resistance
+the passive; while cohesion, with its various grades of completeness,
+which produce form, size, and solidity, is the result of their union.
+
+Leibniz, like Plato, has an intermediary between the rational and
+the sensible; and as Plato found that it was mathematical relations
+that mediate between the permanent and unified Ideas and the changing
+manifold objects, so Leibniz found that the relations of space and time
+form the natural transition from the sphere of monads to the world
+of bodies. As Plato found that it was the possibility of applying
+mathematical considerations to the world of images that showed the
+participation of Ideas in them, and constituted such reality as they
+had, so Leibniz found that space and time formed the element of
+order and regularity among sense phenomena, and thus brought them
+into kinship with the monads and made them subjects of science. It
+is implied in what is here said that Leibniz distinguished between
+space and time on the one hand, and duration and extension on the
+other. This distinction, which Leibniz draws repeatedly and with great
+care, has been generally overlooked by his commentators. But it is
+evident that this leaves Leibniz in a bad plight. Mathematics, in its
+various forms, is the science of spatial and temporal relations. But if
+these are identical with the forms of duration and extension, they are
+purely phenomenal and sensible. The science of them, according to the
+Leibnizian distinction between the absolutely real and the phenomenally
+real, would be then a science of the confused, the imperfect,
+and the transitory; in fact, no science at all. But mathematics,
+on the contrary, is to Leibniz the type of demonstrative, conclusive
+science. Space and time are, in his own words, "innate ideas," and
+the entire science of them is the drawing out of the content of these
+innate--that is, rational, distinct, and eternal--ideas. But extension
+and duration are sensible experiences; not rational, but phenomenal;
+not distinct, but confused; not eternal, but evanescent. We may be sure
+that this contradiction would not escape Leibniz, although it has many
+of his critics and historians.
+
+It is true, however, that he occasionally uses the terms as synonymous;
+but this where the distinction between them has no bearing on the
+argument in hand, and where the context determines in what sense
+the term is used. The distinction which he actually makes, and to
+which he keeps when space and time are the subject of discussion,
+is that extension and duration are qualities or predicates of
+objects and events, while space and time are relations, or orders of
+existence. Extension and duration are, as he says, the _immensity_, the
+mass, the continuation, the repetition, of some underlying subject. But
+space and time are the _measure_ of the mass, the rule or law of the
+continuation, the order or mode of the repetition. Thus immediately
+after the passage already quoted, in which he says that extension
+in body is the diffusion of materiality, just as whiteness is the
+diffusion of a property of milk, he goes on to say "that extension is
+to space as duration to time. Duration and extension are attributes of
+things; but space and time are to be considered, as it were, outside
+of things, and as serving to measure them." Still more definitely
+he says: "Many confound the immensity or extent of things with the
+space by means of which this extent is defined. Space is not the
+extension of body, any more than duration is its time. Things keep
+their extension, not always their space. Everything has its own extent
+and duration; but it does not have a time of its own, nor keep for its
+own a space." Or, as he expresses the latter idea elsewhere, space is
+like number, in the sense that it is indifferent to spatial things,
+just as number is indifferent to _res numerata_. Just as the number
+five is not a quality or possession of any object, or group of objects,
+but expresses an order or relation among them, so a given space is not
+the property of a thing, but expresses the order of its parts to one
+another. But extension, on the other hand, is a property of the given
+objects. While extension, therefore, must always belong to some actual
+thing, space, as a relation, is as applicable to possible things as to
+actual existences; so that Leibniz sometimes says that time and space
+"express possibilities." They are that which makes it possible for a
+definite and coherent order of experiences to exist. They determine
+existence in some of its relations, and as such are logically
+prior to any given forms of existence; while extent and duration are
+always qualities of some given form of existence, and hence logically
+derivative. Since time and space "characterize possibilities" as well
+as actualities, it follows as a matter of course "that they are of the
+nature of eternal truths, which relate equally to the possible and to
+the existing." Being an eternal truth, space must have its place in
+that which is simply the active unity of all eternal truths,--the mind
+of God. "Its truth and reality are based upon God. It is an order whose
+source is God." Since God is _purus actus_, he is the immediate, the
+efficient source only of that which partakes in some degree of his own
+nature, or is rational; and here is another clear point of distinction
+between space and extension, between time and duration.
+
+But we must ask more in detail regarding their nature. Admitting
+that they are relations, ideal and prior to particular experiences,
+the question must be asked, What sort of relations are they; how are
+they connected with the purely spiritual on one hand, and with the
+phenomenal on the other? Leibniz's most extended answers to these
+questions are given in his controversy with Clarke. The latter took
+much the same position regarding the nature of space (though not,
+indeed, concerning the origin of its idea) as Locke, and the arguments
+which Leibniz uses against him he might also have used, for the most
+part, against Locke. Locke and Clarke both conceived of space and
+time as wholly without intrinsic relation to objects and events. It
+is especially against this position that Leibniz argues, holding that
+space and time are simply orders or relations of objects and events,
+that space exists only where objects are existing, and that it is
+the order of their co-existence, or of their possible co-existence;
+while time exists only as events are occurring, and is the relation of
+their succession. Clarke, on the other hand, speaks of the universe of
+objects as bounded by and moving about in an empty space, and says that
+time existed before God created the finite world, so that the world
+came into a time already there to receive its on-goings, just as it
+fell into a space already there to receive its co-existences.
+
+To get at the ideas of Leibniz, therefore, we cannot do better than
+follow the course of this discussion. He begins by saying that
+both space and time are purely relative, one being the order of
+co-existences, the other of successions. Space characterizes in terms
+of possibility an order of things existing at the same time, so far as
+they exist in mutual relations (_ensemble_), without regard to their
+special modes of existence. As to the alternate doctrine that space
+is a substance, or something absolute, it contradicts the principle
+of sufficient reason. Were space something absolutely uniform, without
+things placed in it, there would be no difference between one part and
+another, and it would be a matter of utter indifference to God why he
+gave bodies certain positions in space rather than others; similarly
+it would be a matter of indifference why he created the world when
+he did, if time were something independent of events. In other words,
+the supposed absoluteness of space and time would render the action of
+God wholly without reason, capricious, and at haphazard. Similarly, it
+contradicts the principle of "indiscernibles," by which Leibniz means
+the principle of specification, or distinction. According to him,
+to suppose two things exactly alike, is simply to imagine the same
+thing twice. Absolute uniformity, wholly undifferentiated, is a fiction
+impossible to realize in thought. "Space considered without objects has
+nothing in it to determine it; it is accordingly nothing actual. The
+parts of space must be determined and distinguished by the objects
+which are in them." Finally, were space and time absolutely real things
+in themselves, they would be independent of God, and even limitations
+upon him. "They would be more substantial than substances. God would
+not be able to change or destroy them. They would be immutable and
+eternal in every part. Thus there would be an infinity of eternal
+things (these parts) independent of God." They would limit God because
+he would be obliged to exist _in_ them. Only by existing through this
+independent time would he be eternal; only by extending through this
+independent space would he be omnipresent. Space and time thus become
+gods themselves.
+
+When Clarke declares that by the absoluteness of space and time he does
+not mean that they are themselves substances, but only properties,
+attributes of substance, Leibniz advances the same arguments in
+different form. If space were the property of the things that are
+in space, it would belong now to one substance, now to another, and
+when empty of all material substance, even to an immaterial substance,
+perhaps to God. "Truly a strange attribute which is handed about from
+one thing to another. Substances thus leave their accidents as if they
+were old clothes, and other substances put them on." Since these finite
+spaces are in infinite space, and the latter is an attribute of God,
+it must be that an attribute of God is composed of parts, some of them
+empty, some full, some round, some square. So, too, whatever is in time
+would help make one of the attributes of God. "Truly a strange God,"
+says Leibniz, "this Deity of parts" (_ce Dieu à parties_). Clarke's
+reply to this was that space and time are attributes of God and of
+God alone, not of things in space and time,--that, indeed, strictly
+speaking, there are no parts in space or in time; they are absolutely
+one. This was virtually to give up the whole matter. It was to deny
+the existence of finite spaces and times, and to resolve them into
+an indefinite attribute of God. Such a view, as Leibniz points out,
+not only is contrary to experience, but affords no aid in determining
+the actual concrete forms and situations of bodies, and durations
+and successions of events. The absolute space and time, having no
+parts, are wholly out of relations to these concrete existences. The
+latter require, therefore, a space and a time that are relations or
+orders. Clarke's hypothesis is, as Leibniz says, wholly without use
+or function, and requires a theory like that of Leibniz to account
+for the actually determinate forms of experience. In his last reply
+Clarke shifts his ground again, and says that space and time are
+_effects_ of God's existence; "they are the necessary results of his
+existence." "His existence is the cause of space and time." The death
+of Leibniz prevented any further reply. It is not hard to imagine,
+however, that in a general way his reply would have been to ask how
+space and time are at once attributes essential and necessary to God,
+as constituting his immensity and eternity, and effects dependent upon
+his existence. To take this latter position, indeed, seems to abandon
+the position that they are absolute, and to admit that, like the rest
+of God's creation, they are relative and finite.
+
+So much for Leibniz's polemic. Its meaning is that space and time have
+significance only with reference to things and events, that they are
+the intellectual, the ideal side of these objects and occurrences,
+being the relations which give them order and unity. A space which
+is not the space of objects, which is not space in and through
+objects, is an inanity; it is not spirit, it is not matter; it is
+not a relation of either. It is nothingness magnified to infinity,
+and then erected into existence. And all for nothing; for it does not
+enable us to account for a single concrete fact of experience. For
+this we must have recourse to relations and orders of existence. Space
+is therefore to be defined as the order which makes it possible for
+objects to have situation; time as that which makes it possible for
+events to have dating,--not as if they were actually prior to them,
+and although nothings in themselves, yet capable of giving concrete
+determination to things, but as _actually_ the relations themselves,
+and as _ideally_ necessary for the coherent experience of co-existent
+objects and of connected events. As Leibniz puts it epigrammatically:
+"Space is the order of possible constants; time the order of inconstant
+possibilities."
+
+We have finished the exposition of the views of Leibniz about matter
+and material facts. One question, however, remains to be discussed,--a
+question which Leibniz's contemporary critics would not allow him to
+pass over in silence, even had he been so disposed. What is the reality
+of matter, of motion, of space, and of time? Since they are, as Leibniz
+says, only phenomena, not absolute realities, what distinguishes them
+from dreams, from illusions? What distinguishes sensible phenomena from
+capricious fantasies, and gives them reality?
+
+Leibniz begins his answer by pointing out that the mere fact that
+bodies are phenomena does not make them unreal. To say that anything
+is phenomenal is to say that it is sensible; but "the senses make
+no declaration regarding metaphysical matters" such as truth and
+reality. The senses, in a word, only inform us that the experiences
+are there for the senses, that they are sensible. What is the ultimate
+nature of the sensible or the phenomenal, what is their reality,
+is a question wholly outside the province of sense. The questions of
+ultimate nature, of reality, are questions of metaphysics, and hence
+are to be decided by the reason, not by the senses. And Leibniz goes
+on to say that the truthfulness of the senses, since it concerns only
+the sensible, consists in the reciprocal agreement of sensible facts,
+and in that we are not deceived in reasoning from one to another. An
+isolated sense-experience could not be said to be either true or
+false, real or illusory. It would be true that it was experienced,
+and that is all that could be said about it. But since our experiences
+are not thus separated, but have a certain order, there arises what
+we may call sensible reality and illusion. When the order between
+two facts remains the same "in different times and places and in the
+experience of different men," we call these facts real. If, however,
+our experience cannot be repeated by ourselves or by other men when
+the same conditions (that is, connections) are present, it is unreal,
+or false. It is thus "the _relation_ of phenomena which guarantees
+truth of fact regarding sensible objects." Constancy, regularity,
+justify us in ascribing reality; chaotic change and lack of orderly
+connection are a sign of unreality. Even our dreams have a reality; for
+they have their connections and place in experience. If we understood
+their connections we should even be able to explain their apparent
+lack of connection with the rest of experience. Leibniz thinks that
+both the Academicians and Sceptics and their opponents erred in
+attempting to find greater reality in sensible things than that of
+regular phenomena. Since our observations and judgments upon sensible
+phenomena are of such a nature that we can predict future phenomena and
+prepare for them, we have all the reality in them that can be had or
+asked for. Even if it be granted possible (as it must be on this basis)
+that, metaphysically speaking, sense-experience is only a connected
+dream, it yet has a sufficient reality; for we are not deceived in
+the measures taken with reference to phenomena, provided that we act
+on the ground of their observed harmonies and relations. Thus while
+we are obliged to admit that our senses inform us that there are hard,
+passive, extended, indivisible things, not perfectly continuous and not
+intellectual in their nature, and we know on metaphysical grounds that
+this information is not correct, we cannot say that our senses deceive
+us, for sense makes no statements regarding such matters. It is our
+reason that errs if it takes the information that the senses give as if
+it were a declaration of reason itself. Sensible things have all the
+reality necessary for this range of experience,--_practical_,--such
+regularity of co-existence and sequence as allows us to act without
+being led astray.
+
+But if we regard sense-phenomena not merely in their connection with
+one another, but in their dependence upon the absolute realities, we
+have still better justification for their comparative reality. These
+phenomena are consequences of necessary and eternal truths. One endowed
+with a perfect knowledge of such truths would be able to deduce, _a
+priori_, the phenomena from them. The reality of sensible phenomena
+thus consists not merely in their connection with one another, but in
+the fact that they are connected as the laws of the intelligible world
+require. They follow not only rules of co-existence and sequence;
+but these rules may be brought under general laws of motion, which
+in turn may be deduced from geometrical principles. These latter,
+however, are _a priori_; they are truths which are grounded in the very
+intelligence of God. The sensible has its basis in the ideal. To state
+the same fact in another way, all sensible phenomena occur in time
+and space; or rather, time and space are the orders, the relations,
+of phenomena occurring and existing. But, as we have just seen, time
+and space are ideal. A relation, as Leibniz points out, being neither
+attribute nor accident, cannot be _in_ the things which it relates,
+as their possession. In his own words, it cannot be conceived as if
+it had one leg in one object, the other leg in the other. A relation
+is not a material bond, running through or cementing objects; it
+is ideal, existing in the mind. And while it is true that space and
+time are the relations of objects and events, it is also true that
+if all objects and events were annihilated, space and time would
+continue to have their ideal existence in the intelligence of God as
+the eternal conditions of phenomena. They thus form the links between
+absolute reality and the reality of sensible existence. The principle
+of sufficient reason forms another link. It may be recalled that in
+discussing Leibniz's theory of volition we found that the will of God
+in relation to the sensible world is always determined by the choice of
+the better; that in this consists the controlling reason and regulative
+principle of all that occurs and exists. Thus for every fact in the
+sensible world there is connection with "metaphysical," or absolute,
+reality, not only through the medium of the intellectual relations
+of time and space, but through the dynamic intermediary of the divine
+will acting in accordance with the divine reason. Sensible facts have,
+then, a reality, but a dependent one. There would be no _contradiction_
+involved if they were not what they actually are.
+
+We may sum up the matter by saying that the reality of sensible
+phenomena consists in the constancy of the mutual order in which they
+exist, and in the dependence of this order upon the divine Intelligence
+and Will. In this respect, at least, Leibniz resembles the young Irish
+idealist, Berkeley, who only seven years after Leibniz wrote the "New
+Essays" composed his "Principles of Human Knowledge," urging that the
+immediate reality of sense-phenomena consists in their "steadiness,
+order, and coherence," "in a constant uniform working," and that this
+"gives us a foresight which enables us to regulate our actions for the
+benefit of life." It was Berkeley also who wrote that their ultimate
+reality consists in their being ideas of a Divine Spirit. This was six
+years before the death of Leibniz. Yet it does not appear that Berkeley
+knew of Leibniz, and the only allusion to Berkeley which I have
+found in the writings of Leibniz shows that Leibniz knew only of that
+caricature of his views which has always been current,--that Berkeley
+was one who denied the existence of any external world. What he writes
+is as follows: "As for him in Ireland who questions the reality of
+'bodies,' he seems neither to offer what is rational, nor sufficiently
+to explain his own ideas. I suspect that he is one of those men who are
+desirous of making themselves known through paradoxes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS.
+
+
+The fundamental category of Locke, as of all who take simply a
+mechanical view of experience, is that of substance. He had good reason
+to be surprised when the Bishop of Worcester objected that Locke wished
+"to discard substance out of the world." How can that be so, Locke
+asks, when I say that "our idea of body is an extended solid substance,
+and our idea of soul is of a substance that thinks." And he adds, "Nay,
+as long as there is any simple idea or sensible quality left, according
+to my way of arguing, substance cannot be discarded." Everything
+that really exists, is, according to Locke, substance. But substance
+to Locke, as again to all who interpret the universe after sensible
+categories, is unknowable. For such categories allow only of external
+relations; they admit only of static existence. Substance, in this
+way of looking at it, must be distinct from its qualities, and must be
+simply the existing substratum in which they inhere.
+
+Locke's account of the way in which we get the idea, and of its nature,
+is as follows: "All the ideas of all the sensible qualities of a
+cherry come into my mind by sensation. The ideas of these qualities
+and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind to be by themselves
+inconsistent with existence. They cannot subsist of themselves. Hence
+the mind perceives their necessary connection with inherence, or with
+being supported." Correlative to the idea of being supported is, of
+course, the idea of the support. But this idea "is not represented
+to the mind by any clear and distinct idea; the obscure and vague,
+indistinct idea of thing or something, is all that is left." Or yet
+more simply, "Taking notice that a certain number of simple ideas
+go together, and not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by
+themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein
+they do subsist, and from which they do result." Hence the only idea we
+have of it is of something which underlies known qualities. It is their
+"supposed, but unknown, support."
+
+If we translate these expressions into the ideas of to-day,
+we see that they are equivalent to the view of the world which
+is given us by scientific categories when these categories are
+regarded not merely as scientific, but also as philosophic; that
+is, capable of interpreting and expressing the ultimate nature of
+experience. This modern view uses the words "things-in-themselves"
+(or absolute realities) and "phenomena." It says that we know nothing
+of existence as it is in itself, but only of its phenomena. Mind,
+matter, objects, are all substances, all equally substances, and all
+have their unknown essence and their phenomenal appearance. Such a
+distinction between the known and the unknown can rest, it is evident,
+only upon a separation between reality and phenomena similar to that
+which Locke makes between substance and qualities. In knowing the
+latter, we know nothing of the former. Although the latter are called
+"phenomena," they do not really manifest the substantial reality; they
+conceal it. This absolute distinction between substance and quality,
+between reality and phenomenon, rests, in turn, upon the hypothesis
+that reality is _mere_ existence; that is, it is something which is,
+and that is all. It is a substratum; it lies under, in a passive way,
+qualities; it is (literally) substance; it simply stands, inactively,
+under phenomena. It may, by possibility, _have_ actions; but it _has_
+them. Activities are qualities which, like all qualities, are in
+external relation to the substance. Being, in other words, is the
+primary notion, and "being" means something essentially passive and
+merely enduring, accidentally and secondarily something acting. Here,
+as elsewhere, Locke is the father of the mechanical philosophy of
+to-day.
+
+We have already learned how completely Leibniz reverses this way of
+regarding reality. According to Locke, reality essentially is; and in
+its being there is no ground of revelation of itself. It then acts; but
+these actions, "powers, or qualities," since not flowing from the very
+being of substance, give no glimpse into its true nature. According to
+Leibniz, reality acts, and _therefore_ is. Its being is conditioned
+upon its activity. It is not first there, and secondly acts; but its
+"being there" is its activity. Since its very substance is activity,
+it is impossible that it should not manifest its true nature. Its every
+activity is a revelation of itself. It cannot hide itself as a passive
+subsistence behind qualities or phenomena. It must break forth into
+them. On the other hand, since the qualities are not something which
+merely inhere in an underlying support, but are the various forms
+or modes of the activity which constitutes reality, they necessarily
+reveal it. They _are_ its revelations. There is here no need to dwell
+further on the original dynamic nature of substance; what was said in
+the way of general exposition suffices. It is only in its relations to
+Locke's view as just laid down that it now concerns us.
+
+In the first place, Leibniz points out that qualities are "abstract,"
+while substance is "concrete." The qualities, from the very fact
+that they have no self-subsistence, are only relations, while the
+substance, as that of which they are qualities, or from which they
+are abstractions, is concrete. It is, Leibniz says, to invert the
+true order to take qualities or abstract terms as the best known
+and most easily comprehended, and "concretes" as unknown, and as
+having the most difficulty about them. "It is abstractions which
+give birth to almost all our difficulties," and Locke's error here
+is that he begins with abstractions, and takes them to be most open
+to intelligence. Locke's second error is separating so completely
+substance and attribute. "After having distinguished," says Leibniz,
+"two things in substance, the attributes or predicates, and the common
+subject of these predicates, it is not to be wondered at that we
+cannot conceive anything in particular in the subject. This result is
+necessary, since we have separated all the attributes in which there is
+anything definite to be conceived. Hence to demand anything more than a
+mere unknown somewhat in the subject, is to contradict the supposition
+which was made in making the abstraction and in conceiving separately
+the subject and its qualities or accidents." We are indeed ignorant
+of a subject from which abstraction has been made of all defining
+and characteristic qualities; "but this ignorance results from our
+demanding a sort of knowledge of which the object does not permit." In
+short, it is a credit to our knowledge, not an aspersion upon it, that
+we cannot know that which is thoroughly unreal,--a substance deprived
+of all attributes. This is, indeed, a remark which is applicable to
+the supposed unknowableness of pure Being, or Absolute Being, when it
+is defined as the absence of all relations (as is done, for example,
+by Mr. Spencer to-day).
+
+Closely connected with the notion of substance are the categories
+of identity and diversity. These relations are of course to Locke
+thoroughly external. It is "relation of time and place which always
+determines identity." "That that had one beginning is the same thing;
+and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that,
+is not the same, but diverse." It is therefore easy to discover the
+principle of individuation. It "is existence itself, which determines
+a being of any sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable to
+two beings of the same kind." He applies this notion to organic being,
+including man, and to the personal identity of man. The identity of an
+organism, vegetable, brute, or human, is its continuous organization;
+"it is the participation of the same continued life, by constantly
+fleeting particles of matter in succession vitally united to the same
+organized body." _Personal_ identity is constituted by a similar
+continuity of consciousness. "It being the same consciousness that
+makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on that
+only." It "consists not in the identity of substance, but in the
+identity of consciousness." It will be noticed that Locke uses the
+notion of identity which he has already established to explain organic
+and personal unity. It is the "_same_ continued life," "_identity_ of
+consciousness," that constitute them. We are, hence, introduced to no
+new principle. Identity is even in personality a matter of temporal and
+spatial relations.
+
+In the general account of the system of Leibniz it was pointed out that
+it is characteristic of his thought to regard identity and distinction
+as internal principles, and as necessarily implied in each other. We
+need not go over that ground again, but simply see how he states
+his position with reference to what is quoted from Locke. These are
+his words: "Besides the difference of place and time there is always
+necessary an _internal principle_ [or law] of distinction, so that
+while there may be several things of the same species, there are no two
+things exactly alike. Thus, although time and place (that is, relations
+to the external) aid us in distinguishing things, things do not
+cease to be distinguished in themselves. The essence of identity and
+diversity does not consist in time and place, although it is true that
+diversity of things is accompanied with that of time and place, since
+they carry along with them different impressions upon the thing;" that
+is, they expose the thing to different surroundings. But in reality
+"it is things which diversify times and places from one another, for
+in themselves these are perfectly similar, not being substances or
+complete realities."
+
+The principle of individuation follows, of course, from this. "If
+two individuals were perfectly similar and equal, that is,
+indistinguishable in themselves, there would be no principle of
+individuation; there would not be two individuals." Thus Leibniz
+states his important principle of the "identity of indiscernibles,"
+the principle that where there is not some internal differentiating
+principle which specifies the existence in this or that definite
+way, there is no individual. Leibniz here states, in effect, the
+principle of organic unity, the notion that concrete unity is a
+unity _of_ differences, not _from_ them. It is the principle which
+allows him at once to accept and transform the thought of Spinoza
+that all qualification or determination is negation. Spinoza, in
+spite of his intellectual greatness, conceived of distinction or
+determination as external, and hence as external negation. But since
+ultimate reality admits of no external negation, it must be without
+distinction, an all-inclusive one. But to Leibniz the negation is
+internal; it is determination of its own being into the greatest
+possible riches. "Things that are conceived as absolutely uniform and
+containing no variety are pure abstractions." "Things indistinguishable
+in themselves, and capable of being distinguished only by external
+characteristics without internal foundation, are contrary to the
+most important principles of reason. The truth is that every being is
+capable of change [or differentiation], and is itself actually changed
+in such a way that in itself it differs from every other."
+
+As to organic bodies, so far as they _are_ bodies, or corporeal, they
+are one and identical only in appearance. "They are not the same an
+instant. . . . Bodies are in constant flux." "They are like a
+river which is always changing its water, or like the ship of Theseus
+which the Athenians are constantly repairing." Such unity as they
+really possess is like all unity,--ideal or spiritual. "They remain the
+same individual by virtue of that same soul or spirit which constitutes
+the 'Ego' in those individuals who think." "Except for the soul,
+there is neither the same life nor any vital union." As to personal
+identity, Leibniz distinguishes between "physical or real" identity
+and "moral." In neither case, however, is it a unity which excludes
+plurality, an identity which does not comprehend diversity. "Every
+spirit has," he says, "traces of all the impressions which it has ever
+experienced, and even presentiments of all that ever will happen. But
+these feelings are generally too minute to be distinguished and brought
+into consciousness, though they may be sometime developed. This
+_continuity_ and _connection_ of _perceptions_ makes up the real
+identity of the individual, while _apperceptions_ (that which is
+consciously apprehended of past experiences) constitute the moral
+identity and make manifest the real identity." We have had occasion
+before to allude to the part played in the Leibnizian philosophy by
+"minute perceptions" or "unconscious ideas." Of them he says, relative
+to the present point, that "insensible perceptions mark and even
+constitute the sameness of the individual, which is characterized
+by the residua preserved from its preceding states, as they form
+its connection with its present state." If these connections are
+"apperceived" or brought into distinct consciousness, there is moral
+identity as well. As he expresses it in one place: "The self (_soi_)
+is real and physical identity; the appearance of self, accompanied with
+truth, is personal identity." But the essential point in either case is
+that the identity is not that of a substance underlying modifications,
+nor of a consciousness which merely accompanies all mental states,
+but is the connection, the active continuity, or--in Kant's word--the
+synthesis, of all particular forms of the mental life. The self is not
+the most abstract unity of experience, it is the most organic. What
+Leibniz says of his monads generally is especially true of the higher
+monads,--human souls. "They vary, up to infinity itself, with the
+greatest abundance, order, and beauty imaginable." Not a mathematical
+point, but life, is the type of Leibniz's conception of identity.
+
+In the order in which Locke takes up his topics (and in which Leibniz
+follows him) we have omitted one subject, which, however, may find its
+natural place in the present connection,--the subject of infinity. In
+Locke's conception, the infinite is only a ceaseless extension or
+multiplication of the finite. He considers the topic immediately after
+the discussions of space, time, and number, and with good logic from
+his standpoint; for "finite and infinite," he says, are "looked upon by
+the mind as the modes of _quantity_, and are attributed, in their first
+designation, only to those things which have parts and are capable
+of increase and diminution." This is true even of the application
+of the term "infinite" to God, so far as concerns the attributes of
+duration and ubiquity; and as applied to his other attributes the
+term is figurative, signifying that they are incomprehensible and
+inexhaustible. Such being the idea of the infinite, it is attained as
+follows: There is no difficulty, says Locke, as to the way in which
+we come by the idea of the finite. Every obvious portion of extension
+and period of succession which affects us is bounded. If we take one of
+these periods or portions, we find that we can double it, or "otherwise
+multiply it," as often as we wish, and that there is no reason to stop,
+nor are we one jot nearer the end at any point of the multiplication
+than when we set out. "By repeating as often as we will any idea of
+space, we get the idea of infinity; by being able to repeat the idea
+of any length of duration, we come by the idea of eternity." There
+is a difference, then, between the ideas of the infinity of space,
+time, and number, and of an infinite space, time, and number. The
+former idea we have; it is the idea that we can continue without end
+the process of multiplication or progression. The latter we have not;
+it would be the idea of having completed the infinite multiplication,
+it would be the result of the never-ending progression. And this is
+evidently a contradiction in terms. To sum the matter up, the term
+"infinite" always relates to the notion of quantity. Quantity is that
+which is essentially capable of increase or decrease. There is then an
+infinity of quantity; there is no quantity which is the absolute limit
+to quantity. Such a quantity would be incapable of increase, and hence
+contradictory to quantity. But an actual infinite quantity (whether
+of space, time, or number) would be one than which there could be no
+greater; and hence the impossibility of our having a positive idea of
+an actual or completed infinite.
+
+Leibniz's reply consists simply in carrying out this same thought
+somewhat further. It is granted that the idea of an infinite quantity
+of any kind is absurd and self-contradictory. But what does this prove,
+except that the notions of quantity and infinity are incompatible with
+each other, that they contradict each other? Hence, instead of the
+infinite being a mode of quantity, it must be conceived as essentially
+distinct from and even opposed to quantity. Locke's argument is
+virtually a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the notion that the infinite
+is capable of parts. In the few pages of comment which Leibniz in
+1696 wrote upon Locke, this topic of the infinite is one of the few
+touched upon. His words upon that occasion were as follows: "I agree
+with Mr. Locke that, properly speaking, there is no space, time, nor
+number which is infinite; and that it is only true that however great
+be a space, a time, or a number, there is always another which is still
+greater, and this without end; and that, _therefore_, the infinite
+is not to be found in a whole made up of parts. But it does not cease
+to exist: it is found in the absolute, which is without parts, and of
+which compound things [phenomena in space and time, or facts which may
+be numbered] are only limitations. The positive infinite being nothing
+else than the absolute, it may be said that there is, in this sense,
+a positive idea of the infinite, and that it is anterior to the idea
+of the finite." In other words, while the infinite is to Locke an
+indefinite extension of the finite, which alone is positively "given,"
+to Leibniz the infinite is the positive and real, and the finite is
+only in and by it. The finite is the negative.
+
+Leibniz amplifies this thought upon other occasions, as in his present
+more extended examination. "There is no infinite number, line, or
+quantity, if they are taken as true wholes." "We deceive ourselves in
+trying to imagine an absolute space which should be an infinite whole,
+composed of parts. There is none such. It is an idea which implies
+contradiction; and all these 'infinites' and 'infinitesimals' are of
+use only in geometry, as imaginary roots are in algebra." That which
+is ordinarily called the infinite, that is, the quantitative infinite,
+is in reality only the indefinite. "We involve ourselves in difficulty
+when we talk about a series of numbers extending _to_ infinity; we
+imagine a last term, an infinite number, or one infinitely little. But
+these are only fictions. All number is finite and assignable, [that is,
+of a certain definite quantity]; every line is the same. 'Infinites'
+and 'infinitesimals' signify only quantities which can be taken as
+large or as small as one wishes, simply for the purpose of showing that
+there is no error which can be assigned. Or we are to understand by the
+infinitely little, the state of vanishing or commencing of a quantum
+after the analogy of a quantum already formed." On the other hand,
+the true infinite "is not an aggregate, nor a whole of parts; it is not
+clothed with magnitude, nor does it consist in number. . . . The
+Absolute alone, the indivisible infinite, has true unity,--I mean
+God." And as he sums up the matter: "The infinite, consisting of parts,
+is neither one nor a whole; it cannot be brought under any notion of
+the mind except that of quantity. Only the infinite without parts is
+one, and this is not a whole [of parts]: this infinite is God."
+
+It cannot be admitted, however, that Locke has given a correct account
+of the origin of the notion of the quantitative infinite, or--to
+speak philosophically, and not after the use of terms convenient in
+mathematics--the indefinite. According to him, its origin is the mere
+empirical repeating of a sensuous datum of time and space. According
+to Leibniz, this repetition, however long continued, can give no
+idea beyond itself; it can never generate the idea that the process
+of repetition may be continued without a limit. Here, as elsewhere,
+he objects that experience cannot guarantee notions beyond the limits
+of experience. Locke's process of repetition could tell us that a
+number _had_ been extended up to a given point; not that it could be
+extended without limit. The source of this latter idea must be found,
+therefore, where we find the origin of all extra-empirical notions,--in
+reason. "Its origin is the same as that of universal and necessary
+truths." It is not the empirical process of multiplying, but the fact
+that the _same reason_ for multiplying always exists, that originates
+and guarantees the idea. "Take a straight line and prolong it in such
+a way that it is double the first. It is evident that the second,
+being perfectly _similar_ to the first, can be itself doubled; and we
+have a third, which in turn is _similar_ to the preceding. The _same
+reason_ always being present, it is not possible that the process
+should ever be brought to a stop. Thus the line can be prolonged
+'to infinity.' Therefore the idea of 'infinity' comes from the
+consideration of the identity of relation or of reason."
+
+The considerations which we have grouped together in this chapter
+serve to show the fundamental philosophical difference between Locke
+and Leibniz. Although, taken in detail, they are self-explanatory, a
+few words may be permitted upon their unity and ultimate bearing. It is
+characteristic of Locke that he uses the same principle of explanation
+with reference to the conceptions of substance, identity and diversity,
+and infinity, and that this principle is that of spatial and temporal
+relation. Infinity is conceived as quantitative, as the successive
+addition of times and spaces; identity and diversity are oneness and
+difference of existence as determined by space and time; substance
+is the underlying static substratum of qualities, and, as such, is
+considered after the analogy of things existing in space and through
+time. It must not be forgotten that Locke believed as thoroughly as
+Leibniz in the substantial existence of the world, of the human soul,
+and of God; in the objective continuity of the world, and the personal
+identity of man, and in the true infinity of God. Whatever negative
+or sceptical inferences may have afterwards been drawn from Locke's
+premises were neither drawn nor dreamed of by him. His purpose was in
+essence one with that of Leibniz.
+
+But the contention of Leibniz is that when substance, identity, and
+infinity are conceived of by mechanical categories, or measured by the
+sensible standard of space and time, they lose their meaning and their
+validity. According to him such notions are spiritual in their nature,
+and to be spiritually conceived of. "Spiritual," however, does not mean
+opposed to the sensible; it does not mean something to be known by a
+peculiar kind of intuition unlike our knowledge of anything else. It
+means the active and organic basis of the sensible, its significance
+and ideal purpose. It is known by knowing the sensible or mechanical
+as it really is; that is, as it is completely, as a _concretum_,
+in Leibniz's phrase. Leibniz saw clearly that to make the infinite
+something at one end of the finite, as its mere external limit, or
+something miraculously intercalated into the finite, was to deprive
+it of meaning, and, by making it unknowable, to open the way for its
+denial. To make identity consist in the removal of all diversity
+(as must be done if it be thought after the manner of external
+relations), is to reduce it to nothing,--as Hume, indeed, afterwards
+showed. Substance, which is merely a support behind qualities, is
+unknowable, and hence unverifiable. While, then, the aim of both Locke
+and Leibniz as regards these categories was the same, Leibniz saw what
+Locke did not,--that to interpret them after the manner of existence
+in space and time, to regard them (in Leibniz's terminology) as
+mathematical, and not as metaphysical, is to defeat that aim. The sole
+way to justify them, and in justifying them to give relative validity
+to the sensible and phenomenal, is to demonstrate their spiritual and
+dynamic nature, to show them as conditioning space and time, and not as
+conditioned by them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+The third book of Locke's Essay is upon words and language; and in the
+order of treatment this would be the next topic for discussion. But
+much of what is said in this connection both by Locke and by Leibniz is
+philological, rhetorical, and grammatical in character, and although
+not without interest in itself, is yet without any especial bearing
+upon the philosophical points in controversy. The only topics in
+this book demanding our attention are general and particular terms;
+but these fall most naturally into the discussion of general and
+particular knowledge. In fact, it is not the terms which Locke
+actually discusses, but the ideas for which the terms stand. We
+pass on accordingly, without further ceremony, to the fourth book,
+which is concerning knowledge in general. Locke defines knowledge
+as "nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or
+disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas." These agreements or
+disagreements may be reduced to four sorts,--Identity, or diversity;
+Relation; Co-existence, or necessary connection; Real existence. The
+statement of identity and diversity is implied in all knowledge
+whatsoever. By them "the mind clearly and infallibly perceives each
+idea to agree with itself and be what it is, and all distinct ideas to
+disagree; _i. e._, the one not to be the other." The agreement of
+relation is such knowledge as the mind derives from the _comparison_
+of its ideas. It includes mathematical knowledge. The connection of
+co-existence "belongs particularly to substances." Locke's example
+is that "gold is fixed,"--by which we understand that the idea of
+fixedness goes along with that group of ideas which we call gold. All
+statements of fact coming under the natural sciences would fall into
+this class. The fourth sort is "that of actual and real existence
+agreeing to any idea."
+
+Leibniz's criticism upon these statements of Locke is brief and to
+the point. He admits Locke's definition of knowledge, qualifying it,
+however, by the statement that in much of our knowledge, perhaps in all
+that is merely empirical, we do not know the reason and connection
+of things and hence cannot be said to _perceive_ the agreement
+or disagreement of ideas, but only to feel it confusedly. His
+most important remark, however, is to the effect that relation is
+not a special kind of knowledge, but that all Locke's four kinds
+are varieties of relation. Locke's "connection" of ideas which
+makes knowledge is nothing but relation. And there are two kinds of
+relation,--those of "comparison" and of "concourse." That of comparison
+states the identity or distinction of ideas, either in whole or in
+part. That of concourse contains Locke's two classes of co-existence
+and existence. "When we say that a thing really exists, this existence
+is the predicate,--that is to say, a notion connected with the idea
+which is the subject; and there is connection between these two
+notions. The existence of an object of an idea may be considered as
+the concourse of this object with me. Hence comparison, which marks
+identity or diversity, and concourse of an object with me (or with the
+_ego_) are the only forms of knowledge."
+
+Leibniz leaves the matter here; but he only needed to develop what is
+contained in this statement to anticipate Berkeley and Kant in some of
+the most important of their discoveries. The contradiction which lies
+concealed in Locke's account is between his definition of knowledge
+in general, and knowledge of real existence in particular. One is the
+agreement or disagreement of _ideas_; the other is the agreement of
+an idea _with an object_. Berkeley's work, in its simplest form, was
+to remove this inconsistency. He saw clearly that the "object" was an
+intruder here. If knowledge lies in the connection of _ideas_, it is
+impossible to get outside the ideas to find an object with which they
+agree. Either that object is entirely unknown, or it is an idea. It
+is impossible, therefore, to find the knowledge of reality in the
+comparison of an idea with an object. It must be in some property of
+the ideas themselves.
+
+Kant developed more fully the nature of this property, which
+constitutes the "objectivity" of our ideas. It is their connection
+with one another according to certain _necessary_ forms of perception
+and rules of conception. In other words, the reality of ideas lies in
+their being connected by the necessary and hence universal relations
+of synthetic intelligence, or, as Kant often states it, in their
+agreement with the conditions of self-consciousness. It is not, I
+believe, unduly stretching either the letter or the spirit of Leibniz
+to find in that "concourse of the object with the ego" which makes
+its reality, the analogue of this doctrine of Kant; it is at all
+events the recognition of the fact that reality is not to be found
+in the relating of ideas to unknown things, but in their relation to
+self-conscious intelligence. The points of similarity between Kant
+and Leibniz do not end here. Leibniz's two relations of "comparison"
+and "concourse" are certainly the congeners of Kant's "analytic"
+and "synthetic" judgments. But Leibniz, as we shall see hereafter,
+trusts too thoroughly to the merely formal relations of identity and
+contradiction to permit him such a development of these two kinds of
+relation as renders Kant's treatment of them epoch-making.
+
+The discussion then advances to the subject of degrees of knowledge,
+of which Locke recognizes three,--intuitive, demonstrative, and
+sensitive. Intuitive knowledge is immediate knowledge,--recognition
+of likeness or difference without the intervention of a third idea;
+it is the most certain and clear of all knowledge. In demonstrative
+knowledge the agreement or disagreement cannot be perceived directly,
+because the ideas cannot be put together so as to show it. Hence
+the mind has recourse to intermediaries. "And this is what we call
+reasoning." Demonstrative rests on intuitive knowledge, because each
+intermediate idea used must be immediately perceived to be like or
+unlike its neighboring idea, or it would itself need intermediates for
+its proof. Besides these two degrees of knowledge there is "another
+perception of the mind employed about the particular existence of
+finite things without us, which, going beyond bare probability, and yet
+not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty,
+passes under the name of knowledge."
+
+Leibniz's comments are again brief. The primitive truths which are
+known by intuition are to be divided into two classes,--truths of
+reason and of fact. The primitive truths of reason are necessary, and
+may be called identical, because they seem only to repeat the same
+thing, without teaching us anything. A is A. A is not non-A. Such
+propositions are not frivolous or useless, because the conclusions
+of logic are demonstrated by means of identical propositions, and
+many of those of geometry by the principle of contradiction. All the
+intuitive truths of reason may be said to be made known through the
+"immediation" of ideas. The intuitive truths of fact, on the other
+hand, are contingent and are made known through the "immediation"
+of feeling. In this latter class come such truths as the Cartesian,
+"I think, therefore I am." Neither class can be proved by anything more
+certain.
+
+Demonstration is defined by Leibniz as by Locke. The former recognizes,
+however, two sorts,--analytic and synthetic. Synthesis goes from the
+simple to the complex. There are many cases, however, where this is
+not applicable; where it would be a task "equal to drinking up the sea
+to attempt to make all the necessary combinations. Here the method
+of exclusions should be employed, cutting off many of the useless
+combinations." If this cannot be done, then it is analysis which gives
+the clew into the labyrinth. He is also of the opinion that besides
+demonstration, giving certainty, there should be admitted an art of
+calculating probabilities,--the lack of which is, he says, a great
+defect in our present logic, and which would be more useful than a
+large part of our demonstrative sciences. As to sensitive knowledge,
+he agrees with Locke that there is such a thing as real knowledge
+of objects without us, and that this variety does not have the same
+metaphysical certainty as the other two; but he disagrees regarding
+its criterion. According to Locke, the criterion is simply the greater
+degree of vividness and force that sensations have as compared with
+imaginations, and the actual pleasures or pains which accompany
+them. Leibniz points out that this criterion, which in reality is
+purely emotional, is of no great value, and states the principle of the
+reality of sensible phenomena which we have already given, repeating
+that it is found in the _connection_ of phenomena, and that "this
+connection is verified by means of the truths of reason, just as the
+phenomena of optics are explained by geometry."
+
+The discussion regarding "primitive truths," axioms, and maxims,
+as well as the distinction between truths of fact and of reason, has
+its most important bearing in Locke's next chapter. This chapter has
+for its title the "Extent of Human Knowledge," and in connection with
+the sixth chapter, upon universal propositions, and with the seventh,
+upon axioms, really contains the gist of the treatment of knowledge. It
+is here also that are to be considered chapters three and six of book
+third, having respectively as their titles, "Of General Terms," and "Of
+the Names of Substances."
+
+To understand Locke's views upon the extent and limitations of our
+knowledge, it is necessary to recur to his theory of its origin. If
+we compare what he says about the origin of ideas from sensations
+with what he says about the development of general knowledge from
+particular, we shall find that Locke unconsciously puts side by side
+two different, and even contradictory, theories upon this point. In the
+view already given when treating of sensation, knowledge originates
+from the combination, the addition, of the simple ideas furnished
+us by our senses. It begins with the simple, the unrelated, and
+advances to the complex. But according to the doctrine which he
+propounds in treating of general terms, knowledge begins with the
+individual, which is already qualified by definite relations, and
+hence complex, and proceeds, by abstracting some of these qualities,
+towards the simple. Or, in Locke's own language, "ideas become general
+by separating from them the circumstances of time and place and any
+other ideas that may _determine_ them to this and that particular
+existence." And, still more definitely, he says that general ideas
+are framed by "leaving out of the _complex_ idea of individuals that
+which is peculiar to each, and retaining only what is common to them
+all." From this it follows that "general and universal belong not to
+the real existence of things, but are the inventions and creatures of
+the understanding." "When we quit particulars, the generals that rest
+are only creatures of our own making. . . . The signification
+they have is nothing but a relation that by the mind of man is added
+to them." And in language which reminds us of Kant, but with very
+different bearing, he says that relations are the workmanship of the
+understanding. The abstract idea of what is common to all the members
+of the class constitutes "nominal essence." This nominal essence, not
+being a particular existence in nature, but the "workmanship of the
+understanding," is to be carefully distinguished from the real essence,
+"which is the being of anything whereby it is what it is." This real
+essence is evidently equivalent to the unknown "substance" of which we
+have heard before. "It is the real, internal, and unknown constitution
+of things." In simple or unrelated ideas and in modes the real and
+the nominal essence is the same; and hence whatever is demonstrated of
+one is demonstrated of the other. But as to substance it is different,
+the one being natural, the other artificial. The nominal essence always
+relates to sorts, or classes, and is a pattern or standard by which we
+classify objects. In the individual there is nothing essential, in this
+sense. "Particular beings, considered barely in themselves, will be
+found to have all their qualities equally essential to them, or, which
+is more, nothing at all." As for the "real essence" which things have,
+"we only suppose its being without precisely knowing what it is."
+
+Locke here presents us with the confusion which, in one form or
+another, is always found in empiricism, and which indeed is essential
+to it. Locke, like the ordinary empiricist, has no doubt of the
+existence of real things. His starting-point is the existence of two
+substances, mind and matter; while, further, there is a great number of
+substances of each kind. Each mind and every separate portion of matter
+is a distinct substance. This supposed deliverance of common sense
+Locke never called into question. Working on this line, all knowledge
+will consist in abstraction from the ready-made things presented to us
+in perception, "in leaving out from the complex idea of individuals"
+something belonging to them. But on the other hand, Locke never doubts
+that knowledge begins with sensation, and that, therefore, the process
+of knowledge is one of adding simple, unrelated elements. The two
+theories are absolutely opposed to each other, and yet one and the
+same philosophical inference may be drawn from each; namely, that only
+the particular is real, and that the universal (or relations) is an
+artificial product, manufactured in one case by abstraction from the
+real individual, in the other by compounding the real sensation.
+
+The result is, that when he comes to a discussion of the extent of
+knowledge, he admits knowledge of self, of God, and of "things,"
+only by a denial of his very definition of knowledge, while knowledge
+of other conceptions, like those of mathematics, is not knowledge of
+reality, but only of ideas which we ourselves frame. All knowledge,
+that is to say, is obtained only either by contradicting his own
+fundamental notion, or by placing it in relations which are confessedly
+artificial and superinduced. It is to this point that we come.
+
+The proposition which is fundamental to the discussion is that we
+have knowledge only where we perceive the agreement or disagreement
+of ideas. Locke then takes up each of his four classes of connection,
+in order to ascertain the extent of knowledge in it. Our knowledge
+of "identity and diversity extends as far as our ideas," because we
+intuitively perceive every idea to be "what it is, and different from
+any other." Locke afterwards states, however, that all purely identical
+propositions are "trifling," that is, they contain no instruction;
+they teach us nothing. Thus the first class of relations cannot be
+said to be of much avail. If we consider the fourth kind of knowledge,
+that of real existence, we have an intuitive knowledge of self, a
+demonstrative knowledge of God, and a sensitive knowledge of other
+things. But sensitive knowledge, it must be noted, "does not extend
+beyond the objects _actually present_ to our senses." It can hardly
+be said, therefore, to assure us of the existence of _objects_
+at all. It only tells us what experiences are being at the time
+undergone. Furthermore, knowledge of all three (God, self, and matter),
+since of real being, and not of relations between ideas, contradicts
+his definition of knowledge. But perhaps we shall find knowledge more
+extended in the other classes. And indeed Locke tells us that knowledge
+of relations is the "largest field of our knowledge." It includes
+morals and mathematics; but it is to be noticed that, according to
+Locke, in both of these branches our demonstrations are not regarding
+facts, but regarding either "modes" framed by ourselves, or relations
+that are the creatures of our minds,--"extraneous and superinduced"
+upon the facts, as he says. He thus anticipates in substance, though
+not in phraseology, Hume's distinction between "matters of fact" and
+"connections of ideas," in the latter of which we may have knowledge,
+but not going beyond the combinations that we ourselves make.
+
+This leaves one class, that of co-existence, to be examined. Here,
+if anywhere, must knowledge, worthy of being termed scientific, be
+found. This class, it will be remembered, comprehends our knowledge
+concerning substances. But this extends, according to Locke, "a
+very little way." The idea of a substance is a complex of various
+"simple ideas united in one subject and co-existing together." When we
+would know anything further concerning a substance, we only inquire
+what other simple ideas, besides those already united, co-exist with
+them. Since there is no _necessary_ connection, however, among these
+simple ideas, since each is, by its very simplicity, essentially
+distinct from every other, or, as we have already learned, since
+nothing is essential to an individual, we can never be sure that any
+idea really co-exists with others. Or, as Locke says, in physical
+matters we "can go no further than particular experience informs us
+of. . . . We can have no certain knowledge of universal truths
+concerning natural bodies." And again, "universal propositions of whose
+truth and falsehood we have certain knowledge concern not existence;"
+while, on the other hand, "particular affirmations are only concerning
+existence, declaring only the _accidental_ union or separation of ideas
+in things existing." This particular knowledge, it must be recalled,
+is, in turn, only sensitive, and thus extends not beyond the time when
+the sensation is had.
+
+We are not surprised then at learning from Locke that regarding bodies
+"we are not capable of scientific knowledge." "Natural philosophy is
+not capable of being made a science;" or, as Locke elsewhere states it,
+knowledge regarding the nominal essence is "trifling" (Kant's analytic
+judgment); regarding the real essence is impossible. For example,
+when we say that all gold is fusible, this means either simply that
+fusibility is one of the ideas which we combine to get the general
+idea of gold, so that in making the given judgment we only expand
+our own notion; or it means that the "real" substance gold is always
+fusible. But this is a statement we have no right to make, and for two
+reasons: we do not know what the real substance gold is; and even if we
+did, we should not know that fusibility _always_ co-exists with it. The
+summary of the whole matter is that "general certainty is to be found
+only in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek it elsewhere, in experiment
+or observations without us, our knowledge goes not beyond particulars."
+
+It has been necessary to give an account of Locke's views at this
+length because it is in his discussion of the limitations and extent
+of knowledge that his theory culminates. While not working out his
+sensationalism as consistently as did Hume, he yet reduces knowledge
+to that of the existence of God and ourselves (whose natures, however,
+are unknown), and to a knowledge of mathematical and moral relations,
+which, however, concerns only "the habitudes and relations of abstract
+ideas." We have now to see by what means Leibniz finds a wider sphere
+for certain and general knowledge by his theory of intellectualism than
+Locke can by his sensationalism.
+
+Leibniz's theory of knowledge rests upon a distinction between truths
+of fact, which are _a posteriori_ and contingent, and truths of
+reason, which are _a priori_ and necessary. In discussing his views
+regarding experience, we learned that, according to him, all judgments
+which are empirical are also particular, not allowing any inference
+beyond the given cases experienced. Experience gives only instances,
+not principles. If we postpone for the present the discussions of
+truths of reason, by admitting that they may properly be said to be
+at once certain and universal, the question arises how in matters
+of fact there can be any knowledge beyond that which Locke admits;
+and the answer is, that so far as the mere existence and occurrence
+of these facts is concerned, there is neither demonstrative nor
+general knowledge. But the intelligence of man does not stop with the
+isolated fact; it proceeds to inquire into its cause, to ascertain
+its conditions, and thus to see into, not merely its actual existence,
+but its _possibility_. In Leibniz's language: "The real existence of
+things that are not necessary is a point of fact or history; but the
+knowledge of possibilities or necessities (the necessary being that
+whose opposite is not possible) constitutes demonstrative science." In
+other words, it is the principle of causality, which makes us see a
+fact not as a mere fact, but as a dependent consequence; which elevates
+knowledge, otherwise contingent and particular, into the realm of the
+universal and apodictic. Underlying all "accidental union" is the real
+synthesis of causation.
+
+If we follow the discussion as it centres about the terms "nominal"
+and "real," it stands as follows: Leibniz objects to the use of the
+term "essence" in this connection, but is willing to accept that of
+"definition;" for, as he says, a substance can have but one essence,
+while there may be several definitions, which, however, all express
+the same essence. The essence is the _possibility_ of that which is
+under consideration; the definition is the statement of that which is
+supposed to be possible. The "nominal" definition, however, while it
+implies this possibility, does not expressly affirm it,--that is to
+say, it may always be doubted whether the nominal definition has any
+possibility (or reality) corresponding to it until experience comes
+to our aid and makes us know it _a posteriori_. A "real" definition,
+on the other hand, makes us know _a priori_ the reality of the thing
+defined by showing us the mode of its production, "by exhibiting its
+cause or generation." Even our knowledge of facts of experience cannot
+be said, therefore, to be arbitrary, for we do not combine ideas just
+as we please, but "our combinations may be justified by reason which
+shows them to be possible, or by experience which shows them to be
+actual, and consequently also possible." To take Locke's example about
+gold, "the essence of gold is that which constitutes it and gives it
+its sensible qualities, and these qualities, so far as they enable
+us to recognize it, constitute its nominal essence, while a real
+and causal definition would enable us to explain the contexture or
+internal disposition. The nominal definition, however, is also real in
+one sense,--not in itself, indeed, since it does not enable us to know
+_a priori_ the possibility or production of the body, but empirically
+real."
+
+It is evident from these quotations that what Leibniz understands
+by "possibility" is the condition or cause of a given fact; and
+that, while Locke distinguishes between particular, accidental and
+demonstrative, general knowledge as two opposed kinds, concerned with
+two distinct and mutually exclusive spheres, with Leibniz they are
+distinctions in the aspect of the same sphere of fact. In reality there
+is no combination of qualities accidental, as Locke thought that by
+far the greater part were; in every empirical fact there is a cause or
+condition involved that is invariable, and that constitutes the reason
+of the fact. The "accidental" is only in the relation of our ideas
+to objects, not in the objects themselves. There may be accidental
+mental associations; there are no accidental relations. In empirical,
+or _a posteriori_, knowledge, so-called, the reason is there, but
+is not known. _A priori_ knowledge, the real definition, discovers
+and explicitly states this reason. Contingent knowledge is therefore
+potentially rational; demonstrative knowledge is the actual development
+of the reasons implicitly contained in experience.
+
+We may with advantage connect this discussion with the fundamental
+doctrine of Locke and Leibniz regarding intelligence and reality. To
+Locke, as we have seen, knowledge is essentially a matter of relations
+or connections; but relations are "superinduced" and "extraneous" as
+regards the facts. Every act of knowledge constitutes, therefore, in
+some way a departure from the reality to be known. Knowledge and fact
+are, by their very definition, opposed to one another. But in Leibniz's
+view intelligence, or reason, enters into the constitution of reality;
+indeed, it is reality. The relations which are the "creatures of the
+understanding" are, therefore, not foreign to the material to be known,
+but are organic to it, forming its content. The process, then, in which
+the mind perceives the connections or relations of ideas or objects,
+is simply the process by which the mind comes to the consciousness
+of the real nature of these objects, not a process of "superinducing"
+unreal ideas upon them. The difficulty of Locke is the difficulty of
+every theory of knowledge that does not admit an organic unity of the
+knowing mind and the known universe. The theory is obliged to admit
+that all knowledge is in the form of relations which have their source
+in intelligence. But being tied to the view that reality is distinct
+from intelligence, it is obliged to draw the conclusion that these
+relations are not to be found in actual existence, and hence that all
+knowledge, whatever else it may be, is unreal in the sense that it does
+not and cannot conform to actual fact. But, in the theory of Leibniz,
+the process of relating which is the essence of knowledge is only the
+realization on the part of the individual mind of the relations or
+reasons that eternally constitute reality. Since reality is, and is
+what it is, through intelligence, whatever relations intelligence
+rightly perceives are not "extraneous" to reality, but are its
+"essence." As Leibniz says, "Truth consists in the relations between
+the objects of our ideas. This does not depend upon language, but is
+common to us with God, so that when God manifests a truth to us, _we
+acquire what is already in his understanding_. For although there is an
+infinite difference between his ideas and ours as to their perfection
+and extent, yet it is always true that as to the same relation they are
+identical. And it is in this relation that truth exists." To this may
+be added another statement, which throws still further light on this
+point: "Ideas are eternally in God, and are in us before we perceive
+them."
+
+We have now to consider somewhat more in detail the means by
+which the transformation of empirical into rational knowledge
+is carried on. Leibniz points out that the difficulty concerning
+scientific knowledge of sensible facts is not lack of data, but,
+in a certain sense, superfluity of data. It is not that we perceive
+no connections among objects, but that we perceive many which we
+cannot reduce to one another. "Our experiences," says Leibniz,
+"are simple only in appearance, for they are always accompanied by
+circumstances connected with them, although these relations are not
+understood by us. These circumstances furnish material capable of
+explanation and analysis. There is thus a sort of _pleonasm_ in our
+perceptions of sensible objects and qualities, since we have more
+than one idea of the same object. Gold can be nominally defined in
+many ways. Such definitions are only _provisional_." This is to say,
+empirical knowledge will become rational when it is possible to view
+any subject-matter as a unity, instead of a multiplicity of varied
+aspects. And on this same subject he says, in another connection: "A
+great number of experiences can furnish us data more than sufficient
+for scientific knowledge, provided only we have the art of using these
+data." The aim of science is therefore, to discover the dynamic unity
+which makes a whole of what appears to be a mere mass of accidentally
+connected circumstances. This unity of relations is the individual.
+
+It is thus evident that to Leibniz the individual is not the
+beginning of knowledge, but its goal. The individual is the organic,
+the dynamic unity of the variety of phases or notions presented
+us in sense-experience. Individuality is not "simplicity" in
+the sense of Locke; that is, separation from all relations. It
+is complete connection of all relations. "It is impossible for
+us to have [complete] knowledge of individuals, and to find the
+means of determining exactly the individuality of anything; for
+in individuality all circumstances are combined. Individuality
+envelops the infinite. Only so far as we know the infinite do we
+know the individual, on account of the influence (if this word be
+correctly understood) that all things in the universe exercise upon
+one another." Leibniz, in short, remains true to his conception of the
+monad as the ultimate reality; for the monad, though an individual,
+yet has the universe as its content. We shall be able, therefore, to
+render our sensible experiences rational just in the degree in which we
+can discover the underlying relations and dependencies which make them
+members of one individual.
+
+For the process of transformation Leibniz relies especially upon two
+methods,--those of mathematics and of classification. Of the former
+he here says but little; but the entire progress of physical science
+since the time of Leibniz has been the justification of that little. In
+the passage already quoted regarding the need of method for using our
+sensible data, he goes on to say that the "infinitesimal analysis has
+given us the means of allying physics and geometry, and that dynamics
+has furnished us with the key to the general laws of nature." It is
+certainly competent testimony to the truth of Leibniz's fundamental
+principles that he foresaw also the course which the development
+of biological science would take. No classification based upon
+resemblances, says Leibniz in effect, can be regarded as wholly
+arbitrary, since resemblances are found in nature also. The only
+question is whether our classification is based upon superficial or
+fundamental identities; the superficial resemblances being such as are
+external, or the effects of some common cause, while the fundamental
+resemblances are such as are the cause of whatever other similarities
+are found. "It can be said that whatever we compare or distinguish with
+truth, nature differentiates, or makes agree, also; but that nature has
+differences and identities which are better than ours, which we do not
+know. . . . _The more we discover the generation of species_,
+and the more we follow in our classifications the conditions that
+are required for their production, the nearer we approach the natural
+order." Our classifications, then, so far as they depend upon what is
+conditioned, are imperfect and provisional, although they cannot be
+said to be false (since "while nature may give us those more complete
+and convenient, it will not give the lie to those we have already");
+while so far as they rest upon what is causal and conditioning, they
+are true, general, and necessary. In thus insisting that classification
+should be genetic, Leibniz anticipated the great service which the
+theory of evolution has done for biological science in enabling science
+to form classes which are "natural;" that is, based on identity of
+origin.
+
+Leibniz culminates his discussion of classification as a method of
+translating the empirical into the rational, by pointing out that
+it rests upon the law of continuity; and that this law contains two
+factors,--one equivalent to the axiom of the Realists, that nature
+is nowhere empty; the other, to that of the Nominalists, that nature
+does nothing uselessly. "One of these principles seems to make nature
+a prodigal, the other a miser; and yet both are true if properly
+understood," says Leibniz. "Nature is like a good manager, sparing
+where it is necessary, in order to be magnificent. It is magnificent
+in its effects, and economical in the causes used to produce them." In
+other words, classification becomes science when it presents us with
+both unity and difference. The principle of unity is that of nature
+as a miser and economical; that of differentiation is the principle of
+nature as prodigal and magnificent. The thoroughly differentiated unity
+is nature as self-specifying, or as an organic, not an abstract, unity.
+
+The gist of the whole matter is, then, that experience presents us
+with an infinity of ideas, which may appear at first sight arbitrary
+and accidental in their connections. This appearance, however, is
+not the fact. These ideas are the effects of certain causes; and in
+ascertaining these conditions, we reduce the apparently unrelated
+variety of experiences to underlying unities, and these unities,
+like all real unities or simple beings, are spiritual and rational in
+nature. Leibniz's ordinary way of stating this is that the principle
+of truths of fact is that of _sufficient reason_. This principle
+Leibniz always treats as distinguished from that of identity (and
+contradiction) as the ruling category of truths of reason. And we shall
+follow him in discussing the two together.
+
+"Our reasonings are based on two leading principles,--that of
+contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false all which contains
+contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to that
+which is false; and that of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we
+judge that no fact is true or actual, no proposition veritable, unless
+there is a sufficient reason why it is as it is, and not otherwise,
+although these reasons are generally unknown to us. Thus there are
+two sorts of truths,--those of reason, and those of fact. The truths
+of reason are necessary, and their opposites impossible; while those
+of fact are contingent, and their opposites possible. When a truth
+is necessary, its reason can be discovered by analysis, resolving
+it into ideas and truths that are simpler, until the primitive
+truths are arrived at. It is thus that the mathematicians proceed in
+reducing by analysis the theorems of speculation and the canons of
+practice into definitions, axioms, and postulates. Thus they come to
+simple ideas whose definition cannot be given; primitive truths that
+cannot be proved, and which do not need it, since they are identical
+propositions, whose opposite contains a manifest contradiction."
+
+"But in contingent truths--those of fact--the sufficient reason must
+be found; namely, in the succession of things which fill the created
+universe,--for otherwise the analysis into particular reasons would
+go into detail without limit, by reason of the immense variety of
+natural things, and of the infinite divisibility of bodies. There
+are an infinity of figures and of past and present movements which
+enter into the efficient cause of my present writing, and there are
+an infinity of minute inclinations and dispositions of my soul which
+enter into its final cause. And since all this detail contains only
+other contingent and particular antecedents, each of which has need
+of a similar analysis to account for it, we really make no progress by
+this analysis; and it is necessary that the final or sufficient reason
+be outside the endless succession or series of contingent particulars,
+that it consist in a necessary being, in which this series of changes
+is contained only _eminenter_, as in its source. This necessary being
+and source is what we call God."
+
+In other words, the tracing of empirical facts to their causes and
+conditions does not, after all, render them wholly rational. The series
+of causes is endless. Every condition is in turn conditioned. We
+are not so much solving the problem of the reason of a given fact,
+as we are stating the problem in other terms as we go on in this
+series. Every solution offers itself again as a problem, and this
+endlessly. If these truths of fact, then, are to be rendered wholly
+rational, it must be in something which lies outside of the series
+considered as a series; that is, something which is not an antecedent
+of any one of the series, but is equally related to each and to
+all as their ground and source. This, considered as an argument
+for the existence of God, we shall deal with hereafter; now we are
+concerned only with its bearing upon the relation of experience to
+the universality and necessity of knowledge. According to this, the
+ultimate meaning of facts is found in their relation to the divine
+intelligence; for Leibniz is emphatic in insisting that the relation
+of God to experience is not one of bare will to creatures produced by
+this will (as Descartes had supposed), but of a will governed wholly
+by Intelligence. As Leibniz states it in another connection, not only
+matters of fact, but mathematical truths, have the same final basis in
+the divine understanding.
+
+"Such truths, strictly speaking, are only conditional, and say that
+in case their subject existed they would be found such and such. But
+if it is again asked in what consists this conditional connection
+in which there is necessary reality, the reply is that it is in
+the relation of ideas. And by the further question, Where would
+be the ideas if no spirit existed; and what would then become of
+the foundation of the certainty of such truths?--we are brought to
+the final foundation of truths; namely, that supreme and universal
+spirit, which must exist, and whose understanding is, in reality, the
+region of the eternal truths. And in order that it may not be thought
+that it is not necessary to have recourse to this region, we must
+consider that these necessary truths contain the determining reason and
+regulative principle of existence, and, in a word, of the laws of the
+universe. Thus these necessary truths, being anterior to the existences
+of contingent beings, must in turn be based upon the existence of a
+necessary substance."
+
+It is because facts are not _mere_ facts, in short, but are the
+manifestation of a "determining reason and regulative principle" which
+finds its home in universal intelligence, that knowledge of them can
+become necessary and general.
+
+The general nature of truths of reason and of their ruling principle,
+identity and contradiction, has already been given in the quotation
+regarding the principle of sufficient reason. It is Leibniz's
+contention that only in truths whose opposite is seen to involve
+self-contradiction can we have absolute certainty, and that it is
+through connection with such eternal truths that the certainty of
+our other knowledge rests. It is thus evident why Leibniz insists, as
+against Locke, upon the great importance of axioms and maxims. They are
+important, not merely in themselves, but as the sole and indispensable
+bases of scientific truth regarding all matters. Leibniz at times,
+it is true, speaks as if demonstrative and contingent truths were
+of themselves, in principle, distinct, and even opposed. But he also
+corrects himself by showing that contingency is rather a subjective
+limitation than an objective quality. We, indeed, do not see that the
+truth "I exist," for example, is necessary, because we cannot see how
+its opposite involves contradiction. But "God sees how the two terms
+'I' and 'exist' are connected; that is, _why_ I exist." So far as we
+can see facts, then, from the standpoint of the divine intelligence,
+so far, it would appear, our knowledge is necessary.
+
+Since these axioms, maxims, or first truths are "innate," we are
+in a condition to complete (for the first time) the discussion
+of innate ideas. These ideas constitute, as we have learned, the
+essential content of the divine intelligence, and of ours so far
+as we have realized our identity with God's understanding. The
+highest form of knowledge, therefore, is self-consciousness. This
+bears the same relation to necessary truths that the latter bear to
+experience. "Knowledge of necessary and eternal truths," says Leibniz,
+"distinguishes us from simple animals, and makes us have reason and
+science, _elevating us to the knowledge of ourselves_. We are thus
+developed to self-consciousness; and in being conscious of ourselves we
+are conscious of being, of substance, of the simple, of the spiritual,
+of God." And again he says that "those that know necessary truths are
+rational spirits, capable of self-consciousness, of recognizing what is
+termed Ego, substance, and monad. _Thus_ they are rendered capable of
+demonstrative knowledge." "We are innate to ourselves; and since we are
+beings, being is innate to us, for knowledge of it is implicit in that
+which we have of ourselves."
+
+Knowledge, in fine, may be regarded as an ascending series of four
+terms. The first is constituted by sensations associated together
+in such a way that a relation of antecedence and consequence exists
+between them. This is "experience." The second stage comes into
+existence when we connect these experiences, not by mere relations of
+"consecution," but by their conditions, by the principle of causality,
+and especially by that of sufficient reason, which connects them with
+the supreme intelligence, God. This stage is science. The third is
+knowledge of the axioms and necessary truths in and of themselves,
+not merely as involved in science. The fourth is self-consciousness,
+the knowledge of intelligence, in its intimate and universal nature,
+by which we know God, the mind, and all real substance. In the order of
+time the stage of experience is first, and that of self-consciousness
+last. But in the lowest stage there are involved the others. The
+progress of knowledge consists in the development or unfolding of
+this implicit content, till intelligence, spirit, activity, is clearly
+revealed as the source and condition of all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION.
+
+
+In the exposition now completed we have in general taken for granted
+the truth and coherency of Leibniz's fundamental ideas, and have
+contented ourselves with an account of the principles and notions that
+flow from these ideas. The time has come for retracing our steps, and
+for inquiring whether the assumed premises can be thus unquestioningly
+adopted. This final chapter, therefore, we shall devote to criticism
+of the basis of Leibniz's philosophy, not attempting to test it by
+a comparison with other systems, but by inquiring into its internal
+coherency, and by a brief account of the ways in which his successors,
+or at least one of them, endeavored to make right the points in which
+he appeared to fail.
+
+The fundamental contradiction in Leibniz is to be found, I believe,
+between the method which he adopted--without inquiry into its validity
+and scope--and the subject-matter, or perhaps better the attitude,
+to which he attempted to apply this method; between, that is to
+say, the scholastic formal logic on the one hand and the idea of
+inter-relation derived from the development of scientific thought,
+on the other. Leibniz never thought of investigating the formal logic
+bequeathed by scholasticism, with a view to determining its adequacy
+as philosophic method. He adopted, as we have seen, the principles
+of identity and contradiction as sole principles of the only perfect
+knowledge. The type of knowledge is that which can be reduced to
+a series of identical propositions, whose opposite is seen to be
+impossible, because self-contradictory. Only knowledge in this form
+can be said to be demonstrative and necessary. As against Locke he
+justified the syllogistic method of the schoolmen as the typical method
+of all rational truth.
+
+On the other hand, Leibniz, as we saw in the earlier chapters,
+had learned positively from the growth of science, negatively from
+the failures of Descartes and Spinoza, to look upon the universe as
+a unity of inter-related members,--as an organic unity, not a mere
+self-identical oneness. Failing to see the cause of the failures of
+Descartes and Spinoza in precisely their adoption of the logic of
+identity and contradiction as ultimate, he attempted to reconcile this
+method with the conception of organic activity. The result is constant
+conflict between the method and content of his philosophy, between
+its letter and its spirit. The contradiction is a twofold one. The
+unity of the content of his philosophy, the conception of organism or
+harmony, is a unity which essentially involves difference. The unity
+of his method is a formal identity which excludes it. The unity,
+whose discovery constitutes Leibniz's great glory as a philosopher,
+is a unity of activity, a dynamic process. The unity of formal logic
+is exclusive of any mediation or process, and is essentially rigid
+and lifeless. The result is that Leibniz is constantly wavering
+(in logical result, not of course in spirit) between two opposed
+errors, one of which is, in reality, not different from Spinozism,
+in that it regards all distinction as only phenomenal and unreal,
+while the other is akin to atomism, in that attempting to avoid the
+doctrine of the all-inclusive one, it does so only by supposing a
+multitude of unrelated units, termed monads. And thus the harmony,
+which in Leibniz's intention is the very content of reality, comes
+to be, in effect, an external arrangement between the one and
+the many, the unity and the distinction, in themselves incapable
+of real relations. Such were the results of Leibniz's failure, in
+Kantian language, to criticise his categories, in Hegelian language,
+to develop a logic,--the results of his assuming, without examination,
+the validity of formal logic as a method of truth.
+
+So thoroughly is Leibniz imbued with the belief in its validity, that
+the very conception, that of sufficient reason, which should have been
+the means of saving him from his contradictions, is used in such a way
+as to plunge him deeper into them. The principle of sufficient reason
+may indeed be used as purely formal and external,--as equivalent to the
+notion that everything, no matter what, has _some_ explanation. Thus
+employed, it simply declares that everything has _a_ reason, without in
+the least determining the _what_ of that reason,--its content. This is
+what we mean by calling it formal. But this is not the way in which
+Leibniz conceives of it. According to him, it is not a principle
+of the external connection of one finite, or phenomenal, fact with
+another. It is a principle in the light of which the whole phenomenal
+world is to be viewed, declaring that its ground and meaning are to be
+found in reason, in self-conscious intelligence. As we have seen, it is
+equivalent, in Leibniz's case, to the notion that we have no complete
+nor necessary knowledge of the world of scientific fact until we have
+referred it to a conditioning "Supreme Spirit."
+
+Looked at in this way, we see that the unity which Leibniz is
+positively employing is an organic unity, a unity of intelligence
+involving organic reference to the known world. But such a conception
+of sufficient reason leaves no place for the final validity of
+identity and non-contradiction; and therefore Leibniz, when dealing
+with his method, and not, as in the passages referred to, with
+his subject-matter, cannot leave the matter thus. To do so indeed
+would have involved a complete reconstruction of his philosophy,
+necessitating a derivation of all the categories employed from
+intelligence itself (that is, from the sufficient or conditioning
+reason). But the bondage to scholastic method is so great that Leibniz
+can see no way but to measure intelligence by the ready-made principle
+of identity, and thus virtually (though not in purpose) to explain
+away the very principle of sufficient reason. In Leibniz's words:
+"Contingent truths require an infinite analysis which only God
+can carry out. Whence by him alone are they known _a priori_ and
+demonstratively. For although the reason can always be found for some
+occurring state in a prior state, this reason again requires a reason,
+and we never arrive in the series to the ultimate reason. But this
+_progressus ad infinitum_ takes (in us) the place of a sufficient
+reason, which can be found only outside the series in God, on whom
+all its members, prior and posterior depend, rather than upon one
+another. _Whatever truth, therefore, is incapable of analysis, and
+cannot be demonstrated from its own reasons, but has its ultimate
+reason and certainty only from the divine mind, is not necessary._
+Everything that we call truths of fact come under this head, and this
+is the root of their contingency."
+
+The sentences before the one italicized repeat what we have learned
+before, and seem to convey the idea that the phenomenal world
+is that which does not account for itself, because not itself a
+self-determining reason, and which gets its ultimate explanation and
+ground in a self-sufficient reason,--God. But notice the turn given to
+the thought with the word "therefore." Therefore all truth incapable
+of analysis,--that is, of reduction to identical propositions,
+whose opposite is impossible because self-contradictory,--all truth
+whose meaning depends upon not its bare identity, but upon its
+relation to the very content of all intelligence, is not necessary,
+but contingent. Leibniz here distinctly opposes identical truths as
+necessary, to truth connected with reason as contingent. Synthetic
+reference to the very structure of intelligence is thus made,
+not the ground of truth, but a blot upon its completeness
+and necessity. Perfect truth, it is implied in the argument,
+is self-identical, known by mere analysis of itself, and needs
+no reference to an organism of reason. The reference, therefore,
+to a principle of sufficient reason is simply a concession to the
+fragmentary and imperfect condition of all knowledge. Truth in itself
+is self-identical; but appearing to us only confusedly, we employ
+the idea of sufficient reason as a makeshift, by which we refer, in a
+mass, all that we cannot thus reduce to identical propositions, to an
+intelligence, or to a _Deus ex machina_ which can so reduce it. This is
+the lame and impotent conclusion.
+
+Leibniz's fundamental meaning is, no doubt, a correct one. He means
+that contingency of fact is not real, but apparent; that it exists
+only because of our inability to penetrate the reason which would
+enable us completely to account for the facts under consideration. He
+_means_ that if we could understand, _sub specie aeternitatis_,
+from the standpoint of universal intelligence, we should see every
+fact as necessary, as resulting from an intrinsic reason. But so
+thoroughly is he fettered by the scholastic method--that is, the
+method of formal logic--that he can conceive of this immanent and
+intrinsic reason which makes every fact a truth--that is, self-evident
+in its necessity--only as an analytic, self-contained identity. And
+herein lies his contradiction: his method obliges him to conceive of
+ultimate intelligence as purely formal, simply as that which does not
+contradict itself, while the attitude of his thought and its concrete
+subject-matter compel him to think of intelligence as possessing a
+content, as the organic unity of a system of relations.
+
+From this contradiction flow the other contradictions of Leibniz, which
+we are now prepared to examine in more detail. For his ideas are so
+much greater than his method that in almost every point there seems to
+be contradiction. His ideas _per se_ mean one thing, and his ideas as
+interpreted by his method another. Take his doctrine of individuality,
+for instance. To some it has appeared that the great defect of the
+Leibnizian philosophy is its individualism. Such conceive him simply
+to have carried out in his monadism the doctrine of the individual
+isolated from the universe to its logical conclusions, and thereby to
+have rendered it absurd. In a certain sense, the charge is true. The
+monad, according to the oft-repeated statement, has no intercourse
+with the rest of the universe. It really excludes all else. It acts
+as if nothing but itself and God were in existence. That is to say,
+the monad, being the self-identical, must shut out all intrinsic or
+real relations with other substances. Such relations would involve a
+differentiating principle for which Leibniz's logic has no place. Each
+monad is, therefore, an isolated universe. But such a result has no
+value for Leibniz. He endeavors to correct it by the thought that each
+monad _ideally_ includes the whole universe by mirroring it. And then
+to reconcile the real exclusion and the ideal inclusion, he falls back
+on a _Deus ex machina_ who arranges a harmony between them, foreign to
+the intrinsic nature of each. Leibniz's individualism, it is claimed,
+thus makes of his philosophy a synthesis, or rather a juxtaposition,
+of mutually contradictory positions, each of which appears true only as
+long as we do not attempt to think it together with the other.
+
+There is, no doubt, truth in this representation. But a more
+significant way of stating the matter is, I think, that Leibniz's
+defect is not in his individualism, but in the defect of his conception
+of the individual. His individualism is more apparent than real. It is
+a negative principle, and negative in the sense of _privative_. The
+individuality of the monad is due to its incompleteness, to its
+imperfections. It is really matter which makes monads mutually
+impenetrable or exclusive; it is matter which distinguishes them
+from God, and thus from one another. Without the material element
+they would be lost in an undistinguished identity with God, the
+supreme substance. But matter, it must be remembered, is passivity;
+and since activity is reality, or substance, matter is unsubstantial
+and unreal. The same results from a consideration of knowledge. Matter
+is always correlative to confused ideas. With the clearing up of
+knowledge, with making it rational, matter must disappear, so that
+to God, who is wholly reason, it must entirely vanish. But this
+view varies only in words from that of Spinoza, to whom it is the
+imagination, as distinguished from the intellect, that is the source of
+particular and finite objects.
+
+It is perhaps in his _Theodicée_, in the treatment of the problem of
+evil, that his implicit Spinozism, or denial of individuality, comes
+out most clearly. That evil is negative, or privative, and consists in
+the finitude of the creature, is the result of the discussion. What is
+this except to assert the unreality, the merely privative character,
+of the finite, and to resolve all into God? To take one instance out
+of many: he compares inertia to the original limitation of creatures,
+and says that as inertia is the obstacle to the complete mobility
+of bodies, so privation, or lack, constitutes the essence of the
+imperfection, or evil, of creatures. His metaphor is of boats in
+the current of a river, where the heavier one goes more slowly,
+owing to inertia. The force of the current, which is the same to all,
+and which is positive, suffering no diminution, is comparable to the
+activity of God, which also is perfect and positive. As the current
+is the positive source of all the movements of the bodies, and is in
+no way responsible for the retardation of some boats, so God is the
+source only of activities,--the perfections of his creatures. "As the
+inertia of the boat is the cause of its slowness, so the limitations
+of its receptivity are the cause of the defects found in the action
+of creatures." Individuality is thus reduced to mere limitation; and
+the unlimited, the real which includes all reality, is God. We are
+thus placed in a double difficulty. This notion of an all-inclusive
+one contradicts the reality of mutually exclusive monads; and we have
+besides the characteristic difficulty of Spinoza,--how, on the basis
+of this unlimited, self-identical substance, to account for even the
+appearance of finitude, plurality and individuality.
+
+Leibniz's fundamental defect may thus be said to be that, while
+he realized, as no one before him had done, the importance of
+the conception of the _negative_, he was yet unable to grasp the
+significance of the negative, was led to interpret it as merely
+privative or defective, and thus, finally, to surrender the very
+idea. Had not his method, his presupposition regarding analytic
+identity, bound him so completely in its toils, his clear perception
+that it was the negative element that differentiated God from the
+universe, intelligence from matter, might have brought him to a
+general anticipation not only of Kant, but of Hegel. But instead of
+transforming his method by this conception of negation, he allowed
+his assumed (_i. e._, dogmatic) method to evacuate his conception
+of its significance. It was Hegel who was really sufficiently in
+earnest with the idea to read it into the very notion of intelligence
+as a constituent organic element, not as a mere outward and formal
+limitation.
+
+We have already referred to the saying of Leibniz that the monad acts
+as if nothing existed but God and itself. The same idea is sometimes
+expressed by saying that God alone is the immediate or direct object
+of the monad. Both expressions mean that, while the monad excludes
+all other monads, such is not the case in its relation to God, but
+that it has an organic relation with him. We cannot keep from asking
+whether there is not another aspect of the contradiction here. How is
+it possible for the monad so to escape from its isolation that it can
+have communication with God more than with other substances? Or if
+it can have communication with God, why cannot it equally bear real
+relations of community with other monads? And the answer is found in
+Leibniz's contradictory conceptions of God. Of these conceptions there
+are at least three. When Leibniz is emphasizing his monadic theory,
+with its aspects of individuality and exclusion, God is conceived as
+the highest monad, as one in the series of monads, differing from the
+others only in the degree of its activity. He is the "monad of monads";
+the most complete, active, and individualized of all. But it is evident
+that in this sense there can be no more intercourse between God and a
+monad than there is between one monad and another. Indeed, since God
+is _purus actus_ without any passivity, it may be said that there is,
+if possible, less communication in this case than in the others. He is,
+as Leibniz says, what a monad without matter would be, "a deserter from
+the general order." He is the acme of isolation. This, of course, is
+the extreme development of the "individual" side of Leibniz's doctrine,
+resulting in a most pronounced atomism. Leibniz seems dimly conscious
+of this difficulty, and thus by the side of this notion of God he
+puts another. According to it, God is the source of all monads. The
+monads are not created by a choice of the best of all possible worlds,
+as his official theology teaches, but are the radiations of his
+divinity. Writing to Bayle, Leibniz expresses himself as follows: "The
+nature of substance consists in an active force of definite character,
+from which phenomena proceed in orderly succession. This force was
+originally received by, and is indeed preserved to, every substance by
+the creator of all things, from whom all _actual forces or perfections
+emanate by a sort of continual creation_." And in his Monadology
+he says: All "the created or derived monads are the productions of
+God, and are born, as it were, _by the continual fulgurations of the
+divinity from instant to instant_, bounded by the receptivity of the
+creature to which it is essential to be limited." What has become of
+the doctrine of monads (although the word is retained) it would be
+difficult to say. There is certainly no individual distinction now
+between the created monads and God, and it is impossible to see why
+there should be individual distinctions between the various created
+monads. They appear to be all alike, as modes of the one comprehensive
+substance. Here we have the universal, or "identity," side of Leibniz's
+philosophy pushed to its logical outcome,--the doctrine of pantheism.
+
+His third doctrine of God is really a unity of the two previous. It is
+the doctrine that God is the harmony of the monads,--neither one among
+them nor one made up of them, but their organic unity. This doctrine
+is nowhere expressly stated in words (unless it be when he says that
+"God alone constitutes the relation and community of substances"),
+but it runs through his whole system. According to this, God _is_
+the pre-established harmony. This conception, like that of harmony,
+may have either a mechanical interpretation (according to which God is
+the artificial, external point of contact of intelligence and reality,
+in themselves opposed) or an organic meaning, according to which God
+_is_ the unity of intelligence and reality. On this interpretation
+alone does the saying that God is the only immediate object of the
+monads have sense. It simply states that the apparent dualism between
+intelligence and its object which is found in the world is overcome
+in God; that the distinction between them is not the ultimate fact,
+but exists in and for the sake of a unity which transcends the
+difference. According to this view, the opposition between ideal
+inclusion and real exclusion vanishes. God _is_ the harmony of the real
+and ideal, not a mere arrangement for bringing them to an understanding
+with one another. Individuality and universality are no longer opposed
+conceptions, needing a _tertium quid_ to relate them, but are organic
+factors of reality, and this, at the same time, is intelligence.
+
+But admitting this conception as stating the implicit intention of
+Leibniz, the relation of monads to one another is wholly different from
+that which Leibniz gives. And to this point we now come. If in God,
+the absolute, the real and the ideal are one, it is impossible that in
+substances, which have their being and significance only in relation
+to God, or this unity, the real and the ideal should be so wholly
+separated as Leibniz conceives.
+
+Leibniz's conception relative to this is, as we have seen, that
+there is no physical _influxus_, or _commercium_, of monads, but
+ideal consensus. _Really_ each shuts out every other; _ideally_,
+or representatively, it includes every other. His positive thought
+in the matter is that a complete knowledge of any portion of the
+universe would involve a perfect knowledge of the whole, so organic
+is the structure of the universe. Each monad sums up the past history
+of the world, and is big with its future. This is the conception of
+inter-relation; the conception of all in one, and one as a member,
+not a part of a whole. It is the conception which Leibniz brought
+to birth, the conception of the thorough unity of the world. In this
+notion there is no denial of community of relation; it is rather the
+culmination of relation. There is no isolation. But according to his
+presupposed logic, individuality can mean only identity excluding
+distinction,--identity without intrinsic relation, and, as Leibniz
+is bound at all hazards to save the notion of individuality, he is
+obliged to think of this inter-relation as only ideal, as the result of
+a predetermined tendency given at its creation to the self-identical
+monad by God. But of course Leibniz does not escape the contradiction
+between identity and distinction, between individuality and
+universality, by this means. He only transfers it to another realm. In
+the relation of the monad to God the diversity of its content, the real
+or universal element, is harmonized with the identity of its law, its
+ideal or individual factor. But if these elements do not conflict here,
+why should they in the relation of the monads to one another? Either
+there is already an immanent harmony between the individual and
+universal, and no external arrangement is needed to bring it about, or
+there is no such harmony, and therefore no relation possible between
+God and the individual monad. One side of the Leibnizian philosophy
+renders the other side impossible.
+
+Another consequence of Leibniz's treatment of the negative as
+merely limitative is that he can find no distinction, excepting of
+degree, between nature and spirit. Such a conception is undoubtedly
+in advance of the Cartesian dualism, which regards them as opposed
+realms _without_ any relation; but it may be questioned whether it is
+as adequate a view as that which regards them as distinct realms _on
+account_ of relation. At all events, it leads to confusion in Leibniz's
+treatment of both material objects and self-conscious personalities. In
+the former case his method of escape is a metaphor,--that objects
+apparently material are full of souls, or spirits. This may mean that
+the material is _merely_ material only when considered in implicit
+abstraction from the intelligence which conditions it, that the
+material, in truth, is constituted by some of the relations which
+in their completeness make up intelligence. This at least bears a
+consistent meaning. But it is not monadism; it is not the doctrine
+that matter differs from spirit only in degree: it is the doctrine
+that they differ in kind, as the conditioned from the conditioning. At
+times, however, Leibniz attempts to carry out his monadism literally,
+and the result is that he conceives matter as being itself endowed,
+in some unexplained way, with souls, or since this implies a dualism
+between matter and soul, of being made up, composed, of souls. But
+as he is obliged to explain that this composition is not spatial, or
+physical, but only ideal, this doctrine tends to resolve itself into
+the former. And thus we end where we began,--with a metaphor.
+
+On the other hand there is a wavering treatment of the nature
+of spirit. At times it is treated as precisely on a level in kind
+with the monads that "compose" matter, differing only in the greater
+degree of its activity. But at other times it is certainly represented
+as standing on another plane. "The difference between those monads
+which express the world with consciousness and those which express it
+unintelligently is as great as the difference between a mirror and one
+who sees." If Leibniz means what he seems to imply by these words,
+it is plainly asserted that only the spiritual being is worthy of
+being called a monad, or individual, at all, and that material being
+is simply a dependent manifestation of spirit. Again he says: "Not all
+entelechies are, like our soul, _images of God_,--being made as members
+of a society or state of which he is chief,--but all are _images of
+the universe_." In this distinction between self-conscious beings as
+images of God and unconscious monads as images of the universe there
+is again implied a difference of kind. That something is the image
+of the universe need mean only that it cannot be explained without
+its relations to the universe. To say that something is the image of
+God, must mean that it is itself spiritual and self-conscious. God
+alone is reason and activity. He alone has his reality in
+himself. Self-conscious beings, since members of a community with him,
+must participate in this reality in a way different in kind from those
+things which, at most, are only substances or objects, not subjects.
+
+Nor do the difficulties cease here. If matter be conceived, not as
+implied in the relations by which reason is realized in constituting
+the universe, but as itself differing from reason only in degree,
+it is impossible to account for its existence. Why should a less
+degree of perfection exist than is necessary? Why should not the
+perfect activity, God, complete the universe in himself? Leibniz's
+answer that an infinity of monads multiplies his existence so far as
+possible, may hold indeed of other spirits, who mirror him and live
+in one divine society, but is utterly inapplicable to those which fail
+to image him. Their existence, as material, is merely privative; it is
+merely the absence of the activity found in conscious spirit. How can
+this deprivation, this limitation, increase in any way the harmony and
+perfection of the universe? Leibniz's theory of the negative, in fine,
+compels him to put nature and spirit on the same level, as differing
+only in degree. This, so far from giving nature a reality, results in
+its being swallowed up in spirit, not as necessarily distinct from
+it and yet one with it, but as absorbed in it, since the apparent
+difference is only privative. Nor does the theory insure the reality
+of spirit. This, since one in kind with matter, is swallowed up along
+with it in the one substance, which is positive and self-identical,--in
+effect, the _Deus sive Natura_ of Spinoza.
+
+We have to see that this contradiction on the side of existence has
+its correlate on the side of knowledge, and our examination of this
+fundamental deficiency in Leibniz is ended. Sensation is on the side
+of intelligence what matter is on the side of reality. It is confused
+knowledge, as matter is imperfect activity or reality. Knowledge is
+perfect only when it is seen to be necessary, and by "necessary" is
+meant that whose opposite is impossible, or involves contradiction. In
+spite, therefore, of Leibniz's thorough conviction that "matters of
+fact"--the subject-matter of physical science--are not arbitrary, he
+is yet obliged finally to agree with Locke that there is no certainty
+to be found in such knowledge, either as a whole or in any of its
+details. The element of sensation, of confused knowledge, cannot be
+eliminated. Hence it must always be open to any one to object that
+it is only on account of this imperfect factor of our knowledge that
+there appears to be a physical world at all, that the external world
+is an illusion produced by our sensations. And Leibniz himself,
+while claiming that the world of fact, as opposed to the realm of
+relations, possesses _practical_ reality, is obliged to admit that
+_metaphysically_ it may be only an orderly dream. The fact is that
+Leibniz unconsciously moves in the same circle, with relation to
+sensation and the material world, that confines Spinoza with regard
+to imagination and particular multiple existences. Spinoza explains
+the latter from that imperfection of our intelligence which leads us
+to imagine rather than to think. But he accounts for the existence
+of imagination, when he comes to treat that, as due to the plurality
+of particular things. So Leibniz, when an account of the existence of
+matter is demanded of him, refers to confused knowledge as its source,
+while in turn he explains the latter, or sensation, from the material
+element which sets bounds to the activity of spirit. Leibniz seems
+indeed, to advance upon Spinoza in admitting the reality of the
+negative factor in differentiating the purely self-identical, but
+he gives up what he has thus gained by interpreting the negation as
+passivity, or mere deprivation.
+
+To sum up, it may be doubted whether we have more to learn from
+Leibniz's successes or from his failures. Leibniz's positive
+significance for us is in his clear recognition of the problems of
+modern philosophy, and in his perception of the isolated elements
+of their solution. His negative significance is in his clinging to
+a method which allowed him only to juxtapose these elements without
+forming of them a true synthesis. There are a number of sides from
+which we may state Leibniz's realization of the problem. Perhaps that
+which distinguishes Leibniz most clearly from Locke is their respective
+treatments of the relation of the physical to the spiritual, or, as
+the question presented itself mainly to them, of the "natural" to the
+"supernatural." To Locke the supernatural was strictly miraculous;
+it was, from our standpoint, mere power, or will. It might indeed
+be rational, but this reason was incapable of being apprehended by
+us. Its distinction from the finite was so great that it could be
+conceived only as something preceding and succeeding the finite in
+time, and meanwhile as intercalating itself arbitrarily here and
+there into the finite; as, for example, in the relation of soul and
+body, in the production of sensation, etc. In a word, Locke thought
+that the ends of philosophy, and with it of religion and morals,
+could be attained only by a complete separation of the "natural"
+and the "supernatural." Leibniz, on the other hand, conceived the
+aim of philosophy to be the demonstration of their harmony. This is
+evidenced by his treatment of the relations of the infinite and finite,
+of matter and spirit, of mechanical and final causation. And he found
+the sought-for harmony in the fact that the spiritual is the reason,
+purpose, and function of the natural. The oft-quoted words of Lotze
+express the thought of Leibniz: "The mechanical is unbounded in range,
+but is subordinate in value." We cannot find some things that occur
+physically, and others that occur supernaturally; everything that
+occurs has its sufficient mechanical antecedents, but all that occurs
+has its significance, its purpose, in something that does not occur,
+but that eternally is--Reason. The mechanical and the spiritual are not
+realms which here and there come into outward contact. They are related
+as the conditioned and the conditioning. That, and not the idea of an
+artificial _modus vivendi_, is the true meaning of the pre-established
+harmony.
+
+In other words, Leibniz's great significance for us is the fact that,
+although he accepted in good faith, and indeed as himself a master
+in its methods, the results and principles of physical science, he
+remained a teleological idealist of the type of Aristotle. But I have
+not used the right words. It was not in spite of his acceptance of the
+scientific view of the world that he retained his faith in the primacy
+of purpose and reason. On the contrary, he was an idealist because of
+his science, because only by the idea of an all-conditioning spiritual
+activity could he account for and make valid scientific conceptions;
+he was a teleologist, because natural processes, with their summing up
+in the notion of causality, were meaningless except as manifesting an
+immanent purpose.
+
+There are other more technical ways of stating the bearing of Leibniz's
+work. We may say that he realized that the problem of philosophy
+consisted in giving due value to the notions of individuality and
+universality, of identity and difference, or of the real and the
+ideal. In developing these ideas, however, we should only be repeating
+what has already been said, and so we may leave the matter here. On
+the negative side we need only recall what was said a few pages back
+regarding the incompatibility of Leibniz's method--the scholastic
+formal logic--with the content of his philosophy. The attempt to
+find a formal criterion of truth was hopeless; it was worse than
+fruitless, for it led to such an interpretation of concrete truths
+as to deprive them of their significance and as to land Leibniz in
+involved contradictions.
+
+To write a complete account of the influence of Leibniz's philosophy
+would be too large a task for these pages. If we were to include under
+this head all the ramifications of thought to which Leibniz stimulated,
+directly and indirectly, either by stating truths which some one worked
+out or by stating errors which incited some one to new points of view,
+we should have to sketch German philosophy since his time,--and not
+only the professional philosophy, but those wide aspects of thought
+which were reflected in Herder, Lessing, and Goethe. It is enough to
+consider him as the forerunner of Kant. It has become so customary to
+represent Kant as working wholly on the problem which Hume presented,
+that his great indebtedness to Leibniz is overlooked. Because Hume
+aroused Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, it is supposed that Kant
+threw off the entire influence of the Leibnizian thought as vain
+dreams of his sleep. Such a representation is one-sided. It is truer
+to state that Hume challenged Kant to discover the method by which he
+could justify the results of Leibniz. In this process, the results,
+no doubt, took on a new form: results are always relative to method;
+but Kant never lost sight of the results. In the main, he accepted the
+larger features of the Leibnizian conclusions, and, taught by Hume of
+the insufficiency of the method that Leibniz followed, searched for a
+method which should guarantee them.
+
+This aspect of Kant appears more fully in his lesser and somewhat
+controversial writings than in his classic works: and this, no doubt,
+is one reason that his indebtedness is so often overlooked. His close
+relation to Leibniz appears most definitely in his _brochure_ entitled
+"Concerning a Discovery which renders Unnecessary all Critique of Pure
+Reason." A Wolffian, Eberhard by name, had "made the discovery" (to use
+Kant's words) "that the Leibnizian philosophy contained a critique of
+reason just as well as the modern, and accordingly contained everything
+that is true in the latter, and much else in addition." In his reply
+to this writing, Kant takes the position that those who claimed to be
+Leibnizians simply repeated the words of Leibniz without penetrating
+into his spirit, and that consequently they misrepresented him on
+every important point. He, Kant, on the other hand, making no claim to
+use the terminology of Leibniz, was his true continuator, since he had
+only changed the doctrine of the latter so as to make it conform to the
+true intent of Leibniz, by removing its self-contradictions. He closes:
+"'The Critique of Pure Reason' may be regarded as the real apology for
+Leibniz, even against his own professed followers."
+
+Kant, in particular, names three points in which he is the true
+follower of Leibniz. The professed disciples of the latter insisted
+that the law of sufficient reason was an objective law, a law of
+nature. But, says Kant, it is so notorious, so self-evident, that
+no one can make a new discovery through this principle, that Leibniz
+can have meant it only as subjective. "For what does it mean to say
+that over and above the principle of contradiction another principle
+must be employed? It means this: that, according to the principle
+of contradiction, only that can be known which is already contained
+in the notion of the object; if anything more is to be known, it
+must be sought through the use of a special principle, distinct from
+that of contradiction. Since this last kind of knowledge is that of
+synthetic principles, Leibniz means just this: besides the principle of
+contradiction, or that of analytic judgments, there must be another,
+that of sufficient reason, for synthetic judgments. He thus pointed
+out, in a new and remarkable manner, that certain investigations
+in metaphysics were still to be made." In other words, Kant, by his
+distinction of analytic and synthetic judgments, with their respective
+principles and spheres, carried out the idea of Leibniz regarding the
+principles of contradiction and sufficient reason.
+
+The second point concerns the relation of monads to material
+bodies. Eberhard, like the other professed Leibnizians, interpreted
+Leibniz as saying that corporeal bodies, as composite, are
+actually made up out of monads, as simple. Kant, on the other
+hand, saw clearly that Leibniz was not thinking of a relation of
+composition, but of condition. "He did not mean the material world,
+but the substrate, the intellectual world which lies in the idea
+of reason, and in which everything must be thought as consisting
+of simple substances." Eberhard's process, he says, is to begin
+with sense-phenomena, to find a simple element as a part of the
+sense-perceptions, and then to present this simple element as if it
+were spiritual and equivalent to the monad of Leibniz. Kant claims to
+follow the thought of Leibniz in regarding the simple not as an element
+_in_ the sensuous, but as something super-sensuous, the _ground_ of
+the sensuous. Leibniz's mistake was that, not having worked out clearly
+the respective limits of the principles of identity and of sufficient
+reason, he supposed that we had a direct intellectual intuition of this
+super-sensuous, when in reality it is unknowable.
+
+The third group of statements concerns the principle of pre-established
+harmony. "Is it possible," asks Kant, "that Leibniz meant by this
+doctrine to assert the mere coincidence of two substances wholly
+independent of each other by nature, and incapable through their own
+force of being brought into community?" And his answer is that what
+Leibniz really implied was not a harmony between independent things,
+but a harmony between modes of knowing, between sense on the one
+hand and understanding on the other. The "Critique of Pure Reason"
+carried the discussion farther by pointing out its grounds; namely,
+that, without the unity of sense and understanding, no experience
+would be possible. _Why_ there should be this harmony, _why_ we
+should have experience, this question it is impossible to answer,
+says Kant,--adding that Leibniz confessed as much when he called it a
+"pre-established" harmony, thus not explaining it, but only referring
+it to a highest cause. That Leibniz really means a harmony within
+intelligence, not a harmony of things by themselves, is made more
+clear, according to Kant, from the fact that it is applied also to
+the relation between the kingdom of nature and of grace, of final
+and of efficient causes. Here the harmony is clearly not between
+two independently existing _external things_, but between what
+flows from our notions of nature (_Naturbegriffe_) and of freedom
+(_Freiheitsbegriffe_); that is, between two distinct powers and
+principles _within us_,--an agreement which can be explained only
+through the idea of an intelligent cause of the world.
+
+If we review these points in succession, the influence of Leibniz upon
+Kant becomes more marked. As to the first one, it is well known that
+Kant's philosophy is based upon, and revolves within, the distinction
+of analytic and synthetic judgments; and this distinction Kant
+clearly refers to the Leibnizian distinction between the principles
+of contradiction and of sufficient reason, or of identity and
+differentiation. It is not meant that Kant came to this thought through
+the definitions of Leibniz; on the contrary, Kant himself refers it to
+Hume's distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas. But
+when Kant had once generalized the thought of Hume, it fell at once,
+as into ready prepared moulds, into the categories of Leibniz. He
+never escapes from the Leibnizian distinction. In his working of it
+out consists his greatness as the founder of modern thought; from his
+acceptance of it as ultimate result his contradictions. That is to say,
+Kant did not merely receive the vague idea of sufficient reason: he
+so connected it with what he learned from Hume that he transformed it
+into the idea of synthesis, and proceeded to work out the conception of
+synthesis in the various notions of the understanding, or categories,
+as applicable to the material of sense. What Leibniz bequeathed him was
+the undefined idea that knowledge of matters of fact rests upon the
+principle of sufficient reason. What Kant did with this inheritance
+was to identify the wholly vague idea of sufficient reason with the
+notion that every fact of experience rests upon necessary synthetic
+connection,--that is, connection according to notions of understanding
+with other facts,--and to determine, so far as he could, the various
+forms of synthesis, or of sufficient reason. With Leibniz the principle
+remained essentially infertile, because it was the mere notion of the
+ultimate reference of experience to understanding. In the hands of
+Kant, it became the instrument of revolutionizing philosophy, because
+Kant showed the articulate members of understanding by which experience
+is constituted, and described them in the act of constituting.
+
+So much for his working out of the thought. But on the other hand,
+Kant never transcended the absoluteness of the distinction between
+the principles of synthesis and analysis, of sufficient reason and
+contradiction. The result was that he regarded the synthetic principle
+as the principle only of our knowledge, while perfect knowledge he
+still considered to follow the law of identity, of mere analysis. He
+worked out the factor of negation, of differentiation, contained in
+the notion of synthesis, but limited it to synthesis upon material
+of sense, presupposing that there is another kind of knowledge,
+not limited to sense, not depending upon the synthetic principle, but
+resting upon the principle of contradiction, or analysis, and that this
+kind is the type, the norm, of the only perfect knowledge. In other
+words, while admitting the synthetic principle of differentiation
+as a necessary element within _our_ knowledge, he held that on
+account of this element our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal
+realm. Leibniz's error was in supposing that the pure principles of
+the logical understanding, resting on contradiction, could give _us_
+knowledge of the noumenal world; his truth was in supposing that
+only by such principles _could_ they be known. Thus, in substance,
+Kant. Like Leibniz, in short, he failed to transcend the absoluteness
+of the value of the scholastic method; but he so worked out another
+and synthetic method,--the _development_ of the idea of sufficient
+reason,--that he made it necessary for his successors to transcend it.
+
+The second point concerns the relations of the sensuous and
+the super-sensuous. Here, besides setting right the ordinary
+misconception of Leibniz, Kant did nothing but render him consistent
+with himself. Leibniz attempted to prove the existence of God,
+as we have seen, by the principles both of sufficient reason and
+contradiction. Kant denies the validity of the proof by either
+method. God is the sufficient cause, or reason, of the contingent
+sense world. But since Leibniz admits that this contingent world may,
+after all, be but a dream, how shall we rise from it to the notion
+of God? It is not our dreams that demonstrate to us the existence of
+reality. Or, again, sense-knowledge is confused knowledge. How shall
+this knowledge, by hypothesis imperfect, guarantee to us the existence
+of a perfect being? On the other hand, since the synthetic principle,
+or that of sufficient reason, _is_ necessary to give us knowledge of
+matters of fact, the principle of contradiction, while it may give
+us a consistent and even necessary notion of a supreme being, cannot
+give this notion reality. Leibniz, while admitting, with regard to all
+other matters of fact, that the principles of formal logic can give
+no unconditional knowledge, yet supposes that, with regard to the one
+unconditional reality, they are amply sufficient. Kant but renders him
+self-consistent on this point.
+
+It is, however, with regard to the doctrine of pre-established harmony
+that Kant's large measure of indebtedness to Leibniz is most apt to
+be overlooked. Kant's claim that Leibniz himself meant the doctrine
+in a subjective sense (that is, of a harmony between powers in our
+own intelligence) rather than objective (or between things out of
+relation to intelligence) seems, at first sight, to go far beyond the
+mark. However, when we recall that to Leibniz the sense world is only
+the confused side of rational thought, there is more truth in Kant's
+saying than appears at this first sight. The harmony is between sense
+and reason. But it may at least be said without qualification that
+Kant only translated into subjective terms, terms of intelligence,
+what appears in Leibniz as objective. This is not the place to go into
+the details of Kant's conception of the relation of the material to
+the psychical, of the body and the soul. We may state, however, in his
+own words, that "the question is no longer as to the possibility of the
+association of the soul with other known and foreign substances outside
+it, but as to the connection of the presentations of inner sense with
+the modifications of our external sensibility." It is a question, in
+short, of the harmony of two modes of our own presentation, not of the
+harmony of two independent things. And Kant not only thus deals with
+the fact of harmony, but he admits, as its _possible_ source, just what
+Leibniz claims to be its _actual_ source; namely, some one underlying
+reality, which Leibniz calls the monad, but to which Kant gives no
+name. "I can well suppose," says Kant, "that the substance to which
+through external sense extension is attributed, is also the subject
+of the presentations given to us by its inner sense: _thus that which
+in one respect is called material being would be in another respect
+thinking being_."
+
+Kant treats similarly the problem of the relations of physical and
+final causes, of necessity and freedom. Here, as in the case just
+mentioned, his main problem is to discover their _harmony_. His
+solution, again, is in the union, in our intelligence, of the
+understanding--as the source of the notions which "make nature"--with
+the ideas of that reason which gives a "categorical imperative." The
+cause of the possibility of this harmony between nature and freedom,
+between the sense world and the rational, he finds in a being, God,
+whose sole function in the Kantian philosophy may be said to be to
+"pre-establish" it. I cannot believe that Kant, in postulating the
+problems of philosophy as the harmony of sense and understanding,
+of nature and freedom, and in finding this harmony where he did,
+was not profoundly influenced, consciously as well as unconsciously,
+by Leibniz. In fact, I do not think that we can understand the
+nature either of Kant's immense contributions to modern thought or
+of his inconsistencies, until we have traced them to their source
+in the Leibnizian philosophy,--admitting, on the other hand, that we
+cannot understand why Kant should have found necessary a new way of
+approach to the results of Leibniz, until we recognize to the full
+his indebtedness to Hume. It was, indeed, Hume that awoke him to his
+endeavors, but it was Leibniz who set before him the goal of these
+endeavors. That the goal should appear somewhat transformed, when
+approached from a new point of view, was to be expected. But alas! the
+challenge from Hume did not wholly awaken Kant. He still accepted
+without question the validity of the scholastic method,--the analytic
+principle of identity as the type of perfect knowledge,--although
+denying its sufficiency for human intelligence. Leibniz suggested, and
+suggested richly, the synthetic, the negative aspect of thought; Kant
+worked it out as a necessary law of _our_ knowledge; it was left to his
+successors to work it out as a factor in the law of _all_ knowledge.
+
+It would be a grievous blunder to suppose that this final chapter
+annihilates the earlier ones; that the failure of Leibniz as to
+method, though a failure in a fundamental point, cancelled his
+splendid achievements. Such thoughts as that substance is activity;
+that its process is measured by its end, its idea; that the universe
+is an inter-related unit; the thoughts of organism, of continuity,
+of uniformity of law,--introduced and treated as Leibniz treated
+them,--are imperishable. They are members of the growing consciousness,
+on the part of intelligence, of its own nature. There are but three or
+four names in the history of thought which can be placed by the side of
+Leibniz's in respect to the open largeness, the unexhausted fertility,
+of such thoughts. But it is not enough for intelligence to have great
+thoughts nor even true thoughts. It is testimony to the sincerity and
+earnestness of intelligence that it cannot take even such thoughts as
+those of Leibniz on trust. It must _know_ them; it must have a method
+adequate to their demonstration. And in a broad sense, the work of
+Kant and of his successors was the discovery of a method which should
+justify the objective idealism of Leibniz, and which in its history has
+more than fulfilled this task.
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Note:
+
+    The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
+    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
+
+    By S. C Griggs and Company.
+    By S. C. Griggs and Company.
+
+  passivity of any kind is a myth, as scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+  passivity of any kind is a myth, a scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+
+  the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms, are
+  the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms are
+
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the
+Human Understanding, by John Dewey
+
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diff --git a/40957-0.zip b/40957-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human
+Understanding, by John Dewey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
+       A Critical Exposition
+
+Author: John Dewey
+
+Release Date: October 6, 2012 [EBook #40957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jana Srna, Adrian Mastronardi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.
+    Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They
+    are listed at the end of the text.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+    Greek text has been transliterated and marked with ~tildes~.
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+  GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS
+  FOR
+  ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS.
+
+  EDITED BY
+  GEORGE S. MORRIS.
+
+  LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING
+  THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+
+
+
+  LEIBNIZ'S
+  NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE
+  HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+  A CRITICAL EXPOSITION.
+
+  By JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D.,
+
+  ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
+  MICHIGAN, AND PROFESSOR (ELECT) OF MENTAL AND
+  MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
+  OF MINNESOTA
+
+  CHICAGO:
+  SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
+  1902
+
+
+  Copyright, 1888,
+  By S.�C. Griggs and Company.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The purpose of the series of which the present volume is one, is not,
+as will be seen by reference to the statement in the initial volume,
+to sum up _in toto_ the system of any philosopher, but to give a
+"critical exposition" of some one masterpiece. In treating the
+"Nouveaux Essais" of Leibniz, I have found myself obliged, at times,
+to violate the letter of this expressed intention, in order to fulfil
+its spirit. The "Nouveaux Essais," in spite of its being one of the
+two most extended philosophical writings of Leibniz, is a compendium
+of comments, rather than a connected argument or exposition. It has
+all the suggestiveness and richness of a note-book, but with much also
+of its fragmentariness. I have therefore been obliged to supplement my
+account of it by constant references to the other writings of Leibniz,
+and occasionally to take considerable liberty with the order of the
+treatment of topics. Upon the whole, this book will be found, I hope,
+to be a faithful reflex not only of Leibniz's thought, but also of his
+discussions in the "Nouveaux Essais."
+
+In the main, the course of philosophic thought since the time of
+Leibniz has been such as to render almost self-evident his limitations,
+and to suggest needed corrections and amplifications. Indeed, it is
+much easier for those whose thoughts follow the turn that Kant has
+given modern thinking to appreciate the defects of Leibniz than to
+realize his greatness. I have endeavored, therefore, in the body
+of the work, to identify my thought with that of Leibniz as much
+as possible, to assume his standpoint and method, and, for the most
+part, to confine express criticism upon his limitations to the final
+chapter. In particular, I have attempted to bring out the relations
+of philosophy to the growing science of his times, to state the
+doctrine of pre-established harmony as he himself meant it, and to give
+something like consistency and coherency to his doctrine of material
+existence and of nature. This last task seemed especially to require
+doing. I have also endeavored to keep in mind, throughout, Leibniz's
+relations to Locke, and to show the "Nouveaux Essais" as typical of the
+distinction between characteristic British and German thought.
+
+    JOHN DEWEY.
+
+_May_, 1888.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  The Man.
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  His Parents                                                          1
+
+  His Early Education                                                  2
+
+  His University Training at Leipsic                                   4
+
+  At Jena                                                              8
+
+  At the University of Altdorf                                        10
+
+  His Removal to Frankfurt                                            10
+
+  His Mission to Paris                                                11
+
+  Discovery of the Calculus                                           12
+
+  Librarian at Hanover                                                13
+
+  His Activities                                                      14
+
+  His Philosophic Writings                                            15
+
+  His Ecclesiastic and Academic Projects                              17
+
+  His Later Years and Death                                           18
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  Sources of his Philosophy.
+
+  Character of the Epoch into which Leibniz was born                  20
+
+  The Thought of the Unity of the World                               23
+
+  The two Agencies which formed Leibniz's Philosophy                  24
+
+  The Cartesian Influences                                            26
+
+  Rationalistic Method                                                28
+
+  Mechanical Explanation of Nature                                    30
+
+  Application of Mathematics                                          32
+
+  Idea of Evolution                                                   33
+
+  Interpretation of these Ideas                                       35
+
+  Idea of Activity or Entelechy                                       39
+
+  Idea of Rationality                                                 40
+
+  Idea of Organism                                                    42
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  The Problem and its Solution.
+
+  Unity of Leibniz's Thought                                          43
+
+  Relation of Universal and Individual                                44
+
+  Descartes' Treatment of this Question                               46
+
+  Spinoza's Treatment of it                                           48
+
+  Leibniz's Solution                                                  50
+
+  All Unity is Spiritual                                              53
+
+  And Active                                                          54
+
+  Is a Representative Individual                                      56
+
+  Contrast of Monad and Atom                                          58
+
+  Pre-established Harmony reconciles Universal and Individual         59
+
+  Meaning of this Doctrine                                            62
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  Locke and Leibniz.--Innate Ideas.
+
+  Necessity of Preliminary Account of Leibniz's Philosophy            66
+
+  Locke's Empiricism                                                  67
+
+  Leibniz's Comments upon Locke                                       69
+
+  The Controversies of Leibniz                                        72
+
+  The Essay on the Human Understanding                                73
+
+  Locke's Denial of Innate Ideas                                      75
+
+  Depending upon
+
+    (1) His Mechanical Conception of Innate Ideas                     77
+
+  Leibniz undermines this by substituting an Organic Conception       80
+
+  And upon
+
+    (2) His Mechanical Conception of Consciousness                    84
+
+  Leibniz refutes this by his Theory of Unconscious Intelligence      85
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  Sensation and Experience.
+
+  Importance of Doctrine regarding Sensation                          87
+
+  The Two Elements of Locke's Notion of Sensation                     89
+
+  Its Relation to the Object producing it: Primary and Secondary
+  Qualities                                                           91
+
+  Locke criticized as to his Account
+
+    (1) Of the Production of Sensation                                92
+
+    (2) Of its Function in Knowledge                                  95
+
+  The Meaning of Physical Causation                                   97
+
+  Bearing of this Doctrine upon Relation of Soul and Body             98
+
+  Criticism of Locke's Dualism                                        98
+
+  Leibniz's Monism                                                   101
+
+  Summary of Discussion                                              103
+
+  Leibniz on the Relation of Sensations to Objects
+  occasioning them                                                   105
+
+  Nature of Experience                                               106
+
+  Distinction of Empirical from Rational Knowledge                   107
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  The Impulses and the Will.
+
+  The Doctrine of Will depends upon that of Intelligence             109
+
+  The Character of Impulse                                           111
+
+  Of Desire                                                          112
+
+  Half-Pains and Pleasures                                           113
+
+  The Outcome of Desire                                              115
+
+  Nature of Moral Action                                             117
+
+  Of Freedom                                                         118
+
+    (1) Freedom as Contingency                                       119
+
+        Limitation of this Principle                                 121
+
+    (2) Freedom as Spontaneity                                       123
+
+        This Principle is too Broad to be a Moral Principle          125
+
+    (3) True Freedom is Rational Action                              125
+
+  Our Lack of Freedom is due to our Sensuous Nature                  128
+
+  Innate Practical Principles                                        129
+
+  Moral Science is Demonstrative                                     130
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  Matter and its Relation to Spirit.
+
+  Locke's Account of Matter and Allied Ideas the Foundation of the
+  Philosophy of Nature Characteristic of British Empiricism          132
+
+  Space and Matter wholly Distinct Ideas                             134
+
+  Leibniz gives Matter a Metaphysical Basis                          137
+
+  Ordinary Misunderstanding of Leibniz's Ideas of Matter             138
+
+  Matter is not composed of Monads                                   139
+
+  Matter is the Passive or Conditioned Side of Monads                140
+
+  Passivity equals "Confused Representations," _i.�e._ Incomplete
+  Development of Reason                                              144
+
+  Matter is logically Necessary from Leibniz's Principles            145
+
+  Bearing of Discussion upon Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony     146
+
+  Summary                                                            147
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  Material Phenomena and their Reality.
+
+  What is the Connection between Matter as Metaphysical and as
+  Physical?                                                          151
+
+  The Latter is the "Image" of the Former                            151
+
+  Leibniz's Reaction from Cartesian Theory                           152
+
+  His Objections are (1) Physical and (2) Logical                    153
+
+  (1) Motion is Source of Physical Qualities of Bodies               155
+
+  Hence there are no Atoms                                           158
+
+  Secondary Qualities as well as Primary depend upon Motion          160
+
+  (2) What is the Subject to which the Quality of Extension
+  belongs?                                                           161
+
+  It is the Monad _as Passive_                                       162
+
+  Space and Time connect the Spiritual and the Sensible              164
+
+  Distinction between Space and Time, and Extension and Duration     166
+
+  Space and Time are Relations                                       167
+
+  Leibniz's Controversy with Clarke                                  168
+
+  Leibniz denies that Space and Time are Absolute                    170
+
+  What is the Reality of Sensible Phenomena?                         173
+
+  It consists
+
+    (1) In their Regularity                                          174
+
+    (2) In their Dependence upon Intelligence and Will               175
+
+  Leibniz and Berkeley                                               177
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  Some Fundamental Conceptions.
+
+  Locke's Account of Substance as Static                             179
+
+  The Distinction between Reality and Phenomena                      180
+
+  Leibniz's Conception of Substance as Dynamic                       181
+
+  His Specific Criticisms upon Locke                                 182
+
+  The Categories of Identity and Difference Locke also explains in
+  a Mechanical Way                                                   183
+
+  Leibniz regards them as Internal and as Organic to each other      184
+
+  Locke gives a Quantitative Notion of Infinity                      188
+
+  And hence makes our Idea of it purely Negative                     189
+
+  Leibniz denies that the True Notion of Infinity is Quantitative    189
+
+  He also denies Locke's Account of the Origin of the Indefinite     192
+
+  In General, Locke has a Mechanical Idea, Leibniz a Spiritual, of
+  these Categories                                                   193
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  The Nature and Extent of Knowledge.
+
+  Locke's Definition and Classification of Knowledge                 196
+
+  Leibniz's Criticism                                                197
+
+  Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant regarding Knowledge of Objects         198
+
+  The Degrees of Knowledge,--Intuitive, Demonstrative, and
+  Sensitive                                                          199
+
+  Locke's Contradictory Theories regarding the Origin of Knowledge   202
+
+  Locke starts both with the Individual as given to Consciousness
+  and with the Unrelated Sensation                                   204
+
+  Either Theory makes Relations or "Universals" Unreal               205
+
+  As to the Extent of Knowledge, that of Identity is Wide, but
+  Trifling                                                           205
+
+  That of Real Being includes God, Soul, and Matter, but only as to
+  their Existence                                                    206
+
+  And even this at the Expense of contradicting his Definition of
+  Knowledge                                                          206
+
+  Knowledge of Co-existence is either Trifling or Impossible         207
+
+  Leibniz rests upon Distinction of Contingent and Rational Truth    209
+
+  The Former may become the Latter, and is then Demonstrative        210
+
+  The Means of this Transformation are Mathematics and
+  Classification                                                     215
+
+  There are Two Principles,--One of Contradiction                    217
+
+  The Other of Sufficient Reason                                     218
+
+  The Latter leads us to God as the Supreme Intelligence and the
+  Final Condition of Contingent Fact                                 219
+
+  The Four Stages of Knowledge                                       222
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  The Theology of Leibniz.
+
+  Leibniz's Three Arguments for the Existence of God                 224
+
+  The Value of the Ontological                                       225
+
+  The Cosmological                                                   226
+
+  The Teleological                                                   226
+
+  The Attributes of God                                              227
+
+  The Relation of God to the World, his Creating Activity            228
+
+  Creation involves Wisdom and Goodness as well as Power             229
+
+  The Relation of God to Intelligent Spirits: they form a Moral
+  Community                                                          230
+
+  Leibniz as the Founder of Modern German Ethical Systems            231
+
+  The End of Morality is Happiness as Self-realization               232
+
+  The Three Stages of Natural Right                                  234
+
+  The Basis of Both Leibniz's Ethics and Political Philosophy is
+  Man's Relation to God                                              236
+
+  His �sthetics have the Same Basis                                  237
+
+  Man's Spirit as Architectonic                                      238
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  Criticism and Conclusion.
+
+  Leibniz's Fundamental Contradiction is between his Method and his
+  Subject Matter                                                     240
+
+  The Use which Leibniz makes of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
+  reveals this Contradiction                                         242
+
+  The Contradiction is between the Ideas of Formal and of Concrete
+  Unity                                                              243
+
+  From this Contradiction flow
+
+    (1) The Contradiction in the Notion of Individuality             246
+
+        Which becomes purely Negative                                247
+
+        The Negative he interprets as merely Privative               249
+
+    (2) The Contradiction in his Conception of God has the Same
+    Source                                                           250
+
+        He really has Three Definitions of God                       250
+
+        One results in Atomism, another in Pantheism                 251
+
+        The Third in a Conception of the Organic Harmony of the
+        Infinite and Finite                                          252
+
+    (3) The Contradiction between the Real and the Ideal in the
+    Monads has the Same Source                                       253
+
+    (4) As have also the Contradictions in the Treatment of the
+    Relations of Matter and Spirit                                   254
+
+    (5) And finally, his Original Contradiction leads to a
+    Contradictory Treatment of Knowledge                             257
+
+  Summary as to the Positive Value of Leibniz                        259
+
+  The Influence of Leibniz's Philosophy                              261
+
+  Especially upon Kant                                               262
+
+  Kant claims to be the True Apologist for Leibniz                   263
+
+    (1) As to the Doctrine of Sufficient Reason and Contradiction    263
+
+        Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Distinction between
+        Analytic and Synthetic Judgment                              266
+
+    (2) As to the Relation of Monads and Matter                      268
+
+        Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Relation of the
+        Sensuous and Supersensuous                                   268
+
+    (3) And finally, as to the Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony   269
+
+        Which Kant transforms into Harmony between Understanding
+        and Sense                                                    269
+
+        And between the Categories of the Understanding and the
+        Ideas of Reason                                              270
+
+  Conclusion                                                         272
+
+
+
+
+LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN.
+
+
+"He who knows me only by my writings does not know me," said
+Leibniz. These words--true, indeed, of every writer, but true of
+Leibniz in a way which gives a peculiar interest and charm to his
+life--must be our excuse for prefacing what is to be said of his "New
+Essays concerning the Human Understanding" with a brief biographical
+sketch.
+
+Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig June 21, 1646. His
+father, who died when Leibniz was only six years old, was a professor
+in the university and a notary of considerable practice. From him the
+future philosopher seems to have derived his extraordinary industry
+and love of detail. Such accounts as we have of him show no traces of
+the wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a diligent,
+plodding, faithful, and religious man, a thoroughly conscientious
+husband, jurist, and professor. Nor in the lines of physical heredity
+can we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his mother's
+endowments. The fact, however, that she was patient in all trial,
+living in peace with her neighbors, anxious for unity and concord with
+all people, even with those not well disposed to her, throws great
+light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz's ethical nature. As in so
+many cases, it is the inherited moral characteristics which form the
+basis of the intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a moral
+trait in Leibniz's mother became in him the hunger for a harmonious and
+unified mental world; the father's devotion to detail showed itself
+as the desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive as it was
+inter-related.
+
+Left without his father, he was by the advice of a discerning friend
+allowed free access to the library. Leibniz never ceased to count this
+one of the greatest fortunes of his life. Writing in after years to a
+friend, he says:--
+
+"When I lost my father, and was left without any direction in my
+studies, I had the luck to get at books in all languages, of all
+religions, upon all sciences, and to read them without any regular
+order, just as my own impulse led me. From this I obtained the great
+advantage that I was freed from ordinary prejudices, and introduced to
+many things of which I should otherwise never have thought."
+
+In a philosophical essay, in which he describes himself under the name
+of Gulielmus Pacidius, he says:--
+
+"Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who lost his father in his early
+years, was led to study through the innate tendency of his spirit; and
+the freedom with which he moved about in the sciences was equal to this
+innate impulse. He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a library,
+staying there sometimes whole days, and, hardly stammering Latin, he
+took up every book which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them
+without any choice, he sipped now here, now there, lost himself in one,
+skipped over another, as the clearness of expression or of content
+attracted him. He seemed to be directed by the _Tolle et lege_ of a
+higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he gave himself up to the
+ancients, in whom he at first understood nothing, by degrees a little,
+finally all that was really necessary, until he assumed not only a
+certain coloring of their expression, but also of their thought,--just
+as those who go about in the sun, even while they are occupied with
+other things, get sun-browned."
+
+And he goes on to tell us that their influence always remained
+with him. Their human, their important, their comprehensive ideas,
+grasping the whole of life in one image, together with their clear,
+natural, and transparent mode of expression, adapted precisely to
+their thoughts, seemed to him to be in the greatest contrast with the
+writings of moderns, without definiteness or order in expression, and
+without vitality or purpose in thought,--"written as if for another
+world." Thus Leibniz learned two of the great lessons of his life,--to
+seek always for clearness of diction and for pertinence and purpose
+of ideas.
+
+Historians and poets first occupied him; but when in his school-life,
+a lad of twelve or thirteen years, he came to the study of logic,
+he was greatly struck, he says, by the "ordering and analysis
+of thoughts which he found there." He gave himself up to making
+tables of categories and predicaments, analyzing each book that he
+read into suitable topics, and arranging these into classes and
+sub-classes. We can imagine the astonishment of his playmates as
+he burst upon them with a demand to classify this or that idea, to
+find its appropriate predicament. Thus he was led naturally to the
+philosophic books in his father's library,--to Plato and to Aristotle,
+to the Scholastics. Suarez, in particular, among the latter, he read;
+and traces of his influences are to be found in the formulation of his
+own philosophic system. At about this same time he took great delight
+in the theological works with which his father's library abounded,
+reading with equal ease and pleasure the writings of the Lutherans
+and of the Reformed Church, of the Jesuits and the Jansenists, of the
+Thomists and the Arminians. The result was, he tells us, that he was
+strengthened in the Lutheran faith of his family, but, as we may easily
+imagine from his after life, made tolerant of all forms of faith.
+
+In 1661 the boy Leibniz, fifteen years old, entered the University of
+Leipzig. If we glance back upon his attainments, we find him thoroughly
+at home in Latin, having made good progress in Greek, acquainted with
+the historians and poets of antiquity, acquainted with the contemporary
+range of science, except in mathematics and physics, deeply read and
+interested in ancient and scholastic philosophy and in the current
+theological discussions. Of himself he says:--
+
+"Two things were of extraordinary aid to me: in the first place, I was
+self-taught; and in the second, as soon as I entered upon any science
+I sought for something new, even though I did not as yet thoroughly
+understand the old. I thus gained two things: I did not fill my mind
+with things empty and to be unlearned afterwards,--things resting
+upon the assertion of the teacher, and not upon reason; and secondly,
+I never rested till I got down to the very roots of the science and
+reached its principles."
+
+While there is always a temptation to force the facts which we know
+of a man's early life, so as to make them seem to account for what
+appears in mature years, and to find symbolisms and analogies which do
+not exist, we are not going astray, I think, if we see foreshadowed in
+this early education of Leibniz the two leading traits of his later
+thought,--universality and individuality. The range of Leibniz's
+investigations already marks him as one who will be content with
+no fundamental principle which does not mirror the universe. The
+freedom with which he carried them on is testimony to the fact
+that even at this age the idea of self-development, of individual
+growth from within, was working upon him. In the fact, also, that he
+was self-taught we find doubtless the reason that he alone of the
+thinkers of this period did not have to retrace his steps, to take
+a hostile attitude towards the ideas into which he was educated, and
+to start anew upon a foundation then first built. The development of
+the thought of Leibniz is so gradual, continuous, and constant that it
+may serve as a model of the law by which the "monad" acts. Is not his
+early acquaintance with ancient literature and medi�val philosophy
+the reason that he could afterwards write that his philosophical
+system "connects Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the
+Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morals with reason"? And
+who can fail to see in the impartiality, the comprehensiveness, of
+his self-education the prophecy of the time when he can write of his
+ideas that "there are united in them, as in a centre of perspective,
+the ideas of the Sceptics in attributing to sensible things only
+a slight degree of reality; of the Pythagoreans and Platonists,
+who reduce all to harmonies, numbers, and ideas; of Parmenides and
+Plotinus, with their One and All; of the Stoics, with their notion of
+necessity, compatible with the spontaneity of other schools; of the
+vital philosophy of the Cabalists, who find feeling everywhere; of the
+forms and entelechies of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, united with the
+mechanical explanation of phenomena according to Democritus and the
+moderns"?
+
+But we must hurry along over the succeeding years of his life. In
+the university the study of law was his principal occupation, as he
+had decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. It cannot be
+said that the character of the instruction or of the instructors at
+Leipzig was such as to give much nutriment or stimulus to a mind like
+that of Leibniz. He became acquainted there, however, with the Italian
+philosophy of the sixteenth century,--a philosophy which, as formulated
+by Cardanus and Campanella, formed the transition from Scholastic
+philosophy to the "mechanical" mode of viewing the universe. He had
+here also his first introduction to Descartes. The consequences of the
+new vision opened to Leibniz must be told in his own words: "I was but
+a child when I came to know Aristotle; even the Scholastics did not
+frighten me; and I in no way regret this now. Plato and Plotinus gave
+me much delight, not to speak of other philosophers of antiquity. Then
+I fell in with the writings of modern philosophy, and I recall the
+time when, a boy of fifteen years, I went walking in a little wood
+near Leipzig, the Rosenthal, in order to consider whether I should
+hold to the doctrine of substantial forms. Finally the mechanical
+theory conquered, and thus I was led to the study of the mathematical
+sciences."
+
+To the study of the mathematical sciences! Surely words of no mean
+import for either the future of Leibniz or of mathematics. But his
+Leipzig studies did not take him very far in this new direction. Only
+the elements of Euclid were taught there, and these by a lecturer
+of such confused style that Leibniz seems alone to have understood
+them. In Jena, however, where he went for a semester, things were
+somewhat better. Weigel, a mathematician of some fame, an astronomer,
+a jurist, and a philosopher, taught there, and introduced Leibniz
+into the lower forms of analysis. But the Thirty Years' War had not
+left Germany in a state of high culture, and in after years Leibniz
+lamented the limitations of his early mathematical training, remarking
+that if he had spent his youth in Paris, he would have enriched science
+earlier. By 1666 Leibniz had finished his university career, having
+in previous years attained the degrees of bachelor of philosophy and
+master of philosophy. It is significant that for the first he wrote
+a thesis upon the principle of individuation,--the principle which
+in later years became the basis of his philosophy. This early essay,
+however, is rather an exhibition of learning and of dexterity in
+handling logical methods than a real anticipation of his afterthought.
+
+For his second degree, he wrote a thesis upon the application
+of philosophic ideas to juridic procedure,--considerations which
+never ceased to occupy him. At about the same time appeared his
+earliest independent work, "De Arte Combinatoria." From his study of
+mathematics, and especially of algebraic methods, Leibniz had become
+convinced that the source of all science is,--first, analysis; second,
+symbolic representation of the fundamental concepts, the symbolism
+avoiding the ambiguities and vagueness of language; and thirdly,
+the synthesis and interpretation of the symbols. It seemed to Leibniz
+that it ought to be possible to find the simplest notions in all the
+sciences, to discover general rules for calculating all their varieties
+of combination, and thus to attain the same certainty and generality
+of result that characterize mathematics. Leibniz never gave up this
+thought. Indeed, in spirit his philosophy is but its application,
+with the omission of symbols, on the side of the general notions
+fundamental to all science. It was also the idea of his age,--the
+idea that inspired Spinoza and the _Aufkl�rung_, the idea that
+inspired philosophical thinking until Kant gave it its death-blow by
+demonstrating the distinction between the methods of philosophy and of
+mathematical and physical science.
+
+In 1666 Leibniz should have received his double doctorate of philosophy
+and of law; but petty jealousies and personal fears prevented his
+presenting himself for the examination. Disgusted with his treatment,
+feeling that the ties that bound him to Leipzig were severed by the
+recent death of his mother, anxious to study mathematics further,
+and, as he confesses, desiring, with the natural eagerness of youth,
+to see more of the world, he left Leipzig forever, and entered upon
+his _Wanderjahre_. He was prepared to be no mean citizen of the
+world. In his education he had gone from the historians to the poets,
+from the poets to the philosophers and the Scholastics, from them
+to the theologians and Church Fathers; then to the jurists, to the
+mathematicians, and then again to philosophy and to law.
+
+He first directed his steps to the University of Altdorf; here he
+obtained his doctorate in law, and was offered a professorship,
+which he declined,--apparently because he felt that his time was
+not yet come, and that when it should come, it would not be in
+the narrow limits of a country village. From Altdorf he went to
+N�rnberg; here all that need concern us is the fact that he joined a
+society of alchemists (_fraternitas rose�crucis_), and was made their
+secretary. Hereby he gained three things,--a knowledge of chemistry; an
+acquaintance with a number of scientific men of different countries,
+with whom, as secretary, he carried on correspondence; and the
+friendship of Boineburg, a diplomat of the court of the Elector and
+Archbishop of Mainz. This friendship was the means of his removing
+to Frankfurt. Here, under the direction of the Elector, he engaged
+in remodelling Roman law so as to adapt it for German use, in writing
+diplomatic tracts, letters, and essays upon theological matters, and
+in editing an edition of Nizolius,--a now forgotten philosophical
+writer. One of the most noteworthy facts in connection with this
+edition is that Leibniz pointed out the fitness of the German language
+for philosophical uses, and urged its employment,--a memorable fact
+in connection with the later development of German thought. Another
+important tract which he wrote was one urging the alliance of
+all German States for the purpose of advancing their internal
+and common interests. Here, as so often, Leibniz was almost two
+centuries in advance of his times. But the chief thing in connection
+with the stay of Leibniz at Mainz was the cause for which he left
+it. Louis�XIV. had broken up the Triple Alliance, and showed signs of
+attacking Holland and the German Empire. It was then proposed to him
+that it would be of greater glory to himself and of greater advantage
+to France that he should move against Turkey and Egypt. The mission of
+presenting these ideas to the great king was intrusted to Leibniz, and
+in 1672 he went to Paris.
+
+The plan failed completely,--so completely that we need say no
+more about it. But the journey to Paris was none the less the
+turning-point in the career of Leibniz. It brought him to the
+centre of intellectual civilization,--to a centre compared with
+which the highest attainments of disrupted and disheartened Germany
+were comparative barbarism. Moli�re was still alive, and Racine was
+at the summit of his glory. Leibniz became acquainted with Arnaud,
+a disciple of Descartes, who initiated him into the motive and spirit
+of his master. Cartesianism as a system, with its scientific basis and
+its speculative consequences, thus first became to him an intellectual
+reality. And, perhaps most important of all, he met Huygens, who became
+his teacher and inspirer both in the higher forms of mathematics
+and in their application to the interpretation and expression of
+physical phenomena. His diplomatic mission took him also to London,
+where the growing world of mathematical science was opened yet wider to
+him. The name of Sir Isaac Newton need only be given to show what this
+meant. From this time one of the greatest glories of Leibniz's life
+dates,--a glory, however, which during his lifetime was embittered by
+envy and unappreciation, and obscured by detraction and malice,--the
+invention of the infinitesimal calculus. It would be interesting, were
+this the place, to trace the history of its discovery,--the gradual
+steps which led to it, the physical facts as well as mathematical
+theories which made it a necessity; but it must suffice to mention that
+these were such that the discovery of some general mode of expressing
+and interpreting the newly discovered facts of Nature was absolutely
+required for the further advance of science, and that steps towards
+the introduction of the fundamental ideas of the calculus had already
+been taken,--notably by Keppler, by Cavalieri, and by Wallis. It
+would be interesting to follow also the course of the controversy
+with Newton,--a controversy which in its method of conduct reflects no
+credit upon the names of either. But this can be summed up by saying
+that it is now generally admitted that absolute priority belongs to
+Newton, but that entire independence and originality characterize
+none the less the work of Leibniz, and that the method of approach and
+statement of the latter are the more philosophical and general, and,
+to use the words of the judicious summary of Merz, "Newton cared more
+for the results than the principle, while Leibniz was in search of
+fundamental principles, and anxious to arrive at simplifications and
+generalizations."
+
+The death of Boineburg removed the especial reasons for the return of
+Leibniz to Frankfurt, and in 1676 he accepted the position of librarian
+and private councillor at the court of Hanover. It arouses our interest
+and our questionings to know that on his journey back he stopped at the
+Hague, and there met face to face the other future great philosopher
+of the time, Spinoza. But our questionings meet no answer. At Hanover,
+the industries of Leibniz were varied. An extract from one of his own
+letters, though written at a somewhat later date, will give the best
+outline of his activities.
+
+"It is incredible how scattered and divided are my occupations. I
+burrow through archives, investigate old writings, and collect
+unprinted manuscripts, with a view to throwing light on the
+history of Brunswick. I also receive and write a countless number of
+letters. I have so much that is new in mathematics, so many thoughts
+in philosophy, so many literary observations which I cannot get into
+shape, that in the midst of my tasks I do not know where to begin,
+and with Ovid am inclined to cry out: 'My riches make me poor.' I
+should like to give a description of my calculating-machine; but time
+fails. Above all else I desire to complete my Dynamics, as I think
+that I have finally discovered the true laws of material Nature, by
+whose means problems about bodies which are out of reach of rules now
+known may be solved. Friends are urging me to publish my Science of
+the Infinite, containing the basis of my new analysis. I have also on
+hand a new Characteristic, and many general considerations about the
+art of discovery. But all these works, the historical excepted, have
+to be done at odd moments. Then at the court all sorts of things are
+expected. I have to answer questions on points in international law;
+on points concerning the rights of the various princes in the Empire:
+so far I have managed to keep out of questions of private law. With all
+this I have had to carry on negotiations with the bishops of Neustadt
+and of Meaux [Bossuet], and with Pelisson and others upon religious
+matters."
+
+It is interesting to note how the philosophic spirit, the instinct
+for unity and generality, showed itself even in the least of Leibniz's
+tasks. The Duke of Brunswick imposed upon Leibniz the task of drawing
+up a genealogical table of his House. Under Leibniz's hands this
+expanded into a history of the House, and this in turn was the centre
+of an important study of the German Empire. It was impossible that
+the philosopher, according to whom every real being reflected the
+whole of the universe from its point of view, should have been able to
+treat even a slight phase of local history without regarding it in its
+relations to the history of the world. Similarly some mining operations
+in the Harz Mountains called the attention of Leibniz to geological
+matters. The result was a treatise called "Protog�a," in which Leibniz
+gave a history of the development of the earth. Not content with seeing
+in a Brunswick mountain an epitome of the world's physical formation,
+it was his intention to make this an introduction to his political
+history as a sort of geographical background and foundation. It is
+interesting to note that the historical studies of Leibniz took him on
+a three years' journey, from 1687 to 1690, through the various courts
+of Europe,--a fact which not only had considerable influence upon
+Leibniz himself, but which enabled him to give stimulus to scientific
+development in more ways and places than one.
+
+His philosophical career as an author begins for the most part with
+his return to Hanover in 1690. This lies outside of the scope of the
+present chapter, but here is a convenient place to call attention to
+the fact that for Leibniz the multitude of his other duties was so
+great that his philosophical work was the work "of odd moments." There
+is no systematic exposition; there are a vast number of letters, of
+essays, of abstracts and memoranda published in various scientific
+journals. His philosophy bears not only in form, but in substance,
+traces of its haphazard and desultory origin. Another point of
+interest in this connection is the degree to which, in form, at least,
+his philosophical writings bear the impress of his cosmopolitan
+life. Leibniz had seen too much of the world, too much of courts,
+for his thoughts to take the rigid and unbending form of geometrical
+exposition suited to the lonely student of the Hague. Nor was the
+regular progression and elucidation of ideas adapted to the later
+Germans, almost without exception university professors, suited to
+the man of affairs. There is everywhere in Leibniz the attempt to
+adapt his modes of statement, not only to the terminology, but even
+to the ideas, of the one to whom they are addressed. There is the
+desire to magnify points of agreement, to minimize disagreements,
+characteristic of the courtier and the diplomat. His comprehensiveness
+is not only a comprehensiveness of thought, but of ways of exposition,
+due very largely, we must think, to his cosmopolitan education. The
+result has been to the great detriment of Leibniz's influence as a
+systematic thinker, although it may be argued that it has aided his
+indirect and suggestive influence, the absorption of his ideas by men
+of literature, by Goethe, above all by Lessing, and his stimulating
+effect upon science and philosophy. It is certain that the attempt to
+systematize his thoughts, as was done by Wolff, had for its result the
+disappearance of all that was profound and thought-exciting.
+
+If his philosophy thus reflects the manner of his daily life,
+the occupations of the latter were informed by the spirit of
+his philosophy. Two of the dearest interests of Leibniz remain
+to be mentioned,--one, the founding of academies; the other, the
+reconciling of religious organizations. The former testifies to his
+desire for comprehensiveness, unity, and organization of knowledge;
+the latter to his desire for practical unity, his dislike of all
+that is opposed and isolated. His efforts in the religions direction
+were twofold. The first was to end the theological and political
+controversies of the time by the reunion of the Protestant and Roman
+Catholic Churches. It was a plan which did the greatest honor to the
+pacific spirit of Leibniz, but it was predestined to failure. Both
+sides made concessions,--more concessions than we of to-day should
+believe possible. But the one thing the Roman Catholic Church would not
+concede was the one thing which the Protestant Church demanded,--the
+notion of authority and hierarchy. Indeed, it may be questioned whether
+the terms on which Leibniz conceived of their reunion do not point to
+the greatest weakness in his philosophy,--the tendency to overlook
+oppositions and to resolve all contradiction into differences of
+degree. Hardly had this plan fallen through when Leibniz turned to
+the project of a union of the Lutheran and Reformed branches of the
+Protestant Church. This scheme was more hopeful, and while unrealized
+during the life of our philosopher, was afterwards accomplished.
+
+It is noteworthy that even before Leibniz went to Paris and to
+London he had conceived the idea of a society of learned men for the
+investigation, the systematization, and the publication of scientific
+truth in all its varied forms,--a society which should in breadth
+include the whole sphere of sciences, but should not treat them as so
+many isolated disciplines, but as members of one system. This idea
+was quickened when Leibniz saw the degree in which it had already
+been realized in the two great world-capitals. He never ceased to
+try to introduce similar academies wherever he had influence. In
+1700 his labors bore their fruit in one instance. The Academy at
+Berlin was founded, and Leibniz was its first, and indeed life-long,
+president. But disappointment met him at Vienna, Dresden, and
+St. Petersburg, where he proposed similar societies.
+
+Any sketch of Leibniz's life, however brief, would be imperfect which
+did not mention the names at least of two remarkable women,--remarkable
+in themselves, and remarkable in their friendship with Leibniz. These
+were Sophia, grand-daughter of James�I. of England (and thus
+the link by which the House of Brunswick finally came to rule over
+Great Britain) and wife of the Duke of Brunswick, and her daughter
+Sophia Charlotte, wife of the first king of Prussia. The latter,
+in particular, gave Leibniz every encouragement. She was personally
+deeply interested in all theological and philosophical questions. Upon
+her death-bed, in 1705, she is said to have told those about her that
+they were not to mourn for her, as she should now be able to satisfy
+her desire to learn about things which Leibniz had never sufficiently
+explained.
+
+Her death marks the beginning of a period in Leibniz's life which it is
+not pleasant to dwell upon. New rulers arose that knew not Leibniz. It
+cannot be said that from this time till his death in Hanover in 1716
+Leibniz had much joy or satisfaction. His best friends were dead; his
+political ambitions were disappointed; he was suspected of coldness
+and unfriendliness by the courts both of Berlin and Hanover; Paris and
+Vienna were closed to him, so far as any wide influence was concerned,
+by his religious faith; the controversy with the friends of Newton
+still followed him. He was a man of the most remarkable intellectual
+gifts, of an energy which could be satisfied only with wide fields
+of action; and he found himself shut in by narrow intrigue to a petty
+round of courtly officialism. It is little wonder that the following
+words fell from his lips: "Germany is the only country in the world
+that does not know how to recognize the fame of its children and to
+make that fame immortal. It forgets itself; it forgets its own, unless
+foreigners make it mindful of its own treasures." A Scotch friend of
+Leibniz, who happened to be in Hanover when he died, wrote that Leibniz
+"was buried more like a robber than what he really was,--the ornament
+of his country." Such was the mortal end of the greatest intellectual
+genius since Aristotle. But genius is not a matter to be bounded in
+life or in death by provincial courts. Leibniz remains a foremost
+citizen in that "Kingdom of Spirits" in whose formation he found the
+meaning of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+What is true of all men is true of philosophers, and of Leibniz
+among them. Speaking generally, what they are unconsciously and
+fundamentally, they are through absorption of their antecedents
+and surroundings. What they are consciously and reflectively,
+they are through their reaction upon the influence of heredity
+and environment. But there is a spiritual line of descent and a
+spiritual atmosphere; and in speaking of a philosopher, it is with this
+intellectual heredity and environment, rather than with the physical,
+that we are concerned. Leibniz was born into a period of intellectual
+activity the most teeming with ideas, the most fruitful in results,
+of any, perhaps, since the age of Pericles. We pride ourselves justly
+upon the activity of our own century, and in diffusion of intellectual
+action and wide-spread application of ideas the age of Leibniz
+could not compare with it. But ours _is_ the age of diffusion and
+application, while his was one of fermentation and birth.
+
+Such a period in its earlier days is apt to be turbid and
+unsettled. There is more heat of friction than calm light. And such had
+been the case in the hundred years before Leibniz. But when he arrived
+at intellectual maturity much of the crudity had disappeared. The
+troubling of the waters of thought had ceased; they were becoming
+clarified. Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, each had crystallized something
+out of that seething and chaotic mass of new ideas which had forced
+itself into European consciousness. Men had been introduced into a
+new world, and the natural result had been feelings of strangeness,
+and the vagaries of intellectual wanderings. But by the day of Leibniz
+the intellectual bearings had been made out anew, the new mental
+orientation had been secured.
+
+The marks of this "new spiritual picture of the universe" are
+everywhere to be seen in Leibniz. His philosophy is the dawning
+consciousness of the modern world. In it we see the very conception and
+birth of the modern interpretation of the world. The history of thought
+is one continuous testimony to the ease with which we become hardened
+to ideas through custom. Ideas are constantly precipitating themselves
+out of the realm of ideas into that of ways of thinking and of viewing
+the universe. The problem of one century is the axiom of another. What
+one generation stakes its activity upon investigating is quietly taken
+for granted by the next. And so the highest reach of intellectual
+inspiration in the sixteenth century is to-day the ordinary food of
+thought, accepted without an inquiry as to its source, and almost
+without a suspicion that it has a recent historic origin. We have to
+go to Bacon or to Leibniz to see the genesis and growth of those ideas
+which to-day have become materialized into axiomatic points of view
+and into hard-and-fast categories of thought. In reading Leibniz the
+idea comes over us in all its freshness that there was a time when
+it was a discovery that the world is a universe, made after one plan
+and of one stuff. The ideas of inter-relation, of the harmony of law,
+of mutual dependence and correspondence, were not always the assumed
+starting-points of thought; they were once the crowning discoveries
+of a philosophy aglow and almost intoxicated with the splendor of its
+far-reaching generalizations. I take these examples of the unity of
+the world, the continuity and interdependence of all within it, because
+these are the ideas which come to their conscious and delighted birth
+in the philosophy of Leibniz. We do not put ourselves into the right
+attitude for understanding his thought until we remember that these
+ideas--the commonest tools of our thinking--were once new and fresh,
+and in their novelty and transforming strangeness were the products
+of a philosophic interpretation of experience. Except in that later
+contemporary of Leibniz, the young and enthusiastic Irish idealist,
+Berkeley, I know of no historic thinker in whom the birth-throes
+(joyous, however) of a new conception of the world are so evident as
+in Leibniz. But while in Berkeley what we see is the young man carried
+away and astounded by the grandeur and simplicity of a "new way of
+ideas" which he has discovered, what we see in Leibniz is the mature
+man penetrated throughout his being with an idea which in its unity
+answers to the unity of the world, and which in its complexity answers,
+tone to tone, to the complex harmony of the world.
+
+The familiarity of the ideas which we use hides their grandeur from
+us. The unity of the world is a matter of course with us; the dependent
+order of all within it a mere starting-point upon which to base
+our investigations. But if we will put ourselves in the position of
+Leibniz, and behold, not the new planet, but the new universe, so one,
+so linked together, swimming into our ken, we shall feel something of
+the same exultant thrill that Leibniz felt,--an exultation not indeed
+personal in its nature, but which arises from the expansion of the
+human mind face to face with an expanding world. The spirit which is at
+the heart of the philosophy of Leibniz is the spirit which speaks in the
+following words: "Quin imo qui unam partem materi� comprehenderet, idem
+comprehenderet totum universum ob eandem ~perich�r�sin~ quam dixi. Mea
+principia talia sunt, ut vix a se invicem develli possint. Qui unum bene
+novit, omnia novit." It is a spirit which feels that the secret of the
+universe has been rendered up to it, and which breathes a buoyant
+optimism. And if we of the nineteenth century have chosen to bewail
+the complexity of the problem of life, and to run hither and thither
+multiplying "insights" and points of view till this enthusiastic
+confidence in reason seems to us the rashness of an ignorance which does
+not comprehend the problem, and the unity in which Leibniz rested
+appears cold and abstract beside the manifold richness of the world, we
+should not forget that after all we have incorporated into our very
+mental structure the fundamental thoughts of Leibniz,--the thoughts of
+the rationality of the universe and of the "reign of law."
+
+What was the origin of these ideas in the mind of Leibniz? What
+influences in the philosophic succession of thinkers led him in this
+direction? What agencies acting in the intellectual world about him
+shaped his ideal reproduction of reality? Two causes above all others
+stand out with prominence,--one, the discoveries and principles of
+modern physical science; the other, that interpretation of experience
+which centuries before had been formulated by Aristotle. Leibniz has a
+double interest for those of to-day who reverence science and who hold
+to the historical method. His philosophy was an attempt to set in order
+the methods and principles of that growing science of nature which
+even then was transforming the emotional and mental life of Europe;
+and the attempt was guided everywhere by a profound and wide-reaching
+knowledge of the history of philosophy. On the first point Leibniz
+was certainly not alone. Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, each felt
+in his own way the fructifying touch of the new-springing science,
+and had attempted under its guidance to interpret the facts of nature
+and of man. But Leibniz stood alone in his interest in the history of
+thought. He stands alone indeed till he is greeted by his compeers
+of the nineteenth century. To Bacon previous philosophy--the Greek,
+the scholastic--was an "eidol of the theatre." The human mind must be
+freed from its benumbing influence. To Descartes it was useless rubbish
+to be cleared away, that we might get a _tabula rasa_ upon which to
+make a fresh start. And shall Locke and the empirical English school,
+or Reid and the Scotch school, or even Kant, be the first to throw a
+stone at Bacon and Descartes? It was reserved to Leibniz, with a genius
+almost two centuries in advance of his times, to penetrate the meaning
+of the previous development of reflective thought. It would be going
+beyond our brief to claim that Leibniz was interested in this _as_ a
+historical movement, or that he specially concerned himself with the
+genetic lines which connected the various schools of thought. But we
+should come short of our duty to Leibniz if we did not recognize his
+conscious and largely successful attempt to apprehend the core of truth
+in all systems, however alien to his own, and to incorporate it into
+his own thinking.
+
+Nothing could be more characteristic of Leibniz than his saying,
+"I find that most systems are right in a good share of that which
+they advance, but not so much in what they deny;" or than this other
+statement of his, "We must not hastily believe that which the mass
+of men, or even of authorities, advance, but each must demand for
+himself the proofs of the thesis sustained. Yet long research generally
+convinces that the old and received opinions are good, provided they
+be interpreted justly." It is in the profound union in Leibniz of
+the principles which these quotations image that his abiding worth
+lies. Leibniz was interested in affirmations, not in denials. He was
+interested in securing the union of the modern _method_, the spirit
+of original research and independent judgment, with the conserved
+_results_ of previous thought. Leibniz was a man of his times; that is
+to say, he was a scientific man,--the contemporary, for example, of men
+as different as Bernouilli, Swammerdam, Huygens, and Newton, and was
+himself actively engaged in the prosecution of mathematics, mechanics,
+geology, comparative philology, and jurisprudence. But he was also a
+man of Aristotle's times,--that is to say, a philosopher, not satisfied
+until the facts, principles, and methods of science had received an
+interpretation which should explain and unify them.
+
+Leibniz's acquaintance with the higher forms of mathematics was
+due, as we have seen, to his acquaintance with Huygens. As he made
+the acquaintance of the latter at the same time that he made the
+acquaintance of the followers of Descartes, it is likely that he
+received his introduction to the higher developments of the scientific
+interpretation of nature and of the philosophic interpretation of
+science at about the same time. For a while, then, Leibniz was a
+Cartesian; and he never ceased to call the doctrine of Descartes
+the antechamber of truth. What were the ideas which he received from
+Descartes? Fundamentally they were two,--one about the method of truth,
+the other about the substance of truth. He received the idea that the
+method of philosophy consists in the analysis of any complex group of
+ideas down to simple ideas which shall be perfectly clear and distinct;
+that all such clear and distinct ideas are true, and may then be used
+for the synthetic reconstruction of any body of truth. Concerning
+the substance of philosophic truth, he learned that nature is to be
+interpreted mechanically, and that the instrument of this mechanical
+interpretation is mathematics. I have used the term "received" in
+speaking of the relation of Leibniz to these ideas. Yet long before
+this time we might see him giving himself up to dreams about a vast
+art of combination which should reduce all the ideas concerned in
+any science to their simplest elements, and then combine them to any
+degree of complexity. We have already seen him giving us a picture
+of a boy of fifteen gravely disputing with himself whether he shall
+accept the doctrine of forms and final causes, or of physical causes,
+and as gravely deciding that he shall side with the "moderns;" and
+that boy was himself. In these facts we have renewed confirmation of
+the truth that one mind never receives from another anything excepting
+the stimulus, the reflex, the development of ideas which have already
+possessed it. But when Leibniz, with his isolated and somewhat
+ill-digested thoughts, came in contact with that systematized and
+connected body of doctrines which the Cartesians presented to him in
+Paris, his ideas were quickened, and he felt the necessity--that final
+mark of the philosophic mind--of putting them in order.
+
+About the method of Descartes, which Leibniz adopted from him, or
+rather formulated for himself under the influence of Descartes,
+not much need be said. It was the method of Continental thought
+till the time of Kant. It was the mother of the philosophic systems
+of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. It was equally the mother of
+the German _Aufkl�rung_ and the French _�claircissement_. Its
+fundamental idea is the thought upon which Rationalism everywhere bases
+itself. It says: Reduce everything to simple notions. Get clearness;
+get distinctness. Analyze the complex. Shun the obscure. Discover
+axioms; employ these axioms in connection with the simple notions,
+and build up from them. Whatever can be treated in this way is capable
+of proof, and only this. Leibniz, I repeat, possessed this method in
+common with Descartes and Spinoza. The certainty and demonstrativeness
+of mathematics stood out in the clearest contrast to the uncertainty,
+the obscurity, of all other knowledge. And to them, as to all before
+the days of Kant, it seemed beyond doubt that the method of mathematics
+consists in the analysis of notions, and in their synthesis through the
+medium of axioms, which are true because identical statements; while
+the notions are true because clear and distinct.
+
+And yet the method led Leibniz in a very different direction. One of
+the fundamental doctrines, for example, of Leibniz is the existence
+everywhere of minute and obscure perceptions,--which are of the
+greatest importance, but of which we, at least, can never have
+distinct consciousness. How is this factor of his thought, which
+almost approaches mysticism, to be reconciled with the statements just
+made? It is found in the different application which is made of the
+method. The object of Descartes is the _erection of a new structure
+of truth_ upon a _tabula rasa_ of all former doctrines. The object of
+Leibniz is the _interpretation of an old body of truth_ by a method
+which shall reveal it in its clearest light. Descartes and Spinoza
+are "rationalists" both in their method and results. Leibniz is a
+"rationalist" in his method; but his application of the method is
+everywhere controlled by historic considerations. It is, I think,
+impossible to over-emphasize this fact. Descartes was profoundly
+convinced that past thought had gone wrong, and that its results were
+worthless. Leibniz was as profoundly convinced that its instincts had
+been right, and that the general idea of the world which it gave was
+correct. Leibniz would have given the heartiest assent to Goethe's
+saying, "Das Wahre war schon l�ngst gefunden." It was out of the
+question, then, that he should use the new method in any other than an
+interpreting way to bring out in a connected system and unity the true
+meaning of the subject-matter.
+
+So much of generality for the method of Leibniz. The positive substance
+of doctrine which he developed under scientific influence affords
+matter for more discussion. Of the three influences which meet us here,
+two are still Cartesian; the third is from the new science of biology,
+although not yet answering to that name. These three influences are, in
+order: the idea that nature is to be explained mechanically; that this
+is to be brought about through the application of mathematics; and,
+from biology, the idea that all change is of the nature of continuous
+growth or unfolding. Let us consider each in this order.
+
+What is meant by the mechanical explanation of nature? To answer a
+question thus baldly put, we must recall the kind of explanations which
+had satisfied the scholastic men of science. They had been explanations
+which, however true, Leibniz says, as general principles, do not touch
+the details of the matter. The explanations of natural facts had been
+found in general principles, in substantial forces, in occult essences,
+in native faculties. Now, the first contention of the founders of the
+modern scientific movement was that such general considerations are
+not verifiable, and that if they are, they are entirely aside from the
+point,--they fail to explain any given fact. Explanation must always
+consist in discovering an immediate connection between some fact and
+some co-existing or preceding fact. Explanation does not consist in
+referring a fact to a general power, it consists in referring it to an
+antecedent whose existence is its necessary condition. It was not left
+till the times of Mr. Huxley to poke fun at those who would explain
+some concrete phenomenon by reference to an abstract principle ending
+in --ity. Leibniz has his word to say about those who would account for
+the movements of a watch by reference to a principle of horologity, and
+of mill-stones by a fractive principle.
+
+Mechanical explanation consists, accordingly, in making out an actual
+connection between two existing facts. But this does not say very
+much. A connection of what kind? In the first place, a connection of
+the same order as the facts observed. If we are explaining corporeal
+phenomena, we must find a corporeal link; if we are explaining
+phenomena of motion, we must find a connection of motion. In one of his
+first philosophical works Leibniz, in taking the mechanical position,
+states what he means by it. In the "Confession of Nature against the
+Atheists" he says that it must be confessed to those who have revived
+the corpuscular theory of Democritus and Epicurus, to Galileo, Bacon,
+Gassendi, Hobbes, and Descartes, that in explaining material phenomena
+recourse is to be had neither to God nor to any other incorporeal
+thing, form, or quality, but that all things are to be explained
+from the nature of matter and its qualities, especially from their
+magnitude, figure, and motion. The physics of Descartes, to which was
+especially due the spread of mechanical notions, virtually postulated
+the problem: given a homogeneous quantity of matter, endowed only with
+extension and mobility, to account for all material phenomena. Leibniz
+accepts this mechanical view without reserve.
+
+What has been said suggests the bearing of mathematics in this
+connection. Extension and mobility may be treated by mathematics. It is
+indeed the business of the geometer to give us an analysis of figured
+space, to set before us all possible combinations which can arise,
+assuming extension only. The higher analysis sets before us the results
+which inevitably follow if we suppose a moving point or any system of
+movements. Mathematics is thus the essential tool for treating physical
+phenomena as just defined. But it is more. The mechanical explanation
+of Nature not only requires such a development of mathematics as will
+make it applicable to the interpretation of physical facts, but the
+employment of mathematics is necessary for the very discovery of these
+facts. Exact observation was the necessity of the growing physical
+science; and exact observation means such as will answer the question,
+_How much?_ Knowledge of nature depends upon our ability to _measure_
+her processes,--that is, to reduce distinctions of quality to those of
+quantity. The only assurance that we can finally have that two facts
+are connected in such a way as to fulfil the requirements of scientific
+research, is that there is a complete quantitative connection between
+them, so that one can be regarded as the other transformed. The advance
+of physical science from the days of Copernicus to the present has
+consisted, therefore, on one hand, in a development of mathematics
+which has made it possible to apply it in greater and greater measure
+to the discussion and formulation of the results of experiment, and to
+deduce laws which, when interpreted physically, will give new knowledge
+of fact; and, on the other, to multiply, sharpen, and make precise all
+sorts of devices by which the processes of nature may be measured. The
+explanation of nature by natural processes; the complete application
+of mathematics to nature,--these are the two thoughts which, so far,
+we have seen to be fundamental to the development of the philosophy
+of Leibniz.
+
+The third factor, and that which brings Leibniz nearer, perhaps, our
+own day than either of the others, is the growth of physiological
+science. Swammerdam, Malpighi, Leewenhoek,--these are names which
+occur and recur in the pages of Leibniz. Indeed, he appears to be the
+first of that now long line of modern philosophers to be profoundly
+influenced by the conception of life and the categories of organic
+growth. Descartes concerned himself indeed with physiological problems,
+but it was only with a view to applying mechanical principles. The
+idea of the vital unity of all organs of the body might seem to
+be attractive to one filled with the notion of the unity of all in
+God, and yet Spinoza shows no traces of the influence of the organic
+conception. Not until Kant's famous definition of organism do we see
+another philosopher moved by an attempt to comprehend the categories of
+living structure.
+
+But it is the idea of organism, of life, which is radical to the
+thought of Leibniz. I do not think, however, that it can truly be said
+that he was led to the idea simply from the state of physiological
+investigation at that time. Rather, he had already learned to think of
+the world as organic through and through, and found in the results of
+biology confirmations, apt illustrations of a truth of which he was
+already thoroughly convinced. His writings show that there were two
+aspects of biological science which especially interested him. One
+was the simple fact of organism itself,--the fact of the various
+activities of different organs occurring in complete harmony for one
+end. This presented three notions very dear to the mind of Leibniz,
+or rather three moments of the same idea,--the factors of activity,
+of unity brought about by co-ordinated action, and of an end which
+reveals the meaning of the activity and is the ideal expression of
+the unity. The physiologists of that day were also occupied with the
+problem of growth. The generalization that all is developed _ab ovo_
+was just receiving universal attention. The question which thrust
+itself upon science for solution was the mode by which ova, apparently
+homogeneous in structure, developed into the various forms of the
+organic kingdom. The answer given was "evolution." But evolution had
+not the meaning which the term has to-day. By evolution was meant
+that the whole complex structure of man, for example, was virtually
+contained in the germ, and that the apparent phenomenon of growth was
+not the addition of anything from without, but simply the unfolding
+and magnifying of that already existing. It was the doctrine which
+afterwards gave way to the epigenesis theory of Wolff, according to
+which growth is not mere unfolding or unwrapping, but progressive
+differentiation. The "evolution" theory was the scientific theory of
+the times, however, and was warmly espoused by Leibniz. To him, as we
+shall see hereafter, it seemed to give a key which would unlock one of
+the problems of the universe.
+
+Such, then, were the three chief generalizations which Leibniz found
+current, and which most deeply affected him. But what use did he make
+of them? He did not become a philosopher by letting them lie dormant in
+his mind, nor by surrendering himself passively to them till he could
+mechanically apply them everywhere. He was a philosopher only in virtue
+of the active attitude which his mind took towards them. He could not
+simply accept them at their face-value; he must ask after the source of
+their value, the royal stamp of meaning which made them a circulatory
+medium. That is to say, he had to interpret these ideas, to see what
+they mean, and what is the basis of their validity.
+
+Not many men have been so conscious of just the bearings of their
+own ideas and of their source as was he. He often allows us a direct
+glimpse into the method of his thinking, and nowhere more than when
+he says: "Those who give themselves up to the details of science
+usually despise abstract and general researches. Those who go into
+universal principles rarely care for particular facts. But I equally
+esteem both." Leibniz, in other words, was equally interested in the
+application of scientific principles to the explanation of the details
+of natural phenomena, and in the bearing and meaning of the principles
+themselves,--a rare combination, indeed, but one, which existing,
+stamps the genuine philosopher. Leibniz substantially repeats this
+idea when he says: "Particular effects must be explained mechanically;
+but the general principles of physics and mathematics depend upon
+metaphysics." And again: "All occurs mechanically; but the mechanical
+principle is not to be explained from material and mathematical
+considerations, but it flows from a higher and a metaphysical source."
+
+As a man of science, Leibniz might have stopped short with the
+ideas of mechanical law, of the application of mathematics, and of
+the continuity of development. As a philosopher he could not. There
+are some scientific men to whom it always seems a perversion of their
+principles to attempt to carry them any beyond their application to the
+details of the subject. They look on in a bewildered and protesting
+attitude when there is suggested the necessity of any further
+inquiry. Or perhaps they dogmatically deny the possibility of any such
+investigation, and as dogmatically assume the sufficiency of their
+principles for the decision of all possible problems. But bewildered
+fear and dogmatic assertion are equally impotent to fix arbitrary
+limits to human thought. Wherever there is a subject that has meaning,
+there is a field which appeals to mind, and the mind will not cease
+its endeavors till it has made out what that meaning is, and has made
+it out in its entirety. So the three principles already spoken of were
+but the starting-points, the stepping-stones of Leibniz's philosophic
+thought. While to physical science they are solutions, to philosophy
+they are problems; and as such Leibniz recognized them. What solution
+did he give?
+
+So far as the principle of mechanical explanation is concerned,
+the clew is given by considering the factor upon which he laid
+most emphasis, namely, motion. Descartes had said that the essence
+of the physical world is extension. "Not so," replied Leibniz;
+"It is motion." These answers mark two typical ways of regarding
+nature. According to one, nature is something essentially rigid
+and static; whatever change in it occurs, is a change of form,
+of arrangement, an external modification. According to the other,
+nature is something essentially dynamic and active. Change according
+to law is its very essence. Form, arrangement are only the results
+of this internal principle. And so to Leibniz, extension and the
+spatial aspects of physical existence were only secondary, they were
+phenomenal. The primary, the real fact was motion.
+
+The considerations which led him to this conclusion are simple
+enough. It is the fact already mentioned, that explanation always
+consists in reducing phenomena to a law of motion which connects
+them. Descartes himself had not succeeded in writing his physics
+without everywhere using the conception of motion. But motion cannot
+be got out of the idea of extension. Geometry will not give us
+activity. What is this, except virtually to admit the insufficiency
+of purely statical conceptions? Leibniz found himself confirmed in
+this position by the fact that the more logical of the followers
+of Descartes had recognized that motion is a superfluous intruder,
+if extension be indeed the essence of matter, and therefore had been
+obliged to have recourse to the immediate activity of God as the cause
+of all changes. But this, as Leibniz said, was simply to give up the
+very idea of mechanical explanation, and to fall back into the purely
+general explanations of scholasticism.
+
+This is not the place for a detailed exposition of the ideas of Leibniz
+regarding matter, motion, and extension. We need here only recognize
+that he saw in motion the final reality of the physical universe. But
+what about motion? To many, perhaps the majority, of minds to-day it
+seems useless or absurd, or both, to ask any question about motion. It
+is simply an ultimate _fact_, to which all other facts are to be
+reduced. We are so familiar with it as a solution of all physical
+problems that we are confused, and fail to recognize it when it appears
+in the guise of a problem. But, I repeat, philosophy cannot stop with
+facts, however ultimate. It must also know something about the meaning,
+the significance, in short the ideal bearing, of facts. From the point
+of view of philosophy, motion has a certain function in the economy of
+the universe; it is, as Aristotle saw, something ideal.
+
+The name of Aristotle suggests the principles which guided Leibniz
+in his interpretation of the fact of motion. The thought of Aristotle
+moves about the two poles of potentiality and actuality. Potentiality
+is not _mere_ capacity; it is being in an undeveloped, imperfect
+stage. Actuality is, as the word suggests, activity. Anything is
+potential in so far as it does not manifest itself in action; it is
+actual so far as it does thus show forth its being. Now, movement, or
+change in its most general sense, is that by which the potential comes
+to the realization of its nature, and functions as an activity. Motion,
+then, is not an ultimate fact, but is subordinate. It exists for an
+end. It is that by which existence realizes its idea; that is, its
+proper type of action.
+
+Now Leibniz does not formally build upon these distinctions; and
+yet he is not very far removed from Aristotle. Motion, he is never
+weary of repeating, means force, means energy, means activity. To
+say that the essence of nature is motion, is to say that the natural
+world finally introduces us to the supremacy of action. Reality is
+activity. _Substance c'est l'action._ That is the key-note and the
+battle-cry of the Leibnizian philosophy. Motion is that by which being
+expresses its nature, fulfils its purpose, reveals its idea. In short,
+the specific scientific conception of motion is by Leibniz transformed
+into the philosophic conception of force, of activity. In motion he
+sees evidence of the fact that the universe is radically dynamic.
+
+In the applicability of mathematics to the interpretation of nature
+Leibniz finds witness to the continuity and order of the world. We
+have become so accustomed to the fact that mathematics may be directly
+employed for the discussion and formulation of physical investigations
+that we forget what is implied in it. It involves the huge assumption
+that the world answers to reason; so that whatever the mind finds to be
+ideally true may be taken for granted to be physically true also. But
+in those days, when the correlation of the laws of the world and the
+laws of mathematical reasoning was a fresh discovery, this aspect of
+the case could not be easily lost sight of.
+
+In fact it was this correlation which filled the _Zeitgeist_ of
+the sixteenth century with the idea that it had a new organ for the
+penetration of nature, a new sense for learning its meaning. Descartes
+gives the following as the origin of his philosophy: "The long chains
+of simple and easy reasons which geometers employ, even in their
+most complex demonstrations, made me fancy that all things which are
+the objects of human knowledge are _similarly interdependent_." To
+Leibniz also mathematics seemed to give a clew to the order, the
+interdependence, the harmonious relations, of the world.
+
+In this respect the feeling of Plato that God geometrizes found
+an echoing response in Leibniz. But the latter would hardly have
+expressed it in the same way. He would have preferred to say that God
+everywhere uses the infinitesimal calculus. In the applicability of the
+calculus to the discussion of physical facts, Leibniz saw two truths
+reflected,--that everything that occurs has its reason, its dependent
+connection upon something else, and that all is continuous and without
+breaks. While the formal principles of his logic are those of identity
+and contradiction, his real principles are those of sufficient reason
+and of continuity. Nature never makes leaps; everything in nature has
+a sufficient reason why it is as it is: these are the philosophic
+generalizations which Leibniz finds hidden in the applicability
+of mathematics to physical science. Reason finds itself everywhere
+expressed in nature; and the law of reason is unity in diversity,
+continuity.
+
+Let us say, in a word, that the correlation between the laws of
+mathematics and of physics is the evidence of the rational character
+of nature. Nature may be reduced to motions; and motions can be
+understood only as force, activity. But the laws which connect motions
+are fundamentally mathematical laws,--laws of reason. Hence force,
+activity, can be understood only as rational, as spiritual. Nature
+is thus seen to mean Activity, and Activity is seen to mean
+Intelligence. Furthermore, as the fundamental law of intelligence is
+the production of difference in unity, the primary law of physical
+change must be the manifestation of this unity in difference,--or,
+as Leibniz interpreted it, continuity. In nature there are no breaks,
+neither of quantity nor of quality nor of relationship. The full force
+of this law we shall see later.
+
+Such an idea can hardly be distinguished from the idea of growth or
+development; one passes naturally into the other. Thus it is equally
+proper to say that the third scientific influence, the conception of
+organism and growth, is dominant in the Leibnizian thought, or that
+this is swallowed up and absorbed in the grand idea of continuity. The
+law of animal and vegetable life and the law of the universe are
+identified. The substance of the universe is activity; the law of
+the universe is interdependence. What is this but to say that the
+universe is an organic whole? Its activity is the manifestation of
+life,--nay, it is life. The laws of its activity reveal that continuity
+of development, that harmony of inter-relation, which are everywhere
+the marks of life. The final and fundamental notion, therefore, by
+which Leibniz interprets the laws of physics and mathematics is that of
+Life. This is his regnant category. It is "that higher and metaphysical
+source" from which the very existence and principles of mechanism
+flow. The perpetual and ubiquitous presence of motion reveals the
+pulsations of Life; the correlation, the rationality, of these motions
+indicate the guiding presence of Life. This idea is the alpha and omega
+of his philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION.
+
+
+Leibniz, like every great man, absorbed into himself the various
+thoughts of his time, and in absorbing transformed them. He brought
+into a focus of brilliancy the diffused lights of truth shining here
+and there. He summed up in a pregnant and comprehensive category
+the scattered principles of his age. Yet we are not to suppose that
+Leibniz considered these various ideas one by one, and then patched
+them into an artificial unity of thought. Philosophies are not
+manufactured piecemeal out of isolated and fragmentary thoughts; they
+grow from a single root, absorbing from their environment whatever
+of sustenance offers itself, and maturing in one splendid fruit of
+spiritual truth. It is convenient, indeed, to isolate various phases
+of truth, and consider them as distinct forces working to shape one
+final product, and as a convenient artifice it is legitimate. But it
+answers to no process actually occurring. Leibniz never surrendered
+his personal unity, and out of some one root-conception grew all his
+ideas. The principles of his times were not separate forces acting upon
+him, they were the foods of which he selected and assimilated such as
+were fitted to nourish his one great conception.
+
+But it is more than a personal unity which holds together the thinking
+of a philosopher. There is the unity of the problem, which the
+philosopher has always before him, and in which all particular ideas
+find their unity. All else issues from this and merges into it. The
+various influences which we have seen affecting Leibniz, therefore,
+got their effectiveness from the relation which he saw them bear to the
+final problem of all thought. This is the inquiry after the unity of
+experience, if we look at it from the side of the subject; the unity
+of reality, if we put it from the objective side. Yet each age states
+this problem in its own way, because it sees it in the light of some
+difficulty which has recently arisen in consciousness. At one time,
+the question is as to the relation of the one to the many; at another,
+of the relation of the sensible to the intelligible world; at another,
+of the relation of the individual to the universal. And this last
+seems to have been the way in which it specifically presented itself
+to Leibniz. This way of stating it was developed, though apparently
+without adequate realization of its meaning, by the philosophy
+of scholasticism. It stated the problem as primarily a logical
+question,--the relation of genera, of species, of individuals to each
+other. And the school-boy, made after the stamp of literary tradition,
+knows that there were two parties among the Schoolmen,--the Realists,
+and the Nominalists; one asserting, the other denying, the objective
+reality of universals. To regard this discussion as useless, is to
+utter the condemnation of philosophy, and to relegate the foundation
+of science to the realm of things not to be inquired into. To say that
+it is an easy matter to decide, is to assume the decision with equal
+ease of all the problems that have vexed the thought of humanity. To
+us it seems easy because we have bodily incorporated into our thinking
+the results of both the realistic and the nominalistic doctrines,
+without attempting to reconcile them, or even being conscious of
+the necessity of reconciliation. We assert in one breath that the
+individual is alone real, and in the next assert that only those forms
+of consciousness which represent something in the universe are to be
+termed knowledge. At one moment we say that universals are creations of
+the individual mind, and at the next pass on to talk of laws of nature,
+or even of a reign of law. In other words, we have learned to regard
+both the individual and the universal as real, and thus ignoring the
+problem, think we have solved it.
+
+But to Leibniz the problem presented itself neither as a logical
+question, nor yet as one whose solution might be taken for granted. On
+the contrary, it was just this question: How shall we conceive the
+individual to be related to the universe? which seemed to him to be the
+nerve of the philosophic problem, the question whose right answer would
+solve the problems of religion, of morals, of the basis of science,
+as well as of the nature of reality. The importance of just this way
+of putting the question had been rendered evident by the predecessors
+and contemporaries of Leibniz, especially by Descartes, Spinoza, and
+Locke. His more specific relations to the last-named will occupy us
+hereafter; at present we must notice how the question stood at the
+hands of Descartes and Spinoza.
+
+Descartes had separated the individual from the universal. His
+philosophy began and ended with a dualism. I have just said that the
+problem of philosophy is the unity of experience. Yet we find that
+there have been thinkers, and those of the first rank, who have left
+the matter without discovering any ultimate unity, or rather who have
+made it the burden of their contention that we cannot explain the world
+without at least two disparate principles. But if we continue to look
+at the matter in this historical way, we shall see that this dualism
+has always been treated by the successors of such a philosopher, not
+as a solution, but as a deeper statement of the problem. It is the
+function of dualistic philosophies to re-state the question in a new
+and more significant way. There are times when the accepted unity of
+thought is seen to be inadequate and superficial. Men are thrashing old
+straw, and paying themselves with ideas which have lost their freshness
+and their timeliness. There then arises a philosopher who goes deep,
+beyond the superficial unity, and who discovers the untouched
+problem. His it is to assert the true meaning of the question,
+which has been unseen or evaded. The attitude of dualism is thus
+always necessary, but never final. Its value is not in any solution,
+but in the generality and depth of the problem which it proposes, and
+which incites thought to the discovery of a unity of equal depth and
+comprehensiveness.
+
+Except for Descartes, then, we should not be conscious of the gulf
+that yawns between the individual mind and the universe in front of
+it. He presented the opposition as between mind and matter. The essence
+of the former is thought; of the latter, extension. The conceptions
+are disparate and opposed. No interaction is possible. His disciples,
+more consistent than their master, called in a _deus ex machina_,--the
+miraculous intervention of God,--in order to account for the appearance
+of reciprocal action between the universe of matter and the thinking
+individual. Thus they in substance admitted the relation between
+them to be scientifically inexplicable, and had recourse to the
+supernatural. The individual does not act upon the universe to produce,
+destroy, or alter the arrangement of anything. But upon the _occasion_
+of his volition God produces a corresponding material change. The world
+does not act upon the soul of the individual to produce thoughts or
+sensations. God, upon _occasion_ of the external affection, brings
+them into being. With such thoroughness Descartes performed his task
+of separation. Yet the introduction of the _deus ex machina_ only
+complicated the problem; it introduced a third factor where two were
+already too many. What is the relation of God to Mind and to Matter? Is
+it simply a third somewhat, equally distinct from both, or does it
+contain both within itself?
+
+Spinoza attempted to solve the problem in the latter sense. He
+conceived God to be the one substance of the universe, possessing the
+two known attributes of thought and matter. These attributes are one
+in God; indeed, he is their unity. This is the sole legitimate outcome
+of the Cartesian problem stated as Descartes would have it stated. It
+overcomes the absoluteness of the dualism by discovering a common and
+fundamental unity, and at the same time takes the subject out of the
+realm of the miraculous. For the solution works both ways. It affects
+the nature of God, as well as of extension and thought. It presents
+him to us, not as a supernatural being, but as the unity of thought and
+extension. In knowing these as they are, we know God as he is. Spinoza,
+in other words, uses the conception of God in a different way from
+the Cartesians. The latter had treated him as the God of theology,--a
+being supernatural; Spinoza uses the conception as a scientific one,
+and speaks of _Deus sive Natura_.
+
+Leibniz recognized the unphilosophic character of the recourse to a
+_deus ex machina_ as clearly as Spinoza, and yet did not accept his
+solution. To find out why he did not is the problem of the historian
+of thought. The one cause which stands out above all others is that in
+the unity of Spinoza all difference, all distinction, is lost. All
+particular existences, whether things or persons, are _modes_
+of extension and thought. Their _apparent_ existence is due to the
+imagination, which is the source of belief in particular things. When
+considered as they really are,--that is, by the understanding,--they
+vanish. The one substance, with its two unchanging attributes of
+thought and extension, alone remains. If it is a philosophic error
+to give a solution which permits of no unity, is it not equally a
+philosophic error to give one which denies difference? So it seemed
+to Leibniz. The problem is to reconcile difference in unity, not to
+swallow up difference in a blank oneness,--to reconcile the individual
+with the universe, not to absorb him.
+
+The unsatisfactoriness of the solution appears if we look at it from
+another side. Difference implies change, while a unity in which all
+variety is lost implies quiescence. Change is as much an illusion of
+imagination to Spinoza as is variety. The One Reality is permanent. How
+repugnant the conception of a static universe was to Leibniz we have
+already learned. Spinoza fails to satisfy Leibniz, therefore, because
+he does not allow the conceptions of individuality and of activity. He
+presents a unity in which all distinction of individuals is lost,
+and in which there is no room for change. But Spinoza certainly
+presented the problem more clearly to Leibniz, and revealed more
+definitely the conditions of its solution. The search is henceforth
+for a unity which shall avoid the irresolvable dualism of Descartes,
+and yet shall allow free play to the principles of individuality and of
+activity. There must be, in short, a universe to which the individual
+bears a real yet independent relation. What is this unity? The answer,
+in the phraseology of Leibniz, is the _monad_. Spinoza would be right,
+said Leibniz, were it not for the existence of monads. I know there are
+some who have done Leibniz the honor of supposing that this is his way
+of saying, "Spinoza is wrong because I am right;" but I cannot help
+thinking that the saying has a somewhat deeper meaning. What, then,
+is the nature of the monad? The answer to this question takes us back
+to the point where the discussion of the question was left at the end
+of chapter second. The nature of the monad is life. The monad is the
+spiritual activity which lives in absolute harmony with an infinite
+number of other monads.
+
+Let us first consider the reasons of Leibniz for conceiving the
+principle of unity as spiritual. Primarily it is because it is
+impossible to conceive of a unity which is material. In the sensible
+world there is no unity. There are, indeed, aggregations, collections,
+which seem like unities; but the very fact that these are aggregations
+shows that the unity is factitious. It is the very nature of matter to
+be infinitely divisible: to say this is to deny the existence of any
+true principle of unity. The world of nature is the world of space
+and time; and where in space or time shall we find a unity where we
+may rest? Every point in space, every moment in time, points beyond
+itself. It refers to a totality of which it is but a part, or, rather,
+a limitation. If we add resistance, we are not better situated. We
+have to think of something which resists; and to this something we must
+attribute extension,--that is to say, difference, plurality. Nor can we
+find any resistance which is absolute and final. There may be a body
+which is undivided, and which resists all energy now acting upon it;
+but we cannot frame an intelligible idea of a body which is absolutely
+indivisible. To do so is to think of a body out of all relation to
+existing forces, something absolutely isolated; while the forces of
+nature are always relative to one another. That which resists does so
+in comparison with some opposing energy. The absolutely indivisible,
+on the other hand, would be that which could not be brought into
+comparison with other forces; it would not have any of the attributes
+of force as we know it. In a word, whatever exists in nature is
+relative in space, in time, and in qualities to all else. It is made
+what it is by virtue of the totality of its relations to the universe;
+it has no ultimate principle of self-subsistent unity in it.
+
+Nor do we fare better if we attempt to find unity in the world of
+nature as a whole. Nature has its existence as a whole in space and
+time. Indeed, it is only a way of expressing the totality of phenomena
+of space and time. It is a mere aggregate, a collection. Its very
+essence is plurality, difference. It is divisible without limit,
+and each of its divisions has as good a right to be called one as
+the whole from which it is broken off. We shall consider hereafter
+Leibniz's idea of infinity; but it is easy to see that he must deny
+any true infinity to nature. An ultimate whole made up of parts is a
+contradictory conception; and the idea of a quantitative infinite is
+equally so. Quantity means number, measure, limitation. We may not
+be able to assign number to the totality of occurrences in nature,
+nor to measure her every event. This shows that nature is indefinitely
+greater than any _assignable_ quantity; but it does not remove her from
+the category of quantity. As long as the world is conceived as that
+existing in space and time, it is conceived as that which has to be
+measured. As we saw in the last chapter, the heart of the mechanical
+theory of the world is in the application of mathematics to it. Since
+quantity and mathematics are correlative terms, the natural world
+cannot be conceived as infinite or as an ultimate unity.
+
+In short, Leibniz urges and suggests in one form and another those
+objections to the mechanical theory of reality which later German
+philosophers have made us so familiar with. The objections are indeed
+varied in statement, but they all come to the impossibility of finding
+any unity, any wholeness, anything except plurality and partiality in
+that which is externally conditioned,--as everything is in nature.
+
+But the reasons as thus stated are rather negative than positive. They
+show why the ultimate unity cannot be conceived as material, rather
+than why it must be conceived as spiritual. The immediate evidence
+of its spiritual nature Leibniz finds in the perception of the one
+unity directly known to us,--the "me," the conscious principle within,
+which reveals itself as an active force, and as truly one, since not a
+spatial or temporal existence. And this evidence he finds confirmed by
+the fact that whatever unity material phenomena appear to have comes to
+them through their perception by the soul. Whatever the mind grasps in
+one act, is manifested as one.
+
+But it is not in any immediate certainty of fact that Leibniz finds
+the best or completest demonstration of the spiritual nature of the
+ultimate unity. This is found in the use which can be made of the
+hypothesis. The truest witness to the spiritual character of reality
+is found in the capacity of this principle to comprehend and explain
+the facts of experience. With this conception the reason of things
+can be ascertained, and light introduced into what were otherwise a
+confused obscurity. And, indeed, this is the only sufficient proof of
+any doctrine. It is not what comes before the formulation of a theory
+which proves it; it is not the facts which suggest it, or the processes
+which lead up to it: it is what comes after the formation of the
+theory,--the uses that it can be put to; the facts which it will render
+significant. The whole philosophy of Leibniz in its simplicity, width,
+and depth, is the real evidence of the truth of his philosophical
+principle.
+
+The monad, then, is a spiritual unity; it is individualized
+life. Unity, activity, individuality are synonymous terms in the
+vocabulary of Leibniz. Every unity is a true substance, containing
+within itself the source and law of its own activity. It is that
+which is internally determined to action. It is to be conceived
+after the analogy of the soul. It is an indivisible unity, like
+"that particular something in us which thinks, apperceives and
+wills, and distinguishes us in a way of its own from whatever else
+thinks and wills." Against Descartes, therefore, Leibniz stands for
+the principle of unity; against Spinoza, he upholds the doctrine
+of individuality, of diversity, of multiplicity. And the latter
+principle is as important in his thought as the former. Indeed, they
+are inseparable. The individual is the true unity. There is an infinite
+number of these individuals, each distinct from every other. The law
+of specification, of distinction, runs through the universe. Two beings
+cannot be alike. They are not individualized merely by their different
+positions in space or time; duration and extension, on the contrary,
+are, as we have seen, principles of relativity, of connection. Monads
+are specified by an internal principle. Their distinct individuality is
+constituted by their distinct law of activity. Leibniz will not have
+a philosophy of abstract unity, representing the universe as simple
+only, he will have a philosophy equal to the diversity, the manifold
+wealth of variety, in the universe. This is only to say that he will be
+faithful to his fundamental notion,--that of Life. Life does not mean
+a simple unity like a mathematical one, it means a unity which is the
+harmony of the interplay of diverse organs, each following its own law
+and having its own function. When Leibniz says, God willed to have more
+monads rather than fewer, the expression is indeed one of _na�vet�_,
+but the thought is one of unexplored depth. It is the thought that
+Leibniz repeats when he says, "Those who would reduce all things to
+modifications of one universal substance do not have sufficient regard
+to the _order_, the _harmony_ of reality." Leibniz applies here, as
+everywhere, the principle of continuity, which is unity in and through
+diversity, not the principle of bare oneness. There is a kingdom of
+monads, a realm truly infinite, composed of individual unities or
+activities in an absolute continuity. Leibniz was one of the first,
+if not the first, to use just the expression "uniformity of nature;"
+but even here he explains that it means "uniform in variety, one in
+principle, but varied in manifestation." The world is to be as rich as
+possible. This is simply to say that distinct individuality as well as
+ultimate unity is a law of reality.
+
+But has not Leibniz fallen into a perilous position? In avoiding the
+monotone of unity which characterizes the thought of Spinoza, has
+he not fallen into a lawless variety of multiplicity, infinitely
+less philosophic than even the dualism of Descartes, since it has
+an infinity of ultimate principles instead of only two? If Spinoza
+sacrificed the individual to the universe, has not Leibniz,
+in his desire to emphasize the individual, gone to the other
+extreme? Apparently we are introduced to a universe that is a mere
+aggregate of an infinite multiplicity of realities, each independent
+of every other. Such a universe would not be a universe. It would
+be a chaos of disorder and conflict. We come, therefore, to a
+consideration of the relation between these individual monads and
+the universe. We have to discover what lifts the monads out of their
+isolation and bestows upon them that stamp of universality which makes
+it possible for them to enter into the coherent structure of reality:
+in a word, what is the universal content which the monad in its formal
+individuality bears and manifests?
+
+The way in which the question has just been stated suggests the
+Leibnizian answer. The monad, indeed, in its form is thoroughly
+individual, having its own unique mode of activity; but its content,
+that which this activity manifests, is not peculiar to it as an
+individual, but is the substance or law of the universe. It is the
+very nature of the monad to be representative. Its activity consists
+in picturing or reproducing those relations which make up the world of
+reality. In a conscious soul, the ability thus to represent the world
+is called "perception," and thus Leibniz attributes perception to all
+the monads. This is not to be understood as a conscious representation
+of reality to itself (for this the term "apperception" is reserved),
+but it signifies that the very essence of the monad is to produce
+states which are not its own peculiar possessions, but which reflect
+the facts and relations of the universe. Leibniz never wearies in
+finding new ways to express this purely representative character of the
+monad. The monads are little souls; they are mirrors of the world; they
+are concentrations of the universe, each expressing it in its own way;
+borrowing a term from scholasticism, they are "substantial forms." They
+are substantial, for they are independent unities; they are forms,
+because the term "form" expresses, in Aristotelian phraseology, the
+type or law of some class of phenomena. The monad is an individual,
+but its whole content, its objectivity or reality, is the summation of
+the universe which it represents. It is individual, but whatever marks
+it as actual is some reproduction of the world. His reconciliation
+of the principles of individuality and universality is contained
+in the following words: "Each monad contains within itself an order
+corresponding to that of the universe,--indeed, the monads represent
+the universe in an infinity of ways, all different, and all true, thus
+multiplying the universe as many times as is possible, approaching
+the divine as near as may be, and giving the world all the perfection
+of which it is capable." The monad is individual, for it represents
+reality in its own way, from its own point of view. It is universal,
+for its whole content is the order of the universe.
+
+New light is thus thrown upon the former statement that reality
+is activity, that the measure of a being is the action which it
+puts forth. That statement is purely formal. It leaves the kind
+of activity and its law wholly undetermined. But this relation of
+"representativeness" which we have discovered gives definiteness. It
+is the law of the monad's action to mirror, to reflect, the universe;
+its changes follow each other so as to bring about this reflection in
+the completest degree possible. The monad is literally the many in the
+one; it is the answer to the inquiry of Greek philosophy. The many
+are not present by way of participation in some underlying essence,
+not yet as statically possessed by the one, as attributes are sometimes
+supposed to inhere in a substratum. The "many" is the manifestation of
+the activity of the "one." The one and the many are related as form
+and content in an organic unity, which is activity. The essence of a
+substance, says Leibniz, consists in that regular tendency of action
+by which its phenomena follow one another in a certain order; and that
+order, as he repeatedly states, is the order in which the universe
+itself is arranged.
+
+The activity of a monad may be advantageously compared to that of a
+supposed atom, granting, for the sake of the illustration, that there
+is such a thing. Each is in a state of change: the atom changes its
+place, the monad its representation, and each in the simplest and
+most uniform way that its conditions permit. How, then, is there such
+a similarity, such a monotony, in the change of an atom, and such
+variety and complexity in the change of a monad? It is because the
+atom has merely parts, or external variety, while the monad has an
+internal variety. Multiplicity is organically wrought into its very
+being. It has an _essential_ relation to all things in the universe;
+and to say that this relation is essential, is to say that it is one
+which constitutes its very content, its being. Hence the cause of the
+changes of the monad, of their variety and complexity, is one with the
+cause of the richness, the profusion, the regulated variety of change
+in the universe itself. While we have employed a comparison with atoms,
+this very comparison may serve to show us the impossibility of atoms as
+they are generally defined by the physicist turned philosopher. Atoms
+have no internal and essential relation to the world; they have no
+internal connection with any one thing in the world: and what is this
+but to say that they do not enter anywhere into the structure of the
+world? By their very conception they are forever aliens, banished from
+any share or lot in the realm of reality. The idea which Leibniz never
+lets go, the idea which he always accentuates, is, then, the idea of an
+individual activity which in its continual change manifests as its own
+internal content and reality that reality and those laws of connection
+which make up the world itself.
+
+We are thus introduced naturally to the conception which plays so
+large a part in the Leibnizian philosophy, that of pre-established
+harmony. This term simply names the fact, which we see to be
+fundamental with Leibniz,--the fact that, while the form of every
+monad is individuality, a unique principle of action, its content
+is universal, the very being and laws of the world. For we must
+now notice more explicitly what has been wrapped up in the idea all
+along. There is no direct influence of monads upon each other. One
+cannot affect another causally. There is no actual interaction of one
+upon another. Expressed in that figurative language which was ever
+natural to Leibniz, the monads have no windows by which anything can
+get in or out. This follows, of course, from the mutual independence
+and individuality of the monads. They are a true democracy, in
+which each citizen has sovereignty. To admit external influences
+acting upon them is to surrender their independence, to deny their
+sovereignty. But we must remember the other half. This democracy is not
+after the Platonic conception of democracy, in which each does as it
+pleases, and in which there is neither order nor law, but the extremest
+assertion of individuality. What each sovereign citizen of the realm
+of reality expresses is precisely law. Each is an embodiment in its own
+way of the harmony, the order, of the whole kingdom. Each is sovereign
+because it is dynamic law,--law which is no longer abstract, but has
+realized itself in life. Thus another way of stating the doctrine of
+pre-established harmony is the unity of freedom and necessity. Each
+monad is free because it is individual, because it follows the
+law of its own activity unhindered, unretarded, by others; it is
+self-determined. But it is self-determined to show forth the order, the
+harmony, of the universe. There is nothing of caprice, of peculiarity,
+in the content of the monad. It shows forth order; it is organized
+by law; it reveals the necessary connections which constitute the
+universe. The pre-established harmony is the unity of the individual
+and the universe; it is the organic oneness of freedom and necessity.
+
+We see still further what it means when we learn that it is by this
+conception that Leibniz reconciles the conceptions of physical and
+final causation. There is no principle closer to the thought of Leibniz
+than that of the equal presence and efficiency everywhere of both
+physical and final causes. Every fact which occurs is susceptible
+of a mechanical and of a rational explanation. It is necessarily
+connected with preceding states, and it has a necessary end which
+it is fulfilling. The complete meaning of this principle will meet
+us hereafter; at present we must notice that it is one form of the
+doctrine of pre-established harmony. All things have an end because
+they form parts of one system; everything that occurs looks forward
+to something else and prepares the way for it, and yet it is itself
+mechanically conditioned by its antecedents. This is only another way
+of saying that there is complete harmony between all beings in the
+universe; so that each monad in fulfilling the law of its own existence
+contributes to the immanent significance of the universe. The monads
+are co-ordinated in such a way that they express a common idea. There
+is a plan common to all, in which each has its own place. All are
+making towards one goal, expressing one purpose. The universe is
+an organism; and Leibniz would have applied to it the words which
+Milne-Edwards applied to the human organism, as I find them quoted
+by Lewes: "In the organism everything seems to be calculated with one
+determined result in view; and the harmony of the parts does not result
+from the influence which they exert upon one another, but from their
+co-ordination under the rule of a common force, a preconceived plan,
+a pre-existent force." That is to say, the universe is teleological,
+both as a whole and in its parts; for there is a common idea animating
+it and expressed by it; it is mechanical, for this idea is realized and
+manifested by the outworking of forces.
+
+It ought to be evident even from this imperfect sketch that the
+Leibnizian theory of pre-established harmony is not that utterly
+artificial and grotesque doctrine which it is sometimes represented
+to be. The phrase "pre-established harmony" is, strictly speaking,
+tautologous. The term "pre-established" is superfluous. It means
+"existent." There is no real harmony which is not existent or
+pre-established. An accidental harmony is a contradiction in terms. It
+means a chaotic cosmos, an unordered order, a lawless law, or whatever
+else is nonsensical.
+
+Harmony, in short, means relation, means connection, means
+subordination and co-ordination, means adjustment, means a variety,
+which yet is one. The Leibnizian doctrine is not a factitious product
+of his imagination, nor is it a mechanical scheme for reconciling a
+problem which has no existence outside of the bewildered brains of
+philosophers. It is an expression of the fact that the universe is
+one of order, of continuity, of unity; it is the accentuating of this
+doctrine so that the very essence of reality is found in this ordered
+combination; it is the special application of this principle to the
+solution of many of the problems which "the mind of man is apt to
+run into,"--the questions of the relation of the individual and the
+universal, of freedom and necessity, of the physical and material,
+of the teleological and mechanical. We may not be contented with the
+doctrine as he presents it, we may think it to be rather a summary
+and highly concentrated statement of the problem than its solution,
+or we may object to details in the carrying out of the doctrine. But
+we cannot deny that it is a genuine attempt to meet a genuine problem,
+and that it contains some, if not all, of the factors required for
+its adequate solution. To Leibniz must remain the glory of being the
+thinker to seize upon the perfect unity and order of the universe as
+its essential characteristic, and of arranging his thoughts with a view
+to discovering and expressing it.
+
+We have but to notice one point more, and our task is done so far as
+it serves to make plain the standpoint from which Leibniz criticised
+Locke. There is, we have seen, the greatest possible continuity and
+complexity in the realm of monads. There is no break, quantitative nor
+qualitative. It follows that the human soul has no gulf set between it
+and what we call nature. It is only the highest, that is to say the
+most active and the most representative, of all monads. It stands,
+indeed, at the head of the scale, but not outside it. From the monad
+which reveals its presence in that stone which with blinded eyes we
+call dead, through that which acts in the plant, in the animal, up
+to that of man, there is no chasm, no interruption. Nay, man himself
+is but one link in the chain of spiritual beings which ends only in
+God. All monads are souls; the soul of man is a monad which represents
+the universe more distinctly and adequately. The law which is enfolded
+in the lower monads is developed in it and forms a part of its
+conscious activity. The universe, which is confusedly mirrored by the
+perception of the lower monad, is clearly brought out in the conscious
+apperception of man. The stone is representative of the whole world. An
+all-knowing intelligence might read in it relations to every other
+fact the world, might see exemplified the past history of the world,
+and prefigured the events to come. For the stone is not an isolated
+existence, it is an inter-organic member of a system. Change the
+slightest fact in the world, and in some way it is affected. The law
+of the universe is one of completed reciprocity, and this law must be
+mirrored in every existence of the universe. Increase the activity, the
+representative power, until it becomes turned back, as it were, upon
+itself, until the monad not only is a mirror, but knows itself as one,
+and you have man. The soul of man is the world come to consciousness
+of itself. The realm of monads in what we call the inorganic world
+and the lower organic realm shows us the monad let and hindered in
+its development. These realms attempt to speak forth the law of their
+being, and reveal the immanent presence of the universe; but they do
+not hear their own voice, their utterance is only for others. In man
+the universe is manifested, and is manifested to man himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ.--INNATE IDEAS.
+
+
+The reader, impatient of what may have seemed an over-long
+introduction, has perhaps been asking when he was to be brought to the
+subject under consideration,--the relations of Leibniz to Locke. But
+it has been impossible to come to this question until we had formed for
+ourselves an outline of the philosophical position of Leibniz. Nowhere
+in the "Nouveaux Essais" does Leibniz give a connected and detailed
+exposition of his philosophy, either as to his standpoint, his
+fundamental principles, or his method.
+
+Some preliminary view of his position is therefore a necessity. The
+demand for this preliminary exposition becomes more urgent as we
+recognize that Leibniz's remarks upon Locke are not a critique of Locke
+from the standpoint of the latter, but are the application of his own
+philosophical conclusions. Criticism from within, an examination of
+a system of thought with relation to the consistency and coherency
+of its results, the connection between these results and the method
+professedly employed, investigation which depends not at all upon the
+position of the critic, but occupies itself with the internal relations
+of the system under discussion,--such criticism is a product of the
+present century. What we find in the "Nouveaux Essais" is a comparison
+of the ideas of Locke with those of Leibniz himself, a testing of the
+former by the latter as a standard, their acceptance when they conform,
+their rejection when they are opposed, their completion when they are
+in partial harmony.
+
+The value of this sort of criticism is likely to be small and
+evanescent. If the system used as a standard is meagre and narrow,
+if it is without comprehensiveness and flexibility, it does not repay
+after-examination. The fact that the "Nouveaux Essais" of Leibniz
+have escaped the oblivion of the philosophical criticism of his day is
+proof, if proof still be needed, of the reasoned basis, the width of
+grasp, the fertility of suggestion which characterize the thought of
+Leibniz. But the fact that the criticism is, after all, external and
+not internal has made necessary the foregoing extended account of his
+method and general results.
+
+On the other hand, what of Locke? How about him who is the recipient
+of the criticism? I assume that no extended account of his ideas
+is here necessary, and conceive myself to be justified in this
+assumption by the fact that we are already better acquainted with
+Locke. This acquaintance, indeed, is not confined to those who have
+expressly studied Locke. His thought is an inheritance into which
+every English-speaking person at least is born. Only he who does not
+think escapes this inheritance. Locke did the work which he had to do
+so thoroughly that every Englishman who will philosophize must either
+build upon Locke's foundations, or, with conscious purpose, clear the
+ground before building for himself. And it would be difficult to say
+that the acceptance of Locke's views would influence one's thought
+more than their rejection. This must not, of course, be taken too
+literally. It may be that one who is a lineal descendant of Locke in
+the spiritual generations of thought would not state a single important
+truth as Locke stated it, or that those who seek their method and
+results elsewhere have not repudiated the thought of Locke as expressly
+belonging to him.
+
+But the fundamental principles of empiricism: its conception of
+intelligence as an individual possession; its idea of reality as
+something over against and distinct from mind; its explanation of
+knowledge as a process of action and reaction between these separate
+things; its account of our inability to know things as they really
+are,--these principles are congenital with our thinking. They are so
+natural that we either accept them as axiomatic, and accuse those who
+reject them of metaphysical subtlety, or, staggered perchance by some
+of their results, give them up with an effort. But it is an effort, and
+a severe one; and there is none of us who can tell when some remnant
+of the conception of intelligence as purely particular and finite
+will catch him tripping. On the other hand, we realize much better
+than those who have behind them a Leibniz and a Kant, rather than a
+Locke and a Hume, the meaning and the thorough-going necessity of the
+universality of intelligence. Idealism must be in some ways arbitrary
+and superficial to him who has not had a pretty complete course of
+empiricism.
+
+Leibniz seems to have been impressed with the Essay on the Human
+Understanding at its first appearance. As early as 1696 we find
+him writing a few pages of comment upon the book. Compared with his
+later critique, these early "reflections" seem colorless, and give the
+impression that Leibniz desired to minimize his differences from Locke
+rather than to set them forth in relief. Comparatively slight as were
+his expressions of dissent, they appear to have stung Locke when they
+reached him. Meantime Locke's book was translated into French, and made
+its way to a wider circle of readers. This seems to have suggested to
+Leibniz the advisability of pursuing his comments somewhat further;
+and in the summer of 1703 he produced the work which now occupies us. A
+letter which Leibniz wrote at about this time is worth quoting at large
+for the light which it throws upon the man, as well as for suggesting
+the chief points in which he differed from Locke. Leibniz writes:--
+
+"I have forgotten to tell you that my comments upon the work of Locke
+are nearly done. As he has spoken in a chapter of his second book about
+freedom, he has given me an opportunity to discuss that; and I hope
+that I may have done it in such a way as will please you. Above all,
+I have laid it upon myself to save the immateriality of the soul, which
+Locke leaves doubtful. I justify also the existence of innate ideas,
+and show that the soul produces their perception out of itself. Axioms,
+too, I approve, while Locke has a low opinion of them. In contradiction
+to him, I show that the individuality of man, through which he
+preserves his identity, consists in the duration of the simple or
+immaterial substance which animates him; that the soul is never without
+representations; that there is neither a vacuum nor atoms; that matter,
+or the passive principle, cannot be conscious, excepting as God unites
+with it a conscious substance. We disagree, indeed, in numerous other
+points, for I find that he rates too low the noble philosophy of the
+Platonic school (as Descartes did in part), and substitutes opinions
+which degrade us, and which may become hurtful to morals, though I am
+persuaded that Locke's intention was thoroughly good. I have made these
+comments in leisure hours, when I have been journeying or visiting, and
+could not occupy myself with investigations requiring great pains. The
+work has continued to grow under my hands, for in almost every chapter,
+and to a greater extent than I had thought possible, I have found
+matter for remark. You will be astonished when I tell you that I have
+worked upon this as upon something which requires no great pains. But
+the fact is, that I long ago established the general principles of
+philosophic subjects in my mind in a demonstrative way, or pretty
+nearly so, and that they do not require much new consideration from
+me."
+
+Leibniz goes on to add that he has put these reflections in the form of
+a dialogue that they may be more attractive; has written them in the
+popular language, rather than in Latin, that they may reach as wide a
+circle as the work of Locke; and that he hopes to publish them soon,
+as Locke is already an old man, and he wishes to get them before the
+public while Locke may still reply.
+
+But unfortunately this last hope was destined to remain
+unrealized. Before the work of revision was accomplished, Locke
+died. Leibniz, in a letter written in 1714, alludes to his controversy
+with Locke as follows: "I do not like the thought of publishing
+refutations of authors who are dead. These should appear during their
+life, and be communicated to them." Then, referring to his earlier
+comments, he says: "A few remarks escaped me, I hardly know how, and
+were taken to England. Mr. Locke, having seen them, spoke of them
+slightingly in a letter to Molineux. I am not astonished at it. We
+were somewhat too far apart in principle, and that which I suggested
+seemed paradoxical to him." Leibniz, according to his conviction here
+expressed, never published his "Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement
+Humain." Schaarschmidt remarks that another reason may have restrained
+him, in that he did not wish to carry on too many controversies at once
+with the English people. He had two on his hands then,--one with the
+Newtonians regarding the infinitesimal calculus; the other with Bishop
+Clarke regarding the nature of God, of time and space, of freedom, and
+cognate subjects. However, in 1765, almost fifty years after the death
+of Leibniz, his critique upon Locke finally appeared.
+
+It is somewhat significant that one whose tendency was conciliatory,
+who was eminently what the Germans delight to call him, a "mediator,"
+attempting to unite the varied truths which he found scattered in
+opposed systems, should have had so much of his work called forth
+by controversy. Aside from the cases just mentioned, his other
+chief work, the Theodicy, is, in form, a reply to Bayle. Many of
+his minor pieces are replies to criticism or are developments of
+his own thought with critical reference to Descartes, Malebranche,
+and others. But Leibniz has a somewhat different attitude towards
+his British and towards his Continental opponents. With the latter
+he was always in sympathy, while they in turn gave whatever he
+uttered a respectful hearing. Their mutual critiques begin and end
+in compliments. But the Englishmen found the thought of Leibniz
+"paradoxical" and forced. It seemed to them wildly speculative,
+and indeed arbitrary guess-work, without any special reason for its
+production, and wholly unverifiable in its results. Such has been the
+fate of much of the best German thought since that time in the land of
+the descendants of Newton and Locke. But Leibniz, on the other hand,
+felt as if he were dealing, in philosophical matters at least, with
+foemen hardly worthy of his steel. Locke, he says, had subtlety and
+address, and a sort of _superficial_ metaphysics; but he was ignorant
+of the method of mathematics,--that is to say, from the standpoint of
+Leibniz, of the method of all science. We have already seen that he
+thought the examination of a work which had been the result of the
+continued labor of Locke was a matter for the leisure hours of his
+courtly visits. Indeed, he would undoubtedly have felt about it what
+he actually expressed regarding his controversy with Clarke,--that he
+engaged in it
+
+    "Ludus et jocus, quia in philosophia
+    Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi."
+
+He regarded the English as superficial and without grasp of principles,
+as they thought him over-deep and over-theoretical.
+
+From this knowledge of the external circumstances of the work of
+Leibniz and its relation to Locke, it is necessary that we turn to
+its internal content, to the thought of Leibniz as related to the
+ideas of Locke. The Essay on the Human Understanding is, as the name
+implies, an account of the nature of knowledge. Locke tells us that
+it originated in the fact that often, when he had been engaged in
+discussions with his friends, they found themselves landed in insoluble
+difficulties. This occurred so frequently that it seemed probable that
+they had been going at matters from the wrong side, and that before
+they attempted to come to conclusions about questions they ought to
+examine the capacity of intelligence, and see whether it is fitted to
+deal with such questions. Locke, in a word, is another evidence of that
+truth which lies at the basis of all forms of philosophical thought,
+however opposed they may be to one another,--the truth that knowledge
+and reality are so organic to each other that to come to any conclusion
+about one, we must know something about the other. Reality equals
+objects known or knowable, and knowledge equals reality dissolved in
+ideas,--reality which has become translucent through its meaning.
+
+Locke's Essay is, then, an account of the origin, nature, extent, and
+limitations of human knowledge. Such is its subject-matter. What is
+its method? Locke himself tells us that he uses the "plain historical
+method." We do not have to resort to the forcing of language to learn
+that this word "historical" contains the key to his work. Every page
+of the Essay is testimony to the fact that Locke always proceeds
+by inquiring into the way and circumstances by which knowledge of
+the subject under consideration came into existence and into the
+conditions by which it was developed. Origin means with Locke, not
+logical dependence, but temporal production; development means temporal
+succession. In the language of our day, Locke's Essay is an attempt to
+settle ontological questions by a psychological method. And as we have
+before noticed, Leibniz meets him, not by inquiry into the pertinence
+of the method or into the validity of results so reached, but by the
+more direct way of impugning his psychology, by substituting another
+theory of the nature of mind and of the way in which it works.
+
+The questions with which the discussion begins are as to the existence
+of innate ideas, and as to whether the soul always thinks,--questions
+which upon their face will lead the experienced reader of to-day to
+heave a sigh in memory of hours wasted in barren dispute, and which
+will create a desire to turn elsewhere for matter more solid and
+more nutritive. But in this case, under the form which the discussion
+takes at the hands of Leibniz, the question which awaits answer under
+the meagre and worn-out formula of "innate ideas" is the function of
+intelligence in experience.
+
+Locke denies, and denies with great vigor, the existence of innate
+ideas. His motives in so doing are practical and theoretical. He
+sees almost every old idea, every hereditary prejudice, every vested
+interest of thought, defended on the ground that it is an innate
+idea. Innate ideas were sacred, and everything which could find no
+defence before reason was an innate idea. Under such circumstances
+he takes as much interest in demolishing them as Bacon took in
+the destruction of the "eidols." But this is but a small portion
+of the object of Locke. He is a thorough-going empiricist; and the
+doctrine of innate ideas appears to offer the greatest obstacle to the
+acceptance of the truth that all the furnishing of the intellect comes
+from experience. Locke's metaphors for the mind are that it is a blank
+tablet, an empty closet, an unwritten book. The "innate idea" is only a
+sentence written by experience, but which, deified by a certain school
+of philosophers, has come to be regarded as eternally imprinted upon
+the soul.
+
+Such, indeed, is Locke's understanding of the nature of innate
+ideas. He conceives of them as "characters _stamped_, as it were,
+upon the mind of man, which the soul has received in its first being
+and brings into the world with it;" or they are "constant _impressions_
+which the souls of men receive in their first beings." They are "truths
+_imprinted_ upon the soul." Having this conception of what is meant by
+"innate ideas," Locke sets himself with great vigor, and, it must be
+confessed, with equal success, to their annihilation.
+
+His argument is somewhat diffuse and scattered, but in substance it
+is as follows: Whatever is in the mind, the mind must be conscious
+of. "To be in the mind and not to be perceived, is all one as to say
+that anything is and is not in the mind." If there be anything in the
+mind which is innate, it must be present to the consciousness of all,
+and, it would seem, of all at all times, savages, infants, and idiots
+included. And as it requires little philosophical penetration to
+see that savages do not ponder upon the principle that whatever is,
+is; that infants do not dwell in their cradle upon the thought of
+contradiction, or idiots ruminate upon that of excluded middle,--it
+ought to be evident that such truths cannot be innate. Indeed, we must
+admit, with Locke, that probably few men ever come to the explicit
+consciousness of such ideas, and that these few are such as direct
+their minds to the matter with some pains. Locke's argument may be
+summed up in his words: If these are not notions naturally imprinted,
+how can they be innate? And if they are notions naturally imprinted,
+how can they be unknown?
+
+But since it may be said that these truths are in the mind, but in such
+a way that it is only when they are proposed that men assent to them,
+Locke goes on to clinch his argument. If this be true, it shows that
+the ideas are not innate; for the same thing is true of a large number
+of scientific truths, those of mathematics and morals, as well as of
+purely sensible facts, as that red is not blue, sweet is not sour,
+etc.,--truths and facts which no one calls innate. Or if it be said
+that they are in the mind implicitly or potentially, Locke points
+out that this means either nothing at all, or else that the mind is
+_capable_ of knowing them. If this is what is meant by innate ideas,
+then all ideas are innate; for certainly it cannot be denied that the
+mind is capable of knowing all that it ever does know, or, as Locke
+ingenuously remarks, "nobody ever denied that the mind was capable of
+knowing several truths."
+
+It is evident that the force of Locke's contention against innate
+ideas rests upon a certain theory regarding the nature of innate ideas
+and of the relations of consciousness to intelligence. Besides this,
+there runs through his whole polemic the assertion that, after all,
+innate ideas are useless, as experience, in the sense of impressions
+received from without, and the formal action of intelligence upon
+them, is adequate to doing all they are supposed to do. It is hardly
+too much to say that the nerve of Locke's argument is rather in this
+positive assertion than in the negations which he brings against
+this existence. Leibniz takes issue with him on each of these three
+points. He has another conception of the very nature of innate ideas;
+he denies Locke's opinions about consciousness; he brings forward
+an opposed theory upon the relation of experience to reason. This
+last point we shall take up in a chapter by itself, as its importance
+extends far beyond the mere question as to the existence of ideas which
+may properly be called innate. The other two questions, as to the real
+character of innate ideas and the relation of an idea to consciousness,
+afford material to occupy us for the present.
+
+The metaphor which Locke constantly uses is the clew to his conception
+of innate ideas. They are characters stamped or imprinted upon the
+mind, they exist _in_ the mind. The mind would be just what it is,
+even if they had no existence. It would not have quite so much "in"
+it, but its own nature would not be changed. Innate ideas he conceives
+as bearing a purely external relation to mind. They are not organic
+to it, nor necessary instruments through which it expresses itself;
+they are mechanically impressed upon it. But what the "intellectual"
+school had meant by innate ideas was precisely that the relation of
+ideas to intelligence is _not_ that of passive holding or containing
+on the side of mind, and of impressions or stamps on the side of the
+ideas. Locke reads the fundamental category of empiricism--mechanical
+relation, or external action--into the nature of innate ideas, and
+hence easily infers their absurdity. But the object of the upholders
+of innate ideas had been precisely to deny that this category was
+applicable to the whole of intelligence. By an innate idea they meant
+an assertion of the dynamic relation of intelligence and some of its
+ideas. They meant to assert that intelligence has a structure, which
+necessarily functions in certain ways. While Locke's highest conception
+of an innate idea was that it must be something ready made, dwelling
+in the mind prior to experience, Leibniz everywhere asserts that it
+is a connection and relation which forms the logical prius and the
+psychological basis of experience. He finds no difficulty in admitting
+all there is of positive truth in Locke's doctrine; namely, that we are
+not conscious of these innate ideas until a period later than that in
+which we are conscious of sensible facts, or, in many cases, are not
+conscious of them at all. This priority in time of sensible experience
+to rational knowledge, however, can become a reason for denying the
+"innate" character of the latter only when we suppose that they are two
+entirely different orders of fact, one knowledge due to experience,
+the other knowledge already formed and existing in the mind prior to
+"experience."
+
+Leibniz's conception of the matter is brought out when he says that it
+is indeed true that we begin with particular experiences rather than
+with general principles, but that the order of nature is the reverse,
+for the ground, the basis of the particular truths is in the general;
+the former being in reality only instances of the latter. General
+principles, he says, enter into _all_ our thoughts, and form their
+soul and interconnection. They are as necessary for thought as muscles
+and tendons are for walking, although we may not be conscious of their
+existence. This side of the teaching of Leibniz consists, accordingly,
+in the assertion that "innate" knowledge and knowledge derived from
+experience are not two kinds of knowledge, but rather two ways of
+considering it. If we consider it as it comes to us, piecemeal and
+fragmentary, a succession of particular instances, to be gathered up at
+a future time into general principles, and stated in a rational form,
+it is seen as empirical. But, after all, this is only a superficial
+and external way of looking at it. If we examine into it we shall see
+that there are contained in these transitory and particular experiences
+certain truths more general and fundamental, which condition them, and
+at the same time constitute their meaning.
+
+If we inquire into the propriety of calling these truths "innate,"
+we find it is because they are native to intelligence, and are not
+acquisitions which it makes. Indeed, it may be said that they _are_
+intelligence, so close and organic is their relation, just as the
+muscles, the tendons, the skeleton, are the body. Thus it is that
+Leibniz accepts the statement, _Nihil est in intellectu quod non
+fuerit in sensu_, with the addition of the statement _nisi ipse
+intellectus_. The doctrine of the existence of innate ideas is thus
+shown to mean that intelligence exists with a real content which counts
+for something in the realm of experience. If we take intelligence
+and examine into its structure and ascertain its modes of expression,
+we find organically inherent in its activity certain conceptions like
+unity, power, substance, identity, etc., and these we call "innate." An
+idea, in short, is no longer conceived as something existing in the
+mind or in consciousness; it is an activity of intelligence. An innate
+idea is a necessary activity of intelligence; that is, such an activity
+as enters into the framework of all experience.
+
+Leibniz thus succeeds in avoiding two errors into which philosophers
+whose general aims are much like his have fallen. One is dividing _a
+priori_ and _a posteriori_ truths from each other by a hard and fixed
+line, so that we are conceived to have some knowledge which comes
+wholly from experience, while there is another which comes wholly
+from reason. According to Leibniz, there is no thought so abstract
+that it does not have its connection with a sensible experience,
+or rather its embodiment in it. And, on the other hand, there is no
+experience so thoroughly sensuous that it does not bear in itself
+traces of its origin in reason. "_All_ our thoughts come from the
+depths of the soul," says Leibniz; there are none that "come" to us
+from without. The other error is the interpretation of the existence
+of innate ideas or "intuitions" (as this school generally calls them)
+in a purely formal sense. They are thus considered as truths contained
+in and somehow expressed by intelligence, but yet not so connected with
+it that in knowing them we necessarily know intelligence itself. They
+are considered rather as arbitrary determinations of truths by a power
+whose own nature is conceivably foreign to truth, than as so many
+special developments of an activity which may indifferently be called
+"intelligence" or "truth." Leibniz, however, never fails to state that
+an innate truth is, after all, but one form or aspect of the activity
+of the mind in knowing.
+
+In this way, by bringing to light a deeper and richer conception of
+what in reality constitutes an innate idea, Leibniz answers Locke. His
+reply is indirect; it consists rather in throwing a flood of new
+light upon the matter discussed, than in a ponderous response and
+counter-attack. But when Leibniz touches upon the conception of a
+_tabula rasa_, of a mind which in itself is a mere blank, but has
+the capacity for knowing, he assumes the offensive. The idea of a
+bare capacity, a formal faculty, of power which does not already
+involve some actual content within itself, he repudiates as a relic
+of scholasticism. What is the soul, which has nothing until it gets
+it from without? The doctrine of a vacuum, an emptiness which is real,
+is always absurd; and it is doubly so when to this vacuum is ascribed
+powers of feeling and thinking, as Locke does. Accepting for the
+moment the metaphor of a _tabula rasa_, Leibniz asks where we shall
+find a tablet which yet does not have some quality, and which is not
+a co-operating cause, at least, in whatever effects are produced upon
+it? The notion of a soul without thought, an empty tablet of the soul,
+he says, is one of a thousand fictions of philosophers. He compares
+it with the idea of "space empty of matter, absolute uniformity
+or homogeneity, perfect spheres of the second element produced by
+primordial perfect cubes, abstractions pure and simple, to which our
+ignorance and inattention give birth, but of which reality does not
+admit." If Locke admits then (as he does) certain capacities inherent
+in the soul, he cannot mean the scholastic fiction of bare capacity
+or mere possibility; he must mean "real possibilities,"--that is,
+capacities accompanied with some actual tendency, an inclination, a
+disposition, an aptitude, a preformation which determines our soul in a
+certain direction, and which makes it necessary that the possibility
+becomes actual. And this tendency, this actual inclination of
+intelligence in one way rather than another, so that it is not a matter
+of indifference to intelligence what it produces, is precisely what
+constitutes an innate idea. So Leibniz feels certain that at bottom
+Locke must agree with him in this matter if the latter is really in
+earnest in rejecting the "faculties" of the scholastics and in wishing
+for a real explanation of knowledge.
+
+But the argument of Locke rests upon yet another basis. He founds
+his denial of innate ideas not only upon a static conception of their
+ready made existence "in" the soul, but also upon an equally mechanical
+conception of consciousness. "Nothing can be in the mind which is not
+in consciousness." This statement appears axiomatic to Locke, and by
+it he would settle the whole discussion. Regarding it, Leibniz remarks
+that if Locke has such a prejudice as this, it is not surprising that
+he rejects innate ideas. But consciousness and mental activity are not
+thus identical. To go no farther, the mere empirical fact of memory is
+sufficient to show the falsity of such an idea. Memory reveals that
+we have an indefinite amount of knowledge of which we are not always
+conscious. Rather than that knowledge and consciousness are one, it
+is true that actual consciousness only lays hold of an infinitesimal
+fraction of knowledge. But Leibniz does not rely upon the fact of
+memory alone. We must constantly keep in mind that to Leibniz the
+soul is not a form of being wholly separate from nature, but is the
+culmination of the system of reality. The reality is everywhere
+the monad, and the soul is the monad with the power of feeling,
+remembering, and connecting its ideas. The activities of the monad,
+those representative changes which sum up and symbolize the universe,
+do not cease when we reach the soul. They are continued. If the soul
+has the power of attention, they are potentially conscious. Such as
+the soul actually attends to, thus giving them relief and making them
+distinct, are actually conscious. But all of them exist.
+
+Thus it is that Leibniz not only denies the equivalence of soul and
+consciousness, but asserts that the fundamental error of the psychology
+of the Cartesians (and here, at least, Locke is a Cartesian) is in
+identifying them. He asserts that "unconscious ideas" are of as great
+importance in psychology as molecules are in physics. They are the link
+between unconscious nature and the conscious soul. Nothing happens all
+at once; nature never makes jumps; these facts stated in the law of
+continuity necessitate the existence of activities, which may be called
+ideas, since they belong to the soul and yet are not in consciousness.
+
+When, therefore, Locke asks how an innate idea can exist and the soul
+not be conscious of it, the answer is at hand. The "innate idea"
+exists as an activity of the soul by which it represents--that is,
+expresses--some relation of the universe, although we have not yet
+become conscious of what is contained or enveloped in this activity. To
+become conscious of the innate idea is to lift it from the sphere of
+nature to the conscious life of spirit. And thus it is, again, that
+Leibniz can assert that all ideas whatever proceed from the depths of
+the soul. It is because it is the very being of the soul as a monad
+to reflect "from its point of view" the world. In this way Leibniz
+brings the discussion regarding innate ideas out of the plane of
+examination into a matter of psychological fact into a consideration
+of the essential nature of spirit. An innate idea is now seen to be
+one of the relations by which the soul reproduces some relation which
+constitutes the universe of reality, and at the same time realizes its
+own individual nature. It is one reflection from that spiritual mirror,
+the soul. With this enlarged and transformed conception of an idea apt
+to be so meagre we may well leave the discussion. There has been one
+mind at least to which the phrase "innate ideas" meant something worth
+contending for, because it meant something real.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+A careful study of the various theories which have been held
+concerning sensation would be of as much interest and importance as
+an investigation of any one point in the range of philosophy. In the
+theory of a philosopher about sensation we have the reflex of his
+fundamental category and the clew to his further doctrine. Sensation
+stands on the border-line between the world of nature and the realm of
+soul; and every advance in science, every development of philosophy,
+leaves its impress in a change in the theory of sensation. Apparently
+one of the simplest and most superficial of questions, in reality
+it is one of the most difficult and far-reaching. At first sight it
+seems as if it were a sufficient account of sensation to say that
+an object affects the organ of sense, and thus impresses upon the
+mind the quality which it possesses. But this simple statement
+arouses a throng of further questions: How is it possible that
+one substance,--matter,--should affect another,--mind? How can a
+causal relation exist between them? Is the mind passive or active
+in this impression? How can an object convey unchanged to the mind
+a quality which it possesses? Or is the sensational _quale_ itself
+a product of the mind's activity? If so, what is the nature of the
+object which excites the sensation? As known, it is only a collection
+of sensuous qualities; if these are purely mental, what becomes of
+the object? And if there is no object really there, what is it that
+excites the sensation? Such questionings might be continued almost
+indefinitely; but those given are enough to show that an examination
+of the nature and origin of sensation introduces us to the problems
+of the relation of intelligence and the world; to the problem of
+the ultimate constitution of an object which is set over against a
+subject and which affects it; and to the problem of the nature of mind,
+which as thus affected from without must be limited in its nature,
+but which as bearer of the whole known universe must be in some sense
+infinite. If we consider, not the mode of production of sensation,
+but its relation to knowledge, we find philosophical schools divided
+into two,--Sensationalists, and Rationalists. If we inquire into its
+functions, we find that the empiricist sees in it convincing evidence
+of the fact that all knowledge originates from a source _extra mentem_;
+that the intellectual idealist finds in it evidence of the gradual
+transition of nature into spirit; that the ethical idealist, like Kant
+and Fichte, sees in it the material of the phenomenal world, which is
+necessary in its opposition to the rational sphere in order that there
+may occur that conflict of pure law and sensuous impulse which alone
+makes morality possible. We thus realize that as we look at the various
+aspects of sensation, we are taken into the discussion of ontology, of
+the theory of knowledge and of ethics.
+
+Locke virtually recognizes the extreme importance of the doctrine of
+sensation, and his second book might almost be entitled "Concerning the
+Nature and Products of Sensation." On the other hand, one of the most
+characteristic and valuable portions of the reply of Leibniz is in his
+development of a theory of sensation which is thoroughly new, except as
+we seek for its germs in its thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. According
+to Locke, knowledge originates from two sources,--sensation and
+reflection. Sensations are "the impressions made on our senses by
+outward objects that are extrinsic to the mind." When the mind "comes
+to reflect on its own operations about the ideas got by sensation,
+and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas," it gets ideas of
+reflection.
+
+If we leave out of account for the present the ideas of reflection,
+we find that the ideas which come through sensation have two main
+characteristics. First, in having sensations, the mind is passive;
+its part is purely receptive. The objects impress themselves upon
+the mind, they obtrude into consciousness, whether the mind will or
+not. There is a purely external relation existing between sensation
+and the understanding. The ideas are offered to the mind, and the
+understanding cannot refuse to have them, cannot change them, blot
+them out, nor create them, any more than a mirror can refuse, alter,
+or obliterate the images which objects produce in it. Sensation,
+in short, is a purely passive having of ideas. Secondly, every
+sensation is simple. Locke would say of sensations what Hume said of
+all ideas,--every distinct sensation is a separate existence. Every
+sensation is "uncompounded, containing nothing but one uniform
+appearance, not being distinguishable into different ideas." Knowledge
+is henceforth a process of compounding, of repeating, comparing, and
+uniting sensation. Man's understanding "reaches no further than to
+compound and divide the materials that are made to his hand."
+
+It hardly need be said that Locke has great difficulty in keeping up
+this thoroughly atomic theory of mind. It is a theory which makes all
+relations external; they are, as Locke afterwards says, "superinduced"
+upon the facts. It makes it impossible to account for any appearance
+of unity and connection among ideas, and Locke quietly, and without
+any consciousness of the contradiction involved, introduces certain
+inherent relations into the structure of the ideas when he comes to his
+constructive work. "Existence and unity are two ideas," he says, "that
+are suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every
+idea within."
+
+At other places he introduces the idea of quality of a substance,
+effect of a cause, continued permanence or identity into a sensation,
+as necessary constituents of it; thus making a sensation a unity of
+complex elements instead of an isolated bare notion. How far he could
+have got on in his account of knowledge without this surreptitious
+qualifying of a professedly simple existence, may be seen by asking
+what would be the nature of a sensation which did not possess existence
+and unity, and which was not conceived as the quality of a thing or as
+the effect of an external reality.
+
+This digression has been introduced at this point because the next
+character of a sensation which Locke discusses is its objective
+character,--its relation to the object which produces it. To
+discourse of our ideas intelligibly, he says, it will be convenient
+to distinguish them as they are ideas in our minds and as they are
+modifications of matter in the bodies that cause them. In other
+words, he gives up all thought of considering ideas as simply mental
+modifications, and finds it necessary to take them in their relations
+to objects.
+
+Taking them in this way, he finds that they are to be divided into
+two classes, of which one contains those ideas that are copies and
+resemblances of qualities in the objects, ideas "which are really in
+the object, whether we take notice of them or no,"--in which case we
+have an idea of the thing as it is in itself; while the other class
+contains those which are in no way resemblances of the objects which
+produce them, "having no more similitude than the idea of pain and of a
+sword." The former are primary qualities, and are solidity, extension,
+figure, motion or rest, and number; while the secondary qualities
+are colors, smells, and tastes. The former ideas are produced by
+impulse of the bodies themselves, which simply effect a transference
+of their qualities over into the mind; while the secondary qualities
+are arbitrarily annexed by the power of God to the objects which excite
+them.
+
+It will be noticed that there are two elements which make the sensation
+of Locke what it is. With reference to its _production_, it is the
+effect which one substance, matter, has upon another substance,
+mind, which is unlike it in nature, and between which whatever
+relations exist, are thoroughly incomprehensible, so that, indeed,
+their connections with each other can be understood only by recourse
+to a _tertium quid_, an omnipotent power which can arbitrarily produce
+such collocations as please it. With reference to its _function_, it
+is the isolated and "simple" (that is, non-relational) element out
+of which all actual forms of knowledge are made by composition and
+re-arrangement.
+
+Leibniz, without entering into explicit criticism of just these two
+points, develops his own theory with reference to them. To Leibniz,
+reality constitutes a system; that is, it is of such a nature that
+its various portions have an essential and not merely external
+relation to one another. Sensation is of course no exception. It is
+not a mere accident, nor yet a supernatural yoking of things naturally
+opposed. It has a meaning in that connection of things which constitute
+the universe. It contributes to the significance of the world. It
+is one way in which those activities which make the real express
+themselves. It has its place or reason in the totality of things, and
+this whether we consider its origin or its position with regard to
+knowledge. In a word, while the characteristic of Locke's theory is
+that he conceives sensation as in external relation both to reality,
+as mechanically produced by it, and to knowledge, as being merely
+one of the atomic elements which may enter into a compound, Leibniz
+regards reality as organic to sensation, and this in turn as organic
+to knowledge. We have here simply an illustration of the statement
+with which we set out; namely, that the treatment of sensation always
+reflects the fundamental philosophical category of the philosopher.
+
+All reality exists in the form of monads; monads are simple substances
+whose nature is action; this action consists in representing, according
+to a certain law of succession, the universe. Various monads have
+various degrees of activity; that is, of the power of reflecting
+the world. So much of Leibniz's general philosophical attitude it is
+necessary to recall, to understand what he means by "sensation." The
+generic name which is applied to this mirroring activity of the monads
+is "perception," which, as Leibniz often says, is to be carefully
+distinguished from apperception, which is the representation become
+conscious. Perception may be defined, therefore, as the inclusion of
+the many or multiform (the world of objects) in a unity (the simple
+substance). It was the great defect of previous philosophy that it
+"considered only spirits or self-conscious beings as souls," and
+had consequently recognized only conscious perceptions. It had been
+obliged, therefore, to make an impassable gulf between mind and matter,
+and sensations were thus rendered inexplicable. But Leibniz finds his
+function as a philosopher in showing that these problems, which seem
+insoluble, arise when we insist upon erecting into actual separations
+or differences of kind what really are only stages of development
+or differences of degree. A sensation is not an effect which one
+substance impresses upon another because God pleased that it should, or
+because of an incomprehensible incident in the original constitution of
+things. It is a higher development of that representative power which
+belongs to every real being.
+
+Certain monads reach a state of development, or manifestation of
+activity, which is characterized by the possession of distinct
+organs. Such monads may be called, in a pre-eminent sense, "souls,"
+and include all the higher animals as well as man. This possession of
+differentiated organs finds its analogue in the internal condition of
+the monad. What appears externally as an organ of sense appears ideally
+as a conscious representative state which we call "sensation." "When,"
+Leibniz says, "the monad has its organs so developed that there
+is relief and differentiation in the impressions received, and
+consequently in the perceptions which represent them, we have feeling
+or sensation; that is, a perception accompanied by memory," to which
+at other times he adds "attention." Life, he says, "is a perceptive
+principle; the soul is sensitive life; mind is rational soul." And
+again he says in substance that when the soul begins to have interests,
+and to regard one representation as of more value than others, it
+introduces relief into its perceptions, and those which stand out are
+called "sensations."
+
+This origin of sensations as higher developments of the representative
+activities of a monad conditions their relation to further processes
+of knowledge. The sensations are confused knowledge; they are ideas
+in their primitive and most undifferentiated form. They constitute,
+as Leibniz somewhere says, the vertigo of the conscious life. In every
+sentient organism multitudes of sensations are constantly thronging in
+and overpowering its distinct consciousness. The soul is so flooded
+with ideas of everything in the world which has any relation to
+its body that it has distinct ideas of nothing. Higher knowledge,
+then, does not consist in compounding these sensations; that would
+literally make confusion worse confounded. It consists in introducing
+distinctness into the previously confused sensations,--in finding out
+what they mean; that is, in finding out their bearings, what they point
+to, and how they are related. Knowledge is not an external process
+performed upon the sensations, it is the development of their internal
+content.
+
+It follows, therefore, that sensation is organic to all forms of
+knowledge whatever. The monad, which is pure activity, that which
+culminates the scale of reality, has no confused ideas, and to it
+all knowledge is eternally rational, having no sensible traces about
+it. But every other monad, having its activity limited, has ideas
+which come to it at first in a confused way, and which its activity
+afterwards differentiates. Thus it is that Leibniz can agree so
+heartily with the motto of the Sensationalist school,--that there is
+nothing in the intellect which was not first in the sensory. But
+Leibniz uses this phrase as Aristotle would have done, having
+in mind the distinction between potentiality and actuality. _In
+posse_, sensation is all knowledge; but only _in posse_. And he, like
+Aristotle, interprets the relation between potentiality and actuality
+as one of a difference of activity. The potential is that which
+becomes real through a dynamic process. The actual is capacity plus
+action. Sensation, in short, is spiritual activity in an undeveloped
+and hence partial and limited condition. It is not, as Locke would have
+it, the real factor in all knowledge.
+
+The marks of sensation which Locke lays down,--their passivity, their
+simplicity, their position as the real element in knowledge,--Leibniz
+either denies, therefore, or accepts in a sense different from that of
+Locke. Strictly speaking, sensation is an activity of the mind. There
+are no windows through which the soul receives impressions. Pure
+passivity of any kind is a myth, a scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+developed from the soul within; it is the activity of reality made
+manifest to itself. It is a higher kind of action than anything we find
+in minerals or in plants. If we look at sensation ideally, however,
+that is, according to the position which it holds in the system
+of knowledge, it is properly regarded as passive. It represents the
+limitation, the unrealized (that is, the non-active) side of spiritual
+life.
+
+"Efficient causality" is a term which has its rightful and legitimate
+use in physical science. Simply from the scientific point of view
+we are correct in speaking of objects as affecting the body, and the
+body, through its nervous system, as affecting the soul and producing
+sensations. But philosophy does not merely use categories, it explains
+them. And Leibniz contends that to explain the category of causality
+in a mechanical sense, to understand by it physical influence actually
+transferred from one thing to another, is to make the idea inexplicable
+and irrational. The true meaning of causality is ideal. It signifies
+the relative positions which the objects concerned have in the
+harmonious system of reality. The body that is higher in the scale
+impresses the other; that is to say, it dominates it or gives its
+law. There is no energy or quality which passes physically from one
+to the other. But one monad, as higher in the stage of development
+than another, makes an ideal demand upon that one. It places before
+the other its own more real condition. The less-developed monad, since
+its whole activity consists in representing the universe of reality,
+answers to this demand by developing the corresponding quality in
+itself. The category of harmonious or co-operative action is thus
+substituted for that of external and mechanical influence. Physical
+causality when given a philosophic interpretation means organic
+development. The reality of a higher stage is the more active: the
+more active has a greater content in that it mirrors the universe more
+fully; it manifests accordingly more of the law of the universe, and
+hence has an ideal domination over that which is lower in the scale. It
+is actually (that is, in activity) what the other is potentially. But
+as the entire existence of the latter is in representing or setting
+forth the relations which make the world, its activity is aroused to a
+corresponding production. Hence the former is called "cause," and the
+latter "effect."
+
+This introduces us to the relation of soul and body, or, more generally
+stated, to the relation of mind and matter. It is the theory of
+co-operation, of harmonious activity, which Leibniz substitutes for
+the theory which Descartes had formulated, according to which there
+are two opposed substances which can affect each other only through
+the medium of a _deus ex machina_. Locke, on the other hand, took the
+Cartesian principle for granted, and thus enveloped himself in all the
+difficulties which surround the question of "mind and matter." Locke
+wavers between two positions, one of which is that there are two
+unknown substances,--the soul and the object in itself,--which, coming
+in contact, produce sensations; while the other takes the hypothetical
+attitude that there may be but one substance,--matter,--and that
+God, out of the plenitude of his omnipotence, has given matter a
+capacity which does not naturally belong to it,--that of producing
+sensations. In either case, however, the final recourse is to the
+arbitrary power of God. There is no natural--that is, intrinsic and
+explicable--connection between the sensation and that which produces
+it. Sensation occupied the hard position which the mechanical school
+of to-day still allots it. It is that "inexplicable," "mysterious,"
+"unaccountable" link between the domains of matter and mind of which no
+rational account can be given, but which is yet the source of all that
+we know about matter, and the basis of all that is real in the mind!
+
+Leibniz, recognizing that reality is an organic whole,--not two parts
+with a chasm between them,--says that "God does not arbitrarily give
+substances whatever qualities may happen, or that he may arbitrarily
+determine, but only such as are natural; that is, such as are
+related to one another in an _explicable_ way as modifications of
+the substance." Leibniz feels sure that to introduce the idea of the
+inexplicable, the purely supernatural, into the natural is to give up
+all the advantages which the modern mechanical theory had introduced,
+and to relapse into the meaningless features of scholasticism. If the
+"supernatural"--that is, the essentially inexplicable--is introduced
+in this one case, why should it not be in others; why should we not
+return outright to the "fanatic philosophy which explains all facts by
+simply attributing them to God immediately or by way of miracle, or to
+the barbarian philosophy, which explains phenomena by manufacturing,
+_ad hoc_, occult qualities or faculties, seemingly like little
+demons or spirits capable of performing, without ceremony, whatever
+is required,--as if watches marked time by their horodeictic power,
+without wheels, and mills ground grain, without grindstones, by their
+fractive power"? In fact, says Leibniz, by introducing the inexplicable
+into our _explanations_ "we fall into something worse than occult
+qualities,--we give up philosophy and reason; we open asylums for
+ignorance and laziness, holding not only that there are qualities which
+we do not understand (there are, indeed, too many such), but qualities
+which the greatest intelligence, if God gave it all the insight
+possible, could not understand,--that is, such as are _in themselves_
+without rhyme or reason. And indeed it would be a thing without
+rhyme or reason that God should perform miracles in the ordinary
+course of nature." And regarding the whole matter of introducing the
+inconceivable and the inexplicable into science, he says that "while
+the conception of men is not the measure of God's power, their capacity
+of conception is the measure of _nature's_ power, since everything
+occurring in the natural order is capable of being understood by the
+created intelligence." Such being the thought of Leibniz regarding the
+virtual attempt to introduce in his day the unknowable into philosophy,
+it is evident that he must reject, from the root up, all theories of
+sensation which, like Locke's, make it the product of the inexplicable
+intercourse of two substances.
+
+For this doctrine, then, Leibniz substitutes that of an infinite number
+of substances, all of the same kind, all active, all developing from
+within, all conspiring to the same end, but of various stages of
+activity, or bearing various relations of completeness to the one end.
+
+Indeed, one and the same monad has various degrees of activity in
+itself; that is, it represents more or less distinctly the universe
+according to its point of view. Its point of view requires of it, of
+course, primarily, a representation of that which is about it. Thus
+an infinity of states arises, each corresponding to some one of the
+multitude of objects surrounding the monad. The soul has no control,
+no mastery, over these states. It has to take them as they come; with
+regard to them, the soul appears passive. It appears so because it does
+not as yet clearly distinguish them. It does not react upon them and
+become conscious of their meaning or thoroughly rational character. We
+shall afterwards see that "matter" is, with Leibniz, simply this
+passive or confused side of monads. It is the monad so far as it has
+not brought to light the rational activity which is immanent in it. At
+present we need only notice that the body is simply the part of matter
+or of passivity which limits the complete activity of any monad. So
+Leibniz says, "in so far as the soul has perfection, it has distinct
+thoughts, and God has accommodated the body to the soul. So far as it
+is imperfect and its perceptions are confused, God has accommodated the
+soul to the body in such a way that the soul lets itself be inclined by
+the passions, which are born from corporeal representations. It is by
+its confused thoughts (sensations) that the soul represents the bodies
+about it," just as, we may add, its distinct thoughts represent the
+monads or souls about it, and, in the degree of their distinctness,
+God, the monad which is _purus actus_.
+
+Following the matter into more detail, we may say that since God alone
+is pure energy, knowing no limitation, God alone is pure spirit. Every
+finite soul is joined to an organic body. "I do not admit," says
+Leibniz, "that there are souls entirely separate from matter, nor
+created spirits detached from body.�.�.�. It is this body which
+the monad represents most distinctly; but since this body expresses the
+entire universe by the connection of all matter throughout it, the soul
+represents the entire universe in representing the body which belongs
+to it most particularly." But according to the principle of continuity
+there must be in the least apparent portion of matter still "a universe
+of creatures, of souls, of entelechies. There is nothing sterile,
+nothing dead in the universe. It is evident from these considerations
+that every living body has a dominant entelechy, which is the soul in
+that body, but that the members of this living body are again full of
+other living beings and souls," which, however, since not of so high
+a grade, that is, not representing the universe so fully, appear to be
+wholly material and subject to the "dominant" entelechy; namely, to the
+one which gives the law to the others by expressing more adequately
+the idea at which they only confusedly aim. Owing to the constant
+change of activity, however, these particles do not remain in constant
+subordination to the same entelechy (that is, do not form parts of the
+same body), but pass on to higher or lower degrees of "evolution,"
+and have their places taken by others undergoing similar processes
+of change. Thus "all bodies are in a perpetual flux, like rivers,
+with parts continually leaving and entering in." Or, interpreting
+this figurative language, each monad is continually, in its process
+of development, giving law to new and less developed monads, which
+therefore appear as its body. The nature of matter in itself, and of
+its phenomenal manifestation in the body, are, however, subjects which
+find no explanation here, and which will demand explanation in another
+chapter.
+
+We may sum up Leibniz's theory of sensation by saying that it is a
+representative state developed by the self-activity of the soul; that
+in itself it is a confused or "involved" grade of activity, and in
+its relation to the world represents the confused or passive aspects
+of existence; that this limitation of the monad constitutes matter,
+and in its necessary connection with the monad constitutes the body
+which is always joined to the finite soul; that to this body are joined
+in all cases an immense number of monads, whose action is subordinate
+to that of this dominant monad, and that it is the collection of these
+which constitute the visible animal body. Thus if we look at sensation
+with regard to the monad which possesses it, it is a product of the
+body of the monad; if we look at it with reference to other monads,
+it represents or reflects their passive or material side. This is
+evidently one aspect again of the pre-established harmony,--an aspect
+in which some of the narrower of Leibniz's critics have seen the whole
+meaning of the doctrine exhausted. It is, however, simply one of the
+many forms in which the harmony, the union of spiritual and mechanical,
+ideal and material, meets us. In truth, while in other systems the fact
+of sensation is a fact demanding some artificial mode of reconciling
+"mind" and "matter," or is else to be accepted as an inexplicable fact,
+in the system of Leibniz it is itself evidence that the spiritual
+and the mechanical are not two opposed kinds of existence, but are
+organically united. It is itself the manifestation of the harmony
+of the ideal and the material, not something which requires that
+a factitious theory be invented for explaining their appearance of
+harmony. Sensation has within itself the ideal element, for it is the
+manifestation, in its most undeveloped form, of the spiritual meaning
+of the universe. It has a mechanical element, for it expresses the
+limitation, the passivity, of the monad.
+
+It is from this standpoint that Leibniz criticises what Locke says
+about the relation of sensations to the objects which produce
+them. Leibniz holds that all our sensations have a definite and
+natural connection with the qualities of objects,--the "secondary"
+as well as the "primary." They all represent certain properties of the
+object. Even the pain which the thrust of a needle gives us, while it
+does not resemble anything in the needle, does in some way represent
+or resemble motions going on in our body. This resemblance is not
+necessarily one of exact form, but just as the ellipse, hyperbola,
+and parabola are projections of the circle in the sense that there
+is a natural and fixed law of connection between them, so that every
+point of one corresponds by a certain relation with every point of the
+other, so the resemblance between the sensation and the quality of the
+object is always in the form of a fixed law of order, which, however
+unknown to us it may now be, is capable of being found out. If we are
+to make any distinction between "secondary" and "primary" sensations,
+it should be not that one presents qualities that are in the objects,
+and the other affections which exist only in us, but that the primary
+sensations (of number, form, size, etc.) represent the qualities in
+a distinct way, appealing to the rational activity of intelligence,
+while the secondary represent the qualities in a confused way, a way
+not going beyond the effect upon the mind into relations, that is, into
+distinct knowledge.
+
+This brings regularly before us the question of the relation of
+sensations to knowledge. We have seen enough already to know that
+Leibniz does not believe that knowledge begins with the simple (that
+is, unrelated), and then proceeds by a process of compounding. The
+sensation is not simple to Leibniz, but thoroughly complex, involving
+confusedly within itself all possible relations. As relations are
+brought forth into distinct light out of this confusion, knowledge
+ends rather than begins with the simple. And again it is evident that
+Leibniz cannot believe that knowledge begins and ends in experience,
+in the sense in which both himself and Locke use the word; namely, as
+meaning the combination and succession of impressions.
+
+"Experience," as they use the term, consists in sensations and their
+association,--"consecution" as Leibniz calls it. Experience is the
+stage of knowledge reached by animals, and in which the majority
+of men remain,--and indeed all men in the greater part of their
+knowledge. Leibniz takes just the same position regarding the larger
+part of our knowledge which Hume takes regarding it all. It consists
+simply in associations of such a nature that when one part recurs
+there is a tendency to expect the recurrence of the other member. It
+resembles reason, but it is based on the accidental experience of
+events in a consecutive order, and not on knowledge of their causal
+connection. We all expect the sun to rise to-morrow; but with all of
+us, excepting the astronomer, such expectation is purely "empirical,"
+being based on the images of past experiences which recur. The
+astronomer, however, sees into the grounds, that is, the reasons, of
+the expectation, and hence his knowledge is rational.
+
+Thus we have two grades of knowledge,--one empirical, consisting
+of knowledge of facts; the other rational, being of the truths
+of reason. The former is contingent and particular, the latter is
+necessary and universal. Leibniz insists, with a pertinacity which
+reminds us of Kant, that "experience" can give instances or examples
+only, and that the fact that anything has happened in a given way
+any number of times in the past, can give no assurance that it will
+continue to do so in the future. There is nothing in the nature
+of the case which renders its exact opposite impossible. But a
+rational truth is necessary, for its opposite is impossible, being
+irrational or meaningless. This may not always be evident in the
+case of a complex rational truth; but if it be analyzed into simpler
+elements, as a geometrical proposition into definitions, axioms, and
+postulates, the absurdity of its opposite becomes evident. Sensation,
+in conclusion, is the having of confused ideas,--ideas corresponding
+to matter. Experience is the association of these confused ideas, and
+their association according to their accidental juxtaposition in the
+life of the soul. It therefore is not only thoroughly sensible, but is
+also phenomenal. Its content is sensations; its form is contingent and
+particular consecution. Both form and content, accordingly, need to be
+reconstructed if they are to be worthy of the name of science or of
+knowledge. This is the position which Leibniz assumes as against the
+empiricist, Locke. The details of this reconstruction, its method and
+result, we must leave till we come in the course of the argument again
+to the subject of knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL.
+
+
+Locke, after discussing the subject of innate ideas in their relation
+to knowledge, goes on to discuss their practical side, or connection
+with will. We shall follow him in this as Leibniz does; but we shall
+consider in connection with this, Leibniz's general theory of will,
+which is developed partially in this chapter, but more completely
+in his critical remarks upon what Locke has to say of the notion of
+"power." Since the theory of morals is as closely connected with will
+as the theory of knowledge is with the intellect, we shall supplement
+this discussion with what Leibniz says upon the ethical question,
+drawing our material somewhat freely from his other writings.
+
+The doctrine of will which Leibniz propounds is in closest harmony
+with his conception of intelligence, and this not merely in the way
+of empirical juxtaposition, but as the result of his fundamental
+principles. If we recall what has been said concerning the monad,
+we shall remember that it is an activity, but an activity with a
+content. It is a force, but a force which mirrors the universe. The
+content, that portion of reality which is reflected in the action,
+is knowledge, or the idea; the activity which brings this about is
+will, or the volition. They are related to each other as form and
+content. There is, strictly speaking, no "state" of mind; there is
+only a tension, a pushing forward of mind. There is no idea which
+is not a volition. Will is thus used, in a very broad sense, as
+equivalent to action. Since, however, the activity of the monad is
+in no case aimless, but has an end in view, the will is not _mere_
+activity in general, it is action towards some definite end. And since
+the end at which the monad aims is always the development of an idea,
+the reflection of some constituent of the universe, the will is always
+directed towards and determined by some idea of the intellect.
+
+We have seen, however, that there are various stages in the reflecting
+power of the soul, or in the realization of intellect. Taking
+only the broadest division, there are perception and apperception;
+that is, there are the conscious and the unconscious mirroring of
+reality. We shall expect, then, to find two corresponding stages of
+volition. Leibniz calls these stages "appetition" and "volition"
+in the narrower sense. The constant tendency in every monad to go
+from one perception to another,--that is, the following of the law
+of development,--constitutes appetition. If joined to feeling,
+it constitutes instinct. Since, again, there are two degrees of
+apperception, one of empirical, the other of rational, consciousness,
+we shall expect to find two grades of volition proper,--one
+corresponding to action for conscious particular ends; the other
+for ends which are proposed by reason, and are hence universal. In
+this chapter we shall simply expand and illustrate these various
+propositions.
+
+Sensations, looked at not as to what they represent, but in
+themselves, are impulses. As such they constitute the lowest stage
+of will. Impulsive action then includes all such as occurs for an
+end which is unknown, or at best but dimly felt. Such action may be
+called blind, not in the sense that it is without reason, but in the
+sense that reason is not consciously present. We are not to think of
+this instinctive action, however, as if it were found simply in the
+animals. Much of human action is also impulsive; probably, indeed,
+an impulsive factor is contained in our most rational willing. We are
+never able to take complete account of the agencies which are acting
+upon us. Along with the reasons of which we are conscious in choosing,
+there are mingled faint memories of past experience, subconscious
+solicitations of the present, dim expectations for the future. Such
+elements are decisive factors far more than we realize.
+
+Indeed, it is because of the extent to which such unconscious
+influences bear upon us and move us that there arises the idea
+of indifferent or unmotivated choice. Were both motive and choice
+unconscious, the question as to whether choice were antecedently
+determined would not arise; and were our motives and their results
+wholly in consciousness, the solution of the question would be
+evident. But when we are conscious of our choice, but are not conscious
+of our impulses and motives, we get the impression that our choice is
+unmotived, and hence come to believe in "indifferent freedom,"--the
+ability to choose as we will.
+
+We shall shortly take up in more detail the theory of Leibniz regarding
+the freedom of will; and it is needful here to remark only that the
+conception which makes it consist in ability to choose without reason
+is in direct contradiction to his fundamental thought,--namely, that
+there can be no activity which does not aim at some reflection of the
+universe, by which, therefore, it is determined. From the psychological
+point of view, it is interesting also to notice how Leibniz's theory
+of unconscious ideas enables him to dispose of the strongest argument
+for indifferent choice,--that drawn from the immediate "testimony"
+of consciousness.
+
+Upon the origin and nature of desires Leibniz has much more to say
+than about the impulses. His account of the transition from impulse
+to desire is based upon the conception of unconscious ideas. Slight
+and imperceptible impulses are working upon us all the time. Indeed,
+they are a necessity; for the actual state of a soul or monad at any
+time is, of course, one of incompleteness. Our nature must always work
+to free itself from its hindrances and obtain its goal of complete
+development. But it will not do this unless there is some stimulus,
+some solicitation to induce it to overcome its limitation. There is
+found accordingly in our every condition a feeling of dissatisfaction,
+or, using Locke's word, of "uneasiness;" and it is this which
+calls forth that activity which brings about a nearer approach to
+the soul's real good. But Leibniz differs from Locke in saying that
+this feeling of uneasiness is not a distinct, or even in most cases a
+conscious, one. It is not pain, although it differs from pain only in
+degree. Uneasiness and pain are related to each other as appetite for
+food is to hunger,--the first suffices to stimulate us to satisfaction,
+but if the want is not met, results in actual pain; if met, these "half
+pains" become tributary to pleasure itself. These unconscious stimuli
+to action result in actions which meet the want, and the aggregation of
+these satisfactions results in pleasure. In Leibniz's own words:--
+
+"If these elements of pain were themselves true pains, we should
+always be in a state of misery, even in pursuing the good. But since
+there is always going on a summation of minute successes in overcoming
+these states of uneasiness, and these put us more and more at ease,
+there comes about a decided pleasure, which often has greater value
+even than the enjoyment of the good. Far, then, from regarding this
+uneasiness as a thing incompatible with happiness, I find that it is
+an essential condition of our happiness. For this does not consist
+in perfect possession, which would make us insensible and stupid, but
+in a constant progress towards greater results, which must always be
+accompanied, accordingly, by this element of desire or uneasiness."
+
+And again he says that "we enjoy all the advantages of pain without any
+of its inconveniences. If the uneasiness should become too distinct,
+we should be miserable in our awaiting the good which relieves it; but
+as it is, there is a constant victory over these half-pains, which we
+always find in desire, and this gives us a quantity of half-pleasures,
+whose continuance and summation (for they acquire force like a moving
+body as it falls) result in a whole and true pleasure." In short,
+there is indeed an element of pain in all desire which stimulates
+us to action, and therefore to higher development. But ordinarily
+this element of pain is not present as such in consciousness, but
+is absorbed in the pleasure which accompanies the realization of the
+higher good. Thus Leibniz, accepting and emphasizing the very same fact
+that served Schopenhauer as a psychological base of pessimism, uses it
+as a foundation-stone of optimism.
+
+But desire, or the conscious tendency towards something required as a
+good, accompanied by the dim feeling of uneasiness at its absence, does
+not yet constitute the complete act of volition. "Several impulses and
+inclinations meet in forming the complete volition which is the result
+of their conflict." In the concrete act of will there are contained
+impulses which push us towards some end whose nature is not known;
+there is desire both in its inchoate stage, where pleasure and pain
+are not in consciousness, and in its formed state, where the pain
+and pleasure are definitely presented. Mixed with these desires and
+impulses are images of past experiences which call up the feelings
+which were formerly attached to them, and thus there are aroused
+indirectly additional impulses and desires. Out of this complicated
+mass of impulses, desires, and feelings, both original and reproduced,
+comes the "dominant effort" which constitutes complete will. But what
+governs the production of this prevailing or dominant effort, which we
+may interpret as the act of choice? The answer is simple: the result
+of the conflict of these various factors, the striking of the balance,
+_is_ the choice. Some desire emerges from the confused complex, and
+that desire is the final determination of the will. This desire may
+not in all cases be the strongest in itself,--that is, the one whose
+satisfaction will allay the greatest "uneasiness," for the others,
+taken together, may outweigh it; it may, so to speak, have a plurality,
+but not a majority, of volitional forces on its side,--and in this case
+a fusion of opposing factors may defeat it. But in any event the result
+will be the _algebraic_ sum of the various desires and impulses.
+
+It is not at all necessary, however, that the net outcome shall make
+itself apparent as a mechanical equivalent of the forces at work. The
+soul, Leibniz says, may use its skill in the formation of parties,
+so as to make this or that side the victor. How is this to be done,
+and still disallow the possibility of arbitrary choice? This problem
+is solved through action becoming deliberate. Deliberate action is
+impossible unless the soul has formed the habit of looking ahead and
+of arranging for modes of action which do not present themselves as
+immediate necessities. Only in this way can one look at the matter
+impartially and coolly; "at the moment of combat there is no time for
+discussion. Everything which then occurs throws its full force on the
+balance, and contributes to an outcome made up in the same way as in
+mechanics." The formation of certain habits beforehand, therefore, is
+the secret of translating impulsive action into the deliberate sphere.
+
+Of these habits the simplest consists in thinking only occasionally and
+incidentally of certain things. Imagination is the mother of desire. If
+we do not allow the imagination to dwell upon certain lines of thought,
+the probability of such thoughts acquiring sufficient force to become
+motives of weight is small. A still more effective method of regulating
+action is "to accustom ourselves to forming a train of thoughts of
+which reason, and not chance (that is, association), is the basis. We
+must get out of the tumult of present impressions, beyond our immediate
+surroundings, and ask: _Dic cur hic? respice finem!_" In other words,
+we must cross-question our impulses and desires, we must ask whence
+they come, that we may see how valid are the credentials which they
+offer. We must ask whither they tend, that we may measure them, not by
+their immediate interest, but by their relation to an end. The desires
+are not to be taken at their face-value, but are to be weighed and
+compared.
+
+Such a process will evidently result in arresting instantaneous
+action. There will be a pause between the presentation of the
+desires and the overt act. During this pause it may well occur that
+the examination to which the desires have been subject has awakened
+contrary desires. The thought of the ignoble origin of a desire or of
+its repulsive, though remote, result will bring into action desires of
+an opposed kind. Thus the soul regulates action, not as if, however, it
+had any direct influence over desires, but by its ability of bringing
+other desires into the field. The will, in short, is not opposed to
+desire, though rational desire may be opposed to sensuous desire. "By
+various artifices, then," Leibniz concludes, "we become masters of
+ourselves, and can make ourselves think and do that which we ought
+to will, and which reason ordains." Such is the summary of Leibniz's
+analysis of the elements and mechanism of volition. There was not much
+psychology existing at the time which could aid him in such an acute
+and subtle account; only in Aristotle could he have found much help. On
+the other hand, it has been so generally incorporated into current
+psychology that we may seem to have wasted space in repeating truisms.
+
+Of moral action, however, we have as yet heard nothing. We have an
+account of a psychological mechanism; but for what ethical end does
+this work, and by what method? This question may best be answered
+by turning in more detail to the question of the "freedom of the
+will." Freedom in the sense of arbitrary choice Leibniz wholly
+rejects, as we have seen. It is inconsistent with at least two of
+his fundamental principles; those, namely, of sufficient reason,
+and of continuity. "Everything that occurs must have a sufficient
+reason for its occurrence." This oft-repeated dictum of Leibniz, the
+logical way of stating the complete rationality of experience, would
+be shattered into fragments by collision with groundless choice. It
+conflicts equally (indeed for the same reason) with the principle of
+continuity. "The present is pregnant with the future." "Nature never
+makes leaps." "An absolute equilibrium is a chimera." "The soul is
+never wholly at rest." These are only various ways of saying that the
+notion of arbitrary or unmotivated choice rests upon the assumption
+that there is a complete break in the life of the soul, so that it
+is possible for something to happen which bears no organic relation
+to anything that precedes. The notion of a state of the soul without
+motives, followed by the irruption of a certain line of conduct, the
+notion of an equilibrium broken by arbitrary choice, is simply the
+counterpart of the idea of a vacuum. All that makes Leibniz reject the
+latter conception makes it impossible for him to accept the former.
+
+This should not be interpreted to mean that Leibniz denied the "freedom
+of the will." What he denied is a notion of freedom which seemed to him
+at once unverifiable, useless, and irrational. There is a conception
+of freedom which Leibniz not only accepts, but insists upon. Such a
+notion of freedom is indeed his ethical ideal. Its three traits are
+contingency, spontaneity, and rationality of action. How action can
+be at the same time contingent and determined is perhaps difficult
+to understand; but Leibniz takes the position that it is. His first
+step is to distinguish between physical, mathematical, metaphysical,
+and moral necessity. There are truths which are eternal, truths
+which are absolutely necessary, because their opposites involve
+contradiction. They cannot be violated without involving us in
+absurdity. There are other truths which are "positive," that is,
+ordained for good reason. These truths may be _a priori_, or rational,
+and not merely empirical; for they have been chosen for reasons of
+advantage. God always chooses and ordains the best of a number of
+possibilities; but he does it, not because the opposite is impossible,
+but because it is inferior. Truths whose opposites are impossible
+have metaphysical and mathematical necessity. Positive truths have
+moral necessity. The principle of causation _must_ be true; the three
+interior angles of a triangle _must_ be equal to two right angles. But
+that God shall choose the better of two courses is a moral necessity
+only. It invokes no absolute logical contradiction to conceive him
+choosing some other way. Upon moral necessity depends the physical. The
+particular laws of nature are necessary, not because their opposites
+are logically absurd, but because these laws are most in accordance
+with the general principles of good and order, in agreement with which
+God chooses. Physical and moral action is therefore in all cases
+contingent. (Contingency does not of itself, of course, constitute
+freedom, but conjoined with the characteristics of rationality and
+spontaneity, does so.)
+
+Necessity, in short, is based upon the principle of logical
+contradiction; contingency upon that of sufficient reason. Since our
+actions are in no case necessitated in such a way that their opposite
+is self-contradictory, or, put positively, since our actions are always
+determined by the choice of that which seems best, our actions are
+contingent. Occasionally Leibniz puts the matter in a much simpler way,
+and one which brings out the essential element more clearly than the
+foregoing distinction. Some facts are determined by the principle of
+physical causation; others by that of final causation. Some, in other
+words, are necessary as the mechanical outcome of their antecedents;
+others are necessary as involved in the reaching of a given end. It is
+simply the Aristotelian distinction between efficient and teleological
+causation. Human action is determined, since it always has a motive or
+reason; it is contingent, because it springs from this reason and not
+from its temporal antecedents. It is, in short, determined, but it is
+also free.
+
+It does not require much analysis, however, to see that this
+distinction, in whatever way it be put, really has no significance,
+except as it points to the other marks of freedom,--spontaneity
+and rationality. As we shall see, Leibniz makes and can make
+no absolute distinction between truths of reason and truths of
+fact. The contingent and the necessary are one at bottom. To us
+with our limited intelligence it does indeed often appear as if no
+contradiction were involved in the former,--as if, for example, a man
+could turn either to right or left without there being any logical
+contradiction in either case; but this is because of our defective
+insight. An intelligence cognizant of the whole matter could see that
+one action would contradict some truth involved in the constitution
+of the universe. The source of the contingent and changing is in the
+necessary and eternal. Thus it is that although Leibniz at one time
+says that "neither one's self nor any other spirit more enlightened
+could demonstrate that the opposite of a given action (like going out
+in preference to staying in) involves contradiction," at another time
+he says that "a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances, internal
+and external, would enable any one to foresee" the decision in a given
+case. If that be so, any other action must be impossible; that is,
+according to Leibniz's invariable logic, imply contradiction.
+
+We get the same result if we consider the relation of final and
+efficient causes. It is only when speaking in a very general way that
+Leibniz opposes action as determined by precedent activities to that
+directed towards the attainment of an end. He does not really mean
+that _some_ action is physical, while _other_ is teleological. He
+cannot suppose that some action has an antecedent cause, while other
+has a purpose. The very essence of his thought is that action is
+both mechanical and teleological; that all action follows in a law of
+order from precedent action, and that all fulfils a certain spiritual
+function. The distinction is not, with Leibniz, one between two kinds
+of action, but between two ways of looking at every action. The desire
+to go rather than to stay, has its efficient cause; the movements by
+which the desire is executed, have their final cause. The truth of
+the matter seems to be that Leibniz in his desire to guard against
+being thought a fatalist, or one denying all freedom, uses terms
+which are compatible only with a freedom of indifference. So in his
+statement that man's action is free because "contingent," he seems
+actuated rather by a wish to avoid the hateful term "necessity" than by
+considerations strictly in harmony with his own principles.
+
+Had he confined his use of the term "contingent," however, simply to
+re-stating the fact that human action is spontaneous, no such apparent
+contradiction would have presented itself. Human actions may be called
+contingent, as physical actions are not, because the latter always
+seem to be externally determined, while the former are internally
+directed. Motions act from without; motives from within. The cause of
+the falling of a stone lies outside it; the source of a desire which
+moves to action is from the mind itself. We are thus introduced to
+contingency as a synonym of "spontaneity."
+
+Kuno Fischer calls attention to the fact that Spinoza and Leibniz both
+use the same sort of illustration to show the non-arbitrary character
+of human action, but the same illustration with a difference;
+and in the difference he finds the distinction between the two
+philosophies. Spinoza says that a stone falling to the ground, if
+endowed with consciousness, might imagine itself following its own will
+in falling. Leibniz says that a magnetic needle similarly endowed might
+imagine that it turned towards the north simply because it wished. Both
+examples are used to illustrate the folly of relying upon the immediate
+"testimony" of consciousness. But the example of Spinoza is that of an
+object, all whose movements are absolutely necessitated from without;
+the example of Leibniz is that of an object whose activity, though
+following law, and not caprice, is apparently initiated from within. Of
+course in reality the movements of the magnetic needle are just as much
+externally conditioned as those of the stone; but the appearance of
+self-action in the latter case may serve at least to exemplify what is
+meant by spontaneity as attributed to human action.
+
+It must be noticed at the outset that spontaneity belongs to every
+simple substance. We have only to recall the doctrine of monads. These
+suffer nothing from without, all their activity is the expression,
+is the unfolding, of their own law. "By nature," Leibniz says, "every
+simple substance has perceptions, and its individuality consists in
+the permanent law which forms the succession of its perceptions, that
+are born naturally one of another. Hence it is not necessary for it to
+receive any physical influence from without; and therefore the soul has
+in itself a perfect spontaneity in such a way that its actions depend
+only upon God and itself." Or if we put the matter in its connection
+with his psychology rather than with his metaphysics, it is true that
+our actions are determined by our motives; but motives are not forces
+without the soul, they are forces _of_ the soul. In acting according to
+motives the soul is simply acting according to its own laws. A desire
+is not an impulsion from an external cause; it is the expression of an
+inward tendency. To say that the soul acts from the strongest desire
+is simply to say, from this standpoint, that it manifests the most
+real part of itself, not that it obeys a foreign force. Impulses,
+desires, motives, are all psychical; they admit of no description or
+explanation except in their relation to the soul itself. Thus when
+Leibniz compares, as he often does, motives to weights acting upon a
+balance, we are to remember that the balance is not to be conceived
+as the soul, and the weights as energies outside it, but that this is
+only a way of picturing what is going on _within_ the soul itself. The
+soul may be a mechanism, but it is a self-directing and self-executing
+mechanism. To say that human action is free because it is spontaneous,
+is to say that it follows an immanent principle, that it is independent
+of foreign influences,--in a word, that it is self-determined.
+
+But here again it seems as if Leibniz had stated a principle
+altogether too wide to throw any light upon the nature of moral
+freedom. Spontaneity is no more an attribute of human activity than it
+is of all real activity. Every monad, even the unconscious, as truly
+follows its own law without interference from without as does man
+himself. If the spontaneity of action constitutes its morality, we are
+not in a condition to ascribe morality to man any more than to any real
+thing. We are thus thrown back again upon the conception of rationality
+as the final and decisive trait of freedom and of ethical conduct. Just
+as "contingency" gets a moral import only in connection with conscious
+ends of action, so "spontaneity" comes within the moral realm only when
+conjoined to reason.
+
+Why is there this close connection between reason and freedom? The
+reader has only to recall what was said of Leibniz's theory of
+causality to get a glimpse into their unity. Causality is not a matter
+of physical influence, but of affording the reason in virtue of which
+some fact is what it is. This applies of course to the relation of the
+soul and the body. "So far as the soul is perfect and has distinct
+ideas, God has accommodated the body to it; so far as the soul is
+imperfect and its ideas are confused, God has accommodated the soul to
+the body. In the former case the body always responds to the demands
+of the soul; in the latter the soul is moved by the passions which
+are born of the sensuous ideas. Each is thought to act upon the other
+in the measure of its perfection [that is, degree of activity], since
+God has adjusted one thing to another according to its perfection or
+imperfection. Activity and passivity are always reciprocal in created
+things, because a portion of the reasons which serve to explain what
+goes on is in one substance, and another portion in the other. This is
+what makes us call one active, the other passive."
+
+If we translate these ideas out of their somewhat scholastic
+phraseology, the meaning is that the self-activity of any substance
+is accurately measured by the extent to which it contains the reasons
+for its own actions; and conversely, that it is dependent or enslaved
+just so far as it has its reasons beyond itself. Sensations, sensuous
+impulses, represent, as we have seen before, the universe only in a
+confused and inarticulate way. They are knowledge which cannot give
+an account of itself. They represent, in short, that side of mind
+which may be regarded as affected, or the limitation of mind,--its
+want of activity. So far as the mind acts from these sensations and
+the feelings which accompany them, it is ideally determined from
+without; it is a captive to its own states; it is in a condition of
+passivity. In all action, therefore, which occurs from a sensuous
+basis, the soul is rightly regarded as unfree.
+
+On the other hand, just in the degree in which distinctness is
+introduced into the sensations, so that they are not simply experienced
+as they come, but are related to one another so that their reason
+for existence, their spiritual meaning, is ascertained, just in
+that degree is the soul master of itself. In Leibniz's own words:
+"Distinct knowledge or intelligence has its place in the true use of
+reason, while the senses furnish confused ideas. Hence we can say that
+we are free from slavery just in the degree that we act with distinct
+knowledge, but are subject to our passions in just the degree that our
+ideas are confused;" that is, not really representative of things as
+they are. "Intelligence is the soul of liberty."
+
+This psychological explanation rests, of course, upon the foundation
+principle of the Leibnizian philosophy. Spirit is the sole reality,
+and spirit is activity. But there are various degrees of activity, and
+each grade lower than the _purus actus_ may be rightfully regarded as
+in so far passive. This relative passivity or unreality constitutes
+the material and hence the sensuous world. One who has not insight
+into truth, lives and acts in this world of comparative unreality;
+he is in bondage to it. From this condition of slavery only reason,
+the understanding of things as they are, can lift one. The rational
+man is free because he acts, in the noble words of Spinoza, _sub specie
+�ternitatis_. He acts in view of the eternal truth of things,--as God
+himself would act.
+
+God alone, it further follows, is wholly free. In him alone are
+understanding and will wholly one. In him the true and the good are
+one; while every created intelligence is subject in some degree to
+sensuous affection, to passion. "In us, besides the judgment of the
+understanding, there is always mixed some unreal idea of the sensation
+which gives birth to passions and impulses, and these traverse the
+judgment of the practical understanding." Freedom, in fine, is not
+a ready made garment with which all men are clothed to do with as
+they will. It is the ethical ideal; it is something to be attained;
+it is action in conformity with reason, or insight into the spiritual
+nature of reality and into its laws; it is not the starting-point, it
+is the goal. Only with a great price do men purchase such freedom. It
+will be noticed at once that Leibniz comes very close to Plato in his
+fundamental ethical ideas. The unity of virtue and reason, of virtue
+and freedom,--these are thoroughly Platonic conceptions. To both Plato
+and Leibniz reason is the ethical ideal because it is the expression
+of, nay, rather, _is_ the reality of the universe; while all else is,
+as Leibniz says, imperfect or unreal, since it is not an activity, or,
+as Plato says, a mixture of Being and Non-Being. Again, to both man
+bears a similar relation to this spiritual reality. In Plato's words,
+he participates in the Ideas; in those of Leibniz he reflects, as a
+mirror, the universe. To both, in a word, the reality, the true-self
+of the individual, is the spiritual universe of which it is an organic
+member. To both, therefore, man obtains freedom or self-realization
+only as he realizes his larger and more comprehensive identity with the
+Reason of the universe. With both, knowledge is the good, ignorance is
+the evil. No man is voluntarily bad, but only through lack of knowledge
+of the true Good. Leibniz, however, with a more developed psychology,
+supplements Plato in the point where the latter had the most
+difficulty,--the possibility of the feelings or of a love of pleasure
+overcoming knowledge of the good. This possibility Plato was compelled
+to deny, while Leibniz, by his subtle identifying of the passions with
+lack of knowledge, or with confused knowledge, can admit it. "It is an
+imperfection of our freedom," says Leibniz, "which causes us to choose
+evil rather than good,--a greater evil rather than the less, the less
+good rather than the greater. This comes from the _appearances_ of good
+and evil which deceive us; but God, who is perfect knowledge, is always
+led to the true and to the best good, that is, to the true and absolute
+good."
+
+It only remains briefly to apply these conceptions to some specific
+questions of moral actions. Locke asks whether there are practical
+innate ideas, and denies them, as he denies theoretical. Leibniz,
+in replying, recognizes two kinds of "innate" practical principles,
+one of which is to be referred to the class of instincts, the other
+to that of maxims. Primarily, and probably wholly in almost all
+men, moral truths take the rank of instincts alone. All men aim
+at the Good; it is impossible to think of man wilfully seeking
+his own evil. The methods, the means of reaching this Good, are
+implanted in men as instincts. These instincts, when brought to the
+light of reason and examined, become _maxims_ of action; they lose
+their particular and impulsive character, and become universal and
+deliberate principles. Thus Leibniz is enabled to answer the various
+objections which are always brought against any "intuitive" theory
+of moral actions,--the variability of men's moral beliefs and conduct
+in different countries and at different times. Common instincts, but
+at first instincts only, are present in all men whenever and wherever
+they live. These instincts may readily be "resisted by men's passions,
+obscured by prejudice, and changed by custom." The moral instincts are
+always the basis of moral action, but "custom, tradition, education"
+become mixed with them. Even when so confounded, however, the instinct
+will generally prevail, and custom is, upon the whole, on the side of
+right rather than wrong, so that Leibniz thinks there is a sense in
+which all men have one common morality.
+
+But these moral instincts, even when pure, are not ethical
+science. This is innate, Leibniz says, only in the sense in which
+arithmetic is innate,--it depends upon demonstrations which reason
+furnishes. Leibniz does not, then, oppose intuitive and demonstrative,
+as sometimes happens. Morality is _practically_ intuitive in the sense
+that all men tend to aim at the Good, and have an instinctive feeling
+of what makes towards the Good. It is _theoretically_ demonstrative,
+since it does not become a science until Reason has an insight into the
+nature of the Good, and ascertains the fixed laws which are tributary
+to it. Moral principles are _not_ intuitive in the sense that they are
+immediately discovered as separate principles by some one power of the
+soul called "conscience." Moral laws are intuitive, he says, "as the
+_consequences_ of our own development and our true well-being." Here we
+may well leave the matter. What is to be said in detail of Leibniz's
+ethics will find its congenial home in what we have to say of his
+theology.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT.
+
+
+Locke's account of innate ideas and of sensation is only preparatory
+to a discussion of the ideas got by sensation. His explanation of the
+mode of knowledge leads up to an explanation of the things known. He
+remains true to his fundamental idea that before we come to conclusions
+about any matters we must "examine our own ability." He deals first
+with ideas got by the senses, whether by some one or by their conjoint
+action. Of these the ideas of solidity, of extension, and of duration
+are of most concern to us. They form as near an approach to a general
+philosophy of nature as may be found anywhere in Locke. They are, too,
+the germ from which grew the ideas of matter, of space, and of time,
+which, however more comprehensive in scope and more amply worked out
+in detail, characterize succeeding British thought, and which are
+reproduced to-day by Mr. Spencer.
+
+"The idea of solidity we receive by our touch." "The ideas we get
+by more than one sense are of space or extension, figure, rest,
+and motion." These sentences contain the brief statement of the chief
+contention of the sensational school. Locke certainly was not conscious
+when he wrote them that they were the expression of ideas which should
+resolve the world of matter and of space into a dissolving series of
+accidentally associated sensations; but such was none the less the
+case. When he writes, "If any one asks me what solidity is, I send him
+to his senses to inform him," he is preparing the way for Berkeley,
+and for a denial of all reality beyond the feelings of the individual
+mind. When he says that "we get the idea of space both by sight and
+touch," this statement, although appearing truistic, is none the less
+the source of the contention of Hume that even geometry contains
+no necessary or universal elements, but is an account of sensible
+appearances, relative, as are all matters of sensation.
+
+Locke's ideas may be synopsized as follows: It is a sufficient account
+of solidity to say that it is got by touch and that it arises from
+the resistance found in bodies to the entrance of any other body. "It
+is that which hinders the approach of two bodies when they are moved
+towards one another." If not identical with matter, it is at all events
+its most essential property. "This of all others seems the idea most
+intimately connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere else
+to be found or imagined, but only in matter." It is, moreover, the
+source of the other properties of matter. "Upon the solidity of bodies
+depend their mutual impulse, resistance, and protrusion." Solidity,
+again, "is so inseparable an idea from body that upon that depends its
+filling of space, its contact, impulse, and communication of motion
+upon impulse." It is to be distinguished, therefore, from hardness, for
+hardness is relative and derived, various bodies having various degrees
+of it; while solidity consists in utter exclusion of other bodies from
+the space possessed by any one, so that the hardest body has no more
+solidity than the softest.
+
+The close connection between solidity and matter makes it not only
+possible, but necessary, to distinguish between matter and extension as
+against the Cartesians, who had identified them. In particular Locke
+notes three differences between these notions. Extension includes
+neither solidity nor resistance; its parts are inseparable from one
+another both really and mentally, and are immovable; while matter has
+solidity, its parts are mutually separable, and may be moved _in_
+space. From this distinction between space and matter it follows,
+according to Locke, that there is such a thing as a vacuum, or that
+space is not necessarily a plenum of matter. Matter is that which fills
+space; but it is entirely indifferent to space whether or not it is
+filled. Space is occupied by matter, but there is no essential relation
+between them. Solidity is the essence of matter; emptiness is the
+characteristic of space. "The idea of space is as distinct from that
+of solidity as it is from that of scarlet color. It is true, solidity
+cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet color exist without
+extension; but this hinders not that they are _distinct ideas_."
+
+Thus there is fixed for us the idea of space as well as of matter. It
+is a distinct idea; that is, absolute or independent in itself,
+having no intrinsic connection with phenomena _in_ space. Yet it is
+got through the senses. How that can be a matter of sensation which is
+not only not material, but has no connection in itself with matter,
+Locke does not explain. He thinks it sufficient to say that we see
+distance between bodies of different color just as plainly as we see
+the colors. Space is, therefore, a purely immediate idea, containing
+no more organic relation to intelligence than it has to objects. We
+get the notion of time as we do that of space, excepting that it is
+the observation of internal states and not of external objects which
+furnishes the material of the idea. Time has two elements,--succession
+and duration. "Observing what passes in the mind, how of our ideas
+there in train some constantly vanish, and others begin to appear,
+we come by the idea of succession, and by observing a distance in
+the parts of this succession we get the idea of duration." Whether,
+however, time is something essentially empty, having no relation to the
+events which fill it, as space is essentially empty, without necessary
+connection with the objects which fill it, is a question Locke does not
+consider. In fact, the gist of his ideas upon this point is as follows:
+there is actually an objective space or pure emptiness; employing our
+senses, we get the idea of this space. There is actually an objective
+time; employing reflection, we perceive it. There is not the slightest
+attempt to form a philosophy of them, or to show their function in the
+construction of an intelligible world, except in the one point of the
+absolute independence of matter and space.
+
+It cannot be said that Leibniz criticises the minor points of Locke
+in such a way as to throw much light upon them, or that he very
+fully expresses his own ideas about them. He contents himself with
+declaring that while the senses may give instances of space, time,
+and matter, and may suggest to intelligence the stimuli upon which
+intelligence realizes these notions from itself, they cannot be the
+source of these notions themselves; finding the evidence of this in the
+sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and pure physics. For these sciences
+deal with the notions of space, time, and matter, giving necessary
+and demonstrative ideas concerning them, which the senses can never
+legitimate. He further denies the supposed absoluteness or independence
+of space, matter, and motion. Admitting, indeed, the distinction
+between extension and matter, he denies that this distinction suffices
+to prove the existence, or even the possibility, of a vacuum, and ends
+with a general reference to his doctrine of pre-established harmony,
+as serving to explain these matters more fully and more accurately.
+
+Leibniz has, however, a complete philosophy of nature. In his other
+writing, he explains the ideas of matter and force in their dependence
+upon his metaphysic, or doctrine of spiritual entelechies. The task
+does not at first sight appear an easy one. The reality, according to
+Leibniz, is purely spiritual, does not exist in space nor time, and
+is a principle of activity following its own law,--that of reflecting
+the universe of spiritual relations. How from this world of ideal,
+unextended, and non-temporal dynamic realities we are to pass over to
+a material world of extension, with its static existence in space,
+and transitory passage in time, is a question challenging the whole
+Leibnizian system. It is a question, however, for which Leibniz himself
+has provided an answer. We may not regard it as adequate; we may think
+that he has not truly derived the material world from his spiritual
+principles: but at all events he asked himself the question, and gave
+an answer. We shall investigate this answer by arranging what Leibniz
+has said under the heads of: matter as a metaphysical principle; matter
+as a physical phenomenon; and the relation of phenomena to absolute
+reality, or of the physical to the metaphysical. In connection with the
+second head, particularly, we shall find it necessary to discuss what
+Leibniz has said about space, time, and motion.
+
+Wolff, who put the ideas of Leibniz into systematic shape, did it at
+the expense of almost all their significance. He took away the air
+of paradox, of remoteness, that characterized Leibniz's thought, and
+gave it a popular form. But its depth and suggestiveness vanished in
+the process. Unfortunately, Wolff's presentations of the philosophy
+of Leibniz have been followed by others, to whom it seemed a dull
+task to follow out the intricacies of a thought nowhere systematically
+expressed. This has been especially the case as concerns the Leibnizian
+doctrine of matter. A superficial interpretation of certain passages
+in Leibniz has led to an almost universal misunderstanding about
+it. Leibniz frequently says that since matter is composite or complex,
+it follows that there must be something simple as its basis, and this
+simple something is the monad. The misinterpretation just spoken of
+consists in supposing that Leibniz meant that matter as composite
+is made up of monads as simple; that the monad and matter are facts
+of the same order, the latter being only an aggregate, or continued
+collection of the former. It interpreted the conception of Leibniz in
+strict analogy with the atomic theory of Lucretius, excepting that it
+granted that the former taught that the ultimate atom, the component
+of all complex forms of matter, has position only, not extension,
+its essence consisting in its exercise of force, not in its mere space
+occupancy. The monad was thus considered to be _in_ space, or at least
+conditioned by space relations, as is a mathematical point, although
+not itself spatial in the sense of being extended. Monad and matter
+were thus represented as facts of the same kind or genus, having their
+difference only in their relative isolation or aggregation.
+
+But Leibniz repudiated this idea, and that not only by the spirit
+of his teaching, but in express words. Monads "are not ingredients
+or constituents of matter," he says, "but only _conditions_
+of it." "Monads can no more be said to be parts of bodies, or to
+come in contact with them, or to compose them, than can souls or
+mathematical points." "Monads _per se_ have _no_ situation relative
+to one another." An increase in the number of created monads, he says
+again, if such a thing could be supposed, would no more increase the
+amount of matter in existence, than mathematical points added to a
+line would increase its length. And again: "There is no nearness or
+remoteness among monads; to say that they are gathered in a point or
+are scattered in space, is to employ mental fictions, _in trying to
+imagine what can only be thought_." The italicized words give the clew
+to the whole discussion. To make monads of the same order as corporeal
+phenomena, is to make them sensible, or capable of being imaged,
+or conditioned by space and time,--three phrases which are strictly
+correlative. But the monads can only be thought,--that is, their
+qualities are ideal, not sensible; they can be realized only by reason,
+not projected in forms having spatial outline and temporal habitation,
+that is, in images. Monads and material things, in other words, are
+facts of two distinct orders; they are related as the rational or
+spiritual and the physical or sensible. Matter is no more composed of
+monads than it is of thoughts or of logical principles. As Leibniz says
+over and over again: Matter, space, time, motion are only phenomena,
+although phenomena _bene fundata_,--phenomena, that is, having their
+rational basis and condition. The monads, on the other hand, are not
+appearances, they are realities.
+
+Having freed our minds from the supposition that it is in any way
+possible to form an image or picture of the monad; having realized that
+it is wholly false to suppose that monads occupy position in space,
+and then by their continuity fill it, and make extended matter,--we
+must attempt to frame a correct theory of the nature of matter and
+its relation to the monad. We shall do this only as we realize that
+"matter," so far as it has any reality, or so far as it has any real
+_fundamentum_, must be something ideal, or, in Leibniz's language,
+"metaphysical." As he says over and over again, the only realities
+are the substances or spiritual units of activity, to which the name
+"monad" is given. In the inquiry, then, after such reality as matter
+may have, we must betake ourselves to this unit of living energy.
+
+Although every monad is active, it is not entirely active. There is,
+as we have already seen, an infinite scale of substances; and since
+substance is equivalent to activity, this is saying that there is an
+infinite scale of activities. God alone is _purus actus_, absolute
+energy, untouched by passivity or receptivity. Every other being has
+the element of incompleteness, of inadequacy; it does not completely
+represent the universe. In this passivity consists its finitude, so
+that Leibniz says that not even God himself could deprive monads of it,
+for this would be to make them equal to himself. In this passivity,
+incompleteness, or finitude, consists what we call matter. Leibniz says
+that he can understand what Plato meant when he called matter something
+essentially imperfect and transitory. Every finite monad is a union of
+two principles,--those of activity and of passivity. "I do not admit,"
+says Leibniz, "that there are souls existing simply by themselves,
+or that there are created spirits detached from all body. God alone is
+above all matter, since he is its author; creatures freed from matter
+would be at the same time detached from the universal connection
+of things, and, as it were, deserters from the general order." And
+again, "Beings have a nature which is both active and passive;
+_that is_, material and immaterial." And again, he says that every
+created monad requires both an entelechy, or principle of activity,
+and matter. "Matter is essential to any entelechy, and can never be
+separated from it, since matter _completes_ it." In short, the term
+"monad" is equivalent to the term "entelechy" only when applied
+to God. In every other monad, the entelechy, or energy, is but one
+factor. "Matter, or primitive passive power, completes the entelechy,
+or primitive active power, so that it becomes a perfect substance, or
+monad." On the other hand, of course, matter, as the passive principle,
+is a mere potentiality or abstraction, considered in itself. It is
+real only in its union with the active principle. Matter, he says,
+"cannot exist without immaterial substances." "To every particular
+portion of matter belongs a particular _form_; that is, a soul,
+a spirit." To this element of matter, considered as an abstraction,
+in its distinction from soul, Leibniz, following the scholastics, and
+ultimately Aristotle, gives the name, "first" or "bare" matter. The
+same influence is seen in the fact that he opposes this element of
+matter to "form," or the active principle.
+
+Our starting-point, therefore, for the consideration of matter
+is the statement that it is receptivity, the capacity for being
+affected, which always constitutes matter. But what is meant by
+"receptivity"? To answer this question we must return to what was said
+about the two activities of the monad,--representation, or perception,
+and appetition,--and to the difference between confused and distinct
+ideas. The monad has appetition so far as it determines itself
+from within to change, so far as it follows an internal principle
+of energy. It is representative so far as it is determined from
+without, so far as it receives impressions from the universe. Yet
+we have learned to know that in one sense everything occurs from
+the spontaneity of the monad itself; it receives no influence or
+influxus from without; everything comes from its own depths, or is
+appetition. But, on the other hand, all that which so comes forth is
+only a mirroring or copying of the universe. The whole content of the
+appetition is representation. Although the monad works spontaneously,
+it is none the less determined in its activities to produce only
+reflections or images of the world. In this way appetition and
+representation appear to be identical. The monad is determined from
+within, indeed, but it is determined to exactly the same results as if
+wholly determined from without. What light, then, can be thrown from
+this distinction upon the nature of matter?
+
+None, unless we follow Leibniz somewhat farther. If we do, we shall
+see that the soul is regarded as appetitive, or self-active, so far
+as it has clear and distinct ideas. If the monad reaches distinct
+consciousness, it has knowledge of self,--that is, of the nature of
+pure spirit,--or, what again is equivalent to this, of the nature
+of reality as it universally is. Such knowledge is knowledge of God,
+of substance, of unity, of pure activity, and of all the innate ideas
+which elevate the confused perceptions of sense into science. Distinct
+consciousness is therefore equivalent to self-activity, and this to
+recognition of God and the universal. But if knowledge is confused,
+it is not possible to see it in its relations to self; it cannot
+be analyzed; the rational or ideal element in it is concealed from
+view. In confused ideas, therefore, the soul appears to be passive;
+being passive, to be determined from without. This determination from
+without is equivalent to that which is opposed to spirit or reason, and
+hence appears as matter. Such is in outline the Leibnizian philosophy.
+
+It thus is clear that merely stating that matter is passivity
+in the monad is not the ultimate way of stating its nature. For
+passivity means in reality nothing but confused representations,--representations,
+that is, whose significance is not perceived. The true significance
+of every representation is found in its relation to the
+ego, or pure self-activity, which, through its dependent
+relation upon God, the absolute self-activity and ego, produces
+the representation from its own ideal being. So far as the
+soul does not have distinct recognition of relation of all
+representations to self, it feels them as coming from without; as
+foreign to spirit; in short, as matter. Leibniz thus employs exactly
+the same language about confused ideas that he does about passivity,
+or matter. It is not possible that the monad should have distinct
+consciousness of itself as a mirror of the whole universe, he says,
+"for in that case every entelechy would be God." Again, "the soul would
+be God if it could enter at once and with distinctness into everything
+occurring within it." But it is necessary "that we should have
+passions which consist in confused ideas, in which there is something
+involuntary and unknown, and which represent the body and constitute
+our imperfection." Again, he speaks of matter as "the _mixture_
+(_m�lange_) of the effects of the infinite environing us." In that
+expression is summed up his whole theory of matter. It is a mixture;
+it is, that is to say, confused, aggregated, irresolvable into simple
+ideas. But it is a mixture of "effects of the infinite about us;"
+that is, it takes its rise in the true, the real, the spiritual. It
+only fails to represent this as it actually is. Matter, in short, is a
+phenomenon dependent upon inability to realize the entire spiritual
+character of reality. It is spirit apprehended in a confused,
+hesitating, and passive manner.
+
+It is none the less a necessary phenomenon, for it is involved in the
+idea of a continuous gradation of monads, in the distinction between
+the infinite and the finite, or, as Leibniz often prefers to put it,
+between the "creator" and the "created." There is involved everywhere
+in the idea of Leibniz the conception of subordination; of a hierarchy
+of forms, each of which receives the law of its action from the
+next higher, and gives the law to the next lower. We have previously
+considered the element of passivity or receptivity as relating only
+to the monad which manifests it. It is evident, however, that what
+is passive in one, implies something active in another. What one
+receives, is what another gives. The reciprocal influence of monads
+upon one another, therefore, as harmonious members of one system,
+requires matter. More strictly speaking, this reciprocal influence
+_is_ matter. To take away all receptivity, all passivity, from monads
+would be to isolate them from all relations with others; it would
+be to deprive them of all power of affecting or being affected by
+others. That is what Leibniz meant by the expression already quoted,
+that if monads had not matter as an element in them, "they would be,
+as it were, deserters from the general order." The note of unity, of
+organic connection, which we found to be the essence of the Leibnizian
+philosophy, absolutely requires, therefore, matter, or passivity.
+
+It must be remembered that this reciprocal influence is ideal. As
+Leibniz remarks, "When it is said that one monad is affected by
+another, this is to be understood concerning its _representation_ of
+the other. For the Author of things has so accommodated them to one
+another that one is said to suffer (or receive from the other) when
+its relative value gives way to that of the other." Or again, "the
+modifications of one monad are the ideal causes of the modifications
+of another monad, so far as there appear in one the reasons on account
+of which God brought about in the beginning certain modifications in
+another." And most definitely of all: "A creature is called active so
+far as it has perfection; passive in so far as it is imperfect. One
+creature is more perfect than another so far as there is found in
+it that which serves to _render the reason_, _a priori_, for that
+occurring in the other; and it is in this way that it acts upon the
+other."
+
+We are thus introduced, from a new point of view and in a more concrete
+way, to the conception of pre-established harmony. The activity of one,
+the energy which gives the law to the other and makes it subordinate in
+the hierarchy of monads, is conceived necessarily as spirit, as soul;
+that which receives, which is rendered subordinate by the activity
+of the other, is body. The pre-established harmony is the fact that
+they are so related that one can receive the law of its activity from
+the other. Leibniz is without doubt partially responsible for the
+ordinary misconception of his views upon this point by reason of the
+illustration which he was accustomed to use; namely, of two clocks so
+constructed that without any subsequent regulation each always kept
+perfect time with the other,--as much so as if there were some actual
+physical connection between them. This seems to put soul and body,
+spirit and matter, as two co-ordinate substances, on the same level,
+with such natural opposition between them that some external harmony
+must arrange some unity of action. In causing this common idea of
+his theory of pre-established harmony, Leibniz has paid the penalty
+for attempting to do what he often reproves in others,--imagining or
+presenting in sensible form what can only be thought. But his other
+explanations show clearly enough that the pre-established harmony
+expresses, not a relation between two parallel substances, but a
+condition of dependence of lower forms of activity upon the higher for
+the law of their existence and activity,--in modern terms, it expresses
+the fact that phenomena are conditioned upon noumena; that material
+facts get their significance and share of reality through their
+relation to spirit.
+
+We may sum up what has been said about matter as an element in the
+monad, or as a metaphysical principle, as follows: The existence of
+matter is not only not opposed to the fundamental ideas of Leibniz, but
+is a necessary deduction from them. It is a necessity of the principle
+of continuity; for this requires an infinity of monads, alike indeed
+in the universal law of their being, but unlike, each to each, in
+the specific coloring or manifestation of this law. The principle of
+organic unity requires that there be as many real beings as possible
+participating in and contributing to it. It is necessary, again, in
+order that there may be reciprocal influence or connection among the
+monads. Were it not for the material element in the monad, each would
+be a God; if each were thus infinite and absolute, there would be
+so many principles wholly independent and isolated. The principle of
+harmony would be violated. So much for the necessity of the material
+factor. As to its nature, it is a principle of passivity; that is, of
+ideal receptivity, of conformity to a law apparently not self-imposed,
+but externally laid down. This makes matter equivalent to a phenomenon;
+that is to say, to the having of confused, imperfect, inadequate
+ideas. To say that matter is correlative to confused ideas is to say
+that there is no recognition of its relation to self or to spirit. As
+Leibniz sometimes puts it, since there is an infinity of beings in
+the universe, each one of which exercises an ideal influence upon
+every other one of the series, it is impossible that this other one
+should realize their full meaning; they appear only as confused ideas,
+or as matter. To use language which Leibniz indeed does not employ,
+but which seems to convey his thought, the spirit, not seeing them as
+they really are, does not _find_ itself in them. But matter is thus not
+only the confused manifestation or phenomenon of spirit, it is also its
+potentiality. Passivity is always relative. It does not mean complete
+lack of activity; that, as Leibniz says, is nothingness, and matter
+is not a form of nothingness. Leibniz even speaks of it as passive
+_power_. That is to say, there is an undeveloped or incomplete activity
+in what appears as matter, and this may be,--if we admit an infinity
+of time,--must be developed. When developed it manifests itself as it
+really is, as spirit. Confused ideas, as Leibniz takes pains to state,
+are not a genus of ideas antithetical to distinct; they differ only in
+degree or grade. They are on their way to become distinct, or else they
+are distinct ideas which have fallen back into an "involved" state of
+being. Matter, therefore, is not absolutely opposed to spirit,--on the
+one hand because it is the manifestation, the phenomenon, of spirit;
+on the other, because it is the potentiality of spirit, capable of
+sometime realizing the whole activity implied in it, but now latent.
+
+Thus it is that Leibniz says that everything is "full" of souls or
+monads. What appears to be lifeless is in reality like a pond full of
+fishes, like a drop of water full of infusoria. Everything is organic
+down to the last element. More truly, there is no last element. There
+is a true infinity of organic beings wrapped up in the slightest speck
+of apparently lifeless matter. These illustrations, like many others
+which Leibniz uses, are apt to suggest that erroneous conception of the
+relation of monads to spirit which we were obliged, in Leibniz's name,
+to correct at the outset,--the idea, namely, that matter is composed,
+in a spatial or mechanical way, of monads. But after the foregoing
+explanations we can see that what Leibniz means when he says that
+every portion of matter is full of entelechies or souls, like a garden
+full of plants, is that there is an absolute continuity of spiritual
+principles, each having its ideal relation with every other. There
+is no point of matter which does not represent in a confused way the
+entire universe. It is therefore as infinite in its activities as
+the universe. In idea also it is capable of representing in distinct
+consciousness, or as a development of its own self-activity, each of
+these infinite activities.
+
+In a word, every created or finite being may be regarded as matter or
+as spirit, according as it is accounted for by its external relations,
+as the reasons for what happen in it are to be found elsewhere than in
+its own explicit activity, or according as it shows clearly in itself
+the reasons for its own modifications, and also accounts for changes
+occurring in other beings. The externally conditioned is matter;
+the internally conditioned, the self-explanatory, is self-active, or
+spirit. Since all external relations are finally dependent on organic;
+since the ultimate source of all explanation must be that which is
+its own reason; since the ultimate source of all activity must be that
+which is self-active,--the final reason or source of matter is spirit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY.
+
+
+We have seen the necessity and nature of matter as deductions from
+the fundamental principles of Leibniz. We have seen that matter is
+a phenomenon or manifestation of spirit in an imperfect and confused
+way. But why should it appear as moving, as extended, as resisting,
+as having cohesion, with all the concrete qualities which always mark
+it? Is there any connection between these particular properties of
+matter as physical, and its "metaphysical" or ideal character? These
+are the questions which now occupy us. Stated more definitely, they
+take the following form: Is there any essential connection between the
+properties of matter as a metaphysical element, and its properties as a
+sensible fact of experience? Leibniz holds that there is. He does not,
+indeed, explicitly take the ground that we can deduce _a priori_ all
+the characteristics of matter as a fact of actual experience from its
+rational notion, but he thinks we can find a certain analogy between
+the two, that the sensible qualities are images or reflexes of the
+spiritual qualities, witnessing, so far as possible, to their origin in
+pure energy.
+
+His position is as follows: that which in the monad is activity or
+substantial, is, in sensible matter, motion. That which in the monad
+is lack of a given activity, that which constitutes its subordinate
+position in the hierarchy of monads, is, in the sphere of material
+things, inertia. That which in the spiritual world is the individuality
+of monads, making each forever ideally distinct from every other, is,
+in the phenomenal realm, resistance or impenetrability. The perfect
+continuity of monads in the _mundus intelligibilis_ has also its
+counterpart in the _mundus sensibilis_ in the diffusion or extension of
+physical things.
+
+Instead of following out this analogy directly, it will rather be
+found convenient to take up Leibniz's thought in its historical
+connection. We have already alluded to the fact that he began as
+a Cartesian, and that one of the first ideas which repelled him
+from that system of thought was the notion that the essence of
+matter is extension. His earliest philosophical writings, as he was
+gradually coming to the thoughts which thereafter dominated him,
+are upon this point. In general, his conclusions are as follows:
+If matter were extension, it would be incapable of passion or of
+action. Solidity, too, is a notion entirely opposed to the conception
+of mere extension. The idea of matter as extension contradicts some
+of the known laws of motion. It requires that the quantity of motion
+remain unchanged whenever two bodies come in contact, while as matter
+of fact it is the quantity of energy, that which the motion is capable
+of effecting, that remains unchanged; or, as he more often puts the
+objection, the Cartesian notion of matter requires that matter be
+wholly indifferent to motion, that there be nothing in it which resists
+motion when imparted. But, says Leibniz, there is something resisting,
+that to which Keppler gave the name "inertia." It is not found to be
+true if one body impacts upon another that the second moves without
+diminishing the velocity or changing the direction of the first. On
+the other hand, just in proportion to the size of the second body,
+it resists and changes the motion of the first, up to the point of
+causing the first to rebound if small in comparison. And when it was
+replied that the retardation was due to the fact that the force moving
+the first body had now to be divided between two, Leibniz answered
+that this was simply to give up the contention, and besides the notion
+of extension to use that of force. If extension were the essence of
+matter, it should be possible to deduce all the properties of matter,
+or at least to account for them all, from it. But since, as just seen,
+this does not enable us to account for any of them, since for any of
+its concrete qualities we have to fall back on force, it is evident
+where the true essence of matter is to be found.
+
+Leibniz has another argument of a logical nature, as those already
+referred to are of a physical: "Those who claim that extension is a
+substance, reverse the order of words as well as of thoughts. Besides
+extension there must be a subject which is extended; that is to
+say, something to which it belongs to be repeated or continued. For
+extension is nothing but a repetition or continued multiplication
+of that which is spread out,--it is a plurality, a continuity, a
+co-existence of parts. Consequently, extension does not suffice to
+explain the nature of the repeated or manifold substance, of which the
+notion is anterior to that of its repetition." Extension, in other
+words, is nothing substantial, it is not something which can exist
+by itself; it is only a quality, a property, a mode of being. It is
+always relative to something which has extension. As Leibniz says
+elsewhere: "I insist that extension is only an _abstraction_, and
+requires something which is extended. It presupposes some quality,
+some attribute, some nature in a subject which is extended, diffused,
+or continued. Extension is a diffusion of this quality. For example,
+in milk there is an extension or diffusion of whiteness; in the diamond
+an extension or diffusion of hardness; in body in general a diffusion
+of antitypia or materiality. There is accordingly in body something
+anterior to extension."
+
+From the physical side, therefore, we find it impossible to account
+for the concrete properties of material phenomena from extension; on
+the logical we find that the idea of extension is always relative to
+that which is extended. What is that which is to be considered as the
+bearer of extension and the source of physical qualities? We are led
+back to the point at which we left the matter in the last chapter. It
+is force, and force both passive and active. Leibniz uses the term
+"matter" in at least three senses: it is the metaphysical element of
+passive force _in_ the monad; it is the monad itself considered as,
+upon the whole, externally conditioned or unconscious; and it is the
+phenomenon resulting from the aggregation of the monads in the second
+sense. The first is naked matter, and is a pure abstraction; the second
+is the monad as material, as opposed to the monad, as soul; the third
+is clothed, or second matter, or, concretely, body, _corpus_. The first
+is unreal by itself; the second is one phase of substance; the third
+is not substantial, but is a reality, though a phenomenal one. It
+is from the substantial monad that we are to explain the two things
+now demanding explanation,--that element in _bodies_ (matter in third
+sense) which is the source of their physical properties, and that which
+is the subject, the carrier, so to speak, of extension.
+
+That of which we are in search as the source of the physical qualities
+of bodies is motion. This is not force, but its "image." It is force,
+says Leibniz, that "is the real element in motion; that is to say,
+it is that element which out of the present state induces a change in
+the future state." As force, in other words, is the causal activity
+which effects the development of one "representation" of a monad out
+of another, so motion, in the realm of phenomena, is not only change,
+but change which is continuous and progressive, each new position
+being dependent upon the foregoing, and following out of it absolutely
+without break.
+
+Motion, therefore, is the manifestation of the ideal unity of
+substance,--a unity not of mere static inherence, but of a continuous
+process of activity. It is from this standpoint that Leibniz accounts
+for the so-called transference of motion from one body to another upon
+contact. The ordinary view of this, which looks at it as if one body
+loses the motion which another body gains, Leibniz ridicules, saying
+that those who hold this view seem to think that motion is a kind of
+thing, resembling, perchance, salt dissolved in water. The right view,
+on the other hand, does away with all appearance of mystery in the
+carrying over of motion from one body to another, for it recognizes
+that continuity is the very essence of motion, and that we do not have
+two things and a third process, but that the two bodies are phases or
+elements in one and the same system of movement.
+
+Starting from this idea of motion, then, Leibniz is to account for
+the actual qualities of matter as found in experience. These are
+the form, magnitude, cohesion, resistance, and the purely sensible
+qualities of objects. "First" matter, that is, abstract matter,
+may be conceived, according to Leibniz, as perfectly homogeneous, a
+"subtle fluid," in his words, without any distinction of parts or of
+solidity. But this _is_ an abstract notion. It is what matter would
+be without motion. Motion necessarily differentiates this plenum
+of homogeneity, and thus causes distinctions of figure (that is,
+boundaries of parts) and varieties of cohesion, or the varying solidity
+and fluidity of bodies. The latter difference is indeed the ultimate
+one. The principle of continuity or gradation, as applied to motion,
+makes it necessary that motions should not be in any two places of
+exactly the same energy. The result is that the original fluid matter
+is everywhere differently divided. Motion, entering into the uniform
+plenum, introduces distinction; it causes so much of the matter as is
+affected by a given movement to collect together and form in appearance
+a coherent body, as opposed to surrounding bodies which are affected
+by different degrees of energy. But even this is only approximate;
+the same principle of continuity must be applied within any apparently
+coherent body; its parts, while, in relation to other bodies, they have
+the same amount of motion, are in relation to one another differently
+affected. There are no two having exactly the same motion; if they had,
+there would be no distinction between them; and thus, according to the
+principle of Leibniz, they would be the same.
+
+It follows at once from this that there is in the universe no body of
+absolute hardness or solidity, nor of entire softness or fluidity. A
+perfectly solid body would be one whose system of motions could not be
+affected by any other system,--a body which by motion had separated
+itself from motion, or become absolute. This is evidently an idea
+which contradicts itself, for the very essence of motion is continuity
+or relation. A body perfectly fluid, on the other hand, would be one
+in which there was no resistance offered to other motions,--a body,
+in other words, in which there are no movements that, entering into
+connection with one another, form a relative opposition to other
+movements. It would be a body isolated or out of relation with the
+general system of motions, and hence an impossibility. There is no last
+term either of solidity or of fluidity.
+
+It equally follows as matter of course that there is no indivisible
+particle of matter,--no atom. The infinity of degrees of motion
+implies a corresponding division of matter. As already said, it is
+only in contrast with other relatively constant systems of motion
+that any body is of uniform motion; in reality there is everywhere
+throughout it variety of movement, and hence complete divisibility, or
+rather, complete division. If Leibniz were to employ the term "atom"
+at all, it could be only in the sense of the modern dynamical theory
+(of which, indeed, he is one of the originators), according to which
+the atom is not defined by its spatial position and outlines, but,
+by the range of its effects, as the centre of energies of infinite
+circumference. Correlative to the non-existence of the atom is the
+non-existence of the vacuum. The two imply each other. The hard,
+limited, isolated body, having no intrinsic relations with other
+bodies, must have room to come into external relations with them. This
+empty space, which is the theatre of such accidental contacts as may
+happen, is the vacuum. But if bodies are originally in connection
+with one another, if they are in reality but differentiations of
+varying degrees of motion within one system of motion, then there
+is no necessity for the vacuum,--nay, there is no place for it. The
+vacuum in this case could mean only a break, a chasm, in the order
+of nature. According to the theory of Leibniz, "bodies" are but the
+dynamic divisions of the one energy that fills the universe; their
+separateness is not an independent possession of any one of them
+or of all together, but is the result of relations to the entire
+system. Their apparent isolation is only by reason of their actual
+connections. To admit a vacuum anywhere, would thus be to deny the
+relatedness of the parts separated by it. The theory of the atom and
+the vacuum are the two phases of the metaphysical assumption of an
+indefinite plurality of independent separate realities. The theory
+of Leibniz, resting as it does on the idea of a perfect unity of
+interrelated members, must deny both of these aspects. Were we making
+an extended analysis of the opposed view, it would be necessary to
+point out that it denies itself. For it is only _through_ the vacuum
+that the atoms are isolated or independent, and the sole function of
+the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms are
+separated only in virtue of their connection, and the vacuum is what it
+is--pure emptiness--only on account of that which is in it. In short,
+the theory is only an abstract and incomplete way of grasping the
+thought of relation or mediated unity.
+
+We have thus discovered that all motions conspire together, or
+form a system. But in their unity they do not cease to be motions,
+or variously differentiated members. Through this differentiation,
+or mutual reaction of motions, there comes about the appearance of
+boundaries, of separation. From these boundaries or terminations
+arise the form and size of bodies. From motion also proceeds the
+cohesion of bodies, in the sense that each relative system resists
+dissolution, or hangs together. Says Leibniz, "The motions, since they
+are conspiring, would be troubled by separation; and accordingly this
+can be accomplished only by violence and with resistance." Not only
+form, size, and stability depend upon motion, but also the sensible,
+the "secondary" qualities. "It must not be supposed that color, pain,
+sound, etc., are arbitrary and without relation to their causes. It is
+not God's way to act with so little reason and order. There is a kind
+of resemblance, not entire, but of relation, of order. We say, for
+example, 'Light is in the fire,' since there are motions in the fire
+which are imperceptible in their separation, but which are sensible
+in their conjunction or confusion; and this is what is made known in
+the idea of light." In other words, color, sound, etc., even pain,
+are still the perception of motion, but in a confused way. We thus see
+how thoroughly Leibniz carries back all the properties of bodies to
+motion. To sum up, motion is the origin of the relative solidity, the
+divisibleness, the form, the size, the cohesion, or active resistance
+of bodies, and of their properties as made known to us in immediate
+sensation.
+
+In all that has been said it has been implied that extension is already
+in existence; "first matter" is supposed to fill all space, and motion
+to determine it to take upon itself its actual concrete properties. But
+this "first matter," when thus spoken of, has a somewhat mythological
+sound, even if it be admitted that it is an abstraction. For how can
+an abstraction be extended in space, and how can it form, as it were,
+a background upon which motion displays itself? The idea of "first
+matter" in its relation to extension evidently demands explanation. In
+seeking this explanation we shall also learn about that "subject" which
+Leibniz said was necessarily presupposed in extension, as a concrete
+thing is required for a quality.
+
+The clew to the view of Leibniz upon this point may be derived, I
+think, from the following quotations:--
+
+"If it were possible to see what makes extension, that kind of
+extension which falls under our eyes at present would vanish, and
+our minds would perceive nothing else than simple realities existing
+in mutual externality to one another. It would be as if we could
+distinguish the minute particles of matter variously disposed from
+which a painted image is formed: if we could do it, the image, which is
+nothing but a phenomenon, would vanish.�.�.�. If we think of two
+simple realities as both existing at the same time, but distinct from
+one another, we look at them as if they were outside of one another,
+and hence conceive them as extended."
+
+The monads are outside of one another, not spatially, but ideally;
+but this reciprocal distinction from one another, if it is to appear
+in phenomenal mode, must take the form of an image, and the image is
+spatial. But if the monads were pure activity, they would _not_ take
+phenomenal form or appear in an image. They would always be thought
+just as they are,--unextended activities realizing the spiritual
+essence of the universe. But they are not pure activity; they are
+passive as well. It is in virtue of this passive element that the ideal
+externality takes upon itself phenomenal or sensible form, and thus
+appears as spatial externality.
+
+Leibniz, in a passage already quoted, refers to the diffusion
+of materiality or _antitypia_. This word, which is of frequent
+occurrence in the discussions of Leibniz, he translates generally as
+"impenetrability," sometimes as "passive resistance." It corresponds to
+the solidity or resistance of which Locke spoke as forming the essence
+of matter. Antitypia is the representation by a monad of the passive
+element in other monads. Leibniz sometimes speaks as if all created
+monads had in themselves antitypia, and hence extension; but he more
+accurately expresses it by saying that they need (_exigent_) it. This
+is a technical term which he elsewhere uses to express the relation of
+the possible to the actual. The possible "needs" the actual, not in
+the sense that it _necessarily_ requires existence, but in the sense
+that when the actual gives it existence, it is the logical basis of the
+actual,--the actual, on the other hand, being its real complement. The
+passivity of the monad is therefore at once the logical basis and
+the possibility of the impenetrability of matter. It is owing to the
+passivity of the monad that it does not adequately reflect (that it is
+not transparent to, so to speak) the activities of other monads. In
+its irresponsiveness, it fails to mirror them in itself. It may be
+said, therefore, to be impenetrable to them. They in turn, so far as
+they are passive, are impenetrable to it. Now the impenetrable is,
+_ex vi terminis_, that which excludes, and that which excludes, not in
+virtue of its active elasticity, but in virtue of its mere inertia,
+its dead weight, as it were, of resistance. But mutual exclusion of
+this passive sort constitutes that which is extended. Extension is
+the abstract quality of this concrete subject. Such, in effect, is the
+deduction which Leibniz gives of body, or physical matter, from matter
+as metaphysical; of matter as sensible or phenomenal, from matter as
+ideal or as intelligible.
+
+If we put together what has been said, it is clear that material
+phenomena (bodies, _corpora_, in Leibniz's phrase) simply repeat
+in another sphere the properties of the spiritual monad. There
+is a complete parallelism between every property, each to each,
+and this necessarily; for every property of "body" is in logical
+dependence upon, and a phenomenalization of, some spiritual or ideal
+quality. Motion is the source of all the dynamic qualities of body, and
+motion is the reflection of Force, that force which is Life. But this
+force in all finite forms is conditioned by a passive, unreceptive,
+unresponsive factor; and this must also have its correlate in
+"body." This correlate is primarily impenetrability, and secondarily
+extension. Thus it is that concrete body always manifests motion,
+indeed, but upon a background of extension, and against inertia. It
+never has free play; had it an unrestrained field of activity,
+extension would disappear, and spatial motion would vanish into
+ideal energy. On the other hand, were the essence of matter found in
+resistance or impenetrability, it would be wholly inert; it would be a
+monotone of extension, without variety of form or cohesion. As Leibniz
+puts it with reference to Locke, "body" implies motion, or impetuosity,
+resistance, and cohesion. Motion is the active principle, resistance
+the passive; while cohesion, with its various grades of completeness,
+which produce form, size, and solidity, is the result of their union.
+
+Leibniz, like Plato, has an intermediary between the rational and
+the sensible; and as Plato found that it was mathematical relations
+that mediate between the permanent and unified Ideas and the changing
+manifold objects, so Leibniz found that the relations of space and time
+form the natural transition from the sphere of monads to the world
+of bodies. As Plato found that it was the possibility of applying
+mathematical considerations to the world of images that showed the
+participation of Ideas in them, and constituted such reality as they
+had, so Leibniz found that space and time formed the element of
+order and regularity among sense phenomena, and thus brought them
+into kinship with the monads and made them subjects of science. It
+is implied in what is here said that Leibniz distinguished between
+space and time on the one hand, and duration and extension on the
+other. This distinction, which Leibniz draws repeatedly and with great
+care, has been generally overlooked by his commentators. But it is
+evident that this leaves Leibniz in a bad plight. Mathematics, in its
+various forms, is the science of spatial and temporal relations. But if
+these are identical with the forms of duration and extension, they are
+purely phenomenal and sensible. The science of them, according to the
+Leibnizian distinction between the absolutely real and the phenomenally
+real, would be then a science of the confused, the imperfect,
+and the transitory; in fact, no science at all. But mathematics,
+on the contrary, is to Leibniz the type of demonstrative, conclusive
+science. Space and time are, in his own words, "innate ideas," and
+the entire science of them is the drawing out of the content of these
+innate--that is, rational, distinct, and eternal--ideas. But extension
+and duration are sensible experiences; not rational, but phenomenal;
+not distinct, but confused; not eternal, but evanescent. We may be sure
+that this contradiction would not escape Leibniz, although it has many
+of his critics and historians.
+
+It is true, however, that he occasionally uses the terms as synonymous;
+but this where the distinction between them has no bearing on the
+argument in hand, and where the context determines in what sense
+the term is used. The distinction which he actually makes, and to
+which he keeps when space and time are the subject of discussion,
+is that extension and duration are qualities or predicates of
+objects and events, while space and time are relations, or orders of
+existence. Extension and duration are, as he says, the _immensity_, the
+mass, the continuation, the repetition, of some underlying subject. But
+space and time are the _measure_ of the mass, the rule or law of the
+continuation, the order or mode of the repetition. Thus immediately
+after the passage already quoted, in which he says that extension
+in body is the diffusion of materiality, just as whiteness is the
+diffusion of a property of milk, he goes on to say "that extension is
+to space as duration to time. Duration and extension are attributes of
+things; but space and time are to be considered, as it were, outside
+of things, and as serving to measure them." Still more definitely
+he says: "Many confound the immensity or extent of things with the
+space by means of which this extent is defined. Space is not the
+extension of body, any more than duration is its time. Things keep
+their extension, not always their space. Everything has its own extent
+and duration; but it does not have a time of its own, nor keep for its
+own a space." Or, as he expresses the latter idea elsewhere, space is
+like number, in the sense that it is indifferent to spatial things,
+just as number is indifferent to _res numerata_. Just as the number
+five is not a quality or possession of any object, or group of objects,
+but expresses an order or relation among them, so a given space is not
+the property of a thing, but expresses the order of its parts to one
+another. But extension, on the other hand, is a property of the given
+objects. While extension, therefore, must always belong to some actual
+thing, space, as a relation, is as applicable to possible things as to
+actual existences; so that Leibniz sometimes says that time and space
+"express possibilities." They are that which makes it possible for a
+definite and coherent order of experiences to exist. They determine
+existence in some of its relations, and as such are logically
+prior to any given forms of existence; while extent and duration are
+always qualities of some given form of existence, and hence logically
+derivative. Since time and space "characterize possibilities" as well
+as actualities, it follows as a matter of course "that they are of the
+nature of eternal truths, which relate equally to the possible and to
+the existing." Being an eternal truth, space must have its place in
+that which is simply the active unity of all eternal truths,--the mind
+of God. "Its truth and reality are based upon God. It is an order whose
+source is God." Since God is _purus actus_, he is the immediate, the
+efficient source only of that which partakes in some degree of his own
+nature, or is rational; and here is another clear point of distinction
+between space and extension, between time and duration.
+
+But we must ask more in detail regarding their nature. Admitting
+that they are relations, ideal and prior to particular experiences,
+the question must be asked, What sort of relations are they; how are
+they connected with the purely spiritual on one hand, and with the
+phenomenal on the other? Leibniz's most extended answers to these
+questions are given in his controversy with Clarke. The latter took
+much the same position regarding the nature of space (though not,
+indeed, concerning the origin of its idea) as Locke, and the arguments
+which Leibniz uses against him he might also have used, for the most
+part, against Locke. Locke and Clarke both conceived of space and
+time as wholly without intrinsic relation to objects and events. It
+is especially against this position that Leibniz argues, holding that
+space and time are simply orders or relations of objects and events,
+that space exists only where objects are existing, and that it is
+the order of their co-existence, or of their possible co-existence;
+while time exists only as events are occurring, and is the relation of
+their succession. Clarke, on the other hand, speaks of the universe of
+objects as bounded by and moving about in an empty space, and says that
+time existed before God created the finite world, so that the world
+came into a time already there to receive its on-goings, just as it
+fell into a space already there to receive its co-existences.
+
+To get at the ideas of Leibniz, therefore, we cannot do better than
+follow the course of this discussion. He begins by saying that
+both space and time are purely relative, one being the order of
+co-existences, the other of successions. Space characterizes in terms
+of possibility an order of things existing at the same time, so far as
+they exist in mutual relations (_ensemble_), without regard to their
+special modes of existence. As to the alternate doctrine that space
+is a substance, or something absolute, it contradicts the principle
+of sufficient reason. Were space something absolutely uniform, without
+things placed in it, there would be no difference between one part and
+another, and it would be a matter of utter indifference to God why he
+gave bodies certain positions in space rather than others; similarly
+it would be a matter of indifference why he created the world when
+he did, if time were something independent of events. In other words,
+the supposed absoluteness of space and time would render the action of
+God wholly without reason, capricious, and at haphazard. Similarly, it
+contradicts the principle of "indiscernibles," by which Leibniz means
+the principle of specification, or distinction. According to him,
+to suppose two things exactly alike, is simply to imagine the same
+thing twice. Absolute uniformity, wholly undifferentiated, is a fiction
+impossible to realize in thought. "Space considered without objects has
+nothing in it to determine it; it is accordingly nothing actual. The
+parts of space must be determined and distinguished by the objects
+which are in them." Finally, were space and time absolutely real things
+in themselves, they would be independent of God, and even limitations
+upon him. "They would be more substantial than substances. God would
+not be able to change or destroy them. They would be immutable and
+eternal in every part. Thus there would be an infinity of eternal
+things (these parts) independent of God." They would limit God because
+he would be obliged to exist _in_ them. Only by existing through this
+independent time would he be eternal; only by extending through this
+independent space would he be omnipresent. Space and time thus become
+gods themselves.
+
+When Clarke declares that by the absoluteness of space and time he does
+not mean that they are themselves substances, but only properties,
+attributes of substance, Leibniz advances the same arguments in
+different form. If space were the property of the things that are
+in space, it would belong now to one substance, now to another, and
+when empty of all material substance, even to an immaterial substance,
+perhaps to God. "Truly a strange attribute which is handed about from
+one thing to another. Substances thus leave their accidents as if they
+were old clothes, and other substances put them on." Since these finite
+spaces are in infinite space, and the latter is an attribute of God,
+it must be that an attribute of God is composed of parts, some of them
+empty, some full, some round, some square. So, too, whatever is in time
+would help make one of the attributes of God. "Truly a strange God,"
+says Leibniz, "this Deity of parts" (_ce Dieu � parties_). Clarke's
+reply to this was that space and time are attributes of God and of
+God alone, not of things in space and time,--that, indeed, strictly
+speaking, there are no parts in space or in time; they are absolutely
+one. This was virtually to give up the whole matter. It was to deny
+the existence of finite spaces and times, and to resolve them into
+an indefinite attribute of God. Such a view, as Leibniz points out,
+not only is contrary to experience, but affords no aid in determining
+the actual concrete forms and situations of bodies, and durations
+and successions of events. The absolute space and time, having no
+parts, are wholly out of relations to these concrete existences. The
+latter require, therefore, a space and a time that are relations or
+orders. Clarke's hypothesis is, as Leibniz says, wholly without use
+or function, and requires a theory like that of Leibniz to account
+for the actually determinate forms of experience. In his last reply
+Clarke shifts his ground again, and says that space and time are
+_effects_ of God's existence; "they are the necessary results of his
+existence." "His existence is the cause of space and time." The death
+of Leibniz prevented any further reply. It is not hard to imagine,
+however, that in a general way his reply would have been to ask how
+space and time are at once attributes essential and necessary to God,
+as constituting his immensity and eternity, and effects dependent upon
+his existence. To take this latter position, indeed, seems to abandon
+the position that they are absolute, and to admit that, like the rest
+of God's creation, they are relative and finite.
+
+So much for Leibniz's polemic. Its meaning is that space and time have
+significance only with reference to things and events, that they are
+the intellectual, the ideal side of these objects and occurrences,
+being the relations which give them order and unity. A space which
+is not the space of objects, which is not space in and through
+objects, is an inanity; it is not spirit, it is not matter; it is
+not a relation of either. It is nothingness magnified to infinity,
+and then erected into existence. And all for nothing; for it does not
+enable us to account for a single concrete fact of experience. For
+this we must have recourse to relations and orders of existence. Space
+is therefore to be defined as the order which makes it possible for
+objects to have situation; time as that which makes it possible for
+events to have dating,--not as if they were actually prior to them,
+and although nothings in themselves, yet capable of giving concrete
+determination to things, but as _actually_ the relations themselves,
+and as _ideally_ necessary for the coherent experience of co-existent
+objects and of connected events. As Leibniz puts it epigrammatically:
+"Space is the order of possible constants; time the order of inconstant
+possibilities."
+
+We have finished the exposition of the views of Leibniz about matter
+and material facts. One question, however, remains to be discussed,--a
+question which Leibniz's contemporary critics would not allow him to
+pass over in silence, even had he been so disposed. What is the reality
+of matter, of motion, of space, and of time? Since they are, as Leibniz
+says, only phenomena, not absolute realities, what distinguishes them
+from dreams, from illusions? What distinguishes sensible phenomena from
+capricious fantasies, and gives them reality?
+
+Leibniz begins his answer by pointing out that the mere fact that
+bodies are phenomena does not make them unreal. To say that anything
+is phenomenal is to say that it is sensible; but "the senses make
+no declaration regarding metaphysical matters" such as truth and
+reality. The senses, in a word, only inform us that the experiences
+are there for the senses, that they are sensible. What is the ultimate
+nature of the sensible or the phenomenal, what is their reality,
+is a question wholly outside the province of sense. The questions of
+ultimate nature, of reality, are questions of metaphysics, and hence
+are to be decided by the reason, not by the senses. And Leibniz goes
+on to say that the truthfulness of the senses, since it concerns only
+the sensible, consists in the reciprocal agreement of sensible facts,
+and in that we are not deceived in reasoning from one to another. An
+isolated sense-experience could not be said to be either true or
+false, real or illusory. It would be true that it was experienced,
+and that is all that could be said about it. But since our experiences
+are not thus separated, but have a certain order, there arises what
+we may call sensible reality and illusion. When the order between
+two facts remains the same "in different times and places and in the
+experience of different men," we call these facts real. If, however,
+our experience cannot be repeated by ourselves or by other men when
+the same conditions (that is, connections) are present, it is unreal,
+or false. It is thus "the _relation_ of phenomena which guarantees
+truth of fact regarding sensible objects." Constancy, regularity,
+justify us in ascribing reality; chaotic change and lack of orderly
+connection are a sign of unreality. Even our dreams have a reality; for
+they have their connections and place in experience. If we understood
+their connections we should even be able to explain their apparent
+lack of connection with the rest of experience. Leibniz thinks that
+both the Academicians and Sceptics and their opponents erred in
+attempting to find greater reality in sensible things than that of
+regular phenomena. Since our observations and judgments upon sensible
+phenomena are of such a nature that we can predict future phenomena and
+prepare for them, we have all the reality in them that can be had or
+asked for. Even if it be granted possible (as it must be on this basis)
+that, metaphysically speaking, sense-experience is only a connected
+dream, it yet has a sufficient reality; for we are not deceived in
+the measures taken with reference to phenomena, provided that we act
+on the ground of their observed harmonies and relations. Thus while
+we are obliged to admit that our senses inform us that there are hard,
+passive, extended, indivisible things, not perfectly continuous and not
+intellectual in their nature, and we know on metaphysical grounds that
+this information is not correct, we cannot say that our senses deceive
+us, for sense makes no statements regarding such matters. It is our
+reason that errs if it takes the information that the senses give as if
+it were a declaration of reason itself. Sensible things have all the
+reality necessary for this range of experience,--_practical_,--such
+regularity of co-existence and sequence as allows us to act without
+being led astray.
+
+But if we regard sense-phenomena not merely in their connection with
+one another, but in their dependence upon the absolute realities, we
+have still better justification for their comparative reality. These
+phenomena are consequences of necessary and eternal truths. One endowed
+with a perfect knowledge of such truths would be able to deduce, _a
+priori_, the phenomena from them. The reality of sensible phenomena
+thus consists not merely in their connection with one another, but in
+the fact that they are connected as the laws of the intelligible world
+require. They follow not only rules of co-existence and sequence;
+but these rules may be brought under general laws of motion, which
+in turn may be deduced from geometrical principles. These latter,
+however, are _a priori_; they are truths which are grounded in the very
+intelligence of God. The sensible has its basis in the ideal. To state
+the same fact in another way, all sensible phenomena occur in time
+and space; or rather, time and space are the orders, the relations,
+of phenomena occurring and existing. But, as we have just seen, time
+and space are ideal. A relation, as Leibniz points out, being neither
+attribute nor accident, cannot be _in_ the things which it relates,
+as their possession. In his own words, it cannot be conceived as if
+it had one leg in one object, the other leg in the other. A relation
+is not a material bond, running through or cementing objects; it
+is ideal, existing in the mind. And while it is true that space and
+time are the relations of objects and events, it is also true that
+if all objects and events were annihilated, space and time would
+continue to have their ideal existence in the intelligence of God as
+the eternal conditions of phenomena. They thus form the links between
+absolute reality and the reality of sensible existence. The principle
+of sufficient reason forms another link. It may be recalled that in
+discussing Leibniz's theory of volition we found that the will of God
+in relation to the sensible world is always determined by the choice of
+the better; that in this consists the controlling reason and regulative
+principle of all that occurs and exists. Thus for every fact in the
+sensible world there is connection with "metaphysical," or absolute,
+reality, not only through the medium of the intellectual relations
+of time and space, but through the dynamic intermediary of the divine
+will acting in accordance with the divine reason. Sensible facts have,
+then, a reality, but a dependent one. There would be no _contradiction_
+involved if they were not what they actually are.
+
+We may sum up the matter by saying that the reality of sensible
+phenomena consists in the constancy of the mutual order in which they
+exist, and in the dependence of this order upon the divine Intelligence
+and Will. In this respect, at least, Leibniz resembles the young Irish
+idealist, Berkeley, who only seven years after Leibniz wrote the "New
+Essays" composed his "Principles of Human Knowledge," urging that the
+immediate reality of sense-phenomena consists in their "steadiness,
+order, and coherence," "in a constant uniform working," and that this
+"gives us a foresight which enables us to regulate our actions for the
+benefit of life." It was Berkeley also who wrote that their ultimate
+reality consists in their being ideas of a Divine Spirit. This was six
+years before the death of Leibniz. Yet it does not appear that Berkeley
+knew of Leibniz, and the only allusion to Berkeley which I have
+found in the writings of Leibniz shows that Leibniz knew only of that
+caricature of his views which has always been current,--that Berkeley
+was one who denied the existence of any external world. What he writes
+is as follows: "As for him in Ireland who questions the reality of
+'bodies,' he seems neither to offer what is rational, nor sufficiently
+to explain his own ideas. I suspect that he is one of those men who are
+desirous of making themselves known through paradoxes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS.
+
+
+The fundamental category of Locke, as of all who take simply a
+mechanical view of experience, is that of substance. He had good reason
+to be surprised when the Bishop of Worcester objected that Locke wished
+"to discard substance out of the world." How can that be so, Locke
+asks, when I say that "our idea of body is an extended solid substance,
+and our idea of soul is of a substance that thinks." And he adds, "Nay,
+as long as there is any simple idea or sensible quality left, according
+to my way of arguing, substance cannot be discarded." Everything
+that really exists, is, according to Locke, substance. But substance
+to Locke, as again to all who interpret the universe after sensible
+categories, is unknowable. For such categories allow only of external
+relations; they admit only of static existence. Substance, in this
+way of looking at it, must be distinct from its qualities, and must be
+simply the existing substratum in which they inhere.
+
+Locke's account of the way in which we get the idea, and of its nature,
+is as follows: "All the ideas of all the sensible qualities of a
+cherry come into my mind by sensation. The ideas of these qualities
+and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind to be by themselves
+inconsistent with existence. They cannot subsist of themselves. Hence
+the mind perceives their necessary connection with inherence, or with
+being supported." Correlative to the idea of being supported is, of
+course, the idea of the support. But this idea "is not represented
+to the mind by any clear and distinct idea; the obscure and vague,
+indistinct idea of thing or something, is all that is left." Or yet
+more simply, "Taking notice that a certain number of simple ideas
+go together, and not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by
+themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein
+they do subsist, and from which they do result." Hence the only idea we
+have of it is of something which underlies known qualities. It is their
+"supposed, but unknown, support."
+
+If we translate these expressions into the ideas of to-day,
+we see that they are equivalent to the view of the world which
+is given us by scientific categories when these categories are
+regarded not merely as scientific, but also as philosophic; that
+is, capable of interpreting and expressing the ultimate nature of
+experience. This modern view uses the words "things-in-themselves"
+(or absolute realities) and "phenomena." It says that we know nothing
+of existence as it is in itself, but only of its phenomena. Mind,
+matter, objects, are all substances, all equally substances, and all
+have their unknown essence and their phenomenal appearance. Such a
+distinction between the known and the unknown can rest, it is evident,
+only upon a separation between reality and phenomena similar to that
+which Locke makes between substance and qualities. In knowing the
+latter, we know nothing of the former. Although the latter are called
+"phenomena," they do not really manifest the substantial reality; they
+conceal it. This absolute distinction between substance and quality,
+between reality and phenomenon, rests, in turn, upon the hypothesis
+that reality is _mere_ existence; that is, it is something which is,
+and that is all. It is a substratum; it lies under, in a passive way,
+qualities; it is (literally) substance; it simply stands, inactively,
+under phenomena. It may, by possibility, _have_ actions; but it _has_
+them. Activities are qualities which, like all qualities, are in
+external relation to the substance. Being, in other words, is the
+primary notion, and "being" means something essentially passive and
+merely enduring, accidentally and secondarily something acting. Here,
+as elsewhere, Locke is the father of the mechanical philosophy of
+to-day.
+
+We have already learned how completely Leibniz reverses this way of
+regarding reality. According to Locke, reality essentially is; and in
+its being there is no ground of revelation of itself. It then acts; but
+these actions, "powers, or qualities," since not flowing from the very
+being of substance, give no glimpse into its true nature. According to
+Leibniz, reality acts, and _therefore_ is. Its being is conditioned
+upon its activity. It is not first there, and secondly acts; but its
+"being there" is its activity. Since its very substance is activity,
+it is impossible that it should not manifest its true nature. Its every
+activity is a revelation of itself. It cannot hide itself as a passive
+subsistence behind qualities or phenomena. It must break forth into
+them. On the other hand, since the qualities are not something which
+merely inhere in an underlying support, but are the various forms
+or modes of the activity which constitutes reality, they necessarily
+reveal it. They _are_ its revelations. There is here no need to dwell
+further on the original dynamic nature of substance; what was said in
+the way of general exposition suffices. It is only in its relations to
+Locke's view as just laid down that it now concerns us.
+
+In the first place, Leibniz points out that qualities are "abstract,"
+while substance is "concrete." The qualities, from the very fact
+that they have no self-subsistence, are only relations, while the
+substance, as that of which they are qualities, or from which they
+are abstractions, is concrete. It is, Leibniz says, to invert the
+true order to take qualities or abstract terms as the best known
+and most easily comprehended, and "concretes" as unknown, and as
+having the most difficulty about them. "It is abstractions which
+give birth to almost all our difficulties," and Locke's error here
+is that he begins with abstractions, and takes them to be most open
+to intelligence. Locke's second error is separating so completely
+substance and attribute. "After having distinguished," says Leibniz,
+"two things in substance, the attributes or predicates, and the common
+subject of these predicates, it is not to be wondered at that we
+cannot conceive anything in particular in the subject. This result is
+necessary, since we have separated all the attributes in which there is
+anything definite to be conceived. Hence to demand anything more than a
+mere unknown somewhat in the subject, is to contradict the supposition
+which was made in making the abstraction and in conceiving separately
+the subject and its qualities or accidents." We are indeed ignorant
+of a subject from which abstraction has been made of all defining
+and characteristic qualities; "but this ignorance results from our
+demanding a sort of knowledge of which the object does not permit." In
+short, it is a credit to our knowledge, not an aspersion upon it, that
+we cannot know that which is thoroughly unreal,--a substance deprived
+of all attributes. This is, indeed, a remark which is applicable to
+the supposed unknowableness of pure Being, or Absolute Being, when it
+is defined as the absence of all relations (as is done, for example,
+by Mr. Spencer to-day).
+
+Closely connected with the notion of substance are the categories
+of identity and diversity. These relations are of course to Locke
+thoroughly external. It is "relation of time and place which always
+determines identity." "That that had one beginning is the same thing;
+and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that,
+is not the same, but diverse." It is therefore easy to discover the
+principle of individuation. It "is existence itself, which determines
+a being of any sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable to
+two beings of the same kind." He applies this notion to organic being,
+including man, and to the personal identity of man. The identity of an
+organism, vegetable, brute, or human, is its continuous organization;
+"it is the participation of the same continued life, by constantly
+fleeting particles of matter in succession vitally united to the same
+organized body." _Personal_ identity is constituted by a similar
+continuity of consciousness. "It being the same consciousness that
+makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on that
+only." It "consists not in the identity of substance, but in the
+identity of consciousness." It will be noticed that Locke uses the
+notion of identity which he has already established to explain organic
+and personal unity. It is the "_same_ continued life," "_identity_ of
+consciousness," that constitute them. We are, hence, introduced to no
+new principle. Identity is even in personality a matter of temporal and
+spatial relations.
+
+In the general account of the system of Leibniz it was pointed out that
+it is characteristic of his thought to regard identity and distinction
+as internal principles, and as necessarily implied in each other. We
+need not go over that ground again, but simply see how he states
+his position with reference to what is quoted from Locke. These are
+his words: "Besides the difference of place and time there is always
+necessary an _internal principle_ [or law] of distinction, so that
+while there may be several things of the same species, there are no two
+things exactly alike. Thus, although time and place (that is, relations
+to the external) aid us in distinguishing things, things do not
+cease to be distinguished in themselves. The essence of identity and
+diversity does not consist in time and place, although it is true that
+diversity of things is accompanied with that of time and place, since
+they carry along with them different impressions upon the thing;" that
+is, they expose the thing to different surroundings. But in reality
+"it is things which diversify times and places from one another, for
+in themselves these are perfectly similar, not being substances or
+complete realities."
+
+The principle of individuation follows, of course, from this. "If
+two individuals were perfectly similar and equal, that is,
+indistinguishable in themselves, there would be no principle of
+individuation; there would not be two individuals." Thus Leibniz
+states his important principle of the "identity of indiscernibles,"
+the principle that where there is not some internal differentiating
+principle which specifies the existence in this or that definite
+way, there is no individual. Leibniz here states, in effect, the
+principle of organic unity, the notion that concrete unity is a
+unity _of_ differences, not _from_ them. It is the principle which
+allows him at once to accept and transform the thought of Spinoza
+that all qualification or determination is negation. Spinoza, in
+spite of his intellectual greatness, conceived of distinction or
+determination as external, and hence as external negation. But since
+ultimate reality admits of no external negation, it must be without
+distinction, an all-inclusive one. But to Leibniz the negation is
+internal; it is determination of its own being into the greatest
+possible riches. "Things that are conceived as absolutely uniform and
+containing no variety are pure abstractions." "Things indistinguishable
+in themselves, and capable of being distinguished only by external
+characteristics without internal foundation, are contrary to the
+most important principles of reason. The truth is that every being is
+capable of change [or differentiation], and is itself actually changed
+in such a way that in itself it differs from every other."
+
+As to organic bodies, so far as they _are_ bodies, or corporeal, they
+are one and identical only in appearance. "They are not the same an
+instant.�.�.�. Bodies are in constant flux." "They are like a
+river which is always changing its water, or like the ship of Theseus
+which the Athenians are constantly repairing." Such unity as they
+really possess is like all unity,--ideal or spiritual. "They remain the
+same individual by virtue of that same soul or spirit which constitutes
+the 'Ego' in those individuals who think." "Except for the soul,
+there is neither the same life nor any vital union." As to personal
+identity, Leibniz distinguishes between "physical or real" identity
+and "moral." In neither case, however, is it a unity which excludes
+plurality, an identity which does not comprehend diversity. "Every
+spirit has," he says, "traces of all the impressions which it has ever
+experienced, and even presentiments of all that ever will happen. But
+these feelings are generally too minute to be distinguished and brought
+into consciousness, though they may be sometime developed. This
+_continuity_ and _connection_ of _perceptions_ makes up the real
+identity of the individual, while _apperceptions_ (that which is
+consciously apprehended of past experiences) constitute the moral
+identity and make manifest the real identity." We have had occasion
+before to allude to the part played in the Leibnizian philosophy by
+"minute perceptions" or "unconscious ideas." Of them he says, relative
+to the present point, that "insensible perceptions mark and even
+constitute the sameness of the individual, which is characterized
+by the residua preserved from its preceding states, as they form
+its connection with its present state." If these connections are
+"apperceived" or brought into distinct consciousness, there is moral
+identity as well. As he expresses it in one place: "The self (_soi_)
+is real and physical identity; the appearance of self, accompanied with
+truth, is personal identity." But the essential point in either case is
+that the identity is not that of a substance underlying modifications,
+nor of a consciousness which merely accompanies all mental states,
+but is the connection, the active continuity, or--in Kant's word--the
+synthesis, of all particular forms of the mental life. The self is not
+the most abstract unity of experience, it is the most organic. What
+Leibniz says of his monads generally is especially true of the higher
+monads,--human souls. "They vary, up to infinity itself, with the
+greatest abundance, order, and beauty imaginable." Not a mathematical
+point, but life, is the type of Leibniz's conception of identity.
+
+In the order in which Locke takes up his topics (and in which Leibniz
+follows him) we have omitted one subject, which, however, may find its
+natural place in the present connection,--the subject of infinity. In
+Locke's conception, the infinite is only a ceaseless extension or
+multiplication of the finite. He considers the topic immediately after
+the discussions of space, time, and number, and with good logic from
+his standpoint; for "finite and infinite," he says, are "looked upon by
+the mind as the modes of _quantity_, and are attributed, in their first
+designation, only to those things which have parts and are capable
+of increase and diminution." This is true even of the application
+of the term "infinite" to God, so far as concerns the attributes of
+duration and ubiquity; and as applied to his other attributes the
+term is figurative, signifying that they are incomprehensible and
+inexhaustible. Such being the idea of the infinite, it is attained as
+follows: There is no difficulty, says Locke, as to the way in which
+we come by the idea of the finite. Every obvious portion of extension
+and period of succession which affects us is bounded. If we take one of
+these periods or portions, we find that we can double it, or "otherwise
+multiply it," as often as we wish, and that there is no reason to stop,
+nor are we one jot nearer the end at any point of the multiplication
+than when we set out. "By repeating as often as we will any idea of
+space, we get the idea of infinity; by being able to repeat the idea
+of any length of duration, we come by the idea of eternity." There
+is a difference, then, between the ideas of the infinity of space,
+time, and number, and of an infinite space, time, and number. The
+former idea we have; it is the idea that we can continue without end
+the process of multiplication or progression. The latter we have not;
+it would be the idea of having completed the infinite multiplication,
+it would be the result of the never-ending progression. And this is
+evidently a contradiction in terms. To sum the matter up, the term
+"infinite" always relates to the notion of quantity. Quantity is that
+which is essentially capable of increase or decrease. There is then an
+infinity of quantity; there is no quantity which is the absolute limit
+to quantity. Such a quantity would be incapable of increase, and hence
+contradictory to quantity. But an actual infinite quantity (whether
+of space, time, or number) would be one than which there could be no
+greater; and hence the impossibility of our having a positive idea of
+an actual or completed infinite.
+
+Leibniz's reply consists simply in carrying out this same thought
+somewhat further. It is granted that the idea of an infinite quantity
+of any kind is absurd and self-contradictory. But what does this prove,
+except that the notions of quantity and infinity are incompatible with
+each other, that they contradict each other? Hence, instead of the
+infinite being a mode of quantity, it must be conceived as essentially
+distinct from and even opposed to quantity. Locke's argument is
+virtually a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the notion that the infinite
+is capable of parts. In the few pages of comment which Leibniz in
+1696 wrote upon Locke, this topic of the infinite is one of the few
+touched upon. His words upon that occasion were as follows: "I agree
+with Mr. Locke that, properly speaking, there is no space, time, nor
+number which is infinite; and that it is only true that however great
+be a space, a time, or a number, there is always another which is still
+greater, and this without end; and that, _therefore_, the infinite
+is not to be found in a whole made up of parts. But it does not cease
+to exist: it is found in the absolute, which is without parts, and of
+which compound things [phenomena in space and time, or facts which may
+be numbered] are only limitations. The positive infinite being nothing
+else than the absolute, it may be said that there is, in this sense,
+a positive idea of the infinite, and that it is anterior to the idea
+of the finite." In other words, while the infinite is to Locke an
+indefinite extension of the finite, which alone is positively "given,"
+to Leibniz the infinite is the positive and real, and the finite is
+only in and by it. The finite is the negative.
+
+Leibniz amplifies this thought upon other occasions, as in his present
+more extended examination. "There is no infinite number, line, or
+quantity, if they are taken as true wholes." "We deceive ourselves in
+trying to imagine an absolute space which should be an infinite whole,
+composed of parts. There is none such. It is an idea which implies
+contradiction; and all these 'infinites' and 'infinitesimals' are of
+use only in geometry, as imaginary roots are in algebra." That which
+is ordinarily called the infinite, that is, the quantitative infinite,
+is in reality only the indefinite. "We involve ourselves in difficulty
+when we talk about a series of numbers extending _to_ infinity; we
+imagine a last term, an infinite number, or one infinitely little. But
+these are only fictions. All number is finite and assignable, [that is,
+of a certain definite quantity]; every line is the same. 'Infinites'
+and 'infinitesimals' signify only quantities which can be taken as
+large or as small as one wishes, simply for the purpose of showing that
+there is no error which can be assigned. Or we are to understand by the
+infinitely little, the state of vanishing or commencing of a quantum
+after the analogy of a quantum already formed." On the other hand,
+the true infinite "is not an aggregate, nor a whole of parts; it is not
+clothed with magnitude, nor does it consist in number.�.�.�. The
+Absolute alone, the indivisible infinite, has true unity,--I mean
+God." And as he sums up the matter: "The infinite, consisting of parts,
+is neither one nor a whole; it cannot be brought under any notion of
+the mind except that of quantity. Only the infinite without parts is
+one, and this is not a whole [of parts]: this infinite is God."
+
+It cannot be admitted, however, that Locke has given a correct account
+of the origin of the notion of the quantitative infinite, or--to
+speak philosophically, and not after the use of terms convenient in
+mathematics--the indefinite. According to him, its origin is the mere
+empirical repeating of a sensuous datum of time and space. According
+to Leibniz, this repetition, however long continued, can give no
+idea beyond itself; it can never generate the idea that the process
+of repetition may be continued without a limit. Here, as elsewhere,
+he objects that experience cannot guarantee notions beyond the limits
+of experience. Locke's process of repetition could tell us that a
+number _had_ been extended up to a given point; not that it could be
+extended without limit. The source of this latter idea must be found,
+therefore, where we find the origin of all extra-empirical notions,--in
+reason. "Its origin is the same as that of universal and necessary
+truths." It is not the empirical process of multiplying, but the fact
+that the _same reason_ for multiplying always exists, that originates
+and guarantees the idea. "Take a straight line and prolong it in such
+a way that it is double the first. It is evident that the second,
+being perfectly _similar_ to the first, can be itself doubled; and we
+have a third, which in turn is _similar_ to the preceding. The _same
+reason_ always being present, it is not possible that the process
+should ever be brought to a stop. Thus the line can be prolonged
+'to infinity.' Therefore the idea of 'infinity' comes from the
+consideration of the identity of relation or of reason."
+
+The considerations which we have grouped together in this chapter
+serve to show the fundamental philosophical difference between Locke
+and Leibniz. Although, taken in detail, they are self-explanatory, a
+few words may be permitted upon their unity and ultimate bearing. It is
+characteristic of Locke that he uses the same principle of explanation
+with reference to the conceptions of substance, identity and diversity,
+and infinity, and that this principle is that of spatial and temporal
+relation. Infinity is conceived as quantitative, as the successive
+addition of times and spaces; identity and diversity are oneness and
+difference of existence as determined by space and time; substance
+is the underlying static substratum of qualities, and, as such, is
+considered after the analogy of things existing in space and through
+time. It must not be forgotten that Locke believed as thoroughly as
+Leibniz in the substantial existence of the world, of the human soul,
+and of God; in the objective continuity of the world, and the personal
+identity of man, and in the true infinity of God. Whatever negative
+or sceptical inferences may have afterwards been drawn from Locke's
+premises were neither drawn nor dreamed of by him. His purpose was in
+essence one with that of Leibniz.
+
+But the contention of Leibniz is that when substance, identity, and
+infinity are conceived of by mechanical categories, or measured by the
+sensible standard of space and time, they lose their meaning and their
+validity. According to him such notions are spiritual in their nature,
+and to be spiritually conceived of. "Spiritual," however, does not mean
+opposed to the sensible; it does not mean something to be known by a
+peculiar kind of intuition unlike our knowledge of anything else. It
+means the active and organic basis of the sensible, its significance
+and ideal purpose. It is known by knowing the sensible or mechanical
+as it really is; that is, as it is completely, as a _concretum_,
+in Leibniz's phrase. Leibniz saw clearly that to make the infinite
+something at one end of the finite, as its mere external limit, or
+something miraculously intercalated into the finite, was to deprive
+it of meaning, and, by making it unknowable, to open the way for its
+denial. To make identity consist in the removal of all diversity
+(as must be done if it be thought after the manner of external
+relations), is to reduce it to nothing,--as Hume, indeed, afterwards
+showed. Substance, which is merely a support behind qualities, is
+unknowable, and hence unverifiable. While, then, the aim of both Locke
+and Leibniz as regards these categories was the same, Leibniz saw what
+Locke did not,--that to interpret them after the manner of existence
+in space and time, to regard them (in Leibniz's terminology) as
+mathematical, and not as metaphysical, is to defeat that aim. The sole
+way to justify them, and in justifying them to give relative validity
+to the sensible and phenomenal, is to demonstrate their spiritual and
+dynamic nature, to show them as conditioning space and time, and not as
+conditioned by them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+The third book of Locke's Essay is upon words and language; and in the
+order of treatment this would be the next topic for discussion. But
+much of what is said in this connection both by Locke and by Leibniz is
+philological, rhetorical, and grammatical in character, and although
+not without interest in itself, is yet without any especial bearing
+upon the philosophical points in controversy. The only topics in
+this book demanding our attention are general and particular terms;
+but these fall most naturally into the discussion of general and
+particular knowledge. In fact, it is not the terms which Locke
+actually discusses, but the ideas for which the terms stand. We
+pass on accordingly, without further ceremony, to the fourth book,
+which is concerning knowledge in general. Locke defines knowledge
+as "nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or
+disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas." These agreements or
+disagreements may be reduced to four sorts,--Identity, or diversity;
+Relation; Co-existence, or necessary connection; Real existence. The
+statement of identity and diversity is implied in all knowledge
+whatsoever. By them "the mind clearly and infallibly perceives each
+idea to agree with itself and be what it is, and all distinct ideas to
+disagree; _i.�e._, the one not to be the other." The agreement of
+relation is such knowledge as the mind derives from the _comparison_
+of its ideas. It includes mathematical knowledge. The connection of
+co-existence "belongs particularly to substances." Locke's example
+is that "gold is fixed,"--by which we understand that the idea of
+fixedness goes along with that group of ideas which we call gold. All
+statements of fact coming under the natural sciences would fall into
+this class. The fourth sort is "that of actual and real existence
+agreeing to any idea."
+
+Leibniz's criticism upon these statements of Locke is brief and to
+the point. He admits Locke's definition of knowledge, qualifying it,
+however, by the statement that in much of our knowledge, perhaps in all
+that is merely empirical, we do not know the reason and connection
+of things and hence cannot be said to _perceive_ the agreement
+or disagreement of ideas, but only to feel it confusedly. His
+most important remark, however, is to the effect that relation is
+not a special kind of knowledge, but that all Locke's four kinds
+are varieties of relation. Locke's "connection" of ideas which
+makes knowledge is nothing but relation. And there are two kinds of
+relation,--those of "comparison" and of "concourse." That of comparison
+states the identity or distinction of ideas, either in whole or in
+part. That of concourse contains Locke's two classes of co-existence
+and existence. "When we say that a thing really exists, this existence
+is the predicate,--that is to say, a notion connected with the idea
+which is the subject; and there is connection between these two
+notions. The existence of an object of an idea may be considered as
+the concourse of this object with me. Hence comparison, which marks
+identity or diversity, and concourse of an object with me (or with the
+_ego_) are the only forms of knowledge."
+
+Leibniz leaves the matter here; but he only needed to develop what is
+contained in this statement to anticipate Berkeley and Kant in some of
+the most important of their discoveries. The contradiction which lies
+concealed in Locke's account is between his definition of knowledge
+in general, and knowledge of real existence in particular. One is the
+agreement or disagreement of _ideas_; the other is the agreement of
+an idea _with an object_. Berkeley's work, in its simplest form, was
+to remove this inconsistency. He saw clearly that the "object" was an
+intruder here. If knowledge lies in the connection of _ideas_, it is
+impossible to get outside the ideas to find an object with which they
+agree. Either that object is entirely unknown, or it is an idea. It
+is impossible, therefore, to find the knowledge of reality in the
+comparison of an idea with an object. It must be in some property of
+the ideas themselves.
+
+Kant developed more fully the nature of this property, which
+constitutes the "objectivity" of our ideas. It is their connection
+with one another according to certain _necessary_ forms of perception
+and rules of conception. In other words, the reality of ideas lies in
+their being connected by the necessary and hence universal relations
+of synthetic intelligence, or, as Kant often states it, in their
+agreement with the conditions of self-consciousness. It is not, I
+believe, unduly stretching either the letter or the spirit of Leibniz
+to find in that "concourse of the object with the ego" which makes
+its reality, the analogue of this doctrine of Kant; it is at all
+events the recognition of the fact that reality is not to be found
+in the relating of ideas to unknown things, but in their relation to
+self-conscious intelligence. The points of similarity between Kant
+and Leibniz do not end here. Leibniz's two relations of "comparison"
+and "concourse" are certainly the congeners of Kant's "analytic"
+and "synthetic" judgments. But Leibniz, as we shall see hereafter,
+trusts too thoroughly to the merely formal relations of identity and
+contradiction to permit him such a development of these two kinds of
+relation as renders Kant's treatment of them epoch-making.
+
+The discussion then advances to the subject of degrees of knowledge,
+of which Locke recognizes three,--intuitive, demonstrative, and
+sensitive. Intuitive knowledge is immediate knowledge,--recognition
+of likeness or difference without the intervention of a third idea;
+it is the most certain and clear of all knowledge. In demonstrative
+knowledge the agreement or disagreement cannot be perceived directly,
+because the ideas cannot be put together so as to show it. Hence
+the mind has recourse to intermediaries. "And this is what we call
+reasoning." Demonstrative rests on intuitive knowledge, because each
+intermediate idea used must be immediately perceived to be like or
+unlike its neighboring idea, or it would itself need intermediates for
+its proof. Besides these two degrees of knowledge there is "another
+perception of the mind employed about the particular existence of
+finite things without us, which, going beyond bare probability, and yet
+not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty,
+passes under the name of knowledge."
+
+Leibniz's comments are again brief. The primitive truths which are
+known by intuition are to be divided into two classes,--truths of
+reason and of fact. The primitive truths of reason are necessary, and
+may be called identical, because they seem only to repeat the same
+thing, without teaching us anything. A is A. A is not non-A. Such
+propositions are not frivolous or useless, because the conclusions
+of logic are demonstrated by means of identical propositions, and
+many of those of geometry by the principle of contradiction. All the
+intuitive truths of reason may be said to be made known through the
+"immediation" of ideas. The intuitive truths of fact, on the other
+hand, are contingent and are made known through the "immediation"
+of feeling. In this latter class come such truths as the Cartesian,
+"I think, therefore I am." Neither class can be proved by anything more
+certain.
+
+Demonstration is defined by Leibniz as by Locke. The former recognizes,
+however, two sorts,--analytic and synthetic. Synthesis goes from the
+simple to the complex. There are many cases, however, where this is
+not applicable; where it would be a task "equal to drinking up the sea
+to attempt to make all the necessary combinations. Here the method
+of exclusions should be employed, cutting off many of the useless
+combinations." If this cannot be done, then it is analysis which gives
+the clew into the labyrinth. He is also of the opinion that besides
+demonstration, giving certainty, there should be admitted an art of
+calculating probabilities,--the lack of which is, he says, a great
+defect in our present logic, and which would be more useful than a
+large part of our demonstrative sciences. As to sensitive knowledge,
+he agrees with Locke that there is such a thing as real knowledge
+of objects without us, and that this variety does not have the same
+metaphysical certainty as the other two; but he disagrees regarding
+its criterion. According to Locke, the criterion is simply the greater
+degree of vividness and force that sensations have as compared with
+imaginations, and the actual pleasures or pains which accompany
+them. Leibniz points out that this criterion, which in reality is
+purely emotional, is of no great value, and states the principle of the
+reality of sensible phenomena which we have already given, repeating
+that it is found in the _connection_ of phenomena, and that "this
+connection is verified by means of the truths of reason, just as the
+phenomena of optics are explained by geometry."
+
+The discussion regarding "primitive truths," axioms, and maxims,
+as well as the distinction between truths of fact and of reason, has
+its most important bearing in Locke's next chapter. This chapter has
+for its title the "Extent of Human Knowledge," and in connection with
+the sixth chapter, upon universal propositions, and with the seventh,
+upon axioms, really contains the gist of the treatment of knowledge. It
+is here also that are to be considered chapters three and six of book
+third, having respectively as their titles, "Of General Terms," and "Of
+the Names of Substances."
+
+To understand Locke's views upon the extent and limitations of our
+knowledge, it is necessary to recur to his theory of its origin. If
+we compare what he says about the origin of ideas from sensations
+with what he says about the development of general knowledge from
+particular, we shall find that Locke unconsciously puts side by side
+two different, and even contradictory, theories upon this point. In the
+view already given when treating of sensation, knowledge originates
+from the combination, the addition, of the simple ideas furnished
+us by our senses. It begins with the simple, the unrelated, and
+advances to the complex. But according to the doctrine which he
+propounds in treating of general terms, knowledge begins with the
+individual, which is already qualified by definite relations, and
+hence complex, and proceeds, by abstracting some of these qualities,
+towards the simple. Or, in Locke's own language, "ideas become general
+by separating from them the circumstances of time and place and any
+other ideas that may _determine_ them to this and that particular
+existence." And, still more definitely, he says that general ideas
+are framed by "leaving out of the _complex_ idea of individuals that
+which is peculiar to each, and retaining only what is common to them
+all." From this it follows that "general and universal belong not to
+the real existence of things, but are the inventions and creatures of
+the understanding." "When we quit particulars, the generals that rest
+are only creatures of our own making.�.�.�. The signification
+they have is nothing but a relation that by the mind of man is added
+to them." And in language which reminds us of Kant, but with very
+different bearing, he says that relations are the workmanship of the
+understanding. The abstract idea of what is common to all the members
+of the class constitutes "nominal essence." This nominal essence, not
+being a particular existence in nature, but the "workmanship of the
+understanding," is to be carefully distinguished from the real essence,
+"which is the being of anything whereby it is what it is." This real
+essence is evidently equivalent to the unknown "substance" of which we
+have heard before. "It is the real, internal, and unknown constitution
+of things." In simple or unrelated ideas and in modes the real and
+the nominal essence is the same; and hence whatever is demonstrated of
+one is demonstrated of the other. But as to substance it is different,
+the one being natural, the other artificial. The nominal essence always
+relates to sorts, or classes, and is a pattern or standard by which we
+classify objects. In the individual there is nothing essential, in this
+sense. "Particular beings, considered barely in themselves, will be
+found to have all their qualities equally essential to them, or, which
+is more, nothing at all." As for the "real essence" which things have,
+"we only suppose its being without precisely knowing what it is."
+
+Locke here presents us with the confusion which, in one form or
+another, is always found in empiricism, and which indeed is essential
+to it. Locke, like the ordinary empiricist, has no doubt of the
+existence of real things. His starting-point is the existence of two
+substances, mind and matter; while, further, there is a great number of
+substances of each kind. Each mind and every separate portion of matter
+is a distinct substance. This supposed deliverance of common sense
+Locke never called into question. Working on this line, all knowledge
+will consist in abstraction from the ready-made things presented to us
+in perception, "in leaving out from the complex idea of individuals"
+something belonging to them. But on the other hand, Locke never doubts
+that knowledge begins with sensation, and that, therefore, the process
+of knowledge is one of adding simple, unrelated elements. The two
+theories are absolutely opposed to each other, and yet one and the
+same philosophical inference may be drawn from each; namely, that only
+the particular is real, and that the universal (or relations) is an
+artificial product, manufactured in one case by abstraction from the
+real individual, in the other by compounding the real sensation.
+
+The result is, that when he comes to a discussion of the extent of
+knowledge, he admits knowledge of self, of God, and of "things,"
+only by a denial of his very definition of knowledge, while knowledge
+of other conceptions, like those of mathematics, is not knowledge of
+reality, but only of ideas which we ourselves frame. All knowledge,
+that is to say, is obtained only either by contradicting his own
+fundamental notion, or by placing it in relations which are confessedly
+artificial and superinduced. It is to this point that we come.
+
+The proposition which is fundamental to the discussion is that we
+have knowledge only where we perceive the agreement or disagreement
+of ideas. Locke then takes up each of his four classes of connection,
+in order to ascertain the extent of knowledge in it. Our knowledge
+of "identity and diversity extends as far as our ideas," because we
+intuitively perceive every idea to be "what it is, and different from
+any other." Locke afterwards states, however, that all purely identical
+propositions are "trifling," that is, they contain no instruction;
+they teach us nothing. Thus the first class of relations cannot be
+said to be of much avail. If we consider the fourth kind of knowledge,
+that of real existence, we have an intuitive knowledge of self, a
+demonstrative knowledge of God, and a sensitive knowledge of other
+things. But sensitive knowledge, it must be noted, "does not extend
+beyond the objects _actually present_ to our senses." It can hardly
+be said, therefore, to assure us of the existence of _objects_
+at all. It only tells us what experiences are being at the time
+undergone. Furthermore, knowledge of all three (God, self, and matter),
+since of real being, and not of relations between ideas, contradicts
+his definition of knowledge. But perhaps we shall find knowledge more
+extended in the other classes. And indeed Locke tells us that knowledge
+of relations is the "largest field of our knowledge." It includes
+morals and mathematics; but it is to be noticed that, according to
+Locke, in both of these branches our demonstrations are not regarding
+facts, but regarding either "modes" framed by ourselves, or relations
+that are the creatures of our minds,--"extraneous and superinduced"
+upon the facts, as he says. He thus anticipates in substance, though
+not in phraseology, Hume's distinction between "matters of fact" and
+"connections of ideas," in the latter of which we may have knowledge,
+but not going beyond the combinations that we ourselves make.
+
+This leaves one class, that of co-existence, to be examined. Here,
+if anywhere, must knowledge, worthy of being termed scientific, be
+found. This class, it will be remembered, comprehends our knowledge
+concerning substances. But this extends, according to Locke, "a
+very little way." The idea of a substance is a complex of various
+"simple ideas united in one subject and co-existing together." When we
+would know anything further concerning a substance, we only inquire
+what other simple ideas, besides those already united, co-exist with
+them. Since there is no _necessary_ connection, however, among these
+simple ideas, since each is, by its very simplicity, essentially
+distinct from every other, or, as we have already learned, since
+nothing is essential to an individual, we can never be sure that any
+idea really co-exists with others. Or, as Locke says, in physical
+matters we "can go no further than particular experience informs us
+of.�.�.�. We can have no certain knowledge of universal truths
+concerning natural bodies." And again, "universal propositions of whose
+truth and falsehood we have certain knowledge concern not existence;"
+while, on the other hand, "particular affirmations are only concerning
+existence, declaring only the _accidental_ union or separation of ideas
+in things existing." This particular knowledge, it must be recalled,
+is, in turn, only sensitive, and thus extends not beyond the time when
+the sensation is had.
+
+We are not surprised then at learning from Locke that regarding bodies
+"we are not capable of scientific knowledge." "Natural philosophy is
+not capable of being made a science;" or, as Locke elsewhere states it,
+knowledge regarding the nominal essence is "trifling" (Kant's analytic
+judgment); regarding the real essence is impossible. For example,
+when we say that all gold is fusible, this means either simply that
+fusibility is one of the ideas which we combine to get the general
+idea of gold, so that in making the given judgment we only expand
+our own notion; or it means that the "real" substance gold is always
+fusible. But this is a statement we have no right to make, and for two
+reasons: we do not know what the real substance gold is; and even if we
+did, we should not know that fusibility _always_ co-exists with it. The
+summary of the whole matter is that "general certainty is to be found
+only in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek it elsewhere, in experiment
+or observations without us, our knowledge goes not beyond particulars."
+
+It has been necessary to give an account of Locke's views at this
+length because it is in his discussion of the limitations and extent
+of knowledge that his theory culminates. While not working out his
+sensationalism as consistently as did Hume, he yet reduces knowledge
+to that of the existence of God and ourselves (whose natures, however,
+are unknown), and to a knowledge of mathematical and moral relations,
+which, however, concerns only "the habitudes and relations of abstract
+ideas." We have now to see by what means Leibniz finds a wider sphere
+for certain and general knowledge by his theory of intellectualism than
+Locke can by his sensationalism.
+
+Leibniz's theory of knowledge rests upon a distinction between truths
+of fact, which are _a posteriori_ and contingent, and truths of
+reason, which are _a priori_ and necessary. In discussing his views
+regarding experience, we learned that, according to him, all judgments
+which are empirical are also particular, not allowing any inference
+beyond the given cases experienced. Experience gives only instances,
+not principles. If we postpone for the present the discussions of
+truths of reason, by admitting that they may properly be said to be
+at once certain and universal, the question arises how in matters
+of fact there can be any knowledge beyond that which Locke admits;
+and the answer is, that so far as the mere existence and occurrence
+of these facts is concerned, there is neither demonstrative nor
+general knowledge. But the intelligence of man does not stop with the
+isolated fact; it proceeds to inquire into its cause, to ascertain
+its conditions, and thus to see into, not merely its actual existence,
+but its _possibility_. In Leibniz's language: "The real existence of
+things that are not necessary is a point of fact or history; but the
+knowledge of possibilities or necessities (the necessary being that
+whose opposite is not possible) constitutes demonstrative science." In
+other words, it is the principle of causality, which makes us see a
+fact not as a mere fact, but as a dependent consequence; which elevates
+knowledge, otherwise contingent and particular, into the realm of the
+universal and apodictic. Underlying all "accidental union" is the real
+synthesis of causation.
+
+If we follow the discussion as it centres about the terms "nominal"
+and "real," it stands as follows: Leibniz objects to the use of the
+term "essence" in this connection, but is willing to accept that of
+"definition;" for, as he says, a substance can have but one essence,
+while there may be several definitions, which, however, all express
+the same essence. The essence is the _possibility_ of that which is
+under consideration; the definition is the statement of that which is
+supposed to be possible. The "nominal" definition, however, while it
+implies this possibility, does not expressly affirm it,--that is to
+say, it may always be doubted whether the nominal definition has any
+possibility (or reality) corresponding to it until experience comes
+to our aid and makes us know it _a posteriori_. A "real" definition,
+on the other hand, makes us know _a priori_ the reality of the thing
+defined by showing us the mode of its production, "by exhibiting its
+cause or generation." Even our knowledge of facts of experience cannot
+be said, therefore, to be arbitrary, for we do not combine ideas just
+as we please, but "our combinations may be justified by reason which
+shows them to be possible, or by experience which shows them to be
+actual, and consequently also possible." To take Locke's example about
+gold, "the essence of gold is that which constitutes it and gives it
+its sensible qualities, and these qualities, so far as they enable
+us to recognize it, constitute its nominal essence, while a real
+and causal definition would enable us to explain the contexture or
+internal disposition. The nominal definition, however, is also real in
+one sense,--not in itself, indeed, since it does not enable us to know
+_a priori_ the possibility or production of the body, but empirically
+real."
+
+It is evident from these quotations that what Leibniz understands
+by "possibility" is the condition or cause of a given fact; and
+that, while Locke distinguishes between particular, accidental and
+demonstrative, general knowledge as two opposed kinds, concerned with
+two distinct and mutually exclusive spheres, with Leibniz they are
+distinctions in the aspect of the same sphere of fact. In reality there
+is no combination of qualities accidental, as Locke thought that by
+far the greater part were; in every empirical fact there is a cause or
+condition involved that is invariable, and that constitutes the reason
+of the fact. The "accidental" is only in the relation of our ideas
+to objects, not in the objects themselves. There may be accidental
+mental associations; there are no accidental relations. In empirical,
+or _a posteriori_, knowledge, so-called, the reason is there, but
+is not known. _A priori_ knowledge, the real definition, discovers
+and explicitly states this reason. Contingent knowledge is therefore
+potentially rational; demonstrative knowledge is the actual development
+of the reasons implicitly contained in experience.
+
+We may with advantage connect this discussion with the fundamental
+doctrine of Locke and Leibniz regarding intelligence and reality. To
+Locke, as we have seen, knowledge is essentially a matter of relations
+or connections; but relations are "superinduced" and "extraneous" as
+regards the facts. Every act of knowledge constitutes, therefore, in
+some way a departure from the reality to be known. Knowledge and fact
+are, by their very definition, opposed to one another. But in Leibniz's
+view intelligence, or reason, enters into the constitution of reality;
+indeed, it is reality. The relations which are the "creatures of the
+understanding" are, therefore, not foreign to the material to be known,
+but are organic to it, forming its content. The process, then, in which
+the mind perceives the connections or relations of ideas or objects,
+is simply the process by which the mind comes to the consciousness
+of the real nature of these objects, not a process of "superinducing"
+unreal ideas upon them. The difficulty of Locke is the difficulty of
+every theory of knowledge that does not admit an organic unity of the
+knowing mind and the known universe. The theory is obliged to admit
+that all knowledge is in the form of relations which have their source
+in intelligence. But being tied to the view that reality is distinct
+from intelligence, it is obliged to draw the conclusion that these
+relations are not to be found in actual existence, and hence that all
+knowledge, whatever else it may be, is unreal in the sense that it does
+not and cannot conform to actual fact. But, in the theory of Leibniz,
+the process of relating which is the essence of knowledge is only the
+realization on the part of the individual mind of the relations or
+reasons that eternally constitute reality. Since reality is, and is
+what it is, through intelligence, whatever relations intelligence
+rightly perceives are not "extraneous" to reality, but are its
+"essence." As Leibniz says, "Truth consists in the relations between
+the objects of our ideas. This does not depend upon language, but is
+common to us with God, so that when God manifests a truth to us, _we
+acquire what is already in his understanding_. For although there is an
+infinite difference between his ideas and ours as to their perfection
+and extent, yet it is always true that as to the same relation they are
+identical. And it is in this relation that truth exists." To this may
+be added another statement, which throws still further light on this
+point: "Ideas are eternally in God, and are in us before we perceive
+them."
+
+We have now to consider somewhat more in detail the means by
+which the transformation of empirical into rational knowledge
+is carried on. Leibniz points out that the difficulty concerning
+scientific knowledge of sensible facts is not lack of data, but,
+in a certain sense, superfluity of data. It is not that we perceive
+no connections among objects, but that we perceive many which we
+cannot reduce to one another. "Our experiences," says Leibniz,
+"are simple only in appearance, for they are always accompanied by
+circumstances connected with them, although these relations are not
+understood by us. These circumstances furnish material capable of
+explanation and analysis. There is thus a sort of _pleonasm_ in our
+perceptions of sensible objects and qualities, since we have more
+than one idea of the same object. Gold can be nominally defined in
+many ways. Such definitions are only _provisional_." This is to say,
+empirical knowledge will become rational when it is possible to view
+any subject-matter as a unity, instead of a multiplicity of varied
+aspects. And on this same subject he says, in another connection: "A
+great number of experiences can furnish us data more than sufficient
+for scientific knowledge, provided only we have the art of using these
+data." The aim of science is therefore, to discover the dynamic unity
+which makes a whole of what appears to be a mere mass of accidentally
+connected circumstances. This unity of relations is the individual.
+
+It is thus evident that to Leibniz the individual is not the
+beginning of knowledge, but its goal. The individual is the organic,
+the dynamic unity of the variety of phases or notions presented
+us in sense-experience. Individuality is not "simplicity" in
+the sense of Locke; that is, separation from all relations. It
+is complete connection of all relations. "It is impossible for
+us to have [complete] knowledge of individuals, and to find the
+means of determining exactly the individuality of anything; for
+in individuality all circumstances are combined. Individuality
+envelops the infinite. Only so far as we know the infinite do we
+know the individual, on account of the influence (if this word be
+correctly understood) that all things in the universe exercise upon
+one another." Leibniz, in short, remains true to his conception of the
+monad as the ultimate reality; for the monad, though an individual,
+yet has the universe as its content. We shall be able, therefore, to
+render our sensible experiences rational just in the degree in which we
+can discover the underlying relations and dependencies which make them
+members of one individual.
+
+For the process of transformation Leibniz relies especially upon two
+methods,--those of mathematics and of classification. Of the former
+he here says but little; but the entire progress of physical science
+since the time of Leibniz has been the justification of that little. In
+the passage already quoted regarding the need of method for using our
+sensible data, he goes on to say that the "infinitesimal analysis has
+given us the means of allying physics and geometry, and that dynamics
+has furnished us with the key to the general laws of nature." It is
+certainly competent testimony to the truth of Leibniz's fundamental
+principles that he foresaw also the course which the development
+of biological science would take. No classification based upon
+resemblances, says Leibniz in effect, can be regarded as wholly
+arbitrary, since resemblances are found in nature also. The only
+question is whether our classification is based upon superficial or
+fundamental identities; the superficial resemblances being such as are
+external, or the effects of some common cause, while the fundamental
+resemblances are such as are the cause of whatever other similarities
+are found. "It can be said that whatever we compare or distinguish with
+truth, nature differentiates, or makes agree, also; but that nature has
+differences and identities which are better than ours, which we do not
+know.�.�.�. _The more we discover the generation of species_,
+and the more we follow in our classifications the conditions that
+are required for their production, the nearer we approach the natural
+order." Our classifications, then, so far as they depend upon what is
+conditioned, are imperfect and provisional, although they cannot be
+said to be false (since "while nature may give us those more complete
+and convenient, it will not give the lie to those we have already");
+while so far as they rest upon what is causal and conditioning, they
+are true, general, and necessary. In thus insisting that classification
+should be genetic, Leibniz anticipated the great service which the
+theory of evolution has done for biological science in enabling science
+to form classes which are "natural;" that is, based on identity of
+origin.
+
+Leibniz culminates his discussion of classification as a method of
+translating the empirical into the rational, by pointing out that
+it rests upon the law of continuity; and that this law contains two
+factors,--one equivalent to the axiom of the Realists, that nature
+is nowhere empty; the other, to that of the Nominalists, that nature
+does nothing uselessly. "One of these principles seems to make nature
+a prodigal, the other a miser; and yet both are true if properly
+understood," says Leibniz. "Nature is like a good manager, sparing
+where it is necessary, in order to be magnificent. It is magnificent
+in its effects, and economical in the causes used to produce them." In
+other words, classification becomes science when it presents us with
+both unity and difference. The principle of unity is that of nature
+as a miser and economical; that of differentiation is the principle of
+nature as prodigal and magnificent. The thoroughly differentiated unity
+is nature as self-specifying, or as an organic, not an abstract, unity.
+
+The gist of the whole matter is, then, that experience presents us
+with an infinity of ideas, which may appear at first sight arbitrary
+and accidental in their connections. This appearance, however, is
+not the fact. These ideas are the effects of certain causes; and in
+ascertaining these conditions, we reduce the apparently unrelated
+variety of experiences to underlying unities, and these unities,
+like all real unities or simple beings, are spiritual and rational in
+nature. Leibniz's ordinary way of stating this is that the principle
+of truths of fact is that of _sufficient reason_. This principle
+Leibniz always treats as distinguished from that of identity (and
+contradiction) as the ruling category of truths of reason. And we shall
+follow him in discussing the two together.
+
+"Our reasonings are based on two leading principles,--that of
+contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false all which contains
+contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to that
+which is false; and that of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we
+judge that no fact is true or actual, no proposition veritable, unless
+there is a sufficient reason why it is as it is, and not otherwise,
+although these reasons are generally unknown to us. Thus there are
+two sorts of truths,--those of reason, and those of fact. The truths
+of reason are necessary, and their opposites impossible; while those
+of fact are contingent, and their opposites possible. When a truth
+is necessary, its reason can be discovered by analysis, resolving
+it into ideas and truths that are simpler, until the primitive
+truths are arrived at. It is thus that the mathematicians proceed in
+reducing by analysis the theorems of speculation and the canons of
+practice into definitions, axioms, and postulates. Thus they come to
+simple ideas whose definition cannot be given; primitive truths that
+cannot be proved, and which do not need it, since they are identical
+propositions, whose opposite contains a manifest contradiction."
+
+"But in contingent truths--those of fact--the sufficient reason must
+be found; namely, in the succession of things which fill the created
+universe,--for otherwise the analysis into particular reasons would
+go into detail without limit, by reason of the immense variety of
+natural things, and of the infinite divisibility of bodies. There
+are an infinity of figures and of past and present movements which
+enter into the efficient cause of my present writing, and there are
+an infinity of minute inclinations and dispositions of my soul which
+enter into its final cause. And since all this detail contains only
+other contingent and particular antecedents, each of which has need
+of a similar analysis to account for it, we really make no progress by
+this analysis; and it is necessary that the final or sufficient reason
+be outside the endless succession or series of contingent particulars,
+that it consist in a necessary being, in which this series of changes
+is contained only _eminenter_, as in its source. This necessary being
+and source is what we call God."
+
+In other words, the tracing of empirical facts to their causes and
+conditions does not, after all, render them wholly rational. The series
+of causes is endless. Every condition is in turn conditioned. We
+are not so much solving the problem of the reason of a given fact,
+as we are stating the problem in other terms as we go on in this
+series. Every solution offers itself again as a problem, and this
+endlessly. If these truths of fact, then, are to be rendered wholly
+rational, it must be in something which lies outside of the series
+considered as a series; that is, something which is not an antecedent
+of any one of the series, but is equally related to each and to
+all as their ground and source. This, considered as an argument
+for the existence of God, we shall deal with hereafter; now we are
+concerned only with its bearing upon the relation of experience to
+the universality and necessity of knowledge. According to this, the
+ultimate meaning of facts is found in their relation to the divine
+intelligence; for Leibniz is emphatic in insisting that the relation
+of God to experience is not one of bare will to creatures produced by
+this will (as Descartes had supposed), but of a will governed wholly
+by Intelligence. As Leibniz states it in another connection, not only
+matters of fact, but mathematical truths, have the same final basis in
+the divine understanding.
+
+"Such truths, strictly speaking, are only conditional, and say that
+in case their subject existed they would be found such and such. But
+if it is again asked in what consists this conditional connection
+in which there is necessary reality, the reply is that it is in
+the relation of ideas. And by the further question, Where would
+be the ideas if no spirit existed; and what would then become of
+the foundation of the certainty of such truths?--we are brought to
+the final foundation of truths; namely, that supreme and universal
+spirit, which must exist, and whose understanding is, in reality, the
+region of the eternal truths. And in order that it may not be thought
+that it is not necessary to have recourse to this region, we must
+consider that these necessary truths contain the determining reason and
+regulative principle of existence, and, in a word, of the laws of the
+universe. Thus these necessary truths, being anterior to the existences
+of contingent beings, must in turn be based upon the existence of a
+necessary substance."
+
+It is because facts are not _mere_ facts, in short, but are the
+manifestation of a "determining reason and regulative principle" which
+finds its home in universal intelligence, that knowledge of them can
+become necessary and general.
+
+The general nature of truths of reason and of their ruling principle,
+identity and contradiction, has already been given in the quotation
+regarding the principle of sufficient reason. It is Leibniz's
+contention that only in truths whose opposite is seen to involve
+self-contradiction can we have absolute certainty, and that it is
+through connection with such eternal truths that the certainty of
+our other knowledge rests. It is thus evident why Leibniz insists, as
+against Locke, upon the great importance of axioms and maxims. They are
+important, not merely in themselves, but as the sole and indispensable
+bases of scientific truth regarding all matters. Leibniz at times,
+it is true, speaks as if demonstrative and contingent truths were
+of themselves, in principle, distinct, and even opposed. But he also
+corrects himself by showing that contingency is rather a subjective
+limitation than an objective quality. We, indeed, do not see that the
+truth "I exist," for example, is necessary, because we cannot see how
+its opposite involves contradiction. But "God sees how the two terms
+'I' and 'exist' are connected; that is, _why_ I exist." So far as we
+can see facts, then, from the standpoint of the divine intelligence,
+so far, it would appear, our knowledge is necessary.
+
+Since these axioms, maxims, or first truths are "innate," we are
+in a condition to complete (for the first time) the discussion
+of innate ideas. These ideas constitute, as we have learned, the
+essential content of the divine intelligence, and of ours so far
+as we have realized our identity with God's understanding. The
+highest form of knowledge, therefore, is self-consciousness. This
+bears the same relation to necessary truths that the latter bear to
+experience. "Knowledge of necessary and eternal truths," says Leibniz,
+"distinguishes us from simple animals, and makes us have reason and
+science, _elevating us to the knowledge of ourselves_. We are thus
+developed to self-consciousness; and in being conscious of ourselves we
+are conscious of being, of substance, of the simple, of the spiritual,
+of God." And again he says that "those that know necessary truths are
+rational spirits, capable of self-consciousness, of recognizing what is
+termed Ego, substance, and monad. _Thus_ they are rendered capable of
+demonstrative knowledge." "We are innate to ourselves; and since we are
+beings, being is innate to us, for knowledge of it is implicit in that
+which we have of ourselves."
+
+Knowledge, in fine, may be regarded as an ascending series of four
+terms. The first is constituted by sensations associated together
+in such a way that a relation of antecedence and consequence exists
+between them. This is "experience." The second stage comes into
+existence when we connect these experiences, not by mere relations of
+"consecution," but by their conditions, by the principle of causality,
+and especially by that of sufficient reason, which connects them with
+the supreme intelligence, God. This stage is science. The third is
+knowledge of the axioms and necessary truths in and of themselves,
+not merely as involved in science. The fourth is self-consciousness,
+the knowledge of intelligence, in its intimate and universal nature,
+by which we know God, the mind, and all real substance. In the order of
+time the stage of experience is first, and that of self-consciousness
+last. But in the lowest stage there are involved the others. The
+progress of knowledge consists in the development or unfolding of
+this implicit content, till intelligence, spirit, activity, is clearly
+revealed as the source and condition of all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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 �sthetic 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION.
+
+
+In the exposition now completed we have in general taken for granted
+the truth and coherency of Leibniz's fundamental ideas, and have
+contented ourselves with an account of the principles and notions that
+flow from these ideas. The time has come for retracing our steps, and
+for inquiring whether the assumed premises can be thus unquestioningly
+adopted. This final chapter, therefore, we shall devote to criticism
+of the basis of Leibniz's philosophy, not attempting to test it by
+a comparison with other systems, but by inquiring into its internal
+coherency, and by a brief account of the ways in which his successors,
+or at least one of them, endeavored to make right the points in which
+he appeared to fail.
+
+The fundamental contradiction in Leibniz is to be found, I believe,
+between the method which he adopted--without inquiry into its validity
+and scope--and the subject-matter, or perhaps better the attitude,
+to which he attempted to apply this method; between, that is to
+say, the scholastic formal logic on the one hand and the idea of
+inter-relation derived from the development of scientific thought,
+on the other. Leibniz never thought of investigating the formal logic
+bequeathed by scholasticism, with a view to determining its adequacy
+as philosophic method. He adopted, as we have seen, the principles
+of identity and contradiction as sole principles of the only perfect
+knowledge. The type of knowledge is that which can be reduced to
+a series of identical propositions, whose opposite is seen to be
+impossible, because self-contradictory. Only knowledge in this form
+can be said to be demonstrative and necessary. As against Locke he
+justified the syllogistic method of the schoolmen as the typical method
+of all rational truth.
+
+On the other hand, Leibniz, as we saw in the earlier chapters,
+had learned positively from the growth of science, negatively from
+the failures of Descartes and Spinoza, to look upon the universe as
+a unity of inter-related members,--as an organic unity, not a mere
+self-identical oneness. Failing to see the cause of the failures of
+Descartes and Spinoza in precisely their adoption of the logic of
+identity and contradiction as ultimate, he attempted to reconcile this
+method with the conception of organic activity. The result is constant
+conflict between the method and content of his philosophy, between
+its letter and its spirit. The contradiction is a twofold one. The
+unity of the content of his philosophy, the conception of organism or
+harmony, is a unity which essentially involves difference. The unity
+of his method is a formal identity which excludes it. The unity,
+whose discovery constitutes Leibniz's great glory as a philosopher,
+is a unity of activity, a dynamic process. The unity of formal logic
+is exclusive of any mediation or process, and is essentially rigid
+and lifeless. The result is that Leibniz is constantly wavering
+(in logical result, not of course in spirit) between two opposed
+errors, one of which is, in reality, not different from Spinozism,
+in that it regards all distinction as only phenomenal and unreal,
+while the other is akin to atomism, in that attempting to avoid the
+doctrine of the all-inclusive one, it does so only by supposing a
+multitude of unrelated units, termed monads. And thus the harmony,
+which in Leibniz's intention is the very content of reality, comes
+to be, in effect, an external arrangement between the one and
+the many, the unity and the distinction, in themselves incapable
+of real relations. Such were the results of Leibniz's failure, in
+Kantian language, to criticise his categories, in Hegelian language,
+to develop a logic,--the results of his assuming, without examination,
+the validity of formal logic as a method of truth.
+
+So thoroughly is Leibniz imbued with the belief in its validity, that
+the very conception, that of sufficient reason, which should have been
+the means of saving him from his contradictions, is used in such a way
+as to plunge him deeper into them. The principle of sufficient reason
+may indeed be used as purely formal and external,--as equivalent to the
+notion that everything, no matter what, has _some_ explanation. Thus
+employed, it simply declares that everything has _a_ reason, without in
+the least determining the _what_ of that reason,--its content. This is
+what we mean by calling it formal. But this is not the way in which
+Leibniz conceives of it. According to him, it is not a principle
+of the external connection of one finite, or phenomenal, fact with
+another. It is a principle in the light of which the whole phenomenal
+world is to be viewed, declaring that its ground and meaning are to be
+found in reason, in self-conscious intelligence. As we have seen, it is
+equivalent, in Leibniz's case, to the notion that we have no complete
+nor necessary knowledge of the world of scientific fact until we have
+referred it to a conditioning "Supreme Spirit."
+
+Looked at in this way, we see that the unity which Leibniz is
+positively employing is an organic unity, a unity of intelligence
+involving organic reference to the known world. But such a conception
+of sufficient reason leaves no place for the final validity of
+identity and non-contradiction; and therefore Leibniz, when dealing
+with his method, and not, as in the passages referred to, with
+his subject-matter, cannot leave the matter thus. To do so indeed
+would have involved a complete reconstruction of his philosophy,
+necessitating a derivation of all the categories employed from
+intelligence itself (that is, from the sufficient or conditioning
+reason). But the bondage to scholastic method is so great that Leibniz
+can see no way but to measure intelligence by the ready-made principle
+of identity, and thus virtually (though not in purpose) to explain
+away the very principle of sufficient reason. In Leibniz's words:
+"Contingent truths require an infinite analysis which only God
+can carry out. Whence by him alone are they known _a priori_ and
+demonstratively. For although the reason can always be found for some
+occurring state in a prior state, this reason again requires a reason,
+and we never arrive in the series to the ultimate reason. But this
+_progressus ad infinitum_ takes (in us) the place of a sufficient
+reason, which can be found only outside the series in God, on whom
+all its members, prior and posterior depend, rather than upon one
+another. _Whatever truth, therefore, is incapable of analysis, and
+cannot be demonstrated from its own reasons, but has its ultimate
+reason and certainty only from the divine mind, is not necessary._
+Everything that we call truths of fact come under this head, and this
+is the root of their contingency."
+
+The sentences before the one italicized repeat what we have learned
+before, and seem to convey the idea that the phenomenal world
+is that which does not account for itself, because not itself a
+self-determining reason, and which gets its ultimate explanation and
+ground in a self-sufficient reason,--God. But notice the turn given to
+the thought with the word "therefore." Therefore all truth incapable
+of analysis,--that is, of reduction to identical propositions,
+whose opposite is impossible because self-contradictory,--all truth
+whose meaning depends upon not its bare identity, but upon its
+relation to the very content of all intelligence, is not necessary,
+but contingent. Leibniz here distinctly opposes identical truths as
+necessary, to truth connected with reason as contingent. Synthetic
+reference to the very structure of intelligence is thus made,
+not the ground of truth, but a blot upon its completeness
+and necessity. Perfect truth, it is implied in the argument,
+is self-identical, known by mere analysis of itself, and needs
+no reference to an organism of reason. The reference, therefore,
+to a principle of sufficient reason is simply a concession to the
+fragmentary and imperfect condition of all knowledge. Truth in itself
+is self-identical; but appearing to us only confusedly, we employ
+the idea of sufficient reason as a makeshift, by which we refer, in a
+mass, all that we cannot thus reduce to identical propositions, to an
+intelligence, or to a _Deus ex machina_ which can so reduce it. This is
+the lame and impotent conclusion.
+
+Leibniz's fundamental meaning is, no doubt, a correct one. He means
+that contingency of fact is not real, but apparent; that it exists
+only because of our inability to penetrate the reason which would
+enable us completely to account for the facts under consideration. He
+_means_ that if we could understand, _sub specie aeternitatis_,
+from the standpoint of universal intelligence, we should see every
+fact as necessary, as resulting from an intrinsic reason. But so
+thoroughly is he fettered by the scholastic method--that is, the
+method of formal logic--that he can conceive of this immanent and
+intrinsic reason which makes every fact a truth--that is, self-evident
+in its necessity--only as an analytic, self-contained identity. And
+herein lies his contradiction: his method obliges him to conceive of
+ultimate intelligence as purely formal, simply as that which does not
+contradict itself, while the attitude of his thought and its concrete
+subject-matter compel him to think of intelligence as possessing a
+content, as the organic unity of a system of relations.
+
+From this contradiction flow the other contradictions of Leibniz, which
+we are now prepared to examine in more detail. For his ideas are so
+much greater than his method that in almost every point there seems to
+be contradiction. His ideas _per se_ mean one thing, and his ideas as
+interpreted by his method another. Take his doctrine of individuality,
+for instance. To some it has appeared that the great defect of the
+Leibnizian philosophy is its individualism. Such conceive him simply
+to have carried out in his monadism the doctrine of the individual
+isolated from the universe to its logical conclusions, and thereby to
+have rendered it absurd. In a certain sense, the charge is true. The
+monad, according to the oft-repeated statement, has no intercourse
+with the rest of the universe. It really excludes all else. It acts
+as if nothing but itself and God were in existence. That is to say,
+the monad, being the self-identical, must shut out all intrinsic or
+real relations with other substances. Such relations would involve a
+differentiating principle for which Leibniz's logic has no place. Each
+monad is, therefore, an isolated universe. But such a result has no
+value for Leibniz. He endeavors to correct it by the thought that each
+monad _ideally_ includes the whole universe by mirroring it. And then
+to reconcile the real exclusion and the ideal inclusion, he falls back
+on a _Deus ex machina_ who arranges a harmony between them, foreign to
+the intrinsic nature of each. Leibniz's individualism, it is claimed,
+thus makes of his philosophy a synthesis, or rather a juxtaposition,
+of mutually contradictory positions, each of which appears true only as
+long as we do not attempt to think it together with the other.
+
+There is, no doubt, truth in this representation. But a more
+significant way of stating the matter is, I think, that Leibniz's
+defect is not in his individualism, but in the defect of his conception
+of the individual. His individualism is more apparent than real. It is
+a negative principle, and negative in the sense of _privative_. The
+individuality of the monad is due to its incompleteness, to its
+imperfections. It is really matter which makes monads mutually
+impenetrable or exclusive; it is matter which distinguishes them
+from God, and thus from one another. Without the material element
+they would be lost in an undistinguished identity with God, the
+supreme substance. But matter, it must be remembered, is passivity;
+and since activity is reality, or substance, matter is unsubstantial
+and unreal. The same results from a consideration of knowledge. Matter
+is always correlative to confused ideas. With the clearing up of
+knowledge, with making it rational, matter must disappear, so that
+to God, who is wholly reason, it must entirely vanish. But this
+view varies only in words from that of Spinoza, to whom it is the
+imagination, as distinguished from the intellect, that is the source of
+particular and finite objects.
+
+It is perhaps in his _Theodic�e_, in the treatment of the problem of
+evil, that his implicit Spinozism, or denial of individuality, comes
+out most clearly. That evil is negative, or privative, and consists in
+the finitude of the creature, is the result of the discussion. What is
+this except to assert the unreality, the merely privative character,
+of the finite, and to resolve all into God? To take one instance out
+of many: he compares inertia to the original limitation of creatures,
+and says that as inertia is the obstacle to the complete mobility
+of bodies, so privation, or lack, constitutes the essence of the
+imperfection, or evil, of creatures. His metaphor is of boats in
+the current of a river, where the heavier one goes more slowly,
+owing to inertia. The force of the current, which is the same to all,
+and which is positive, suffering no diminution, is comparable to the
+activity of God, which also is perfect and positive. As the current
+is the positive source of all the movements of the bodies, and is in
+no way responsible for the retardation of some boats, so God is the
+source only of activities,--the perfections of his creatures. "As the
+inertia of the boat is the cause of its slowness, so the limitations
+of its receptivity are the cause of the defects found in the action
+of creatures." Individuality is thus reduced to mere limitation; and
+the unlimited, the real which includes all reality, is God. We are
+thus placed in a double difficulty. This notion of an all-inclusive
+one contradicts the reality of mutually exclusive monads; and we have
+besides the characteristic difficulty of Spinoza,--how, on the basis
+of this unlimited, self-identical substance, to account for even the
+appearance of finitude, plurality and individuality.
+
+Leibniz's fundamental defect may thus be said to be that, while
+he realized, as no one before him had done, the importance of
+the conception of the _negative_, he was yet unable to grasp the
+significance of the negative, was led to interpret it as merely
+privative or defective, and thus, finally, to surrender the very
+idea. Had not his method, his presupposition regarding analytic
+identity, bound him so completely in its toils, his clear perception
+that it was the negative element that differentiated God from the
+universe, intelligence from matter, might have brought him to a
+general anticipation not only of Kant, but of Hegel. But instead of
+transforming his method by this conception of negation, he allowed
+his assumed (_i.�e._, dogmatic) method to evacuate his conception
+of its significance. It was Hegel who was really sufficiently in
+earnest with the idea to read it into the very notion of intelligence
+as a constituent organic element, not as a mere outward and formal
+limitation.
+
+We have already referred to the saying of Leibniz that the monad acts
+as if nothing existed but God and itself. The same idea is sometimes
+expressed by saying that God alone is the immediate or direct object
+of the monad. Both expressions mean that, while the monad excludes
+all other monads, such is not the case in its relation to God, but
+that it has an organic relation with him. We cannot keep from asking
+whether there is not another aspect of the contradiction here. How is
+it possible for the monad so to escape from its isolation that it can
+have communication with God more than with other substances? Or if
+it can have communication with God, why cannot it equally bear real
+relations of community with other monads? And the answer is found in
+Leibniz's contradictory conceptions of God. Of these conceptions there
+are at least three. When Leibniz is emphasizing his monadic theory,
+with its aspects of individuality and exclusion, God is conceived as
+the highest monad, as one in the series of monads, differing from the
+others only in the degree of its activity. He is the "monad of monads";
+the most complete, active, and individualized of all. But it is evident
+that in this sense there can be no more intercourse between God and a
+monad than there is between one monad and another. Indeed, since God
+is _purus actus_ without any passivity, it may be said that there is,
+if possible, less communication in this case than in the others. He is,
+as Leibniz says, what a monad without matter would be, "a deserter from
+the general order." He is the acme of isolation. This, of course, is
+the extreme development of the "individual" side of Leibniz's doctrine,
+resulting in a most pronounced atomism. Leibniz seems dimly conscious
+of this difficulty, and thus by the side of this notion of God he
+puts another. According to it, God is the source of all monads. The
+monads are not created by a choice of the best of all possible worlds,
+as his official theology teaches, but are the radiations of his
+divinity. Writing to Bayle, Leibniz expresses himself as follows: "The
+nature of substance consists in an active force of definite character,
+from which phenomena proceed in orderly succession. This force was
+originally received by, and is indeed preserved to, every substance by
+the creator of all things, from whom all _actual forces or perfections
+emanate by a sort of continual creation_." And in his Monadology
+he says: All "the created or derived monads are the productions of
+God, and are born, as it were, _by the continual fulgurations of the
+divinity from instant to instant_, bounded by the receptivity of the
+creature to which it is essential to be limited." What has become of
+the doctrine of monads (although the word is retained) it would be
+difficult to say. There is certainly no individual distinction now
+between the created monads and God, and it is impossible to see why
+there should be individual distinctions between the various created
+monads. They appear to be all alike, as modes of the one comprehensive
+substance. Here we have the universal, or "identity," side of Leibniz's
+philosophy pushed to its logical outcome,--the doctrine of pantheism.
+
+His third doctrine of God is really a unity of the two previous. It is
+the doctrine that God is the harmony of the monads,--neither one among
+them nor one made up of them, but their organic unity. This doctrine
+is nowhere expressly stated in words (unless it be when he says that
+"God alone constitutes the relation and community of substances"),
+but it runs through his whole system. According to this, God _is_
+the pre-established harmony. This conception, like that of harmony,
+may have either a mechanical interpretation (according to which God is
+the artificial, external point of contact of intelligence and reality,
+in themselves opposed) or an organic meaning, according to which God
+_is_ the unity of intelligence and reality. On this interpretation
+alone does the saying that God is the only immediate object of the
+monads have sense. It simply states that the apparent dualism between
+intelligence and its object which is found in the world is overcome
+in God; that the distinction between them is not the ultimate fact,
+but exists in and for the sake of a unity which transcends the
+difference. According to this view, the opposition between ideal
+inclusion and real exclusion vanishes. God _is_ the harmony of the real
+and ideal, not a mere arrangement for bringing them to an understanding
+with one another. Individuality and universality are no longer opposed
+conceptions, needing a _tertium quid_ to relate them, but are organic
+factors of reality, and this, at the same time, is intelligence.
+
+But admitting this conception as stating the implicit intention of
+Leibniz, the relation of monads to one another is wholly different from
+that which Leibniz gives. And to this point we now come. If in God,
+the absolute, the real and the ideal are one, it is impossible that in
+substances, which have their being and significance only in relation
+to God, or this unity, the real and the ideal should be so wholly
+separated as Leibniz conceives.
+
+Leibniz's conception relative to this is, as we have seen, that
+there is no physical _influxus_, or _commercium_, of monads, but
+ideal consensus. _Really_ each shuts out every other; _ideally_,
+or representatively, it includes every other. His positive thought
+in the matter is that a complete knowledge of any portion of the
+universe would involve a perfect knowledge of the whole, so organic
+is the structure of the universe. Each monad sums up the past history
+of the world, and is big with its future. This is the conception of
+inter-relation; the conception of all in one, and one as a member,
+not a part of a whole. It is the conception which Leibniz brought
+to birth, the conception of the thorough unity of the world. In this
+notion there is no denial of community of relation; it is rather the
+culmination of relation. There is no isolation. But according to his
+presupposed logic, individuality can mean only identity excluding
+distinction,--identity without intrinsic relation, and, as Leibniz
+is bound at all hazards to save the notion of individuality, he is
+obliged to think of this inter-relation as only ideal, as the result of
+a predetermined tendency given at its creation to the self-identical
+monad by God. But of course Leibniz does not escape the contradiction
+between identity and distinction, between individuality and
+universality, by this means. He only transfers it to another realm. In
+the relation of the monad to God the diversity of its content, the real
+or universal element, is harmonized with the identity of its law, its
+ideal or individual factor. But if these elements do not conflict here,
+why should they in the relation of the monads to one another? Either
+there is already an immanent harmony between the individual and
+universal, and no external arrangement is needed to bring it about, or
+there is no such harmony, and therefore no relation possible between
+God and the individual monad. One side of the Leibnizian philosophy
+renders the other side impossible.
+
+Another consequence of Leibniz's treatment of the negative as
+merely limitative is that he can find no distinction, excepting of
+degree, between nature and spirit. Such a conception is undoubtedly
+in advance of the Cartesian dualism, which regards them as opposed
+realms _without_ any relation; but it may be questioned whether it is
+as adequate a view as that which regards them as distinct realms _on
+account_ of relation. At all events, it leads to confusion in Leibniz's
+treatment of both material objects and self-conscious personalities. In
+the former case his method of escape is a metaphor,--that objects
+apparently material are full of souls, or spirits. This may mean that
+the material is _merely_ material only when considered in implicit
+abstraction from the intelligence which conditions it, that the
+material, in truth, is constituted by some of the relations which
+in their completeness make up intelligence. This at least bears a
+consistent meaning. But it is not monadism; it is not the doctrine
+that matter differs from spirit only in degree: it is the doctrine
+that they differ in kind, as the conditioned from the conditioning. At
+times, however, Leibniz attempts to carry out his monadism literally,
+and the result is that he conceives matter as being itself endowed,
+in some unexplained way, with souls, or since this implies a dualism
+between matter and soul, of being made up, composed, of souls. But
+as he is obliged to explain that this composition is not spatial, or
+physical, but only ideal, this doctrine tends to resolve itself into
+the former. And thus we end where we began,--with a metaphor.
+
+On the other hand there is a wavering treatment of the nature
+of spirit. At times it is treated as precisely on a level in kind
+with the monads that "compose" matter, differing only in the greater
+degree of its activity. But at other times it is certainly represented
+as standing on another plane. "The difference between those monads
+which express the world with consciousness and those which express it
+unintelligently is as great as the difference between a mirror and one
+who sees." If Leibniz means what he seems to imply by these words,
+it is plainly asserted that only the spiritual being is worthy of
+being called a monad, or individual, at all, and that material being
+is simply a dependent manifestation of spirit. Again he says: "Not all
+entelechies are, like our soul, _images of God_,--being made as members
+of a society or state of which he is chief,--but all are _images of
+the universe_." In this distinction between self-conscious beings as
+images of God and unconscious monads as images of the universe there
+is again implied a difference of kind. That something is the image
+of the universe need mean only that it cannot be explained without
+its relations to the universe. To say that something is the image of
+God, must mean that it is itself spiritual and self-conscious. God
+alone is reason and activity. He alone has his reality in
+himself. Self-conscious beings, since members of a community with him,
+must participate in this reality in a way different in kind from those
+things which, at most, are only substances or objects, not subjects.
+
+Nor do the difficulties cease here. If matter be conceived, not as
+implied in the relations by which reason is realized in constituting
+the universe, but as itself differing from reason only in degree,
+it is impossible to account for its existence. Why should a less
+degree of perfection exist than is necessary? Why should not the
+perfect activity, God, complete the universe in himself? Leibniz's
+answer that an infinity of monads multiplies his existence so far as
+possible, may hold indeed of other spirits, who mirror him and live
+in one divine society, but is utterly inapplicable to those which fail
+to image him. Their existence, as material, is merely privative; it is
+merely the absence of the activity found in conscious spirit. How can
+this deprivation, this limitation, increase in any way the harmony and
+perfection of the universe? Leibniz's theory of the negative, in fine,
+compels him to put nature and spirit on the same level, as differing
+only in degree. This, so far from giving nature a reality, results in
+its being swallowed up in spirit, not as necessarily distinct from
+it and yet one with it, but as absorbed in it, since the apparent
+difference is only privative. Nor does the theory insure the reality
+of spirit. This, since one in kind with matter, is swallowed up along
+with it in the one substance, which is positive and self-identical,--in
+effect, the _Deus sive Natura_ of Spinoza.
+
+We have to see that this contradiction on the side of existence has
+its correlate on the side of knowledge, and our examination of this
+fundamental deficiency in Leibniz is ended. Sensation is on the side
+of intelligence what matter is on the side of reality. It is confused
+knowledge, as matter is imperfect activity or reality. Knowledge is
+perfect only when it is seen to be necessary, and by "necessary" is
+meant that whose opposite is impossible, or involves contradiction. In
+spite, therefore, of Leibniz's thorough conviction that "matters of
+fact"--the subject-matter of physical science--are not arbitrary, he
+is yet obliged finally to agree with Locke that there is no certainty
+to be found in such knowledge, either as a whole or in any of its
+details. The element of sensation, of confused knowledge, cannot be
+eliminated. Hence it must always be open to any one to object that
+it is only on account of this imperfect factor of our knowledge that
+there appears to be a physical world at all, that the external world
+is an illusion produced by our sensations. And Leibniz himself,
+while claiming that the world of fact, as opposed to the realm of
+relations, possesses _practical_ reality, is obliged to admit that
+_metaphysically_ it may be only an orderly dream. The fact is that
+Leibniz unconsciously moves in the same circle, with relation to
+sensation and the material world, that confines Spinoza with regard
+to imagination and particular multiple existences. Spinoza explains
+the latter from that imperfection of our intelligence which leads us
+to imagine rather than to think. But he accounts for the existence
+of imagination, when he comes to treat that, as due to the plurality
+of particular things. So Leibniz, when an account of the existence of
+matter is demanded of him, refers to confused knowledge as its source,
+while in turn he explains the latter, or sensation, from the material
+element which sets bounds to the activity of spirit. Leibniz seems
+indeed, to advance upon Spinoza in admitting the reality of the
+negative factor in differentiating the purely self-identical, but
+he gives up what he has thus gained by interpreting the negation as
+passivity, or mere deprivation.
+
+To sum up, it may be doubted whether we have more to learn from
+Leibniz's successes or from his failures. Leibniz's positive
+significance for us is in his clear recognition of the problems of
+modern philosophy, and in his perception of the isolated elements
+of their solution. His negative significance is in his clinging to
+a method which allowed him only to juxtapose these elements without
+forming of them a true synthesis. There are a number of sides from
+which we may state Leibniz's realization of the problem. Perhaps that
+which distinguishes Leibniz most clearly from Locke is their respective
+treatments of the relation of the physical to the spiritual, or, as
+the question presented itself mainly to them, of the "natural" to the
+"supernatural." To Locke the supernatural was strictly miraculous;
+it was, from our standpoint, mere power, or will. It might indeed
+be rational, but this reason was incapable of being apprehended by
+us. Its distinction from the finite was so great that it could be
+conceived only as something preceding and succeeding the finite in
+time, and meanwhile as intercalating itself arbitrarily here and
+there into the finite; as, for example, in the relation of soul and
+body, in the production of sensation, etc. In a word, Locke thought
+that the ends of philosophy, and with it of religion and morals,
+could be attained only by a complete separation of the "natural"
+and the "supernatural." Leibniz, on the other hand, conceived the
+aim of philosophy to be the demonstration of their harmony. This is
+evidenced by his treatment of the relations of the infinite and finite,
+of matter and spirit, of mechanical and final causation. And he found
+the sought-for harmony in the fact that the spiritual is the reason,
+purpose, and function of the natural. The oft-quoted words of Lotze
+express the thought of Leibniz: "The mechanical is unbounded in range,
+but is subordinate in value." We cannot find some things that occur
+physically, and others that occur supernaturally; everything that
+occurs has its sufficient mechanical antecedents, but all that occurs
+has its significance, its purpose, in something that does not occur,
+but that eternally is--Reason. The mechanical and the spiritual are not
+realms which here and there come into outward contact. They are related
+as the conditioned and the conditioning. That, and not the idea of an
+artificial _modus vivendi_, is the true meaning of the pre-established
+harmony.
+
+In other words, Leibniz's great significance for us is the fact that,
+although he accepted in good faith, and indeed as himself a master
+in its methods, the results and principles of physical science, he
+remained a teleological idealist of the type of Aristotle. But I have
+not used the right words. It was not in spite of his acceptance of the
+scientific view of the world that he retained his faith in the primacy
+of purpose and reason. On the contrary, he was an idealist because of
+his science, because only by the idea of an all-conditioning spiritual
+activity could he account for and make valid scientific conceptions;
+he was a teleologist, because natural processes, with their summing up
+in the notion of causality, were meaningless except as manifesting an
+immanent purpose.
+
+There are other more technical ways of stating the bearing of Leibniz's
+work. We may say that he realized that the problem of philosophy
+consisted in giving due value to the notions of individuality and
+universality, of identity and difference, or of the real and the
+ideal. In developing these ideas, however, we should only be repeating
+what has already been said, and so we may leave the matter here. On
+the negative side we need only recall what was said a few pages back
+regarding the incompatibility of Leibniz's method--the scholastic
+formal logic--with the content of his philosophy. The attempt to
+find a formal criterion of truth was hopeless; it was worse than
+fruitless, for it led to such an interpretation of concrete truths
+as to deprive them of their significance and as to land Leibniz in
+involved contradictions.
+
+To write a complete account of the influence of Leibniz's philosophy
+would be too large a task for these pages. If we were to include under
+this head all the ramifications of thought to which Leibniz stimulated,
+directly and indirectly, either by stating truths which some one worked
+out or by stating errors which incited some one to new points of view,
+we should have to sketch German philosophy since his time,--and not
+only the professional philosophy, but those wide aspects of thought
+which were reflected in Herder, Lessing, and Goethe. It is enough to
+consider him as the forerunner of Kant. It has become so customary to
+represent Kant as working wholly on the problem which Hume presented,
+that his great indebtedness to Leibniz is overlooked. Because Hume
+aroused Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, it is supposed that Kant
+threw off the entire influence of the Leibnizian thought as vain
+dreams of his sleep. Such a representation is one-sided. It is truer
+to state that Hume challenged Kant to discover the method by which he
+could justify the results of Leibniz. In this process, the results,
+no doubt, took on a new form: results are always relative to method;
+but Kant never lost sight of the results. In the main, he accepted the
+larger features of the Leibnizian conclusions, and, taught by Hume of
+the insufficiency of the method that Leibniz followed, searched for a
+method which should guarantee them.
+
+This aspect of Kant appears more fully in his lesser and somewhat
+controversial writings than in his classic works: and this, no doubt,
+is one reason that his indebtedness is so often overlooked. His close
+relation to Leibniz appears most definitely in his _brochure_ entitled
+"Concerning a Discovery which renders Unnecessary all Critique of Pure
+Reason." A Wolffian, Eberhard by name, had "made the discovery" (to use
+Kant's words) "that the Leibnizian philosophy contained a critique of
+reason just as well as the modern, and accordingly contained everything
+that is true in the latter, and much else in addition." In his reply
+to this writing, Kant takes the position that those who claimed to be
+Leibnizians simply repeated the words of Leibniz without penetrating
+into his spirit, and that consequently they misrepresented him on
+every important point. He, Kant, on the other hand, making no claim to
+use the terminology of Leibniz, was his true continuator, since he had
+only changed the doctrine of the latter so as to make it conform to the
+true intent of Leibniz, by removing its self-contradictions. He closes:
+"'The Critique of Pure Reason' may be regarded as the real apology for
+Leibniz, even against his own professed followers."
+
+Kant, in particular, names three points in which he is the true
+follower of Leibniz. The professed disciples of the latter insisted
+that the law of sufficient reason was an objective law, a law of
+nature. But, says Kant, it is so notorious, so self-evident, that
+no one can make a new discovery through this principle, that Leibniz
+can have meant it only as subjective. "For what does it mean to say
+that over and above the principle of contradiction another principle
+must be employed? It means this: that, according to the principle
+of contradiction, only that can be known which is already contained
+in the notion of the object; if anything more is to be known, it
+must be sought through the use of a special principle, distinct from
+that of contradiction. Since this last kind of knowledge is that of
+synthetic principles, Leibniz means just this: besides the principle of
+contradiction, or that of analytic judgments, there must be another,
+that of sufficient reason, for synthetic judgments. He thus pointed
+out, in a new and remarkable manner, that certain investigations
+in metaphysics were still to be made." In other words, Kant, by his
+distinction of analytic and synthetic judgments, with their respective
+principles and spheres, carried out the idea of Leibniz regarding the
+principles of contradiction and sufficient reason.
+
+The second point concerns the relation of monads to material
+bodies. Eberhard, like the other professed Leibnizians, interpreted
+Leibniz as saying that corporeal bodies, as composite, are
+actually made up out of monads, as simple. Kant, on the other
+hand, saw clearly that Leibniz was not thinking of a relation of
+composition, but of condition. "He did not mean the material world,
+but the substrate, the intellectual world which lies in the idea
+of reason, and in which everything must be thought as consisting
+of simple substances." Eberhard's process, he says, is to begin
+with sense-phenomena, to find a simple element as a part of the
+sense-perceptions, and then to present this simple element as if it
+were spiritual and equivalent to the monad of Leibniz. Kant claims to
+follow the thought of Leibniz in regarding the simple not as an element
+_in_ the sensuous, but as something super-sensuous, the _ground_ of
+the sensuous. Leibniz's mistake was that, not having worked out clearly
+the respective limits of the principles of identity and of sufficient
+reason, he supposed that we had a direct intellectual intuition of this
+super-sensuous, when in reality it is unknowable.
+
+The third group of statements concerns the principle of pre-established
+harmony. "Is it possible," asks Kant, "that Leibniz meant by this
+doctrine to assert the mere coincidence of two substances wholly
+independent of each other by nature, and incapable through their own
+force of being brought into community?" And his answer is that what
+Leibniz really implied was not a harmony between independent things,
+but a harmony between modes of knowing, between sense on the one
+hand and understanding on the other. The "Critique of Pure Reason"
+carried the discussion farther by pointing out its grounds; namely,
+that, without the unity of sense and understanding, no experience
+would be possible. _Why_ there should be this harmony, _why_ we
+should have experience, this question it is impossible to answer,
+says Kant,--adding that Leibniz confessed as much when he called it a
+"pre-established" harmony, thus not explaining it, but only referring
+it to a highest cause. That Leibniz really means a harmony within
+intelligence, not a harmony of things by themselves, is made more
+clear, according to Kant, from the fact that it is applied also to
+the relation between the kingdom of nature and of grace, of final
+and of efficient causes. Here the harmony is clearly not between
+two independently existing _external things_, but between what
+flows from our notions of nature (_Naturbegriffe_) and of freedom
+(_Freiheitsbegriffe_); that is, between two distinct powers and
+principles _within us_,--an agreement which can be explained only
+through the idea of an intelligent cause of the world.
+
+If we review these points in succession, the influence of Leibniz upon
+Kant becomes more marked. As to the first one, it is well known that
+Kant's philosophy is based upon, and revolves within, the distinction
+of analytic and synthetic judgments; and this distinction Kant
+clearly refers to the Leibnizian distinction between the principles
+of contradiction and of sufficient reason, or of identity and
+differentiation. It is not meant that Kant came to this thought through
+the definitions of Leibniz; on the contrary, Kant himself refers it to
+Hume's distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas. But
+when Kant had once generalized the thought of Hume, it fell at once,
+as into ready prepared moulds, into the categories of Leibniz. He
+never escapes from the Leibnizian distinction. In his working of it
+out consists his greatness as the founder of modern thought; from his
+acceptance of it as ultimate result his contradictions. That is to say,
+Kant did not merely receive the vague idea of sufficient reason: he
+so connected it with what he learned from Hume that he transformed it
+into the idea of synthesis, and proceeded to work out the conception of
+synthesis in the various notions of the understanding, or categories,
+as applicable to the material of sense. What Leibniz bequeathed him was
+the undefined idea that knowledge of matters of fact rests upon the
+principle of sufficient reason. What Kant did with this inheritance
+was to identify the wholly vague idea of sufficient reason with the
+notion that every fact of experience rests upon necessary synthetic
+connection,--that is, connection according to notions of understanding
+with other facts,--and to determine, so far as he could, the various
+forms of synthesis, or of sufficient reason. With Leibniz the principle
+remained essentially infertile, because it was the mere notion of the
+ultimate reference of experience to understanding. In the hands of
+Kant, it became the instrument of revolutionizing philosophy, because
+Kant showed the articulate members of understanding by which experience
+is constituted, and described them in the act of constituting.
+
+So much for his working out of the thought. But on the other hand,
+Kant never transcended the absoluteness of the distinction between
+the principles of synthesis and analysis, of sufficient reason and
+contradiction. The result was that he regarded the synthetic principle
+as the principle only of our knowledge, while perfect knowledge he
+still considered to follow the law of identity, of mere analysis. He
+worked out the factor of negation, of differentiation, contained in
+the notion of synthesis, but limited it to synthesis upon material
+of sense, presupposing that there is another kind of knowledge,
+not limited to sense, not depending upon the synthetic principle, but
+resting upon the principle of contradiction, or analysis, and that this
+kind is the type, the norm, of the only perfect knowledge. In other
+words, while admitting the synthetic principle of differentiation
+as a necessary element within _our_ knowledge, he held that on
+account of this element our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal
+realm. Leibniz's error was in supposing that the pure principles of
+the logical understanding, resting on contradiction, could give _us_
+knowledge of the noumenal world; his truth was in supposing that
+only by such principles _could_ they be known. Thus, in substance,
+Kant. Like Leibniz, in short, he failed to transcend the absoluteness
+of the value of the scholastic method; but he so worked out another
+and synthetic method,--the _development_ of the idea of sufficient
+reason,--that he made it necessary for his successors to transcend it.
+
+The second point concerns the relations of the sensuous and
+the super-sensuous. Here, besides setting right the ordinary
+misconception of Leibniz, Kant did nothing but render him consistent
+with himself. Leibniz attempted to prove the existence of God,
+as we have seen, by the principles both of sufficient reason and
+contradiction. Kant denies the validity of the proof by either
+method. God is the sufficient cause, or reason, of the contingent
+sense world. But since Leibniz admits that this contingent world may,
+after all, be but a dream, how shall we rise from it to the notion
+of God? It is not our dreams that demonstrate to us the existence of
+reality. Or, again, sense-knowledge is confused knowledge. How shall
+this knowledge, by hypothesis imperfect, guarantee to us the existence
+of a perfect being? On the other hand, since the synthetic principle,
+or that of sufficient reason, _is_ necessary to give us knowledge of
+matters of fact, the principle of contradiction, while it may give
+us a consistent and even necessary notion of a supreme being, cannot
+give this notion reality. Leibniz, while admitting, with regard to all
+other matters of fact, that the principles of formal logic can give
+no unconditional knowledge, yet supposes that, with regard to the one
+unconditional reality, they are amply sufficient. Kant but renders him
+self-consistent on this point.
+
+It is, however, with regard to the doctrine of pre-established harmony
+that Kant's large measure of indebtedness to Leibniz is most apt to
+be overlooked. Kant's claim that Leibniz himself meant the doctrine
+in a subjective sense (that is, of a harmony between powers in our
+own intelligence) rather than objective (or between things out of
+relation to intelligence) seems, at first sight, to go far beyond the
+mark. However, when we recall that to Leibniz the sense world is only
+the confused side of rational thought, there is more truth in Kant's
+saying than appears at this first sight. The harmony is between sense
+and reason. But it may at least be said without qualification that
+Kant only translated into subjective terms, terms of intelligence,
+what appears in Leibniz as objective. This is not the place to go into
+the details of Kant's conception of the relation of the material to
+the psychical, of the body and the soul. We may state, however, in his
+own words, that "the question is no longer as to the possibility of the
+association of the soul with other known and foreign substances outside
+it, but as to the connection of the presentations of inner sense with
+the modifications of our external sensibility." It is a question, in
+short, of the harmony of two modes of our own presentation, not of the
+harmony of two independent things. And Kant not only thus deals with
+the fact of harmony, but he admits, as its _possible_ source, just what
+Leibniz claims to be its _actual_ source; namely, some one underlying
+reality, which Leibniz calls the monad, but to which Kant gives no
+name. "I can well suppose," says Kant, "that the substance to which
+through external sense extension is attributed, is also the subject
+of the presentations given to us by its inner sense: _thus that which
+in one respect is called material being would be in another respect
+thinking being_."
+
+Kant treats similarly the problem of the relations of physical and
+final causes, of necessity and freedom. Here, as in the case just
+mentioned, his main problem is to discover their _harmony_. His
+solution, again, is in the union, in our intelligence, of the
+understanding--as the source of the notions which "make nature"--with
+the ideas of that reason which gives a "categorical imperative." The
+cause of the possibility of this harmony between nature and freedom,
+between the sense world and the rational, he finds in a being, God,
+whose sole function in the Kantian philosophy may be said to be to
+"pre-establish" it. I cannot believe that Kant, in postulating the
+problems of philosophy as the harmony of sense and understanding,
+of nature and freedom, and in finding this harmony where he did,
+was not profoundly influenced, consciously as well as unconsciously,
+by Leibniz. In fact, I do not think that we can understand the
+nature either of Kant's immense contributions to modern thought or
+of his inconsistencies, until we have traced them to their source
+in the Leibnizian philosophy,--admitting, on the other hand, that we
+cannot understand why Kant should have found necessary a new way of
+approach to the results of Leibniz, until we recognize to the full
+his indebtedness to Hume. It was, indeed, Hume that awoke him to his
+endeavors, but it was Leibniz who set before him the goal of these
+endeavors. That the goal should appear somewhat transformed, when
+approached from a new point of view, was to be expected. But alas! the
+challenge from Hume did not wholly awaken Kant. He still accepted
+without question the validity of the scholastic method,--the analytic
+principle of identity as the type of perfect knowledge,--although
+denying its sufficiency for human intelligence. Leibniz suggested, and
+suggested richly, the synthetic, the negative aspect of thought; Kant
+worked it out as a necessary law of _our_ knowledge; it was left to his
+successors to work it out as a factor in the law of _all_ knowledge.
+
+It would be a grievous blunder to suppose that this final chapter
+annihilates the earlier ones; that the failure of Leibniz as to
+method, though a failure in a fundamental point, cancelled his
+splendid achievements. Such thoughts as that substance is activity;
+that its process is measured by its end, its idea; that the universe
+is an inter-related unit; the thoughts of organism, of continuity,
+of uniformity of law,--introduced and treated as Leibniz treated
+them,--are imperishable. They are members of the growing consciousness,
+on the part of intelligence, of its own nature. There are but three or
+four names in the history of thought which can be placed by the side of
+Leibniz's in respect to the open largeness, the unexhausted fertility,
+of such thoughts. But it is not enough for intelligence to have great
+thoughts nor even true thoughts. It is testimony to the sincerity and
+earnestness of intelligence that it cannot take even such thoughts as
+those of Leibniz on trust. It must _know_ them; it must have a method
+adequate to their demonstration. And in a broad sense, the work of
+Kant and of his successors was the discovery of a method which should
+justify the objective idealism of Leibniz, and which in its history has
+more than fulfilled this task.
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Note:
+
+    The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
+    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
+
+    By S.�C Griggs and Company.
+    By S.�C. Griggs and Company.
+
+  passivity of any kind is a myth, as scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+  passivity of any kind is a myth, a scholastic fiction. Sensation is
+
+  the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms, are
+  the vacuum is to serve as the background of the atoms. The atoms are
+
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the
+Human Understanding, by John Dewey
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human
+Understanding, by John Dewey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
+       A Critical Exposition
+
+Author: John Dewey
+
+Release Date: October 6, 2012 [EBook #40957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jana Srna, Adrian Mastronardi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="transcribers-note">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.</p>
+
+<p>Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made.
+<span class="screen">They are marked <ins title="transcriber's note">like
+this</ins> in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursor
+over the marked text.</span> A <a href="#tn-bottom">list of amendments</a> is
+at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center page-break spaced'><big>GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS</big><br/>
+<small>FOR</small><br/>
+ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS.</p>
+
+<p class='center space-above spaced'><small>EDITED BY</small><br/>
+GEORGE S. MORRIS.</p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p class='center spaced'>LEIBNIZ’S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING<br/>
+THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.</p>
+
+<h1><big>LEIBNIZ’S</big><br/>
+NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE<br/>
+HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.</h1>
+
+<p class='center'>A CRITICAL EXPOSITION.</p>
+
+<p class='center space-above'><span class="small-caps">By JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D.</span>,<br/><br/>
+
+<small>ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF<br/>
+MICHIGAN, AND PROFESSOR (ELECT) OF MENTAL AND<br/>
+MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY<br/>
+OF MINNESOTA</small></p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p class='center spaced'>CHICAGO:<br/>
+SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY<br/>
+1902</p>
+
+<p class='center page-break spaced'><a name="copyright"><i>Copyright, 1888</i></a>,<br/>
+<span class="small-caps">By S.&nbsp;<ins title="C">C.</ins> Griggs and Company</span>.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_v" title="v"> </a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> purpose of the series of which the
+present volume is one, is not, as will be
+seen by reference to the statement in the initial
+volume, to sum up <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">in toto</i> the system
+of any philosopher, but to give a “critical exposition”
+of some one masterpiece. In treating
+the “Nouveaux Essais” of Leibniz, I have
+found myself obliged, at times, to violate the
+letter of this expressed intention, in order to
+fulfil its spirit. The “Nouveaux Essais,” in
+spite of its being one of the two most extended
+philosophical writings of Leibniz, is a compendium
+of comments, rather than a connected
+argument or exposition. It has all the suggestiveness
+and richness of a note-book, but
+with much also of its fragmentariness. I have
+therefore been obliged to supplement my account
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_vi" title="vi"> </a>
+of it by constant references to the other
+writings of Leibniz, and occasionally to take
+considerable liberty with the order of the treatment
+of topics. Upon the whole, this book
+will be found, I hope, to be a faithful reflex
+not only of Leibniz’s thought, but also of his
+discussions in the “Nouveaux Essais.”</p>
+
+<p>In the main, the course of philosophic thought
+since the time of Leibniz has been such as
+to render almost self-evident his limitations,
+and to suggest needed corrections and amplifications.
+Indeed, it is much easier for those
+whose thoughts follow the turn that Kant
+has given modern thinking to appreciate the
+defects of Leibniz than to realize his greatness.
+I have endeavored, therefore, in the body
+of the work, to identify my thought with that
+of Leibniz as much as possible, to assume
+his standpoint and method, and, for the most
+part, to confine express criticism upon his limitations
+to the final chapter. In particular, I
+have attempted to bring out the relations
+of philosophy to the growing science of his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_vii" title="vii"> </a>
+times, to state the doctrine of pre-established
+harmony as he himself meant it, and to give
+something like consistency and coherency to
+his doctrine of material existence and of nature.
+This last task seemed especially to require
+doing. I have also endeavored to keep
+in mind, throughout, Leibniz’s relations to
+Locke, and to show the “Nouveaux Essais”
+as typical of the distinction between characteristic
+British and German thought.</p>
+
+<p class="right">JOHN DEWEY.</p>
+
+<p><small><i>May</i>, 1888.</small></p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_ix" title="ix"> </a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table id='toc' summary='Contents'>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>The Man.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class='right' style='font-size: smaller;'>PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Parents</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Early Education</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_2">2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His University Training at Leipsic</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>At Jena</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>At the University of Altdorf</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Removal to Frankfurt</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Mission to Paris</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Discovery of the Calculus</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Librarian at Hanover</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Activities</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Philosophic Writings</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Ecclesiastic and Academic Projects</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Later Years and Death</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Sources of his Philosophy.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Character of the Epoch into which Leibniz was born</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Thought of the Unity of the World</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The two Agencies which formed Leibniz’s Philosophy</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Cartesian Influences</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Rationalistic Method</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Mechanical Explanation of Nature</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a class="pagenum" name="Page_x" title="x"> </a>Application of Mathematics</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Idea of Evolution</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Interpretation of these Ideas</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Idea of Activity or Entelechy</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Idea of Rationality</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Idea of Organism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>The Problem and its Solution.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Unity of Leibniz’s Thought</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Relation of Universal and Individual</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Descartes’ Treatment of this Question</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Spinoza’s Treatment of it</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Solution</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>All Unity is Spiritual</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>And Active</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Is a Representative Individual</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Contrast of Monad and Atom</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Pre-established Harmony reconciles Universal and Individual</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Meaning of this Doctrine</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Locke and Leibniz.&mdash;Innate Ideas.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Necessity of Preliminary Account of Leibniz’s Philosophy</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Empiricism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Comments upon Locke</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Controversies of Leibniz</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Essay on the Human Understanding</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Denial of Innate Ideas</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan='2'>Depending upon</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) His Mechanical Conception of Innate Ideas</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xi" title="xi"> </a>Leibniz undermines this by substituting an Organic Conception</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan='2'>And upon</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(2) His Mechanical Conception of Consciousness</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz refutes this by his Theory of Unconscious Intelligence</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Sensation and Experience.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Importance of Doctrine regarding Sensation</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Two Elements of Locke’s Notion of Sensation</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Its Relation to the Object producing it: Primary and Secondary Qualities</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan='2'>Locke criticized as to his Account</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) Of the Production of Sensation</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(2) Of its Function in Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Meaning of Physical Causation</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Bearing of this Doctrine upon Relation of Soul and Body</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Criticism of Locke’s Dualism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Monism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Summary of Discussion</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz on the Relation of Sensations to Objects occasioning them</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Nature of Experience</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Distinction of Empirical from Rational Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>The Impulses and the Will.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Doctrine of Will depends upon that of Intelligence</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Character of Impulse</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xii" title="xii"> </a>Of Desire</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Half-Pains and Pleasures</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Outcome of Desire</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Nature of Moral Action</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Of Freedom</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) Freedom as Contingency</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>Limitation of this Principle</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(2) Freedom as Spontaneity</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>This Principle is too Broad to be a Moral Principle</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(3) True Freedom is Rational Action</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Our Lack of Freedom is due to our Sensuous Nature</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Innate Practical Principles</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Moral Science is Demonstrative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Matter and its Relation to Spirit.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Account of Matter and Allied Ideas the Foundation of the Philosophy of Nature Characteristic of British Empiricism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Space and Matter wholly Distinct Ideas</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz gives Matter a Metaphysical Basis</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Ordinary Misunderstanding of Leibniz’s Ideas of Matter</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Matter is not composed of Monads</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Matter is the Passive or Conditioned Side of Monads</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Passivity equals “Confused Representations,” <i>i.&nbsp;e.</i> Incomplete Development of Reason</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Matter is logically Necessary from Leibniz’s Principles</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Bearing of Discussion upon Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Summary</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xiii" title="xiii"> </a><a href="#Chapter_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Material Phenomena and their Reality.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>What is the Connection between Matter as Metaphysical and as Physical?</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Latter is the “Image” of the Former</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Reaction from Cartesian Theory</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Objections are (1) Physical and (2) Logical</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>(1) Motion is Source of Physical Qualities of Bodies</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Hence there are no Atoms</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Secondary Qualities as well as Primary depend upon Motion</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>(2) What is the Subject to which the Quality of Extension belongs?</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>It is the Monad <em>as Passive</em></td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Space and Time connect the Spiritual and the Sensible</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Distinction between Space and Time, and Extension and Duration</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Space and Time are Relations</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Controversy with Clarke</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz denies that Space and Time are Absolute</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>What is the Reality of Sensible Phenomena?</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan='2'>It consists</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) In their Regularity</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(2) In their Dependence upon Intelligence and Will</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz and Berkeley</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Some Fundamental Conceptions.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Account of Substance as Static</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Distinction between Reality and Phenomena</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Conception of Substance as Dynamic</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xiv" title="xiv"> </a>His Specific Criticisms upon Locke</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Categories of Identity and Difference Locke also explains in a Mechanical Way</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz regards them as Internal and as Organic to each other</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke gives a Quantitative Notion of Infinity</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>And hence makes our Idea of it purely Negative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz denies that the True Notion of Infinity is Quantitative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>He also denies Locke’s Account of the Origin of the Indefinite</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>In General, Locke has a Mechanical Idea, Leibniz a Spiritual, of these Categories</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>The Nature and Extent of Knowledge.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Definition and Classification of Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Criticism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant regarding Knowledge of Objects</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Degrees of Knowledge,&mdash;Intuitive, Demonstrative, and Sensitive</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke’s Contradictory Theories regarding the Origin of Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Locke starts both with the Individual as given to Consciousness and with the Unrelated Sensation</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Either Theory makes Relations or “Universals” Unreal</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>As to the Extent of Knowledge, that of Identity is Wide, but Trifling</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>That of Real Being includes God, Soul, and Matter, but only as to their Existence</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>And even this at the Expense of contradicting his Definition of Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xv" title="xv"> </a>Knowledge of Co-existence is either Trifling or Impossible</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz rests upon Distinction of Contingent and Rational Truth</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Former may become the Latter, and is then Demonstrative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Means of this Transformation are Mathematics and Classification</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>There are Two Principles,&mdash;One of Contradiction</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Other of Sufficient Reason</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Latter leads us to God as the Supreme Intelligence and the Final Condition of Contingent Fact</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Four Stages of Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a href="#Chapter_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>The Theology of Leibniz.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Three Arguments for the Existence of God</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Value of the Ontological</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Cosmological</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Teleological</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Attributes of God</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Relation of God to the World, his Creating Activity</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Creation involves Wisdom and Goodness as well as Power</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Relation of God to Intelligent Spirits: they form a Moral Community</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz as the Founder of Modern German Ethical Systems</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The End of Morality is Happiness as Self-realization</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Three Stages of Natural Right</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Basis of Both Leibniz’s Ethics and Political Philosophy is Man’s Relation to God</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>His Æsthetics have the Same Basis</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Man’s Spirit as Architectonic</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-title' colspan='2'><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xvi" title="xvi"> </a><a href="#Chapter_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='chapter-description' colspan='2'>Criticism and Conclusion.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leibniz’s Fundamental Contradiction is between his Method and his Subject Matter</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Use which Leibniz makes of the Principle of Sufficient Reason reveals this Contradiction</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Contradiction is between the Ideas of Formal and of Concrete Unity</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan='2'>From this Contradiction flow</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) The Contradiction in the Notion of Individuality</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>Which becomes purely Negative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>The Negative he interprets as merely Privative</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(2) The Contradiction in his Conception of God has the Same Source</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>He really has Three Definitions of God</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>One results in Atomism, another in Pantheism</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>The Third in a Conception of the Organic Harmony of the Infinite and Finite</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(3) The Contradiction between the Real and the Ideal in the Monads has the Same Source</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(4) As have also the Contradictions in the Treatment of the Relations of Matter and Spirit</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(5) And finally, his Original Contradiction leads to a Contradictory Treatment of Knowledge</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Summary as to the Positive Value of Leibniz</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Influence of Leibniz’s Philosophy</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Especially upon Kant</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Kant claims to be the True Apologist for Leibniz</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_263">263</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(1) As to the Doctrine of Sufficient Reason and Contradiction</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_263">263</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Distinction between Analytic and Synthetic Judgment</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'><a class="pagenum" name="Page_xvii" title="xvii"> </a>(2) As to the Relation of Monads and Matter</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>Which finds its Kantian Analogue in the Relation of the Sensuous and Supersensuous</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent1'>(3) And finally, as to the Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>Which Kant transforms into Harmony between Understanding and Sense</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='indent2'>And between the Categories of the Understanding and the Ideas of Reason</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Conclusion</td>
+  <td class='right'><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <p class='center page-break spaced big'><a class="pagenum" name="Page_1" title="1"> </a>LEIBNIZ’S NEW ESSAYS<br/>
+  <small>CONCERNING</small><br/>
+  THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.</p>
+
+  <hr/>
+
+  <h2 class='no-page-break'><a name="Chapter_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE MAN.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“He</span> who knows me only by my writings does
+not know me,” said Leibniz. These words&mdash;true,
+indeed, of every writer, but true of Leibniz
+in a way which gives a peculiar interest and
+charm to his life&mdash;must be our excuse for prefacing
+what is to be said of his “New Essays concerning
+the Human Understanding” with a brief
+biographical sketch.</p>
+
+<p>Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig
+June 21, 1646. His father, who died when Leibniz
+was only six years old, was a professor in the university
+and a notary of considerable practice. From
+him the future philosopher seems to have derived his
+extraordinary industry and love of detail. Such accounts
+as we have of him show no traces of the
+wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a
+diligent, plodding, faithful, and religious man, a
+thoroughly conscientious husband, jurist, and professor.
+Nor in the lines of physical heredity can
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_2" title="2"> </a>
+we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his
+mother’s endowments. The fact, however, that she
+was patient in all trial, living in peace with her neighbors,
+anxious for unity and concord with all people,
+even with those not well disposed to her, throws great
+light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz’s ethical
+nature. As in so many cases, it is the inherited
+moral characteristics which form the basis of the
+intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a
+moral trait in Leibniz’s mother became in him the
+hunger for a harmonious and unified mental world;
+the father’s devotion to detail showed itself as the
+desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive
+as it was inter-related.</p>
+
+<p>Left without his father, he was by the advice of a
+discerning friend allowed free access to the library.
+Leibniz never ceased to count this one of the greatest
+fortunes of his life. Writing in after years to a
+friend, he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“When I lost my father, and was left without
+any direction in my studies, I had the luck
+to get at books in all languages, of all religions,
+upon all sciences, and to read them without any
+regular order, just as my own impulse led me.
+From this I obtained the great advantage that I
+was freed from ordinary prejudices, and introduced
+to many things of which I should otherwise never
+have thought.”</p>
+
+<p>In a philosophical essay, in which he describes
+himself under the name of Gulielmus Pacidius, he
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_3" title="3"> </a>“Wilhelm Friedlieb, a German by birth, who
+lost his father in his early years, was led to
+study through the innate tendency of his spirit;
+and the freedom with which he moved about in
+the sciences was equal to this innate impulse.
+He buried himself, a boy eight years old, in a
+library, staying there sometimes whole days, and,
+hardly stammering Latin, he took up every book
+which pleased his eyes. Opening and shutting them
+without any choice, he sipped now here, now there,
+lost himself in one, skipped over another, as the
+clearness of expression or of content attracted him.
+He seemed to be directed by the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tolle et lege</i> of a
+higher voice. As good fortune would have it, he
+gave himself up to the ancients, in whom he at first
+understood nothing, by degrees a little, finally all
+that was really necessary, until he assumed not only
+a certain coloring of their expression, but also of
+their thought,&mdash;just as those who go about in the
+sun, even while they are occupied with other things,
+get sun-browned.”</p>
+
+<p>And he goes on to tell us that their influence
+always remained with him. Their human, their
+important, their comprehensive ideas, grasping the
+whole of life in one image, together with their
+clear, natural, and transparent mode of expression,
+adapted precisely to their thoughts, seemed to him
+to be in the greatest contrast with the writings of
+moderns, without definiteness or order in expression,
+and without vitality or purpose in thought,&mdash;“written
+as if for another world.” Thus Leibniz
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_4" title="4"> </a>
+learned two of the great lessons of his life,&mdash;to
+seek always for clearness of diction and for pertinence
+and purpose of ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Historians and poets first occupied him; but when
+in his school-life, a lad of twelve or thirteen years,
+he came to the study of logic, he was greatly struck,
+he says, by the “ordering and analysis of thoughts
+which he found there.” He gave himself up to
+making tables of categories and predicaments, analyzing
+each book that he read into suitable topics,
+and arranging these into classes and sub-classes.
+We can imagine the astonishment of his playmates
+as he burst upon them with a demand to classify
+this or that idea, to find its appropriate predicament.
+Thus he was led naturally to the philosophic
+books in his father’s library,&mdash;to Plato and to
+Aristotle, to the Scholastics. Suarez, in particular,
+among the latter, he read; and traces of his influences
+are to be found in the formulation of his own
+philosophic system. At about this same time he
+took great delight in the theological works with
+which his father’s library abounded, reading with
+equal ease and pleasure the writings of the Lutherans
+and of the Reformed Church, of the Jesuits and
+the Jansenists, of the Thomists and the Arminians.
+The result was, he tells us, that he was strengthened
+in the Lutheran faith of his family, but, as we may
+easily imagine from his after life, made tolerant of
+all forms of faith.</p>
+
+<p>In 1661 the boy Leibniz, fifteen years old, entered
+the University of Leipzig. If we glance back upon
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_5" title="5"> </a>
+his attainments, we find him thoroughly at home in
+Latin, having made good progress in Greek, acquainted
+with the historians and poets of antiquity,
+acquainted with the contemporary range of science,
+except in mathematics and physics, deeply read
+and interested in ancient and scholastic philosophy
+and in the current theological discussions. Of himself
+he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“Two things were of extraordinary aid to me: in
+the first place, I was self-taught; and in the second,
+as soon as I entered upon any science I sought for
+something new, even though I did not as yet thoroughly
+understand the old. I thus gained two
+things: I did not fill my mind with things empty and
+to be unlearned afterwards,&mdash;things resting upon
+the assertion of the teacher, and not upon reason;
+and secondly, I never rested till I got down to the
+very roots of the science and reached its principles.”</p>
+
+<p>While there is always a temptation to force
+the facts which we know of a man’s early life,
+so as to make them seem to account for what
+appears in mature years, and to find symbolisms
+and analogies which do not exist, we are not going
+astray, I think, if we see foreshadowed in this
+early education of Leibniz the two leading traits of
+his later thought,&mdash;universality and individuality.
+The range of Leibniz’s investigations already marks
+him as one who will be content with no fundamental
+principle which does not mirror the universe. The
+freedom with which he carried them on is testimony
+to the fact that even at this age the idea of self-development,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_6" title="6"> </a>
+of individual growth from within, was
+working upon him. In the fact, also, that he was
+self-taught we find doubtless the reason that he
+alone of the thinkers of this period did not have to
+retrace his steps, to take a hostile attitude towards
+the ideas into which he was educated, and to start
+anew upon a foundation then first built. The development
+of the thought of Leibniz is so gradual,
+continuous, and constant that it may serve as a
+model of the law by which the “monad” acts. Is
+not his early acquaintance with ancient literature
+and mediæval philosophy the reason that he could
+afterwards write that his philosophical system “connects
+Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes,
+the Scholastics with the moderns, theology
+and morals with reason”? And who can fail to see
+in the impartiality, the comprehensiveness, of his
+self-education the prophecy of the time when he can
+write of his ideas that “there are united in them, as
+in a centre of perspective, the ideas of the Sceptics
+in attributing to sensible things only a slight degree
+of reality; of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who
+reduce all to harmonies, numbers, and ideas; of
+Parmenides and Plotinus, with their One and All;
+of the Stoics, with their notion of necessity, compatible
+with the spontaneity of other schools; of the
+vital philosophy of the Cabalists, who find feeling
+everywhere; of the forms and entelechies of Aristotle
+and the Schoolmen, united with the mechanical
+explanation of phenomena according to Democritus
+and the moderns”?</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_7" title="7"> </a>But we must hurry along over the succeeding
+years of his life. In the university the study of
+law was his principal occupation, as he had decided
+to follow in the footsteps of his father. It cannot
+be said that the character of the instruction or of
+the instructors at Leipzig was such as to give much
+nutriment or stimulus to a mind like that of Leibniz.
+He became acquainted there, however, with
+the Italian philosophy of the sixteenth century,&mdash;a
+philosophy which, as formulated by Cardanus
+and Campanella, formed the transition from Scholastic
+philosophy to the “mechanical” mode of
+viewing the universe. He had here also his first
+introduction to Descartes. The consequences of
+the new vision opened to Leibniz must be told in his
+own words: “I was but a child when I came to
+know Aristotle; even the Scholastics did not frighten
+me; and I in no way regret this now. Plato and
+Plotinus gave me much delight, not to speak of
+other philosophers of antiquity. Then I fell in
+with the writings of modern philosophy, and I recall
+the time when, a boy of fifteen years, I went
+walking in a little wood near Leipzig, the Rosenthal,
+in order to consider whether I should hold to the
+doctrine of substantial forms. Finally the mechanical
+theory conquered, and thus I was led to the
+study of the mathematical sciences.”</p>
+
+<p>To the study of the mathematical sciences!
+Surely words of no mean import for either the future
+of Leibniz or of mathematics. But his Leipzig
+studies did not take him very far in this new direction.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_8" title="8"> </a>
+Only the elements of Euclid were taught
+there, and these by a lecturer of such confused style
+that Leibniz seems alone to have understood them.
+In Jena, however, where he went for a semester,
+things were somewhat better. Weigel, a mathematician
+of some fame, an astronomer, a jurist, and a
+philosopher, taught there, and introduced Leibniz
+into the lower forms of analysis. But the Thirty
+Years’ War had not left Germany in a state of high
+culture, and in after years Leibniz lamented the
+limitations of his early mathematical training, remarking
+that if he had spent his youth in Paris, he
+would have enriched science earlier. By 1666 Leibniz
+had finished his university career, having in
+previous years attained the degrees of bachelor of
+philosophy and master of philosophy. It is significant
+that for the first he wrote a thesis upon the
+principle of individuation,&mdash;the principle which in
+later years became the basis of his philosophy.
+This early essay, however, is rather an exhibition
+of learning and of dexterity in handling logical
+methods than a real anticipation of his afterthought.</p>
+
+<p>For his second degree, he wrote a thesis upon the
+application of philosophic ideas to juridic procedure,&mdash;considerations
+which never ceased to occupy
+him. At about the same time appeared his earliest
+independent work, “De Arte Combinatoria.” From
+his study of mathematics, and especially of algebraic
+methods, Leibniz had become convinced that
+the source of all science is,&mdash;first, analysis; second,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_9" title="9"> </a>
+symbolic representation of the fundamental concepts,
+the symbolism avoiding the ambiguities and
+vagueness of language; and thirdly, the synthesis
+and interpretation of the symbols. It seemed to
+Leibniz that it ought to be possible to find the simplest
+notions in all the sciences, to discover general
+rules for calculating all their varieties of combination,
+and thus to attain the same certainty and
+generality of result that characterize mathematics.
+Leibniz never gave up this thought. Indeed, in
+spirit his philosophy is but its application, with the
+omission of symbols, on the side of the general notions
+fundamental to all science. It was also the idea
+of his age,&mdash;the idea that inspired Spinoza and the
+<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Aufklärung</i>, the idea that inspired philosophical
+thinking until Kant gave it its death-blow by
+demonstrating the distinction between the methods
+of philosophy and of mathematical and physical
+science.</p>
+
+<p>In 1666 Leibniz should have received his double
+doctorate of philosophy and of law; but petty jealousies
+and personal fears prevented his presenting
+himself for the examination. Disgusted with his
+treatment, feeling that the ties that bound him to
+Leipzig were severed by the recent death of his
+mother, anxious to study mathematics further, and,
+as he confesses, desiring, with the natural eagerness
+of youth, to see more of the world, he left
+Leipzig forever, and entered upon his <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Wanderjahre</i>.
+He was prepared to be no mean citizen of the world.
+In his education he had gone from the historians to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_10" title="10"> </a>
+the poets, from the poets to the philosophers and
+the Scholastics, from them to the theologians and
+Church Fathers; then to the jurists, to the mathematicians,
+and then again to philosophy and to law.</p>
+
+<p>He first directed his steps to the University of
+Altdorf; here he obtained his doctorate in law, and
+was offered a professorship, which he declined,&mdash;apparently
+because he felt that his time was not yet
+come, and that when it should come, it would not
+be in the narrow limits of a country village. From
+Altdorf he went to Nürnberg; here all that need
+concern us is the fact that he joined a society of
+alchemists (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">fraternitas roseæcrucis</i>), and was made
+their secretary. Hereby he gained three things,&mdash;a
+knowledge of chemistry; an acquaintance with a
+number of scientific men of different countries, with
+whom, as secretary, he carried on correspondence;
+and the friendship of Boineburg, a diplomat of the
+court of the Elector and Archbishop of Mainz.
+This friendship was the means of his removing to
+Frankfurt. Here, under the direction of the Elector,
+he engaged in remodelling Roman law so as to
+adapt it for German use, in writing diplomatic
+tracts, letters, and essays upon theological matters,
+and in editing an edition of Nizolius,&mdash;a now forgotten
+philosophical writer. One of the most noteworthy
+facts in connection with this edition is that
+Leibniz pointed out the fitness of the German language
+for philosophical uses, and urged its employment,&mdash;a
+memorable fact in connection with
+the later development of German thought. Another
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_11" title="11"> </a>
+important tract which he wrote was one urging the
+alliance of all German States for the purpose
+of advancing their internal and common interests.
+Here, as so often, Leibniz was almost two centuries
+in advance of his times. But the chief thing in
+connection with the stay of Leibniz at Mainz was
+the cause for which he left it. Louis&nbsp;XIV. had
+broken up the Triple Alliance, and showed signs of
+attacking Holland and the German Empire. It was
+then proposed to him that it would be of greater
+glory to himself and of greater advantage to France
+that he should move against Turkey and Egypt.
+The mission of presenting these ideas to the great
+king was intrusted to Leibniz, and in 1672 he went
+to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The plan failed completely,&mdash;so completely that
+we need say no more about it. But the journey
+to Paris was none the less the turning-point in the
+career of Leibniz. It brought him to the centre
+of intellectual civilization,&mdash;to a centre compared
+with which the highest attainments of disrupted
+and disheartened Germany were comparative barbarism.
+Molière was still alive, and Racine was at
+the summit of his glory. Leibniz became acquainted
+with Arnaud, a disciple of Descartes, who initiated
+him into the motive and spirit of his master. Cartesianism
+as a system, with its scientific basis and
+its speculative consequences, thus first became to
+him an intellectual reality. And, perhaps most
+important of all, he met Huygens, who became his
+teacher and inspirer both in the higher forms of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_12" title="12"> </a>
+mathematics and in their application to the interpretation
+and expression of physical phenomena.
+His diplomatic mission took him also to London,
+where the growing world of mathematical science
+was opened yet wider to him. The name of Sir
+Isaac Newton need only be given to show what this
+meant. From this time one of the greatest glories
+of Leibniz’s life dates,&mdash;a glory, however, which
+during his lifetime was embittered by envy and
+unappreciation, and obscured by detraction and
+malice,&mdash;the invention of the infinitesimal calculus.
+It would be interesting, were this the place,
+to trace the history of its discovery,&mdash;the gradual
+steps which led to it, the physical facts as well as
+mathematical theories which made it a necessity;
+but it must suffice to mention that these were such
+that the discovery of some general mode of expressing
+and interpreting the newly discovered facts
+of Nature was absolutely required for the further
+advance of science, and that steps towards the introduction
+of the fundamental ideas of the calculus
+had already been taken,&mdash;notably by Keppler, by
+Cavalieri, and by Wallis. It would be interesting
+to follow also the course of the controversy with
+Newton,&mdash;a controversy which in its method of
+conduct reflects no credit upon the names of either.
+But this can be summed up by saying that it is now
+generally admitted that absolute priority belongs to
+Newton, but that entire independence and originality
+characterize none the less the work of Leibniz, and
+that the method of approach and statement of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_13" title="13"> </a>
+latter are the more philosophical and general, and,
+to use the words of the judicious summary of Merz,
+“Newton cared more for the results than the principle,
+while Leibniz was in search of fundamental
+principles, and anxious to arrive at simplifications
+and generalizations.”</p>
+
+<p>The death of Boineburg removed the especial reasons
+for the return of Leibniz to Frankfurt, and in
+1676 he accepted the position of librarian and private
+councillor at the court of Hanover. It arouses
+our interest and our questionings to know that on
+his journey back he stopped at the Hague, and there
+met face to face the other future great philosopher
+of the time, Spinoza. But our questionings meet
+no answer. At Hanover, the industries of Leibniz
+were varied. An extract from one of his own letters,
+though written at a somewhat later date, will
+give the best outline of his activities.</p>
+
+<p>“It is incredible how scattered and divided are
+my occupations. I burrow through archives, investigate
+old writings, and collect unprinted manuscripts,
+with a view to throwing light on the history
+of Brunswick. I also receive and write a countless
+number of letters. I have so much that is new in
+mathematics, so many thoughts in philosophy, so
+many literary observations which I cannot get into
+shape, that in the midst of my tasks I do not know
+where to begin, and with Ovid am inclined to cry
+out: ‘My riches make me poor.’ I should like to
+give a description of my calculating-machine; but
+time fails. Above all else I desire to complete my
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_14" title="14"> </a>
+Dynamics, as I think that I have finally discovered
+the true laws of material Nature, by whose means
+problems about bodies which are out of reach of
+rules now known may be solved. Friends are
+urging me to publish my Science of the Infinite,
+containing the basis of my new analysis. I have
+also on hand a new Characteristic, and many general
+considerations about the art of discovery. But all
+these works, the historical excepted, have to be
+done at odd moments. Then at the court all sorts
+of things are expected. I have to answer questions
+on points in international law; on points
+concerning the rights of the various princes in the
+Empire: so far I have managed to keep out of
+questions of private law. With all this I have had
+to carry on negotiations with the bishops of Neustadt
+and of Meaux [Bossuet], and with Pelisson and
+others upon religious matters.”</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to note how the philosophic spirit,
+the instinct for unity and generality, showed itself
+even in the least of Leibniz’s tasks. The Duke of
+Brunswick imposed upon Leibniz the task of drawing
+up a genealogical table of his House. Under
+Leibniz’s hands this expanded into a history of the
+House, and this in turn was the centre of an important
+study of the German Empire. It was impossible
+that the philosopher, according to whom every real
+being reflected the whole of the universe from its
+point of view, should have been able to treat even a
+slight phase of local history without regarding it in
+its relations to the history of the world. Similarly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_15" title="15"> </a>
+some mining operations in the Harz Mountains
+called the attention of Leibniz to geological matters.
+The result was a treatise called “Protogäa,” in
+which Leibniz gave a history of the development of
+the earth. Not content with seeing in a Brunswick
+mountain an epitome of the world’s physical formation,
+it was his intention to make this an introduction
+to his political history as a sort of geographical
+background and foundation. It is interesting to
+note that the historical studies of Leibniz took him
+on a three years’ journey, from 1687 to 1690,
+through the various courts of Europe,&mdash;a fact which
+not only had considerable influence upon Leibniz
+himself, but which enabled him to give stimulus to
+scientific development in more ways and places than
+one.</p>
+
+<p>His philosophical career as an author begins for
+the most part with his return to Hanover in 1690.
+This lies outside of the scope of the present chapter,
+but here is a convenient place to call attention to the
+fact that for Leibniz the multitude of his other
+duties was so great that his philosophical work was
+the work “of odd moments.” There is no systematic
+exposition; there are a vast number of letters,
+of essays, of abstracts and memoranda published in
+various scientific journals. His philosophy bears
+not only in form, but in substance, traces of its haphazard
+and desultory origin. Another point of
+interest in this connection is the degree to which, in
+form, at least, his philosophical writings bear the
+impress of his cosmopolitan life. Leibniz had seen
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_16" title="16"> </a>
+too much of the world, too much of courts, for his
+thoughts to take the rigid and unbending form of
+geometrical exposition suited to the lonely student
+of the Hague. Nor was the regular progression and
+elucidation of ideas adapted to the later Germans,
+almost without exception university professors,
+suited to the man of affairs. There is everywhere
+in Leibniz the attempt to adapt his modes of statement,
+not only to the terminology, but even to the
+ideas, of the one to whom they are addressed. There
+is the desire to magnify points of agreement, to minimize
+disagreements, characteristic of the courtier and
+the diplomat. His comprehensiveness is not only
+a comprehensiveness of thought, but of ways of exposition,
+due very largely, we must think, to his cosmopolitan
+education. The result has been to the
+great detriment of Leibniz’s influence as a systematic
+thinker, although it may be argued that it has
+aided his indirect and suggestive influence, the absorption
+of his ideas by men of literature, by Goethe,
+above all by Lessing, and his stimulating effect
+upon science and philosophy. It is certain that the
+attempt to systematize his thoughts, as was done by
+Wolff, had for its result the disappearance of all
+that was profound and thought-exciting.</p>
+
+<p>If his philosophy thus reflects the manner of his
+daily life, the occupations of the latter were informed
+by the spirit of his philosophy. Two of the dearest
+interests of Leibniz remain to be mentioned,&mdash;one,
+the founding of academies; the other, the reconciling
+of religious organizations. The former testifies to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_17" title="17"> </a>
+his desire for comprehensiveness, unity, and organization
+of knowledge; the latter to his desire for
+practical unity, his dislike of all that is opposed and
+isolated. His efforts in the religions direction were
+twofold. The first was to end the theological and
+political controversies of the time by the reunion of
+the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches. It
+was a plan which did the greatest honor to the pacific
+spirit of Leibniz, but it was predestined to failure.
+Both sides made concessions,&mdash;more concessions
+than we of to-day should believe possible. But the
+one thing the Roman Catholic Church would not concede
+was the one thing which the Protestant Church
+demanded,&mdash;the notion of authority and hierarchy.
+Indeed, it may be questioned whether the terms on
+which Leibniz conceived of their reunion do not
+point to the greatest weakness in his philosophy,&mdash;the
+tendency to overlook oppositions and to resolve
+all contradiction into differences of degree. Hardly
+had this plan fallen through when Leibniz turned
+to the project of a union of the Lutheran and Reformed
+branches of the Protestant Church. This
+scheme was more hopeful, and while unrealized during
+the life of our philosopher, was afterwards
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that even before Leibniz went to
+Paris and to London he had conceived the idea of
+a society of learned men for the investigation, the
+systematization, and the publication of scientific
+truth in all its varied forms,&mdash;a society which
+should in breadth include the whole sphere of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_18" title="18"> </a>
+sciences, but should not treat them as so many isolated
+disciplines, but as members of one system.
+This idea was quickened when Leibniz saw the
+degree in which it had already been realized in the
+two great world-capitals. He never ceased to try to
+introduce similar academies wherever he had influence.
+In 1700 his labors bore their fruit in one
+instance. The Academy at Berlin was founded,
+and Leibniz was its first, and indeed life-long,
+president. But disappointment met him at Vienna,
+Dresden, and St. Petersburg, where he proposed
+similar societies.</p>
+
+<p>Any sketch of Leibniz’s life, however brief, would
+be imperfect which did not mention the names at
+least of two remarkable women,&mdash;remarkable in
+themselves, and remarkable in their friendship
+with Leibniz. These were Sophia, grand-daughter
+of James&nbsp;I. of England (and thus the link by
+which the House of Brunswick finally came to
+rule over Great Britain) and wife of the Duke of
+Brunswick, and her daughter Sophia Charlotte,
+wife of the first king of Prussia. The latter,
+in particular, gave Leibniz every encouragement.
+She was personally deeply interested in all theological
+and philosophical questions. Upon her
+death-bed, in 1705, she is said to have told those
+about her that they were not to mourn for her, as
+she should now be able to satisfy her desire to
+learn about things which Leibniz had never sufficiently
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>Her death marks the beginning of a period in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_19" title="19"> </a>
+Leibniz’s life which it is not pleasant to dwell
+upon. New rulers arose that knew not Leibniz.
+It cannot be said that from this time till his death
+in Hanover in 1716 Leibniz had much joy or satisfaction.
+His best friends were dead; his political
+ambitions were disappointed; he was suspected
+of coldness and unfriendliness by the courts
+both of Berlin and Hanover; Paris and Vienna
+were closed to him, so far as any wide influence
+was concerned, by his religious faith; the controversy
+with the friends of Newton still followed
+him. He was a man of the most remarkable intellectual
+gifts, of an energy which could be satisfied
+only with wide fields of action; and he found
+himself shut in by narrow intrigue to a petty round
+of courtly officialism. It is little wonder that the
+following words fell from his lips: “Germany is
+the only country in the world that does not know
+how to recognize the fame of its children and to
+make that fame immortal. It forgets itself; it forgets
+its own, unless foreigners make it mindful of
+its own treasures.” A Scotch friend of Leibniz,
+who happened to be in Hanover when he died, wrote
+that Leibniz “was buried more like a robber than
+what he really was,&mdash;the ornament of his country.”
+Such was the mortal end of the greatest intellectual
+genius since Aristotle. But genius is not a matter
+to be bounded in life or in death by provincial
+courts. Leibniz remains a foremost citizen in that
+“Kingdom of Spirits” in whose formation he found
+the meaning of the world.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_20" title="20"> </a><a name="Chapter_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE SOURCES OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">What</span> is true of all men is true of philosophers,
+and of Leibniz among them.
+Speaking generally, what they are unconsciously
+and fundamentally, they are through absorption of
+their antecedents and surroundings. What they
+are consciously and reflectively, they are through
+their reaction upon the influence of heredity and
+environment. But there is a spiritual line of descent
+and a spiritual atmosphere; and in speaking
+of a philosopher, it is with this intellectual heredity
+and environment, rather than with the physical,
+that we are concerned. Leibniz was born into a
+period of intellectual activity the most teeming
+with ideas, the most fruitful in results, of any,
+perhaps, since the age of Pericles. We pride
+ourselves justly upon the activity of our own century,
+and in diffusion of intellectual action and
+wide-spread application of ideas the age of Leibniz
+could not compare with it. But ours <em>is</em> the age
+of diffusion and application, while his was one of
+fermentation and birth.</p>
+
+<p>Such a period in its earlier days is apt to be
+turbid and unsettled. There is more heat of friction
+than calm light. And such had been the case
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_21" title="21"> </a>
+in the hundred years before Leibniz. But when he
+arrived at intellectual maturity much of the crudity
+had disappeared. The troubling of the waters of
+thought had ceased; they were becoming clarified.
+Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, each had crystallized
+something out of that seething and chaotic mass of
+new ideas which had forced itself into European
+consciousness. Men had been introduced into a
+new world, and the natural result had been feelings
+of strangeness, and the vagaries of intellectual
+wanderings. But by the day of Leibniz the intellectual
+bearings had been made out anew, the
+new mental orientation had been secured.</p>
+
+<p>The marks of this “new spiritual picture of the
+universe” are everywhere to be seen in Leibniz.
+His philosophy is the dawning consciousness of the
+modern world. In it we see the very conception
+and birth of the modern interpretation of the world.
+The history of thought is one continuous testimony
+to the ease with which we become hardened to ideas
+through custom. Ideas are constantly precipitating
+themselves out of the realm of ideas into that of
+ways of thinking and of viewing the universe. The
+problem of one century is the axiom of another.
+What one generation stakes its activity upon investigating
+is quietly taken for granted by the
+next. And so the highest reach of intellectual
+inspiration in the sixteenth century is to-day the
+ordinary food of thought, accepted without an
+inquiry as to its source, and almost without a suspicion
+that it has a recent historic origin. We have
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_22" title="22"> </a>
+to go to Bacon or to Leibniz to see the genesis and
+growth of those ideas which to-day have become
+materialized into axiomatic points of view and into
+hard-and-fast categories of thought. In reading
+Leibniz the idea comes over us in all its freshness
+that there was a time when it was a discovery that
+the world is a universe, made after one plan and
+of one stuff. The ideas of inter-relation, of the
+harmony of law, of mutual dependence and correspondence,
+were not always the assumed starting-points
+of thought; they were once the crowning
+discoveries of a philosophy aglow and almost intoxicated
+with the splendor of its far-reaching
+generalizations. I take these examples of the unity
+of the world, the continuity and interdependence of
+all within it, because these are the ideas which come
+to their conscious and delighted birth in the philosophy
+of Leibniz. We do not put ourselves into
+the right attitude for understanding his thought
+until we remember that these ideas&mdash;the commonest
+tools of our thinking&mdash;were once new and fresh,
+and in their novelty and transforming strangeness
+were the products of a philosophic interpretation
+of experience. Except in that later contemporary
+of Leibniz, the young and enthusiastic Irish idealist,
+Berkeley, I know of no historic thinker in whom the
+birth-throes (joyous, however) of a new conception
+of the world are so evident as in Leibniz. But
+while in Berkeley what we see is the young man
+carried away and astounded by the grandeur and
+simplicity of a “new way of ideas” which he has
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_23" title="23"> </a>
+discovered, what we see in Leibniz is the mature
+man penetrated throughout his being with an idea
+which in its unity answers to the unity of the world,
+and which in its complexity answers, tone to tone,
+to the complex harmony of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The familiarity of the ideas which we use hides
+their grandeur from us. The unity of the world is
+a matter of course with us; the dependent order
+of all within it a mere starting-point upon which
+to base our investigations. But if we will put ourselves
+in the position of Leibniz, and behold, not
+the new planet, but the new universe, so one, so
+linked together, swimming into our ken, we shall
+feel something of the same exultant thrill that
+Leibniz felt,&mdash;an exultation not indeed personal
+in its nature, but which arises from the expansion
+of the human mind face to face with an expanding
+world. The spirit which is at the heart of the
+philosophy of Leibniz is the spirit which speaks
+in the following words: “Quin imo qui unam partem
+materiæ comprehenderet, idem comprehenderet
+totum universum ob eandem <span class="greek" lang="grc" xml:lang="grc" title="perichôrêsin">περιχώρησιν</span> quam dixi.
+Mea principia talia sunt, ut vix a se invicem develli
+possint. Qui unum bene novit, omnia novit.” It
+is a spirit which feels that the secret of the universe
+has been rendered up to it, and which breathes
+a buoyant optimism. And if we of the nineteenth
+century have chosen to bewail the complexity of
+the problem of life, and to run hither and thither
+multiplying “insights” and points of view till this
+enthusiastic confidence in reason seems to us the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_24" title="24"> </a>
+rashness of an ignorance which does not comprehend
+the problem, and the unity in which Leibniz
+rested appears cold and abstract beside the manifold
+richness of the world, we should not forget that
+after all we have incorporated into our very mental
+structure the fundamental thoughts of Leibniz,&mdash;the
+thoughts of the rationality of the universe and
+of the “reign of law.”</p>
+
+<p>What was the origin of these ideas in the mind
+of Leibniz? What influences in the philosophic succession
+of thinkers led him in this direction? What
+agencies acting in the intellectual world about him
+shaped his ideal reproduction of reality? Two
+causes above all others stand out with prominence,&mdash;one,
+the discoveries and principles of modern
+physical science; the other, that interpretation of
+experience which centuries before had been formulated
+by Aristotle. Leibniz has a double interest
+for those of to-day who reverence science and who
+hold to the historical method. His philosophy was
+an attempt to set in order the methods and principles
+of that growing science of nature which even
+then was transforming the emotional and mental
+life of Europe; and the attempt was guided everywhere
+by a profound and wide-reaching knowledge
+of the history of philosophy. On the first point
+Leibniz was certainly not alone. Bacon, Hobbes,
+Descartes, Spinoza, each felt in his own way the
+fructifying touch of the new-springing science, and
+had attempted under its guidance to interpret the
+facts of nature and of man. But Leibniz stood
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_25" title="25"> </a>
+alone in his interest in the history of thought. He
+stands alone indeed till he is greeted by his compeers
+of the nineteenth century. To Bacon previous
+philosophy&mdash;the Greek, the scholastic&mdash;was
+an “eidol of the theatre.” The human mind must be
+freed from its benumbing influence. To Descartes
+it was useless rubbish to be cleared away, that we
+might get a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tabula rasa</i> upon which to make a fresh
+start. And shall Locke and the empirical English
+school, or Reid and the Scotch school, or even Kant,
+be the first to throw a stone at Bacon and Descartes?
+It was reserved to Leibniz, with a genius almost
+two centuries in advance of his times, to penetrate
+the meaning of the previous development of reflective
+thought. It would be going beyond our
+brief to claim that Leibniz was interested in this <em>as</em>
+a historical movement, or that he specially concerned
+himself with the genetic lines which connected the
+various schools of thought. But we should come
+short of our duty to Leibniz if we did not recognize
+his conscious and largely successful attempt to apprehend
+the core of truth in all systems, however
+alien to his own, and to incorporate it into his
+own thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could be more characteristic of Leibniz
+than his saying, “I find that most systems are
+right in a good share of that which they advance,
+but not so much in what they deny;” or than this
+other statement of his, “We must not hastily believe
+that which the mass of men, or even of authorities,
+advance, but each must demand for himself the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_26" title="26"> </a>
+proofs of the thesis sustained. Yet long research
+generally convinces that the old and received opinions
+are good, provided they be interpreted justly.”
+It is in the profound union in Leibniz of the principles
+which these quotations image that his abiding
+worth lies. Leibniz was interested in affirmations,
+not in denials. He was interested in securing the
+union of the modern <em>method</em>, the spirit of original
+research and independent judgment, with the conserved
+<em>results</em> of previous thought. Leibniz was a
+man of his times; that is to say, he was a scientific
+man,&mdash;the contemporary, for example, of men
+as different as Bernouilli, Swammerdam, Huygens,
+and Newton, and was himself actively engaged in
+the prosecution of mathematics, mechanics, geology,
+comparative philology, and jurisprudence. But he
+was also a man of Aristotle’s times,&mdash;that is to say,
+a philosopher, not satisfied until the facts, principles,
+and methods of science had received an interpretation
+which should explain and unify them.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s acquaintance with the higher forms of
+mathematics was due, as we have seen, to his acquaintance
+with Huygens. As he made the acquaintance
+of the latter at the same time that he made
+the acquaintance of the followers of Descartes, it
+is likely that he received his introduction to the
+higher developments of the scientific interpretation
+of nature and of the philosophic interpretation of
+science at about the same time. For a while, then,
+Leibniz was a Cartesian; and he never ceased to
+call the doctrine of Descartes the antechamber of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_27" title="27"> </a>
+truth. What were the ideas which he received from
+Descartes? Fundamentally they were two,&mdash;one
+about the method of truth, the other about the
+substance of truth. He received the idea that the
+method of philosophy consists in the analysis of any
+complex group of ideas down to simple ideas which
+shall be perfectly clear and distinct; that all such
+clear and distinct ideas are true, and may then be
+used for the synthetic reconstruction of any body
+of truth. Concerning the substance of philosophic
+truth, he learned that nature is to be interpreted
+mechanically, and that the instrument of this mechanical
+interpretation is mathematics. I have used
+the term “received” in speaking of the relation of
+Leibniz to these ideas. Yet long before this time
+we might see him giving himself up to dreams about
+a vast art of combination which should reduce all
+the ideas concerned in any science to their simplest
+elements, and then combine them to any degree of
+complexity. We have already seen him giving us a
+picture of a boy of fifteen gravely disputing with
+himself whether he shall accept the doctrine of forms
+and final causes, or of physical causes, and as gravely
+deciding that he shall side with the “moderns;”
+and that boy was himself. In these facts we have
+renewed confirmation of the truth that one mind
+never receives from another anything excepting the
+stimulus, the reflex, the development of ideas which
+have already possessed it. But when Leibniz, with
+his isolated and somewhat ill-digested thoughts,
+came in contact with that systematized and connected
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_28" title="28"> </a>
+body of doctrines which the Cartesians
+presented to him in Paris, his ideas were quickened,
+and he felt the necessity&mdash;that final mark
+of the philosophic mind&mdash;of putting them in
+order.</p>
+
+<p>About the method of Descartes, which Leibniz
+adopted from him, or rather formulated for himself
+under the influence of Descartes, not much need be
+said. It was the method of Continental thought till
+the time of Kant. It was the mother of the philosophic
+systems of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza.
+It was equally the mother of the German <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Aufklärung</i>
+and the French <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">éclaircissement</i>. Its fundamental
+idea is the thought upon which Rationalism everywhere
+bases itself. It says: Reduce everything to
+simple notions. Get clearness; get distinctness.
+Analyze the complex. Shun the obscure. Discover
+axioms; employ these axioms in connection
+with the simple notions, and build up from them.
+Whatever can be treated in this way is capable of
+proof, and only this. Leibniz, I repeat, possessed
+this method in common with Descartes and Spinoza.
+The certainty and demonstrativeness of mathematics
+stood out in the clearest contrast to the uncertainty,
+the obscurity, of all other knowledge. And to them,
+as to all before the days of Kant, it seemed beyond
+doubt that the method of mathematics consists in
+the analysis of notions, and in their synthesis through
+the medium of axioms, which are true because identical
+statements; while the notions are true because
+clear and distinct.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_29" title="29"> </a>And yet the method led Leibniz in a very different
+direction. One of the fundamental doctrines, for
+example, of Leibniz is the existence everywhere
+of minute and obscure perceptions,&mdash;which are of
+the greatest importance, but of which we, at least,
+can never have distinct consciousness. How is
+this factor of his thought, which almost approaches
+mysticism, to be reconciled with the statements just
+made? It is found in the different application
+which is made of the method. The object of Descartes
+is the <em>erection of a new structure of truth</em> upon
+a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tabula rasa</i> of all former doctrines. The object
+of Leibniz is the <em>interpretation of an old body of
+truth</em> by a method which shall reveal it in its clearest
+light. Descartes and Spinoza are “rationalists”
+both in their method and results. Leibniz is a
+“rationalist” in his method; but his application of
+the method is everywhere controlled by historic considerations.
+It is, I think, impossible to over-emphasize
+this fact. Descartes was profoundly
+convinced that past thought had gone wrong, and
+that its results were worthless. Leibniz was as
+profoundly convinced that its instincts had been
+right, and that the general idea of the world which
+it gave was correct. Leibniz would have given the
+heartiest assent to Goethe’s saying, “<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Das Wahre
+war schon längst gefunden.</span>” It was out of the question,
+then, that he should use the new method in any
+other than an interpreting way to bring out in a
+connected system and unity the true meaning of the
+subject-matter.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_30" title="30"> </a>So much of generality for the method of Leibniz.
+The positive substance of doctrine which he developed
+under scientific influence affords matter for
+more discussion. Of the three influences which
+meet us here, two are still Cartesian; the third is
+from the new science of biology, although not yet
+answering to that name. These three influences are,
+in order: the idea that nature is to be explained
+mechanically; that this is to be brought about
+through the application of mathematics; and, from
+biology, the idea that all change is of the nature of
+continuous growth or unfolding. Let us consider
+each in this order.</p>
+
+<p>What is meant by the mechanical explanation of
+nature? To answer a question thus baldly put, we
+must recall the kind of explanations which had satisfied
+the scholastic men of science. They had been
+explanations which, however true, Leibniz says, as
+general principles, do not touch the details of the
+matter. The explanations of natural facts had been
+found in general principles, in substantial forces, in
+occult essences, in native faculties. Now, the first
+contention of the founders of the modern scientific
+movement was that such general considerations are
+not verifiable, and that if they are, they are entirely
+aside from the point,&mdash;they fail to explain any
+given fact. Explanation must always consist in
+discovering an immediate connection between some
+fact and some co-existing or preceding fact. Explanation
+does not consist in referring a fact to a
+general power, it consists in referring it to an antecedent
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_31" title="31"> </a>
+whose existence is its necessary condition.
+It was not left till the times of Mr. Huxley to poke
+fun at those who would explain some concrete phenomenon
+by reference to an abstract principle ending
+in &mdash;ity. Leibniz has his word to say about those
+who would account for the movements of a watch
+by reference to a principle of horologity, and of
+mill-stones by a fractive principle.</p>
+
+<p>Mechanical explanation consists, accordingly, in
+making out an actual connection between two existing
+facts. But this does not say very much. A
+connection of what kind? In the first place, a connection
+of the same order as the facts observed.
+If we are explaining corporeal phenomena, we must
+find a corporeal link; if we are explaining phenomena
+of motion, we must find a connection of motion.
+In one of his first philosophical works Leibniz, in
+taking the mechanical position, states what he means
+by it. In the “Confession of Nature against the
+Atheists” he says that it must be confessed to those
+who have revived the corpuscular theory of Democritus
+and Epicurus, to Galileo, Bacon, Gassendi,
+Hobbes, and Descartes, that in explaining material
+phenomena recourse is to be had neither to God nor
+to any other incorporeal thing, form, or quality,
+but that all things are to be explained from the
+nature of matter and its qualities, especially from
+their magnitude, figure, and motion. The physics
+of Descartes, to which was especially due the spread
+of mechanical notions, virtually postulated the problem:
+given a homogeneous quantity of matter,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_32" title="32"> </a>
+endowed only with extension and mobility, to account
+for all material phenomena. Leibniz accepts
+this mechanical view without reserve.</p>
+
+<p>What has been said suggests the bearing of mathematics
+in this connection. Extension and mobility
+may be treated by mathematics. It is indeed the
+business of the geometer to give us an analysis of
+figured space, to set before us all possible combinations
+which can arise, assuming extension only.
+The higher analysis sets before us the results which
+inevitably follow if we suppose a moving point or
+any system of movements. Mathematics is thus
+the essential tool for treating physical phenomena
+as just defined. But it is more. The mechanical
+explanation of Nature not only requires such a development
+of mathematics as will make it applicable
+to the interpretation of physical facts, but the
+employment of mathematics is necessary for the
+very discovery of these facts. Exact observation
+was the necessity of the growing physical science;
+and exact observation means such as will answer
+the question, <em>How much?</em> Knowledge of nature depends
+upon our ability to <em>measure</em> her processes,&mdash;that
+is, to reduce distinctions of quality to those of
+quantity. The only assurance that we can finally
+have that two facts are connected in such a way as
+to fulfil the requirements of scientific research, is
+that there is a complete quantitative connection
+between them, so that one can be regarded as the
+other transformed. The advance of physical science
+from the days of Copernicus to the present
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_33" title="33"> </a>
+has consisted, therefore, on one hand, in a development
+of mathematics which has made it possible to
+apply it in greater and greater measure to the discussion
+and formulation of the results of experiment,
+and to deduce laws which, when interpreted
+physically, will give new knowledge of fact; and,
+on the other, to multiply, sharpen, and make precise
+all sorts of devices by which the processes of
+nature may be measured. The explanation of nature
+by natural processes; the complete application
+of mathematics to nature,&mdash;these are the two
+thoughts which, so far, we have seen to be fundamental
+to the development of the philosophy of
+Leibniz.</p>
+
+<p>The third factor, and that which brings Leibniz
+nearer, perhaps, our own day than either of the others,
+is the growth of physiological science. Swammerdam,
+Malpighi, Leewenhoek,&mdash;these are names
+which occur and recur in the pages of Leibniz.
+Indeed, he appears to be the first of that now long
+line of modern philosophers to be profoundly influenced
+by the conception of life and the categories
+of organic growth. Descartes concerned himself
+indeed with physiological problems, but it was only
+with a view to applying mechanical principles. The
+idea of the vital unity of all organs of the body
+might seem to be attractive to one filled with the
+notion of the unity of all in God, and yet Spinoza
+shows no traces of the influence of the organic
+conception. Not until Kant’s famous definition of
+organism do we see another philosopher moved by
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_34" title="34"> </a>
+an attempt to comprehend the categories of living
+structure.</p>
+
+<p>But it is the idea of organism, of life, which is
+radical to the thought of Leibniz. I do not think,
+however, that it can truly be said that he was led to
+the idea simply from the state of physiological investigation
+at that time. Rather, he had already
+learned to think of the world as organic through
+and through, and found in the results of biology
+confirmations, apt illustrations of a truth of which
+he was already thoroughly convinced. His writings
+show that there were two aspects of biological science
+which especially interested him. One was the
+simple fact of organism itself,&mdash;the fact of the various
+activities of different organs occurring in complete
+harmony for one end. This presented three
+notions very dear to the mind of Leibniz, or rather
+three moments of the same idea,&mdash;the factors of
+activity, of unity brought about by co-ordinated
+action, and of an end which reveals the meaning of
+the activity and is the ideal expression of the unity.
+The physiologists of that day were also occupied
+with the problem of growth. The generalization
+that all is developed <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ab ovo</i> was just receiving universal
+attention. The question which thrust itself
+upon science for solution was the mode by which ova,
+apparently homogeneous in structure, developed
+into the various forms of the organic kingdom.
+The answer given was “evolution.” But evolution
+had not the meaning which the term has
+to-day. By evolution was meant that the whole
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_35" title="35"> </a>
+complex structure of man, for example, was virtually
+contained in the germ, and that the apparent
+phenomenon of growth was not the addition of anything
+from without, but simply the unfolding and
+magnifying of that already existing. It was the
+doctrine which afterwards gave way to the epigenesis
+theory of Wolff, according to which growth is
+not mere unfolding or unwrapping, but progressive
+differentiation. The “evolution” theory was the
+scientific theory of the times, however, and was
+warmly espoused by Leibniz. To him, as we shall
+see hereafter, it seemed to give a key which would
+unlock one of the problems of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Such, then, were the three chief generalizations
+which Leibniz found current, and which most deeply
+affected him. But what use did he make of them?
+He did not become a philosopher by letting them
+lie dormant in his mind, nor by surrendering himself
+passively to them till he could mechanically
+apply them everywhere. He was a philosopher
+only in virtue of the active attitude which his mind
+took towards them. He could not simply accept
+them at their face-value; he must ask after the
+source of their value, the royal stamp of meaning
+which made them a circulatory medium. That is to
+say, he had to interpret these ideas, to see what
+they mean, and what is the basis of their validity.</p>
+
+<p>Not many men have been so conscious of just the
+bearings of their own ideas and of their source as
+was he. He often allows us a direct glimpse into
+the method of his thinking, and nowhere more than
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_36" title="36"> </a>
+when he says: “Those who give themselves up to
+the details of science usually despise abstract and
+general researches. Those who go into universal
+principles rarely care for particular facts. But I
+equally esteem both.” Leibniz, in other words, was
+equally interested in the application of scientific
+principles to the explanation of the details of natural
+phenomena, and in the bearing and meaning of
+the principles themselves,&mdash;a rare combination, indeed,
+but one, which existing, stamps the genuine
+philosopher. Leibniz substantially repeats this idea
+when he says: “Particular effects must be explained
+mechanically; but the general principles of
+physics and mathematics depend upon metaphysics.”
+And again: “All occurs mechanically; but
+the mechanical principle is not to be explained from
+material and mathematical considerations, but it
+flows from a higher and a metaphysical source.”</p>
+
+<p>As a man of science, Leibniz might have stopped
+short with the ideas of mechanical law, of the application
+of mathematics, and of the continuity of
+development. As a philosopher he could not.
+There are some scientific men to whom it always
+seems a perversion of their principles to attempt to
+carry them any beyond their application to the details
+of the subject. They look on in a bewildered
+and protesting attitude when there is suggested the
+necessity of any further inquiry. Or perhaps they
+dogmatically deny the possibility of any such investigation,
+and as dogmatically assume the sufficiency
+of their principles for the decision of all possible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_37" title="37"> </a>
+problems. But bewildered fear and dogmatic assertion
+are equally impotent to fix arbitrary limits
+to human thought. Wherever there is a subject
+that has meaning, there is a field which appeals to
+mind, and the mind will not cease its endeavors till
+it has made out what that meaning is, and has made
+it out in its entirety. So the three principles already
+spoken of were but the starting-points, the stepping-stones
+of Leibniz’s philosophic thought. While to
+physical science they are solutions, to philosophy
+they are problems; and as such Leibniz recognized
+them. What solution did he give?</p>
+
+<p>So far as the principle of mechanical explanation
+is concerned, the clew is given by considering the
+factor upon which he laid most emphasis, namely,
+motion. Descartes had said that the essence of the
+physical world is extension. “Not so,” replied
+Leibniz; “It is motion.” These answers mark two
+typical ways of regarding nature. According to
+one, nature is something essentially rigid and static;
+whatever change in it occurs, is a change of form,
+of arrangement, an external modification. According
+to the other, nature is something essentially
+dynamic and active. Change according to law is
+its very essence. Form, arrangement are only the
+results of this internal principle. And so to Leibniz,
+extension and the spatial aspects of physical existence
+were only secondary, they were phenomenal.
+The primary, the real fact was motion.</p>
+
+<p>The considerations which led him to this conclusion
+are simple enough. It is the fact already mentioned,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_38" title="38"> </a>
+that explanation always consists in reducing
+phenomena to a law of motion which connects them.
+Descartes himself had not succeeded in writing his
+physics without everywhere using the conception of
+motion. But motion cannot be got out of the idea
+of extension. Geometry will not give us activity.
+What is this, except virtually to admit the insufficiency
+of purely statical conceptions? Leibniz found
+himself confirmed in this position by the fact that
+the more logical of the followers of Descartes had
+recognized that motion is a superfluous intruder, if
+extension be indeed the essence of matter, and therefore
+had been obliged to have recourse to the immediate
+activity of God as the cause of all changes.
+But this, as Leibniz said, was simply to give up
+the very idea of mechanical explanation, and to
+fall back into the purely general explanations of
+scholasticism.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place for a detailed exposition of
+the ideas of Leibniz regarding matter, motion, and
+extension. We need here only recognize that he
+saw in motion the final reality of the physical universe.
+But what about motion? To many, perhaps
+the majority, of minds to-day it seems useless or
+absurd, or both, to ask any question about motion.
+It is simply an ultimate <em>fact</em>, to which all other facts
+are to be reduced. We are so familiar with it as a
+solution of all physical problems that we are confused,
+and fail to recognize it when it appears in
+the guise of a problem. But, I repeat, philosophy
+cannot stop with facts, however ultimate. It must
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_39" title="39"> </a>
+also know something about the meaning, the significance,
+in short the ideal bearing, of facts. From
+the point of view of philosophy, motion has a certain
+function in the economy of the universe; it is,
+as Aristotle saw, something ideal.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Aristotle suggests the principles
+which guided Leibniz in his interpretation of the
+fact of motion. The thought of Aristotle moves
+about the two poles of potentiality and actuality.
+Potentiality is not <em>mere</em> capacity; it is being in an
+undeveloped, imperfect stage. Actuality is, as the
+word suggests, activity. Anything is potential in
+so far as it does not manifest itself in action; it is
+actual so far as it does thus show forth its being.
+Now, movement, or change in its most general sense,
+is that by which the potential comes to the realization
+of its nature, and functions as an activity.
+Motion, then, is not an ultimate fact, but is subordinate.
+It exists for an end. It is that by which
+existence realizes its idea; that is, its proper type
+of action.</p>
+
+<p>Now Leibniz does not formally build upon these
+distinctions; and yet he is not very far removed
+from Aristotle. Motion, he is never weary of repeating,
+means force, means energy, means activity.
+To say that the essence of nature is motion, is to
+say that the natural world finally introduces us to
+the supremacy of action. Reality is activity. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Substance
+c’est l’action.</i> That is the key-note and the
+battle-cry of the Leibnizian philosophy. Motion is
+that by which being expresses its nature, fulfils its
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_40" title="40"> </a>
+purpose, reveals its idea. In short, the specific
+scientific conception of motion is by Leibniz transformed
+into the philosophic conception of force, of
+activity. In motion he sees evidence of the fact
+that the universe is radically dynamic.</p>
+
+<p>In the applicability of mathematics to the interpretation
+of nature Leibniz finds witness to the
+continuity and order of the world. We have become
+so accustomed to the fact that mathematics
+may be directly employed for the discussion and
+formulation of physical investigations that we forget
+what is implied in it. It involves the huge assumption
+that the world answers to reason; so that
+whatever the mind finds to be ideally true may be
+taken for granted to be physically true also. But
+in those days, when the correlation of the laws of
+the world and the laws of mathematical reasoning
+was a fresh discovery, this aspect of the case could
+not be easily lost sight of.</p>
+
+<p>In fact it was this correlation which filled the
+<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Zeitgeist</i> of the sixteenth century with the idea that
+it had a new organ for the penetration of nature, a
+new sense for learning its meaning. Descartes gives
+the following as the origin of his philosophy: “The
+long chains of simple and easy reasons which geometers
+employ, even in their most complex demonstrations,
+made me fancy that all things which are
+the objects of human knowledge are <em>similarly interdependent</em>.”
+To Leibniz also mathematics seemed
+to give a clew to the order, the interdependence, the
+harmonious relations, of the world.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_41" title="41"> </a>In this respect the feeling of Plato that God
+geometrizes found an echoing response in Leibniz.
+But the latter would hardly have expressed it in the
+same way. He would have preferred to say that
+God everywhere uses the infinitesimal calculus. In
+the applicability of the calculus to the discussion
+of physical facts, Leibniz saw two truths reflected,&mdash;that
+everything that occurs has its reason, its
+dependent connection upon something else, and that
+all is continuous and without breaks. While the
+formal principles of his logic are those of identity
+and contradiction, his real principles are those of
+sufficient reason and of continuity. Nature never
+makes leaps; everything in nature has a sufficient
+reason why it is as it is: these are the philosophic
+generalizations which Leibniz finds hidden in the
+applicability of mathematics to physical science.
+Reason finds itself everywhere expressed in nature;
+and the law of reason is unity in diversity,
+continuity.</p>
+
+<p>Let us say, in a word, that the correlation between
+the laws of mathematics and of physics is the evidence
+of the rational character of nature. Nature
+may be reduced to motions; and motions can be
+understood only as force, activity. But the laws
+which connect motions are fundamentally mathematical
+laws,&mdash;laws of reason. Hence force, activity,
+can be understood only as rational, as
+spiritual. Nature is thus seen to mean Activity,
+and Activity is seen to mean Intelligence. Furthermore,
+as the fundamental law of intelligence is the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_42" title="42"> </a>
+production of difference in unity, the primary law
+of physical change must be the manifestation of this
+unity in difference,&mdash;or, as Leibniz interpreted it,
+continuity. In nature there are no breaks, neither
+of quantity nor of quality nor of relationship. The
+full force of this law we shall see later.</p>
+
+<p>Such an idea can hardly be distinguished from
+the idea of growth or development; one passes
+naturally into the other. Thus it is equally proper
+to say that the third scientific influence, the conception
+of organism and growth, is dominant in the
+Leibnizian thought, or that this is swallowed up
+and absorbed in the grand idea of continuity. The
+law of animal and vegetable life and the law of the
+universe are identified. The substance of the universe
+is activity; the law of the universe is interdependence.
+What is this but to say that the
+universe is an organic whole? Its activity is the
+manifestation of life,&mdash;nay, it is life. The laws of
+its activity reveal that continuity of development,
+that harmony of inter-relation, which are everywhere
+the marks of life. The final and fundamental notion,
+therefore, by which Leibniz interprets the laws of
+physics and mathematics is that of Life. This is
+his regnant category. It is “that higher and metaphysical
+source” from which the very existence and
+principles of mechanism flow. The perpetual and
+ubiquitous presence of motion reveals the pulsations
+of Life; the correlation, the rationality, of these
+motions indicate the guiding presence of Life. This
+idea is the alpha and omega of his philosophy.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_43" title="43"> </a><a name="Chapter_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE PROBLEM, AND ITS SOLUTION.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Leibniz</span>, like every great man, absorbed into
+himself the various thoughts of his time,
+and in absorbing transformed them. He brought
+into a focus of brilliancy the diffused lights of
+truth shining here and there. He summed up in a
+pregnant and comprehensive category the scattered
+principles of his age. Yet we are not to suppose
+that Leibniz considered these various ideas one by
+one, and then patched them into an artificial unity
+of thought. Philosophies are not manufactured
+piecemeal out of isolated and fragmentary thoughts;
+they grow from a single root, absorbing from their
+environment whatever of sustenance offers itself,
+and maturing in one splendid fruit of spiritual
+truth. It is convenient, indeed, to isolate various
+phases of truth, and consider them as distinct
+forces working to shape one final product, and as a
+convenient artifice it is legitimate. But it answers
+to no process actually occurring. Leibniz never
+surrendered his personal unity, and out of some
+one root-conception grew all his ideas. The principles
+of his times were not separate forces acting
+upon him, they were the foods of which he selected
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_44" title="44"> </a>
+and assimilated such as were fitted to nourish his
+one great conception.</p>
+
+<p>But it is more than a personal unity which holds
+together the thinking of a philosopher. There is
+the unity of the problem, which the philosopher
+has always before him, and in which all particular
+ideas find their unity. All else issues from this
+and merges into it. The various influences which
+we have seen affecting Leibniz, therefore, got their
+effectiveness from the relation which he saw them
+bear to the final problem of all thought. This is
+the inquiry after the unity of experience, if we
+look at it from the side of the subject; the unity
+of reality, if we put it from the objective side.
+Yet each age states this problem in its own way,
+because it sees it in the light of some difficulty
+which has recently arisen in consciousness. At
+one time, the question is as to the relation of the
+one to the many; at another, of the relation of
+the sensible to the intelligible world; at another,
+of the relation of the individual to the universal.
+And this last seems to have been the way in which
+it specifically presented itself to Leibniz. This
+way of stating it was developed, though apparently
+without adequate realization of its meaning, by
+the philosophy of scholasticism. It stated the
+problem as primarily a logical question,&mdash;the relation
+of genera, of species, of individuals to each
+other. And the school-boy, made after the stamp
+of literary tradition, knows that there were two
+parties among the Schoolmen,&mdash;the Realists, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_45" title="45"> </a>
+the Nominalists; one asserting, the other denying,
+the objective reality of universals. To regard this
+discussion as useless, is to utter the condemnation of
+philosophy, and to relegate the foundation of science
+to the realm of things not to be inquired into.
+To say that it is an easy matter to decide, is to assume
+the decision with equal ease of all the problems
+that have vexed the thought of humanity. To
+us it seems easy because we have bodily incorporated
+into our thinking the results of both the
+realistic and the nominalistic doctrines, without attempting
+to reconcile them, or even being conscious
+of the necessity of reconciliation. We assert in
+one breath that the individual is alone real, and in
+the next assert that only those forms of consciousness
+which represent something in the universe are
+to be termed knowledge. At one moment we say
+that universals are creations of the individual mind,
+and at the next pass on to talk of laws of nature,
+or even of a reign of law. In other words, we have
+learned to regard both the individual and the universal
+as real, and thus ignoring the problem, think
+we have solved it.</p>
+
+<p>But to Leibniz the problem presented itself neither
+as a logical question, nor yet as one whose solution
+might be taken for granted. On the contrary, it
+was just this question: How shall we conceive the
+individual to be related to the universe? which
+seemed to him to be the nerve of the philosophic
+problem, the question whose right answer would
+solve the problems of religion, of morals, of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_46" title="46"> </a>
+basis of science, as well as of the nature of reality.
+The importance of just this way of putting the
+question had been rendered evident by the predecessors
+and contemporaries of Leibniz, especially by
+Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. His more specific
+relations to the last-named will occupy us hereafter;
+at present we must notice how the question stood
+at the hands of Descartes and Spinoza.</p>
+
+<p>Descartes had separated the individual from the
+universal. His philosophy began and ended with
+a dualism. I have just said that the problem of philosophy
+is the unity of experience. Yet we find that
+there have been thinkers, and those of the first rank,
+who have left the matter without discovering any
+ultimate unity, or rather who have made it the burden
+of their contention that we cannot explain the
+world without at least two disparate principles. But
+if we continue to look at the matter in this historical
+way, we shall see that this dualism has always been
+treated by the successors of such a philosopher, not
+as a solution, but as a deeper statement of the problem.
+It is the function of dualistic philosophies to
+re-state the question in a new and more significant
+way. There are times when the accepted unity of
+thought is seen to be inadequate and superficial.
+Men are thrashing old straw, and paying themselves
+with ideas which have lost their freshness and their
+timeliness. There then arises a philosopher who
+goes deep, beyond the superficial unity, and who
+discovers the untouched problem. His it is to assert
+the true meaning of the question, which has been
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_47" title="47"> </a>
+unseen or evaded. The attitude of dualism is thus
+always necessary, but never final. Its value is not
+in any solution, but in the generality and depth of the
+problem which it proposes, and which incites thought
+to the discovery of a unity of equal depth and comprehensiveness.</p>
+
+<p>Except for Descartes, then, we should not be conscious
+of the gulf that yawns between the individual
+mind and the universe in front of it. He presented
+the opposition as between mind and matter. The
+essence of the former is thought; of the latter, extension.
+The conceptions are disparate and opposed.
+No interaction is possible. His disciples, more
+consistent than their master, called in a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">deus ex
+machina</i>,&mdash;the miraculous intervention of God,&mdash;in
+order to account for the appearance of reciprocal
+action between the universe of matter and the
+thinking individual. Thus they in substance admitted
+the relation between them to be scientifically
+inexplicable, and had recourse to the supernatural.
+The individual does not act upon the universe to
+produce, destroy, or alter the arrangement of anything.
+But upon the <em>occasion</em> of his volition God
+produces a corresponding material change. The
+world does not act upon the soul of the individual
+to produce thoughts or sensations. God, upon <em>occasion</em>
+of the external affection, brings them into
+being. With such thoroughness Descartes performed
+his task of separation. Yet the introduction
+of the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">deus ex machina</i> only complicated the problem;
+it introduced a third factor where two were
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_48" title="48"> </a>
+already too many. What is the relation of God to
+Mind and to Matter? Is it simply a third somewhat,
+equally distinct from both, or does it contain both
+within itself?</p>
+
+<p>Spinoza attempted to solve the problem in the
+latter sense. He conceived God to be the one substance
+of the universe, possessing the two known
+attributes of thought and matter. These attributes
+are one in God; indeed, he is their unity. This is
+the sole legitimate outcome of the Cartesian problem
+stated as Descartes would have it stated. It
+overcomes the absoluteness of the dualism by discovering
+a common and fundamental unity, and at
+the same time takes the subject out of the realm
+of the miraculous. For the solution works both
+ways. It affects the nature of God, as well as of
+extension and thought. It presents him to us,
+not as a supernatural being, but as the unity of
+thought and extension. In knowing these as they
+are, we know God as he is. Spinoza, in other
+words, uses the conception of God in a different
+way from the Cartesians. The latter had treated
+him as the God of theology,&mdash;a being supernatural;
+Spinoza uses the conception as a scientific
+one, and speaks of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deus sive Natura</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz recognized the unphilosophic character
+of the recourse to a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">deus ex machina</i> as clearly as
+Spinoza, and yet did not accept his solution. To
+find out why he did not is the problem of the historian
+of thought. The one cause which stands out
+above all others is that in the unity of Spinoza all
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_49" title="49"> </a>
+difference, all distinction, is lost. All particular
+existences, whether things or persons, are <em>modes</em> of
+extension and thought. Their <em>apparent</em> existence
+is due to the imagination, which is the source of belief
+in particular things. When considered as they
+really are,&mdash;that is, by the understanding,&mdash;they
+vanish. The one substance, with its two unchanging
+attributes of thought and extension, alone remains.
+If it is a philosophic error to give a solution which
+permits of no unity, is it not equally a philosophic
+error to give one which denies difference? So it
+seemed to Leibniz. The problem is to reconcile
+difference in unity, not to swallow up difference in
+a blank oneness,&mdash;to reconcile the individual with
+the universe, not to absorb him.</p>
+
+<p>The unsatisfactoriness of the solution appears
+if we look at it from another side. Difference
+implies change, while a unity in which all variety
+is lost implies quiescence. Change is as much an
+illusion of imagination to Spinoza as is variety.
+The One Reality is permanent. How repugnant the
+conception of a static universe was to Leibniz we
+have already learned. Spinoza fails to satisfy
+Leibniz, therefore, because he does not allow the
+conceptions of individuality and of activity. He
+presents a unity in which all distinction of individuals
+is lost, and in which there is no room for
+change. But Spinoza certainly presented the problem
+more clearly to Leibniz, and revealed more
+definitely the conditions of its solution. The search
+is henceforth for a unity which shall avoid the irresolvable
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_50" title="50"> </a>
+dualism of Descartes, and yet shall allow
+free play to the principles of individuality and of
+activity. There must be, in short, a universe to
+which the individual bears a real yet independent
+relation. What is this unity? The answer, in the
+phraseology of Leibniz, is the <em>monad</em>. Spinoza
+would be right, said Leibniz, were it not for the
+existence of monads. I know there are some who
+have done Leibniz the honor of supposing that this
+is his way of saying, “Spinoza is wrong because
+I am right;” but I cannot help thinking that the
+saying has a somewhat deeper meaning. What,
+then, is the nature of the monad? The answer to
+this question takes us back to the point where the
+discussion of the question was left at the end of
+<a href="#Chapter_II">chapter second</a>. The nature of the monad is life.
+The monad is the spiritual activity which lives in
+absolute harmony with an infinite number of other
+monads.</p>
+
+<p>Let us first consider the reasons of Leibniz for
+conceiving the principle of unity as spiritual. Primarily
+it is because it is impossible to conceive of a
+unity which is material. In the sensible world there
+is no unity. There are, indeed, aggregations, collections,
+which seem like unities; but the very fact
+that these are aggregations shows that the unity is
+factitious. It is the very nature of matter to be infinitely
+divisible: to say this is to deny the existence
+of any true principle of unity. The world of nature
+is the world of space and time; and where in space
+or time shall we find a unity where we may rest?
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_51" title="51"> </a>
+Every point in space, every moment in time, points
+beyond itself. It refers to a totality of which it is
+but a part, or, rather, a limitation. If we add resistance,
+we are not better situated. We have to
+think of something which resists; and to this something
+we must attribute extension,&mdash;that is to say,
+difference, plurality. Nor can we find any resistance
+which is absolute and final. There may be a body
+which is undivided, and which resists all energy now
+acting upon it; but we cannot frame an intelligible
+idea of a body which is absolutely indivisible. To
+do so is to think of a body out of all relation to existing
+forces, something absolutely isolated; while the
+forces of nature are always relative to one another.
+That which resists does so in comparison with some
+opposing energy. The absolutely indivisible, on
+the other hand, would be that which could not be
+brought into comparison with other forces; it would
+not have any of the attributes of force as we know
+it. In a word, whatever exists in nature is relative
+in space, in time, and in qualities to all else. It is
+made what it is by virtue of the totality of its relations
+to the universe; it has no ultimate principle of
+self-subsistent unity in it.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do we fare better if we attempt to find
+unity in the world of nature as a whole. Nature
+has its existence as a whole in space and time. Indeed,
+it is only a way of expressing the totality of
+phenomena of space and time. It is a mere aggregate,
+a collection. Its very essence is plurality,
+difference. It is divisible without limit, and each
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_52" title="52"> </a>
+of its divisions has as good a right to be called one
+as the whole from which it is broken off. We shall
+consider hereafter Leibniz’s idea of infinity; but it
+is easy to see that he must deny any true infinity to
+nature. An ultimate whole made up of parts is a
+contradictory conception; and the idea of a quantitative
+infinite is equally so. Quantity means number,
+measure, limitation. We may not be able to assign
+number to the totality of occurrences in nature, nor
+to measure her every event. This shows that nature
+is indefinitely greater than any <em>assignable</em> quantity;
+but it does not remove her from the category of
+quantity. As long as the world is conceived as
+that existing in space and time, it is conceived as
+that which has to be measured. As we saw in the
+<a href="#Chapter_II">last chapter</a>, the heart of the mechanical theory of
+the world is in the application of mathematics to it.
+Since quantity and mathematics are correlative terms,
+the natural world cannot be conceived as infinite or
+as an ultimate unity.</p>
+
+<p>In short, Leibniz urges and suggests in one form
+and another those objections to the mechanical
+theory of reality which later German philosophers
+have made us so familiar with. The objections are
+indeed varied in statement, but they all come to the
+impossibility of finding any unity, any wholeness,
+anything except plurality and partiality in that
+which is externally conditioned,&mdash;as everything is
+in nature.</p>
+
+<p>But the reasons as thus stated are rather negative
+than positive. They show why the ultimate unity
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_53" title="53"> </a>
+cannot be conceived as material, rather than why it
+must be conceived as spiritual. The immediate evidence
+of its spiritual nature Leibniz finds in the
+perception of the one unity directly known to us,&mdash;the
+“me,” the conscious principle within, which reveals
+itself as an active force, and as truly one, since
+not a spatial or temporal existence. And this evidence
+he finds confirmed by the fact that whatever
+unity material phenomena appear to have comes to
+them through their perception by the soul. Whatever
+the mind grasps in one act, is manifested as
+one.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not in any immediate certainty of fact
+that Leibniz finds the best or completest demonstration
+of the spiritual nature of the ultimate unity.
+This is found in the use which can be made of the
+hypothesis. The truest witness to the spiritual
+character of reality is found in the capacity of this
+principle to comprehend and explain the facts of experience.
+With this conception the reason of things
+can be ascertained, and light introduced into what
+were otherwise a confused obscurity. And, indeed,
+this is the only sufficient proof of any doctrine. It
+is not what comes before the formulation of a theory
+which proves it; it is not the facts which suggest
+it, or the processes which lead up to it: it is what
+comes after the formation of the theory,&mdash;the uses
+that it can be put to; the facts which it will render
+significant. The whole philosophy of Leibniz in its
+simplicity, width, and depth, is the real evidence of
+the truth of his philosophical principle.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_54" title="54"> </a>The monad, then, is a spiritual unity; it is individualized
+life. Unity, activity, individuality are synonymous
+terms in the vocabulary of Leibniz. Every
+unity is a true substance, containing within itself the
+source and law of its own activity. It is that which
+is internally determined to action. It is to be conceived
+after the analogy of the soul. It is an indivisible
+unity, like “that particular something in us
+which thinks, apperceives and wills, and distinguishes
+us in a way of its own from whatever else
+thinks and wills.” Against Descartes, therefore,
+Leibniz stands for the principle of unity; against
+Spinoza, he upholds the doctrine of individuality, of
+diversity, of multiplicity. And the latter principle
+is as important in his thought as the former. Indeed,
+they are inseparable. The individual is the true
+unity. There is an infinite number of these individuals,
+each distinct from every other. The law
+of specification, of distinction, runs through the
+universe. Two beings cannot be alike. They are
+not individualized merely by their different positions
+in space or time; duration and extension, on the
+contrary, are, as we have seen, principles of relativity,
+of connection. Monads are specified by an
+internal principle. Their distinct individuality is
+constituted by their distinct law of activity. Leibniz
+will not have a philosophy of abstract unity, representing
+the universe as simple only, he will have a
+philosophy equal to the diversity, the manifold wealth
+of variety, in the universe. This is only to say that
+he will be faithful to his fundamental notion,&mdash;that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_55" title="55"> </a>
+of Life. Life does not mean a simple unity like a
+mathematical one, it means a unity which is the
+harmony of the interplay of diverse organs, each
+following its own law and having its own function.
+When Leibniz says, God willed to have more monads
+rather than fewer, the expression is indeed one of
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">naïveté</i>, but the thought is one of unexplored depth.
+It is the thought that Leibniz repeats when he says,
+“Those who would reduce all things to modifications
+of one universal substance do not have sufficient regard
+to the <em>order</em>, the <em>harmony</em> of reality.” Leibniz
+applies here, as everywhere, the principle of continuity,
+which is unity in and through diversity, not the
+principle of bare oneness. There is a kingdom of
+monads, a realm truly infinite, composed of individual
+unities or activities in an absolute continuity.
+Leibniz was one of the first, if not the first, to use
+just the expression “uniformity of nature;” but
+even here he explains that it means “uniform in
+variety, one in principle, but varied in manifestation.”
+The world is to be as rich as possible.
+This is simply to say that distinct individuality as
+well as ultimate unity is a law of reality.</p>
+
+<p>But has not Leibniz fallen into a perilous position?
+In avoiding the monotone of unity which
+characterizes the thought of Spinoza, has he not
+fallen into a lawless variety of multiplicity, infinitely
+less philosophic than even the dualism of Descartes,
+since it has an infinity of ultimate principles instead
+of only two? If Spinoza sacrificed the individual
+to the universe, has not Leibniz, in his desire to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_56" title="56"> </a>
+emphasize the individual, gone to the other extreme?
+Apparently we are introduced to a universe that is
+a mere aggregate of an infinite multiplicity of
+realities, each independent of every other. Such
+a universe would not be a universe. It would be
+a chaos of disorder and conflict. We come, therefore,
+to a consideration of the relation between
+these individual monads and the universe. We
+have to discover what lifts the monads out of their
+isolation and bestows upon them that stamp of universality
+which makes it possible for them to enter
+into the coherent structure of reality: in a word,
+what is the universal content which the monad in
+its formal individuality bears and manifests?</p>
+
+<p>The way in which the question has just been
+stated suggests the Leibnizian answer. The monad,
+indeed, in its form is thoroughly individual,
+having its own unique mode of activity; but its
+content, that which this activity manifests, is not
+peculiar to it as an individual, but is the substance
+or law of the universe. It is the very nature of
+the monad to be representative. Its activity consists
+in picturing or reproducing those relations
+which make up the world of reality. In a conscious
+soul, the ability thus to represent the world is
+called “perception,” and thus Leibniz attributes
+perception to all the monads. This is not to be
+understood as a conscious representation of reality
+to itself (for this the term “apperception” is reserved),
+but it signifies that the very essence of the
+monad is to produce states which are not its own
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_57" title="57"> </a>
+peculiar possessions, but which reflect the facts and
+relations of the universe. Leibniz never wearies
+in finding new ways to express this purely representative
+character of the monad. The monads are
+little souls; they are mirrors of the world; they
+are concentrations of the universe, each expressing
+it in its own way; borrowing a term from scholasticism,
+they are “substantial forms.” They are
+substantial, for they are independent unities; they
+are forms, because the term “form” expresses, in
+Aristotelian phraseology, the type or law of some
+class of phenomena. The monad is an individual,
+but its whole content, its objectivity or reality, is
+the summation of the universe which it represents.
+It is individual, but whatever marks it as actual
+is some reproduction of the world. His reconciliation
+of the principles of individuality and
+universality is contained in the following words:
+“Each monad contains within itself an order
+corresponding to that of the universe,&mdash;indeed, the
+monads represent the universe in an infinity of
+ways, all different, and all true, thus multiplying
+the universe as many times as is possible, approaching
+the divine as near as may be, and giving the
+world all the perfection of which it is capable.”
+The monad is individual, for it represents reality in
+its own way, from its own point of view. It is
+universal, for its whole content is the order of the
+universe.</p>
+
+<p>New light is thus thrown upon the former statement
+that reality is activity, that the measure of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_58" title="58"> </a>
+a being is the action which it puts forth. That
+statement is purely formal. It leaves the kind of
+activity and its law wholly undetermined. But
+this relation of “representativeness” which we have
+discovered gives definiteness. It is the law of the
+monad’s action to mirror, to reflect, the universe;
+its changes follow each other so as to bring about
+this reflection in the completest degree possible.
+The monad is literally the many in the one; it is
+the answer to the inquiry of Greek philosophy.
+The many are not present by way of participation
+in some underlying essence, not yet as statically
+possessed by the one, as attributes are sometimes
+supposed to inhere in a substratum. The “many”
+is the manifestation of the activity of the “one.”
+The one and the many are related as form and
+content in an organic unity, which is activity. The
+essence of a substance, says Leibniz, consists in
+that regular tendency of action by which its phenomena
+follow one another in a certain order; and
+that order, as he repeatedly states, is the order in
+which the universe itself is arranged.</p>
+
+<p>The activity of a monad may be advantageously
+compared to that of a supposed atom, granting, for
+the sake of the illustration, that there is such a thing.
+Each is in a state of change: the atom changes its
+place, the monad its representation, and each in the
+simplest and most uniform way that its conditions
+permit. How, then, is there such a similarity, such
+a monotony, in the change of an atom, and such
+variety and complexity in the change of a monad?
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_59" title="59"> </a>
+It is because the atom has merely parts, or external
+variety, while the monad has an internal
+variety. Multiplicity is organically wrought into
+its very being. It has an <em>essential</em> relation to all
+things in the universe; and to say that this relation
+is essential, is to say that it is one which constitutes
+its very content, its being. Hence the cause
+of the changes of the monad, of their variety and
+complexity, is one with the cause of the richness,
+the profusion, the regulated variety of change in the
+universe itself. While we have employed a comparison
+with atoms, this very comparison may serve
+to show us the impossibility of atoms as they are
+generally defined by the physicist turned philosopher.
+Atoms have no internal and essential relation to the
+world; they have no internal connection with any
+one thing in the world: and what is this but to say
+that they do not enter anywhere into the structure
+of the world? By their very conception they are forever
+aliens, banished from any share or lot in the
+realm of reality. The idea which Leibniz never
+lets go, the idea which he always accentuates, is,
+then, the idea of an individual activity which in
+its continual change manifests as its own internal
+content and reality that reality and those laws of
+connection which make up the world itself.</p>
+
+<p>We are thus introduced naturally to the conception
+which plays so large a part in the Leibnizian
+philosophy, that of pre-established harmony. This
+term simply names the fact, which we see to be
+fundamental with Leibniz,&mdash;the fact that, while
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_60" title="60"> </a>
+the form of every monad is individuality, a unique
+principle of action, its content is universal, the very
+being and laws of the world. For we must now
+notice more explicitly what has been wrapped up in
+the idea all along. There is no direct influence of
+monads upon each other. One cannot affect another
+causally. There is no actual interaction of one upon
+another. Expressed in that figurative language
+which was ever natural to Leibniz, the monads have
+no windows by which anything can get in or out.
+This follows, of course, from the mutual independence
+and individuality of the monads. They
+are a true democracy, in which each citizen has sovereignty.
+To admit external influences acting upon
+them is to surrender their independence, to deny
+their sovereignty. But we must remember the other
+half. This democracy is not after the Platonic conception
+of democracy, in which each does as it
+pleases, and in which there is neither order nor
+law, but the extremest assertion of individuality.
+What each sovereign citizen of the realm of reality
+expresses is precisely law. Each is an embodiment
+in its own way of the harmony, the order, of the
+whole kingdom. Each is sovereign because it is
+dynamic law,&mdash;law which is no longer abstract,
+but has realized itself in life. Thus another way of
+stating the doctrine of pre-established harmony is
+the unity of freedom and necessity. Each monad
+is free because it is individual, because it follows
+the law of its own activity unhindered, unretarded,
+by others; it is self-determined. But it is self-determined
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_61" title="61"> </a>
+to show forth the order, the harmony,
+of the universe. There is nothing of caprice, of
+peculiarity, in the content of the monad. It shows
+forth order; it is organized by law; it reveals
+the necessary connections which constitute the universe.
+The pre-established harmony is the unity of
+the individual and the universe; it is the organic
+oneness of freedom and necessity.</p>
+
+<p>We see still further what it means when we learn
+that it is by this conception that Leibniz reconciles
+the conceptions of physical and final causation.
+There is no principle closer to the thought of Leibniz
+than that of the equal presence and efficiency everywhere
+of both physical and final causes. Every fact
+which occurs is susceptible of a mechanical and of
+a rational explanation. It is necessarily connected
+with preceding states, and it has a necessary end
+which it is fulfilling. The complete meaning of this
+principle will meet us hereafter; at present we must
+notice that it is one form of the doctrine of pre-established
+harmony. All things have an end because
+they form parts of one system; everything
+that occurs looks forward to something else and
+prepares the way for it, and yet it is itself mechanically
+conditioned by its antecedents. This is only
+another way of saying that there is complete harmony
+between all beings in the universe; so that
+each monad in fulfilling the law of its own existence
+contributes to the immanent significance of the universe.
+The monads are co-ordinated in such a way
+that they express a common idea. There is a plan
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_62" title="62"> </a>
+common to all, in which each has its own place.
+All are making towards one goal, expressing one
+purpose. The universe is an organism; and Leibniz
+would have applied to it the words which Milne-Edwards
+applied to the human organism, as I find
+them quoted by Lewes: “In the organism everything
+seems to be calculated with one determined
+result in view; and the harmony of the parts does
+not result from the influence which they exert upon
+one another, but from their co-ordination under the
+rule of a common force, a preconceived plan, a
+pre-existent force.” That is to say, the universe
+is teleological, both as a whole and in its parts;
+for there is a common idea animating it and expressed
+by it; it is mechanical, for this idea is
+realized and manifested by the outworking of
+forces.</p>
+
+<p>It ought to be evident even from this imperfect
+sketch that the Leibnizian theory of pre-established
+harmony is not that utterly artificial and grotesque
+doctrine which it is sometimes represented to be.
+The phrase “pre-established harmony” is, strictly
+speaking, tautologous. The term “pre-established”
+is superfluous. It means “existent.” There is no
+real harmony which is not existent or pre-established.
+An accidental harmony is a contradiction in terms.
+It means a chaotic cosmos, an unordered order, a
+lawless law, or whatever else is nonsensical.</p>
+
+<p>Harmony, in short, means relation, means connection,
+means subordination and co-ordination,
+means adjustment, means a variety, which yet is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_63" title="63"> </a>
+one. The Leibnizian doctrine is not a factitious
+product of his imagination, nor is it a mechanical
+scheme for reconciling a problem which has no existence
+outside of the bewildered brains of philosophers.
+It is an expression of the fact that the
+universe is one of order, of continuity, of unity; it
+is the accentuating of this doctrine so that the very
+essence of reality is found in this ordered combination;
+it is the special application of this principle
+to the solution of many of the problems which “the
+mind of man is apt to run into,”&mdash;the questions of
+the relation of the individual and the universal, of
+freedom and necessity, of the physical and material,
+of the teleological and mechanical. We may
+not be contented with the doctrine as he presents
+it, we may think it to be rather a summary and
+highly concentrated statement of the problem than
+its solution, or we may object to details in the carrying
+out of the doctrine. But we cannot deny that
+it is a genuine attempt to meet a genuine problem,
+and that it contains some, if not all, of the factors
+required for its adequate solution. To Leibniz must
+remain the glory of being the thinker to seize upon
+the perfect unity and order of the universe as its
+essential characteristic, and of arranging his thoughts
+with a view to discovering and expressing it.</p>
+
+<p>We have but to notice one point more, and our
+task is done so far as it serves to make plain the
+standpoint from which Leibniz criticised Locke.
+There is, we have seen, the greatest possible continuity
+and complexity in the realm of monads.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_64" title="64"> </a>
+There is no break, quantitative nor qualitative. It
+follows that the human soul has no gulf set between
+it and what we call nature. It is only the highest,
+that is to say the most active and the most representative,
+of all monads. It stands, indeed, at
+the head of the scale, but not outside it. From
+the monad which reveals its presence in that stone
+which with blinded eyes we call dead, through that
+which acts in the plant, in the animal, up to that of
+man, there is no chasm, no interruption. Nay, man
+himself is but one link in the chain of spiritual
+beings which ends only in God. All monads are
+souls; the soul of man is a monad which represents
+the universe more distinctly and adequately. The
+law which is enfolded in the lower monads is developed
+in it and forms a part of its conscious
+activity. The universe, which is confusedly mirrored
+by the perception of the lower monad, is clearly
+brought out in the conscious apperception of man.
+The stone is representative of the whole world. An
+all-knowing intelligence might read in it relations
+to every other fact the world, might see exemplified
+the past history of the world, and prefigured
+the events to come. For the stone is not an isolated
+existence, it is an inter-organic member of a system.
+Change the slightest fact in the world, and in some
+way it is affected. The law of the universe is one
+of completed reciprocity, and this law must be
+mirrored in every existence of the universe. Increase
+the activity, the representative power, until
+it becomes turned back, as it were, upon itself,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_65" title="65"> </a>
+until the monad not only is a mirror, but knows
+itself as one, and you have man. The soul of man
+is the world come to consciousness of itself. The
+realm of monads in what we call the inorganic world
+and the lower organic realm shows us the monad
+let and hindered in its development. These realms
+attempt to speak forth the law of their being, and
+reveal the immanent presence of the universe; but
+they do not hear their own voice, their utterance is
+only for others. In man the universe is manifested,
+and is manifested to man himself.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_66" title="66"> </a><a name="Chapter_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br/>
+  <small>LOCKE AND LEIBNIZ.&mdash;INNATE IDEAS.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> reader, impatient of what may have seemed
+an over-long introduction, has perhaps been
+asking when he was to be brought to the subject
+under consideration,&mdash;the relations of Leibniz to
+Locke. But it has been impossible to come to this
+question until we had formed for ourselves an outline
+of the philosophical position of Leibniz. Nowhere
+in the “Nouveaux Essais” does Leibniz
+give a connected and detailed exposition of his philosophy,
+either as to his standpoint, his fundamental
+principles, or his method.</p>
+
+<p>Some preliminary view of his position is therefore
+a necessity. The demand for this preliminary
+exposition becomes more urgent as we recognize
+that Leibniz’s remarks upon Locke are not a critique
+of Locke from the standpoint of the latter, but are
+the application of his own philosophical conclusions.
+Criticism from within, an examination of a system
+of thought with relation to the consistency and coherency
+of its results, the connection between these
+results and the method professedly employed, investigation
+which depends not at all upon the position
+of the critic, but occupies itself with the internal
+relations of the system under discussion,&mdash;such
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_67" title="67"> </a>
+criticism is a product of the present century. What
+we find in the “Nouveaux Essais” is a comparison
+of the ideas of Locke with those of Leibniz himself,
+a testing of the former by the latter as a standard,
+their acceptance when they conform, their rejection
+when they are opposed, their completion when they
+are in partial harmony.</p>
+
+<p>The value of this sort of criticism is likely to be
+small and evanescent. If the system used as a
+standard is meagre and narrow, if it is without
+comprehensiveness and flexibility, it does not repay
+after-examination. The fact that the “Nouveaux
+Essais” of Leibniz have escaped the oblivion of the
+philosophical criticism of his day is proof, if proof
+still be needed, of the reasoned basis, the width of
+grasp, the fertility of suggestion which characterize
+the thought of Leibniz. But the fact that the criticism
+is, after all, external and not internal has
+made necessary the foregoing extended account of
+his method and general results.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, what of Locke? How about
+him who is the recipient of the criticism? I assume
+that no extended account of his ideas is here necessary,
+and conceive myself to be justified in this
+assumption by the fact that we are already better
+acquainted with Locke. This acquaintance, indeed,
+is not confined to those who have expressly studied
+Locke. His thought is an inheritance into which
+every English-speaking person at least is born.
+Only he who does not think escapes this inheritance.
+Locke did the work which he had to do so thoroughly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_68" title="68"> </a>
+that every Englishman who will philosophize must
+either build upon Locke’s foundations, or, with conscious
+purpose, clear the ground before building for
+himself. And it would be difficult to say that the
+acceptance of Locke’s views would influence one’s
+thought more than their rejection. This must not,
+of course, be taken too literally. It may be that one
+who is a lineal descendant of Locke in the spiritual
+generations of thought would not state a single important
+truth as Locke stated it, or that those who
+seek their method and results elsewhere have not
+repudiated the thought of Locke as expressly belonging
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>But the fundamental principles of empiricism: its
+conception of intelligence as an individual possession;
+its idea of reality as something over
+against and distinct from mind; its explanation
+of knowledge as a process of action and reaction
+between these separate things; its account of our
+inability to know things as they really are,&mdash;these
+principles are congenital with our thinking. They
+are so natural that we either accept them as axiomatic,
+and accuse those who reject them of metaphysical
+subtlety, or, staggered perchance by some of
+their results, give them up with an effort. But it is
+an effort, and a severe one; and there is none of us
+who can tell when some remnant of the conception
+of intelligence as purely particular and finite will
+catch him tripping. On the other hand, we realize
+much better than those who have behind them a
+Leibniz and a Kant, rather than a Locke and a Hume,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_69" title="69"> </a>
+the meaning and the thorough-going necessity of the
+universality of intelligence. Idealism must be in
+some ways arbitrary and superficial to him who has
+not had a pretty complete course of empiricism.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz seems to have been impressed with the
+Essay on the Human Understanding at its first appearance.
+As early as 1696 we find him writing a
+few pages of comment upon the book. Compared
+with his later critique, these early “reflections” seem
+colorless, and give the impression that Leibniz desired
+to minimize his differences from Locke rather than
+to set them forth in relief. Comparatively slight as
+were his expressions of dissent, they appear to have
+stung Locke when they reached him. Meantime
+Locke’s book was translated into French, and made
+its way to a wider circle of readers. This seems to
+have suggested to Leibniz the advisability of pursuing
+his comments somewhat further; and in the
+summer of 1703 he produced the work which now
+occupies us. A letter which Leibniz wrote at about
+this time is worth quoting at large for the light which
+it throws upon the man, as well as for suggesting
+the chief points in which he differed from Locke.
+Leibniz writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“I have forgotten to tell you that my comments
+upon the work of Locke are nearly done. As he
+has spoken in a chapter of his second book about
+freedom, he has given me an opportunity to discuss
+that; and I hope that I may have done it in
+such a way as will please you. Above all, I have
+laid it upon myself to save the immateriality of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_70" title="70"> </a>
+soul, which Locke leaves doubtful. I justify also
+the existence of innate ideas, and show that the soul
+produces their perception out of itself. Axioms,
+too, I approve, while Locke has a low opinion of
+them. In contradiction to him, I show that the
+individuality of man, through which he preserves
+his identity, consists in the duration of the simple
+or immaterial substance which animates him; that
+the soul is never without representations; that there
+is neither a vacuum nor atoms; that matter, or the
+passive principle, cannot be conscious, excepting
+as God unites with it a conscious substance. We
+disagree, indeed, in numerous other points, for I
+find that he rates too low the noble philosophy of
+the Platonic school (as Descartes did in part), and
+substitutes opinions which degrade us, and which
+may become hurtful to morals, though I am persuaded
+that Locke’s intention was thoroughly good.
+I have made these comments in leisure hours, when
+I have been journeying or visiting, and could not
+occupy myself with investigations requiring great
+pains. The work has continued to grow under my
+hands, for in almost every chapter, and to a greater
+extent than I had thought possible, I have found
+matter for remark. You will be astonished when I
+tell you that I have worked upon this as upon something
+which requires no great pains. But the fact
+is, that I long ago established the general principles
+of philosophic subjects in my mind in a demonstrative
+way, or pretty nearly so, and that they do
+not require much new consideration from me.”</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_71" title="71"> </a>Leibniz goes on to add that he has put these
+reflections in the form of a dialogue that they may
+be more attractive; has written them in the popular
+language, rather than in Latin, that they may
+reach as wide a circle as the work of Locke; and
+that he hopes to publish them soon, as Locke is
+already an old man, and he wishes to get them
+before the public while Locke may still reply.</p>
+
+<p>But unfortunately this last hope was destined to
+remain unrealized. Before the work of revision
+was accomplished, Locke died. Leibniz, in a letter
+written in 1714, alludes to his controversy with
+Locke as follows: “I do not like the thought of
+publishing refutations of authors who are dead.
+These should appear during their life, and be communicated
+to them.” Then, referring to his earlier
+comments, he says: “A few remarks escaped me,
+I hardly know how, and were taken to England.
+Mr. Locke, having seen them, spoke of them slightingly
+in a letter to Molineux. I am not astonished
+at it. We were somewhat too far apart in principle,
+and that which I suggested seemed paradoxical
+to him.” Leibniz, according to his conviction
+here expressed, never published his “Nouveaux
+Essais sur l’Entendement Humain.” Schaarschmidt
+remarks that another reason may have restrained
+him, in that he did not wish to carry on too many controversies
+at once with the English people. He had
+two on his hands then,&mdash;one with the Newtonians
+regarding the infinitesimal calculus; the other with
+Bishop Clarke regarding the nature of God, of time
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_72" title="72"> </a>
+and space, of freedom, and cognate subjects.
+However, in 1765, almost fifty years after the
+death of Leibniz, his critique upon Locke finally
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>It is somewhat significant that one whose tendency
+was conciliatory, who was eminently what
+the Germans delight to call him, a “mediator,”
+attempting to unite the varied truths which he found
+scattered in opposed systems, should have had so
+much of his work called forth by controversy.
+Aside from the cases just mentioned, his other chief
+work, the Theodicy, is, in form, a reply to Bayle.
+Many of his minor pieces are replies to criticism or
+are developments of his own thought with critical
+reference to Descartes, Malebranche, and others.
+But Leibniz has a somewhat different attitude
+towards his British and towards his Continental
+opponents. With the latter he was always in sympathy,
+while they in turn gave whatever he uttered
+a respectful hearing. Their mutual critiques begin
+and end in compliments. But the Englishmen
+found the thought of Leibniz “paradoxical” and
+forced. It seemed to them wildly speculative, and
+indeed arbitrary guess-work, without any special
+reason for its production, and wholly unverifiable in
+its results. Such has been the fate of much of the
+best German thought since that time in the land of
+the descendants of Newton and Locke. But Leibniz,
+on the other hand, felt as if he were dealing,
+in philosophical matters at least, with foemen hardly
+worthy of his steel. Locke, he says, had subtlety
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_73" title="73"> </a>
+and address, and a sort of <em>superficial</em> metaphysics;
+but he was ignorant of the method of mathematics,&mdash;that
+is to say, from the standpoint of Leibniz, of
+the method of all science. We have already seen
+that he thought the examination of a work which
+had been the result of the continued labor of Locke
+was a matter for the leisure hours of his courtly
+visits. Indeed, he would undoubtedly have felt
+about it what he actually expressed regarding his
+controversy with Clarke,&mdash;that he engaged in it</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">“Ludus et jocus, quia in philosophia<br/></div>
+<div class="line">Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi.”<br/></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="no-indent">He regarded the English as superficial and without
+grasp of principles, as they thought him over-deep
+and over-theoretical.</p>
+
+<p>From this knowledge of the external circumstances
+of the work of Leibniz and its relation to
+Locke, it is necessary that we turn to its internal
+content, to the thought of Leibniz as related to the
+ideas of Locke. The Essay on the Human Understanding
+is, as the name implies, an account of the
+nature of knowledge. Locke tells us that it originated
+in the fact that often, when he had been engaged
+in discussions with his friends, they found
+themselves landed in insoluble difficulties. This
+occurred so frequently that it seemed probable that
+they had been going at matters from the wrong side,
+and that before they attempted to come to conclusions
+about questions they ought to examine the capacity
+of intelligence, and see whether it is fitted
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_74" title="74"> </a>
+to deal with such questions. Locke, in a word, is
+another evidence of that truth which lies at the
+basis of all forms of philosophical thought, however
+opposed they may be to one another,&mdash;the truth that
+knowledge and reality are so organic to each other
+that to come to any conclusion about one, we must
+know something about the other. Reality equals
+objects known or knowable, and knowledge equals
+reality dissolved in ideas,&mdash;reality which has become
+translucent through its meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Locke’s Essay is, then, an account of the origin,
+nature, extent, and limitations of human knowledge.
+Such is its subject-matter. What is its method?
+Locke himself tells us that he uses the “plain historical
+method.” We do not have to resort to the
+forcing of language to learn that this word “historical”
+contains the key to his work. Every page
+of the Essay is testimony to the fact that Locke
+always proceeds by inquiring into the way and
+circumstances by which knowledge of the subject
+under consideration came into existence and into
+the conditions by which it was developed. Origin
+means with Locke, not logical dependence, but temporal
+production; development means temporal
+succession. In the language of our day, Locke’s
+Essay is an attempt to settle ontological questions
+by a psychological method. And as we have before
+noticed, Leibniz meets him, not by inquiry into the
+pertinence of the method or into the validity of
+results so reached, but by the more direct way of
+impugning his psychology, by substituting another
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_75" title="75"> </a>
+theory of the nature of mind and of the way in
+which it works.</p>
+
+<p>The questions with which the discussion begins
+are as to the existence of innate ideas, and as to
+whether the soul always thinks,&mdash;questions which
+upon their face will lead the experienced reader of
+to-day to heave a sigh in memory of hours wasted
+in barren dispute, and which will create a desire to
+turn elsewhere for matter more solid and more
+nutritive. But in this case, under the form which
+the discussion takes at the hands of Leibniz, the
+question which awaits answer under the meagre and
+worn-out formula of “innate ideas” is the function
+of intelligence in experience.</p>
+
+<p>Locke denies, and denies with great vigor, the
+existence of innate ideas. His motives in so doing
+are practical and theoretical. He sees almost every
+old idea, every hereditary prejudice, every vested
+interest of thought, defended on the ground that
+it is an innate idea. Innate ideas were sacred, and
+everything which could find no defence before
+reason was an innate idea. Under such circumstances
+he takes as much interest in demolishing
+them as Bacon took in the destruction of the
+“eidols.” But this is but a small portion of the
+object of Locke. He is a thorough-going empiricist;
+and the doctrine of innate ideas appears to
+offer the greatest obstacle to the acceptance of the
+truth that all the furnishing of the intellect comes
+from experience. Locke’s metaphors for the mind
+are that it is a blank tablet, an empty closet, an
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_76" title="76"> </a>
+unwritten book. The “innate idea” is only a sentence
+written by experience, but which, deified by a
+certain school of philosophers, has come to be
+regarded as eternally imprinted upon the soul.</p>
+
+<p>Such, indeed, is Locke’s understanding of the
+nature of innate ideas. He conceives of them as
+“characters <em>stamped</em>, as it were, upon the mind of
+man, which the soul has received in its first being
+and brings into the world with it;” or they are
+“constant <em>impressions</em> which the souls of men
+receive in their first beings.” They are “truths
+<em>imprinted</em> upon the soul.” Having this conception
+of what is meant by “innate ideas,” Locke sets
+himself with great vigor, and, it must be confessed,
+with equal success, to their annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>His argument is somewhat diffuse and scattered,
+but in substance it is as follows: Whatever is in
+the mind, the mind must be conscious of. “To be
+in the mind and not to be perceived, is all one as to
+say that anything is and is not in the mind.” If
+there be anything in the mind which is innate, it
+must be present to the consciousness of all, and, it
+would seem, of all at all times, savages, infants,
+and idiots included. And as it requires little philosophical
+penetration to see that savages do not
+ponder upon the principle that whatever is, is; that
+infants do not dwell in their cradle upon the thought
+of contradiction, or idiots ruminate upon that of
+excluded middle,&mdash;it ought to be evident that such
+truths cannot be innate. Indeed, we must admit,
+with Locke, that probably few men ever come to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_77" title="77"> </a>
+the explicit consciousness of such ideas, and that
+these few are such as direct their minds to the
+matter with some pains. Locke’s argument may be
+summed up in his words: If these are not notions
+naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? And
+if they are notions naturally imprinted, how can
+they be unknown?</p>
+
+<p>But since it may be said that these truths are in
+the mind, but in such a way that it is only when
+they are proposed that men assent to them, Locke
+goes on to clinch his argument. If this be true, it
+shows that the ideas are not innate; for the same
+thing is true of a large number of scientific truths,
+those of mathematics and morals, as well as of
+purely sensible facts, as that red is not blue, sweet
+is not sour, etc.,&mdash;truths and facts which no one
+calls innate. Or if it be said that they are in the
+mind implicitly or potentially, Locke points out
+that this means either nothing at all, or else that
+the mind is <em>capable</em> of knowing them. If this is
+what is meant by innate ideas, then all ideas are
+innate; for certainly it cannot be denied that the
+mind is capable of knowing all that it ever does
+know, or, as Locke ingenuously remarks, “nobody
+ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing
+several truths.”</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that the force of Locke’s contention
+against innate ideas rests upon a certain theory
+regarding the nature of innate ideas and of the
+relations of consciousness to intelligence. Besides
+this, there runs through his whole polemic the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_78" title="78"> </a>
+assertion that, after all, innate ideas are useless, as
+experience, in the sense of impressions received
+from without, and the formal action of intelligence
+upon them, is adequate to doing all they are supposed
+to do. It is hardly too much to say that the
+nerve of Locke’s argument is rather in this positive
+assertion than in the negations which he brings
+against this existence. Leibniz takes issue with
+him on each of these three points. He has another
+conception of the very nature of innate ideas; he
+denies Locke’s opinions about consciousness; he
+brings forward an opposed theory upon the relation
+of experience to reason. This last point we shall
+take up in a <a href="#Chapter_V">chapter by itself</a>, as its importance extends
+far beyond the mere question as to the existence
+of ideas which may properly be called innate.
+The other two questions, as to the real character of
+innate ideas and the relation of an idea to consciousness,
+afford material to occupy us for the present.</p>
+
+<p>The metaphor which Locke constantly uses is the
+clew to his conception of innate ideas. They are
+characters stamped or imprinted upon the mind,
+they exist <em>in</em> the mind. The mind would be just
+what it is, even if they had no existence. It would
+not have quite so much “in” it, but its own nature
+would not be changed. Innate ideas he conceives
+as bearing a purely external relation to mind. They
+are not organic to it, nor necessary instruments
+through which it expresses itself; they are mechanically
+impressed upon it. But what the “intellectual”
+school had meant by innate ideas was precisely
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_79" title="79"> </a>
+that the relation of ideas to intelligence is <em>not</em> that of
+passive holding or containing on the side of mind,
+and of impressions or stamps on the side of the
+ideas. Locke reads the fundamental category of
+empiricism&mdash;mechanical relation, or external action&mdash;into
+the nature of innate ideas, and hence easily
+infers their absurdity. But the object of the upholders
+of innate ideas had been precisely to deny
+that this category was applicable to the whole of
+intelligence. By an innate idea they meant an assertion
+of the dynamic relation of intelligence and
+some of its ideas. They meant to assert that intelligence
+has a structure, which necessarily functions
+in certain ways. While Locke’s highest conception
+of an innate idea was that it must be something ready
+made, dwelling in the mind prior to experience,
+Leibniz everywhere asserts that it is a connection
+and relation which forms the logical prius and the
+psychological basis of experience. He finds no
+difficulty in admitting all there is of positive truth in
+Locke’s doctrine; namely, that we are not conscious
+of these innate ideas until a period later than that in
+which we are conscious of sensible facts, or, in many
+cases, are not conscious of them at all. This priority
+in time of sensible experience to rational knowledge,
+however, can become a reason for denying the
+“innate” character of the latter only when we
+suppose that they are two entirely different orders
+of fact, one knowledge due to experience, the other
+knowledge already formed and existing in the mind
+prior to “experience.”</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_80" title="80"> </a>Leibniz’s conception of the matter is brought out
+when he says that it is indeed true that we begin
+with particular experiences rather than with
+general principles, but that the order of nature
+is the reverse, for the ground, the basis of the particular
+truths is in the general; the former being in
+reality only instances of the latter. General principles,
+he says, enter into <em>all</em> our thoughts, and form
+their soul and interconnection. They are as necessary
+for thought as muscles and tendons are for
+walking, although we may not be conscious of their
+existence. This side of the teaching of Leibniz
+consists, accordingly, in the assertion that “innate”
+knowledge and knowledge derived from experience
+are not two kinds of knowledge, but rather two
+ways of considering it. If we consider it as it
+comes to us, piecemeal and fragmentary, a succession
+of particular instances, to be gathered up at a
+future time into general principles, and stated in a
+rational form, it is seen as empirical. But, after all,
+this is only a superficial and external way of looking
+at it. If we examine into it we shall see that there
+are contained in these transitory and particular experiences
+certain truths more general and fundamental,
+which condition them, and at the same time
+constitute their meaning.</p>
+
+<p>If we inquire into the propriety of calling these
+truths “innate,” we find it is because they are native
+to intelligence, and are not acquisitions which
+it makes. Indeed, it may be said that they <em>are</em> intelligence,
+so close and organic is their relation,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_81" title="81"> </a>
+just as the muscles, the tendons, the skeleton, are
+the body. Thus it is that Leibniz accepts the statement,
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu</i>,
+with the addition of the statement <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">nisi ipse intellectus</i>.
+The doctrine of the existence of innate ideas
+is thus shown to mean that intelligence exists with
+a real content which counts for something in the
+realm of experience. If we take intelligence and
+examine into its structure and ascertain its modes
+of expression, we find organically inherent in its
+activity certain conceptions like unity, power, substance,
+identity, etc., and these we call “innate.”
+An idea, in short, is no longer conceived as something
+existing in the mind or in consciousness; it is
+an activity of intelligence. An innate idea is a
+necessary activity of intelligence; that is, such
+an activity as enters into the framework of all
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz thus succeeds in avoiding two errors into
+which philosophers whose general aims are much
+like his have fallen. One is dividing <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> and
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a posteriori</i> truths from each other by a hard and
+fixed line, so that we are conceived to have some
+knowledge which comes wholly from experience,
+while there is another which comes wholly from reason.
+According to Leibniz, there is no thought so
+abstract that it does not have its connection with a
+sensible experience, or rather its embodiment in it.
+And, on the other hand, there is no experience so
+thoroughly sensuous that it does not bear in itself
+traces of its origin in reason. “<em>All</em> our thoughts
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_82" title="82"> </a>
+come from the depths of the soul,” says Leibniz;
+there are none that “come” to us from without.
+The other error is the interpretation of the existence
+of innate ideas or “intuitions” (as this school generally
+calls them) in a purely formal sense. They
+are thus considered as truths contained in and somehow
+expressed by intelligence, but yet not so connected
+with it that in knowing them we necessarily
+know intelligence itself. They are considered rather
+as arbitrary determinations of truths by a power
+whose own nature is conceivably foreign to truth,
+than as so many special developments of an activity
+which may indifferently be called “intelligence” or
+“truth.” Leibniz, however, never fails to state that
+an innate truth is, after all, but one form or aspect
+of the activity of the mind in knowing.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, by bringing to light a deeper and
+richer conception of what in reality constitutes an
+innate idea, Leibniz answers Locke. His reply is
+indirect; it consists rather in throwing a flood of
+new light upon the matter discussed, than in a ponderous
+response and counter-attack. But when
+Leibniz touches upon the conception of a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tabula
+rasa</i>, of a mind which in itself is a mere blank, but
+has the capacity for knowing, he assumes the offensive.
+The idea of a bare capacity, a formal faculty,
+of power which does not already involve some actual
+content within itself, he repudiates as a relic of
+scholasticism. What is the soul, which has nothing
+until it gets it from without? The doctrine of a
+vacuum, an emptiness which is real, is always absurd;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_83" title="83"> </a>
+and it is doubly so when to this vacuum is ascribed
+powers of feeling and thinking, as Locke does. Accepting
+for the moment the metaphor of a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tabula
+rasa</i>, Leibniz asks where we shall find a tablet which
+yet does not have some quality, and which is not a
+co-operating cause, at least, in whatever effects are
+produced upon it? The notion of a soul without
+thought, an empty tablet of the soul, he says, is one
+of a thousand fictions of philosophers. He compares
+it with the idea of “space empty of matter,
+absolute uniformity or homogeneity, perfect spheres
+of the second element produced by primordial perfect
+cubes, abstractions pure and simple, to which our
+ignorance and inattention give birth, but of which
+reality does not admit.” If Locke admits then
+(as he does) certain capacities inherent in the soul,
+he cannot mean the scholastic fiction of bare capacity
+or mere possibility; he must mean “real
+possibilities,”&mdash;that is, capacities accompanied with
+some actual tendency, an inclination, a disposition,
+an aptitude, a preformation which determines our
+soul in a certain direction, and which makes it necessary
+that the possibility becomes actual. And this
+tendency, this actual inclination of intelligence in
+one way rather than another, so that it is not a
+matter of indifference to intelligence what it produces,
+is precisely what constitutes an innate idea.
+So Leibniz feels certain that at bottom Locke must
+agree with him in this matter if the latter is really in
+earnest in rejecting the “faculties” of the scholastics
+and in wishing for a real explanation of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_84" title="84"> </a>But the argument of Locke rests upon yet another
+basis. He founds his denial of innate ideas not
+only upon a static conception of their ready made
+existence “in” the soul, but also upon an equally
+mechanical conception of consciousness. “Nothing
+can be in the mind which is not in consciousness.”
+This statement appears axiomatic to Locke, and by
+it he would settle the whole discussion. Regarding
+it, Leibniz remarks that if Locke has such a prejudice
+as this, it is not surprising that he rejects innate
+ideas. But consciousness and mental activity are
+not thus identical. To go no farther, the mere
+empirical fact of memory is sufficient to show the
+falsity of such an idea. Memory reveals that we
+have an indefinite amount of knowledge of which
+we are not always conscious. Rather than that
+knowledge and consciousness are one, it is true
+that actual consciousness only lays hold of an
+infinitesimal fraction of knowledge. But Leibniz
+does not rely upon the fact of memory alone. We
+must constantly keep in mind that to Leibniz the
+soul is not a form of being wholly separate from
+nature, but is the culmination of the system of
+reality. The reality is everywhere the monad, and
+the soul is the monad with the power of feeling,
+remembering, and connecting its ideas. The activities
+of the monad, those representative changes
+which sum up and symbolize the universe, do not
+cease when we reach the soul. They are continued.
+If the soul has the power of attention, they are
+potentially conscious. Such as the soul actually
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_85" title="85"> </a>
+attends to, thus giving them relief and making
+them distinct, are actually conscious. But all of
+them exist.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is that Leibniz not only denies the equivalence
+of soul and consciousness, but asserts that
+the fundamental error of the psychology of the
+Cartesians (and here, at least, Locke is a Cartesian)
+is in identifying them. He asserts that “unconscious
+ideas” are of as great importance in psychology
+as molecules are in physics. They are the link
+between unconscious nature and the conscious soul.
+Nothing happens all at once; nature never makes
+jumps; these facts stated in the law of continuity
+necessitate the existence of activities, which may
+be called ideas, since they belong to the soul and
+yet are not in consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, Locke asks how an innate idea
+can exist and the soul not be conscious of it, the
+answer is at hand. The “innate idea” exists as
+an activity of the soul by which it represents&mdash;that
+is, expresses&mdash;some relation of the universe, although
+we have not yet become conscious of what
+is contained or enveloped in this activity. To become
+conscious of the innate idea is to lift it from
+the sphere of nature to the conscious life of spirit.
+And thus it is, again, that Leibniz can assert that all
+ideas whatever proceed from the depths of the soul.
+It is because it is the very being of the soul as a
+monad to reflect “from its point of view” the world.
+In this way Leibniz brings the discussion regarding
+innate ideas out of the plane of examination into a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_86" title="86"> </a>
+matter of psychological fact into a consideration
+of the essential nature of spirit. An innate idea
+is now seen to be one of the relations by which the
+soul reproduces some relation which constitutes the
+universe of reality, and at the same time realizes its
+own individual nature. It is one reflection from
+that spiritual mirror, the soul. With this enlarged
+and transformed conception of an idea apt to be so
+meagre we may well leave the discussion. There
+has been one mind at least to which the phrase
+“innate ideas” meant something worth contending
+for, because it meant something real.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_87" title="87"> </a><a name="Chapter_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br/>
+  <small>SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A careful</span> study of the various theories which
+have been held concerning sensation would
+be of as much interest and importance as an investigation
+of any one point in the range of philosophy.
+In the theory of a philosopher about
+sensation we have the reflex of his fundamental
+category and the clew to his further doctrine.
+Sensation stands on the border-line between the
+world of nature and the realm of soul; and every
+advance in science, every development of philosophy,
+leaves its impress in a change in the theory
+of sensation. Apparently one of the simplest and
+most superficial of questions, in reality it is one of
+the most difficult and far-reaching. At first sight
+it seems as if it were a sufficient account of sensation
+to say that an object affects the organ of sense,
+and thus impresses upon the mind the quality which
+it possesses. But this simple statement arouses a
+throng of further questions: How is it possible
+that one substance,&mdash;matter,&mdash;should affect another,&mdash;mind?
+How can a causal relation exist
+between them? Is the mind passive or active in
+this impression? How can an object convey unchanged
+to the mind a quality which it possesses?
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_88" title="88"> </a>
+Or is the sensational <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">quale</i> itself a product of the
+mind’s activity? If so, what is the nature of the object
+which excites the sensation? As known, it is
+only a collection of sensuous qualities; if these
+are purely mental, what becomes of the object?
+And if there is no object really there, what is it
+that excites the sensation? Such questionings
+might be continued almost indefinitely; but those
+given are enough to show that an examination of
+the nature and origin of sensation introduces us to
+the problems of the relation of intelligence and the
+world; to the problem of the ultimate constitution
+of an object which is set over against a subject
+and which affects it; and to the problem of the
+nature of mind, which as thus affected from without
+must be limited in its nature, but which as
+bearer of the whole known universe must be in
+some sense infinite. If we consider, not the mode
+of production of sensation, but its relation to knowledge,
+we find philosophical schools divided into two,&mdash;Sensationalists,
+and Rationalists. If we inquire
+into its functions, we find that the empiricist sees
+in it convincing evidence of the fact that all knowledge
+originates from a source <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">extra mentem</i>; that
+the intellectual idealist finds in it evidence of the
+gradual transition of nature into spirit; that the
+ethical idealist, like Kant and Fichte, sees in it
+the material of the phenomenal world, which is
+necessary in its opposition to the rational sphere
+in order that there may occur that conflict of pure
+law and sensuous impulse which alone makes morality
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_89" title="89"> </a>
+possible. We thus realize that as we look
+at the various aspects of sensation, we are taken
+into the discussion of ontology, of the theory of
+knowledge and of ethics.</p>
+
+<p>Locke virtually recognizes the extreme importance
+of the doctrine of sensation, and his second book
+might almost be entitled “Concerning the Nature
+and Products of Sensation.” On the other hand,
+one of the most characteristic and valuable portions
+of the reply of Leibniz is in his development of
+a theory of sensation which is thoroughly new,
+except as we seek for its germs in its thoughts of
+Plato and Aristotle. According to Locke, knowledge
+originates from two sources,&mdash;sensation and
+reflection. Sensations are “the impressions made
+on our senses by outward objects that are extrinsic
+to the mind.” When the mind “comes to reflect
+on its own operations about the ideas got by sensation,
+and thereby stores itself with a new set of
+ideas,” it gets ideas of reflection.</p>
+
+<p>If we leave out of account for the present the
+ideas of reflection, we find that the ideas which come
+through sensation have two main characteristics.
+First, in having sensations, the mind is passive;
+its part is purely receptive. The objects impress
+themselves upon the mind, they obtrude into consciousness,
+whether the mind will or not. There is
+a purely external relation existing between sensation
+and the understanding. The ideas are offered
+to the mind, and the understanding cannot refuse
+to have them, cannot change them, blot them out,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_90" title="90"> </a>
+nor create them, any more than a mirror can refuse,
+alter, or obliterate the images which objects produce
+in it. Sensation, in short, is a purely passive having
+of ideas. Secondly, every sensation is simple.
+Locke would say of sensations what Hume said of
+all ideas,&mdash;every distinct sensation is a separate
+existence. Every sensation is “uncompounded,
+containing nothing but one uniform appearance,
+not being distinguishable into different ideas.”
+Knowledge is henceforth a process of compounding,
+of repeating, comparing, and uniting sensation.
+Man’s understanding “reaches no further
+than to compound and divide the materials that
+are made to his hand.”</p>
+
+<p>It hardly need be said that Locke has great difficulty
+in keeping up this thoroughly atomic theory
+of mind. It is a theory which makes all relations
+external; they are, as Locke afterwards says, “superinduced”
+upon the facts. It makes it impossible
+to account for any appearance of unity and
+connection among ideas, and Locke quietly, and
+without any consciousness of the contradiction involved,
+introduces certain inherent relations into the
+structure of the ideas when he comes to his constructive
+work. “Existence and unity are two ideas,” he
+says, “that are suggested to the understanding by
+every object without, and every idea within.”</p>
+
+<p>At other places he introduces the idea of quality
+of a substance, effect of a cause, continued permanence
+or identity into a sensation, as necessary
+constituents of it; thus making a sensation a unity
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_91" title="91"> </a>
+of complex elements instead of an isolated bare
+notion. How far he could have got on in his account
+of knowledge without this surreptitious qualifying
+of a professedly simple existence, may be
+seen by asking what would be the nature of a sensation
+which did not possess existence and unity,
+and which was not conceived as the quality of a
+thing or as the effect of an external reality.</p>
+
+<p>This digression has been introduced at this point
+because the next character of a sensation which
+Locke discusses is its objective character,&mdash;its relation
+to the object which produces it. To discourse
+of our ideas intelligibly, he says, it will be convenient
+to distinguish them as they are ideas in our
+minds and as they are modifications of matter in
+the bodies that cause them. In other words, he
+gives up all thought of considering ideas as simply
+mental modifications, and finds it necessary to take
+them in their relations to objects.</p>
+
+<p>Taking them in this way, he finds that they are
+to be divided into two classes, of which one contains
+those ideas that are copies and resemblances of
+qualities in the objects, ideas “which are really in
+the object, whether we take notice of them or no,”&mdash;in
+which case we have an idea of the thing as it is
+in itself; while the other class contains those which
+are in no way resemblances of the objects which
+produce them, “having no more similitude than
+the idea of pain and of a sword.” The former are
+primary qualities, and are solidity, extension, figure,
+motion or rest, and number; while the secondary
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_92" title="92"> </a>
+qualities are colors, smells, and tastes. The former
+ideas are produced by impulse of the bodies themselves,
+which simply effect a transference of their
+qualities over into the mind; while the secondary
+qualities are arbitrarily annexed by the power of
+God to the objects which excite them.</p>
+
+<p>It will be noticed that there are two elements
+which make the sensation of Locke what it is.
+With reference to its <em>production</em>, it is the effect
+which one substance, matter, has upon another substance,
+mind, which is unlike it in nature, and between
+which whatever relations exist, are thoroughly
+incomprehensible, so that, indeed, their connections
+with each other can be understood only by recourse
+to a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tertium quid</i>, an omnipotent power which can
+arbitrarily produce such collocations as please it.
+With reference to its <em>function</em>, it is the isolated
+and “simple” (that is, non-relational) element out
+of which all actual forms of knowledge are made by
+composition and re-arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz, without entering into explicit criticism of
+just these two points, develops his own theory with
+reference to them. To Leibniz, reality constitutes
+a system; that is, it is of such a nature that its
+various portions have an essential and not merely
+external relation to one another. Sensation is of
+course no exception. It is not a mere accident,
+nor yet a supernatural yoking of things naturally
+opposed. It has a meaning in that connection of
+things which constitute the universe. It contributes
+to the significance of the world. It is one
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_93" title="93"> </a>
+way in which those activities which make the real
+express themselves. It has its place or reason in
+the totality of things, and this whether we consider
+its origin or its position with regard to knowledge.
+In a word, while the characteristic of Locke’s theory
+is that he conceives sensation as in external relation
+both to reality, as mechanically produced by
+it, and to knowledge, as being merely one of the
+atomic elements which may enter into a compound,
+Leibniz regards reality as organic to sensation, and
+this in turn as organic to knowledge. We have
+here simply an illustration of the statement with
+which we set out; namely, that the treatment of
+sensation always reflects the fundamental philosophical
+category of the philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>All reality exists in the form of monads; monads
+are simple substances whose nature is action;
+this action consists in representing, according to a
+certain law of succession, the universe. Various
+monads have various degrees of activity; that is,
+of the power of reflecting the world. So much of
+Leibniz’s general philosophical attitude it is necessary
+to recall, to understand what he means by
+“sensation.” The generic name which is applied
+to this mirroring activity of the monads is “perception,”
+which, as Leibniz often says, is to be carefully
+distinguished from apperception, which is the
+representation become conscious. Perception may
+be defined, therefore, as the inclusion of the many
+or multiform (the world of objects) in a unity (the
+simple substance). It was the great defect of previous
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_94" title="94"> </a>
+philosophy that it “considered only spirits or
+self-conscious beings as souls,” and had consequently
+recognized only conscious perceptions. It
+had been obliged, therefore, to make an impassable
+gulf between mind and matter, and sensations were
+thus rendered inexplicable. But Leibniz finds his
+function as a philosopher in showing that these problems,
+which seem insoluble, arise when we insist
+upon erecting into actual separations or differences
+of kind what really are only stages of development
+or differences of degree. A sensation is not
+an effect which one substance impresses upon
+another because God pleased that it should, or
+because of an incomprehensible incident in the
+original constitution of things. It is a higher
+development of that representative power which
+belongs to every real being.</p>
+
+<p>Certain monads reach a state of development,
+or manifestation of activity, which is characterized
+by the possession of distinct organs. Such monads
+may be called, in a pre-eminent sense, “souls,” and
+include all the higher animals as well as man. This
+possession of differentiated organs finds its analogue
+in the internal condition of the monad. What appears
+externally as an organ of sense appears
+ideally as a conscious representative state which we
+call “sensation.” “When,” Leibniz says, “the monad
+has its organs so developed that there is relief
+and differentiation in the impressions received, and
+consequently in the perceptions which represent
+them, we have feeling or sensation; that is, a perception
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_95" title="95"> </a>
+accompanied by memory,” to which at other
+times he adds “attention.” Life, he says, “is
+a perceptive principle; the soul is sensitive life;
+mind is rational soul.” And again he says in
+substance that when the soul begins to have interests,
+and to regard one representation as of more
+value than others, it introduces relief into its perceptions,
+and those which stand out are called
+“sensations.”</p>
+
+<p>This origin of sensations as higher developments
+of the representative activities of a monad conditions
+their relation to further processes of knowledge.
+The sensations are confused knowledge;
+they are ideas in their primitive and most undifferentiated
+form. They constitute, as Leibniz somewhere
+says, the vertigo of the conscious life. In
+every sentient organism multitudes of sensations
+are constantly thronging in and overpowering its
+distinct consciousness. The soul is so flooded
+with ideas of everything in the world which has
+any relation to its body that it has distinct ideas of
+nothing. Higher knowledge, then, does not consist
+in compounding these sensations; that would literally
+make confusion worse confounded. It consists
+in introducing distinctness into the previously
+confused sensations,&mdash;in finding out what they
+mean; that is, in finding out their bearings, what
+they point to, and how they are related. Knowledge
+is not an external process performed upon the
+sensations, it is the development of their internal
+content.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_96" title="96"> </a>It follows, therefore, that sensation is organic to
+all forms of knowledge whatever. The monad,
+which is pure activity, that which culminates the
+scale of reality, has no confused ideas, and to it all
+knowledge is eternally rational, having no sensible
+traces about it. But every other monad, having its
+activity limited, has ideas which come to it at first
+in a confused way, and which its activity afterwards
+differentiates. Thus it is that Leibniz can agree so
+heartily with the motto of the Sensationalist school,&mdash;that
+there is nothing in the intellect which was not
+first in the sensory. But Leibniz uses this phrase
+as Aristotle would have done, having in mind the
+distinction between potentiality and actuality. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">In
+posse</i>, sensation is all knowledge; but only <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">in posse</i>.
+And he, like Aristotle, interprets the relation between
+potentiality and actuality as one of a difference of
+activity. The potential is that which becomes real
+through a dynamic process. The actual is capacity
+plus action. Sensation, in short, is spiritual activity
+in an undeveloped and hence partial and limited
+condition. It is not, as Locke would have it, the
+real factor in all knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The marks of sensation which Locke lays down,&mdash;their
+passivity, their simplicity, their position
+as the real element in knowledge,&mdash;Leibniz either
+denies, therefore, or accepts in a sense different
+from that of Locke. Strictly speaking, sensation
+is an activity of the mind. There are no windows
+through which the soul receives impressions.
+Pure passivity of any kind is a myth, <ins title="as">a</ins> scholastic
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_97" title="97"> </a>
+fiction. Sensation is developed from the soul
+within; it is the activity of reality made manifest
+to itself. It is a higher kind of action than
+anything we find in minerals or in plants. If we
+look at sensation ideally, however, that is, according
+to the position which it holds in the system of
+knowledge, it is properly regarded as passive. It
+represents the limitation, the unrealized (that is,
+the non-active) side of spiritual life.</p>
+
+<p>“Efficient causality” is a term which has its rightful
+and legitimate use in physical science. Simply
+from the scientific point of view we are correct
+in speaking of objects as affecting the body, and
+the body, through its nervous system, as affecting
+the soul and producing sensations. But philosophy
+does not merely use categories, it explains
+them. And Leibniz contends that to explain the
+category of causality in a mechanical sense, to
+understand by it physical influence actually transferred
+from one thing to another, is to make the
+idea inexplicable and irrational. The true meaning
+of causality is ideal. It signifies the relative positions
+which the objects concerned have in the harmonious
+system of reality. The body that is higher
+in the scale impresses the other; that is to say, it
+dominates it or gives its law. There is no energy or
+quality which passes physically from one to the other.
+But one monad, as higher in the stage of development
+than another, makes an ideal demand upon
+that one. It places before the other its own more
+real condition. The less-developed monad, since its
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_98" title="98"> </a>
+whole activity consists in representing the universe
+of reality, answers to this demand by developing
+the corresponding quality in itself. The category
+of harmonious or co-operative action is thus substituted
+for that of external and mechanical influence.
+Physical causality when given a philosophic interpretation
+means organic development. The reality
+of a higher stage is the more active: the more
+active has a greater content in that it mirrors the
+universe more fully; it manifests accordingly more
+of the law of the universe, and hence has an ideal
+domination over that which is lower in the scale.
+It is actually (that is, in activity) what the other is
+potentially. But as the entire existence of the latter
+is in representing or setting forth the relations
+which make the world, its activity is aroused to
+a corresponding production. Hence the former is
+called “cause,” and the latter “effect.”</p>
+
+<p>This introduces us to the relation of soul and
+body, or, more generally stated, to the relation of
+mind and matter. It is the theory of co-operation,
+of harmonious activity, which Leibniz substitutes
+for the theory which Descartes had formulated, according
+to which there are two opposed substances
+which can affect each other only through the medium
+of a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">deus ex machina</i>. Locke, on the other hand,
+took the Cartesian principle for granted, and thus
+enveloped himself in all the difficulties which surround
+the question of “mind and matter.” Locke
+wavers between two positions, one of which is that
+there are two unknown substances,&mdash;the soul and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_99" title="99"> </a>
+the object in itself,&mdash;which, coming in contact,
+produce sensations; while the other takes the hypothetical
+attitude that there may be but one
+substance,&mdash;matter,&mdash;and that God, out of the
+plenitude of his omnipotence, has given matter a
+capacity which does not naturally belong to it,&mdash;that
+of producing sensations. In either case, however,
+the final recourse is to the arbitrary power of God.
+There is no natural&mdash;that is, intrinsic and explicable&mdash;connection
+between the sensation and that which
+produces it. Sensation occupied the hard position
+which the mechanical school of to-day still allots it.
+It is that “inexplicable,” “mysterious,” “unaccountable”
+link between the domains of matter and
+mind of which no rational account can be given,
+but which is yet the source of all that we know
+about matter, and the basis of all that is real in
+the mind!</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz, recognizing that reality is an organic
+whole,&mdash;not two parts with a chasm between them,&mdash;says
+that “God does not arbitrarily give substances
+whatever qualities may happen, or that he
+may arbitrarily determine, but only such as are natural;
+that is, such as are related to one another in an
+<em>explicable</em> way as modifications of the substance.”
+Leibniz feels sure that to introduce the idea of the
+inexplicable, the purely supernatural, into the natural
+is to give up all the advantages which the modern mechanical
+theory had introduced, and to relapse into
+the meaningless features of scholasticism. If the
+“supernatural”&mdash;that is, the essentially inexplicable&mdash;is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_100" title="100"> </a>
+introduced in this one case, why should it
+not be in others; why should we not return outright
+to the “fanatic philosophy which explains all facts
+by simply attributing them to God immediately or
+by way of miracle, or to the barbarian philosophy,
+which explains phenomena by manufacturing, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad
+hoc</i>, occult qualities or faculties, seemingly like little
+demons or spirits capable of performing, without
+ceremony, whatever is required,&mdash;as if watches
+marked time by their horodeictic power, without
+wheels, and mills ground grain, without grindstones,
+by their fractive power”? In fact, says
+Leibniz, by introducing the inexplicable into our
+<em>explanations</em> “we fall into something worse than
+occult qualities,&mdash;we give up philosophy and reason;
+we open asylums for ignorance and laziness,
+holding not only that there are qualities which we
+do not understand (there are, indeed, too many
+such), but qualities which the greatest intelligence,
+if God gave it all the insight possible, could not
+understand,&mdash;that is, such as are <em>in themselves</em> without
+rhyme or reason. And indeed it would be a
+thing without rhyme or reason that God should
+perform miracles in the ordinary course of nature.”
+And regarding the whole matter of introducing the
+inconceivable and the inexplicable into science, he
+says that “while the conception of men is not the
+measure of God’s power, their capacity of conception
+is the measure of <em>nature’s</em> power, since everything
+occurring in the natural order is capable of
+being understood by the created intelligence.” Such
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_101" title="101"> </a>
+being the thought of Leibniz regarding the virtual
+attempt to introduce in his day the unknowable into
+philosophy, it is evident that he must reject, from
+the root up, all theories of sensation which, like
+Locke’s, make it the product of the inexplicable
+intercourse of two substances.</p>
+
+<p>For this doctrine, then, Leibniz substitutes that
+of an infinite number of substances, all of the same
+kind, all active, all developing from within, all conspiring
+to the same end, but of various stages of
+activity, or bearing various relations of completeness
+to the one end.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, one and the same monad has various
+degrees of activity in itself; that is, it represents
+more or less distinctly the universe according to its
+point of view. Its point of view requires of it, of
+course, primarily, a representation of that which is
+about it. Thus an infinity of states arises, each
+corresponding to some one of the multitude of objects
+surrounding the monad. The soul has no control,
+no mastery, over these states. It has to take
+them as they come; with regard to them, the soul
+appears passive. It appears so because it does not
+as yet clearly distinguish them. It does not react
+upon them and become conscious of their meaning
+or thoroughly rational character. We shall afterwards
+see that “matter” is, with Leibniz, simply
+this passive or confused side of monads. It is the
+monad so far as it has not brought to light the
+rational activity which is immanent in it. At present
+we need only notice that the body is simply the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_102" title="102"> </a>
+part of matter or of passivity which limits the complete
+activity of any monad. So Leibniz says, “in
+so far as the soul has perfection, it has distinct
+thoughts, and God has accommodated the body to
+the soul. So far as it is imperfect and its perceptions
+are confused, God has accommodated the
+soul to the body in such a way that the soul lets
+itself be inclined by the passions, which are born
+from corporeal representations. It is by its confused
+thoughts (sensations) that the soul represents
+the bodies about it,” just as, we may add, its distinct
+thoughts represent the monads or souls about
+it, and, in the degree of their distinctness, God, the
+monad which is <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">purus actus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Following the matter into more detail, we may
+say that since God alone is pure energy, knowing
+no limitation, God alone is pure spirit. Every
+finite soul is joined to an organic body. “I do not
+admit,” says Leibniz, “that there are souls entirely
+separate from matter, nor created spirits detached
+from body.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. It is this body which the monad represents
+most distinctly; but since this body expresses
+the entire universe by the connection of all matter
+throughout it, the soul represents the entire universe
+in representing the body which belongs to it most
+particularly.” But according to the principle of
+continuity there must be in the least apparent portion
+of matter still “a universe of creatures, of
+souls, of entelechies. There is nothing sterile,
+nothing dead in the universe. It is evident from
+these considerations that every living body has a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_103" title="103"> </a>
+dominant entelechy, which is the soul in that body,
+but that the members of this living body are again
+full of other living beings and souls,” which, however,
+since not of so high a grade, that is, not
+representing the universe so fully, appear to be
+wholly material and subject to the “dominant” entelechy;
+namely, to the one which gives the law to
+the others by expressing more adequately the idea
+at which they only confusedly aim. Owing to the
+constant change of activity, however, these particles
+do not remain in constant subordination to the
+same entelechy (that is, do not form parts of the
+same body), but pass on to higher or lower degrees
+of “evolution,” and have their places taken by others
+undergoing similar processes of change. Thus “all
+bodies are in a perpetual flux, like rivers, with parts
+continually leaving and entering in.” Or, interpreting
+this figurative language, each monad is continually,
+in its process of development, giving law
+to new and less developed monads, which therefore
+appear as its body. The nature of matter in itself,
+and of its phenomenal manifestation in the body,
+are, however, subjects which find no explanation
+here, and which will demand explanation in <a href="#Chapter_VII">another
+chapter</a>.</p>
+
+<p>We may sum up Leibniz’s theory of sensation by
+saying that it is a representative state developed by
+the self-activity of the soul; that in itself it is a
+confused or “involved” grade of activity, and in
+its relation to the world represents the confused or
+passive aspects of existence; that this limitation of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_104" title="104"> </a>
+the monad constitutes matter, and in its necessary
+connection with the monad constitutes the body
+which is always joined to the finite soul; that to
+this body are joined in all cases an immense number
+of monads, whose action is subordinate to that
+of this dominant monad, and that it is the collection
+of these which constitute the visible animal
+body. Thus if we look at sensation with regard to
+the monad which possesses it, it is a product of the
+body of the monad; if we look at it with reference
+to other monads, it represents or reflects their passive
+or material side. This is evidently one aspect
+again of the pre-established harmony,&mdash;an aspect
+in which some of the narrower of Leibniz’s critics
+have seen the whole meaning of the doctrine exhausted.
+It is, however, simply one of the many
+forms in which the harmony, the union of spiritual
+and mechanical, ideal and material, meets us. In
+truth, while in other systems the fact of sensation
+is a fact demanding some artificial mode of reconciling
+“mind” and “matter,” or is else to be accepted
+as an inexplicable fact, in the system of Leibniz
+it is itself evidence that the spiritual and the mechanical
+are not two opposed kinds of existence,
+but are organically united. It is itself the manifestation
+of the harmony of the ideal and the material,
+not something which requires that a factitious theory
+be invented for explaining their appearance of harmony.
+Sensation has within itself the ideal element,
+for it is the manifestation, in its most undeveloped
+form, of the spiritual meaning of the universe. It
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_105" title="105"> </a>
+has a mechanical element, for it expresses the limitation,
+the passivity, of the monad.</p>
+
+<p>It is from this standpoint that Leibniz criticises
+what Locke says about the relation of sensations
+to the objects which produce them. Leibniz holds
+that all our sensations have a definite and natural
+connection with the qualities of objects,&mdash;the “secondary”
+as well as the “primary.” They all represent
+certain properties of the object. Even the
+pain which the thrust of a needle gives us, while it
+does not resemble anything in the needle, does in
+some way represent or resemble motions going on
+in our body. This resemblance is not necessarily
+one of exact form, but just as the ellipse, hyperbola,
+and parabola are projections of the circle in the
+sense that there is a natural and fixed law of connection
+between them, so that every point of one
+corresponds by a certain relation with every point
+of the other, so the resemblance between the sensation
+and the quality of the object is always in the
+form of a fixed law of order, which, however unknown
+to us it may now be, is capable of being
+found out. If we are to make any distinction between
+“secondary” and “primary” sensations, it
+should be not that one presents qualities that are in
+the objects, and the other affections which exist only
+in us, but that the primary sensations (of number,
+form, size, etc.) represent the qualities in a distinct
+way, appealing to the rational activity of
+intelligence, while the secondary represent the qualities
+in a confused way, a way not going beyond
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_106" title="106"> </a>
+the effect upon the mind into relations, that is, into
+distinct knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>This brings regularly before us the question of
+the relation of sensations to knowledge. We have
+seen enough already to know that Leibniz does not
+believe that knowledge begins with the simple (that
+is, unrelated), and then proceeds by a process of
+compounding. The sensation is not simple to Leibniz,
+but thoroughly complex, involving confusedly
+within itself all possible relations. As relations are
+brought forth into distinct light out of this confusion,
+knowledge ends rather than begins with the simple.
+And again it is evident that Leibniz cannot believe
+that knowledge begins and ends in experience, in
+the sense in which both himself and Locke use the
+word; namely, as meaning the combination and succession
+of impressions.</p>
+
+<p>“Experience,” as they use the term, consists in
+sensations and their association,&mdash;“consecution” as
+Leibniz calls it. Experience is the stage of knowledge
+reached by animals, and in which the majority
+of men remain,&mdash;and indeed all men in the greater
+part of their knowledge. Leibniz takes just the
+same position regarding the larger part of our
+knowledge which Hume takes regarding it all. It
+consists simply in associations of such a nature that
+when one part recurs there is a tendency to expect
+the recurrence of the other member. It resembles
+reason, but it is based on the accidental experience
+of events in a consecutive order, and not on knowledge
+of their causal connection. We all expect the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_107" title="107"> </a>
+sun to rise to-morrow; but with all of us, excepting
+the astronomer, such expectation is purely “empirical,”
+being based on the images of past experiences
+which recur. The astronomer, however, sees into
+the grounds, that is, the reasons, of the expectation,
+and hence his knowledge is rational.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we have two grades of knowledge,&mdash;one empirical,
+consisting of knowledge of facts; the other
+rational, being of the truths of reason. The former
+is contingent and particular, the latter is necessary
+and universal. Leibniz insists, with a pertinacity
+which reminds us of Kant, that “experience” can
+give instances or examples only, and that the fact that
+anything has happened in a given way any number
+of times in the past, can give no assurance that it
+will continue to do so in the future. There is
+nothing in the nature of the case which renders its
+exact opposite impossible. But a rational truth is
+necessary, for its opposite is impossible, being irrational
+or meaningless. This may not always be
+evident in the case of a complex rational truth; but
+if it be analyzed into simpler elements, as a geometrical
+proposition into definitions, axioms, and
+postulates, the absurdity of its opposite becomes
+evident. Sensation, in conclusion, is the having of
+confused ideas,&mdash;ideas corresponding to matter.
+Experience is the association of these confused
+ideas, and their association according to their accidental
+juxtaposition in the life of the soul. It
+therefore is not only thoroughly sensible, but is
+also phenomenal. Its content is sensations; its form
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_108" title="108"> </a>
+is contingent and particular consecution. Both form
+and content, accordingly, need to be reconstructed
+if they are to be worthy of the name of science or
+of knowledge. This is the position which Leibniz
+assumes as against the empiricist, Locke. The details
+of this reconstruction, its method and result,
+we must leave till we come in the course of the
+argument again to the subject of knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_109" title="109"> </a><a name="Chapter_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE IMPULSES AND THE WILL.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Locke</span>, after discussing the subject of innate
+ideas in their relation to knowledge, goes on
+to discuss their practical side, or connection with
+will. We shall follow him in this as Leibniz does;
+but we shall consider in connection with this, Leibniz’s
+general theory of will, which is developed
+partially in this chapter, but more completely in his
+critical remarks upon what Locke has to say of the
+notion of “power.” Since the theory of morals is
+as closely connected with will as the theory of
+knowledge is with the intellect, we shall supplement
+this discussion with what Leibniz says upon the
+ethical question, drawing our material somewhat
+freely from his other writings.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of will which Leibniz propounds is in
+closest harmony with his conception of intelligence,
+and this not merely in the way of empirical juxtaposition,
+but as the result of his fundamental principles.
+If we recall what has been said concerning
+the monad, we shall remember that it is an activity,
+but an activity with a content. It is a force, but a
+force which mirrors the universe. The content,
+that portion of reality which is reflected in the action,
+is knowledge, or the idea; the activity which
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_110" title="110"> </a>
+brings this about is will, or the volition. They are
+related to each other as form and content. There
+is, strictly speaking, no “state” of mind; there is
+only a tension, a pushing forward of mind. There
+is no idea which is not a volition. Will is thus used,
+in a very broad sense, as equivalent to action.
+Since, however, the activity of the monad is in no
+case aimless, but has an end in view, the will is
+not <em>mere</em> activity in general, it is action towards
+some definite end. And since the end at which
+the monad aims is always the development of an
+idea, the reflection of some constituent of the universe,
+the will is always directed towards and determined
+by some idea of the intellect.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen, however, that there are various
+stages in the reflecting power of the soul, or in the
+realization of intellect. Taking only the broadest
+division, there are perception and apperception;
+that is, there are the conscious and the unconscious
+mirroring of reality. We shall expect, then, to find
+two corresponding stages of volition. Leibniz calls
+these stages “appetition” and “volition” in the narrower
+sense. The constant tendency in every monad
+to go from one perception to another,&mdash;that is, the
+following of the law of development,&mdash;constitutes
+appetition. If joined to feeling, it constitutes instinct.
+Since, again, there are two degrees of apperception,
+one of empirical, the other of rational,
+consciousness, we shall expect to find two grades of
+volition proper,&mdash;one corresponding to action for
+conscious particular ends; the other for ends which
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_111" title="111"> </a>
+are proposed by reason, and are hence universal.
+In this chapter we shall simply expand and illustrate
+these various propositions.</p>
+
+<p>Sensations, looked at not as to what they represent,
+but in themselves, are impulses. As such they
+constitute the lowest stage of will. Impulsive action
+then includes all such as occurs for an end
+which is unknown, or at best but dimly felt. Such
+action may be called blind, not in the sense that
+it is without reason, but in the sense that reason is
+not consciously present. We are not to think of
+this instinctive action, however, as if it were found
+simply in the animals. Much of human action is
+also impulsive; probably, indeed, an impulsive factor
+is contained in our most rational willing. We
+are never able to take complete account of the
+agencies which are acting upon us. Along with the
+reasons of which we are conscious in choosing, there
+are mingled faint memories of past experience, subconscious
+solicitations of the present, dim expectations
+for the future. Such elements are decisive
+factors far more than we realize.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it is because of the extent to which such
+unconscious influences bear upon us and move us
+that there arises the idea of indifferent or unmotivated
+choice. Were both motive and choice unconscious,
+the question as to whether choice were
+antecedently determined would not arise; and were
+our motives and their results wholly in consciousness,
+the solution of the question would be evident. But
+when we are conscious of our choice, but are not
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_112" title="112"> </a>
+conscious of our impulses and motives, we get the
+impression that our choice is unmotived, and hence
+come to believe in “indifferent freedom,”&mdash;the
+ability to choose as we will.</p>
+
+<p>We shall shortly take up in more detail the
+theory of Leibniz regarding the freedom of will;
+and it is needful here to remark only that the conception
+which makes it consist in ability to choose
+without reason is in direct contradiction to his fundamental
+thought,&mdash;namely, that there can be no
+activity which does not aim at some reflection of
+the universe, by which, therefore, it is determined.
+From the psychological point of view, it is interesting
+also to notice how Leibniz’s theory of unconscious
+ideas enables him to dispose of the strongest
+argument for indifferent choice,&mdash;that drawn from
+the immediate “testimony” of consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the origin and nature of desires Leibniz has
+much more to say than about the impulses. His account
+of the transition from impulse to desire is based
+upon the conception of unconscious ideas. Slight
+and imperceptible impulses are working upon us all
+the time. Indeed, they are a necessity; for the
+actual state of a soul or monad at any time is, of
+course, one of incompleteness. Our nature must
+always work to free itself from its hindrances and
+obtain its goal of complete development. But it
+will not do this unless there is some stimulus, some
+solicitation to induce it to overcome its limitation.
+There is found accordingly in our every condition a
+feeling of dissatisfaction, or, using Locke’s word, of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_113" title="113"> </a>
+“uneasiness;” and it is this which calls forth that
+activity which brings about a nearer approach to the
+soul’s real good. But Leibniz differs from Locke in
+saying that this feeling of uneasiness is not a distinct,
+or even in most cases a conscious, one. It is
+not pain, although it differs from pain only in degree.
+Uneasiness and pain are related to each other
+as appetite for food is to hunger,&mdash;the first suffices
+to stimulate us to satisfaction, but if the want is
+not met, results in actual pain; if met, these “half
+pains” become tributary to pleasure itself. These
+unconscious stimuli to action result in actions which
+meet the want, and the aggregation of these satisfactions
+results in pleasure. In Leibniz’s own
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“If these elements of pain were themselves true
+pains, we should always be in a state of misery, even in
+pursuing the good. But since there is always going
+on a summation of minute successes in overcoming
+these states of uneasiness, and these put us more
+and more at ease, there comes about a decided
+pleasure, which often has greater value even than
+the enjoyment of the good. Far, then, from regarding
+this uneasiness as a thing incompatible with
+happiness, I find that it is an essential condition of
+our happiness. For this does not consist in perfect
+possession, which would make us insensible and
+stupid, but in a constant progress towards greater
+results, which must always be accompanied, accordingly,
+by this element of desire or uneasiness.”</p>
+
+<p>And again he says that “we enjoy all the advantages
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_114" title="114"> </a>
+of pain without any of its inconveniences. If
+the uneasiness should become too distinct, we should
+be miserable in our awaiting the good which relieves
+it; but as it is, there is a constant victory over these
+half-pains, which we always find in desire, and this
+gives us a quantity of half-pleasures, whose continuance
+and summation (for they acquire force like a
+moving body as it falls) result in a whole and true
+pleasure.” In short, there is indeed an element of
+pain in all desire which stimulates us to action, and
+therefore to higher development. But ordinarily
+this element of pain is not present as such in consciousness,
+but is absorbed in the pleasure which
+accompanies the realization of the higher good.
+Thus Leibniz, accepting and emphasizing the very
+same fact that served Schopenhauer as a psychological
+base of pessimism, uses it as a foundation-stone
+of optimism.</p>
+
+<p>But desire, or the conscious tendency towards
+something required as a good, accompanied by the
+dim feeling of uneasiness at its absence, does not
+yet constitute the complete act of volition. “Several
+impulses and inclinations meet in forming the
+complete volition which is the result of their conflict.”
+In the concrete act of will there are contained
+impulses which push us towards some end
+whose nature is not known; there is desire both in
+its inchoate stage, where pleasure and pain are not
+in consciousness, and in its formed state, where the
+pain and pleasure are definitely presented. Mixed
+with these desires and impulses are images of past
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_115" title="115"> </a>
+experiences which call up the feelings which were formerly
+attached to them, and thus there are aroused
+indirectly additional impulses and desires. Out
+of this complicated mass of impulses, desires, and
+feelings, both original and reproduced, comes the
+“dominant effort” which constitutes complete will.
+But what governs the production of this prevailing
+or dominant effort, which we may interpret as the
+act of choice? The answer is simple: the result of
+the conflict of these various factors, the striking of
+the balance, <em>is</em> the choice. Some desire emerges
+from the confused complex, and that desire is the
+final determination of the will. This desire may
+not in all cases be the strongest in itself,&mdash;that is,
+the one whose satisfaction will allay the greatest
+“uneasiness,” for the others, taken together, may
+outweigh it; it may, so to speak, have a plurality,
+but not a majority, of volitional forces on its side,&mdash;and
+in this case a fusion of opposing factors may
+defeat it. But in any event the result will be the
+<em>algebraic</em> sum of the various desires and impulses.</p>
+
+<p>It is not at all necessary, however, that the net
+outcome shall make itself apparent as a mechanical
+equivalent of the forces at work. The soul, Leibniz
+says, may use its skill in the formation of parties,
+so as to make this or that side the victor. How is
+this to be done, and still disallow the possibility of
+arbitrary choice? This problem is solved through
+action becoming deliberate. Deliberate action is
+impossible unless the soul has formed the habit of
+looking ahead and of arranging for modes of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_116" title="116"> </a>
+action which do not present themselves as immediate
+necessities. Only in this way can one look at the
+matter impartially and coolly; “at the moment of
+combat there is no time for discussion. Everything
+which then occurs throws its full force on the
+balance, and contributes to an outcome made up in
+the same way as in mechanics.” The formation of
+certain habits beforehand, therefore, is the secret
+of translating impulsive action into the deliberate
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p>Of these habits the simplest consists in thinking
+only occasionally and incidentally of certain things.
+Imagination is the mother of desire. If we do not
+allow the imagination to dwell upon certain lines
+of thought, the probability of such thoughts acquiring
+sufficient force to become motives of weight is
+small. A still more effective method of regulating
+action is “to accustom ourselves to forming a
+train of thoughts of which reason, and not chance
+(that is, association), is the basis. We must get
+out of the tumult of present impressions, beyond
+our immediate surroundings, and ask: <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dic cur hic?
+respice finem!</i>” In other words, we must cross-question
+our impulses and desires, we must ask
+whence they come, that we may see how valid are
+the credentials which they offer. We must ask
+whither they tend, that we may measure them, not
+by their immediate interest, but by their relation
+to an end. The desires are not to be taken at their
+face-value, but are to be weighed and compared.</p>
+
+<p>Such a process will evidently result in arresting
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_117" title="117"> </a>
+instantaneous action. There will be a pause between
+the presentation of the desires and the overt
+act. During this pause it may well occur that the
+examination to which the desires have been subject
+has awakened contrary desires. The thought
+of the ignoble origin of a desire or of its repulsive,
+though remote, result will bring into action desires
+of an opposed kind. Thus the soul regulates action,
+not as if, however, it had any direct influence
+over desires, but by its ability of bringing other
+desires into the field. The will, in short, is not
+opposed to desire, though rational desire may be
+opposed to sensuous desire. “By various artifices,
+then,” Leibniz concludes, “we become masters of
+ourselves, and can make ourselves think and do
+that which we ought to will, and which reason ordains.”
+Such is the summary of Leibniz’s analysis
+of the elements and mechanism of volition. There
+was not much psychology existing at the time which
+could aid him in such an acute and subtle account;
+only in Aristotle could he have found much help.
+On the other hand, it has been so generally incorporated
+into current psychology that we may seem
+to have wasted space in repeating truisms.</p>
+
+<p>Of moral action, however, we have as yet heard
+nothing. We have an account of a psychological
+mechanism; but for what ethical end does this work,
+and by what method? This question may best be
+answered by turning in more detail to the question
+of the “freedom of the will.” Freedom in the
+sense of arbitrary choice Leibniz wholly rejects, as
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_118" title="118"> </a>
+we have seen. It is inconsistent with at least two
+of his fundamental principles; those, namely, of
+sufficient reason, and of continuity. “Everything
+that occurs must have a sufficient reason for its
+occurrence.” This oft-repeated dictum of Leibniz,
+the logical way of stating the complete rationality
+of experience, would be shattered into fragments
+by collision with groundless choice. It conflicts
+equally (indeed for the same reason) with the principle
+of continuity. “The present is pregnant
+with the future.” “Nature never makes leaps.”
+“An absolute equilibrium is a chimera.” “The
+soul is never wholly at rest.” These are only various
+ways of saying that the notion of arbitrary
+or unmotivated choice rests upon the assumption
+that there is a complete break in the life of the
+soul, so that it is possible for something to happen
+which bears no organic relation to anything
+that precedes. The notion of a state of the soul
+without motives, followed by the irruption of a
+certain line of conduct, the notion of an equilibrium
+broken by arbitrary choice, is simply the counterpart
+of the idea of a vacuum. All that makes Leibniz
+reject the latter conception makes it impossible for
+him to accept the former.</p>
+
+<p>This should not be interpreted to mean that
+Leibniz denied the “freedom of the will.” What
+he denied is a notion of freedom which seemed to
+him at once unverifiable, useless, and irrational.
+There is a conception of freedom which Leibniz not
+only accepts, but insists upon. Such a notion of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_119" title="119"> </a>
+freedom is indeed his ethical ideal. Its three traits
+are contingency, spontaneity, and rationality of
+action. How action can be at the same time
+contingent and determined is perhaps difficult to
+understand; but Leibniz takes the position that it
+is. His first step is to distinguish between physical,
+mathematical, metaphysical, and moral necessity.
+There are truths which are eternal, truths
+which are absolutely necessary, because their opposites
+involve contradiction. They cannot be
+violated without involving us in absurdity. There
+are other truths which are “positive,” that is, ordained
+for good reason. These truths may be
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i>, or rational, and not merely empirical; for
+they have been chosen for reasons of advantage.
+God always chooses and ordains the best of a
+number of possibilities; but he does it, not because
+the opposite is impossible, but because it is inferior.
+Truths whose opposites are impossible have metaphysical
+and mathematical necessity. Positive
+truths have moral necessity. The principle of
+causation <em>must</em> be true; the three interior angles
+of a triangle <em>must</em> be equal to two right angles.
+But that God shall choose the better of two courses
+is a moral necessity only. It invokes no absolute
+logical contradiction to conceive him choosing some
+other way. Upon moral necessity depends the
+physical. The particular laws of nature are necessary,
+not because their opposites are logically
+absurd, but because these laws are most in accordance
+with the general principles of good and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_120" title="120"> </a>
+order, in agreement with which God chooses. Physical
+and moral action is therefore in all cases
+contingent. (Contingency does not of itself, of
+course, constitute freedom, but conjoined with the
+characteristics of rationality and spontaneity, does
+so.)</p>
+
+<p>Necessity, in short, is based upon the principle
+of logical contradiction; contingency upon that of
+sufficient reason. Since our actions are in no case
+necessitated in such a way that their opposite is
+self-contradictory, or, put positively, since our
+actions are always determined by the choice of that
+which seems best, our actions are contingent.
+Occasionally Leibniz puts the matter in a much
+simpler way, and one which brings out the essential
+element more clearly than the foregoing distinction.
+Some facts are determined by the principle
+of physical causation; others by that of final
+causation. Some, in other words, are necessary as
+the mechanical outcome of their antecedents; others
+are necessary as involved in the reaching of a given
+end. It is simply the Aristotelian distinction between
+efficient and teleological causation. Human
+action is determined, since it always has a motive
+or reason; it is contingent, because it springs from
+this reason and not from its temporal antecedents.
+It is, in short, determined, but it is also free.</p>
+
+<p>It does not require much analysis, however, to
+see that this distinction, in whatever way it be put,
+really has no significance, except as it points to the
+other marks of freedom,&mdash;spontaneity and rationality.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_121" title="121"> </a>
+As we shall see, Leibniz makes and can make
+no absolute distinction between truths of reason
+and truths of fact. The contingent and the necessary
+are one at bottom. To us with our limited
+intelligence it does indeed often appear as if no
+contradiction were involved in the former,&mdash;as if,
+for example, a man could turn either to right or left
+without there being any logical contradiction in
+either case; but this is because of our defective
+insight. An intelligence cognizant of the whole
+matter could see that one action would contradict
+some truth involved in the constitution of the universe.
+The source of the contingent and changing
+is in the necessary and eternal. Thus it is that
+although Leibniz at one time says that “neither
+one’s self nor any other spirit more enlightened
+could demonstrate that the opposite of a given action
+(like going out in preference to staying in)
+involves contradiction,” at another time he says
+that “a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances,
+internal and external, would enable any one to
+foresee” the decision in a given case. If that be
+so, any other action must be impossible; that is,
+according to Leibniz’s invariable logic, imply
+contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>We get the same result if we consider the relation
+of final and efficient causes. It is only when
+speaking in a very general way that Leibniz opposes
+action as determined by precedent activities to that
+directed towards the attainment of an end. He
+does not really mean that <em>some</em> action is physical,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_122" title="122"> </a>
+while <em>other</em> is teleological. He cannot suppose that
+some action has an antecedent cause, while other
+has a purpose. The very essence of his thought is
+that action is both mechanical and teleological; that
+all action follows in a law of order from precedent
+action, and that all fulfils a certain spiritual function.
+The distinction is not, with Leibniz, one between two
+kinds of action, but between two ways of looking
+at every action. The desire to go rather than to
+stay, has its efficient cause; the movements by
+which the desire is executed, have their final cause.
+The truth of the matter seems to be that Leibniz in
+his desire to guard against being thought a fatalist,
+or one denying all freedom, uses terms which are
+compatible only with a freedom of indifference. So
+in his statement that man’s action is free because
+“contingent,” he seems actuated rather by a wish to
+avoid the hateful term “necessity” than by considerations
+strictly in harmony with his own principles.</p>
+
+<p>Had he confined his use of the term “contingent,”
+however, simply to re-stating the fact that human
+action is spontaneous, no such apparent contradiction
+would have presented itself. Human actions
+may be called contingent, as physical actions are
+not, because the latter always seem to be externally
+determined, while the former are internally
+directed. Motions act from without; motives from
+within. The cause of the falling of a stone lies outside
+it; the source of a desire which moves to action
+is from the mind itself. We are thus introduced to
+contingency as a synonym of “spontaneity.”</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_123" title="123"> </a>Kuno Fischer calls attention to the fact that
+Spinoza and Leibniz both use the same sort of illustration
+to show the non-arbitrary character of
+human action, but the same illustration with a difference;
+and in the difference he finds the distinction
+between the two philosophies. Spinoza
+says that a stone falling to the ground, if endowed
+with consciousness, might imagine itself following
+its own will in falling. Leibniz says that a magnetic
+needle similarly endowed might imagine that
+it turned towards the north simply because it wished.
+Both examples are used to illustrate the folly of
+relying upon the immediate “testimony” of consciousness.
+But the example of Spinoza is that of
+an object, all whose movements are absolutely necessitated
+from without; the example of Leibniz is
+that of an object whose activity, though following
+law, and not caprice, is apparently initiated from
+within. Of course in reality the movements of the
+magnetic needle are just as much externally conditioned
+as those of the stone; but the appearance
+of self-action in the latter case may serve at least
+to exemplify what is meant by spontaneity as attributed
+to human action.</p>
+
+<p>It must be noticed at the outset that spontaneity
+belongs to every simple substance. We have only
+to recall the doctrine of monads. These suffer nothing
+from without, all their activity is the expression,
+is the unfolding, of their own law. “By nature,”
+Leibniz says, “every simple substance has perceptions,
+and its individuality consists in the permanent
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_124" title="124"> </a>
+law which forms the succession of its perceptions,
+that are born naturally one of another. Hence
+it is not necessary for it to receive any physical
+influence from without; and therefore the soul has
+in itself a perfect spontaneity in such a way that
+its actions depend only upon God and itself.” Or
+if we put the matter in its connection with his
+psychology rather than with his metaphysics, it is
+true that our actions are determined by our motives;
+but motives are not forces without the soul,
+they are forces <em>of</em> the soul. In acting according
+to motives the soul is simply acting according to
+its own laws. A desire is not an impulsion from
+an external cause; it is the expression of an inward
+tendency. To say that the soul acts from
+the strongest desire is simply to say, from this
+standpoint, that it manifests the most real part
+of itself, not that it obeys a foreign force. Impulses,
+desires, motives, are all psychical; they
+admit of no description or explanation except in
+their relation to the soul itself. Thus when Leibniz
+compares, as he often does, motives to weights acting
+upon a balance, we are to remember that the
+balance is not to be conceived as the soul, and
+the weights as energies outside it, but that this is
+only a way of picturing what is going on <em>within</em>
+the soul itself. The soul may be a mechanism, but
+it is a self-directing and self-executing mechanism.
+To say that human action is free because
+it is spontaneous, is to say that it follows an
+immanent principle, that it is independent of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_125" title="125"> </a>
+foreign influences,&mdash;in a word, that it is self-determined.</p>
+
+<p>But here again it seems as if Leibniz had stated
+a principle altogether too wide to throw any light
+upon the nature of moral freedom. Spontaneity is
+no more an attribute of human activity than it is
+of all real activity. Every monad, even the unconscious,
+as truly follows its own law without interference
+from without as does man himself. If the
+spontaneity of action constitutes its morality, we
+are not in a condition to ascribe morality to man any
+more than to any real thing. We are thus thrown
+back again upon the conception of rationality as the
+final and decisive trait of freedom and of ethical conduct.
+Just as “contingency” gets a moral import
+only in connection with conscious ends of action, so
+“spontaneity” comes within the moral realm only
+when conjoined to reason.</p>
+
+<p>Why is there this close connection between reason
+and freedom? The reader has only to recall what
+was said of Leibniz’s theory of causality to get a
+glimpse into their unity. Causality is not a matter
+of physical influence, but of affording the reason in
+virtue of which some fact is what it is. This applies
+of course to the relation of the soul and the
+body. “So far as the soul is perfect and has distinct
+ideas, God has accommodated the body to it;
+so far as the soul is imperfect and its ideas are confused,
+God has accommodated the soul to the body.
+In the former case the body always responds to the
+demands of the soul; in the latter the soul is moved
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_126" title="126"> </a>
+by the passions which are born of the sensuous
+ideas. Each is thought to act upon the other in the
+measure of its perfection [that is, degree of activity],
+since God has adjusted one thing to another
+according to its perfection or imperfection. Activity
+and passivity are always reciprocal in created
+things, because a portion of the reasons which serve
+to explain what goes on is in one substance, and
+another portion in the other. This is what makes
+us call one active, the other passive.”</p>
+
+<p>If we translate these ideas out of their somewhat
+scholastic phraseology, the meaning is that the self-activity
+of any substance is accurately measured by
+the extent to which it contains the reasons for its
+own actions; and conversely, that it is dependent
+or enslaved just so far as it has its reasons beyond
+itself. Sensations, sensuous impulses, represent,
+as we have seen before, the universe only in a confused
+and inarticulate way. They are knowledge
+which cannot give an account of itself. They represent,
+in short, that side of mind which may be
+regarded as affected, or the limitation of mind,&mdash;its
+want of activity. So far as the mind acts from
+these sensations and the feelings which accompany
+them, it is ideally determined from without; it is a
+captive to its own states; it is in a condition of passivity.
+In all action, therefore, which occurs from
+a sensuous basis, the soul is rightly regarded as
+unfree.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, just in the degree in which
+distinctness is introduced into the sensations, so
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_127" title="127"> </a>
+that they are not simply experienced as they come,
+but are related to one another so that their reason
+for existence, their spiritual meaning, is ascertained,
+just in that degree is the soul master of itself. In
+Leibniz’s own words: “Distinct knowledge or intelligence
+has its place in the true use of reason,
+while the senses furnish confused ideas. Hence we
+can say that we are free from slavery just in the
+degree that we act with distinct knowledge, but are
+subject to our passions in just the degree that our
+ideas are confused;” that is, not really representative
+of things as they are. “Intelligence is the
+soul of liberty.”</p>
+
+<p>This psychological explanation rests, of course,
+upon the foundation principle of the Leibnizian
+philosophy. Spirit is the sole reality, and spirit
+is activity. But there are various degrees of activity,
+and each grade lower than the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">purus actus</i>
+may be rightfully regarded as in so far passive.
+This relative passivity or unreality constitutes the
+material and hence the sensuous world. One who
+has not insight into truth, lives and acts in this
+world of comparative unreality; he is in bondage
+to it. From this condition of slavery only reason,
+the understanding of things as they are, can lift
+one. The rational man is free because he acts, in
+the noble words of Spinoza, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sub specie æternitatis</i>.
+He acts in view of the eternal truth of things,&mdash;as
+God himself would act.</p>
+
+<p>God alone, it further follows, is wholly free. In
+him alone are understanding and will wholly one.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_128" title="128"> </a>
+In him the true and the good are one; while every
+created intelligence is subject in some degree to
+sensuous affection, to passion. “In us, besides
+the judgment of the understanding, there is always
+mixed some unreal idea of the sensation which
+gives birth to passions and impulses, and these traverse
+the judgment of the practical understanding.”
+Freedom, in fine, is not a ready made garment with
+which all men are clothed to do with as they will.
+It is the ethical ideal; it is something to be attained;
+it is action in conformity with reason, or insight
+into the spiritual nature of reality and into its laws;
+it is not the starting-point, it is the goal. Only
+with a great price do men purchase such freedom.
+It will be noticed at once that Leibniz comes very
+close to Plato in his fundamental ethical ideas. The
+unity of virtue and reason, of virtue and freedom,&mdash;these
+are thoroughly Platonic conceptions. To both
+Plato and Leibniz reason is the ethical ideal because
+it is the expression of, nay, rather, <em>is</em> the reality of
+the universe; while all else is, as Leibniz says,
+imperfect or unreal, since it is not an activity, or,
+as Plato says, a mixture of Being and Non-Being.
+Again, to both man bears a similar relation to this
+spiritual reality. In Plato’s words, he participates
+in the Ideas; in those of Leibniz he reflects, as a
+mirror, the universe. To both, in a word, the
+reality, the true-self of the individual, is the spiritual
+universe of which it is an organic member. To
+both, therefore, man obtains freedom or self-realization
+only as he realizes his larger and more comprehensive
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_129" title="129"> </a>
+identity with the Reason of the universe.
+With both, knowledge is the good, ignorance is the
+evil. No man is voluntarily bad, but only through
+lack of knowledge of the true Good. Leibniz,
+however, with a more developed psychology, supplements
+Plato in the point where the latter had the
+most difficulty,&mdash;the possibility of the feelings or
+of a love of pleasure overcoming knowledge of the
+good. This possibility Plato was compelled to
+deny, while Leibniz, by his subtle identifying of the
+passions with lack of knowledge, or with confused
+knowledge, can admit it. “It is an imperfection
+of our freedom,” says Leibniz, “which causes us
+to choose evil rather than good,&mdash;a greater evil
+rather than the less, the less good rather than the
+greater. This comes from the <em>appearances</em> of good
+and evil which deceive us; but God, who is perfect
+knowledge, is always led to the true and to the best
+good, that is, to the true and absolute good.”</p>
+
+<p>It only remains briefly to apply these conceptions
+to some specific questions of moral actions. Locke
+asks whether there are practical innate ideas, and
+denies them, as he denies theoretical. Leibniz, in
+replying, recognizes two kinds of “innate” practical
+principles, one of which is to be referred to
+the class of instincts, the other to that of maxims.
+Primarily, and probably wholly in almost all men,
+moral truths take the rank of instincts alone. All
+men aim at the Good; it is impossible to think of
+man wilfully seeking his own evil. The methods,
+the means of reaching this Good, are implanted in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_130" title="130"> </a>
+men as instincts. These instincts, when brought to
+the light of reason and examined, become <em>maxims</em>
+of action; they lose their particular and impulsive
+character, and become universal and deliberate principles.
+Thus Leibniz is enabled to answer the various
+objections which are always brought against
+any “intuitive” theory of moral actions,&mdash;the variability
+of men’s moral beliefs and conduct in different
+countries and at different times. Common
+instincts, but at first instincts only, are present in
+all men whenever and wherever they live. These
+instincts may readily be “resisted by men’s passions,
+obscured by prejudice, and changed by custom.”
+The moral instincts are always the basis of
+moral action, but “custom, tradition, education”
+become mixed with them. Even when so confounded,
+however, the instinct will generally prevail,
+and custom is, upon the whole, on the side of
+right rather than wrong, so that Leibniz thinks
+there is a sense in which all men have one common
+morality.</p>
+
+<p>But these moral instincts, even when pure, are
+not ethical science. This is innate, Leibniz says,
+only in the sense in which arithmetic is innate,&mdash;it
+depends upon demonstrations which reason furnishes.
+Leibniz does not, then, oppose intuitive and
+demonstrative, as sometimes happens. Morality is
+<em>practically</em> intuitive in the sense that all men tend to
+aim at the Good, and have an instinctive feeling of
+what makes towards the Good. It is <em>theoretically</em>
+demonstrative, since it does not become a science
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_131" title="131"> </a>
+until Reason has an insight into the nature of the
+Good, and ascertains the fixed laws which are tributary
+to it. Moral principles are <em>not</em> intuitive in
+the sense that they are immediately discovered as
+separate principles by some one power of the soul
+called “conscience.” Moral laws are intuitive, he
+says, “as the <em>consequences</em> of our own development
+and our true well-being.” Here we may well
+leave the matter. What is to be said in detail of
+Leibniz’s ethics will find its congenial home in what
+we have to say of his theology.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_132" title="132"> </a><a name="Chapter_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br/>
+  <small>MATTER AND ITS RELATION TO SPIRIT.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Locke’s</span> account of innate ideas and of sensation
+is only preparatory to a discussion of the
+ideas got by sensation. His explanation of the
+mode of knowledge leads up to an explanation of
+the things known. He remains true to his fundamental
+idea that before we come to conclusions
+about any matters we must “examine our own ability.”
+He deals first with ideas got by the senses,
+whether by some one or by their conjoint action.
+Of these the ideas of solidity, of extension, and of
+duration are of most concern to us. They form as
+near an approach to a general philosophy of nature
+as may be found anywhere in Locke. They are, too,
+the germ from which grew the ideas of matter, of
+space, and of time, which, however more comprehensive
+in scope and more amply worked out in
+detail, characterize succeeding British thought, and
+which are reproduced to-day by Mr. Spencer.</p>
+
+<p>“The idea of solidity we receive by our touch.”
+“The ideas we get by more than one sense are of
+space or extension, figure, rest, and motion.” These
+sentences contain the brief statement of the chief
+contention of the sensational school. Locke certainly
+was not conscious when he wrote them
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_133" title="133"> </a>
+that they were the expression of ideas which should
+resolve the world of matter and of space into a dissolving
+series of accidentally associated sensations;
+but such was none the less the case. When he
+writes, “If any one asks me what solidity is, I send
+him to his senses to inform him,” he is preparing
+the way for Berkeley, and for a denial of all reality
+beyond the feelings of the individual mind. When
+he says that “we get the idea of space both by sight
+and touch,” this statement, although appearing truistic,
+is none the less the source of the contention
+of Hume that even geometry contains no necessary
+or universal elements, but is an account of sensible
+appearances, relative, as are all matters of
+sensation.</p>
+
+<p>Locke’s ideas may be synopsized as follows: It
+is a sufficient account of solidity to say that it is got
+by touch and that it arises from the resistance found
+in bodies to the entrance of any other body. “It
+is that which hinders the approach of two bodies
+when they are moved towards one another.” If not
+identical with matter, it is at all events its most essential
+property. “This of all others seems the
+idea most intimately connected with and essential to
+body, so as nowhere else to be found or imagined,
+but only in matter.” It is, moreover, the source of
+the other properties of matter. “Upon the solidity
+of bodies depend their mutual impulse, resistance,
+and protrusion.” Solidity, again, “is so inseparable
+an idea from body that upon that depends its filling
+of space, its contact, impulse, and communication
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_134" title="134"> </a>
+of motion upon impulse.” It is to be distinguished,
+therefore, from hardness, for hardness is relative
+and derived, various bodies having various degrees
+of it; while solidity consists in utter exclusion of
+other bodies from the space possessed by any one,
+so that the hardest body has no more solidity than
+the softest.</p>
+
+<p>The close connection between solidity and matter
+makes it not only possible, but necessary, to distinguish
+between matter and extension as against the
+Cartesians, who had identified them. In particular
+Locke notes three differences between these notions.
+Extension includes neither solidity nor resistance;
+its parts are inseparable from one another both really
+and mentally, and are immovable; while matter has
+solidity, its parts are mutually separable, and may
+be moved <em>in</em> space. From this distinction between
+space and matter it follows, according to Locke,
+that there is such a thing as a vacuum, or that
+space is not necessarily a plenum of matter. Matter
+is that which fills space; but it is entirely indifferent
+to space whether or not it is filled. Space is
+occupied by matter, but there is no essential relation
+between them. Solidity is the essence of matter;
+emptiness is the characteristic of space. “The
+idea of space is as distinct from that of solidity as
+it is from that of scarlet color. It is true, solidity
+cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet
+color exist without extension; but this hinders not
+that they are <em>distinct ideas</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus there is fixed for us the idea of space as
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_135" title="135"> </a>
+well as of matter. It is a distinct idea; that is,
+absolute or independent in itself, having no intrinsic
+connection with phenomena <em>in</em> space. Yet it is got
+through the senses. How that can be a matter of
+sensation which is not only not material, but has
+no connection in itself with matter, Locke does
+not explain. He thinks it sufficient to say that we
+see distance between bodies of different color just
+as plainly as we see the colors. Space is, therefore,
+a purely immediate idea, containing no more organic
+relation to intelligence than it has to objects. We get
+the notion of time as we do that of space, excepting
+that it is the observation of internal states and not
+of external objects which furnishes the material of
+the idea. Time has two elements,&mdash;succession and
+duration. “Observing what passes in the mind,
+how of our ideas there in train some constantly
+vanish, and others begin to appear, we come by the
+idea of succession, and by observing a distance in
+the parts of this succession we get the idea of
+duration.” Whether, however, time is something
+essentially empty, having no relation to the events
+which fill it, as space is essentially empty, without
+necessary connection with the objects which fill it,
+is a question Locke does not consider. In fact, the
+gist of his ideas upon this point is as follows: there
+is actually an objective space or pure emptiness;
+employing our senses, we get the idea of this space.
+There is actually an objective time; employing reflection,
+we perceive it. There is not the slightest
+attempt to form a philosophy of them, or to show
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_136" title="136"> </a>
+their function in the construction of an intelligible
+world, except in the one point of the absolute independence
+of matter and space.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be said that Leibniz criticises the minor
+points of Locke in such a way as to throw much
+light upon them, or that he very fully expresses his
+own ideas about them. He contents himself with
+declaring that while the senses may give instances
+of space, time, and matter, and may suggest to intelligence
+the stimuli upon which intelligence realizes
+these notions from itself, they cannot be the source
+of these notions themselves; finding the evidence of
+this in the sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and pure
+physics. For these sciences deal with the notions
+of space, time, and matter, giving necessary and
+demonstrative ideas concerning them, which the
+senses can never legitimate. He further denies the
+supposed absoluteness or independence of space,
+matter, and motion. Admitting, indeed, the distinction
+between extension and matter, he denies that
+this distinction suffices to prove the existence, or
+even the possibility, of a vacuum, and ends with a
+general reference to his doctrine of pre-established
+harmony, as serving to explain these matters more
+fully and more accurately.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz has, however, a complete philosophy of
+nature. In his other writing, he explains the ideas
+of matter and force in their dependence upon his
+metaphysic, or doctrine of spiritual entelechies. The
+task does not at first sight appear an easy one.
+The reality, according to Leibniz, is purely spiritual,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_137" title="137"> </a>
+does not exist in space nor time, and is a principle
+of activity following its own law,&mdash;that of reflecting
+the universe of spiritual relations. How from
+this world of ideal, unextended, and non-temporal
+dynamic realities we are to pass over to a material
+world of extension, with its static existence in
+space, and transitory passage in time, is a question
+challenging the whole Leibnizian system. It is a
+question, however, for which Leibniz himself has
+provided an answer. We may not regard it as
+adequate; we may think that he has not truly
+derived the material world from his spiritual principles:
+but at all events he asked himself the
+question, and gave an answer. We shall investigate
+this answer by arranging what Leibniz has said
+under the heads of: matter as a metaphysical principle;
+matter as a physical phenomenon; and the
+relation of phenomena to absolute reality, or of
+the physical to the metaphysical. In connection
+with the second head, particularly, we shall find it
+necessary to discuss what Leibniz has said about
+space, time, and motion.</p>
+
+<p>Wolff, who put the ideas of Leibniz into systematic
+shape, did it at the expense of almost all their
+significance. He took away the air of paradox, of
+remoteness, that characterized Leibniz’s thought,
+and gave it a popular form. But its depth and suggestiveness
+vanished in the process. Unfortunately,
+Wolff’s presentations of the philosophy of Leibniz
+have been followed by others, to whom it seemed
+a dull task to follow out the intricacies of a thought
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_138" title="138"> </a>
+nowhere systematically expressed. This has been
+especially the case as concerns the Leibnizian
+doctrine of matter. A superficial interpretation of
+certain passages in Leibniz has led to an almost
+universal misunderstanding about it. Leibniz frequently
+says that since matter is composite or
+complex, it follows that there must be something
+simple as its basis, and this simple something is
+the monad. The misinterpretation just spoken of
+consists in supposing that Leibniz meant that matter
+as composite is made up of monads as simple;
+that the monad and matter are facts of the same
+order, the latter being only an aggregate, or continued
+collection of the former. It interpreted the
+conception of Leibniz in strict analogy with the
+atomic theory of Lucretius, excepting that it granted
+that the former taught that the ultimate atom, the
+component of all complex forms of matter, has
+position only, not extension, its essence consisting
+in its exercise of force, not in its mere space occupancy.
+The monad was thus considered to be <em>in</em>
+space, or at least conditioned by space relations,
+as is a mathematical point, although not itself
+spatial in the sense of being extended. Monad and
+matter were thus represented as facts of the same
+kind or genus, having their difference only in their
+relative isolation or aggregation.</p>
+
+<p>But Leibniz repudiated this idea, and that not
+only by the spirit of his teaching, but in express
+words. Monads “are not ingredients or constituents
+of matter,” he says, “but only <em>conditions</em> of it.”
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_139" title="139"> </a>
+“Monads can no more be said to be parts of bodies,
+or to come in contact with them, or to compose
+them, than can souls or mathematical points.”
+“Monads <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">per se</i> have <em>no</em> situation relative to one
+another.” An increase in the number of created
+monads, he says again, if such a thing could be
+supposed, would no more increase the amount of
+matter in existence, than mathematical points added
+to a line would increase its length. And again:
+“There is no nearness or remoteness among monads;
+to say that they are gathered in a point or
+are scattered in space, is to employ mental fictions,
+<em>in trying to imagine what can only be thought</em>.” The
+italicized words give the clew to the whole discussion.
+To make monads of the same order as
+corporeal phenomena, is to make them sensible, or
+capable of being imaged, or conditioned by space
+and time,&mdash;three phrases which are strictly correlative.
+But the monads can only be thought,&mdash;that
+is, their qualities are ideal, not sensible; they
+can be realized only by reason, not projected in
+forms having spatial outline and temporal habitation,
+that is, in images. Monads and material
+things, in other words, are facts of two distinct
+orders; they are related as the rational or spiritual
+and the physical or sensible. Matter is no more
+composed of monads than it is of thoughts or of
+logical principles. As Leibniz says over and over
+again: Matter, space, time, motion are only phenomena,
+although phenomena <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">bene fundata</i>,&mdash;phenomena,
+that is, having their rational basis and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_140" title="140"> </a>
+condition. The monads, on the other hand, are
+not appearances, they are realities.</p>
+
+<p>Having freed our minds from the supposition
+that it is in any way possible to form an image or
+picture of the monad; having realized that it is
+wholly false to suppose that monads occupy position
+in space, and then by their continuity fill it,
+and make extended matter,&mdash;we must attempt to
+frame a correct theory of the nature of matter and
+its relation to the monad. We shall do this only
+as we realize that “matter,” so far as it has any
+reality, or so far as it has any real <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">fundamentum</i>,
+must be something ideal, or, in Leibniz’s language,
+“metaphysical.” As he says over and over again,
+the only realities are the substances or spiritual
+units of activity, to which the name “monad” is
+given. In the inquiry, then, after such reality as
+matter may have, we must betake ourselves to this
+unit of living energy.</p>
+
+<p>Although every monad is active, it is not entirely
+active. There is, as we have already seen, an
+infinite scale of substances; and since substance is
+equivalent to activity, this is saying that there is
+an infinite scale of activities. God alone is <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">purus
+actus</i>, absolute energy, untouched by passivity or
+receptivity. Every other being has the element of
+incompleteness, of inadequacy; it does not completely
+represent the universe. In this passivity
+consists its finitude, so that Leibniz says that not
+even God himself could deprive monads of it, for
+this would be to make them equal to himself. In
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_141" title="141"> </a>
+this passivity, incompleteness, or finitude, consists
+what we call matter. Leibniz says that he can understand
+what Plato meant when he called matter
+something essentially imperfect and transitory. Every
+finite monad is a union of two principles,&mdash;those
+of activity and of passivity. “I do not admit,”
+says Leibniz, “that there are souls existing
+simply by themselves, or that there are created
+spirits detached from all body. God alone is
+above all matter, since he is its author; creatures
+freed from matter would be at the same time detached
+from the universal connection of things, and,
+as it were, deserters from the general order.” And
+again, “Beings have a nature which is both active
+and passive; <em>that is</em>, material and immaterial.”
+And again, he says that every created monad requires
+both an entelechy, or principle of activity,
+and matter. “Matter is essential to any entelechy,
+and can never be separated from it, since matter
+<em>completes</em> it.” In short, the term “monad” is equivalent
+to the term “entelechy” only when applied to
+God. In every other monad, the entelechy, or energy,
+is but one factor. “Matter, or primitive passive
+power, completes the entelechy, or primitive
+active power, so that it becomes a perfect substance,
+or monad.” On the other hand, of course, matter,
+as the passive principle, is a mere potentiality or
+abstraction, considered in itself. It is real only
+in its union with the active principle. Matter, he
+says, “cannot exist without immaterial substances.”
+“To every particular portion of matter belongs a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_142" title="142"> </a>
+particular <em>form</em>; that is, a soul, a spirit.” To this
+element of matter, considered as an abstraction, in
+its distinction from soul, Leibniz, following the
+scholastics, and ultimately Aristotle, gives the
+name, “first” or “bare” matter. The same influence
+is seen in the fact that he opposes this element
+of matter to “form,” or the active principle.</p>
+
+<p>Our starting-point, therefore, for the consideration
+of matter is the statement that it is receptivity,
+the capacity for being affected, which always constitutes
+matter. But what is meant by “receptivity”?
+To answer this question we must return to
+what was said about the two activities of the monad,&mdash;representation,
+or perception, and appetition,&mdash;and
+to the difference between confused and distinct
+ideas. The monad has appetition so far as it determines
+itself from within to change, so far as it
+follows an internal principle of energy. It is representative
+so far as it is determined from without,
+so far as it receives impressions from the universe.
+Yet we have learned to know that in one sense
+everything occurs from the spontaneity of the
+monad itself; it receives no influence or influxus
+from without; everything comes from its own
+depths, or is appetition. But, on the other hand,
+all that which so comes forth is only a mirroring or
+copying of the universe. The whole content of the
+appetition is representation. Although the monad
+works spontaneously, it is none the less determined
+in its activities to produce only reflections or images
+of the world. In this way appetition and representation
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_143" title="143"> </a>
+appear to be identical. The monad is determined
+from within, indeed, but it is determined to
+exactly the same results as if wholly determined
+from without. What light, then, can be thrown from
+this distinction upon the nature of matter?</p>
+
+<p>None, unless we follow Leibniz somewhat farther.
+If we do, we shall see that the soul is regarded as
+appetitive, or self-active, so far as it has clear and
+distinct ideas. If the monad reaches distinct consciousness,
+it has knowledge of self,&mdash;that is, of the
+nature of pure spirit,&mdash;or, what again is equivalent
+to this, of the nature of reality as it universally is.
+Such knowledge is knowledge of God, of substance,
+of unity, of pure activity, and of all the innate ideas
+which elevate the confused perceptions of sense into
+science. Distinct consciousness is therefore equivalent
+to self-activity, and this to recognition of God
+and the universal. But if knowledge is confused, it
+is not possible to see it in its relations to self; it
+cannot be analyzed; the rational or ideal element
+in it is concealed from view. In confused ideas,
+therefore, the soul appears to be passive; being
+passive, to be determined from without. This determination
+from without is equivalent to that
+which is opposed to spirit or reason, and hence appears
+as matter. Such is in outline the Leibnizian
+philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>It thus is clear that merely stating that matter is
+passivity in the monad is not the ultimate way of stating
+its nature. For passivity means in reality nothing
+but confused representations,&mdash;representations, that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_144" title="144"> </a>
+is, whose significance is not perceived. The true significance
+of every representation is found in its relation
+to the ego, or pure self-activity, which, through
+its dependent relation upon God, the absolute self-activity
+and ego, produces the representation from
+its own ideal being. So far as the soul does not
+have distinct recognition of relation of all representations
+to self, it feels them as coming from
+without; as foreign to spirit; in short, as matter.
+Leibniz thus employs exactly the same language
+about confused ideas that he does about passivity,
+or matter. It is not possible that the monad should
+have distinct consciousness of itself as a mirror of
+the whole universe, he says, “for in that case every
+entelechy would be God.” Again, “the soul would
+be God if it could enter at once and with distinctness
+into everything occurring within it.” But it is
+necessary “that we should have passions which consist
+in confused ideas, in which there is something
+involuntary and unknown, and which represent the
+body and constitute our imperfection.” Again, he
+speaks of matter as “the <em>mixture</em> (<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mélange</i>) of the
+effects of the infinite environing us.” In that expression
+is summed up his whole theory of matter. It is
+a mixture; it is, that is to say, confused, aggregated,
+irresolvable into simple ideas. But it is a mixture
+of “effects of the infinite about us;” that is, it takes
+its rise in the true, the real, the spiritual. It only
+fails to represent this as it actually is. Matter, in
+short, is a phenomenon dependent upon inability to
+realize the entire spiritual character of reality. It
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_145" title="145"> </a>
+is spirit apprehended in a confused, hesitating, and
+passive manner.</p>
+
+<p>It is none the less a necessary phenomenon, for it
+is involved in the idea of a continuous gradation of
+monads, in the distinction between the infinite and
+the finite, or, as Leibniz often prefers to put it,
+between the “creator” and the “created.” There is
+involved everywhere in the idea of Leibniz the conception
+of subordination; of a hierarchy of forms,
+each of which receives the law of its action from the
+next higher, and gives the law to the next lower.
+We have previously considered the element of passivity
+or receptivity as relating only to the monad
+which manifests it. It is evident, however, that
+what is passive in one, implies something active in
+another. What one receives, is what another gives.
+The reciprocal influence of monads upon one another,
+therefore, as harmonious members of one system,
+requires matter. More strictly speaking, this reciprocal
+influence <em>is</em> matter. To take away all receptivity,
+all passivity, from monads would be to isolate
+them from all relations with others; it would be to
+deprive them of all power of affecting or being affected
+by others. That is what Leibniz meant by the
+expression already quoted, that if monads had not
+matter as an element in them, “they would be, as
+it were, deserters from the general order.” The
+note of unity, of organic connection, which we found
+to be the essence of the Leibnizian philosophy, absolutely
+requires, therefore, matter, or passivity.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that this reciprocal influence
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_146" title="146"> </a>
+is ideal. As Leibniz remarks, “When it is
+said that one monad is affected by another, this is
+to be understood concerning its <em>representation</em> of the
+other. For the Author of things has so accommodated
+them to one another that one is said to suffer
+(or receive from the other) when its relative value
+gives way to that of the other.” Or again, “the
+modifications of one monad are the ideal causes of
+the modifications of another monad, so far as there
+appear in one the reasons on account of which God
+brought about in the beginning certain modifications
+in another.” And most definitely of all: “A creature
+is called active so far as it has perfection;
+passive in so far as it is imperfect. One creature
+is more perfect than another so far as there is found
+in it that which serves to <em>render the reason</em>, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i>,
+for that occurring in the other; and it is in this way
+that it acts upon the other.”</p>
+
+<p>We are thus introduced, from a new point of
+view and in a more concrete way, to the conception
+of pre-established harmony. The activity of one,
+the energy which gives the law to the other and
+makes it subordinate in the hierarchy of monads,
+is conceived necessarily as spirit, as soul; that
+which receives, which is rendered subordinate by
+the activity of the other, is body. The pre-established
+harmony is the fact that they are so related
+that one can receive the law of its activity from the
+other. Leibniz is without doubt partially responsible
+for the ordinary misconception of his views
+upon this point by reason of the illustration which he
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_147" title="147"> </a>
+was accustomed to use; namely, of two clocks so
+constructed that without any subsequent regulation
+each always kept perfect time with the other,&mdash;as
+much so as if there were some actual physical connection
+between them. This seems to put soul and body,
+spirit and matter, as two co-ordinate substances, on
+the same level, with such natural opposition between
+them that some external harmony must arrange some
+unity of action. In causing this common idea of his
+theory of pre-established harmony, Leibniz has paid
+the penalty for attempting to do what he often reproves
+in others,&mdash;imagining or presenting in sensible
+form what can only be thought. But his other
+explanations show clearly enough that the pre-established
+harmony expresses, not a relation between
+two parallel substances, but a condition of dependence
+of lower forms of activity upon the higher for
+the law of their existence and activity,&mdash;in modern
+terms, it expresses the fact that phenomena are
+conditioned upon noumena; that material facts get
+their significance and share of reality through their
+relation to spirit.</p>
+
+<p>We may sum up what has been said about matter
+as an element in the monad, or as a metaphysical
+principle, as follows: The existence of matter is not
+only not opposed to the fundamental ideas of Leibniz,
+but is a necessary deduction from them. It is
+a necessity of the principle of continuity; for this
+requires an infinity of monads, alike indeed in the
+universal law of their being, but unlike, each to
+each, in the specific coloring or manifestation of this
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_148" title="148"> </a>
+law. The principle of organic unity requires that
+there be as many real beings as possible participating
+in and contributing to it. It is necessary, again,
+in order that there may be reciprocal influence or
+connection among the monads. Were it not for
+the material element in the monad, each would be
+a God; if each were thus infinite and absolute,
+there would be so many principles wholly independent
+and isolated. The principle of harmony would
+be violated. So much for the necessity of the
+material factor. As to its nature, it is a principle
+of passivity; that is, of ideal receptivity, of conformity
+to a law apparently not self-imposed, but externally
+laid down. This makes matter equivalent to
+a phenomenon; that is to say, to the having of confused,
+imperfect, inadequate ideas. To say that
+matter is correlative to confused ideas is to say that
+there is no recognition of its relation to self or to
+spirit. As Leibniz sometimes puts it, since there
+is an infinity of beings in the universe, each one of
+which exercises an ideal influence upon every other
+one of the series, it is impossible that this other one
+should realize their full meaning; they appear only
+as confused ideas, or as matter. To use language
+which Leibniz indeed does not employ, but which
+seems to convey his thought, the spirit, not seeing
+them as they really are, does not <em>find</em> itself in them.
+But matter is thus not only the confused manifestation
+or phenomenon of spirit, it is also its potentiality.
+Passivity is always relative. It does not mean
+complete lack of activity; that, as Leibniz says, is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_149" title="149"> </a>
+nothingness, and matter is not a form of nothingness.
+Leibniz even speaks of it as passive <em>power</em>.
+That is to say, there is an undeveloped or incomplete
+activity in what appears as matter, and this
+may be,&mdash;if we admit an infinity of time,&mdash;must be
+developed. When developed it manifests itself as
+it really is, as spirit. Confused ideas, as Leibniz
+takes pains to state, are not a genus of ideas antithetical
+to distinct; they differ only in degree or
+grade. They are on their way to become distinct,
+or else they are distinct ideas which have fallen
+back into an “involved” state of being. Matter,
+therefore, is not absolutely opposed to spirit,&mdash;on
+the one hand because it is the manifestation, the
+phenomenon, of spirit; on the other, because it is
+the potentiality of spirit, capable of sometime realizing
+the whole activity implied in it, but now
+latent.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is that Leibniz says that everything is
+“full” of souls or monads. What appears to be
+lifeless is in reality like a pond full of fishes, like a
+drop of water full of infusoria. Everything is organic
+down to the last element. More truly, there
+is no last element. There is a true infinity of
+organic beings wrapped up in the slightest speck
+of apparently lifeless matter. These illustrations,
+like many others which Leibniz uses, are apt to
+suggest that erroneous conception of the relation
+of monads to spirit which we were obliged, in
+Leibniz’s name, to correct at the outset,&mdash;the idea,
+namely, that matter is composed, in a spatial or
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_150" title="150"> </a>
+mechanical way, of monads. But after the foregoing
+explanations we can see that what Leibniz
+means when he says that every portion of matter is
+full of entelechies or souls, like a garden full of
+plants, is that there is an absolute continuity of
+spiritual principles, each having its ideal relation
+with every other. There is no point of matter
+which does not represent in a confused way the
+entire universe. It is therefore as infinite in its
+activities as the universe. In idea also it is capable
+of representing in distinct consciousness, or as
+a development of its own self-activity, each of
+these infinite activities.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, every created or finite being may be
+regarded as matter or as spirit, according as it is
+accounted for by its external relations, as the reasons
+for what happen in it are to be found elsewhere
+than in its own explicit activity, or according as it
+shows clearly in itself the reasons for its own modifications,
+and also accounts for changes occurring in
+other beings. The externally conditioned is matter;
+the internally conditioned, the self-explanatory,
+is self-active, or spirit. Since all external relations
+are finally dependent on organic; since the ultimate
+source of all explanation must be that which is its
+own reason; since the ultimate source of all activity
+must be that which is self-active,&mdash;the final reason
+or source of matter is spirit.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_151" title="151"> </a><a name="Chapter_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br/>
+  <small>MATERIAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR REALITY.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">We</span> have seen the necessity and nature of matter
+as deductions from the fundamental principles
+of Leibniz. We have seen that matter is
+a phenomenon or manifestation of spirit in an imperfect
+and confused way. But why should it appear
+as moving, as extended, as resisting, as having
+cohesion, with all the concrete qualities which always
+mark it? Is there any connection between these
+particular properties of matter as physical, and its
+“metaphysical” or ideal character? These are the
+questions which now occupy us. Stated more definitely,
+they take the following form: Is there any
+essential connection between the properties of matter
+as a metaphysical element, and its properties as
+a sensible fact of experience? Leibniz holds that
+there is. He does not, indeed, explicitly take the
+ground that we can deduce <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> all the characteristics
+of matter as a fact of actual experience
+from its rational notion, but he thinks we can find
+a certain analogy between the two, that the sensible
+qualities are images or reflexes of the spiritual qualities,
+witnessing, so far as possible, to their origin in
+pure energy.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_152" title="152"> </a>His position is as follows: that which in the
+monad is activity or substantial, is, in sensible matter,
+motion. That which in the monad is lack of a
+given activity, that which constitutes its subordinate
+position in the hierarchy of monads, is, in the sphere
+of material things, inertia. That which in the spiritual
+world is the individuality of monads, making
+each forever ideally distinct from every other, is, in
+the phenomenal realm, resistance or impenetrability.
+The perfect continuity of monads in the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">mundus
+intelligibilis</i> has also its counterpart in the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">mundus
+sensibilis</i> in the diffusion or extension of physical
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of following out this analogy directly, it
+will rather be found convenient to take up Leibniz’s
+thought in its historical connection. We have
+already alluded to the fact that he began as a Cartesian,
+and that one of the first ideas which repelled
+him from that system of thought was the notion
+that the essence of matter is extension. His earliest
+philosophical writings, as he was gradually coming
+to the thoughts which thereafter dominated him,
+are upon this point. In general, his conclusions
+are as follows: If matter were extension, it would
+be incapable of passion or of action. Solidity, too,
+is a notion entirely opposed to the conception of
+mere extension. The idea of matter as extension
+contradicts some of the known laws of motion. It
+requires that the quantity of motion remain unchanged
+whenever two bodies come in contact,
+while as matter of fact it is the quantity of energy,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_153" title="153"> </a>
+that which the motion is capable of effecting,
+that remains unchanged; or, as he more often puts
+the objection, the Cartesian notion of matter requires
+that matter be wholly indifferent to motion,
+that there be nothing in it which resists motion when
+imparted. But, says Leibniz, there is something
+resisting, that to which Keppler gave the name
+“inertia.” It is not found to be true if one body
+impacts upon another that the second moves without
+diminishing the velocity or changing the direction
+of the first. On the other hand, just in proportion
+to the size of the second body, it resists and changes
+the motion of the first, up to the point of causing
+the first to rebound if small in comparison. And
+when it was replied that the retardation was due to
+the fact that the force moving the first body had
+now to be divided between two, Leibniz answered
+that this was simply to give up the contention, and
+besides the notion of extension to use that of force.
+If extension were the essence of matter, it should be
+possible to deduce all the properties of matter, or
+at least to account for them all, from it. But since,
+as just seen, this does not enable us to account for
+any of them, since for any of its concrete qualities
+we have to fall back on force, it is evident where
+the true essence of matter is to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz has another argument of a logical nature,
+as those already referred to are of a physical:
+“Those who claim that extension is a substance,
+reverse the order of words as well as of thoughts.
+Besides extension there must be a subject which is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_154" title="154"> </a>
+extended; that is to say, something to which it
+belongs to be repeated or continued. For extension
+is nothing but a repetition or continued multiplication
+of that which is spread out,&mdash;it is a plurality, a
+continuity, a co-existence of parts. Consequently,
+extension does not suffice to explain the nature of
+the repeated or manifold substance, of which the
+notion is anterior to that of its repetition.” Extension,
+in other words, is nothing substantial, it is
+not something which can exist by itself; it is only
+a quality, a property, a mode of being. It is
+always relative to something which has extension.
+As Leibniz says elsewhere: “I insist that extension
+is only an <em>abstraction</em>, and requires something which
+is extended. It presupposes some quality, some
+attribute, some nature in a subject which is extended,
+diffused, or continued. Extension is a diffusion
+of this quality. For example, in milk there is
+an extension or diffusion of whiteness; in the diamond
+an extension or diffusion of hardness; in
+body in general a diffusion of antitypia or materiality.
+There is accordingly in body something
+anterior to extension.”</p>
+
+<p>From the physical side, therefore, we find it impossible
+to account for the concrete properties of
+material phenomena from extension; on the logical
+we find that the idea of extension is always relative
+to that which is extended. What is that which is
+to be considered as the bearer of extension and the
+source of physical qualities? We are led back to
+the point at which we left the matter in the <a href="#Chapter_VII">last chapter</a>.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_155" title="155"> </a>
+It is force, and force both passive and
+active. Leibniz uses the term “matter” in at least
+three senses: it is the metaphysical element of passive
+force <em>in</em> the monad; it is the monad itself
+considered as, upon the whole, externally conditioned
+or unconscious; and it is the phenomenon
+resulting from the aggregation of the monads in the
+second sense. The first is naked matter, and is a
+pure abstraction; the second is the monad as material,
+as opposed to the monad, as soul; the third is
+clothed, or second matter, or, concretely, body, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">corpus</i>.
+The first is unreal by itself; the second is
+one phase of substance; the third is not substantial,
+but is a reality, though a phenomenal one. It is
+from the substantial monad that we are to explain
+the two things now demanding explanation,&mdash;that
+element in <em>bodies</em> (matter in third sense) which
+is the source of their physical properties, and that
+which is the subject, the carrier, so to speak, of
+extension.</p>
+
+<p>That of which we are in search as the source of the
+physical qualities of bodies is motion. This is not
+force, but its “image.” It is force, says Leibniz,
+that “is the real element in motion; that is to say,
+it is that element which out of the present state induces
+a change in the future state.” As force, in
+other words, is the causal activity which effects the
+development of one “representation” of a monad out
+of another, so motion, in the realm of phenomena,
+is not only change, but change which is continuous
+and progressive, each new position being dependent
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_156" title="156"> </a>
+upon the foregoing, and following out of it absolutely
+without break.</p>
+
+<p>Motion, therefore, is the manifestation of the
+ideal unity of substance,&mdash;a unity not of mere
+static inherence, but of a continuous process of activity.
+It is from this standpoint that Leibniz accounts
+for the so-called transference of motion from
+one body to another upon contact. The ordinary
+view of this, which looks at it as if one body loses
+the motion which another body gains, Leibniz
+ridicules, saying that those who hold this view seem
+to think that motion is a kind of thing, resembling,
+perchance, salt dissolved in water. The right view,
+on the other hand, does away with all appearance of
+mystery in the carrying over of motion from one
+body to another, for it recognizes that continuity is
+the very essence of motion, and that we do not
+have two things and a third process, but that the
+two bodies are phases or elements in one and the
+same system of movement.</p>
+
+<p>Starting from this idea of motion, then, Leibniz
+is to account for the actual qualities of matter as
+found in experience. These are the form, magnitude,
+cohesion, resistance, and the purely sensible
+qualities of objects. “First” matter, that is, abstract
+matter, may be conceived, according to Leibniz,
+as perfectly homogeneous, a “subtle fluid,” in
+his words, without any distinction of parts or of solidity.
+But this <em>is</em> an abstract notion. It is what
+matter would be without motion. Motion necessarily
+differentiates this plenum of homogeneity, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_157" title="157"> </a>
+thus causes distinctions of figure (that is, boundaries
+of parts) and varieties of cohesion, or the
+varying solidity and fluidity of bodies. The latter
+difference is indeed the ultimate one. The principle
+of continuity or gradation, as applied to motion,
+makes it necessary that motions should not be in
+any two places of exactly the same energy. The
+result is that the original fluid matter is everywhere
+differently divided. Motion, entering into the uniform
+plenum, introduces distinction; it causes so
+much of the matter as is affected by a given movement
+to collect together and form in appearance a
+coherent body, as opposed to surrounding bodies
+which are affected by different degrees of energy.
+But even this is only approximate; the same principle
+of continuity must be applied within any
+apparently coherent body; its parts, while, in relation
+to other bodies, they have the same amount of
+motion, are in relation to one another differently
+affected. There are no two having exactly the
+same motion; if they had, there would be no distinction
+between them; and thus, according to the
+principle of Leibniz, they would be the same.</p>
+
+<p>It follows at once from this that there is in the
+universe no body of absolute hardness or solidity,
+nor of entire softness or fluidity. A perfectly solid
+body would be one whose system of motions could
+not be affected by any other system,&mdash;a body which
+by motion had separated itself from motion, or become
+absolute. This is evidently an idea which
+contradicts itself, for the very essence of motion is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_158" title="158"> </a>
+continuity or relation. A body perfectly fluid, on
+the other hand, would be one in which there was
+no resistance offered to other motions,&mdash;a body, in
+other words, in which there are no movements
+that, entering into connection with one another,
+form a relative opposition to other movements.
+It would be a body isolated or out of relation with
+the general system of motions, and hence an impossibility.
+There is no last term either of solidity
+or of fluidity.</p>
+
+<p>It equally follows as matter of course that there
+is no indivisible particle of matter,&mdash;no atom.
+The infinity of degrees of motion implies a corresponding
+division of matter. As already said, it is
+only in contrast with other relatively constant systems
+of motion that any body is of uniform motion;
+in reality there is everywhere throughout it variety
+of movement, and hence complete divisibility, or
+rather, complete division. If Leibniz were to employ
+the term “atom” at all, it could be only in the
+sense of the modern dynamical theory (of which,
+indeed, he is one of the originators), according to
+which the atom is not defined by its spatial position
+and outlines, but, by the range of its effects, as the
+centre of energies of infinite circumference. Correlative
+to the non-existence of the atom is the non-existence
+of the vacuum. The two imply each
+other. The hard, limited, isolated body, having no
+intrinsic relations with other bodies, must have room
+to come into external relations with them. This
+empty space, which is the theatre of such accidental
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_159" title="159"> </a>
+contacts as may happen, is the vacuum. But
+if bodies are originally in connection with one
+another, if they are in reality but differentiations
+of varying degrees of motion within one system of
+motion, then there is no necessity for the vacuum,&mdash;nay,
+there is no place for it. The vacuum in this
+case could mean only a break, a chasm, in the order
+of nature. According to the theory of Leibniz,
+“bodies” are but the dynamic divisions of the one
+energy that fills the universe; their separateness is
+not an independent possession of any one of them
+or of all together, but is the result of relations to
+the entire system. Their apparent isolation is only
+by reason of their actual connections. To admit a
+vacuum anywhere, would thus be to deny the relatedness
+of the parts separated by it. The theory of
+the atom and the vacuum are the two phases of
+the metaphysical assumption of an indefinite plurality
+of independent separate realities. The theory
+of Leibniz, resting as it does on the idea of
+a perfect unity of interrelated members, must deny
+both of these aspects. Were we making an extended
+analysis of the opposed view, it would be
+necessary to point out that it denies itself. For
+it is only <em>through</em> the vacuum that the atoms are
+isolated or independent, and the sole function of
+the vacuum is to serve as the background of the
+atoms. The <ins title="atoms,">atoms</ins> are separated only in virtue of
+their connection, and the vacuum is what it is&mdash;pure
+emptiness&mdash;only on account of that which is
+in it. In short, the theory is only an abstract and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_160" title="160"> </a>
+incomplete way of grasping the thought of relation
+or mediated unity.</p>
+
+<p>We have thus discovered that all motions conspire
+together, or form a system. But in their
+unity they do not cease to be motions, or variously
+differentiated members. Through this differentiation,
+or mutual reaction of motions, there comes
+about the appearance of boundaries, of separation.
+From these boundaries or terminations arise the
+form and size of bodies. From motion also proceeds
+the cohesion of bodies, in the sense that each relative
+system resists dissolution, or hangs together.
+Says Leibniz, “The motions, since they are conspiring,
+would be troubled by separation; and
+accordingly this can be accomplished only by
+violence and with resistance.” Not only form, size,
+and stability depend upon motion, but also the
+sensible, the “secondary” qualities. “It must
+not be supposed that color, pain, sound, etc., are
+arbitrary and without relation to their causes. It
+is not God’s way to act with so little reason and
+order. There is a kind of resemblance, not entire,
+but of relation, of order. We say, for example,
+‘Light is in the fire,’ since there are motions in the
+fire which are imperceptible in their separation,
+but which are sensible in their conjunction or confusion;
+and this is what is made known in the idea
+of light.” In other words, color, sound, etc., even
+pain, are still the perception of motion, but in a
+confused way. We thus see how thoroughly Leibniz
+carries back all the properties of bodies to motion.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_161" title="161"> </a>
+To sum up, motion is the origin of the relative
+solidity, the divisibleness, the form, the size, the
+cohesion, or active resistance of bodies, and of their
+properties as made known to us in immediate
+sensation.</p>
+
+<p>In all that has been said it has been implied that
+extension is already in existence; “first matter” is
+supposed to fill all space, and motion to determine
+it to take upon itself its actual concrete properties.
+But this “first matter,” when thus spoken of, has
+a somewhat mythological sound, even if it be admitted
+that it is an abstraction. For how can an
+abstraction be extended in space, and how can it
+form, as it were, a background upon which motion
+displays itself? The idea of “first matter” in its
+relation to extension evidently demands explanation.
+In seeking this explanation we shall also
+learn about that “subject” which Leibniz said
+was necessarily presupposed in extension, as a
+concrete thing is required for a quality.</p>
+
+<p>The clew to the view of Leibniz upon this point
+may be derived, I think, from the following quotations:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“If it were possible to see what makes extension,
+that kind of extension which falls under our eyes
+at present would vanish, and our minds would
+perceive nothing else than simple realities existing
+in mutual externality to one another. It would be
+as if we could distinguish the minute particles of
+matter variously disposed from which a painted
+image is formed: if we could do it, the image, which
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_162" title="162"> </a>
+is nothing but a phenomenon, would vanish.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+If we think of two simple realities as both existing
+at the same time, but distinct from one another, we
+look at them as if they were outside of one another,
+and hence conceive them as extended.”</p>
+
+<p>The monads are outside of one another, not
+spatially, but ideally; but this reciprocal distinction
+from one another, if it is to appear in phenomenal
+mode, must take the form of an image,
+and the image is spatial. But if the monads were
+pure activity, they would <em>not</em> take phenomenal form
+or appear in an image. They would always be
+thought just as they are,&mdash;unextended activities
+realizing the spiritual essence of the universe. But
+they are not pure activity; they are passive as well.
+It is in virtue of this passive element that the ideal
+externality takes upon itself phenomenal or sensible
+form, and thus appears as spatial externality.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz, in a passage already quoted, refers to
+the diffusion of materiality or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">antitypia</i>. This word,
+which is of frequent occurrence in the discussions
+of Leibniz, he translates generally as “impenetrability,”
+sometimes as “passive resistance.” It corresponds
+to the solidity or resistance of which
+Locke spoke as forming the essence of matter.
+Antitypia is the representation by a monad of the
+passive element in other monads. Leibniz sometimes
+speaks as if all created monads had in themselves
+antitypia, and hence extension; but he more accurately
+expresses it by saying that they need
+(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">exigent</i>) it. This is a technical term which he
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_163" title="163"> </a>
+elsewhere uses to express the relation of the possible
+to the actual. The possible “needs” the
+actual, not in the sense that it <em>necessarily</em> requires
+existence, but in the sense that when the actual
+gives it existence, it is the logical basis of the
+actual,&mdash;the actual, on the other hand, being its
+real complement. The passivity of the monad is
+therefore at once the logical basis and the possibility
+of the impenetrability of matter. It is owing
+to the passivity of the monad that it does not
+adequately reflect (that it is not transparent to, so
+to speak) the activities of other monads. In its
+irresponsiveness, it fails to mirror them in itself.
+It may be said, therefore, to be impenetrable to
+them. They in turn, so far as they are passive,
+are impenetrable to it. Now the impenetrable is,
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ex vi terminis</i>, that which excludes, and that which
+excludes, not in virtue of its active elasticity, but
+in virtue of its mere inertia, its dead weight, as it
+were, of resistance. But mutual exclusion of this
+passive sort constitutes that which is extended.
+Extension is the abstract quality of this concrete
+subject. Such, in effect, is the deduction which
+Leibniz gives of body, or physical matter, from
+matter as metaphysical; of matter as sensible or
+phenomenal, from matter as ideal or as intelligible.</p>
+
+<p>If we put together what has been said, it is clear
+that material phenomena (bodies, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">corpora</i>, in Leibniz’s
+phrase) simply repeat in another sphere the
+properties of the spiritual monad. There is a complete
+parallelism between every property, each to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_164" title="164"> </a>
+each, and this necessarily; for every property of
+“body” is in logical dependence upon, and a phenomenalization
+of, some spiritual or ideal quality.
+Motion is the source of all the dynamic qualities of
+body, and motion is the reflection of Force, that
+force which is Life. But this force in all finite forms
+is conditioned by a passive, unreceptive, unresponsive
+factor; and this must also have its correlate in
+“body.” This correlate is primarily impenetrability,
+and secondarily extension. Thus it is that concrete
+body always manifests motion, indeed, but upon a
+background of extension, and against inertia. It
+never has free play; had it an unrestrained field
+of activity, extension would disappear, and spatial
+motion would vanish into ideal energy. On the
+other hand, were the essence of matter found in
+resistance or impenetrability, it would be wholly
+inert; it would be a monotone of extension, without
+variety of form or cohesion. As Leibniz puts it
+with reference to Locke, “body” implies motion,
+or impetuosity, resistance, and cohesion. Motion is
+the active principle, resistance the passive; while
+cohesion, with its various grades of completeness,
+which produce form, size, and solidity, is the result
+of their union.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz, like Plato, has an intermediary between
+the rational and the sensible; and as Plato found
+that it was mathematical relations that mediate
+between the permanent and unified Ideas and the
+changing manifold objects, so Leibniz found that
+the relations of space and time form the natural
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_165" title="165"> </a>
+transition from the sphere of monads to the world
+of bodies. As Plato found that it was the possibility
+of applying mathematical considerations to
+the world of images that showed the participation
+of Ideas in them, and constituted such reality as
+they had, so Leibniz found that space and time
+formed the element of order and regularity among
+sense phenomena, and thus brought them into kinship
+with the monads and made them subjects of
+science. It is implied in what is here said that
+Leibniz distinguished between space and time on
+the one hand, and duration and extension on the
+other. This distinction, which Leibniz draws repeatedly
+and with great care, has been generally
+overlooked by his commentators. But it is evident
+that this leaves Leibniz in a bad plight. Mathematics,
+in its various forms, is the science of spatial
+and temporal relations. But if these are identical
+with the forms of duration and extension, they are
+purely phenomenal and sensible. The science of
+them, according to the Leibnizian distinction between
+the absolutely real and the phenomenally
+real, would be then a science of the confused, the
+imperfect, and the transitory; in fact, no science at
+all. But mathematics, on the contrary, is to Leibniz
+the type of demonstrative, conclusive science.
+Space and time are, in his own words, “innate ideas,”
+and the entire science of them is the drawing out of the
+content of these innate&mdash;that is, rational, distinct,
+and eternal&mdash;ideas. But extension and duration are
+sensible experiences; not rational, but phenomenal;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_166" title="166"> </a>
+not distinct, but confused; not eternal, but evanescent.
+We may be sure that this contradiction would
+not escape Leibniz, although it has many of his critics
+and historians.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, however, that he occasionally uses the
+terms as synonymous; but this where the distinction
+between them has no bearing on the argument in
+hand, and where the context determines in what
+sense the term is used. The distinction which he
+actually makes, and to which he keeps when space
+and time are the subject of discussion, is that extension
+and duration are qualities or predicates of
+objects and events, while space and time are relations,
+or orders of existence. Extension and duration
+are, as he says, the <em>immensity</em>, the mass, the
+continuation, the repetition, of some underlying
+subject. But space and time are the <em>measure</em> of the
+mass, the rule or law of the continuation, the order
+or mode of the repetition. Thus immediately after
+the passage already quoted, in which he says that
+extension in body is the diffusion of materiality,
+just as whiteness is the diffusion of a property of
+milk, he goes on to say “that extension is to space
+as duration to time. Duration and extension are
+attributes of things; but space and time are to be
+considered, as it were, outside of things, and as
+serving to measure them.” Still more definitely he
+says: “Many confound the immensity or extent
+of things with the space by means of which this
+extent is defined. Space is not the extension of
+body, any more than duration is its time. Things
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_167" title="167"> </a>
+keep their extension, not always their space. Everything
+has its own extent and duration; but it
+does not have a time of its own, nor keep for its
+own a space.” Or, as he expresses the latter idea
+elsewhere, space is like number, in the sense that
+it is indifferent to spatial things, just as number is
+indifferent to <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">res numerata</i>. Just as the number
+five is not a quality or possession of any object, or
+group of objects, but expresses an order or relation
+among them, so a given space is not the property
+of a thing, but expresses the order of its parts to
+one another. But extension, on the other hand, is
+a property of the given objects. While extension,
+therefore, must always belong to some actual thing,
+space, as a relation, is as applicable to possible
+things as to actual existences; so that Leibniz
+sometimes says that time and space “express possibilities.”
+They are that which makes it possible
+for a definite and coherent order of experiences
+to exist. They determine existence in some of
+its relations, and as such are logically prior to any
+given forms of existence; while extent and duration
+are always qualities of some given form of existence,
+and hence logically derivative. Since time and
+space “characterize possibilities” as well as actualities,
+it follows as a matter of course “that they are
+of the nature of eternal truths, which relate equally
+to the possible and to the existing.” Being an eternal
+truth, space must have its place in that which is
+simply the active unity of all eternal truths,&mdash;the
+mind of God. “Its truth and reality are based
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_168" title="168"> </a>
+upon God. It is an order whose source is God.”
+Since God is <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">purus actus</i>, he is the immediate, the
+efficient source only of that which partakes in some
+degree of his own nature, or is rational; and here
+is another clear point of distinction between space
+and extension, between time and duration.</p>
+
+<p>But we must ask more in detail regarding their
+nature. Admitting that they are relations, ideal and
+prior to particular experiences, the question must be
+asked, What sort of relations are they; how are they
+connected with the purely spiritual on one hand, and
+with the phenomenal on the other? Leibniz’s most
+extended answers to these questions are given in his
+controversy with Clarke. The latter took much the
+same position regarding the nature of space (though
+not, indeed, concerning the origin of its idea) as Locke,
+and the arguments which Leibniz uses against him
+he might also have used, for the most part, against
+Locke. Locke and Clarke both conceived of space
+and time as wholly without intrinsic relation to objects
+and events. It is especially against this position
+that Leibniz argues, holding that space and
+time are simply orders or relations of objects and
+events, that space exists only where objects are existing,
+and that it is the order of their co-existence,
+or of their possible co-existence; while time exists
+only as events are occurring, and is the relation of
+their succession. Clarke, on the other hand, speaks
+of the universe of objects as bounded by and moving
+about in an empty space, and says that time
+existed before God created the finite world, so that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_169" title="169"> </a>
+the world came into a time already there to receive
+its on-goings, just as it fell into a space already
+there to receive its co-existences.</p>
+
+<p>To get at the ideas of Leibniz, therefore, we cannot
+do better than follow the course of this discussion.
+He begins by saying that both space and
+time are purely relative, one being the order of co-existences,
+the other of successions. Space characterizes
+in terms of possibility an order of things
+existing at the same time, so far as they exist in
+mutual relations (<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ensemble</i>), without regard to their
+special modes of existence. As to the alternate
+doctrine that space is a substance, or something absolute,
+it contradicts the principle of sufficient reason.
+Were space something absolutely uniform, without
+things placed in it, there would be no difference between
+one part and another, and it would be a matter
+of utter indifference to God why he gave bodies
+certain positions in space rather than others; similarly
+it would be a matter of indifference why he
+created the world when he did, if time were something
+independent of events. In other words, the
+supposed absoluteness of space and time would
+render the action of God wholly without reason,
+capricious, and at haphazard. Similarly, it contradicts
+the principle of “indiscernibles,” by which
+Leibniz means the principle of specification, or distinction.
+According to him, to suppose two things
+exactly alike, is simply to imagine the same thing
+twice. Absolute uniformity, wholly undifferentiated,
+is a fiction impossible to realize in thought.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_170" title="170"> </a>
+“Space considered without objects has nothing in
+it to determine it; it is accordingly nothing actual.
+The parts of space must be determined and distinguished
+by the objects which are in them.”
+Finally, were space and time absolutely real things
+in themselves, they would be independent of God,
+and even limitations upon him. “They would be
+more substantial than substances. God would not
+be able to change or destroy them. They would be
+immutable and eternal in every part. Thus there
+would be an infinity of eternal things (these parts)
+independent of God.” They would limit God because
+he would be obliged to exist <em>in</em> them. Only
+by existing through this independent time would he
+be eternal; only by extending through this independent
+space would he be omnipresent. Space
+and time thus become gods themselves.</p>
+
+<p>When Clarke declares that by the absoluteness
+of space and time he does not mean that they are
+themselves substances, but only properties, attributes
+of substance, Leibniz advances the same
+arguments in different form. If space were the
+property of the things that are in space, it would
+belong now to one substance, now to another, and
+when empty of all material substance, even to an
+immaterial substance, perhaps to God. “Truly a
+strange attribute which is handed about from
+one thing to another. Substances thus leave their
+accidents as if they were old clothes, and other
+substances put them on.” Since these finite spaces
+are in infinite space, and the latter is an attribute
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_171" title="171"> </a>
+of God, it must be that an attribute of God is
+composed of parts, some of them empty, some full,
+some round, some square. So, too, whatever is
+in time would help make one of the attributes of
+God. “Truly a strange God,” says Leibniz, “this
+Deity of parts” (<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ce Dieu à parties</i>). Clarke’s reply
+to this was that space and time are attributes of
+God and of God alone, not of things in space and
+time,&mdash;that, indeed, strictly speaking, there are no
+parts in space or in time; they are absolutely one.
+This was virtually to give up the whole matter. It
+was to deny the existence of finite spaces and times,
+and to resolve them into an indefinite attribute of
+God. Such a view, as Leibniz points out, not only
+is contrary to experience, but affords no aid in
+determining the actual concrete forms and situations
+of bodies, and durations and successions of events.
+The absolute space and time, having no parts, are
+wholly out of relations to these concrete existences.
+The latter require, therefore, a space and a time
+that are relations or orders. Clarke’s hypothesis
+is, as Leibniz says, wholly without use or function,
+and requires a theory like that of Leibniz to account
+for the actually determinate forms of experience.
+In his last reply Clarke shifts his ground again,
+and says that space and time are <em>effects</em> of God’s
+existence; “they are the necessary results of his
+existence.” “His existence is the cause of space
+and time.” The death of Leibniz prevented any
+further reply. It is not hard to imagine, however,
+that in a general way his reply would have been to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_172" title="172"> </a>
+ask how space and time are at once attributes essential
+and necessary to God, as constituting his immensity
+and eternity, and effects dependent upon
+his existence. To take this latter position, indeed,
+seems to abandon the position that they are absolute,
+and to admit that, like the rest of God’s
+creation, they are relative and finite.</p>
+
+<p>So much for Leibniz’s polemic. Its meaning is
+that space and time have significance only with
+reference to things and events, that they are the
+intellectual, the ideal side of these objects and
+occurrences, being the relations which give them
+order and unity. A space which is not the space
+of objects, which is not space in and through objects,
+is an inanity; it is not spirit, it is not matter;
+it is not a relation of either. It is nothingness
+magnified to infinity, and then erected into existence.
+And all for nothing; for it does not enable us to
+account for a single concrete fact of experience.
+For this we must have recourse to relations and
+orders of existence. Space is therefore to be
+defined as the order which makes it possible for
+objects to have situation; time as that which makes
+it possible for events to have dating,&mdash;not as if
+they were actually prior to them, and although
+nothings in themselves, yet capable of giving concrete
+determination to things, but as <em>actually</em> the
+relations themselves, and as <em>ideally</em> necessary for
+the coherent experience of co-existent objects and
+of connected events. As Leibniz puts it epigrammatically:
+“Space is the order of possible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_173" title="173"> </a>
+constants; time the order of inconstant possibilities.”</p>
+
+<p>We have finished the exposition of the views
+of Leibniz about matter and material facts. One
+question, however, remains to be discussed,&mdash;a
+question which Leibniz’s contemporary critics would
+not allow him to pass over in silence, even had he
+been so disposed. What is the reality of matter,
+of motion, of space, and of time? Since they are,
+as Leibniz says, only phenomena, not absolute
+realities, what distinguishes them from dreams,
+from illusions? What distinguishes sensible phenomena
+from capricious fantasies, and gives them
+reality?</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz begins his answer by pointing out that
+the mere fact that bodies are phenomena does not
+make them unreal. To say that anything is phenomenal
+is to say that it is sensible; but “the
+senses make no declaration regarding metaphysical
+matters” such as truth and reality. The senses, in
+a word, only inform us that the experiences are there
+for the senses, that they are sensible. What is the
+ultimate nature of the sensible or the phenomenal,
+what is their reality, is a question wholly outside
+the province of sense. The questions of ultimate
+nature, of reality, are questions of metaphysics, and
+hence are to be decided by the reason, not by the
+senses. And Leibniz goes on to say that the truthfulness
+of the senses, since it concerns only the
+sensible, consists in the reciprocal agreement of
+sensible facts, and in that we are not deceived in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_174" title="174"> </a>
+reasoning from one to another. An isolated sense-experience
+could not be said to be either true or
+false, real or illusory. It would be true that it was
+experienced, and that is all that could be said about
+it. But since our experiences are not thus separated,
+but have a certain order, there arises what we may
+call sensible reality and illusion. When the order
+between two facts remains the same “in different
+times and places and in the experience of different
+men,” we call these facts real. If, however, our
+experience cannot be repeated by ourselves or by
+other men when the same conditions (that is, connections)
+are present, it is unreal, or false. It is
+thus “the <em>relation</em> of phenomena which guarantees
+truth of fact regarding sensible objects.” Constancy,
+regularity, justify us in ascribing reality;
+chaotic change and lack of orderly connection are
+a sign of unreality. Even our dreams have a
+reality; for they have their connections and place
+in experience. If we understood their connections
+we should even be able to explain their apparent
+lack of connection with the rest of experience.
+Leibniz thinks that both the Academicians and
+Sceptics and their opponents erred in attempting
+to find greater reality in sensible things than that
+of regular phenomena. Since our observations
+and judgments upon sensible phenomena are of
+such a nature that we can predict future phenomena
+and prepare for them, we have all the reality in
+them that can be had or asked for. Even if it be
+granted possible (as it must be on this basis) that,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_175" title="175"> </a>
+metaphysically speaking, sense-experience is only
+a connected dream, it yet has a sufficient reality;
+for we are not deceived in the measures taken
+with reference to phenomena, provided that we act
+on the ground of their observed harmonies and
+relations. Thus while we are obliged to admit that
+our senses inform us that there are hard, passive,
+extended, indivisible things, not perfectly continuous
+and not intellectual in their nature, and we
+know on metaphysical grounds that this information
+is not correct, we cannot say that our senses deceive
+us, for sense makes no statements regarding such
+matters. It is our reason that errs if it takes the
+information that the senses give as if it were a
+declaration of reason itself. Sensible things have
+all the reality necessary for this range of experience,&mdash;<em>practical</em>,&mdash;such
+regularity of co-existence and sequence
+as allows us to act without being led astray.</p>
+
+<p>But if we regard sense-phenomena not merely in
+their connection with one another, but in their
+dependence upon the absolute realities, we have
+still better justification for their comparative reality.
+These phenomena are consequences of necessary
+and eternal truths. One endowed with a perfect
+knowledge of such truths would be able to deduce,
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i>, the phenomena from them. The reality
+of sensible phenomena thus consists not merely in
+their connection with one another, but in the fact
+that they are connected as the laws of the intelligible
+world require. They follow not only rules of
+co-existence and sequence; but these rules may be
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_176" title="176"> </a>
+brought under general laws of motion, which in turn
+may be deduced from geometrical principles. These
+latter, however, are <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i>; they are truths which
+are grounded in the very intelligence of God. The
+sensible has its basis in the ideal. To state the
+same fact in another way, all sensible phenomena
+occur in time and space; or rather, time
+and space are the orders, the relations, of phenomena
+occurring and existing. But, as we have
+just seen, time and space are ideal. A relation, as
+Leibniz points out, being neither attribute nor accident,
+cannot be <em>in</em> the things which it relates, as
+their possession. In his own words, it cannot be
+conceived as if it had one leg in one object, the
+other leg in the other. A relation is not a material
+bond, running through or cementing objects; it is
+ideal, existing in the mind. And while it is true
+that space and time are the relations of objects and
+events, it is also true that if all objects and events
+were annihilated, space and time would continue
+to have their ideal existence in the intelligence of
+God as the eternal conditions of phenomena. They
+thus form the links between absolute reality and the
+reality of sensible existence. The principle of sufficient
+reason forms another link. It may be recalled
+that in discussing Leibniz’s theory of volition
+we found that the will of God in relation to the
+sensible world is always determined by the choice
+of the better; that in this consists the controlling
+reason and regulative principle of all that occurs
+and exists. Thus for every fact in the sensible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_177" title="177"> </a>
+world there is connection with “metaphysical,” or
+absolute, reality, not only through the medium of
+the intellectual relations of time and space, but
+through the dynamic intermediary of the divine will
+acting in accordance with the divine reason. Sensible
+facts have, then, a reality, but a dependent
+one. There would be no <em>contradiction</em> involved if
+they were not what they actually are.</p>
+
+<p>We may sum up the matter by saying that the
+reality of sensible phenomena consists in the constancy
+of the mutual order in which they exist, and
+in the dependence of this order upon the divine Intelligence
+and Will. In this respect, at least,
+Leibniz resembles the young Irish idealist, Berkeley,
+who only seven years after Leibniz wrote the “New
+Essays” composed his “Principles of Human
+Knowledge,” urging that the immediate reality of
+sense-phenomena consists in their “steadiness,
+order, and coherence,” “in a constant uniform
+working,” and that this “gives us a foresight
+which enables us to regulate our actions for the
+benefit of life.” It was Berkeley also who wrote
+that their ultimate reality consists in their being
+ideas of a Divine Spirit. This was six years
+before the death of Leibniz. Yet it does not
+appear that Berkeley knew of Leibniz, and the only
+allusion to Berkeley which I have found in the
+writings of Leibniz shows that Leibniz knew only of
+that caricature of his views which has always been
+current,&mdash;that Berkeley was one who denied the
+existence of any external world. What he writes
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_178" title="178"> </a>
+is as follows: “As for him in Ireland who questions
+the reality of ‘bodies,’ he seems neither to
+offer what is rational, nor sufficiently to explain his
+own ideas. I suspect that he is one of those men
+who are desirous of making themselves known
+through paradoxes.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_179" title="179"> </a><a name="Chapter_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br/>
+  <small>SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> fundamental category of Locke, as of all
+who take simply a mechanical view of experience,
+is that of substance. He had good reason
+to be surprised when the Bishop of Worcester objected
+that Locke wished “to discard substance out
+of the world.” How can that be so, Locke asks,
+when I say that “our idea of body is an extended
+solid substance, and our idea of soul is of a substance
+that thinks.” And he adds, “Nay, as long
+as there is any simple idea or sensible quality left,
+according to my way of arguing, substance cannot
+be discarded.” Everything that really exists, is,
+according to Locke, substance. But substance to
+Locke, as again to all who interpret the universe
+after sensible categories, is unknowable. For such
+categories allow only of external relations; they
+admit only of static existence. Substance, in this
+way of looking at it, must be distinct from its qualities,
+and must be simply the existing substratum in
+which they inhere.</p>
+
+<p>Locke’s account of the way in which we get the
+idea, and of its nature, is as follows: “All the
+ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry come
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_180" title="180"> </a>
+into my mind by sensation. The ideas of these
+qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by
+the mind to be by themselves inconsistent with existence.
+They cannot subsist of themselves. Hence
+the mind perceives their necessary connection with
+inherence, or with being supported.” Correlative
+to the idea of being supported is, of course, the
+idea of the support. But this idea “is not represented
+to the mind by any clear and distinct idea;
+the obscure and vague, indistinct idea of thing or
+something, is all that is left.” Or yet more simply,
+“Taking notice that a certain number of simple ideas
+go together, and not imagining how these simple
+ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves
+to suppose some substratum wherein they do
+subsist, and from which they do result.” Hence
+the only idea we have of it is of something which
+underlies known qualities. It is their “supposed,
+but unknown, support.”</p>
+
+<p>If we translate these expressions into the ideas of
+to-day, we see that they are equivalent to the view
+of the world which is given us by scientific categories
+when these categories are regarded not merely
+as scientific, but also as philosophic; that is, capable
+of interpreting and expressing the ultimate
+nature of experience. This modern view uses the
+words “things-in-themselves” (or absolute realities)
+and “phenomena.” It says that we know nothing of
+existence as it is in itself, but only of its phenomena.
+Mind, matter, objects, are all substances, all
+equally substances, and all have their unknown
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_181" title="181"> </a>
+essence and their phenomenal appearance. Such
+a distinction between the known and the unknown
+can rest, it is evident, only upon a separation between
+reality and phenomena similar to that which
+Locke makes between substance and qualities. In
+knowing the latter, we know nothing of the former.
+Although the latter are called “phenomena,” they do
+not really manifest the substantial reality; they conceal
+it. This absolute distinction between substance
+and quality, between reality and phenomenon, rests,
+in turn, upon the hypothesis that reality is <em>mere</em>
+existence; that is, it is something which is, and that
+is all. It is a substratum; it lies under, in a passive
+way, qualities; it is (literally) substance; it simply
+stands, inactively, under phenomena. It may, by
+possibility, <em>have</em> actions; but it <em>has</em> them. Activities
+are qualities which, like all qualities, are in
+external relation to the substance. Being, in other
+words, is the primary notion, and “being” means
+something essentially passive and merely enduring,
+accidentally and secondarily something acting.
+Here, as elsewhere, Locke is the father of the
+mechanical philosophy of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>We have already learned how completely Leibniz
+reverses this way of regarding reality. According
+to Locke, reality essentially is; and in its being
+there is no ground of revelation of itself. It then
+acts; but these actions, “powers, or qualities,” since
+not flowing from the very being of substance, give no
+glimpse into its true nature. According to Leibniz,
+reality acts, and <em>therefore</em> is. Its being is conditioned
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_182" title="182"> </a>
+upon its activity. It is not first there, and secondly
+acts; but its “being there” is its activity. Since its
+very substance is activity, it is impossible that it
+should not manifest its true nature. Its every activity
+is a revelation of itself. It cannot hide itself as a
+passive subsistence behind qualities or phenomena.
+It must break forth into them. On the other hand,
+since the qualities are not something which merely
+inhere in an underlying support, but are the various
+forms or modes of the activity which constitutes
+reality, they necessarily reveal it. They <em>are</em> its
+revelations. There is here no need to dwell further
+on the original dynamic nature of substance; what
+was said in the way of general exposition suffices.
+It is only in its relations to Locke’s view as just
+laid down that it now concerns us.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, Leibniz points out that qualities
+are “abstract,” while substance is “concrete.”
+The qualities, from the very fact that they have no
+self-subsistence, are only relations, while the substance,
+as that of which they are qualities, or from
+which they are abstractions, is concrete. It is, Leibniz
+says, to invert the true order to take qualities or
+abstract terms as the best known and most easily
+comprehended, and “concretes” as unknown, and
+as having the most difficulty about them. “It is
+abstractions which give birth to almost all our difficulties,”
+and Locke’s error here is that he begins
+with abstractions, and takes them to be most open
+to intelligence. Locke’s second error is separating
+so completely substance and attribute. “After
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_183" title="183"> </a>
+having distinguished,” says Leibniz, “two things
+in substance, the attributes or predicates, and the
+common subject of these predicates, it is not to be
+wondered at that we cannot conceive anything in
+particular in the subject. This result is necessary,
+since we have separated all the attributes in which
+there is anything definite to be conceived. Hence
+to demand anything more than a mere unknown
+somewhat in the subject, is to contradict the supposition
+which was made in making the abstraction
+and in conceiving separately the subject and its qualities
+or accidents.” We are indeed ignorant of a
+subject from which abstraction has been made of all
+defining and characteristic qualities; “but this ignorance
+results from our demanding a sort of knowledge
+of which the object does not permit.” In short,
+it is a credit to our knowledge, not an aspersion
+upon it, that we cannot know that which is thoroughly
+unreal,&mdash;a substance deprived of all attributes.
+This is, indeed, a remark which is applicable
+to the supposed unknowableness of pure Being, or
+Absolute Being, when it is defined as the absence of
+all relations (as is done, for example, by Mr. Spencer
+to-day).</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with the notion of substance
+are the categories of identity and diversity. These
+relations are of course to Locke thoroughly external.
+It is “relation of time and place which
+always determines identity.” “That that had one
+beginning is the same thing; and that which had a
+different beginning in time and place from that, is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_184" title="184"> </a>
+not the same, but diverse.” It is therefore easy
+to discover the principle of individuation. It “is
+existence itself, which determines a being of any
+sort to a particular time and place, incommunicable
+to two beings of the same kind.” He applies this
+notion to organic being, including man, and to the
+personal identity of man. The identity of an organism,
+vegetable, brute, or human, is its continuous
+organization; “it is the participation of the same
+continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of
+matter in succession vitally united to the same organized
+body.” <em>Personal</em> identity is constituted by
+a similar continuity of consciousness. “It being
+the same consciousness that makes a man be himself
+to himself, personal identity depends on that
+only.” It “consists not in the identity of substance,
+but in the identity of consciousness.” It
+will be noticed that Locke uses the notion of identity
+which he has already established to explain organic
+and personal unity. It is the “<em>same</em> continued
+life,” “<em>identity</em> of consciousness,” that constitute
+them. We are, hence, introduced to no new principle.
+Identity is even in personality a matter of
+temporal and spatial relations.</p>
+
+<p>In the general account of the system of Leibniz
+it was pointed out that it is characteristic of his
+thought to regard identity and distinction as internal
+principles, and as necessarily implied in each other.
+We need not go over that ground again, but simply
+see how he states his position with reference to what
+is quoted from Locke. These are his words: “Besides
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_185" title="185"> </a>
+the difference of place and time there is always
+necessary an <em>internal principle</em> [or law] of distinction,
+so that while there may be several things of the
+same species, there are no two things exactly alike.
+Thus, although time and place (that is, relations to
+the external) aid us in distinguishing things, things
+do not cease to be distinguished in themselves.
+The essence of identity and diversity does not consist
+in time and place, although it is true that diversity
+of things is accompanied with that of time
+and place, since they carry along with them different
+impressions upon the thing;” that is, they expose the
+thing to different surroundings. But in reality “it
+is things which diversify times and places from one
+another, for in themselves these are perfectly similar,
+not being substances or complete realities.”</p>
+
+<p>The principle of individuation follows, of course,
+from this. “If two individuals were perfectly
+similar and equal, that is, indistinguishable in
+themselves, there would be no principle of individuation;
+there would not be two individuals.” Thus
+Leibniz states his important principle of the “identity
+of indiscernibles,” the principle that where there
+is not some internal differentiating principle which
+specifies the existence in this or that definite way,
+there is no individual. Leibniz here states, in effect,
+the principle of organic unity, the notion that concrete
+unity is a unity <em>of</em> differences, not <em>from</em> them.
+It is the principle which allows him at once to accept
+and transform the thought of Spinoza that all qualification
+or determination is negation. Spinoza, in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_186" title="186"> </a>
+spite of his intellectual greatness, conceived of distinction
+or determination as external, and hence as
+external negation. But since ultimate reality admits
+of no external negation, it must be without distinction,
+an all-inclusive one. But to Leibniz the
+negation is internal; it is determination of its own
+being into the greatest possible riches. “Things
+that are conceived as absolutely uniform and containing
+no variety are pure abstractions.” “Things
+indistinguishable in themselves, and capable of being
+distinguished only by external characteristics without
+internal foundation, are contrary to the most important
+principles of reason. The truth is that every
+being is capable of change [or differentiation], and
+is itself actually changed in such a way that in
+itself it differs from every other.”</p>
+
+<p>As to organic bodies, so far as they <em>are</em> bodies, or
+corporeal, they are one and identical only in appearance.
+“They are not the same an instant.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+Bodies are in constant flux.” “They are like a river
+which is always changing its water, or like the ship
+of Theseus which the Athenians are constantly repairing.”
+Such unity as they really possess is like
+all unity,&mdash;ideal or spiritual. “They remain the
+same individual by virtue of that same soul or spirit
+which constitutes the ‘Ego’ in those individuals who
+think.” “Except for the soul, there is neither the
+same life nor any vital union.” As to personal
+identity, Leibniz distinguishes between “physical
+or real” identity and “moral.” In neither case,
+however, is it a unity which excludes plurality, an
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_187" title="187"> </a>
+identity which does not comprehend diversity.
+“Every spirit has,” he says, “traces of all the
+impressions which it has ever experienced, and even
+presentiments of all that ever will happen. But
+these feelings are generally too minute to be distinguished
+and brought into consciousness, though they
+may be sometime developed. This <em>continuity</em> and
+<em>connection</em> of <em>perceptions</em> makes up the real identity
+of the individual, while <em>apperceptions</em> (that which
+is consciously apprehended of past experiences)
+constitute the moral identity and make manifest
+the real identity.” We have had occasion before to
+allude to the part played in the Leibnizian philosophy
+by “minute perceptions” or “unconscious
+ideas.” Of them he says, relative to the present
+point, that “insensible perceptions mark and even
+constitute the sameness of the individual, which is
+characterized by the residua preserved from its preceding
+states, as they form its connection with its
+present state.” If these connections are “apperceived”
+or brought into distinct consciousness,
+there is moral identity as well. As he expresses
+it in one place: “The self (<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">soi</i>) is real and physical
+identity; the appearance of self, accompanied
+with truth, is personal identity.” But the essential
+point in either case is that the identity is not that
+of a substance underlying modifications, nor of a
+consciousness which merely accompanies all mental
+states, but is the connection, the active continuity,
+or&mdash;in Kant’s word&mdash;the synthesis, of all particular
+forms of the mental life. The self is not the most
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_188" title="188"> </a>
+abstract unity of experience, it is the most organic.
+What Leibniz says of his monads generally is especially
+true of the higher monads,&mdash;human souls.
+“They vary, up to infinity itself, with the greatest
+abundance, order, and beauty imaginable.” Not a
+mathematical point, but life, is the type of Leibniz’s
+conception of identity.</p>
+
+<p>In the order in which Locke takes up his topics
+(and in which Leibniz follows him) we have omitted
+one subject, which, however, may find its natural
+place in the present connection,&mdash;the subject of
+infinity. In Locke’s conception, the infinite is only
+a ceaseless extension or multiplication of the finite.
+He considers the topic immediately after the discussions
+of space, time, and number, and with good
+logic from his standpoint; for “finite and infinite,”
+he says, are “looked upon by the mind as the modes
+of <em>quantity</em>, and are attributed, in their first designation,
+only to those things which have parts and
+are capable of increase and diminution.” This is
+true even of the application of the term “infinite” to
+God, so far as concerns the attributes of duration
+and ubiquity; and as applied to his other attributes
+the term is figurative, signifying that they are incomprehensible
+and inexhaustible. Such being the
+idea of the infinite, it is attained as follows: There
+is no difficulty, says Locke, as to the way in
+which we come by the idea of the finite. Every
+obvious portion of extension and period of succession
+which affects us is bounded. If we take one
+of these periods or portions, we find that we can
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_189" title="189"> </a>
+double it, or “otherwise multiply it,” as often as we
+wish, and that there is no reason to stop, nor are we
+one jot nearer the end at any point of the multiplication
+than when we set out. “By repeating as
+often as we will any idea of space, we get the idea
+of infinity; by being able to repeat the idea of any
+length of duration, we come by the idea of eternity.”
+There is a difference, then, between the
+ideas of the infinity of space, time, and number,
+and of an infinite space, time, and number. The
+former idea we have; it is the idea that we can
+continue without end the process of multiplication
+or progression. The latter we have not; it would
+be the idea of having completed the infinite multiplication,
+it would be the result of the never-ending
+progression. And this is evidently a contradiction
+in terms. To sum the matter up, the term “infinite”
+always relates to the notion of quantity. Quantity
+is that which is essentially capable of increase or
+decrease. There is then an infinity of quantity;
+there is no quantity which is the absolute limit to
+quantity. Such a quantity would be incapable of
+increase, and hence contradictory to quantity. But
+an actual infinite quantity (whether of space, time,
+or number) would be one than which there could
+be no greater; and hence the impossibility of our
+having a positive idea of an actual or completed
+infinite.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s reply consists simply in carrying out
+this same thought somewhat further. It is granted
+that the idea of an infinite quantity of any kind is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_190" title="190"> </a>
+absurd and self-contradictory. But what does this
+prove, except that the notions of quantity and infinity
+are incompatible with each other, that they
+contradict each other? Hence, instead of the infinite
+being a mode of quantity, it must be conceived
+as essentially distinct from and even opposed to
+quantity. Locke’s argument is virtually a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">reductio
+ad absurdum</i> of the notion that the infinite is capable
+of parts. In the few pages of comment which
+Leibniz in 1696 wrote upon Locke, this topic of the
+infinite is one of the few touched upon. His words
+upon that occasion were as follows: “I agree with
+Mr. Locke that, properly speaking, there is no space,
+time, nor number which is infinite; and that it is
+only true that however great be a space, a time, or a
+number, there is always another which is still greater,
+and this without end; and that, <em>therefore</em>, the infinite
+is not to be found in a whole made up of parts.
+But it does not cease to exist: it is found in the
+absolute, which is without parts, and of which compound
+things [phenomena in space and time, or
+facts which may be numbered] are only limitations.
+The positive infinite being nothing else than the
+absolute, it may be said that there is, in this sense,
+a positive idea of the infinite, and that it is anterior
+to the idea of the finite.” In other words, while
+the infinite is to Locke an indefinite extension
+of the finite, which alone is positively “given,”
+to Leibniz the infinite is the positive and real, and
+the finite is only in and by it. The finite is the
+negative.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_191" title="191"> </a>Leibniz amplifies this thought upon other occasions,
+as in his present more extended examination.
+“There is no infinite number, line, or quantity, if
+they are taken as true wholes.” “We deceive ourselves
+in trying to imagine an absolute space which
+should be an infinite whole, composed of parts.
+There is none such. It is an idea which implies
+contradiction; and all these ‘infinites’ and ‘infinitesimals’
+are of use only in geometry, as imaginary
+roots are in algebra.” That which is ordinarily
+called the infinite, that is, the quantitative infinite,
+is in reality only the indefinite. “We involve
+ourselves in difficulty when we talk about a series
+of numbers extending <em>to</em> infinity; we imagine a last
+term, an infinite number, or one infinitely little. But
+these are only fictions. All number is finite and
+assignable, [that is, of a certain definite quantity];
+every line is the same. ‘Infinites’ and ‘infinitesimals’
+signify only quantities which can be taken
+as large or as small as one wishes, simply for the
+purpose of showing that there is no error which can
+be assigned. Or we are to understand by the infinitely
+little, the state of vanishing or commencing
+of a quantum after the analogy of a quantum already
+formed.” On the other hand, the true infinite “is
+not an aggregate, nor a whole of parts; it is not
+clothed with magnitude, nor does it consist in number.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+The Absolute alone, the indivisible infinite,
+has true unity,&mdash;I mean God.” And as he
+sums up the matter: “The infinite, consisting of
+parts, is neither one nor a whole; it cannot be
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_192" title="192"> </a>
+brought under any notion of the mind except that
+of quantity. Only the infinite without parts is
+one, and this is not a whole [of parts]: this infinite
+is God.”</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be admitted, however, that Locke has
+given a correct account of the origin of the notion
+of the quantitative infinite, or&mdash;to speak philosophically,
+and not after the use of terms convenient in
+mathematics&mdash;the indefinite. According to him, its
+origin is the mere empirical repeating of a sensuous
+datum of time and space. According to Leibniz,
+this repetition, however long continued, can give
+no idea beyond itself; it can never generate the
+idea that the process of repetition may be continued
+without a limit. Here, as elsewhere, he objects that
+experience cannot guarantee notions beyond the
+limits of experience. Locke’s process of repetition
+could tell us that a number <em>had</em> been extended up
+to a given point; not that it could be extended without
+limit. The source of this latter idea must be
+found, therefore, where we find the origin of all
+extra-empirical notions,&mdash;in reason. “Its origin is
+the same as that of universal and necessary truths.”
+It is not the empirical process of multiplying, but the
+fact that the <em>same reason</em> for multiplying always exists,
+that originates and guarantees the idea. “Take
+a straight line and prolong it in such a way that it is
+double the first. It is evident that the second, being
+perfectly <em>similar</em> to the first, can be itself doubled;
+and we have a third, which in turn is <em>similar</em> to the
+preceding. The <em>same reason</em> always being present,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_193" title="193"> </a>
+it is not possible that the process should ever be
+brought to a stop. Thus the line can be prolonged
+‘to infinity.’ Therefore the idea of ‘infinity’ comes
+from the consideration of the identity of relation or
+of reason.”</p>
+
+<p>The considerations which we have grouped together
+in this chapter serve to show the fundamental
+philosophical difference between Locke and Leibniz.
+Although, taken in detail, they are self-explanatory,
+a few words may be permitted upon their unity and
+ultimate bearing. It is characteristic of Locke that
+he uses the same principle of explanation with reference
+to the conceptions of substance, identity
+and diversity, and infinity, and that this principle
+is that of spatial and temporal relation. Infinity
+is conceived as quantitative, as the successive addition
+of times and spaces; identity and diversity
+are oneness and difference of existence as determined
+by space and time; substance is the underlying
+static substratum of qualities, and, as such,
+is considered after the analogy of things existing in
+space and through time. It must not be forgotten
+that Locke believed as thoroughly as Leibniz in the
+substantial existence of the world, of the human
+soul, and of God; in the objective continuity of
+the world, and the personal identity of man, and in
+the true infinity of God. Whatever negative or sceptical
+inferences may have afterwards been drawn
+from Locke’s premises were neither drawn nor
+dreamed of by him. His purpose was in essence
+one with that of Leibniz.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_194" title="194"> </a>But the contention of Leibniz is that when substance,
+identity, and infinity are conceived of by mechanical
+categories, or measured by the sensible
+standard of space and time, they lose their meaning
+and their validity. According to him such notions
+are spiritual in their nature, and to be spiritually
+conceived of. “Spiritual,” however, does not mean
+opposed to the sensible; it does not mean something
+to be known by a peculiar kind of intuition unlike
+our knowledge of anything else. It means the
+active and organic basis of the sensible, its significance
+and ideal purpose. It is known by knowing
+the sensible or mechanical as it really is; that is, as
+it is completely, as a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">concretum</i>, in Leibniz’s phrase.
+Leibniz saw clearly that to make the infinite something
+at one end of the finite, as its mere external
+limit, or something miraculously intercalated
+into the finite, was to deprive it of meaning, and,
+by making it unknowable, to open the way for its
+denial. To make identity consist in the removal of
+all diversity (as must be done if it be thought after
+the manner of external relations), is to reduce it
+to nothing,&mdash;as Hume, indeed, afterwards showed.
+Substance, which is merely a support behind qualities,
+is unknowable, and hence unverifiable. While,
+then, the aim of both Locke and Leibniz as regards
+these categories was the same, Leibniz saw what
+Locke did not,&mdash;that to interpret them after the
+manner of existence in space and time, to regard
+them (in Leibniz’s terminology) as mathematical,
+and not as metaphysical, is to defeat that aim. The
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_195" title="195"> </a>
+sole way to justify them, and in justifying them to
+give relative validity to the sensible and phenomenal,
+is to demonstrate their spiritual and dynamic
+nature, to show them as conditioning space and
+time, and not as conditioned by them.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_196" title="196"> </a><a name="Chapter_X">CHAPTER X.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF KNOWLEDGE.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> third book of Locke’s Essay is upon words
+and language; and in the order of treatment
+this would be the next topic for discussion. But
+much of what is said in this connection both by
+Locke and by Leibniz is philological, rhetorical, and
+grammatical in character, and although not without
+interest in itself, is yet without any especial
+bearing upon the philosophical points in controversy.
+The only topics in this book demanding our attention
+are general and particular terms; but these
+fall most naturally into the discussion of general
+and particular knowledge. In fact, it is not the
+terms which Locke actually discusses, but the ideas
+for which the terms stand. We pass on accordingly,
+without further ceremony, to the fourth book, which
+is concerning knowledge in general. Locke defines
+knowledge as “nothing but the perception of the
+connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy,
+of any of our ideas.” These agreements
+or disagreements may be reduced to four sorts,&mdash;Identity,
+or diversity; Relation; Co-existence, or
+necessary connection; Real existence. The statement
+of identity and diversity is implied in all
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_197" title="197"> </a>
+knowledge whatsoever. By them “the mind clearly
+and infallibly perceives each idea to agree with itself
+and be what it is, and all distinct ideas to disagree;
+<i>i.&nbsp;e.</i>, the one not to be the other.” The agreement of
+relation is such knowledge as the mind derives from
+the <em>comparison</em> of its ideas. It includes mathematical
+knowledge. The connection of co-existence
+“belongs particularly to substances.” Locke’s example
+is that “gold is fixed,”&mdash;by which we understand
+that the idea of fixedness goes along with that
+group of ideas which we call gold. All statements
+of fact coming under the natural sciences would fall
+into this class. The fourth sort is “that of actual
+and real existence agreeing to any idea.”</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s criticism upon these statements of
+Locke is brief and to the point. He admits Locke’s
+definition of knowledge, qualifying it, however, by
+the statement that in much of our knowledge, perhaps
+in all that is merely empirical, we do not know
+the reason and connection of things and hence cannot
+be said to <em>perceive</em> the agreement or disagreement
+of ideas, but only to feel it confusedly. His
+most important remark, however, is to the effect
+that relation is not a special kind of knowledge, but
+that all Locke’s four kinds are varieties of relation.
+Locke’s “connection” of ideas which makes knowledge
+is nothing but relation. And there are two
+kinds of relation,&mdash;those of “comparison” and of
+“concourse.” That of comparison states the identity
+or distinction of ideas, either in whole or in part.
+That of concourse contains Locke’s two classes of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_198" title="198"> </a>
+co-existence and existence. “When we say that a
+thing really exists, this existence is the predicate,&mdash;that
+is to say, a notion connected with the idea
+which is the subject; and there is connection between
+these two notions. The existence of an
+object of an idea may be considered as the concourse
+of this object with me. Hence comparison,
+which marks identity or diversity, and concourse of
+an object with me (or with the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ego</i>) are the only
+forms of knowledge.”</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz leaves the matter here; but he only
+needed to develop what is contained in this statement
+to anticipate Berkeley and Kant in some of
+the most important of their discoveries. The contradiction
+which lies concealed in Locke’s account is
+between his definition of knowledge in general, and
+knowledge of real existence in particular. One
+is the agreement or disagreement of <em>ideas</em>; the
+other is the agreement of an idea <em>with an object</em>.
+Berkeley’s work, in its simplest form, was to remove
+this inconsistency. He saw clearly that the
+“object” was an intruder here. If knowledge
+lies in the connection of <em>ideas</em>, it is impossible to
+get outside the ideas to find an object with which
+they agree. Either that object is entirely unknown,
+or it is an idea. It is impossible, therefore, to find
+the knowledge of reality in the comparison of an
+idea with an object. It must be in some property
+of the ideas themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Kant developed more fully the nature of this
+property, which constitutes the “objectivity” of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_199" title="199"> </a>
+our ideas. It is their connection with one another
+according to certain <em>necessary</em> forms of perception
+and rules of conception. In other words, the reality
+of ideas lies in their being connected by the necessary
+and hence universal relations of synthetic
+intelligence, or, as Kant often states it, in their
+agreement with the conditions of self-consciousness.
+It is not, I believe, unduly stretching either the letter
+or the spirit of Leibniz to find in that “concourse of
+the object with the ego” which makes its reality, the
+analogue of this doctrine of Kant; it is at all events
+the recognition of the fact that reality is not to
+be found in the relating of ideas to unknown
+things, but in their relation to self-conscious intelligence.
+The points of similarity between Kant
+and Leibniz do not end here. Leibniz’s two relations
+of “comparison” and “concourse” are
+certainly the congeners of Kant’s “analytic” and
+“synthetic” judgments. But Leibniz, as we shall
+see hereafter, trusts too thoroughly to the merely
+formal relations of identity and contradiction to
+permit him such a development of these two kinds
+of relation as renders Kant’s treatment of them
+epoch-making.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion then advances to the subject of
+degrees of knowledge, of which Locke recognizes
+three,&mdash;intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive. Intuitive
+knowledge is immediate knowledge,&mdash;recognition
+of likeness or difference without the
+intervention of a third idea; it is the most
+certain and clear of all knowledge. In demonstrative
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_200" title="200"> </a>
+knowledge the agreement or disagreement
+cannot be perceived directly, because the ideas cannot
+be put together so as to show it. Hence the
+mind has recourse to intermediaries. “And this
+is what we call reasoning.” Demonstrative rests
+on intuitive knowledge, because each intermediate
+idea used must be immediately perceived to be like
+or unlike its neighboring idea, or it would itself
+need intermediates for its proof. Besides these two
+degrees of knowledge there is “another perception
+of the mind employed about the particular existence
+of finite things without us, which, going beyond
+bare probability, and yet not reaching perfectly to
+either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes
+under the name of knowledge.”</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s comments are again brief. The primitive
+truths which are known by intuition are to be
+divided into two classes,&mdash;truths of reason and of
+fact. The primitive truths of reason are necessary,
+and may be called identical, because they seem
+only to repeat the same thing, without teaching us
+anything. A is A. A is not non-A. Such propositions
+are not frivolous or useless, because the
+conclusions of logic are demonstrated by means of
+identical propositions, and many of those of geometry
+by the principle of contradiction. All the
+intuitive truths of reason may be said to be made
+known through the “immediation” of ideas. The
+intuitive truths of fact, on the other hand, are contingent
+and are made known through the “immediation”
+of feeling. In this latter class come such
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_201" title="201"> </a>
+truths as the Cartesian, “I think, therefore I am.”
+Neither class can be proved by anything more
+certain.</p>
+
+<p>Demonstration is defined by Leibniz as by Locke.
+The former recognizes, however, two sorts,&mdash;analytic
+and synthetic. Synthesis goes from the simple
+to the complex. There are many cases, however,
+where this is not applicable; where it would be a
+task “equal to drinking up the sea to attempt to
+make all the necessary combinations. Here the
+method of exclusions should be employed, cutting
+off many of the useless combinations.” If this
+cannot be done, then it is analysis which gives the
+clew into the labyrinth. He is also of the opinion
+that besides demonstration, giving certainty, there
+should be admitted an art of calculating probabilities,&mdash;the
+lack of which is, he says, a great
+defect in our present logic, and which would be
+more useful than a large part of our demonstrative
+sciences. As to sensitive knowledge, he agrees
+with Locke that there is such a thing as real knowledge
+of objects without us, and that this variety
+does not have the same metaphysical certainty as
+the other two; but he disagrees regarding its criterion.
+According to Locke, the criterion is simply
+the greater degree of vividness and force that sensations
+have as compared with imaginations, and
+the actual pleasures or pains which accompany
+them. Leibniz points out that this criterion, which
+in reality is purely emotional, is of no great value,
+and states the principle of the reality of sensible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_202" title="202"> </a>
+phenomena which we have already given, repeating
+that it is found in the <em>connection</em> of phenomena, and
+that “this connection is verified by means of the
+truths of reason, just as the phenomena of optics
+are explained by geometry.”</p>
+
+<p>The discussion regarding “primitive truths,”
+axioms, and maxims, as well as the distinction
+between truths of fact and of reason, has its most
+important bearing in Locke’s next chapter. This
+chapter has for its title the “Extent of Human
+Knowledge,” and in connection with the sixth
+chapter, upon universal propositions, and with the
+seventh, upon axioms, really contains the gist of
+the treatment of knowledge. It is here also that
+are to be considered chapters three and six of
+book third, having respectively as their titles,
+“Of General Terms,” and “Of the Names of
+Substances.”</p>
+
+<p>To understand Locke’s views upon the extent
+and limitations of our knowledge, it is necessary
+to recur to his theory of its origin. If we compare
+what he says about the origin of ideas from sensations
+with what he says about the development
+of general knowledge from particular, we shall find
+that Locke unconsciously puts side by side two
+different, and even contradictory, theories upon this
+point. In the view already given when treating
+of sensation, knowledge originates from the combination,
+the addition, of the simple ideas furnished
+us by our senses. It begins with the simple, the
+unrelated, and advances to the complex. But according
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_203" title="203"> </a>
+to the doctrine which he propounds in
+treating of general terms, knowledge begins with
+the individual, which is already qualified by definite
+relations, and hence complex, and proceeds, by
+abstracting some of these qualities, towards the
+simple. Or, in Locke’s own language, “ideas become
+general by separating from them the circumstances
+of time and place and any other ideas
+that may <em>determine</em> them to this and that particular
+existence.” And, still more definitely, he says
+that general ideas are framed by “leaving out of
+the <em>complex</em> idea of individuals that which is peculiar
+to each, and retaining only what is common
+to them all.” From this it follows that “general
+and universal belong not to the real existence of
+things, but are the inventions and creatures of the
+understanding.” “When we quit particulars, the
+generals that rest are only creatures of our own
+making.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The signification they have is nothing
+but a relation that by the mind of man is added
+to them.” And in language which reminds us of
+Kant, but with very different bearing, he says that
+relations are the workmanship of the understanding.
+The abstract idea of what is common to all the
+members of the class constitutes “nominal essence.”
+This nominal essence, not being a particular
+existence in nature, but the “workmanship
+of the understanding,” is to be carefully distinguished
+from the real essence, “which is the being
+of anything whereby it is what it is.” This real
+essence is evidently equivalent to the unknown
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_204" title="204"> </a>
+“substance” of which we have heard before. “It
+is the real, internal, and unknown constitution of
+things.” In simple or unrelated ideas and in modes
+the real and the nominal essence is the same; and
+hence whatever is demonstrated of one is demonstrated
+of the other. But as to substance it is different,
+the one being natural, the other artificial. The
+nominal essence always relates to sorts, or classes,
+and is a pattern or standard by which we classify
+objects. In the individual there is nothing essential,
+in this sense. “Particular beings, considered
+barely in themselves, will be found to have
+all their qualities equally essential to them, or,
+which is more, nothing at all.” As for the “real
+essence” which things have, “we only suppose its
+being without precisely knowing what it is.”</p>
+
+<p>Locke here presents us with the confusion which,
+in one form or another, is always found in empiricism,
+and which indeed is essential to it. Locke,
+like the ordinary empiricist, has no doubt of the
+existence of real things. His starting-point is the
+existence of two substances, mind and matter;
+while, further, there is a great number of substances
+of each kind. Each mind and every separate
+portion of matter is a distinct substance.
+This supposed deliverance of common sense Locke
+never called into question. Working on this line,
+all knowledge will consist in abstraction from the
+ready-made things presented to us in perception,
+“in leaving out from the complex idea of individuals”
+something belonging to them. But on the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_205" title="205"> </a>
+other hand, Locke never doubts that knowledge begins
+with sensation, and that, therefore, the process
+of knowledge is one of adding simple, unrelated
+elements. The two theories are absolutely opposed
+to each other, and yet one and the same philosophical
+inference may be drawn from each; namely,
+that only the particular is real, and that the universal
+(or relations) is an artificial product, manufactured
+in one case by abstraction from the real
+individual, in the other by compounding the real
+sensation.</p>
+
+<p>The result is, that when he comes to a discussion
+of the extent of knowledge, he admits knowledge of
+self, of God, and of “things,” only by a denial of
+his very definition of knowledge, while knowledge
+of other conceptions, like those of mathematics, is
+not knowledge of reality, but only of ideas which
+we ourselves frame. All knowledge, that is to say,
+is obtained only either by contradicting his own
+fundamental notion, or by placing it in relations
+which are confessedly artificial and superinduced.
+It is to this point that we come.</p>
+
+<p>The proposition which is fundamental to the discussion
+is that we have knowledge only where we
+perceive the agreement or disagreement of ideas.
+Locke then takes up each of his four classes of connection,
+in order to ascertain the extent of knowledge
+in it. Our knowledge of “identity and diversity
+extends as far as our ideas,” because we intuitively
+perceive every idea to be “what it is, and different
+from any other.” Locke afterwards states, however,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_206" title="206"> </a>
+that all purely identical propositions are “trifling,”
+that is, they contain no instruction; they teach us
+nothing. Thus the first class of relations cannot
+be said to be of much avail. If we consider the
+fourth kind of knowledge, that of real existence,
+we have an intuitive knowledge of self, a demonstrative
+knowledge of God, and a sensitive knowledge
+of other things. But sensitive knowledge, it
+must be noted, “does not extend beyond the objects
+<em>actually present</em> to our senses.” It can hardly be said,
+therefore, to assure us of the existence of <em>objects</em> at
+all. It only tells us what experiences are being at
+the time undergone. Furthermore, knowledge of all
+three (God, self, and matter), since of real being,
+and not of relations between ideas, contradicts his
+definition of knowledge. But perhaps we shall find
+knowledge more extended in the other classes. And
+indeed Locke tells us that knowledge of relations
+is the “largest field of our knowledge.” It includes
+morals and mathematics; but it is to be
+noticed that, according to Locke, in both of these
+branches our demonstrations are not regarding facts,
+but regarding either “modes” framed by ourselves,
+or relations that are the creatures of our minds,&mdash;“extraneous
+and superinduced” upon the facts, as
+he says. He thus anticipates in substance, though
+not in phraseology, Hume’s distinction between
+“matters of fact” and “connections of ideas,” in
+the latter of which we may have knowledge, but
+not going beyond the combinations that we ourselves
+make.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_207" title="207"> </a>This leaves one class, that of co-existence, to be
+examined. Here, if anywhere, must knowledge, worthy
+of being termed scientific, be found. This class,
+it will be remembered, comprehends our knowledge
+concerning substances. But this extends, according
+to Locke, “a very little way.” The idea of a substance
+is a complex of various “simple ideas united
+in one subject and co-existing together.” When
+we would know anything further concerning a substance,
+we only inquire what other simple ideas,
+besides those already united, co-exist with them.
+Since there is no <em>necessary</em> connection, however,
+among these simple ideas, since each is, by its very
+simplicity, essentially distinct from every other, or,
+as we have already learned, since nothing is essential
+to an individual, we can never be sure that any
+idea really co-exists with others. Or, as Locke
+says, in physical matters we “can go no further
+than particular experience informs us of.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. We
+can have no certain knowledge of universal truths
+concerning natural bodies.” And again, “universal
+propositions of whose truth and falsehood we have
+certain knowledge concern not existence;” while,
+on the other hand, “particular affirmations are only
+concerning existence, declaring only the <em>accidental</em>
+union or separation of ideas in things existing.”
+This particular knowledge, it must be recalled, is,
+in turn, only sensitive, and thus extends not beyond
+the time when the sensation is had.</p>
+
+<p>We are not surprised then at learning from Locke
+that regarding bodies “we are not capable of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_208" title="208"> </a>
+scientific knowledge.” “Natural philosophy is not
+capable of being made a science;” or, as Locke elsewhere
+states it, knowledge regarding the nominal
+essence is “trifling” (Kant’s analytic judgment);
+regarding the real essence is impossible. For example,
+when we say that all gold is fusible, this
+means either simply that fusibility is one of the
+ideas which we combine to get the general idea of
+gold, so that in making the given judgment we only
+expand our own notion; or it means that the “real”
+substance gold is always fusible. But this is a statement
+we have no right to make, and for two reasons:
+we do not know what the real substance gold is; and
+even if we did, we should not know that fusibility
+<em>always</em> co-exists with it. The summary of the whole
+matter is that “general certainty is to be found only
+in our ideas. Whenever we go to seek it elsewhere,
+in experiment or observations without us, our
+knowledge goes not beyond particulars.”</p>
+
+<p>It has been necessary to give an account of
+Locke’s views at this length because it is in his discussion
+of the limitations and extent of knowledge
+that his theory culminates. While not working out
+his sensationalism as consistently as did Hume, he
+yet reduces knowledge to that of the existence of
+God and ourselves (whose natures, however, are
+unknown), and to a knowledge of mathematical and
+moral relations, which, however, concerns only “the
+habitudes and relations of abstract ideas.” We
+have now to see by what means Leibniz finds a
+wider sphere for certain and general knowledge by
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_209" title="209"> </a>
+his theory of intellectualism than Locke can by his
+sensationalism.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s theory of knowledge rests upon a distinction
+between truths of fact, which are <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a posteriori</i>
+and contingent, and truths of reason, which are <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a
+priori</i> and necessary. In discussing his views regarding
+experience, we learned that, according to
+him, all judgments which are empirical are also particular,
+not allowing any inference beyond the given
+cases experienced. Experience gives only instances,
+not principles. If we postpone for the present the
+discussions of truths of reason, by admitting that
+they may properly be said to be at once certain and
+universal, the question arises how in matters of fact
+there can be any knowledge beyond that which
+Locke admits; and the answer is, that so far as
+the mere existence and occurrence of these facts is
+concerned, there is neither demonstrative nor general
+knowledge. But the intelligence of man does
+not stop with the isolated fact; it proceeds to inquire
+into its cause, to ascertain its conditions, and
+thus to see into, not merely its actual existence,
+but its <em>possibility</em>. In Leibniz’s language: “The
+real existence of things that are not necessary
+is a point of fact or history; but the knowledge
+of possibilities or necessities (the necessary being
+that whose opposite is not possible) constitutes demonstrative
+science.” In other words, it is the
+principle of causality, which makes us see a fact not
+as a mere fact, but as a dependent consequence;
+which elevates knowledge, otherwise contingent and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_210" title="210"> </a>
+particular, into the realm of the universal and
+apodictic. Underlying all “accidental union” is
+the real synthesis of causation.</p>
+
+<p>If we follow the discussion as it centres about the
+terms “nominal” and “real,” it stands as follows:
+Leibniz objects to the use of the term “essence” in
+this connection, but is willing to accept that of “definition;”
+for, as he says, a substance can have but
+one essence, while there may be several definitions,
+which, however, all express the same essence. The
+essence is the <em>possibility</em> of that which is under consideration;
+the definition is the statement of that
+which is supposed to be possible. The “nominal”
+definition, however, while it implies this possibility,
+does not expressly affirm it,&mdash;that is to say, it may
+always be doubted whether the nominal definition
+has any possibility (or reality) corresponding to it
+until experience comes to our aid and makes us
+know it <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a posteriori</i>. A “real” definition, on the
+other hand, makes us know <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> the reality of
+the thing defined by showing us the mode of its
+production, “by exhibiting its cause or generation.”
+Even our knowledge of facts of experience cannot
+be said, therefore, to be arbitrary, for we do not
+combine ideas just as we please, but “our combinations
+may be justified by reason which shows them
+to be possible, or by experience which shows them
+to be actual, and consequently also possible.” To
+take Locke’s example about gold, “the essence of
+gold is that which constitutes it and gives it its
+sensible qualities, and these qualities, so far as they
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_211" title="211"> </a>
+enable us to recognize it, constitute its nominal
+essence, while a real and causal definition would
+enable us to explain the contexture or internal disposition.
+The nominal definition, however, is also
+real in one sense,&mdash;not in itself, indeed, since it does
+not enable us to know <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> the possibility or production
+of the body, but empirically real.”</p>
+
+<p>It is evident from these quotations that what Leibniz
+understands by “possibility” is the condition or
+cause of a given fact; and that, while Locke distinguishes
+between particular, accidental and demonstrative,
+general knowledge as two opposed kinds,
+concerned with two distinct and mutually exclusive
+spheres, with Leibniz they are distinctions in the
+aspect of the same sphere of fact. In reality there
+is no combination of qualities accidental, as Locke
+thought that by far the greater part were; in every
+empirical fact there is a cause or condition involved
+that is invariable, and that constitutes the reason
+of the fact. The “accidental” is only in the relation
+of our ideas to objects, not in the objects
+themselves. There may be accidental mental associations;
+there are no accidental relations. In
+empirical, or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a posteriori</i>, knowledge, so-called, the
+reason is there, but is not known. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">A priori</i> knowledge,
+the real definition, discovers and explicitly
+states this reason. Contingent knowledge is therefore
+potentially rational; demonstrative knowledge
+is the actual development of the reasons implicitly
+contained in experience.</p>
+
+<p>We may with advantage connect this discussion
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_212" title="212"> </a>
+with the fundamental doctrine of Locke and Leibniz
+regarding intelligence and reality. To Locke, as we
+have seen, knowledge is essentially a matter of relations
+or connections; but relations are “superinduced”
+and “extraneous” as regards the facts.
+Every act of knowledge constitutes, therefore, in
+some way a departure from the reality to be known.
+Knowledge and fact are, by their very definition,
+opposed to one another. But in Leibniz’s view intelligence,
+or reason, enters into the constitution of
+reality; indeed, it is reality. The relations which
+are the “creatures of the understanding” are, therefore,
+not foreign to the material to be known, but are
+organic to it, forming its content. The process,
+then, in which the mind perceives the connections
+or relations of ideas or objects, is simply the process
+by which the mind comes to the consciousness
+of the real nature of these objects, not a process of
+“superinducing” unreal ideas upon them. The difficulty
+of Locke is the difficulty of every theory of
+knowledge that does not admit an organic unity of
+the knowing mind and the known universe. The
+theory is obliged to admit that all knowledge is in the
+form of relations which have their source in intelligence.
+But being tied to the view that reality is
+distinct from intelligence, it is obliged to draw the
+conclusion that these relations are not to be found
+in actual existence, and hence that all knowledge,
+whatever else it may be, is unreal in the sense that
+it does not and cannot conform to actual fact. But,
+in the theory of Leibniz, the process of relating
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_213" title="213"> </a>
+which is the essence of knowledge is only the realization
+on the part of the individual mind of the
+relations or reasons that eternally constitute reality.
+Since reality is, and is what it is, through
+intelligence, whatever relations intelligence rightly
+perceives are not “extraneous” to reality, but are
+its “essence.” As Leibniz says, “Truth consists in
+the relations between the objects of our ideas. This
+does not depend upon language, but is common to
+us with God, so that when God manifests a truth to
+us, <em>we acquire what is already in his understanding</em>.
+For although there is an infinite difference between
+his ideas and ours as to their perfection and extent,
+yet it is always true that as to the same relation
+they are identical. And it is in this relation that
+truth exists.” To this may be added another statement,
+which throws still further light on this point:
+“Ideas are eternally in God, and are in us before
+we perceive them.”</p>
+
+<p>We have now to consider somewhat more in detail
+the means by which the transformation of empirical
+into rational knowledge is carried on. Leibniz
+points out that the difficulty concerning scientific
+knowledge of sensible facts is not lack of data, but,
+in a certain sense, superfluity of data. It is not
+that we perceive no connections among objects, but
+that we perceive many which we cannot reduce to
+one another. “Our experiences,” says Leibniz,
+“are simple only in appearance, for they are always
+accompanied by circumstances connected with
+them, although these relations are not understood by
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_214" title="214"> </a>
+us. These circumstances furnish material capable
+of explanation and analysis. There is thus a sort
+of <em>pleonasm</em> in our perceptions of sensible objects
+and qualities, since we have more than one idea of
+the same object. Gold can be nominally defined in
+many ways. Such definitions are only <em>provisional</em>.”
+This is to say, empirical knowledge will become rational
+when it is possible to view any subject-matter
+as a unity, instead of a multiplicity of varied
+aspects. And on this same subject he says, in another
+connection: “A great number of experiences
+can furnish us data more than sufficient for scientific
+knowledge, provided only we have the art of using
+these data.” The aim of science is therefore, to
+discover the dynamic unity which makes a whole
+of what appears to be a mere mass of accidentally
+connected circumstances. This unity of relations is
+the individual.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus evident that to Leibniz the individual is
+not the beginning of knowledge, but its goal. The
+individual is the organic, the dynamic unity of the
+variety of phases or notions presented us in sense-experience.
+Individuality is not “simplicity” in the
+sense of Locke; that is, separation from all relations.
+It is complete connection of all relations. “It is impossible
+for us to have [complete] knowledge of individuals,
+and to find the means of determining exactly
+the individuality of anything; for in individuality all
+circumstances are combined. Individuality envelops
+the infinite. Only so far as we know the infinite do
+we know the individual, on account of the influence
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_215" title="215"> </a>
+(if this word be correctly understood) that all
+things in the universe exercise upon one another.”
+Leibniz, in short, remains true to his conception of
+the monad as the ultimate reality; for the monad,
+though an individual, yet has the universe as its content.
+We shall be able, therefore, to render our
+sensible experiences rational just in the degree in
+which we can discover the underlying relations and
+dependencies which make them members of one
+individual.</p>
+
+<p>For the process of transformation Leibniz relies
+especially upon two methods,&mdash;those of mathematics
+and of classification. Of the former he here says but
+little; but the entire progress of physical science
+since the time of Leibniz has been the justification
+of that little. In the passage already quoted regarding
+the need of method for using our sensible
+data, he goes on to say that the “infinitesimal
+analysis has given us the means of allying physics
+and geometry, and that dynamics has furnished us
+with the key to the general laws of nature.” It is
+certainly competent testimony to the truth of Leibniz’s
+fundamental principles that he foresaw also
+the course which the development of biological
+science would take. No classification based upon
+resemblances, says Leibniz in effect, can be regarded
+as wholly arbitrary, since resemblances are
+found in nature also. The only question is whether
+our classification is based upon superficial or fundamental
+identities; the superficial resemblances being
+such as are external, or the effects of some common
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_216" title="216"> </a>
+cause, while the fundamental resemblances are such
+as are the cause of whatever other similarities are
+found. “It can be said that whatever we compare
+or distinguish with truth, nature differentiates, or
+makes agree, also; but that nature has differences
+and identities which are better than ours, which we
+do not know.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <em>The more we discover the generation
+of species</em>, and the more we follow in our classifications
+the conditions that are required for their
+production, the nearer we approach the natural
+order.” Our classifications, then, so far as they
+depend upon what is conditioned, are imperfect and
+provisional, although they cannot be said to be false
+(since “while nature may give us those more complete
+and convenient, it will not give the lie to those
+we have already”); while so far as they rest upon
+what is causal and conditioning, they are true, general,
+and necessary. In thus insisting that classification
+should be genetic, Leibniz anticipated the
+great service which the theory of evolution has
+done for biological science in enabling science to
+form classes which are “natural;” that is, based on
+identity of origin.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz culminates his discussion of classification
+as a method of translating the empirical into the rational,
+by pointing out that it rests upon the law of
+continuity; and that this law contains two factors,&mdash;one
+equivalent to the axiom of the Realists, that nature
+is nowhere empty; the other, to that of the Nominalists,
+that nature does nothing uselessly. “One
+of these principles seems to make nature a prodigal,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_217" title="217"> </a>
+the other a miser; and yet both are true if properly
+understood,” says Leibniz. “Nature is like a good
+manager, sparing where it is necessary, in order to
+be magnificent. It is magnificent in its effects, and
+economical in the causes used to produce them.”
+In other words, classification becomes science when
+it presents us with both unity and difference. The
+principle of unity is that of nature as a miser and
+economical; that of differentiation is the principle
+of nature as prodigal and magnificent. The thoroughly
+differentiated unity is nature as self-specifying,
+or as an organic, not an abstract, unity.</p>
+
+<p>The gist of the whole matter is, then, that experience
+presents us with an infinity of ideas, which
+may appear at first sight arbitrary and accidental
+in their connections. This appearance, however, is
+not the fact. These ideas are the effects of certain
+causes; and in ascertaining these conditions, we
+reduce the apparently unrelated variety of experiences
+to underlying unities, and these unities, like
+all real unities or simple beings, are spiritual and
+rational in nature. Leibniz’s ordinary way of stating
+this is that the principle of truths of fact is that of
+<em>sufficient reason</em>. This principle Leibniz always
+treats as distinguished from that of identity (and
+contradiction) as the ruling category of truths of
+reason. And we shall follow him in discussing the
+two together.</p>
+
+<p>“Our reasonings are based on two leading principles,&mdash;that
+of contradiction, in virtue of which
+we judge false all which contains contradiction,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_218" title="218"> </a>
+and true that which is opposed or contradictory to
+that which is false; and that of sufficient reason,
+in virtue of which we judge that no fact is true or
+actual, no proposition veritable, unless there is a
+sufficient reason why it is as it is, and not otherwise,
+although these reasons are generally unknown to us.
+Thus there are two sorts of truths,&mdash;those of reason,
+and those of fact. The truths of reason are necessary,
+and their opposites impossible; while those of
+fact are contingent, and their opposites possible.
+When a truth is necessary, its reason can be discovered
+by analysis, resolving it into ideas and
+truths that are simpler, until the primitive truths
+are arrived at. It is thus that the mathematicians
+proceed in reducing by analysis the theorems of
+speculation and the canons of practice into definitions,
+axioms, and postulates. Thus they come to
+simple ideas whose definition cannot be given;
+primitive truths that cannot be proved, and which
+do not need it, since they are identical propositions,
+whose opposite contains a manifest contradiction.”</p>
+
+<p>“But in contingent truths&mdash;those of fact&mdash;the
+sufficient reason must be found; namely, in the succession
+of things which fill the created universe,&mdash;for
+otherwise the analysis into particular reasons would
+go into detail without limit, by reason of the immense
+variety of natural things, and of the infinite
+divisibility of bodies. There are an infinity of
+figures and of past and present movements which
+enter into the efficient cause of my present writing,
+and there are an infinity of minute inclinations and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_219" title="219"> </a>
+dispositions of my soul which enter into its final
+cause. And since all this detail contains only other
+contingent and particular antecedents, each of which
+has need of a similar analysis to account for it, we
+really make no progress by this analysis; and it is
+necessary that the final or sufficient reason be outside
+the endless succession or series of contingent
+particulars, that it consist in a necessary being, in
+which this series of changes is contained only <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">eminenter</i>,
+as in its source. This necessary being and
+source is what we call God.”</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the tracing of empirical facts to
+their causes and conditions does not, after all, render
+them wholly rational. The series of causes is endless.
+Every condition is in turn conditioned. We
+are not so much solving the problem of the reason
+of a given fact, as we are stating the problem in
+other terms as we go on in this series. Every solution
+offers itself again as a problem, and this endlessly.
+If these truths of fact, then, are to be
+rendered wholly rational, it must be in something
+which lies outside of the series considered as a
+series; that is, something which is not an antecedent
+of any one of the series, but is equally related
+to each and to all as their ground and source.
+This, considered as an argument for the existence
+of God, we shall deal with hereafter; now we are
+concerned only with its bearing upon the relation
+of experience to the universality and necessity of
+knowledge. According to this, the ultimate meaning
+of facts is found in their relation to the divine
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_220" title="220"> </a>
+intelligence; for Leibniz is emphatic in insisting
+that the relation of God to experience is not one of
+bare will to creatures produced by this will (as Descartes
+had supposed), but of a will governed wholly
+by Intelligence. As Leibniz states it in another
+connection, not only matters of fact, but mathematical
+truths, have the same final basis in the divine
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>“Such truths, strictly speaking, are only conditional,
+and say that in case their subject existed
+they would be found such and such. But if it is
+again asked in what consists this conditional connection
+in which there is necessary reality, the reply
+is that it is in the relation of ideas. And by the further
+question, Where would be the ideas if no spirit
+existed; and what would then become of the foundation
+of the certainty of such truths?&mdash;we are brought
+to the final foundation of truths; namely, that supreme
+and universal spirit, which must exist, and
+whose understanding is, in reality, the region of the
+eternal truths. And in order that it may not be
+thought that it is not necessary to have recourse to
+this region, we must consider that these necessary
+truths contain the determining reason and regulative
+principle of existence, and, in a word, of the laws
+of the universe. Thus these necessary truths, being
+anterior to the existences of contingent beings, must
+in turn be based upon the existence of a necessary
+substance.”</p>
+
+<p>It is because facts are not <em>mere</em> facts, in short, but
+are the manifestation of a “determining reason and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_221" title="221"> </a>
+regulative principle” which finds its home in universal
+intelligence, that knowledge of them can
+become necessary and general.</p>
+
+<p>The general nature of truths of reason and of
+their ruling principle, identity and contradiction, has
+already been given in the quotation regarding the
+principle of sufficient reason. It is Leibniz’s contention
+that only in truths whose opposite is seen to
+involve self-contradiction can we have absolute certainty,
+and that it is through connection with such
+eternal truths that the certainty of our other knowledge
+rests. It is thus evident why Leibniz insists,
+as against Locke, upon the great importance of
+axioms and maxims. They are important, not
+merely in themselves, but as the sole and indispensable
+bases of scientific truth regarding all matters.
+Leibniz at times, it is true, speaks as if
+demonstrative and contingent truths were of themselves,
+in principle, distinct, and even opposed. But
+he also corrects himself by showing that contingency
+is rather a subjective limitation than an objective
+quality. We, indeed, do not see that the truth “I
+exist,” for example, is necessary, because we cannot
+see how its opposite involves contradiction.
+But “God sees how the two terms ‘I’ and ‘exist’
+are connected; that is, <em>why</em> I exist.” So far as we
+can see facts, then, from the standpoint of the
+divine intelligence, so far, it would appear, our
+knowledge is necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Since these axioms, maxims, or first truths are
+“innate,” we are in a condition to complete (for
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_222" title="222"> </a>
+the first time) the discussion of innate ideas. These
+ideas constitute, as we have learned, the essential
+content of the divine intelligence, and of ours so far
+as we have realized our identity with God’s understanding.
+The highest form of knowledge, therefore,
+is self-consciousness. This bears the same
+relation to necessary truths that the latter bear to
+experience. “Knowledge of necessary and eternal
+truths,” says Leibniz, “distinguishes us from simple
+animals, and makes us have reason and science, <em>elevating
+us to the knowledge of ourselves</em>. We are thus
+developed to self-consciousness; and in being conscious
+of ourselves we are conscious of being, of
+substance, of the simple, of the spiritual, of God.”
+And again he says that “those that know necessary
+truths are rational spirits, capable of self-consciousness,
+of recognizing what is termed Ego, substance,
+and monad. <em>Thus</em> they are rendered capable of
+demonstrative knowledge.” “We are innate to
+ourselves; and since we are beings, being is innate
+to us, for knowledge of it is implicit in that which
+we have of ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>Knowledge, in fine, may be regarded as an ascending
+series of four terms. The first is constituted by
+sensations associated together in such a way that a
+relation of antecedence and consequence exists between
+them. This is “experience.” The second
+stage comes into existence when we connect these
+experiences, not by mere relations of “consecution,”
+but by their conditions, by the principle of causality,
+and especially by that of sufficient reason, which
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_223" title="223"> </a>
+connects them with the supreme intelligence, God.
+This stage is science. The third is knowledge of
+the axioms and necessary truths in and of themselves,
+not merely as involved in science. The
+fourth is self-consciousness, the knowledge of intelligence,
+in its intimate and universal nature, by
+which we know God, the mind, and all real substance.
+In the order of time the stage of experience
+is first, and that of self-consciousness last. But in
+the lowest stage there are involved the others. The
+progress of knowledge consists in the development
+or unfolding of this implicit content, till intelligence,
+spirit, activity, is clearly revealed as the source and
+condition of all.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_224" title="224"> </a><a name="Chapter_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a><br/>
+  <small>THE THEOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">One</span> 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 <a href="#Chapter_VI">chapter on will</a>.
+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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_225" title="225"> </a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_226" title="226"> </a>
+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,&mdash;the
+Being in whom existence and essence are one,&mdash;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,&mdash;a being therefore without
+negations and without contradiction,&mdash;this is sufficient
+to prove <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> 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,&mdash;and since possible, necessary.
+Of this conception of God as the purely
+self-identical, without negation, we shall have
+something to say in the <a href="#Chapter_XII">next chapter</a>.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>sufficient</em> reason of anything is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_227" title="227"> </a>
+that which is also the sufficient reason of itself,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_228" title="228"> </a>
+God exists <em>power</em>, which is the source of all <em>knowledge</em>,&mdash;which
+comprehends the realm of ideas, down
+to its minutest detail,&mdash;and <em>will</em>, 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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_229" title="229"> </a>
+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,&mdash;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 <em>logically</em> possible. One
+of these worlds, although standing on the same
+intellectual plane as the others, is <em>morally</em> better,&mdash;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 <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">fiat</i> 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 <em>morally</em> act otherwise than
+by the principle of the better,&mdash;and this in contingent
+matters is the best. Hence the optimism
+of Leibniz, to which here no further allusion can be
+made.</p>
+
+<p>Since the best is precisely God himself, it is evident
+that the created world will have, <em>as far as
+possible</em>, his perfections. It would thus be possible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_230" title="230"> </a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;the most perfect state under the
+most perfect monarch. This city of God, this
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_231" title="231"> </a>
+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,&mdash;those
+of efficient and final causes,&mdash;so must we
+here declare harmony between the physical realm
+of nature and the moral realm of grace,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>It has been frequently pointed out that Leibniz
+was the first to give ethics the form which it has
+since kept in German philosophy,&mdash;the division into
+<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Natur-recht</i> and <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Natur-moral</i>. 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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_232" title="232"> </a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Puffendorf undoubtedly suggested this division to
+Leibniz by his classification of duties as external
+and internal,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_233" title="233"> </a>
+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. <a name="Perfection">Perfection</a> 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.”</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_234" title="234"> </a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Natural right, as distinguished from morals, is
+based upon the notion of justice, this being the
+outward manifestation of wisdom, or knowledge,&mdash;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,&mdash;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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_235" title="235"> </a>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Corresponding to the three forms of the social
+organism (as we should now call the “natural community”),
+are the three kinds of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">jus</i>,&mdash;<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">jus strictum</i>,
+equity, and piety. Each of these has its corresponding
+prescript. That of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">jus strictum</i> 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.
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Jus strictum</i> 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
+<em>property</em>. 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. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Jus
+strictum</i> is, of course, in all cases, enforceable by
+civil law and the compulsory force which accompanies
+it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_236" title="236"> </a>
+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&mdash;that is, to the universe and to humanity&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_237" title="237"> </a>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added that Leibniz’s æsthetic theory,
+so far as developed, rests upon the same basis as his
+ethical,&mdash;namely, upon membership in the “city
+of God,” or community of spiritual beings. This
+is implied, indeed, in a <a href="#Perfection">passage already quoted</a>,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_238" title="238"> </a>
+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,&mdash;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 (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">pondere</i>, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">mensura</i>, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">numero</i>), 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,&mdash;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.”</p>
+
+<p>No better sentences could be found with which to
+conclude this analysis of Leibniz. They resound
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_239" title="239"> </a>
+not only with the grandeur and wide scope characteristic
+of his thought, but they contain his essential
+idea, his pre-eminent “note,”&mdash;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 <em>instrumental</em>,
+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 <em>idea</em> of nature. It perfects it, in that
+it makes it instrumental to itself, and thus renders
+it not the passive panorama of <em>mere</em> material force,
+but the manifestation of living spirit.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_240" title="240"> </a><a name="Chapter_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a><br/>
+  <small>CRITICISM AND CONCLUSION.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">In</span> the exposition now completed we have in general
+taken for granted the truth and coherency
+of Leibniz’s fundamental ideas, and have contented
+ourselves with an account of the principles and
+notions that flow from these ideas. The time has
+come for retracing our steps, and for inquiring
+whether the assumed premises can be thus unquestioningly
+adopted. This final chapter, therefore,
+we shall devote to criticism of the basis of Leibniz’s
+philosophy, not attempting to test it by a comparison
+with other systems, but by inquiring into its
+internal coherency, and by a brief account of the
+ways in which his successors, or at least one of
+them, endeavored to make right the points in which
+he appeared to fail.</p>
+
+<p>The fundamental contradiction in Leibniz is to be
+found, I believe, between the method which he
+adopted&mdash;without inquiry into its validity and scope&mdash;and
+the subject-matter, or perhaps better the attitude,
+to which he attempted to apply this method;
+between, that is to say, the scholastic formal logic
+on the one hand and the idea of inter-relation derived
+from the development of scientific thought, on
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_241" title="241"> </a>
+the other. Leibniz never thought of investigating
+the formal logic bequeathed by scholasticism, with
+a view to determining its adequacy as philosophic
+method. He adopted, as we have seen, the principles
+of identity and contradiction as sole principles
+of the only perfect knowledge. The type of
+knowledge is that which can be reduced to a series
+of identical propositions, whose opposite is seen to
+be impossible, because self-contradictory. Only
+knowledge in this form can be said to be demonstrative
+and necessary. As against Locke he justified
+the syllogistic method of the schoolmen as the
+typical method of all rational truth.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, Leibniz, as we saw in the
+earlier chapters, had learned positively from the
+growth of science, negatively from the failures of
+Descartes and Spinoza, to look upon the universe
+as a unity of inter-related members,&mdash;as an organic
+unity, not a mere self-identical oneness. Failing to
+see the cause of the failures of Descartes and Spinoza
+in precisely their adoption of the logic of
+identity and contradiction as ultimate, he attempted
+to reconcile this method with the conception of
+organic activity. The result is constant conflict
+between the method and content of his philosophy,
+between its letter and its spirit. The contradiction
+is a twofold one. The unity of the content of his
+philosophy, the conception of organism or harmony,
+is a unity which essentially involves difference. The
+unity of his method is a formal identity which excludes
+it. The unity, whose discovery constitutes
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_242" title="242"> </a>
+Leibniz’s great glory as a philosopher, is a unity of
+activity, a dynamic process. The unity of formal
+logic is exclusive of any mediation or process, and
+is essentially rigid and lifeless. The result is that
+Leibniz is constantly wavering (in logical result,
+not of course in spirit) between two opposed errors,
+one of which is, in reality, not different from Spinozism,
+in that it regards all distinction as only
+phenomenal and unreal, while the other is akin to
+atomism, in that attempting to avoid the doctrine
+of the all-inclusive one, it does so only by supposing
+a multitude of unrelated units, termed monads.
+And thus the harmony, which in Leibniz’s intention
+is the very content of reality, comes to be, in effect,
+an external arrangement between the one and the
+many, the unity and the distinction, in themselves
+incapable of real relations. Such were the results
+of Leibniz’s failure, in Kantian language, to criticise
+his categories, in Hegelian language, to develop a
+logic,&mdash;the results of his assuming, without examination,
+the validity of formal logic as a method of
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>So thoroughly is Leibniz imbued with the belief
+in its validity, that the very conception, that of
+sufficient reason, which should have been the means
+of saving him from his contradictions, is used in
+such a way as to plunge him deeper into them.
+The principle of sufficient reason may indeed be
+used as purely formal and external,&mdash;as equivalent
+to the notion that everything, no matter what, has
+<em>some</em> explanation. Thus employed, it simply declares
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_243" title="243"> </a>
+that everything has <em>a</em> reason, without in the
+least determining the <em>what</em> of that reason,&mdash;its content.
+This is what we mean by calling it formal.
+But this is not the way in which Leibniz conceives
+of it. According to him, it is not a principle of
+the external connection of one finite, or phenomenal,
+fact with another. It is a principle in the light of
+which the whole phenomenal world is to be viewed,
+declaring that its ground and meaning are to be
+found in reason, in self-conscious intelligence. As
+we have seen, it is equivalent, in Leibniz’s case, to
+the notion that we have no complete nor necessary
+knowledge of the world of scientific fact until
+we have referred it to a conditioning “Supreme
+Spirit.”</p>
+
+<p>Looked at in this way, we see that the unity
+which Leibniz is positively employing is an organic
+unity, a unity of intelligence involving organic reference
+to the known world. But such a conception of
+sufficient reason leaves no place for the final validity
+of identity and non-contradiction; and therefore
+Leibniz, when dealing with his method, and not, as
+in the passages referred to, with his subject-matter,
+cannot leave the matter thus. To do so indeed
+would have involved a complete reconstruction of
+his philosophy, necessitating a derivation of all the
+categories employed from intelligence itself (that is,
+from the sufficient or conditioning reason). But the
+bondage to scholastic method is so great that Leibniz
+can see no way but to measure intelligence by
+the ready-made principle of identity, and thus virtually
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_244" title="244"> </a>
+(though not in purpose) to explain away the
+very principle of sufficient reason. In Leibniz’s
+words: “Contingent truths require an infinite
+analysis which only God can carry out. Whence
+by him alone are they known <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a priori</i> and demonstratively.
+For although the reason can always be
+found for some occurring state in a prior state, this
+reason again requires a reason, and we never arrive
+in the series to the ultimate reason. But this <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">progressus
+ad infinitum</i> takes (in us) the place of a
+sufficient reason, which can be found only outside
+the series in God, on whom all its members, prior
+and posterior depend, rather than upon one another.
+<em>Whatever truth, therefore, is incapable of analysis,
+and cannot be demonstrated from its own reasons, but
+has its ultimate reason and certainty only from the
+divine mind, is not necessary.</em> Everything that we
+call truths of fact come under this head, and this is
+the root of their contingency.”</p>
+
+<p>The sentences before the one italicized repeat
+what we have learned before, and seem to convey
+the idea that the phenomenal world is that which
+does not account for itself, because not itself a self-determining
+reason, and which gets its ultimate explanation
+and ground in a self-sufficient reason,&mdash;God.
+But notice the turn given to the thought with
+the word “therefore.” Therefore all truth incapable
+of analysis,&mdash;that is, of reduction to identical propositions,
+whose opposite is impossible because self-contradictory,&mdash;all
+truth whose meaning depends
+upon not its bare identity, but upon its relation
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_245" title="245"> </a>
+to the very content of all intelligence, is not necessary,
+but contingent. Leibniz here distinctly
+opposes identical truths as necessary, to truth connected
+with reason as contingent. Synthetic reference
+to the very structure of intelligence is thus
+made, not the ground of truth, but a blot upon its
+completeness and necessity. Perfect truth, it is implied
+in the argument, is self-identical, known by
+mere analysis of itself, and needs no reference to an
+organism of reason. The reference, therefore, to a
+principle of sufficient reason is simply a concession
+to the fragmentary and imperfect condition of all
+knowledge. Truth in itself is self-identical; but
+appearing to us only confusedly, we employ the
+idea of sufficient reason as a makeshift, by which
+we refer, in a mass, all that we cannot thus reduce
+to identical propositions, to an intelligence, or to a
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deus ex machina</i> which can so reduce it. This is
+the lame and impotent conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s fundamental meaning is, no doubt, a
+correct one. He means that contingency of fact is
+not real, but apparent; that it exists only because
+of our inability to penetrate the reason which would
+enable us completely to account for the facts under
+consideration. He <em>means</em> that if we could understand,
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sub specie aeternitatis</i>, from the standpoint
+of universal intelligence, we should see every fact
+as necessary, as resulting from an intrinsic reason.
+But so thoroughly is he fettered by the scholastic
+method&mdash;that is, the method of formal logic&mdash;that
+he can conceive of this immanent and intrinsic
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_246" title="246"> </a>
+reason which makes every fact a truth&mdash;that is,
+self-evident in its necessity&mdash;only as an analytic,
+self-contained identity. And herein lies his contradiction:
+his method obliges him to conceive of
+ultimate intelligence as purely formal, simply as
+that which does not contradict itself, while the attitude
+of his thought and its concrete subject-matter
+compel him to think of intelligence as possessing
+a content, as the organic unity of a system of
+relations.</p>
+
+<p>From this contradiction flow the other contradictions
+of Leibniz, which we are now prepared to examine
+in more detail. For his ideas are so much
+greater than his method that in almost every point
+there seems to be contradiction. His ideas <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">per se</i>
+mean one thing, and his ideas as interpreted by his
+method another. Take his doctrine of individuality,
+for instance. To some it has appeared that the
+great defect of the Leibnizian philosophy is its individualism.
+Such conceive him simply to have
+carried out in his monadism the doctrine of the individual
+isolated from the universe to its logical
+conclusions, and thereby to have rendered it absurd.
+In a certain sense, the charge is true. The monad,
+according to the oft-repeated statement, has no intercourse
+with the rest of the universe. It really excludes
+all else. It acts as if nothing but itself and
+God were in existence. That is to say, the monad,
+being the self-identical, must shut out all intrinsic
+or real relations with other substances. Such relations
+would involve a differentiating principle for
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_247" title="247"> </a>
+which Leibniz’s logic has no place. Each monad
+is, therefore, an isolated universe. But such a result
+has no value for Leibniz. He endeavors to
+correct it by the thought that each monad <em>ideally</em>
+includes the whole universe by mirroring it. And
+then to reconcile the real exclusion and the ideal inclusion,
+he falls back on a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deus ex machina</i> who
+arranges a harmony between them, foreign to the
+intrinsic nature of each. Leibniz’s individualism,
+it is claimed, thus makes of his philosophy a synthesis,
+or rather a juxtaposition, of mutually contradictory
+positions, each of which appears true
+only as long as we do not attempt to think it together
+with the other.</p>
+
+<p>There is, no doubt, truth in this representation.
+But a more significant way of stating the matter is,
+I think, that Leibniz’s defect is not in his individualism,
+but in the defect of his conception of the
+individual. His individualism is more apparent
+than real. It is a negative principle, and negative
+in the sense of <em>privative</em>. The individuality of the
+monad is due to its incompleteness, to its imperfections.
+It is really matter which makes monads
+mutually impenetrable or exclusive; it is matter
+which distinguishes them from God, and thus from
+one another. Without the material element they
+would be lost in an undistinguished identity with
+God, the supreme substance. But matter, it must
+be remembered, is passivity; and since activity is
+reality, or substance, matter is unsubstantial and
+unreal. The same results from a consideration of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_248" title="248"> </a>
+knowledge. Matter is always correlative to confused
+ideas. With the clearing up of knowledge,
+with making it rational, matter must disappear, so
+that to God, who is wholly reason, it must entirely
+vanish. But this view varies only in words from
+that of Spinoza, to whom it is the imagination, as
+distinguished from the intellect, that is the source
+of particular and finite objects.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps in his <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Theodicée</cite>, in the treatment
+of the problem of evil, that his implicit Spinozism,
+or denial of individuality, comes out most clearly.
+That evil is negative, or privative, and consists in
+the finitude of the creature, is the result of the discussion.
+What is this except to assert the unreality,
+the merely privative character, of the finite, and to
+resolve all into God? To take one instance out
+of many: he compares inertia to the original limitation
+of creatures, and says that as inertia is the
+obstacle to the complete mobility of bodies, so privation,
+or lack, constitutes the essence of the imperfection,
+or evil, of creatures. His metaphor is of
+boats in the current of a river, where the heavier
+one goes more slowly, owing to inertia. The force
+of the current, which is the same to all, and which
+is positive, suffering no diminution, is comparable
+to the activity of God, which also is perfect and
+positive. As the current is the positive source of
+all the movements of the bodies, and is in no way
+responsible for the retardation of some boats, so
+God is the source only of activities,&mdash;the perfections
+of his creatures. “As the inertia of the boat
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_249" title="249"> </a>
+is the cause of its slowness, so the limitations of its
+receptivity are the cause of the defects found in the
+action of creatures.” Individuality is thus reduced
+to mere limitation; and the unlimited, the real which
+includes all reality, is God. We are thus placed in
+a double difficulty. This notion of an all-inclusive
+one contradicts the reality of mutually exclusive
+monads; and we have besides the characteristic difficulty
+of Spinoza,&mdash;how, on the basis of this unlimited,
+self-identical substance, to account for even the
+appearance of finitude, plurality and individuality.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s fundamental defect may thus be said to be
+that, while he realized, as no one before him had done,
+the importance of the conception of the <em>negative</em>,
+he was yet unable to grasp the significance of the
+negative, was led to interpret it as merely privative
+or defective, and thus, finally, to surrender the very
+idea. Had not his method, his presupposition
+regarding analytic identity, bound him so completely
+in its toils, his clear perception that it was
+the negative element that differentiated God from
+the universe, intelligence from matter, might have
+brought him to a general anticipation not only of
+Kant, but of Hegel. But instead of transforming
+his method by this conception of negation, he allowed
+his assumed (<i>i.&nbsp;e.</i>, dogmatic) method to evacuate
+his conception of its significance. It was
+Hegel who was really sufficiently in earnest with
+the idea to read it into the very notion of intelligence
+as a constituent organic element, not as a
+mere outward and formal limitation.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_250" title="250"> </a>We have already referred to the saying of Leibniz
+that the monad acts as if nothing existed but God
+and itself. The same idea is sometimes expressed
+by saying that God alone is the immediate or direct
+object of the monad. Both expressions mean that,
+while the monad excludes all other monads, such is
+not the case in its relation to God, but that it has
+an organic relation with him. We cannot keep
+from asking whether there is not another aspect
+of the contradiction here. How is it possible for
+the monad so to escape from its isolation that it
+can have communication with God more than with
+other substances? Or if it can have communication
+with God, why cannot it equally bear real
+relations of community with other monads? And
+the answer is found in Leibniz’s contradictory conceptions
+of God. Of these conceptions there are
+at least three. When Leibniz is emphasizing his
+monadic theory, with its aspects of individuality
+and exclusion, God is conceived as the highest
+monad, as one in the series of monads, differing
+from the others only in the degree of its activity.
+He is the “monad of monads”; the most complete,
+active, and individualized of all. But it is evident
+that in this sense there can be no more intercourse
+between God and a monad than there is between
+one monad and another. Indeed, since God is
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">purus actus</i> without any passivity, it may be said
+that there is, if possible, less communication in this
+case than in the others. He is, as Leibniz says, what
+a monad without matter would be, “a deserter from
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_251" title="251"> </a>
+the general order.” He is the acme of isolation.
+This, of course, is the extreme development of the
+“individual” side of Leibniz’s doctrine, resulting in
+a most pronounced atomism. Leibniz seems dimly
+conscious of this difficulty, and thus by the side of
+this notion of God he puts another. According to
+it, God is the source of all monads. The monads
+are not created by a choice of the best of all possible
+worlds, as his official theology teaches, but are the
+radiations of his divinity. Writing to Bayle, Leibniz
+expresses himself as follows: “The nature of
+substance consists in an active force of definite character,
+from which phenomena proceed in orderly
+succession. This force was originally received by,
+and is indeed preserved to, every substance by the
+creator of all things, from whom all <em>actual forces
+or perfections emanate by a sort of continual creation</em>.”
+And in his Monadology he says: All “the
+created or derived monads are the productions of
+God, and are born, as it were, <em>by the continual fulgurations
+of the divinity from instant to instant</em>,
+bounded by the receptivity of the creature to which
+it is essential to be limited.” What has become of
+the doctrine of monads (although the word is retained)
+it would be difficult to say. There is certainly
+no individual distinction now between the
+created monads and God, and it is impossible to see
+why there should be individual distinctions between
+the various created monads. They appear to be all
+alike, as modes of the one comprehensive substance.
+Here we have the universal, or “identity,” side of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_252" title="252"> </a>
+Leibniz’s philosophy pushed to its logical outcome,&mdash;the
+doctrine of pantheism.</p>
+
+<p>His third doctrine of God is really a unity of the
+two previous. It is the doctrine that God is the
+harmony of the monads,&mdash;neither one among them
+nor one made up of them, but their organic unity.
+This doctrine is nowhere expressly stated in words
+(unless it be when he says that “God alone constitutes
+the relation and community of substances”),
+but it runs through his whole system. According
+to this, God <em>is</em> the pre-established harmony. This
+conception, like that of harmony, may have either
+a mechanical interpretation (according to which God
+is the artificial, external point of contact of intelligence
+and reality, in themselves opposed) or an organic
+meaning, according to which God <em>is</em> the unity
+of intelligence and reality. On this interpretation
+alone does the saying that God is the only immediate
+object of the monads have sense. It simply
+states that the apparent dualism between intelligence
+and its object which is found in the world
+is overcome in God; that the distinction between
+them is not the ultimate fact, but exists in and for
+the sake of a unity which transcends the difference.
+According to this view, the opposition between
+ideal inclusion and real exclusion vanishes.
+God <em>is</em> the harmony of the real and ideal, not a
+mere arrangement for bringing them to an understanding
+with one another. Individuality and
+universality are no longer opposed conceptions,
+needing a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tertium quid</i> to relate them, but are
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_253" title="253"> </a>
+organic factors of reality, and this, at the same
+time, is intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>But admitting this conception as stating the implicit
+intention of Leibniz, the relation of monads to
+one another is wholly different from that which
+Leibniz gives. And to this point we now come.
+If in God, the absolute, the real and the ideal are
+one, it is impossible that in substances, which have
+their being and significance only in relation to God,
+or this unity, the real and the ideal should be so
+wholly separated as Leibniz conceives.</p>
+
+<p>Leibniz’s conception relative to this is, as we have
+seen, that there is no physical <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">influxus</i>, or <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">commercium</i>,
+of monads, but ideal consensus. <em>Really</em> each
+shuts out every other; <em>ideally</em>, or representatively,
+it includes every other. His positive thought in the
+matter is that a complete knowledge of any portion
+of the universe would involve a perfect knowledge
+of the whole, so organic is the structure of the universe.
+Each monad sums up the past history of the
+world, and is big with its future. This is the conception
+of inter-relation; the conception of all in
+one, and one as a member, not a part of a whole.
+It is the conception which Leibniz brought to birth,
+the conception of the thorough unity of the world.
+In this notion there is no denial of community of
+relation; it is rather the culmination of relation.
+There is no isolation. But according to his presupposed
+logic, individuality can mean only identity
+excluding distinction,&mdash;identity without intrinsic relation,
+and, as Leibniz is bound at all hazards to save
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_254" title="254"> </a>
+the notion of individuality, he is obliged to think
+of this inter-relation as only ideal, as the result of
+a predetermined tendency given at its creation to
+the self-identical monad by God. But of course
+Leibniz does not escape the contradiction between
+identity and distinction, between individuality and
+universality, by this means. He only transfers it
+to another realm. In the relation of the monad to
+God the diversity of its content, the real or universal
+element, is harmonized with the identity of its law,
+its ideal or individual factor. But if these elements
+do not conflict here, why should they in the relation
+of the monads to one another? Either there is
+already an immanent harmony between the individual
+and universal, and no external arrangement
+is needed to bring it about, or there is no such
+harmony, and therefore no relation possible between
+God and the individual monad. One side
+of the Leibnizian philosophy renders the other side
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Another consequence of Leibniz’s treatment of
+the negative as merely limitative is that he can find
+no distinction, excepting of degree, between nature
+and spirit. Such a conception is undoubtedly in
+advance of the Cartesian dualism, which regards
+them as opposed realms <em>without</em> any relation; but
+it may be questioned whether it is as adequate a
+view as that which regards them as distinct realms
+<em>on account</em> of relation. At all events, it leads to
+confusion in Leibniz’s treatment of both material
+objects and self-conscious personalities. In the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_255" title="255"> </a>
+former case his method of escape is a metaphor,&mdash;that
+objects apparently material are full of souls, or
+spirits. This may mean that the material is <em>merely</em>
+material only when considered in implicit abstraction
+from the intelligence which conditions it, that
+the material, in truth, is constituted by some of the
+relations which in their completeness make up
+intelligence. This at least bears a consistent meaning.
+But it is not monadism; it is not the doctrine
+that matter differs from spirit only in degree: it is
+the doctrine that they differ in kind, as the conditioned
+from the conditioning. At times, however,
+Leibniz attempts to carry out his monadism literally,
+and the result is that he conceives matter as being
+itself endowed, in some unexplained way, with
+souls, or since this implies a dualism between matter
+and soul, of being made up, composed, of souls.
+But as he is obliged to explain that this composition
+is not spatial, or physical, but only ideal, this doctrine
+tends to resolve itself into the former. And
+thus we end where we began,&mdash;with a metaphor.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand there is a wavering treatment
+of the nature of spirit. At times it is treated as
+precisely on a level in kind with the monads that
+“compose” matter, differing only in the greater
+degree of its activity. But at other times it is
+certainly represented as standing on another plane.
+“The difference between those monads which express
+the world with consciousness and those which express
+it unintelligently is as great as the difference
+between a mirror and one who sees.” If Leibniz
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_256" title="256"> </a>
+means what he seems to imply by these words, it
+is plainly asserted that only the spiritual being is
+worthy of being called a monad, or individual, at all,
+and that material being is simply a dependent manifestation
+of spirit. Again he says: “Not all entelechies
+are, like our soul, <em>images of God</em>,&mdash;being
+made as members of a society or state of which he is
+chief,&mdash;but all are <em>images of the universe</em>.” In this
+distinction between self-conscious beings as images
+of God and unconscious monads as images of the
+universe there is again implied a difference of kind.
+That something is the image of the universe need
+mean only that it cannot be explained without its
+relations to the universe. To say that something
+is the image of God, must mean that it is itself
+spiritual and self-conscious. God alone is reason
+and activity. He alone has his reality in himself.
+Self-conscious beings, since members of a community
+with him, must participate in this reality in a
+way different in kind from those things which, at
+most, are only substances or objects, not subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do the difficulties cease here. If matter be
+conceived, not as implied in the relations by which
+reason is realized in constituting the universe, but as
+itself differing from reason only in degree, it is
+impossible to account for its existence. Why should
+a less degree of perfection exist than is necessary?
+Why should not the perfect activity, God, complete
+the universe in himself? Leibniz’s answer that an
+infinity of monads multiplies his existence so far as
+possible, may hold indeed of other spirits, who mirror
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_257" title="257"> </a>
+him and live in one divine society, but is utterly inapplicable
+to those which fail to image him. Their
+existence, as material, is merely privative; it is
+merely the absence of the activity found in conscious
+spirit. How can this deprivation, this limitation,
+increase in any way the harmony and perfection of
+the universe? Leibniz’s theory of the negative, in
+fine, compels him to put nature and spirit on the
+same level, as differing only in degree. This, so
+far from giving nature a reality, results in its being
+swallowed up in spirit, not as necessarily distinct
+from it and yet one with it, but as absorbed in it,
+since the apparent difference is only privative. Nor
+does the theory insure the reality of spirit. This,
+since one in kind with matter, is swallowed up
+along with it in the one substance, which is positive
+and self-identical,&mdash;in effect, the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deus sive
+Natura</i> of Spinoza.</p>
+
+<p>We have to see that this contradiction on the side
+of existence has its correlate on the side of knowledge,
+and our examination of this fundamental deficiency
+in Leibniz is ended. Sensation is on the
+side of intelligence what matter is on the side of
+reality. It is confused knowledge, as matter is
+imperfect activity or reality. Knowledge is perfect
+only when it is seen to be necessary, and by “necessary”
+is meant that whose opposite is impossible, or
+involves contradiction. In spite, therefore, of Leibniz’s
+thorough conviction that “matters of fact”&mdash;the
+subject-matter of physical science&mdash;are not arbitrary,
+he is yet obliged finally to agree with Locke
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_258" title="258"> </a>
+that there is no certainty to be found in such knowledge,
+either as a whole or in any of its details. The
+element of sensation, of confused knowledge, cannot
+be eliminated. Hence it must always be open to any
+one to object that it is only on account of this imperfect
+factor of our knowledge that there appears
+to be a physical world at all, that the external
+world is an illusion produced by our sensations.
+And Leibniz himself, while claiming that the world
+of fact, as opposed to the realm of relations,
+possesses <em>practical</em> reality, is obliged to admit that
+<em>metaphysically</em> it may be only an orderly dream.
+The fact is that Leibniz unconsciously moves in
+the same circle, with relation to sensation and the
+material world, that confines Spinoza with regard
+to imagination and particular multiple existences.
+Spinoza explains the latter from that imperfection
+of our intelligence which leads us to imagine rather
+than to think. But he accounts for the existence
+of imagination, when he comes to treat that, as
+due to the plurality of particular things. So Leibniz,
+when an account of the existence of matter
+is demanded of him, refers to confused knowledge
+as its source, while in turn he explains the latter,
+or sensation, from the material element which sets
+bounds to the activity of spirit. Leibniz seems
+indeed, to advance upon Spinoza in admitting the
+reality of the negative factor in differentiating the
+purely self-identical, but he gives up what he
+has thus gained by interpreting the negation as
+passivity, or mere deprivation.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_259" title="259"> </a>To sum up, it may be doubted whether we have
+more to learn from Leibniz’s successes or from his
+failures. Leibniz’s positive significance for us is
+in his clear recognition of the problems of modern
+philosophy, and in his perception of the isolated
+elements of their solution. His negative significance
+is in his clinging to a method which allowed
+him only to juxtapose these elements without forming
+of them a true synthesis. There are a number
+of sides from which we may state Leibniz’s realization
+of the problem. Perhaps that which distinguishes
+Leibniz most clearly from Locke is their respective
+treatments of the relation of the physical
+to the spiritual, or, as the question presented itself
+mainly to them, of the “natural” to the “supernatural.”
+To Locke the supernatural was strictly
+miraculous; it was, from our standpoint, mere
+power, or will. It might indeed be rational, but
+this reason was incapable of being apprehended by
+us. Its distinction from the finite was so great
+that it could be conceived only as something preceding
+and succeeding the finite in time, and meanwhile
+as intercalating itself arbitrarily here and
+there into the finite; as, for example, in the relation
+of soul and body, in the production of
+sensation, etc. In a word, Locke thought that
+the ends of philosophy, and with it of religion
+and morals, could be attained only by a complete
+separation of the “natural” and the “supernatural.”
+Leibniz, on the other hand, conceived the aim of
+philosophy to be the demonstration of their harmony.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_260" title="260"> </a>
+This is evidenced by his treatment of the
+relations of the infinite and finite, of matter and
+spirit, of mechanical and final causation. And he
+found the sought-for harmony in the fact that the
+spiritual is the reason, purpose, and function of
+the natural. The oft-quoted words of Lotze express
+the thought of Leibniz: “The mechanical
+is unbounded in range, but is subordinate in value.”
+We cannot find some things that occur physically,
+and others that occur supernaturally; everything
+that occurs has its sufficient mechanical antecedents,
+but all that occurs has its significance, its purpose,
+in something that does not occur, but that eternally
+is&mdash;Reason. The mechanical and the spiritual are
+not realms which here and there come into outward
+contact. They are related as the conditioned
+and the conditioning. That, and not the idea of an
+artificial <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">modus vivendi</i>, is the true meaning of the
+pre-established harmony.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, Leibniz’s great significance for us
+is the fact that, although he accepted in good faith,
+and indeed as himself a master in its methods, the
+results and principles of physical science, he remained
+a teleological idealist of the type of Aristotle.
+But I have not used the right words. It
+was not in spite of his acceptance of the scientific
+view of the world that he retained his faith in
+the primacy of purpose and reason. On the contrary,
+he was an idealist because of his science,
+because only by the idea of an all-conditioning
+spiritual activity could he account for and make
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_261" title="261"> </a>
+valid scientific conceptions; he was a teleologist,
+because natural processes, with their summing up
+in the notion of causality, were meaningless except
+as manifesting an immanent purpose.</p>
+
+<p>There are other more technical ways of stating
+the bearing of Leibniz’s work. We may say that
+he realized that the problem of philosophy consisted
+in giving due value to the notions of individuality
+and universality, of identity and difference,
+or of the real and the ideal. In developing these
+ideas, however, we should only be repeating what has
+already been said, and so we may leave the matter
+here. On the negative side we need only recall what
+was said a few pages back regarding the incompatibility
+of Leibniz’s method&mdash;the scholastic formal
+logic&mdash;with the content of his philosophy. The
+attempt to find a formal criterion of truth was
+hopeless; it was worse than fruitless, for it led to
+such an interpretation of concrete truths as to
+deprive them of their significance and as to land
+Leibniz in involved contradictions.</p>
+
+<p>To write a complete account of the influence of
+Leibniz’s philosophy would be too large a task for
+these pages. If we were to include under this
+head all the ramifications of thought to which
+Leibniz stimulated, directly and indirectly, either
+by stating truths which some one worked out or
+by stating errors which incited some one to new
+points of view, we should have to sketch German
+philosophy since his time,&mdash;and not only the professional
+philosophy, but those wide aspects of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_262" title="262"> </a>
+thought which were reflected in Herder, Lessing,
+and Goethe. It is enough to consider him as the
+forerunner of Kant. It has become so customary to
+represent Kant as working wholly on the problem
+which Hume presented, that his great indebtedness
+to Leibniz is overlooked. Because Hume aroused
+Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, it is supposed
+that Kant threw off the entire influence of the
+Leibnizian thought as vain dreams of his sleep.
+Such a representation is one-sided. It is truer to
+state that Hume challenged Kant to discover the
+method by which he could justify the results of
+Leibniz. In this process, the results, no doubt,
+took on a new form: results are always relative
+to method; but Kant never lost sight of the results.
+In the main, he accepted the larger features
+of the Leibnizian conclusions, and, taught by
+Hume of the insufficiency of the method that Leibniz
+followed, searched for a method which should
+guarantee them.</p>
+
+<p>This aspect of Kant appears more fully in his
+lesser and somewhat controversial writings than in
+his classic works: and this, no doubt, is one reason
+that his indebtedness is so often overlooked. His
+close relation to Leibniz appears most definitely in
+his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">brochure</i> entitled “Concerning a Discovery which
+renders Unnecessary all Critique of Pure Reason.”
+A Wolffian, Eberhard by name, had “made the discovery”
+(to use Kant’s words) “that the Leibnizian
+philosophy contained a critique of reason just as
+well as the modern, and accordingly contained
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_263" title="263"> </a>
+everything that is true in the latter, and much else
+in addition.” In his reply to this writing, Kant
+takes the position that those who claimed to be
+Leibnizians simply repeated the words of Leibniz
+without penetrating into his spirit, and that consequently
+they misrepresented him on every important
+point. He, Kant, on the other hand, making
+no claim to use the terminology of Leibniz, was his
+true continuator, since he had only changed the
+doctrine of the latter so as to make it conform
+to the true intent of Leibniz, by removing its self-contradictions.
+He closes: “‘The Critique of
+Pure Reason’ may be regarded as the real apology
+for Leibniz, even against his own professed
+followers.”</p>
+
+<p>Kant, in particular, names three points in which
+he is the true follower of Leibniz. The professed
+disciples of the latter insisted that the law of
+sufficient reason was an objective law, a law of
+nature. But, says Kant, it is so notorious, so self-evident,
+that no one can make a new discovery
+through this principle, that Leibniz can have meant
+it only as subjective. “For what does it mean to
+say that over and above the principle of contradiction
+another principle must be employed? It
+means this: that, according to the principle of contradiction,
+only that can be known which is already
+contained in the notion of the object; if anything
+more is to be known, it must be sought through the
+use of a special principle, distinct from that of
+contradiction. Since this last kind of knowledge
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_264" title="264"> </a>
+is that of synthetic principles, Leibniz means just
+this: besides the principle of contradiction, or that
+of analytic judgments, there must be another, that
+of sufficient reason, for synthetic judgments. He
+thus pointed out, in a new and remarkable manner,
+that certain investigations in metaphysics were still
+to be made.” In other words, Kant, by his distinction
+of analytic and synthetic judgments, with
+their respective principles and spheres, carried out
+the idea of Leibniz regarding the principles of
+contradiction and sufficient reason.</p>
+
+<p>The second point concerns the relation of monads
+to material bodies. Eberhard, like the other professed
+Leibnizians, interpreted Leibniz as saying
+that corporeal bodies, as composite, are actually
+made up out of monads, as simple. Kant, on the
+other hand, saw clearly that Leibniz was not thinking
+of a relation of composition, but of condition.
+“He did not mean the material world, but the substrate,
+the intellectual world which lies in the idea
+of reason, and in which everything must be thought
+as consisting of simple substances.” Eberhard’s
+process, he says, is to begin with sense-phenomena,
+to find a simple element as a part of the sense-perceptions,
+and then to present this simple element
+as if it were spiritual and equivalent to the monad
+of Leibniz. Kant claims to follow the thought of
+Leibniz in regarding the simple not as an element
+<em>in</em> the sensuous, but as something super-sensuous,
+the <em>ground</em> of the sensuous. Leibniz’s mistake was
+that, not having worked out clearly the respective
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_265" title="265"> </a>
+limits of the principles of identity and of sufficient
+reason, he supposed that we had a direct intellectual
+intuition of this super-sensuous, when in reality
+it is unknowable.</p>
+
+<p>The third group of statements concerns the
+principle of pre-established harmony. “Is it possible,”
+asks Kant, “that Leibniz meant by this
+doctrine to assert the mere coincidence of two substances
+wholly independent of each other by nature,
+and incapable through their own force of being
+brought into community?” And his answer is
+that what Leibniz really implied was not a harmony
+between independent things, but a harmony between
+modes of knowing, between sense on the one hand
+and understanding on the other. The “Critique of
+Pure Reason” carried the discussion farther by
+pointing out its grounds; namely, that, without the
+unity of sense and understanding, no experience
+would be possible. <em>Why</em> there should be this harmony,
+<em>why</em> we should have experience, this question
+it is impossible to answer, says Kant,&mdash;adding that
+Leibniz confessed as much when he called it a
+“pre-established” harmony, thus not explaining it,
+but only referring it to a highest cause. That
+Leibniz really means a harmony within intelligence,
+not a harmony of things by themselves, is made
+more clear, according to Kant, from the fact that
+it is applied also to the relation between the kingdom
+of nature and of grace, of final and of efficient
+causes. Here the harmony is clearly not between
+two independently existing <em>external things</em>, but between
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_266" title="266"> </a>
+what flows from our notions of nature (<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Naturbegriffe</i>)
+and of freedom (<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Freiheitsbegriffe</i>); that
+is, between two distinct powers and principles
+<em>within us</em>,&mdash;an agreement which can be explained
+only through the idea of an intelligent cause of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>If we review these points in succession, the influence
+of Leibniz upon Kant becomes more marked.
+As to the first one, it is well known that Kant’s
+philosophy is based upon, and revolves within, the
+distinction of analytic and synthetic judgments; and
+this distinction Kant clearly refers to the Leibnizian
+distinction between the principles of contradiction
+and of sufficient reason, or of identity and differentiation.
+It is not meant that Kant came to this
+thought through the definitions of Leibniz; on the
+contrary, Kant himself refers it to Hume’s distinction
+between matters of fact and relations of
+ideas. But when Kant had once generalized the
+thought of Hume, it fell at once, as into ready
+prepared moulds, into the categories of Leibniz.
+He never escapes from the Leibnizian distinction.
+In his working of it out consists his greatness as
+the founder of modern thought; from his acceptance
+of it as ultimate result his contradictions.
+That is to say, Kant did not merely receive the
+vague idea of sufficient reason: he so connected it
+with what he learned from Hume that he transformed
+it into the idea of synthesis, and proceeded
+to work out the conception of synthesis in the
+various notions of the understanding, or categories,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_267" title="267"> </a>
+as applicable to the material of sense. What
+Leibniz bequeathed him was the undefined idea
+that knowledge of matters of fact rests upon the
+principle of sufficient reason. What Kant did with
+this inheritance was to identify the wholly vague
+idea of sufficient reason with the notion that every
+fact of experience rests upon necessary synthetic
+connection,&mdash;that is, connection according to notions
+of understanding with other facts,&mdash;and to determine,
+so far as he could, the various forms of synthesis,
+or of sufficient reason. With Leibniz the
+principle remained essentially infertile, because it
+was the mere notion of the ultimate reference of
+experience to understanding. In the hands of
+Kant, it became the instrument of revolutionizing
+philosophy, because Kant showed the articulate
+members of understanding by which experience
+is constituted, and described them in the act of
+constituting.</p>
+
+<p>So much for his working out of the thought. But
+on the other hand, Kant never transcended the absoluteness
+of the distinction between the principles
+of synthesis and analysis, of sufficient reason and
+contradiction. The result was that he regarded the
+synthetic principle as the principle only of our knowledge,
+while perfect knowledge he still considered to
+follow the law of identity, of mere analysis. He
+worked out the factor of negation, of differentiation,
+contained in the notion of synthesis, but limited it
+to synthesis upon material of sense, presupposing
+that there is another kind of knowledge, not limited
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_268" title="268"> </a>
+to sense, not depending upon the synthetic principle,
+but resting upon the principle of contradiction,
+or analysis, and that this kind is the type, the
+norm, of the only perfect knowledge. In other
+words, while admitting the synthetic principle of
+differentiation as a necessary element within <em>our</em>
+knowledge, he held that on account of this element
+our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal realm.
+Leibniz’s error was in supposing that the pure principles
+of the logical understanding, resting on contradiction,
+could give <em>us</em> knowledge of the noumenal
+world; his truth was in supposing that only by such
+principles <em>could</em> they be known. Thus, in substance,
+Kant. Like Leibniz, in short, he failed to
+transcend the absoluteness of the value of the scholastic
+method; but he so worked out another and
+synthetic method,&mdash;the <em>development</em> of the idea of
+sufficient reason,&mdash;that he made it necessary for
+his successors to transcend it.</p>
+
+<p>The second point concerns the relations of the
+sensuous and the super-sensuous. Here, besides
+setting right the ordinary misconception of Leibniz,
+Kant did nothing but render him consistent with
+himself. Leibniz attempted to prove the existence
+of God, as we have seen, by the principles both of
+sufficient reason and contradiction. Kant denies the
+validity of the proof by either method. God is the
+sufficient cause, or reason, of the contingent sense
+world. But since Leibniz admits that this contingent
+world may, after all, be but a dream, how shall
+we rise from it to the notion of God? It is not
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_269" title="269"> </a>
+our dreams that demonstrate to us the existence of
+reality. Or, again, sense-knowledge is confused
+knowledge. How shall this knowledge, by hypothesis
+imperfect, guarantee to us the existence of a
+perfect being? On the other hand, since the synthetic
+principle, or that of sufficient reason, <em>is</em> necessary
+to give us knowledge of matters of fact, the
+principle of contradiction, while it may give us a
+consistent and even necessary notion of a supreme
+being, cannot give this notion reality. Leibniz,
+while admitting, with regard to all other matters
+of fact, that the principles of formal logic can give
+no unconditional knowledge, yet supposes that,
+with regard to the one unconditional reality, they
+are amply sufficient. Kant but renders him self-consistent
+on this point.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, with regard to the doctrine of
+pre-established harmony that Kant’s large measure
+of indebtedness to Leibniz is most apt to be overlooked.
+Kant’s claim that Leibniz himself meant
+the doctrine in a subjective sense (that is, of a
+harmony between powers in our own intelligence)
+rather than objective (or between things out of
+relation to intelligence) seems, at first sight, to go
+far beyond the mark. However, when we recall
+that to Leibniz the sense world is only the confused
+side of rational thought, there is more truth in Kant’s
+saying than appears at this first sight. The harmony
+is between sense and reason. But it may at
+least be said without qualification that Kant only
+translated into subjective terms, terms of intelligence,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_270" title="270"> </a>
+what appears in Leibniz as objective. This
+is not the place to go into the details of Kant’s conception
+of the relation of the material to the psychical,
+of the body and the soul. We may state,
+however, in his own words, that “the question is
+no longer as to the possibility of the association
+of the soul with other known and foreign substances
+outside it, but as to the connection of the presentations
+of inner sense with the modifications of our external
+sensibility.” It is a question, in short, of the
+harmony of two modes of our own presentation, not
+of the harmony of two independent things. And
+Kant not only thus deals with the fact of harmony,
+but he admits, as its <em>possible</em> source, just what Leibniz
+claims to be its <em>actual</em> source; namely, some one
+underlying reality, which Leibniz calls the monad,
+but to which Kant gives no name. “I can well
+suppose,” says Kant, “that the substance to which
+through external sense extension is attributed, is
+also the subject of the presentations given to us by
+its inner sense: <em>thus that which in one respect is
+called material being would be in another respect
+thinking being</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Kant treats similarly the problem of the relations
+of physical and final causes, of necessity and freedom.
+Here, as in the case just mentioned, his main
+problem is to discover their <em>harmony</em>. His solution,
+again, is in the union, in our intelligence, of the understanding&mdash;as
+the source of the notions which
+“make nature”&mdash;with the ideas of that reason
+which gives a “categorical imperative.” The cause
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_271" title="271"> </a>
+of the possibility of this harmony between nature and
+freedom, between the sense world and the rational,
+he finds in a being, God, whose sole function in the
+Kantian philosophy may be said to be to “pre-establish”
+it. I cannot believe that Kant, in postulating
+the problems of philosophy as the harmony of sense
+and understanding, of nature and freedom, and in
+finding this harmony where he did, was not profoundly
+influenced, consciously as well as unconsciously,
+by Leibniz. In fact, I do not think that we can
+understand the nature either of Kant’s immense contributions
+to modern thought or of his inconsistencies,
+until we have traced them to their source in the
+Leibnizian philosophy,&mdash;admitting, on the other
+hand, that we cannot understand why Kant should
+have found necessary a new way of approach to
+the results of Leibniz, until we recognize to the
+full his indebtedness to Hume. It was, indeed,
+Hume that awoke him to his endeavors, but it was
+Leibniz who set before him the goal of these endeavors.
+That the goal should appear somewhat
+transformed, when approached from a new point of
+view, was to be expected. But alas! the challenge
+from Hume did not wholly awaken Kant. He still
+accepted without question the validity of the scholastic
+method,&mdash;the analytic principle of identity as
+the type of perfect knowledge,&mdash;although denying
+its sufficiency for human intelligence. Leibniz suggested,
+and suggested richly, the synthetic, the negative
+aspect of thought; Kant worked it out as a
+necessary law of <em>our</em> knowledge; it was left to his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_272" title="272"> </a>
+successors to work it out as a factor in the law of
+<em>all</em> knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a grievous blunder to suppose that
+this final chapter annihilates the earlier ones; that
+the failure of Leibniz as to method, though a failure
+in a fundamental point, cancelled his splendid
+achievements. Such thoughts as that substance is
+activity; that its process is measured by its end, its
+idea; that the universe is an inter-related unit; the
+thoughts of organism, of continuity, of uniformity
+of law,&mdash;introduced and treated as Leibniz treated
+them,&mdash;are imperishable. They are members of the
+growing consciousness, on the part of intelligence, of
+its own nature. There are but three or four names
+in the history of thought which can be placed by the
+side of Leibniz’s in respect to the open largeness, the
+unexhausted fertility, of such thoughts. But it is
+not enough for intelligence to have great thoughts
+nor even true thoughts. It is testimony to the sincerity
+and earnestness of intelligence that it cannot
+take even such thoughts as those of Leibniz on trust.
+It must <em>know</em> them; it must have a method adequate
+to their demonstration. And in a broad sense, the
+work of Kant and of his successors was the discovery
+of a method which should justify the objective
+idealism of Leibniz, and which in its history has
+more than fulfilled this task.</p>
+
+<div class="transcribers-note page-break-after">
+<p class="center"><a name="tn-bottom"><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></a></p>
+<p>The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The
+first passage is the original passage, the second the corrected one.</p>
+
+<ul id="corrections">
+<li><a href="#copyright">Copyright statement</a>:<br/>
+<span class="small-caps">By S.&nbsp;<span class="correction">C</span> Griggs and Company</span>.<br/>
+<span class="small-caps">By S.&nbsp;<span class="correction">C.</span> Griggs and Company</span>.
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_96">Page 96</a>:<br/>
+Pure passivity of any kind is a myth, <span class="correction">as</span> scholastic<br/>
+Pure passivity of any kind is a myth, <span class="correction">a</span> scholastic
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_159">Page 159</a>:<br/>
+atoms. The <span class="correction">atoms,</span> are separated only in virtue of<br/>
+atoms. The <span class="correction">atoms</span> are separated only in virtue of
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the
+Human Understanding, by John Dewey
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