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To first
part:Monadology
- part A.
41. Whence it follows that God is
absolutely perfect; for perfection is nothing
but amount of positive reality, in the strict
sense, leaving out of account the limits or
bounds in things which are limited. And where
there are no bounds, that is to say in God,
perfection is absolutely infinite. (Theod. 22,
Pref. [E. 469 a; G. vi. 27].)
Here we
have this Scholastic perfection I spoke of. I do
not understand much of (41), and one my
puzzlements with perfections, alluded to in the
last remark, is that I find absent toothaches
(and many other evils) much more
perfect that present toothaches. Voltaire
was similarly puzzled, and based his novel "Candide"
on it, which lampoons Leibniz in the shape of
Dr. Pangloss ["Dr. Allwords"], who tries to
defend a Leibnizian notion that we all live in
the most perfect of all possible worlds in the
face of much trouble, pain and misery, that in
the end also mean the death of Pangloss.
42.
It follows also that created beings derive their
perfections from the influence of God, but that
their imperfections come from their own nature,
which is incapable of being without limits. For
it is in this that they differ from God. An
instance of this original imperfection of
created beings may be seen in the natural
inertia of bodies. (Theod. 20, 27-30, 153, 167,
377 sqq.)
Why this
would follow as a matter of logic escapes me,
but it is quite obvious to me why "created
beings" would want to believe that their
good qualities are reflections of the good
qualities of their powerful and benevolent
maker: it is nice to attribute divine qualities
to oneself, especially if one has no pleasant
self-image to start with, and nice to portray
oneself as made in the image of the maker of
all.
The
argument that human "imperfections come from
their own nature" is a version of the argument
that really and truly evil either does not
exist, or else does exist because God, in his
great goodness, saw that its existence made the
world a better place than its non-existence.
In my
eyes, such arguments, well-intended though they
may be, seem to be merely ways not to face
unpleasant facts, or to make them seem more
pleasant than they are: "OK - six million Jews
were gassed in Auschwitz, but this happened only
because God in his goodness saw that it was
better that it happened than that it did not
happen."
There
simply is a very fundamental logical problem for
everybody who wishes to maintain that the world
was created by an all-powerful benevolent God
and the palpable fact that very much happens in
the world that is quite evil, both according to
the followers of such a God, in terms of the
teachings they attribute to this God, and to
others, who have other Gods or no Gods.
Also,
while I have no problems with someone who claims
that there is evil and misery in the world, and
he does not really understand why this must be
so, I do have problems with someone who claims
that there is no evil and no misery in the
world, and that I could see the same if my brain
or moral
character were better: I think it is far
more probable such a person is a liar and a
hypocrite than that such a person has true
insight. And Voltaire reasoned likewise,
although I am personally willing to believe that
Leibniz was neither a liar nor a hypocrite, and
sincerely meant well - and Leibniz clearly
was an extra-ordinary man.
43.
It is farther true that in God there is not only
the source of existences but also that of
essences, in so far as they are real, that is to
say, the source of what is real in the possible.
For the understanding of God is the region of
eternal truths or of the ideas on which they
depend, and without Him there would be nothing
real in the possibilities of things, and not
only would there be nothing in existence, but
nothing would even be possible. (Theod. 20.)
Behind
this point lies some rather complicated modal
logic we need not consider (since it probably
was not completely clear to Leibniz, to start
with). The point to notice is that "the source
of what is real i[s] the possible", for this
contains an important insight of Leibniz, that
may be stated without any reference to
divinities:
What is real
is not merely what happens to exist (or have
existed), but includes what is possible and what
may and might have been with what happens to
exist, for to exist is to exclude certain things
as impossible, namely what cannot be
consistently combined with it, and to include
certain things as possible, namely what can be
consistently combined with it. And these
possible combinations, whether realised or not,
are as much part of reality as those
combinations that are real, and the possibilities that
inhere in things are fundamental
to our
understanding of what may arise from what is.
It should
be noted that this is an important insight
(whatever its ultimate status), for human beings
normally reason in terms of both
possibilities and realities, and not
merely in terms of the latter: nearly all one's
acts and choices are based on one's beliefs
about presently unrealised possibilities
included in what one believes to be real, that
one desires to see realised or to remain
unrealised.
44.
For if there is a reality in essences or
possibilities, or rather in eternal truths, this
reality must needs be founded in something
existing and actual, and consequently in the
existence of the necessary Being, in whom
essence involves existence, or in whom to be
possible is to be actual. (Theod. 184-189, 335.)
One may,
of course, agree with this, but with the
understanding that the "necessary Being" is
Nature rather than God. But if one does so, the
remark under the last point remains standing: in
any case there really are unrealised
possibilities and realised possibilities in
reality, and the former are as real and
important as the latter.
45.
Thus God alone (or the necessary Being) has this
prerogative that He must necessarily exist, if
He is possible. And as nothing can interfere
with the possibility of that which involves no
limits, no negation and consequently no
contradiction, this [His possibility] is
sufficient of itself to make known the existence
of God a priori. We have thus proved it, through
the reality of eternal truths. But a little
while ago we proved it also a posteriori, since
there exist contingent beings, which can have
their final or sufficient reason only in the
necessary Being, which has the reason of its
existence in itself.
This again
consists of arguments for God's existence I
mostly commented on before. The first statement
is a version of what Leibniz thought of as his
own argument for God's existence, roughly on the
following line: God is by definition such that
He must exist if He may exist; God may exist,
ergo God must exist.
Apart from
modal unclarities, there is no reason to accept
such a definition of God, and reason not to, for
such a definition that declares something real
simply because it may be real seems - "it exists
because it may exist!" - confuses what is real
and what may be thought about what may be real.
Also, in
general, the step from 'I can think of it' to
'so it exists' seems to validate at best the
existence of a thought but not the
existence of what the thought is about, and
seems to confuse the former and the latter. (And
those who - with Anselm and Descartes - like
this type of argument for God should spend some
thought on a unicorn that I came across in my
thoughts, that claimed all and only unicorns
exist because they are thought about. This
unicorn I was thinking about also had a mate,
who claimed that female unicorns exist because
they are not thought about.)
46.
We must not, however, imagine, as some do, that
eternal truths, being dependent on God, are
arbitrary and depend on His will, as Descartes,
and afterwards M. Poiret, appear to have held.
That is true only of contingent truths, of which
the principle is fitness [convenance] or choice
of the best, whereas necessary truths depend
solely on His understanding and are its inner
object. (Theod. 180-184, 185, 335, 351, 380.)
This
addresses another problem that was already
discussed by the Greeks and Romans. As far as
Leibniz is concerned, God's power extends over
contingent truths, but He cannot do what is
logically impossible. The Greeks and Romans
discussed the problem in a form like: If your
God is all-powerful, why can He not make 2 equal
to 3 or create a married spinster? It seems
Leibniz held that God must think by logical
principles, and that Leibniz held God always
chooses to create the best possible.
47.
Thus God alone is the primary unity or original
simple substance, of which all created or
derivative Monads are products and have their
birth, so to speak, through continual
fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to
moment, limited by the receptivity of the
created being, of whose essence it is to have
limits. (Theod. 382-391, 398, 395.)
Of course,
something similar may be said about Nature, or
the Big Bang, especially if the reader knows
that a "fulguration", according to the Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary, is "The action of
lightening or flashing like lightning."
48.
In God there is Power, which is the source of
all, also Knowledge, whose content is the
variety of the ideas, and finally Will, which
makes changes or products according to the
principle of the best. (Theod. 7, 149, 150.)
These characteristics correspond to what in the
created Monads forms the ground or basis, to the
faculty of Perception and to the faculty of
Appetition. But in God these attributes are
absolutely infinite or perfect; and in the
created Monads or the Entelechies (or
perfectihabiae, as Hermolaus Barbarus translated
the word) there are only imitations of these
attributes, according to the degree of
perfection of the Monad. (Theod. 87.)
So,
according to Leibniz, all of reality consists of
physical bodies that are kept together and
coordinated in their acts by some Monad, which
is always a perceiving entity, and a desiring
entity in the case of men, animals and the
Supreme Monad, who made all.
It should
be noticed that two of Leibniz's reasons to
introduce Monads are to account for the unity,
coherence, properties and acts of things, and to
account for perception and desire, which Leibniz
believed could not be explained in physical
terms (see (17) and the remarks under it).
49.
A created thing is said to act outwardly in so
far as it has perfection, and to suffer [or be
passive, patir] in relation to another, in so
far as it is imperfect. Thus activity [action]
is attributed to a Monad, in so far as it has
distinct perceptions, and passivity [passion] in
so far as its perceptions are confused. (Theod.
32, 66, 386.)
Here we
have two applications of the concept of
perfection: the less perfect something is, the
more it depends on other things, and the less
perfect something is, the less it can
understand. Also, everything acts or is acted
upon, and the less perfect a thing is, the more
it is acted upon (while God alone only acts and
is not acted upon).
50. And one created thing is more
perfect than another, in this, that there is
found in the more perfect that which serves to
explain a priori what takes place in the less
perfect, and it is on this account that the
former is said to act upon the latter.
This
extends the previous point, and may be taken as
Leibniz's metaphysical explanation of knowledge:
The more complicated, more perfect monads may
understand the less perfect monads in a way
similar to God's knowing all there is to know,
only not with the same degree of perfection or
accuracy. (There is a real problem here, which
is this: How can an infinitesimally small part
of the known universe, such as a man or a group
of men, come to really know the (nearly)
infinitally great universe they are part of?)
51.
But in simple substances the influence of one
Monad upon another is only ideal, and it can
have its effect only through the mediation of
God, in so far as in the ideas of God any Monad
rightly claims that God, in regulating the
others from the beginning of things, should have
regard to it. For since one created Monad cannot
have any physical influence upon the inner being
of another, it is only by this means that the
one can be dependent upon the other. (Theod. 9,
54, 65, 66, 201. Abrege, Object. 3.)
Here the
underlying point is Leibniz's earlier statement
that Monads have no windows. As far as I can
see, what Leibniz meant was that Monads, being
mental or ideal entities, have no intercourse
with the physical world, nor indeed with each
other, except through special intervention of
the Supreme Monad that created all.
52.
Accordingly, among created things, activities
and passivities are mutual. For God, comparing
two simple substances, finds in each reasons
which oblige Him to adapt the other to it, and
consequently what is active in certain respects
is passive from another point of view; active in
so far as what we distinctly know in it serves
to explain [rendre raison de] what takes place
in another, and passive in so far as the
explanation [raison] of what takes place in it
is to be found in that which is distinctly known
in another. (Theod. 66.)
Apart from
Leibniz's own ideas about how to explain
perceptions and feelings, this seems related to
the Scholastic notion that only God is a pure
act and purely ideal, and all other things
consist of various mixtures of the divine and of
coarse physical matter.
53.
Now, as in the Ideas of God there is an infinite
number of possible universes, and as only one of
them can be actual, there must be a sufficient
reason for the choice of God, which leads Him to
decide upon one rather than another. (Theod. 8,
10, 44, 173, 196 sqq., 225, 414-416.)
Here we
arrive at another of Leibniz's philosophical
innovations: The notion of a possible world -
indeed, as he says, of infinities of possible
worlds. Apart from God, one quite easy
interpretation of such possible worlds is as
arising from all those things one may do, of
which one does only a small fraction, but could
have done some different fraction.
One
problem that is not addressed here is why God
was satisfied with just one real possible world:
Why was it not better for God to create myriads
of equally real possible worlds? (Indeed, such a
conception - to the effect that what may happen
does happen, if not in this world then in
another equally real possible world - is at the
basis of one of the interpretations of Quantum
Mechanics, due to Everett, that often is called
'the Many Worlds interpretation', for this
reason.)
54.
And this reason can be found only in the fitness
[convenance], or in the degrees of perfection,
that these worlds possess, since each possible
thing has the right to aspire to existence in
proportion to the amount of perfection it
contains in germ. (Theod. 74, 167, 350, 201,
130, 352, 345 sqq., 354.)
This
reiterates what was said before, in (48), that God, who is
benevolent and all-powerful, though He also cannot do
the logically impossible, always chooses to make
real what is best. In view of the fact that much
of what is real is quite painful to many, this
is bound to lead to problems. For example,
agreeing for the moment with Leibniz that God,
in his goodness, saw that the holocaust upon the
Jews was necessary, then why, in his goodness,
was it also necessary to make what happened in
Auschwitz so painful?
Put
otherwise, on a less forbidding historical
level: Accepting that all human beings must die
seems easy, whatever the reasons or causes - but
if there is an all-powerful benevolent God, then
why must some quite harmless or rather good
human beings die such miserable, cruel and
painful deaths by some incurable disease?
The reader
should note what my problem is: Supposing God
saw correctly that the sum of good in the world
is greater if this baby dies, why, if it had to
die, did it have to die so awfully, for example
from spina biffida - which the Good Lord might
have prevented by supplying its mother with a
little folic acid during her pregnancy?
And my
problem is especially with the arrogance of
priestly divine mouthpieces: How can they know
what they claim to know? And if they
cannot know what they claim to know, what right
do they have to claim to know or believe or
propound such statements that these babies or
those Jews had to die so cruelly and miserably
for the good of the world? (The reader may care
to know that I am a philosophical unbeliever who
occasionally listens to religious programs on
the BBC, largely to remain amazed about what
religious people dare to claim and seek to
impose on others. And the religious reader
should consider that by his or her own religious
lights his or her all-powerful benevolent God
has arranged a world in which all the many
millions of believers in other faiths are
deluded, immoral, and hellward bound, normally,
and millions are and have been killed by
religious conflicts.)
55.
Thus the actual existence of the best that
wisdom makes known to God is due to this, that
His goodness makes Him choose it, and His power
makes Him produce it. (Theod. 8, 78, 80, 84,
119, 204, 206, 208. Abrege, Object. 1 and 8.)
Now let us
for a moment do away with God, His goodness, His
wisdom, His power, and His choices. Suppose
there is only a natural world, that somehow came
into being, nobody really knows how or why, in
which people are born and must die. There is
then, apart from other wild hypotheses, nothing
to fear after death, and also no rewards after
death; and there is no Almighty Father in the
sky to look up to, to damn, or to pray to.
Indeed,
one of my own problems about such an Almighty
Father in the sky is that He, if He exists, has
left behind such questionable evidence of his
existence and properties, that even great
geniuses like Leibniz cannot understand Him, and
certainly cannot convince most other people that
they did if they did understand Him.
For
somebody like me, indeed, this is a fundamental
argument for atheism: It seems most of
the best human minds have tried to frame some
proof that there is a God, but none of these
proofs is valid, while the different concepts of
God different people reach are different and
often contradictory. So if there is a God, He
(She, It) is beyond human understanding, and
what is beyond human understanding is beyond
human dogmatising, postulating, preaching or
teaching: Of what one cannot understand, one can
only speak nonsense.
Incidentally: There are some
proofs of God that are logically valid - but they
all have two shortcomings. First, they depend on
premisses that often are not credible or seem
arbitrary. Second, what these valid proofs prove,
from assumptions that are not clearly true, that may
be propositions like "there is a first cause", do
not at all prove that any god as conceived in any
theology or religion exists.
56.
Now this connexion or adaptation of all created
things to each and of each to all, means that
each simple substance has relations which
express all the others, and, consequently, that
it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.
(Theod. 130, 360.)
Here we
return from God to more mundane things, at least
as conceived by Leibniz: Each Monad is (as) a
perpetual living mirror of the universe. It
should be noticed that the analogy or metaphor
of the mirror for perception and thought has
been often used, but Leibniz meant it in a
rather wider sense than is normal: He believed
each Monad somehow mirrors all other Monads, and
thus the whole universe, although this mirroring
will be quite confused or indistinct, especially
if the Monad's position in the
schema of things is low (and therefore the
Monad cannot properly think). Also,
insofar as physical mirrors reflect
rather than project their environments
- see under (11)
- Leibniz term 'mirror' is metaphorical and at least a little
misleading.
It should
also be remarked that Leibniz believed that each
Monad is infinite, even if infinitely small, so
it may represent all, presumably rather like any
small segment of the real numbers is
equinumerous to all real numbers (and thus each
non-empty interval of real numbers may be taken
as containing a segment that copies all the real
numbers).
57.
And as the same town, looked at from various
sides, appears quite different and becomes as it
were numerous in aspects [perspectivement]; even
so, as a result of the infinite number of simple
substances, it is as if there were so many
different universes, which, nevertheless are
nothing but aspects [perspectives] of a single
universe, according to the special point of view
of each Monad. (Theod.
147.)
This perspectivism (as
it is sometimes called) arises here from
Leibniz's idealism, as an explanation of how
appearance and reality (as construed in
Leibniz's metaphysics) can come to be and differ
so much. And the explanation (or helpful
analogy) is that one and the same reality may
have a quite different appearance for different
things.
Another way to make the
same or a similar point is simply to think of
the different ideas and values and different
points of view different people have about -
what we will assume is - the one world they all
live in. Each human being carries his or her own
version and appreciation of the universe around,
and none of these versions or appreciations is
directly accessible to any other human being:
they all can share their ideas and values only
by representing these by signs, symbols and
gestures that can be experienced and interpreted
by all, or some.
We shall come to
consider the Leibnizian hypothesis of the Pre-Established
Harmony below, but may here point out
that in common sense reality a hypothesis like
it is accepted, namely to the effect that
(1) all human
beings have similar experiences in similar
circumstances (and thus each human being may
know what any other would or does feel when
(mal-)treated in many ways);
(2) the experience of no human being is
directly accessible to any other human being;
(3) all human beings, if sane, can communicate
some of their ideas and feelings to other
human beings, thereby making their private
experience indirectly accessible to others,
and
(4) all human beings live in one and the same
world, of which they each have their own
version and appreciation.
These are rather
fundamental metaphysical assumptions, however
commonsensical they seem, as is shown by
Leibniz' need to appeal to God's Pre-Established
Harmony of different humans individual ideas to
account for it within his idealist philosophy.
58. And by this
means there is obtained as great variety as
possible, along with the greatest possible
order; that is to say, it is the way to get as
much perfection as possible. (Theod. 120, 124,
241 sqq., 214, 243, 275.)
Precisely how this
relates to the previous point is not clear to
me, but it is obvious that here we have another
application of the concept of perfection.
For readers unfamiliar
with philosophy, it should perhaps be added, in
fairness to Leibniz, that such arguments
involving perfections are quite common
in Aristotle and the Scholastic philosophers,
and that the idea of perfection expressed
something like the following assumption: each
and every thing has an end, which is to be that
thing, and to become whatever that thing's end
is. Thus the end of an acorn is to be an acorn
and become an oak, and similarly for all other
things: they are, change and develop according
to their ends.
And for readers
unfamiliar with physics, it should then be added
that, while it seems entirely natural for human
beings to speak of themselves and other living
things as acting for ends, there are no
human ends in physics, at least outside brains
(i.e. unreal situations that are imagined by
physical things - such as oaks and rocks - that
serve as the end the things who incorporate them
try to bring about). (This is one of the
problems addressed under (17),
that may be summarised as: So far there is no
reduction of the mental to the physical, and if
the brain is the organ that makes us think and
feel, than so far it is not known how the brain
does this.)
59. Besides, no
hypothesis but this (which I venture to call
proved) fittingly exalts the greatness of God;
and this Monsieur Bayle recognized when, in his
Dictionary (article Rorarius), he raised
objections to it, in which indeed he was
inclined to think that I was attributing too
much to God - more than it is possible to
attribute. But he was unable to give any reason
which could show the impossibility of this
universal harmony, according to which every
substance exactly expresses all others through
the relations it has with them.
We are talking of the Pre-Established
Harmony, which Leibniz started talking
about in (57), without
mentioning the name. I did in my comment to (57). One
reason for Leibniz to introduce his hypothesis
was to explain how Monads could communicate in
an orderly way and reflect (on) the same
reality: Because God has arranged it to be so
once and forever that all Monads mirror all
things in their own, possibly confused and
indistinct, ways. This hypothesis was also
directed against the so-called Occasionalists,
who held that God continuously interferes in the
world, and against people who maintained there
is no real world. I have given my own version
under (57), in the
form of four widely accepted hypotheses, that
may all be false.
60. Further, in
what I have just said there may be seen the
reasons a priori why things could not be
otherwise than they are. For God in regulating
the whole has had regard to each part, and in
particular to each Monad, whose nature being to
represent, nothing can confine it to the
representing of only one part of things; though
it is true that this representation is merely
confused as regards the variety of particular
things [le detail] in the whole universe, and
can be distinct only as regards a small part of
things, namely, those which are either nearest
or greatest in relation to each of the Monads;
otherwise each Monad would be a deity. It is not
as regards their object, but as regards the
different ways in which they have knowledge of
their object, that the Monads are limited. In a
confused way they all strive after [vont a] the
infinite, the whole; but they are limited and
differentiated through the degrees of their
distinct perceptions.
I suppose "the reasons
a priori why things could not be otherwise than
they are" is Leibniz's contention that God is a
necessary being on whom all beings fully depend,
and who always chooses the best possible.
Another thing to notice
is that the nature of each Monad is to
represent, i.e. to assign meanings, which is one
of the problematic things we found under (17).
And I suppose "the
infinite" all Monads strive after in their own
ways is God.
61. And
compounds are in this respect analogous with
[symbolisent avec] simple substances. For all is
a plenum (and thus all matter is connected
together) and in the plenum every motion has an
effect upon distant bodies in proportion to
their distance, so that each body not only is
affected by those which are in contact with it
and in some way feels the effect of everything
that happens to them, but also is mediately
affected by bodies adjoining those with which it
itself is in immediate contact. Wherefore it
follows that this inter-communication of things
extends to any distance, however great. And
consequently every body feels the effect of all
that takes place in the universe, so that he who
sees all might read in each what is happening
everywhere, and even what has happened or shall
happen, observing in the present that which is
far off as well in time as in place: sympnoia
panta, as Hippocrates said. But a soul can read
in itself only that which is there represented
distinctly; it cannot all at once unroll
everything that is enfolded in it, for its
complexity is infinite.
It is a common
assumption that things have effects upon distant
bodies in proportion to their distance, in
general in the sense that the greater the
distance, then - ceteris paribus - the smaller
the effect. Another common assumption is that
effects take time to move through space from one
thing to another. Taken together these
assumptions entail problems for the notion that
every Monad mirrors all of the universe, even if
every Monad is infinite, since it may take a
long time for effects of things that did happen
to propagate through space and arrive at each
and every Monad.
A problem I have with
Leibniz's last claim is why an infinite Monad
could not represent to itself its own infinity -
after all, it is the mark of the infinite to
have proper subsets as large as itself.
62. Thus,
although each created Monad represents the whole
universe, it represents more distinctly the body
which specially pertains to it, and of which it
is the entelechy; and as this body expresses the
whole universe through the connexion of all
matter in the plenum, the soul also represents
the whole universe in representing this body,
which belongs to it in a special way. (Theod.
400.)
Leibniz mounted his
assumption of Pre-Established Harmony to
account, among other things, for the relation
between the soul and the body. A problem I have
with the present point is how a Monad knows what
is "the body which specially pertains to it"
i.e. of which it is the Monad. For if the Monad
is mental, and the body is not, why couldn't a
Monad's body be at a completely other place than
the Monad itself? And if this couldn't happen,
what is the link between a Monad and "the body
which specially pertains to it"? (That a Monad
thinks something like 'I feel my body and I am
so and so' seems not sufficient, since some
insane people have thought they are Napoleon.
Also, insanity in this context is not a
sufficient counter-argument, since it is at
least logically possible that most souls are
mistaken about their real status - as indeed all
followers of all major religions must hold is
true about all the followers of all other major
religions than their own.)
63.
The body belonging to a Monad (which is its
entelechy or its soul) constitutes along with
the entelechy what may be called a living being,
and along with the soul what is called an
animal. Now
this body of living being or of an animal is
always organic; for, as every Monad is, in its
own way, a mirror of the universe, and as the
universe is ruled according to a perfect order,
there must also be order in that which
represents it, i.e. in the perceptions of the
soul, and consequently there must be order in
the body, through which the universe is
represented in the soul. (Theod. 403.)
If this answers my
questions under the last point, the answer is in
the end: the universe is represented in the soul
"through" the body. But this hardly answers my
questions.
64. Thus the
organic body of each living being is a kind of
divine machine or natural automaton, which
infinitely surpasses all artificial automata.
For a machine made by the skill of man is not a
machine in each of its parts. For instance, the
tooth of a brass wheel has parts or fragments
which for us are not artificial products, and
which do not have the special characteristics of
the machine, for they give no indication of the
use for which the wheel was intended. But the
machines of nature, namely, living bodies, are
still machines in their smallest parts ad
infinitum. It is this that constitutes the
difference between nature and art, that is to
say, between the divine art and ours. (Theod.
134, 146, 194, 403.)
Here we have the
interesting notion of a "divine machine or
natural automaton, which infinitely surpasses
all artificial automata". There is a discussion
of the import of his point in the appendix on a
logic of parts. (It seems that Leibniz
here, if not already much earlier, has revised
his concept of 'part', without saying so, and,
so far as I can see, without being aware of his
revision.)
For Leibniz, this is
evidently related to minds being purposive (end
directed), while in modern terms Leibniz might
be taken as claiming (by implication) that if
human beings are algorithmic automata, they are
not finite machines, such as computers
are, but - at least - infinite machines.
And it should be added that the notion of an
infinite algorithmic machine is not at all an
incoherent notion, mathematically speaking, and
that there is a good introduction to both
subjects in Marvin Minsky's "Finite
and infinite machines".
65. And the
Author of nature has been able to employ this
divine and infinitely wonderful power of art,
because each portion of matter is not only
infinitely divisible, as the ancients observed,
but is also actually subdivided without end,
each part into further parts, of which each has
some motion of its own; otherwise it would be
impossible for each portion of matter to express
the whole universe. (Theod. Prelim., Disc. de la
Conform. 70, and 195.)
Precisely what Leibniz
may have had in mind here is unclear to me, but
there is a suggestion that Leibniz conceived of
an infinity like the real numbers, including
infinitely divisible intervals, and not merely
like the natural numbers.
Also, it seems Leibniz
here asserts two different concepts of infinity:
as what is divisible without end, and as what is
produced when such a infinite division has been
carried out. (These two concepts are sometimes
distinguished as the syncategorematic or
mathematical infinite, and as the categorematic
or metaphysical infinite. It is interesting that
in the context of mathematics Leibniz usually
claimed that infinitesimals are merely a
'facon de parler'. See A.W. Moore 'The
Infinite'. )
66. Whence it
appears that in the smallest particle of matter
there is a world of creatures, living beings,
animals, entelechies, souls.
In other words, in the
downward direction, towards the smaller and
smaller, there would be an infinity of things,
or perhaps rather infinity upon infinity of
things. It seems to me not very plausible that,
as one goes towards the smaller and smaller, on
each smaller level there is the same kind and
degree of complexity as on the higher levels,
and likewise the inverse direction, towards the
larger and larger, is not very plausible, if one
believes the extent of the universe is finite.
Besides, as a child I
speculated that the motes in sun-beams might be
tiny universes in which there might be creatures
like me speculating about the motes in
sun-beams, and rejected it because of the
infinite regress it entailed. In the end the
reason was Ockhamistic: not to make more
assumptions than is necessary to explain what
one seeks to explain.
67. Each
portion of matter may be conceived as like a
garden full of plants and like a pond full of
fishes. But each branch of every plant, each
member of every animal, each drop of its liquid
parts is also some such garden or pond.
This mirrors the idea
of individual things being like a microcosms in
the (macro)cosmos, where the microcosms mirrors
or represents the macrocosms, and has at least
in part the same laws and relations, besides
being made from the same kinds of things (apart
from size). This is a nice idea, but as my
remarks to the previous points indicate, I don't
think it is safely generalised from a few
size-levels to all size-levels. Besides, things
that represent normally are not of the
same kind as what they represent (in that a
thought is not normally the fact it represents
nor a map the territory it is about nor a
picture of flesh made of flesh).
One of the things that
did influence Leibniz here is the discovery by
Leeuwenhoeck of the microscope, and thereby the
discovery of many kinds of small animals in
drops of water, and flagellating entities in
drops of sperm, that were until their discovery
quite unsuspected.
68. And though
the earth and the air which are between the
plants of the garden, or the water which is
between the fish of the pond, be neither plant
nor fish; yet they also contain plants and
fishes, but mostly so minute as to be
imperceptible to us.
As pointed out in the
previous remark, that this is so was in
Leibniz's time a recent discovery.
69. Thus there
is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, nothing dead
in the universe, no chaos, no confusion save in
appearance, somewhat as it might appear to be in
a pond at a distance, in which one would see a
confused movement and, as it were, a swarming of
fish in the pond, without separately
distinguishing the fish themselves. (Theod.
Pref. [E. 475 b; 477 b; G. vi. 40, 44].)
That nothing is dead in
the universe follows from the hypothesis that
all things are what they are through a Monad
that makes them the things they are, which is a
perceiving and striving entity. The rest of what
is said is a figurative restatement of earlier
points.
70. Hence it
appears that each living body has a dominant
entelechy, which in an animal is the soul; but
the members of this living body are full of
other living beings, plants, animals, each of
which has also its dominant entelechy or soul.
Indeed, and so on 'ad
infinitum' as in Swift's poem:
'So,
naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em
And so proceed ad infinitum"
As my remarks under (66) and (67) indicate,
like Swift I am somewhat sceptical about this,
'ad infinitum'.
71.
But it must not be imagined, as has been done by
some who have misunderstood my thought, that each
soul has a quantity or portion of matter belonging
exclusively to itself or attached to it for ever,
and that it consequently owns other inferior
living beings, which are devoted for ever to its
service. For all bodies are in a perpetual flux
like rivers, and parts are entering into them and
passing out of them continually.
This attempts to answer
some of the problems I indicated under (62). Leibniz
rejects that "each soul has a quantity or
portion of matter belonging exclusively to
itself or attached to it for ever", because "all
bodies are in perpetual flux" (which is a notion
he supported for independent reasons also). But
this does not solve my problems: Should one
suppose that each body somehow contains its -
indivisible, infinitely small - dominating Monad
that is its soul, like a volume may contain a
much smaller particle, though the particle may
be moving about in the volume? Again note that
the basic problem is how what is supposed to be
mental and non-physical is connected to the
non-mental physical thing it displays the
mentality of. And the problem with the notion
that the body contains its soul like it contains
a very small volume, is that it speaks of a soul
as if it is a body.
72.
Thus the soul changes its body only by degrees,
little by little, so that it is never all at
once deprived of all its organs; and there is
often metamorphosis in animals, but never
metempsychosis or transmigration of souls; nor
are there souls entirely separate [from bodies]
nor unembodied spirits [genies sans corps]. God alone is completely
without body. (Theod. 90, 124.)
Of course,
metamorphosis - as relates caterpillars to
butterflies - is a pretty stunning event however
one accounts for it, and indeed metamorphosis
always involves the change of one thing into
another, which does happen in time and
gradually. But this does not settle at all that
there could not be metempsychosis.
And indeed this would
follow from theses like Leibniz states, viz.
that no soul is ever entirely separate of a body
(however it is attached to it) except God, who
has no body at all.
But I have seen no
argument from which either would follow, whereas
there is a problem with God, thus conceived: How
is it possible that God is wholly without body,
if all other souls are never separate of the
body they are the soul of? This is logically
somewhat of a problem, if one disregards
theology, especially since Leibniz's argument
for the thesis that souls are never separate
from the bodies they are the souls of seems to
have been that souls are like relations or
forms, and relations and forms cannot exist
without bodies to relate or be the form of. If
so, what exempts God from this? (The appendix on a
simple logic of parts may shed some light
on this, for it shows that one may do without
God while maintaining a rather Leibnizian system
of assumptions.)
73. It also
follows from this that there never is absolute
birth [generation] nor complete death, in the
strict sense, consisting in the separation of
the soul from the body. What we call births
[generations] are developments and growths,
while what we call deaths are envelopments and
diminutions.
Suppose so. Then what
do souls do after their bodies stopped being
alive and were committed to the earth and the
worms, or the flames of an incinerary? Put
otherwise: what is the point of being the soul
of a living entity on earth, if, after a very
short time animating that body, after the body's
death the soul keeps thinking and experiencing
as before (being a Monad)? And why is life not a
waste of time between two infinities? (I suppose
Leibniz would have replied: 'Because God imposed
a moral task on his creatures', which seems
somewhat unfair on all those creatures that are
to dumb to understand it - such as caterpillars
eaten alive by the larvae of wasps, because God
in his great goodness has arranged it that way -
while it seems that human beings anyway are free
to frame and strive for their own ends, which
indeed is what makes them (im)moral and
purposive.)
74.
Philosophers have been much perplexed about the
origin of forms, entelechies, or souls; but
nowadays it has become known, through careful
studies of plants, insects, and animals, that
the organic bodies of nature are never products
of chaos or putrefaction, but always come from
seeds, in which there was undoubtedly some
preformation; and it is held that not only the
organic body was already there before
conception, but also a soul in this body, and,
in short, the animal itself; and that by means
of conception this animal has merely been
prepared for the great transformation involved
in its becoming an animal of another kind.
Something like this is indeed seen apart from
birth [generation], as when worms become flies
and caterpillars become butterflies. (Theod. 86,
89. Pref. [E. 475 b; G. vi. 40 sqq.]; 90, 187,
188, 403, 86, 397.)
Here Leibniz very
probably was thinking of a debate that occurred
in his time: that between the ovarists, who
claimed that all life starts from an egg i.e. a
seed, and their opponents. At present, it is
widely believed that the scientific explanation
for growth and form somehow involves DNA. (But
this explanation so far is very incomplete and
partial, and does not address problems of
consciousness.)
75. The
animals, of which some are raised by means of
conception to the rank of larger animals, may be
called spermatic, but those among them which are
not so raised but remain in their own kind (that
is, the majority) are born, multiply, and are
destroyed like the large animals, and it is only
a few chosen ones [elus] that pass to a greater
theatre.
It seems Leibniz
thought of conception in terms of metamorphosis
- which, the reader should remember, literally
means "change of form". If so, he should have
held that the sperm and egg from which arises a
human being are themselves not human beings, but
beings capable of becoming so.
76. But this
is only half of the truth, and accordingly I
hold that if an animal never comes into being by
natural means [naturellement], no more does it
come to an end by natural means; and that not
only will there be no birth [generation], but
also no complete destruction or death in the
strict sense. And these reasonings, made a
posteriori and drawn from experience are in
perfect agreement with my principles deduced a
priori, as above. (Theod. 90.)
This repeats (72) and (73), and I
suppose the "if" should be read as "since": all
animals are created by God, who miraculously
joined their souls to their bodies, to which
they will be joined everlastingly after. This
answers none of my questions under (72) and (73).
77. Thus it may
be said that not only the soul (mirror of an
indestructible universe) is indestructible, but
also the animal itself, though its mechanism
[machine] may often perish in part and take off
or put on an organic slough [des depouilles
organiques].
The Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary tells us that
Slough (...) [ME (..)
perhaps related to LG sluwe, slu, husk, peel,
shell.] 1. The outer or scarf skin periodically
cast or shed by a snake, adder etc.; also
generally, the skin of a serpent, eel, etc. b.
The skin of a caterpillar, locust, etc. cast in
the course of transformation, as from the
nymphal to the imago stage 1681. c. fig. A
feature , quality, etc. which is thrown off
1583. 2. A skin, caul, or membrane, enclosing
the body or some part of it ME. b. An enclosing
or covering layer, coat, or sheath of some kind
1610. c. dial. The outer skin of certain fruits;
a husk 1660. 3. Path A layer or mass of dead
tissue or flesh formed on the surface of a
wound, sore or inflammation (...)
This seems to give a
fair indication of what Leibniz had in mind.
Thus, he seems to have believed that
(1) Each
and every real thing whatsoever has a form and
a substance.
(2) The form of each and every real thing is
mental, in that it perceives and acts for
ends, and the substance is material, in that
it does not perceive and does not act for
ends, but is capable of being acted upon.
(3) God joined form and substance originally
and everlastingly, and is Himself the only
form without substance to be the form of.
(4) If they are the form and substance of what
we call animate nature, the substances are
transformed, which manifests itself as birth,
metamorphosis, and death.
(5) If they are the form and substance of what
we call inanimate nature, the substances are
not transformed, but may combine with other
substances to form composite substances.
As I noted before, this
does pose a number of questions about God's
purpose for this sort of creation, for example,
what is the end of being alive, since this takes
such a small part of the creatures' infinitely
long existence. And as also noted before, God's
own status is logically precarious, in that His
utter substancelessness makes Him differ from
everything else. Indeed, as far as the above
restatement of Leibnizian theses is concerned,
one might rewrite (3) substituting "Nature" for
"God", and do totally without forms without any
substance. But this surely was not Leibniz's
intent, as we shall see (although it may have
been Spinoza's).
78. These
principles have given me a way of explaining
naturally the union or rather the mutual
agreement [conformite] of the soul and the
organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and
the body likewise follows its own laws; and they
agree with each other in virtue of the
pre-established harmony between all substances,
since they are all representations of one and
the same universe. (Pref. [E. 475 a; G. vi. 39];
Theod. 340, 352, 353, 358.)
This restates earlier
points, it may be helpful to bring out the logic
of the argument:
(1) The soul
perceives the universe and moves the body
through its appetites.
(2) The body is moved by the soul in
conformity to its perceptions and appetites.
(3) All souls of all bodies perceive the same
universe in the same ways, apart from their
capacities for perception and reasoning, which
may be large.
And this should be
compared to my remarks under (77).
79. Souls act
according to the laws of final causes through
appetitions, ends, and means. Bodies act
according to the laws of efficient causes or
motions. And the two realms, that of efficient
causes and that of final causes, are in harmony
with one another.
Here we come to another
fundamental difference between souls and bodies:
A soul acts towards ends, that have no embodied
reality in themselves, but which it does
conceive as an idea of something desired; a
material body acts only through being effected
by some other existing material body or by
effecting some other existing material body.
This opposition of
acting for future ends or being acted upon by
prior bodies is as old as Aristotle, and
conforms quite well to how things appear to
human beings. It also is another fundamental
distinction between the mental and the physical,
which I have remarked upon under (17).
80. Descartes
recognized that souls cannot impart any force to
bodies, because there is always the same
quantity of force in matter. Nevertheless he was
of opinion that the soul could change the
direction of bodies. But that is because in his
time it was not known that there is a law of
nature which affirms also the conservation of
the same total direction in matter. Had
Descartes noticed this he would have come upon
my system of pre-established harmony. (Pref. [E.
477 a; G. vi. 44]; Theod. 22, 59, 60, 61, 63,
66, 345, 346 sqq., 354, 355.)
Here we are to a
considerable extent concerned with physics as it
was being developed in Leibniz's time, when
people first hit upon principles of least
action, extremal principles, and principles of
conservation. A considerable part of the reason
such principles could be stated and discovered
was due to Leibniz himself, for such principles
are normally stated in terms of the maxima or
minima of differentials, and Leibniz was one of
the discoverers of the differential and integral
calculus.
One such principle is that, in the physical
world, the total amount of force is conserved
(remains always the same), which has dire
consequences for non-physical souls, as
Descartes noted, for it follows that they have
no available means of effecting the physical
world.
In this situation, one
might conclude that, therefore, it is quite
unlikely there are any non-physical souls, or,
if there are, they are as ephemeral and
ineffective as shadows. One problem with that
conclusion is that it leaves many experienced
facts unexplained; another problem with it is
that it goes against religion as Leibniz knew it
and appreciated it.
Hence Leibniz's
alternative resolution of the problem of the
relation of body and soul: although there is no
physical interaction between the two (all
physical interactions are between bodies), the
soul does, after its capacities, truly represent
its body and the world, for God has made souls
and bodies in that way - so that each body has a
soul joined to it that perceives the world the
body is in, and does so, after its capacities,
truly and adequately (if it is not disturbed by
emotions).
81. According
to this system bodies act as if (to suppose the
impossible) there were no souls, and souls act
as if there were no bodies, and both act as if
each influenced the other.
The last statement is
the Pre-Established Harmony, and Leibniz's
reason to write "as if" at this place is as
explained under (80): it
is physically impossible body and soul influence
each other, at least in any physical way. And as
I explained under (58),
there is a set of quite ordinary assumptions
most people accept, briefly to the effect that
all human beings feel and think similarly in
similar circumstances, that is quite close to
Leibniz's Pre-Established Harmony (but without
being tied up in the same way with dualism).
82. As regards
minds [esprits] or rational souls, though I find
that what I have just been saying is true of all
living beings and animals (namely that animals
and souls come into being when the world begins
and no more come to an end that the world does),
yet there is this peculiarity in rational
animals, that their spermatic animalcules, so
long as they are only spermatic, have merely
ordinary or sensuous [sensitive] souls; but when
those which are chosen [elus], so to speak,
attain to human nature through an actual
conception, their sensuous souls are raised to
the rank of reason and to the prerogative of
minds [esprits]. (Theod. 91, 397.)
Note that the levels
of being, so to speak, Leibniz
presupposed: a piece of rock perceives and has
appetites (for being a rock) but neither feels
nor thinks nor reasons; a plant perceives, has
appetites, and feels, but neither thinks nor
reasons; an animal perceives, has appetites,
feels and thinks, but does not reason; a human
being perceives, has appetites, feels, thinks
and reasons. It may be added that, in terms of
my remarks under (29)-(32), 'thinks
and reasons' is to be read as 'deduces and
abduces': only human beings attempt to explain
their experiences in terms of assumptions of
things not given in experience. (And here lies a
reason for Leibniz's rationalism.)
One way of reading (82)
is as a contribution to the recent debate about
abortion: On Leibniz's principles, before a
certain point - conception, for him - the parts
from which a future human being might be built
are not future human beings but merely animals:
only those sperms and those eggs that succeed in
combining animate a human being, and what is
added to mere animality is the capacity of
reasoning. (Those who argue in favour of medical
abortion may be taken to claim that this point
occurs somewhere after conception and before
birth, and that a medically correct abortion
occurs before this point.)
83. Among other
differences which exist between ordinary souls
and minds [esprits], some of which differences I
have already noted, there is also this: that
souls in general are living mirrors or images of
the universe of created things, but that minds
are also images of the Deity or Author of nature
Himself, capable of knowing the system of the
universe, and to some extent of imitating it
through architectonic ensamples [echantillons],
each mind being like a small divinity in its own
sphere. (Theod. 147.)
Thus animals are not
capable of reflecting (appropriately or at all)
upon the splendours of the Deity, but human
beings are, and therefore they have the faculty
of reason. Apart from the splendours of the
Deity, we have seen abduction -
alternatively definable as: the capacity to
think creatively, of new explanations or
solutions - is what enables human beings to
think rationally and understand and explain
their experiences.
Furthermore, the Deity
is known, for Leibniz, at least in part as a set
of necessary principles according to which one
must think and feel, and according to which God
Himself thinks and feels, only much better than
human beings could. The reason to insert "and
feels", also for God Himself, is that Leibniz
believed that God is bound to realise the best
possible world, like human beings are bound to
try to do what they think is best, if they do
anything at all. (Leibniz does not seem have
considered wilful perversion, neither on God's
part - 'let's create a devil, to liven things
up!' - nor on the part of human beings - 'I know
like p more than not-p, but I try to get not-p
just for the hell of it.' Yet this seems
possible if one has a free will, as Leibniz
believed one has.)
84. It is this
that enables spirits [or minds- esprits] to
enter into a kind of fellowship with God, and
brings it about that in relation to them He is
not only what an inventor is to his machine
(which is the relation of God to other created
things), but also what a prince is to his
subjects, and, indeed, what a father is to his
children.
Most of this is
conventional Protestant theology Leibniz
subscribed to and sought to defend by
philosophy, but it is interesting to note that
the "fellowship" between God and men is based on
a sharing of the capacity of reasoning.
85. Whence it
is easy to conclude that the totality
[assemblage] of all spirits [esprits] must
compose the City of God, that is to say, the
most perfect State that is possible, under the
most perfect of Monarchs. (Theod. 146; Abrege,
Object. 2.)
The notion of "the City
of God" is an old one, and St. Augustine
wrote a large book of that title, explaining a
similar conception.
Personally, I believe
it is unwise to believe in real things that are
perfect: it seems much more sensible to assume
that everything that is real is limited, capable
of becoming worse or better on many standards,
and usually is neither the worst possible nor
the best possible in any sense. The reason I
believe it is unwise to believe in real things
that are perfect is that it is all too easy to
support fanaticism: if you really believe you
know the Lord's intentions, it turns out to be
quite natural for human beings to set up an
inquisition to torture others into believing as
you do. (Also, on a personal note others may
also have experienced: I have seen perfection
several times in my life. Epiphanic perfection
in my case always took the shape of a young
woman, and I always was mistaken; knew I was
mistaken while I was mistaken; and could not
believe I was mistaken as long as I was in
love.)
86. This City
of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a
moral world in the natural world, and is the
most exalted and most divine among the works of
God; and it is in it that the glory of God
really consists, for He would have no glory were
not His greatness and His goodness known and
admired by spirits [esprits]. It is also in
relation to this divine City that God specially
has goodness, while His wisdom and His power are
manifested everywhere. (Theod. 146; Abrege,
Object. 2.)
More Protestant
theology. One problem I have is why God needs
creatures to have glory: why could he not bask
in the same sort of self-satisfaction he had
according to the Old Testament after a step of
creation. (The Book of Genesis, in the King
James translation, has it that "God saw the
light, that it was good", and similarly for "the
dry land", the grass, trees and herbs; the day
and the night, the whales and winged fowl, and
the cattle. Only after creating males and
females, at the end of the first chapter of
Genesis, "God saw every thing that he had made,
and, behold, it was very good". I conclude the
dear Lord did glorify in his work before he
created any rational creatures.)
Also, wholly apart from
Protestant theology, the Society of Human Beings
is a moral world in the natural world,
maintained and designed by moral people if not
by a moral God.
To my mind it is a
moral and intellectual mistake to try to base a
moral system on a system of metaphysical
theology: human being need to make moral
agreements, if they want to avoid making the
lives of others and themselves more painful than
is necessary, and they may do so simply on the
basis of agreements about the properties of
human beings, and without any dubitable appeal
to entities other human beings might not at all
believe in.
The belief that 'if God
would not exist, everything would be permitted'
is a belief of a person who does not seem to
wish to take personal responsibility, and
instead prefers to follow authorities, and
indeed that authority who is supposed to have
most power. (Cp. 'If the boss has not forbidden
it I can do it.')
87.
As we have shown above that there is a perfect
harmony between the two realms in nature, one of
efficient, and the other of final causes, we
should here notice also another harmony between
the physical realm of nature and the moral realm
of grace, that is to say, between God,
considered as Architect of the mechanism
[machine] of the universe and God considered as
Monarch of the divine City of spirits [esprits].
(Theod. 62, 74,
118, 248, 112, 130, 247.)
Even so, the problem
remains why there should be both souls
and bodies: why could God in his wisdom not
create a world in which all souls are material,
or all bodies mental? It is true that this is
where the problem starts: How to account for the
apparent fundamental differences between human
experiences and the physical facts they
experience?
But it is also true
that what Leibniz ends with is the same given
distinction writ large and denied all
resolution: Leibniz started with the dualism of
the mental and the physical commented upon under
(17), and
also ended with it - except that in the interim
he convinced himself that it was the necessary
outcome of God's will.
88. A result of
this harmony is that things lead to grace by the
very ways of nature, and that this globe, for
instance, must be destroyed and renewed by
natural means at the very time when the
government of spirits requires it, for the
punishment of some and the reward of others.
(Theod. 18 sqq., 110, 244, 245, 340.)
This I take to be more
theology, and skip, except for the remark that I
find it quite unsatisfactory that the Lord and
Maker of everything, supposing Him to exist, has
made it so extra-ordinarily difficult to find
any conclusive evidence for His existence and
intentions, that is understandable and evident
to any ordinarily gifted man or woman, in the
same way as any ordinarily gifted man or woman
can understand as evident the truths of
arithmetic.
Why are the Divine
Commandments not as clear and self-evident as is
2+2=4 to every thinking human being, who, on
Leibniz's reasoning, contains a spark of the
divine that can come to understand universal
truths? Surely, an all-powerful benevolent and
moral God would think it more important that his
creatures behave well towards one another than
that they can keep proper account of their
profits in slave-dealing?
89. It may also
be said that God as Architect satisfies in all
respects God as Lawgiver, and thus that sins
must bear their penalty with them, through the
order of nature, and even in virtue of the
mechanical structure of things; and similarly
that noble actions will attain their rewards by
ways which, on the bodily side, are mechanical,
although this cannot and ought not always to
happen immediately.
See my remarks to the
previous point. I do not have Leibniz's faith,
and among many other reasons, one important
reason is the problem of evil: I cannot
understand how it is possible that there would
be an omnipotent benevolent God who created a
world in which there is manifestly so much
undeserved pain and suffering. Also, I find the
basic argument for the existence of God
incoherent: if something that exists requires an
existing maker to exist, so does a maker, since
He (She, It) exists. So that is an infinite
regress I prefer not to start. It follows that
if something that exists requires an existing
maker to exist, there is no existing maker.
90. Finally,
under this perfect government no good action
would be unrewarded and no bad one unpunished,
and all should issue in the well-being of the
good, that is to say, of those who are not
malcontents in this great state, but who trust
in Providence, after having done their duty, and
who love and imitate, as is meet, the Author of
all good, finding pleasure in the contemplation
of His perfections, as is the way of genuine
'pure love,' which takes pleasure in the
happiness of the beloved. This it is which leads
wise and virtuous people to devote their
energies to everything which appears in harmony
with the presumptive or antecedent will of God,
and yet makes them content with what God
actually brings to pass by His secret,
consequent and positive [decisive] will,
recognizing that if we could sufficiently
understand the order of the universe, we should
find that it exceeds all the desires of the
wisest men, and that it is impossible to make it
better than it is, not only as a whole and in
general but also for ourselves in particular, if
we are attached, as we ought to be, to the
Author of all, not only as to the architect and
efficient cause of our being, but as to our
master and to the final cause, which ought to be
the whole aim of our will, and which can alone
make our happiness. (Theod. 134, 278. Pref. [E.
469; G. vi. 27, 28].)
This certainly seems to
have been what Leibniz sincerely believed. The
only thing I want to remark upon is the phrase
'that it is impossible to make it better than it
is' - it being the world such as it is - which
seems to be rather fatalistic. But then perhaps
optimists like Leibniz should be fatalists, on
the ground that eventually things will work out
as desired 'Alles sal reg kom', in Afrikaans).
THE END
To first part: Monadology
- part A
To the
index: Sections and subjects of the
Monadology
To the appendix: A simple logic of
parts
Copyright remarks:
Maartens@xs4all.nl
Colofon: This text was
written in 1998, and was once corrected in
November 2003, and a second time in September
2006. In either case the corrections were small,
and mostly stylistical or typographical.
Maarten
Maartensz
last update: Sep 11 2006
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