You are on page 1of 134

1

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.
First launched: September 2004
*******

Freedom and Possibility


By G. W. Leibniz
In God everything is spontaneous.
It can hardly be doubted that in every human person there is the freedom to do what he wills to
do.
A volition is an attempt to act of which we are conscious. An act necessarily follows from a
volition to do it and the ability to do it.
When all the conditions for willing to do something are matched by equally strong conditions
against willing to do it, no volition occurs. Rather there is indifference [here = equilibrium].
Thus, even if someone accepts that all the conditions requisite for acting are in place, he wont act
if equal contrary conditions obtain. Thats one way for a person to to act on reasons that he has.
Here is another: a person may be unmoved by reasons through sheer forgetfulness, i.e. by turning
his mind away from them. So it is indeed possible to be unmoved by reasons.
Unless this proposition is accepted: There is nothing without reason. That is: In every true
proposition there is a connection between the subject and the predicate, i.e. every true
proposition can be proved a priori.
There are two primary propositions: one is the principle of necessary things, that
whatever implies a contradiction is false,
and the other is the principle of contingent things, that
whatever is more perfect or has more reason is true.
All truths of metaphysics - indeed all truths that are absolutely necessary, such as those of logic,
arithmetic, geometry, and the like - rest on the former principle, for someone who denies one of
those truths can always be shown that his denial implies a contradiction. All contingent truths rest
on the latter principle. (I mean truths that are in themselves contingent. They may be necessarygiven-what-God-wills.)
So the principle of contradiction is the basis for all truths about possibilities or essences, and
all truths about a things impossibility or its necessity (that is, the impossibility of its contrary).
And the principle of perfection is the basis for all truths about contingent things, that is, about
what exists.
God is the only being whose existence is not contingent. The reason why some particular
contingent thing x exists, and other possible things dont, shouldnt be sought in xs definition
alone. If xs definition did explain its existence, its nonexistence would imply a contradiction; and
those other things wouldnt be possible, contrary to our hypothesis. For the reason why x exists
and those others dont, we must look to how x compares with the others; the reason is that x is
more perfect than the others that are its rivals for existence.

2
My over-riding thought here is a notion of possibility and necessity according to which some
things are not necessary and dont actually exist but nevertheless are possible. It follows from
this that a reason that always brings it about that a free mind chooses one thing rather than
another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our
imperfection) doesnt take away our freedom.
This also shows what distinguishes Gods free actions from his necessary actions. Here is
one example of each kind of action. It is necessary that God loves himself, for that can be
demonstrated from the definition of God. But it cant be demonstrated from that definition that
God makes whatever is most perfect, for theres nothing contradictory in the proposition that he
doesnt. If there were, it wouldnt be possible for him to make something less perfect, and that is
contrary to the hypothesis that there are non-existent possibles.
Moreover, this conclusion derives from the notion of existence, for only the most perfect
exists. Let there be two possible things, A and B, such that necessarily one and only one of them
exists; and lets assume that A is more perfect than B. Then we can certainly explain why A
should exist rather than B - this is a basis for us to predict which of the two will exist. Indeed, As
existing rather than Bs doing so can be demonstrated, by which I mean that it can be rendered
certain from the nature of the case. Now, if being certain were the same as being necessary then
it would also be necessary for A to exist. But As existence has merely what I call hypothetical
necessity, meaning that
it is necessary that: if God always chooses what is most perfect, then A exists.
That is to be distinguished from the proposition that
it is necessary that: A exists.
If it were absolutely and not just hypothetically necessary that A exists, then B - which we have
stipulated cannot exist if A exists - would be absolutely impossible, i.e. would imply a
contradiction, which is contrary to our stipulation that A and B are both possible.
So we must hold that anything that has some degree of perfection is possible, and anything
that is more perfect than its opposite actually exists - not because of its own nature but because of
Gods general resolve to create the more perfect. Perfection (or essence) is an urge for existence;
it implies existence, not necessarily but through there not being a more perfect thing that prevents
it from existing. All truths of physics are of this sort; for example, when we say that a body
persists in the speed with which it begins, we mean . . . if nothing gets in its way.
God produces the best - not necessarily, but because he wills to do so. If you ask Does
God will by necessity? I ask you to explain what you mean by necessity, spelling it out in detail
so as to make clear what exactly you are asking. For example, you might be asking:
Does God will by necessity or does he will freely?
that is:
Does God will because of his nature or because of his will?
My answer to that is of course that God cant will voluntarily. That is, it cant be the case that
whenever God wills to do something, it is because he has willed to will to do that thing; because
that would involve willing to will . . . to infinity. Rather, we must say that it is Gods nature that
leads him to will the best. So he wills by necessity? you say, implying that I am demeaning
God. I reply with St. Augustine that such necessity is blessed. But surely it follows from this that
things exist by necessity. How so? Because the nonexistence of what God wills to exist implies a
contradiction? I deny that this proposition is absolutely true. It entails that what God doesnt will
is not possible, and I deny that. For things remain possible, even if God doesnt select them.

3
Given that God doesnt will x to exist, it is still possible for x to exist, because xs nature is such
that x could exist if God were to will it to exist. You will object: But God cant will it to exist.
Granted; yet x remains possible in its nature even if it is not possible with respect to the divine
will, since we have defined as possible in its nature anything that in itself implies no
contradiction, even if its coexistence with God can in some way be said to imply a contradiction.
Well need to use unambiguous meanings for words if we are to avoid every kind of absurd
locution. I start with the meaning I give to possible. I say:
a possible thing is something with some essence or reality, that is, something that can be
clearly understood.
For an illustrative example, let us pretend that nothing exactly pentagonal ever did or will exist in
nature. A pentagon would nevertheless remain possible. However, if we are to maintain that
pentagons are possible, we should give some reason why no pentagon ever did or will exist. The
reason is simply the fact that the pentagon is incompatible with other things that got into
existence ahead of it because they include more perfection, i.e. involve more reality, than it does.
Returning to your previous line of attack, you will say: So according to you it is necessary that
the pentagon doesnt exist. I agree, if what you mean is that
The proposition No pentagon ever did or will exist is necessary.
But what you say is false if it is understood to mean that
The timeless proposition No pentagon exists is necessary,
because I deny that this timeless proposition can be demonstrated. The pentagon is not
absolutely impossible, and doesnt imply a contradiction, even if it follows from the harmony of
things that a pentagon cant find a place among real things.
The following argument is valid (its second premise is the one we have been pretending to be
true):
If a pentagon exists, it is more perfect than other things.
A pentagon is not more perfect than other things.
Therefore, a pentagon does not exist.
But the premises dont imply that it is impossible for a pentagon to exist.
This is best illustrated by analogy with imaginary roots in algebra, such as -1. For -1 does
involve some notion, though it cant be pictured . . . . But there is a great difference between
problems that are insoluble because a solution requires imaginary roots
and
problems that are insoluble because of their absurdity.
An example of the latter: Find a number which multiplied by itself is 9, and which added to 5
makes 9. Such a number implies a contradiction, for it must be both 3 and 4, implying that 3 = 4, a
part equals the whole. An example of the former: Find a number x such that x2 + 9 = 3x.
Someone trying to solve this could certainly never show that the solution would imply any such
absurdity as that the whole equals its part, but he could show that such a number cannot be
designated because the only solutions to the equation are imaginary roots.
To accompany the pentagon example, I now offer another one, in which I use a real line to
mean a line that really bounds some body. If God had decreed that there should be no real line
that was incommensurable with other real lines, it wouldnt follow that the existence of an
incommensurable line implies a contradiction, even if because of the principle of perfection God
couldnt have made such a line.

4
All this removes the difficulties about the foreknowledge of future contingents. For God, who
foresees the future reasons or causes for some things to exist and others not to, has certain
foreknowledge of future contingents through their causes. He formulates propositions about them
that are
necessary, given that the state of the world has been settled once and for all,
that is,
necessary, given the harmony of things.
But the propositions about future contingents are not necessary in the absolute sense, as
mathematical propositions are. This is the best answer to the difficulty about how, if future
contingents are not necessary, God can have foreknowledge of them.
It involves us in saying that it is possible for the imperfect rather than the more perfect to
exist. You may object: It is impossible for something to exist that God doesnt will to exist. I
deny that something that isnt going to exist is thereby impossible in itself. So the proposition
What God doesnt will to exist doesnt exist should be accepted as true, but its necessity should
be denied.
****
[Near the end of this paper Leibniz has an incomplete sentence which he probably meant to turn
into something saying:] The only existential proposition that is absolutely necessary is God exists.
****
[Early in the paper, Leibniz mentions indifference or equilibrium. He wrote the following note in
the margin about that:] If complete indifference is required for freedom, then there is scarcely ever
a free act, since I think it hardly ever happens that everything on both sides is equal. For even if
the reasons happen to be equal, the passions wont be. So why should we argue about
circumstances that do not arise? I dont think examples can be found in which the will chooses that is, where it arbitrarily breaks a deadlock by just choosing - because there is always some
reason for choosing one alternative rather than the other.
The followers of Aquinas place freedom in the power of the will, which stands above every
finite good in such a way that the will can resist it. And so, in order to have indifference of will,
they seek indifference of intellect. They think that necessity is consistent with freedom in God for example the free necessity of Gods loving himself. But (they hold) with respect to creatures
God does not decide with necessity. . . .

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.
First launched: September 2004

Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas


By G. W. Leibniz
Controversies are boiling these days among distinguished men over true and false ideas. This is an
issue of great importance for recognizing truth - an issue on which Descartes himself is not
altogether satisfactory. So I want to explain briefly what I think can be established about the
distinctions and criteria that relate to ideas and knowledge. [Here and in the title, knowledge
translates cognitio, which means something weaker than knowledge strictly so-called, involving
certainty and guaranteed truth, for which the Latin word is scientia]. Here is the skeleton of
what I have to say. Knowledge is either
dim or vivid;
vivid knowledge is either
confused or clear;
clear knowledge is either
inadequate or adequate;
and adequate knowledge is either
symbolic or intuitive.
Knowledge that was at the same time both adequate and intuitive would be absolutely perfect.
[Here and throughout, vivid translates clarus. (The more usual rendering as clear is no better
from a dictionary point of view, and makes much worse sense philosophically because it has
Leibniz saying that knowledge can be at once clear and confused.) This use of vivid points to
dim as the better translation of the contrasting term obscurus, and liberates clear for use in
translating distinctus.]
A dim notion is one that isnt sufficient for recognizing the thing that it represents - i.e. the
thing that it is a notion of. Example: I once saw a certain flower but whenever I remember it I
cant bring it to mind well enough to recognize it, distinguishing it from other nearby flowers,
when I see it again. Another kind of example: I have dim notions when I think about some term
for which there is no settled definition - such as Aristotles entelechy, or his notion of cause when
offered as something that is common to material, formal, efficient and final causes. [For a
coin, these causes would be, respectively, the metal of which the coin is composed, the coins
shape, weight etc., the force of the die against the hot metal, and the commercial purpose for
which the coin was made. Leibniz implies that these seem not to be four species of a single
genus.] And a proposition is dim if it contains a dim notion as an ingredient.
Accordingly, knowledge is vivid if it gives me the means for recognizing the thing that is
represented.

2
Vivid knowledge is either confused or clear.
It is confused when I cant list, one by one, the marks that enable me to differentiate the
represented thing from other things, even though the thing has such marks into which its notion
can be resolved [= analysed, broken down into its simpler constituents]. And so we recognize
colours, smells, tastes, and other particular objects of the senses vividly enough to be able to
distinguish them from one another, but only through the simple testimony of the senses, not by
way of marks that we could list. Thus we cant explain what red is to a blind man; and we cant
give anyone a vivid notion of things like red except by leading him into the presence of the thing
and getting him to see, smell, or taste the same thing we do, or by reminding him of some past
perception of his that is similar. This is so even though the notions of these qualities are certainly
composite and can be resolved - after all, they do have causes. [Perhaps Leibnizs thought is that
the complexity of the causes must be matched by the complexity of the caused quality, and thus
by the complexity of the complete notion of it.] Similarly, we see that painters and other skilled
craftsmen can accurately tell well-done work from what is poorly done, though often they cant
explain their judgments, and when asked about them all they can say is that the works that
displease them lack a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.
But a clear notion is like the one an assayer has of gold - that is, a notion connected with
listable marks and tests that are sufficient to distinguish the represented thing from all other
similar bodies. Notions common to several senses - like the notions of number, size, and shape are usually clear. So are many notions of states of mind, such as hope and fear. In brief, we have a
clear notion of everything for which we have a nominal definition (which is nothing but a list of
sufficient marks). Also, we have clear knowledge of any indefinable notion, since such a notion is
basic, something we start with; it cant be resolved into marks or simpler constituents, as it has
none; so it has to serve as its own mark, and be understood through itself.
An inadequate notion is what you have when
the notion is clear, meaning that you understand vividly the individual marks composing it,
but
the grasp of some or all of those marks is (though vivid) confused, because you cant list
the marks whereby you recognize those marks.
For example, someones knowledge of gold may be clear yet inadequate: he knows that heaviness, colour, solubility in aqua fortis etc. are the marks of gold, but he cant produce a list of the
marks whereby he recognizes heaviness, yellowness, and all the others. When every ingredient of
a clear notion is itself clearly known - that is, when the analysis of the original notion has been
carried to completion - then our knowledge of it is adequate. (I dont know whether humans
have any perfectly adequate knowledge, though our knowledge of numbers certainly comes
close.)
Symbolic notions are ones in which words stand in for thoughts. We dont usually grasp
the entire nature of a thing all at once, especially one whose analysis is long; so in place of
thoughts about the things themselves we use thoughts about signs. In our thought we usually
omit the explicit explanation of what a sign means, knowing or believing that we have the
explanation at our command and could produce it on demand. Thus, when I think about a
chiliagon [pronounced kill-ee-a-gon], that is, a polygon with a thousand equal sides, I dont
always
think about the nature of a side, or of equality, or of thousandfoldedness . . . .;
in place of such thoughts,

3
in my mind I use the words side, equal and thousand.
The meanings of these words appear only dimly and imperfectly to my mind, but I remember that
I know what they mean, so I decide that I neednt explain them to myself at this time. This kind
of thinking is found in algebra, in arithmetic, and indeed almost everywhere. I call it blind or
symbolic thinking. When a notion is very complex, we cant bear in mind all of its component
notions at the same time, and this forces us into symbolic thinking.
When we can keep them all in mind at once, we have knowledge of the kind I call intuitive.
(Actually, I treat this as a matter of degree; so I should have said: insofar as we can keep all that
in mind at once, to that extent our knowledge is intuitive.) Whereas our thinking about
composites is mostly symbolic, our knowledge of a clear basic notion has to be intuitive. That is
because symbolic knowledge involves letting words stand in for components of a notion, and
basic notions dont have components.
This shows that its only if we use intuitive thinking that we have ideas in our minds, even
when we are thinking about something we know clearly. We often mistakenly believe that we
have ideas of things in our mind, assuming that we have already explained to ourselves some of
the terms we are using, when really we havent explained any of them. Some people hold that we
cant understand what we are saying about a thing unless we have an idea of it; but this is false
or at least ambiguous, because we can have understanding of a sort even when our thinking is
blind or symbolic and doesnt involve ideas.
When we settle for this blind thinking, and dont pursue the resolution of notions far enough,
we may have a thought that harbours a contradiction that we dont see because it is buried in a
very complex notion. At one time I was led to consider this point more clearly by an old argument
for the existence of God . . . . that Descartes revived. The argument goes like this:
Whatever follows from the idea or definition of a thing can be predicated of the thing. God
is by definition the most perfect being, or the being nothing greater than which can be
thought. Now, the idea of the most perfect being includes ideas of all perfections, and
amongst these perfections is existence. So existence follows from the idea of God.
Therefore existence can be predicated of God, which is to say that God exists.
But this argument shows only that if God is possible then it follows that he exists. For we cant
safely draw conclusions from definitions unless we know first that they are real definitions, that is,
that they dont include any contradictions. If a definition does harbour a contradiction, we can
infer contradictory conclusions from it, which is absurd.
My favourite illustrative example of this is the fastest motion, which entails an absurdity. I
now show that it does:
Suppose there is a wheel turning with the fastest motion. Anyone can see that if a spoke of
the wheel came to poke out beyond the rim, the end of it would then be moving faster
than a nail on the rim of the wheel. So the nails motion is not the fastest, which is
contrary to the hypothesis.
Now, we certainly understand the phrase the fastest motion, and we may think we have an idea
corresponding to it; but we dont, because we cant have an idea of something impossible.
Similarly, the fact that we think about a most perfect being doesnt entitle us to claim that we
have an idea of a most perfect being. So in the above demonstration - the one revived by
Descartes - in order properly to draw the conclusion we must show or assume the possibility of a
most perfect being. It is indeed true - nothing truer! - that we do have an idea of God and that a
most perfect being is possible, indeed, necessary. But that argument is not sufficient for drawing
the conclusion, and Aquinas rejected it.

4
So we have a line to draw between nominal definitions, which contain only marks that
distinguish the thing from other things, and real definitions, from which the thing can be shown to
be possible. And thats my answer to Hobbes, who claimed that truths are arbitrary because they
depend on nominal definitions. What he didnt take into account was that a definitions being real
is not something we decide, and that not just any notions can be joined to one another. Nominal
definitions are insufficient for perfect knowledge [scientia] except when the possibility of the
thing defined is established in some other way.
Near the start of this paper I listed four classifications of ideas, now at last we come to a fifth
- true and false. It is obvious what true and false ideas are: an idea is true when it is a possible
notion, and false when it includes a contradiction.
Somethings possibility can be known either a priori or a posteriori. The possibility of a thing
is known a priori when we resolve a notion into its requisites, i.e. into other notions that are
known to be possible and to be compatible with one another, and that are required if the notion is
to apply. [These requisita could be components of the notion: closed is a component of circular,
and could be called a logical requisite for somethings being circular. In the very next sentence,
however, Leibniz also brings in causal requisites.] This happens, for instance, when we
understand how a thing can be produced, which is why causal definitions are more useful than
others. A things possibility is known a posteriori when we know through experience that it
actually exists, for what did or does actually exist is certainly possible!
And, indeed, whenever we have adequate knowledge we also have a priori knowledge of
possibility: if an analysis is brought to completion with no contradiction turning up, then certainly
the analysed notion is possible. For men to produce a perfect analysis of their notions would be
for them to reduce their thoughts to basic possibilities and unanalysable notions, which amounts
to reducing them to the absolute attributes of God - and thus to the first causes and the ultimate
reason for things. Can they do this? I shant venture to settle the answer to that now. For the
most part we are content to have learned through experience that certain notions are real [here =
possible], from which we then assemble others following the lead of nature.
All this, I think, finally lets us understand that one should be cautious in claiming to have this
or that idea. Many people who use this glittering title idea to prop up certain creatures of their
imagination are using it wrongly, for we dont always have an idea corresponding to everything
we consciously think of (as I showed with the example of greatest speed).
People in our own times have laid down the principle:
Whatever I vividly and clearly perceive about a thing is true, i.e. can be said of the thing;
but I cant see that they have used this principle well. [Leibniz is referring to a principle of
Descartess that is almost always translated in English as Whatever I clearly and distinctly
perceive . . ..] For people who are careless in judgment often take to be vivid and clear what is
really dim and confused in their minds. So this axiom is useless unless (1) explicitly stated criteria
for vividness and clarity are introduced, and (2) we have established the truth of the ideas that are
involved - in my sense, in which an idea is true if and only if it is possible, i.e. could have
instances.
Furthermore, the rules of common logic - which geometers use too - are not to be despised
as criteria for the truth of assertions: for example, the rule that nothing is to be accepted as certain
unless it is shown by careful testing or sound demonstration - a sound demonstration being one
that follows the form prescribed by logic. Not that we always need arguments to be in syllogistic
order as in the Aristotelian philosophy departments . . . .; but the argument must somehow reach

5
its conclusion on the strength of its form. Any correct calculation provides an example of an
argument conceived in proper logical form. Such an argument should not omit any necessary
premise, and all premises should have been previously demonstrated - or else have been assumed
as hypotheses, in which case the conclusion is also hypothetical. Someone who carefully observes
these rules will easily protect himself against deceptive ideas.
The highly talented Pascal largely agrees with this in his excellent essay On the Geometrical
Mind . . . . The geometer, he says, must define all terms that are slightly obscure and prove all
truths that are slightly dubious. But I wish he had made precise the line beyond which a notion or
statement is no longer even slightly obscure or dubious. Most of what matters regarding this can
be gathered from careful attention to what I have said above; and I shant go further into it now,
because I am trying to be brief.
Before finishing, I offer three further remarks, only loosely connected with one another, but
all having to do with ideas.
(1) There has been controversy over whether we see everything in God - that is, perceive
the world by sharing Gods ideas with him - or whether we have our own ideas. The view that
we see everything in God, though recently made famous through Malebranches defence of it, is
an old opinion, and properly understood it shouldnt be rejected completely. But the point I want
to make here is that even if we did see everything in God, we would still also have to have our
own ideas - not little sort-of copies of Gods ideas, but states of our mind corresponding to the
thing we perceived in God. For when go from having one thought to having another, there has to
be some change in our mind - some alteration of our minds state.
(2) Dont think that in these changes of state the previous ideas are entirely wiped out. In
fact, the ideas of things that we are not now actually thinking about are in our mind now, as the
figure of Hercules is in a lump of marble. In God, on the other hand, all ideas are always actually
engaged in his thought: he must have not only an actually occurrent idea of absolute and infinite
extension but also an idea of each shape - a shape being merely a modification of absolute
extension [meaning that a things having a certain shape is just its being extended in a certain
way].
(3) A final point: when we perceive colours or smells, all that we really perceive - all! - are
shapes and of motions; but they are so numerous and so tiny that our mind in its present state
cant clearly attend to each one separately, so that it doesnt notice that its perception is
composed purely of perceptions of minute shapes and motions. This is like what happens when
we perceive the colour green in a mixture of yellow powder and blue powder. All we are
sensing is yellow and blue, finely mixed, but we dont notice this, and invent something new - the
colour green - for ourselves.

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought.
First launched: September 2004

Contingency
By G. W. Leibniz
In God existence is the same as essence; or - the same thing put differently - it is essential for
God to exist. So God is a necessary being, a being who exists necessarily.
Created things are contingent, i.e. their existence doesnt follow from their essence.
Necessary truths are ones that can be demonstrated through an analysis of terms, so that they
end up as identities. For example, square analyses into figure that is plane, closed, equilateral,
and has four sides. Apply this analysis to the necessary truth
A square has four sides
and you get
A figure that is plane, closed, equilateral, and has four sides has four sides,
which is an identity. Similarly, in algebra when in a correct equation you substitute values for the
variables you get an identity. For example, in the equation
(x + y)2 = x2 + 2xy + y2
if we put 2 for x and 3 for y we get
(2 + 3)2 = 22 + 2(23) + 32
which comes to
25 = 4 + 12 + 9
which comes to
25 = 25,
which is an identity. Thus, necessary truths depend upon the principle of contradiction, which
says that the denial of an identity is never true.
Contingent truths cant be reduced to the principle of contradiction. If they could, they
wouldnt be contingent, and everything would be necessary and nothing would be possible except
what actually exists.
Nevertheless, since we say that both God and creatures exist and that necessary propositions
and some contingent ones are true, there must be a notion of existence and one of truth that
can be applied both to what is contingent and what is necessary.
What is common to every truth, in my view, is that one can always give a reason for a true
proposition unless it is an identity. In necessary propositions the reason necessitates, whereas in
contingent ones it inclines. Identical propositions are, as I have said, the rock-bottom reasons
for all necessary truths; we dont have reasons why they are true.
And it seems to be common to things that exist, whether necessarily or contingently, that
there is more reason for their existing than there is for any others to exist in their place.
Every true universal affirmative proposition, whether necessary or contingent, has some
connection between subject and predicate. In identities this connection is self-evident; in other
propositions it has to be brought out through the analysis of terms.

2
This little-known fact reveals the distinction between necessary and contingent truths. It is
hard to grasp unless one has some knowledge of mathematics, because it goes like this. When
the analysis of a necessary proposition is continued far enough it arrives at an identical equation;
thats what it is to demonstrate a truth with geometrical rigour. But the analysis of a contingent
proposition continues to infinity, giving reasons (and reasons for the reasons (and reasons for
those reasons . . .)), so that one never has a complete demonstration. There is always an
underlying complete and final reason for the truth of the proposition, but only God completely
grasps it, he being the only one who can whip through the infinite series in one stroke of the mind.
[This paragraph expands Leibnizs compact formulation in ways that cant be flagged by
dots. For more on incommensurables, see pages 4-5 of his Dialogue on human freedom.] I can
illustrate this with a good example from geometry and numbers. In necessary propositions, as I
have said, a continual analysis of the predicate and the subject can eventually get us to the point
where we can see that the notion of the predicate is in the subject. For a numerical analogue of
this, consider the process of getting an exact comparison between two numbers: we repeatedly
divide each until we arrive at a common measure. For example, wanting to compare 24.219 with
12.558, we find that each can be divided by 3 then by 13 then by 23, giving us the more graspable
relationship of 27 to 14. But that doesnt work with an incommensurable pair of numbers such as
any whole number and 2: as Euclid has demonstrated, there is no fraction F (however tiny) such
that (FF) = 2. We can work along a series of fractions, squaring as we go, and get ever nearer to
2, but it is mathematically impossible for us to end the series by finding a fraction whose square
exactly equals 2. Still, there is a proportion or relation between (say) 3 and 2; we cant express
it exactly in terms of fractions, but we know that it exists: 3 is a certain determinate definite
amount larger than 2. I offer this as analogous to the situation with contingent truths: in them
there is a connection between the terms - i.e. there is truth - even if that truth cant be reduced to
the principle of contradiction or necessity through an analysis into identities.
Here are two questions that can be asked about the necessity of certain propositions. Is this
proposition:
God chooses the best
necessary? Or is it one - indeed, the first - of his free decrees? Again, is this proposition:
Whatever exists, there is a greater reason for it to exist than for it not to exist
necessary? I answer that the former proposition is not necessary: God always chooses the best
because he decrees that thats what hell do. It follows that the latter proposition is not necessary
either: there is always a greater reason for the existence of an actual thing than for any possible
rival to it, but only because God has freely decided always to choose the best.
It is certain that there is a connection between subject and predicate in every truth. So the
truth of Adam, who sins, exists requires that the possible notion of Adam, who sins involves
something by virtue of which he is said to exist.
It seems that we must concede that God always acts wisely, i.e. in such a way that anyone
who knew his reasons would know and worship his supreme justice, goodness, and wisdom. And
it seems that God never acts in a certain way just because it pleases him to act in this way, unless
there is a good reason why it is pleasing. Thus, something may be done at Gods pleasure (as
we say), but that is never an alternative to its being done for a reason.
Since we cant know the true formal reason for the existence of any particular thing, because
that would involve an infinite series of reasons, we have to settle for knowing contingent truths a
posteriori, i.e. through experience. But we must at the same time hold the general principle,

3
implanted by God in our minds and confirmed by both reason and experience, that nothing
happens without a reason, as well as the principle of opposites, that of rival possibilities the one
for which there is more reason always happens. (I said confirmed by experience, but treat that
cautiously. I meant only that experience confirms the principle to the extent that we can discover
reasons through experience.)
And just as God decreed that he would always act in accordance with true reasons of
wisdom, so too he created rational creatures in such a way that they act in accordance with
prevailing or inclining reasons - reasons that are true or, failing that, seem to them to be true.
Unless there were such a principle as this one about reasons, there would be no principle of
truth in contingent things, because to them the principle of contradiction is certainly irrelevant.
Not all possibles come to exist - we have to accept that, because if it were false you couldnt
think up any story that wasnt actually true somewhere at some time! Anyway, it doesnt seem
possible for all possible things to exist, because they would get in one anothers way. There are, in
fact, infinitely many series of possible things, no one of which can be contained within any other,
because each of them is complete.
From the following two principles, the others follow:
1. Whatever God does bears the mark of perfection or wisdom.
2. Not every possible thing comes to exist.
To these one can add:
3. In every true universal affirmative proposition the predicate is in the subject, i.e. there is
a connection between predicate and subject.
[In this next paragraph, Leibniz wrote of a propositions existing, apparently meaning its
being true.] Assuming that this proposition:
The proposition P that has the greater reason for being true is true
is necessary, we must see whether it then follows that P itself is necessary. It isnt. If by definition
a necessary proposition is one whose truth can be demonstrated with geometrical rigour, then
indeed it could be the case that these two propositions are demonstrable and thus necessary:
Every truth and only a truth has greater reason.
God always acts with the highest wisdom.
But from these one cant demonstrate any proposition of the form Contingent proposition P has
greater reason for being true than has contingent proposition not-P or of the form Contingent
proposition P is in conformity with divine wisdom. So it doesnt follow from the above two
displayed propositions that any contingent proposition P is necessary. Thus, although one can
concede that it is necessary for God to choose the best, or that the best is necessary, it doesnt
follow that P is necessary, where P is something that has been chosen; for there is no
demonstration that P is the best. This can be put in terms of the technical distinction between
necessity of the consequence and necessity of the consequent - that is, between P necessarily
follows from Q and P is itself necessary. Assuming that the best is necessarily chosen, we have
From P is the best it follows necessarily that P is true,
but we do not have
Necessarily P is true,
because we have no demonstration that P is the best.
Though I have been exploring the implications of the thesis that necessarily God always
chooses the best, I dont assert it. I say only that it seems safer to attribute to God the most
perfect way possible of operating. When it comes to creatures, one cant be as sure as we can

4
with God that they will act in accordance with even the most obvious reason; with respect to
creatures, this proposition - that they will always so act - cant be demonstrated.

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Bold type is used where Leibniz used italics,
apparently for emphasis.
First launched: September 2004

First Truths
By G. W. Leibniz
First truths are the ones that assert something of itself or deny something of its opposite. For
example,
A is A
A is not not-A
If it is true that A is B, then it is false that A isnt B (i.e. false that A is not-B)
Everything is as it is
Everything is similar or equal to itself
Nothing is bigger or smaller than itself
and others of this sort. Although they may have a rank-ordering among themselves, they can all be
lumped together under the label identities.
Now, all other truths are reducible to first ones through definitions, that is, by resolving
notions into their simpler components. Doing that is giving an a priori proof - a proof that
doesnt depend on experience. From among the axioms that are accepted by mathematicians and
by everyone else, I choose as an example this:
A whole is bigger than its part, or
A part is smaller than the whole.
This is easily demonstrated from the definition of smaller or bigger together with the basic
axiom, that is, the axiom of identity. Here is a definition of smaller than:
For x to be smaller than y is for x to be equal to a part of y (which is bigger).
This is easy to grasp, and it fits with how people in general go about comparing the sizes of
things: they take away from the bigger thing something equal to the smaller one, and find
something left over. With that definition in hand, here is an argument of the sort I have described:
1. Everything is equal to itself ....................................................(axiom of identity)
2. A part is equal to itself ......................................................................... (from 1)
3. A part is equal to a part of the whole .................................................... (from 2)
4. A part is smaller than the whole ....... (from 3 by the definition of smaller than).
Because all truths follow from first truths with the help of definitions, it follows that in any
true proposition the predicate or consequent is always in the subject or antecedent. It is just this as Aristotle observes - that constitutes the nature of truth in general, or the true-making
connection between the terms of a statement. In identities the connection of the predicate with the
subject (its inclusion in the subject) is explicit; in all other true propositions it is implicit, and has
to be shown through the analysis of notions; a priori demonstration rests on this.

2
This is true for every affirmative truth - universal or particular, necessary or contingent - and
it holds when the predicate is relational as well as when it isnt. And a wonderful secret lies hidden
in this, a secret that contains the nature of contingency, i.e. the essential difference between
necessary and contingent truths, and removes the difficulties concerning the necessity - and thus
the inevitability - of even those things that are free.
These considerations have been regarded as too simple and straightforward to merit much
attention; but they do deserve attention because many things of great importance follow from
them. One of their direct consequences is the received axiom
Nothing is without a reason, or There is no effect without a cause.
If that axiom were false, there would be a truth that couldnt be proved a priori, that is, a truth
that couldnt be resolved into identities, contrary to the nature of truth, which is always an explicit
or implicit identity. Thus, if the axiom were false, my account of truth would be false; which is
why I say that (the truth of) the axiom follows from (the truth of) my account.
It also follows that when there is a perfect balance or symmetry in a physical set-up there
will also be a balance or symmetry in what follows from it. Stated more abstractly: when there is
symmetry in what is given, there will be symmetry in what is unknown. This is because any
reason for an asymmetry in the unknown must derive from the givens., and in the case as stated
there is no such reason. An example of this is Archimedes postulate at the beginning of his book
on statics, that if there are equal weights on both sides of a balance with equal arms, everything is
in equilibrium.
There is even a reason for eternal truths. Suppose that the world has existed from eternity,
and that it contains nothing but little spheres; for such a world we would still have to explain why
it contained little spheres rather than cubes.
From these considerations it also follows that
In nature there cant be two individual things that differ in number alone,
i.e. that dont differ in any of their qualities, and differ only in being two things rather than one.
For where there are two things it must be possible to explain why they are different - why they
are two, why it is that x is not y - and for that explanation we must look to qualitative
differences between the things. St. Thomas said that unembodied minds never differ by number
alone - that is, no two of them are qualitatively exactly alike; and the same must also be said of
other things, for we we never find two eggs or two leaves or two blades of grass that are exactly
alike. So exact likeness is found only in notions that are incomplete and abstract. In that context
things are considered only in a certain respect, not in every way - as, for example, when we
consider shapes alone, ignoring the matter that has the shape. And so it is justifiable to consider
two perfectly alike triangles in geometry, even though two perfectly alike triangular material
things are not found anywhere. Gold and other metals, also salts and many liquids, are taken to be
homogeneous, which implies that two portions of gold could be qualitatively exactly alike. This
way of thinking and talking is all right if it is understood as referring only to differences that our
senses can detect; but really none of these substances is strictly homogeneous.
[Leibniz is about to use the phrase purely extrinsic denomination. This means purely
relational property, meaning a relational property that isnt grounded in any non-relational
property. It might seem to us that a things spatial relations to other things constitute such an
extrinsic denomination: the thing could be moved without being in anyway altered in itself. That is
what Leibniz is going to deny. The word denomination (and Leibnizs corresponding Latin)
mark the fact that he wavers between making this a point about the properties and relations a

3
thing can have, and the linguistic expressions that can be used in talking about a thing. Although
basically an external denomination is meant to be a relational property, Leibniz sometimes writes
as though it were a relational predicate.]
It also follows that
There are no purely extrinsic denominations
- that is, denominations having absolutely no foundation in the denominated thing. For the notion
of the denominated subject must contain the notion of the predicate; and, to repeat what I said at
the top of page 2, this applies to relational predicates as well as qualitative ones, i.e. it applies to
extrinsic as well as to intrinsic denominations. So whenever any denomination of a thing is
changed, there must be an alteration in the thing itself.
The complete notion of an individual substance contains all its predicates - past,
present, and future. If a substance will have a certain predicate, it is true now that it will, and so
that predicate is contained in the notion of the thing. Thus, everything that will happen to Peter or
Judas - necessary events and also free ones - is contained in the perfect individual notion of Peter
or Judas, and is seen there by God. [The next two sentences expand a condensed clause of
Leibnizs.] To grasp how the concept of the complete notion of Judas is being used here, think
of it as the complete total utterly detailed specifications for Judas, viewed as a possibility without
any thought of whether God has chosen to make the possibility actual. That is the notion that God
employed when deciding to make Judas actual: he pointed to the possibility Judas and said Let
him come into existence, which means that he pointed to that complete notion and said Let that
be actualized. This makes it obvious that out of infinitely many possible individuals God selected
the ones he thought would fit best with the supreme and hidden ends of his wisdom. Properly
speaking, he didnt decide that
Peter would sin
or that
Judas would be damned.
All he decreed was that two possible notions should be actualized - the notion of
Peter, who would certainly sin (but freely, not necessarily)
and the notion of
Judas, who would suffer damnation
- which is to decree that those two individuals should come into existence rather than other
possible things. Dont think that Peters eventual salvation occurs without the help of Gods
grace, just because it is contained in the eternal possible notion of Peter. For what that complete
notion of Peter contains is the predicate achieves salvation with the help of Gods grace. [Leibniz
says, puzzlingly, that the complete notion contains this predicate sub notione possibilitatis =
under the notion of possibility. That seems to say where in the complete notion the predicate will
be found - Look it up in the file labelled Possibility, as it were - but that cant be right.]
Every individual substance contains in its complete notion the entire universe and
everything that exists in it - past, present, and future. [The next sentence is stronger than what
Leibniz wrote, but it seems to express what he meant.] That is because: for any given things x and
y, there is a true proposition about how x relates to y, if only a comparison between them. And
there is no purely extrinsic denomination, which implies that every relational truth reflects nonrelational truths about the related things. I have shown this in many ways, all in harmony with one
another.

4
Indeed, all individual created substances are different expressions of the same universe
and of the same universal cause, namely God. But the expressions vary in perfection, as do
different pictures of the same town drawn or painted from different points of view.
Every individual created substance exercises physical action and passion on all the
others. Any change made in one substance leads to corresponding changes in all the others,
because the change in the one makes a difference to the relational properties of the others. For
example, a pebble on Mars becomes colder, so that you move from having the property
...has spatial relation R to a pebble that is at 5C
to having the property
...has spatial relation R to a pebble that is at 2C;
and, because there are no purely extrinsic denominations, that change in your relational properties
will be backed by a change in your intrinsic properties. This fits with our experience of nature. In
a bowl filled with liquid, a movement of the liquid in the middle is passed on out to the edges,
becoming harder and harder to detect the further it gets from the centre but never being wiped
out altogether. Well, the whole universe is just such a bowl!
Strictly speaking, one can say that no created substance exercises a metaphysical action
or influence on anything else. [Leibniz is saying that no real causal force or energy passes from
one substance to another. Influence here translates the Latin influxus [= in-flow], which
reflects one view about what would have to happen for one substance to act on another:
according to this view, when the hot poker heats the water, some of its heat literally passes from
one to the other; when a man falls against a wall and knocks it down, some his motion passes to
the wall. The basic idea is that of an accident - a property-instance - travelling from one substance
to another. The pokers heat is an accident in this sense; it is to be distinguished from the poker
(an individual substance) and from heat (a universal property); it is the-present-heat-of-thisparticular-poker, an individualized property. Leibniz is sceptical about the transfer of accidents
from one thing to another, but since he thinks that substances dont act on one another, he doesnt
mind implying that if they did act on one another it would have to be by the transfer of accidents.]
For one thing, there is no explanation of how something -an accident - could pass from one thing
into the substance of another; but Ill let that pass. I have already shown that there is no work for
inter-substance causation to do, because all a things states follow from its own complete
notion. What we call causes are, speaking with metaphysical strictness, only concurrent
requirements. This too is illustrated by our experience of nature. For bodies really rebound from
others through the force of their own elasticity, and not through the force of other things, even if
a body other than x is required in order for xs elasticity to be able to act.
Assuming that soul and body are distinct, from the foregoing we can explain their
union, without appealing to the popular but unintelligible idea of something in-flowing from one
to the other, and without the hypothesis occasional causes, which appeals to God as a kind of
puppet-master. [Leibniz says Deus ex machina - a God who comes on-stage by being winched
down from the ceiling of the theatre. The phrase occasional causes refers to the view that minds
cant literally act on bodies, and that when I will to raise my arm that act of my mind is the
prompt or occasion for God to raise my arm.] For Gods wisdom and workmanship enabled him
to set up the soul and the body, at the outset, in such a way that from the first constitution or
notion of each of them everything that happens in it through itself corresponds perfectly to
everything that happens in the other through itself, just as if something - some accident passed from one to the other. This hypothesis of mine (which I call the hypothesis of

5
concomitance) is true for all substances in the whole universe, but it cant be sensed in all of them
as it can in the case of the soul and the body.
There is no vacuum. For if there were empty space, two different parts of it could be
perfectly similar and congruent and indistinguishable from one another. Thus, they would differ in
number alone - differ in being two, but not in any other way - which is absurd. One can also
prove that time is not a thing, in the same way as I just did for space, namely arguing that if time
were a thing there could be stretches of empty time, i.e. time when nothing happens; and two
parts of such empty time would be exactly alike, differing only in number, which is absurd.
There is no atom, which means that any body could be split. In fact, every body, however
small, is actually subdivided. Because of that, each body, while it constantly changes because it
is acted on by everything else in the universe in ways that make it alter, also preserves all the
states that have been impressed on it in the past and contains in advance all that will be impressed
on it in the future. You might object:
Your view that every body is affected by every other body, and that each body contains
information about all its past and all its future states, could be true even if there were
atoms. It could be that other bodies affect an atom by making it move in certain ways
and by changing its shape, and these are effects that the atom can receive as a whole,
without being divided.
I reply that not only must there be effects produced in an atom from all the impacts of the
universe upon it, but also conversely the state of the whole universe must be inferable from the
states of the atom - the cause must be inferable from the effect. However, any given motion of an
atom and any given shape could have come about through different impacts, so there is no way
to infer from the present shape and motion of the atom what effects have been had upon it. And
there is a different objection to atoms, independent of my metaphysics, namely the fact that one
couldnt explain why bodies of a certain smallness couldnt be further divided - that is, there
couldnt be an explanations of why there are any atoms.
From this it follows that every particle in the universe contains a world of an infinity of
creatures. However, the continuum is not divided into points, because points are not parts but
boundaries; nor is it divided in all possible ways, because the contained creatures are not all
separately there. Its just that a series of divisions could go on ad infinitum separating some
from others at each stage. But no such sequence separates out all the parts, all the contained
creatures, because every division leaves some of them clumped together - just as someone who
bisects a line leaves clumped together some parts of it that would be separated if the line were
trisected.
There is no determinate shape in actual things, for no determinate shape can be
appropriate for infinitely many effects. So neither a circle, nor an ellipse, nor any other definable
line exists except in the intellect; lines dont exist until they are drawn, and parts dont exist until
they are separated off.
Extension and motion, are not substances, but true phenomena (like rainbows and
reflections). The same holds for bodies, to the extent that there is nothing to them but extension
and motion. For there are no shapes in reality, and if we think about bodies purely as extended,
each of them is not one substance but many.
Something unextended is required for the substance of bodies. Without that there would be
no source for the reality of phenomena or for true unity. There is always a plurality of bodies,
never just one (so that really there isnt a plurality either, because a many must consist of many

6
ones). Cordemoy used a similar line of thought as an argument for the existence of atoms. But
since I have ruled out atoms, all that remains as a source of unity is something unextended,
analogous to the soul, which they once called form or species.
Corporeal substance cant come into existence except through creation or go out of
existence except through annihilation, because once a corporeal substance exists it will last for
ever, since there is no reason for it not to do so. Any body may come apart - its parts may come
to be scattered - but this has nothing in common with its going out of existence. Therefore,
animate things dont come into or go out of existence, but are only transformed.

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought.
The division into sections is Leibnizs; the division of some sections into paragraphs is not. Leibniz wrote
brief summaries of the 37 sections of this work, but did not include them in the work itself. Some editors preface
each section with its summary, but that interrupts the flow. In this version the summaries are given at the end.
First launched: July 2004
Amended: November 2004
*********

Discourse on Metaphysics
by G.W. Leibniz
1. The most widely accepted and sharpest notion of God that we have can be expressed like this:
God is an absolutely perfect being;
but though this is widely accepted, its consequences havent been well enough thought out. As a
start on exploring them, let us note that there are various completely different ways of being
perfect, and that God has them all, each in the highest degree. We also need to understand what a
perfection is. Here is one pretty good indicator: a property is not a perfection unless there is a
highest degree of it; so number and shape are not perfections, because there cannot possibly be a
largest number or a largest thing of a given shape - that is, a largest triangle, or square, or the
like. But there is nothing impossible about the greatest knowledge or about omnipotence [here =
greatest possible power]. So power and knowledge are perfections, and God has them in
unlimited form. It follows that the actions of God, who is supremely - indeed infinitely - wise, are
completely perfect. This is not just metaphysical perfection, but also the moral kind. His moral
perfection, so far as it concerns us, amounts to this: the more we come to know and understand
Gods works, the more inclined we shall be to find them excellent, and to give us everything we
could have wished.
2. Some people - including Descartes - hold that there are no rules of goodness and perfection in
the nature of things, or in Gods ideas of them, and that in calling the things God made good all
we mean is that God made them. I am far from agreeing with this. If it were right, then God
would not have needed after the creation to see that they were good, as Holy Scripture says he
did, because he already knew that the things in question were his work. In saying this - And God
saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31) - Scripture treats
God as like a man; but its purpose in doing this appears to be to get across the point that a things
excellence can be seen by looking just at the thing itself, without reference to the entirely external
fact about what caused it. Reinforcing that point is this one: the works must bear the imprint of
the workman, because we can learn who he was just by inspecting them. I have to say that the
contrary opinion strikes me as very dangerous, and as coming close to the view of the Spinozists
that the beauty of the universe, and the goodness we attribute to Gods works, are merely the
illusions of people who conceive God as being like themselves. Furthermore, if you say as
Descartes did that things are good not because they match up to objective standards of
goodness, but only because God chose them, you will unthinkingly destroy all Gods love and all

2
his glory. For why praise him for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy for doing
just the opposite? Where will his justice and wisdom be,
if there is only a kind of despotic power,
if reasons place is taken by will, and
if justice is tyrannically defined as what best pleases the most powerful?
[Leibniz here relies on his view that it is through reason that we learn what things are good.] And
another point: it seems that any act of the will presupposes some reason for it - a reason which
naturally precedes the act - so that Gods choices must come from his reasons for them, which
involve his knowledge of what would be good; so they cant be the sources of the goodness of
things. That is why I find it weird when Descartes says that the eternal truths of metaphysics and
geometry, and therefore also the rules of goodness, justice, and perfection, are brought about by
Gods will. Against this, they seem to me to be results of his understanding, and no more to
depend on his will than his intrinsic nature does.
3. Nor could I ever accept the view of some recent philosophers who have the nerve to maintain
that Gods creation is not utterly perfect, and that he could have acted much better. This opinion,
it seems to me, has consequences that are completely contrary to the glory of God. Just as a lesser
evil contains an element of good, so a lesser good contains an element of evil. To act with fewer
perfections than one could have done is to act imperfectly; showing an architect that he could
have done his work better is finding fault with it. Furthermore, this opinion goes against holy
scriptures assurance of the goodness of Gods works. That goodness cant consist simply in the
fact that the works could have been worse; and here is why. Whatever Gods work was like, it
would always have been good in comparison with some possibilities, because there is no limit to
how bad things could be. But being praiseworthy in this way is hardly being praiseworthy at all! I
believe one could find countless passages in the holy scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers
that support my opinion, and hardly any to support the modern view to which I have referred - a
view that I think was never heard of in ancient times. It has arisen merely because we are not well
enough acquainted with the general harmony of the universe and of the hidden reasons for Gods
conduct; and that makes us recklessly judge that many things could have been improved.
Furthermore, these moderns argue - subtly but not soundly - from the false premiss that however
perfect a thing is, there is always something still more perfect.
They also think that their view provides for Gods freedom, through the idea that if God is
free, it must be up to him whether he acts perfectly or not; but really it is the highest freedom to
act perfectly, in accordance with sovereign reason. For the view that God sometimes does
something without having any reason for his choice, besides seeming to be impossible, is hardly
compatible with his glory. Suppose that God, facing a choice between A and B, opts for A
without having any reason for preferring it to B. I see nothing to praise in that, because all praise
should be grounded in some reason, and in this case we have stipulated that there is none. By
contrast, I hold that God does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified.
4. The love that we owe to God, above all things, is based (I think) on our grasp of the great truth
that God always acts in the most perfect and desirable way possible. For a lover looks for
satisfaction in the happiness or perfection of the loved one and of his actions. Friendship is
wanting the same things and not-wanting the same things. And I think it will be hard to love God
properly without being disposed to want what he wants, even if one had the power to get
something different. Indeed, those who are not satisfied with what God does strike me as being

3
like malcontent subjects whose set of mind is not much different from a rebels. These principles
lead me to maintain that loving God requires a certain attitude to everything that happens to us
through his will: not merely accepting it patiently because one has no alternative, but being truly
satisfied with it. I am saying this about the past; for we shouldnt be quietists about the future,
stupidly waiting with folded arms for what God will do, as in the fallacy of the argument for
idleness (as the ancients called it). So far as we can judge what God wants, in a general way, we
should act in accordance with that, doing our very best to contribute to the general good, and in
particular to adorning and perfecting the things that concern us - what is close to us, within reach
(so to speak). The outcome may show that in a particular instance God didnt want our good will
to have its effect, but it doesnt follow that he didnt want us to do what we did. On the contrary,
as he is the best of masters, he never asks more than the right intention, and it is up to him to
know when and where good intentions should succeed.
5. So it is enough to be sure of this about God: that he does everything for the best, and that
nothing can harm those who love him. But to know in detail his reasons for ordering the universe
as he has, allowing sin, and granting his saving grace in one way rather than another, is beyond the
power of a finite mind, especially one that has not yet attained the delight of seeing God. Still,
some general remarks can be made about how God goes about governing things. Thus, we can
liken someone who acts perfectly to an expert geometer who knows how to find the best
construction for a problem; to a good architect who exploits the location and the budget for his
building to the best advantage, not allowing anything nasty, or less beautiful than it could be; to a
good head of a household, who manages his property so that no ground is left uncultivated or
barren; to a clever special-effects technician in the theatre, who produces his effect by the least
awkward means that can be found; or to a learned author, who gets the largest amount of subjectmatter into the smallest space he can. Now, minds are the most perfect of all things, occupying
the least space and thus providing the least hindrance to one another because they dont take up
space at all; and their perfections are virtues. That is why we should be sure that the happiness of
minds is Gods principal aim, which he carries out as far as the general harmony will permit. Ill
say more about this later.
The simplicity of Gods ways relates to the means he adopts, while their variety, richness or
abundance relate to ends or effects. These should be in balance with one another, as the money
for putting up a building has to be balanced against its desired size and beauty. Admittedly,
whatever God does costs him nothing - even less than it costs a philosopher or scientist to invent
theories out of which to build his imaginary world - for God can bring a real world into existence
merely by decreeing it. But in the exercise of wisdom by God or a scientist there is something
analogous to the cost of a building, namely the number of independent decrees or theories that are
involved. For Gods creative activity to be economical is for it to involve very few separate
decrees; for a scientific theory to be economical in its means is for it to have very few basic
principles or axioms. Reason requires that multiplicity of hypotheses or principles be avoided,
rather as the simplest system is always preferred in astronomy.
6. Gods wishes or actions are usually divided into the ordinary and the extraordinary. But we
should bear in mind that God does nothing that isnt orderly. When we take something to be out
of the ordinary, we are thinking of some particular order that holds among created things. We do
not, or ought not to, mean that the thing is absolutely extraordinary or disordered, in the sense of
being outside every order; because there is a universal order to which everything conforms.

4
Indeed, not only does nothing absolutely irregular ever happen in the world, but we cannot even
feign [= tell a consistent fictional story about] such a thing. Suppose that someone haphazardly
draws points on a page, like people who practise the ridiculous art of fortune-telling through
geometrical figures. I say that it is possible to find a single formula that generates a geometrical
line passing through all those points in the order in which they were drawn. And if someone drew
a continuous line which was now straight, now circular, now of some other kind, it would be
possible to find a notion or rule or equation that would generate it. The contours of anyones face
could be traced by a single geometrical line governed by a formula. But when a rule is very
complex, what fits it is seen as irregular. So one can say that no matter how God had created the
world, it would have been regular and in some general order. But God chose the most perfect
order, that is, the order that is at once simplest in general rules and richest in phenomena - as
would be a geometrical line whose construction was easy yet whose properties and effects were
very admirable and very far-reaching. These comparisons help me to sketch some imperfect
picture of divine wisdom, and to say something that might raise our minds to some sort of
conception, at least, of what cannot be adequately expressed. But I dont claim that they explain
this great mystery of creation on which the whole universe depends.
7. Now, because nothing can happen that isnt orderly, miracles can be said to be as orderly as
natural events. The latter are called natural because they conform to certain subordinate rules ones that are not as general and basic as Gods fundamental creative decrees - which we call the
nature of things. This Nature is only a way in which God customarily goes about things, and he
can give it up if he has a reason for doing so - a reason that is stronger than the one that moved
him to make use of these subordinate maxims in the first place.
General acts of the will are distinguished from particular ones. Using one version of this
distinction, we can say that God does everything according to his most general will, which
conforms to the most perfect order that he has chosen; but that he also has particular wills, which
are exceptions (not to the most general of Gods laws, which regulates the whole order of the
universe, and to which there are no exceptions, but) to the subordinate maxims I have mentioned,
the ones that constitute Nature. Any object of Gods particular will is something he can be said
to want. But when it comes to the objects of his general will - such as are actions of created
things (especially rational ones) which God chooses to allow - we cannot say that God wants
them all, and must make a distinction. (1) If the action is intrinsically good, we can say that God
wants it, and sometimes commands it, even if it doesnt happen. (2) But an action may be
intrinsically bad, and only incidentally good because later events - especially ones involving
punishment and reparations - correct its wickedness and make up for the bad with some to spare,
so that eventually there is more perfection overall than if this bad thing had not been done. In a
case like that we must say that God allows the action but not that he wants it, even though he
goes along with it because of the laws of Nature that he has established and because he sees how
to derive from it a greater good.
8. It is quite hard to distinguish Gods actions from those of created things. Some believe that
God does everything, and others suppose that he only conserves the force he has given to created
things, allowing them to decide in what directions the force shall be exercised. We shall see later
on what truth there is in each of these. Now since actions and passions properly belong to
individual substances (when there is an action there is something, some subject, that acts), I have
to explain what such a substance is. This much is certain: when several predicates are attributed to

5
the same subject, and this subject is not attributed to any other, it is called an individual substance.
For example, we call John a substance because we can attribute to him honesty, intelligence, and
so on; but we dont call his honesty a substance because, although we can attribute predicates to
it (His honesty is charming, and surprising) we can attribute it to something else, namely to
John. In contrast, John cannot be attributed to anything else.
But that explanation is only nominal - all it does is to relate our calling a thing a substance
to other facts concerning what we say about it. Beyond that, we need to think about what it is for
something to be truly attributed to a certain subject - e.g. what it is for honesty to be a property
of John. Now it is certain that all true predication is founded in the nature of things, and when a
proposition is not identical, that is, when the predicate is not explicitly included in the subject as
in The man who governs Somalia governs Somalia, it must be implicitly included in it. This is
what philosophers call in-esse [being-in] when they say that the predicate is in the subject. So the
notion of the subject term must always include that of the predicate, so that anyone who
understood the subject notion perfectly would also judge that the predicate belongs to it. We can
therefore say that the nature of an individual substance or of a complete being is to have a notion
so complete that it is sufficient to include, and to allow the deduction of, all the predicates of the
subject to which that notion is attributed. An accident, on the other hand, is a being whose
notion doesnt involve everything that can be attributed to the subject to which that notion is
attributed. Thus Alexander the Greats kinghood is an abstraction from the subject, leaving out
much detail, and so is not determinate enough to pick out an individual, and doesnt involve the
other qualities of Alexander or everything that the notion of that prince includes; whereas God,
who sees the individual notion or thisness of Alexander, sees in it at the same time the basis and
the reason for all the predicates that can truly be said to belong to him, such as for example that
he would conquer Darius and Porus, even to the extent of knowing a priori (and not by
experience) whether he died a natural death or by poison - which we can know only from history.
Furthermore, if we bear in mind the interconnectedness of things, we can say that Alexanders
soul contains for all time traces of everything that did and signs of everything that will happen to
him - and even marks of everything that happens in the universe, although it is only God who can
recognise them all.
9. Several considerable paradoxes follow from this, amongst others that it is never true that two
substances are entirely alike, differing only in being two rather than one. It also follows that a
substance cannot begin except by creation, nor come to an end except by annihilation; and
because one substance cant be destroyed by being split up, or brought into existence by the
assembling of parts, in the natural course of events the number of substances remains the same,
although substances are often transformed. Moreover, each substance is like a whole world, and
like a mirror of God, or indeed of the whole universe, which each substance expresses in its own
fashion - rather as the same town looks different according to the position from which it is
viewed. In a way, then, the universe is multiplied as many times as there are substances, and in the
same way the glory of God is magnified by so many quite different representations of his work. It
can even be said that each substance carries within it, in a certain way, the imprint of Gods
infinite wisdom and omnipotence, and imitates him as far as it is capable of doing so. For it
expresses (though confusedly) everything that happens in the universe - past, present, and future and this is a little like infinite perception or knowledge. And as all the other substances express
this one in their turn, and adapt themselves to it - that is, they are as they are because it is as it is
- it can be said to have power over all the others, imitating the creators omnipotence.

6
10. The ancients, as well as many able teachers of theology and philosophy a few centuries ago men accustomed to deep thought, and admirable in their holiness - seem to have had some
knowledge of the things I have been saying, and to have been led by that to introduce and defend
substantial forms. These are much sneered at today, but they are not so far from the truth, nor so
ridiculous, as the common run of our new philosophers suppose. I agree that these forms have no
work to do in explaining particular events, and thus no role in the details of physics. That is where
our scholastics [= mediaeval Christian philosophers influence by Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas being
the most famous example] went wrong, and the physicians of the past followed them into error:
they thought they could invoke forms and qualities to explain the properties of bodies, without
bothering to find out how the bodies worked - like settling for saying that a clocks form gives it a
time-indicative quality, without considering what all that consists in - that is, without considering
what mechanisms are involved. Actually, that might be all the clocks owner needs to know, if he
leaves the care of it to someone else.
But this misuse and consequent failure of forms shouldnt make us reject them.
Metaphysics needs a knowledge of them, so much so that without that knowledge - I maintain we couldnt properly grasp the first principles of metaphysics, and couldnt raise our minds to
the knowledge of immaterial natures and the wonders of God. However, important truths need
not be taken into account everywhere. A geometer need not worry about the famous labyrinth of
the composition of the continuum [that is, the puzzles that arise from the idea that a line has no
smallest parts]; and the huge difficulties to be found in trying to reconcile free will with Gods
providence need not trouble a moral philosopher, still less a lawyer or politician; for the geometer
can do all his proofs, and the politician can complete his plans, without getting into those debates,
necessary and important though they are in philosophy and theology. In the same way a physicist
can explain his experiments - sometimes using simpler experiments he has already made,
sometimes proofs in geometry and mechanics - without needing to bring in general considerations
belonging to another sphere. And if he does go outside his sphere, and appeal to Gods cooperation, or to some soul or spiritual force or other thing of that kind, he is talking nonsense,
just as much as someone who drags large-scale reflections about the nature of destiny and our
freedom into an important practical deliberation. Indeed men often enough unthinkingly make this
mistake, when they let the idea of what is fated to happen tangle their thoughts, and sometimes
are even deterred by that idea from some good decision or some important precaution.
11. I know I am putting forward a considerable paradox in claiming to rehabilitate the ancient
philosophy, in a way, and to re-admit substantial forms when they have been all but banished. But
perhaps you wont just brush me off if you realize that I have thought a lot about the modern
philosophy, that I have spent much time on experiments in physics and proofs in geometry, and
that for a long time I was sure that these entities [substantial forms] are futile. Eventually I had to
take them up again - against my will, as though by force - after my own researches made me
recognize that thinkers these days do less than justice to St. Thomas and to other great men of his
time, and that the views of scholastic philosophers and theologians contain much more good stuff
than people suppose, provided they are used relevantly and in their right place. I am convinced,
indeed, that if some exact and thoughtful mind took the trouble to clarify and digest their
thoughts, in the way the analytic geometers do, he would find them to be a treasure-house of
important and completely demonstrable truths.

7
12. Picking up again the thread of our reflections, I believe that anyone who thinks about the
nature of substance, as I have explained it above, will find that there is more to the nature of body
than extension (that is, size, shape, and motion), and that we cant avoid attributing to body
something comparable with a soul, something commonly called substantial form - though it has
no effect on particular events, any more than do the souls of animals, if they have souls. It can be
proved, indeed, that the notion of size-shape-movement is less sharp and clear than we imagine,
and that it includes an element that belongs to imagination and the senses, as do - to a much
greater degree - colour, heat, and other such qualities, which we can doubt are really there in the
nature of external things. That is why qualities of such kinds could never constitute the basic
nature of any substance. Moreover, if there is nothing but size-shape-movement to make a body
the thing that it is, then a body can never persist for more than a moment because bodies
constantly gain and lose tiny bits of matter. However, the souls and substantial forms of bodies
other than ours are quite different from our thinking souls. Only the latter know their own
actions; and they dont naturally go out of existence, but last for ever and always retain the
foundation of the knowledge of what they are. This is what makes them alone liable to
punishment and reward, and what makes them citizens of the republic of the universe, of which
God is the monarch. It also follows that all other creatures must serve them. I shall say more
about that later.
13. The foundations that I have laid down give rise to a big problem, which I must try to solve
before moving on. I have said that the notion of an individual substance involves, once and for all,
everything that can ever happen to it; and that by looking into that notion one can see in it
everything that will ever be truly sayable of the substance, just as we can see in the nature of a
circle all the properties that are deducible from it. But this seems to destroy the difference
between contingent and necessary truths, to rule out human freedom, and to imply that all the
events in the world - including our actions - are governed by an absolute fate. To this I reply that
we have to distinguish what is certain from what is necessary. Everyone agrees that future
contingents are assured, because God foresees them; but we dont infer from this that they are
necessary. You may say:
But if some conclusion can be infallibly deduced from a definition or notion, it is
necessary. And you contend that everything that happens to a person is already included
implicitly in his nature or notion, just as a circles properties are contained in its circle; so
you are still in trouble.
I shall now resolve this problem completely. To that end, I remark that there are two kinds of
connection or following-from. One is absolutely necessary, and its contrary implies a
contradiction; such deduction pertains to eternal truths, such as those of geometry. The other is
necessary not absolutely, but only ex hypothesi, and, so to speak, accidentally. It doesnt bring
us to It is necessary that P, but only to Given Q, it follows necessarily that P. This is contingent
in itself, and its contrary does not imply a contradiction. This second kind of connection is based
not purely on ideas and on Gods understanding alone, but also on his free decrees, and on the
history of the universe. Let us take an example. Since Julius Caesar will become the permanent
dictator and master of the Republic, and will overthrow the freedom of the Romans, these actions
are comprised in his perfect or complete notion; because we are assuming that it is the nature of
such a perfect notion of a subject to include everything, so that the predicate can be contained in
the subject. It could be put like this: it is not because of that notion or idea that Caesar will
perform the action, since that notion applies to him only because God knows everything. You may

8
object: But his nature or form corresponds to that notion, and since God has imposed this
character or nature or form on him, from then on he must necessarily act in accordance with it. I
could reply to that by bringing up the case of future contingents: they have as yet no reality except
in Gods understanding and will, yet since God has given them that form in advance, they will
nevertheless have to correspond to it. So I could counter-attack by challenging you to choose
between two options, each of which you will find uncomfortable: either (1) say that future
contingents are really necessary, and not contingent, or (2) say that God does not know them in
advance. But I prefer to resolve difficulties rather than excusing them by likening them to other
similar ones; and what I am about to say will throw light on both of the above problems. Applying
now the distinction between different kinds of connection, I say that whatever happens in
accordance with its antecedents is assured but is not necessary; for someone to do the contrary
of such an assured outcome is not impossible in itself, although it is impossible ex hypothesi that is, impossible given what has gone before. For if you were capable of carrying through the
whole demonstration proving that this subject (Caesar) is connected with this predicate (his
successful power-grabbing enterprise), this would involve you in showing that Caesars
dictatorship had its foundation in his notion or nature, that a reason can be found there - in that
notion or nature - why he decided to cross the Rubicon rather than stop at it, and why he won
rather than lost the day in the battle at Pharsalus. You would be discovering that it was rational
and therefore assured that this would happen, but not that it is necessary in itself, or that the
contrary implies a contradiction. (In a somewhat similar way it is rational and assured that God
will always do the best, although the idea of his doing what is less perfect implies no
contradiction.) What you discovered would not be something whose contrary implies a
contradiction because, as you would find, this supposed demonstration of this predicate of
Caesars is not as absolute as those of numbers or of geometry. It presupposes (you would find)
the course of events that God has freely chosen, and that is founded on (1) his primary free
decision, which is always to do what is most perfect, and, on the basis of that, (2) his decision
regarding human nature, namely that men will always (though freely) do what seems the best.
Now, any truth which is founded on this sort of decision is contingent, even though it is certain,
because decisions have no effect whatsoever on the possibility of things. And (to repeat myself)
although God is sure always to choose the best, that doesnt stop something less perfect from
being and remaining possible in itself, even though it wont happen - for what makes God reject it
is its imperfection, not its being impossible which it is not. And nothing is necessary if its
opposite is possible.
So we are well placed to resolve these kinds of difficulty, however great they may seem (and
in fact they are equally serious for everyone else who has ever dealt with this matter). All we need
is to bear in mind that each such contingent proposition has reasons why it is so rather than
otherwise - or (to put the same thing in other words), that there is an a priori proof of its truth
which makes it certain, and which shows that the connection of its subject with its predicate has
its foundation in the nature of each; but that this proof is not a demonstration of the
propositions necessity, because those reasons for its truth are based only on the principle of
contingency or of the existence of things, that is, on what is or what appears the best among a
number of equally possible things. Necessary truths, on the other hand, are based on the principle
of contradiction, and on the possibility or impossibility of essences themselves, without any regard
to the free will of God or of created things.

9
14. Now that we have some grasp of what the nature of substances consists in, I should try to
explain their dependence on one another, and the active and passive aspects of their goings-on.
Well, firstly, it is very evident that created substances depend on God, who conserves them and
indeed produces them continuously by a kind of emanation, just as we produce our thoughts. For
God considers from every angle the general system of particular events that he has thought fit to
produce in order to manifest his glory, turning it on all sides, so to speak. And as he considers all
the faces of the world in all possible ways - for no aspect escapes his omniscience - each view of
the universe, as though looked at from a certain viewpoint, results in a substance that expresses
the universe in just that way, if God sees fit to actualize his thoughts by producing such a
substance. And as Gods view is always correct, so too are our perceptions; where we go wrong
is in our judgments, which are our own. I said above, and it follows from what I have said here,
that each substance is like a separate world, independent of every other thing except God. So all
our phenomena - all the events that occur in us - are simply consequences of our being. These
events maintain a certain order in conformity with our nature, or with the world that is in us, so to
speak, and this enables us to set up rules which we can use to guide our conduct, and which are
justified by their fit with future events; so that often we can judge the future by the past without
falling into error. That would give us a basis for saying that these phenomena are veridical [= that
they tell the truth], without bothering about whether they are external to us, or whether others
are aware of them too. Still, it emphatically is the case that the perceptions or expressions of all
substances correspond with one another, in such a way that each one, by carefully following
certain principles or laws that it has conformed to, finds itself in agreement with others which do
the same - as when several people agree to meet together in some place on a certain day, and
succeed in doing this. For them all to express the same phenomena their expressions dont have to
be perfectly alike; it is enough that they are correlated - just as a number of spectators think they
are seeing the same thing, and do in fact understand each other, even though each one sees and
speaks according to his point of view. Now it is God alone (from whom all individuals
continuously emanate, and who sees the universe not only as they do but also completely
differently from them all) who is the cause of this correspondence in their phenomena, and brings
it about that what is particular to one is public to all. Without that there would be no connection
between them.
This gives us a basis for saying that no particular substance ever acts on or is acted on by
another particular substance. The sense in which this is true is far removed from common usage,
but it is good nevertheless. Bear in mind that what happens to each substance is a consequence of
its idea or complete notion and of nothing else, because that idea already involves all the
substances predicates or events, and expresses the whole universe. In reality nothing can happen
to us except thoughts and perceptions, and all our future thoughts and perceptions are only the
consequences - contingent ones - of our preceding thoughts and perceptions. So if I could
command a clear view of everything that is happening or appearing to me right now, I would be
able to see in it everything that will ever happen or appear to me. And it would not be prevented,
and would still happen to me, even if everything outside of me were destroyed except for God.
But when we have perceptions of a certain kind, we think that they come from outer things acting
on us; and I want to look into what this belief is based on, and what truth there is in it.
15. I neednt spend long on this. All I need just now is to reconcile what is said as a matter of
metaphysics with what is said in everyday talk, which I do by saying that we rightly [or:
reasonably] attribute to ourselves the phenomena that we express more perfectly, and attribute to

10
other substances what each expresses best. So a substance that expresses everything, as every
substance does, and is in that metaphorical sense infinitely extended, comes to be limited by the
more or less perfect manner of its expression. This gives us a notion of how substances obstruct
or limit one another; and consequently we can say that in this sense they act on one another, and
are obliged to adjust themselves to one another, so to speak. What follows is the reason why this
way of speaking, though not correct as a matter of strict and basic metaphysics, is nevertheless
reasonable, or right in its own way. It can happen that a change that raises the expression of one
substance lowers that of another. Now, a particular substance has power in expressing well the
glory of God, and in doing that it is less limited. And each thing, when it exercises its power, that
is to say when it is active, changes for the better, and extends itself, in proportion to how active it
is. So when a change occurs that affects several substances (and actually all changes touch them
all), I believe we can properly say that one that immediately passes to a higher degree of
perfection or to a more perfect expression exercises its power and acts; and one that passes to a
lesser degree shows its weakness and is acted on. I hold also that every action of a substance that
has perception signifies some pleasure, and every passivity [= every instance of being-acted-on]
involves some sadness, and vice versa. It can easily happen, though, that a present advantage is
destroyed by a greater evil later on; which is why we can sin when we are active or exerting our
power and enjoying doing so.
16. My remaining task is to explain how it is possible that God should sometimes have influence
on men or on other substances by an out-of-the-ordinary or miraculous concourse. [Leibnizs
word concours can mean co-operation, or (more weakly) going-along-with or permitting. He here
ties it to influence (French), suggesting that in these cases God acts upon men and other
substances, though that is not his considered view about what happens.] This question arises
because whatever happens to created substances is purely a consequence of their nature, which
seems to imply that nothing extraordinary or miraculous can happen to them. Remember, though,
what I said above about the place of miracles in the universe: that they always conform to the
universal law of the general order, even though they over-ride subordinate rules and are in that
sense out of the ordinary. And since each person and each substance is like a little world that
expresses the larger world, anything that happens within a substance belongs to the general order
of the universe, which is indeed expressed by the essence or individual notion of that substance.
Yet an extraordinary action by God on a single substance, though it does conform to the general
order, can still be called miraculous. This is why if we include in our nature everything that it
expresses, nothing is supernatural to it, because it extends to everything - because an effect
always expresses its cause, and God is the true cause of substances. But the powers and the limits
of our nature come (as I have just explained) from the facts about what it expresses more
perfectly; and for that reason what it expresses more perfectly belongs to it in a particular manner.
Many things are beyond the powers of our nature, indeed of all limited natures.
So in order to make this easier to grasp, I say that what marks off miracles and the
extraordinary concourse of God is that they cannot be foreseen by the reasoning of any created
mind, however enlightened, because no such mind can rise to having a clear view of the general
order. On the other hand, everything that is called natural depends on less general rules that
created things can understand. In order, then, to have not only meanings but words that are above
reproach, it would be good if we linked certain modes of speech with certain thoughts in the
following way. We can use our essence to stand for something including all that we express
however imperfectly; and in that sense, our essence has no limits, and can rise to anything,

11
because it expresses our union with God himself. We can use our nature or our power to
designate what is limited in us, that is, to designate the more-perfectly-expressed fragment of all
we express; and anything that surpasses the nature or power - in this sense - of any created
substance is supernatural.
17. Having several times mentioned subordinate rules, or laws of Nature, I think it would be good
to give an example. Our new philosophers standardly employ the famous rule that God always
conserves the same quantity of motion in the world. This is indeed most plausible, and in days
gone by I thought it to be beyond doubt. But I have since realised where the mistake lies. It is that
M. Descartes and many other able mathematicians have believed that the quantity of motion, that
is to say the speed at which a thing moves, multiplied by its size, exactly equals the moving force
that it exerts; or, geometrically speaking, that forces are directly proportional to speeds and
bodies.
Now it is rational that the same force should always be conserved in the universe. Here are
reasons for the two halves of that thesis. As regards the addition of force: Looking carefully at
the observable facts, we can clearly see that perpetual mechanical motion doesnt occur; because
if it did the force of a machine, which is always slightly lessened by friction and so must soon
come to an end, would be restored, and consequently would increase of itself without any input
from outside. As regards the loss of force: We also observe that a bodys force is lessened only
to the extent that it gives some of it to adjacent bodies, or to its own parts in so far as they have
their own independent motion.
So the new philosophers were right about the conservation of force. Where they went wrong
was in this: they thought that what can be said of force could also be said of quantity of
motion. But in order to show the difference between force and quantity of motion, I make an
assumption: that a body falling from a certain height gains enough force to rise back up again, if
its direction carries it that way, unless it is prevented. For example, a pendulum would return
exactly to its starting position unless the resistance of the air and other little obstacles didnt
slightly lessen the force it had acquired. I shall also make this assumption: that as much force is
necessary to raise a one-pound body A to the height of four fathoms, as to raise a four-pound
body B to the height of one fathom. All this is accepted by our new philosophers. It is clear, then,
that body A, having fallen four fathoms, has acquired exactly as much force as has body B that
has fallen one fathom. For body B, when it has completed its fall, has the force needed to climb
back up to the start (by the first assumption), and so has the force to carry a four-pound body (its
own body, that is) to the height of one fathom ; and, similarly, the body A, when it has completed
its fall, has the force needed to climb back to its start, and so has the force to carry a one-pound
body (its own body, that is) to the height of four fathoms. Therefore (by the second assumption)
the forces of these two bodies are equal. Let us now see whether the quantities of motion are the
same on the one side as on the other. Here they will be surprised to find that there is a very great
difference. For Galileo has demonstrated that the speed acquired in As fall is double the speed
acquired in Bs, although the height is quadruple. So let us multiply body A (= 1) by its speed (=
2), and the resultant quantity of motion = 2. On the other hand, multiply the body B (= 4) by its
speed (= 1), and the resultant quantity of motion = 4. Therefore the quantity of motion of body A
at the end of its fall is half that of body B at the end of its fall, yet their forces are equal. So
quantity of motion is clearly different from force, QED.
This shows how force should be calculated from the size of the effect it can produce - for
example by the height to which a heavy body of a particular size and type can be raised, which is

12
very different from the speed it can reach. To double the speed you must more than double the
force. Nothing is simpler than this proof. M. Descartes got this wrong through putting too much
trust in his thoughts, even when they were not properly mature. But I am amazed that his
followers have not since recognised this mistake. They are, Im afraid, starting to resemble some
of the Aristotelians whom they mock, getting into their habit of consulting their masters books
rather than reason and Nature.
18. This point about how force differs from quantity of motion is of some importance, not only
[1] in physics and in mechanics for discovering the true laws of Nature and rules of motion, and
indeed for correcting some practical errors that have glided into the writings of certain able
mathematicians, but also [2] in metaphysics for understanding its principles better. What follows
illustrates point 2. Motion, if one considers only what it strictly consists in just in itself (namely,
change of place), is not an entirely real thing; when several bodies change their relative positions,
those changes in themselves do not settle which of the bodies should be said to have moved and
which to have remained at rest. (I could show this geometrically, if I wanted to interrupt myself to
do so.) But the force or immediate cause behind those changes has more reality to it; and there is
an adequate basis for ascribing it to one body rather than to another, that being our only way to
know to which body the motion mainly belongs. Now, this force is something different from size,
shape, and motion, and this shows us that - contrary to what our moderns have talked themselves
into believing - not everything that we can conceive in bodies is a matter of extension and its
modifications.
So here again we have to reintroduce certain beings or forms that the moderns have
banished. And it becomes more and more apparent that although all particular natural events can
be explained mathematically or mechanically by those who understand them, the general principles
of corporeal nature and even the somewhat less general principles of mechanics belong to
metaphysics rather than to geometry, and have to do with certain indivisible forms or natures, as
the causes of appearances, rather than with corporeal or extended mass. This line of thought
could reconcile the mechanical philosophy of the moderns with the caution of some intelligent and
well-intentioned people who fear, with some reason, that we might be endangering piety by
moving too far away from immaterial beings. In case that remark is too compressed, I shall now down to the end of this section - amplify it. On the one hand, my position enables us to agree with
the moderns that in scientifically explaining physical events we can proceed as though we were
materialists, appealing to nothing but material bodies and their properties. On the other hand, we
are saved from outright materialism (and thus from the risk of sliding into atheism, which
materialism brings with it), by my views about what is needed to complete the physics of bodies.
(1) I hold that the laws governing the behaviour of bodies involve a concept of force that cannot
be extracted from the concept of body; so it is sheerly additional to anything the materialists are
comfortable with; and it points in the direction of immaterial beings as what might contain or
exert the forces. (2) I hold that after we have established all the laws of matter, there remains the
question Why are these the laws of matter?, and that the only tenable answer is Because God
chose that they should be.
19. As I dont like to judge people harshly, I shant make accusations against our new
philosophers who claim to expel final causes from physics; but still I cant deny that the
consequences of this view seem to me dangerous. [The final cause of an event is what it was for,
what goal it was aimed at, what intention it was done with. Its efficient cause is what makes it

13
happen, causing it from behind, as it were. A tidal wave might have as its efficient cause an undersea earthquake; and if it had a final cause, it might be to punish the people in a sinful coastal city.]
It is especially dangerous when it is combined with the view I refuted in section 2 of this
Discourse, which seems to go as far as to eliminate purposes altogether - from theology as well
as from physics - as if God acted without intending or aiming at any end or good! Against this, I
hold that it is to final causes that we should look for the principle [= ultimate explanation] of all
existent things and of the laws of Nature, because God always aims at the best and the most
perfect.
I freely admit that we may go wrong in trying to work out what Gods ends or purposes are;
but that happens only when we want to limit them to some particular design, thinking he had only
some single thing in view, whereas in fact he takes account of everything all at once. So for
example it is a great mistake to think that God made the world only for us, although it is true that
he did make it - all of it - for us, and that there is nothing in the universe that does not touch us
[Leibniz uses the same verb here as when saying in section 15 that all changes touch all
substances], and which is not also adjusted to fit the concern he has for us, in accordance with the
principles laid down above. So when we see some good effect or some perfection that happens or
follows from the works of God, we can safely say that God intended it. We sometimes fail to act
well, but not God: he doesnt do things by accident. This is why, far from risking exaggeration in
this - like political observers who go to absurd lengths in attributing subtlety to the designs of
princes, or like literary commentators who look for too much learning in their author - one could
never over-state the complexity of thought that this infinite wisdom involves. On no subject do we
run less risk of error, so long as we only make affirmations, and avoid negative propositions that
limit the designs of God. Everyone who sees the admirable structure of animals is led to recognise
the wisdom of the creator of things; and I advise those who have any feelings of piety, and indeed
of true philosophy, to avoid saying - as do certain self-proclaimed free-thinkers - that we see
because we happen to have eyes, but not that the eyes were made for seeing. If one seriously
maintains these views that hand everything over to the necessity of matter or to some kind of
chance (although each of these must seem ridiculous to those who understand what I have
explained above), one will have trouble recognising an intelligent author of Nature. For an effect
must correspond to its cause; indeed, the best way to know an effect is through its cause. If you
introduce a supreme intelligence as the organiser of things, it doesnt make sense to go on to
explain events purely in terms of the properties of matter, without bringing in the organizing
intelligence. It would be as though, in explaining a great princes victory in a successful siege, a
historian were to say:
It was because the small particles of gunpowder, released by the touch of a spark, shot off
fast enough to impel a hard, heavy body against the walls of the place, while the particles
making up the strands of copper in the cannon were so densely interwoven that they were
not pulled apart by that speed;
instead of showing how the conquerors foresight made him choose the appropriate time and
means, and how his power overcame all obstacles.
20. This reminds me of a beautiful passage by Socrates in Platos Phaedo, which agrees splendidly
with my views on this point, and seems to have been aimed straight at our over-materialist
philosophers. This agreement made me want to translate it, although it is a little long. Perhaps this
sample will stimulate someone to make available to us many other beautiful and solid thoughts to
be found in the writings of this famous author. [At this point there is a gap in Leibnizs

14
manuscript, into which, he wrote, The passage from Platos Phaedo where Socrates ridicules
Anaxagoras, who introduces mind but does not make use of it, is to be inserted. He had included
an abridged version of that passage in another of his writings a few years earlier. That version
constitutes the remainder of this section. It is Socrates who speaks.]
*****
I once heard someone reading from a book that he said was by Anaxagoras, containing these
words: All things were caused by an intelligent being that set them out and embellished them.
This pleased me greatly, for I believed that if the world was caused by an intelligence, everything
would be made in the most perfect possible manner. That is why I believed that someone wanting
to explain why things are produced, and why they perish or survive, should search for what would
be most suitable to each things perfection. So such a person would only have to consider, in the
thing he was studying, whether himself or in something else, what would be the best or most
perfect. For someone who knew what was most perfect would also know what would be
imperfect, for the knowledge of either is knowledge of the other.
Considering all this, I rejoiced at having found an authority who could teach me the reasons
for things: for example, whether the earth is spherical or flat, and why it is better that it should be
one way rather than the other. I expected also that in the course of saying whether or not the
earth is at the centre of the universe, he would explain to me why its position is the most suitable
for it to have. And that he would tell me similar things about the sun, the moon, the stars, and
their movements. And finally that after having told me what would be best for each thing in
particular, he would show what would be best over-all. Filled with this hope, I lost no time in
acquiring Anaxagorass books and whipping through them; but I found nothing like what I had
been reckoning on: to my surprise, I found him making no use of the idea of the governing
intelligence that he had put forward, that he had nothing more to say about the embellishments
and the perfection of things, and that he brought in an implausible notion of ether. Its as though
someone were to say at the outset that Socrates acts with intelligence, and then move on to
explaining the particular causes of Socratess actions thus: Socrates is seated here because he has
a body composed of bone, flesh and sinews, the bones are solid but they are separated at joints,
the sinews can be stretched or relaxed - all that is why the body is flexible, and, rounding out the
explanation, why I am sitting here. Or as though someone, wanting to explain our present
conversation, appealed to the air, and to the organs of speech and hearing and such things,
forgetting the real causes, namely that the Athenians thought it better to condemn than to acquit
me, and that I thought it better to remain here than to escape. If I had not had that thought - if I
had not found it more just and honourable to suffer the penalty my country chooses to impose
than to live as a vagabond in exile - I swear these sinews and bones would long ago have put
themselves among the Boeotians and Megarans! That is why it unreasonable to call these bones
and sinews causes. Someone might say that without bones and sinews I could not do what I do,
and he would be right; but the true cause is different from a mere condition without which the
cause could not be a cause. Some people offer as their whole explanation of what holds the earth
in its place the movements of bodies surrounding it; they forget that divine power sets everything
out in the most beautiful manner, and do not understand that the right and the beautiful join forces
to form and maintain the world. [end of Phaedo excerpt]
21. Well now, since Gods wisdom has always been recognised in the detail of the physical
structure of certain bodies, especially animals and plants, it must also be shown display itself in
the general economy of the world and in the constitution of the laws of Nature. That is so true

15
that this wisdom can be seen in the general laws of motion. Here is how. If there were nothing to
a body but extended mass, and motion were only change of place, and if everything should and
could be deduced with geometrical necessity from those definitions alone, it would follow (as I
have shown elsewhere) that a tiny body upon bumping into an enormous stationary body would
give it the same speed as it itself had, without losing any of its own. And a number of other rules
which, like this one, are completely contrary to the formation of a system, would have to be
admitted. But a system is provided by the decision of the divine wisdom to conserve always the
same total force and direction. I even find that some natural effects can be demonstrated twice
over, first through efficient causes, and then through final causes - for example by bringing in
Gods decision to produce his effect always in the easiest and the most determinate ways. I have
shown this elsewhere, in explaining the rules of reflection and refraction of light, about which I
shall say more presently.
22. It is good to point this out, in order to reconcile those who hope to explain mechanically how
the parts of an animal are initially inter-woven and what machine they compose, with those who
explain that same structure through final causes. Both are good, both can be useful, not only for
admiring the great workmans ingenuity but also for making useful discoveries in physics and
medicine. Authors who go these different ways ought not to heap abuse on each other as they
sometimes do. For I see that those who focus on explaining the beauty of divine anatomy make
fun of others who think that such a beautiful variety of organs could have come from a seemingly
chance motion of certain fluids; they call such people rash and profane. The latter, on the other
hand, call the others simple and superstitious, and liken them to the ancients who accused of
impiety the physical scientists who maintained that thunder is produced not by Jupiter but by some
kind of matter in the clouds. It would be best to combine the two approaches, because - if I may
use a down-to-earth example - I recognise and praise a workmans skill not only by showing what
designs he had in making the parts of his machine, but also by explaining the tools he used to
make each part, especially when those tools are simple and cleverly devised. God is such a skillful
worker that he could produce a machine a thousand times more ingenious than those of our
bodies, using only various quite simple fluids that were devised so that ordinary laws of Nature
were all it took to arrange them in the right way to produce such an admirable effect; but that
doesnt alter the fact that none of this would happen if God were not the author of Nature.
Explanations in terms of efficient causes are deeper and in some way more immediate and more a
priori [= more truly explanatory], but for the details of events such explanations are hard to
come by, and I believe that our scientists usually fall far short of achieving them. By contrast, the
way of final causes is easier, despite which it often enables us to conjecture important and useful
truths, truths that the other more physical route - that is, the way of efficient causes - would
have taken ages to reach. Anatomy provides substantial examples of this. I also think that Snell,
who first formulated of the rules of refraction, would have been a long time finding them if he had
tried to come at them first by way of efficient causes, which would put him in need of
discovering how light is formed. Instead of that, he seems to have followed the method the
ancients used for reflection of light, which is in fact that of final causes. They looked for the
easiest way to get a ray of light from one point to another by reflection in a given plane (assuming
that this is the way Nature was designed), and this led them to the discovery that the angle of
incidence always equals the angle of reflection. M. Snell, I think, more ingeniously applied this to
refraction. [Leibniz here gives an extremely cryptic and unclear statement of what Snell
discovered about how light is bent when it passes from one medium to another, e.g. from air to

16
water; and he says that it implies that light always follows] the easiest or anyway the most
determinate route from a given point in one medium to a given point in another. [Leibniz is taking
it for granted that the concepts of easiest and most determinate somehow involve final causes.]
(M. Fermat came at the matter in the same way, though without knowing of Snells work.) M.
Descartes tried to demonstrate this same theorem in terms of efficient causes, but his
demonstration is nowhere near as good; and there is room to suspect that he would never have
found the theorem by his method if he had not been told in Holland of Snells discovery through
final causes.
23. I have thought it appropriate to emphasize a little the relevance to bodies of final causes,
incorporeal natures and an intelligent cause, so as to show that these have a role even in
physical science and mathematics. I have wanted to do this because it may (on the one hand) clear
contemporary physics of the charge of impiety that has been levelled at it, and (on the other) raise
the minds of our philosophers from purely material considerations to thoughts of a nobler kind.
Now it is appropriate to return from bodies to immaterial natures, and in particular to minds; and
to say something about the means that God employs to enlighten them and to act on them. There
is no doubt that here too there are certain laws of Nature, which I will be able to discuss more
fully elsewhere. For the moment it will be enough to say a little about ideas [sections 23-7], about
whether we see all things in God [section 29], and about how God is our light [section 28].
I should point out that many errors arise from the misuse of ideas. For example, some
ancient and modern philosophers have based a very imperfect proof of God on the natural
assumption that when we reason about something we have an idea of it. The proof goes like
this:
[1] I can think about God, so
[2] I have an idea of him.
[3] this idea involves his having all perfections, and
[4] existence is one of the perfections.
Therefore
[5] God exists.
The defect in this is its move from 1 to 2. We often think of impossible absurdities - for example
of the highest speed, or of the largest number, or of [a certain geometrical impossibility] - and the
ideas involved in such thinking are in a certain sense false, in contrast with true ideas of things
that are possible. So we can boast of having an idea - that is, a true idea - of a thing only when
we are assured of its possibility. So the above argument falls short. Still, it does at least prove that
God necessarily exists if he is possible. That is a significant result, because it attributes to God
something that is not true of most things. It is indeed an excellent privilege of the divine nature to
need only its possibility or essence in order actually to exist.
24. To understand the nature of ideas better, I must say a little about the different kinds of
knowledge. When I can pick a thing out from among others, but cannot say what marks it out
from them, my knowledge of it is confused. In this way we sometimes know vividly, without
being in any way in doubt, whether a poem or a painting is good or bad, because it has a certain
je-ne-sais-quoi that pleases or displeases us. But when I can explain the criteria I am going by, my
knowledge is clear. An assayers knowledge is clear like this; he can distinguish true from false
gold by means of certain tests or marks that make up the definition of gold.

17
But the clearness of knowledge is a matter of degree, because the notions entering into the
definition usually need to be defined in their turn, and are known only confusedly. But when
everything that comes into a definition or an item of clear knowledge is known clearly, right down
to the primary notions, I call that knowledge adequate. And when my mind takes in, clearly and at
once, all the primary ingredients of a notion, it has intuitive knowledge of it. This is very rare;
most human knowledge is only confused, or suppositive. [Leibnizs use of his invented word
suppositif in section 25 shows that his thought is this: an item of knowledge to which this term
applies involves a notion or idea that one supposes to be firmly included in ones conceptual
repertoire; this contrasts with consciously bringing the idea to mind and seeing that one has it in
ones repertoire.]
It is also worthwhile to distinguish nominal definitions from real ones: I call a definition
nominal when we can still doubt whether the notion defined is possible. [Leibniz gives a
complex geometrical example.] This shows that any reciprocal property [= any statement of
necessary and sufficient conditions] can serve as a nominal definition; but when the property
shows the things possibility, it makes a real definition. [The source of nominal is the Latin
nomen, name; the source of real is the Latin res, thing. A nominal definition, Leibniz holds,
tells you only about the meaning of a word, whereas a real definition informs you about the thing.]
Now as long as we have only a nominal definition, we cant be sure of the consequences that we
draw from it, because if it conceals some contradiction or impossibility it could also have
opposing consequences. This is why truths dont depend on names, and are not arbitrary as some
new philosophers have believed.
A final point: real definitions differ considerably from one another. When possibility is proved
only by experience, the definition is merely real and nothing more - as with the definition of
quicksilver, which we know to be possible because we have encountered a fluid that is an
extremely heavy yet fairly volatile. But when the thing can be shown to be possible a priori - that
is, without help from experience - as when the definition shows how the thing could be
generated, then the definition is both real and causal. And when a definition takes the analysis the
whole way down to the primary notions, without assuming anything that itself requires an a priori
proof of its possibility, the definition is perfect, or essential. [In this section and elsewhere,
vivid translates the French clair, and clear translates the French distinct. These are usually
rendered as clear and distinct respectively, but the first of those is nearly always a flat
mistranslation (though not in the second sentence of section 37). The French word clair primarily
means vivid, bright, strongly present to consciousness, so that Descartes can say that ones
awareness of an intense pain is clair, and bright light is lumire claire - even if it is dazzling and in
no way clear. That is why Leibniz can say in this section, as Descartes did before him, that
somethings presence to the mind can be at once confused and vivid - not confused and clear!
Once clear has been freed from that misuse, it becomes available as a good translation for the
French distinct.]
25. Let us get clear about suppositive knowledge. When I think of a thousand, I often do so
without contemplating the idea - as when I say that a thousand is ten times a hundred, without
bothering to think what 10 and 100 are, because I suppose I know, and see no immediate need to
stop to think about it. On those occasions, my thought that a thousand is ten times a hundred is
suppositive. In cases like that, I relate to the idea in the same way as I do in a thought in which
there lurks an impossibility. Even if in a given case the relevant idea is all right, and doesnt
involve an impossibility, I cannot learn that this is so by suppositive thinking. So it can easily

18
happen, and indeed quite often does, that I am mistaken about a notion that I suppose or believe I
understand when in fact it is impossible, or at least incompatible with the others to which I join it;
and whether I am mistaken or not, this suppositive manner of conceiving is the same.
26. To get a good grip on what ideas are, be warned of an ambiguity. Some people take an idea to
be a form or differentia [= aspect or property] of our thought; so that we have the idea in our
mind only when we are thinking of it, and whenever we think of it again, we have different but
similar ideas of the same thing. Others, however, seem to take an idea to be the immediate object
of a thought, or to be some kind of permanent form, which continues to exist even when we are
not contemplating it. I side with the latter group, and here is why. Our soul always possesses the
ability to represent to itself any nature or form when the occasion for thinking of it arises. This
ability is permanent, even though the individual thoughts in which it is exercised come and go.
And I believe that this ability of our soul, when it expresses some nature, form, or essence, is
properly called an idea of the thing; and it is in us - always in us - whether or not we are thinking
of the thing. For our soul always expresses God and the universe, and all essences as well as all
existences. That requires our soul to have ideas of all those things at all times, which it can do
only if ideas are abilities rather than individual mental or events or aspects or properties of such
events.
This fits in with my principles, for nothing naturally enters our mind from outside; and it is a
bad habit of ours to think of our soul as receiving messenger species, or as if it had doors and
windows. We have all these forms in our mind and indeed always have had; because the mind
always expresses all its future thoughts, and is already thinking confusedly of everything it will
ever think clearly. We couldnt be taught something unless we already had the idea of it in our
mind, the idea being like the matter out of which the thought is formed.
Plato understood this very well, when he put forward his doctrine of reminiscence. The latter
is very sound, provided we take it in the right way - cleansing it of the error about pre-existence,
and not imagining that if a soul takes in and thinks about something now it must at some earlier
time have clearly known and thought about it. He also confirmed his opinion by a beautiful
experiment. He introduces a small boy whom he gradually leads to an acceptance of very
difficult geometrical truths about incommensurables, without teaching him anything, only asking
him an orderly sequence of suitable questions. This shows that our souls have virtual knowledge
of all these things; that to grasp truths they need only to have their attention drawn to them; and
thus that our souls at least have the ideas on which those truths depend. They might even be said
to possess these truths, if we consider the truths as relations between ideas.
27. Aristotle preferred to compare our souls to as-yet blank tablets that could be written on, and
he held that there is nothing in our understanding that doesnt come from the senses. This squares
better with everyday notions, as Aristotle usually does (unlike Plato, who goes deeper). Ordinary
usage does sanction these doctrines or rules of thumb, in the spirit in which people who follow
Copernicus still say that the sun rises and sets. Indeed, I often find that we can give them a
good sense in which they are not merely passable or excusable, but entirely true; in the way in
which (as I have already remarked in section 15) it can truly be said that particular substances
act on each other, and that we receive knowledge from outside by the agency of the senses,
because some external things contain or express more particularly the reasons why our soul has
certain thoughts. But when we are pursuing precise metaphysical truths, it is important to
recognise how much our soul contains and how independent it is of other things. These - its

19
extent and its independence - go infinitely further than plain folk imagine, although in ordinary
talk we attribute to the soul only what we are most plainly aware of, only what belongs to us in
one special manner, because there is no point in going any further. Still, it would be good to
choose specific terms for each way of talking, so as to avoid ambiguity. So those expressions that
are in our soul whether conceived or not, can be called ideas; but those that are conceived or
formed in a consciously self-aware manner can be called notions, or concepts. But in
whatever way we take the term notion, it is always false to say that all our notions come from
the so-called external senses. For my notion of myself and of my thoughts, and therefore of being,
substance, action, identity, and many others, come from an internal experience.
28. Now in strict metaphysical truth God is the only external cause that acts on us, and he alone
affects us directly in virtue of our continual dependence. Therefore no other external object
touches our soul and directly triggers our perceptions. So it is the continual action of God upon
us that enables us to have in our souls ideas of all things. Here is how that happens. All effects
express their causes, and so the essence [= intrinsic nature] of our soul is a particular expression,
imitation or likeness of Gods essence, thought and will, and of all the ideas contained in it. So we
can say that God alone is our immediate external object, and that we see all things through him.
When we see the sun and the stars, for example, it is God who gave us the relevant ideas and who
conserves them in us; and who by his ordinary concurrence, following the laws he has established,
brings it about that we actually think of them when our senses are suitably disposed. God is the
sun and the light of souls, the light which lighteth every man that cometh into this world [John
1:9]; and this is not a new opinion. In addition to holy scripture and the fathers, who have always
been more for Plato than for Aristotle, I remember having sometimes noticed that many people in
the time of the Scholastics held that God is the light of the soul, or, as they used to say, the active
intellect of the rational soul. The Averroists twisted this the wrong way, but others have taken it
in a manner worthy of God and capable of raising the soul to knowledge of its true good.
29. However, I dont share the opinion of some able philosophers - most notably Malebranche who seem to maintain that our ideas themselves are in God and not at all in us. In my view this
comes from their having partly grasped but not yet thought through the points I have just been
making about substances and about the whole extent and independence of our soul - points which
imply that the soul contains everything that happens to it, and expresses God (and with him all
possible and actual beings) as an effect expresses its cause. Anyway, it is inconceivable that I
should think with someone elses ideas! Furthermore, when the soul thinks of something it must
actually come to be in a certain state, and it must have contained in advance not only a completely
determinate passive power of coming to be in that state, but also an active power in virtue of
which its nature has always contained signs of the future production of this thought, and
dispositions to produce it when the time comes. And all this - the passive power, the active
power that includes the forward-looking signs, and the disposition - has wrapped up in it the idea
involved in the thought.
30. As regards Gods action on the human will, there are a number of quite difficult issues that it
would be tedious to pursue here. Here in outline is what we can say. In his ordinary concourse
with our actions, God merely follows the laws he has established; that is to say, he continually
preserves and produces our being in such a way that our thoughts occur spontaneously and freely
in the order laid down by the notion of our individual substance, in which they could be foreseen
from all eternity. Furthermore, he determines our will to choose what appears to us the best, yet

20
without necessitating it. He does this by decreeing that our will shall always tend towards the
apparent good, thus expressing or imitating the will of God to the extent that this apparent good
has (as it always does have) some real good in it. I comment now on without necessitating it.
Absolutely speaking, our will is in a state of indifference, as opposed to necessity: it has the power
to do otherwise, or to suspend its action altogether, each alternative being and remaining possible.
It is therefore up to the soul to take precautions against being caught off its guard by events that
come into its ken; and the way to do this is to resolve firmly to be reflective, and in certain
situations not to act or judge without mature and thorough deliberation.
It is true, however, and indeed it was settled from all eternity, that a particular soul will not
employ this power to pause, reflect, deliberate on some particular occasion. But whose fault is
that? Does the soul have anyone to complain of except itself? Any complaint after the fact is
unfair if it would have been unfair before. But would it have been decent for this soul, just before
sinning, to complain against God as if he were determining it to sin? What God determines in
these matters cannot be foreseen, so how could a soul know that it was determined to sin unless it
was already doing so? It is simply a matter of not choosing to; and God could not have set an
easier or fairer condition than that; and accordingly judges do not look for the reasons that led a
man to have an evil intent, but concern themselves only with how evil it is.
But perhaps it is certain from all eternity that I shall sin? Answer that yourself: perhaps not!
And instead of dreaming on about what you cant know and cant learn from, act according to
your duty, which you do know. But how does it happen that this man will certainly sin? The
reply is easy: it is that otherwise it wouldnt be this man. [Notice: He doesnt say he wouldnt be
this man, which is how most translations have put it.] For God sees from all time that there will
be a certain Judas whose notion or idea, which God has, contains that future free action. That
leaves only the question of why such a Judas, the traitor, who in Gods idea is merely possible,
actually exists. But no reply to that question is to be expected here on this earth, except that in
general we should say: Since God found it good that Judas should exist, despite the sin that he
foresaw, this evil must be repaid with interest somewhere in the universe; God will extract some
greater good from it; and the bottom line is that this course of events - the actual one that
includes the existence of this sinner - will turn out to be the most perfect out of all the possible
ways things could have gone.
But while we are journeying through this world we cant always explain the admirable
economy of that choice; we must settle for knowing it without understanding it. And at this
point it is time to acknowledge the richness and unfathomable depth of the divine wisdom, and
not to look for a detailed account of it - an account that would be infinitely complex.
It is quite clear, though, that God is not the cause of evil. Mans soul been possessed by
original sin ever since he lost his innocence, but that was not the start of it. Even before that, all
created things - just because they were created - were intrinsically limited or imperfect in a way
that makes them capable of sin and of error. St. Augustine and others have held that the root of
evil lies in nothingness, and I think that this should be taken as saying what I have just said:
namely, that evil comes from the lacks and limits of created things, which God graciously
remedies by the degree of perfection that he is pleased to give. This grace of God in both its
ordinary and its extraordinary versions [see sections 6 and 16] varies in how deep and wide it
goes. But it is always enough not only to save a man from sin but also to secure his salvation, as
long as he uses his own resources to combine himself with that grace. It is not always sufficient to
overcome a mans inclinations; if it were, his inclinations would have no effect on anything, and

21
he would no longer be responsible for anything. That kind of sufficiency belongs only to
absolutely effective grace, which is always victorious, whether through itself or through the
combination of circumstances.
31. Finally, Gods graces are purely gifts, and creatures have no claim on them. We cant fully
explain how God chooses to distribute them by appealing to his foreknowledge (whether absolute
or conditional) of how men are going to act in the future; but we mustnt think of them as
absolute or arbitrary decrees for which there are no rational grounds.
As for Gods foreknowledge of our faith or good works: it is quite true that God has chosen
only those whose faith and charity he foresaw, foreseeing that he would endow them with faith.
But the old question comes up again: Why will God make a gift of faith or of good works to some
people and not to others? A difficulty about this arises from the fact that grace is effective in a
man only to the extent that he brings something of himself to it. Although to act well a man needs
to be stimulated to the good, and converted, he must also then do it by means of his own
resources, and men vary in what their inner resources are, corresponding to how they vary in
what grace is given them. So included in Gods knowledge is not only his foresight of faith and of
good deeds, but also his foresight of what a man himself will contribute towards them - his natural
dispositions in that direction. It seems to many thinkers that we could say this: God sees what a
mans natural dispositions will be, and thus what he would do without grace or extraordinary
assistance, or at least what he will contribute from his own side in addition to anything that may
be contributed by grace. So God could have decided to give grace to those whose natural
dispositions were the best, or at any rate were the least imperfect or sinful. But if that were so,
those natural dispositions, to the extent that they are good, are also the effect of grace (ordinary
grace, this time), because in this respect too God has favoured some people more than others.
Now, since according to this doctrine, God knows perfectly well that the natural advantages he
gives will be the ground for his grace or extraordinary help, doesnt everything in the end depend
on his mercy?
Well, we dont know how or how much God takes account of natural dispositions in his
dispensing of grace. So I think that the most exact and the safest thing to say is what is dictated
by my principles (and I have already said it once), namely: Among possible beings there must be
the person of Peter or of John whose notion or idea contains this whole sequence of ordinary and
extraordinary graces, and all the rest of these events with their circumstances; and from amongst
an infinity of other equally possible people it pleased God to choose that person for actual
existence.
After this it seems that there is nothing more to ask, and that all the difficulties disappear. For
as to this single great question why it pleased God to choose this person from among all other
possible persons, it would be very unreasonable not to be satisfied with the general reasons I have
given, the details being beyond us. So, instead of having recourse to an absolute and arbitrary
decree that is unreasonable because there are no reasons for it, or to reasons that fail to resolve
the difficulty because they need reasons in their turn, it would be best to say in agreement with St.
Paul that there are certain great reasons for Gods choice, reasons of wisdom or of fitness which
are unknown to mortals; God has conformed to these reasons, which are founded on the general
order whose aim is the greatest perfection of the universe. The themes of this Discourse - the
glory of God and the manifestation of his justice, his mercy and his perfections generally, and
finally the immense profundity of riches that enraptured the soul of St. Paul - all come down to
that in the end.

22
32. I have to add only that the thoughts I have just been explaining - and in particular the great
principle of
the perfection of Gods operations, and that of
the notion of a substance containing all its events with all their circumstances
- so far from harming religion, serve to reinforce it. They blow away some very serious
difficulties, inspire souls with love of God, and elevate minds to the understanding of incorporeal
substances - doing all this far better than did any previous theories. For it is quite clear that all
other substances depend on God, as thoughts emanate from our substance and in that way
depend on it; that God is all in all, and is intimately united to all created things in proportion to
how perfect they are; that he alone by his influence determines them from outside. Elaborating
this last point: If to act on something is to affect it immediately i.e. directly - which is correct in
the strict language of metaphysics - it can be said that in this sense only God acts on me and can
do me good or harm. Other substances cannot, strictly speaking, help or harm me, because they
contribute only to Gods reason for making those changes. The other substances do come into
those reasons, because God takes account of all substances when he shares out his blessings and
makes them adjust to one another. So he alone produces the connection or communication [=
something like interplay] among substances: he brings it about that the states of one coincide or
agree with those of another, and as a result that one substance can correctly perceive what state
another is in. But we neednt always mention the universal cause in particular cases; and in
common parlance the items that we say act on a given substance putting it into a certain state
are the ones that enter into Gods reasons for putting it into that state, in the sense that I
explained above.
We can also see that every substance has a perfect spontaneity, that everything that happens
to it is a consequence of its idea or of its nature. and that nothing affects it from outside except
God alone. (In substances with intellect, this spontaneity becomes freedom.) This is why a certain
person of very lofty mind and revered holiness used to say that the soul should often think as
though there were only God and it in the world. [Garber says that this probalby refers to St.
Theresa.] Nothing can make us understand immortality better than this independence and extent
of the soul, which absolutely shelters it from everything external, since it alone constitutes its
whole world, and together with God is sufficient for itself. It is possible for the soul to come to an
end through absolute annihilation; but its coming to end in any other way - being destroyed by
dissolution, through damage, like a machine - is just as impossible as it is that the world should
destroy itself unaided. Changes in the extended mass we call our body could not have any effect
on the soul, nor could the dissolution of that body destroy what is indivisible, namely, the soul.
33. We also see how to clear up that great mystery of the union of the soul and the body: how
does it come about that the passive and active states [or: the doings and undergoings] of the one
are accompanied by active and passive states - or anyway by corresponding states - in the other?
This is a mystery because it is utterly inconceivable that the one should influence the other, and it
is not reasonable to fall back on the extraordinary operation of the universal cause - God - to
explain normal everyday events. Here, however, is the true explanation of those events. I have
said that whatever takes place in the soul or in any substance is a consequence of its notion, so
that the mere idea or essence of the soul carries with it the requirement that all the souls states
or perceptions must arise spontaneously from its own nature. And they must do this in just such a
way that they correspond, unaided, to whatever happens in the whole universe,

23
but more particularly and more perfectly to what happens in the body that is assigned to the
soul in question. That is because, in a way and for a time, the soul expresses the state of the
universe through the relation of other bodies to its own.
This also tells us how our body belongs to us without being attached to our essence. And I
believe that people who know how to think long and hard will favour my principles for just that
reason: that they will be able easily to see what the connection between soul and body consists in,
a connection that seems otherwise to be inexplicable.
We can also see that the perceptions of our senses, even when they are vivid, must
necessarily contain some confused feeling. For since all bodies in the universe are in sympathy [=
harmony, correspondence], our body receives the impressions of all the others, and although
our senses are related to everything, our soul cannot possibly attend to each particular thing.
Thus our confused feelings result from a downright infinite mlange of perceptions. In somewhat
the same way the confused murmur that people hear when nearing the sea shore comes from the
putting together of the reverberations of countless waves. For if several perceptions dont fit
together so as to make one, and no one of them stands out above the rest, and the impressions
they make are all just about equally strong and equally capable of catching the souls attention, it
can perceive them only confusedly.
34. In this section I use the notion of unum per se, a Latin phrase meaning a unity through
itself. This applies to anything whose intrinsic nature makes it one, single, an individual, as
distinct from something that is not inherently one though it may suit us to treat it as one. Each
organism is a unum per se; a pile of leaves or a gallon of water is not. If we suppose that bodies
that compose a unum per se, such as the body of a man, are substances and that they have
substantial forms, and that lower animals have souls, we must acknowledge that these souls and
substantial forms cannot completely come to an end, any more than, in the view of other
philosophers, atoms or the ultimate parts of matter can come to an end. For no substance ever
comes to an end, though a substance may greatly alter. These souls or substantial forms of lower
animals also express the whole universe, although more imperfectly than minds do. But the
principal difference between them and minds is that they dont know what they are or what they
do, and so - not being able to look into themselves reflectively - they cant discover necessary and
universal truths. That is because the way to discover necessary truths is to look into oneself and
see how ones ideas are inter-related. For lack of such self-reflection, they have no moral quality;
which means that as they pass through hundreds of transformations (as when a caterpillar changes
into a butterfly), it would make no moral or practical difference if we said that they cease to exist.
We can even say that they really do cease to exist, as when we say that bodies perish through
dissolution.
But the thinking soul, which knows what it is and can say that pregnant word I, not only (as
a matter of metaphysics) is much more enduring than the others, but also (as a matter of morals)
endures and constitutes the same person. For it is memory, or the knowledge of this I, which
makes the thinking soul capable of punishment and reward. Similarly, the immortality required by
morality and religion doesnt consist merely in the lasting-for-ever that all substances have, for
that would not be something to hope for if it didnt involve the memory of what one has been.
Suppose that someone could suddenly become the King of China, but only on condition of
forgetting what he had been, as if he had just been born all over again. Would it not in practice, or
in terms of perceivable effects, be the same as if he had been annihilated and a King of China
created then and there? And that is something that that individual could have no reason to want.

24
35. In those remarks I have been separating morality from metaphysics; but in some contexts we
must run the two in a single harness. To show by natural reasons that God will preserve for ever
not only our substance, but also our person (that is, the memory and the knowledge of what we
are - although clear knowledge of this is sometimes suspended in sleep or in fainting spells), we
must unite morality with metaphysics. That is, we must think of God not only as the root cause of
all substances and of all beings, but also as the leader of all persons or thinking substances, or as
the absolute monarch of the most perfect city or republic - which is what the universe composed
of the assembled totality of minds is. For God himself is the most accomplished of all minds, as he
is also the greatest of all beings. For minds certainly are the most perfect of beings, and express
God best. If bodies are only true phenomena - that is, reliable appearances to minds - then minds
are the only substances there are; and if they are not that, they are at any rate the most perfect.
And since - as I have sufficiently explained - the expressing of God and the universe is the whole
nature, goal, virtue or function of substances, there is no room to doubt that substances that do
this knowing what they are doing, and able to understand great truths about God and the
universe, express them incomparably better than the natures that belong to lower animals and are
incapable of knowing any truths, or - lower down still - to things that lack feeling and knowledge
altogether. The difference between substances that think and ones that dont is as great as that
between a mirror and someone who sees.
God can have conversations (so to speak) with minds, and can even enter into society with
them by telling them what he thinks and wants - doing this in a special way that lets them know
and love their benefactor. Since he himself is the greatest and wisest of minds, it is natural think
that minds - thinking substances - must concern God infinitely more than all other things, which
can serve only as the tools of minds. Similarly, we see that wise folk always value a man infinitely
more than any other thing, however precious it may be; and it seems that the greatest satisfaction
that an otherwise contented soul can have is to see itself loved by others. Between our love for
one another and our love for God, however, there is a difference. His glory and our worship could
not add to his satisfaction, because his sovereign and perfect happiness leads to the knowledge
that created things have, and so cannot be partly caused by that knowledge. However, whatever is
good and rational in finite spirits is also possessed by God in a suitably higher form; and just as we
would praise a king who preferred to save the life of a man rather than of the most precious and
rarest of his animals, so we should not doubt that the most enlightened and just of all monarchs
would think the same.
36. Minds are actually the most perfectible of substances, and their perfections have the special
feature that they obstruct one another the least, or rather that they help one another - for only the
most virtuous could be the most perfect friends. From which it plainly follows that God, who
always aims at the greatest perfection in general, will have the greatest care for minds, and will
give to them (not only in general, but also to each particular mind) the highest level of perfection
that the universal harmony will allow. It can be said indeed that Gods being a mind is what
qualifies him as the reason why things exist. If he was not able voluntarily to choose the best,
there would be no reason why one possible thing should exist rather than some other. So of all the
features of created things that God takes into account, he attends first and foremost to the quality
that he shares with them, namely that of being a Mind. [In this section, mind/Mind tracks
Leibnizs esprit/Esprit.] Only minds are made in his image, are of his race (so to speak), are like
children of his house, for only they can serve him freely, and act in imitation of the divine nature,
knowing what they are doing. A single mind is worth a whole world, since it not only expresses

25
the world, but also knows it, and governs itself there after the fashion of God. Thus, it seems that
although each substance expresses the entire universe, Minds express God rather than the world,
whereas other substances express the world rather than God. And this nobility in the nature of
Minds - bringing them as near to divinity as is possible for mere created things - leads to Gods
deriving infinitely more glory from them than from any other beings. That is why this moral
quality of Gods, which makes him the lord or King of Minds, is one in which he takes a quite
special interest - an interest that might be called personal. It is in this that he humanizes himself,
willingly lays himself open to being thought of in anthropomorphic ways, and enters into society
with us as a prince does with his subjects. This concern is so dear to him that the happy and
flourishing state of his empire, which consists in the greatest possible happiness of the inhabitants,
becomes the highest of his laws. For happiness is to people what perfection is to beings in
general. And if the ultimate explanation of the existence of the real world is the decree that it
should have the greatest perfection that it can, then the ultimate aim for the moral world - the city
of God, the noblest part of the universe - should be to infuse it with the greatest possible
happiness. So we mustnt doubt that God - in order that his city should never lose any person, as
the world never loses any substance - has arranged everything so that Minds not only (of course)
can live for ever, but also retain for ever their moral quality. Consequently they will always know
what they are; otherwise they wouldnt be liable for reward or punishment, which are essential to
any republic, and especially to the most perfect one, where nothing could be neglected. In fact
since God is at once the most fair and mild of kings, and since he demands of his subjects only a
good will, provided it is sincere and serious, they couldnt wish for a better condition. To make
them perfectly happy, God asks only that they love him.
37. Ancient philosophers knew very little of these important truths. Only Jesus Christ expressed
them divinely well, and in such a clear and down-to-earth way that even the dullest minds could
understand them. Thus his gospel has entirely changed the face of human affairs. He has told us
about the kingdom of heaven, that perfect republic of Minds meriting the title City of God,
whose admirable laws he has revealed to us. He alone has shown how much God loves us, and
how exactly he has provided for everything that affects us: that, caring for sparrows, he will not
neglect the rational creatures who are infinitely dearer to him; that all the hairs of our heads are
counted; that the sky and the earth will perish before any change in the word of God or in any of
the conditions for our salvation; that God cares more about the least of thinking souls than about
the whole machine of the world; that we need not fear those who can destroy bodies but could
not harm souls, because God alone can make souls happy or unhappy; that the souls of the just
are, in his hands, safe from all the revolutions of the universe, since nothing can act on them
except God alone; that none of our actions is forgotten; that everything is taken into account,
even an idle remark or a well used spoonful of water; and, finally, that all must result in the
greatest well-being for good people, that the righteous shall be like suns, and that we have never
experienced or conceived anything giving us a fore-taste of the happiness that God prepares for
those who love him.
*****

26

Leibnizs summaries:
1. God is perfect, and does everything in the most desirable way.
2. Against those who maintain that there is no goodness in Gods works, and that the rules of
goodness and beauty are arbitrary.
3. Against those who think that God could have done better.
4. The love of God requires complete contentment and acceptance with regard to what he has
done, but we dont have to be quietists.
5. What the rules of perfection of Gods conduct consist in; the simplicity of means is balanced
against the richness of ends.
6. God does nothing disorderly, and it isnt possible even to feign events that are not regular.
7. Miracles conform to the general order, although they run counter to subordinate rules. What
God wants and what he allows; general and particular will.
8. In order to distinguish between Gods actions and those of created things, it is explained what
the notion of an individual substance consists in.
9. Each substance expresses the whole universe in its own way; and everything that happens to it
is included in its notion, with all the circumstances and because it expresses everything else the
whole series of external things.
10. The doctrine of substantial forms has some value, but such forms make no difference to
observable events, and shouldnt be used to explain particular effects.
11. The reflections of the so-called Scholastic theologians and philosophers should not be
completely despised.
12. The notions that make up extension involve something imaginary, and cant constitute the
substance of body.
13. Since the individual notion of each person involves once and for all everything that will ever
happen to him, we can see in that notion the a priori proofs or reasons for the occurrence of every
event - seeing why one thing happens rather than another. But although these truths are certain,
they are still contingent, for they are based on the free will of God and of created things. It is true
that there are always reasons for their choices, but those reasons incline without necessitating.
14. God produces a variety of substances according to his different views of the universe; and he
intervenes so as to bring it about that the particular nature of each substance makes what happens
to it correspond to what happens to all the others, without their directly acting on one another.
15. When one finite substance acts on another, all that happens is that the first undergoes an
increase in the degree of its expression while the other undergoes a decrease, which happens
because God formed them in advance so that they fit together.
16. Our essence expresses everything, so it expresses Gods extraordinary concourse. But our
nature or clear expression is finite, and follows certain subordinate rules; it does not extend far
enough to take in Gods extraordinary concourse.

27
17. An example of a subordinate rule of natural law, which shows that God always systematically
conserves the same force, but not (contrary to the Cartesians and others) the same quantity of
motion.
18. The distinction between force and quantity of motion is important. For one thing, it shows
that to explain how bodies behave we must bring in metaphysical considerations apart from
extension.
19. The usefulness of final causes in physical science.
20. A memorable passage by Socrates in Platos Phaedo against over-materialist philosophers.
21. If mechanical rules depended only on geometry and not on metaphysics, the observed facts
would be quite different.
22. Reconciliation of two methods, one working through final causes and the other through
efficient ones, in order to satisfy both sides: those who explain Nature mechanically, and those
who appeal to immaterial natures.
23. Returning to immaterial substances, I explain how God acts on the minds understanding, and
discuss whether we always have an idea of what we are thinking about.
24. What vivid and dark, clear and confused, adequate and inadequate, intuitive and suppositive
knowledge are; nominal, real, causal and essential definition.
25. In what cases our knowledge is combined with the contemplation of an idea.
26. That we have within us all ideas; Platos doctrine of reminiscence.
27. How our soul can be compared with a blank tablet, and in what way our notions come from
the senses.
28. God alone is the immediate object of our perceptions, who exists outside of us, and he alone
is our light.
29. However, we think directly through our own ideas and not through Gods.
30. How God inclines our soul without necessitating it; that we have no right to complain; we
should not ask why Judas sinned, since that free act is included in his notion; we should only ask
why Judas the sinner was admitted into existence in preference to some other possible people.
Original imperfection or limitation, prior to sin; the different levels of grace.
31. The reasons for election, foreseen faith, absolute decrees. Everything comes down to Gods
reason for deciding to admit into existence a certain possible person, whose notion contains a
certain series of graces and free actions. Which removes the difficulties at a stroke.
32. The usefulness of these principles in matters of piety and religion.
33. Explaining the communication between the soul and the body, which has been taken to be
inexplicable or miraculous. The origin of confused perceptions.
34. How minds differ from other substances, souls or substantial forms. The immortality that we
require implies memory.
35. The excellence of minds; God attends to them ahead of other creatures; minds express God
rather than the world, and other simple substances express the world rather than God.

28
36. God is the monarch of the most perfect republic, composed of all minds, and the happiness of
this city of God is his main aim.
37. Jesus Christ revealed to men the wonderful mystery and laws of the Kingdom of Heaven, and
the splendour of the supreme happiness that God prepares for those who love him.

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.
First launched: September 2004

Real-Life Dialogue on Human Freedom and the Origin


of Evil
By G. W. Leibniz
A: I am often at a loss when confronted by the thought that sin seems to me to be necessary and
inevitable. Many fine things are said on this question, and I couldnt reply well to them, but
ultimately they dont satisfy me, and they soon fade away.
B: These things demand deep meditation. If you want to be somewhat at peace regarding them,
you have to give them the attention they require.
A: Father Sperandio at Munich advised me to leave the question alone. I laid my doubts before
him one day, and he replied with great eloquence, and so plausibly that I was reduced to silence.
When he had finished he asked me Doesnt that appear right to you? and I answered Yes.
Well, sir, he said, rest content with this now, and for your own peace of mind stop thinking
about this matter. But I havent been able to follow his advice.
B: A mediocre mind could easily follow the advice of this Father, but not someone with a sharp
intelligence like yours. I agree that there is no need to get tangled in such subtle questions, and I
dont advise anyone to tackle them. I only say that someone who has thought hard enough to
raise these difficulties for himself must be able to think hard enough to dig down to their
solutions. As for Father Sperandios advice, I dont approve of it, and it raises my suspicions
about his eloquent and plausible speech, which he advised you to put out of your mind. It is in
the nature of answers that are good and solid that they are bound to appear more solid the more
one reflects on them, and it is a characteristic of evasions that one should give them as little
thought as possible if one wants to rest content with them.
A: I will tell you, then, what has held me up. We all agree that God knows all things, and that the
future is present to him just as the past is. I couldnt move my arm now without his having
foreseen it from all eternity. He knows whether I will commit a murder, a crime, or some other
sin. And since his foresight is infallible [here = bound to be correct], it is infallible that I will
commit the sin that he has foreseen. So it is necessary that I will sin. and it is not within my power
not to. So I am not free.
B: Indeed, sir, we are not completely free; only God is completely free, since he alone is
independent of everything. Our freedom is limited in many ways: I am not free to fly like an
eagle or swim like a dolphin, because my body isnt equipped for that. Something close to that
can be said about our mind. Sometimes we admit that our minds havent been free [apparently

2
meaning we have been preoccupied with something]. Strictly speaking, we never have perfect
freedom of mind. But that doesnt prevent us from having a certain degree of freedom that the
lower animals dont have; it is our capacity for reasoning, and for choosing on the basis of what
emerges from our reasoning. As for divine foreknowledge, God foresees things as they are and
doesnt change their nature. Events that are chancy and contingent in themselves dont become
otherwise through Gods having foreseen them. So: they are assured, but they are not necessary.
A: Assured or infallible [= bound to happen] - isnt that almost the same thing?
B: No, there is a difference. Consider first a case of outright absolute necessity: it is necessary
that three threes make nine; this doesnt depend on any condition, and even God cant prevent it
from holding. Contrast that with the merely conditional necessity that future contingencies have.
A future sin can be prevented and will be prevented if the man does his duty, though God
foresees that he wont. This sin is necessary-given-that-God-foresaw it; if we add to that the
proposition that God foresaw it only because it will occur, we get something tantamount to
saying: the sin will happen necessarily-given-that-it-will-happen. This is what one calls conditional
necessity.
A: These distinctions dont remove the difficulty.
B: I have to admit that I dont see any difficulty. Is there something bad about accepting that God
foresees everything? On the contrary, since he does, there is no point in being upset about it, and
indeed to be so would amount to not loving God.
A: I am completely at peace about divine foreknowledge. But it seems to give events a certainty
or necessity which, whether one takes it as conditional or as absolute, I find upsetting:
If my sin is necessary, or at least if my sin is foreseen and is bound to occur, then its a
waste of effort trying not to avoid it; the sin will occur anyway.
What displeases me is that I dont have any reply to this.
B: These upsetting consequences dont follow! The ancient philosophers had a similarly
fallacious argument, known at the lazy mans syllogism because its conclusion is that we
shouldnt do anything:
If something is foreseen and bound to happen, it will happen without my effort.
If it is not foreseen, it wont happen, whether or not it is something I can do.
So there is no point in my bestirring myself, either way.
I reply to this by denying something that is asserted without proof, namely the first premise,
which says that the foreseen event will happen no matter what I do. If it is foreseen that I will
do it, it is also foreseen that I will do what is needed to do it; and if it wont happen because of
my laziness, that laziness will also have been foreseen. A German proverb says that death needs to
have a cause, and the same can be said about eternal death or damnation, sin, or anything else.
Thus since we dont know anything about what is foreseen, we should do our part without being
held up by the useless question of whether it is foreseen that we shall succeed; all the more so
since God is content with our good will when it is sincere and vigorous.
A: This is very good advice, and it totally squares with my own view; but it leaves untouched the
great difficulty about the origin of evil. I am asking about the origin of the origins, and I am not to
be fobbed off with the standard evasions such as: Man sins because his nature is corrupted by
Adams sin - leaving us still with the original question, now applied to Adam himself, How did it
come about that he sinned? Or, more generally, how did sin come into a world created by an

3
infinitely good and infinitely powerful God? To account for sin there must be another infinite
cause capable of counterbalancing the influence of divine goodness.
B: I can name you such a thing.
A: That would make you a Manichean, accepting that there are two forces in the world, one for
good and the other for evil.
B: Youll acquit me of this charge of Manicheism when I name this other force.
A: Then please name it now, sir.
B: It is nothingness.
A: Nothingness? But is nothingness infinite?
B: It certainly is! It is infinite, it is eternal, and it has many attributes in common with God. It
includes an infinity of things, for all things that dont exist are included in nothingness, and all
things that have gone out of existence have returned into nothingness.
A: Youre joking, of course. Like a learned man who wrote a book about Nothing (Passentius,
De Nihilo). I remember having seen it.
B: No, I am not joking in the slightest. The Platonists and St. Augustine himself have already
shown us that the cause of good is positive, but that evil is a defect - that is, a privation or
negation - and so it comes from nothingness or nonexistence.
A: I dont see how nothingness, which is nothing, can enter into the make-up of things.
B: . . . . You would admit that all created things are limited, and that their limits . . . . constitute
something negative. For example, a circle is limited because the separation of the compass used to
inscribe that circle was not larger. Thus the boundaries - the non plus ultra [Latin, the no-further
point] - of this separation fix the circle. It is the same for all other things: they are all bounded or
made imperfect by the force of the negation or nothingness that they contain, by their lack of an
infinity of perfections which in relation to them are only a nothingness. [Here and in what follows,
Leibnizs use of perfect and its kin, though expressing the evaluative idea that we associate with
these words, is also coloured by the fact that perfect comes from Latin meaning thoroughly
made or completed.]
A: Yet you would admit that everything was created good, so that God had reason to be pleased
with it, as the sacred scriptures tell us. Original sin came later. And that is what puzzles me: how
original sin could have come into being in things that were wholly good.
B: All created things had from the outset, before there was any sin, an imperfection arising from
their limitation. Just as it is impossible for there to be an infinite circle (because any circle is
bounded by its circumference), so also it is impossible for there to be an absolutely perfect
created thing. When the sacred scriptures suggested that none of the ministers of God are without
defects they meant this to apply even to angels - or so theologians believe. There was nothing
positively bad in created things at the beginning, but they always lacked many perfections. When
the first man turned away from the supreme good and settled for a mere created thing, thus falling
into sin, what enabled this to happen was his lack of attention to Gods commands. That is, from
an imperfection that was merely privative [approximately = negative] in the beginning, he fell
into something positively bad.
A: But where does the original imperfection, the one that preceded original sin, come from?

4
B: It can be said to have arisen from the very essences or natures of created things; for the
essences of things are eternal, even though things arent. . . . Essences dont depend on Gods
will, but on his understanding. For example, essences or properties of numbers are eternal and
unchangeable: nine is a perfect square, not because God wants it to be so but because its
definition entails that it is, for it is three times three, and thus results from multiplying a number by
itself. Gods understanding is the source of the essences of created things as they are in him, that
is, bounded. If they are imperfect, one has only to look to their limitation or their boundaries, that
is to say, their participation in nothingness.
A: In the light of those remarks, I agree that created things are necessarily limited, rather like the
circle we spoke of earlier. But it seems that God could have created them at least perfect enough
so that they dont fall into sin.
B: I believe that God did create things in utter perfection, though it doesnt seem so to us when
we look at parts of the universe. Its a little like what happens in music and painting, where
dissonances and shadows do so much to enhance the rest; the accomplished maker of such works
gets great benefit for the over-all perfection of the work from these particular imperfections - so
much so that its better to include them than to leave them out. So we have to believe that God
wouldnt have allowed sin or created things he knew would sin if he hadnt known how to get
from them a good incomparably greater than the resulting evil.
A: I would like to know what this great good is.
B: I can assure you that it is, but I cant explain it in detail. For that, one would have to know the
general harmony of the universe, whereas we know only a very small part. . . .
A: Yet it is strange that there are creatures who have fallen and others who have stayed upright.
Where does this difference come from?
B: As I think I have just shown, its the essences of things that make them different from one
another; and the particular amount and kind of variety that we have was required by the
general order of things, from which divine wisdom didnt wish to deviate. Ill give you another
example, from an area you know something about - geometry.
A: That science does indeed give us a way of thinking about things, and shows what the human
mind can do if it is led in an orderly way. But I dont see how it can yield anything relevant to our
present topic. So I am waiting eagerly.
B: Geometers draw a great distinction between commensurable and incommensurable pairs of
lines. [The next two sentences slightly expand Leibnizs very compressed formulation.] They call
two lines commensurable with one another when they can both be described in terms of a
common measure M, each having a length of so many Ms or such and such a fraction of an M.
But when two lines cant be expressed by whole numbers or by fractions of numbers of a single
measure, they are said to be incommensurable with one another. A 9-foot line and a 10-foot line
would be commensurable, because they have a common measure, the foot. And a 10-foot line
would be commensurable with a 9.2-foot line, because 0.2 of a foot would be the common
measure, being contained 50 times in one of the lines and 46 times in the other.
A: That is easy to understand, but incommensurables are a little harder.

5
B: Here is an example: 2 is incommensurable with 1. This number is called a surd, because it
cannot be expressed exactly either by whole numbers or by fractions. You will never find a whole
number or any fraction at all which when multiplied by itself produces 2. Try it and you will see!
A: But I was expecting incommensurable lines, rather than incommensurable numbers.
B: Here you are, then, corresponding to 2: the diagonal of a perfect square, which has been
known for centuries to be incommensurable with the side of its square. Let ABCD be a perfect
square . . . . I claim that its diagonal AC is incommensurable with any of its sides, for example,
with AB.
[A asks for the proof this, and B supplies it, showing that it follows from the incommensurability
of 2 with 1.]
A: Now that is surprising. Couldnt God to find a number capable of expressing exactly 2 or the
length of the diagonal of a square?
B: God cant find absurd things. It would be like asking God to tell us, without mentioning
fractions (i.e. without saying one and a half or the like), how to divide three coins into two equal
parts.
A: You are right; that would be asking for absurdities unworthy of God; or rather, it would be not
asking anything, or not knowing what one was asking for. I see the necessity of what you say
about incommensurables, though our imagination cant get hold of it. This has something to teach
us about what we can do and about what we cant, both at once. Its a considerable thing to
know that incommensurables exist, but we cant claim to understand fully why they exist.
However, what can you get from this splendid geometrical line of thought that has a bearing on
our question?
B: Here it is. If the order of things or divine wisdom demanded that God produce perfect squares,
and he decided to meet the demand, he couldnt avoid producing incommensurable lines, even
though they have the imperfection of not being able to be expressed exactly - isnt that right? For
a square has to have a diagonal, which is the distance between its opposite angles. Now, let us
co mpare commensurable lines wit h minds who st ay upright in t heir purit y, and
incommensurable ones with less regulated minds who eventually fall into sin. It is evident that
the irregularity of incommensurable lines arises from the very essence of the squares, and mustnt
be blamed on God; it is evident that this incommensurability is not a bad thing that God couldnt
produce. God could have avoided it by not creating figures and continuous quantities, but only
numbers or discrete quantities. But that wouldnt have been the avoidance of something bad,
because the imperfection of incommensurables has been made up for by even greater advantages:
it was better to allow incommensurables to occur so as not to deprive the universe of all figures.
It is the same with minds that are less firm about staying upright: their original imperfection arises
from their essence which is limited according to their degree [= their moral rank?]. Their sin is
grounded in their essence, though it doesnt result from their essence as a necessary consequence;
it is something accidental or contingent, and arises from their will; and Gods infinite wisdom
enables him to the derive from the bad of this sin an incommensurably greater good. That is what
led him not to exclude those creatures from existence, and not to prevent them from sinning. He
could have done so, through his absolute power, but that would have overturned the order of
things that his infinite wisdom had chosen.
A: These are exciting thoughts - ones that shed new light on this matter.

6
B: It could all be explained in terms quite different from mine, I think. But it doesnt take much
thought, I believe, to see that my account is basically right. It fits with St. Paul, St. Augustine, and
in part with Luthers excellent work on the bondage of the will. Thats an extremely good work,
in my opinion, if one tones down some extravagant expressions. Ever since my adolescence it has
seemed to me to be the finest and most solid book he left to us.
* * * * *
[The foregoing dialogue is based on a real conversation; it was Leibniz who gave it the title,
including real-life (effectif). Here is part of a letter he wrote to Baron Dobrzensky on 26 January
1695:]
I told you yesterday, sir, that according to the ancients every sin is its own punishment. Here is an
example of that: your curiosity is punished by my incommensurables, which have followed you
home! It seemed to me a good idea to put our dialogue into writing. However, you can free
yourself of this nuisance if you wish, for it is absolutely up to you whether you read it or not, or
whether you let anyone else read it (I havent shown it to anyone).

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. The division into numbered portions is mostly
that of Woolhouse and Francks. Leibniz illustrates some of his points with five diagrams; but none of them is
needed, and in each case the text is easier to follow when cleansed of the references to diagrams.
First launched: September 2004
*****

Essay in Dynamics
showing the wonderful laws of nature concerning bodily
forces and their interactions, and tracing them to their causes
By G. W. Leibniz
Part 1
1. Since I first mentioned the founding of a new science of dynamics, many distinguished people
in various places have asked me to explain this doctrine more fully. So, not having had time to
write a book about it, I here offer something that may throw some light on the subject. That light
may be returned with interest, if I can get the opinions of people who combine power of thought
with elegance of expression. Their judgment would be very welcome and, I hope, useful in
advancing the project.
2. I have proclaimed elsewhere that there is more to bodily things than extension - indeed that
there is in them something prior to [= more basic than] extension, namely the force of nature
that God has given to everything. This force isnt a mere faculty or ability of the kind the
Aristotelians seem to be satisfied with; rather, is equipped with a striving [conatus] or effort
[nisus] such that the force will have its full effect unless it is blocked by some contrary striving.
[Striving is just trying, of course; but for Leibniz conatus and the related verb are technical terms
in physics, and in this text strive etc. will always be used for that technical notion.] We are often
sensorily aware of this effort, and reason shows - I maintain - that it is everywhere in matter, even
when the senses dont detect it. We shouldnt attribute this force [vis] to Gods miraculous action
(i.e. to his pushing around of bodies that in themselves are inert); so it is clear that he must have
put it into the bodies themselves - indeed, that it constitutes the inmost nature of bodies. For what
makes a substance a substance is that it acts. Mere extension doesnt make something a
substance; indeed extension presupposes a substance, one that exerts effort and resistance;
extension is merely the continuation or spreading-out of that substance.
3. You might object that all bodily action arises from motion, and that motion itself comes only
from other motion either in the moving body itself or in something else that collides with it. But
that doesnt affect the matter. It couldnt be that motion is the fundamental category in physics,
because motion, when we analyse it, doesnt really exist; for a whole doesnt exist if it doesnt
have coexistent parts (time also doesnt really exist, for the same reason). So all that is real in

2
motion is a momentary state that must be produced by a force that strives for change. That is all
there is to bodily nature: extension (the set of properties that are the subject of geometry) and
this force. The next two sections are an aside, though an important one.
4. This theory at last does justice both to the truth and to the teaching of the ancients. Just as our
age has already rescued from scorn Democritus atoms, Platos ideas, and the Stoics tranquillity
about the best possible arrangement of things, so we can restore the Aristotelian doctrine of forms
or entelechies to the ranks of intelligible notions, though it has rightly struck people as puzzling,
and wasnt understood properly even by its own inventors. This philosophy of forms, it seems to
me, shouldnt be tossed aside after having been accepted for so many centuries; rather, it should
be explained in such a way as to make it self-consistent (where possible), and should be extended
and illustrated with new truths.
5. This approach to inquiry, in which the best of the old is combined with the best of the new,
strikes me as sensible for the teacher and useful for the student. It will stop us from appearing
more eager to destroy than to build, save us from being continually bounced from one bold new
theory to another, uncertain what to think, and restrain the urge to form sects, an urge that is
encouraged by the empty glory of novelty. This will enable mankind to establish secure doctrines,
and to advance with firm steps towards greater heights, in philosophy and science as much in
mathematics. For the writings of distinguished men, both ancient and modern, if you set aside
their scolding of one another, usually contain a great deal that is true and good, and that deserves
to be dug up from obscure books and displayed in the treasury of public knowledge. If only
people preferred doing this to wasting time on criticisms that flatter their own vanity! I myself
have had the good fortune to discover certain new ideas - so that my friends keep telling me to
think about nothing else! - but I can still appreciate other opinions, even hostile ones, judging
them on their own differing merits. Perhaps that is because by working at a lot of things you learn
to despise none of them. Now I return to my main thread.
[Leibniz will write about a force he calls primitiva, usually translated as primitive. The force is
not primitive in any now-current sense of that word; primitiva means early, first-formed; as
applied to a force the best translation seems to be basic.]
6. Active force (which some not unreasonably call power ) is of two kinds. There is basic
active force and derivative active force. Basic active force is present in all bodily substance, just
because it is bodily substance; it would be contrary to the nature of things for there to be a body
that was wholly at rest, which a body would be if it had no inherent active force. Derivative
active force is what becomes of basic force when bodies collide with one another. . . . Basic force
- which is no other than the first entelechy that Aristotle theorized about - corresponds to the
soul or substantial form; but just for that reason it relates only to general causes, which arent
enough to explain specific kinds of phenomena. So I agree with those who say that we shouldnt
appeal to forms in explaining the causes of things that we experience. I need to point this out, so
that when I try to restore to forms their lost right to be counted among the ultimate causes of
things I dont seem to be also trying to revive the verbal disputes of the second-rate
Aristotelians. But some knowledge of forms is necessary for doing philosophy and science
properly. No-one can claim to have properly understood the nature of body unless he has
thought about such things, and has understood what is incomplete and false in a certain crude
notion of bodily substance. The one I mean is based entirely on sensory ideas, and was rashly
introduced into the corpuscular philosophy - which in itself is most excellent and true - some years

3
ago. This - its inadequacy - is shown by the fact that it cant rule out matters being completely
inactive or at rest, and cant explain the laws of nature that govern derivative force.
7. Passive force is similarly of two kinds, basic and derivative. When the Aristotelians write
about primary matter, they make best sense when understood to be referring to the basic force
of being acted on - the basic force of resistance. It explains the following three facts:
Bodies, rather than interpenetrating so that two bodies occupy the same place at the
same time, block one another.
Bodies have a certain laziness, as it were - a reluctance to move.
No body will allow itself to be set in motion in a collision without somewhat lessening
the force of the body acting on it.
The derivative force of being acted on shows up after that in various ways, in what the
Aristotelians have called secondary matter.
8. From these basic, general points we learn that all bodies always act by virtue of their form,
and are always acted upon and resist because of their matter. Having expounded this, I must
push on into the doctrine of derivative powers and resistances, showing how bodies act on and
resist each other to differing extents according to their different levels of effort. These things are
covered by the laws of action - laws that are not only understood through reason but also
confirmed by experience of the phenomena.
9. By derivative force - the force by which bodies actually act and are acted on by each other - I
mean here just the force that is involved in motion and which in turn tends to produce further
motion. (Here and throughout, I mean local motion, of course; that is, motion from place to
place, not the mere alterations that some philosophers have called (nonlocal) motion.) For I
realize that all other phenomena involving matter can be explained in terms of local motion.
Motion is continuous change of place, and so requires time. But while
it is through time that a movable thing moves,
it is at individual moments that it has a velocity,
the velocity being greater as the thing covers more space in less time. Two technical terms have
to be introduced here.
Conatus [= striving] is velocity taken together with direction.
Impetus is the product of the bulk of a body and its velocity.
10. Impetus is the quantity that the Cartesians usually call the quantity of motion - that is, the
quantity of motion at a moment. Though, to speak more accurately, the quantity of motion
actually exists over time, and is the sum of the products of the different impetuses existing in the
moving thing at different times and the corresponding time intervals. In arguing with the
Cartesians I have followed this inaccurate terminology of theirs, but I need to clean it up here. A
technically convenient distinction lets us distinguish an increase that is occurring right now from
one that has occurred or is going to occur; and we can speak of the former as an increment or
element of the whole time-taking increase. It also lets us distinguish the present falling of a
body from the fall which has been going on and is increasing. In the same spirit we can distinguish
the present or instantaneous element of motion from the motion itself taken as extended over
time. If we call the former point motion, then impetus, which is what Cartesians and others call
quantity of motion, can be called quantity of point motion. We can be slack in our use of
words once we have given them a precise meaning, but until then we must use them carefully so
as not to be led astray by ambiguities. [Of Latins two words for motion, Leibniz used motus for

4
(time-taking) motion, and stipulated that motio was to stand for the instantaneous item that is here
called point motion.]
11. Just as the numerical value of a motion stretching through time is derived from an infinite
number of impetuses, so in turn an impetus, even though it is momentary, is derived from an
infinite series of elements imparted to the moving body. So an impetus, like a time-taking
motion, can come into existence only through an infinite repetition of a certain element that it
contains. Here is evidence for this. Imagine
a tube anchored at one end and whirling around at a uniform speed in a circle on the
horizontal plane of this page,
and
a ball inside the tube, held in position down near the anchored end.
Consider the instant when the ball is released from the restraint that has been holding it in
position. At that instant, the ball has two impetuses:
a considerable rotational one, giving it a tendency to move around with the tube, keeping
the same distance from the anchor,
and
an infinitely smaller centrifugal one giving it a tendency to move to the end of the tube
away from the anchor.
Now consider an instant half a second later: the ball has been carried with the tube some distance
around its circle, and has also moved along the tube towards its outer end, the end away from the
anchor. At that second instant, the ball has a considerable centrifugal impetus (how big it is
depends on how fast the tube is making it rotate). It is obvious from this that effort [always
translating nisus] is of two kinds:
infinitely small efforts, which are elements of the larger kind; I also call an instance of
this kind of effort an urge [Latin solicitatio]
and
the impetus itself, which is built up by the continuation or repetition of the elementary
efforts.
I dont infer from this that these mathematical entities are really to be met with in nature - only
that they are useful as mental abstractions for making accurate calculations.
12. Force, therefore, is also of two kinds. One is elementary, and I call it dead force, since there
is no motion in it yet but, only an urge to motion like that of the ball in the tube . . . . The other is
just ordinary force, which is accompanied by actual motion. I call it live force. Examples of dead
force:
centrifugal force
the force of gravity or centripetal force
the force by which a stretched elastic body tries to spring back into shape.
Examples of living force, which arises from an infinity of continued impulses of dead force, are
provided by
the impact arising from a heavy body that hits the ground after it has been falling for
some time,
a bent bow that is part of the way through springing back into shape.
and the like. This is what Galileo meant when he said rather enigmatically that the force of impact
is infinite as compared with the mere effort of gravitational force. However, even though impetus
is always accompanied by living force, I shall show below that the two are different.

5
13. Living force in a bodily aggregate - that is, in a material thing with parts - can also be
understood as being of two kinds, total and partial. And partial living force also divides into:
inward-acting or parts-only force, through which the parts of the aggregate can act on
each other,
and
directive or ordinary force, through which the aggregate as a whole can act on other
things.
I call the latter directive because this kind of partial force contains the whole force of the overall
direction of the aggregate. Pretend that the aggregate has suddenly fused together, as though
frozen, so that its parts stop moving relative to each other: then directive force is the only force
left. So total absolute force consists of inward-acting and directive force taken together. But this
will be clearer from the rules presented below.
14. As far as we can tell, the ancients had disciplined knowledge only of dead force. This is what
is commonly called mechanics. It deals with levers, pulleys, inclined planes (including wedges
and screws), the equilibrium of liquids, and similar matters. It considers only the first striving of
individual bodies in themselves, before they acquire impetus through action. There is a way to
bring the laws of dead force over to living force, but we have to be very cautious in doing this if
we are not to be misled. Some people were misled in this way: knowing that dead force is
proportional to the product of bulk and velocity, they concluded that force in general is
proportional to that product, because they didnt make the needed distinction.
15. As I once pointed out, there is a special reason why that proportionality holds in that case that is, at the start of a bodys fall - as can be seen from this example:- Suppose that bodies of
different weights are falling; at the start of the fall of each, when the amount of space covered in
the descent is infinitely small or elementary, the amount of descent is proportional to the speed
or striving of descent. But when the fall has gone some distance, and a living force has developed,
the acquired speed is no longer proportional to the distance fallen (which is, however, as I have
shown before and will show again in more detail later, how the force should be measured).
Rather, the speed is proportional to the elements of those distances.
16. The treatment of living force began with Galileo, though he used a different name for it and,
indeed, a different concept. He was the first to explain how motion arises from the acceleration of
falling bodies. Descartes correctly distinguished velocity from direction, and also saw that what
results from a collision between bodies is the state of affairs that involves the least change from
the state of affairs before the collision. But he did not calculate that least change correctly: he
changed the direction and then the velocity, separately, when the change should be determined by
both at the same time. He didnt see how this could be done. He was concerned with modalities
rather than realities - i.e. with conceptual relationships, rather than real happenings in the world and he didnt see two such different things as direction and velocity could be compared and
considered at the same time. (He committed other errors as well, but I shant go into them.)
17. . . . . As far as I know, the first to arrive at the pure and simple truth on this question was
Huygens, who has enlightened our age with his brilliant discoveries. He purged the subject of
fallacies by means of the laws he published some time ago. Wren, Wallis, and Mariotte, all
distinguished men in this field in their own different ways, have arrived at almost the same laws,
but not at agreement as to the causes; so that even these men, outstanding as they are in these
studies, dont always come to the same conclusions. It is clear, therefore, that the true basis of

6
this science - which I have established - hasnt yet been revealed to physicists in general. There
isnt universal acceptance even of the proposition, which to me seems quite certain, that
rebounding in collisions arises purely from elastic force, that is, from resistance due to internal
motion. And no-one before me has explained the notion of force itself. This has always been a
problem for the Cartesians and others, who couldnt understand that the sum total of motion or
impetus - which they took to be the amount of force - could be different after a collision from
what it was before, because they thought that would mean that the quantity of force would be
different as well.
18. In my youth I agreed with Democritus (and also with Gassendi and Descartes, who in this
respect are his followers) that the nature of body consists only in inert mass, and at the age of 25
I put out a little book called A New Physical Hypothesis, in which I offered a theory of motion presented both in abstract theoretical terms and in concrete applications to the real world. Some
distinguished men seem to have liked this book rather more than its mediocrity deserves. In it I
showed that given this conception of body as an inert mass, a moving body will pass its striving
on to whatever body it collides with . . . . For at the moment of collision it strives to continue its
motion, and so strives to carry the other body along with it, and *this striving must have its full
effect on the body collided with unless it is prevented by an opposing striving*; and even if it is
opposed, this will still hold true, because the different conatuses of the two bodies will then have
to be combined. So there was no reason why the impacting body should not achieve the effect it
was tending towards, or why the other body should not receive the full striving of the impacting
body, so that the motion of the other body after the collision would be the combination of its
own original striving and the new striving it has received from outside. (*In the asterisked bit of
this argument I was relying on the view I held at that time, bodies are indifferent to motion and
rest. More about this shortly.)
19. [This section is being handled rather freely; the system of dots cant conveniently be used.]
From this I also showed that on the following assumptions There is nothing to body except its mathematical properties - size, shape, position - and
their changes, together with a striving for change which it has at the moment of impact
and only then;
Nothing is to be explained through metaphysical notions such as active power in the form
and sluggishness or resistance to motion in matter; and therefore
The outcome of a collision has to be determined purely by the geometrical composition
of strivings, as just explained;
- given those assumptions, it follows that a pea could knock away a cannon-ball! The whole
striving of the impacting body (the pea) would be passed on to the body it collided with (the
cannon-ball), which would be carried away by the collision with the pea, which wouldnt even be
slowed down. That is because matter, on those assumptions about it, has no resistance to motion,
but is wholly indifferent to it. This would mean that it would be no harder to move a large body
than to move a small one, and therefore that there would be action without reaction, and there
would be no measure of power, because anything could overcome anything! Because of these
upshots and many others of the same kind that go against the order of things and conflict with the
principles of true metaphysics, I reached the conclusion (and I was right!) that in creating the
system of things the all-wise creator had been careful to avoid the consequences which would
have followed from the skimpy laws of motion that you get if you look only to geometry, as
Descartes did, and as I did at the age of 25.

7
20. Later on, when I looked more deeply into this, I came to see what a systematic explanation of
things would consist in, and I realized that my earlier theory about the notion of body was
incomplete. By means of the above argument and some others, I was able to establish that we
have to posit in bodies something more than mere size and impenetrability - something that brings
in considerations of force. When the metaphysical laws of this something are added to the laws
of extension (the ones you get just from geometry), there arise what I call systematic rules of
motion All change is gradual;
Every action also has a reaction;
No new force is produced without reducing an earlier one, so that a body that pushes
away another body will be slowed down by it;
There is neither more nor less power in an effect than in its cause.
As this law isnt derivable from the concept of mass, it must come from something else there is in
bodies, namely from force, of which the same quantity is always maintained though it may be
carried by different bodies. I therefore concluded that in addition to what falls under pure
mathematics and the imagination - i.e. concepts that are exemplified in sense-experience - we
must accept something metaphysical that is perceptible only to the mind and not through the
senses; and that in addition to material mass we must add some higher kind of principle that
might be called formal. [Leibniz is here invoking the traditional distinction between form and
matter.] For not all truths about bodily things can be derived from logical and geometrical axioms
alone, that is, from those pertaining to
large and small,
whole and part,
shape and position.
To explain the order of things properly we have to bring in other notions involving
cause and effect, and
activity and passivity.
It doesnt matter whether we call this principle form, or entelechy, or force, provided we
remember that it can be intelligibly explained only through the concept of force. [In this section
principle, translating Leibnizs principium, does not stand for anything propositional. The
various shades of meaning of principium involve the likes of a start, an initial launching, an
origin, a basic force. In many contexts force is a good translation, but obviously not here.]
21. Some distinguished contemporaries have grasped this important fact that the usual concept
of matter is not adequate, and have used it as their lead into a denial that things have any force
for action and the introduction of God as a convenient cause who does all the things that
material things seem to do but (according to these men) dont really do. . . . I dont agree with
this at all. They have clearly shown, I agree, that as a matter of strict metaphysics one created
substance cant affect another by sending something across to it. [This refers to the view held by
some philosophers one thing can affect another by sending across to it an accident - an instance
of one of its properties. According to these philosophers, in addition to the universal property
heat and the particular thing this poker there is a particular property, an instance, an accident,
namely the heat of this poker; and they held that when the poker is plunged into cold water it
sends an accident - some of its particular heat - across to the water. Leibniz is agreeing here with
his present opponents that this account of how things interact wont do.] And I willingly admit
that whatever happens has underlying it Gods continual creation, i.e. his continual activity of

8
keeping his creations in existence. But against these people who invoke Gods interference to
explain the seeming interactions between bodies I hold that none of the natural facts about things
should be immediately explained in terms of what God does or wants, and that God has endowed
each thing with something through which all its predicates can be explained. So the things
behaviour is to be explained in terms of its own properties and powers; God gave them to it, of
course, but he doesnt have to come into the immediate explanation. . . .
22. Meanwhile although I hold that all bodies contain an active or (so to speak) vital force which
stands above all material concepts, I dont agree with Henry More and other men of outstanding
piety and intelligence who appeal to bizarre spiritual forces to explain the phenomena - as if
not everything in nature could be explained mechanically, and
those who try to give mechanistic explanations are denying the existence of things that
arent bodies, exposing themselves to a suspicion of impiety, or
we ought to attribute minds to the rotating the spheres, as Aristotle did, or to say that the
rising and falling of the elements is due to their forms - a nice neat theory that tells us
nothing.
[Leibniz is soon going to speak of efficient and final causes. The efficient cause of something is
what makes it happen; it is simply what we today would call a cause (with no adjective). A
things final cause is its purpose or end, what it is for.]
23. I do not, as I say, agree with these theories. I dont like this approach any more than I do the
theology of people who were so sure that Jupiter causes thunder and snow that they levelled
charges of atheism at anyone who tried to find more specific causes of such things! I think it is
best to take a middle path, satisfying both science and religion:
I accept that all bodily phenomena can be traced back to mechanical efficient causes, but
we are to understand that those mechanical laws as a whole derive from higher reasons;
so we can appeal to higher efficient causes - namely, to the actions of God - but only in
establishing those remote and general explanations, not in explaining particular phenomena.
Once those general laws have been established, entelechies or souls have no place in discussions
of the immediate and specific efficient causes of natural things, any more than do useless
faculties and inexplicable sympathies. The first and most universal efficient cause should not be
considered in tackling specific problems, except when we contemplate the purposes that God in
his wisdom had in ordering things in that way - which we may do so as miss no opportunity for
praising him and singing lovely hymns.
AN ASIDE:
In fact, final causes can sometimes also be introduced with great profit into some particular
problems in physics - not just so that we can better admire Gods most beautiful works (as
mentioned above) but also sometimes in order to discover more specific things that the
efficient-cause approach would have more difficulty establishing, or could establish only with
extra assumptions. I showed this by a quite remarkable example of a principle in optics, which the
famous Molyneux applauded in his New Optics. [This refers to Leibnizs account of a law relating
the angle at which light impinges on a piece of glass (say) to the angle at which it leaves it. This
law, he says, has the effect that the light travels to some given point on the far side of the glass by
the easiest way, and he thinks that this involves the final-cause concept. Apparently this is not
meant to invoke Gods purpose in arranging things thus, but rather lights behaving as though it
had the purpose of reaching the given point by the easiest way.] Perhaps scientists havent yet

9
taken in how useful this kind of appeal to final causes can be. It is different from the kind
mentioned in 23 and 24, which is why this is an aside, now ending.
24. In general we should hold that everything can be explained in two ways: in terms of the
kingdom of power, or efficient causes, and in terms of the kingdom of wisdom, or final causes.
God governs bodies in the way a designer governs machines, in accordance with the laws of
geometry; but he does so for the benefit of souls. And souls, which are capable of wisdom, he
governs for his greater glory as citizens or fellow members of society, in the manner of a prince or
a father, in accordance with laws of goodness or of morality. These two kingdoms thoroughly
interpenetrate each other without any mixing or disturbing of their laws, so that there arises the
greatest in the kingdom of power along with the best in the kingdom of wisdom. But my task
here is to establish the general rules for effective forces, which we can then use to explain
particular efficient causes.
25. Next, I worked out how to measure forces correctly, and in two very different ways. One is a
priori, from the simplest consideration of space, time and action; I shall explain this elsewhere.
The other is a posteriori; it measures a force by the effects it produces in expending itself. By
effect here I dont mean any old effect, but one that needs the expenditure of force, one in which
the force is all used up; such an effect could be called violent. The effect produced by a heavy
body in moving along a perfectly horizontal plane is not violent, because in this case the force is
retained, rather than used up, however long the effect goes on. Such effects might be called
harmless. They can be measured by my method, but I shall ignore them here.
26. The particular kind of violent effect that I have chosen is the one that is most homogeneous,
that is, the most capable of being divided into qualitatively similar and quantitatively equal parts
- such as the upward motion of a heavy body. This is homogeneous because the ascent of a
heavy body to two (or three) feet is exactly two (or three) times the ascent of the same body to
one foot; and the ascent of a heavy body measuring 200 cm3 to a height of one foot is exactly
twice that of a heavy body measuring 100 cm3 to that same height. So the ascent of a body
measuring 200 cm3 to three feet is exactly six times the ascent of a body measuring 100 cm3 to
one foot. For ease of exposition, I am assuming that heavy bodies weigh the same whatever
height they are at - which in fact is not true, but the error is imperceptible. (Elastic bodies do not
so easily lend themselves to considerations of homogeneity.)
27. Thus, to compare bodies with different sizes and different speeds, I easily saw that if body B is
twice the size of body A and they are moving at the same speed, A would have one unit of force
and B would have two units: B must have exactly twice what there is in A, because the only
difference between them is that B is twice the size of A. But I saw that if bodies A and C are the
same size but Cs speed is twice that of A, it doesnt follow that C has exactly twice the amount
of force that A has - since what is doubled in C is not As size but only its speed. This led me to
see that a mistake had been made at this point by people - such as the Cartesians - who think that
force is doubled merely by this kind of doubling of either size or speed. (In this Essay I havent
yet given any reason for this judgment. I shall make the case for it in 29 and 30.)
28. I pointed this out some time ago, . . . . and warned that the right technique for measuring
forces involves finally getting down to something homogeneous; that is, to something allowing of
accurate and complete duplications - both in things (this body is exactly the size of that one) and
in their states (this body is moving at exactly the same speed as that one).There is no better or
more noteworthy example of this technique than the one given by this proof that I now present.

10
29. In order to obtain a measure of force, I asked this question:
Given that bodies A and C are equal in size but different in speed, could they produce any
effects that were equal in power to their causes and were homogeneous with each other?
If the answer was Yes, the forces of A and C - though not directly comparable - could still be
accurately compared by means of their effects. (I assumed that an effect must be equal in power
to its cause if the whole power of the cause is used up in producing it, no matter how quickly or
slowly this takes place.) And it turned out that the answer to the question was Yes, as you can
see from what follows.
30. Let A and C be bodies of equal size and one pound in weight, with C moving at twice the
speed of A. Let the forces involved in those motions be directed to a change of height - for
example by letting A and C each be a weight at the end of a pendulum (the pendulums being of
equal length). Now the demonstrations of Galileo and others have established that if body A rises
to a point one foot above its lowest point, then body C, going at twice the speed, will rise to four
feet above its lowest point. Raising one pound four feet is exactly the same as raising one pound
one foot four times, which means that in this experiment C has done exactly four times as much as
A, which has only raised one pound one foot once. So we find that doubling the speed
quadruples the capacity for action, because when the double-speed C expends all its power it
does four times as much. And in the same way we can conclude generally that the forces of equal
bodies are proportional to the squares of their speeds and that, in general, a bodys force is
proportional to the product of its size and the square of its speed.
31. I have confirmed this conclusion by deriving something absurd (namely, perpetual motion!)
from the opposite opinion - a commonly accepted one, especially among the Cartesians - that a
bodys force is proportional to the product of its size and speed. Using the same approach that I
indicated in 25 and 26 above, I have given an a posteriori definition of inequality of power. And
at the same time I have shown how to distinguish clearly between a larger power and a smaller
one, namely, as follows. If the substitution of one force for another gives rise to perpetual
mechanical motion, or an effect which is greater than its cause, then the two forces are clearly
unequal; and the one that was substituted for the other must be the more powerful, since it
produced something greater. I take it to be certain that nature never substitutes unequal forces for
each other, and that the complete effect is always equal in power to the total cause. So it is safe
for us, in our calculations, to substitute equal forces one for another with complete freedom, just
as if we were actually substituting them in reality; there is no risk that perpetual mechanical
motion will result. With that in hand, I turn to my argument against the Cartesian view that force
is proportional to (size speed).
32. Most people have persuaded themselves that a heavy body A of a certain size and moving at
a certain speed is equal in power to a heavy body C that is half the size and moving twice as
fast. If they were right, then we could safely substitute either for the other in any physical set-up.
But this is not so. For suppose that two-pound body A has acquired one unit of speed by falling
one foot. At that point, let us substitute for it a one-pound body C and have that moving upwards
at an initial speed of two units. (On the Cartesian view this substitution ought to be all right,
because on that view the two are of equal power: 21 = 12.) But C, being launched upward at
that initial speed, will rise four feet! Thus, simply by the one-foot fall of a two-pound weight, and
the substitution of something supposedly of equal power, we have raised a one-pound weight four
feet; and this is twice what we started with because 14 = twice 2 1. In this way we would
achieve perpetual mechanical motion - which is absurd.

11
33. It doesnt matter whether we can actually make this substitution of C for A through the laws
of motion; it is enough that we can substitute C for A in our thought-experiment because it is
always valid to substitute things that are of equal power as the Cartesians say that A and C are.
Still, I have worked out various ways in which we could actually the transfer of As whole force
to C (or as near as you like to the whole of it), so that A is brought to rest and C starts moving.
So it could actually happen that if they were equal in power, a two-pound weight with a certain
speed could be replaced by a one-pound weight with twice that speed; from which, as I have
shown, an absurdity would result.
34. These are not empty thoughts or mere verbal quibbles; they are very useful in comparing
machines and comparing motions. Suppose you had enough force - from water, animals or
whatever - to keep a 100-pound body in constant motion, so that it completed a horizontal circle
thirty feet in diameter in 15 seconds; and suppose someone said he had a less expensive device
that would make something twice the weight go around the circle in 30 seconds, implying that
this would be an equally powerful upshot for a lesser expense, you should realise that this would
not be money-saving, and that you would be being tricked out of half your upshot-force. But now
that I have disposed of the mistakes, let me set out a little more clearly the true laws - the
wonderful laws - of nature.

Part 2
35. The nature of body, and indeed of substance in general, is not well enough understood by the
learned world. As I have already mentioned, this has resulted in some distinguished philosophers
of our time equating the notion of body with that of mere extension; which has driven them to
bring in God in order to explain the union between soul and body, and even to explain how bodies
can interact with other bodies. Now, it has to be accepted that pure extension - which has nothing
to it except geometrical properties - could never be capable of acting and being acted on. So it
seemed to these philosophers that when a person thinks and tries to move his arm, God, as
though by a prior agreement, moves it for him; and conversely when there is a motion in the blood
and animal spirits God produces a perception in the soul. Given their premises, this was probably
the conclusion they had to come to. But because their conclusion is so far from good
philosophical thinking, they should have realized that they were starting from a false principle that a notion of body from which these consequences followed must be wrong.
36. I will show, therefore, that every substance has a force for acting, and that every created
substance also has a force for being acted on. I will show too that the notion of extension in itself
- that is, considered purely geometrically - is not complete. Extension is a relation to something
that is extended; built into the complete notion of extension is the notion of something spread
out or continuously repeated. So extension presupposes this spread-out something, namely
bodily substance, which has the power to act and resist, and which exists everywhere as bodily
mass. Some day I shall use this to throw new light on the union of the soul and the body. But my
present task is to show how it - that is, this account of extension and body - implies wonderful
and extremely useful practical theorems in dynamics, which is the science dealing specifically with
the rules governing forces in bodies. [In calling them rules rather than laws, Leibniz is may be
following Descartes, who expressed his detailed physics of collisions in what he called rules.]
37. The first thing to be properly grasped is that in substances, including created ones, force is
absolutely real in a way in which space, time and motion are not. Those three are in a way

12
beings of reason - they are not things in the world but upshots of certain ways of thinking
about things in the world. The only truth and reality there is to them comes from their involving
the divine attributes of immensity, eternity and activity, and the force of created substances. It
follows immediately from this that there is no empty place or time, and also that if we set aside
force and consider motion purely in terms of the geometric notions of size and shape, and changes
in them, motion is really nothing more than change of place. So motion as we experience it is
nothing but a relation. Descartes recognised this when he defined motion as the removal of
something from the neighbourhood of one body to the neighbourhood of another.
38. But in working out the consequences of this he forgot his definition, setting set up his rules of
motion as if it were something real and absolute. Here is what has to be accepted:
If a number of bodies are in motion, there is no empirical way of determining which of
them are in absolute determinate motion and which are at rest. Choose any one you like as
being at rest, and the empirical phenomena will be the same.
Something follows from this that Descartes overlooked, namely that the equivalence of
hypotheses still holds when bodies collide. Let me spell that out a little. Suppose that two
bodies that are moving relative to each other collide; just before the collision we can say that
(P1) body A was stationary and body B was moving thus and so, or that
(P2) body B was stationary and body A was moving thus and so, or that
(P3) body A was moving thus and thus, and body B was moving so and so.
If these are properly formulated so that they do fit the phenomena - that is, do yield the observed
relative motions of A and B - they are equivalent hypotheses. And my point is that if you have
sound rules about what happens in collisions, the result of applying them to (P1) should be exactly
the same as that of applying them to (P2) or to (P3). So we must work out rules of motion that
preserve the relative nature of motion; that is, there will be no way of determining from the
phenomena after a collision which bodies before it had been at rest and which had been in absolute
determinate motion. More strictly speaking: there isnt a way doing that; I am saying that one
shouldnt have collision-rules implying that there is.
39. So Descartess rule according to which a body at rest can never be dislodged by a smaller
body is a misfit, as are his other truth-deserting rules of the same kind. His trouble isnt confined
to the concept of being at rest. It also follows from the relative nature of motion that the action
or impact of bodies on each other will be the same, provided that the speed with which they
come together is the same. The crucial point there is that the speed with which they come
together involves relative, not absolute motion. . . . And this is exactly what we find: we would
feel the same pain if our hand knocked against a stationary stone hanging from a thread as when a
stone hits our stationary hand with the same speed.
40. In practice we speak as the situation requires, giving - as our choice from among the
equivalent hypotheses - the simplest and most suitable explanation of the phenomena.This is why
we can appeal to the notion of a first mover in spherical astronomy, while in planetary theory we
should use the Copernican hypothesis. (So immediately the arguments that have been pursued so
vigorously, drawing in even theologians, completely disappear. I mean arguments about such
topics as whether the earth moves.) For while force is something real and absolute, motion
belongs to the class of relative phenomena; and the truth is seen not in the phenomena but in their
causes.

13
41. Something further that follows from my notions of body and forces is that whatever happens
in a substance can be understood as happening spontaneously - not caused from outside
the substance - and in an orderly way. Connected to this is the proposition that no change
takes place in a jump.
42. Given this, it also follows that there cannot be atoms. To see how that follows, think about
two bodies that collide and rebound away from each other. If these bodies were atoms - that is,
bodies of maximal hardness and inflexibility - then clearly their change of motion would be taking
place in a jump, i.e. instantaneously, for the forward motion would have to change to backward
at the very moment of collision. Perhaps the atoms might become stationary for an instant
immediately after the collision, and then start moving in a different direction. That means that
for a moment they lose all their force and then regain it! Anyway, as well as containing this and
other absurdities, this proposal would again involve a change taking place in a single jump - an
instantaneous change from motion to rest, with no intermediate stages.
43. So we have to recognise that when two bodies collide, from the point of collision onwards
they are gradually compressed, like two balloons, and as their motion towards each other
continues the pressure increases continuously; that makes the motion decrease as the force of
striving is converted from a force for motion into a force for the elasticity of the bodies, until
they come to a complete standstill. Then, their elasticity begins to restore them, and they rebound
from each other in the opposite direction; their motion begins from rest and continuously
increases until they finally reach the same speed they had when they came together but in the
opposite direction. . . .
44. As this account shows, none of these changes takes place in a single jump. Rather, the
forward motion gradually lessens until the bodies are at rest, after which the backward motion
begins. In just the same way, one shape cant be turned into another - e.g. a circle into an oval except by passing through all the countless intermediate shapes, and nothing gets from one place
to another, or from one time to another, without going through all the places and times in
between. So motion can never give rise to rest (let alone to motion in the opposite direction)
without passing through all the speeds in between. Given how important this is in nature, I am
amazed that it has been so little noticed.
45. It also follows that all rebounding arises from elasticity. (Descartes rejected this in his
letters, and some great men are still unwilling to allow it.) It explains many excellent experiments
which show, as Mariotte has beautifully demonstrated, that bodies change shape before they
bounce off anything. And finally there is the most wonderful conclusion that each body,
however small, is elastic, and is permeated by a fluid consisting of bodies that are even smaller
than it is. This means that there are no elements of bodies, no perfectly fluid matter, and no
unintelligible solid spheres of some supposed second element, of fixed and unchanging shape; on
the contrary, the analysis of bodies continues to infinity. [Here no elements of bodies means
no smallest parts of bodies. Perfectly fluid matter would be matter consisting of continuous stuff
rather than an aggregate of smaller bodies. The phrase second element is a reference to the
physics of Descartes.]
46. In conformity with the law of continuity, which rules out jumps, rest can be considered as a
special case of motion - that is, as vanishingly small or minimal motion - and equality can be
considered as a case of vanishingly small inequality. So in formulating the laws of motion we

14
shouldnt need special rules for bodies that are equal or for bodies that are at rest; all we need
are rules for bodies that are unequal (including the special case of inequality = 0) and rules for
moving bodies (including ones moving at speed = 0). If we insist on having special rules for rest
and equality, we must be careful that they square with the idea that rest is the limit of motion and
equality is the smallest inequality; otherwise we will violate the harmony of things, and our rules
wont square with one another.
47. I first published this new technique for testing rules - mine and others - in the News of the
Learned World for July 1687. I called it a general principle of order, arising from the notions of
infinity and continuity, and pointing to the axiom that the organization of an output is the same as
the organization of the input. [In Leibnizs formulation, these could be inputs and outputs not of a
physical event but of a mathematical problem: the solution (that which is sought) must preserve
structural features of the data (the given) that set the problem.] I stated it in general terms thus:
If in a series of cases the inputs approach each other continuously and eventually
become the same, the consequences or outcomes must do so also.
Thats how it is in geometry, where the ellipse continuously approaches the parabola: take one
focus as fixed and move the other focus further and further away from it, then when it reaches
infinity the ellipse becomes a parabola. Thus all the rules of the ellipse have to hold for the
parabola, understood as an ellipse whose second focus is infinitely distant. So we can consider
parallel rays striking a parabola as either coming from or going to the other focus. Moving back
now from geometry to physics:- Consider a series of cases in which body A collides with the
moving body B, the motion of A being the same in all the collisions; the motion of B is made
smaller and smaller until eventually it becomes rest, and then turns into increasing motion in the
opposite direction. I hold that when A and B are both in motion, the outcome (for each) of the
collisions between them continuously approaches - and eventually becomes the same as - the
outcome of the case where B is rest. So the case of rest, both in the inputs and in the outputs, is
the limit of cases of motion along a line. . . . and so it is a special case of such motion.
48. When I tested the Cartesian rules of motion by this touchstone that I had brought across from
geometry to physics, it brought to light an amazing jump that is quite contrary to the nature of
things. [The next two sentences simplify Leibnizs.] Take a series of collisions in which the inputs
or givens are varied continuously, and construct a diagram that describes what the outcomes
are, according to Descartess rules. Youll find that the line representing the motion of one of the
colliding bodies through the series is not continuous, but has amazing gaps and jumps about in
an absurd and incomprehensible way. I also noted in that publication that the rules proposed by
Father Malebranche didnt entirely pass this test either. That distinguished gentleman reconsidered
the matter, and has candidly acknowledged that this work of mine had given him occasion to
change his rules, which he published in a small book. (I have to say, though, that he hasnt yet
fully mastered this new technique, for there are still some things in his theory that dont quite fit.
49. [In what follows, Leibniz writes about a bodys passio. That can mean passion, but in this
context passive state or event seems about right.] Something else wonderfully follows from
what I have said, namely that every passive state or event of a body is spontaneous - i.e.
arises from an internal force - even if it is occasioned by something external. Im talking
about the passive state that belongs to the body itself, results from the collision, and is just the
same whatever account we adopt of how motion and rest were distributed between the two
bodies before the collision. For since the impact is the same, whatever the truth is about which

15
body was moving (supposing there is such a thing as the truth about this), so the effect of the
impact is equally distributed between them, and therefore in a collision both bodies are equally
active - half the effect results from the action of one, and half from the action of the other. And
since half the resulting effect (the passive state or event) is in one body, and half in the other, the
passive state or event in either of them can be derived from its own action, with no need for
anything to flow across into it from the other, even though the action of the one provides the
occasion for the other to produce a change within itself. [On flowing across, see the explanation
in 21 above.] There would be a need to explain Bs reaction partly in terms of input from A only
if it were a fact that A had had a bigger active role in the collision than B because it was moving
faster than B; but we have seen that there is no such fact.
50. When two bodies collide, their resistance together with their elasticity causes them to be
compressed by the collision, and the compression in each is the same whatever account we give
of how motion and rest was distributed between them before the collision. This is what we find
in experience. Imagine two inflated balls colliding, with
both in motion or
one at rest and sitting on the ground, or
one at rest and dangling from a string so that it can easily swing.
If their relative speed of approach is the same in each case, then the amount of compression or
elastic tension in each will also be the same. Furthermore, when two colliding balls regain their
shapes through the force of the elasticity or compression they contain, each one drives the other
away, so that they shoot out like arrows from a bow, each driving itself away from the other by
force, receding from the other through its own force and not through the equal force of the other.
What is true of these inflated balls must be understood as applying to all passive states and events
in a colliding body: its rebound arises from its own elasticity - that is, from the motion of the
ethereal fluid matter by which it is permeated - and so from a force existing inside it. (As I have
said, I have in mind here the relative motions of the bodies taken individually, as against the
motion they all share, which we can describe as the motion of the centre of gravity of the lot of
them taken together. To think of both kinds of motion at once, think of these bodies as all being
carried on a ship, whose motion is that of their common centre of gravity, while they move
around in the ship, changing their relations to one another. The facts can all be covered by an
account in which the common motion of the ship is suitably put together with the individual
motions of the bodies.) From what I have said we can also see that there is no action of bodies
without a reaction, and that they are equal and in opposite directions.
51. Since at any moment only force and its resultant effort exist (for, as I explained in 37 above,
motion never really exists), and since every effort tends in a straight line, it follows that all
motion is in a straight line or is composed of motions in straight lines. It follows from this
not only that anything moving in a curve strives always to go off the curve and along the
straight tangent, but also - utterly unexpectedly - there follows the true notion of solidity. In
fact nothing is absolutely solid or absolutely fluid; everything has a certain degree of both solidity
and fluidity, and whether we call a thing solid or fluid depends on the overall appearance it
presents to our senses. My topic here is the sort of thing we call solid, not implying that its
solidity is anything more than a matter of degree. Consider such a thing rotating about its centre:
its parts will be striving to fly off along the tangent; indeed they will actually begin to do so. But
as each ones moving away from the others interferes with the motion of its neighbours, they are

16
pushed back together again, as if a magnetic force at the centre was attracting them, or as if the
parts themselves contained a centripetal force. Consequently, the rotation is composed of the
straight-line effort of the parts along the tangent and their straight-line centripetal striving
among themselves. Thus we see that all motion along a curve arises from the composition of
straight-line efforts, and at the same time that all solidity is caused by this pushing together by
surrounding bodies - otherwise it couldnt be the case that all motion in a curve is made up of
straight-line motions. This also gives us another - equally unexpected - argument against atoms.
52. [This section supplies - in a manner that cant conveniently be shown by dots - some details
that Leibniz omits from his extremely compressed exposition.] Nothing more contrary to nature
can be imagined than to think - as Descartes did - that solidity derives from rest, for there is
never any true rest in bodies; but I shall show that even if there were true rest, the most it could
conceivably explain is a wholly resting bodys resistance to being moved (nothing but rest could
come from rest!), and it wouldnt explain solidity. Suppose that A and B are parts of a wholly
resting body, so that they are at rest with respect to each other (which of course they couldnt be,
because no body or part of a body ever keeps exactly the same distance from another for
even the shortest time.) Let it be granted that a thing at rest will remain at rest unless some new
cause comes along to start it moving. And let Descartes have this as the explanation of why B
resists being moved when another body strikes it. Even if the facts about rest explained that
much, they still wouldnt explain solidity, because they dont explain why
when B is struck, and moves, it drags A along with it;
and that is what would be needed for an explanation of the solidity of the body of which A and B
are parts. As following along with B would be explained by forces of attraction if there were
such things, but there arent. So, failing attractive forces, and failing the attempt to base solidity
on rest, we are left only with the idea - which I endorse - that a bodys solidity should be
explained only in terms of its being pushed together by surrounding bodies. It cant be explained
just by grabbing, with B being held back by A alone. [Following Garbers suggestion that
Leibnizs pressio (pressure) was a slip for prensio (arrest or seizure). As a point about
seizing or grabbing, what Leibniz says is intelligible; as a point about pressure, it isnt.] What we
have to understand is that A and B do in fact separate from each other but are then driven back
towards each other by the surrounding bodies. So their togetherness as parts of a single body
results from the combination of these two motions.
53. Some people try to explain the solidity of hard, perceptible bodies by supposing there to be
imperceptible slabs or layers in bodies - like two slabs of polished marble that fit perfectly
together - which the resistance of surrounding bodies makes it difficult to separate. Although
much of what they say is true, it cant provide the basic explanation of solidity as such, because it
assumes that the plates are themselves solid and does nothing to explain what their solidity
consists in.
54. All of this shows why I cant agree with some of the philosophical opinions of certain
important mathematicians - especially Newton - who not only allow empty space and seem not
to object to forces of attraction, but also maintain that motion is something absolute, and claim
to prove this through rotation and the centrifugal force arising from it. Their proof doesnt
work, however. When we are dealing with straight-line motions, the equivalence of hypotheses is
preserved; that is, we get the same result whichever object we take to be the moving one - see
38 above. Well, the same thing holds for movements along a curve - e.g. rotations - because
every curved motion arises from a combination of straight-line motions.

17
55. From what I have said it can be understood that motion that is common to a number of
bodies doesnt change their actions on one another, because the speed with which they collide
and therefore also the force of impact in their collisions is not altered by whatever movement the
whole system of them is undergoing. This is what lies behind some fine experiments on motion
that Gassendi reported in his letters; they concerned motion imparted by something which is itself
being carried [Leibniz seems to have meant: motion imparted by something to something else
when they are both being carried], as a reply to those who thought they could infer from the
motion of projectiles that the earth doesnt move. Consider people travelling in a big ship, in
conditions in which they cant see anything outside it. Clearly, as long as the ship moves smoothly
and uniformly - whatever its speed - the events within the ship wont tell them whether or not it is
moving, even if they move about and throw balls.
56. This should be noted because of its relevance to a certain mistake people have made about
why, according to the Copernican theory, things launched straight upward fall back to where they
started from, although during that time the earth has rotated a little. Some people have got the
Copernican theory wrong: they take it to be saying that when a thing is thrown straight upward, it
is carried along by the air that is rotating with the earth, and that is why it falls back to where it
was, as though the earth were not moving. They rightly judge that this is not acceptable.
However, the ablest users of the Copernican theory dont appeal to the effect of the rotating air;
rather, they believe that because whatever is on the surface of the earth is moving along with it,
when a thing is launched from a bow or catapult it carries with it the impetus it has received from
the motion of the earth as well as the impetus it got by being launched. So the projectile has two
motions, one in common with the earth and one special to the launching, and its not surprising
that the common motion doesnt make any difference to how the projectile relates to the place
from which it was launched. This is correct only within limits. If a projectile were thrown up far
enough, . . . . the place P from which it was launched would have moved far enough around its
arc for this little journey to be noticeably different from one in a straight line; and in that case
the projectile wouldnt fall back precisely onto P, because its only motion other than the up-anddown one is the straight-line motion given to it by the rotation of the earth.
57. The effort of heavy bodies to move towards the centre of the earth brings in an external
influence that can also make a difference in the phenomena; another relevant factor would be
provided by a compass in the enclosed ship which by pointing always to the pole could indicate
when the ship changed course. But these facts are not objections to what I have been saying.
They merely serve to warn us that when we are concerned with the equivalence of hypotheses,
everything that plays a part in the phenomena must be taken into account. All this shows that we
can safely combine several motions into one, and resolve one motion into several. . . . But the
matter certainly needs to be proved, and cant simply be taken as self-evident, as many have done.

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. The paragraph breaks, but not the numbers, are
Leibnizs.
First launched: September 2004

A New System
By G. W. Leibniz
[The full title is: A new system of the nature and communication of substances,

and also of the union that exists between the soul and the body]

1. I thought up this system several years ago and communicated some of it to some learned men,
and in particular to Arnauld, one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of our time. He
had heard at second hand about some of my opinions and had found them quite paradoxical. But
after I clarified things for him he withdrew what he had said, in the most generous way possible
(what an example he set!). He accepted some of my theses; there were others that he still didnt
agree with, but he no longer condemned them. Since then I have gone on thinking about these
matters whenever I had the opportunity, so as to give the public only well-considered opinions;
and I have also tried to answer objections raised against my essays on dynamics, which have some
connection with this. And now, because some notable people wanted to see my views clarified, I
venture to offer these meditations, although they are far from popular in style and cant be
appreciated by all types of mind. I decided to do this - publishing my thoughts in a learned
journal - mainly so as to benefit from the judgments of people who are enlightened in these
matters, for it would be far too much trouble to find and consult individually all those who might
be willing to give me advice. I shall always be glad to get advice, as long as it shows a love of the
truth rather than a passion for preconceived opinions.
2. Although I have worked a lot on mathematics, ever since my youth I have gone on thinking
about philosophy, for it has always seemed to me that there is a way of getting solid results in
philosophy through clear demonstrations. I had gone far into the territory of the scholastics [=
teachers in mediaeval, Aristotle-influenced, philosophy departments often referred to as the
schools], when mathematics and modern authors drew me out again while I was still quite young.
Their lovely ways of explaining nature mechanically charmed me, and I rightly despised the
method of those who make use only of forms and faculties, from which we learn nothing. But
since then things have changed for me. I tried to dig down into the principles of mechanics
themselves: we know what the laws of nature are through experience, but I wanted to explain
them. Through this I became aware that physics needs more than the concept of mere extended
mass, and that we must use also of the notion of force - a notion from the domain of
metaphysics, but a perfectly intelligible one. I realized also that the opinion of those - such as
Descartes - who transform or degrade animals into mere machines, although it seems possible, is
implausible and indeed contrary to the order of things.
3. At first, when I had freed myself from the yoke of the schools, and thus of Aristotle, I was in
favour of an approach to physics based on atoms and empty space, because this approach best

2
satisfies the imagination - i.e. it gives us a physics that we can always picture in our minds eye.
But in pulling myself out of this,which took much thought, I became aware that it is impossible to
find the sources of real unity in matter alone, or in what is purely passive, since this is nothing but
a collection or lumping together of parts and parts of parts . . . ad infinitum. Now a real
collection or multiplicity must involve true unities - things each of which is one thing in a more
basic way than a collection is one thing - and these true unities must come from elsewhere,
i.e.cannot themselves be members of the collection. They cant be material things, because what
is material cant at the same time be perfectly indivisible, which is what is needed for true unity.
And they cant be mathematical points either: something continuous cant be made up of points,
because points are not things; rather, facts about them are just facts about extended things, e.g.
facts about where they end, where their limits are. (Thus, to say that two lines intersect at a
certain point is not to say that there is a point at which the lines intersect; rather, it is to say where
they intersect; in a fundamental account of this statement, the noun point doesnt have to occur
at all.) So in order to get a real unity - a thing that is deep-down just one thing - I had to bring
in what might be called a real and living point, an atom of substance that is a complete being only
because it contains some kind of form or activity. So I had to bring back and (as it were)
rehabilitate substantial forms, which are in such disrepute these days - but in a way that would
make them intelligible and would distinguish the proper use of them from their previous misuse.
I found then that the nature of substantial forms consists in force, and that out of this comes
something analogous to sentiment and appetite; and that these substantial forms must therefore be
understood along the lines of our notion of souls. [The French word sentiment can mean belief
or feeling. Appetite for Leibniz is similar to desire, but covers some kinds of being-drawn-tox that are too low-grade to count as desire-for-x.] But just as it is wrong to
bring in the soul in explaining in detail the workings of an animals body,
I judged that it would similarly be wrong to
bring in substantial forms to solve particular problems in natural science,
although they do have to come into the establishing of true general principles. Aristotle calls them
first entelechies. I give them the perhaps more intelligible label basic forces. They are forces
because they involve not only actuality (as opposed to mere possibility) but also a basic
activeness.
4. I saw that these forms and souls had to be indivisible, like our minds, and indeed I remembered
that this was what Aquinas thought concerning the souls of the lower animals. But this truth
revived the big difficulties about the origin and duration of souls and forms. A substance that has
a true unity and therefore has no parts cant be made by being assembled or destroyed by being
dismantled, and so it can begin or end only by a miracle. It follows from this that such simple
substances can come into being only by creation and end only by annihilation. So I had to
recognize that the forms that constitute substances must (except for ones that God still intends to
create specially) have been created with the world and must always continue to exist. . . . This
idea shouldnt seem extraordinary, for I am attributing to forms only the duration that Gassendis
followers grant to their atoms!
5. I judged, though, that we mustnt jumble all the simple substances together, not distinguishing
minds or rational souls from other forms or souls. The former are of a superior order, and
have incomparably more perfection than forms that are sunk in matter, which in my view are to
be found everywhere. Compared with the latter, minds or rational souls are like little gods, made

3
in the image of God and having within them a glimmer of the divine light. That is why God
governs minds as a prince governs his subjects, or as a father cares for his children. He has
imposed an order on the world of matter, which operates accordingly; but minds have special laws
that raise them above all that, and we might say that everything else is made only for them,
because even those mechanical operations work for the happiness of the good and the punishment
of the wicked.
6. Returning now to ordinary forms - that is, to souls that dont rise to the level of minds - an
intellectual danger must be avoided. Now that we are saying that they rather than atoms are
everlasting, someone might think that these souls pass from body to body, needing to do this in
order to last for ever. If they did, this would be . . . . a little like what some philosophers have
thought happens in causal transactions, namely that individual bits of motion or individual
instances of properties pass from body to body. But this fancy is very far from how things are:
there is no such passing-across. On this point I have been helped by the transformations observed
through microscopes by Swammerdam, Malpighi, and Leeuwenhoek, who are among the best
observers of our day. They have made it easier for me to accept that no animal or other organized
substance begins, thought we think they do, and that when it seems that an animal starts to exist
there is really only a development, or a kind of augmentation. And I have noticed that
Malebranche and . . . . other able men have had views not far from this.
7. So much for the beginnings of animals, but what about their ends? There remained for me
the even bigger question:
What becomes of such a soul or form when the animal dies, i.e. when the individual
organized substance is destroyed?
What makes this especially baffling is that it seems hardly reasonable that souls should pointlessly
linger on in a chaos of confused matter. I eventually came to the conclusion that there is only one
reasonable view to take, namely that what is conserved is not only the soul but also the animal
itself and its organic mechanism, though the destruction of its larger parts makes it so small that
we cant detect it through our senses, any more than we could before its birth. So no-one can
accurately tell the true time of death, which for a long time may be taken for a mere suspension of
observable actions; and in the case of simple animals a suspension of observable actions is all that
death is! Witness the resuscitation of drowned flies buried under powdered chalk, and various
similar examples which show clearly that there would be many more resuscitations, even in more
extreme cases, if men had the means and knowledge to repair the mechanism. . . . As some people
of great insight are beginning to recognize, an animal has always been alive and organized; its
only natural that it should always remain so. And so, since there is no first birth or entirely new
generation of an animal, it follows that it will have no final extinction, no complete death in the
strict metaphysical sense; and that consequently, instead of the transporting of souls from body to
body there is merely a transforming of one and the same animal, according as its organs are
differently folded into one another and more or less developed.
8. Rational souls follow much higher laws, though. and are exempt from everything that could
make them lose their status as citizens of the society of minds; God has provided for them so well
that no changes in matter can ever make them lose the moral qualities of their personhood. It can
be said that everything tends to the perfection not only of the universe in general but also of these
creatures in particular, creatures who are destined to reach - through Gods goodness, which acts
upon each one as far as the sovereign wisdom can allow - such a high degree of happiness that
this affects the welfare of the universe as a whole.

4
9. As for the ordinary run of animals and other bodily substances, whose changes do depend on
mechanical rules rather than moral laws, and which until now have been thought to suffer total
extinction, I was pleased to see that the ancient author of the book Diet (which is attributed to
Hippocrates) had glimpsed something of the truth, when he said explicitly that animals arent born
and dont die, and that the things we suppose to come into being and to perish merely appear and
disappear. This was also the view of Parmenides and of Melissus according to Aristotle. These
ancients, you see, were sounder than they are thought to be!
10. I am as ready as anyone to do justice to the moderns, but I think they have carried reform
too far, among other things confusing natural things with artificial ones, through not having grand
enough ideas of natures majesty. They take the difference between natures machines and ours to
be only that between large and small. This recently led a very able man to say that on close
inspection nature appears less wonderful than we had thought, it being only something like a
craftsmans window display. This gives an inappropriate and unworthy idea of nature, I think.
Only my system brings out the true distance - the immense distance - between the least
productions and mechanisms of divine wisdom and the greatest masterpieces produced by the
skill of a limited mind. These differ not merely in degree but in kind. What we need to recognize
are these three truths. Natures machines are so well equipped and defended against accidents
that they cant be destroyed. They have a truly infinite number of organic parts; the parts of a
natural machine, however small they may be, are also machines. A natural machine always
remains the same machine that it was; when we think it is destroyed it is merely transformed by
being folded together differently, sometimes extended, sometimes contracted and as it were
concentrated.
11. Furthermore, by means of the soul or form there is a true unity - an absolutely single thing which corresponds to what is called I in us. This cant occur in artificial machines or in a simple
mass of matter, however organized it may be. Such masses can only be thought of as like an army,
a flock, a pond full of fish, or like a watch composed of springs and wheels. There wouldnt be
anything substantial or real in such a collection if there were no true substantial unities. It was the
search for true unities that forced Cordemoy to abandon Descartes - who held that every portion
of matter is divisible into smaller portions - and to adopt Democrituss doctrine of atoms. But
atoms of matter are contrary to reason; and anyway an atom, if there were such a thing, would
still be composed of parts and so wouldnt be a true unity after all. One parts being attached to
another so strongly that they couldnt be pulled apart (supposing we could make sense of this)
wouldnt alter the fact that these were two parts, one different from the other. It is only atoms of
substance, that is to say real unities absolutely devoid of parts, that can be
the sources of activity,
the absolutely basic reasons for the composition of things (explaining why composite
things have such togetherness, such non-basic unity, as they do have),
and, as it were,
the ultimate elements in the analysis of substantial things.
Going through those again in the reverse order: atoms of substance are what a substantial thing
is made of (and without which it wouldnt be substantial), are what pull it together so that it is
(though in a non-basic way) one thing, and are what makes it active, what has it doing things.
They might be called metaphysical points: they are related to mathematical points, which are
their points of view for expressing the universe, but they are not themselves mathematical points

5
because they have something alive about them, and a kind of perception. When a bodily
substance is contracted far enough, all its organs together make what to us is only a physical
point. So physical points only seem to be indivisible. Mathematical points really are indivisible, but
they are not things. It is only metaphysical or substantial points (constituted by forms or souls)
that are both exact and real, and without them there wouldnt be any things at all, because without
true unities there would be no multiplicity - without true ones there would be no manies.
[Regarding exact and real: The context requires exact (French: exact) to mean indivisible, but
dictionaries dont support that. Real comes from the Latin res = thing.]
12. Having established these things, I thought I was entering port; but when I got to thinking
about the souls union with the body I was flung back into the open sea, so to speak. For I
couldnt explain how the body can make something pass over into the soul or vice versa, or how
one created substance can affect another. As far as we can see from his writings, Descartes threw
in his hand at this point, but his disciples, seeing that the usual view about this makes no sense,
said that bodies dont act on our minds, but rather
we sense the properties of bodies because God produces thoughts in the soul on the
occasion of the motions of matter;
and that our minds dont act on our bodies, but rather
when our soul wishes to move the body, it is God who moves the body for it, on the
occasion of the souls having this wish.
And it also made no sense to them that one body should pass motion along to another, so they
held that
God gives motion to one body on the occasion of the motion of another.
This is what they call the system of occasional causes, which has been made very fashionable by
Malebranches elegant reflections in The Search for Truth.
13. I must admit that the occasionalists saw a good distance into this problem with their view
about what cant happen (namely their view that motions and other property-instances cant be
literally passed from one thing to another); but they didnt solve the problem with their theory
about what actually does happen. It is quite true that in the strict metaphysical sense one created
substance has no real influence on another - doesnt send across anything thing-like to the
other - and that all things, with all their reality, are continually produced by the power of God.
But you dont solve problems by making use of the general all-purpose cause, introducing what
is called a deus ex machina [meaning, roughly, a God who conveniently does what we want him
to do]. For to do this - explaining things purely in terms of the primary cause, God - without
giving any other explanation in terms of the system of secondary causes, is to fall back on
miracles. In philosophy we must try to show in what way God in his wisdom makes things
happen, not arbitrarily but in accordance with the notion of the subject we are dealing with.
14. Having to admit that no soul or other true substance could possibly let anything in from
outside it except through divine omnipotence, I was led gradually to a surprising opinion. (It crept
up on me without my realizing it.) Though surprising, there seems to be no way out of it, and in
fact it has very great advantages and notable charms. It is the opinion that we have to say this:
God first created each soul and other real unity in such a way that everything in it arises
from its own depths, with a perfect spontaneity as regards itself - i.e. with no causal input
from anything else - and yet with a perfect conformity to things outside it.

6
On this account, our sensations are only a sequence of mental phenomena that track external
things; they are true appearances, something like orderly dreams. (I am saying this only about or
inner sensations, i.e. ones that are in the soul itself and not in the brain or in the bodys subtle
parts.) So these internal perceptions in the soul must arise from its own basic constitution, which
it has had since its creation and which makes it the individual that it is. This constitution gives the
substance a representative nature, enabling it to express external things according to how they
relate to its organs. And this means that since each of these substances accurately represents the
whole universe in its own way and according to a particular point of view, and since its
perceptions or expressions of external things occur in the soul at a given moment in virtue of its
own laws (as in a world apart, as if there existed nothing but God and that soul) . . . . there will
be a perfect agreement amongst all these substances, producing the same effect that we would see
if they interacted with one another by passing across species or qualities in the way that most
ordinary philosophers suppose. What we call the interaction [the French word is
communication] of soul with body, and the sole basis for their union, arises as follows.
The organized mass in which the point of view of the soul lies is more closely expressed
by it. And it in turn is ready, just when the soul desires it, to act of itself according to the
laws of the bodily mechanism, the animal spirits and the blood having at exactly the right
moment the motions that correspond to the passions and perceptions of the soul.
All this happens without either body or soul disturbing the laws of the other; it is a mutual
relationship, arranged in advance in each substance in the universe. And this enables us to
understand how it is that the soul has its seat in the body: it is by an immediate presence, which is
as close as it could be, since the soul is in the body in the same way that unity is in a multitude,
which is a resultant of unities.
15. This hypothesis is perfectly possible. For why couldnt God give to a substance right from the
start a nature - an internal force - that could produce in it, in an orderly way and without the help
of any other created thing, everything that is going to happen to it? . . . . (It would be like a
spiritual or formal automaton; but a free one, in the case of a substance which has a share of
reason.) This is the more so since the nature of a substance necessarily requires and essentially
involves some progress or change, without which it would have no force to act. And since it is in
the nature - this nature - of the soul to represent the universe in a very exact way (though with
differing degrees of clarity), the series of representations that a soul produces for itself will
naturally correspond to the series of changes in the universe itself; just as, conversely, the body
has also been adapted to the soul for the occasions that we think of as the soul acting on
something outside itself (e.g. when we think His decision to raise his hand made it go up). This
is all the more reasonable in that bodies are made only for minds that are capable of entering into
social relations with God and of celebrating his glory. Thus as soon as we see that this theory of
agreements or correspondences between the states of different substances is possible, we see
also that it is the most reasonable, and that it gives a wonderful idea of the harmony of the
universe and the perfection of Gods works.
16. It also has the great advantage that instead of saying that
we are only seem to be free, our appearance of freedom being sufficient for practical
purposes,
as some clever people have held, we must rather say that
we only seem to be pushed along by external causes, and speaking in metaphysical
strictness we are perfectly independent of the influence of all other created things.

7
This again puts into a marvellous light the immortality of our soul and the completely unbroken
conservation of each of us as an individual - an individual that is perfectly well-regulated by its
own nature and sheltered from all external accidents, however it may seem not to be so. No
previous system has made our elevated position more clear. Every mind is like a world apart,
self-sufficient,
independent of every other created thing,
involving the infinite, and
expressing the universe;
so it is as lasting, as continuous in its existence, and as free of conditions as the universe of
created things itself. . . . There is also here a new and surprisingly clear proof of the existence of
God. For when so many substances that dont interact with one another are nevertheless in perfect
agreement, that can only come from their having a cause in common.
17. Besides all these advantages that this theory has in its favour, we may say that it is something
more than a mere theory, since it hardly seems possible to explain things in any other intelligible
way, and because when we fully understand it various serious difficulties that have perplexed
mens minds up till now seem to vanish. [The next two sentences expand what Leibniz wrote, in
ways that cant easily be indicated by dots.] We can easily go on speaking in our accustomed
ways about things acting on other things, giving this a sense that makes it consistent with my
theory. Specifically, we can say
Substance x acted on substances y and z
as a way of saying that
A change occurred in x which intelligibly explains changes in y and z, in such a way that
we can conclude that when God was decreeing what substances were to exist he chose y
and z so as to fit with the already chosen x.
So when one substance acts on another, no entity is emitted or passed across as is commonly
thought, and acting on cant reasonably be understood in any way but the one I have just
described. We have no difficulty conceiving, where matter is concerned, of parts of material
things being emitted one body and taken in by another; this indeed is the reasonable basis for our
mechanical explanations of all the phenomena of physics. But a material mass is not a substance,
so it is clear that acting on as regards an actual substance can only be as I have described.
18. These lines of thought, however metaphysical they may seem, are nevertheless marvelously
useful in physics for grounding the laws of motion, as my dynamics will be able to show. For we
can say that when bodies collide, each one is affected only by its own elasticity, caused not by the
other body in the collision, but by the motion that is already in it. As for absolute motion, nothing
can determine it mathematically, since everything comes down to relations. The result of that is
that there is always a perfect equivalence of seemingly different accounts of what is moving and
what is at rest, as in astronomy; so that, whatever number of bodies we take, we may arbitrarily
assign either rest or some speed to whichever we like, without its being possible for us to be
refuted by the phenomena of motion, whether in a straight line, a circle, or a mixture. It is still
reasonable, though, to attribute genuine motions to bodies on the basis of what explains the
phenomena in the most intelligible way - this being in line with the account of acting on that I
have laid down.

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.
First launched: September 2004

The Ultimate Origin of Things


By G. W. Leibniz
Beyond the world, that is, beyond the collection of finite things, there is some one being who
rules, not only as the soul is the ruler in me (or, to put it better, as the self is the ruler in my body),
but also in a much higher way. For the one being who rules the universe doesnt just govern the
world but also builds or makes it. He is above the world and outside it, so to speak, and
therefore he is the ultimate reason for things. That follows because
he is the only extramundane thing, i.e. the only thing that exists out of the world; and
nothing in the world could be the ultimate reason for things.
I now explain that second premise. We cant find in any individual thing, or even in the entire
collection and series of things, a sufficient reason why they exist. Suppose that a book on the
elements of geometry has always existed, each copy made from an earlier one, with no first
copy. We can explain any given copy of the book in terms of the previous book from which it
was copied; but this wont ever lead us to a complete explanation, no matter how far back we go
in the series of books. For we can always ask:
Why have there always been such books?
Why were these books written?
Why were they written in the way they were?
The different states of the world are like that series of books: each state is in a way copied from
the preceding state - though here the copying isnt an exact transcription, but happens in
accordance with certain laws of change. And so, with the world as with the books, however far
back we might go into earlier and earlier states well never find in them a complete explanation for
why there is any world at all, and why the world is as it is.
Its not that in the backward search well reach a first state of the world, with no earlier one
to explain it. So far as that is concerned, you are welcome to imagine that the world has always
existed. But you are assuming only a succession of states, and no reason for the world can be
found in any one of them (or in any set of them, however large); so obviously the reason for the
world must be found elsewhere. That means: out of the world, i.e. out of the totality of finite
things, and so in something infinite and eternal. For even if eternal things dont yield causes,
they give reasons. For a thing that lasts through time without changing, the reason is the nature
or essence of the thing itself; and in a series of changing things (if we imagine that it goes back for
ever) the reason is the superior strength of certain inclinations, as we shall soon see. (These
reasons only incline; they dont necessitate with absolute or metaphysical necessity so that the
contrary implies a contradiction.) From this it appears that even if we assume the past eternity of
the world, we cant escape the ultimate and out-of-the-world reason for things, namely God.

2
[In Leibnizs time, physical and its Latin and French equivalents did not mean bodily or
pertaining to matter, but much more generally pertaining to what actually contingently goes on
in the real world.] The reasons for the world, therefore, lie hidden in something outside the
world, something different from the chain of states or series of things that jointly constitute the
world. And so we must move from
physical or hypothetical necessity, which determines the later things in the world from the
earlier
to
something that is absolutely or metaphysically necessary, for which a reason cant be
given.
For the present world is not absolutely or metaphysically necessary, but only physically or
hypothetically necessary. That is, given that the world is thus and so at one time, it follows that
such and such events will occur later; and it is the given in this that makes it hypothetical.
Therefore, since the ultimate ground must lie in something metaphysically necessary, and since
the reason for an existing thing must come from something that actually exists, it follows that
there must exist some one metaphysically necessary entity. It has to be different from the
plurality of things, i.e. from the world, which we have shown not to be metaphysically necessary.
What is it for a thing to be metaphysically necessary? It is for the things essence to include
existence.
Now, to understand a little more clearly how temporal, contingent, or physical truths arise
from eternal, essential or metaphysical ones, we must start by acknowledging this:
Because something rather than nothing exists, there is a certain urge for existence - a
claim to existence, so to speak - in possible things or in possibility or essence itself. In
short, essence in and of itself strains towards existence.
And it follows from this that each possible, that is, each thing that expresses essence or possible
reality, strains towards existence; and these strainings are strong in proportion to the amount of
essence or reality that the straining possibility contains. Or we could say: according to the
amount of perfection it contains, for perfection is just the amount of essence. [Leibniz writes that
the possibilities strain for existence pari jure = with equal right. He presumably means that all
the strainings are governed by a single law or principle, the one aligning strength with amount of
reality or perfection. The phrase occurs twice more, and will be left untranslated.]
This makes it obvious that of the infinite combinations of possibilities and possible series, the
one that exists is the one through which the most essence or possibility is brought into existence.
A good rule to follow in practical affairs is:
always aim to get the most out of the least, that is, try for the maximum effect at the
minimum cost, so to speak.
For example, in building on a particular plot of ground (the cost), construct the most pleasing
building you can, with the rooms as numerous as the site can take and as elegant as possible.
Applying this to our present context: given the temporal and spatial extent of the world - in short,
its capacity or receptivity - fit into that as great a variety of kinds of thing as possible.
A different and perhaps better analogy is provided by certain games, in which all the places
on the board are supposed to be filled in accordance with certain rules; towards the end of such a
game a player may find that he has to use some trick if he is to fill certain places that he wants to
fill. If he succeeds in filling them, but only by resorting special measures, he has achieved a
maximal result but not with minimal means. In contrast with this, there is a certain procedure

3
through which he can most easily fill the board, thus getting the same result but with minimal
cost. Other examples of the power of minimal cost: if we are told
Draw a triangle,
with no other directions, we will draw an equilateral triangle; if we are told
Go from the lecture hall to the library,
without being told what route to take, we will choose the easiest or the shortest route. Similarly,
given that
existence is to prevail over nonexistence, i.e.
something is to exist rather than nothing, i.e.
something is to pass from possibility to actuality,
with nothing further than this being laid down, it follows that there would be as much as there
possibly can be, given the capacity of time and space (that is, the capacity of the order of possible
existence). In short, it is just like tiles arranged so as to get down as many as possible in a given
area.
From this we can now understand in a wonderful way how the very origination of things
involves a certain divine mathematics or metaphysical mechanism, and how the maximum of
which I have spoken is determined. The case is like that in geometry, where the right angle is
distinguished from all other angles; or like the case of a liquid placed in something of a different
kind - specifically, held by something solid but flexible, like a rubber balloon - which forms itself
into a sphere, the most capacious shape; or - the best analogy - like the situation in common
mechanics where the struggling of many heavy bodies with one another finally generates the
motion yielding the greatest descent over-all. For just as all possibles strain pari jure for
existence in proportion to how much reality they contain, so too all heavy things strain pari jure
to descend in proportion to how heavy they are; and just as the latter case yields the motion that
contains as much descent of heavy things as is possible, the former case gives rise to a world in
which the greatest number of possibles is produced.
So now we have physical necessity derived from metaphysical necessity. For even if the
world isnt metaphysically necessary, in the sense that its contrary implies a contradiction or a
logical absurdity, it is physically necessary or determined, in the sense that its contrary implies
imperfection or moral absurdity. And just as the source of what essences there are is
possibility, so the source of what exists is perfection or degree of essence (through which the
greatest number of things are compossible). This also makes it obvious how God, the author of
the world, can be free even though everything happens determinately. It is because he acts from a
principle of wisdom or perfection, which doesnt make it necessary for him to act as he does but
makes it certain that he will act in that way. It is only out of ignorance that one is in a state of
indifference in which one might go this way and might go that; the wiser someone is, the more
settled it is that he will do what is most perfect.
Someone may object:
You compare a certain determining metaphysical mechanism with the physical mechanism
of heavy bodies; its a neat-looking comparison, but it doesnt work. The trouble is that
the effortful heavy bodies really exist, whereas possibilities or essences before anything
exists - or rather outside of existence - are imaginary or fictional, so its no use looking to
them for a reason for existence.
I reply that those essences are not fictitious, nor are the eternal truths that involve them. On the
contrary, they exist in a certain realm (so to speak) of ideas, namely, in God who is the source of

4
every essence and of the existence of everything else. That there seem to be grounds for what I
am saying here is shown by the sheer fact that the actual series of things exists. The argument
goes as follows:
The reason why anything exists cant be found in the actual series of things,
as I showed above; so
The reason why anything exists must be sought in metaphysical necessities or in eternal
truths,
because there is nowhere else it can be found. But
Existing things cant derive from anything but existing things,
as I have already noted above. So
Eternal truths must be existing things,
and they have their existence in a certain absolute or metaphysically necessary subject, i.e. in God,
through whom things that would otherwise be imaginary are real-ized, to use a barbaric but
graphic expression.
And indeed we discover that everything in the world takes place in accordance with laws that
are eternally true, laws that are
not merely geometrical, that is, in accordance with material necessities,
but also
metaphysical, that is, in accordance with formal reasons.
This is true not only in very general terms, in the reason I have given why the world exists rather
than not, and why it exists this way rather than some other way (which has to be sought in the
straining of possibles towards existence), but also down at the level of particular events. In these
we see how wonderfully the metaphysical laws of cause, power and action take their place in the
whole of nature, and we see that these metaphysical laws prevail over the purely geometrical laws
of matter. As I found to my great surprise in explaining the laws of motion, this is so true that I
finally had to abandon the physics that I had defended in my youth, when I was more of a
materialist, as I have explained at greater length elsewhere. [Leibniz describes that physics as the
law of the geometrical composition of conatus. That last word - literally meaning trying or
striving - is a technical term of his, standing for an element in any physical force (see his Essay
on Dynamics section 2). The geometrical approach to it came from Descartess doctrine that
there is nothing to matter except its extension, meaning that its only real properties are
geometrical ones.]
So there we have it: the rock-bottom reason for the reality of both essences and existences
lies in one thing, which must
be greater than the world,
be higher than the world, and
have existed before the world did;
since it is what brings it about not only that the things that make up the world have existence, but
also that possibilities have their own reality. It is because of this thing that there are humans,
and there is humanity, with this considered as an essence, a possibility, a possible-way-of-being.
Moreover, it has to be a single source, because of how all these things and possibilities are
interconnected. It is obvious also that things continuously flow from this source: they have been
and still are being produced by it. Why? Because if we attend only to the world as a going
concern, it is not clear why one state of the world should lead to this subsequent state rather than
to that one, and so for a full explanation we have to look outside the world. We also see now

5
how it can be that God acts not only physically but freely, that he provides not only the efficient
cause of things but the final cause, and that he is the reason not only for the greatness or power
in the mechanism of the universe as now constituted but also for the goodness or wisdom in
constituting it. [An efficient cause is just what you and I would call a cause with no adjective; a
final cause is an end, aim, or purpose.]
Someone might object: You are here confusing moral perfection or goodness with
metaphysical perfection or greatness. I agree that the ultimate cause of things must have the
latter, but I dont agree about the former. I reply what I have said implies not only that
the world is physically (or, if you prefer, metaphysically) most perfect, i.e. the series of
things that has been produced is the one that brings the greatest amount of reality into
existence,
but also that
the world is morally most perfect,
because moral perfection is really physical perfection with respect to minds. [See the explanation
of physical at the top of page 2.] It follows from this that the world is not only the most
admirable machine but also - considered as made up of minds - the best republic, the one through
which minds derive the greatest possible happiness and joy (which is what their physical
perfection consists in).
Someone may object:
Dont we experience quite the opposite in the world? For the worst often happens to the
best; not only innocent animals but also humans are injured and killed, even tortured. In
the end, the world appears to be some sort of confused chaos rather than something
ordered by supreme wisdom - especially if one takes note of how humans behave!
I agree that thats how it appears at first glance, but a deeper look at things supports the contrary
view. From the very considerations that I brought forward it is obvious a priori that all things,
even minds, are of the highest perfection possible.
Anyway, it is - as lawyers say - unjust to make a judgment before examining the entire law.
We have only the memory that history gives us of a few thousand years; what a small portion that
is of the eternity that extends without measure! Yet on the basis of such meager experience we
rashly make judgments about the immense and the eternal, like people born and raised . . . . in
subterranean salt-mines, people who think there is no light in the world but the dim light of their
torches, which is scarcely bright enough to guide their steps! Look at a lovely picture, then cover
it up except for one small part. That part will look like a jumble of colours, showing no skill and
giving no delight; and the more closely we examine it the more it will look that way. But when the
covering is removed and you see the whole surface from a suitable distance, you will grasp that
what looked like accidental splotches on the canvas had been made with great skill by the artist.
And what the eyes discover in a painting, the ears discover in music. The most distinguished
composers often mix dissonances with smooth harmonies in order to arouse the listener - to
disturb him, as it were - so that he will be momentarily anxious about what is to happen, and will
feel all the more pleasure when order is restored. There are also many examples of this outside
painting and music. We delight in small dangers or bad experiences just because when we have
come through them they let us feel or show our power or happiness. Again, we delight in the
spectacle of rope walkers or sword dancers just because they can incite fear in us; and we
ourselves laughingly half toss children, as if we are about to throw them away. . . . On that same
principle, if we always ate sweet things they would become insipid; we need also sharp, acidic,

6
and even bitter tastes mixed in with the rest to stimulate our palate. Someone who hasnt tasted
bitter things doesnt deserve sweet things, and indeed wont appreciate them! This is a law of
delight: Pleasure doesnt come from uniformity, which creates disgust and makes us numb rather
than happy.
When I spoke of a part that can be disordered without detracting from the harmony of the
whole, dont take me to have meant that such parts dont make sense in themselves. And dont
take me to have meant that it would be sufficient for the world as a whole to be perfect of its
kind, even if the human race were miserable, no attention was paid to justice in the universe, and
no care was taken for us, as certain persons of poor judgment - such as Spinoza - believe. It
should be realized that, just as in the best constituted republic, care is taken that each individual
gets what is good for him as far as possible, so the universe wouldnt perfect unless individuals
were taken into account as far as is consistent with the universal harmony. There couldnt be a
better standard in this matter than the law of justice, which lays down that everyone is to
participate in the perfection of the universe, and to have personal happiness, in proportion to his
own virtue and to the extent that his will has contributed to the common good. This vindicates the
charity and love of God, which constitutes the entire force and power of the Christian religion, in
the judgment of wise theologians. That fact that minds are specially catered for in the universe
shouldnt cause surprise, given certain facts about them. Minds are produced in the exact image
of God. They relate to him not only as machines relate to their maker (as other things do), but
also as citizens to their prince. They are going to last as long as the universe itself does. They
express the whole universe in a certain way, concentrating it in themselves, so that they might be
called whole parts. [That last point reflects Leibnizs doctrine, not expounded here, that the
whole truth about the universe - past, present and future - could in principle be read off from the
state of any one substance at any moment.]
We must also accept that misfortunes, especially when they come to good people, only lead
to the greater good of the sufferers. This is not only a theological truth concerning people, but is
true in the natural world as well - e.g. a seed flung to the ground must undergo hardships before it
bears fruit. Over-all one can say that short-term afflictions are long-term benefits, because they
are short paths to greater perfection. . . . This is what you might call stepping back in order to
leap forward with greater force. These considerations should be regarded not merely as pleasing
and consoling but also as utterly true. The two go together, because, I think, nothing in the
universe is truer than happiness, and nothing is happier or sweeter than truth.
[The words cultivation and cultivate will be used in a slightly wider sense than is now
customary; in some places development might read better. But Leibniz uses the same noun and
cognate verb in each place, and the translation keeps that in sight.] In addition to the beauties and
perfections of the totality of Gods works, we must also recognize a certain constant and
unbounded progress in the universe as a whole, so that it always proceeds to greater cultivation,
just as a large part of our earth is now cultivated, and more and more of it will become so. Certain
things regress to their original wild state and others are destroyed and buried, but we should
understand this in the same way as the afflictions that I discussed a little earlier: this destruction
and burying leads to the achievement of something better, so that we make a profit from the loss,
in a sense.
You may object: If this were so, the world should have become Paradise long ago! I have a
quick answer to that. Many substances have already reached great perfection; but because of the
infinite divisibility of the continuum, there are always parts asleep in the depths of things, yet to be

7
roused and advanced to greater and better things, advanced to greater cultivation, in short. Thus,
progress never comes to an end. [When Leibniz writes of parts asleep in the depths of things he
reflects his doctrine - not expounded here - that everything in the natural world is made of
organisms, each of which is made of still smaller organisms, each of which is . . . and so on ad
infinitum.]

1
Copyright Jonathan Bennett
[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought.
First launched: July 2004

*******

Nature Itself
By G. W. Leibniz
Or: The Inherent Force and Activity of Created Things - Confirming and
Illustrating the Authors Dynamics
1. The celebrated Johann Christopher Sturm, who is distinguished in mathematics and physics,
wrote a dissertation entitled The Idol of Nature; and this was challenged by Gnther Christopher
Schelhammer, an excellent and most accomplished physician of Kiel, in his book Nature. I
recently received a copy of Sturms published Defence of his dissertation against this critic. The
topic of Nature is one that I too have thought about, and there was an exchange of views in
letters that passed between myself and the distinguished author of the dissertation, an exchange
which he recently mentioned in a respectful way, publishing several of our letters in his Elective
Physics.
That made me all the more willing to think attentively about this topic, which is an inherently
important one; and I thought I should present with some clarity both my own view and the entire
issue, doing this in terms of principles of mine which I have already made known on several
occasions. Sturms Defence seems to provide a good opportunity for doing this, since we can
take him to have set out the most important points in a compact form. But I shant enter
otherwise into his controversy with Schelhammer.
2. I want to ask two main questions of which the first will be discussed through seven sections,
the second being posed at the start of section 9. The first question is: What constitutes the nature
that we ordinarily say things have? If we can approach this in terms not only of what Nature is but
also of what it is not, I can start by saying that there is not any such thing as the soul of the
universe. I also agree that those everyday wonders which lead us to say (quite rightly) that the
work of Nature is the work of intelligence should not be ascribed to created intelligences with
levels of wisdom and power suitable for those results. Rather, the whole of Nature is Gods
artifact, so to speak, and his art goes so far that each natural machine - each organism, that is consists of infinitely many smaller organisms, a state of affairs requiring infinite wisdom and
power on the part of its creator and ruler. (It is not widely recognized, but it is true, that what
really distinguishes the natural from the artificial is the fact that every organism contains other
organisms.)
And so I think that various theories about the worlds being infused by wise, knowing forces
- by Hippocrates, Avicenna, Scaliger, Henry More and others - are partly impossible and partly

2
unnecessary. All that is needed, I maintain, is for the machine of things to have been constructed
with such wisdom that those everyday wonders come about through its own workings, and chiefly
(I think) through organisms unfolding themselves in accordance with some pre-arranged plan. So
I agree with Sturm in rejecting these supposed wise, created natures which are supposed to
produce and govern the mechanisms of bodies. But I dont think it follows from this, nor do I
think it reasonable, that we should deny that there is any created, active force inherent in things.
3. So much for what is not the case. Now let us examine more directly what this Nature is, the
Nature that Aristotle called the principle of motion and rest. (A not-inappropriate phrase, though
he takes it rather broadly, apparently meaning by motion not only change of place but any kind of
change, and by rest not only staying in one place but any kind of staying-the-same. Incidentally,
his definition of motion, though more obscure than it ought to be, is not as silly as it seems to
those who take him to be defining only change of place. But I digress.) Robert Boyle, a
distinguished man who is experienced in the careful observation of Nature, wrote a little book On
Nature Itself, whose main point was, if I remember rightly, that we should take Nature to be just
the mechanism of bodies. We can agree with this, taken broadly, but two misunderstandings
should be headed off. One is that we must distinguish the most general principles of mechanism
from the specific applications of them; because to explain what happens we must bring in the
specific as well as the general. Thus, for example, in explaining a clock, it is not enough to say
that it is driven by a mechanical principle, unless you specify whether it is driven by a weight or by
a spring. The second point is this: I have already said a number of times that mechanism itself
has its origin not in material principles and mathematical reasons alone, but in some higher and (so
to speak) metaphysical source. I think that this will help to prevent the mechanical explanation of
natural things from being carried to the extreme of implying - to the detriment of piety - that
matter can stand by itself and that mechanism requires no intelligence or spiritual substance.
4. The foundation of the laws of Nature provides one notable example of this. This foundation is
not to be found, as has usually been thought, in the conservation of the same quantity of motion,
but rather in the conservation of the same quantity of active power - and indeed of the same
quantity of motive action, something that is far different from what the Cartesians understand as
quantity of motion. (Conservation of motive action, I discovered, happens for a most beautiful
reason.) And when two clearly first-rate mathematicians argued with me about this matter, partly
in private letters and partly in public, one came completely over to my side, and the other, after
long and careful thought, reached the point of abandoning all his objections and candidly
confessed that he had no response to one of my arguments.
So I was very surprised when Sturm, explaining the laws of motion in the part of his Elective
Physics that has been published, took for granted the common view of them, as if there could be
no objection to it (though he does acknowledge that this view rests not on demonstration but only
on a certain plausibility, something he repeats in his Defence). Perhaps he was writing before my
work came out, and then either didnt have time to revise what he had written or didnt think of
doing so - especially as he believed that the laws of motion are arbitrary, a view that strikes me as
not altogether coherent. For I believe that when God established the laws that are observed in
Nature, he took into account principles of wisdom and reasons of order. And I think that this
makes it clear that the consideration of final causes - that is, of purpose or intent - not only
advances virtue and piety in ethics and natural theology, but also helps us to find and lay bare
hidden truths in physics itself. (I pointed this out once, giving an example from the laws of optics,
and the famous Molyneux later accepted it in his Dioptrics.)

3
In treating final causes in his Elective Physics, Sturm listed my view as one of the theories
about this; but I wish he had examined it at length in his discussion, for he would surely have
taken the opportunity to say many excellent things about the argument - things remarkable for
their fruitfulness and also beneficial for piety.
5. But now we must consider what Sturm himself says about the notion of Nature in his
Defence, and what still seems to be lacking in what he says. In several places he grants that the
motions now taking place happen by virtue of the eternal law that God once set up, a law he then
calls a volition and a command; and that there is no need for a new divine command or volition,
let alone a new effort or work (section. 3). And Sturm rejects the view - which he says was
wrongly attributed to him by his opponent - that God moves a thing as a woodcutter moves an
axe, or as a miller controls a mill by holding back the water and then diverting it onto the wheel.
But this leaves something unexplained. The question is: did that previous volition or
command or laying down of a divine law bestow a mere extrinsic denomination on things? I
mean: is that commands only bearing on a stones falling at time T the sheer fact that God
earlier commanded that this stone fall at T? If that is the whole story, then Gods order made no
difference to the stone in itself, and merely gave it a purely relational property - the property of
having-been-commanded-by-God-to-fall-at-T - which I call an extrinsic denomination. Or did it
rather make some kind of enduring impression on the thing itself - perhaps one of which the thing
is not conscious - from which its actions and passions follow? That would be what Schelhammer
aptly describes as subjecting the thing to an inherent law, a law that the thing carries with it as
part of its intrinsic nature. The former alternative seems to be the doctrine of the authors of the
system of occasional causes, especially that of the very acute Malebranche, while the latter is the
usual view, and, I believe, the true one.
6. Here is why. That past command does not now exist, so it cant bring anything about now
unless back then it left behind some continuing effect which still endures and now operates.
Anyone who thinks otherwise, I maintain, gives up all clear explanations of things: if something
could be brought about here and now by a cause that is not here or not now, without an
intermediary, then anything could just as well be said to follow from anything else. So it wont do
just to say that when God created things in the beginning he willed that they should develop
according to a certain definite law, if we suppose his will to have been so ineffective that things
were not affected by it and it had no lasting effect on them.
And in any case it contradicts the notion of pure and absolute divine power and will to
suppose that God might will and yet not produce or change anything by doing so, to suppose that
he is always acting but never leaves any work or accomplishment behind. There must be some
connection, whether immediate or through some intermediary, between cause and effect. And so:
if the divine words Let the earth be fruitful and let the animals multiply had not made any change
in created things, if things had just the same dispositions after that command as they would have
had if no command had been given, it follows that either nothing now obeys that command or
the command was effective at the time when it was given and had to be perpetually renewed in
the future - which the learned author rightly rejects. But if on the other hand the law God laid
down left some trace of itself impressed on things - if his command made things become capable
of fulfilling the intention of the command - then we can say that a certain efficacy has been placed
in things - a form or a force, what we usually call a nature - through which the series of
phenomena follow in accordance with the dictates of the original command.

4
7. This inherent force can be clearly understood, but it cant be explained through the imagination,
that is, in terms of sizes, shapes, colours or the like; and of course it ought not to be explained in
that way, any more than the nature of the soul should be. For force is one of the things that are
grasped not by the imagination but by the understanding. So when Sturm asks for an imaginable
way in which an inherent law could work in bodies that were ignorant of it, I charitably interpret
him to mean that he wants an intelligible way for this to happen; for of course he wouldnt ask us
to picture sounds or to hear colours, and those requests would be absurd in the same kind of way
as is the demand for an account of force in terms that engage the imagination.
Anyway, if we were entitled to reject anything we couldnt explain, then Sturm would be
committed to something that he complains is wrongly attributed to him, namely, preferring to hold
that everything is moved by divine power alone rather than admit something called a nature, the
nature of which he does not know. Indeed, this line of thought could be equally well relied on by
Hobbes and others who hold that bodies are the only things that exist, because they have
convinced themselves that bodies are the only things that can be clearly explained, which for
them means that only bodies can be clearly explained through the imagination.
But they are thoroughly refuted by the fact that there is a power of acting in things, a power
that is not derived from anything that can be imagined. And simply to absorb this force into a
command of Gods - a command given just once in the past, having no effect on things and
leaving no traces of itself in them - is so far from making the matter easier to grasp that it is more
like abandoning the role of the philosopher altogether and cutting the Gordian knot with a sword.
But a clearer and more accurate explanation of active force than has yet been given can be derived
from my dynamics, which gives an account of the laws of Nature and of motion - an account
which is true and in conformity with how things are.
8. But if some defender of the new philosophy, which attributes inertia and inactivity to things,
went so far as to deprive Gods commands of all lasting effects and all efficacy in the future, and
didnt mind requiring God to keep working all the time (which Sturm wisely disavows), it would
be for him to decide how worthy of God he thinks this is. Also, quite apart from his bad
theology, this materialist would also be open to criticism unless he could explain how it is that
things themselves can endure through time although their attributes (what we call their nature)
cannot. For it is reasonable that just as the words let there be leave something behind, namely
the persisting thing itself, so the equally wonderful word blessing should leave something
behind it in things, namely a fruitfulness, an impulse to produce actions and to have effects - an
impulse from which a result follows if nothing prevents it. [The Latin for let there be is a single
word, fiat.]
To this I can add something that I have already explained elsewhere, even if I havent yet
made it perfectly clear to everyone, namely, that the very substance of things consists in a force
for acting and being acted upon. This implies that the only reason there can be things that last
through time is that the divine power impresses on them some force that lasts through time. In
the absence of such enduring force, no created substance - no soul - would remain the same thing
for any length of time, and thus nothing would be kept in existence by God. Everything would be
reduced to mere transitory or evanescent states of one permanent divine substance - reduced to
mere ghosts, one might say. Or, to put the same thing in other words: Nature itself, or the
substance of all things, would be God. This is a doctrine of ill repute that an able though
irreligious writer [Spinoza] has introduced to the world, or at least revived. If bodily things

5
contained nothing but matter, it would indeed be true to say that they consist in a flow, having
nothing substantial about them, as the Platonists once correctly recognized.
9. Of the two questions that I mentioned at the start of section 2, the second is this: Is there any
energeia in created things (which Sturm seems to deny)? That is, can created things properly and
truly be said to act? Once we understand that the inherent nature of things is the same as their
force of acting and being acted on, this question reduces to the first one. For where there is
action there must be a force for acting, and conversely where there is such a force there must be
at least the possibility of action, because a power that can never be exercised is empty. Still,
action and power are different things - one momentary, the other persisting - so we should
consider them separately. For a start, let us consider action.
Here I confess to having some difficulty in expounding Sturms views. For he denies that
created things, really act in and of themselves; but then he goes on to acknowledge that they do
act, because he somehow rejects the comparison between created things and an ax moved by a
woodcutter. I cant confidently draw any conclusions from this; I dont find him explaining clearly
enough just how far his view departs from the usual one, or explaining exactly what notion of
action he has in mind. (That is no trivial task, as the debates of the metaphysicians show!) Insofar
as I have made the notion of action clear to myself, I believe that the widely received
philosophical doctrine that actions are actions of things follows from that notion and is grounded
in it. And I think that this is so true that it also holds in the other direction: not only is everything
that acts an individual substance, but also that every individual substance acts continuously; and
this includes bodies, which are never absolutely at rest.
10. But now let us consider a little more closely the view of those who deny true and proper
action to created things. Robert Fludd, author of The Mosaic Philosophy, once denied it, and
nowadays some Cartesians do so; these are the ones who think that things dont act, but that
God is present in them and acts in accordance with what is appropriate for them; and who thus
think that things are not causes but occasions, and that they receive effects but dont bring
anything about or produce anything. [X is an occasion of Es occurring if it doesnt cause E to
occur but is what God goes by or attends to when he causes E to occur.] Although several
Cartesians had proposed this doctrine, it was Malebranche who presented it most persuasively,
bringing to it his characteristic sharpness of mind. But I cant see that anyone has given any good
reason for it.
Indeed, if this occasionalist view were extended so far as to eliminate even the immanent
actions of substances, then it would be as far from reason as it could possibly be. [A substances
immanent actions are ones in which it acts not upon other substances but upon itself; they are
the actions through which the substance develops, unfolds, in its inner nature. It connects with
growth: Leibniz will soon link acting immanently with acting vitally.] (Sturm rightly rejects the
denial of immanent actions in his Elective Physics, illustrating how cautious he is.) For who
would question that the mind thinks and wills, that we elicit in ourselves from ourselves many
thoughts and volitions, and that we have a certain spontaneity? To question this would not only
be to deny human liberty and to push the cause of evil back to God, but would also flout the
testimony of our innermost experience and consciousness, testimony which makes us think that
the things these Cartesians have transferred to God, without a semblance of a reason, are ours.
But if we attribute an inherent force to our mind, a force for producing immanent actions
(that is, for acting immanently), then it is reasonable to suppose that the same force will be present

6
in other souls or forms or (if you prefer) in the natures of substances other than human beings.
The alternative is to think that in the natural world as we know it only our minds are active, and
that all power for acting immanently and (so to speak) vitally is accompanied by intellect and
therefore belongs to human beings but not to all substances. There are no rational arguments for
such a claim; it cant be defended except by distorting the truth. As for the actions of created
things upon one another, that would be better dealt with elsewhere. In fact, I have already
explained a part of it: the goings-on between substances or monads are not strictly speaking
inter-actions at all, because they do not come from anythings flowing from substance to another,
but rather from a harmony between them which God set up in advance, so that each substance is
adjusted to things outside it while following the internal force and laws of its own nature. The
union of the soul with the body is another instance of this harmony.
11. That bodies are in themselves inert is true when it is properly understood, namely as meaning:
given that a body is in some respect at rest at some time, it cant set itself in motion in that
respect, and wont allow itself without resistance to be set in motion by another thing; any more
than it can spontaneously change either its velocity or direction without resistance, or easily and
without resistance allow another body to change them. And so it must be admitted that action
and motion cant arise purely from extension - the geometrical aspect of bodies - and that on the
contrary matter resists being moved through its natural inertia (Keplers good phrase), so that it
is not indifferent to motion and rest, as is commonly believed, but requires for its motion an active
force in proportion to its size. This passive force of resisting involves impenetrability but not only
that; and this force is where I locate the notion of primary matter or bulk, which is the same in all
bodies and proportional to the bodys size. And I show that from this there follow laws of motion
far different from what would obtain if there were nothing to bodies and their matter but
impenetrability and extension.
Moreover, just as matter has a natural inertia that is opposed to motion, so too in a body
itself, indeed in every substance, there is a natural constancy which is opposed to change. But this
doctrine does not support - in fact it opposes - those who deny that things act. For, certain as it is
that matter cannot begin motion of itself, it is equally certain that any body, considered on its
own, retains any impetus that it has been given, and remains constant in its mobility; that is, it has
a tendency to persevere in any series of changes which it has entered upon. (This has also been
shown by admirable experiments on the communication of motion in collisions.) Now, since these
activities and entelechies certainly cant be properties of primary matter or bulk, which is
essentially passive (as Sturm has clearly acknowledged - we shall see how in section 12), we have
to conclude that a first entelechy must be recognized in corporeal substance, a first subject of
activity. It is a primitive motive force which is additional to extension (or what is purely
geometrical) and bulk (or what is purely material); it is always active, but how it acts in collisions
of bodies varies according to what effort [conatus] and impetus are involved. And this substantial
principle is what is called the soul in living things and the substantial form in other things; and
insofar as it together with matter constitutes a substance that is truly one, or is one per se [= one
considered just in itself, in contrast to an aggregate or collection which we choose to treat as one
- for example a chain or a flock of sheep], it makes up what I call a monad. I choose this term,
with its implication that the items in question are the unitary things out of which everything is
composed, because if these true and real unities were eliminated, there would be only aggregates;
indeed it would follow that there would be no true entities at all in bodies. For although there are
atoms of substance, namely my monads, which count as atoms because they have no parts, there

7
are no atoms of bulk, or smallest extensions, or ultimate elements, because a continuum is not
made up out of points. In just the same way, there is no greatest bulk, no infinite extension, even
though for each thing there is always something bigger. But there is a being that is the greatest in
the intensity of its perfection, a being infinite in power. [The Latin for the contrast
extension/intensity is extensio/intensio.]
12. I see, however, that in his Defence Sturm has sought to attack the motive force inherent in
bodies through certain arguments. From numerous considerations, he writes, I shall here show
that corporeal substance is indeed incapable of any active motive power, I dont understand what
a non-active motive power might be. He also says that he will use two parallel arguments, one
from the nature of matter and body, the other from the nature of motion. I shall deal with one in
this section and the other in section 13. The former comes down to this: that matter is in its
nature and essentially a passive substance, and so it is no more possible for it to be given an active
force than it is for God to will that a stone should, while remaining a stone, be alive and rational which would make it a non-stone. Furthermore, all that we can suppose in a body are properties
of matter, and a property of a thing that is essentially passive cannot make the thing active.
Sturm puts this last point well. But his argument can be countered on the basis of a
philosophical position which is generally accepted and also true. I understand matter as either
secondary or primary. Secondary matter is indeed a complete substance, but it is not merely
passive; primary matter is merely passive, but is not a complete substance - for it to be complete
there must be added a soul or a form analogous to a soul, or a first entelechy, that is, a certain
urging or primitive force of acting which itself is an inherent law that God has impressed onto the
thing. I think this would be acceptable to the famous and ingenious man who recently defended
the view that body is made up of matter and spirit. But in my present context spirit is to be
understood not as an intelligent being (as it usually is) but as a soul or a form analogous to a soul;
and not as a mere property of a thing, but as something constitutive, substantial, enduring, what I
usually call a monad, in which there is something like perception and appetite. This commonly
accepted doctrine, which is consistent with the doctrine of the schoolmen (when that is properly
understood), must first be refuted if Sturms argument is to succeed.
From this it also follows that he cant be allowed his assumption that whatever is in corporeal
substance is a property of matter. For, as is well known, according to the commonly accepted
philosophy the bodies of living things contain souls which are certainly not properties of matter.
Sturm seems to have settled on the opposite view, and to deny all true sensation, and all soul
properly so-called, to brute animals; but he shouldnt assume this opinion as a basis for
demonstration before it itself is demonstrated. I hold the contrary view that it is not consistent
with the order or the beauty or the reasonableness of things that there should be something living
- that is, acting from within itself - in only a small portion of matter, when it would contribute to
greater perfection for such things to be everywhere. And there is no reason why souls or things
analogous to them should not be everywhere, even though dominant and consequently intelligent
souls, like human souls, cannot be everywhere.
13. Sturms second argument, from a premise about motion, seems to me no more compelling. He
says that a things moving is merely its successively existing in different places. This is not entirely
satisfactory; it expresses what results from motion rather than its formal definition, as it is called.
Still, let us go along with it for the moment. It does not rule out there being motive force. For at
any moment in its motion, a body is not merely in a place that exactly fits it, but it also has an urge

8
or tendency to change its place, so that its next state follows from the present one through the
force of its nature. If this were not so, then a moving body would not differ in the least, at any
moment, from a body at rest; and Sturms position would entail that there is no clear basis for
distinguishing one body from another, because in a plenum there is no way of distinguishing
between masses that are uniform in themselves unless they are distinguished through motion. And
it would also follow that absolutely nothing changes in bodies, and that everything would always
remain the same. Here is why.
Sturm has eliminated active forces or impetus, and with them all other qualities and
properties except existing in this place and successively coming to exist in some other place; so
he ought to hold that no portion of matter differs from other equal and congruent portions of
matter. In that case, if (as Sturm must hold) one momentary state of the corporeal world differs
from another purely through the transposition of equal and congruent portions of matter which
are in every way alike, then obviously this perpetual substitution of indistinguishables wont
provide any way of distinguishing different momentary states of the world from one another. For
the only thing that could be attributed to one portion of matter and not another would be merely
extrinsic - it would concern what will happen, namely that the portion in question will later be in
such and such another place. But in the present there is no difference. Indeed, there is not even a
properly grounded difference between the present and the future, because we will never arrive at a
time that we can distinguish from the present. This is because, assuming perfect uniformity in
matter itself, we have no way to distinguish one place from another, or one portion of matter from
another portion in the same place. It is also unavailing to turn to shape in addition to motion. For
in a mass that is perfectly homogeneous, undivided, and full, no shape - that is, no boundary or
distinction between different parts of the mass - can occur unless motion itself yields it. And
motion does not yield it: if motion doesnt contain any mark for distinguishing anything, it cant
provide any distinguishing mark for shape. Since everything that replaced something else would
be perfectly like it, no observer - not even an omniscient one - would detect even the slightest sign
that a change had occurred. It would be just as though there were no change or differentiation in
bodies, and we could never explain the different appearances that our senses show to us. Here is
an example of something similar.
Let us imagine two perfect and concentric spheres, exactly alike over-all and in every part,
one enclosed in the other with not even the smallest gap between them. Now assume that
the enclosed sphere either revolves or is at rest. Not even an angel (to go only as far up as
angels and leave God out of it) could detect any difference between its states at different
times, or have any evidence as to whether the enclosed sphere is at rest or revolves, and
according to what law of motion. Indeed, the situation is even worse than that, because
just as the lack of any difference prevents us from determining whether there is motion,
the lack of a difference and of a gap prevents us from determining a boundary between the
spheres.
Even if those who have not dug deeply enough into these matters may not have recognized this, it
ought to be regarded as certain that such states of affairs are alien to the nature and order of
things, and that nowhere is there perfect similarity (this is one of my important new axioms). It
also follows from this that in Nature there are neither perfectly hard corpuscles, nor a perfectly
thin fluid, nor a universally diffused finely divided matter, nor ultimate elements of the kind some
call primary and secondary.

9
I think it is because Aristotle (who in my view is deeper than many think) saw some of this
that he judged that there must be qualitative alteration in addition to change of place, and that
matter is not everywhere the same, or it would never alter. And in fact this dissimilarity or
qualitative difference, and also alteration (Aristotles alloisis, which he did not adequately
explain), result from different degrees and directions of impulses, and thus from properties of the
monads that things contain. From this we can see that there must be more to bodies than a mere
homogeneous mass and movement of it from place to place - which would not really change
anything. Those who believe in atoms and vacuum do of course allow variety in matter, making
some of it divisible and some indivisible, one place full and another empty. But atoms and vacuum
should both be rejected (as I came to recognise when I grew up).
Sturm adds that it is Gods will that enables matter to exist through different times, and asks:
why not also attribute to Gods will matters existing here and now? I reply that this, like
everything else that involves perfection, is certainly due to God. But the fact of that first and
universal cause conserving everything does not take away the natural subsistence of a thing
coming into existence or its naturally persevering in existence thereafter; rather, it produces that
natural subsistence and persistence. And, in the same way, it does not take away the natural
efficacy of a thing in motion or its natural perseverance in acting once it has begun; rather, it
supports that efficacy and action.
14. Many other things in Sturms Defence are problematic, such as his statement that when
motion is transferred from one ball to another through several intermediate balls, the last one is
moved by the same force as the first. It seems to me that on the contrary it is moved with an
equivalent force, but not by the same force. That is because - surprising as it may seem - when
anything is pushed by the impact on it of a neighbouring body what sets it in motion is its own
force, its elasticity. (I am not now discussing the cause of this elasticity, and I dont deny that it
must be explained mechanically through the motion of a fluid flowing through bodies.) Also, his
statement that a thing that cant set itself in motion cant keep itself in motion is truly astonishing!
On the contrary: it is an established fact that while force is necessary for producing motion, once
an impetus is given no new force is needed for the motion to continue; indeed, a force is needed
to stop it. Conservation by a universal cause is not at issue here; as I have already said, if it took
away the efficacy of things, it would also take away their existence.
15. From this we can see that the doctrine of occasional causes which some people defend can
lead to dangerous consequences, though these are doubtless not intended by its very learned
defenders. (The dangers would be averted if the doctrine were modified in certain ways; Sturm
makes some of these changes, and seems poised to make others.) Far from increasing the glory of
God by dethroning the idol of Nature, this doctrine seems to join Spinoza in making God be the
very nature of things, reducing created things to mere states or properties of the one divine
substance: for something that answers to occasionalisms account of created things, that is,
something that doesnt act, has no active force, has no distinguishing features, and finally has
within itself no reason or ground for staying in existence, can in no way be a substance. I am
perfectly sure that Sturm, a man outstanding in both piety and intellect, is very far from such
perversions. No doubt, then, he will either show clearly how on his doctrine some substance or
even some change remains in things, or he will surrender to the truth.
16. I have many reasons to suspect that I havent properly understood Sturms views, nor he
mine. Somewhere in his Elective Physics he acknowledges that a certain small part of the divine

10
power can, and even in a way should, be understood as belonging to and attributed to things. (I
suppose he means a certain expression, likeness, or immediate effect of the divine power, since
that power itself certainly cant be divided into parts.) His words suggest that he means this in the
sense in which we speak of the soul as a small part of the divine breath, in which case the
disagreement between us vanishes. But I hesitate to attribute this view to him, because it occurs
hardly anywhere else in his book, and I dont see him presenting anything that follows from it.
On the contrary, I note that many things he says are hardly consistent with this view, and also that
the Defence leads in an entirely different direction. To be sure, when in certain letters Sturm first
objected to my published views on inherent force, and I replied, he generously responded that we
differ only verbally and not in doctrine. But when, having taken note of this, I raised a few other
points, he immediately switched and cited many differences between us, which I acknowledge.
Quite recently, however, he set these differences aside and again wrote that any differences
between us are only verbal - to me a most gratifying conclusion. Therefore, on the occasion of
this latest Defence, I have tried to set the matter out in such a way that we can at last get clear
about our views and about their truth. For this distinguished gentleman has great insight, and also
skill as an expositor; so we can expect that his work on this important issue will throw
considerable light on it, and thus that my own labours will be useful in giving him an opportunity
to consider some important aspects of the present matter that have been missed by previous
authors, and to illuminate with his usual industry and power of judgment. I think I have
supplemented these with new, deeper, and more broadly grounded axioms, from which there may
some day arise a restored and corrected system of philosophy, midway between the formal and
the material, a system that combines and preserves both.

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. This Latin work was meant as a more
rigorous version of the over-all argument of the vastly longer but more informal Theodicy, written in French.
First launched: March 2005
* * * * *

Making the Case for God in terms of his Justice,


which is Reconciled with the rest of his Perfections
and with all his Actions
By G. W. Leibniz
1. Constructing a defence in the case of God is doing something not only for his glory but also for
our advantage, in that it may move us to honour his greatness, i.e. his power and wisdom, as
well as to love his goodness and the justice and holiness that stem from it, and to imitate these
as best we can. This defence will have two parts - a preparatory one and then the principal one.
The first part studies the greatness and the goodness of God separately. The second part
concerns these two perfections taken together, including the providence that God extends to all
created things and the control that he exercises over creatures endowed with intelligence,
particularly in all matters concerning piety and salvation. The first part will occupy sections 2-39,
the second part sections 40-144.
2. Stiff-necked theologians have taken account of Gods greatness at the expense of his
goodness, while more relaxed ones have done the opposite. True orthodoxy consists in paying
equal respect to both these perfections. The error of neglecting Gods greatness amounts to
likening him to a human being; the error of neglecting his goodness amounts to likening him to a
despot.
3. The greatness of God has to be resolutely defended, particularly against the Socinians and some
semi-Socinians [whom Leibniz names]. This greatness can be brought under two main headings,
Gods omnipotence and his omniscience.
4. Gods omnipotence implies that he does not depend on anything else, and also that everything
else depends on him.
5. God is independent of everything else in two different ways: in his existence and also in his
actions. He is independent in his existence in that he is a necessary and eternal being, and is what
is called an Ens a se. Because he exists necessarily, nothing was needed to cause him to come
into existence; which is why he doesnt depend on anything for his existence. A consequence of
this is that he is immense.
6. In his actions he is independent both naturally and morally. He is naturally independent in
that he is absolutely free, and is not made to act by anything but himself. He is morally
independent since he . . . . has no superior.
7. Everything depends on God - not just every actual thing but also everything that is possible,
i.e. that doesnt imply contradiction.

2
8. The possibility of things - even the ones that have no actual existence - has a reality based on
Gods existence. For if God didnt exist nothing would be possible. The ideas in his intellect
contain everything that is possible, and have done so from eternity.
9. Actual things depend on God for their existence as well as for their actions, and depend not
only on his intellect but also on his will. Their existence depends on God because as well as
having been freely created by him they are kept in existence by him. There is a sound doctrine
according to which this divine keeping-in-existence is a continual creation, comparable to the rays
continually produced by the sun. The persistence of created things doesnt come from Gods
essence, but rather from his will, and it isnt necessary, because the relevant acts of Gods will
are contingent.
[In sections 10-12, 26-7, and in about half the sections from 61 to 76, Leibniz will write about
Gods concurring in things that happen (Latin concurre). Understood literally, this is his going
along with the events. But as used by Leibniz and his contemporaries the Latin word has a wider
meaning than that: they would say that God concurs in events that he actively causes as well as
ones that he goes along with, i.e. allows to happen, i.e. could have prevented but didnt.]
10. Things depend on God in their actions, because he concurs in their actions to the extent that
these actions have some something in the nature of a perfection about them; and any such
perfection must have flowed from God.
11. Gods concurrence is immediate in this sense: if God causes x which causes y, this involves
him in concurring in ys production just as much, and just as directly, as he concurs in the
production of x.
12. Gods concurrence is also specific in this sense: it is directed not merely to the things existing
and to its acting thus and so, but also to its having such-and-such specific states and qualities - all
its states and qualities insofar as they have something perfect about them. Any such perfection like the perfection in the things actions - always flows from God, the father of light and giver of
everything good. (What I have said about the immediacy and specificity of Gods concurrence
applies not only to his miracles, but even to his ordinary, non-miraculous concurrence.)
13. Having dealt with Gods power, I turn now to his wisdom - which is called omniscience
because it is so vast. This wisdom is the most perfect possible (just as is Gods omnipotence), and
so it holds within itself every idea and every truth - that is, everything (simple or complex) that
can be an object of the understanding. It includes equally everything possible as well as everything
actual.
14. Gods knowledge of the possibles constitutes what is called knowledge by simple
intelligence. Its objects are the things as well as their relationships, necessary and contingent.
15. Contingent possibles can be looked at in either of two ways: either separately or as
correlated in infinite possible worlds. Each possible world is perfectly known to God, though only
one of them has been brought into existence. Theres no question of there being more than one
actual world, because our single universe includes all the created things there ever were or are or
will be, anywhere; and that is what I here call one world.
16. Gods knowledge of actual things - i.e. of the world that has been brought into existence and
of all its past, present, and future states - is called knowledge by vision. Knowledge by simple
intelligence can also be focussed on this same one and only actual world, viewing it merely as

3
possible; what knowledge by vision adds to that is just something God knows about himself,
namely his decree to bring this world into actual existence. Because the decree is absolutely
specific, fully detailed, ordaining the existence not just of some world or of a world that is of this
or that general kind but of just precisely THIS world, in all its detail, knowledge of this decree
is all that is needed as a basis for divine foreknowledge.
17. Knowledge by simple intelligence, taken in the way I have expounded it, includes what is
commonly called middle knowledge. [This phrase was coined by Luis de Molina to name
knowledge of counterfactual conditional truths. It is included in knowledge by simple intelligence,
as defined in section 14, because knowledge of counterfactual truths is one kind of knowledge
about connections between possibilities. Leibniz is here taking middle knowledge in its common
meaning to be restricted to conditionals about possible futures - what would happen if at some
later time such-and-such were to be the case. He now goes on to propose a broader definition for
middle knowledge that removes that restriction; and he proposes a narrower definition of
knowledge by simple intelligence so that it no longer includes simple knowledge.] However,
there is a different way of drawing the lines between kinds of knowledge. We could restrict
knowledge by simple intelligence to knowledge of what truths are possible and what are
necessary, leaving out knowledge of contingent relations between possibilities. Then we could
take middle knowledge in a broader sense in which it covers not only knowledge of conditional
future events but generally knowledge of all contingent possibles - including truths to the effect
that if such-and-such had been the case in the past then so-and-so would also have been the case.
In this revised classification, knowledge by vision is untouched, and still deals with contingent
truths about what is actual. Now we have middle knowledge genuinely in the middle, sharing
one feature with knowledge by simple intelligence (namely, dealing only with truths about
possibilities), and a different feature with knowledge by vision (namely, dealing only with
contingent truths).
[Just to make sure this proposed new classification is clear, think about these propositions
(supposing them all to be true):
1. It is impossible for something to be smaller than a part of itself.
2. If the oceans had been warmer, there would have been more rain.
3. If the sun were to go cold tomorrow, all life on earth would cease within a month.
4. The earth will become steadily warmer through the next two decades.
What Leibniz sees himself as doing is moving 2 out of knowledge by simple intelligence and into
middle knowledge along with 3; while 4 remains in knowledge by vision, as before.]
18. Having considered Gods greatness; I now turn to his goodness. Just as wisdom (=
knowledge of truth) is a perfection of the understanding, so goodness (= trying to do what is
good) is a perfection of the will. Indeed all will, even that of creatures, aims at the good, or
anyway of the apparent good; but we needt add or apparent in the case of God, because his
will has no object that isnt actually both good and true.
19. So I shall be looking at both the will and its object - i.e. what it takes account of and is moved
by - namely good and evil, which give to the will reasons for willing and rejecting respectively.
As to the will, I shall consider both the nature of will and the different kinds of will.
20. The nature of the will requires freedom, which consists in the voluntary actions being
spontaneous and deliberate. So freedom rules out the kind of necessity that suppresses

4
deliberation. [One might think that this illustrates Leibnizs point: when you are in free fall from
a great height, you cant try to decide whether to go on falling or rather to stay where you are.
But we see in the next section that his primary topic is Gods freedom, to which such examples
are irrelevant.]
21. Something is metaphysically necessary if its opposite is absolutely impossible, i.e. implies a
contradiction. If it is morally necessary, its opposite is not contradictory but merely unfitting.
Gods freedom rules out the former of these kinds of necessity, but not the latter. For although
God cant fall into error in choosing, and therefore always chooses what is most fitting, this
inability to make worse choices is not an obstacle to his freedom; indeed, it serves only to make
his freedom even more perfect. If there were only one possibility for his will to aim at - i.e. if only
one total state of affairs were possible - that would be incompatible with his freedom; for then
there would nothing for him to choose, and no basis for praising him for the wisdom and
goodness of his actions.
22. Some theologians have maintained that only the actual - only what God has chosen - is
possible. They are wrong, or at least they have expressed themselves clumsily. Diodorus the Stoic
made this mistake, according to Cicero, and Christians who have made it include Abelard,
Wycliff, and Hobbes. I shall deal with freedom more fully later on, when human freedom will have
to be defended. [Human freedom will come up in sections 97-8 and 101-6.]
23. That was about the nature of Gods will. Now I turn to the varieties of it. For my present
purpose two distinctions are the most important: the distinction of antecedent will from
consequent will, and the distinction of productive will from permissive will.
24. The former distinguishes
acts of will that are antecedent or prior from those that are consequent or final;
which is the same as distinguishing
will that inclines from will that decrees or lays down the law.
This is tantamount to distinguishing
will that is incomplete from will that is complete or absolute.
The antecedent will is directed toward some particular good considered in terms of how good it is
in itself, but without reference to how it would fit in with the rest of what would be the case; so
that this is only a will secundum quid [Latin, meaning a will according to something]. The
consequent will on the other hand takes account of the whole world-wide state of affairs and
contains a final decision; so it is absolute and issues in a decree such as Let there be light. Since
it is Gods will that is in question here, the decree always obtains its full effect. --Some authors,
however, have a different understanding of this distinction (especially of the antecedent side of
it). They hold that the antecedent will of God (e.g. that all men be saved) comes before mens
actions are taken into account, and that the consequent will (e.g. that some men be damned)
comes after the facts about mens actions are taken into account. [The next two sentences are
taken straight from Schreckers 1965 translation, with no understanding of how they fit with what
has gone before, but also with no reason to dispute them as a translation of Leibnizs two Latin
sentences.] But the first also precedes and the second also follows other acts of the divine will.
For the very consideration of the actions of the creatures is not only presupposed by certain acts
of the divine will, but also presupposes in its turn certain acts of the divine will without which
actions of the creatures could not occur. That is why St. Thomas, Duns Scotus, and others
understand this distinction in the way I do. For the rest, if you reject my way of drawing the line, I

5
wont quarrel with you about words; and you may if you like substitute the terms prior and
final for antecedent and consequent respectively.
25. Gods antecedent will is entirely serious or weighty, and pure or unmixed with
qualifications or afterthoughts. It shouldnt be confused with mere velleity (as expressed in I
would do x if I could, and I wish I could), which doesnt exist in God; nor should it be confused
with conditional will, which is not in question here. Gods antecedent will tends toward bringing
about all good and repelling all evil, the tendency being strong in proportion to how good or evil
the good and evil are. God himself confirmed how serious - how unhesitant and unmixed - this
will is when he so firmly asserted that he did not want the death of the sinner, wanted all men to
be saved, and was opposed to sin, all of which were examples of antecedent will.
26. A consequent act of will arises from all antecedent acts of will taken together. When they
cant all be carried out together, the maximum effect that can be obtained by wisdom and power
will be obtained. This consequent act of will is also commonly called a decree.
27. It is clear from this that even the antecedent acts of will are not altogether in vain; they have
their own efficacy. They do produce effects; but such an act of will doesnt always produce the
full effect it aims at, because it is restricted by the influence of other antecedent acts of will.
However, the decisive or consequent act of will, which results from all the inclining or
antecedent ones, always produces its full effect - provided that the required power isnt lacking,
which of course in Gods case it never is. This maxim:
He who has the power and the will does what he wills
holds only for this decisive or consequent act of will. (Its not holding for antecedent acts of will
is obvious. The reason why it does hold for consequent acts of will is that this power is supposed
to imply also the knowledge required for action, so that nothing intrinsic or extrinsic is lacking for
action.) The fact that not all Gods acts of will produce their full effects doesnt detract from the
felicity and perfection of his will; for he wills what is good only according to how good it is, and
the better the result obtained the more satisfied his will is.
28. The second distinction that I introduced in section 23 divides the will into productive and
permissive. The former is aimed at the actions of the agent himself, the latter at actions by
others. Sometimes it is all right to permit (that is, not prevent) actions that it is not all right to
commit, as for instance acts of sin (more about this soon). The proper object of permissive will is
not the permitted action but the permission itself.
29. So far I have dealt with the will; now I shall study the reasons for willing, namely good and
evil. Each of these is of three kinds: metaphysical, physical, and moral.
30. Metaphysical good or evil consists in the perfection or imperfection of all created things,
including those not endowed with intelligence. Christ said that the heavenly father cares for the
lilies of the field and for the sparrows; and Jonah said that God watches over the lower animals.
31. Physical good or evil is understood as applying especially to what is helpful or hurtful to
thinking substances. The evil of punishment falls into this category.
32. Moral good or evil is attributed to the virtuous or vicious actions of thinking substances, for
example the evil of guilt [this refers to being guilty, not feeling guilty]. In this sense physical evil
is usually an effect of moral evil, though not always in the same subjects. [That is, my moral evil
may cause you to suffer a physical evil.] This may seem to be unfair, but eventually the balance

6
will swing the other way so that even the innocents wont wish not to have suffered. See section
55 below.
33. If something is good in itself then God wills it, at least antecedently [see sections 24-5]. He
wills the perfection of all things, quite universally, and more specifically he wills the felicity and
virtue of all thinking substances; and, as I have already pointed out, he wills each good according
to its degree of goodness.
34. Gods antecedent will doesnt have evils in its view except in his willing that evils be
suppressed. But they do in an indirect way come into his consequent will. For sometimes greater
goods couldnt be obtained if certain evils were eliminated, and in such a case removing the evil
wouldnt produce the effect aimed at in Gods consequent will. Thus, though suppressing the
evil in question is at home in the antecedent will, it doesnt push its way into the consequent will.
That is why Thomas Aquinas was right in saying, following St. Augustine, that God permits
certain evils to occur lest many goods be prevented.
35. Sometimes metaphysical and physical evils (such as imperfections in things and the evils
of punishment in persons) become subsidiary goods in their role as means to greater goods - that
is, to things that are good enough to more than outweigh the evils.
36. Moral evil or the evil of guilt, however, never functions as a legitimate means. For (as the
apostle says) evil ought not to be done so that good may ensue [Romans 3:8]. But sometimes
moral evil functions as an indispensable and concomitant condition of something good - what they
call a condition sine qua non [= a condition without which not], in this case a condition
without which the desired good could not be obtained. . . . What lets evil into the world is not
the principle of absolute necessity but rather the principle of fitness. There must, indeed, be a
reason for God to permit an evil rather than not to permit it; but no reason except the good can
determine the divine will.
37. A further point: the evil of guilt is never the object of Gods productive will, but only
sometimes of his permissive will, for he himself never commits a sin though in some cases he
permits a sin to be committed.
38. As regards permitting sin, there is a general rule that holds for God and man, namely: nobody
ought to permit someone else to sin unless by stopping him he would himself be doing something
evil. In a nutshell: it is your duty to prevent someone else from sinning unless it is your duty not
to. Ill say more about this in section 66.
39. Thus, what God wills as his ultimate goal includes the best; but any good - one that isnt part
of the best - may be a subordinate goal; and he may often aim at things that are neither good nor
bad, such as the evil of punishment, as means to some goal that he has. But the evil of guilt is
something God aims at as an end only when it is a necessary condition for something that for
other reasons ought to be. In this sense, as Christ has said, It is impossible but that offences will
come [Matthew 18:7; Luke 17:1].
40. Up to here I have dealt with the greatness and the goodness of God separately, presenting
them in preparation for the main part of this treatise. Now I come to what concerns those two
perfections taken together. The territory that they share involves everything that comes from
both Gods goodness and his greatness (that is, his wisdom and power); they work together
jointly because greatness makes it possible for goodness to attain its intended effect. This joint

7
work falls into two categories, corresponding to the two ranges across which Gods goodness
extends. His goodness is directed either (1) generally to all created things or (2) specifically to
thinking things. When combined with his greatness, Gods goodness brings about (1)
providence in the creation and government of the universe, and (2) justice in ruling, specifically,
the substances that are endowed with reason.
41. Gods wisdom (which is an aspect of his power) directs his goodness across the totality of
things he has created. It follows that divine providence shows itself in the total series of things
and events that constitute the universe, and that from out of the infinity of possible series God
has selected the best - so that that best universe is the one that actually exists. All things in the
universe are in mutual harmony, and the truly wise will therefore never form a judgment about it
without taking them all into consideration and applying his judgment to the universe as a whole.
Gods volitions regarding the parts taken separately can belong to antecedent will; but his volition
with regard to the whole must be understood as a decree, i.e.as an example of consequent will.
42. Strictly speaking there was no need for a succession of divine decrees; we can say that there
was just one decree of God - the decree that this series of items should exist - made after all the
elements of the series had been considered and compared with the items in other possible series.
43. And that is why Gods decree cant be changed - because all the reasons that might count
against to it have already been considered. But the only necessity that arises out of this is the
necessity of the consequence (also called hypothetical necessity) - meaning that it follows
necessarily from something true, but not that it is in itself necessary. This is the kind of necessity
that arises from the Gods knowing and ordaining things in advance. It isnt absolute necessity,
i.e. the necessity of the consequent - something that doesnt merely follow necessarily but is
itself necessary. That is because some other series of things and events was equally possible possible in its parts and possible as a whole. By choosing the contingent series that he did, God
didnt change its status as contingent.
44. Despite the certainty of the events in this universe, it is not a waste of time for us to pray and
work to obtain the future goods that we desire. For when God looked at this actual series in his
mind, before deciding to create it, what he saw also contained the prayers that the series would
include if it were chosen to become actual, just as it contained all the other causes of all the
effects that the series would include. So these prayers and other causes have contributed to the
choice of this series and of the events figuring in it. And the reasons that now move God to do
this or permit that moved him back then to decide what he would do and what he would permit.
45. As I have already remarked, although events are settled by divine foreknowledge and
providence, they are not settled in the manner of something that is absolutely necessary. In the
case of the latter, we can say that it will be so, no matter what we do; but this doesnt hold for
events that are merely settled by their causes and reasons, causes that may include prayers and
hard work. So to say that because the future is settled prayers and hard work are useless is to
commit what the ancients called the lazy mans fallacy. See also sections 106-7 below.
46. Thus the infinite wisdom of the almighty, allied with his boundless goodness, has brought it
about that nothing better could have been created, all things considered, than what God has
created. As a consequence all things are in complete harmony and collaborate in the most
beautiful way:

8
formal causes or souls collaborating with material causes or bodies,
efficient or natural causes collaborating with final or moral causes, and
the realm of grace collaborating with the realm of nature.
[An example to illustrate those Aristotelian technical terms: the formal cause of a coin is its
design or plan, its material cause is the metal it is made of, its efficient cause is the action of the
die that stamps it out, and its final cause is commerce, the purpose for which it was made.]
47. So whenever some detail in Gods work appears open to criticism, the right thing to think is
that we dont know enough about it to make a judgment, and that someone who was wise
enough would judge that God could not have made a better choice.
48. From this it also follows that there is no greater happiness than to serve such a good master,
and that we should therefore love God above everything else and trust him without reservation.
49. The strongest reason for the choice of the best series of events (namely, this world of ours)
was Christ, God become man [Leibniz gives that in Greek], who was the most perfect of
creatures and had to be contained in that series as a part of the created universe - indeed as the
head of it. That is why it had to be the noblest of all possible series. To him all power in heaven
and on earth has been given, in him all the peoples were to be blessed, and through him every
creature will be freed from slavery of corruption to enjoy the freedom and glory of the children of
God.
50. So far I have dealt with providence, which is Gods goodness as expressed in a general
way. Now we come to his goodness specifically towards thinking creatures. [For this
general/specific distinction, see the end of section 40 above.] Gods goodness towards thinking
creatures, combined with his wisdom, constitutes justice, the highest degree of which is holiness.
Justice, in the broad sense of the word, covers not only strict law but also fairness and therefore
also laudable mercy.[See section 40 above for (1) this distinction between the general and the
specific ranges of Gods goodness, and (2) the thesis that Gods justice is a combination of his
goodness towards thinking creatures and his greatness (one component of which is his wisdom).]
51. Justice taken in a general sense can be divided into justice in a more special sense and
holiness. Justice in the special sense has to do with physical good and evil as applied to thinking
beings; holiness has to do with moral good and evil.
52. Physical good and evil occur both in this life and in the life to come. There is much complaint
that in this life human nature is exposed to many evils. Those who feel this way overlook the fact
that a large part of these evils is the effect of human guilt. Indeed they are ungrateful, not
sufficiently recognizing the divine goods of which we are the beneficiaries, and focussing more on
our sufferings than on our blessings.
53. Others are particularly displeased that physical good and evil are not distributed in proportion
to moral good and evil - i.e. that frequently good people are miserable while bad ones prosper.
54. To these complaints there are two answers. The first was given by the apostle Paul: The
afflictions of this life are not worthy of comparison with the future glory that will be revealed to
us [2 Corinthians 4:17]. The second was suggested by Christ himself in an elegant comparison: If
the grain falling to the soil didnt die, it wouldnt bear fruit [John 12:24].
55. Thus not only will our afflictions be abundantly compensated for, but they will serve to
increase our happiness. These evils are not only profitable, but also indispensable. See section 32.

9
56. A still greater difficulty arises with regard to the life to come. For there too (it is objected) evil
by far prevails over good, since few are elected for salvation. Well, Origen flatly denied eternal
damnation. Some of the ancient authors - Prudentius among them - thought that only a few would
be damned for eternity. Others have thought that eventually all Christians would be saved, and
Jerome seems sometimes to have leaned this way.
57. But these paradoxical views should be rejected, and we dont need any of them to resolve the
difficulty. The true answer is that the whole sweep of the celestial realm must not be evaluated
according to our knowledge. For the divine vision can give to the blessed such a glory that the
sufferings of all the damned cant be compared to such a good. Furthermore, scripture
acknowledges an incredible multitude of blessed angels. Also, nature itself shows us through new
inventions - the telescope and the microscope - a great variety of created things, so that it is
easier for us than it was for St. Augustine and other ancients to defend the predominance of good
over evil.
58. Our earth is merely a satellite of one sun; for obvious reasons there are as many suns as there
are fixed stars; and for all we know there is an immense space beyond all the fixed stars. Well,
then, nothing prevents those suns and particularly the region beyond all suns from being inhabited
by blessed creatures. The planets themselves may be or become happy paradises. In the fathers
house are many mansions, as Christ himself has rightly said of the heaven of the blessed [John
14:2]. Some theologians call that region the Empyreum and place it beyond the stars (i.e. the
suns), but we cant say anything for sure about the region of the blessed. Still, we can think it
likely that even in the visible world there are many habitations for rational creatures, with no limits
to how happy they may be.
59. Thus the argument whose premise concerns how many of the damned there are is based on
nothing but our ignorance, and, as I indicated earlier, can be destroyed by a single answer: if
everything was made clear to us, we would see that a better world than the one God has made
couldnt have been chosen. As to the punishment of the damned, it continues because the
wickedness of the damned continues. In his excellent book On the State of the Damned the
eminent theologian Johann Fechtius has thoroughly refuted those who deny that sins earn
punishment in the after-life, as though the justice essential to God could ever cease!
60. The most serious difficulties, however, are those that concern Gods holiness, that one of his
perfections that has to do with the moral good and evil of others. [The term holiness is
introduced and explained in section 50 above.] This perfection makes him love virtue and hate
vice in others, and keep them as far as possible from the stain and contagion of sin. And yet
scattered across the middle of the kingdom of God almighty there are rogues triumphant! Serious
as it is, this difficulty can be overcome with the help of the divine light, even in this life, so that the
pious who love God can be satisfied about it as much as need be.
61. The objection, then, alleges that God concurs too much in sin and man not enough: God
concurs too much, both physically and morally, in moral evil, through productively and
permissively willing sins. [(1) The distinction between productive and permissive will is
introduced in section 28 above. It now appears that it is equated with the distinction between
physical and moral concurrence in an outcome. On this, see section 68 below. (2) By the
puzzling phrase and man not enough Leibniz means that not enough of the responsibility for sin
is laid at mans door (because too much of it is laid at Gods). See section 74 below.]

10
62. Those who take this view observe that moral concurrence would occur even if God didnt
actively contribute to sin, because he permits it - i.e. could prevent it and doesnt.
63. But, they add, God in fact doesnt merely permit (or not prevent) the sinners, but positively
helps them in a certain manner - morally and physically - by providing forces and occasions for
them. Hence the passages in the sacred scriptures that say that God hardens the hearts of the
evildoers and incites them.
64. That is why certain authors even go so far as to conclude that God is morally or physically (or
both) an accomplice in sin, even an author of sin. By this means they destroy Gods holiness as
well as his justice and goodness.
65. Others prefer to tear down his omniscience and omnipotence or, in one word, his greatness
[see section 3 above]. According to them, God either doesnt foresee the evil, or doesnt care
about it, or cant hold back its flood. This was the opinion of the Epicureans and of the
Manichaeans. Something similar is taught, less crudely, by the Socinians, who rightly want to
protect the divine holiness from pollution, but wrongly abandon Gods other perfections.
66. To respond first to the point about moral concurrence through permission, I need only to
return to something that I launched before, namely that permitting sin is legitimate when it turns
out to be obligatory; that is, it is morally possible when it is morally necessary. This is the case
whenever you cant prevent someone elses sin except by committing an offence yourself . . . . A
soldier on guard duty, for instance, particularly in a time of danger, ought not to desert his post in
order to prevent two friends from fighting the duel for which they are preparing. See also section
36. When I speak something as being obligatory on God, I dont mean obligatory in its human
sense; I mean it in the sense appropriate to God, namely as meaning that if he didnt do the thing
in question he would be derogating his perfections. [The word derogate, which seems
unavoidable as a translation for the Latin derogo, means take something away from or impair
the force of or disparage or, almost, insult.]
67. Next point: if God hadnt selected for creation the best series of events (in which sin does
occur), he would have admitted something worse than all creaturely sin; for he would have
derogated his own perfections and (in consequence of that) all other perfections as well. For
divine perfection can never fail to select the most perfect, since choosing what is less good has
the nature of choosing some evil. If God lacked power or erred in his thinking or failed in his
will, that would be the end of God, and therefore of everything.
68. Some people - especially and objectionably the Epicureans and Manichaeans - have held that
Gods physical concurrence in sin makes him the cause and the author of sin, which if it were
right would make the evil of guilt be something aimed at by Gods productive will. [For the
equation of physical concurrence in x with productively making x happen rather than merely
permissively allowing x to happen, see sections 61-2 above.] But here again God himself,
enlightening the mind, is his own defender vis--vis pious souls who eagerly search for truth. So I
shall explain how God concurs in the matter of sin (i.e. in the part of evil that is good) but does
not concur in its form. [Leibniz seems to mean that God concurs in some happening that is in fact
a sin, but doesnt concur in it as a sin or because it is sinful.]
69. So here is the right reply: In creatures there is no perfection - no purely positive reality - that
isnt due to God. This holds also for their good and evil actions; but an imperfection in an act
consists in a privation - a lack, the agents not having something - and it comes from the basic

11
limitedness that all created things have. Every created thing is limited in the sense that its
greatness, power, knowledge, and all its other perfections are limited or restricted. I need to
explain carefully what the status is of this limitedness of created things.
This limitedness is essential to created things. Its not that they are limited because they
were created. On the contrary, their limitedness was already inherent in their essence
considered as mere possibilities, i.e. considered as belonging to the region of eternal truth,
the domain of the ideas that present themselves to the divine intellect. Indeed, a being that
was in no way limited wouldnt be a created thing; it would be God.
Thus the foundation of evil is necessary, but its coming into existence is contingent. In other
words, it is necessary that evil be possible, but contingent that it be actual. What is not contingent
is its passing from potentiality to actuality by virtue of the harmony of all things because of its
fitness to be part of the best series of things and events. [Leibniz presumably means: If some evil
act x actually occurs, then it was necessary that it was part of the best series; and the truth about
which series is the best is also necessary. This still allows that the existence of x is contingent,
because it wasnt absolutely necessary that God chose to actualize the best series.]
70. What I have said about the privative [= negative] nature of evil - following St. Augustine,
St. Thomas, our contemporary Lubinus, and many other ancient and modern writers - is often
considered futile or anyway very obscure. So I shall spell it out in terms of the very nature of
things, so as to make it look as plain and solid as possible. Ill do this through an analogy with
something sensible and material that also consists in a privation. I am talking about something that
the noted scientist Kepler has called the natural inertia of bodies.
71. Take the case (to use an easy example) of a river carrying boats and applying its own velocity
to them, but with their velocity limited by their own inertia so that, other things being equal, the
more heavily loaded boats will be carried more slowly. Thus the speed of each boat comes from
the river, its slowness from the loads; the positive from the force of the propelling agent, the
privative from the inertia of the thing that is propelled.
72. It is in just this way that God must be said to give a created thing its perfection, which is
limited by the things holding back. Thus goods come from the divine force, and evils from
creaturely sluggishness.
73. This is why the understanding often errs through lack of attention, and the will often weakens
through lack of zeal. When this happens the mind, which should stretch up towards God as its
supreme good, slumps down through its inertia to the imperfect state of a created thing.
74. I have answered those who believe that God concurs too much in evil; now I shall satisfy
those who say that man doesnt concur enough, meaning that not enough of the guilt for sin falls
on him (so that, once again, it is made to fall on God). The opposition try to prove this on the
basis of the weakness of human nature combined with the failure of divine grace to give our
nature the help it needs. Let us then look at the nature of man - taking in both its spoiled state
(spoiled by sin) and the vestiges of Gods likeness that are left over from its state of innocence.
[The phrase spoiled state translates the Latin corruptio, which is sometimes translated by
corruption, but does not have to be.]
75. I shall consider what caused man to be spoiled, and what his spoiled state consists in. It has its
origin in the fall of our first parents, and the hereditary transmission of the contagion of that fall.
Then what was the fall, and what caused it?

12
76. The cause of the fall: Why did man fall, with God knowing about this fall, permitting it,
concurring in it? The answer isnt to be sought in some despotic power of God, as though his
attributes didnt include justice and holiness - as they wouldnt if God werent concerned with
right and equity.
77. Nor should we try to explain the fall in this way:
God is indifferent as between good and evil, justice and injustice. It is he who settles what
is good and what evil, what is just and what unjust, by simply deciding. Rather than God
willing something because it is good, the thing is good because God wills it.
For if this were so, as Descartes thought it was, it would follow that God could have made
anything good (or evil), and with equal justice and reason - i.e. with no justice or reason! And
that would reduce all the glory of his justice and his wisdom to nothing, since he could find in his
actions no joy and no basis for joy.
78. Third and last: The fall is not to be explained by supposing that God created miserable
creatures because of a cruel desire to have someone to feel sorry for, and created sinners so as to
have creatures to punish. On this view, Gods will is neither holy nor worthy of being loved; he
lacks goodness, and cares only about his greatness and glory. All this is tyrannical and completely
alien to true glory and perfection - qualities that receive their splendour not only from Gods
greatness but just as much from his goodness.
79. The true root of the fall is not one of those three but rather the inherent imperfection and
weakness of created things, which is why sin belongs in the best possible series of events
(discussed above). That is why it was right for sin to be permitted, despite the divine power and
wisdom; indeed, it had to be permitted if these perfections were to be given their due.
80. The nature of the fall mustnt be conceived of, as it is by Bayle, in this way:
God punished Adams sin by condemning Adam and his posterity to continue to sin, and
infused into Adam an ongoing inclination to sin because that was needed for carrying out
this sentence.
In fact, this inclination follows from the first fall, as though by a natural causal connection, in the
way that many other sins follow from intoxication.
81. Now let us turn to the hereditary transmission of the contagion, which started with the fall of
our first parents and was passed on into the souls of their posterity. There seems to be no more
suitable explanation for this than the supposition that the souls of Adams posterity were already
infected in him. To understand this properly you need to know about some recent observations
and theories indicating that animals and plants are not formed out of some amorphous mass but
come from a body that is already somewhat formed and has for a long time been lurking, already
animate, in the seed. We conclude from this that by virtue of Gods primeval Let there be . . .,
some organized rudiments of all living beings and even (in a certain way) of their souls already
existed in the first specimen of every genus, and that they evolved - broke free, came into the
open - in the course of time. (In the case of animals, these organic rudiments included their
animal forms, however imperfect.) The seminal animalcules [= tiny animals] that arent destined
to become human bodies remain at the level of sensitive nature; so for a while do the souls and
principles of life in the seeds that are destined to become human bodies, but eventually the final
conception singles them out from the others; at that time the organized body receives the shape of
the human body and its soul is raised to the level of being rational. (Im not saying here whether
this happens through an ordinary or an extraordinary operation on Gods part.)

13
82. So you can see that I dont say that men are rational before they are born. Still, it is credible
that divine grace has already prepared and pre-established in the pre-existing germs everything
that will later emerge from them - not only the human organism, but also rationality itself,
contained (so to speak) in a sealed blueprint to be put into action later. It is also credible that the
fall of Adam spoils the soul that isnt yet a human one, and that when the soul rises to the level of
rationality its corruption comes to have the force of the original inclination - Adams inclination to sin. From recent discoveries it appears, moreover, that life and the soul come from the father
alone, while the mother in the act of conception contributes only a sort of envelope (it is thought
to be the ovum) and the food necessary for the full development of the new organic body.
83. This lets us overcome the philosophical difficulties concerning the origin of forms and souls;
and concerning the souls immateriality and thus its indivisibility, which creates a problem about
where souls come from because it implies that a soul cannot give birth to a soul.
84. At the same time we overcome the theological difficulties about the corruption of souls. For it
can no longer be maintained that a pure rational soul - whether pre-existing or newly created - is
corrupted by being introduced by God into a mass that is already corrupted.
85. Though we must thus admit some kind of transmission of sin from generation to generation,
it can be a little easier to swallow than the one taught by St. Augustine and other eminent men. It
wont be transmission from soul to soul (which had already been rejected by the ancients, as is
evident from Prudentius, and anyway is contrary to the nature of things), but from living thing to
living thing. [In Latin the contrast is between animae ex anima and animati ex animato.]
86. That was about the cause of our corruption; now let us come to its nature and constitution.
This corruption consists in original sin and derivative sin. Original sin has such force that it
renders men fragile in body, and dead in spirit until they are born again [ante regenerationem; all
later occurrences of born again translate Latin that could be translated as regenerated]. It turns
ones thoughts towards sensible things, and ones will towards things of the flesh. Hence we are
by nature children of wrath [Ephesians 2:3].
87. Pierre Bayle and other adversaries who attack the divine benevolence, or at least obscure it by
some of their objections, have made at least one good point. They have affirmed that those who
die corrupted only by original sin, before any opportunity for a sufficient use of reason and thus
before committing any actual sin (e.g. infants dying before baptism and those dying outside the
Church), ought not to be necessarily damned to eternal hellfire; and that it would be better if in
such cases these souls were committed to divine mercy.
88. On this matter I approve the moderation of . . . . various theologians of the Confession of
Augsburg, who eventually have become inclined to accept this same doctrine. [He names them.]
89. Furthermore, the sparks of the divine image (which I shall discuss soon) are not entirely
extinguished. They can be stimulated again, by Gods intervening grace, to strive for spiritual
things, but in such a way that the change is solely the work of grace.
90. Original sin hasnt entirely estranged the corrupt mass of mankind from Gods universal
benevolence. For God so love the world - this world that is steeped in evil - that he gave his only
begotten Son for mankind [John 3:16].
91. The workings of corruption show up in individual sinful acts and in habits of sin. Corruption
presents various degrees and kinds, and contaminates our actions in a variety of ways. Some of
the variety is exhibited in three dichotomies which I now present.

14
91. A sinful act may be purely internal or a composite of internal and external. It may be a sin
of commission or a sin of omission. It may be come from the infirmity of our natures or from
perversity caused by the wickedness of our souls.
93. A habit of sin come from sinful actions - being created either by the sheer number of a series
of similar sinful actions or the strong impression made by a perhaps-smaller number of
intensely sinful actions. In either of these ways, wickedness can become a habit, increasing the
depravity that comes from original sin.
94. Though this bondage of sin spreads through the whole life of the person who isnt born again,
dont think of it as going so far that all his actions will always be . . . . sinful, rather than some of
them being genuinely virtuous, and even innocent.
95. Even someone who hasnt been born again may sometimes act in civic life through love of
virtue and of the public welfare, motivated by good reasons and even by respect of God, without
any low aims involving ambition, private profit, or carnal passion.
96. Yet the actions of such a person always proceed from an infected source and have an element
of depravity mixed into them (though in some cases it is only habitual).
97. Yet mans corruption and depravity, however great they may be, dont make him excusable,
dont clear him of guilt, dont mean that he acts with too little freedom and spontaneity to be
blameworthy for what he does. There remain in man some vestiges of the divine image, and they
are the reason why God can punish sinners without prejudice to his justice.
98. The vestiges of the divine image consist in the innate light of reason as well as in innate
freedom of the will. Both are needed if our actions are to be vicious (or, for that matter, virtuous;
but I shall focus on vice). For us to be culpable for a sin we are committing, we must know
what we are doing and must will to do it; and it must be possible for us to pull back, even in midact, if we try hard enough.
99. The innate light consists in simple ideas as well as in the complex notions into which the
simple ones enter. Thus God and the eternal divine law are engraved in our hearts, obscured
though they often are by human negligence and mans sensual appetites.
100. Contrary to what is said by certain writers - notably Locke - this innate light can be proved
to exist both by reference to the sacred scripture that testifies that the law of God is engraved in
our hearts, and by a rational argument which goes as follows:
It is never possible to infer universal necessity by induction from particulars; so
necessary truths cant be demonstrated by induction from empirical data; so
necessary truths must be demonstrated by principles inherent in the mind.
101. Not only the innate light, but freedom also remains intact, however great human
corruption is; so that man, though beyond doubt he is going to sin, is never constrained by
necessity to commit the sinful action that he is committing.
102. Freedom is exempt from both necessity and constraint. Our actions are not made necessary
by the fact that how we shall act in the future is already settled, or by Gods knowing and
deciding in advance how we shall act, or by the present arrangement of things that will cause
us to act as we shall act. I shall give these three factors a section each.

15
103. The fact that how we shall act in the future is already settled doesnt make our actions
necessary, for although the truth of future contingents is infallibly determined and thus
objectively certain, that should not be confused with necessity.
104. Gods knowing and deciding in advance are also infallible, but they dont make our actions
necessary either. God contemplated the ideal series of possible events, and saw that as they
actually occurred they would include a certain man freely sinning in a certain way. But in
decreeing the existence of this series God didnt change the nature of that act - he didnt make
something contingent become necessary!
105. Third and last: The set-up of the world - the series of causes - doesnt detract from the
freedom involved in actions that are caused to happen. If you think it does, you must be assuming
that freedom requires the absence of anything pushing one way or the other; but in that you are
wrong. For nothing ever happens for which a reason couldnt be given; there are no cases of
indifference of equilibrium - i.e. cases where a free substance confronts a choice between two
options and nothing (inside the substance or outside it) counts for one course of action without
being exactly balanced by something favouring the other. On the contrary, in the efficient cause
and in the concurring causes there are always certain pointers to what is to come; some call them
predeterminations. But it must be said that these determinations only incline, and dont
necessitate, so that a certain indifference or contingency always remains intact. Our passion or
appetite is never so strong that our action follows from it with necessity. However strongly a man
is driven by anger, thirst, or similar causes, as long as he hasnt lost his mind he can always find
some reason for stopping the impulse. Sometimes he needs nothing more than to
remind himself to exercise his freedom and his power over his passions.
106. Predetermination, that is, predisposition by causes, is thus very far from introducing the kind
of necessity that I have explained - the necessity that is contrary to contingency, freedom, and
morality. Indeed, it is on this very point that the Moslem idea of fate is distinguished from the
Christian, the absurd from the reasonable: the Turks dont care about causes, whereas
Christians and anyone else who knows whats true deduce effects from their causes.
107. Although I dont believe that they can all be so lacking in good sense, the Turks are said to
think that it is useless to try to avoid the plague and similar evils, because they are convinced that
the future events that have been decreed will occur, whatever you do or dont do. But that is false.
Reason teaches us that someone who is going unavoidably to die of the plague is going just as
unavoidably to encounter some cause of the plague. . . . The same is true for all other events.
See also section 45 above.
108. Voluntary actions are not constrained. Representations of things around us can do all kinds
of things in our minds, but our voluntary actions are nonetheless spontaneous: their moving force
always lies in the person who acts, not in external things. The thesis that God instituted from the
beginning a pre-established harmony between body and mind can explain this more clearly than
had hitherto been possible.
109. Having dealt with the weakness of human nature, I turn now to the help that divine grace
gives. My opponents deny that there is such help, thereby throwing blame from man back onto
God. There are two ways of thinking about grace: as something that is sufficient for someone
who of his own accord wills to be born again, and as something that produces such an act of
the will. What I have just said about opponents is in fact true only with respect to the second role
of grace.

16
110. It has to be granted that no-one denies that there is grace that is sufficient for someone who
wills of his own accord. Theres an old adage that grace is never lacking for someone who does
what he can; some of the ancient authors, and then St. Augustine, have said that God abandons
only those who abandon him. This exercise of grace is either ordinary, i.e. dispensed through the
bible and the sacraments; or else it is extraordinary, offered at Gods discretion, as he offered it
to St. Paul. The other role that grace may play - in which it produces the will to be saved - will be
the topic of the next four sections, though it will be perceptible in the background throughout the
remainder of this work.
111. Many peoples have never yet received Christs doctrine of salvation, but we cant believe
that his message will never have any effect on those whom it hasnt reached, Christ himself having
asserted the contrary concerning Sodom [Matthew 11:23-4]. But that doesnt make it necessary
that
Someone can be saved without Christ,
or at the other extreme that
Someone will be damned even though he has done all that is naturally in his power.
For we dont know all Gods ways. For all we know, he may for special reasons come to
someones rescue at the very moment of death. Anyway, we have to take it as certain . . . . that
those who have made good use of the light they have received will also be given the light they
need but havent.
112. The theologians of the Augsburg confession recognize that believers children who have
been purified by baptism are endowed with a certain faith, even if no trace of it is seen. And there
is nothing to rule out the view that when the non-Christians mentioned in section 111 are at the
point of death, God will by extraordinary means given them the necessary light that they have
lacked throughout their lives.
113. Thus, too, those outside the Church to whom only the external message - the physical
preaching - has been denied must be committed to the clemency and justice of the creator, though
we cant know whom he will save or why.
114. But not everybody is given that grace to will, let alone getting it with a happy outcome; that
is certainly so, and the enemies of truth use this fact to accuse God of hatred of mankind or at
least of favouritism. God is the cause of human misery, they contend, and he doesnt save
everyone though he could, or anyway he doesnt elect those who are worthy of it.
115. It is true indeed that if God had created the majority of mankind only to make the glory of
his justice triumph over their eternal wickedness and misery, he wouldnt be praiseworthy for his
goodness, his wisdom, or even his true justice. I shall discuss one defensive move against this line
of thought in sections 116 and 121-2, and a second in 117-9.
116. Its no use replying that in relation to him we are nothing - as little as a maggot is in relation
to us. This excuse wouldnt diminish Gods cruelty; it would increase it. Indeed, if God cared no
more for men than we do for maggots (which we cant care for and dont want to), there would
be nothing left of his love for mankind. And the proposed defence is based on a false theology
anyway. In fact, nothing escapes Gods providence by being too small, or confuses him by being
too numerous. He feeds the sparrows, he loves man, providing food for the former and preparing
happiness for the latter as far as mans happiness depends on him (i.e. on God).

17
117. Some might go so far as to contend that Gods power is so limitless, his government so
exempt from rules, that he is entitled to damn even an innocent person. [This is aimed at, among
others, Descartes, who held that Gods will is what makes things good or bad, right or wrong,
and that there is no independent moral standard by which God or his conduct could be evaluated.]
But this would make it hard to attribute any meaning to divine justice, or to see how this sort of
ruler of the universe would differ from an all-dominating force for evil. We could certainly
attribute to it tyranny and hatred of mankind.
118. It is evident that one would still have to fear such a God because of his power, but not to
love him because of his goodness. For the actions of a tyrant certainly inspire not love but hatred,
however great his power. Indeed, the more power he has the greater the hatred, though one may
be terrified into not showing ones hatred.
119. Men who flattered such a God by imitating him would be driven away from charity towards
hardness and cruelty. Hence some authors have nastily attributed to God, on the pretext that his
right is absolute rather than being subject to some independent moral standard, actions that they
would have to recognize as appalling if committed by a man. Certain authors, to their discredit,
have said that things that would be ignoble if done by others would not be so if done by God
because he is not bound by any law.
120. Reason, piety, and God himself command us to believe something very different about God.
The combination of his supreme wisdom and utter goodness brings it about that he fully observes
the laws of justice, equity, and virtue, that he cares about all his creatures, especially the thinking
ones, whom he has made in his image, and that he produces as much happiness and virtue as the
model for the best world contains, and allows no vice or misery except what belongs to the best
possible series of things and events.
121. Returning briefly to the matter discussed in section 116: Although it is true that as
compared with the infinite God we appear as nothing, his infinite wisdom has the privilege of
being be able to care utterly for things that are infinitely below him. There is no assignable
proportion between the created things and God, but his care has something to work on, because
created things keep certain proportions among themselves and tend toward the order that God
has instituted.
122. In this respect the geometricians imitate God, in a way, through the new infinitesimal
analysis: from the relations that infinitely small and unassignable magnitudes have among
themselves they draw surprisingly important and useful conclusions concerning assignable
magnitudes.
123. Let us then reject that odious attribution to God of callousness towards mankind and
rightly support his supreme love for mankind. [Leibniz uses the terms misanthropia and
philanthropia.] He ardently wanted all men to achieve the knowledge of truth, and to turn away
from sin towards virtue, and he has shown this by how often he has helped us by his grace. If
what he has wanted hasnt always happened, the responsibility for this rests with stubborn human
wickedness.
124. All the same (you might object), it wouldnt have been beyond his supreme power to
overcome this stubbornness. I agree, but I add that no law obliged him to do so, and there was no
other reason for him to do so.

18
125. Yet (you will insist) the great benevolence that we rightly attribute to God might have gone
beyond what he was bound to provide; indeed, the supremely good God was bound, by the very
goodness of his nature, to provide the best possible.
126. At this point we must resort, with St. Paul, to the treasures of supreme wisdom [Colossians
2:3], which absolutely has not allowed that God should do violence to the order and nature of
the universe, disregarding law and measure, or disturb the universal harmony, or select any but
the best possible series of events to become actual. Now, in this series it was included that all
men are left with their freedom, and some among them are therefore left with their depravity. We
are confirmed in accepting this theological theory by the fact that this is what has actually
happened. See also section 142.
127. Anyway, Gods love for all mankind - his wish to save them all - is shown by his acts of help
in the form of grace. This help is enough for anyone, even the reprobate, and indeed it is very
often granted in abundance, although grace doesnt win out in everyone.
128. Moreover, in the cases where grace attains its full effect I dont see why it must do this by
virtue of its own nature, i.e. must do it unaided. It may well be that when a certain measure of
grace doesnt obtain its effect in one man, because of his stubbornness or for other reasons, that
very same measure of grace does obtain it in another man. And I dont see either how it could be
proved, by reason or from revelation, that whenever grace is victorious it is present with a
strength that is great enough so that it could have overcome any resistance, however strong, and
the most unfavourable circumstances. There is nothing wise about applying superfluous forces.
129. I dont deny that God sometimes makes his grace triumph over the greatest obstacles and the
most intense obstinacy; this is to persuade us never to despair of anyone. But this should not be
construed as a rule.
130. Much graver is the error of those who restrict to the elect the privileges of grace, faith,
justification, and rebirth, as though *all the rest were hypocrites - which is contrary to experience
- and could receive no spiritual help from baptism, from the eucharist, in general from neither the
word nor the sacraments. This erroneous doctrine implies that an elect person, once he is truly
justified, cannot relapse into crime or deliberate sin; or - a version of the doctrine that some prefer
- he can plunge into crime without losing the grace of his born-again status. These same
theologians divide people into the faithful or elect and the condemned. They require of a
faithful person the firmest conviction that faith will stay with him until death, while they say that
a condemned person will never be taken over by faith and is doomed to have false beliefs. [The
phrase *all the rest is an evasion of Leibnizs proskaroi (Greek), a biblical word for things that
are temporary, or not durably rooted, or (perhaps) not eternal. (Matthew 13:21, 2 Corinthians
4:18). It is not clear why Leibniz should this term here; but it does seem clear that the doctrine he
is expounding and attacking divides all mankind into just two groups - the elect and all the rest.]
131. This doctrine is purely arbitrary, has no foundation, and is entirely alien to the beliefs of the
early church and of St. Augustine himself ; but if understood strictly it could have practical
effects. On the one hand, wicked people might draw from it an impudent confidence that they will
be saved, while it might make pious folk doubtful and anxious about their actual state of grace.
Hence, a double danger: too much security for the wicked, too much despair for the pious. That is
why my zeal against this kind of particularism is second only to my opposition to despotism. [By
despotism Leibniz presumably means the view that God is a despot in the sense of not being

19
subject to any value judgments or moral rules because he is the source of all value; see sections 76
(for the word despot) and 77 (for the doctrine). Particularism is a standard label for the view
that some people are selected for salvation while the rest are damned.]
132. Fortunately it turns out that a majority of these theologians soften the strictness of this new
and paradoxical and dangerous doctrine, and that its other partisans confine themselves to
defending it merely as a theoretical position in theology, and dont carry into practice its odious
consequences. The most pious among them work on their own salvation, with filial respect and
loving confidence, inspired by a better Christian doctrine.
133. As to ourselves, we can be assured of our faith, grace, and justification because we are
aware of what goes on in our consciousness. We also have good hope for ourselves in the afterlife, though tempered with anxiety because the Apostle himself has warned us: Let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall [1 Corinthians 10:12]. Our confidence that we are
elected should never induce us to slacken in our pious zeal, or to rely on future repentance to
enable us to live badly in this life without being punished in the next.
134. That is enough against the accusation that God is callous towards mankind. Now it must be
shown that it is equally wrong to accuse God of favouritism, implying that there were no reasons
for his deciding what he did about who is elected. The foundation of election is Jesus Christ; but
those whose share in Christ is less than others owe this to their own final wickedness; God
foresaw that they would be like this, and reproved it.
135. Why is divine aid - internal and especially external aid - distributed so differently among
different people, triumphing over wickedness in the one and defeated by it in another? This
question leads to doctrinal splits. Some think that God grants greater help to the less evil or at
least to those who will resist grace less obstinately. Others maintain that the same help is given
to everyone but is more efficient in those who are less evil. Others again wont have it that
individual people are distinguished before God by the privilege of having better (or anyway less
bad) natures.
136. Among the reasons for someones being elected are, no doubt, his qualities as measured by
the standard of Gods wisdom; but the ultimate reason for an election is not always the persons
qualities considered in themselves. There will often be more weight given to how suitable the
person is for a certain purpose given a certain set of conditions.
137. Analogously, in building or decorating something one wont always select the most beautiful
or the most precious stone, preferring to use the one that fits best into the empty space.
138. The safest thing to say about this topic is that all men, being spiritually dead, are equally evil
but in different ways. They differ in what their depraved inclinations are, and it may come about
that preference is given to those whom the series of things has given more favourable conditions,
those who (at the end of their lives, anyway) find less opportunity to manifest their particular
vices and more to receive grace that answers to their needs.
139. Our theologians have also acknowledged, on the basis of experience, that men in the same
state of inner grace may differ greatly in what external helps to salvation they get. This leads
them, confronted by the arrangements of external circumstances that affect our lives, to take
refuge in the depth of St. Paul. [This refers to Romans 11:33, a favourite passage of Leibnizs
(he will allude to it again in section 142). Paul, having written of apparent unfairnesses in how

20
grace and salvation are distributed, writes: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!] For men
are frequently either perverted or improved by what comes to them in the way of birth, education,
social contacts, ways of life, and chance events.
140. So we dont know any basis for election or for the gift of faith other than Christ, and the
believers ultimate perseverance in the state of salvation through which he sticks to Christ (a
perseverance which God foresees). We shouldnt set up any rule purporting to draw the line
between elect and non-elect: we wouldnt know how to apply it, and its only effect would be to
make people complacent about their own situation and mocking about others.
141. God does indeed sometimes vanquish the worst wickedness and the stubbornest resistance,
in order that no-one should despair of his mercy, as St. Paul has pointed out regarding his own
case. Sometimes even men of long-standing goodness lapse midway, so that we shouldnt be too
self-confident. Most of what happens, however, lies well away from those two extremes: mostly
those who resist with less wickedness and put in more effort to achieve truth and goodness
experience more completely the effect of divine grace; it is just not believable that a persons
conduct has no influence on his salvation. See also section 112.
142. But in the depths of the treasure-house of divine wisdom, i.e. in the hidden God and (which
comes to the same) in the universal harmony of things, lie the reasons why the actual eventseries of the universe, comprehending the events we admire and the judgments we worship, has
been chosen by God as the best and as preferable to all others. See also section 126.
143. The theatre of the material world reveals to us more and more of its beauty, even in this life
and through the light of nature, since the systems of the macrocosm and the microcosm have
begun to be revealed by the recent inventions of the telescope and the microscope.
144. But the most magnificent part of all this, the City of God, is a sight to which we shall at last
be admitted some day, shining in the light of the divine glory, and then we shall be able to know
its beauty. For in our present state here below this City is accessible only to the eyes of faith, i.e.
through absolute trust in the divine perfections. The better we understand that the City of God
expresses not only the power and wisdom but also the goodness of the supreme spirit, the more
ardently will we love God and burn to imitate his goodness and justice as far as we can.

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought.
First launched: September 2004
* * * * *

Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason


By G. W. Leibniz
1. A substance is a being that is capable of action. It is either simple, meaning that it has no parts,
or composite, meaning that it is a collection of simple substances or monads. (Monas is a Greek
word meaning unity or oneness.) Any composite thing - any body - is a multiplicity, a many,
but simple substances are unities, or ones. There must be simple substances everywhere, because
without simples there would be no composites - without ones there could not be manies. And
simple substances are lives, souls, minds - where there is a simple substance there is life - and the
worlds being full of such substances means that the whole of nature is full of life.
2. Because monads have no parts they could never be either made or unmade, because that
would involve their being assembled or dismantled, which would require them to have parts.
They cannot naturally either begin or end, and therefore they last for ever, that is as long as the
universe (which will alter but will never go out of existence). They cant have shapes or sizes,
because for that they would need to have parts. So two monads at a given moment cant be
distinguished from one another by shape or size, and must be distinguished by their internal
qualities and actions. The qualities of a monad must be its perceptions; a perception is a
representation in something simple of something else that is composite. And a monads actions
must be its appetitions, which are its tendencies to go from being in one state to being in
another, that is, to move from one perception to another; these tendencies are the sources of all
the changes it undergoes. A substances being simple means that it cant have many parts, but
it doesnt rule out its being in many states all at once; and those many different states must
consist in the many different relations it has to things outside it. Similarly, a geometrical point is
completely simple; yet infinitely many angles are formed by the lines that meet at it, and each of
those corresponds to a relation that the point has to something other than itself.
3. [In this section, Leibniz writes of final causes and efficient causes. The final cause of an
event is its purpose, what it happened for; an efficient cause is just what we today would call a
cause with no adjective. The distinction becomes relevant again in section 11.] In nature
everything is full. There are simple substances everywhere, genuinely separated from one another
by their own actions which continually change their relations to one another. Every simple
substance (or individual monad) is the centre and source of unity of a composite substance such
as an animal; the central monad is surrounded by a mass made up of an infinity of other monads
which constitute its body. The states of the central monad correspond to the states of its body,
and in this way it represents things outside it - as though it were a kind of nerve-centre receiving
information from all around it. This body is organic when it constitutes a kind of natural

2
automaton or machine - that is, a machine made up of machines which in their turn are made up of
machines, down to the smallest noticeable parts. Because the world is full, everything in it is
linked to everything else, and each body acts to a greater or lesser extent on each other body in
proportion to the distance between them, and is affected by it in return. This has the result that
every monad is a living mirror which represents the universe in accordance with its own point of
view, and is as orderly as the universe itself. (By a living mirror I mean one that is endowed
with its own internal source of activity.) A monads perceptions arise out of its other perceptions
by the
laws of appetites - the laws of the final causes of good and evil (these appetites are just
conspicuous perceptions, whether orderly or disorderly),
just as changes in bodies or in external phenomena arise one from another by the
laws of efficient causes - the laws governing the movements of bodies.
So there is perfect harmony between the perceptions of the monad and the movements of
bodies, a harmony that was pre-established from the outset between the system of final causes
and that of efficient causes. This harmony is what constitutes the real union of the soul with the
body - enabling them to be united without either of them being able to change the laws of the
other.
4. Each monad, together with its own body, constitutes a living substance. So every living
substance is made up of smaller living substances which in their turn are made up of still smaller
ones, and so on down to infinity. Thus, not only is there life everywhere - the life of organisms
equipped with limbs or organs - but there are infinite levels of life among monads, some of which
are more or less dominant over others. A monads organs - that is, the organs of its body - may
be set up in such a way as to make the material impressions they receive sharp and definite. (An
example of this is the way the lens-like shape of the fluids of the eye focuses the rays of light, so
that they operate with more force.) When this is so, the monadic perceptions that represent the
material impressions are also sharp and definite. Such a perception amounts to a feeling [French
sentiment, which can also mean sensation or belief] - that is, a perception that is stored in
memory, a perception of which a certain echo remains for a long time so as to be heard in
appropriate circumstances. A living thing of this kind is called an animal, and correspondingly its
monad is called a soul.
When such a soul is at the level of reason, it is something more sublime, and we count it as a
mind, as I shall explain shortly. But sometimes animals are at the sub-animal level of bare living
things, and their souls at the level of mere unelevated monads. This is when their perceptions are
not distinct enough to be remembered, as happens during a deep dreamless sleep or during a
fainting spell. (But perceptions that have become entirely confused in an animal are bound to
recover, for reasons that I shall give in section 12.) So there is a good distinction between
perception = the internal state of a monad that represents external things, and
awareness = consciousness, or the reflective knowledge of that internal state.
Awareness is not given to all souls, and no soul has it all the time. It was for the lack of this
distinction that the Cartesians went wrong, by regarding perceptions of which we are not aware as
nothing - a naively unscientific view like the view of folk who regard imperceptible bodies as
nothing! This same underlying mistake led those same Cartesians to think that the only monads
are minds; they denied that non-human animals have souls, and were even further from allowing
any mind-like sources of life at sub-animal levels. Along with offending too much against
peoples ordinary beliefs by refusing all feeling to non-human animals, they went too far with

3
popular prejudices by confusing a long stupor arising from a great confusion of perceptions with
death strictly so-called. (If death occurred, it would involve the stopping of all perception, not
mere confusion of perceptions.) This confirmed people in their ill-founded belief that some souls
go out of existence, and also confirmed the so-called free-thinkers in their miserable opinion that
our own souls are not immortal.
5. The perceptions of non-human animals are interconnected in a way that has some resemblance
to reason. But differs from reason because it is grounded only in the memory of facts or effects,
and not at all in the knowledge of causes. That is what happens when a dog shrinks from the stick
with which it has been beaten because memory represents to it the pain the stick has caused. In
fact human beings, to the extent that they are empirics - which is to say in three quarters of what
they do - act just like non-human animals. [An empiric is someone who goes by obvious
superficial regularities and similarities without asking Why? about any of them.] For example,
we expect there to be daylight tomorrow because we have always experienced it that way; only an
astronomer foresees it in a reasoned way (and even his prediction will prove wrong some day,
when the cause of daylight goes out of existence). But genuine reasoning depends on necessary
or eternal truths like those of logic, arithmetic and geometry, which make indubitable connections
between ideas and reach conclusions that cant fail to be true. Animals that never think of such
propositions are called brutes; but ones that recognise such necessary truths are rightly called
rational animals, and their souls are called minds. These souls are capable of reflective acts - acts
of attention to their own inner states - so that they can think about what we call myself,
substance, soul, or mind: in a word, things and truths that are immaterial. This is what renders us
capable of science, or of demonstrable knowledge.
6. The ancients believed that living things come from putrefaction, that is, from formless chaos;
but recent researches have shown - and reason confirms - that this is wrong, and that plants and
animals (the only living things whose anatomy we know) come from pre-formed seeds, and
therefore from the transformation of pre-existing living beings. The seeds of big animals contain
little animals; through the process of conception these take on new clothing (so to speak) which
they make their own, and which gives them the means to feed and to grow, so as to pass onto a
larger stage and propagate [= be hatched or born as] the larger animal. Human sperm are
animals that are not rational and dont become so until conception settles a human nature on
them. And just as no animals completely come into existence when they are conceived or
generated, so none go completely out of existence in what we call their death; for it is only
reasonable that what doesnt begin naturally should not end naturally either. What happens at
death is that the animal throws off its mask or its tattered costume and returns to a smaller stage,
where it can still be just as sensible [French, meaning capable of sensing or capable of being
sensed] and as orderly as it was on the larger one. And what I have just said about large animals
applies also to the generation and death of those spermatic animals themselves; that is to say, they
have grown up out of other still smaller spermatic animals, in relation to which they would count
as large! For everything in nature goes on to infinity, including the nested series of ever smaller
animals. So it is not only souls that cant be brought into existence or driven out of it. The same
applies to animals: in their birth and death they are only transformed - unfolded and refolded,
stripped bare, re-covered. A soul never leave behind its whole body, passing to an entirely new
one. So there is therefore no metempsychosis [= a minds switching from one body to another],
but there is metamorphosis [= a bodys changing its form]. Animals do change, but only by

4
gaining and losing parts. In the process of nutrition this happens continually - little by little, by
tiny, imperceptible steps. It happens all at once and very perceptibly in conception or in death,
which makes the animal gain or lose a great deal all at once.
7. So far I have spoken only of what goes on in the natural world; now I must move up to the
metaphysical level, by making use of a great though not very widely used principle, which says
that nothing comes about without a sufficient reason; that is, that
for any true proposition P, it is possible for someone who understands things well enough
to give a sufficient reason why it the case that P rather than not-P.
Given that principle, the first question we can fairly ask is: Why is there something rather than
nothing? After all, nothing is simpler and easier than something. Also, given that things have to
exist, we must be able to give a reason why they have to exist as they are and not otherwise.
8. Now, this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cant be found in the series of
contingent things - that is, in bodies and the representations of them in souls. I shall explain why
it cant lie in the facts about bodies; that it cant lie in the facts about mental representations of
bodies follows from that. The reason is that there is nothing in matter, considered in itself, that
points to its moving or not moving, or to its moving in some particular way rather than some
other. So we could never find in matter a reason for motion, let alone for any particular motion.
Any matter that is moving now does so because of a previous motion, and that in turn from a still
earlier one; and we can take this back as far as we like - it wont get us anywhere, because the
same question - the question Why? - will still remain. For the question to be properly, fully
answered, we need a sufficient reason that has no need of any further reason - a Because that
doesnt throw up a further Why? - and this must lie outside the series of contingent things, and
must be found in a substance which is the cause of the entire series. It must be something that
exists necessarily, carrying the reason for its existence within itself; only that can give us a
sufficient reason at which we can stop, having no further Why?-question taking us from this
being to something else. And that ultimate reason for things is what we call God.
9. This simple, primal substance must have, eminently, the perfections possessed by the derivative
substances that are its effects. [The technical term eminent means in a higher form. To grasp
this, take the example of will. You are able to decide how to act and then act on your decision;
thats what it is for you to have will, which Leibniz calls a perfection. This comes from God, he
says, but will in you is coloured and constrained by all sorts of features that arent present in God:
the limits on your knowledge and on your physical powers, the potential influence of emotions,
and so on. So will in God is tremendously unlike will in you; it is will in some higher form; which
Leibniz and his contemporaries expressed by saying that God eminently has will.] Thus, the primal
substance will have perfect power, knowledge, and will; which is to say that it will be omnipotent,
omniscient, and supremely good. And God must also be supremely just, for justice in the broadest
sense is nothing other than goodness in conformity with wisdom. God (the primal Reason) who
made things come to exist through himself also makes them depend on him for their staying in
existence and for their operations. Whatever perfections they possess they continually receive
from him; but whatever imperfections they retain come from the essential and inherent limitation
of a created thing.

5
10. God is supremely perfect, from which it follows that in producing the universe he chose the
best possible design - a design in which there was
the greatest variety along with the greatest order,
the best arranged time and place,
the maximum effect produced by the simplest means,
in created things the highest levels of power, knowledge, happiness and goodness that
the universe could allow.
For in Gods understanding all possible things lay claim to existence, with their claims being
strong in proportion to their perfections; so the outcome of all those claims must be the most
perfect possible actual world - the one with the strongest claim. Otherwise it wouldnt be
possible to give any reason why things have gone as they have rather than otherwise. [The second
of the four bulleted items evidently misses part of Leibnizs meaning. What he says are les mieux
menags - the best arranged or ordered or managed - are three things: le terrain, the time and the
place. The French word terrain means pretty exactly what terrain means in English. Glenn
Hartz, when consulted about this, suggests the following. Wanting things to make things easy for
the common reader, Leibniz here (as elsewhere) throws off the constraints of his own
metaphysical views, and depicts planning the universe as though it were something like planning a
vegetable garden: start it in the spring (time); situate it near the south shore (place); and put it on
that splendid piece of flat fertile ground there (terrain).]
11. Gods supreme wisdom made him choose, above all, the laws of motion that hang together the
best, and that have the best fit with abstract or metaphysical reasoning. They conserve the same
quantity of
total or absolute force, i.e. of action, of
relative force, i.e. of reaction, and of
directional force.
Furthermore, adding to the wonderful simplicity of the basic laws of physics, action is always
equal to reaction, and the complete effect is always equivalent to the total cause. These laws of
motion have been discovered in our own time, some of them by me. If we want to explain why
they are laws, it turns out, surprisingly, that we cant do this purely in terms of efficient causes,
that is, in terms of matter. I have found that to explain why the basic laws of physics are laws
we have to bring in final causes, and that these laws dont depend on the principle of necessity,
as do the truths of logic, arithmetic and geometry, but on the principle of fitness, meaning that
they depend on what God in his wisdom has chosen. For anyone who can look deeply into
things, this is one of the most convincing and most evident proofs of the existence of God.
12. From the supreme Authors perfection it follows not only that the order of the entire
universe is the most perfect that could be, but also that
every living mirror that represents the universe according to its own point of view,
that is to say
every monad, or
every substantial centre,
must have its perceptions and its appetites ordered in the best way that is compatible with the
perceptions and appetites of all the rest. And from that it follows also that souls - that is to say,
the most dominant monads - cannot fail to wake up from the state of stupor into which death or
some other accident may put them. (I said this about souls, but really it applies to the animals of
which they are the souls.)

6
13. For everything in things is ordered once and for all with as much regularity and as much
correspondence as possible. (The correspondence in question is that between the states of each
monad and the states of each other monad; it constitutes a sort of harmony.) This is because
supreme wisdom and goodness can only work in perfect harmony. So the present is big with the
future, the future could have been read in the past, and distant things are expressed in what is
nearby. What is folded into any individual soul will become perceptible only through time, as the
soul develops; but if we could unfold it all at once right now, we could see the beauty of the
universe in the individual soul - any individual soul. But as each of the souls distinct perceptions
involves an infinity of confused perceptions that take in the entire universe, the soul itself doesnt
know the things of which it has a perception except insofar the perception is distinct and
conspicuous; and the extent to which a soul has distinct perceptions is the extent to which it is
perfect. Every soul knows infinity - knows everything - but knows it in a confused way. It is like
what happens when I walk along the seashore: in hearing the great noise that the sea makes, I
hear - though without distinguishing them - the individual little noises of the waves out of which
that total noise is made up. Similarly, our big confused perceptions are the outcome of the
infinity of tiny impressions that the whole universe makes on us. It is the same for each monad.
Only God has distinct knowledge of everything, because he is the source of everything. It has
been very well said that its as though God were like a centre that is everywhere, with a
circumference nowhere, because to him everything is immediately present, at no distance from
that Centre.
14. As far as the rational soul - the mind - is concerned, there is something more to it than to
monads generally, or even to mere souls that are not rational. A rational soul is not only a
mirror of the universe of created things, but also a likeness of the creator. A mind not only has a
perception of Gods works, but can also produce something that resembles them, though on a
smaller scale. For our soul is systematic [architectonique] in its voluntary actions, and in
discovering the sciences that God has followed in his ordering of things (by weight, measure,
number, etc.). The soul imitates in its own sphere, and in the little world in which it is permitted to
operate, what God does in the world at large. (I spoke of the souls voluntary actions so as to
set aside the wonders of dreams, in which we easily invent things that we couldnt come up with
while awake unless we worked at them for a long time, these dream achievements of ours being
involuntary.)
15. That is why all minds, entering (by virtue of reason and of eternal truths) into a kind of
community with God, are members of the City of God - that is, of the most perfect state, formed
and governed by the greatest and best of monarchs. This applies to the minds of men and also
those of higher-than-human spirits. In this perfect state there is
no crime without punishment,
no good act without its appropriate reward, and
as much virtue and goodness as is possible.
God doesnt achieve all this by disturbing the course of nature, as though he had ordained that
souls did things that interfered with the laws of bodies. Rather, he achieves it through the
natural order of things, by means of the harmony that he has pre-established from all time

7
between
the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace,
between
God as architect and God as monarch.
This harmony works in such a way that nature itself leads on to grace, and grace perfects nature
- completes it, rounds it off - while at the same time making use of it.
16. Only revelation can tell us in detail about the great future that awaits us in the next life;
reason cant do that. But reason can assure us that things have been done in a way that is better
than we could wish. God is the most perfect and the happiest of substances, and therefore the
most worthy of love; and true pure love is the state that enables one to take pleasure in the
perfections and the happiness of the person one loves; therefore, love for God must give us the
greatest pleasure of which we are capable.
17. And it is easy to love God as we should, if we know him to be as I have just described him.
Because although we cant perceive God through our external senses, he is nevertheless very
lovable and a source of very great pleasure. There is nothing puzzling or mysterious about
getting pleasure from something that isnt perceivable through the senses. Here are three reasons
for taking that idea in our stride. (1) We know what pleasure people get from honours, though
they dont consist in qualities detectable by our external senses. (2) Martyrs who go happily to
their deaths show what the pleasures of the mind can do. (The same is true of fanatics, though in
their case the emotion is out of control.) (3) The pleasures of the senses themselves come down in
the end to intellectual pleasures - they strike us as sensory rather than intellectual only because
they are known in a confused way. Music that we hear can charm us, even though its beauty
consists only in relations among numbers, and in the way the beats or vibrations of the sounding
body return to the same frequency at certain intervals. (We are not aware of the numbers of these
beats, but the soul counts them all the same!) Our pleasure in the proportions of things we see
are of the same kind; and those that the other senses produce will come down to something
similar, even though we couldnt explain them so straightforwardly.
18. One can even say that our present love for God lets us enjoy a foretaste of our future
happiness. That love of ours provides in itself our greatest good and our greatest benefit. And yet
it is disinterested: we dont set about loving God so as to get something out of it. We arent
looking for consequent goods and benefits, and are attending only to the pleasure we get in loving
God. This love gives us perfect confidence in the goodness of our creator and lord, and that gives
us real peace of mind, a steady patience that comes from our present contentment, which itself
assures us of a happy future. It is not like the patience the Stoics recommend, in which you put
up with what comes to you because you have to. And quite apart from the present pleasure it
brings us, our love for God is supremely useful to us for the future. This love of ours satisfies all
our hopes and leads us along the path of supreme happiness. That is because the perfect order
established in the universe brings it about that everything is the best possible - both for the general
good and for the particular good of those who believe in this order and are content with the
government of God. Actually, supreme happiness, even when accompanied by some beatific
vision or acquaintance with God, can never be complete, because God is infinite and so can never
be known entirely. Thus our happiness wont and shouldnt ever consist in a mind-numbing
complete enjoyment with nothing left to desire, but rather in a perpetual progression towards
new pleasures and new perfections.

Copyright Jonathan Bennett


[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
though it were part of the original text. Occasional bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations,
are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Four ellipses . . . . indicate the omission of a
brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.
First launched: September 2004
* * * * *

Monadology
By G. W. Leibniz
1. My topic here will be the monad, which is just a simple substance. By calling it simple I mean
that it has no parts, though it can be a part of something composite.
2. There must be simple substances, because there are composites. A composite thing is just a
collection of simple ones that happen to have come together.
3. Something that has no parts cant be extended, cant have a shape, and cant be split up. So
monads are the true atoms of Nature - the elements out of which everything is made.
4. We dont have to fear that a monad might fall to pieces; there is no conceivable way it could
go out of existence naturally.
5. For the same reason, there is no way for a simple substance to come into existence naturally,
for that would involve its being put together, assembled, composed, and a simple substance
couldnt be formed in that way because it has no parts.
6. So we can say that the only way for monads to begin or end - to come into existence or go out
of existence - is instantaneously, being created or annihilated all at once. Composite things, in
contrast with that, can begin or end gradually, through the assembling or scattering of their parts.
7. It doesnt make sense to suppose that a monad might be altered or re-arranged internally by any
other created thing. There is nothing to re-arrange within a monad, and there is no conceivable
internal motion in it that could be started, steered, sped up, or slowed down as can happen in a
composite thing that has parts that can change in relation to one another. [Eleven-line addition
starts here.] That rules out every sort influence that one might think a created thing might have
on something else. (I stress created because of course I dont rule out Gods affecting a monad.)
Some philosophers have held that one thing can affect another by sending an accident across to
it, understanding an accident to be an instance of a property as distinct from the thing that has
the property. According to these philosophers, in addition to the universal property heat and the
particular thing this poker there is a particular property, an instance, an accident, namely the
heat of this poker; and they hold that when the poker is plunged into cold water which then
becomes warmer, the poker sends an accident - some of its particular heat - across to the water.
Now, you might think that although a created thing cant cause re-arrangements in a simple
substance it might be able to affect it in a different way by sending an accident across to it. And
because you might think this, I should add that monads have no windows through which anything

2
could come in or go out! And anyway, quite apart from the imperviousness of monads to them,
these supposed migrating accidents are philosophical rubbish: accidents cant detach themselves
and stroll about outside of substances! . . . . So neither substance nor accident can come into a
monad from outside.
8. Monads, although they have no parts, must have some qualities. There are two reasons why
this must be so. (1) If they didnt have qualities they wouldnt be real things at all. (2) If they
didnt differ from one another in their qualities, there would be no detectable changes in the world
of composite things. Here is why. If monads had no qualities they would be indistinguishable
from one another (given that they dont differ in any quantitative way, e.g. in size). That would
make all composite things such as portions of matter indistinguishable from one another also,
because whatever is the case about a composite thing has to come from its simple ingredients.
Even if every portion of matter were exactly like every other, there might still be variety in the
material world through differences in patterns of distribution of portions of matter in empty space.
I think there is no empty space - the extended world is entirely full, a plenum. So, assuming a
plenum and no qualitative variety, any moving around of matter would only result in each place
containing something exactly like what it had contained previously, so that one state of things
would be indistinguishable from another.
9. That shows that some monads must be qualitatively unlike some others; but now I go further.
Indeed, every monad must be qualitatively unlike every other. That is because in Nature no two
things are perfectly alike; between any two things a difference can be found that is internal - that
is, based on what each is like in its own nature rather than merely on how they relate to other
things, e.g. where they are in space.
10. I take it for granted that every created thing can change, and thus that created monads can
change. I hold in fact that every monad changes continually.
11. From what I said in 7 it follows that natural changes in a monad - ones that dont come from
divine intervention - come from an internal force, since no external causes could ever influence its
interior.
12. But in addition to this general force for change that is the same in all monads, there must be
the detailed nature of the individual changing simple substance, this being what makes it belong
to a one species rather than another.
13. This detailed nature must bring a multiplicity within the unity of the simple substance. The
latters detailed nature is a multiplicity in the sense that it has many components that dont stand
or fall together. That is because every natural change happens by degrees, gradually, meaning
that something changes while something else stays the same. So although there are no parts in a
simple substance, there must be a plurality of states and of relationships.
14. The passing state that incorporates and represents a multitude within a unity - i.e. within the
simple substance - is nothing but what we call perception. This must be carefully distinguished
from awareness or consciousness, as will become clear in what follows. [Awareness here
translates aperception. French had no noun for that job (nor did English), so Leibniz coined the
aperception on the basis of the verb phrase sapercevoir de, which meant and still means to be
aware of.] In that the Cartesians failed badly, entirely discounting perceptions whose owners
were not aware of them. That made them think that the only monads are minds, which led them to
deny that animals have souls because those would be simple substances below the level of minds

3
. . . . Like the uneducated man in the street they confused a long stupor with death, whereas
really a long period of unconsciousness is different from death in the strict sense. This led them
further into the Aristotelians wrong belief in souls that are entirely separated from any body, as
well as confirming misguided minds in the belief that souls are mortal.
15. The action of the internal force that brings about change - brings the monad from one
perception to another - can be called appetition. Appetite cannot always get the whole way to
the perception towards which it is tending, but it always gets some of the way, and reaches new
perceptions - that is, new temporary states of the monad.
16. A simple substance that incorporates a multiplicity - that is something we experience in
ourselves. We are simple substances, and we find that every perception we can be aware of right down to the least of them - involves variety in its object; and a perception representing
variety in the object that it is of must itself be variegated in some way. Thus everyone who
accepts that the soul is a simple substance should accept this multiplicity in the monad, and M.
Bayle oughtnt to have found any difficulty in it, as he did in the article Rorarius in his
Dictionary.
17. It has to be acknowledged that perception cant be explained by mechanical principles, that is
by shapes and motions, and thus that nothing that depends on perception can be explained in that
way either. Suppose this were wrong. Imagine there were a machine whose structure produced
thought, feeling, and perception; we can conceive of its being enlarged while maintaining the same
relative proportions among its parts, so that we could walk into it as we can walk into a mill.
Suppose we do walk into it; all we would find there are cogs and levers and so on pushing one
another, and never anything to account for a perception. So perception must be sought in simple
substances, not in composite things like machines. And that is all that can be found in a simple
substance - perceptions and changes in perceptions; and those changes are all that the internal
actions of simple substances can consist in.
18. [The word entelechy, used in this section, is a Greek label that Leibniz gives to monads,
especially when he wants to emphasize the monads role as a source of power, energy, or the like.
He connects it here with the monads perfection, apparently meaning this in the sense of
completeness, self-sufficiency, causal power. In 62 he will connect entelechy with the monads
central role in the life of a body of which it is the soul.] We could give the name entelechy to all
simple substances or created monads, because they have within them a certain perfection . . . .;
there is a kind of self-sufficiency which makes them sources of their own internal actions - makes
them immaterial automata, as it were.
19. [In this section, the French word sentiment is left untranslated. It could mean feeling or
sensation or belief.] If we are willing to label as a soul anything that has perceptions and
appetites in the general sense that I have just explained, then all simple substances - all created
monads - could be called souls. But as there is more to sentiment than mere perception, I think
that the general name monad or entelechy is adequate for substances that have mere perception
and nothing more, and that we should reserve soul for the ones with perceptions that are more
distinct and accompanied by memory. In this context I shall use the phrase mere monad to mean
monad whose perceptions have nothing special about them, are not distinct or accompanied by
memory, are merely perceptions with nothing more to be said about them.

4
20. For we experience ourselves being a state in which we remember nothing and have no distinct
perception - for example when we fall into a faint, or are overtaken by a deep dreamless sleep.
While our soul is in that state, there is nothing to mark it off from a mere monad; but for our soul
that state doesnt last - the soul recovers from it - which is why it is a soul, something more than a
mere monad.
21. But it doesnt at all follow that a mere monad has no perceptions at all. It not only doesnt
follow; it couldnt be true, for a three-part reason that I have given: a monad cant go out of
existence, but to stay in existence it has to be in some state or other, and its states are all
perceptions. But having perceptions is compatible with being in a very confused state, as we
know from our own experience. When we have a great many small perceptions none of which
stand out, we are dazed; for example when you spin around continually in one direction for a
time, you become dizzy, you cant distinguish anything, and you may faint. That is the state
animals are in, temporarily, when they meet their so-called death.
22. And every momentary state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its immediately
preceding one, so that the present is pregnant with the future.
23. When you recover from your dizzy spell and are aware of having perceptions, its obvious that
you must have been having perceptions just before then, though you werent aware of them. That
is because, as I said in 22, in the course of Nature a perception can come only from another
perception, just as a motion can come only from another motion.
24. We can see from this that if none of our perceptions stood out, if none were (so to speak)
highly seasoned and more strongly flavoured than the rest, we would be in a permanent daze. And
that is the state that bare monads - what I am here calling mere monads - are in all the time.
25. Nature has given highly seasoned perceptions to animals. We can see this in the care Nature
has taken to provide animals with sense-organs that bring together a number of light-rays or airwaves, increasing their effectiveness by combining them. Something like this also happens with
scent, taste and touch, and perhaps with numerous other senses that we dont know about. That
concentration of influence on the sense-organs is relevant to my present topic, which is the
occurrence of highly flavoured perceptions in the soul. I shall explain shortly how what
happens in the soul represents what goes on in the organs.
26. Memory provides souls with a kind of following from which mimics reason, but which must
be distinguished from it. It is what we see in an animal that has a perception of something striking
of which it has previously had a similar perception; the representations in its memory lead it to
expect this time the same thing that happened on the previous occasion, and to have the same
feelings now as it had then. For example, when you show a stick to a dog, it remembers how
the stick hurt it on a previous occasion, and it whines or runs away.
27. The animal in this case is impressed and stirred up by a powerful imagining; and its power
comes either from the size [here = strength or intensity] of the preceding perceptions or from
there being many of them. Either would do the job; for the effect of a long habituation, the
repetition of many mild perceptions, is often achieved in a moment by one powerful impression.
28. In human beings, the perceptions often follow from other perceptions under the influence of
memory; as with empiric physicians, who have elementary technique without theory. [An
empiric is someone who cares about which generalizations hold up in practice, but not about

5
why.] We are all mere empirics in three quarters of what we do. For example, we are empirics in
our expectation that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has always done so up to now. Only the
astronomer believes it on the basis of reason. In this empiric aspect of their lives, humans operate
in the same way as the lower animals do.
29. What distinguishes us from the lower animals is our knowledge of necessary and eternal truths
and, associated with that, our having a kind of following from that involves necessity and
depends on reason, rather than merely the animals following from which is wholly contingent
and depends on memory. This is what gives us reason and science, raising us to the knowledge
of ourselves and of God. And its what is called rational soul or mind in us.
30. Our knowledge of necessary truths, and our grasp of the abstractions they involve, raise us
to the level of acts of reflection [= looking in on oneself], which make each of us aware of the
thing that is called I, and lets us have thoughts about this or that thing in us. And by thinking of
ourselves in this way we think of being, of substance, of simples and composites, of what is
immaterial - and of God himself, through the thought that what is limited in us is limitless in him.
And so these acts of reflection provide the principal objects of our reasonings.
31. Our reasonings are based on two great principles: the principle of contradiction, on the
strength of which we judge to be false anything that involves contradiction, and as true whatever
is opposed or contradictory to what is false. (44, 169)
32. And the principle of sufficient reason, on the strength of which we hold that no fact can ever
be true or existent, no statement correct, unless there is a sufficient reason why things are as they
are and not otherwise - even if in most cases we cant know what the reason is.
33. There are also two kinds of truth: those of reasoning and those of fact.
Truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible;
truths of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible.
When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis in which it is teased apart into
simpler ideas and truths until we arrive at the basic ones.
34. That is how mathematicians use analysis, reducing theorems of mathematical theory and
canons of mathematical practice to definitions, axioms and postulates.
35. Eventually their analysis comes to and end, because there are simple ideas that cant be
given a definition; and their demonstrations also come to an end, because there are axioms and
postulates - in a word, basic principles - that cant be proved and dont need to be proved; these
are identical propositions, the opposite of which contains an explicit contradiction.
36. What mathematicians do is to find sufficient reasons for the truth of mathematical
propositions. But a sufficient reason must also be found for contingent truths, truths of fact - for
the series of things spread across the universe of created things. For truths of this sort reasons can
be given in more and more detail, because of the immense variety of things in Nature and because
of the infinite divisibility of bodies. Consider the movements of pen across paper that I am making
right now. Their efficient cause includes an infinity of shapes and of motions, present and past;
and their final cause - that is, their end or purpose - involves an infinity of tiny inclinations and
dispositions of my soul, present and past.
37. But all this detail only brings in other contingencies - ones bringing in even more detail, or
ones involving events that occurred earlier - and each of these further contingencies also needs to

6
be explained through a similar analysis. So when we give explanations of this sort we move no
nearer to the goal of completely explaining contingencies. Infinite though it may be, the train of
detailed facts about contingencies -running down into ever more minute detail, or back to ever
earlier times - doesnt contain the sufficient reason, the ultimate reason, for any contingent fact.
For that we must look outside the sequence of contingencies.
38. That is why the ultimate reason for things must be in a necessary substance which we call
God. The details of all the contingent changes are contained in him only eminently, as in their
source. [To say that x contains a property only eminently is to say that x doesnt literally have
that property, but does have the resources to cause things to have it. For example, God is not
politically astute, but he contains political astuteness eminently.]
39. This necessary substance is a sufficient reason for all this detail, which is interconnected
throughout; so there is only one God, and this God is sufficient.
40. This supreme substance is unique and universal, because nothing outside it is independent of
it; and it is necessary because its existing follows simply - that is, directly, without help from any
other premises - from its being possible. Given all this, we can conclude that the supreme
necessary being must be incapable of limits and therefore must contain fully as much reality as is
possible. (If there were some kind of reality which it did not have as fully as possible - e.g. if it
were very powerful but not omnipotent - that would be a limit in it.)
41. From which it follows that God is absolutely perfect. Why? Because a things perfection is
simply the total amount of positive reality it contains, using positive in its precise sense, in
which it doesnt apply to any of a things limitations or boundaries; so that where there are no
boundaries at all, namely in God, perfection must be absolutely infinite.
42. It also follows that created things get their perfections from the influence of God, but derive
their imperfections from their own natures. Their natures have to have limits, for that is what
distinguishes them from God.
43. Also, God is the source not only of existences but also of essences insofar as they are real;
that is, he is the source of what reality there is among possibilities. This is because Gods
understanding is the realm of eternal truths, or the realm of the ideas on which eternal truths
depend. Without Gods understanding there would be no reality among possibilities - not only
nothing existing but nothing even possible.
44. That is because if there is to be any reality among essences or possibilities, or among eternal
truths, that reality must be grounded in something actually existent; so it must be grounded in the
existence of the necessary being, in whom essence includes existence, meaning that in the case of
God being possible is sufficient for being actual.
45. Thus only God (the necessary being) has this privilege: if he is possible then he must exist.
Now, something that has no limits involves no negation; every truth about it is positive; so it
involves no contradiction (because all contradictions boil down to something of the form P and
not-P, which contains a negation). So God must be possible, from which it follows that God
exists - giving us an a priori proof of his existence. In 43 I also proved it a priori in a different
way, through the reality of eternal truths, which can contain reality only if the ideas they involve
are in Gods understanding. But what I have just said proves Gods existence a posteriori, from
the premise that contingent things exist, for their ultimate or sufficient reason could only be found
in the necessary being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence.

7
46. Descartes seems to have imagined . . . . that since eternal truths depend on God, they must be
arbitrary and depend on his will; but we shouldnt follow him in this. What depend on his will are
only contingent truths, which are governed by suitability or the choice of the best; whereas
necessary truths depend solely on Gods understanding, of which they are the internal object.
47. Thus God alone is the basic unitary thing, the original simple substance. All created or
derivative monads are produced by him. They are generated by the continual flashes of silent
lightning (so to speak) that God gives off from moment to moment - flashes that are limited in
what they can give only by the essential limits on what the created things can take in.
48. In God there is
power, which is the source of everything, then
knowledge, which contains every single idea, and then finally
will, which produces changes in accordance with the principle of what is best.
And these are what correspond, respectively, to what in created monads constitute
the subject, or base, or basic nature of the monad itself,
the faculty of perception, and
the appetitive faculty.
But in God these attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect, whereas in created monads . . . . they
are only imitations of the divine attributes, imitations that are more or less close depending on
how much perfection they possess.
49. A created thing is said to act on something else in so far as it has perfection, and to be acted
on by something else in so far as it is imperfect. Thus, activity is attributed to a monad in so far
as it has distinct perceptions, and passivity is attributed to the monad in so far as it has confused
perceptions. Why do I say Thus, . . ., implying that the second of the above two sentences
follows from the first? It is because of a link between being perfect and having distinct perceptions
- a link I now explain.
50. To the extent that one monad has distinct perceptions and another has confused ones, the
states of the former can explain the states of the latter, and not vice versa. And one created thing
is more perfect than another to the extent that what happens in it serves to explain a priori what
happens in the other; and that is what makes us say that it acted on the other.
51. How can the states of monad x explain the states of monad y? Not by x having a real
influence on y, for that is impossible. All that x has with respect to y is an ideal influence, which
works through the intervention of God. When God is setting things up at the outset, monad x
reasonably demands, in Gods mind, that God take account of x in designing y. That is how xs
states explain ys: it has nothing to do with real causal influence of x over y, which is something a
created monad could never exert.
52. And here is how monad x can be both active and passive with respect to monad y - acting on
y and being acted on by it. God, in comparing the two simple substances, finds in each reasons
that oblige him to adapt the other to it; so that x can differ from y in some ways that make it
active, and in others that make it passive, with respect to y. It is active to the extent that what can
be clearly understood in it serves to explain what happens in y, and passive to the extent that what
happens in it is explained by distinct perceptions in y.

8
53. Now, since in the ideas of God there is an infinity of possible universes, and since only one
can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for Gods choice of that one - a reason that leads him
to choose one rather than some other of the possible universes.
54. And this reason can only be found in the suitability or degrees of perfection that these worlds
contain, with each possible worlds right to claim existence being proportional to the perfection it
contains.
55. And that is the reason for the existence of the best, which Gods wisdom brings him to know,
his goodness brings him to choose, and his power brings him to produce.
56. Now, this interconnection, or this adapting of all created things to each one, and of each one
to all the others, brings it about that each simple substance has relational properties that express
all the others, so that each monad is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.
57. And just as the same town when seen from different sides will seem quite different - as though
it were multiplied perspectivally - the same thing happens here: because of the infinite multitude of
simple substances it is as if there were that many different universes; but they are all perspectives
on the same one, differing according to the different points of view of each monad.
58. And that is the way to get the greatest possible variety, but with all the order there could
be; i.e. it is the way to get as much perfection as there could be.
59. This theory (which I venture to say I have now demonstrated) is the only one that properly
displays Gods greatness. M. Bayle recognised this when he raised objections to it in his
Dictionary (the article on Rorarius), where he was even tempted to say that I had attributed to
God too much - more than is possible even for God. But he couldnt adduce any reason why this
universal harmony, which makes every substance exactly express every other through its relations
with them, should be impossible.
60. Anyway, what I have just been saying yields reasons why things couldnt have gone
otherwise. Here they are. In regulating the whole universe God had regard to each part, and
especially to each monad; so each monad has features that are given to it in the light of the
features of every other monad - it wont be restricted to
having correspondences with only a part of the universe.
And since a monad is by nature representative, so that all its features are representations, nothing
could restrict it to
representing only a part of the universe.
I am not saying that each monad is omniscient, or anything like that! A created monads
representation of the details of the whole universe is confused; it can be distinct only with respect
to a small part of things, namely things that are either closest or largest in relation to it. Otherwise
every monad would be divine! Monads are limited not in how widely their knowledge spreads, but
in what kind of knowledge it is. They all reach confusedly to infinity, to everything; but they are
limited and differentiated by their different levels of distinct perception.
61. And in this respect composite things are analogous to simple ones. In the world of
composites, the world of matter, everything is full, which means that all matter is interlinked. If
there were empty space, a body might move in it without affecting any other body; but that is not
how things stand. In a plenum [= world that is full], any movement must have an effect on
distant bodies, the greater the distance the smaller the effect, but always some effect. Here is

9
why. Each body is affected by the bodies that touch it, and feels some effects of everything that
happens to them; but also through them it also feels the effects of all the bodies that touch
them, and so on, so that such communication extends indefinitely. As a result, each body feels
the effects of everything that happens in the universe, so that he who sees everything could read
off from each body what is happening everywhere; and, indeed, because he could see in its present
state what is distant both in space and in time, he could read also what has happened and what
will happen. . . . But a soul can read within itself only what is represented there distinctly; it could
never bring out all at once everything that is folded into it, because its folds go on to infinity.
62. Thus, although each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents more
distinctly the body that is exclusively assigned to it, and of which it forms the entelechy [see note
in 18]. And just as that body expresses the whole universe through the interconnection of all
matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the entire universe by representing its particular
body.
63. What we call a living thing is
a body that has a monad as its entelechy or its soul,
together with
that entelechy or soul.
And we call a living thing an animal if its entelechy or central monad is a soul [see 19]. Now this
body of a living thing or animal is always highly organized. Here is why:
The universe is regulated in a perfectly orderly manner; and
every monad is a mirror of the universe in its own way; so
the representing monad must itself be orderly; so
the body that it represents (thereby representing the universe) must be orderly.
64. Thus every organized body of a living thing is a kind of divine machine or natural automaton.
It infinitely surpasses any artificial automaton, because a man-made machine isnt a machine in
every one of its parts. For example, a cog on a brass wheel has parts or fragments which to us are
no longer anything artificial, and bear no signs of their relation to the intended use of the wheel,
signs that would mark them out as parts of a machine. But Natures machines - living bodies, that
is - are machines even in their smallest parts, right down to infinity. That is what makes the
difference between nature and artifice, that is, between divine artifice and our artifice.
65. And God, the author of Nature, was able to carry out this divine and infinitely marvellous
artifice because every portion of matter is not only
divisible to infinity,
as the ancients realised, but is
actually sub-divided without end,
every part divided into smaller parts, each one of which has some motion of its own rather than
having only such motion as it gets from the motion of some larger lump of which it is a part.
Without this infinite dividedness it would be impossible for each portion of matter to express the
whole universe.
66. And from this we can see that there is a world of creatures - of living things and animals,
entelechies and souls - in the smallest fragment of matter.
67. Every portion of matter can be thought of as a garden full of plants or a pond full of fish. But
every branch of the plant, every part of the animal (every drop of its vital fluids, even) is another
such garden or pond.

10
68. And although the earth and air separating the plants in the garden and the water separating the
fish in the pond are not themselves plants or fish, they contain other organisms, but usually ones
that are too small for us to perceive them.
69. Thus there is nothing barren, sterile, dead in the universe; nothing chaotic, nothing confused
except in appearance. Here is an example of that. If you see a pond from a certain distance, you
may see the swirling of the fish without being able to pick out any individual fish; it may seem to
you that you are seeing confused movements of the fish, but really nothing is confused in itself whats happening here is that you are perceiving confusedly.
70. We can see from this that every living body has one dominant entelechy, which in an animal is
its soul; but the parts of that living body are full of other living things, plants, animals, each of
which also has its entelechy or dominant soul.
71. Some people who have misunderstood my ideas have thought me to have implied that
every soul has a mass or portion of matter which is its own and is assigned to it for ever,
and therefore every soul has other living things that are inferior to it, destined always to be
in its service.
That doesnt follow; and it isnt true, because all bodies are in a perpetual state of flux, like rivers,
with parts constantly coming into them and going out.
72. Thus the soul changes its body only gradually, a bit at a time, and is never suddenly stripped
of all its organs. So animals undergo a great deal of change of form [French metamorphose] but
they never undergo the transmigration of souls from one body to another [metempsychose]. And
no souls are completely separated from matter - there are no spirits without bodies. Only God is
completely detached from matter.
73. Another upshot of all this is that there is never either complete generation in which a living
thing comes into existence or complete death, which (taking death in its strict sense) consists
in the souls becoming detached from its body. What we call generation is development and
growth; just as what we call death is envelopment and shrinking.
74. Philosophers [here = philosophers and scientists] have been at a loss regarding the origin of
forms, entelechies, or souls, but not any longer. Careful investigations into plants, insects and
animals have shown that Natures organic bodies are never produced from chaos or from
putrefaction, but always from seeds, in which there is without doubt already some preformation.
Rather than something formed being generated from something formless, it has turned out that
what is formed always comes from something that was already formed. So these days we think
that before conception there is an organized body there, and that this has a soul; which is to say
that before conception there is already an animal there. What conception does is to launch that
animal into a great transformation that will turn it into an animal of a different kind. We even have
examples of something like this great transformation apart from generation, as when maggots
turn into flies and caterpillars into butterflies.
75. The account that is generally accepted these days goes as follows. Tiny animals that could
get raised to the level of larger animals through the process of conception we can call spermatic
animals. The majority of them dont go through that process; they remain within their own kind,
and are born, reproduce themselves and are destroyed, just like the larger animals. Only the select
few move up onto a larger stage.

11
76. But that is only half right. I came to realize that an animal that has no natural way of starting
cant naturally end either, and thus that not only will there be no generation but also no complete
destruction, no death in the strict sense of that word. This a posteriori line of thought based on
observation fits perfectly with the a priori principles that I deduced above.
77. So it can be said that not only is the soul - the mirror of an indestructible universe indestructible, but so too is the animal; though its mechanism may often come to an end in part,
and throw off or take on organic coating.
78. These principles gave me a natural way of explaining the union of the soul with the organic
body, or rather their conformity with one another. Soul and body each follow their own laws; and
are in agreement in virtue of the fact that, since they all represent the same universe. there is a
pre-established harmony among all substances.
79. Souls act according to the laws of final causes, through appetition, ends and means. Bodies
act according to the laws of efficient causes, i.e. the laws of motion. And these two realms, that
of efficient causes and that of final causes, harmonize with one another.
80. Descartes recognised that souls cant impart force to bodies, because there is always the same
amount of force in matter. He believed, though, that the soul could change the directions of
bodies. But that was because in his day the law of Nature which maintains the conservation of the
same total direction in matter was unknown. If he had been aware of it he would have ended up
with my system of pre- established harmony.
81. This system maintains that bodies act as if there were no souls (though there couldnt be no
souls); and souls act as if there were no bodies. And both act as if one of them influenced the
other.
82. As for minds, or rational souls [see 29]: I stand by my view, just expressed, that
basically there is the same thing in all living things and animals, so that both the soul and
the animal begin only when the world begins, and never come to an end, any more than the
world does;
but I maintain that there is something special to be said about rational animals, as follows. Their
little spermatic animals, to the extent that they are no more than that, have only ordinary souls,
ones that can feel; but when the select few come, through an act of conception, to have the nature
of a human being, their feeling souls are raised to the level of reason, and to the privileges of
minds.
83. I have noted some differences between ordinary souls and minds. Here is another. Souls in
general are living mirrors or images [here = likenesses] of the universe of created things, but
minds are also images of the Divinity himself, that is, of God, the author of Nature. They are
capable of knowing the system of the universe, and of imitating aspects of it through sketchy
constructions of their own, each mind being like a little divinity within its own sphere.
84. That is what enables minds to enter into a kind of community with God, so that he relates to
them not only (as he does to all his other creatures) as an inventor relates to his machine, but
also as a prince does to his subjects, and indeed as a father does to his children.
85. From this it is easy to conclude that the totality of all minds must make up the City of God that is, the most perfect possible state, under the most perfect of monarchs.

12
86. This City of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural world, and
it is the noblest and the most divine of Gods creations. And it is in this moral world that the glory
of God truly consists, since there would be no such glory if Gods greatness and goodness were
not known and admired by minds. Furthermore, although his wisdom and power can be seen in
everything he does, strictly speaking it is only in relation to this divine city that God has
goodness..
87. Just as I earlier established that there is a perfect harmony between two natural realms,
one of efficient causes and the other of final causes,
so I should point out here another harmony, between
the physical realm of Nature and the moral realm of grace;
that is, between God considered as designer of the machine of the universe and God considered
as monarch of the divine city of minds.
88. This second harmony ensures that things lead towards grace through the paths of Nature
itself. For example, the divine government of minds in the City of God requires that at certain
times the planet earth be destroyed and then restored, so as to punish some people and reward
others; and because of the harmony this moral requirement will be brought about through
purely natural processes.
89. We can also say that God the designer satisfies the wishes of God the legislator in every
respect, and that sins must therefore bring their own punishment through the natural order indeed through the mechanical structure of things; and similarly that fine actions will draw their
reward through the mechanical doings of bodies, even though that reward cant and shouldnt
always arrive right away.
90. Finally, under this perfect government there will be no unrewarded good actions and no
unpunished bad ones; and everything must work out for the benefit of the good, that is of those
in this great state who are not discontented, who trust in providence when they have done their
duty, and who love and model themselves (as they should) on the author of all good - getting
delight from contemplating his perfections (which is what genuinely pure love involves, getting
pleasure from the happiness of the beloved). That is what gets wise and virtuous people to work
at everything that seems to conform to what God can be presumed in advance to want, and what
gets them to be content nevertheless with what God brings about through what - it turns out
later - he actually does want. [Leibniz expresses this contrast through technical terms derived
from Thomas Aquinas.] They are content with this because they recognise that if we could
understand the order of the universe well enough we would find that it surpasses all the hopes of
the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is. Not only could the universe
not be better as a whole, but - wise and virtuous people recognize - it couldnt be better for us in
particular, as long as we are properly dedicated to God, the creator of everything; not only as
the designer and efficient cause of our being, but also as our master and final cause, who should
be the entire goal of our wills, and who alone can make us happy.

You might also like