Volume 2 — CHAPTER V THE RATIONALISM OF THE NATURAL SCIENCE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE (continued 2)

The Result of Leibnitz’s Examination of the Principles of Science35—A Plurality of Metaphysical Substances. What was the developed scientific principle of Leibnitz’s time? And what was the result of his analysis of it? The principle was the mathematical principle of Galileo in more complex form, for there had been added to it since Galileo’s day the concept of the atom. That is to say, the fundamental scientific principle was that nature consists of the measurable movements of atoms. From his analysis of this, Leibnitz obtained as follows his conception of a plural number of substances, which he called monads.

1. Leibnitz first scrutinized the scientific conception of motion. His analysis of motion into infinitely small impulses by the method employed by Galileo, Huyghens, and Newton had already led him to one important discovery—the differential calculus. Now he scrutinizes it further and discovers that the fundamental ground of motion is force. While Leibnitz was in entire agreement with other scientists in their effort to reduce all phenomena to motion, he insisted that motion was not by any means the fundamental thing. He calls the Cartesian conception of motion the antechamber of true philosophy. There is no absolute motion nor absolute rest. Motion and rest are relative to each other. Descartes’ theory that there is conservation of motion is incorrect. Motion and rest are the phenomenal changes of force. Force alone is constant and conserved. Physics points beneath itself to metaphysics; motion points to force. Force is what is fundamental in nature. Force is “that which in the present state of things brings about a change in the future.” Therefore force as the substance of nature is super-spatial and immaterial, and therefore the basis of the new physics ought to be dynamic metaphysical substance.

2. Leibnitz next examined the scientific conception of the atom. Gassendi, one of that celebrated group of Parisian scientists, had been the author of the introduction of Greek atomism into modern thought. It had been generally accepted by scientists and combined with the mathematical hypothesis of Galileo. Leibnitz had known Gassendi in Paris, and he took the hard, inelastic atoms of Gassendi under examination. He agreed that the atomist was perfectly correct in saying that material bodies consist of simple parts or atoms. But Leibnitz insisted that the atomist erred in thinking such simple parts to be physical. However simple the parts might physically appear to be, they were not really simple. However small a bit of matter may be, it may be divided again, and the dividing process may go on to infinity. The atom is the extended, and the extended cannot be simple or real. Substance must be unextended, and the materialists were wrong in attributing substance to the extended. Is there anything simple that has a qualitative character? Is there anything real below the physical atoms? Yes, the metaphysical atoms. The indivisible, immaterial unit lies beneath the physical atom, and in order to reach it we must pass beneath the physical into the metaphysical. This immaterial or metaphysical atom is called by Leibnitz the monad; and thus is Leibnitz’s theory called monadology.

There are three kinds of points, or units, or “simples.” There is the mathematical point, which is simple enough, but it is only imaginary. There is the physical point, or atom, which is real but not simple. There is, lastly, the metaphysical point, or monad, which is both real and simple. The metaphysical point is the only true point. To call the material atoms real, only shows “the feebleness of the imagination, which is glad to rest, and is, therefore, in haste to make an end of division and analysis.”

3. Leibnitz then identified force, as the substance of motion, with the metaphysical atom, as the substance of the material atom. The result was the monad, as he conceived it. The monads are the principles of active working. They are the super-spatial and immaterial principles in which the mechanical principles of the universe have their roots and meaning. Nature is not dead; it is not merely extended. It is alive, resistant, and reproductive. If, as Spinoza taught, there were only one substance, nature would be non-resistant and passive. But as a matter of fact there are many substances acting for themselves, many bodies resisting other bodies. They are the centres of separate activity, and there are as many forces as there are things. There is no body without movement, no movement without force. Thus does Leibnitz reintroduce vitalism in a maturer form than is seen in neo-Platonism. Life becomes the principle of nature. Purpose is placed at the centre of things.

The Double Nature of the Monads. The student will find that the philosophy of Leibnitz is spoken of as a pluralism, but the student will also find that Leibnitz devoted nearly all his strength to prove that the world is after all a unity. Leibnitz analyzed the world into a plural number of parts, and the question then with him was, how to put these parts together again in an organic unity. This accomplishment would depend a good deal upon his conception of the nature of the parts.

The monads have a double character. Leibnitz conceived the monad (1) as a force centre and (2) as an immaterial soul. This makes an equivalence of psychical and physical attributes which reminds us of the Stoics’ “fiery reason” of God. The word “force,” as Leibnitz uses it, squints both toward physics and toward psychology. But such ambiguity about the monads, the cornerstones in Leibnitz’s philosophy, assists Leibnitz’s reconciliation at the start. Here, in a miniature, the physical and spiritual lie in unity. The monad is conceived as a soul-atom.

Leibnitz came to philosophy with a mind saturated with the mathematical ideas of the continuous, the infinitesimal, and the possible. He thought of the monads as potentialities or possibilities. He looked upon the world as essentially a developing world. Behind the facts that seem to us inflexible, lies the great world of generating force. Explanation of the actual can be made only in view of what the actual may be and has been. Let us enlarge the scope of man by so widening his conception of the actual that it will include the possible. Leibnitz also spoke of the monads as infinitesimal. He thereby lifted the conception of the infinitesimal from the realm of mathematics into that of metaphysics, just as Hobbes universalized the conception of mechanics by lifting it to metaphysics. Leibnitz, therefore, did not regard the limits of perception as the limits of nature: the reality of a nature object must be too small to be the object of perception. In the same way he made use of his mathematical conception of continuity. Leibnitz’s conception of nature-continuity is one of his contributions to philosophy. Within itself the world of nature consists of a continuous gradation from the lower to the higher forms; and also the world of nature is continuous with the world of the spirit. There are no leaps in the series from matter to God. Seeming differences in kind are only differences in degree; for example, evil is only the absence of good; matter is only an obscure idea of spirit.

But this Leibnitzian atomism consists of soul-atoms. These monads, these force-centres are souls, and the mathematical qualities have a place in Leibnitz’s description of the psychical powers of the monad. The monad is a soul, for soul is the only substance in the universe that may pass through many changes and it, itself, not change. The self is the only subject of which many predicates may be asserted, while it, itself, may not be the predicate of any other subject. The idea of myself underlies all my mental states. The monad is an entelechy, or an entity having its purpose within itself. All its attributes are contained within itself, and it is, therefore, by nature, sufficient unto itself. It is an individual which passes from one state to another, moved by its “constitutional appetition.”

Among the psychical powers none is more important in Leibnitz’s description of the monad than its power of representation. Representation is the general function of the monad—from the lowest to the highest monad. This means that each monad is the world force, yet in a particular form,—a world substance, but in some peculiar aspect. Every monad is a microcosm. Each represents the world so far as it is conscious of its own activity. But it is evident that all things in the universe are not conscious, and therefore all soul-monads are not conscious. In souls there are, therefore, more than conscious thoughts—there are thoughts that are unconscious. Among the Rationalists Leibnitz is the first to give significance to the so-called unconscious states that form so important a place in modern psychology. (But see Plotinus.) As a wave is composed of small particles of water, so the mind is made up of a myriad of unconscious states. The conscious state is the general effect of the whole. A soul-monad contains in itself at all times representations of the whole world, some obscure, some clear. This power of universal representation makes the monad a microcosm. What we call knowledge of the external world is our representation of it within ourselves. This representation is possible to us because we reproduce it in miniature. Since the monad directly perceives only itself and its own states, it follows that the more clearly and distinctly it is conscious of its own activities, the more adequately does it represent the cosmos. The converse is also true—that the more a monad represents the cosmos, the more truly does it represent itself.

In his development of his description of the monad, Leibnitz hits upon two catch-phrases, one of which presents his doctrine of the physical isolation of the monad, the other presents the doctrine of its ideal psychical unity. These phrases are: “the monads are windowless” and “the monads mirror the universe.” By “windowless” Leibnitz means that each monad is “like a separate world, self-sufficient, independent of every other creature.” “Having no windows by which anything can enter or depart,” the monad can perceive only its own states. Whatever happens to it comes from itself alone as a purely internal principle. The monad’s development is self-development and not the result of external changes. Nevertheless the monad is a “mirror of the universe.” In this psychical qualification of the nature of the monad, its physical isolation vanishes and the way is open for a unity of monads, which would have otherwise seemed to be physically hopelessly sundered. How is it possible for each of the numberless monads, all so different, to “mirror the universe”? The answer is found in their psychical power of representation.

The Two Forms of Leibnitz’s Conception of the Unity of the Substances. The principle of unity among the monads is called by Leibnitz a preëstablished harmony. He presented this principle of harmony in two ways. In part the harmony comes out of their constitution, as he conceived it to be. In part Leibnitz artificially superimposed it upon the monads for theological reasons. In either case it is preëstablished.

The Intrinsic Unity of the Monads—The Philosophical Unity. There is a family resemblance among the monads. The lowest reproduces the universe in obscure and elementary representations. Minerals and plants are sleeping monads with entirely unconscious ideas. Animals are dreaming monads. Man is a waking monad. The highest monad is God, who reproduces the universe in clear and distinct ideas. Between God and matter there is a series of monads, graded as to the clearness of their ideas. All contain the universe by representation. All are bound together according to the principle of continuity; plants are lower animals and animals are less perfect men. Man is a monad whose conscious activity has risen to the height of self-consciousness, with the cognate power of reason. There is no inert matter; no soul-less bodies nor body-less souls. The smallest portion of dust is the habiliment of animalculæ. Nothing is dead, and nature is a gradation of monads in differing degrees of activity.

Metaphysically the monads are isolated, yet in nature as we see them, they live in groups, and compose the things which we call plants, animals, and men. An organic thing is a combination of monads with a central ruling monad. This central monad is the soul of the group; the subordinate ones form the body of the organism. The influence of the soul or ruling monad upon the body-monads is purely ideal. They all strive for the same end, which the soul represents more clearly. The group acts spontaneously and together, not from any outside influence. An inanimate object differs from such a living organism, inasmuch as it is a group of monads without a soul or a ruling, central monad; and therefore such a monad is both soul and body. There is therefore no dualism between soul and body in any creatures, for body is only obscure or unconscious activity. The body consists of monads having a confused sense of their activity.

This continuity and unity within the world, as Leibnitz sees it, is only the logical development of the unity with which he originally endowed his monads. Although he starts the monads as “windowless,” he also says that “they mirror the universe.” They are so conceived as to be originally physically separated, but psychologically and ideally united. “Their natural harmony resides in an ideal of perfect activity, while in actual existence they are independent.” The ideal which unites them is God, the last term in the graded series of the monads. He is the monad of monads, because He is perfect, conscious activity. Just as the various groups of monads are ruled by a central soul-monad, so the world of these groups is an hierarchy, which derives its unitary and harmonious character from this dominating monad. The world may be likened to a pyramid with God at the apex. The world is like a machine which differs from other machines, in that its parts are little machines. Although the parts seem to operate separately, they are under the dominating control of God. God is their intrinsic unity and the universe is a preëstablished harmony.

A comparison with Spinoza’s conception of the world of nature brings out Leibnitz’s meaning effectively. Both philosophers conceive nature phenomena to be under the law of mechanical causation. To Spinoza, however, all phenomena are qualitatively alike; there are no grades or distinctions of value between them. All are modes of substance and all illusions in the sight of God. To Spinoza phenomena are homogeneous. Leibnitz’s estimate of the world of nature is quite different, and for him nature has a far richer endowment. The phenomena of nature are not homogeneous. Their difference does not consist in their content, but in the degree in which they represent the universe. The law of nature is a unifying principle that gives unitary individuality to the members under the law. The individuality of the terms of the nature-series is implied in the very nature of the law of necessity, and on the other hand, the individual terms, for their part, transform the law of necessity into a principle of unity that is higher than bare necessity. In a necessitated series, Leibnitz points out, each term is determined by the preceding, and in turn each term determines the events that follow. Thus, while nature phenomena are a series and a necessitated series, it is a series whose existence depends upon each event having not only its place, but its unique place. No other event can fill that place, and the conditions that give the event its place constitute its individuality. Every finite event has, so to speak, its formula, and this gives individuality to each term of the series, which appeared to Spinoza only as a homogeneous, mathematical, and characterless mode. Life is meaningful to Leibnitz, because each member of the necessitated series of events has its unique part to play. The changes of life are to Spinoza void of meaning, because he conceives them to be undifferentiated. The law of mechanical necessity became under Leibnitz’s hands a principle of harmony, a teleological principle. Even in the necessitated mathematical series, such as Spinoza conceived the world to be, Leibnitz believed that necessity implies individuality and individuality implies purpose.

How vital, therefore, does life now appear, with its mechanical members transformed into living units! Universal striving or force fills nature, and the surging of individual forces gives a new meaning to the unity of the whole. The mechanical series—the physiological changes of our bodies and the efficient causes in nature—are only the expression of the inner teleological development. Leibnitz points out several pregnant principles that are aspects of this preëstablished but intrinsic harmony. In the first place, nature has no breaks and abhors a vacuum; and the series is a continuous one,—the law of continuity. Member follows member in continuous and graded order. Their qualitative differences are differences of quality of activity. Rest and motion, good and evil, are differences of degree. In the second place, there is nothing superfluous; no two things in nature are alike. If they were alike, they would be identical—the law of the identity of indiscernibles. Although there is no absolute antithesis or contrast between things, there is no absolute likeness. Every monad must be differentiated from every other intrinsically, i. e. according to its perfected activity. Therefore, in the third place, every member has an excuse for being—the law of sufficient reason. Every member has its part to perform and no other can act as an understudy for it. However insignificant any member may appear to be, it is as unique as its bigger neighbor.

The Superimposed Unity of the Monads—The Theological Unity. The intrinsic unity of the monads is derived naturally from the monads themselves, but it is an unattained ideal for which they strive. When Leibnitz turns his philosophy into a theodicy, or justification of the nature of God, this unity of the world takes on a different form and assumes a theological importance. The unity is no longer an intrinsic unity, with no actual but only ideal existence depending upon the highest monad in the series, but is an actual personality who exists apart from the world. The world is his eternal purpose. Probably this conception was always in the background of Leibnitz’s thought, but it cannot be deduced from his philosophy. It is a conception afterwards superimposed upon his philosophy. Leibnitz now conceives God not as an ideal goal, but as a perfect and actual person, whose reason impelled Him to construct the best possible world. The world in which we live is the world He chose. It is perfectly conceivable that the world could be different. Why, among all the possible worlds, did God choose to construct this world? There is no reason in logic, but in fact. There was no necessity for its construction. The fact is the excellence of the world. Spinoza said that all possible worlds exist. Leibnitz said this best possible world exists. Look about you; is it not so?

The best possible world is a world of free agents, whose acts are rewarded or punished according to their deserts. If we discover what seems to be inexplicable evil, we must regard it as an incident in the harmony of the whole. The world would be less good without evil. There is no more evil than there ought to be. The world which God conceived to be the best possible—this world—is a world of lights and shades. Evil comes from the free agency of man, and God is not responsible for it. It is better to have evil and free agency than no evil and no free agency. Evil after all is not positive, and is only due to the indistinct ideas of man. It is the absence of good, as cold is the absence of heat.

Thus a preëstablished harmony was constructed by Leibnitz that does not come out of his original philosophical premises. Leibnitz used his celebrated figure of the two clocks to illustrate the harmony of the monads. Two clocks keep the same time, not because they influence one another (interaction), nor because the maker moves the hands of one (Occasionalism), but because they have been thus constructed by an intelligent Creator. Thus the harmony of the world implies a personal God. Leibnitz’s philosophical Rationalism here passed into theology, and his metaphysics became an ethics. Leibnitz began with a monadology, and by means of the conception of harmony passed to an optimism.