passions themselves also cause this uneasiness or longing. These impulses are like so many little springs which try to release themselves, and which make our machine go. And I have already remarked above that it is in this way that we are never indifferent, when we most appear to be so, for example, in turning to the right rather than to the left at the end of a path. For the side we take arises from these insensible deter minations, mixed with the actions of objects and the interior of the body, which makes us find ourselves more at ease in the one or the other manner of bestirring ourselves. The pendulum of a clock is called Unruhe in German, i.e. uneasiness. AVe may say that the same condition exists in our body which can never be perfectly at ease; because if it might be so, a new impression of objects, a slight change in the organs, in the ves sels and in the viscera would at once alter the balance and cause them to make some slight effort to put themselves again in the best state possible: this produces a perpetual strife, which causes, so to speak, the uneasiness of our clock, so that this appellation is quite to my taste.]
§ 6. Ph. Joy is a pleasure felt by the soul when it consid- 172 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n ers the possession of a present or future good as assured, and we are in possession of a good when it is so in our power that we can enjoy it when we wish.
Th. [Languages lack words sufficiently suitable to distin guish kindred notions. Perhaps the Latin gaudium draws nearer this definition of joy than Icetitia, which is also trans lated by the word Joy; but then it appears to me to signify a state in which pleasure predominates in us, for during the pro- foundest sorrow and in the midst of the most poignant grief one may take some pleasure as in drinking or hearing music, but the unpleasant feeling predominates and so in the midst of the most acute pain the mind can be joyful, as in the case of the martyrs.]
§ 8. Ph. Sorrow is an uneasiness of the soul when it thinks of a lost good which it might have enjoyed a longer time, or when it is tormented by an actually present evil.
Th. [Not only the actual presence, but also the fear of coming evil may make one sad, so that I believe the definitions of joy and sorrow which I have just given agree the better with usage. As to uneasiness, there is in pain and consequently in sorrow something more: and there is uneasiness even in joy, for it makes a man awake, active, full of hope to go farther. Joy has been capable of causing death by excess of emotion, and then there was in it still more than uneasiness.]
§ 9. Ph. Hope is the contentment of the soul which thinks of the enjoyment which it is destined probably to have in a thing suited to give it pleasure. § 10. And fear is an uneasiness of the soul, at the thought of a future evil that may happen.
Th. [If uneasiness signifies trouble I admit that it always accompanies fear; but taking it as this insensible spur which pushes us on, it may be applied also to hope. The Stoics regarded the passions as thoughts; thus hope was to them the thought of a future good, and fear the thought of a future evil. But I prefer to say that the passions are neither satis factions nor displeasures, nor thoughts, but tendencies or rather modifications of the tendency, which come from thought or feeling and which are accompanied by pleasure or displeas ure.]
§ 11. Ph. Despair is the thought one has that a good cannot be obtained, causing sometimes pain and sometimes rest.
CH. xx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 173 Th. [Despair taken as passion is a kind of strong tendency which finds itself suddenly arrested, a condition which causes a violent struggle and much displeasure. But when despair is accompanied with rest and indolence it is rather a thought than a passion.]
§ 12. Ph. Anger is the uneasiness or discomposure we feel after having received some injury, and which is accompanied with a present desire to avenge ourselves.
Tli. [Anger seems to be something simpler and more gen eral, since animals are susceptible to it to whom no injury is done. There is in anger a violent effort tending to annul the evil. The desire for vengeance may remain when one is in cold blood and has hatred rather than anger.]
§ 13. Ph. Envy is the uneasiness (displeasure) of the soul which arises from the consideration of a good we desire, but which another possesses, who in our opinion should not have had it in preference to ourselves.
Th. [According to this notion envy would be always a praiseworthy passion and always based upon justice, at least in our opinion. But I know not whether men do not often bear envy towards recognized merit, which they would not hesitate to treat ill, if they had the power. They even bear envy towards persons regarding a good which they themselves would not care to have. They would be content to see them deprived of it, without thinking of profiting from their despoil ments, and indeed without being able to hope for it. For some good things are like pictures painted in fresco, which can be destroyed, but which cannot be taken away.]
§ 17. Ph. Most of the passions make in many persons impressions on the body, and cause therein various changes, but these changes are not always sensible; for example, shame which is a felt uneasiness of the soul when it comes to consider that it has done something indecent or which may lessen the esti mate others have of us, is not always accompanied by blushing.
Th. [If men would study to observe more closely the ex ternal movements which accompany the passions, it would be difficult to conceal them. As for shame, it is worthy of consid eration that modest persons sometimes feel movements similar to those of shame, when they are witnesses only of an indecent action.]
174 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. n CHAPTER XXI OF POWER AND FKEEDOM § 1. Ph. [The mind observing how one thing ceases to be, and how another which was not before comes to exist, and concluding that there will be in the future parallel cases, pro duced by parallel agents, comes to consider in one thing the possibility that one of its simple ideas may be changed, and in another the possibility of producing that change, and in that way the mind forms the idea of power.]
Th. [If power corresponds to the Latin potentia, it is opposed to act, and the passage from power to act is change. This is what Aristotle understands by the word motion, when he says l that it is the act or perhaps the actuation of that which is in power. It may be said then that power in general is the possi bility of change. Now change or the act of this possibility, being action in one subject and passion in another, there will be two powers, one passive, the other active. The active may be called faculty, and perhaps the passive might be called capacity or receptivity. It is true the active power is sometimes taken in a more complete sense, when besides the simple faculty there is a tendency; and it is thus that I take it in my dynamical considerations.2 The word force might be appropriated to it in particular; and force would be either entelechy or effort; for entelechy (although Aristotle takes it so generally that it comprises also all action and all effort) appears to me more appropriate to primitive acting forces, and that of effort to the derivative. There is even also a kind of passive power more particular and more endowed with reality; namely, that which is in matter in which there is not only mobility, which is the 2 Cf. De primes philosophies emendatione, etc., published in the "Acta Eruditorum," 1W4, p. 110 sq., Gerhardt, Vol. 4, pp. 4U8-470; Erdmann, pp. 121-122; Jacques, Vol. 1, pp. 452^54, in French; translation, Duncau, Philo*. Works of Leibnitz, pp. 08-70; also, Beilaye, May, 1702, appended by Gerhardt to the letter to Fabri, Gerhardt, Leibnizens Math. Hchriften, Vol. (J, pp.!)8 sq., especially p. 101; Specimen dynumicum, published in the "Acta Erudi- torinn," April, 1695, Gerhardt, Leibnizens Math. Schriften, Vol. C, pp. 234 sq en. xxi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 175 capacity or receptivity for motion, but also resistance, which includes impenetrability and inertia. Entelechies, i.e. primitive or substantial tendencies, when accompanied by perception, are souls.]
§ 3. Ph. The idea of power expresses some kind of relation. But what one of our ideas of whatever kind does not include some relation? Our ideas of extension, of duration, of number, do they not all contain in themselves a secret relation of parts? The same thing is noticed in a still more visible manner in figure and motion. Sensible qualities, what are they but the powers of different bodies in relation to our perception, and do they not depend in themselves upon bulk, figure, the con texture and motion of the parts? which puts a kind of rela- •tion between them. Thus our idea of power may very well be placed in my opinion among the other simple ideas.
Tli. [At bottom the ideas which we have just enumerated are composite; those of sensible qualities hold their place among the simple ideas only because of our ignorance, and the others which we know distinctly, keep their place only by an indulgence which it were better they should not have. It is almost the same Avith regard to the common axioms, which might be and which deservedly should be proved among the theorems, and which are allowed to pass nevertheless as axioms, as if they were primitive truths. This indulgence does more harm than we think. It is true we are not always in a position to do without it.]
§ 4. Ph. If we consider the matter carefully, bodies do not furnish us by means of the senses with so clear and so distinct an idea of active power as that which we have from reflection upon the workings of our mind. There are, I believe, but two kinds of actions of which we have an idea, viz.: thinking and motion. Of thought, body gives us no idea, and it is only through reflection that we have it. Neither have we from the body any idea of the beginning of motion.
Th. [These considerations are most excellent, and although here I take thought in a manner so general that it includes all perception, I do not wish to dispute the use of terms.]
Ph. When the body is itself in motion, this motion in the body is an action rather than a passion; but when a billiard- ball yields at the stroke of the cue, it is not an action of the ball, but a simple passion.
17G LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [MK. n Th. [There is something to be said upon that point, for the bodies did not receive motion in the impact, according to the laws observed therein, if they already had not motion in themselves. But pass we now this point.]
Ph. The same is true when it pushes another ball which it finds in its way and puts in motion; it only communicates to it the motion it had received, and itself loses just as much.
Th. [I see that this erroneous view, which the Cartesians have brought into fashion, as if bodies lost as much motion as they give to others, which is to-day overthrown by experi ments and by reason, and abandoned moreover by the illustri ous author of " The Search after Truth,"1 who has published a brief treatise for the express purpose of retracting it, still gives scholars occasion to be mistaken in constructing trains of reasoning upon so ruinous a foundation.]
Ph. The transfer of motion gives us only a very obscure idea of an active power of motion in the body so long as we see nothing else than that the body transfers motion but does not in any way produce it.
Th. [I do not know whether they here maintain that motion passes from subject to subject, and that the same motion (idem numero) is transferred. I know that some, contrary to the view of the entire scholastic philosophy, have gone that far, among others the Jesuit, Father Casati. But I doubt whether this is your view or that of your scholarly friends, ordinarily far removed from such fancies. If, however, the same motion is not transferred, we must admit that a new motion is produced in the body which receives it: thus the one which gives would really act, although it would be passive at the same time while losing its force. For although it is not true that the body loses as much motion as it gives, it is always true that it loses some motion and that it loses as much force as it gives, as I have elsewhere explained, so that it is always nec essary to admit in it force or active power. I understand power in the more noble sense which I have explained a little before, in which tendency is united with faculty. Nevertheless, 1 Malebranche, DC la Recherche de la Verite, 1674. The "brief treatise" referred to is entitled: Traite de la communication da movement, and may be found in Vol. 3 of the German translation of Malebranehe's works, Halle, en xxi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 177 I am always agreed with you, that the clearest idea of acti've power comes to us from the mind. It is also only in things which are analogous to the mind, that is to say, in entelechies, for matter properly speaking shows only passive power.]
§ 5. Ph. We find in ourselves the power to begin or not to begin, to continue or to end many actions of our soul and many motions of our body, and this simply by a thought or choice of our mind, which determines and commands, so to speak, that such a particular action be done or not done. This power we call Will. The actual use of this power is called Volition; the cessation or production of the action which fol lows such a command of the soul, is called voluntary, and all action done without such direction of the soul is called invol untary.
Th. [I find all that very good and just. However, to speak more fairly, and to go perhaps a little farther, I will say that volition is the effort or tendency (conatus) towards what is considered good and against that considered bad, so that this tendency results immediately from the consciousness one has of them. And the corollary of this definition is this cele brated axiom: that will and power united, action follows, since from all tendency action follows when it is not hin dered. Thus not only the internal voluntary actions of our minds follow from this conatus, but also the external, that is to say, the voluntary movements of our bodies, in virtue of the union of the soul and the body, the reason of which I have elsewhere given. There are besides the efforts resulting from the insensible perceptions, of which we are not conscious, which I prefer to call ^petitions rather than volitions (al though there are also apperceptible appetitions), for those actions alone are called voluntary of which we may be con scious, and upon which our reflection may fall when they fol low the consideration of good and evil.]
Ph. The power of perceiving we call understanding: it in cludes the perception of ideas, the perception of the signifi cation of signs, and, finally, the perception of the agreement or disagreement existing between any of our ideas.
Tit. [We perceive many things within and without us, which we do not understand, and we understand them, when N 178 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n we have distinct ideas of them, together with the power of reflection and of drawing from them necessary truths. Ani mals therefore have no understanding, at least in this sense, although they have the faculty of perceiving impressions more remarkable and more distinct, as the boar perceives a person who shouts at him, and goes straight for this person, of whom he had had before only a cloudy perception, but con fused as of all other objects which fell under his eyes, and whose rays struck his crystalline humor. Thus in my view the understanding corresponds to what among the Latins is called intellectus, and the exercise of this faculty is called intellection, which is a distinct perception united with the fac ulty of reflection, which is not in animals. Every perception united with this faculty is a thought, which I do not accord to the animals any more than understanding, so that we may say there is intellection when thought is distinct. For the rest, the perception of the signification of signs does not deserve to be distinguished here from the perception of the ideas signified.]
§ 6. Ph. It is commonly said that the understanding and the will are two faculties of the soul, a term suitable enough if used as we ought to use all words, taking care that they cause no confusion to spring up in the thoughts of men, as I suspect has happened here in the case of the soul. And when we are told that the will is that superior faculty of the soul which rules and orders all things, that it is or is not free, that it deter mines the lower faculties, that it follows the dictamen of the understanding; although these expressions may be understood in a sense clear and distinct, I fear, however, that they have caused to arise in many persons the confused idea of so many distinct agents acting distinctly in us.
Th. The question has exercised the scholastics a long time whether there is a real distinction between the soul and its faculties, and whether one faculty is really distinct from another. The Realists have said yes, and the Nominalists, no, and the same question has been agitated as to the reality of many other abstract entities, which should meet the same fate. But I do not think we need here decide this question and plunge into these difficulties, although I remember that CH. xxi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 179 Episcopius l found it of such importance that he thought he could not maintain the freedom of man if the faculties of the soul were real entities. However, if they were real and dis tinct entities, they can pass for real agents only in extravagant speech. It is not the faculties or qualities which act, but sub stances by means of the faculties.
§ 8. Ph. So long as man has the power to think or to refrain from thinking, to move or not to move according to the preference or choice of his own mind, so long he is free.
Th. [The term freedom is very ambiguous. There is free dom of right and of fact. As regards that of right a slave is not at all free, a subject is not wholly free, but a poor man is as free as a rich man. Freedom of fact consists either in the power to ivill as one ought, or in the power to do what one wills. It is of the freedom to do of which you speak, and it has its degrees and varieties. Generally he who has the most means is the freest to do what he wills: but in particular freedom is understood of the use of things which are ordinarily in our power, and above all, of the free use of our body. Thus the prison and the diseases which prevent us from giving to our body and our limbs the motion we wish and which we can ordinarily give them detract from our freedom: thus a prisoner is not at all free, and a paralytic has no free use of his limbs. Freedom of will is furthermore understood in two different senses. The first is when it is opposed to the imperfection or the slavery of the spirit, which is a coaction or constraint, but internal like that arising from the passions. The other sense has place when freedom is opposed to necessity. In the first sense the Stoics said that the wise man alone is free; and in fact the spirit is not at all free when it is filled with a great passion, for one cannot then will as he should, that is to say, with the deliberation which is requisite. Thus God alone is perfectly free, and created spirits are so, only to the extent that they are superior to their passions. And this freedom concerns properly our understanding. But the freedom of spirit, opposed to necessity, concerns the naked will, and in so far as it is distinguished from the understanding. This is 1 Simon Episcopius, 1583-1043. The piece referred to is the De libero arbi- trio, particularly the second chapter; it is found in his Opera Theologica, Vol. 1, p. 198, Div. II., 2d ed. London and Rotterdam, 1GG5-1G78, 2 vols., fol. — TR.
180 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [HK. n what is called free-imll ( franc-arbitre) and it consists in this, that we will that the strongest reasons or impressions which the understanding presents to the will do not prevent the act of the will from being contingent, and do not give it an abso lute, and, so to speak, metaphysical necessity. And it is in this sense that I am accustomed to say that the understanding can determine the will, according to the prevalence of percep tions and reasons, in a manner which, even where it is certain and infallible, inclines without compelling.1 . § 9. Ph. It is well also to consider that no one has yet thought of taking as a free agent a ball, whether in motion by the stroke of a racket or at rest. This is because we do not conceive of a ball as thinking or as having any volition, which makes it prefer motion to rest.
Tli. [If that were free which acts without hindrance, a ball once in motion in a level horizon would be a free agent. But Aristotle has already well remarked that to call acts free, we demand not only that they be spontaneous, but further that they be deliberate?]
Ph. This is why we consider the motion or rest of balls under the idea of a necessary thing.
Tli. [The appellation necessary requires as much circumspec tion as that of free. This conditional truth, viz.: supposing the ball to be in motion in a level horizon without hindrance, it icill continue the same motion, may pass as in some sort necessary, although at bottom this consequence is not entirely geometri cal, being only presumptive, so to speak, and based upon the wisdom of God who changes not his influence without a reason, which it is presumed is not at present to be found. But this absolute proposition: the ball here is now in motion in this plane, is only a contingent truth, and in this sense the ball is a contingent, not a free, agent.~\ § 10. Ph. Suppose that a man, while in a profound sleep, is carried into a room, where is a person, whom he much longs to 1 Cf. Essais de Thtodicde, Pt. I., §§ 51, 52, Gerhardt, 6, 130-131; Erdmann, 517; also Eduard Dillraanu, Erne neue Darstelluny der Leibnizischen Monad- cnlehre auf Grund der Quellcn, pp. 41(i sq.; Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1891. — TR.
2 Cf. Eth. Nic., III., 4, adfm., 5; 1111 sq.; translation by F. H. Peters, M.A., London: C. Kegaii Paul & Co., 1881. — TR.
cu. xxi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 181 see and to meet, and that the door is locked upon him; this man wakes up and is delighted to find himself with this per son, and lives thus in the room with pleasure. I think no one presumes to doubt that he remains voluntarily in that place. Yet he is not at liberty to go out if he wishes. Thus freedom is not an idea belonging to volition.
Th. [I find this example very well chosen to show that in a sense, an act or a state may be voluntary without being free. Still when philosophers and theologians dispute upon/?-ee ivill, they have altogether another sense ih view.]
§ 11. Ph. Freedom is wanting when paralysis prevents the limbs from obeying the determination of the mind, although, in the case of the paralytic even, to remain sitting still might be voluntary so long as he prefers sitting still to changing his place. Voluntary is not then opposed to necessary, but to involuntary.
Tli. [This precision of expression would be agreeable enough to me, but usage is far from it; and those who oppose freedom to necessity, mean to speak not of external acts, but of the act itself of willing.]
§ 12. Ph. A man awake is no more at liberty to think or not to think, than he is at liberty to prevent or not to prevent his body from touching any other body. But to transfer his thoughts from one idea to another is often within his deter mination. And in that case he is as much at liberty as regards his ideas, as he is as regards the bodies upon which lie rests, being able to transfer himself from one to the other as the fancy arises. There are, however, ideas, which, like certain (bodily) movements, are so fixed in the mind, that, in certain circumstances, you cannot avoid them whatever effort you make. A man upon the rack is not at liberty to put aside the idea of pain, and sometimes a violent passion acts upon our mind as the most violent wind acts upon our body.
Tli. [There is order and connection in ideas, as there is in (bodily) movements, for the one corresponds perfectly to the other, although the determination in the movements be uncon scious and free, or with choice in the thinking being whom good and evil only cause to incline without forcing him. For the soul, while representing bodies, preserves its (own) perfections, and although dependent upon the body (in seizing the good) in the 182 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n voluntary acts, it is independent and makes the body depend upon itself in others. But this dependence is only metaphysical, and consists in the considerations which God has for the one while ruling the other, or rather for both, according to the original perfections of each; whilst physical dependence would consist in an immediate influence, which the one would receive from the other on which it depends. For the rest, there come to us involuntary thoughts, partly from outside by means of objects which strike our senses, and partly from within by reason of the impressions (often insensible) which remain from preceding perceptions whose action continues and which mingle with those which appear for the first time. As regards these we are passive, and even when we wake up, images (under which designation I include not only the representa tions of figures, but also those of sounds and other sensible qualities) come to iis, as in dreams, without being called. The German language calls them fliegende Gedanken, that is, flying thoughts (pensees volantes), which are not within our control, and among which there are sometimes many absurdi ties which raise scruples in good people, and furnish exercise to casuists and directors of consciences. It is as in the magic