1 Erdmann and Jacques omit: " soit qu'on veuille designer quelque chose determinee," the reading of Gerhardt. — TR.
cir. xxix] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 271 may sometimes avoid by distinctions, but which most fre quently serve only to confuse the more, by putting in. the place of a vague and obscure term other terms still more vague and obscure, as those often are which the philosophers employ in their distinctions, without having good definitions of them.]
§ 12. Ph. If there is any other confusion in ideas, than this which has a secret relation to names, this at least casts more disorder than any other into the thoughts and discourse of men.
Tli. [I agree, but most frequently some notion of the thing and the purpose which we have in availing ourselves of the name is mixed with it; as, for example, when we speak of the church, many have in view a government, while others think of the truth of the doctrine.]
Ph. The way to prevent this confusion is constantly to apply the same name to a certain mass of simple ideas united in a fixed number and into a determined order. -But as that suits neither the laziness nor the vanity of men, and as it can be used only in the discovery and the defence of the truth, which is not always the end they propose to themselves, such precision is one of the things that is rather to be wished than hoped for. The vague application of names to ideas inde terminate, variable, and almost wholly empty (in the surd thoughts) is on one side a covering of our ignorance and on the other a confusing and embarrassing of others, which passes as true learning and as a mark of superiority in point of knowledge.
Tli. [The affectation of elegance and wit has further con tributed much to this intricacy of language; for in order to express thoughts beautifully and agreeably we make no diffi culty of giving words in a tropical manner a sense different from the ordinary, sometimes more general or more limited, which is called synecdoche, sometimes transferred according to the relations of things whose names we change, either by concurrence in metonymy, or by comparison in metaphor, not to speak of iron)/, which makes use of a term in a sense directly opposite to its real meaning. Thus these changes are named when recognized; but they are recognized only rarely. And in this indeterminateness of language, in which there is 272 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [RK. n lacking a kind of law which regulates the meaning of words, as there is something in the title of the digests of the Roman Law, De Verborum Significationibus, persons the most judic ious, when they write for ordinary readers, would be deprived of that which gives charm and force to their expression if they should confine themselves rigorously to the fixed mean ings of terms. They need only take care that their variation does not cause any error or false reasoning to spring up. The distinction of the ancients between the exoteric,1 i.e. popular, and the acroamatic 1 mode of writing, which belongs to those who are occupied in the discovery of truth, has place here. And if any one wished to write in mathematical fashion in metaphysics or ethics, nothing would prevent him from so doing with rigor. Some have professed to do this, and we have a promise of mathematical demonstrations outside of mathematics; but it is very rare that they have been success ful. This is, I believe, because they are disgusted with the trouble it is necessary to take for a small number of readers where they could ask as in Persius: Quis lecjet haec, and reply: Vel duo vel nemo.2 I believe, however, that if they would undertake it in the proper way they would not be likely to repent it. And I have been tempted to try it.]
§ 13. PA. You will agree with me, however, that complex ideas may be very clear and distinct in one aspect, and very obscure and confused in another.
Th. [There is no reason to doubt it; for example, we have very distinct ideas of a good part of the solid visible parts of the human body, but we have but few of the liquids which enter therein.]
Ph. If a man speaks of a figure of a thousand sides, the 1 Cf. Leibnitz, De Stilo philos. Nizolii, Gerhardt, Vol. 4, p. 14(5; Erdmann, p. 63. " Acroamatic " (ante, p. 42), from axpoa^a, anything heard, the verb oucpoa<r6a.it the regular word for hearing or attending lectures, the adjective dxpoa/uaTiKos, designed for hearing only, and, when used of the doctrines of philosophers, meaning the esoteric, i.e. the doctrines in their most rigorous and exact scientific form, their custom being to give these orally to their pupils, while treating them in a more popular, exoteric manner in their writ ings. Such was the method of Plato and of Aristotle, one of whose works is called <t>v<n.KT) axpoacris. Schaarsclimidt refers to Bernays, Die Dialoge d. Aris- tfttlcs, p. 30 sq. Berlin, 18G3, and Madvig, Excursus VII. to his edition of Cicero's De Finibus. — TR.
en. xx LX] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 273 idea of this figure may be very obscure in his mind, although that of the number may be very distinct therein.
Th. [This example is not in point here; a regular polygon of a thousand sides is known as distinctly as the millenary number, because we may discover and demonstrate all kinds of truth.]
Ph. But we do not have a precise idea of a figure of a thousand sides, so that we can distinguish it from another, which has only nine hundred ninety-nine.
Th. [This example shows that you here confound the idea with the image. If any one places before me a regular poly gon, sight and imagination cannot make me comprehend the millenary therein; I have only a confused idea both of the figure and of its number, until I distinguish the number by counting. But having found it, I know very well the nature and the properties of the proposed polygon, as far as they are those of the chiliagon, and consequently I have this idea of it; but I cannot have the image of a chiliagon, and it would be necessary to have senses and imagination more exquisite and better exercised in order to distinguish it thereby from a polygon which had one side less. But the knowledge of figures no more than that of numbers depends upon the imag ination, although it is of service therein; and a mathematician can know exactly the nature of a nonagon and a decagon, because he has the means of making and examining them, though he could not discern them at sight. It is true that a workman or an engineer, who does not perhaps know their nature sufficiently, can have this advantage beyond a great geometer that he can discern them by sight only without measuring them, as there are some street-porters1 (faquins) or pedlers, who will state the weight of what they are to carry within a pound, in which respect they will surpass the most skilful statistician in the world. It is true that 2 this empiri cal knowledge acquired by a long practice may be very useful for prompt action, such as an engineer very often needs to perform because of the danger to which he is exposed in delaying. But this dear image or this feeling which we may 1 Erdmann and Jacques omit: " faquins on," the reading of Gerhardt. — TR.
2 Erdmann and Jacques oinit: " II est vray que," the reading of Gerhardt.
274 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n have of a regular decagon or of a weight of ninety-nine pounds consists only in a confused idea, since it is of no avail in dis covering the nature and properties of this weight or of this regular decagon, which demands a distinct idea. And this example conduces to the better understanding of the differ ence of ideas, or rather that of the idea and the image.]
§ 15. 1 Ph. Another example: We are led to believe that we have a positive and complete idea of eternity, which is as much as to say that there is no part of that duration which is not clearly known in our idea; but, however great may be the duration that is represented, as it is a question of an extension without limits, there always remains a part of the idea beyond what is represented which continues obscure and undetermined; and thence it comes that, in discussions and reasonings concerning eternity or any other infinite, we are apt to involve ourselves in manifest absurdities.
Tli. [This example does not appear to me to square with your design either; but it is very appropriate to mine, which is to disabuse you of your notions on this point. For the same confusion of the image with the idea reigns here. We have a complete or just idea of eternity, since we have a definition of it, although we have no image of it. But the idea of the infinite is not formed by the composition of parts, and the errors which we meet in reasoning upon the infinite do not arise from the defect of the image.2] § 16.3 Ph. But is it not true that when we speak of the infinite divisibility of matter, although we have clear ideas of the division, we have only very obscure and very confused ideas of the parts? "For I ask whether a man taking the 1 Erdmann and Jacques have § 25. Gerhardt and Locke, Philos. Works, Vol. 1, p. 505 (Bonn's ed.), have § 15. — TR.
- The difficulties and errors in the discussion of the infinite arise not " from the defect of the image " but from the attempt to imagine or picture that which can only be thought. We can think the infinite and absolute, but we cannot form an adequate image or picture of it. The " confusion of the image with the idea," which Leibnitz here speaks of, is one of the causes vitiating much of the "reasoning upon the infinite" in the history of thought, and lying at the basis of all theories, like those of Hamilton, Mansel, and Spencer, which maintain the impossibility on man's part of a knowledge of the infinite. C'f. John Caird, An Introduction to the Philos. of Religion, p. 36. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1880. — TR.
3 So Gerhardt and Locke, Philoft. Works (Bonn's ed.), Vol. 1, p. 505; Erd mann has § 18; Jacques § 30. — TR.
CH. xxx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 275 smallest atom of dust he ever saw has any distinct idea of the difference between the one hundred thousandth l and the millionth part of this atom?
Th. It is the same qui pro quo of the image for the idea, which I am astonished to see so confused. The possession of an image of so great a smallness is not at all the question. It is impossible according to the present constitution of our body, and if we could have it, it would be much the same as that of those things which now appear to us apperceptible; but in compensation what is now the object of our imagination would escape us and become too great to be imagined. Size has no images in itself, and those which it has depend only upon comparison with the organs and other objects, and it is useless here to employ imagination. Thus it appears by all that you, sir, have said to me here that you are ingenious in devising difficulties without reason, in demanding more than is necessary.]
CHAPTER XXX OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS § 1. Ph. Ideas in relation to things are real or fantastical, adequate or inadequate, tme or false. By real ideas I under stand those which have a foundation in nature, and which are conformed to a real being, to the existence of things, or to their archetypes; otherwise they are fantastic or chimerical.
Th. [There is a little obscurity in this explication. The idea may have a foundation in nature, without being con formed to this foundation, as when we maintain that the per ceptions we have of color and heat do not resemble any orig inal or archetype. An idea is also real when it is possible, although no existing being corresponds thereto. Otherwise if all the individuals of a species were lost, the idea of the species would become chimerical.]
§ 2. Ph. Simple ideas are all real, for, although [according to many] whiteness and coldness are no more in snow than is pain, yet their ideas are in us as effects of powers connected 1 Erdmaim and Jacques read: " la 10,000me et la lOOOiue." — Tit.
276 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n with external things, and these constant effects serve us in distinguishing things as much as if they were exact images of that which exists in the things themselves.
Th. [I have examined this point above: but it appears thereby that you do not always demand a conformity to an archetype, and, according to the opinion (which, however, I do not approve) of those who think that God has arbitrarily assigned us ideas, destined to mark the qualities of objects without any resemblance or even natural relation, there would be also in that case less conformity between our ideas and the archetypes than there is between the words which we use by institution in language and the ideas, or the things them selves. ] § 3. Ph. The mind is passive as regards its simple ideas; but the combinations it makes of them to form complex ideas, where many simple ideas are comprised under one and the same name, have somewhat of the volitional element; for one man admits into the complex ideas he has of gold or of justice simple ideas which another does not admit.
Th. [The mind is, however, active in reference to simple ideas when it detaches them one from another to consider them separately, — an act which is voluntary as well as the combination of many ideas; whether it is done to call atten tion to a complex idea resulting therein, or whether it is the purpose to comprehend them under the name given to the combination. And the mind cannot be deceived therein pro vided it does not unite incompatible ideas and provided this name is still virginal, so to speak, that is to say, a name to which some notion has not already been attached, which might cause confusion with that which is newly attached thereto, and make arise either impossible notions by joining together what cannot take place, or notions superfluous and containing some obreption,1 by joining ideas, one of which may and ought to be derived from the other by demonstration.]
§ 4. Ph. Mixed modes and relations having no other reality than that which they have in men's minds, all that is requisite to make these sorts of ideas real is the possibility of existence or of compatibility together.
Til. [Relations have a reality dependent upon the mind 1 I.e. Concealment of the truth. — TK.
en. xxx] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 277 like truths; but not the mind of men, since there is a supreme intelligence which determines them all for all time. Mixed modes, which are distinct from relations, may be real acci dents. But be they dependent or not dependent upon the mind, it suffices for the reality of their ideas that these modes be possible or, what is the same thing, distinctly intelligible. And for this result it is necessary that their ingredients be comfiossible, i.e. capable of existing together.]
§ 5. Ph. But the complex ideas of substances, as they are all formed in relation to things existing outside of us, and as representative of substances such as really exist, are real only so far as they are combinations of simple ideas really both united and coexisting in things coexisting without us. On the contrary those are chimerical l which are composed of such collections of simple ideas as have never been really united and found together in any substance; like those which form a centaur, a body resembling gold, save in weight, and lighter than water, a body similar in relation to the senses, but endowed with perception, voluntary movement, etc.
Th. [If I take in this manner the terms real and chimeri cal otherwise in relation to the ideas of the modes than in relation to those which form a substance, I do not see what common notion in each case you give to real or chimerical ideas; for the modes are real to you when they are possible, and substances have real ideas with you only when they are existent. But in desiring to tally with existence, we can determine but little whether an idea is chimerical or not, because what is possible, although not found in our place or time, may have existed formerly or will perhaps some day exist, or may indeed be found already present in another world, or even in ours without our knowing it, like the idea which Democritus had of the Milky Way 2 which the telescopes have verified: so that it seems better to say that possible ideas only become chimerical when we attach to them without foundation the idea of effective existence, as those do who promise themselves the philosopher's stone or, as those 1 Locke has: " fantastical," Philos. Works, Vol. 1, p. 510 (Bohn's ed.). — TR.
2 Cf. Aristotle, Meteorolor/ica, Bk. I., chap. 8, 345a, 25: "The Milky Way is the li^ht of certain stars." Zeller, Die Philos. d. Grlech., 3d ed.. Vol. 1, p. 724, note 1; 5th ed., 1892, I. 2 [Vol. 2], p. 897, note 8. — TR.
278 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. n would do who should believe that there had been a nation of centaurs. Otherwise in not regulating ourselves by exist ence we shall deviate unnecessarily from the received language, which does not allow us to say that he who speaks in winter of roses or pinks speaks of a chimera, unless he imagines he is able to find them in his garden, as the story is told of Albert the Great1 or of some other pretended Magician.]
CHAPTER XXXI OF ADEQUATE2 AND INADEQUATE IDEAS § 1. Ph. Real ideas are complete when they represent per fectly the originals whence the mind supposes them to be taken, which they represent, and to which it refers them. Incomplete ideas represent only a part of these originals. § 2. All our simple ideas are complete. The idea of white ness or of sweetness, which is noticed in sugar, is complete, because it suffices for this, — that it corresponds entirely to the powers that God has put into this body to produce these sensations.
Th. [I see, sir, that you call complete or incomplete ideas those which your favorite author calls idece adwquatce aut inadcequatce; you might call them perfect or imperfect. I have sometimes defined, idea adcequata (a perfect idea) as that which is so distinct that all its ingredients are distinct, and such is nearly the idea of a number. But when an idea is distinct and contains the definition or the reciprocal marks of the object, it may be inadcequata or imperfect, viz.: when 1 Albertus Magnus, 1193-1280. Schaarschmidt states that " like many other scholars of those dark centuries (Michael Scotus, Roger Bacon, etc.) he was suspected of Magic," and adds that " Trithemius in particular, who, moreover, takes the philosopher into his protection, gives an account thereof in his An- nalesHirsaugicnses, Vol. 2, p. 40. Naude in his Apoloyie des Grands Hommes Soupr;onn€K de Mar/ie, chap. 18, Bayle in his Dictionary, see under Albert Le Grand, and Brucker, Hint. Philosophise, 3, 793 sq., have likewise defended him." On his life and philosophy, cf. Erdmann, Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Philos. §§ 199-202, Vol. 1, pp. 356 sq., and English translation of same; also Stockl, Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittdalters, Vol. 2, pp. 352 sq., §§ 101-11!). — TR.
2Locke's title; the French might be rendered " complete and incomplete," as in the text. — TR.
CH. xxxi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 279 these marks or these ingredients are not also all distinctly known; for example, gold is a metal which resists the cupel and aqua fortis; it is a distinct idea, for it gives the marks or the definition of gold; but it is not perfect for the nature of cupellation and the working of aqua fortis is not sufficiently known to us. Whence it conies that, when there is only an imperfect idea, the same subject is susceptible of many defini tions independent the one of the other, so that we cannot always derive one from the other nor see beforehand that they must belong to one and the same subject, and then experience alone teaches us that they all belong to it at once. Thus gold may still be defined as the heaviest of our bodies, or the most malleable, without speaking of other definitions which might be invented. But we shall be able to see why it belongs to the heaviest of metals to resist these two tests of the assay- ers only when men shall have penetrated farther into the nature of things; whilst in geometry, where we have perfect ideas, the case is different, for we can prove that the sec tions of the cone and of the cylinder, made by a plane, are the same, viz. ellipses, and this cannot be unknown to us, if we take notice of it, because the notions we have of them are perfect. With me the division of ideas into perfect and im perfect is only a sub-division of distinct ideas, and it appears to me that only the confused ideas, like that we have of sweet ness, of which you, sir, speak, deserve this name; for although they express the power which produces the sensation, they do not express it wholly, or at least we cannot know this, for if we comprehended what is in this idea of sweetness we have we could judge whether it is sufficient as a rational expression of all that experience causes us to notice therein.]
§ 3. Ph. From simple ideas let us come to the complex; they are either of modes or of substances. Those of modes are the voluntary collections of simple ideas which the mind puts together icithout regard to certain archetypes or real and actually existing models; they are complete and cannot be otherwise, because not being copies but archetypes, which the mind forms in order to avail itself of them in ranking things under certain denominations, they can lack nothing, because each includes such a combination of ideas as the mind has desired to form, and consequently such perfection as it had 280 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. n plaimed to give thereto, and we cannot conceive that the understanding of any one can have a more complete or more perfect idea of a triangle than that of a figure of three sides and three angles. He who put together the ideas of danger, of execution, of the trouble that fear produces, of a calm con sideration of what it would be reasonable to do, and of an actual application to its execution without being frightened by the danger, formed the idea of courage, and had what he desired, viz.: a complete idea conformed to his good pleasure. It is otherwise in our ideas of substances in which we main tain that which really exists.
Tli. [The idea of triangle or of courage has its archetype in the possibility of things as well as the idea of gold. And it is a matter of indifference, so far as the nature of the idea is concerned, whether it was invented in advance of experi ence, or whether it was retained after the perception of a combination which nature had made. Combination also, which produces the modes, is not wholly voluntary or arbi trary, for we can put together what is incompatible, as those do who invent machines for perpetual motion, while others can invent those which are good and practicable which have no other archetypes with us than the idea of the inventor which has as its archetype the possibility of things or the divine idea. Now these machines are substances. We can also invent impossible modes, as when we maintain the parallelism of parabolas, by imagining that we can find two parabolas parallel to each other, like two straight lines or two circles. An idea, then, whether it be that of a mode, or that of a substance, may be complete or incomplete according as we understand well or ill the partial ideas which form the total idea: and it is a mark of a perfect idea when it makes known perfectly the possibility of the object.]
CH. xxxm] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 281 CHAPTER XXXII OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS § 1. Ph. As truth1 or falsehood belongs only to proposi tions,2 it follows that when ideas are termed true or false there is some tacit proposition or affirmation; § 3. or a tacit assumption of their conformity to something, § 5. above all with what others designate by this name (as when they speak of justice) item to what really exists (as man exists but not the centaur) item to the essence, upon which depend the prop erties of the thing; and in this sense our ordinary ideas of substances are false when we think of certain substantial forms. Besides, ideas deserve rather to be called accurate or faulty, than true or false.
Tli. I believe that true or false ideas might be so under stood, but as these different senses do not agree between them selves and cannot be conveniently ranked under a common notion, I prefer to call the ideas true or false in relation to another tacit affirmation which they all include, which is that of possibility. Thus possible ideas are true, impossible false. J CHAPTER XXXIII OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS § 1. Ph. We often notice something odd in the reasonings of people, and everybody is subject to this. § 2. It is not alone obstinacy or self-love; for often people who are well disposed are guilty of this fault. It does not indeed suffice to 1 Cf. New Essays, Bk. IV., chap. 5. — TR.
2 Cf. Aristotle De Anima, III. 6,430% 27, and E.Wallace, Aristotle's Psychol ogy in Greek and English, with Introduction and Notes, pp. KiO, 1(51, Cam bridge: University Press, 1882; also De Interpret. 1, l(itt, 12, and E. Wallace, Outlines of the Philos. of Aristotle, 3d ed., § 11, p. 27. For Leibnitz, the true is the thinkable, i.e. that which is free from contradiction in itself and of other truth. Thought-necessity is his criterion of possibility and of truth. — TR.
282 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. 11 attribute it to education and to prejudice. § 4. It is rather a kind of madness, and we should be foolish if we should always act thus. § 5. This fault arises from a non-natural connection of ideas, which has its origin in chance or custom. § 6. Inclination and interest enter into it. Certain tracts of the repeated course of animal spirits become beaten roads; when we know l a certain air, we find it as soon as we begin it. § 7. Thence arise the sympathies or antipathies which are not born with us. A child has eaten too much honey and has been surfeited by it, and then having become a full-grown man, he cannot hear the name honey without a rising of the stomach. § 8. Children are very susceptible to these impres sions, and it is well to be careful of them. § 9. This irregu lar association of ideas has a great influence in all our actions and passions natural and moral. § 10. Darkness revives the idea of ghosts in children because of the stories told them about them. § 11. You do not think of a man whom you hate without thinking of the evil he has done or may do. § 12. You shun the room in which you have seen a friend die. § 13. A mother who has lost a very dear child sometimes loses with it all her joy, until time effaces the impression of this idea, which sometimes never2 happens. § 14. A man perfectly cured of madness by an extremely painful operation acknowledged all his life his obligation to the one who per formed this operation; but it was impossible for him to endure the sight of the operator. § 15. Some hate books all their life because of the bad treatment they received in school. Some one having once gotten the upper hand of another upon some occasion keeps it always. § 16. A man was found who had learned to dance finely, but could not execute the dance unless there was in the room a trunk like the one which had been in the room where he had learned. § 17. The same non-natural bond is found in the intellectual habits; you bind matter to being, as if there were nothing immaterial. § 18. The sectarian party in philosophy, religion, and the state is attached to its opinions.
Th. [This remark is important and wholly to my taste, and can be fortified by an infinite number of examples. Descartes 1 Gerhardt reads: " sait "; Erdmann and Jacques: "suit," follow. — TR.
2 Gerhardt reads: " jamais "; Erdmann and Jacques: "pas." — TR.
CH. xxxm] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 283