Those who understand my system will think that I cannot wholly agree with the one or the other of these two excellent authors, whose discussion, however, is very instructive. But to explain myself distinctly, it is necessary before all things to consider that the modifications which may belong naturally or without miracle to a subject must come to it from the limi tations or variations of a real genus, or of a constant and abso lute original nature. For it is thus that Philosophers dis- 1 La Loubere, Simon de, 1642-1729. Sent by Louis XIV. in 1687 to SSam, to establish diplomatic and commercial relations between that kingdom and France. While there he collected a large amount of exact and interesting information concerning the country, its history, customs, religion, etc., which, on his return, he published in his Du royaume de Siam, Paris, IG'Jl; English translation, London, 1(593. — TR.
ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 61 tinguish the modes of an absolute being from that being itself; as it is known that size, figure, and movement are manifestly limitations and variations of corporeal nature. For it is clear how a limited extension gives figures, and that the change which is made in it is nothing but motion. And whenever we find any quality in a subject, we must believe that if we understood the nature of this subject and of this quality, we should conceive how this quality can result therefrom. Thus in the order of nature (miracles aside) it is not optional with God to give to substances indifferently such or such qualities, and he will never give to them any, save those which will be natural to them, i.e. which can be derived from their nature as explicable modifications. Thus it may be asserted that matter will not naturally possess the attraction mentioned above, and will not proceed of itself in a curved line, because it is impossi ble to conceive how this takes place there, i.e. to explain it mechanically, while that which is natural must be capable of becoming distinctly conceivable if we were admitted into the secrets of things. This distinction between what is natural and explicable and what is inexplicable and miraculous removes all the difficulties, and by rejecting it, we should maintain something worse than the occult qualities; and in so doing would renounce philosophy and reason, by opening retreats for ignorance and idleness, though a dead system, which admits not only that there are qualities which we do not understand, of which there are only too many, but also that there are some which the greatest mind, if God gave him every possible opening, could not comprehend, i.e. which would be either miraculous or without rhyme and reason; and also that God should work miracles ordinarily would be without rhyme and reason, so that this hypothesis would destroy equally our philosophy which seeks reasons, and the divine wisdom which furnishes them.
Now as to thought, it is certain, and the author admits it more than once, that it could not be an intelligible modifica tion of nature or one which could be comprised therein and explained, i.e. that a being who feels and thinks is not a mech anism like a watch or a mill, so that we might conceive sizes, figures, and movements, whose mechanical conjunction might produce something thinking, and even feeling in a mass in 62 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE which there was nothing of the kind, which would cease also in the same manner upon the derangement of this mechanism. It is not then a natural thing for matter to feel and think, and this can happen within it only in two ways, of which one will be that God should unite with it a substance to which thought is natural, and the other that God by a miracle should put thought therein. In this, then, I am Avholly of the opinion of the Cartesians, except that I extend it even to the brutes, and that I believe they have sentiency and (properly speak ing) immaterial souls, and are as imperishable as the atoms of Democritus or Gassendi, while the Cartesians, perplexed with out reason by the souls of brutes, and not knowing what they are to do with them if they are preserved (for want of having thought of the conservation of the same animal reduced to miniature), have been compelled to refuse even sentiency to the animals against all appearances and contrary to the judgment of the human race-XBut if any one should say that God at least may add the faculty of thinking to the prepared mechan ism, I should reply that if this were done, and if God added this faculty to matter without putting therein at the same time a substance which was the subject of inhesion of this same faculty (as I conceive it), i.e. without adding thereto an immaterial soul, it would be necessary that matter should be miraculously exalted in order to receive a power of which it is naturally incapable; as some scholastics l claim that God ex alts fire even to the point of giving it the force to burn imme diately spirits separated from matter, a thing which would be a miracle, pure and simple. And it is enough that it cannot be maintained that matter thinks without putting into it an imperishable soul, or a miracle, and that thus the immortality of our souls follows from what is natural, since their extinc tion can be maintained only by a miracle, Avhether by exalting matter or by annihilating the soul. For we know well that God's power can make our souls mortal, wholly immaterial (or immortal by nature alone) as they may be, since he can annihilate them.
Now this truth of the immateriality of the soul is undoubt- 1 Erdmann and Jacques read: " Qnelques scholastiqnes out pretendn qnelque chose d'approchant savoir," i.e. Some scholastics have claimed something like this: viz. — TR.
OX HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 63 edly of importance. For it is infinitely more advantageous to religion and morality, especially in our times (when many people hardly respect revelation alone and miracles '), to show that souls are immortal by nature, — and that it would be a mir acle if they were not, — than to maintain that our souls ought naturally to die, but that it is in virtue of a miraculous grace grounded in the promise of God alone that they do not die. Also for a long time it has been known that those who have desired to destroy natural religion and to reduce all to revealed religion, as if reason taught us nothing regarding it, have been looked upon with suspicion; and not always without reason. But our author does not belong to that number. He maintains the demonstration of the existence of God, and he attributes to the immateriality of the soul a probability in the highest de gree, which could consequently pass for a moral certainty, so that I think that, having as much sincerity as penetration, he could easily accommodate himself to the doctrine which I have just set forth, and which is fundamental in every rational phi losophy. For otherwise I do not see how one can prevent him self from falling back into the fanatical philosophy? such as the "Philosophia Mosaica" of Fludd,3 which saves all phenomena by attributing them to God immediately and by miracle; or into the barbaric philosophy like that of certain philosophers and physicians of the past, which still manifested the barbarity of their age, and which to-day is with reason despised, who saved appearances by forging purposely occult qualities or faculties which they imagined to be like little demons or goblins capa ble of producing without ceremony what is demanded, just as if watches marked the hours by a certain horodeictic faculty without needing wheels, or as if mills ground the grain by a tractive faculty without needing anything resembling mill stones. As to the difficulty that many people have had in conceiving an immaterial substance, it will easily cease (at least in good part) if they will not demand substances sepa rated from matter, as in fact I do not believe there ever are any naturally among creatures.
1 Erdmann and Jacques omit this clause. — TR.
2 Erdmann and Jacques read: " la philosophic ou fanatique," i.e. philosophy or fanaticism. — TR.
3 Robert Fludd (1574-1G37), an English physician and mystical philosopher. The Philosophia Mosaica was published at Gouda in I(i38. — TR.
NEW ESSAYS ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING BOOK I. — INNATE IDEAS CHAPTER I1 ARE THERE INNATE PRINCIPLES IN THE MIND OF MAN?
Pliilaletlies. Having recrossed the sea after finishing my business in England, I thought at once of paying you a visit, . sir, in order to cultivate our former friendship, and to con verse upon matters which lie close to our hearts, and upon which I believe I have acquired some new light during my long stay in London. When we were living formerly quite near each other at Amsterdam, we both took much pleasure in making researches into the principles and means of pene trating into the heart of things. Although our opinions often differed, this diversity increased our satisfaction, when, in our conference together, notwithstanding the contrariety which sometimes existed, there mingled nothing disagreeable. You were for Descartes 2 and for the opinions of the celebrated author2 of "The Search after Truth," and I found the opinions of Gassendi,2 cleared up by Bernier, easier and more natural. Now I feel myself greatly strengthened by the excellent work which an illustrious Englishman, with whom I have the honor of a particular acquaintance, has since published, and which has several times been reprinted in England, under the modest 1 Book I. of Locke's Essay has four chapters, of which chap. 1 is introduc tory. Chap. 1 of Leihnitz corresponds to chap. 2 of Locke. — TR.
2 Rene Descartes, 15!)6-1650; Nicolas Malehranche, 1038-1715, his chief work, De la Recherche de la Verile, 1674; Pierre Gassendi, 1592-1655, Abregd de la Philosophic de Gassendi, 8 vols., 1078, 2d ed., 7 vols., 1684, by Frai^ois Bernier. — TR.
64 en. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 65 title of "An Essay concerning Human Understanding." And I am delighted that it has appeared lately in Latin and in French, in order that it may be more generally useful. I have greatly profited by the reading of this wprk, and indeed from the conversation of the author, with whom I have talked often in London, and sometimes at Gates, at the house of my Lady Mashain,1 worthy daughter of the celebrated Cudworth,2 a great English philosopher and theologian, author of the Intellectual System, from whom she has inherited the spirit of meditation and the love for good learning, which appeared particularly in the friendship which she kept up with the author of the Essay. And, as he had been attacked by some clever Doctors, I took pleasure in reading also the defence which a very wise and very intelligent young lady made for him, besides those which he made for himself. This aiithor writes in the spirit of the system of Gassendi, which is at bottom that of Democritus; 2 he is for the vacuum and for atoms; he believes that matter might think; that there are no innate ideas, that our mind is a tabula rasa, and that we do- not always think; and he appears disposed to approve the most of the objections which Gassendi has made3 to Descartes.
He has enriched and strengthened this system by a thousand beautiful reflections; and I do not at all doubt that now our party will triumph boldly over its adversaries, the Peripa tetics and the Cartesians. This is why, if you have not yet read this book, I invite you to do so, and if you have read it, I ask you to give me your opinion of it.
(^Theophilus. I rejoice to see you, on your return after a long absence, happy in the conclusion of your important business, full of health, steadfast in your friendship for me, and always transported with an ardor equal to the search for the most 1 The correspondence between Leibnitz and Lady Masham is given in full by &erhardt, Vol. 3, pp. 331 sq.— TR.
2 Ralph Cudworth, 1617-1688, his principal work, The True Intellectual Si/stem of the Universe, London, 1678; Democritus, born probably about the middle of the fifth century B.C., as he says (Diog. L., IX., 41) he was " still young when Anaxagoras," 500-428 B.C., "was already old (Ve<K Kara irpeo-j3vTr;» 'A.vafay6pav)."..."The year of his death is unknown," Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, pp. 76, 77, New York: H. Holt & Co., 8 In Vol. 3 of his Opera, of which two editions were published: by Mont- mort, 1655, 6 vols. folio, Lyons; by Averauius, 1727, also 6 vols. folio. — TR. F G6 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [HK. i important truths. I no less have continued my meditations in the same spirit, and I believe I have profited as much as, and, not to flatter myself, perhaps more than yourself. In deed, my need therein was greater than yours, for you were more advanced than I. You were more conversant with spec ulative philosophers, and I was more inclined towards ethics. But I have learned more and more how ethics receives strength from the solid principles of true philosophy; therefore I have lately studied these principles more diligently, and have begun meditations quite new. So that we shall have the means of giving ourselves a reciprocal pleasure of long duration in com municating the one to the other our solutions. But it is nec essary for me to tell you, as a piece of news, that I am no longer a Cartesian, and that, nevertheless, I am farther re moved than ever from your Gassendi, whose knowledge and merit I, for the rest, recognize. I have been impressed with a new system, of which I have read something in the " Jour- naux des Savans " of Paris, Leipzig, and Holland, and in the marvellous Dictionary of Bayle, article "Rorarius"1; and since then I believe I see a new aspect of the interior of things. This system appears to unite Plato2 and Deniocritus, Aristotle2 and Descartes, the scholastics with the moderns, theology and ethics with the reason. It seems to take the best from all sides, and then it goes much farther than any has yet gone. I find in it an intelligible explanation of the union of soul and body, of which I had before this despaired. I find the true principles of things in the Unities of Substance, which this system introduces, and in their harmony pre-established by the primitive Substance. I find therein a wonderful sim plicity and uniformity, so that it may be said that this sut> stance is everywhere and always the same thing, differing only in degrees of perfection. I see now what Plato meant when he assumed matter to be an existence imperfect and transitory; what Aristotle meant by his Entelechy; what that promise of another life is which Democritus himself made according to Pliny; how far the Sceptics were right in de claiming against the senses; how animals are in fact automata 1 Cf. Gerhardt, Vol. 4, pp. 521-554, the article " Rorarius " with Leibnitz's remarks. — TR.
cir. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 67 according to Descartes, and how they have, nevertheless, souls and feeling according to the opinion of mankind^ how it is necessary to explain rationally those who have lodged life and perception in all things, as Cardan,1 Campanella,1 and, better than they, the late Countess of Connaway, a Platonist, and our friend, the late M. Francois Mercure van Helmont 2 (although elsewhere bristling with unintelligible paradoxes), with his friend, the late Mr. Henry More.2 How the laws of nature (a good part of which were unknown before this system) have their origin in principles superior to matter, and how, never theless, everything takes place mechanically in matter, in which respect the spiritualizing authors I just named have failed with their Archaei,3 and even the Cartesians, in believ- 1 Girolamo Cardano, 1501-157G; Tommaso Campanella, 1568-1639; cf. Erd- manu, Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Philos., 3d ed., Vol. 1, §§ 242, 246, Berlin: Wil- helm Hertz, 1878, and the English translation of the same, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1889; also the articles "Cardan" and "Campanella" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. — TR.
2 Van Helmont, 1618-1698: Henry More, 1614-1687. — TR.
3 Archseus, i. Modern Latin, from the Greek ipxalo*;, ipx1). that which is at the beginning, source, origin, a first principle. Littre defines the term thus: " Arche'e. Terme de physiologic ancienne. Principe immaterial different de 1'ame intelligent et qu'on supposait presider a tous les phenomenes de la vie materielle." I.e. "A term of ancient physiology. An immaterial princi ple different from the intelligent soul, and which is supposed to preside over all the phenomena of the material life." The Century Dictionary gives the following exposition and illustration: "In the philosophy of Paracelsus and other spagyrics, mystics, and theosophists, a spirit or invisible man or animal of ethereal substance, the counterpart of the visible body, within which it resides, and to which it imparts life, strength, and the power of assimilating food. The word is said to have been used by Basil Valentine, a German chemist of the fifteenth century, to denote the solar heat as the source of the life of plants. Paracelsus uses it with the above meaning. It is frequent in the writings of Van Helmont, who explains it as a material pre-existence of the human or animal form in posse. He regards the archseus as a fluid, i.e. as a semi-material substance like air, and seems to consider it a chemical constituent of the blood. Paracelsus has particularly made use of the hypothesis of the archseus to explain the assimilation of food. This function of the archajus became prominent in medicine. Van Helmont calls it the doorkeeper of the stomach (janitor stomachi). There are further divarications of meaning. Also spelled Archeus."
"As for the many pretended intricacies in the instance of the efformation of Wasps out of the Carcase of a Horse, I say, the Archei that formed them are no parts of the Horse's Soul that is dead, but several distinct Archei that do as naturally joyu with the matter of his body, so putrified and prepared, as the Crowes come to eat his flesh." — Dr. H. MORE, Antidote against Atheism, app. xi.
Cf. Leibnitz: Considerations sur le Principe de Vie et sur les Natures Plas- 68 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i ing that immaterial substances altered if not the force, at least the direction or determination, of the motions of bodies, whereas the soul and the body retain perfectly each its own laws, according to the new system, and yet one obeys the other as much as is necessary. In fine, it is since I have med itated upon this system that I have found out how the souls of beasts and their sensations are in no sense prejudicial to the immortality of human souls, or, rather, how nothing is more suited to establish our natural immortality than to con ceive that all souls are imperishable (morte carent animce), without, however, the fear of metempsychoses, since not only the souls, but further, the animals endure and will endure liv ing, feeling, acting; it is everywhere as here, and always and everywhere as with us, according to what I have already said to you, except that the conditions of animals are more or less perfect and developed, without there ever being a need of souls wholly separate] while we nevertheless have always spirits as pure as possible, notwithstanding our (physical) organs, which cannot disturb by any influence the laws of our (spiritual) spontaneity. I find the vacuum and atoms excluded in quite another way than by the sophism of the Cartesians, grounded in the pretended coincidence of the idea of body and extension. I see all things determined and adorned beyond anything hitherto conceived; matter everywhere organic, no sterile, neglected vacuum, nothing too uniform, everything varied, but with order; and, what passes imagination, the entire universe in epitome, but with a different aspect in each of its parts, and likewise in each of its unities of substance. Besides this new analysis of things, I have a better compre hension of that of notions or ideas, and of truths. I under stand what a true, clear, distinct, adequate idea is, if I dare adopt this word. I understand what are primitive truths, and true axioms, the distinction between necessary truths and tiques par VAuteur de V Harmonic Prettablie, published in the "Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans," May, 1705, Gerhardt, Vol. 6, pp. 539-546; Erdmann, pp. 42SM32; translation, Duncan, Philos. Works of Leibnitz, pp. 1(>3-169. See also Erdmann, Grundriss d. Gesrh. d. Philos. 3d ed., Vol. 1, § 241, 7, Vol.2, § 2!K), 12, or the English translation of the same. Slight additional information may be found in the EncylopSBdia Britannica, 9th ed., under the article, " Medicine," in the part giving an account of Paracelsus and Van Hel- moiit. — TR.
CH. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 69 truths of fact, between the reasoning of men and the consecu tions of animals, which are a shadow of the reasoning of men. In short, you will be surprised to hear all that I have to say to you, and, above all, to understand how much the knowledge of the grandeur and of the perfection of God is therein exalted. For I cannot conceal from you, from whom I have had nothing concealed, how I have been thrilled now with admiration and (if we may dare to make use of the term) with love for this sovereign source of things and of beauty, having found that what this system discovers surpasses everything one has hith erto conceived. You know that I had gone a little too far formerly, and that I began to lean toward the side of the Spinozists,1 who allow God only infinite power, without recog nizing either perfection or wisdom in his case, and regarding Avith contempt the search for final causes, derive everything from brute necessity. But these new lights have cured me of this; and since then I sometimes take the name of Theophilus. I have read the book of this celebrated Englishman of whom you have just spoken. I value it highly, and I have found in it some good things. But it seems to me necessary to go much farther, and necessary even to turn aside from his views, since he has adopted some which limit us more than is neces sary, and lower a little not only the condition of man, but, besides, that of the universe.
Ph. You astonish me in fact with all the marvels which you have recited to me in a manner a little too favorable for an easy credence of them on my part. However, I will hope that there will be something solid among so many novelties with which you desire to regale me. In this case you will find me very docile. You know that it was always my disposition to surrender myself to reason, and that I sometimes took the name of Philaletlies. This is why, if you please, we will now make use of these two names which are so congruous with our mental constitution and methods. There are means of pro ceeding to the trial, for — since you have read the book of the 1 On the relation of Leibnitz to Spinoza, see Leibniz u. Spinoza. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Leibnizischen Philosophic. Von Prof. Dr. Ludwijj Stein. Mit iieuuzehn Ineditis aus dem Nachlass von Leibniz. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1890. pp. xvii., 362. Also " Mind," No. 62, p. 298; No. 63, pp. 443 sq., the latter an extended note on Stein's book by Prof. George Croom Robertson, the late editor of " Mind." — TK.
70 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i celebrated Englishman, which gives me so much satisfaction and which treats a good part of the subjects of which you were just speaking, and above all, the analysis of our ideas and knowledge — it will be the shortest way to follow the thread of this work, and to see what you will have to say.
Tk. I approve your proposition. Here is the book.
§ 1. Ph. [I have read this book so thoroughly that I have retained even its expressions, which I shall be careful to fol low. Thus I shall not need to recur to the book, except at certain junctures where we shall judge it necessary. We shall speak first of the origin of ideas or notions (Book I.), then of the different kinds of ideas (Book II.), and of the words that serve to express them (Book III.), lastly of the knowl edge and truths which therefrom result (Book IV.); and it is this last part which will occupy us the most. As for the ori gin of ideas, I believe, with this author and a multitude of clever persons, that there are no innate ideas nor innate prin ciples.] And, in order to refute the error of those who admit them, it is sufficient to show, as it appears eventually, that there is no need of them, and that men can acquire all their knowledge without the aid of any innate impression.