the four bodies which they call elements, and think simple, and the salts, metals, and other bodies which they think are per fectly mixed, and to which they attribute their temperaments,1 are not unum per se either; so much the more as we must judge that they are uniform and homogeneous only in appear ance, and even a homogeneous body would not cease to be a mass. In a word, the perfect unity must be reserved to bodies animated, or endowed with primitive entelechies; for these entelechies are analogous to souls and are as individual and imperishable as they; and I have elsewhere affirmed that their organic bodies are practically machines, but which surpass the artificial machines of our invention as much as the inventor of the natural machines surpasses us. For these natural machines are as imperishable as the souls themselves, and the animal with the soul subsists always: it is (the better to explain my self by something pleasing, wholly laughable as it is,) as if a harlequin wished to strip himself in the theatre, but could not succeed because he had an indefinite number of garments one upon another; although these infinite replications of organic bodies, which exist in an animal, are not so similar nor so applied the one to the other, as the garments, nature's art being of a wholly different subtility. All this shows that the philosophers have not been wholly in the wrong in putting so great distance between artificial things and between natural bodies endowed with a real unity. But it belonged only to our time to develop this mystery and make understood its importance and consequences in order thoroughly to establish natural theology and what is called Pneumatics,2 in a manner 1 Leibnitz here alludes to the four elements of Empedocles, c. 492-c. 432, B. c., 7112., tire, air, earth, water, adopted l>y Plato and Aristotle and called by the Peripatetics warmth, cold, dryness, humidity, a mixture of which in vary ing proportions constituted all bodies. Cf. Zeller, Philos. d. Gripe., I. 2 [Vol. 2], 758 xq., 5th ed., 1802, II. 1 [Vol. 3], 796 «?., 4th ed., 1889, II, 2 [Vol. 4], 431, sq., 832 xq., 3d ed., 1879. The state of a body resulting from the proportional disposition of these primary constituent elements or qualities was called its temperament, the character of the temperament varying according to the pre dominance of one or more of the elements. The scholastics discussed the question whether the temperament comprised these four primary qualities, or whether it did not consist in a fifth simple quality, the outcome of the recipro cal action of the four primary qualities, which resulted in their entire destruc tion. Cf. also Gerhartlt, Leibniz, jihiloa. Schrift., 4, 207. — Til.
2 Cf. ante, p. 50, note 2. Sehaarschmidt states that Pneumatics — Pnpumatik — with the meaning — -Doctrine of the Spirit, Lchre vom Geistc — Psychology en. vi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 363 truly natural and in agreement with our experiments and understanding, and requiring the loss of none of the important considerations they are destined to furnish, or rather enhanc ing their value, as does the system of pre-established harmony.1 And I believe that we can best conclude this long discussion of the names of substances only by that means.
— occurs in Alsted's Encyclopsedie, Herborniae, 1630, cf. ante, p. 311, note 2, and that Stephen Chauvin in his Lexicon philosophicum, Leovardiae, 1713, adopted it and explained it by Pnenmatology and Pnemnatosophy. The term is now confined to physical science, and denotes that department of hydrodynamics which treats of the properties of gases as distinguished from liquids. Cf. Kranth-Flemming, Vocab. of the Philos. Sciences, p. 388, New York, Sheldon 1 Of. New Essays, Bk. IV., chap. 10, §§ 7 and 9, infra, pp.505, 507; Systeme nouveau, §§ 14-10, Gerhardt, 4, 484-8(i, Erdmann, 127, a-128, Jacques, 1, 475-77, trans. Duncan, Philos. Wks. of Leibnitz, 77-79; Considerations sur les principes de vie, etc., G. G, 541, E. 430, trans. D. 1(55; Principes de la nature et de la grace, §§ 7-13, G. 6, 602-604, E. 716, trans. D. 212-215; Animadversiones in partem generalem Principionim Cartesianorum, Pt. I. ad Art. 14, G. 4, 358, trans. D. 50; Leibniz ger/en Descartes und den Carte sianismtts, G. 4, 292-294, 401-403, 405-406, E. 176, trans. D. 132-138, and his note 49, p. 382; Mcd. de Cog. Ver. et Ideis, G. 4, 424, E. SO, a, trans. D. 30. According to Leibnitz, his doctrine of monads requires as its necessary complement the existence of God, since the single monads, expressing in their own experience all that is beyond them, yet without influence on other monads, cannot furnish a sufficient ground or reason for the harmony and connection of things in a universal world-order. This harmonious world-order existing, its sufficient ground or reason must be found in the absolute being, God, who has given to each monad the nature which makes it capable of developing itself in its extreme individuality in accord and correspondence with every other. The pre-estab lished harmony is thus an actual proof, in accord with experience, of the existence of God, and the suggestion of reason in the ontological argument as improved by Leibnitz, is confirmed by the comparative and comprehensive study of the phenomena of nature. For expositions and criticisms of Leibnitz's doctrine, cf. Dewey, Leibniz's New Essay >•, chaps. 11, 12; E. Zeller, Gesch. d. dcutschen Philos. xeit Leibniz, 2d ed., Miinchen, 1875, pp. 88-98, 124-127; F. A. Lange, Gesch. d. Matcrialismus, 3d ed., Leipzig u. Gerlohn, 1875 sq., Bk. I., Sect. IV., chap. 4, Eng. trans, by E. C. Thomas, 3 vols., Boston, Vol. 2, pp. 124 sq.; Kuno Fischer, Gesch. d.?K Philos., Bd. II., Leibniz, 3d ed., Heidelberg, 364 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. in CHAPTER VII OF PAKTICLES § 1. Ph. Besides the words which are used to name ideas, wo need those which signify the connection of ideas or proposi tions. This is, this is not, are general signs of affirmation or negation. But besides the parts of propositions the mind also binds together sentences and entire propositions, § 2. availing itself of words expressing this union of different affirmations and negations and which are called particles; in whose proper use the art of speaking well principally consists. It is in order that reasoning be consecutive and methodical that terms showing the connection, restriction, distinction, opposition, em phasis, etc., are needed. And when they are despised the hearer is embarrassed.
Til. I admit that particles are very useful; but I am not aware that the art of speaking well consists principally in their proper use. If any one presents only aphorisms or detached theses, as they often do in the universities, or as in the case of that which they call among the jurisconsults an articulate libel, or as in the articles which are offered to the witnesses, then provided we arrange these propositions well we shall accomplish very nearly the same result in making them understood as if we had put in the connective and the particles; for the reader supplies them. But I admit there would be trouble if you put in the particles badly, and much more than if you omitted them. Particles seem to me also to unite not only the parts of discourse composed of proposi tions and the parts of the proposition composed of ideas, but also the parts of the idea, composed in many ways by the combination of other ideas. And it is this last connection which is indicated by the prepositions, while the adverbs modify the affirmation or negation in the verb; and the con junctions modify the connection of different affirmations or negations. But I doubt not that you have noticed all this yourself, although your words seem to state otherwise.
§ 3. Ph. The part of grammar which treats of particles has en. vn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 365 been cultivated less than that which represents in order the cases, genders, modes, tenses, gerundives, and supines. It is true that in some languages they have also arranged the particles under some titles by distinct subdivisions with great appear ance of exactness. But it is not sufficient to run through these catalogues. One must reflect upon his own thoughts in order to observe the forms which the mind takes in discours ing, for the particles are so many indications of the action of the mind.
Th. It is very true that the doctrine of the particles is important, and I wish we might enter into much greater detail thereupon. For nothing would be more suited to make known the different forms of the understanding. Genders are of no account in philosophical grammar, but the cases corre spond to the prepositions, and often the preposition is enveloped in the noun and as it were absorbed, and other particles are concealed in the inflections of the verbs.
§ 4. Ph. In order properly to explain particles it is not sufficient to render them (as is usual in a dictionary) by the words of another language which approach most nearly their meaning, because it is as difficult to comprehend their precise meaning in one language as in another; besides the significa tions of related words in two languages are not always exactly the same and indeed they vary in one and the same language. I remember that in the Hebrew language there is one particle of a single letter1 of which there are reckoned up more than fifty significations.
Th. Scholars have attempted to make special treatises upon the particles of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and Strauchius,2 a celebrated jurisconsult, has published a book upon the use of particles in jurisprudence, where their signification is of no small consequence. We ordinarily find, however, that it is rather by means of examples and synonymes that they attempt to explain them, than by distinct notions. Further we can 2 Johann Strauch, 1(>12-1680, the maternal uncle of Leibnitz, a distinguished jurisconsult, Professor at Leipzig, Jena, and Giessen, and Syndicus in Braun schweig; <:f. Guhraucr, G. W. Freiherr v. Leibnitz, Pt. I., Bk. I., pp. 6, 35 sq., and Anmerkungen z. erst. Jiuche, pp. (i, 7. The book here referred to by Leibnitz is entitled: Lexicon particular um juris s. de usu et efflcacia quor- imdam syncategorematum et particular um indeclinab ilium. — TR.
366 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [I-.K. in not always find a general or formal signification for them, as the late Bohlius 1 called it, which can satisfy all the examples; but notwithstanding this we can always reduce all the uses of a word to a definite number of significations. And this is what should be done.
§ 5. Ph. In fact the number of significations greatly exceeds that of the particles. In English the particle but has very differ ent significations: (1) when I say: but to say no more, (mats pour no rieii dire de plus) as if this particle indicated that the mind stops in its course before it has reached the end. But saying: (2) I saw but two planets (je vis seulement deux planetes), the mind restricts the sense of what it means to that which has been expressed by the exclusion of everything else. And when I say (3): you pray, but it is not that God tvoidd bring you to the true religion, but that he would confirm you in your own (vous priez Dieu mais ce ii'est pas qu'il veuille vous amener a la counaissance de la vraye Religion, mais qu'il vous continue dans la vostre), the first but (or mat's) designates a supposition in the mind which is otherwise than it should be, and the second shows that the mind puts a direct opposition between what precedes and what follows. (4) All animals have sense, but a dog is an animal (tous les animaux ont du sentiment, mais le chien est un animal). Here the particle signifies the connection of the second proposition with the first.
Th. The French mais (but) may be substituted in all these instances except the second; but the German allein, taken as a particle, which signifies a kind of mixture of mais (but) and seulement (only), may doubtless be substituted instead of but in all these examples except the last, where its use may be a little doubtful. Mais (but) is also rendered in German some times by aber, sometimes by sondern, which indicates a sepa ration or segregation and approaches the particle allein. For a proper explanation of the particles, it is not sufficient to make an abstract explication as we have just made here; but we must proceed to a paraphrase which may be substitiited in 1 Samuel Bolil, 1011-1689, Professor at Rostock, who devoted himself to the furtherance of the study of Hebrew in Germany, aud whom Leibnitz mentions because of his works on the doctrine of the Hebrew Vowel- aud Accent-Signs; cf. Dutens, Leibniz', op. om., o, 1!K). He published a large number of works, among which were Scrutin. S. s. ex accentibus, 1636, and Dissertat. pro for- mali Signif. S. S. eruenda, Rostock, 1637. — TR.
CH. vn] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 307 its place, as the definition may be put in the place of the thing denned. When we have striven to seek and to determine these suitable paraphrases, in all the particles so far as they are susceptible of them, we shall have regulated their sig nifications. Let us try to attain this result in our four ex amples. In the first we mean: Thus far only speak we of this, and no farther (non piu) / iu the second: I see oidy two planets, and no more; in the third: You pray God, and for this only, viz. to be confirmed in your religion, and no more, etc.; in the fourth, it is as if we said: all animals have sense; it is sufficient to consider that only, and no more is needed. The dog is an animal, he then has sense. Thus all these examples indicate limits, and a non j)/ws ultra, whether in things, or in discourse. Thus bat is an end, a limit of the course, as if we said: stop, we are there, we have reached our But. But, Bute, is an old Teutonic word, signifying some thing fixed, an abode. Beuten (an obsolete word found still in some church songs) is to abide. Mais originates from magis, as if any one wished to say: as for the surplus ice must leave it, which is the same as saying: ifo more is needed, it is enough, let us come to something else, or this is something else. But as the use of languages varies in a strange manner, it would be necessary to enter much farther into the detail of examples in order sufficiently to regulate the significations of particles. In French we avoid the double mais by a cependant (however), and we should say: Vous priez, cependant ce n'est pas pour obtenir la verite, mais pour estre confirme dans vostre opinion (You pray, not however (cependant) to obtain the truth but (mais) to be confirmed in your opinion). The sed of the Latins was often expressed formerly by ains, which is the anzi of the Italians, and the French in modifying it have deprived their language of an advantageous expression. For example: There was no certainty about it, yet (cependant) we were persuaded of what I have informed you, because we like to believe what we wish; but it has been found that it was not so; but (ains) rather, etc. (11 n'y avoit rien de seur, cependant on estoit persuad^ de ce que je vous ay mand6, parce qu'on aime a croire ce qu'on souhaite; mais il s'est trouve que ce n'estoit pas cela; ains plustost, etc.).
§ 6. Ph. My purpose has been to touch this matter only 308 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. in very slightly. I would add that particles often include either constantly or in certain constructions the sense of an entire proposition.
Th. But when it is a complete sentiment, I think that it is only by means of a kind of ellipsis; otherwise it is the inter jections alone which in my opinion can subsist by themselves and say all in a word, as ah! (hoi me!). For when we say mats, adding nothing more, it is an ellipsis for: but let us wait for the confirmation of intelligence and not flatter ourselves unduly. There is something approximating to this in the nisi of the Latins: si nisi non esset, if there were not but (metis). For the rest I should not be displeased, sir, had you entered a little farther into the detail of the turns of the mind which appear marvellous in the use of the particles. But since we have reason for hastening to conclude this investigation of words and to return to things, I do not wish to delay you longer, although I truly think that languages are the best mirrors of the human mind, and that an exact analysis of the signification of words would show us better than anything else the workings of the understanding.
CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER VIII OF ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS § 1. Ph. It is further to be remarked that terms are abstract or concrete. Each abstract idea is distinct, so that of two the one can never be the other. The mind must perceive by its intuitive knowledge the difference between them, and consequently two of these ideas can never be affirmed one of another. Every one sees at once the falsehood of these propo sitions: humanity is animality or rationality: this is as evident as any of the generally received maxims.
Tli,. There is still something to be said thereupon. We admit that justice is a virtue, a habit (habitus), a quality, an accident, etc. Thus two abstract terms may be stated one of another. I am furthermore wont to distinguish two kinds of abstracts. There are abstract logical terms, and there are also abstract real terms. The abstract real terms, or conceived CH. ix] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 369 at least as real, are either essences or parts of the essence, or accidents, i.e. beings added to substance. The abstract logical terms are the predications reduced to terms, as if I said: to be a man, to be an animal; and in this sense the one can be stated of the other, by saying: to be a man is to be an animal. But in the realities this has no place. For we cannot say that humanity or man-ness l (Vhommtite) — (if you please), which is the essence of the whole man, is animality, which is only a part of this essence; yet these abstract and incomplete beings signified by the abstract real terms have also their genera and species which are not less expressed by the abstract real terms: thus there is predication between them, as I have shown by the example of justice and virtue.
§ 2. Ph. One may always say that substances have only few abstract names; they have scarcely spoken in the schools of humanity, animality, corporality; and they have never been authorized in the world.
Tli. The reason is that but few of these terms were necessary to serve as examples and to throw light upon the general no tion, which was the reason why they were not wholly neglected. If the ancients did not use the word humanity in the sense of the schools, they said human nature, which is the same thing. It is certain also that they said divinity, or rather divine nature; and theologians having found it needful to speak of these two natures and of real accidents, they were attached to these abstract entities in the schools of philosophy and the ology, and perhaps to a greater extent than was proper.
CHA.PTEK IX OP THE IMPERFECTIONS OF WORDS § 1. Ph. We have already spoken of the double use of words. The one is to register our own thoughts in order to aid our memory which makes us talk to ourselves; the other is to communicate our thoughts to others by means of speech.
1 1 have taken the liberty to coin the word as an equivalent of the French, which I think is also coined by Leibnitz to express the.abstraction of the scholastics. — TK. 2B 370 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [me. in These two uses show the perfection or imperfection of words. § 2. When we speak only to ourselves, it is a matter of indif ference what words we employ, provided we remember their meaning and do not change it. But § 3. the use of communication is also of two kinds, civil and philosophic. The civil consists in the conversation and use of the civil life. The philosophic use is that made of words for the purpose of giving precise notions and to express in general propositions certain truths.
Th. Very good: words are not less marks (notce) for us (as the characters of arithmetic or algebra may be) than signs for others; and the use of words as of signs is as much in place when the question concerns the application of general precepts to the usage of life, as when it concerns the discovery or verification of these precepts. The first use of signs is civil, and the second philosophic.
§ o. Ph. Xow it is difficult, chiefly in the following cases, to learn and retain the idea which" each word signifies, (1) when these ideas are very complex; (2) when the ideas com posing a new one have no natural bond between them, so that there is in nature no fixed measure nor any model to rectify and regulate them; (3) when the model is not easy to be known; (4) when the meaning of the word and the real essence are not exactly the same. The names of the modes are most lia ble to be doubtful and imperfect for the two first reasons, and those of substances for the two second. § 6. When the idea of the modes is very complex, as that of the majority of the terms of ethics, they rarely have precisely the same significa tion in the minds of two different persons. § 7. The defect also of the models renders these words equivocal. He who first invented the word brusquer (to be abrupt with) understood thereby what he found to the purpose, without informing those who have used it as he of his precise meaning, and without having shown them any constant model. § 8. Common use regulates sufficiently the sense of words for ordinary conversa tion, but it has no precision; and the signification most con formed to the peculiar nature of the language is every day disputed. Many speak of <jlory, but few have the same under standing of it. § 9. They are only simple sounds in the mouths of many, or at least their meanings are very indefinite. And in a discourse or conversation in which mention is made en. ix] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 371 of honor, faith, grace, religion, the church, and above all in dis cussion, you will notice at once that men have different notions which they apply to the same terms. And if it is difficult to understand the meaning of the terms of the people of our time, it is much more difficult to understand ancient books. Fortunate is it that we may pass them by save when they contain what we should believe and do.
Th. These remarks are good: but in regard to ancient books, as we need to understand Holy Scripture above all, and as lioinan laws are still of great use in a good part of Europe, we are indeed compelled to consult a great many other ancient books; the Rabbis, the Church Fathers, even the profane his torians. Besides the ancient physicians also deserve to be understood. The practice of medicine by the Greeks came through the Arabs to us; the water from the fountain has been made turbid in the streams of the Arabs, and purified in many respects since we have begun to have recourse to the original Greeks. But these Arabs do not cease to be of use and we are as sured that Ebenbitar,1 for example, who in his books on Simples has copied Dioscorides, often serves to throw light upon him. I find also that, next to religion and history, it is chiefiy in medi cine, as far as it is empirical, that the tradition of the ancients preserved in writing, and in general the observations of another 1 Ibn-al-Baitar, c. 1197-1248, a distinguished Arabian botanist, — according to Poucbet the most learned that the Arabian School has produced, — who wrote a general history of simples, or of plants alphabetically arranged, a materia medica, based upon and said to contain for the most part the work of the Greek physician Dioscorides, c. 100 A.D., iiepi "YAr;? 'larpiK^, as well as a variety of facts from other sources, including descriptions of plants not men tioned by either Dioscorides or Pliny the Elder, 2:3-79. Most of Baitar's works still remain in MSS. in the libraries of Paris and the Escurial. Fr. R. Dietz published a small fragment of the work on Simples in his Analecta me dica ex librix MSS., Lipsire, 1833, 8vo. There are also Grosse Znsammenstel- lnn<i ii. d. Kriiftc d. bekannt. eAnfachen Ileil-imd-Nahrtinf/amittcl v...Ebn riaithar. Aus d. Arabischen ubersetzt v. Dr. Joseph v. Sontheimer, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1840-42, and Traite des simples, trans, by L. Leclerc, in Inst. de France, Notices et extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. Nationale, vol. 23, Pt. I., Paris, 1877, 4 to. For some account of Baitar, cf. Leclerc in Gazette hebdom. de medi cine et dc, chirurgie,xxii., 97, 129, Paris, 187"); F. A. Pouchet, Histoirc des sciences naturelles au moyen age, Paris, 1853, 8vo. Schaarscbmidt says that Leibnitz may have been led to the remark which he here makes upon Baitar by the Ef.witationcs de hnmon>/mis hi/Irs iatricm, appended to Claud. Snlmasius, 158,8-l(i53, PlIniansB exercitationes, P. 104. a. B. 110. a. A., Trajecti-ad-Khenum, 1(589, 2 vols., fol., where different accounts of Dioscorides are amended from Ebnbitar. — Til.
372 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [inc. in may be of service. I have therefore ahvays held in high esteem physicians much versed in the knowledge of antiquity; and I was very sorry that Reinesius,1 excellent in both depart ments (of knowledge), had turned aside to explain the rites and history of the ancients, rather than to recover a part of the knowledge they had of nature, in which it has been shown that he would have been able furthermore marvellously to suc ceed. When the Latins, Greeks, Hebrews and Arabs shall some day be exhausted, the Chinese, supplied also with ancient books, will enter the lists and furnish matter for the curiosity of our critics. Not to speak of some old books of the Persians, Armenians, Copts and Brahmins, which will be unearthed in time so as not to neglect any light antiquity may give on doc trines by tradition and on facts by history. And if there were no longer an ancient book to examine, languages would take the place of books and they are the most ancient monuments of mankind. In time all the languages of the world will be recorded and placed in the dictionaries and grammars, and compared together; this will be of very great use both for the knowledge of things, since names often correspond to their properties (as is seen by the names of plants among different peoples), and for the knowledge of our mind and the wonder ful variety of its operations. Not to speak of the origin of nations, which is known by means of solid etymologies which the comparison of languages will best furnish. But of this I have already spoken. And all this shows the use and extent of criticism, little considered by some otherwise very clever philosophers who take the liberty to speak with contempt of Rdbbinage 2 and in general of philology. We see also that critics will find for a long time yet matter for fruitful exercise,