1 Thomas Reinesius, 1587-1607, a physician who wrote on natural history and medicine, and afterwards devoted himself to philological and antiquarian studies. Among his works were, Schola jitreconsultorum medica relatiomim libris aliquot comprehensa, quibus principia medicinse in jus transtmtta ex professo examinantur, Lipsise, 1079, 12mo; Syntazma inscriptionem antiqiiarum cum primis Romse vpferis, quarum omissa est recensio in Gruteii opere, cum comment, Lipsire, KJ82, fol. Cf. B. Schnchardt, Lcbensbesrhreibunf/en be- riihmter ^Erzte und Naturforschcr, wclche aits Thiirinr/en stammen. Corre- spondenz-Blatter des allgemeinen arztlichen Vereinsvon Thiirinyen, Weimar, 2 A term of disparagement, meaning the study made of the books of the rabbis. — Tu.
en. ix] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 373 and they will do well not to amuse themselves too much with minutiae, since they have so many objects more pleasing for treatment; though I well know that minutiae also are often very necessary with the critics for the discovery of more important knowledge. And as criticism turns in large measure upon the meaning of words and the interpretation of authors, especially the ancients, this discussion about words joined with the men tion you made of the ancients, makes me touch upon this important point. But to return to your four defects of nomi nation, I tell you, sir, that we can remedy them all, especially since writing has been invented and they subsist only through our negligence. For it depends upon us to fix their meanings, at least in any scholarly language, and to agree to destroy this tower of Babel. But there are two defects where the remedy is more difficult, consisting the one in the doubt which exists whether the ideas are compatible, when experience does not furnish them all combined in one and the same subject; the other in the necessity for making provisional definitions of sensible things, when our experience with them is insufficient for more complete definitions: but I have spoken more than once of both these defects.1 Ph. [I am going to tell you some things which will serve further to clear up to some extent the defects you have just remarked, and the third of those which I have indicated makes it seem that these definitions are provisional; viz.: — when we have no sufficient knowledge of our sensible models, i.e. the substantial beings of corporeal nature. This defect also makes us ignorant as to whether we may combine the sensible qualities which nature has not combined, because at bottom we do not understand them.] Now if the signification of the words which serve for the mixed modes is uncertain, for lack of models which show the same composition, that of the names of the substantial beings is uncertain for a wholly contrary reason, because they must signify what is supposed to be conformed to the reality of things, and to be related to the models formed by nature.
Tli. I have already more than once remarked in our pre vious conversations that this is not essential to the ideas of 1 Cf. New Exsays, Bk. III., chap. G. — TR.
374 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. in substances; but I admit that ideas made after nature are the surest and most useful.
§ 12. Ph. When then we follow the models wholly made by nature, unless the imagination finds it necessary to retain their representations, the names of substances have in ordi nary use a double relation, as I have already shown. The first is that they signify the internal and real constitution of things, but this model cannot be known and consequently caii- iiot serve to regulate the significations.
Th. That is not the question here, since we are speaking of ideas of which we have models; the internal essence is in the thing, but we agree that it cannot serve as a pattern.
§ 13. Ph. The second relation is then that which the names of substances immediately have to the simple ideas, which exist at the same time in the substance. But as the number of these ideas united in one and the same subject is great, men speak of this same subject, forming very different ideas of it, both by the different combination of the simple ideas they make and because the greater part of the qualities of bodies are the powers which they have of producing changes in other bodies and receiving them; witness the changes one of the basest metals is capable of undergoing through the opera tion of fire, and it receives many more yet at the hands of a chemist, through the application of other bodies. Further, one is contented with weight and color as criteria for a knowledge of gold; another includes ductility, fixedness; and the third desires to make us take into consideration its solubility in aqua regia. § 14. As things likewise often resemble each other, it is sometimes" difficult to designate their precise differences.
Th. As bodies are really liable to be altered, disguised, falsified, counterfeited, it is a great point to be able to dis tinguish and recognize them. Gold is disguised in solution, but it may be drawn off, either by precipitating it or dis tilling the water; and counterfeit or adulterated gold is recognized or purified by the art of the assayers, which not being known to everybody, it is not strange that men do not all have the same idea of gold. And ordinarily it is only the experts who have sufficiently just ideas of these mat ters.
en. ix] OX HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 375 § 15. 7V/. Tliis variety does not, however, cause so much confusion in civil intercourse as in philosophic researches.
Th. it would be more tolerable if it had no influence in prac tical life where it is often important • not to receive a Qui pro quo, and consequently to know the characteristics of things or to have at hand the class who know them. And it is especially important as regards drugs and materials which are costly, and of which you may have need on important occasions. The philosophical confusion will manifest itself rather in the use of more general terms.
§ 18. Ph. The names of simple ideas are less liable to equivo cation, and we are rarely mistaken as regards the terms white, bitter, etc.
Th. It is, however, true that these terms are not wholly exempt from uncertainty; and I have already noticed the example of neighboring colors which are within the confines of two species and whose species is doubtful.
§ 19. Ph. After the names of simple ideas, those of the simple modes are least doubtful, as for example, those of figures and numbers. But, § 20. the mixed modes and substances cause all the trouble. § 21. Men will say that instead of imputing these imperfections to the words, we should rather put them to the account of our understanding; but I reply that words interpose themselves to such an extent between our mind and the truth of things, that we may compare them with the medium, across which pass the rays from visible objects, and which often spreads a mist before our eyes; and I have tried to think that, if the imperfections of language were more thoroughly examined, the majority of the disputes would cease of themselves, and the way to knowledge and perhaps to peace would be more open to men.
Th. I think we could succeed from this time in written dis cussions, if men would agree upon certain rules and execute them with care. But in order to proceed exactly viva voce and at once, some change in the language would be necessary. I have elsewhere l entered upon this enquiry.
1 In his writings in furtherance of his plan for the establishment of a General Characteristic or Philosophical Language, Spgcieuse ygn&rale, a project which Leibnitz had very much at heart, as appears from his frequent allusion to the subject, and upou which throughout his entire life lie spent much labor, chiefly 376 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. in § 22. Ph. While waiting for this reform which will not be ready very soon, this uncertainty regarding words should teach us to be moderate, especially when it is a question of imposing upon others the sense attributed by us to the ancient authors, since in the Greek authors it is found that nearly every one speaks a different language.
Th. I have been rather surprised to see that Greek authors so distant from one another in time and place, as Homer, Herodotus, Strabo, Plutarch, Lucian, Eusebius, Procopius, Photius, approach so closely, while the Latins have changed so much, and the Germans, English, and French much more. But the fact is, the Greeks since Homer's time, and still more when Athens was in a nourishing condition, had good authors which posterity has taken as models, at least in writ ing. For no doubt the common language of the Greeks must have been much changed already under the rule of the Romans. And this same reason accounts for the fact that the Italian has not suffered so great a change as the French, because the Italians, having had earlier writers of durable reputation, imi tated and moreover esteemed Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and other authors at a time when those of the French were no longer appreciated.
CHAPTER X OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS § 1. Ph. Besides the natural imperfections of language, there are some that are voluntary and arise from negligence, and it is an abuse of words to use them so badly. The first and most palpable abuse is, § 2. that we attach no clear idea to them. Of these words there are two classes: the first have never had any definite idea, either in their origin or ordinary use. For the most part philosophical and religious sects have introduced preparatory, and with little positive results in accomplishing his plan. Cf. New Essays, Bk. IV. chap. <>, § 2, Th., chap. 17, § 13, Th.; Gerhardt, Leibniz, philos. Schrift., 3, 210; 4, 27 sq., Erdmann, 6 sq.; G. 7, 3 sq., E. 82 sq., W!) sq.; Trendelenbur;;, Ueber Leibniz. Entivurf einer allr/emeinen Characteristik, in his Ifistor. Beitrur/e z. Philos., vol. 3, pp. 1 sq., Berlin, 1867; L. Neff, G. W. Leibniz als Sprachforscher und Etymoloye, Ft. II., pp. 13 sq., Heidelberg, CH. x] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 377 them in order to support some strange opinion, or to conceal some weak place in their system. They are, however, distin guishing characters in the mouth of members of the party. § 3. There are other words, which in their first and common use have some clear idea, but which have since been appro priated to very important matters without attaching to them any certain idea. In this way the words wisdom, glory, grace, are often in the mouths of men.
Th. I believe that insignificant words are less in number than you think, and that with a little care and good will you can fill up their void or fix their indefiniteness. Wisdom appears to be nothing else than the science of happiness. Grace is a favor done to those who do not deserve it and who find themselves in a state where they need it. And glory is the fame of the excellence of some one.
§ 4. Ph. I do not wish now to examine whether there is anything to be said in regard to these definitions, but rather to notice the causes of the abuse of words. In the first place, we learn the words before we learn the ideas belonging to them, and children accustomed thereto from the cradle use them in like manner during their whole life: the more as they do not cease to make themselves understood in conversation, without ever having fixed their idea, by using different expressions in order to make others understand their meaning. This, however, often fills their discourses with a quantity of vain sounds, especially in matters concerning morals. Men take the words they find in use among their neighbors, and in order not to appear ignorant of their meaning employ them confidently without giving them a certain sense: and, as in this kind of discourse they are rarely in the right, they are also rarely convinced that they are wrong; and to wish to draw them from their error is to wish to dispossess a vagabond.
Th. Men in fact take so rarely the necessary trouble to understand terms or words that I have more than once been astonished that children can learn languages so soon, and that men furthermore speak them so accurately; a view to which we attach so little in instructing children in their mother tongue and which others think of so little in acquiring clear definitions; the more so as those we learn in the schools do not ordinarily concern the words in public use. For the rest, I 378 LEIBXITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. m admit that men frequently happen to be wrong when indeed they discuss seriously and speak in accord with their feeling; but I have also remarked often enough that in their speculative discussions upon matters within the province of their mind, they have every reason for two sides, except in the oppositions they make to each other where they misconstrue another's view. This arises from the bad use of terms and sometimes also from a spirit of contradiction and affectation of superi ority.
§ 5. Ph. In the second place the use of words is sometimes inconstant, a practice only too general among scholars. It is nevertheless a plain cheat, and if voluntary, is folly or malice. If any one so conducted himself in his accounts (as to take an X for a V), who, I pray, would have anything to do with him?
Th. This abuse being so common not only among scholars but also in the world at large, I believe that it is due rather to bad custom and inadvertence than to malice. Usually the different significations of the same word have some affinity; this makes one pass for another and does not give time to con sider what is said with all the precision that is desirable. We are accustomed to tropes and figures, and some elegance or brilliant falsehood easily imposes upon us. For we oftener seek pleasure, amusement, and appearance, than truth; besides, vanity mixes itself therein.
§ 6. Ph. The third abuse is an affected obscurity, either by giving terms in use unusual meanings, or by introducing new terms without explaining them. The ancient Sophists, whom Lucian ridicules so properly, pretending to speak of every thing, covered their ignorance under the veil of the obscurity of words. Among the sects of philosophers the Peripatetic has shown itself remarkable by this defect; but the other sects, even among the moderns, are not wholly exempt from it. For example, the people who abuse the term extension, and find it necessary to confuse it with that of body. § 7. Logic or the art of discussion, which is held in such high esteem, has helped to maintain this obscurity. § 8. Those who have given themselves up to it have been useless or rather detrimental to the state; § 9. while mechanics, though de spised by the learned, have been serviceable to human life.
CH. x] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 379 But these obscure doctors have been admired by the ignorant; and they have been thought invincible because provided with briers and thorns, into which it was no pleasure to thrust one's self, their obscurity alone serving as a defence of their absurd ity. § 12. The evil is that this art of obscuring words has confused the great rules of men's action, religion and justice.
Th. Your complaint is largely just: it is nevertheless true that there are, though rarely, pardonable and even praiseworthy obscurities, as when we profess to be enigmatical, and the enigma is timely. Pythagoras1 so used it, and it is frequently the manner of the Orientals. The alchemists, who are called adepts, declare that they wish to be understood only by the sons of the art. And that would be well, if these pretended sons of the art had the key to the cipher. A certain obscurity may be allowed; but something must be concealed which is worth divining, and the enigma must be decipherable. But religion and justice demand clear ideas. It seems that the little order brought into their teaching has made the confusion in their doctrine; and the indeterminateness of the terms is perhaps more harmful than.their obscurity. ISTow as logic is the art which teaches the order and connection of thoughts, I do not see any reason for blaming it. On the contrary it is for want of logic that men deceive themselves.2 § 14. Ph. The fourth abuse is when we take words for things, i.e. believe that the terms correspond to the real essence of the 1 Pythagoras, c. 580-570-c. 500 B.C. The reference is to his so-called Symbols, or sayings preserved in a symbolic form, in order that their meaning might be concealed from the uninitiated, and the characteristic of which is the union of an ethical prescript with an external action relatively indifferent. Cf. Dioge nes Laertius, De vitis, dogmatibus, et apophtheymatis clarorumphilosophorum, VIII, 17 sq., who gives some of these symbols with interpretations of a part of them; Zeller, Philos. d. Griec., 5th ed., 18!)2, Vol. 1, p. 324, note 2, 4(52. Mullach, Fraymt. Philos. Griec., Vol. 1, p. 504 sq., gives a collection of these sayings. Examples are: "Carry not the image of God in the finger-ring," "Stir not the fire with the sword," " Sacrifice and pray with bare feet." Guttling, Gesammlt. Abhaiidl., Vol. 1, p. 278 sq., 2, 280 sq., has given them a " pene trating investigation," on which see the note of Zeller above cited. Leibnitz on Pythagoras, cf. Gerhardt, Leibniz. phUos. tichrift., 7, 147. — TB.
2 Leibnitz, while rejecting the over-refinements of the scholastic logic, never theless rightly values formal logic as an aid to clear thinking and correct reasoning. Cf. the letter to Gabriel Wagner, 1(590, Gerhardt, Leibniz, philos. Schrift., 7, 512 tsg., Erdmann, 418 sq., Guhrauer, Leibniz, deutsche Schrift., 1, 380 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. m substances. Who is there brought up in the Peripatetic phi losophy who does not think that the ten names which represent the predicaments are exactly conformed to the nature of things; that the substantial forms, vegetative souls, abhorrence of a vacuum, intentional species, etc., are something real? The Platonists have their soul of the wortd, and the Epicureans the tendency of their atoms towards movement at the time when they are at rest. If the aerial or ethereal vehicles 1 of Dr. More had pre vailed in any corner of the world they would have been thought no less real.
Th. Properly speaking this is not to take words for things, but to believe that true which is not so, an error too common with all men, depending not alone upon the abuse of words, but consisting in something entirely different. The design of the predicaments is a very useful one, and we ought to think of rectifying rather than of rejecting them. Substances, quantities, qualities, actions or passions, and relations, i.e. five general names of things may, together with those formed by their composition, suffice, and have not you yourself, in mar shalling ideas, been willing to grant them as the predicaments? I have spoken above of substantial forms.2 And I know not whether we have sufficient reason for rejecting the vegetative souls,3 since persons of much experience and judgment recog- 1 The aerial or ethereal vehicles are the aerial or celestial hodies of the spirits, which, according to More, the souls of men after sufficient purification attain, either at death, in the case of a very few of the nohlest and most heroic, or at some period after death. Cf. H. More, Opera omnia, Londini, 1679, 2 vols., fol.; Tract, de immortal itate animse, Bk. III. chap. 1, Axioma, 27, §§ 3, 28 KQ., Vol. 2, p. 396 sq., chap. 11, § 2, p. 427; Antidotus adversus Atheis- mum, Bk. III. chap. 3, § 9, Vol. 2, p. 99. — TB.
2 Cf. ante, p. 349 and uote. — TR.
3 The scholastic philosophy recognized three forms or kinds of souls, corre sponding to the three orders of life, plants, animals, and men, viz.: the vege tative, sensitive, and intellective (anima vegetabilis or nutritiva, sensibilis or sensitiva, intellectiva or rationales). Of these the vegetative is the lowest, the sensitive the next higher, the intellective the highest; and the higher form includes potentially in itself the lower and subordinate form and its functions. The functions of the vegetative soul are nutrition, growth, repro duction; of the sensitive soul, sensation, feeling, perceptional, appetitive and emotional activity; of the intellective, those of the reason and the will. In man, these several functions are all united in the intellective or rational soul, which he alone possesses, and which comprises within itself the sensitive and vegetative souls. Cf. Stockl, Gcsch. d. Philos. d. Mittelalters, II. 2 [Vol. 3], en. x] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 381 nize a great analogy between plants and animals, and you, sir, have appeared to admit animal souls. Abhorrence of a vacuum may be soundly understood; i.e. supposing nature has once rilled space, and that bodies are impenetrable and non-condens able, she could not admit any vacuum; and I consider these three suppositions well grounded. But the intentional species,1 which are to make the connection between the soul and the body, are not so, though we may excuse the sensible species,1 The doctrine of the intentional species (species intentionales) to which were opposed the real species (species reales) or the actual forms of things, arose in the attempts of the Mediaeval Schoolmen to explain the process and philosophy of sense-perception and cognition. Two views have in general been held concerning their nature: 1. That they were the forms, similitudes, or images (forntse, similitudines, simulacra) of external objects, different both from the mind and from these objects, the intermediate and vicarious repre sentatives of these objects in perception and thought, the media through which the mind infers and comes to know these external objects — a form of the doctrine of mediate perception. 2. That they were modifications of the mind itself, occasioned by the action upon the mind of the external object and the mind's responsive reaction thereto, by which the mind is likened or con formed to the given object and so determined immediately to cognize it. The latter view is maintained by the Roman Catholic psychologists, as being the doctrine of the greatest of the schoolmen, such as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and as giving the real meaning of the terms they use. It is the more correct interpretation.
The intentional species, according as they affected or were modifications of the sense or the intellect, were divided into sensible species (species sensibiles) and intelligible or intellectual species (species intelligibiles vel intellect aales). Both the sensible and the intelligible species were further distinguished as impressed species (species imprcssa) and expressed species (species expressa). According to the representative theory of the intentional species, the species impressa was the vicarious existence emitted by the object, impressed on the particular faculty, and concurring with it in its operation; while the species exprcssa was the actual operation elicited by the faculty and the impressed species conjointly, i.e. the sensations and intellections. The direct or imme diate theory regarded the genesis of species, whether as sensible or intelligible, as exhibiting two stages: 1. In sensuous cognition, (a) the species sensibilis impressa, or "the modification of the sensuous faculty viewed as an impres sion wrought in the mind by the action of the object," and (b) the species sensibilis expressa, or "the reaction of the mind as an act of cognitive con sciousness." 2. In intellectual cognition, (a) the species intelliijibilis im pressa, or the "modification effected in the recipient capacity" of the intellectus patiens vel possibilis (the passive intellect — Aristotle's K>C? n-aflrjri- xof), and (b) the species intelliuibilis expressa, or the "mental modification reflecting the essence of the object, and by means of which the object is ap prehended," a modification due to the act of the Intellectus ayens (the active intellect — Aristotle's ^oCs TroirjTtKo?).
382 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. in which proceed from the object to the distant organ, meaning thereby the propagation of motion. I admit that there is no Platonic soul of the ivorld, for God is beyond the world, extra- mundana intelligentia, or rather snpramundana.1 I know not whether by the tendency to movement of the Epicurean atoms you understand the weight attributed to them, no doubt with reason, since they maintain that bodies all move of them selves in one and the same direction. The late Henry More, a theologian of the English Church, wholly clever as he was, showed himself a little too ready to invent hypotheses which were neither intelligible nor apparent; witness his Hylarchic principle2 of matter, a cause of weight, elasticity, and other wonders which are met with. I have nothing to say of these ethereal vehicles, having never examined their nature.
§ 15. Ph. An example touching the word matter will assist you the better to enter into my thought. Matter is taken as The doctrine of the intentional species was held by the Realists, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others. The Nominalists, especially Durandns, Biel, and Occam, rejected it, and the doctrine was exploded in the seventeenth century, largely by the arguments of Gassendi, Hobbes, and Descartes. On the whole subject, cf. Hamilton's Reid, 8th ed., Edinburgh, 1880, Vol. 1, p. 2(57 sq., and Note M., Vol. 2, p. 951 sq.; Lccts. on Metaphyx., Boston, 1875, p. 291 sq., and notes; Stockl, Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittelal'ters, II. 1 [Vol. 2] 4(53 sq., II. 2 [Vol. 3] 808, 965, 978, 991 sq., III. [Vol. 4] 034 sq.; Haureau, Histoire de la philos. scolastique, II. 1 [Vol. 2] 417 sq., II. 2 [Vol. 3] 247 sq., 378 sq.; Prantl, Gesch. d. Loyik im Aboidlande, Vol. 3, pp. 113, 210 sq., 294, 335 sq.; Maher, S. J., Psychology (Manuals of Catholic Philosophy — Stonyhurst Series), pp. 49-53, 290-297, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890; ' Zigliara, Smnma Philosophica, 3d ed., Lugduni, 1880, Vol. 2, pp. 243-4, 2(iO sq.; Suarez, De Anima, Lib. III. cc. 2, 3; Kleutgen, Philos. d. Vorzeit, §§ 18-52; Sanseverino, Dynamilor/ia, Neapoli, 1862-06, Vol. 1, pp. 373-403 (of which pp. 390-400 contain " an effective refutation of the charge of representationism against St. Thomas and the leading scholastics, based on the doctrine of species"), 2 Cf. Gerhardt, Leibniz, philns. Schrift., 7, 339; letter to Placcius, Sept. 8, H)90, Dntens, Lcibnit. op. om., 0, 48; to T. Burnett, Aug. 24 (v.s.) 1G97, G. 3, 217, D. 6, 263. More rejected the mechanical explanation of physical nature, and adopted the principium hylarchicnm, or spirit us naturae as he designates it, the immaterial force in all nature, the principle of the movement and sympathy of beings, similar to the anima mundi of the Platonists and the archseus (cf. ante, p. 07, note 3) of the Alchemists. Cf. H. More, Opera omnia, Londini, 1679, Enchiridion metaphys., especially in the Scholia, to chap. 13, § 4, Vol. 1, p. 222 sq.; also Tract, de immortalitate animse, Bk. III. chap. 12, CH. x] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 383