1 Euclid, not to bo confounded with Euclid of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, founder of the Megarian school, the fundamental principle of whose philosophy was the union of the Eleatic idea of being with the Socratic idea of the good. The date of neither his birth nor death is known. Proclus, the Neo-Platonist, 410-485 A.D., says that Euclid lived in the time of Ptolemy L, king of Egypt, who reigned from 323-285 B.C., and that he was younger than Plato's associates, but older than Eratosthenes, " 276-2— 196-2 B.C.," "the celebrated scholar whose chronological dates were adopted for the history of philosophy " (Zeller, Outlines, §§ 3, (50), and Archimedes, 287-212 B.C. Proclus preserves Euclid's reply to King Ptolemy, who asked him if there were no easier way to learn geometry than by studying his elements. " There is no royal road to geom etry."— TR.
2 Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1070. The statement of his geometrical principles in opposition to those of Euclid is found in the Appendix to the English trans lation of the De Corpore, which appeared about the middle of 1(556, entitled Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, one of Geometry, the other of Astronomy, in the University of Oxford, English Works, Vol. 7, pp. 181-356. For an account of the controversy in whicli these appeared, cf. George Groom Robertson, Hobbes, pp. 167-178 (Philosophical Classics). Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1886. — TR.
94 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i blind to such a point persons of so great merit. And if others had the same interest, they would make use of it in much the same manner.]
Ph. Every duty carries the idea of law, and a law cannot be known or supposed without a legislator who has prescribed it, or without reward and without punishment.
Th. [There can be natural rewards and penalties without a legislator; intemperance, for example, is punished by disease. As this, however, does not injure all at first, I admit that there are few precepts to which you would necessarily be bound if there were not a God who leaves no crime without chastise ment, no good act without reward.]
Ph. The ideas of a God and of a life to come must then also be innate.
Tli. [I am agreed in the sense in which I have explained myself.]
Ph. But these ideas are so far from being written by nature in the minds of all men, that they even do not appear very clear and very distinct in the minds of many students, who also pro fess to examine things with some accuracy; so far are they from being known by every human being.
Tli. You return again to the same proposition, which main tains that what is not known is not innate, which I have, how ever, refuted so many times. What is innate is not at first known clearly and distinctly as such; often much attention and method is necessary in order to its perception, the student- class do not always adduce it, still less every human being.
§ 13. Ph. But if men can be ignorant of or call in question that which is innate, it is in vain for you to speak to us of in nate principles, and to claim to show us their necessity; very far from their being able to serve as our instructors in the truth and certitude of things, as is maintained, we shall find our selves, with these principles, in the same state of uncertainty as if they were not in us.
Th. You cannot call in question all the innate principles. You were agreed in regard to identical propositions or the principle of contradiction, admitting that there are incontest able principles, although you would not then recognize them as innate; but it does not at all follow that everything which CH. n] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 95 is innate and necessarily connected with these innate princi ples, is also at first indubitably evident.
Ph. No one that I know of has yet undertaken to give us an exact catalogue of these principles.
Th. But has any one hitherto given us a full and exact catalogue of the axioms of geometry?
§ 15. Ph. My Lord Herbert l has been pleased to point out some of these principles, which are: 1. There is a supreme God. 2. He ought to be served. 3. Virtue united with piety is the best worship. 4. Repentance for sin is necessary. 5. There are penalties and rewards after this life. I agree that these are evident truths and of such a nature that when well explained a reasonable person can scarcely avoid giving them his consent. But our friends say that they are very far from being so many innate impressions, and if these five propositions are common notions written in our souls by the linger of God, there are many others which we ought also to put into this class.
Th. I agree with you, sir, for I take all the necessary truths as innate, and I connect with them also the instincts. But, I agree with you, that these five propositions are not innate prin ciples; for I hold that they can and ought to be proved.
§ 18. Ph. In the third proposition, that virtue is the wor ship most agreeable to God, it is not clear what is meant by virtue. If you understand it in the sense most commonly given to the term, I mean that which passes as praiseworthy according to the different opinions which prevail in different countries, this proposition is so far from being evident that it is not even true. If you call virtue 2 the acts which are con formed to the will of God, this will be almost idem per idem, and the proposition will teach us nothing of importance; for it would mean only that God is pleased with that which is con formed to his will. It is the same with the notion of sin in the fourth proposition.
1 Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury, 1581-1648. His DC Vcritate, Paris, 1(!24, lias had considerable influence on English philosophical and religious thought, and is of some importance in the interpretation of the polemic of Locke's Essay. — TR.
2 For an excellent but brief statement and discussion of the main theories of virtue, cf. E. G. Robinson: Principles and Practice of Morality, pp. 140- 90 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i Tli. I do not remember to have remarked that virtue is commonly taken as something which depends upon opinion; at least, the philosophers do not make it that. It is true that the name of virtue depends upon the opinion of those who give it to different habits or actions, according as they deem them good or bad and use their reason; but all are sufficiently agreed as to the notion of virtue in general, although they dif fer in its application. According to Aristotle l and several others, virtue is a habit of restraining the passions by the rea son, and still more, simply a habit of acting according to rea son. And that cannot fail to be agreeable to him who is the supreme and final reason of things, to whom nothing is indif ferent, and the acts of rational creatures less than all others.
§ 20. Ph. You are wont to say that the custom, the educa tion, and the general opinions of those with whom you con verse may obscure these principles of morality which you suppose innate. But if this reply is a good one, it annihilates the proof which you pretend to draw from universal consent. The reasoning of many men reduces to this: The principles which men of right reason admit are innate; we and those of our mind are men of right reason; consequently our princi ples are innate. A pleasant method of reasoning, which goes straight on to infallibility!
Th. For myself, I make use of universal consent, not as a principal proof, but as a confirmatory one; for innate truths taken as the natural light of reason bear their marks with them as does geometry, for they are wrapped up in the im-. mediate principles which you yourselves admit as incontesta ble. But I grant that it is more difficult to distinguish the instincts and some other natural habits from custom, although it may very often be possible so to do. For the rest, it appears to me that people who have cultivated their minds have some ground for attributing the use of right reason to themselves rather than to the barbarians, since in subduing them almost as easily as they do animals they show sufficiently their supe- 1 Eth. Nic. II. 6, ad init. Cf. Zeller: Outlines of the Hist, of Greek Philos., § 61; and E. Wallace: Outlines of the Philos. of Aristotle, 3d ed., § 59, pp. 97- 90. Cambridge: University Press, 1883. In connection with each section of his hrief English statement and exposition, Wallace gives the Greek text of "the more important passages in Aristotle's writings," with references to the Berlin Academy edition of Aristotle. — TR.
en. n] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 97 riority. But if they cannot always succeed in this, it is be cause just like the animals they conceal themselves in the thick forests, where it is difficult to hunt them down and the game is not worth the candle. It is doubtless an advantage to have cultivated the mind, and if we may speak for barbarism as against culture, we shall also have the right to attack rea son in favor of the animals, and to take seriously the witty sallies of M. Despreaux,1 in one of his satires, where, in order to contest with man his prerogative over the animals, he asks, whether, The bear is afraid of the passer-by, or the passer-by of the bear; And if, by decree of the shepherds of Libya, The lions would vacate the parks of Numidia, etc.
We must, however, admit that there are some points in which the barbarians surpass us, especially as regards vigor of body; and as regards the soul even we may say that in certain respects their practical morality is better than ours, because they have not the avarice of hoarding nor the ambition of ruling. And we may even add that association with Christians has made them worse in many respects.2 They have taught them drunkenness (when carrying them the water of life), swearing, blasphemy, and other vices, which were little known to them. There is with us more of good and of evil than with them: a bad Euro pean is worse than a savage — he refines upon evil.3 Still, nothing should prevent men from uniting the advantages which nature gives to these peoples with those which reason gives us.
1 Nicolas Boileau-Despreanx, 1030-1711. The passage quoted is from Sat. 8, 62-64. The text as given by all the editions I have been able to consult, twelve, ranging from 1716-1873, reads thus: "L'ours a peur du passant, ou le passant de 1'ours; Et si, sur un edit des patres de Nubie, Les lions de Barca videraient la Lybie;" etc.
Lines 03 and 64 of the text, as given by Leibnitz, editions of Gerhardt and Erdmann, Jacques modernizing the spelling and correcting the misplacement of " de " and " des " in line 63, read thus: " Et si par un e'dit de pastres des Lybie Les Lions vuideroient les pares de Numidie," etc.
It seems evident that Leibnitz misquoted the lines. — TR.
2 Compare J. G. Schurman: The Ethical Import of Darwinism, pp. 256-260 as above. — TR.
3 The French is: " il rafine sur le mal." — TR.
98 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i Ph. But what reply do you make, sir, to this dilemma of one of my friends? I would be pleased, he says, to have the advocates of innate ideas tell me whether these principles can or cannot be effaced by education and custom. If they cannot be effaced we ought to find them in all men, and they should clearly appear in the mind of each particular man. If they can be altered by extraneous ideas, they ought to appear more distinctly and with more lustre the nearer they are to their source. I mean in children or illiterate people, upon whom extraneous opinions have made less impression. Let them take which side they please, they will clearly see, he says, that it is contradicted by indubitable facts and by continual expe rience.
Th. I am astonished that your clever friend has confounded obscurity with effacement, as some in your party confound non- being with non-appearance. Innate ideas and truths cannot be effaced, but they are obscured in all men (as they are now) by their inclination toward the needs of the body, and oftener still by the occurrence of bad customs. These characteristics of the internal light would always be shining in the under standing and would give fervor to the will, if the confused perceptions of sense did not engross our attention. It is the struggle of which Holy Scripture no less than ancient and modern philosophy speaks.
Ph. Thus, then, we find ourselves in darkness as thick and in uncertainty as great as if there were no such light.
Th. God forbid; we should have neither science nor law, nay, not even reason.
§ 21, 22, etc. Ph. I hope that you will at least admit the force of prejudice, which often causes that to pass as natural which has come from the bad instruction to which children have been exposed, and the bad customs which education and association have given them.
Th. I admit that the excellent author whom you follow says some very fine things upon that subject, and which have their value if they are taken as they should be; but I do not believe that they are opposed to the doctrine properly understood of nature or of innate truths. And I am confident that he will not extend his remarks too far; for I am equally persuaded that a great many opinions pass for truths which are only the effects en. n] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 99 of custom and of credulity, and that there are many such opin ions, too, which certain philosophers would fain account for as matters of prejudice, which are, however, grounded in right reason and in nature. There is as much or more ground for de fending ourselves from those who through ambition oftenest make pretensions to innovation, than for challenging ancient im pressions. And after having meditated sufficiently upon ancient and modern thought, I have found that the majority of the re ceived doctrines may bear a good sense. So that I wish that sensible men would seek to satisfy their ambition by occupy ing themselves rather in building and advancing than in retro grading and destroying. And I desire them to resemble the Romans who constructed beautiful public works, rather than that Vandal king l whom his mother charged to seek the de struction of these grand structures, since he could not hope for the glory of equalling them.
Ph. The aim of the clever class who have contended against innate truths has been to prevent men from handing round their prejudices and seeking to cover their idleness beneath this fair name.
Th. We are agreed upon this point, for, very far from ap proving that doubtful principles be received, I would, for my self, seek even the demonstration of the axioms of Euclid, as some ancients also have done. And when you ask the means of knowing and examining innate principles, I reply, following what I said above, that with the exception of the instincts whose reason is unknown, you must try to reduce them to first principles, that is to say, to axioms identical or immediate by means of definitions, which are nothing else than a distinct exposition of ideas. I do not doubt even but that your friends, who have hitherto been opposed to innate truths, would ap prove this method, which appears consonant with their princi pal aim.
1 Chrocus, who with the Sueves and Alans is said to have passed over the Rhino near Mayence, and following the evil counsel of his mother, to have ravaged in the most frightful manner in Germany as in Gaul. The story is given in the Chronicle of Idatius, chap. (32. Cf. Bouquet, Rerum Gall, et Franc. Scriptores, Tom. 2, p. 404. — TR.
100 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. i CHAPTER III OTHER CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING INNATE PRINCIPLES, BOTH SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL § 3. Ph. You wish to reduce truths to first principles, and I grant you that if there is any such principle, it is without gainsaying this; it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. It appears, however, difficult to maintain its innate character, since you must be convinced at the same time that the ideas of impossibility and identity are innate.
Th. It is quite necessary that those who favor innate truths maintain and be convinced that these ideas are also innate, and I admit that I am of their opinion. The ideas of being, of possibility of identity, are so completely innate that they enter into all our thoughts and reasonings, and I regard them as essential to our mind; but I have already said that we do not always pay them particular attention and that we discern them only with time. I have said hitherto that we are, so to speak, innate unto ourselves, and since we are beings, the being we is innate; and the knowledge of being is wrapped up in that knowledge which we have of ourselves. There is some thing similar in the case of other general notions.
§ 4. Ph. If the idea of identity is natural, and consequently so evident and so present to the mind that we ought to recog nize it from the cradle, I would be pleased to have a child of seven years, and even a man of seventy, tell me whether a man who is a creature consisting of body and soul, is the same (man) when his body is changed, and whether, metempsychosis sup posed, Euphorbus would be the same as Pythagoras.
Th. I have stated sufficiently that what is natural to us is not known to us as such from the cradle; and even an idea may be known to us without our being able to decide at once all ques tions which can be formed thereupon. It is as if some one main tained that a child cannot have a knowledge of the square and its diagonal, because he will have difficulty in recognizing that the diagonal is incommensurable with the side of the square. As for the question itself, it appears to me demonstratively en. in] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 101 solved by the doctrine of Monads, which I have elsewhere1 shown in its true light, and we shall speak more fully of this matter in the sequel.
1 C'f. the Essay, without title, Gerhardt, 4, 427 sq., written at the beginning of 1080, and referred to as " un petit discours de Metapliysique," in Leibnitz's letter, Feb. 1-11, 108(3, to the Landgraf Ernst von Hessen-Rheiui'els, G. '2, 11. This ' Discours,' regarded by Leibnitz as the beginning of his philosophy, con tains a summary, centring about the idea of the individual substance, of all his previous philosophical speculation. He gained this idea, and with it a seemingly satisfactory solution of the principal philosophical problem, at the end of 1085 or the beginning of 1080. For this idea, still in process of devel opment, possessing the elements of force and individuality, but lacking those of continuity and perceptive activity evolved between 1080 and 1097, Leibnitz, in 1097, when the idea possessed all the elements essential to its completeness in his system, appropriated the term "monad." This term he borrowed, not from Giordano Bruno, 1548-1000, who used it in a similar though not precisely the same sense, but from Frau<;ois Mercure Van Helmont, 1018-1099. So far as known, the term "monad" is first mentioned in the letter to Fardella, Sept. 3-13, 1090, rirst published by Foucher de Careil, Nouv. lettr. et opusc. de Leibniz, p. 328, Paris, 1857. The doctrine in substance till 1097, and thereafter in name, Leibnitz frequently set forth with increasing clearness and complete ness in letters to his numerous correspondents, and in the " Acta Eruditorum " and the "Journal des Savans." Reference may be made, among others, to the following: Correspondence with Autoine Arnauld, 1012-1094, especially the letter dated Venice, Mar. 23, 1090, G. 2, 134; Erdmann, 107; Jacques, 1, 443; trans., Appendix,; the two systematic elaborations of his system of the year 1095, the mathematical in the Specimen dynamicum pro admirandis natures leyibus, etc., Gerhardt, Leibniz, math. Schrtft., 6, 234 sq.; the meta physical in the Systcme nouveau de la nature, etc., G. 4, 477; E. 124; trans., Appendix,; De ipsa nutitra, etc., 1098, espec. §§ 11, 12, G. 4, 504; E. 154; J. 1, 455 (in French); trans., Appendix,; Response (Rcplique, Erdmann) aux reflexions continues dans la seconde edition da Dictionnaire Critique de M. Buyle, etc., 1702, G. 4, 554; E. 183; trans., Appendix,; Letters to Rud. Christ. Wagner De vi activa corporis, June 4, 1710, G. 7, 528; E. 405; trans., Duncan, J'hilos. Wks. of Leibnitz, 190; to Bierling, Aug. 12, 1711, G. 7, 500; E. 077; Principes de la nature, etc., c. 1714, G. 6, 598; E. 714; trans., Duncan, 20!); La Monadoh>_yiet.lJJ4, G. 6, 607; E. 705; trans., Duncan, 218, F. H. Hedge, " JourTTSpec. PhTTos.," Vol. 1, p. 129; Letters to Des Bosses, G. 2, 285 sq., passim, which present most penetrating discussions of Leibnitz's metaphysic and form the most ample commentary on the Afonadolor/ie; to De Voider, 1043-1709, G. 2, 139 sq., passim, proving the intimate connection of Leibnitz's dynamic and metaphysic; to Bourguet, Dec. 1714, G. 3, 575; E. 720; to Remond (de Montmort, E. 724), Feb. 11, 1715, §§ 3, 4, G. 3, 035; to Dangi- court, Sept. 1710, Dutens, Leibnit. opera omnia, 3, 499; E. 745. Of the pieces cited the most important are: The Letter to Arnauld, Mar. 23, 1090, the Rysteme nouveau, the De ipsa natura, the Principes de la nature, and the Mcmado- loc/ie. As Leibnitz was occupied, more or less as circumstances permitted, with the composition and revision of his ' New Essays,' from 1700, when Coste's translation of Locke's 'Essay' appeared, to 1709 and perhaps later (vid. ante, p. 9 and note), possibly even as late as 1714 or 1710, the relative date of com position of the several pieces here cited to that of the ' New Essays ' can easily O o 102 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. i § 6. Ph. [I see very well that to you I should object in vain that the axiom which declares that the whole is greater than its part is not innate, under pretext that the ideas of whole and part are relative, dependent upon those of number and exten sion; since you would apparently maintain that there are ideas conditionally innate, and that those of number and extension are to such a degree innate.1] CT/i. You are right, and indeed I rather believe that the idea if extension is posterior to that of whole and part.
§ 7. Ph. [What say you of the truth that God should be worshipped; is it innate?]
Th. 1 believe that the duty of worshipping God declares that on occasion you ought to show that you honor him beyond every other object, and that this is a necessary consequence of the idea of him and of his existence; which signifies with me that this truth is innate.
§ 8. Ph. But the atheists seem to prove by their example that the idea of God is not innate. And without speaking of those whom the ancients have mentioned, have not entire nations been discovered, who have no idea of God nor of the terms which denote God and the soul, as at the bay of Soldania, in Brazil, in the Caribbee Islands, in Paraguay?
Th. [The late Mr. Fabricius,2 a celebrated theologian of Heidelberg, has made an apology for the human race in order be approximated. On the whole subject, cf. L. Stein, Leihniz.u. Spinoza, chap. 6, pp. 111-219, Berlin: G. Reiiner, 1890, who traces the history of the rise of the monad-doctrine from 1680 till all the elements of the complete conception were present in 1697; E. Dillmann, E. neue Darstf/. d. Leibniz. Monadenlehre uuf Grand d. Quellen, Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1891, whose monograph is an elab orate discussion of the entire subject with references to or quotations from all the sources. — TR.
1 The French text is: " puisque vous soutiendre's apparemment, qu'il y a des idees innees respectives, et que celles des nombres et de 1'etendue sont iunees aussi." — TR.
'2 John Lewis Fabricius, 1032-1697. Professor, first of Greek, then of Philos ophy and Theology, at Heidelberg. In 1664 he received the title of " Conseiller eccle'siastiqne de 1'electeur palatin." Some years after, when Heidelberg was burning, he saved the archives of the church and the university, carrying them first to Eberbach, then to Frankfort, where he died. The title of the work referred to in the text (rid. ante, p. 21 also, where the name is given Fabritius, in accord with his own signature in the letter of Feb. 16, 1673, to Spinoza, offering him the professorship of Philosophy at Heidelberg) is: Apol ogia, r/eneris humani contra cahnnniam athdsmi. It appeared in 1662. His collected works, with a life, were published by J. H. Heidegger, Zurich, 1698, in 4to. — TB.
en. in] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 103 to clear it of the imputation of atheism. He was aft author of great accuracy, and decidedly above much prejudice; I do not, however, pretend to enter into this discussion of facts. I grant that entire peoples have never thought of the supreme sub stance, nor of the nature of the soul. And I remember, that when you wished at my request, countenanced by the illus trious Mr. Witsen, to obtain for me in Holland a translation of the Lord's Prayer into the language of Barantola, you were stopped at this point: halloiced be thy name, because you could not make the Barantoli understand what hallowed meant. I remember also that in the creed made for the Hot tentots you were obliged to express Holy Spirit by words of the country which signify a pleasant and agreeable wind.1 This was not unreasonable, for our Greek and Latin words TTvtvfj.a.. anima, spiritus, mean ordinarily only the air or wind we breathe, as one of the most subtile things which we know through the senses; and we begin through the senses to lead men little by little to what is beyond the senses. All this diffi culty, however, which you find in attaining abstract knowledge effects nothing against innate knowledge. There are peoples who have no word corresponding to the word being; does any one doubt their knowledge of what being is, although they seldom think of it in the abstract? Besides I find what I have read in our excellent author on the idea of God (Essay on Understanding, Book I., chap. 3,'2 § 9) so beautiful and so to my liking that I cannot refrain from quoting it.3 Here it is: " Men can scarcely avoid having some kind of idea of things of which those with whom they converse often have occasion to speak under certain names, and if the thing is one which carries with it the idea of excellence, of grandeur, or of some extraordinary quality which interests in some point and which impresses itself upon the mind under the idea of an absolute and irresistible power which none can help fearing " (I add: and under the idea of a superlatively great goodness which none can help loving), "such an idea ought, according to all 1 Cf. Book III., chap. 1, § 5, Th. (2). — TR.
2 Chap. 4, in Locke's treatise, Bohn's ed. — TR.
3 The French translation of Locke's original, is, in my judgment, clearer in form of statement and style than Locke himself. Hence I have retranslated the French into English. If any reader prefers Locke's original, he can easily find it in the Philos. Works, Bolm's ed., Vol. 1, p. 188. — TR.
104 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. i