Source:

Sämtliche schriften und briefe series II, volume 1
Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed)
p 441


Date: 1678

Translated from the French


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METAPHYSICS
MIND, BODY AND SOUL
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THEOLOGY

LEIBNIZ TO DUKE JOHANN FRIEDRICH


[A II 1, p441]

     Your Grace,

     I have read the treatise of religion against the atheists.1 It says ordinary things very well, and can touch libertines like those we normally meet, who are more wrong by inclination rather than by reasoning. But it is not suitable for persuading people who reason with care, who will prefer a completely bare thought, as is proposed by Mr Pascal, than one dressed up in so many useless words. For wanting to take pen in hand, in order to write out some extracts, I did not find there anything worthwhile. Which is a sure sign that a book lacks substance.
     The basic thought of this work is, in fact, already in Cicero, who, in talking about the immortality of the soul, says that he does not want anyone to remove this error from his mind, if it is one.2 For he says if it is a truth I can hope for immense goods from it; and if I am mistaken, I do not have to fear that one day the dead will mock me. Instead of that, those who are of the opposite sentiment, in order to obtain here some small advantages, put at risk that which is infinitely more considerable. The author of On the Art of Thinking Well (i.e. Mr Arnaud) has written a chapter specially, which says, in substance, the same thing.3
     But to speak the truth on it: this reasoning does not conclude anything about what people should believe, but only about what they should do. That is to say, it only proves that even those who believe in neither God nor an immortal soul should act as if they had such belief while they are unable to demonstrate that they do not have it. For these are two entirely separate issues: to know what is most certain in practice, and to know what is most probable in belief. This is something even the casuists have distinguished very well. For one is often obliged to follow the most certain, even though it is not the most probable. Thus we need other reasons to convert the atheists, for these ones are only suitable to persuade them to live like others and not to make them believe. Moreover, belief is not a voluntary thing, and all exhortations will therefore achieve nothing. Thus there is a need for reasons, and it is not possible that the soul could surrender itself to anything else. Indeed, we are not lacking in true reasons to uphold religion, and I am annoyed that there are so few people who use them properly.




NOTES:

1. M. Mauduit, Traité' de la religion contre les athées, les déistes et les nouveaux pyrrohoniens (Paris, 1677).
2. Cicero, Cato major de senectute, 23.56: 'But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.'
3. The reference is to A. Arnauld and P. Nicole, La loquige, ou l'art de penser (Paris, 1662) pt. 4 chapter 12.


© Lloyd Strickland 2003