Source:

Correspondenz von Leibniz mit der Prinzessin Sophie vol II
Onno Klopp (ed)
pp 8 - 11

Part of this text can also be found in:

Die philophischen schriften von Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz, vol. VII
C. I. Gerhardt (ed)
pp 539-541


Date: early October? 1696

Translated from the French


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METAPHYSICS
MIND, BODY AND SOUL
FREE WILL AND NECESSITY
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POLITICS, LAW AND ETHICS
THEOLOGY

LEIBNIZ TO ELECTRESS SOPHIE


[K II p8]

     Mr Francis Mercury Baron de Helmont,1 son of the famous medical doctor of that name,2 was an old acquaintance of the Electress of Hanover.3 He was a Roman Catholic, then he became a Quaker, and called himself a seeker during the time he was in Hanover. The Electress had the custom of saying, when talking about him, that he did not understand himself. He dressed in an outfit of brown material in the style of the Quakers. He also wore a coat of the same colour, and a hat without any conspicuous features, so that people would take him for a craftsman rather than a Baron. He was seventy-nine years old, and at the same time was very lively and alert. He knew several trades, and even worked in them, for example as a wood turner, a weaver, [K II p9] a painter, and similar things. He also had a perfect understanding of chemistry and medicine. He was well versed in Hebrew, and he was an intimate friend of Mr Knorr, Chanceller of Sulzbach,4 author of the Kabbala denudata.5 He provided him with several Jewish texts on this matter. Translations from English into German have been made of Mr. Helmont's Paradoxes from Macro- and Microcosmo,6 and they have been published in Hamburg. [G VII p539]7 The principal view he defended is metempsychosis, namely that the souls of dead bodies immediately pass [G VII p540] into the bodies of newborns, and that thus the same souls always play their character in this theatre of the world.
     I agree with everybody that animals have true sensitive souls. I even hold, with the majority of the ancients, that the whole of nature is full of force, of life and of souls. For it is known, by means of microscopes, that there is a great quantity of living creatures, which are not perceptible to the eyes, and that there are more souls than grains of sand or atoms. However, I also hold, as Plato did, and before him Pythagoras, who derived this opinion from the East, that there is no soul which perishes, not even that of animals. Mr Helmont agrees with me on that, although I cannot understand his arguments and proofs. All bodies have parts, and are nothing but accumulations and multitudes, as are flocks of sheep, or ponds full of drops and fish, or a watch which contains several springs and other necessary parts. But just as all numbers consist of one and one, so all multitudes are composed of unities. Therefore unities are the true source and seat of all beings, of all [K II p10] force and of all their senses, and all that is nothing other than souls. From this it indisputably follows not only that there are souls, but also that everything is full of souls, and of what the soul truly consists, and lastly why every soul is incorruptible. For unities do not have parts, otherwise they would be multitudes, and that which has no parts cannot be corrupted. It has already been said by Thomas Aquinas that the souls of animals are indivisible, from which it follows that they are incorruptible.8 Apparently he did not want to explain himself more openly, and was satisfied with having laid the foundation. It could be argued that all this could be so, but with very little consolation, because although our souls and those of other animals remain in existence, they remember nothing of the past. I am of a different opinion, however. I admit that after death we initially do not remember what we have been, which is neither proper nor characteristic of nature. Nevertheless, I believe that what has happened to a soul once is eternally imprinted on it, although it does not always come back to the memory, just as we know many things though we do not always remember them unless something leads to it and makes us think of it. For who can [G VII p541] remember everything? But because nothing in nature happens in vain, and because nothing is lost in it, but because everything tends towards its perfection and its maturity, likewise every image that our soul receives will ultimately become a whole together with the things that are to come, so that we can see everything just as in a mirror, and draw from it what we find most befitting for our contentment. From this it follows that the more we have practiced virtue and have done good works, the more [K II p11] joy and contentment we will get from it. We must therefore conclude from this that we have to be content at present, because, in order to attain the good, everything that happens is so well arranged that we could not do better than this, even if we had a good understanding of these sorts of matters.
     Our souls are capable of knowing and of governing, and they do in this small world almost what God does in the great. They are like small Gods who create worlds that do not perish any less than the universe, of which they are the image. Just like the great world they also tend towards their goal. From this it follows that other souls and bodies must serve those which have some relationship with the divinity, in order to achieve their happiness, although at the same time as they serve those other souls they also tend towards a greater perfection, because the world is like a body which moves toward its goal without hindrance, because there is nothing could prevent itself from doing so, and because there is nothing outside the world that could prevent it.




NOTES:

1. Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-1698), a long-time friend of Leibniz's.
2. Jean Baptiste van Helmont (1579-1644).
3. Electress Sophie.
4. Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-1689), an intimate of Francis Mercury van Helmont and translator of many Kabbalistic texts.
5. Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata [The Kabbalah unveiled] (vol 1: 1677, vol 2: 1684).
6. Francis Mercury van Helmont, The Paradoxical Discourses of F. M. Van Helmont, concerning the Macrocosm and Microcosm, or the Greater and Lesser World, and their Union (London, 1685).
7. Gerhardt's presentation of the text begins here.
8. Aquinas affirms the indivisibility of animal souls in Summa contra Gentiles II.65. However he evidently would not have accepted Leibniz's reasoning that such indivisibility entails immortality, as he denies that animals have immortal souls in Summa contra Gentiles II.82.


© Lloyd Strickland 2004