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Source: Die philophischen schriften von Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz, vol. III C. I. Gerhardt (ed) pp 343-348 Date: 8 May 1704 Translated from the French View this translation in PDF format (26k) Back to home page Search texts by category: METAPHYSICS MIND, BODY AND SOUL FREE WILL AND NECESSITY SCIENCE POLITICS, LAW AND ETHICS THEOLOGY |
LEIBNIZ TO QUEEN SOPHIE CHARLOTTE[G III p343] Madam I am delighted to learn that the illness of Miss Pöllnitz1 is not what we feared, and that she will soon be (or already is) with Your Majesty. An English lady, called Lady Masham, made me the present of a book by her late father, named Mr Cudworth, which is in folio, entitled The Intellectual System; the thanks that I sent for that2 enticed a very obliging reply, in English, in which she asked me for some clarification of what she had read about me in Mr Bayle and in the Journal des Savants. After that I have been obliged to write her recently a rather long letter,3 in which I explained to her that my great principle of natural things is that of Harlequin, Emperor of the Moon (whom I did not, however, do the honour of quoting) - that it is always and everywhere in all things just as it is here.4 That is to say that nature is fundamentally uniform, although there is variety in the greater and the lesser and in the degrees of perfection. This gives us the simplest and most intelligible philosophy in the world. Firstly I compare other creatures with ourselves. We find bodies, like humans for example, in which there is some perfection. But that small part of matter which composes them would be too privileged if it alone had an advantage that distinguished it utterly and even essentially from all the others which surround it. We must therefore conclude that there is life and perception everywhere. But [G III p344] as our own perceptions are sometimes accompanied by reflection, and sometimes not, and are more or less clear and distinct, it is easy to conclude that there will be living beings whose perception will be obscure and confused, and even without reflection, which is in us the mother of the sciences. This same uniformity of nature, but accompanied by richness and ornament, makes me conclude that we are not the only beings with reflection in the universe, and that there will even be some that surpass us magnificently, and it is in this way that we conceive what we call 'genies'. Nevertheless ultimately it will still be as it is here, and these genies, in my opinion, would still be accompanied by organic bodies worthy of them, of a subtlety and force proportionate to the knowledge and power of these sublime minds. And in accordance with this principle there will never be separate souls, nor intelligences entirely detached from matter, except the sovereign mind, author of everything and of matter itself. So far I have compared creatures together, which I find all basically agree: let us now compare their past and futures states with their present state. And on that I say that since the beginning of the world, and for all the time to come, it always is and will be fundamentally all as it is here and all as it is ultimately at present, not only with regard to different beings, but also with regard to one being compared with itself. That is to say that each being, alive or endowed with perception, will remain as such always, and will always keep proportioned organs. Perception, like matter, being universal with regard to places, will also be universal with regard to times, which is to say that not only will each substance have perception and organs, but also that it will always have them. I speak here of a substance, but not of a simple assemblage of substances, as might be a herd of animals or a pond full of fish, where it suffices that the sheep and the fish have perception and organs, though we should conclude that in the spaces, such as in the water of the pond between the fish, there will again be other living things, but smaller, and it will always be thus, without any void. Now it is not conceivable how perception can begin naturally any more than matter. For any machine that we can imagine will always be nothing but the impact of bodies, size, shape and motion, that we will conceive as produced by its means, which we well understand to be something other than perception; therefore not being able to begin [G III p345] naturally, it will not end naturally either. And the difference between one substance and itself cannot be greater than that of one substance to another. That is to say, the same substance can only have perception sometimes more lively, sometimes less lively, and accompanied by more or less reflection. And nothing will be able to destroy all organs of this substance, being essential to matter to be organic and artificial everywhere, because it is the effect and continual emanation of a sovereign intelligence, although these organs and artifices must exist most often in small parts that are invisible to us, as it is easy to judge by what we see. Here the maxim that all is as it is here, in the invisible as well as in the visible, holds good. From which it also follows that naturally, and speaking according to metaphysical rigour, there is neither generation nor death, but only development and envelopment of the same animal. Otherwise there would be too much of a leap, and nature would deviate too much from its character of uniformity by its inexplicable change of essence. Experience confirms these transformations in some animals, where nature herself has shown us a small sample of what she hides elsewhere. Observations also make the most industrious observers conclude that the generation of animals is nothing other than growth together with a transformation, which rightly leads us to conclude that death can only be the opposite, the difference being only that in one case the change happens little by little, and in the other it happens suddenly and by some violence. Moreover, experience also shows that too many barely distinguished little perceptions, such as those that follow a blow to the head, stuns us, and that in a blackout it happens that we remember, and should remember, so few of these perceptions that it is as if we had not had any. Therefore the rule of uniformity should not lead us to make another judgement about death even in animals, according to the natural order, since the matter is easy to explain in this way, which is already known and tested, and is inexplicable in any other manner; it not possible to conceive how the existence or the action of the perceptive principle begins or ends, nor its separation. Moreover it is easy to conclude that the sequence of these changes in an animal will doubtless still have a very beautiful order, and be very capable of meeting their needs, since there is order and artifice everywhere. In order to give some light to the idea, I would compare those [G III p346] beings with men who try to climb a high mountain, covered with greenery, but steep as a wall, having only a few places to rest or degrees at intervals, where after having climbed and neared a place to rest or sit, they fall back a few times onto another lower ledge, and are obliged to start all over. Nevertheless they do not fail to gradually overcome one degree after the other. And sometimes we have to move back for a better leap. But the order of providence treats beings with reflection in a very special way, and which is doubtless the most fitting and even the most desirable way. But, it will be asked, how can matter act on the soul or on a being with perception, and how too can the soul act on matter? For we notice in ourselves how the body often obeys the will of the soul, and that the soul is itself aware of the actions of bodies, and yet we do not conceive any influence between those two things. The ancient philosophers abandoned the difficulty as hopeless, because we find that in fact they do not say anything about it. The moderns have wanted to cut the Gordian knot with the sword of Alexander, and they have done so by introducing a miracle into a natural thing, like the divinities of the theatre at the dénouement of an opera: for they claim that God at every moment adapts the soul to the body and the body to the soul, and that he is obliged to do that in accordance with a pact or a general will. But that directly goes against the principle of the uniformity of nature. Ordinarily, bodies will produce their effects on each other according to laws that are mechanical and intelligible, but suddenly, when the soul wills something, a divinity will come to disrupt this order of bodies, and divert their course? How likely is that? Nevertheless, this is the opinion of Father Malebranche and modern Cartesians, and Mr Bayle, very clever as he is, has made his best effort to return to it, although it seems to me that I have unsettled it.5 What are we going to do though? The solution lies entirely in our principle of the ordinary. When we see the bodies in some machine follow the mechanical laws of collision, and the soul follow moral laws of apparent good and evil in some deliberation, let us say that it is the same in other cases that we do not see or untangle so well, and that everything is as it is here. That is to say, let us explain those things of which we have only a confused understanding by those of which we have a distinct understanding, and let us say that everything [G III p347] happens mechanically in the body, or in accordance with the laws of motion, and everything happens morally in the soul, or in accordance with the appearances of good and evil, so that even in our instincts or involuntary actions where the body alone seems to play a part, there is in the soul an appetite for good (or an aversion to what is evil) that drives it, although our reflection is unable to untangle it in the confusion. But if soul and body thus follow their own laws separately, how do they meet, and how is it that the body obeys the soul and that the soul feels the effects of the body? In order to explain this natural mystery we must have recourse to God, as we should when it is a matter of giving the primordial reason for the order and art in things. But it is only once and for all, and it is not as if he disturbed the laws of bodies in order to make them correspond to the soul, and vice versa, but that he has made bodies in advance so that, following their laws and natural tendencies to movement, they will come to do what the soul will ask when it will be time for that; and that he has also made souls so that, following the natural tendencies of their appetite, they will also always come to the representations of the states of the body. For just as motion leads matter from shape to shape, the appetite leads the soul from image to image. So the soul is made dominant in advance, and is obeyed by bodies in as much as its appetite is accompanied by distinct perceptions, which makes it think of suitable ways when it wants something; but it is also subjected to the body in advance in as much as has confused perceptions. For our experience is that all things tend to change, the body by moving force and the soul by the appetite which leads it to distinct or confused perceptions, depending on whether it is more perfect or less perfect. And we should not marvel at this primordial agreement of souls and bodies, as all bodies have been arranged following the intentions of a universal mind, and all souls are essentially representations or living mirrors of the universe, according to the scope and the point of view of each; and consequently they are as enduring as the world itself. It is as if God has varied the universe as many times as there are souls, or as if he has created as many universes in miniature, ultimately agreeing in content and diversified by appearances. There is nothing so rich as this uniform simplicity accompanied by a perfect order. And we can conclude that each separate soul must be perfectly well adjusted, since it is a certain expression of [G III p348] the universe, and a concentrated universe as it were, which is confirmed again by the fact that each body, and consequently ours as well, is somehow affected by all the others, and consequently the soul takes part in it too. Here, in a few words, is all my philosophy; quite popular without a doubt, since it does not accommodate anything which does not correspond with what we experience, and which is based on two sayings as common as those of the Italian theatre, that it is elsewhere just as here, and the other of Tasso: that through variety nature is beautiful, which seem to contradict each other, but are reconciled by understanding that one concerns the foundation of things, the other manners and appearances. That seems good enough for people who love the search for truth, and who are capable of penetrating it; but I do not know whether it will not seem too low or too base for those of the highest order, as is Your Majesty, which I do not mean on account of your rank but your mind. I fear that it would have been necessary either to say nothing to you of such things, Madam, or to propose something more sublime, which someone else will find easier than me. Nevertheless these trifles will perhaps amuse you for some moments. And if they are at least useful for that I will be pleased with them, being with devotion, Madam, to Your Majesty, etc. Your very humble and obedient servant Leibniz NOTES: 1. Henrietta von Pöllnitz (1670-1722), Sophie Charlotte's lady-in-waiting. 2. Leibniz is referring to his letter to Damaris Masham of December 1703, an English translation of which is available here. 3. Leibniz to Damaris Masham, early May 1704, G III pp338-343. 4. A reference to Fatouville's play Arlequin, empereur dans la lune (1684), in the final act of which the characters Colombine, Isabelle and the doctor (and, at one point, all of the characters together) use the phrase 'C'est tout comme icy' [It is all as it is here]. 5. Leibniz is here referring to the doctrine of occasionalism. © Lloyd Strickland 2003 |