CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO
THE METAPHYSICS*CONTENTS
I: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; 1/11 Feb., 1686.
II: Arnauld to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; March 13, 1686.
III: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; April 12, 1686.
IV: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; April 12, 1686.
V: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; 5/15 April, 1686.
VI: Arnauld to Leibniz; May 13, 1686.
VII: Arnauld to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; May 13, 1686.
VIII: Remarks upon Mr. Arnaud's letter in regard to my statement that the individual concept of each person involves, once for all, all that will ever happen to him:; May, 1686.
IX: Leibniz to Arnauld; Hanover, July 14, 1686.
X: Leibniz to Arnauld; Hanover, July 14, 1686.
XI: Arnauld to Leibniz; Sept. 28, 1686.
XII: Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels to Leibniz; Rheinfels, 21/31, Oct., 1686.
XIII: Draft of the letter of Nov. 28- Dec. 8 to Arnauld
XIV: Leibniz to Arnauld; Hanover, Nov. 28- Dec. 8, 1686.
XV: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; [Taken from my letter of November, 1686.]
XVI: Arnauld to Leibniz; March 4th, 1687.
XVII: Leibniz to Arnauld; Gottingen, April 30, 1687.
XVIII:Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; April 30, 1687.
XIX: Leibniz to Arnauld; August 1st, 1687.
XX: Arnauld to Leibniz; August 28th, 1687.
XXI: A. Arnauld to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; August 31st, 1687.
XXII: Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels to Leibniz.
XXIII: Leibniz to Arnauld; October 6, 1687.
XXIV: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels
XXV: Leibniz to Arnauld; January 14, 1688.
XXVI: Leibniz to Arnauld; Venice, March 23, 1690.* Note on the text: This document was originally downloaded from Leibniz Links. The format was subsequently modified, "Contents" and bookmarks added, and minor corrections made. The translation is by Dr. George R. Montgomery and was first published in Leibniz by the Open Court Publishing Company in 1902. This translation was subsequently revised by Dr. Albert R. Chandler in 1924. According to the publishers' Preface to the Second Edition, the "translation still remains substantially that of Dr. Montgomery." I believe - but cannot be certain - that it is the revised translation that is presented here. The Reprint Edition of 1950 shows only the original 1902 copyright.
Carl Mickelsen - carlmick@moscow.com
I: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; 1/11 Feb., 1686.
. . . Being at a place lately for several days with nothing to do, I wrote out a short discourse on Metaphysics on which I should be very glad to have the opinion of Mons. Arnaud.1 For the questions in regard to grace, in regard to the relations of God with created beings, in regard to the nature of miracles, the cause of sin, the origin of evil, the immortality of the soul, ideas, etc., are discussed in a way which seems to offer new points of approach fitted to clear up some great difficulties. I enclose herewith a summary of the articles which it contains, as I have not had time to make a clean copy of the whole.
I therefore beg Your Serene Highness to send him this summary, requesting him to look it over and give his judgment upon it. For, as he excels equally in Theology and in Philosophy, in erudition and in power of thought, I know of no one who is better fitted to give an opinion upon it. I am very desirous to have a critic as careful, as enlightened and as open to reason as is Monsieur Arnaud, being myself also a person the most disposed in the world to submit to reasoning.
Perhaps Mons. Arnaud will not find this outline wholly unworthy of his consideration, especially since he has been somewhat occupied in the examination of these matters. If he finds obscurities I will explain myself sincerely and frankly, and if he finds me worthy indeed of his instruction I shall try to behave in such a way that he shall find no cause for being dissatisfied on that point. I beg Your Serene Highness to enclose this with the summary which I am sending and to forward them both to Mons. Arnaud.
Summary of the Discourse on Metaphysics
1. Concerning the divine perfection and that God does everything in the most desirable way.
2. Against those who hold that there is in the works of God no goodness, or that the principles of goodness and beauty are arbitrary.
3. Against those who think that God might have made things better than he has.
4. That love for God demands on our part complete satisfaction with and acquiescence in that which he has done.
5. In what the principles of the perfection of the divine conduct consist and that the simplicity of the means counterbalances the richness of the effects.
6. That God does nothing which is not orderly and that it is not even possible to conceive of events which are not regular.
7. That miracles conform to the general order although they go against the subordinate regulations; concerning that which God desires or permits and concerning general and particular intentions.
8. In order to distinguish between the activities of God and the activities of created things, we must explain the conception of an individual substance.
9. That every individual substance expresses the whole universe in its own manner, and that in its full concept is included all its experiences together with all the attendant circumstances and the whole sequence of exterior events.
10. That the belief in substantial forms has a certain basis in fact but that these forms effect no changes in the phenomena and must not be employed for the explanation of particular events.
11. That the opinions of the theologians and of the so-called scholastic philosophers are not to be wholly despised.
12. That the conception of the extension of a body is in a way imaginary and does not constitute the substance of the body.
13. As the individual concept of each person includes once for all everything which can ever happen to him, in it can be seen a priori the evidences or the reasons for the reality of each event and why one happened sooner than the other. But these events, however certain, are nevertheless contingent being based on the free choice of God and of his creatures. It is true that their choices always have their reasons but they incline to the choices under no compulsion of necessity.
14. God produces different substances according to the different views which he has of the world and by the intervention of God the appropriate nature of each substance brings it about that what happens to one corresponds to what happens to all the others without, however, their acting upon one another directly.
15. The action of one finite substance upon another consists only in the increase in the degree of the expression of the first combined with a decrease in that of the second, in so far as God has in advance fashioned them so that they should accord.
16. The extraordinary intervention of God is not excluded in that which our particular essences express because this expression includes everything. Such intervention however goes beyond the power of our natural being or of our distinct expression because these are finite and follow certain subordinate regulations.
17. An example of a subordinate regulation in the law of nature which demonstrates that God always preserves the same amount of force but not the same quantity of motion; against the Cartesians and many others.
18. The distinction between force and the quantity of motion is, among other reasons, important as showing that we must have recourse to metaphysical considerations in addition to discussions of extension, if we wish to explain the phenomena of matter.
19. The utility of final causes in physics.
20. A noteworthy disquisition by Socrates in Plato's Phaedo against the philosophers who were too materialistic.
21. If the mechanical laws depended upon geometry alone without metaphysical influences, the phenomena would be very different from what they are.
22. Reconciliation of the two methods of explanation, the one using final causes and the other efficient causes, thus satisfying both those who explain nature mechanically and also those who have recourse to incorporeal natures.
23. Returning to immaterial substances we explain how God acts upon the understanding of spirits, and ask whether one always keeps the idea of what he thinks about.
24. What clear and obscure, distinct and confused, adequate and inadequate, intuitive and assumed knowledge is, and the definition of nominal, real, causal and essential.
25. In what cases knowledge is added to mere contemplation of the idea.
26. Ideas are all stored up within us. Plato's doctrine of reminiscence.
27. In what respect our souls can be compared to blank tablets and how conceptions are derived from the senses.
28. The only immediate object of our perceptions which exists outside of us is God and in him alone is our light.
29. Yet we think directly by means of our own ideas and not through God's.
30. How God inclines our souls without necessitating them; that there are no grounds for complaint; that we must not ask why Judas sinned because this free act is contained in his concept, the only question being why Judas the sinner is admitted to existence, preferably to other possible persons; concerning the original imperfection or limitation before the fall and concerning the different degrees of grace.
31. The motives for election, faith foreseen, partial knowledge, the absolute decree and that the whole inquiry is reduced to the question why God has chosen and resolved to admit to existence such a possible person whose concept involves such a sequence of gifts of grace and of free acts. This at once overcomes all the difficulties.
32. Applicability of these principles in matters of piety and of religion.
33. Explanation of the inter-relation of soul and body which has been usually considered inexplicable and miraculous; also concerning the origin of confused perceptions.
34. The difference between spirits and other substances, souls or substantial forms, and that the immortality which people wish for includes remembrance.
35. Excellence of spirits; that God considers them preferably to the other created things; that spirits express God rather than the world while other simple substances express rather the world than God.
36. God is the monarch of the most perfect republic which is composed of all the spirits, and the felicity of this city of God is his principal purpose.
37. Jesus Christ has disclosed to men the mystery and the admirable laws of the Kingdom of Heaven and the greatness of the supreme happiness which God has prepared for those who love him.1. Leibniz always used the form Arnaud. - Trans.
II: Arnauld to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; March 13, 1686.
I have received, Monseigneur, the metaphysical thoughts which Your Highness sent me from Mr. Leibniz as a witness of his affection and his esteem for which I am very grateful to him. But I have been so busy ever since that only within the last three days have I been able to read his missive.
And at the present time I have such a bad cold that all that I can do now is to tell Your Highness in a couple of words that I find in his thoughts so many things which frightened me and which if I am not mistaken almost all men would find so startling that I cannot see any utility in a treatise which would be evidently rejected by everybody.
I will instance for example what is said in Article 13: That the individual concept of every person involves once for all everything which will ever happen to him, etc. If this is so, God was free to create or not to create Adam, but supposing he decided to create him, all that has since happened to the human race or which will ever happen to it has occurred and will occur by a necessity more than fatal. For the individual concept of Adam involved that he would have so many children and the individual concepts of these children involved all that they would do and all the children that they would have; and so on. God has therefore no more liberty in regard to all that, provided he wished to create Adam, than he was free to create a nature incapable of thought, supposing that he wished to create me. I am not in a position to speak of this at greater length, but Mr. Leibniz will understand my meaning and it is possible that he will find no difficulties in the consequence which I have drawn. If he finds none, however, he has reason to fear that he will be alone in his position, and were I wrong in this last statement I should be still sorrier.
I cannot refrain from expressing to Your Highness my sorrow at his attachment to those opinions, which he has indeed felt could hardly be permitted in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church would prohibit his entertaining them, and it is apparently this attachment that has prevented his entering the fold, notwithstanding the fact that Your Highness, if I remember rightly, brought him to recognize that there was no reasonable doubt as to its being the true church.2 Would it not be better for him to leave those metaphysical speculations which can be of utility neither to himself nor to others, in order to apply himself seriously to the most important matter he can ever undertake, namely, to assure his salvation, by entering into the Church from which new sects can form only by rendering themselves schismatic? I read yesterday by chance one of Saint Augustine's letters in which he answers various questions that were put forward by a Pagan who showed a desire to become a Christian but who always postponed doing so. He says, at the end, what may be applied to our friend "There are numberless problems which are not to be solved before one has faith and will not be solved in life without faith."
2. Leibniz remarks on the margin of Arnauld's letter: "I have always endorsed this sentiment." Interesting as indicating Leibniz's attitude toward Catholicism.- Editor.
III: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; April 12, 1686.
I do not know what to say to M. A.'s letter, and I never should have thought that a person whose reputation is so great and so real and from whom we have such excellent Reflections on Morals and Logic would be so precipitate in his judgments. After this instance I am not surprised that some are angry at him. Nevertheless I think it well to be patient at times under the ill humor of one whose merit is extraordinary, provided his acts have no serious results and I believe that a judicious reply may dissipate a prejudice ill-founded. I anticipate this justice in M. A.
Whatever reason, however, I may have for complaint, I desire to suppress all reflections which are not essential to the matter in hand and which might serve to increase the ill-feeling, but I hope he will use the same moderation, in case he has the graciousness to act as my instructor. I am only able to assure him that he is quite mistaken in certain of his conjectures, because people of good sense have judged otherwise regarding my positions, and that notwithstanding their encouragement I have not been over quick in publishing anything upon abstract subjects which are to the taste of few people, inasmuch as the public even has as yet heard almost nothing in regard to certain more plausible discoveries which I made several years ago.
I have written down these Meditations only in order to profit for my own sake by the criticisms of more able thinkers and in order to receive confidence or correction in the investigation of these most important truths. It is true that some persons of intelligence have found my opinions acceptable, but I should be the first to warn them if I thought there were the slightest evil effects from them.
This declaration is sincere, and this will not be the first time that I have profited by the instruction of enlightened persons. This is why I shall assuredly be under great obligations to M. A. in case I merit his having the goodness to deliver me from the errors which he thinks dangerous and of which, I declare it in good faith, I am unable to see the evil. But I hope that he will use moderation, and that he will do me justice, because men deserve at least that no wrong be done to them through precipitate judgments.
He chooses one of my theses to show that it is dangerous. But either I am incapable for the present of understanding the difficulty or else there is none in it. This has enabled me to recover from my surprise and has made me think that M. Arnaud's remarks are the result of misconceptions. I will try therefore to deflect him from that strange opinion, which he conceived a little too hurriedly.
I said in the 13th article of my summary that the individual concept of each person involved once for all, all that would ever happen to him. From that he draws this conclusion that all that happens to any person and even to the whole human race must occur by a necessity more than fatal, as though concepts and previsions rendered things necessary and as though a free act could not be included in the concept or perfect view which God has of the person who performs it. And he adds that perhaps I will not find difficulties in the conclusion which he draws. Yet I have expressly protested in that same article that I do not admit such a conclusion. It must be then either that he doubts my sincerity for which I have given him no grounds or else he has not sufficiently examined that which he controverts. I do not complain as much as it appears I have a right to, because I remember that he was writing at a time when an indisposition did not permit him the liberty of his whole mind, as the letter itself witnesses. And I desire to have him know how much regard I have for him.
He says: "If this is true (that is to say that the individual concept of each person involves once for all all that will ever happen to him), God has not been free to create everything that has since happened to the human race, and all that will happen to it for all eternity must occur through a necessity more than fatalistic." (There is some fault in the copy but I have felt able to amend it as above.) "For the individual concept, Adam, has involved that he should have so many children and the individual concept of each one of these children has involved everything that they would do and all the children that they would have, and so on. There is therefore no more liberty in God regarding all that, supposing that he wished to create Adam, than there is to create a nature incapable of thought, supposing that he wished to create me."
To these last words ought properly to have been added the proof of the consequence but it is quite evident that they confuse necessitatem ex hypothesi with absolute necessity. A distinction has always been made between God's freedom to act absolutely and his obligation to act in virtue of certain resolutions already made. He hardly understands the case who does not take the whole into consideration. It is little consonant with God's dignity to conceive of him (with the pretext of assuring his freedom) like certain Socinians, as a human being who forms his resolutions according to circumstances. These maintain that he would be no longer free to create what he found good if his first resolutions in regard to Adam or other men already involved a relationship to that which concerned their posterity. Yet all agree that God has regulated from all eternity the whole course of the universe without this fact diminishing his freedom in any respect. It is clear also that these objectors separate the will-acts of God one from another while his acts are in fact inter-related. For we must not think of the intention of God to create a certain man Adam as detached from all the other intentions which he has in regard to the children of Adam and of all the human race, as though God first made the decree to create Adam without any relation to his posterity. This, in my opinion, does away with his freedom in creating Adam's posterity as seems best to him, and is a very strange sort of reasoning. We must rather think that God, choosing not an indeterminate Adam but a particular Adam, whose perfect representation is found among the possible beings in the Ideas of God and who is accompanied by certain individual circumstances and among other predicates possesses also that of having in time a certain posterity,- God, I say, in choosing him, has already had in mind his posterity and chooses them both at the same time.
I am unable to understand how there is any evil in this opinion. If God should act in any other way he would not act as God. I will give an illustration. A wise prince in choosing a general whose intimates he knows, chooses at the same time certain colonels and captains whom he well knows this general will recommend and whom he will not wish to refuse to him for certain prudential reasons. This fact, however, does not at all destroy the absolute power of the prince nor his freedom. The same applies to God even more certainly.
Therefore to reason rightly we must think of God as having a certain more general and more comprehensive intention which has regard to the whole order of the universe because the universe is a whole which God sees through and through with a single glance. This more general intention embraces virtually the other intentions touching what transpires in this universe and among these is also that of creating a particular Adam who is related to the line of his posterity which God has already chosen as such and we may even say that these particular intentions differ from the general intention only in a single respect, that is to say, as the situation of a city regarded from a particular point of view has its particular geometrical plan. These various intentions all express the whole universe in the same way that each situation expresses the city. In fact the wiser a man is, the less detached intentions does he have, and again the more views and intentions that one has the less comprehensive and inter-related they are.
Each particular intention involves a relation to all the others, so that they may be concerted together in the best way possible. Far from finding in this anything repellent, I think that the contrary view destroys the perfection of God. In my opinion one must be hard to please or else prejudiced when he finds opinions so innocent or rather so reasonable, worthy of exaggerations so strange as those which were sent to Your Highness.
If what I said be thought over a little it will be found to be evident ex terminis: for by the individual concept, Adam, I mean of course a perfect representation of a particular Adam who has certain individual characteristics and is thus distinguished from an infinity of possible persons very similar to him yet for all that different from him (as ellipses always differ from the circle, however closely they may approach it). God has preferred him to these others because it has pleased God to choose precisely such an arrangement of the universe, and everything which is a consequence of this resolution is necessary only by a hypothetical necessity and by no means destroys the freedom of God nor that of the created spirits. There is a possible Adam whose posterity is of a certain sort, and an infinity of other possible Adams whose posterity would be otherwise; now is it not true that these possible Adams (if we may speak of them thus) differ among themselves and that God has chosen only one who is precisely ours? There are so many reasons which prove the impossibility, not to say the absurdity and even the impiety of the contrary view, that I believe all men are really of the same opinion when they think over a little what they are saying. Perhaps M. A. also, if he had not been prejudiced against me as he was at first, would not have found my propositions so strange and would not have deduced from them the consequences which he did.
I sincerely think I have met M. Arnaud's objection and I am glad to see that the point which he has selected as the most startling, is in my opinion so little so. I do not know, however, whether I will have the pleasure of bringing M. Arnaud to acknowledge it also. Among the thousand advantages of great intellectual ability there is this little defect, that those who are possessed of this great intellectual ability, having the right to trust to their opinions, are not easily changed. As for myself, who am not of this stamp, I glory in acknowledging that I have been taught, and I should even find pleasure in being taught, provided I could say it sincerely and without flattery.
In addition I wish M. Arnaud to know that I make no pretentions to the glory of being an innovator, as he seems to have understood my opinions. On the contrary I usually find that the most ancient and the most generally accepted opinions are the best. I think that one cannot be accused of being an innovator when he produces only certain new truths without overturning well established beliefs. This is what the Geometers are doing and all those who are moving forward. I do not know if it will be easy to indicate authorized opinions to which mine are opposed. That is why what M. Arnaud says concerning the church has nothing to do with these meditations of mine, and I hope that he does not wish to hold and that he will not be able to prove them to contain anything that can be considered as heretical in any church whatever. Yet if the Church to which he belongs is so prompt to censure, such a proceeding should serve as a notice to be on one's guard. As soon as a person might wish to express some view which would have the slightest bearing upon Religion and which might go a little beyond what is taught to children, he would be in danger of getting into difficulties or at least of having some church father as a sponsor, which is saying the same things in terminis. Yet even that would not be perhaps sufficient for complete safety, above all, when one has no means of support.
If Your Serene Highness were not a Prince whose intelligence is as great as is his moderation, I should have been on my guard in speaking of these things. To whom, however, do they relate better than to you, and since you have had the goodness to act as intermediary in this discussion, can we without imprudence have recourse to any other arbitrator? In so far as the concern is not so much regarding the truth of certain propositions as regarding their consequences and their being tolerated, I do not believe that you will approve so much vehemence over so small a matter. It is quite possible, however, that M. A. spoke in those severe terms only because he believed that I would admit the consequence which he had reason to find so terrifying and that he will change his language after my explanation. To this, his own sense of justice will contribute as much as the authority of Your Highness.
I am, with devotion, etc.
IV: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; April 12, 1686.
I have received M. Arnaud's verdict and I think it well to disabuse his mind by the enclosed reply in the form of a letter to Your Highness. But I confess that I have had much difficulty in suppressing a desire as much to laugh as to express pity, inasmuch as the good man seems really to have lost a part of his mind and seems not to have been able to keep from crying out against everything as do those seized with melancholy to whom everything which they see or think of appears black. I have shown a good deal of moderation toward him but I have not avoided letting him quietly know that he is wrong. If he has the kindness to rescue me from the errors which he attributes to me and which he thinks to have seen in my writings, I wish that he would suppress the personal reflections and the severe expressions, which I have feigned not to notice out of the respect which I have for Your Serene Highness and also because of the respect which I have for the merits of the good man.
Yet I am surprised at the difference which there is between our pretended Santons and those persons of the world who pretend to no such position and have much more the effect. Your Serene Highness is a Sovereign Prince and still you have shown to me a moderation which I wonder at, while M. Arnaud is a famous theologian whose meditations on religious subjects ought to have rendered him mild and charitable, yet what he says seems often haughty, rough and full of severity. I am not surprised now that he has so easily fallen out with Father Malebranche and others who used to be his fast friends. Father Malebranche has published writings which M. Arnaud treated extravagantly almost as he has done in my case. The world has not always been of his opinions. He must take care, however, not to excite his bilious temper. It will deprive us of all the pleasure and all the satisfaction which I had anticipated in a mild and reasonable debate.
I believe he received my paper when he was in an ill humor and finding himself put to trouble by it, he wanted to revenge himself by a rebuff. I know that if Your Serene Highness had the leisure to consider the objection which he brought forward, you could not refrain from laughing at seeing the slight cause he had for making such tragic exclamations; quite as one would laugh on hearing an orator who should say every few minutes, "O coelum, O terra, O maria Neptuni."
I am glad that there is nothing more repellent, or more difficult in my thoughts than what he objects to. For according to him if what I say is true (namely that the individual concept or consideration of Adam, involves all that will happen to him and to his posterity), it follows that God will have no liberty any longer with respect to the human race. He imagines therefore that God is like a human being who forms his resolves in accordance with circumstances, while on the contrary, God, foreseeing and having regulated all things from all eternity, has chosen from the first the entire sequence and inter-relation of the universe and consequently not simply an Adam but such an Adam in regard to whom he foresaw that he would do such and such things and would have such and such children, without, however, this prevision of God's, though ordained from all time, interfering at all with his freedom. On this point all theologians, excepting some Socinians who think of God as a human being, are agreed. And I am surprised that the desire to find something repellent in my thoughts, prejudice against which had engendered in his mind a confused and ill-directed idea, has led this learned man to speak against his own knowledge and convictions. For I am not so unfair as to imitate him and to impute to him the dangerous doctrine of those Socinians which destroys the sovereign perfection of God, although he seems almost to incline to that doctrine in the heat of debate.
Every man who acts wisely considers all the circumstances and bearings of the resolve which he makes, and this in accordance with the measure of his abilities. And God, who sees every thing perfectly and with a single glance, can he have failed to make his plans in conformity with everything which he saw? And can he have chosen a particular Adam without considering and having in mind all that has relations to him? Consequently it is ridiculous to say that this free resolve on God's part deprives him of his liberty. Otherwise in order to be free one must need be ever undecided. Such are the thoughts which are repellent to Mr. Arnaud. We will see if through their consequences he will be able to derive something worse from them. Yet the most important reflection which I have made in the enclosed is that he himself some time ago expressly wrote to Your Serene Highness that no trouble was given to a man who was in their church or who wished to be in it, for his philosophical opinions and here is he now, forgetting this moderation, and losing control of himself over a trifle. It is therefore dangerous to consort with such people and Your Serene Highness sees how many precautions one should take. This was one of the very reasons why I communicated the summary to M. Arnaud, viz., to probe a little and to see what his behaviour would be. But tange montes et fumigabunt. As soon as one swings away the least amount from the positions of certain professors they burst forth into explosions and thunders.
I am very positive that the world will not be of his opinion but it is always well to be on one's guard. Perhaps, however, Your Highness will have a chance to let him know that to act in such a way, is to rebuke people unnecessarily, so that henceforth he may use a little more moderation. If I am not mistaken Your Highness had a correspondence with him about the methods of restraint and I should like to learn the results of it.
I may add that milord has now gone to Rome and apparently will not return to Germany so soon as was thought. One of these days I am going to Wolfenbütel and will do my best to recover Your Highness's book. It is said that M. Varillas has written a History of Modern Heresies.
Mastrich's letter which Your Highness communicated to me regarding the conversions of Sedan seems quite reasonable. M. Maimburg, they say, reports that St. Gregory the Great also approved of this principle, namely that one should not trouble himself even if the conversion of Heretics was feigned, provided that thus their children were really gained over. But it is not permitted to kill some persons in order to gain others, although Charlemagne used almost exactly this method against the Saxons, forcing them to accept Religion with the sword at their throats. We have now here a Monsieur Leti who has brought us his History of Geneva in five volumes dedicated to the House of Brunswick. I do not know what relationship he finds between the two. He says quite good things at times and is a good conversationalist.
I am, etc.
V: Leibniz to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; 5/15 April, 1686.
Your Serene Highness will have received the letter which I sent by the preceding post, to which I joined, in the form of a letter to Your Highness, a communication of which a copy could be sent to M. A. I have since thought it would be better to change those words toward the end, beginning "Nevertheless, if the church in which he is be so prompt to censure, such a procedure ought to serve as a notice," etc., as far as the words, "above all, when one has no means of support," lest M. A. may take the opportunity from them to enter into controversial disputes as if the church were being attacked, which is not at all the intention.
In the copy could be put in their place, "least of all in the communion to which M. A. belongs, where the Council of Trent as well as the Popes have been very wisely satisfied with censuring opinions in which there are points manifestly against the faith and against the customs. They have not gone into the philosophic consequences. If it were necessary to listen to these, then in matters of censure Thomists would pass for Calvinists according to the Jesuits, and the Jesuits would be classed as Semipelagians according to the Thomists. Both would destroy freedom according to Durandus and Father Louys de Dole, and in general every absurdity would pass for atheism because it could be shown to destroy the nature of God."
VI: Arnauld to Leibniz; May 13, 1686.
I thought that I ought to address myself to you personally to ask pardon for having given you cause to become angry against me, in that I employed too severe terms when I indicated what I thought of one of your positions. But I protest before God that the fault which I committed was not at all the result of prejudice against you, for I have never had cause to have of you other than a most favorable opinion save in the matter of Religion, in which you found yourself fixed through your birth; neither was I in an ill humor when I wrote the letter which has wounded you, nothing being further from my character than the evil disposition which it pleases many people to attribute to me; neither by a too great attachment to my own opinions was I shocked in seeing you hold contrary opinions, for I can assure you that I have meditated so little on these kinds of subjects that I am able to say that my opinions are not at all fully made up.
I beg you, sir, to believe nothing like that about me but to be convinced that what caused my indiscretion was simply that, having been accustomed to write off-hand to His Highness because he is so good as to readily excuse all my faults, I imagined that I could tell him frankly what I was unable to approve of in one of your opinions because I was very sure it would not pass muster and if I had misunderstood your meaning you would be able to correct me without its going any further.
But I hope, sir, that the Prince will be willing to make peace for me and I may engage him in this by using the words which Saint Augustine used on a similar occasion. He had written very harshly against those who thought that God could be seen with the physical eyes, and a Bishop in Africa who held this opinion, having seen this letter which was not at all addressed to him, was seriously offended by it. This necessitated Saint Augustine's employing a common friend to appease the Prelate and I beg you to imagine that I am saying to the Prince for your ears what Saint Augustine wrote to this friend, to be said to the Bishop: Dum essem in admonendo sollicitus, in corripiendo nimius atque improvidus fui. Hoc non defendo sed reprehendo: hoc non excuso, sed accuso. Ignoscatur, peto; recordetur nostram dilectionem pristinem et obliviscatur offensionem novam. Faciat certe quod me non fecisse succensuit: habeat lenitatem in dandi venia, quam non habui in illa epistola conscribenda.
I was in doubt whether I ought not to stop here without going again into the question which was the occasion for our falling out, lest there might again escape me some word which could wound you. But I fear, however, that that would be not to have a sufficiently good opinion of your fairness. I will tell you, therefore, in a few words the difficulties which I still have with this proposition: "The individual concept of each person involves, once for all, all that will ever happen to him."
It seems to me to follow from this that the individual concept of Adam has involved that he would have so many children and the individual concept of each one of these children involves all that they will do and all the children which they will have and so on. Whence I thought that we could infer that God was free, in so far as the creating or not creating of Adam, but supposing that he had wished to create him, all that has since happened to the human race has come and must come by a fatalistic necessity or I thought at least that there was no more freedom in God regarding all that, supposing that he had wished to create Adam, than there was not to create a being capable of thinking, supposing he had wished to create me.
It does not appear to me, Monsieur, that, in speaking thus, I have confused necessitatem ex hypothesi and absolute necessity, for I was all the time speaking only against the necessity ex hypothesi; what I find strange is, that all human events should be quite as necessary by a necessity ex hypothesi after this first supposition that God wished to create Adam, as it is necessary by the same necessity for there to be in the world a nature capable of thinking simply because he has wished to create me.
You say in this connection various things about God which do not seem to me sufficient to solve my difficulty.
1. "That a distinction has always been made between what God is free to do absolutely and what he is obliged to do by virtue of certain resolutions already made." This position is valid.
2. "That it is little consonant with the dignity of God to conceive of him (under the pretext of safeguarding his freedom) in the way that the Socinians do, as a man who forms his resolutions according to the circumstances." Such an opinion is very foolish, I grant you.
3. "That the purposes of God, which are all interrelated must not be isolated. Therefore, the purpose of God to create a particular Adam must not be looked at detached from all the others which he has regarding the children of Adam and of the whole human race." To this also I agree, but I cannot yet see how these can serve to solve my difficulty.
For 1. I confess, in good faith, not to have understood that, by the individual concept of each person (for example of Adam), which you say involves, once for all, all that will ever happen to him, you meant this person in so far as he is in the divine understanding instead of simply what he is in himself. For it seems to me that it is not customary to consider the specific concept of a sphere in relation to that which is its representation in the divine understanding but in relation to what it is in itself. I thought it was thus with the individual concept of each person or of everything.
2. It is enough, however, for me to know what you intend, so that I can conform to it, and inquire if that overcomes all the difficulty which I mentioned above. It does not seem to me that it does.
I agree that the knowledge which God had of Adam when he resolved to create him involved what happened to him and what has happened, or will happen, to his posterity; and therefore if we understand in this sense the individual concept, Adam, what you say about it is very true.
I grant also that the purpose which he had in creating Adam was not detached from that which he had regarding what would happen to him and in regard to all his posterity.
But it seems to me, that after all this there still remains the question (and this is where my difficulty lies) whether the relationship between those objects (I mean Adam on the one hand and what will happen to him and to his posterity on the other), is such through itself, independently of all the free decrees of God; or, whether it has been dependent. That is to say, whether it is only in consequence of the free decrees by which God has foreordained all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity that God has known all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity; or whether there is, independent of these decrees, between Adam on the one hand, and what has happened and will happen to him and his posterity on the other, an intrinsic and necessary connection. Unless you mean the latter I do not see how it can be true when you say, "that the individual concept of each person involves once for all, all that which will ever happen to him," even if we understand this concept in its relation to God.
It seems, moreover, that it is this latter which you do not accept. For I believe you to suppose that, according to our way of conceiving, possible things are possible before any free decree of God, whence it follows that what is involved in the concept of possible things is involved independently of all God's free decrees. Now you say "that God has found among possible things a possible Adam, accompanied by certain individual circumstances, who, among other predicates, possesses also that of having in time a certain posterity." There is, therefore, according to you a connection intrinsic, so to speak, and independent of all the free decrees of God; a connection between this possible Adam and all the separate persons of his posterity and not the persons alone, but in general all that must happen to them. It is this, Monsieur, I speak plainly, that is incomprehensible to me. For your meaning seems to be that the possible Adam whom God has chosen preferably to other possible Adams, had a connection with the very same posterity as the created Adam. In either case it is, as far as I can judge, the same Adam considered now as possible and now as created. If this is your meaning then here is my difficulty.
How many men there are who have come into the world only through the perfectly free decrees of God, such as Isaac, Samson, Samuel and many others! Now the fact that God has known them conjointly with Adam is not owing to their having been involved independently of the decrees of God in the individual concept of the possible Adam. It is, therefore, not true that all the individual personages of the posterity of Adam have been involved in the individual concept of the possible Adam since they would then have been thus involved independently of God's decrees.
The same can be said of an infinite number of human events which have occurred by the express and particular commands of God, for instance, the Jewish and Christian Religions, and, above all, the Incarnation of the Word of God. I do not see how it can be said that all these are involved in the individual concept of the possible Adam. Whatever is considered as possible must have all that is conceived of under this idea of possibility independently of the Divine decrees.
Moreover, Monsieur, I do not see how, in taking Adam as an example of a unitary nature, several possible Adams can be thought of. It is as though I should conceive of several possible me's; a thing which is certainly inconceivable. For I am not able to think of myself without considering myself as a unitary nature, a nature so completely distinguished from every other existent or possible being that I am as little able to conceive of several me's as to think of a circle all of whose diameters are not equal. The reason is that these various me's are different, one from the other, else there would not be several of them. There would have to be, therefore, one of these me's which would not be me, an evident contradiction.
Permit me, therefore, Monsieur, to transfer to this me what you say concerning Adam and you may judge for yourself if it will hold. Among possible beings God has found in his ideas several me's, of which one has for its predicates, to have several children and to be a physician, and another to live a life of celibacy and to be a Theologian. God, having decided to create the latter, or the present me, includes in its individual concept the living a life of celibacy and the being a Theologian while the former would have involved in its individual concept being married and being a physician. Is it not clear that there would be no sense in such statements, because, since my present me is necessarily of a certain individual nature, which is the same thing as having a certain individual concept, it will be as impossible to conceive of contradictory predicates in the individual concept me, as to conceive of a me different from me? Therefore we must conclude, it seems to me, that since it is impossible for me not to always remain myself whether I marry or whether I live a life of celibacy, the individual concept of my me has involved neither the one nor the other of those two states. Just as we might say that this block of marble is the same whether it be in repose or in a state of movement and therefore neither movement nor repose are involved in its individual concept. This is why Monsieur, it seems to me, that I ought to regard as involved in my individual concept only what is of such a nature that I would no longer be myself if it were not in me, while, on the other hand, everything which is of such a nature that it might either happen to me or not happen to me without my ceasing to be myself, should not be considered as involved in my individual concept; (although, by the ordinance of God's providence, which never changes the nature of things, it could never happen that that should be in me). This is my thought, which, I believe, conforms wholly to what has always been held by all the philosophers in the world.
That which confirms me in this position is the difficulty I experience in believing it to be good philosophy, to seek in God's way of knowing things, what we ought to think out, either from their specific concepts or from their individual concepts. The divine understanding is the measure of the truth of things, quoad se, (as far as they are concerned,) but it does not appear to me that, inasmuch as we are in this life, it can be the measure for us, quoad nos. For what do we know at present of God's knowledge? We know that he knows all things and that he knows them all by a single and very simple act, which is his essence. When I say that we know it I mean that we are sure that this must be so. But do we understand it? And ought we not to recognize that however sure we may be that it is so, it is impossible for us to conceive how it can be? Further, are we able to conceive that, although the knowledge of God is his very essence, wholly necessary and immutable, he has, nevertheless, knowledge of an infinity of things which he might not have had because these things might not have been? It is the same in the case of his will which is also his very essence where there is nothing except what is necessary; and still he wills and has willed, from all eternity, things which he would have been able not to will. I find therefore a great deal of uncertainty in the manner in which we usually represent to ourselves that God acts. We imagine that before purposing to create the world he looked over an infinity of possible things, some of which he chose and rejected the others- many possible Adams, each one with a great sequence of persons and events between whom there was an intrinsic connection. And we think that the connection of all these other things with the one of the possible Adams is exactly like that which we know has been between the created Adam and all his posterity. This makes us think that it was that one of all the possible Adams which God chose and that he did not at all wish any of the others. Without however stopping over that which I have already said, namely, that taking Adam for an example of a unitary nature it is as little possible to conceive of several Adams as to conceive of several me's, I acknowledge in good faith that I have no idea of substances purely possible, that is to say, which God will never create. I am inclined to think that these are chimeras which we construct and that whatever we call possible substances, pure possibilities are nothing else than the omnipotence of God who, being a pure act, does not allow of there being a possibility in him. Possibilities, however, may be conceived of in the natures which he has created, for, not being of the same essence throughout, they are necessarily composites of power and action. I can therefore think of them as possibilities. I can also do the same with an infinity of modifications which are within the power of these created natures, such as are the thoughts of intelligent beings, and the forms of extended substance. But I am very much mistaken if there is any one who will venture to say that he has an idea of a possible substance as pure possibility. As for myself, I am convinced that, although there is so much talk of these substances which are pure possibilities, they are, nevertheless, always conceived of only under the idea of some one of those which God has actually created. We seem to me, therefore, able to say that outside of the things which God has created, or must create, there is no mere negative possibility but only an active and infinite power.
However that may be, all that I wish to conclude from this obscurity and from the difficulty of knowing the way that things are in the knowledge of God and of knowing what is the nature of the connection which they have among themselves and whether it is intrinsic or, so to speak, extrinsic- all that I wish to conclude, I say, from this, is that it is not through God, who with respect to us, dwells in inaccessible light, that we should try to find the true concepts either specific or individual of the things we know; but it is in the ideas about them which we find in ourselves.
Now I find in myself the concept of an individual nature since I find there the concept me. I have, therefore, only to consult it in order to know what is involved in this individual concept, just as I have only to consult the specific concept of a sphere to know what is involved there. Now I have no other rule in this respect except to consider whether the properties are of such a character that a sphere would no longer be a sphere if it did not have them; such, for instance, as having all the points of its circumference equally distant from the center. Or to consider whether the properties do not affect its being a sphere, as for instance, having a diameter of only one foot while another sphere might have ten, another a hundred. I judge by this that the former is involved in the specific concept of a sphere while the latter, which was the having a greater or smaller diameter, is not at all involved in it.
The same principle I apply to the individual concept me. I am certain, that, inasmuch as I think, I am myself. But I am able to think that I will make a certain journey or that I will not, being perfectly assured that neither the one nor the other will prevent me from being myself. I maintain very decidedly that neither the one nor the other is involved in the individual concept me. "God however has foreseen," it will be said, "that you will make this journey." Granted. "It is therefore indubitable that you will make it." I grant that also. But does that alter anything in the certitude which I have that whether I make it or do not make it I shall always be myself? I must, therefore, conclude that neither the one nor the other enters into my me, that is to say, into my individual concept. It is here it seems to me that we must remain without having recourse to God's knowledge, in order to find out what the individual concept of each thing involves.
This, Monsieur, is what has come into my mind regarding the proposition which troubled me and regarding the explanation which you have given. I do not know if I have wholly grasped your thought but such has been at least my intention. The subject is so abstract that a mistake is very easy. I should, however, be very sorry if you had of me as poor an opinion as those who represent me as a hot-headed writer who refutes others only in calumniating them and in purposely misrepresenting their opinions. This is most assuredly not my character. At times I may express my thoughts too frankly. At times also I may fail to grasp the thoughts of others (for I certainly do not consider myself infallible, and such one would have to be in order never to be mistaken), but even if this should be through self-confidence, never would it be that I misstated them purposely; for I find nothing to be so low as the using of chicanery and artifice in differences which may arise regarding matters of doctrine. This even if it should be with persons whom we have no reason otherwise to love, and still more if the difference is between friends. I believe, Monsieur, that you wish indeed that I place you in this latter class. I can not doubt that you do me the honor to love me. You have given me too many marks of it. And, in my behalf, I protest that the very fault for which I beg you once more to pardon me, was only the result of the affection which God has given me for you and of a zeal for your salvation, a zeal which has been by no means moderate.
I am, etc.,
VII: Arnauld to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels; May 13, 1686.
I am very sorry, Monseigneur, to have given to Mr. Leibniz cause to become so angry at me. If I had foreseen it, I should have been on my guard against saying so frankly what I thought of one of his metaphysical propositions. But I ought to have foreseen it and I did wrong in employing such severe terms, not against him personally but against his position. Therefore, I have felt myself compelled to beg his pardon for it and I have done it very sincerely in the letter which I have written him and am sending open to Your Highness. It is also from my heart that I pray you to make peace for me and to reconcile me with a former friend of whom I should be very sorry to have made an enemy by my imprudence.
I shall be very glad, however, if the matter rests there and if I shall not be obliged to tell him what I think of his positions, because I am so overwhelmed with so many other occupations that I should have difficulty in convincing him and these abstract subjects require a great deal of application which I can not devote to them on account of the time which it consumes.
I do not know but that I have forgotten to send you an addition to the Apology for the Catholics. I fear lest I may have, because Your Highness has not mentioned it to me. I am accordingly sending it to you to-day with two Memoirs. The Bishop of Namur, whom the Internuncio has appointed judge, has had difficulty in deciding to accept this post, so great is the fear of the Jesuits. But if their power is so great that justice can not be obtained against them in this world, they have reason to fear that God will punish them with so much the more severity in the next. It is a terrible history and a long one, that of this Canon, whose wickedness apparently would be unpunished if he had not rendered himself odious by his conspiracies and his cabals.
This Lutheran minister of whom Your Highness speaks must have good qualities, but it is something incomprehensible and marking an extremely blind prejudice that he can regard Luther as a man destined by God for the Reformation of the Christian religion. He must have a very low idea of true piety to find it in a man like him, imprudent in his speech and so gluttonous in his manner of living. I am not surprised at what this minister has said to you against those who are called Jansenists, since Luther at first put forward extreme propositions against the co-operation of grace and against the freedom of will so far as to give to one of his books the title De servo arbitrio, Necessitated Will. Melancthon, some time after, mitigated these propositions a great deal and since then the Lutherans have gone over to the opposite extreme so that the Arminians have nothing stronger to oppose to the Gummarists than the doctrines of the Lutheran Church. There is no cause then for astonishment that the Lutherans of to-day, who occupy the same positions as the Arminians, are opposed to the disciples of Saint Augustine. For the Arminians are more sincere than are the Jesuits. They grant that Saint Augustine is opposed to them in the opinions which they have in common with the Jesuits but they do not think themselves obliged to follow him.
What Father Jobert is requiring from new converts gives grounds for hope that those who are converts only in name may return, little by little, provided that instruction is given them, that they are edified by good examples, and that the curacies are filled with good men. But it would be spoiling everything to take from them the vernacular translations of what is said at Mass. It is only such leniency that can cure them from the aversion that has been given to them regarding it. Yet we have not yet been informed of what has been the outcome of the storm aroused against the Année Chrétienne, about which I wrote to Your Highness some time ago.
A gentleman named Mr. Cicati, who is in charge of the Academy at Brussels and who says he is well-known by Your Highness because he had the honor to teach the Princes, Your sons, to ride on horseback, is acquainted with a German, a very honest man, who knows French very well and is a good lawyer, even having had a charge as councillor, and who has already been employed to take charge of young Seigneurs. Mr. Cicati thinks that he would be a very available man for Your grandsons, above all, when they make their journey in France and that meanwhile he could render other services to Your Highness. I thought it couldn't do any harm to give you this information. It binds you to nothing and may be of service to you if you think it best to have somebody with the young Princes- someone who shall leave them neither day nor night.
Not knowing the characteristics of Mr. Leibniz, I beg Your Highness to have the above forwarded along with the letter which I have written him.
VIII: Remarks upon Mr. Arnaud's letter in regard to my statement that the individual concept of each person involves, once for all, all that will ever happen to him:; May, 1686.
"I thought," says Mr. Arnaud, "that we might infer that God was free either to create or not to create Adam, but supposing that he wished to create him, all that has since happened to the human race was, or all which will happen is by a fatalistic necessity, or we might infer at least that there was no more liberty in God, supposing that he once wished to create Adam, than there was of not creating a nature capable of thought in case he wished to create me." I replied at first that a distinction must be made between absolute and hypothetical necessity. To this Mr. Arnaud replies here that he is speaking only of necessity ex hypothesi. After this declaration the argumentation takes a different phase. The words "fatal necessity" which he used and which are ordinarily understood as an absolute necessity obliged me to make this distinction, which, however, is now uncalled for, inasmuch as M. Arnaud does not insist upon the fatalistic necessity. He uses alternative phrases; "by a fatalistic necessity or at least, etc."
It would be useless to dispute in regard to the word. In regard to the matter, however, M. Arnaud still finds it strange for me to maintain "that all human events occur by necessity ex hypothesi after this single presupposition that God wished to create Adam." To which I have two replies to give. The one is, that my supposition is not merely that God wished to create an Adam whose concept was vague and incomplete but that God wished to create a particular Adam sufficiently determined as an individual. This complete individual concept, in my opinion, involves the relation to the whole sequence of things- a position which ought to appear so much the more reasonable, because M. Arnaud grants here the inter-connection among the resolutions of God, that is to say, that God, having resolved to create a certain Adam, takes into consideration all the resolutions which he will form concerning the whole sequence of the universe; almost in the same way that a wise man who forms a resolution in regard to one part of his plan, has the whole plan in view and will make resolutions better in proportion as he is able to plan for all the parts at the same time.
The other reply is that the sequence, in virtue of which events follow from the hypothesis, is indeed always certain, but that it is not always necessary by a metaphysical necessity, as is that instance which is found in M. Arnaud's example: that God, resolving to create me, could not avoid creating a nature capable of thought. The sequence is often only physical and presupposes certain free decrees of God, as, for instance, do consequences which depend on the laws of motion or which depend upon the following principle of morality- namely, that every mind will pursue that which appears to it the best. It is true that when the supposition of the decrees which produce the consequence is added to the first supposition which constituted the antecedent, namely, God's resolution to create Adam- it is true, I say, that if all these suppositions or resolutions are regarded as a single antecedent, then the consequence follows.
As I have already touched upon these two replies somewhat in my letter sent to the Count, M. Arnaud brings forward answers to them here which must be considered. He acknowledges in good faith that he understood my opinion as if all the events happening to an individual were deducible from his individual concept in the same manner and with the same necessity as the properties of the sphere may be deduced from its specific concept or definition, and as though I had considered the concept of the individual in itself, without regard to the manner in which it is present in the understanding or will of God. "For," he says, "it seems to me that it is not customary to consider the specific concept of a sphere in relation to its representation in the divine understanding but in relation to what it is in itself, and I thought that it was thus with the individual concept of each person."
But, he adds, that now, since he knows what my thought is, it is enough for him to conform to it in inquiring if it overcomes all the difficulties. Of this, he is still doubtful.
I see that M. Arnaud has not remembered, or at least, has not adhered, to the position of the Cartesians who maintain that God, by his will, establishes the eternal truths such as are those regarding the properties of the sphere. But, as I share their opinion no more than does M. Arnaud, I will simply say why I believe that we must philosophize differently in the case of an individual substance from our way of philosophizing in the case of a specific concept of the sphere. It is because the concept of space relations involves only eternal or necessary truths but the concept of an individual involves sub ratione possibilitatis that which is in fact or which has relation to the existence of things and to time, and consequently it depends upon certain free decrees of God considered as possible. Because the truths of fact or of existence depend upon the decrees of God. Furthermore, the concept of the sphere in general is incomplete or abstract, that is to say we consider only the essence of the sphere in general or theoretically without regard to the particular circumstances, and consequently the concept does not involve that which is required for the existence of a certain sphere. The concept of the sphere which Archimedes had put upon his tomb is complete and should involve all that pertains to the subject of this thing. That is why in individual or practical considerations, where singulars are dealt with, in addition to the form of the sphere there enters the material of which it is made, the time, the place, and the other circumstances which, by a continual network, would finally involve the whole sequence of the universe, provided we were able to follow out all that these concepts involve. For the concept of this bit of matter out of which this sphere is made, involves all the changes which it has undergone and which it will some day undergo.
In my opinion each individual substance always contains the traces of what has ever happened to it and marks of that which will ever happen to it. What I have just said, however, may suffice to justify my line of thought.
Now, M. Arnaud declares that in taking the individual concept of a person in relation to the knowledge which God had of it when he resolved to create it, what I have said regarding this concept is very true, and he grants also that the will to create Adam was not at all detached from God's will in regard to whatever has happened both to him and to his posterity. He now asks if the connection between Adam and the events occurring to his posterity is dependent or independent of the free decrees of God. "That is to say," as he explains, "whether it is only in consequence of the free decrees by which God has ordained all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity that God has known what will happen to them, or whether, independently of these decrees there is between Adam and the events aforesaid, an intrinsic and necessary connection."
He does not doubt that I would take the second alternative and, in fact, I am unable to take the first in the manner in which he has just explained it. But there seems to me to be a mean position. He proves that I ought to choose the latter because I consider the individual concept of Adam as possible when I maintain that among an infinity of possible concepts God has selected a certain Adam, while the possible concepts in themselves do not at all depend upon the free decrees of God.
But here I must needs explain myself a little better. I say, therefore, that the connection between Adam and human events is not independent of all the free decrees of God, but also, that it does not depend upon them in such a way that each event could happen or be foreseen only because of a particular primitive decree made about it. I think that there are only a few primitive free decrees regulating the sequence of things which could be called the laws of the universe and which, being joined to the free decree to create Adam, bring about the consequences. In very much the same way as but few hypotheses are called for to explain phenomenon. I will make this clearer in what follows.
As regards the objection that possibles are independent of the decrees of God I grant it of actual decrees (although the Cartesians do not at all agree to this), but I maintain that the possible individual concepts involve certain possible free decrees; for example, if this world was only possible, the individual concept of a particular body in this world would involve certain movements as possible, it would also involve the laws of motion, which are the free decrees of God; but these, also, only as possibilities. Because, as there are an infinity of possible worlds, there are also an infinity of laws, certain ones appropriate to one; others, to another, and each possible individual of any world involves in its concept the laws of its world.
The same can be said of miracles, or of the extraordinary operations of God. These are a part of the general order and conform to the principal purposes of God and consequently, are involved in the concept of this universe, which is a result of these designs. Just as the idea of a building results from the purposes or plans of him who undertakes it, so the idea or concept of this world is a result of the designs of God considered as possible. For everything should be explained by its cause and of the universe the cause is found in the purposes of God. Now, each individual substance, in my opinion, expresses the whole universe, according to a certain aspect and consequently it also expresses the so-called miracles. All this ought to be understood in regard to the general order, in regard to the plans of God, in regard to the sequences of this universe, in regard to the individual substance and in regard to miracles, whether they are taken in the actual condition or whether they are considered sub ratione possibilitatis. For another possible world would have all such orderings, according to its own manner, although the plans of ours were preferred.
It can be seen also from what I have just said concerning the plans of God and concerning the primitive laws, that this universe has a certain primary or primitive concept, from which the particular events are only the consequences - with the exception of liberty and contingencies, whose certitude, however, is not affected, because the certitude of events is based in part upon free acts. Now every individual substance of this universe expresses in its concept the universe into which it has entered. Not only the supposition that God has resolved to create this Adam but also any other individual substance that may be, involves the resolves for all the rest, because this is the nature of an individual substance, namely, to have so complete a concept that from it may be deduced all that can be attributed to it, and even the whole universe, because of the inter-connection between things; nevertheless, to speak more strictly, it must be said that it is not so much because God has resolved to create this Adam that he made all his other resolutions, but because the resolution which he made in regard to Adam, as also that which he made in regard to other particular things, are consequences of the resolve which he made in regard to the whole universe and to the principal designs which determine its primary concept; these resolves have established this general and unchangeable order to which everything conforms without even excepting the miracles which are doubtless conformable to the principal designs of God, although the particular regulations which are called the laws of Nature are not always observed.
I have said that the supposition from which all human events can be deduced is not simply that of the creation of an undetermined Adam but the creation of a particular Adam, determined to all the circumstances, chosen out of an infinity of possible Adams. This has given M. Arnaud opportunity to object, not without reason, that it is as little possible to conceive several Adams, understanding Adam as a particular nature, as to conceive of several me's. I agree, but yet, in speaking of several Adams, I do not take Adam for a determined individual. I must, therefore, explain. This is what I meant. When we consider in Adam a part of his predicates, for example, that he was the first man, put into a garden of enjoyment, and that, from his side, God took a woman, and, if we consider similar things, conceived sub ratione generalitatis (that is to say, without mentioning Eve or Paradise, or the other circumstances which constitute his individuality), and if we call the person to whom these predicates are attributed Adam, all this does not suffice to determine the individual, for there might be an infinity of Adams, that is to say, of possible persons to whom these would apply who would, nevertheless, differ among themselves. Far from disagreeing with M. Arnaud, in what he says against the plurality of the same individual, I would myself, employ the idea to make it clearer that the nature of an individual should be complete and determined. I am quite convinced in regard to what St. Thomas has taught about intelligences, and what I hold to be a general truth, namely, that it is not possible for two individuals to exist wholly alike, that is, differing solo numero. We must, therefore, not conceive of a vague Adam or of a person to whom certain attributes of Adam appertain when we try to determine him, if we would hold that all human events follow from the one presupposition, but we must attribute to him a concept so complete that all which can be attributed to him may be derived from his. Now, there is no ground for doubting that God can form such a concept or, rather, that he finds it already formed in the region of possibilities, that is to say, in his understanding.
It follows, also, that if he had had other circumstances, this would not have been our Adam, but another, because nothing prevents us from saying that this would be another. He is, therefore, another. It indeed appears to us that this block of marble brought from Genoa would be wholly the same if it had been left there, because our senses cause us to judge only superficially, but in reality, because of the inter-connection of things, the universe, with all its parts, would be wholly different and would have been wholly different from the very commencement if the least thing in it happened otherwise than it has. It is not because of their inter-connection that events are necessary, but it is because they are certain after the choice which God made of this possible universe whose concept contains this sequence of things. I hope that what I am about say will enable M. Arnaud himself to agree to this.
Let a certain straight line, A B C, represent a certain time, and let there be a certain individual substance, for example, myself, which lasts or exists during this period. Let us take then, first, the me which exists during the time A B, and again the me which exists during the time B C. Now, since people suppose that it is the same individual substance which perdures, or that it is the me which exists in the time A B while at Paris and which continues to exist in the time B C while in Germany, it must needs be that there should be some reason why we can veritably say that I perdure, or, to say, that the me which was at Paris is now in Germany, for, if there were no reason, it would be quite right to say that it was another. To be sure, my inner experience convinces me a posteriori of this identity but there must be also some reason a priori. It is not possible to find any other reason, excepting that my attributes of the preceding time and state, as well as the attributes of the succeeding time and state are predicates of the same subject; insunt eidem subjecto. Now, what is it to say that the predicate is in the subject if not that the concept of the predicate is found in some sort involved in the concept of the subject? Since from the very time that I began to exist it could be said of me truly that this or that would happen to me, we must grant that these predicates were principles involved in the subject or in my complete concept, which constitutes the so- called me, and which is the basis of the inter-connection of all my different states. These, God has known perfectly from all eternity. After this I think that all doubts ought to disappear, for when I say that the individual concept of Adam involves all that will ever happen to him I mean nothing else than what the philosophers understand when they say that the predicate is contained in the subject of true propositions. It is true that the consequences of so clear a teaching are paradoxical, but it is the fault of the philosophers who have not sufficiently followed out perfectly clear notions.
Now I think that M. Arnaud, discerning and fair as he is, will not find my proposition so strange and, although he may not be able to approve of it entirely, yet I almost flatter myself with having his approbation. I agree with what he judiciously has added, in regard to the care that must be employed in having recourse to knowledge of divine things for the determination of what we should decide concerning the concepts of mundane things. But if properly understood, what I have just said must be said even when we speak of God only as much as is necessary. For, even if we should not say that God, in considering Adam, whom he resolved to create, saw all the events which will happen to him, it is enough that we can always prove that he had a complete concept of this Adam which involved these events. Because all the predicates of Adam, either depend upon the other predicates of the same Adam, or they do not. Putting one side those which depend upon others, we have only to gather together all the primitive predicates in order to form a concept of Adam sufficiently complete to deduce whatever will happen to him in so far as a reason is needed. It is evident that God can discover, and indeed effectively conceive such a concept sufficient to assign a reason to all the phenomena pertaining to Adam; but not less clear is it, however, that this concept is possible in itself. Truly, we must not submerge ourselves more than necessary, when we investigate, in divine knowledge and will, because of the great difficulties which there are there. Nevertheless, we may explain what we have derived for our question from such a source without entering into those difficulties which M. Arnaud mentions; for instance, the difficulty of understanding how the simplicity of God is reconcilable with certain things which we are obliged to distinguish from it. It is also very difficult to explain perfectly how God has knowledge which he was able not to have, that is, the knowledge of prevision, for, if future contingencies did not exist, God would have no vision of them. It is true that he might have simple knowledge of future contingencies which would become prevision when joined to his will so that the difficulty above would be reduced to the difficulties present in conceiving of the will of God. That is to say, the question how God is free to will. This, without doubt, passes our ken, but it is not essential to understand it in order to solve our question.
In regard to the manner in which we conceive that God acts when he chooses the best among several possibilities, M. Arnaud has reason to find some obscurity. He seems, nevertheless, to recognize that I am inclined to think that there are an infinity of possible first men, each one with a great sequence of personages and events, and that God chose among them the one which pleased him, together with his sequence. This is not, therefore, so strange as it appears at first. It is true, M. Arnaud says he is inclined to think that substances which are purely possible are only chimeras. In regard to this, I do not wish to dispute, but I hope that, nevertheless, he will grant me as much as I have need of. I agree that there is no other reality in pure possibilities than what they have in the divine understanding, and we see, therefore, that M. Arnaud will be obliged himself to have recourse to the divine knowledge in order to explain them, while he seems above to have wished that they might be sought in themselves. When I grant further what M. Arnaud is convinced of and what I do not deny, that we conceive nothing as possible excepting through the ideas which are actually found in the things which God has created, this does not at all injure my position, for, in speaking of possibilities, I am content if true propositions may be formed concerning them. For example, if there were no perfect square in the world, we should, nevertheless, see that no contradiction was implied in the idea. If we wish to reject absolutely the pure possibles, contingencies will be destroyed, because if nothing is possible except what God has actually created then what God has actually created would be necessary in case he resolved to create anything.
Finally, I agree that in order to determine the concept of an individual substance it is good to consult the concept which I have of myself, just as the specific concept of the sphere must be consulted in order to determine its properties. Nevertheless, there is a great difference in the two cases for the concept of myself and of any other individual substance, is infinitely more extended and more difficult to understand than is a specific concept like that of a sphere which is only incomplete. It is not sufficient that I feel myself as a substance which thinks; I must also distinctly conceive whatever distinguishes me from all other spirits. But of this I have only a confused experience.
Therefore, although it is easy to determine that the number of feet in the diameter is not involved in the concept of the sphere in general, it is not so easy to decide if the journey which I intend to make is involved in my concept; otherwise, it would be as easy for us to become prophets as to be Geometers. I am uncertain whether I will make the journey but I am not uncertain that, whether I make it or no, I will always be myself. Such human previsions are not the same as distinct notions or distinct knowledge. They appear to us undetermined because the evidences or marks which are found in our substance are not recognizable by us. Very much as those who regard sensations merely, ridicule one who says that the slightest movement is communicated as far as matter extends, because experience alone could not demonstrate this to them. When, however, they consider the nature of motion and matter they are convinced of it. It is the same here when the confused experience, which one has of his individual concept in particular, is consulted. He does not take care to notice this inter-connection of events, but, when he considers general and distinct notions which enter into them, he finds the connection. In fact, when I consult the conception which I have of all true propositions, I find that every necessary or contingent predicate, every past, present, or future, predicate, is involved in the concept of the subject, and I ask no more.
I think, indeed, that this will open to us a means of reconciliation. For, I think, that M. Arnaud disliked to grant this proposition, only because he understood the connection which I held to, both as intrinsic and necessary at the same time, while I hold it indeed as intrinsic but not at all as necessary. I have now sufficiently explained that it is founded upon free decrees and free acts. I mean no other connection between the subject and the predicate than that which there is in the most contingent of true propositions. That is to say, I mean that there is always something to be conceived of in the subject which serves to give the reason why this predicate or event pertains to it or why a certain thing has happened to it rather than not.
These reasons of contingent truths, however, bring about results without necessitation. It is therefore true that I am able not to make this journey, but it is certain that I will make it. This predicate or event is not connected certainly with my other predicates conceived of incompletely or sub ratione generalitatis; but it is certainly connected with a complete individual concept because I presuppose that this concept is constructed expressly in such a way that from it may be deduced all that happens to me. This concept is found doubtless a parte rei and is properly a concept of myself which I find under different conditions, since it is this concept alone that can include them all.
I have so much deference for M. Arnaud and such a good opinion of his judgment, that I easily give up my opinions or at least my expressions as soon as I see that he finds something objectionable in them. It is for this reason that I have carefully followed the difficulties which he put forward and now, after I have attempted to meet them in good faith, it seems to me that I am still not far from those very positions.
The proposition which we are discussing is of great importance and should be firmly established, since from it follows that every soul is a world by itself, independent of everything excepting God; that it is not only immortal, and, so to speak, permanent, but that it bears in its substance traces of everything that happens to it. From it can be deduced also in what the inter-activities of substances consist and particularly the union of soul and body. This inter-activity is not brought about according to the usual hypothesis of the physical influence of one substance upon another because every present state of a substance comes to it spontaneously and is only a sequence of its preceding state. No more is the inter-activity accounted for by the hypothesis of occasional causes as though God intervened differently for ordinary events than when he preserved every substance in its course; and as though God whenever something happened in the body aroused thoughts in the soul which would thus change the course that the soul would itself have taken without this intervention. The inter-activity is in accordance with the hypothesis of concomitants which, to me, appears demonstrative. That is to say, each substance expresses the whole sequence of the universe according to the view or relation that is appropriate to it. Whence it follows that substances agree perfectly and when we say that one acts upon another, we mean that the distinct expression of the one which is acted upon diminishes, but of the one which acts, augments, conformably to the sequence of thoughts which its concept involves. For, although each substance expresses everything, we are justified in attributing to it ordinarily only the expressions which are most evident in its particular relation.
Finally, I think after this, that the propositions contained in the abstract sent to M. Arnaud will appear not only more intelligible but, perhaps, better founded and more important than might have been thought at first.
IX: Leibniz to Arnauld; Hanover, July 14, 1686.
Monsieur:
As I have great deference for your judgment, I was glad to see that you moderated your censure after having seen my explanation of that proposition which I thought important and which appeared strange to you: "That the individual concept of each person involves once for all, all that will ever happen to him." From this at first you drew this consequence, namely, that from the single supposition that God resolved to create Adam, all the rest of the human events which happened to Adam and to his posterity would have followed by a fatalistic necessity, without God's having the freedom to make a change any more than he would have been able not to create a creature capable of thought after having resolved to create me.
To which I replied, that the designs of God regarding all this universe being inter-related conformably to his sovereign wisdom, he made no resolve in respect to Adam without taking into consideration everything which had any connection with him. It was therefore not because of the resolve made in respect to Adam but because of the resolution made at the same time in regard to all the rest (to which the former involves a perfect relationship), that God formed the determination in regard to all human events. In this it seems to me that there was no fatalistic necessity and nothing contrary to the liberty of God any more than there is in this generally accepted hypothetical necessity which God is under of carrying out what he has resolved upon.
You accept, M., in your reply, this inter-relation of the divine resolves which I put forward and you even have the sincerity to acknowledge that at first you understood my proposition wholly in a different sense, "Because it is not customary for example" (these are your words), "to consider the specific concept of a sphere in relation to its representation in the Divine understanding but in relation to that which it is itself." And you thought "that it was thus also with respect to the individual concept of each person."
On my part, I thought that complete and comprehensible concepts are represented in the divine understanding as they are in themselves but now that you know what my thought is, you say it is sufficient to conform to it and to inquire if it removes the difficulty. It seems then that you realize that my position as explained in this way, to mean complete and comprehensive concepts such as they are in the divine understanding, is not only innocent but is, indeed, right, for here are your words, "I agree that the knowledge which God had of Adam when he resolved to create him involved everything that has happened to him and all that has happened and will happen to his posterity, and therefore, taking the individual concept of Adam in this sense, what you say is very certain." We will go on to see very soon in what the difficulty which you still find consists. Yet I will say one word in regard to the cause for the difference which there is here between concepts of space and those of individual substances, rather in relation to the divine will than in relation to the simple understanding. This difference is because the most abstract specific concepts embrace only necessary or eternal truths which do not depend upon the decrees of God (whatever the Cartesians may say about this whom it seems you have not followed at this point), but the concepts of individual substances which are complete, and sufficient to identify entirely their subjects and which involve consequently truths that are contingent or of fact, namely, individual circumstances of time, of space, etc.- such substances, I say, should also involve in their concept taken as possible, the free decrees or will of God, likewise taken as possible, because these free decrees are the principal sources for existences or facts while essences are in the divine understanding before his will is taken into consideration.
This will suffice to make clearer all the rest and to meet the difficulties which still seem to remain in my explanation. For you continue in this way: "But it seems that after that the question still remains, and here is my difficulty, whether the connection between these objects, I mean Adam and human events, is such, of itself, independently of all the free decrees of God or if it is dependent upon them. That is to say, whether God knows what will happen to Adam and his posterity only because of the free decrees by which God has ordained all that will happen to them, or if there is, independently of these decrees, between Adam on the one hand and that which has happened to him and will happen to him and to his posterity on the other, an intrinsic and necessary connection." It seems to you that I will take the latter alternative because I have said, "That God has found among the possibilities an Adam accompanied by certain individual circumstances and who, among other predicates, has also this one of having in time a certain posterity." Now you suppose that I agree that the possibilities are possible before all the free decrees of God; supposing, therefore, this explanation of my position according to the latter alternative, you think that it has insurmountable difficulties. For there are, as you say with good reason, "an infinity of human events that happen by the expressly particular ordinances of God. Among others, the Jewish and Christian religions and, above all, the Incarnation of the divine word. And I do not know how one could say that all this (which has happened by the free decrees of God), could be involved in the individual concept of the possible Adam. Whatever is considered as possible ought to have everything that could be conceived as being under this concept, independently of the divine decrees."
I wish to state your difficulty exactly, Monsieur, and this is the way in which I hope to satisfy it entirely to your own taste. For it must needs be that it can be resolved, since we cannot deny that there is truly a certain concept of Adam accompanied by all its predicates and conceived as possible, which God knew before resolving to create him, as you have just admitted. I think, therefore, that the dilemma of the alternative explanation which you have proposed may have a mean, and the connection which I conceive of between Adam and human events is intrinsic but it is not necessarily independent of the free decrees of God because the free decrees of God taken as possible enter into the concept of the possible Adam, and when these same decrees become actual they are the cause of the actual Adam. I agree with you, in opposition to the Cartesians, that the possibles are possible before all the actual decrees of God, but the decrees themselves, must be regarded also as possibles. For the possibilities of the individual or of contingent truths involve in their concept the possibility of their causes, that is to say, the free decrees of God in which they are different from generic possibilities or from eternal truths. These latter depend solely upon the understanding of God without presupposing any will, as I have explained it above.
This might be enough, but in order to make myself better understood, I will add that I think there were an infinity of possible ways of creating the world according to the different plans which God might have formed and that each possible world depends upon certain principal plans or designs of God that are his own; that is to say, upon certain primary free decrees conceived sub ratione possibilitatis, or upon certain laws of the general order of this possible universe with which they agree and whose concept they determine. At the same time, they determine the concepts of all individual substances which ought to enter into this same universe. Everything, therefore, is in order even including miracles, although these latter are contrary to certain subordinate regulations or laws of nature. Thus, all human events cannot fail to happen as they have actually happened, supposing that the choice of Adam was made. But this is so, not so much because of the concept of the individual Adam, although this concept involves them, but because of the purposes of God, which also enter into this individual concept of Adam and determine the concept of the whole universe. These purposes determine, consequently, as well the concept of Adam as the concepts of all the other individual substances of this universe, because each individual substance expresses the whole universe, of which it is a part according to a certain relation, through the connection which there is between all things, and this connection is owing to the connection of the resolutions or plans of God.
I find that you bring forward another objection, Monsieur, which does not depend upon the consequences, apparently contradicting freedom, as was the objection which I just met, but which depends upon the matter itself and upon the idea which we have of an individual substance. Because, since I have the idea of an individual substance, that is to say of myself, it seems to you that we must seek what is meant by an individual concept in this idea and not in the way in which God conceives of individuals; and just as I have only to consult the specific concept of the sphere in order to decide if the number of feet in the diameter is not determined by this concept, in the same way you say I find clearly in the individual concept which I have of myself that I will be myself, in either case whether I make or do not make the journey which I intend.
In order to make my reply clear, I agree that the connection of events, although it is certain, is not necessary, and that I am at liberty either to make or not to make the journey, for, although it is involved in my concept that I will make it, it is also involved that I will make it freely. And there is nothing in me of all that can be conceived sub ratione generalitatis, whether of essence or of specific or incomplete concepts from which it can be deduced that I will make it necessarily. While, on the other hand, from the fact that I am a man, the conclusion can be drawn that I am capable of thinking, and consequently, if I do not make this journey, this will be against no eternal or necessary truth. Still, since it is certain that I will make it there must be indeed some connection between the me which is the subject, and the carrying out of the journey, which is the predicate. The concept of the predicate is always in the subject of a true proposition. There is, therefore, an omission, if I do make it, which will destroy my individual or complete concept, or which would destroy what God conceives or conceived in regard to me even before resolving to create me. For this concept involves, sub ratione possibilitatis, the existences or the truths of fact or the decrees of God upon which the facts depend.
I agree, also, that in order to determine the concept of an individual substance it is good to consult that which I have of myself, as we must consult a specific concept of a sphere in order to determine its properties. Nevertheless, there is between the two cases a great difference, for the concept of myself in particular and of any other individual substance is infinitely more extensive and more difficult to understand than is a specific concept, such as a sphere, which is only incomplete and does not involve all the practically necessary circumstances to get at a particular sphere. It is not enough in order to understand what the me is that I am sensible of a subject which thinks, I must also conceive distinctly of all that which distinguishes me from other possible spirits and of this latter I have only a confused experience. Therefore, it is easy to determine that the number of feet in the diameter is not involved in the notion of the sphere in general, it is not so easy to determine certainly, although we can decide quite probably whether the voyage which I intend to make is involved in my concept; were it not so it would be as easy to be a prophet as to be a geometer. Nevertheless as experience is unable to make me recognize a great number of insensible things in the body in regard to which the general consideration of the nature of bodies and of movements might convince me; in the same way, although experience cannot make me feel all that is involved in my concept, I am able to recognize in general that everything which pertains to me is involved in it through the general consideration of an individual concept.
Surely since God can form and does actually form this complete concept which involves whatever is sufficient to give a reason for all the phenomena that happen to me, the concept is therefore possible. And this is the true complete concept of that which I call the me. It is in virtue of this concept that all my predicates pertain to me as to their subject. We are, therefore, able to prove it without mentioning God, except in so far as it is necessary to indicate my dependence. This truth is expressed more forcefully in deriving the concept which is being examined from the divine cognizance as its source. I grant that there are many things in the divine knowledge which we are unable to comprehend but it does not seem to me that we must needs go into them to solve our question. Besides, if, in the life of any person, and even in the whole universe anything went differently from what it has, nothing could prevent us from saying that it was another person or another possible universe which God had chosen. It would then be indeed another individual. There must then be some reason a priori independent of my existence why we may truly say that it was I who was at Paris and that it is still I and not another who am now in Germany and consequently it must be that the concept of myself unites or includes different conditions. Otherwise it could be said that it is not the same individual although it appears to be the same and in fact certain philosophers who have not understood sufficiently the nature of substance and of individual beings or of beings per se have thought that nothing remained actually the same. It is for this, among other reasons, that I have come to the conclusion that bodies would not be substances if they had only extension in them.
I think, Monsieur, that I have sufficiently met the difficulties regarding the principal proposition, but, as you have made in addition some important remarks in regard to certain incidental expressions, which I used, I will attempt to explain them also. I said that the presupposition from which all human events could be deduced, was not that of the creation of an undetermined Adam but of the creation of a certain Adam determined in all circumstances, selected out of an infinity of possible Adams. In regard to this you make two important remarks, the one against the plurality of Adams and the other against the reality of substances which are merely possible. In regard to the first point, you say with good reason that it is as little possible to think of several possible Adams, taking Adam for a particular nature, as to conceive of several me's. I agree, but in speaking of several Adams I do not take Adam for a determined individual but for a certain person conceived sub ratione generalitatis under the circumstances which appear to us to determine Adam as an individual but which do not actually determine him sufficiently. As if we should mean by Adam the first man, whom God set in a garden of pleasure whence he went out because of sin, and from whose side God fashioned a woman. All this would not sufficiently determine him and there might have been several Adams separately possible or several individuals to whom all that would apply. This is true, whatever finite number of predicates incapable of determining all the rest might be taken, but that which determines a certain Adam ought to involve absolutely all his predicates. And it is this complete concept which determines the particular individual. Besides, I am so far removed from a pluralistic conception of the same individual that I agree heartily with what St. Thomas has already taught with regard to intelligences and which I hold to be very general, namely, that it is not possible for two individuals to exist entirely alike or differing solo numero.
As regards the reality of substances merely possible, that is to say, which God will never create, you say, Monsieur, that you are very much inclined to believe that they are chimeras. To which I make no objection, if you mean, as I think, that they have no other reality than what comes to them in the divine understanding and in the active power of God. Nevertheless, you see by this, Monsieur, that we are obliged to have recourse to the divine knowledge and divine power in order to explain them well. I find very well founded that which you say afterwards, "That we never conceive of any substance merely as possible except under the idea of a particular one (or through the ideas understood in a particular one) of those which God has created." You say also, "We imagine that, before creating the world, God looked over an infinity of possible things out of which he chose certain ones and rejected the others, certain possible Adams (first men), each with a great sequence of personages with whom he has an intrinsic connection; and we suppose that the connection of all these other things with one of these possible Adams (first men) is wholly similar to that which the actually created Adam had with all his posterity. This makes us think that it is this one of all the possible Adams which God has chosen and that he did not wish any of the others." In this you seem to recognize that those ideas, which I acknowledge to be mine (provided that the plurality of Adams and their possibilities is understood according to the explanation which I have given and that all this is understood according to our manner of conceiving any order in the thoughts or the operations which we attribute to God), enter naturally enough into the mind when we think a little about this matter, and indeed cannot be avoided; and perhaps they have been displeasing to you, only because you supposed that it was impossible to reconcile the intrinsic connection which there would be, with the free decrees of God. All that is actual can be conceived as possible and if the actual Adam will have in time a certain posterity we cannot deny this same predicate to this Adam conceived as possible, inasmuch as you grant that God sees in him all these predicates when he determines to create him. They therefore pertain to him. And I do not see how what you say regarding the reality of possibles could be contrary to it. In order to call anything possible it is enough that we are able to form a notion of it when it is only in the divine understanding, which is, so to speak, the region of possible realities. Thus, in speaking of possibles, I am satisfied if veritable propositions can be formed concerning them. Just as we might judge, for example, that a perfect square does not imply contradiction, although there has never been a perfect square in the world, and if one tried to reject absolutely these pure possibles he would destroy contingency and liberty. For if there was nothing possible except what God has actually created, whatever God created would be necessary and God, desiring to create anything would be able to create that alone without having any freedom of choice.
All this makes me hope (after the explanations which I have given and for which I have always added reasons so that you might see that these were not evasions contrived to elude your objections), that at the end your thoughts will not be so far removed from mine as they appeared to be at first. You approve the inter-connection of God's resolutions; you recognize that my principal proposition is certain in the sense which I have given to it in my reply; you have doubted only whether I made the connection independent of the free decrees of God, and this with good reason you found hard to understand. But I have shown that the connection does depend in my opinion upon the decree and that it is not necessary, although it is intrinsic. You have insisted upon the difficulties which there would be in saying, "If I do not make the journey, which I am about to make, I will not be myself," and I have explained how one might either say it or not. Finally, I have given a decisive reason which, in my opinion, takes the place of a demonstration; this is, that always in every affirmative proposition whether veritable, necessary or contingent, universal or singular, the concept of the predicate is comprised in some sort in that of the subject. Either the predicate is in the subject or else I do not know what truth is.
Now, I do not ask for any more connection here than what is found a parte rei between the terms of a true proposition, and it is only in this sense that I say that the concept of an individual substance involves all of its changes and all its relations, even those which are commonly called extrinsic (that is to say, which pertain to it only by virtue of the general inter-connection of things, and in so far as it expresses the whole universe in its own way), since "there must always be some foundation for the connection of the terms of a proposition and this is found in their concepts." This is my fundamental principle, which I think all philosophers ought to agree to, and one of whose corollaries is that commonly accepted axiom: that nothing happens without a reason which can be given why the thing turned out so rather than otherwise. This reason, however, often produces its effects without necessitation. A perfect indifference is a chimerical or incomplete supposition. It has seemed that from the principle above mentioned I draw surprising consequences but the surprise is only because people are not sufficiently in the habit of following out perfectly evident lines of thought.
The proposition which was the occasion of all this discussion is very important and should be clearly established, for from it follows that every individual substance expresses the whole universe according to its way and under a certain aspect, or, so to speak, according to the point of view from which it is regarded; and that a succeeding condition is a consequence, whether free or contingent, of its preceding state as though only God and itself were in the world. Thus every individual substance or complete being is, as it were, a world apart, independent of everything else excepting God. There is no argument so cogent not only in demonstrating, the indestructibility of the soul, but also in showing that it always preserves in its nature traces of all its preceding states with a practical remembrance which can always be aroused, since it has the consciousness of or knows in itself what each one calls his me. This renders it open to moral qualities, to chastisement and to recompense even after this life, for immortality without remembrance would be of no value. This independence however does not prevent the inter-activity of substances among themselves, for, as all created substances are a continual production of the same sovereign Being according to the same designs and express the same universe or the same phenomena, they agree with one another exactly; and this enables us to say that one acts upon another because the one expresses more distinctly than the other the cause or reason for the changes,- somewhat as we attribute motion rather to a ship than to the whole sea; and this with reason, although, if we should speak abstractly, another hypothesis of motion could be maintained, that is to say, the motion in itself and abstracted from the cause could be considered as something relative. It is thus, it seems to me, that the interactivities of created substances among themselves must be understood, and not as though there were a real physical influence or dependence. The latter idea can never be distinctly conceived of. This is why, when the question of the union of the soul and the body, or of action and of passion of one spirit with regard to another created thing, comes into question, many have felt obliged to grant that their immediate influence one upon another is inconceivable. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of occasional causes is not satisfactory, it seems to me, to a philosopher, because it introduces a sort of continuous miracle as though God at every moment was changing the laws of bodies on the occasions when minds had thoughts, or was changing the regular course of the thinking of the soul by exciting in it other thoughts on the occasion of a bodily movement; and in general as though God was interfering otherwise for the ordinary events of life than in preserving each substance in its course and in the laws established for it. Only the hypothesis of the concomitance or the agreement of substances among themselves therefore is able to explain these things in a manner wholly conceivable and worthy of God. And as this hypothesis alone is demonstrative and inevitable in my opinion, according to the proposition which we have just established, it seems also that it agrees better with the freedom of reasonable creatures than the hypothesis of impressions or of occasional causes. God created the soul from the very start in such a manner that for the ordinary events it has no need of these interventions, and whatever happens to the soul comes from its own being, without any necessity, on its part, of accommodation in the sequence of events to the body, any more than there is of the body's accommodating itself to the soul. Each one follows its laws, the one acts freely, the other without choice, and they accord with one another in the same phenomena. The soul is nevertheless the form of its body, because it expresses the phenomena of all other bodies according to their relation to its own.
It may be surprising, perhaps, that I deny the action of one corporeal substance upon another, when this seems so evident, but, besides the fact that others have already done this, we must also consider that it is rather a play of the imagination than a distinct conception. If the body is a substance and not a mere phenomenon, like a rainbow, nor a being, brought together by accident or by accumulation, like a pile of stones, its essence cannot consist in extension and we must necessarily conceive of something which is called substantial form and which corresponds in some sort to the soul. I have been convinced of this, as it were, in spite of myself, after having held a very different opinion before. But, however much I may approve of the Schoolmen in this general and, so to speak, metaphysical accounting for the basis of bodies, I also hold to the corpuscular theory as it is used in the explanation of particular phenomena, and for these latter nothing is gained by applying the terms, forms and qualities. Nature must always be explained mathematically and mechanically, provided it be kept in mind that the principles or the laws of mechanics and of force do not depend upon mathematical extension alone but have certain metaphysical causes.
After all this I think that now the propositions contained in the abstract which was sent to you will appear not only more intelligible but perhaps tenable and more important than might have been thought at first.
X: Leibniz to Arnauld; Hanover, July 14, 1686.
Monsieur:
I have always had so much esteem for your well-known ability that even when I thought myself ill-treated by your criticism I made the firm resolve to say nothing but what would express great deference toward you; and now you have had the generosity of making me a restitution with interest, or, rather, with liberality- a kindness which I shall cherish deeply, because it brings the satisfaction of thinking that you are well disposed toward me. When I was obliged to speak a little strongly, in order to defend myself from positions which you thought I held, it was because I disapproved of them extremely and because I thought so much of your approbation, that I was the more sensitive when I saw you imputing them to me. I hope that I have been able as well to justify the truth of my opinions as their harmlessness. This, however, is not absolutely necessary and since error by itself can do injury neither to piety nor to friendship I shall not defend myself with the same force; and if in the enclosed paper I have made a reply to your gracious letter where you have pointed out very clearly and in a very instructive manner in what respect my reply has not yet satisfied you, it is not because I pretend that you will take the time to examine again my reasons, for it is easy to see that you have more important busines