Leibnizianism or the philosophy of Leibniz. The moderns possess a few men like Bayle, Descartes, Leibniz and Newton whom they can favorably oppose to the most astonishing geniuses of antiquity. If there existed above us a type of beings who should observe our labors, as we observe those of the beings creeping under our feet, how surprised would it not be to see these four wonderful insects? How many pages would they not fill in their natural ephemerides? But the existence of intermediary minds between man and God is not stated enough, so that we dare not suppose that this great interval is empty. In the great chain following the universal Creator, it is man who is visible [1], and leading humanity is either Socrates, Titus, Marcus Aurelius, Pascal, Trajan, Confucius, Bayle, Descartes, Newton, or Leibniz.

The last of whom [2], Leibniz, was born in Leipzig, Saxony the 23rd of June, 1646; he was named Gottfried Wilhelm . Frederic, his father, was professor of ethics and a court clerk at the university, and Catherine Schmuck, his mother and Frederic’s third wife, was the daughter of a doctor and professor of law. Paul Leibniz, his great-uncle, had served in Hungary, and in 1600, earned titles of nobility from the Emperor Rudolf II.

He lost his father at six years, and the fate of his education fell to his mother, a woman of worth. He excelled in all areas of study, and he approached them all with the same ardor [3] and the same success. When one examines oneself and compares his small talents with those of a Leibniz, it is tempting to throw away the books and to go die peacefully off in some ignored cranny.

His father left him an ample collection of books; scarcely had the young Leibniz learned a little Greek and Latin than he set out to read them all: poets, orators, historians, juristconsults, philosophers, theologians, doctors. He soon felt the need for assistance, and went out to get some [4]. He became particularly attached to Jacques Thomasius: nobody had as deep a knowledge of literature and ancient philosophy as Thomasius. However, the disciple soon became more skilled than the master. Thomasius admitted Leibniz's superiority; Leibniz recognized his debt to Thomasius. Between them, it was often a battle for praise on the one hand, and for recognition on the other.

Leibniz learned under Thomasius to attach great worth to ancient philosophers, namely Pythagoras and Plato. He had [5] a taste and talent for poetry: his verses are filled [6] with good things. I advise our young authors to read the poem that he composed in 1676 on the death of Johann Frederic of Brunswick, his protector; they will see how Poetry, when it is not empty sound, requires preliminary knowledge.

He was deeply versed in history, and knew the princes’ interests. John Casimir, King of Poland, having abdicated the crown in 1668, Philip William of Neubourg, Count Palatine, was one of the pretenders, and Leibniz, under cover as George Ulicorius , proved that the republic had made the best choice. He was then twenty-two years old and his work [7] was attributed to the most famous juristconsults of his time.

When the negotiations for the Nijmegen peace began, difficulties arose in the ceremonial involving the free princes of the empire who were not electors. Honors were refused to their ministers, yet granted to the ministers of Italy’s princes. Leibniz wrote in favor of the first, in a work entitled Cúsarini Furstenerii, de jure suprematus ac legationis principum Germaniú  [8]. In this system, a Lutheran [9] places the pope beside the emperor, as temporal head of all Christian states, at least in the West. The subject has a particular focus [10], but at each point, the author’s intelligence rises up to reach general views.

While busy with these affairs, he was in contact with all the savants of Germany and Europe. He was active, whether in theses or letters, in questions of logic, metaphysics, ethics, mathematics and theology, and his name was registered in almost all of the academies.

The princes of Brunswick chose him to write a history of their house. To worthily fulfill this project, he traveled through Germany and Italy, visiting ancient abbeys, searching in city archives, examining tombs and other antiquities, and collecting everything that could spread pleasure and light on an unappreciated matter.

While traveling alone in Ferrara on a small boat from Venice to Mesola, a rosary he thought always wise to carry in a country of inquisition saved his life. A furious storm was towering: the pilot who didn’t believe he was being understood by a German, whom he considered to be the cause of peril, proposed to throw him overboard, keeping nevertheless his old clothes and money, which were not heretical. Unconcerned, Leibniz pulled out his rosary with an air of devotion, and this artifice caused the pilot to change his mind. An ancient philosopher, Anaxogoras the atheist, I believe it was, escaped the same danger, by pointing out to those who were planning to appease the gods by throwing him into the sea, some ships destroyed by the storm that were far away from him [11].

On returning to Hanover from his voyages in 1699, he published a portion of the harvest of his labor, having avidly worked on it all in a folio volume entitled Code du droit des gens . He demonstrated that public acts of one nation to another are the most certain sources of History, and regardless of the tiny, disgraceful springs which put the great masses in motion, it is in the treatises that preceded their emotions and accompanied their momentary rest that their genuine interests must be found. The preface of Codex juris gentium diplomaticus is a work of genius. It is a sea of erudition: it appeared in 1693.

The first volume, Scriptorum Brunsvicensia Illustrantium , or the foundation of his history was erected in 1707. In it he made a judgment without appeal, of all the material [12] that was to serve in the rest of the edifice.

The city governors of the empire of Charlemagne were thought to have gradually become hereditary princes; Leibniz proved that they had always been. The tenth and the eleventh centuries were viewed as the most barbaric of Christianity; Leibniz cast this reproach back upon the 13th and 14th centuries, in which men made poor by religious institutions and hungry for luxury, invented fables out of necessity and human weakness. We see him following the chain of events, discerning the delicate threads which have drawn themselves in a series, and see him posing rules for a type of divination after which the past and present state of a people being understood, he could announce its future.

Two other volumes of Scriptorum Brunsvicensia Illustrantium appeared in 1710 and 1711, the rest not to follow. Mr. Fontenelle had shown the general plan of the work within his Eloge de Leibniz, An. De l’Acad. Des science., 1716 . [13]

In the course of his researches he claimed to have discovered the true origin of the French, and published an essay on this in 1716.

Leibniz was a great jurisconsult. The Law was and will be for a long time the dominant study of Germany. At the age of twenty years, he attempted to take the exam for his doctorate. His young age, which should have won him the good will of the wife of the dean of faculty, excited, I do not know how, her bad temper, and Leibniz’s candidacy was refused. But the general applause and a similar honor he was offered and conferred by the country people of the city of Altorf, adequately avenged him of this injustice. As it is permissible to judge of the merit of a candidate by the choice of subject of his theses, what idea would have been formed of Leibniz? He disputed des cas perplexes en droit . This thesis was printed in a series with two other small tracts, one entitled, Specimen Encyclopedia in jure ; the other, Specimen certitudinis feu demonstrationum in jure exhibibitum in doctrina conditionum .

This word "Encyclopedie" had been employed in a more general sense by Alsted, who proposed to relate the different sciences, and to mark the lines of communication between them [14]. This project was pleasing to Leibniz, and he proposed to perfect Alsted’s work. He called in some scholars to assist him. The work had begun when the chief of the enterprise, distracted by circumstances, was carried away by other activities—unfortunately for we who have followed him, and for whom the same labor has only been a source of persecution, insults, and grief repeating itself from day to day, having begun more than fifty years ago, and which will only end perhaps with our life.

At the age of twenty-two years, he dedicated to the elector of Mayence, John-Phillip Schomborn, une Nouvelle méthode d'enseigner & d'apprendre la Jurisprudence, avec un catalogue des chose a desirer dans la science du Droit . He gave his project for a general reform of the body of law in the same year. The mind of this man was an enemy of disorder, and the most perplexing matters must have been lining up there and entering [15]. He united two great, almost incompatible qualities, the mind of invention and that of method. Head strong and varied study, in accumulating in him the most disparate knowledge, weakened neither quality: he was everything that the words ‘philosopher’ and ‘mathematician’ include. He went from Altorf to Nuremberg to visit some scholars. In a secret society of alchemists who took him for adept on a letter stuffed with obscure terms that he addressed to them, Leibniz insinuated what they apparently understood, but that he certainly did not understand. They made him their secretary and he taught himself much while they believed themselves to learn.

In 1670, at the age of twenty-four years, he escaped from the laboratory of Nuremberg and was able to reprint the tract of Marius Nizolius de Bersello, De veris principiis & vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos , with a preface and some notes where he sought to reconcile Aristotelianism with modern philosophy. In this preface, he shows how disputes of words are distant from the science of things, how he staged the profound study he had made of the ancients, and how an old error is sometimes the seed of a new truth. Such a man in effect is illustrated and will be illustrated in saying "white" after another has said "black" [16]. It is more meritorious to think about something that has not yet been debated, than to simply think about something which has already been disputed: the ultimate degree of merit, the veritable mark of genius, is to find truth on an important and new subject.

He published a letter, De Aristotele recentioribus reconciliabili [17] , in which he dared to speak advantageously of Aristotle at a time when Cartesians had trampled on this philosopher [18], necessitating a day when the Newtonians would get even. He claimed that Aristotle contained the truths of Descartes, and he demonstrated that the philosophy of both were corpuscular and mechanical.

In 1711 he dedicated his theory of abstract movement to the Academy of Sciences, and his theory of concrete movement to the Royal Society of London. The first is a system of movement in general; the second is an application of movement to the phenomena of nature [19]. He admitted the void in both, he regarded matter as a simple extension indifferent to movement and to rest, and [20] he came to believe that to discover the essence of matter, it would be necessary to conceive of a particular force which can hardly be rendered in these words: mentem momentaneam, seu carentem recordatioae, quia conatum simul suum & alienum contrarium non retineat ultro momentum, adeoque careat memori, sensu actionum passionnaque suarum, atque cogitatione [21] .

Here it is, right next to the entelechy of Aristotle, his system of monads, sensibility (the general property of matter), and many other ideas, which presently occupy us. In place of measuring movement by the product of the mass and speed, he substituted for one of these elements of force what would give the product through the mass and the square of the speed. It was on this principle that he establishes a new dynamics. He was attacked, he vigorously defended himself, and the question has not otherwise been decided, at least as well clarified since, than by men who have combined the most subtle metaphysics and the most theoretical ( haute ) geometry. See the article Force [Force, Force (Grammar. Literature), Force (Iconology), Force of motion; Moving force; Force of Inertia; Force of Water (Hydraulics); Resulting force; Kinetic Energy; Conservation of Kinetic Energy].

Still, he had, in general physics, a particular idea [22], what God has done with the greatest economy possible, is what would be most perfect and best. He is the founder of optimism, or the system which seems to make God an automaton in his decrees and in his actions and in sending back under another name and spiritual form, the fatum of the ancients, or this necessity for things to be what they in fact are.

It is useless to say that Leibniz was a mathematician of the first order. He disputed with Newton the invention of the differential calculus. See the articles from this dictionary Differential Calculus and Fluxion. Monsieur Fontenelle, who always appeared favorable to Leibniz, pronounces that Newton is certainly the inventor, and that his glory is assured, but that one cannot be too cautious when it is a matter of prosecuting an accusation of theft and plagiarism against a man such as Leibniz—and by reason, Mr. Fontenelle [23].

Leibniz was entirely new to high geometry in 1676, when he knew in Paris, Mons. Huygens, to whom this science owed the most, after Galileo and Descartes. He read the tract, De horologio oscillatorio , he pondered the works of Pascal and of Gregory St. Vincent, and he imagined a method that he found again in the series of profound drawings of Gregory, Barrow and others. It is this calculus by which he is glorified as having submitted to analysis, things never before submitted.

Regardless of the history that Leibniz made from his discoveries with the solicitation of M. Bernoulli [24], it’s certain that one can discern the infinitely small of different orders in his treatise of abstract movement, published in 1671, that the differential calculus appeared in 1684, that the principal mathematics of Newton were only published in 1687, and that Newton does not claim this discovery. But since his friends had created the disagreement, Newton did not remain less silent, like God in the middle of his glory. [25]

Leibniz undertook a great work, De la science de l’infini , but it was not finished.

From these lofty speculations he often descended into practical things. He proposed machines for the extraction of water , which sometimes caused the abandonment and always the interruption of mine labor.

He utilized part of his time and fortune in the construction of an arithmetic machine , which was only completely finished in the last years of his life.

We have shown up to this point Leibniz as poet, jurisconsult, and mathematician; Let us now consider him as metaphysician, or as a man going back from particular cases up to general laws. Everyone knows his principle of sufficient reason and preestablished harmony, his idea of the monad. But we do not insist on covering these here; we redirect you to different articles of this Dictionary, and to the abridged exposition of the philosophy of Leibniz which will finish out this one.

In 1715, he raised a dispute with the famous M. Clarke on space, time, the void, atoms, the natural, the supernatural, liberty and other subjects not less important than difficult.

He had another dispute in 1671, on The Trinity, with a disciple of Socin, Wissora , as Leibniz was still a theologian in the strict sense of the word, publishing against his adversary a writing entitled, Sacro-sancla Trinitas per nova inventa logicú defensa . It is always the same mind which rules in the works of Leibniz. In regard to a question on mysteries, he proposes the means of perfecting Logic, and exposes the defects of those who were to follow. He was invited to dialogues held near the beginning of the century for the marriage of a great Catholic prince and a Lutheran princess. He introduced the less exact views of M. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, which he included in his project for the reunion of the Anglican Church and the Lutheran church. He defended religious tolerance against M. Pelisson. He brought the Théodicée up to date in 1711 as a response to the difficulties of Bayle with the origin of physical and moral evil [26].

We should now have exhausted Leibniz. However, we have not painted a complete picture of him quite yet. He conceived of a project of a philosophical language that puts all nations into one society, but he did not execute it. He alone noticed that scholars of his time, who shared a similar outlook, had lost their time and were not invigorated with true purpose.

After this sketch of the scholarly life of Leibniz, we will move on to some details of his particular life.

He was in the secret society of Nuremberg alchemists when the Baron de Boinebourg, minister of the elector of Mayence, John-Phillip, encountered him by chance in an inn, recognized his skills, made him some offers, and bound them to his boss. In 1688 John-Phillip made him advisor in the chancellery review assembly. Baron Boinebourg had sent his son to Paris, and he hired Leibniz to travel, to watch over his individual affairs and to attend to the conduct of his son. Boinebourg died in 1673 while Leibniz was spending time in England, when a little later, he learned of his death. This event reversed the beginnings of his fortune, but the Duke of Brunswick, Lunebourg took him in during his vacancy, supported him as an advisor, and gave him a pension. He did not set out for Germany however. He returned to Paris, from there returning to England, and it was only in 1676 following the Duke John Frederic that he gave back what he lost at the end of three years. The Duke Ernest Augustus offered him his protection in return for the history of Brunswick. We have spoken of the work and of the voyages that he occasioned. The Duke Ernest named him his private justice advisor in 1696. One would not think that in Germany, a philosopher would be incapable of public affairs. In 1699 the academy of sciences of Paris made him the head of its foreign affiliates. He found a mild enough fate in this capital, but it would be necessary to change religion, and this requirement displeased him. With his own design, he inspired the elector of Brandebourg to establish an academy of Berlin, and this project was started in 1700 from his ideas. He was named a permanent president, and this choice was generally applauded.

In 1710, a volume of the Berlin Academy appeared, under the title Miscellanea Berolinensia . Leibniz showed his ability in all forms historian, antiquarian, etymologist, physicist, mathematician, and even orator.

He had the same oversight of states as the elector of Saxony. He considered the establishment of another academy at Dresdin, but the troubles of Poland did not leave him any hope of success.

On the other hand, the Czar, who had gone to Torgau for the marriage of his older son and Charlote-Christine, saw Leibniz, consulted him on the design by which he was to drag his people from barbarism, honored him with presents, and conferred on him the title of his private justice advisor, with a considerable pension.

But all human prosperity ceases: the King of Prussia died in 1713, and the military taste of his successor motivated Leibniz to look for a new haven for the sciences. He turned to the imperial court and obtained the favor of prince Eugene. Maybe he would have founded an academy in Vienna, but the plague had overtaken this city, rendering all these movements useless.

He was in Vienna, in 1714, when Queen Anne died. The Hanover elector succeeded her. Leibniz made it to Hanover, but he did not find the king there, and he was no longer young enough to follow him. Nevertheless, the king of England again spent time in Germany, and Leibniz had the joy he desired [27]: since this time his health was fading, everyday. He was subject to gout; this evil spread to his shoulders; a malt beverage from a recipe given to him by a Jesuit from Ingolstadt caused him convulsions and excessive pain, from which he died the 14th of November, 1716.

In this state of pain, he still spent time in thought. A moment before expiring he asked for ink and paper: he wrote, but having wanted to read what he had written, his sight was obscured, and at the age of 70 years, he ceased to live [28]. He never married. He was of a strong temperament. His only illnesses were dizziness and gout. He was somber and often passed his nights in an armchair. He studied for months on end and made extracts of all his lectures. He loved conversing with all types, people of the court, soldiers, artisans, laborers. Barely was there an ignorance from which something could not be learned. He admired the women’s society, and its women were pleasing in themselves. He had a very extended literary correspondence. He provided his views to scholars, excited them, applauded them, and cherished the glory of others as much as his own. He became angry, but he promptly got over it; he was indignant to contradiction first of all, but then was more peaceful. He was accused of not having been as great and rigid an observer of natural law, and his pastors gave him some useless, public reprimand. It is said that he loved money. He had amassed a considerable sum that he kept hidden. This treasure, after having tormented him with worry during his life, was still fatal to his heiress. In the face of these riches, she was so seized with joy that she suddenly died.

It only remains for us to show the principle axioms of the philosophy of Leibniz. Those who wish to know more of the life, labor, and character of this extraordinary man, can consult the acts of the scholars, Kortholt, Eckard, Baringius, the memoirs of the academy of sciences, the eulogy of Fontenelle, Fabricius, Feller, Grundmann, Gentzkennius, Reimann, Collins, Murat, Charles Gundelif-Ludovici. Beside Thomasius of whom we have spoken, he had for a schoolteacher in mathematics, Kunnius, and in philosophy, Scherzer and Rappolt. It was Weigel who allowed him to give birth to his idea of binary arithmetic, or that method of expressing whole numbers with two characters, 1 and 0. He returned at the end of his life to the project of the Encyclopedia, which had occupied him when he was young, and he had hoped still to perform a concert with Wolf. He was given responsibility by M. de Montausier for an edition of Martianus Capella for use by the Dauphin. The work was finished when it was lifted from him. There is much more than we’ve mentioned of all his works. He had little of this published separately; the greatest part is dispersed in journals and collections of the academies, from which was drawn Protogée , a work which is not without merit, whether considered as a basis of things, or viewed only as the elevation of a discourse.

I. Principles of rational meditations of Leibniz [29]

He said: knowledge is either clear or obscure [30], and clear knowledge is either confused or distinct, and distinct knowledge is either adequate or inadequate, either intuitive or symbolic.

If knowledge is at the same time adequate and intuitive, it is very perfect [31]. If one notion does not suffice for the knowledge of represented things, it is obscure [32]; if it suffices, it is clear.

If I cannot separately state the necessary characters [33] of distinction from one thing to another, my knowledge is confused. Although in nature, the thing should have these characters, in the exact enumeration in which it would be limited and resolved.

Thus odors, colors, flavors and other ideas relative to sense, are clearly enough known to us: the distinction that we make is just, but sensation is our unique guarantor. We cannot utter the characters which distinguish these things [34]. Yet they have causes: ideas are composed from them, and it seems that if nothing is missing, either in our intelligence, researches, or our idioms, we could resolve and render them [35] in a certain collection of words. [36]

If a thing has been sufficiently examined, if the collection of signs which distinguish it from every other is complex, the notion that we will have of this will be distinct. This is how we know certain objects common to multiples senses, several affections of the soul, everything for which we can form a verbal definition. For, what is this definition, other than one sufficient enumeration of the characters [37]of a thing?

Yet there is distinct knowledge of an indefinable thing whenever it is primitive, when it has itself, its own character, when understood in itself, nothing precedes it or is known except how to resolve it. [38]

In compound notions, if it happens that, either the sum of the characters are not simultaneously known, that some escaped or were missing, or clear perception of general or particular characteristics was momentary and fugitive, knowledge is distinct, but inadequate.

If all the characters of a thing are permanent, understood and well-known, together and separately, that is to say that the resolution and the analysis are made without impediment and without defect [39], knowledge is adequate.

We cannot always embrace in our understanding the entire nature of a very compound thing, so we serve ourselves signs which we abbreviate. Nevertheless, we have either consciousness or memory that the resolution or the entire analysis is possible, and will be executed when we want [40]. Then knowledge is blind or symbolic.

We cannot know, simultaneously, individual notions that form complete knowledge of a very compound thing. This is a fact. When the thing is possible, our knowledge is intuitive as much as it can be. Knowledge of a primitive and distinct thing is intuitive; that of several compound things is symbolic.

The ideas of things that we know distinctly are only presented to us by an intuitive operation of our understanding.

We wrongly believe from ideas of things when the explication of some terms has not been made, but supposed [41].

Often we only have one such notion of words, a weak memory of having known its value at some other time, and we hold ourselves to this blind knowledge, without refraining from following the analysis of expressions as far and as rigorously as we can. It is thus how we escape contradiction enveloped in the notion of the compound thing. [42]

What is a nominal definition? What is a real definition? A nominal definition is the enumeration of characters which distinguish one thing from another. A real definition, that which assures us, by comparison and explication of characters, that the definite thing is possible. [43] The real definition is not therefore arbitrary, because all the characters of the nominal definition are not always compatible.

Perfect science requires more than nominal definitions, at least when it is not otherwise known that the thing is possible.

The notion is true if the thing is possible; false, if there is contradiction between its characters.

The possibility of the thing is known a priori or a posteriori .

It is known a priori when we resolve its notion into others of an admitted possibility, and when its characters imply no contradiction [44]. The manner by which a thing can be produced is therefore always known to us. It then follows that among all definitions, the most useful are those which are created from causes.

The possibility is known a posteriori when the real existence of the thing is verified. For, what is, or has been, is possible.

If one has an adequate knowledge, one therefore has a priori knowledge of possibility, because in following the analysis until its end, if one encounters no contradiction, a demonstration of the possibility arises.

It is necessary to fear the abuse of this principle, just as a thing can be said, and will be said true if one affirms what he clearly and distinctly perceives. [45] How many obscure and confused things appear clear and distinct to those who rush to judge! The pertinent axiom is thus superfluous, if the rules of the truth of ideas have not been established along with the marks of clarity and distinction, obscurity and confusion.

The rules that Common Logic prescribes for characters of the enunciation of truth are only mistaken by those who ignore them, and those who have neither the courage nor the necessary wisdom for learning. Are these rules not the same for Geometers? Both neither prescribe nor admit for certain what is supported by experiment or demonstration. [46] A demonstration is solid if it pays attention to forms prescribed through Logic. It is not always a matter of subjecting oneself to the form of a syllogism [47], but it is necessary that all reasoning would be reducible to this form, as it evidently gives force to the conclusion.

It is not then necessary to proceed from premises; all they contain must have been or be demonstrated, or supposed: in the case of supposition, the conclusion is hypothetical.

One can neither praise too much, nor be too severely subjected to the rule of Pascal [48], who wishes that a term would be defined by as little as it is obscured, and that a proposition would be proven for as little as it would be doubted. With a little attention to the preceding principles, one sees how these two conditions can be filled.

It is a very ancient opinion that we see everything in God, and this opinion, of course, is not mistaken.

When we would see everything in God, it would not be less necessary for man to have his own ideas, or sensations or movements of the soul, or affections corresponding to what we perceive in God. Our soul endures as many successive changes as diverse thoughts follow from it. The ideas of things which we do not currently think therefore are not otherwise in our soul as the figure of Hercules is within a block of unformed marble.

God has not only a current idea of absolute and infinite extension, but an idea of all shape or modification of this extension.

What happens in our sensation of colors and odors? Movement of fibers, changing shapes, if disconnected, escape us. It is for this reason that one does not perceive what is there, but perceives everything that enters the compound perception of these things. [49]

II. Metaphysics of Leibniz, or what he has thought of the elements of things [50] What is a monad? A simple substance. From this, compounds are formed. I call them simple, because they have no parts. [51]

Since there are compounds, it is necessary that there should be simple substances, because what is a compound, other than an aggregate [52] of simples?

Where there are no parts, there is neither extension, shape, nor divisibility. Such is the monad, the real [53] atom of nature, the true element of things.

It is not necessary to fear their dissolution. No manner is known by which a simple substance can naturally perish. No manner is known by which a simple substance can naturally arise. Because everything that perishes, perishes by dissolution; everything that is formed, is formed by composition.

Monads can therefore only instantly be or cease to be, by creation or by annihilation.

How a natural alteration could survive in them cannot be explained. What has no parts, admits neither interception, accident, nor substance. [54]

It is necessary however that they have some qualities, without which they could not be distinguished from non-being.

What is more necessary: it is that a monad differs from another monad of any kind, because there is, within nature, not a single being that would be absolutely equal and similar to another, so that it would not be possible to recognize a difference which is internal and applicable to something internal. There is perhaps nothing less reasonable than this principle for those who only think superficially, and nothing more true for others. It is not new: it was one of the views of the Stoics . [55]

Every created being is subject to change. The monad is created; each monad is thus in continual change [56].

The changes of the natural monad share an internal principle, because no external cause can have an influence on it.

In general, there is no force whatsoever that would not be a principle of change.

Beside a principle of change, it is necessary still to admit what changes form, some model that specifies and differentiates [57]. Multitude in the simple, number in unity follow, because all natural change is made in degrees. Something changes, and something remains unchanged [58]. Therefore, in a substance, there is a plurality of affections, qualities, and relations, although there should be an absence of parts.

How is a passing state which marks a multitude and plurality in a simple being and substance a unity? We know no other than what we call perception , a thing very distinct from what we understand by consciousness, because there is perception before consciousness [59]. This principle is very difficult to attack, and very difficult to defend. It is, according to Leibniz , what constitutes the difference between the monad and the mind, between the corporeal being and the intellectual being .

The action of an internal principle, a cause of the mutation or the passage of one perception to the other, is what is called appetition ( appétit ). Appetition ( appétit ) does not always reach the perception towards which it tends, but, we say, approaches it, and, ever so slightly, this alteration arises from new perceptions. [60]

It is not necessary to apply mechanical causes to these perceptions nor to their results; because there is neither movement, shape, nor acting and reacting parts. These perceptions and their changes are all there is in a simple substance. It constitutes all of its internal actions. [61]

One could, if he so desired, give the name of entelechy to all simple substances or created monads, because they have in them a certain basic perfection [62], an essential sufficiency [63]; they are themselves the causes of their internal actions. They are like incorporeal automatons: what difference is there between these beings and the sensible molecule of Hobbes? I don’t understand it. The following axiom inclines me even more to believe that it is the same thing.

If it is desirable to call soul what in general has perception and appetition, I am not opposed to viewing simple substances and created monads as souls [64]. However, perception being where knowledge is not, it would be better to keep as simple substances that only have perception to the words, “monads” or “entelechies”, and for the substances that have perception and memory or consciousness to the words “soul” ( âme ) and “mind” ( esprit ).

In fainting ( défaillance) , stupor, or profound sleep, the soul, which has perception everywhere, does not differ from a simple monad. The present state of a simple substance proceeds naturally from its preceding state, so that the present is the main part of the future. [65]

When we awake from sleep, fainting ( défaillance) , from a stupor, we have consciousness of our perceptions; it is thus necessary that there should have been no absolute interruption, that there should have been perceptions immediately prior and contiguous, although we have no consciousness of them. Because perception is engendered by perception, as movement by movement: this second axiom merits the greatest examination .

It appears that we will be in a state of perfect stupor when we do not distinguish anything in our perceptions. Now this state is that of the pure monad. [66]

It appears still that nature, in according to animals organs which resemble several rays of light, several undulations of air with an efficacy as a series of their union or multitude, has placed in them the cause of sublime perceptions [67]. It is necessary to reason in the same way with flavor, odors and touch. It is by memory that perceptions are connected in souls. Memory imitates reason, but it is not reason.

Animals perceive an object, are startled, and wait with a perception or sensation similar to those previously experienced on behalf of this object. They are moved, but they do not reason. They have memory. [68]

The strong imagination which shocks and moves us, arises from the frequency and energy of preceding perceptions.

The effect of a single, strong impression is equal sometimes to the habitual and repeated effect of a weak and durable impression.

Men have in common with animals the principle which links their perceptions. Memory is the same in them. Memory is an empirical doctor who acts by experience without theory. [69]

It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths which distinguish man from beast. It is this knowledge which creates reason and science in us, the soul. It is knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that it is necessary to relate, with their abstractions, these reflexive acts that give us consciousness of ourselves. [70]

These reflected acts are the most fertile source of our reasonings. It is the ladder by which we elevate ourselves to the thought of being from the simple or complex substance, the immaterial, the eternal, from God. We conceive that what is limited in us, exists in him without limits.

Our reasonings have two great foundations: one is the principle of contradiction; the other is the principle of sufficient reason. [71]

We look on as false all that implies contradiction. We think that nothing is without a sufficient reason (why that is so and not otherwise), although often this reason would not be known to us. This principle is not new; the ancients have employed it .

If a truth is necessary, we can resolve it into its elements, and succeed by analysis or way of decomposition of primitive ideas, which consume the demonstration. [72]

There are some simple ideas, undefined. There are some axioms also, requirements, some primitive principles that cannot be proved. The proof and the definition would be identical to the enunciation.

Sufficient reason can be discovered in contingent or factual things. It resides in universal chaining [73] ( l’enchainment ): there is a resolution or successive analysis of causes or particular reasons, with other reasons or particular causes, and so on. [74]

However, this entire series only leads us from contingency to contingency, and the last does not require less progressive analysis than the first; we cannot be stopped. To arrive at certitude, it is necessary to hold to sufficient or final reason, were it to infinity.

But where is this sufficient and final reason, if not in some necessary substance, source and principle of all mutations?

And what is this substance, last term of the series, otherwise God? God therefore is, and he is sufficient. [75]

This one substance, supreme, universal, necessary, has nothing outside of it that does not depend on it. It is therefore limitless, it therefore contains all possible reality, it is therefore perfect, because what is perfection, other than the limitlessness of real and positive grandeur?

It follows that a creature keeps from God his perfection and the imperfections of his nature, his essence incapable of limitlessness. That is what distinguishes it from God.

God is the source, existences, essences, and the real within the possible. The divine understanding is the bosom of essential truths. Without God, nothing real is possible, either in the existant, or even in nothingness.

In effect, if there is some reality in essences, existences, in possibilities, this reality is based on something existing and real [76], and consequently in the necessity of a being for whom it suffices to be possible to exist. This is only the demonstration of Descartes returned.

God is the only being who should have the privilege of being necessary, if he is possible. Now nothing shows up as a contradiction within his possibility, his existence is thus demonstrated a priori . It is to him still a posteriori , because so are contingents [77]. Now these contingents only have sufficient and final reason in a necessary being, or in he who should have, in himself, the reason of his existence.

It is not necessary to infer from this that eternal truths that are not seen without God would be dependent on his will and arbitrariness. [78]

God is one unity or simple substance, origin of all created monads, which emanate from him, so to speak, by continual fulgurations. We are served by this word fulguration , because we do not know any other to which he responds. Finally, this idea of Leibniz is wholly Platonic, and in regard to subtlety and sublimity.

There is, in God, power, understanding, and will. Power, which is the origin of everything; understanding, the model of everything; will, by which everything is executed for the best.

There is also in the monad the same corresponding qualities, perception and appetition; but limited perception, finite appetition.

It is said that a creature acts outside itself and suffers. It acts outside of itself as much as it is perfect; it suffers as much as it is imperfect.

The monad is active, as much as it has distinct perceptions; passive, as much as it has confused perceptions.

One creature is not more or less perfect than another, except by the principle which renders it capable of explaining what is happening in it and the other. This is how it acts on the other.

But in simple substances, the influence of a monad, for example, is purely ideal: it only has an effect through the intervention of God. In the ideas of God, the action of one monad is linked to the action of another, and there is a reason for the action of all: it is his understanding that forms their mutual dependence.

What is active and passive [79] in these creatures is reciprocal. God comparing two simple substances would perceive in both the reason obligating one to the other. One is active under one aspect and passive under another aspect: active in how it seems to realize what happens in what proceeds from it, passive in how it seems to realize what happens from what it proceeds.

However, as there is an infinity of combinations and possible worlds in the ideas of God, and as only one of these worlds can exist, a certain sufficient reason must come from his choice. Now this reason can only possess a different degree of perfection, from which it follows that the world which is, is the most perfect. God has chosen it in his wisdom, known it in his goodness, produced it in the plenitude of his power [80]. This is how Leibniz has come to his system of optimism.

For this correspondence of one created thing to another, and of each to all, it is known that there would be, in each simple substance, relationships according to which, with an intelligence proportionate to all, given one monad, the entire universe would be. A monad is thus a type of mirror representative of all beings and all phenomena. This idea that tiny minds have taken for a vision, is that of a man of genius: to get a sense of it, there is only to relate of his principle of chaining and his principle of dissimilitude.

If a city is considered under different views, a difference is seen; it is a multiplication of optics. Thus, the multitude of simple substances is so great it would be believed that there is an infinity of different universes, but these are only scenographic images of a single one considered under different aspects [81] of each monad. That is the source of truth, order, economy, and the greatest possible perfection, and this hypothesis is the only one that responds to the grandeur, wisdom and magnificence of God. [82]

Things cannot therefore be other than what they are, God having produced the monad for the whole, the whole for the monad that represents it, not perfectly, but in a confused manner; not for itself, but for God, without whom it would itself be God [83].

The monad is limited, not in these relationships, but in its knowledge. Everything tends toward the same infinite purpose. Everything has sufficient reasons for this infinity in it, but with limits and different degrees of perceptions. And what we say of simples, is necessary to understand of compounds.

Everything being replete, all beings connected, all movement being transmitted with more or less energy by reason at a distance, every being receiving in itself an impression of what happens everywhere it has perception, and God who sees all, can read in a single being what happens to the whole, what happened and what will happen, and he would even be the farthest distance from the monad. Weaknesses would not be executed upon it, and it is finite, besides.

The soul can see in itself only what is distinct; it cannot therefore exist in all perfections, because they are diverse and infinite.

Although the soul or the entire created monad would be representative of the universe, it is much more representative of the body to which it is attached, for which it is the entelechy.

Now the body, by its connection to the whole, represents the whole; the soul by its connection to the body and to the whole also represents it.

The body and the monad, its entelechy, constitute what we call the living being [84] ; the body and the monad, its soul, constitute the animal.

The body of a being, whether animal, or living being, is always organic - because what is organization? [85] An assemblage forming one whole relative to another. From this it follows that the parts are all representative of universality: the monad by its perceptions, the body by its form and its movements or diverse states.

An organic body of a living being is a type of divine machine, infinitely surpassing all artificial automata [86]. Who can keep the great Worker from producing these machines? Is matter not divisible to infinity? Is it not even actually divided to infinity?

Now this divine machine representing the whole, cannot be other than it is.

There is therefore, to speak with rigor, within the smallest portion of matter, a world of living creatures, animals, entelechies, souls, etc.

There is not therefore within the universe anything useless, sterile, nor dead; no chaos, no actual confusion.

Each body has a dominant entelechy. It is the soul in the animal, but this body has members full of other living beings, of plants, of animals, etc. and each of these has an entelechy with its dominant soul.

All bodies are in vicissitudes; some parts continually escape them, others enter them.

The soul does not change. The body changes little by little. There are metamorphosis, but no metempsychosis [87]. There are no souls without bodies. [88]

Consequently, there is neither generation, nor perfect death. All is reduced to developments and successive perishing.

Since it is demonstrated that putrefaction does not engender any organic body, it follows that the organic body existed at conception, and that the soul occupied this preexistent body, and that the animal was and has only appeared under another form. [89]

I would call spermatics, animals that succeed by way of conception to a considerable grandeur. Others are born, grow, are multiplied, and are destroyed, which do not pass under successive forms,

Great animals hardly have any other strength: they are only made visible on the scene. The number of those who change theater is small.

If naturally an animal does not begin, naturally it does not end [90].

The soul, mirror of an indestructible world, is not destroyed. The same animal loses its coverings, and takes others, but throughout these metamorphosis, something of it always remains.

One deduces from these principles the union, or rather, the meeting of the soul and an organic body. The soul has its laws to follow; the body, its own. If they are united, it is by the force of pre-established harmony between all substances, of which there is not one alone that would not be representative of the universe.

Souls act according to the laws of final causes, by appetites, by means and by ends; the body, according to the laws of efficient causes or motors. And there are, so to speak, two realms coordinated between them, one efficient causes, the other, final causes.

Descartes has known the impossibility that the soul should give some force or movement to the body, because the quantity of force always remains the same in nature. However, he believed that the soul could change the direction of bodies. This was a continuance of ignorance in which it was, in its time, based upon a law of nature which desired to preserve the same total direction in matter. With this knowledge moreover, and the step he had already taken, he would infallibly arrive at the system of preestablished harmony. According to this system, the body acts, as if impossibly there was no soul, and the soul, as if impossibly there was no body, and both, as if they influenced one another. [91] It is incredible how two mechanical laws, geometrically demonstrated, one on the sum of movement within nature, the other on the direction of parts of matter, have had an effect on the system of union of the soul with the body. I would willingly ask if these physico-mathematical speculations and abstractions, applied to intellectual things, do not obscure in place of illuminating, and do not rather shake the distinction of two substances of which they do not explain the commerce. Besides, what mass of other difficulties do not arise from the Leibnizian system, on nature and grace, on the rights of God and on the actions of men, on the will, the liberty, good and evil, present and future chastisements! etc.

God created the soul in the beginning, in a manner that it represents and produces in itself everything which is executed by the body, and the body, in a manner that it executes everything that the soul represents and wants.

The soul produces its perceptions and its appetites, the body, its movements, and the action of one of these substances conspires with the action of the other, in consequence of the concert that God has ordered between them in the formation of the world.

A preceding perception is the cause of a following perception in the soul. A movement analogous to the first perception of the soul is the cause of a second movement analogous to the second perception of the soul. One must agree that it is difficult to see how, in the middle of this double change, the liberty of man is conserved. The Leibnizians claim that he has none; One should believe whomever he can [92].

The soul and the animal have the same origin as the world, and will only end with the world. The spermatic souls of reasonable animals pass from the state of the sensible soul [93] to this more perfect, reasonable soul.

Souls in general are mirrors of the universe, representative images of things; the soul of man is moreover, a representative mirror, an image of its Creator. [94]

All minds ( esprits ) together form the city of God, the most perfect government of everything under the most perfect monarchy.

This city, this monarchy, is the world in the natural world. There is also the same pre-established harmony [95] between the physical realm of nature and the ethical realm of grace, that is to say between man and God, considered either as the author of a great machine, or as a sovereign of the city of minds ( esprits ).

Through consequence of this hypothesis, things lead to grace by means of nature. This world will be destroyed and repaired by natural means, and punishment and chastisement of spirits will take place without the cessation of harmony. The last event will be its complement.

The architect God of the universe will satisfy the legislator God, and guilt will be punished and virtues rewarded in the order of justice and mechanism. [96]

We therefore have nothing better to do than flee evil and follow good, convinced that we can approve of what happens in physics and ethics if it were only given to us to accept everything.

III. Principles of Natural Theology of Leibniz. [97] In what consists the total power of God, other than in how everything depends on him, and he depends on nothing. [98]God is independent, and in his existence and actions.

In his existence, because he is necessary and eternal [99].

In his actions naturally and ethically: naturally, because he is free [100]; ethically, because no one is superior [101].

Everything depends on God, possibles and existants [102].

Possibles have their reality in his existence. If he did not exist, nothing would be possible. Possibles are for all eternity in his ideas [103].

All existants depend on God, and in their existence and actions: in their existence, because he has freely created them and has even preserved them [104]; in their actions, because he makes them concur, as the least good they have comes from him [105].

The concourse of God is either ordinate or special [106].

God makes everything, knows everything, all possibles, all existents; all existents in this world, all possibles in possible worlds. [107]

The science of past, present, and future existants is called the science of vision . It does not differ from the science of simple intelligence of this world, alone considered possible. If it is only seen to be possible at the same time to God, he sees it also before it is created.

The science of simple intelligence taken in a stricter sense, relative to necessary and possible truths, is called science moyenne , relative to possible and contingent truths, and called science of vision , relative to contingent and current truths. [108]

If knowledge of truth constitutes wisdom, desire for good constitutes kindness. The perfection of the understanding depends on the one, the perfection of will depends on the other. [109]

The nature of the will presupposes liberty and liberty presupposes spontaneity and deliberation, conditions under which there is necessity. [110]

There are two necessities: metaphysics, which implies the impossibility of acting, ethics, which implies a disadvantage to acting rather than not. God has never had the ability to be deceived by a choice. His liberty is only more perfect [111]. There were as many possible orders of things different from those he has chosen. Let us applaud his wisdom and goodness, and put nothing against his liberty [112].

Those who claim that what “is” is only possible are deceived. [113]

The will is antecedent or consequent. [114] By antecedent, God desires that everything would be good, and that there should be nothing evil; by consequent, that there should be a good which is, and an evil which is, because it could not be otherwise [115].

The antecedent will does not have its full effect; the consequent will does. [116]

The will of God is yet divided into the productive and permissive. He produces these acts; he permits ours. [117]

Good and evil can be considered under three points of view: metaphysical, physical, and moral. The metaphysical is relative to perfection and to imperfection of non-intelligent things [118]; the physical to conveniences and inconveniences of intelligent things [119]; the moral, to their actions of virtue or vice [120].

In none of these cases is real evil not the object of the productive will of God. The permissive will is in this evil. The good always arises, even when he permits evil. [121]

The providence of God is visible in all effects of this universe. He has only suitably pronounced a decree, that everything should be as it is. [122]

The decree of God is irrevocable, because he has seen the whole before carrying it out [123]. Our prayers and our labors have entered in his plan, and his plan has been the best possible [124].

We submit ourselves therefore to events, and as annoying as they are, we don’t blame his work [125]. We serve him, obey him, love him and put all our confidence in his goodness [126].

His intelligence united to his goodness constitutes his justice [127]. There is good and evil in this world, and there will be in the other. For so few who are chosen, the difficulty of misfortune will not be comparable to the reward of well-being. [128]

No objections to good and bad ethics are taken, which are not resolved by the preceding principles. [129]

I do not think that one can dispense with the belief that preexistent souls have been infected in our first father.

The contagion that we have contracted has left us still like the rest of our celestial origin, reason and liberty: reason, which we can perfect; liberty, which is exempt from necessity and co-action.

The futurition of things, the preordination of events, the foreknowledge of God, do not touch our liberty.

IV. Exposition of the principles that Leibniz opposed to Clarke in their dispute  [130]. In the works of God, force is always equally conserved. It passes among matter, according to the laws of nature and the best preestablished order. [131]

If God produces a miracle, it is from grace and not an effect of nature. It is not through mathematics, but through metaphysics that we must have recourse against impiety. [132]

The principle of contradiction is the foundation of all mathematical truth; it is by that of sufficient reason that one passes from mathematics to physics. The more matter there is in the universe, the more God has been able to exercise his wisdom and his power [133]. The void has no sufficient reason. [134]

If God knows everything, it is not only through his presence in the whole, but even more by his operation. He preserves beings by the same action that he has produced them, and all that is perfect in them. [135]

God has foreseen everything [136], and if creatures have a continual need of his help, it is neither to correct, nor to ameliorate the universe. [137]

Those who take space for an absolute being, are impeded by great difficulties; they admit an eternal, infinite being who is not God, because space has parts, and God does not. [138]

Space and time are only relations. Space is the order of coexistence; time, the order of successions. [139]

What is supernatural surpasses the forces of every creature; it’s a miracle. A will without motive is a chimera, contrary to the nature of will and wisdom of God. [140]

The soul has no action on the body; these two beings conspire as a consequence of the laws of pre-established harmony. [141]

Only God can add to the forces of nature, and this action is miraculous and supernatural. [142]

The images that have immediately affected the soul are in it, but it is coordinated with action of the body. [143]

The presence of the soul within the body is only imperfect. [144]

Those who believe that active and living forces suffer from diminution in the universe, understand neither the primitive laws of nature, nor the beauty of the divine work. [145]

There are some miracles that angels can control, others which are in the power of God alone, like annihilation and creation. [146]

What is necessary is essentially so, and what is contingent owes its existence to a superior being who is the sufficient reason of things. [147]

Motives incline, but do not force. The conduct of contingents is infallible, but unnecessary. [148]

The will does not always follow a decision of the understanding; it takes time for an examination to mature.

Quantity does not have fewer relative things than absolute things. Therefore, although time and space should be relations, they are not less measurable ( appréciable ). [149]

There is no substance created absolutely, without matter. Even angels are attached to it. [150]

Space and matter are only one. There is no space where there is no matter. [151]

Space and matter share the same difference as time and movement: they are never separated, although different. [152]

Matter is only eternal and necessary in the false supposition of the necessity and eternity of space. [153]

The principle of indiscernibles reverses the hypothesis of atoms and similar bodies. [154]

One cannot deduce duration from extension. [155]

If the universe is perfecting or destroying itself, it has begun. [156]

The universe may have had a beginning, and not have an end. Still, there are limits. [157]

The world will not be withdrawn, with the total power of God, by his eternity [158]. We must go back to the monad to find the cause of universal harmony [159]. It is by this harmony that one links a consequent state to an antecedent one. Every being who flees final causes is free, although it acts in concert with a being subjected, without knowledge, to efficient causes. [160]

If the universality of bodies grows by a new force, it is by a miracle, because this growth happens in place, without the chance of diminution in another [161]. If there were no creatures, there would be neither time nor space, and the eternity and the immensity of God would cease. [162]

Those who will deny the principle of sufficient reason will be reduced to absurdity. [163]

V. Principles of Natural Law, according to Leibniz . [164] Law is strength of moral power; duty, a necessity of the same type. One understands by moral what he equates after a good man, to natural. [165] A good man is he who loves everyone similarly, as much as reason permits. Justice, or this virtue that determines sentiment, which the Greeks have designated under the name of philanthropy, is the charity of the wise. [166] Charity is a universal benevolence, and benevolence an habit of love. To love is to rejoice in the goodness of another or to make his happiness a part of one’s own. If an object is beautiful and sensible at the same time, one loves it through love. Now as there is no one as perfect as God, no one happier, no one more powerful, no one so wise, there is no love superior to divine love. If we are wise, that is to say, if we love God, we participate in his good will and it will be ours.

Wisdom is no other thing than the science of good will, the source of natural law, of which there are three degrees: strict law in commutative justice, equity, or more rigorously, charity in distributive justice, and piety or probity in universal justice. From these degrees arise precepts for not offending anyone, rendering to each what belongs to him, of good living.

It is a principle of strict law that we must not offend anyone; in the end, that no action is made against us in the city, no resentment against us outside of the city [167]. From these principles arises commutative justice.

The degree above strict law can be called equity — or better — charity, a virtue that does not rigorously hold itself to strict law, but in consequence of contracted obligations that impede those who could be interested to exercise against us an action that constrains us [168].

If the final degree is not to offend anyone, an intermediary degree is to serve all, but to the extent that each are invited and dignified, because it is not permitted to favor everyone similarly, nor everyone equally. [169]

This constitutes distributive justice and is the basis for the principle of law, which orders and gives to each what is due him [170].

It is here that we must recall political laws. These laws are instituted in the republic for the good will of subjects; they support those who have only the law, when they require of others that it were just, as they should; it is for them to weigh the merit. From these laws, privileges, chastisements and rewards arise. It follows that equity keeps within the affairs of strict law and that it does not lose sight of natural equality, as in the case where it is constrained by the reason of greater good. What is called the acceptance of people, could have taken place in the distribution of public goods or of our goods, but not in the exchange of the goods of others. [171]

The first degree of law or justice is honesty or piety. Strict law guarantees misery and evil. The degree above strict law tends toward good will, but to this goodwill that he has permitted us to obtain in the world, without carrying our gazes beyond [172]. But if a universal demonstration is proposed, that all which is honest is useful, and that all that is dishonest is harmful, it is necessary to show by a most elevated principle, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of a God, creator of the world, in a manner that we’re all considered as living beings in a very perfect city, and under a sovereign so wise that he cannot be deceived, so powerful that we cannot in some possible way escape his authority, as good as good will would be to obey him [173].

It is by his power and his providence admitted by men that what is only law becomes fact, that no one is offended or wounded except by himself, that no good action exists without sure reward, no ill will without certain chastisement [174], because nothing is neglected by the universal sovereign in this republic of the world.

There is under this point of view, a universal justice which proscribes the abuse of the things, which belongs to us by natural law, which keeps our hand in misfortune, which impedes a great number of bad actions, and which commands the least number of goods. It is the submission to a great monarch, to him who has made us, and to whom we owe ourselves. It is the fear to harm, by universal harmony.

It is the same consideration or belief which provides the force of the principle of law, that it is necessary to live well, this is to say, honestly and piously. [175]

Among the eternal laws of right, reason and nature, of which the origin is divine, are those who voluntarily belong to morals, and only by the authority of a superior.

That is the origin of civil law. This law keeps its force by those who hold the power in hand in the republic; outside the republic, those who have the same power as it. It is the voluntary and tacit consent of the common people ( peuples ), on which is founded the law of the people ( gens ).

This law is not the same for all the common people and for all times, at least this is not necessary.

The basis of social law is in the enclosure of the law of nature.

The law of the people protects those who must guard public liberty, who are not subject to the power of another, who can support troops, have men in arms, and create treaties, although this person would be linked to a superior by these obligations, as he owes faith and homage, and as he should vow obedience. From this come notions of potentate and sovereign.

Sovereignty does not exclude its superior authority within the republic. If the former is sovereign, it enjoys a power and liberty such that it is authorized to intervene in affairs of nations by its arms, and assist in their treaties.

It consists of civil power in free republics, as in nature. It is what has will.

If, in the republic, fundamental laws have not been provided for what or who has will, seeking pleasure from law, there is instead vice.

Acts are dispositions which keep their efficacy of law, or we must look at them as means of fact.

Acts which keep their efficacy of law are either judiciary or intrajudiciary. Either one alone intervenes, or several; one alone, as in wills; several as in agreements.

This is the succinct analysis of the philosophy of Leibniz; we treat more at length some of these principle points in different articles of this dictionary. See Optimism, Sufficient Reason, Monads, Indiscernible, Preestablished Harmony, Etc.

No man has perhaps ever read as much, studied as much, meditated more, written more than Leibniz. No body of works exists for him though. It is surprising that Germany — to which this man alone has given as much honor as Plato, Aristotle, and Archimedes combined have given to Greece — has still not collected what has left his pen. What he has composed on the world, God, nature, on the soul includes the most sublime eloquence. If these ideas had been executed with all the color of Plato, the philosopher of Leipzig would forfeit nothing to the philosopher of Athens.

One may complain — and with some reason perhaps — that we have not done justice to this philosopher to the degree he merits. Now is the time to correct this mistake if we have committed it, and we do so with pleasure. [176] We have never considered disheartening great men: we are too jealous of the honor of the human species. Then we would have beautifully said, their works, transmitted to posterity, would be left in their favor — and against us. They would not be seen as less great, and we would be found quite tiny.

Translator's Notes

1. A variation is found in the Assezat-Tourneux edition of 1798, tome XV, p. 37: “...après le Créateur universel, qu’on ne peut même admettre en bonne philosophie, c’est l’homme.” [...following the universal Creator, it is not even admitted that in intelligent philosophy, man takes his place.] See Jacques Proust, Diderot et L’Encyclopédie , (Paris, Albin Michel, 1995) p. 543.

2. From this point on, Diderot borrows heavily from Bernard le Bovier Fontenelle, “Eloge de Leibniz”, Eloges des academicians de l’Académie Royale des sciences. Tome II. Oeuvres Diverses , (The Hague, Antoine van Dole, 1716). His “Ce dernier,” [(literally)This last,] which could precede Fontenelle’s “(Godfroy Guillaume) Leibniz nâquit à Leipsic...” explicitly translated, more fully displays a sense of an encyclopedic redactor, Diderot, as he segues from his first paragraph into the Fontenelle source itself. With the Fontenelle source prominent and as Diderot writes around it, he is dually author and Barthean scriptor.

3. Fontenelle uses “vivacitie”. Ibid., p. 9.

4. “il en alla chercher” [he went out and got/fetched some] is a truncation of Fontenelle’s indication that Leibniz went looking far away for help, even outside of Leipzig. Ibid., p. 10.

5. While Fontenelle uses the imperfect tense, Diderot uses the simple past tense, as if Leibniz’s “du goût & du talent” [taste and talent] did not continue over time, although at one time were meritorious. Ibid., p. 10.

6. Diderot uses “sont rempli de choses” whereas Fontenelle uses “est pleine de choses” [is full of things]. Ibid., p.11.

7. Fontenelle indicates the practice associated with going undercover as Ulicorius, a writing of a treatise that in turn provides the proof mentioned here. Ibid., p. 12.

8. Leibnitz under the pseudonym of Caesarinus Furstenerius.

9. Fontenelle more clearly implies that this Lutheran is Leibniz. Fontenelle, p. 14.

10. Fontenelle paints a picture of Leibniz almost having regret that the work has such a particular focus, i.e. , ”On sent qu’il se tient presque à regret dans les détails où son sujet l’enchaine, & que son esprit prend son vol des qu’il le peut, & s’eleve aux vues generales.” [We feel that he almost comes to regret the details chained together by his subject, and that his mind takes its flight where it can and raises itself to general views.] Ibid., p.14.

11. In Principes philosophiques sur la matière et le mouvement , Diderot begins to refute the supposition that matter is indifferent to movement and to rest by remarking, “Tout est dans un repos relatif en un vaisseau battu par la tempête.” [Everything is in relative rest in a vessel beaten by the storm.] Dieckmann, Proust, Varloot eds. Oeuvres Completes , vol 17, (Paris, Hermann, 1987), p. 13. If we substitute “completely relative rest” for “ships destroyed by the storm” in the current paragraph, we see that Anaxagoras the atheist escapes not only being thrown to the sea, but also the philosophical danger of assuming that matter is sometimes devoid of motion. Leibniz’s active force corresponds to the opposite of completely relative rest as well as avoids, with this notion, a heresy to Diderotean atheists.

12. The material consists of dusty volumes of original authors that Leibniz brings to light. Fontenelle, p. 17.

13. This is a quite paradoxical moment in the article, as Diderot does not act as scriptor for the plan of the Scriptorium , in effect explicitly concealing it in reference to the Eloge , the one point where Fontenelle would deviate from more commonly known facts of Leibniz’s life and work.

14. Both Alsted and Leibniz wish to “rapprocher les différentes sciences, & de marquer les lignes de communication qu’elles ont entr’elles” [relate the different sciences and to mark the lines of communication between them], but it is Alsted to whom Diderot associates this action in contrast to Fontenelle who writes, “Il savoit déja reprocher les differentes Sciences, & tirer des lignes de communication des unes aux autres.” [He (Leibniz) already knew to relate the different sciences, and to draw the lines of communication between them.]. Fontenelle, p. 22.

15. Eloge reads “Les différentes matières du Droit sont effectivement dans une grande confusion, mais sa tête en les recevant les avoit arrangées, elles s’étoient refonduës dans cet excellent Moule, & elles auroient beaucoup gagné à reapparoître sous la forme qu’elles y avoient prise.” [The different matters of law are essentially in great confusion, but his head, in receiving them and arranging them, they were reestablished in this excellent Mold, and they gained much in reappearing under the form they had taken there.] Ibid., p. 22.

16. See the “Letters to Arnauld” in the Discourse on Metaphysics , trans. George Montgomery, (La Salle, Open Court, 1995). In “Letters”, Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels asks Leibniz, “...do you believe that Christ would have so constituted his Church that what one thought white another might think black, and that he would have the ecclesiastical ministry in such a contradictory fashion that we should be in debate about it with the Protestants, we thinking one thing and you thinking another?” p. 210.

17. A letter accompanying the tract of Nizolius. Fontenelle, p. 26.

18. “Il va même jusqu’à dire qu’il approuve plus des choses dans ses ouvrages que dans ceux de Descartes” [He even went so far as to say that he approved of a few things in his (Aristotle’s) works more than those of Descartes].Fontenelle , p. 26.

19. An examination of the Fontenelle source indicates that Diderot changes “all phenomena” to “phenomena of nature”, in keeping with his transformist notion of nature as one being from which all beings are derived, as in his Éléments de Physiologie, “La nature n’a fait qu’un très petit nombre d’ êtres qu’elle a varies à l’infini, peut-être qu’un seul par la combinaison, mixtion, dissolution duquel tous les autres ont été formés.” [Nature has only made a very small number of beings that it varies to infinity, perhaps one alone by the combination, mixture, dissolution from which all others have been formed.] DPV, vol. 17, p. 295.

20. The conjunction, “but” substituted for “and” conveys, more clearly, these two stages in the development of Leibniz’s physics as he moves away from regarding matter as simple extension (not to mention as indifferent to movement and rest) to a physics necessarily linked to a metaphysics and the concept of substantial beings.

21. “ A momentary reason, if only free from recollection because it cannot simultaneously maintain, beyond the moment, its own conatus and opposite, lacking consequently, memory and feeling not what it does and endures, does not think.” (My Latin translation has been augmented by the French rendering in DPV, vol. 7, p. 683, note 2).

22. Leibniz’s notion, eclipsed in the abridgement, Fontenelle shows, stems more particularly from a philosophy of optics and a belief in final causes producing the shortest angle of incidence and refraction, “Il croyoit que les causes finales pouvoient quelquefois être employees; par example, que le rapport des Sinus d’incidence & de refraction étoit constant, parce que Dieu vouloit qu’un Rayon qui doit se détourner, allât d’un point à un autre par deux chemins, qui pris ensemble, lui fissent employer moins de temps que tous les autres chemins possibles, ce qui est plus conforme à la souveraine Sagesse.” [He believed final causes could sometimes be employed, for example, as the Sinus of incidence and refraction were constant, because God wanted that a Ray which deviates, should have gone from one point to another by two paths which, taken together, have him employ less time than all other possible paths, what conforms the most to his sovereign Wisdom.]. Fontenelle, p. 29.

23. The reader will note the irony in Diderot’s full awareness of his dependence on Fontenelle’s Eloge .

24. “He read the tract De horologio ... with the solicitation of M. Bernoulli”. Leibniz discusses Huygens’s pendulum experiment in the horologium and the case in which two pendulums align their phases after colliding as proof of the perfect correspondence of substances in the notion of preestablished harmony, in the second and third clarifications of the Systeme nouveau de la nature . Even more interesting is that in the third clarification of the Systeme nouveau , Leibniz follows the discussion of Huygens with references to his collaboration with Bernoulli in the development of the differential calculus, thereby echoing the order of both Fontenelle’s Eloge and Diderot’s rewriting. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances et autres texts, 1690-1703 , (Paris, GF-Flammarion, 1994).

25. “Leibniz was entirely new to the high geometry... Newton did not remain less silent...” Diderot is able to script Fontenelle’s text here so that it seems to champion Leibniz as the inventor of the calculus rather than Newton, contrary to Fontenelle’s argument in Eloge . This is created by Diderot’s inclusion of the phrase on p.36 of Eloge , “having submitted to analysis, those things never submitted,” while he then adds the line about Newton not remaining less silent, “like God in the middle of his glory”, in turn suggesting the ubiquity of the Newtonian paradigm that, with 18 ^th century proto-biology, Diderot intends to greatly contest.

26. A variation is found in the Assezat-Tourneux edition of 1798, Tome XV, p. 448, and in La Philosophie ancienne et moderne, in l’Encyclopedie methodique (1791), which reads, “une réponse ou plutôt une confirmation des difficultés” [a response, or rather, a confirmation of difficulties]. See Proust, p. 543.

27. Leibniz has the joy of seeing the king again, as Fontenelle indicates. p. 53.

28. The French is “& il cessa de vivre” rather than “& il mourut”.

29. Sections I-V are taken from Jacob Brucker’s Historia Critica Philosophae a mundi incunabulis ad nostram usque actatem deducta, vol. IV (Lausanne, Weidemanni et Reickii, 1766), in turn taken from five short works of Leibniz. For a demonstration of Diderot’s role in giving 18 ^th Century France translations from Brucker’s Latin, and to understand the “meta-theoretic” role of translation in the convergence of Diderot’s materialism and Leibniz’s metaphysics, see Claire Fauvergue, “Diderot traducteur de Leibniz”, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie, (vol.36, avril, 2004). Fauvergue also makes a good case for comparing Diderot’s translations to other French translations/orignal works, and thus, in the spirit of a “mise en abyme” of translators abridging and translating the theorist of whom they study, differences will be noted in subsequent footnotes. Section I comes from Leibniz’s Méditations sur la connaissance, la vérité et les idées , 1684 in Paul Janet ed., Oeuvres Philosophiques de Leibniz (Paris, Librarie Ladrange, 1866), from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et ideis , 1684, in Acta Eruditorum , Leipzig, novembre 1684.

30. Preceding the introduction of the first axiom, “knowledge is either clear or obscure”, Leibniz introduces his subject in reference to the then-current controversies over ideas, true and false, which Descartes himself has not satisfactorily explained, and which are of the greatest importance for “the knowledge of truth”. To distinguish, in a few words, “between our ideas and our knowledge” is Leibniz’s stated task. Leibniz, Méditations, p. 514.

31. Compare Diderot’s “Si la connoissance est en même tems adequate & intuitive, elle est très-parfaite” to Leibniz’s “et si elle est tout à la fois symbolique et intuitive, elle est parfaite en tout point.” [and if it is always symbolic and intuitive, it is perfect in every way.]. Ibid. , p. 514.

32. Leibniz remarks, “Une notion est obscure quand... dans celui où je considérais quelque terme mal défini dans l’école, tel que l’entéléchie d’ Aristote, ou la cause en tant qu’elle est commune à la matière ou à la forme efficiente ou finale, et d’autres expressions semblables dont nous n’avons aucune definition certaine.” [A notion is obscure when... we consider a term poorly defined by its school, such as the entelechy or cause of Aristotle, as much as it is common to matter or to efficient or final form and other similar expressions of which we have no certain definition.]. Ibid. , p. 514.

33. Compare “caracteres” to Leibniz’s “marques”. Ibid. , p. 514.

34. “Caracteres” is used here as well, “Les caracteres qui distinguent ces choses ne font pas énonciables.”, but Leibniz’s text reads, “...et que nous les distinguons les unes des autres, par le simple témoignage des sens et non par les signes du language...” [...and as we distinguish them all by simple witness of sense and not by the signs of language...]. Ibid. , p. 514.

35. Diderot throughout “Leibnizianism” expands Leibniz’s notion of “analysis” into more qualitatively chemical actions. Leibniz remarks, “et cependant il est certain que les notions de ces qualities sont composées, et peuvent s’analyser , puisqu’elles ont leurs causes.” [and however it is certain that the notions of these qualities are composite, and can be analysed , since they have their causes.] (my emphasis). Leibniz, Méditations, p. 515.

36. Given Diderot’s later Salons and his interest in pictorial representation, this strictly informative abridgement seems to necessitate an omission of Leibniz’s allusion to the judgment of taste of the painter who evaluates negatively without knowing what to desire, “ je ne sais quoi à desirer ” in an alternative work. Ibid. , p. 515.

37. Again, compare to “marques”. Ibid. , p. 5145

38. Compare to “...ou qu’elle n’est la marque que d’elle-même, c’est-à-dire quand elle est irréductible, et ne se comprend que par elle- meme, et par consequent ne possède pas les marques voulues.” [...or as it is only the mark itself, that is to say, when it is irreducible and is only understood by itself, and consequently does not posses its intended marks.]. Ibid. , p. 515.

39. Another expansion of Leibniz’s nominal use of the notion of analysis, “...ou que l’analyse en est complete, la notion est adequate.” [...or as the analysis is indeed complete, the notion is adequate.]. Ibid. , p. 515.

40. Diderot omits Leibniz’s geometry example: “...ainsi quand je pense un chiliogone ou un polygone de mille côtés, je ne considère pas toujours la nature du côté de l’égalité, et du nombre mille (ou du cube de dix);” [thus, when I think of a kilogon, or polygon with a thousand sides, I do not always consider the nature of the side of equality, and of the number thousand (or the cube of ten);]. Ibid. , p. 515.

41. Compare Diderot’s “lorsqu’il y a quelques termes dont l’explication n’a point été faite, mais supposée...” to, “Aussi arrive-t-il souvent que nous nous figurons avoir dans l’esprit les idées des choses, en supposant à tort que nous nous sommes déja expliqué les termes dont nous nous servons.” [It also happens that we figure in our minds ideas of things, in supposing wrongly that we have already explained to ourselves terms that we’ve served ourselves.]. Ibid. , p. 516.

42. Diderot omits Leibniz’s remarks here on proving the existence of God, that existence results from the notion, “Si Dieu est possible, il s’ensuit qu’il existe.” Leibniz attempts insight through mechanics: “...supposons donc qu’une roué tourne du mouvement le plus rapide, qui ne voit qu’un rayon prolonge se mouvra plus vite à son extrémité qu’au point de la circonférence: donc ce mouvement n’est pas le plus rapide, ce qui est contre l’hypothese.... car nous comprenons bien ce que nous disons, et cependant nous ne pouvons avoir une idée of choses impossibles. Ainsi il ne nous suffit pas d’avoir la pensée d’un être très-parfait, pour assurer que nous en avons l’idée, et dans la demonstration que nous venons de produire, on doit montrer ou supposer la possibilité d’un être très-parfait, si l’on veut conclure légitimement. Cependant, il est très-vrai, et que nous avons une idée de Dieu, et qu’un être très-parfait est possible, et même nécessaire...” [...suppose a wheel turns from the most rapid movement, seeing only that an extended ray will move more quickly at its edge than at a point on its circumference: therefore, this movement is not more rapid contrary to the hypothesis....because we understand what we say, and still may not have an idea of impossible things. So it is not sufficient for us to have the thought of a very perfect being, to assure us that we have the idea, and in the demonstration that we come to produce, one must show or suppose the possibility of a very perfect being, in order to legitimately conclude. Still, it is very true, as we have the idea of God and as a very perfect being is possible and even necessary...]. Ibid. , pp. 516 – 517.

43. Contrast Diderot’s interrogative form with Leibniz’s “Et c’est ainsi que nous trouvons une difference entre les definitions nominales, qui ne contiennent que les marques de la chose qu’on doit distinguer des autres, et les definitions réelles qui montrent évidemment que la chose est possible...” [ And this is how we find a difference between nominal definitions, which do not contain the marks of a thing that one must distinguish from others, and real definitions, which evidently show that the thing is possible...]. Ibid. , p. 517.

44. Interestingly, Leibniz’s language is more sufficiently steeped in chemical metaphors here: “A priori, quand nous résolvons la notion en ses elements, ou en d’autres notions de la possibilité connue, et que nous savons qu’elle ne renferme rien d’incompatible;” [A priori, when we resolve the notion into these elements , or into other notions of known possibility, and as we know that it does not disguise any incompatibility ;](my emphasis). Ibid. , p. 517.

45. Leibniz’s remark here, that “est-il possible que les hommes construisent jamais une analyse parfaite de notions, ou qu’ils réduisent leurs pensées jusqu’aux premiers possibles, jusqu’aux notions irréductibles, ou ce qui revient au même, jusqu’aux attributes absolus de Dieu, c’est-à-dire aux causes premières et à la dernière raison des choses, c’est ce que je n’oserais decider actuellement.” [it is possible that men never construct a perfect analysis of notions, or that they reduce their thoughts to initial possibles, irreducible notions, or what amounts to the same, to the absolute attributes of God, that is to say to first causes and the final reason of things, that I do not actually dare to decide], could possibly be put into use by Diderot to continue the project of Pensées sur l’interpretation de la nature along the lines of Diderot’s general critique of abstract mathematics, for Leibniz continues, “Nous nous contentions le plus souvent d’apprendre de l’expérience la réalité de certaines notions, qui nous servent ensuite à en composer d’autres à l’exemple de la nature.” [We content ourselves with learning from experience the reality of certain notions, which then serve to compose them from others through the example of nature.]. Leibniz, Méditations, pp. 517-18.

46. Compare to “Du reste il ne faut point dans l’exposition de la vérité rejeter comme critères les règles de la logique ordinaire dont les géomètres font usage, et qui consistent à n’admettre rien comme certain qui ne soit prouvé par une experience exacte ou une demonstration solide.” [It remains unnecessary in the exposition of truth to reject as criteria the rules of ordinary logic of which geometers make use, and which consists in admitting nothing as certain that would not be proven by an exact experiment or solid demonstration.]. Ibid. , p. 518.

47. Leibniz adds, “(de syllogismes) disposés dans l’ordre régulier de l’école, comme ceux dont Christianus Herlinus et Conradus Dsaypodius on fait usage pour la demonstration des six premiers livres d’Euclide;”[(of syllogisms) left within the regular order of the school, as those of which Christian Herline and Conrad Dsyapod have made use to demonstrate the first six books of Euclid;]. Ibid. , p. 518.

48. Pascal’s “excellent dissertation sur l’esprit géométrique” [excellent dissertation on the geometric mind] from a “fragment dans le livre remarquable du célèbre Antoine Arnould, sur l’art de bien penser...” [fragment from the remarkable book of the famous Antoine Arnould, on the art of thinking well...]. Ibid. , p. 518.

49. Méditations adds, “De même, quand après avoir mêlé de la poudre jaune et de la poudre bleue, nous percevons und couleur verte, nous ne sentons rien autre chose que le jaune et le bleu mélanges dans leurs parties les plus fines, bien que nous ne le remarquions pas, ou plutôt que nous nous figurions percevoir quelque nouvel être.” [Even after mixing yellow and blue powders, we perceive a green color, we sense no other thing than yellow and blue mixed in their finest parts, as much as we do not notice, or rather that we figure out how to perceive some new being.]. Ibid. , p. 519.

50. Section II includes nearly the entire Principes de la Philosophie (Monadology) of Leibniz. The Latin translation of Principes appeared in 1721, which Diderot is said to have known “en lieu” of what became the Erdmann 1 ^st French edition (1840). “Leibnizianism” significantly deviates from this edition.

51. Leibniz’s French is: “simple, c’est-a-dire, sans parties” [simple, that is to say, without parts]. G. W. Leibniz, Principes de la Nature et de la grace; Monadologie , (Paris, GF-Flammarion, 1996), §1.

52. Compare Diderot’s “aggregat” with the Latin ”aggregatum”. Leibniz, Monadologie . §2.

53. Compare Diderot’s “l’atome réel de la nature” to “les véritables Atomes de la Nature” Ibid., §3.

54. “Leibnizianism” leaves out an important detail of §7, on the impossibility of transposing or conceiving internal movement in a monad, or explaining change in this monad. In particular, the current paragraph ends §7 after omitting, “Les Monades n’ont point de fenêtres, par lesquelles quelque chose y puisse entrer ou sortir.” [Monads have no windows by which something can enter or leave.]. Ibid. , §7.

55. Jacques Proust has remarked how Diderot added “expiditive critiques” in italics to his abridgement of Leibniz’s philosophy to draw the German philosopher’s views more towards materialism. See Proust, p. 290.

56. Leibniz’s “changement est continual” to Diderot’s “vicissitude continuelle”. Leibniz, Monadologie, §10.

57. “...qu’outre le principe du changement il y ait un détail de ce qui change , qui fasse pour ainsi dire la spécification et la variété des substances simples.” [...concerning the principle of change, there should be one detail for what indeed changes , which should provide, it is said, the specification and variety of simple substances.]. Ibid., §12.

58. “...quelque chose change, et quelque chose reste” [... something changes, and something remains]. Ibid. , §13.

59. “...n’est autre chose que ce qu’on appelle la Perception, qu’on doit bien distinguer de l’aperception ou de la conscience, comme il paraîtra dans la suite.” [...is no other thing than what one calls perception, that one must distinguish from apperception or consciousness, as it appears in a series.]. Diderot here leaves out Leibniz’s textual squabble with the Cartesians, a discussion of whether to admit the entelechy or soul into the monad, rather than to only associate the Cartesian equation of the mind or “l’esprit” with the monad, and subsequently admitting the total separation of the soul from the mind. Ibid. , §14.

60. Diderot omits §16, on the multiplicity of the monad due to the variety in which the object is developed by thought. Ibid.

61. Diderot omits Leibniz’s image of the mill ( Le Moulin ). “En feignant, qu’il y ait une machine, dont la structure fasse penser, sentir, avoir perception, on pourra la concevoir agrandie en conservant les mêmes proportions, en sorte qu’on y puisse entrer comme dans un moulin” [In pretending that there should be a machine, of which the structure causes thinking, feeling, having perception, it could be conceived as growing and conserving the same proportions, provided that it can be entered, like a mill]. Ibid. , §17.

62. εχουσι το εντελεζ. Ibid. , §18.

63. αυταρκεια. Ibid. , §18.

64. “Si nous voulons appeler âme tout ce qui a perceptions et appétits dans le sens general que je viens d’expliquer...” [If we wish to call “soul” everything which has perceptions and appetites , in the general sense that I’ve come to explain...]. Ibid. , §19.

65. Ibid. , §23.

66. “L’on voit par là, que si nous n’avions rien de distingué et pour ainsi dire de relevé, et d’un plus haut goût dans nos perceptions, nous serions toujours dans l’étourdissement. Et c’est l’état des Monades toutes nues.” [This shows us that if we have nothing to distinguish, that is to say, nothing on which to depend, nor a higher taste in our perceptions, we will always be in a daze. And this is the state of totally bare Monads.] Ibid. , §24.

67. Most probably, the “cause of sublime perceptions” can be found in Leibniz’s work as perception without knowing: “...pour les faire avoir plus d’efficace par leur union. Il y a quelque chose d’approchant dans l’odeur, dans le gout et dans l’attouchement et peut-être dans quantité d’autres sens, qui nous sont inconnus .“ [...in order to make them have more efficacy by their union. There is something nearing odor, taste, and touch and perhaps a quantity of other senses, which are unknown to us. ] ( my emphasis ). Ibid. , §25.

68. §26. adds: “Par exemple: quand on montre le bâton aux chiens, ils se souviennent de la douleur qu’il leur a causée et crient ou fuient.” [For example, when we show a stick to dogs, they remember the pain it caused them, and cry or flee.]. Ibid.

69. “Les hommes agissent comme les bêtes en tant que les consécutions de leurs perceptions ne se font que par le principe de la mémoire, ressemblant aux médecins empiriques, qui ont un simple pratique sans théorie, et nous ne sommes qu’empiriques dans les trois quarts de nos actions.” [Men act as beasts as much as the consecutions of their perceptions are only made by the principle of memory, similar to empirical doctors with practice but not theory — and we are empiricists in three-quarters of our actions.] Ibid. , §28.

70. “the soul” ( l’âme ) is expanded in the Monadology, a model for the paraphrase in Diderot’s text “et nous fait avoir la Raison et les sciences, en nous élevant à la connaissance de nous-mêmes et de Dieu. Et c’est ce qu’on appelle en nous âme raisonable, ou Esprit .” [(...and makes us have Reason and the sciences, and ) elevates them in us to the knowledge of God and ourselves, which is what one calls the reasonable soul or Esprit .]. Ibid. , §29.

71. Compare Diderot’s momentary nominalization of these two principles to the notion in the Monadology in which the principle of contradiction shows that our reasonings are false when they are surrounded or enveloped by the false “ ce qui en enveloppe ”, and the true is the not false “ vrai ce qui est opposé ou contradictoire au faux ”. Similarly, the principle of sufficient reason the Monadology again expands in the same potential place of nominalization. Ibid. , §31, §32.

72. Diderot casts this resolution in a chemical sense more than Leibniz, who writes: “Quand une vérité est nécessaire, on en peut trouver la raison par l’analyse, la résolvant en idées et en vérités plus simples, jusqu’ à ce qu’on vienne aux primitives.” [When a truth is necessary, its reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple truths, until we come to primitives.] The text of the Monadology precedes Diderot’s paragraph by mention of two types of truths, reasoning and fact. Necessary truths cannot be opposed, but contingent truths can. Ibid. , §33.

73. Compare Diderot’s “l’enchaînment universel” to “la suite des choses répandues par l’univers des creatures “ [the series of things spread by the universe of creatures]. Ibid. , §36.

74. As Diderot makes his contribution in Leibnizianism by rewriting or scripting, he consciously leaves out Leibniz’s reflexive comment, “Il y a une infinité de figures et de mouvements presents et passés, qui entrent dans la cause efficiente de mon écriture présente, et il y a une infinité des petites inclinations et dispositions de mon âme, présentes et passées” [There is an infinity of shapes and present and past movements, which enter into the efficient cause of my present writing , and there is an infinity of tiny inclinations and dispositions in my soul , present and past] (my emphasis). He also omits the closing phrase of §36, that these tiny inclinations enter into the final cause. Leibniz, Monadologie, §36. See also Denis Diderot Réfutation, suivie de l'ouvrage d'Hélvetius, intitulé L'homme (1700s), section 9, in which Diderot responds to Helvetius’s “Lorsque j’entrevois une vérité inconnue elle ist déja décourverte”, with “L’auteur n’a pas considéré que tout se tient dans l’entendement humain ainsi que dans l’univers, et que l’idee la plus disparate qui semble venir étourdiment croiser ma meditation actuelle a son fil très délié qui la lie soit à l’idée qui m’occupe, soit à quelque phénomène qui se passe au dedans ou au dehors de moi;” [The author has not considered that everything is taken in human understanding as in the universe, and that the most disparate idea which seems to bring fainting, enlarging my current meditation, has quite a disconnected thread, which would link it to the idea which occupies me, whether or not there is some phenomenon which passes inside or outside of me;].

75. Comapare Diderot’s “Dieu est donc, & il suffit” to “il n’y a qu’un Dieu, et ce Dieu suffit.” [there is only one God, and this God is sufficient]. Leibniz, Monadologie, §39.

76. Compare Diderot’s “d’existant & de reel” to “d’existant et d’actuel”. Ibid. , §44.

77. Compare Diderot’s “les contingens” to Leibniz’s “des êtres contingens”, at once seeming possibly to narrow meaning to the sense of the contingent as a group of people in the sense of the former, yet meaning contingent in the sense of sufficient reason. Ibid. , §45.

78. Diderot omits, “Cela n’est veritable que des vérités contingents dont le principe est la convenance ou le choix du meilleur, au lieu que les vérités necessaries dependent uniquement de son entendement et en sont l’object interne.” [This is only veritable with contingent truths, with a principle of convenance or choice of the best in place of necessary truths depending uniquely on its understanding and which are its internal object.]. Ibid. , §46.

79. Diderot uses “d’actif et de passif dans les creatures”, while Leibniz uses, “Et c’est par là, qu’entre les creatures les actions et passions sont mutuelles.” [This is how actions and passions are mutual among creatures.”] (my emphasis). Granted Leibniz follows with a discussion of activity and passivity of attributes or qualities in creatures, where attributes or qualities active in one being reflect those passive in another. Ibid. , §52.

80. Compare to Leibniz’s “Et c’est ce qui est la cause de l’existence du meilleur, que la sagesse fait connaître à Dieu, que sa bonté le fait choisir, et que sa puissance le fait produire.” [And this is the cause of the existence of the best, that wisdom makes known to God, that his will has chosen, and that his power has produced.]. Ibid. , §55.

81. Compare to “points de vue” [points of view]. Ibid. , §57.

82. Leibniz notes here Pierre Bayle’s critique of too much grandeur given to God (in Historical and Critical Dictionary , “Rosarius”) and that Bayle cannot give any reason for the impossibility of the universal harmony. Ibid. , §59.

83. Compare “elle seroit elle-meme Dieu” to “autrement chaque Monade serait une divinité” [otherwise each Monad would be a divnity]. The Monadology expands with “Ce n’est pas dans l’objet, mais dans la modification de la connaissance de l’object, que les Monades sont bornées.” [It is not in the object, but in the modification of the knowledge of the object that Monads are limited]. Ibid. , §60.

84. Compare Diderot’s “l’être vivant” to Leibniz’s “vivant”. Ibid., §63.

85. “car qu’est-ce que l’organisation?” is a characteristically Diderotean interjection.

86. Leibniz describes how machines of the art of man are not destined to a purpose and are not machines after a certain level of resolution, in contrast to machines of nature, which “...sont encore des machines dans leurs moindres parties jusqu’à l’infini” [are still machines in their least parts, to infinity]. Leibniz, Monadologie , §64. See also, System noveau de la nature , p. 70, Leibniz’s discussion of how the moderns confound natural things with artificial things and diminish the majesty of Nature.

87. Leibniz, System nouveau , p. 68.

88. “Dieu seul en est detache entierement.” [God alone is completely detached (from bodies).] Ibid., §72.

89. Diderot omits Leibniz’s claim that “...les corps organiques de la nature ne sont jamais produits d’un chaos ou d’une putrefaction, mais toujours par des semences, dans lesquelles il y avait sans doute quelque préformation...” [...organic bodies of nature are never produced from a chaos or putrefaction, but always by seeds, in which there would be, without a doubt, some preformation...]. Not only does Leibniz remark that the soul within the body is the same animal but he says that the animal is disposed in conception to a “great transformation to become an animal of another species”, a kind of incorporative/incorporating symbiogenesis. Ibid., §74.

90. Leibniz, Systeme nouveau , p. 67, 69.

91. See also, “Éclaircissement du nouveau système de la communication des substances, pour servir de résponse à ce qui en est dit dans le Journal du 12 septembre 1695”, Leibniz, System nouveau , p. 78.

92. In keeping with Diderot’s subtle materialist extensions to Leibniz’s thought, Jacques Proust notes that in this particular “critique expiditive,” Diderot tends towards a fatalism not unrelated to his development of an ethical determinism after 1759. See Proust, pp. 318-319.

93. Compare “âme sensible” to Leibniz’s “âmes sensitives”. Leibniz, Monadologie , §82.

94. Leibniz indicates that souls are living mirrors of the universe of creatures, but that minds ( les esprits ) are yet images of “la Divinité meme, ou de l’Auteur même de la nature, capables de connaître le système de l’univers et d’en imiter quelque chose par des échantillons architectoniques, chaque esprit étant comme une petite divinité dans son déparatement.” [this same Divinity, or this same Author of nature, capable of knowing the system of the universe and imitating something by architectonic samples, each mind being as a tiny divinity in its station.]. Ibid., §83.

95. Compare Diderot’s “Il y a aussi la meme harmonie préétablie entre le regne physique de la nature & le regne moral de la grace...” to Leibniz’s, “Comme nous avons établi ci-dessus une Harmonie parfaite entre deux règnes naturels, l’un des causes efficients, l’autre des finales, nous devons remarquer ici encore un ature harmonie entre the règne physique de la Nature et le règne moral de la Grâce” [As we have established above, a perfect Harmony between two natural realms, the one pertaining to efficient causes, the other to final causes, we must notice here yet another harmony between the physical realm of Nature and the ethical realm of Grace]. Ibid., §87.

96. Diderot omits, “...et que de meme les belles actions s’attireront leurs recompenses par des voies machinales par rapport aux corps, quoique cela ne puisse et ne doive pas arriver toujours sur-le-champ....” [...and as even beautiful actions will draw their rewards by machinal paths by relationship to bodies, although this cannot and must not always happen right away...]. Ibid., §89.

97. Section III is an abridgement of La Cause de Dieu: Plaidée par sa Justice from the Oeuvres de Leibniz, Paris, Charpentier, 1842, tome II, p. 365-388. Note, this text was originally a “petit abrégé méthodique en latin” from Leibniz’s letter to Burnett, October 30, 1710 (note on p. 425, Jacques Brunschwig, ed. Essais de Théodicée , Garnier-Flammarion, 1969).

98. Compare to “L’omnipotence comprend, d’une part, l’indépendance de Dieu par rapport à toutes choses; de l’autre, la dépendance de toutes choses par rapport à lui.” [(His) omnipotence includes, on the one hand, the independence of God in relation to all things; on the other, the dependence of all things in relation to him.]. Leibniz, La Cause de Dieu . §4.

99. Diderot omits, “et, comme on le dit ordinairement, en ce qu’il est par lui-même; il résulte aussi de là qu’il est immense.” [...and, as is ordinarily said, in what he (God) is in himself; It follows from this that he is immense.]. Ibid., §5.

100. Compare “libre” [free] to “parfaitement libre” [perfectly free]. Ibid., §6.

101. Compare to “en ce qu’il est irresponsible (αγυπευθυνοζ), c’est-à-dire qu’il n’a pas de supérieur. [and in that he is irresponsible (αγυπευθυνοζ), that is to say, that he has no superior.]. Ibid., §6.

102. Compare Diderot’s “existans” to Leibniz’s “actuels”. Ibid., §7.

103. Compare “idées” to “idées de l’entendement divin“ [ideas of divine understanding]. Ibid., §8.

104. Diderot omits, “et ce n’est pas sans raison qu’on enseigne que la conservation divine est un creation continuée, comme un rayon qui émane continuellement du soleil; bien que les creatures ne procèdent point d‘essence divine, et n’en soient point des emanations nécessaires.” [and it is not without reason that it is taught that divine creation is continuous, as a ray that emanates continually from the sun, as much as creatures do not proceed from the divine essence, and would not be necessary emanations.]. Ibid., §9.

105. Diderot adds §10 to §9 here. Ibid., §9-10.

106. “(même son concours ordinaire et non miraculeux) est tout à la fois immédiate et spécial” (The concourse of God) [(even his ordinary non-miraculous concourse) is simultaneously immediate and special]. Ibid., §11.

107. Diderot omits §11.5-15 on the special quality of God’s concourse, on God’s wisdom being extended equally to possibles and existents ( actuels ), on the science of possibles as the science of simple intelligence extended to beings and their relations, necessarily or contingently, and on God’s knowledge of infinitely possible worlds amidst the reality of one existent ( actuel ) world. Ibid, §11.5-15.

108. Science moyenne is like moyenne geometrique or moyenne arithmetique in that it looks at how the possible world decreed by God is homologous to an average of the distribution of all past, present and future possibles. Leibniz remarks: “la science de simple intelligence se prenant dans un sens plus restreint, concernera les vérités possibles et contingents; la science moyenne les vérités possibles et contingents; et la science de vision les vérités contingents et actuelles.” [the science of simple intelligence, in a restricted sense will concern necessary and possible truths; science moyenne, possible and contingent truths; the science of vision, contingent and current ( actuel ) truths.] The science of vision has the largest distribution of possibles, which therefore consists of contingent, current ( actuel ) truths; the science of simple intelligence, the narrowest set of necessary truths taken from this distribution of possibles. Ibid., §17.

109. Compare to “Or, de meme que la sagesse ou la connaissance du vrai est la perfection de l’intelligence, de meme la bonté ou la tendance au bien est la perfection de la volonté.” [Now, even as wisdom or knowledge of truth is perfection of intelligence, similarly goodness or the tendency to the good is the perfection of will.]. Ibid., §18.

110. Compare to “A la nature de la volonté appartient essentiellment la liberté, qui consiste en ce que l’action volontaire soit spontanée et délibérée, de manière à exclure la nécessité, qui n’admet pas la deliberation.” [In the nature of the will belongs, essentially, liberty, which consists in voluntary action, whether spontaneous and deliberate, in the manner of excluding necessity, which does not admit deliberation.]. Ibid., § 20.

111. Compare to “Car bien que Dieu ne puisse pas se tromper en choisissant, et que par consequent il choisisse toujours ce qui convient le mieux; cet attribut, loin de s’opposer à sa liberté, ne fait que la render plus parfaite.” [Because, as much as God cannot be deceived in choosing, and as consequently, he chooses always whatever invites the best; this attribute, far from being opposed to his liberty, only renders it more perfect.]. Ibid., § 21.

112. Compare to, “Il ne s’y opposerait que s’il n’y avait qu’un seul objet possible de la volonté, ou s’il n’y avait qu’une seule manière d’être possible des choses; dans ce cas seulement il n’y aurait plus de choix, et l’on ne pourrait louer ni la sagesse ni la bonté de l’agent.” [It is only opposed if there were a single possible object of will, or if there were only a single possible manner of being of things; in this case alone, there would be no more choice, and praise neither for the wisdom nor the good of the agent could be given.]. Ibid., § 21.

113. Compare to “C’est pourquoi l’on se trompe ou du moins l’on s’exprime fort mal quand on dit qu’il n’y a de possibles que les choses qui deviennent actuelles ou que Dieu choisit.” [This is why one is deceived or at least it is expressed very poorly when it is said that only things which become actual or that God chooses are possible.]. Leibniz says this error was made by Diodorus the Stoic in the work of Cicero, made among the Christians, made by Abeilard, Wycliff, and Hobbes. Ibid., § 22.

114. Diderot omits what Leibniz also says, that the will is inclinatory ( inclinatoire ) or decretory ( décrétoire ), less full or absolutlely full, that it does not deliberate before it saves all men, as opposed to damning part of humanity following deliberation. The antecedent and consequent will precede other wills of God, since these other wills presuppose “le fait des créatures” [the fact of creatures]. Thomas and Scot include this division, as the antecedent will has good in itself for a purpose, according to the degree of perfection of each being, and the consequent will contains the final determination of things. Precedent ( préalable ) and final ( finale ) are here substituted for antecedent and consequent. Ibid., § 24.

115. Compare to “Or, la volonté antécédente tend chez Dieu à repousser tout mal, en tant qu’ils sont tels, c’est-a-dire toutes les choses, et toutes les choses mauvaises, à proportion qu’ elles le sont.” [Now the antecedent will tends, in the work of God, to repel all evil, to the extent that they are bad, that is to say, all things and all bad things as they are in proportion to him.]. Ibid., § 26.

116. Compare to “...les volontés antecedents ne sont pas entièrement sans effet, mais qu’elles ont leur efficacité propre; bien que cet effect ne soit pas toujours plein...” [...antecedent wills are not entirely without effect, but they have their own efficacity, as much as this effect would not always be complete.]. Ibid., §27.

117. La Cause de Dieu adds, “Car il est permis quelquefois de laisser faire (c’est-à-dire de ne pas empêcher) certain choses qu’il n’est pas permis de faire, comme les péchés dont nous parlerons bientôt. Et l’object proper de la volonté permissive n’est pas ce qui est permis, mais la permission elle-même.” [Because he has sometimes permitted us to do (that’s to say does not prevent) certain things that he is not permitted to do, like the sins of which we will soon speak. And the object belonging to permissive will is not what is permitted, but permission itself.]. Ibid., §28.

118. La Cause de Dieu adds, “Le Christ a dit que le Père céleste a soin des lis des champs et des oiseaux, et dans Jonas, Dieu veille sur les brutes elles-mêmes.” [Christ has said that the heavenly Father takes care of the lilies of the field and the birds, and in Jonah, God watches over the brutes themselves.]. Ibid., §30.

119. La Cause de Dieu adds “et comprend le mal de peine ” [and includes the evil of pain]. Ibid., §31.

120. La Cause de Dieu adds, “et comprend le mal de coulpe ; et, dans ce sens, le mal physique vient ordinairement du mal moral, bien que ce ne soit pas toujours dans le mêmes sujets; quoique cela paraisse être une aberration, elle se corrige par le bien qui en résulte, de telle sorte que les innocents ne voudraient pas ne pas avoir souffert.” [and includes the evil of guilt, and in this sense, physical evil ordinarily comes from ethical evil, as much in any subjects, although this appears to be an abberation, it is corrected by the good that results from the way in which the innocent do not wish not to have suffered.]. Ibid., §32.

121. Diderot omits §33-36, that God desires perfection in both general and particular things, goodness and virtue in all intelligent things, and all types of good to be in accordance with his degree of goodness (33), and evil is not an object of antecedent will, only an indirect object of consequent will; sometimes God’s distance impedes the production of good, not fully as the this distance is prevented by the antecedent; Thomas Acquinus suggests that God fears much good will be prevented without certain evils (34). Metaphysical and physical evils can become subsidiary goods as a means for greater good (35). Ethical evil or evil of guilt is never a means of the good, as evil should not be done for good; there is a reason for God permitting evil which can only be drawn from the good (36). §37 Compare to “En outre, le mal de coupe n’est jamais en Dieu l’objet de la volonté productive, mais quelquefois seulement de la volonté permissive;” [Always, the evil of guilt is never the object of productive will in God, but sometimes only the permissive will;]. Ibid., §33-37.

122. Compare to “...et un être souverainement sage ne décrète qu’après avoir tout examiné, et conséquemment il ne décrète que sur le tout.” [... and a sovereignly wise being only gives a decree after having examined all, and consequently he only gives a decree upon the whole.]. Ibid., §41.

123. Compare to “C’est pourquoi aussi le décret de Dieu est immuable parce que toutes les raisons qui peuvent lui être opposées ont déja été examinées;” [This is also why the decree of God is immutable, because all reasons which can be opposed to it have already been examined;]. Ibid., §43.

124. Compare to “...c’est-à-dire avant qu’elle ne fût décrétée, se trouvaient les prières et toutes les autres causes des effects qui se produiraient dans cette série si elle était choisie;” [that’s to say that before it was decreed, prayers and all other causes of effects were found which would be produced in this series if it were chosen;]. Ibid., §44.

125. Compare to, “...toutes les fois que quelque chose nous paraît répréhensible dans les oeuvres de Dieu, nous devons conclure que cela ne nous est pas suffisamment connu, et qu’ un sage qui le comprendrait, jugerait qu’ on ne pourrait même souhaiter rien de meilleur.” [...every time that something appears reprehensible to us in the works of God, we must conclude that it is not sufficiently known to us, and that a sage who understands, would judge that one could not wish for anything better.]. Ibid., §47.

126. Compare to “Il suit en outre de là, que rien n’est plus heureux que de servir un si bon maître, et c’est pourquoi il faut aimer Dieu plus que toutes choses, et se reposer entièrement sur lui.” [It follows that nothing is more pleasing than to serve so good a master, and this is why it is necessary to love God more than all things, and to depend entirely upon him.]. Ibid., §48.

127. Compare to “...vient maintenant la bonté qui rapportée spécialement aux créatures intelligentes et jointe à la sagesse, constitue la justice dont le degré le plus élevé est la sainteté.” [...currently coming to his goodness, which specially related to intelligent creatures and joined to his wisdom, constitutes the justice of which the highest degree is his holiness.]. Ibid., §50.

128. Compare to “Les biens et les maux physiques arrivent tant dans cette vie que dans la vie future. Dans cette vie, beaucoup se plaignent que la nature humaine soit exposée à tant de maux, ne réfléchissant guère qu’une grande partie provident de la faute des hommes, et qu’en effet nous ne nous montrons pas assez reconnaissants des bienfaits de Dieu à notre égard, et que nous portons notre attention plutôt sur nos maux que sur nos biens.” [Physical good and evil occur as much in this life as in future life. In this life, as we often complain that human nature is subject to so much evil, and so does not hardly reflect in any great way the fault of men, and that in effect we give ourselves enough recognition of the benefits of God on our behalf, and as we place our attention rather upon our evil than our good.]. Ibid., §52.

129. Diderot omits Leibniz’s remarks that some think physical good and evil are not distributed according to ethical good and evil, but that the Apostle says that current afflictions cannot really be compared to those of the future to be revealed to us. Leibniz also cites Christ’s parable of the seeds. Ibid., §53-54.

130. Section IV abridges the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, including excerpts from each of Leibniz’s five papers to Clarke. I specifically consulted Paul Janet ed., Oeuvres Philosophiques de Leibniz (Paris, Librarie Ladrange, 1866), p. 617-699, and Alexander, H. G. ed. The Leibniz – Clarke Correspondence with Extracts from Newton’s Principia and Opticks. (New York, Barnes & Nobel, 1984).

131. Leibniz-Clark , §1.4.

132. Ibid., §1.4.

133. Ibid., §2.1.

134. Ibid., §2.2.

135. Ibid., §2.5.

136. Ibid., §2.8.

137. Ibid., §2.9, §2.11.

138. Ibid., §3.3.

139. Ibid., §3.4.

140. Ibid., §3.17, §4.1, §4.2.

141. Ibid., §4.31.

142. Ibid., §4.33.

143. Ibid., §4.35.

144. Ibid., §4.36.

145. Ibid., §4.38.

146. Ibid., §4.44.

147. Ibid., §5.9.

148. Ibid., §5.9.

149. Ibid., §5.54.

150. Ibid., §5.61.

151. Ibid., §5.62.

152. Ibid., §5.62.

153. Ibid., §5.63.

154. Ibid., §5.71.

155. Ibid., §5.74.

156. Ibid., §5.74.

157. Ibid., §5.74.

158. Ibid., §5.88.

159. Ibid., §5.91.

160. Ibid., §5.92.

161. Ibid., §5.94.

162. Ibid., §5.106.

163. Ibid., §5.112 - §5.113.

164. Section V comes from Les trios grands principes et les sources du droit naturel from Codex juris gentium diplomaticus, Dissertatio I (extraits), K, VI, 457-492. Excerpts are available in R. Sève. Le droit de la raison. (Paris, J. Vrin, 1994), and M. Emery, ed. “De pensées sur la religion et la morale”. Exposition de la doctrine de Leibnitz sur la religion , (Paris, Tournachon-Molin and Seguin, 1819) p. 357-362.

165. Trois grands principes adds, “Car, comme dit très bien un jurisconsulte romain: Ce qui est contre les bonnes moeurs, nous ne devons pas même croire qu’il nous soit possible que nous le puissions faire: Quae sunt contra bonos mores ea nec facere nos posse, credendum est .” [Because, as said very well by a Roman jurisconsult: What is contrary to good morals, we must not even believe that it would be possible for us to do...]. Ibid., p. 358.

166. Trois grands principes adds, “Ainsi quand Carnéade disoit, à ce qu’on rapporte, que la justice étoit un souveraine folie, parce qu’elle nous ordonnoit de procurer l’utilité des autres, en négligeant notre proper utilité, son erreur venoit de ce qu’il ignoroit la definition de la justice.” [So when Carnead said, as is related, that justice was a sovereign folly because it prepared us to procure the utility of others in neglecting our own utility, its error came from the fact that it ignored the definition of justice.]. Ibid., p. 358.

167. Compare to “Le droit pur ou étroit nous prescript de ne leser personne, neminem laedere, pour ne pas donner lieu, dans l’état de société civile, à l’action dans les tribunaux, et hors de cet état, au droit de guerre.” [Pure or strict law obligates us not to injure anyone ( neminem laedere ) so as not to bring into the state of a civil society, the action of a tribunal, and outside this state, by right of war.]. Ibid., p. 359.

168. Compare to “Je l’éntends, au delà de la rigueur du droit étroit, à ces obligations qui ne donnent point aux parties intéressées d’action pour contraindre, comme à l’obligation de la reconnaissance, de l’aumóne, auxquelles Grotius nous dit, qu’elles donnent de l’aptitude, et non pas de la faculté;” [I understand, beyond the rigor of strict law, by these obligations which give no action to interested parties to constrain, as in the obligation of recognition, of alms, to which Grotius tells us, that they give by aptitude and not by faculty;]. Ibid., p. 359.

169. Compare to “...et comme le degree inférieur prescrivoit de ne léser personne, le degree qui tient le milieu ou qui est immédiatement au-dessus, prescript d’être utile à tous, mais autant qu’il convient à chacun, ou autant que chacun le mérite, quand on ne peut pas être utile à tous.” [ ...and as the lowest degree asks us not to offend anyone, the middle degree or next higher degree, prescribes usefulness to all, but as much as it invites each, or as much as each merits, when not useful to all.]. Ibid., p. 359.

170. Compare “...et le précepte du droit qui prescript de donner à chacun ce qui lui appartient, suum quique tribui” [... and the precept of law which solicits the giving of each what belongs to him...]. Ibid., p. 359.

171. Leibniz admirably relates by way of Xenophon, the childhood judgment ( démêlé ) of Cyrus upon a dispute between two children who non-cooperatively switch gowns, in order to demonstrate the varying degrees of strict law. A strong ( robuste ) child removes the gown from another because he thinks it would look better on himself, and gives his own gown to the other. Cyrus pronounces in favor of the theft, and, as his warden ( gouverneur ) makes him observe that judgment does not depend upon which child looks better in the gown, but is dependent upon the child to whom the gown belongs, he indicates that, were it dependent upon theft, Cyrus would then be responsible for distributing the gowns. Ibid., p. 360.

172. Compare to “le droit étroit a pour fin de faire éviter la misère; et le droit qui est au-dessus, à procurer la félicité, mais la félicité seulement qui peut avoir lieu dans cette vie mortelle.” [strict law has for an end to avoid misery, and the law above that, to procure happiness, but a happiness which alone can take place in mortal life.]. Ibid., p. 361.

173. Trois grands principes adds, “L’homme donc qui lui sacrifie sa vie, la gagne, ainsi que Jésus-Christ nous l’apprend...” [The man who therefore sacrifices his life, gains it, as Jesus-Christ teaches us...]. Ibid., p. 361.

174. Trois grands principes adds, “...et puisque tous nos cheveux sont comptés; que même un verre d’eau froide donné à un homme qui a soif, n’est point sans recompense....” [...and since every one of our hairs is counted, similarly as a glass of cold water given to a thirsty man is not without reward....]. Ibid., p. 362.

175. Trois grands principes adds, “...et c’est en ce sens que de savants hommes ont témoigné desirer qu’on donnât un traité du droit de la nature et des gens d’ après la discipline des chretiens, c’est-à-dire, de ces homes qui, formés à l’école de Jésus-Christ, n’ont rien dans leurs sentiments que de sublime et de divin.” [...and it is in this sense that learned men have witnessed the desire to give a tract of the law of nature and after people of Christian discipline, that is to say, from these men who have formed a school of Jesus-Christ, have nothing more in their sentiments than the sublime and the divine.]. Ibid., p. 362.

176. Proust notes on p. 543 that in Assezat-Tourneux, tome XV, p. 473, Diderot’s “may complain and with some reason perhaps, that”... is “plaint avec raison que” [may complain with reason that]. Similarly, Diderot’s “and we do so with pleasure” is “...de parler avec éloge, avec admiration, de cet homme célèbre, et nous le faisons avec le joie” [...by speaking with praise, with admiration, of this celebrated man and we do so with pleasure]. Proust also describes here a variation on this passage found in l’Histoire générale des dogmes et opinion philosophiques depuis les plus anciens temps jusqu’à nos jours . (Londres, Bouillon, 1769), 3 vol. In-8.