divisible, unextended, invisible, &c. But now, who should conceive any thing determinate in a substance which is only the negation of that which gives knowledge, an idea which is peculiarly only the absence of all ideas? Still farther, how can it be explained upon such a hypothesis, that a substance which itself is not material can work upon material things; and how can it set these in motion, since there is no point of contact between the two? In fact, those who distinguish their soul from their body, have only to make a distinction between their brain and their body. Thought is only a modification of our brain, just as volition is another modification of the same bodily organ.

(2.) Another chimera, the belief in the being of a God, is connected with the twofold division of man into body and soul. This belief arises like the hypothesis of a soul-substance, because mind is falsely divided from matter, and nature is thus made twofold. The evil which men experienced, and whose natural cause they could not discover, they assigned to a deity which they imagined for the purpose. The first notions of a God have their source therefore in sorrow, fear, and uncertainty. We tremble because our forefathers for thousands of years have done the same. This circumstance awakens no auspicious prepossession. But not only the rude, but also the theological idea of God is worthless, for it explains no phenomenon of nature. It is, moreover, full of absurdities, for, since it ascribes moral attributes to God, it renders him human; while on the other hand, by a mass of negative attributes, it seeks to distinguish him absolutely from every other being. The true system, the system of nature, is hence atheistic. But such a doctrine requires a culture and a courage which neither all men nor most men possess. If we understand by the word atheist one who considers only dead matter, or who designates the moving power in nature with the name God, then is there no atheist, or whoever would be one is a fool. But if the word means one who denies the existence of a spiritual being, a being whose attributes can only be a source of annoyance to men, then are there indeed atheists, and there would be more of them, if a correct knowledge of nature and a sound reason

were more widely diffused. But if atheism is true, then should it be diffused. There are, indeed, many who have cast off the yoke of religion, who nevertheless think it is necessary for the common people in order to keep them within proper limits. But this is just as if we should determine to give a man poison lest he should abuse his strength. Every kind of Deism leads necessarily to superstition, since it is not possible to continue on the stand-point of pure deism.

(3.) With such premises the freedom and immortality of the soul both disappear. Man, like every other substance in nature, is a link in the chain of necessary connection, a blind instrument in the hands of necessity. If any thing should be endowed with self-motion, that is, with a capacity to produce motion without any other cause, then would it have the power to destroy motion in the universe; but this is contrary to the conception of the universe, which is only an endless series of necessary motions spreading out into wider circles continually. The claim of an individual immortality is absurd. For to affirm that the soul exists after the destruction of the body, is to affirm that a modification of a substance can exist after the substance itself has disappeared. There is no other immortality than to live in the remembrance of posterity.

(4.) The practical consequences of these principles are in the highest degree favorable for the system of nature, the utility of any doctrine being ever the first criterion of its truth. While the ideas of theologians are productive only of disquiet and anxiety to man, the system of nature frees him from all such unrest, teaches him to enjoy the present moment, and to quietly yield to his destiny, while it gives him that kind of apathy which every one must regard as a blessing. If morality would be active, it can rest only upon self-love and self-interest; it must show man whither his well-considered interest would lead him. He is a good man who gains his own interest in such a way that others will find it for their interest to assist him. The system of selfinterest, therefore, demands the union of men among each other, and hence we have true morality.

The logical dogmatic materialism of the Système de la Nature is the farthest limit of an empirical direction in philosophy, and consequently closes that course of the development of a one-sided realism which had begun with Locke. The attempt first made by Locke to explain and derive the ideal world from the material, ended in materialism with the total reduction of every thing spiritual to the material, with the total denial of the spiritual. We must now, before proceeding farther, according to the classification made § XXVII., consider the idealistic course of development which ran parallel with the systems of a partial realism. At the head of this course stands Leibnitz.

SECTION XXXIII.

LEIBNITZ.

As empiricism sprang from the striving to subject the intellectual to the material, to materialize the spiritual, so on the other hand, idealism had its source in the effort to spiritualize the material, or so to apprehend the conception of mind that matter could be subsumed under it. To the empiric-sensualistic direction, mind was nothing but refined matter, while to the idealistic direction matter was only degenerated (vergröbert) mind (“a confused notion," as Leibnitz expresses it). The former, in its logical development, was driven to the principle that only material things exist, the latter (as with Leibnitz and Berkeley) comes to the opposite principle, that there are only souls and their ideas. For the partial realistic stand-point, material things were the truly substantial. But for the idealistic stand-point, the substantial belongs alone to the intellectual world, to the Egos. Mind, to the partial realism, was essentially void, a tabula rasa, its whole content came to it from the external world. But a partial idealism sought to carry out the principle that nothing can come into the mind which had not at least been preformed within it, that all its

knowledge is furnished it by itself. According to the former view knowledge was a passive relation, according to the latter was it wholly active. While, in fine, a partial realism had attempted to explain the becoming in nature for the most part through real, i. e. through mechanical motives (l'homme machine is the title of one of la Mettrie's writings), idealism had sought an explanation of the same through ideal motives, i. e. teleologically. While the former had made its prominent inquiry for moving causes, and had, indeed, often ridiculed the search for a final cause; it is final causes toward which the latter directs its chief aim. The mediation between mind and matter, between thought and being, will now be sought in the final cause, in the teleological harmony of all things (pre-established harmony). The stand-point of Leibnitz may thus be characterized in a word.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646, at Leipsic, where his father was professor. Having chosen the law as his profession, he entered the university in 1661, and in 1663 he defended for his degree of doctor in philosophy, his dissertation de principio individui, a theme well characteristic of the direction of his later philosophizing. He afterwards went to Jena, and subsequently to Altdorf, where he became doctor of laws. At Altdorf he was offered a professorship of jurisprudence, which he refused. The rest of his life was unsettled and desultory, spent for the most part in courts, where, as a versatile courtier, he was employed in the most varied duties of diplomacy. In the year 1672 he went to Paris, in order to induce Louis XIV. to undertake the conquest of Egypt. He subsequently visited London, whence he was afterwards called to Hanover, as councillor of the Duke of Brunswick. He received later a post as librarian at Wolfenbüttel, between which place and Hanover he spent the most of his subsequent life, though interrupted with numerous journeys to Vienna, Berlin, etc. He was intimately associated with the Prussian Electress, Maria Charlotte, a highly talented woman, who surrounded herself with a circle of the most distinguished scholars of the time, and for whom Liebnitz wrote, at her own request, his Theodicée. In 1701, after Prussia had be

come a kingdom, an academy was established at Berlin, through his efforts, and he became its first president. Similar, but fruitless attempts were made by him to establish academies in Dresden and Vienna. In 1711 the title of imperial court councillor, and a baronage, was bestowed upon him by the emperor Charles VI. Soon after, he betook himself to Vienna, where he remained a considerable period, and wrote his Monadology, at the solicitation of Prince Eugene. He died in 1716. Next to Aristotle, Leibnitz was the most highly gifted scholar that had ever lived; with the richest and most extensive learning, he united the highest and most penetrating powers of mind. Germany has reason to be proud of him, since, after Jacob Boehme, he is the first philosopher of any note among the Germans. With him philosophy found a home in Germany. It is to be regretted that the great variety of his efforts and literary undertakings, together with his roving manner of life, prevented him from giving any connected exhibition of his philosophy. His views are for the most part developed only in brief and occasional writings and letters, composed frequently in the French language. It is hence not easy to state his philosophy in its internal connection, though none of his views are isolated, but all stand strictly connected with each other. The following are the chief points:

1. THE DOCTRINE OF MONADS.-The fundamental peculiarity of Leibnitz's theory is its opposition to Spinozism. Substance, as the indeterminate universal, was with Spinoza the only positive. With Leibnitz also the conception of substance lay at the basis of his philosophy, but his definition of it was entirely different. While Spinoza had sought to exclude from his substance every positive determination, and especially all acting, and had apprehended it simply as pure being, Leibnitz. viewed it as living activity and active energy, an example for which might be found in a stretched bow, which moved and straightened itself through its own energy as soon as the external hindrance was removed. That this active energy forms the essence of substance is a principle to which Leibnitz ever returns, and from which, in fact, all the other chief points in his philosophy may be derived. From