edge and all ratiocination, the principle of contradiction (principium contradictionis), and the principle of sufficient cause (principium rationis sufficientis). To these, as a principle of the second rank, must be added the principium indiscernibilium, or the principle that there are in nature no two things wholly alike.

7. The most elaborate exhibition of Leibnitz's theological views is given in his Théodicée. The Théodicée, is, however, his weakest work, and has but a loose connection with the rest of his philosophy. Written at the instigation of a woman, it belies this origin neither in its form nor in its content-not in its form, for in its effort to be popular it becomes diffuse and unscientific, and not in its content, for it accommodates itself to the positive dogmas and the premises of theology farther than the scientific basis of the system of Leibnitz would permit. In this work, Leibnitz investigates the relation of God to the world in order to show a conformity in this relation to a final cause, and to free God from the charge of acting without or contrary to an aim. Why is the world as it is? God might have created it very differently. True, answers Leibnitz, God saw an infinite number of worlds as possible before him, but out of all these he chose the one which actually is as the best. This is the famous doctrine of the best world, according to which no more perfect world is possible than the one which is.-But how so? Is not the existence of evil at variance with this? Leibnitz answers this objection by distinguishing three kinds of evil, the metaphysical, the physical, and the moral. The metaphysical evil, i. e. the finiteness and incompleteness of things, is necessary because inseparable from finite existence, and is thus independent of the will of God. Physical evil (pain, &c.), though not independent of the will of God, is often a good conditionally, i. e. as a punishment or means of improvement. Moral evil or wickedness can in no way be charged to the will of God. Leibnitz took various ways to account for its existence, and obviate the contradiction lying between it and the conception of God. At one time he says that wickedness is only permitted by God as a conditio sine qua non, because without wickedness there were no

freedom, and without freedom no virtue. Again, he reduces the moral evil to the metaphysical, and makes wickedness nothing but a want of perfection, a negation, a limitation, playing the same part as do the shadows in a painted picture, or the discords in a piece of music, which do not diminish the beauty, but only increase it through contrast. Again, he distinguishes between the material and the formal element in a wicked act. The material of sin, the power to act, is from God, but the formal element, the wickedness of the act, belongs wholly to man, and is the result of his limitation, or, as Leibnitz here and there expresses it, of his eternal self-predestination. In no case can the harmony of the universe be destroyed through such a cause.

These are the chief points of Leibnitz's philosophy. The general characteristic of it as given in the beginning of the present section, will be found to have its sanction in the specific exhibition that has now been furnished.

SECTION XXXIV.

BERKELEY.

Leibnitz had not carried out the standpoint of idealism to its extreme. He had indeed, on the one side, explained space and motion and bodily things as phenomena which had their existence only in a confused representation, but on the other side, he had not wholly denied the existence of the bodily world, but had recognized as a reality lying at its basis, the world of monads. The phenomenal or bodily world had its fixed and substantial foundation in the monads. Thus Leibnitz, though an idealist, did not wholly break with realism. The ultimate consequence of a subjective idealism would have been to wholly deny the reality of the objective, sensible world, and explain corporeal objects as simply phenomena, as nothing but subjective notions without any objective reality as a basis. This consequence the idealistic

counterpart to the ultimate realistic result of materialism-appears in George Berkeley, who was born in Ireland, 1684, made bishop of the Anglican Church in 1734, and died in 1753. Hence, though he followed the empiricism of Locke, and sustained no outward connection with Leibnitz, we must place him in immediate succession to the latter as the perfecter of a subjective idealism.

Our sensations, says Berkeley, are entirely subjective. We are wholly in error if we believe that we have a sensation of external objects or perceive them That which we have and perceive is only our sensations. It is e. g. clear, that by the sense of sight we can see neither the distance, the size, nor the form of objects, but that we only conclude that these exist, because our experience has taught us that a certain sensation of sight is always attended by certain sensations of touch. That which we see is only colors, clearness, obscurity, &c., and it is therefore false to say that we see and feel the same thing. So also we never go out of ourselves for those sensations to which we ascribe most decidedly an objective character. The peculiar objects of our understanding are only our own affections; all ideas are hence only our own sensations. But just as there can be no sensations outside of the sensitive subject, so no idea can have existence outside of him who possesses it. The so-called objects exist only in our notion, and have a being only as they are perceived. It is the great error of most philosophers that they ascribe to corporeal objects a being outside the conceiving mind, and do not see that they are only mental. It is not possible that material things should produce any thing so wholly distinct from themselves as sensations and notions. There is no such thing as a material external world; mind alone exists as thinking being, whose nature consists in thinking and willing. But whence then arise all our sensations which come to us like the images of fancy, without our agency, and which are thus no products of our will? They arise from a spirit superior to ourselves for only a spirit can produce within us notions-even from God. God gives us ideas; but as it would be contradictory to assert that a being could give what it does not possess, so ideas exist in God, and we derive them

from him. These ideas in God may be called archetypes, and those in us ectypes.-In consequence of this view, says Berkeley, we do not deny an independent reality of things, we only deny that they can exist elsewhere than in an understanding. Instead therefore of speaking of a nature in which, e. g. the sun is the cause of warmth, &c., the accurate expression would be this: God announces to us through the sense of sight that we should soon perceive a sensation of warmth. Hence by nature we are only to understand the succession or the connection of ideas, and by natural laws the constant order in which they proceed, i. e. the laws of the association of ideas. This thorough-going subjective idealism, this complete denial of matter, Berkeley considered as the surest way to oppose materialism and atheism.

SECTION XXXV.

WOLFF.

The idealism of Berkeley, as was to be expected from the nature of the case, remained without any farther development, but the philosophy of Leibnitz was taken up and subjected to a farther revision by Christian Wolff. He was born in Breslau in 1679. He was chosen professor at Halle, where he became obnoxious to the charge of teaching a doctrine at variance with the Scriptures, and drew upon himself such a violent opposition from the theologians of the university, that a cabinet order was issued for his dismissal on the 8th of November, 1723, and he was enjoined to leave Prussia within forty-eight hours on pain of being hung. He then became professor in Marburg, but was afterwards recalled to Prussia by Frederic II. immediately upon his accession to the throne. He was subsequently made baron, died 1754. In his chief thoughts he followed Leibnitz, a connection which he himself admitted, though he protested against the identification of his philosophy with that of Leibnitz, and ob

and

jected to the name, Philosophia Leibnitio-Wolffiana, which was taken by his disciple Bilfinger. The historical merit of Wolff is threefold. First, and most important, he laid claim again to the whole domain of knowledge in the name of philosophy, and sought again to build up a systematic framework, and make an encyclopedia of philosophy in the highest sense of the word. Though he did not himself furnish much new material for this purpose, yet he carefully elaborated and arranged that which he found at hand. Secondly, he made again the philosophical method as such, an object of attention. His own method is, indeed, an external one as to its content, namely, the mathematical or the mathematico-syllogistical, recommended by Leibnitz, and by the application of this his whole philosophizing sinks to a level formalism. (For instance, in his principles of architecture, the eighth proposition is-"a window must be wide enough for two persons to recline together conveniently," a proposition which is thus proved: "we are more frequently accustomed to recline and look out at a window in company with another person than alone, and hence, since the builder of the house should satisfy the owner in every respect (§ 1), he must make a window wide enough for two persons conveniently to recline within it at the same time". Still this formalism is not without its advantage, for it subjects the philosophical content to a logical treatment. Thirdly, Wolff has taught philosophy to speak German, an art which it has not since forgotten. Next to Leibnitz, he is entitled to the merit of having made the German language for ever the organ of philosophy.

The following remarks will suffice for the content and the scientific classification of Wolff's philosophy. He defines philosophy to be the science of the possible as such. But that is possible which contains no contradiction. Wolff defends this definition against the charge of presuming too much. It is not affirmed, he says, with this definition that either he or any other philosopher knows every thing which is possible. The definition only claims for philosophy the whole province of human knowledge, and it is certainly proper that philosophy should be de