PHIL 315: MODERN PHILOSOPHY

James Fieser

#CHAPTER 3

RATIONALISM

            The term "Continental Rationalism" traditionally refers to a 17th century philosophical movement begun by Descartes. Continental Rationalism is usually understood in relation to its rival 18th century movement, British Empiricism, founded by John Locke. The radical division between these two schools was first articulated by Thomas Reid in his Inquiry Concerning the Human Mind; Reid's division was taken as the definitive explanation, which has come down to the present time. Two key points distinguish Rationalism from British Empiricists. The first involves differing theories about the origin of ideas. Rationalists believed that an important group of foundational concepts are known intuitively through reason, as opposed to experience. Descartes describes such concepts as innate ideas, the most important of these including the ideas of oneself, infinite perfection, and causality. British Empiricists, as we will see, staunchly rejected this view, and argued that all ideas trace ultimately trace back to experiences, such as sense perceptions and emotions. The second distinguishing feature between Rationalism and Empiricism concerns their differing methods of investigating problems. Rationalists maintained that we could deduce truths with absolute certainty from our innate ideas, much the way theorems in geometry are deduced from axioms. Mathematical demonstration was seen as the perfect type of demonstrating truth and, accordingly, mathematical proof became the model for all other kinds of demonstration. Although empiricists also used deductive reasoning, they put a greater emphasis on the inductive method championed by fellow British countryman Francis Bacon.

            Contemporary historians of philosophy challenge this traditional distinction between rationalism and empiricism. Louis Loeb, for example, argues for an alternative classification of 17th and 18th century philosophers which is more representative of the actual content of their metaphysical and epistemological positions. In spite of Loeb's suggestions, the traditional division between rationalism and empiricism offered by Reid has at least some foundation, and is convenient for understanding the evolution of philosophical theories during the modern period of philosophy.

            Who were the rationalsts? After Descartes, several dozen scientists and philosophers continued his teachings throughout continental Europe and, accordingly were titled "Cartesians." Some Cartesians strayed little from Descartes' scientific and metaphysical theories. Others incorporated his theories into Calvinistic theology. But a handful of philosophers influenced by Descartes were more original in developing their own views and these people are included under the more general title "rationalists." As covered in this chapter, the principle rationalists include Benedict Spinoza, Nicholas Malebranche, and Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz.

A. BENEDICT SPINOZA

            Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was the son of a Jewish merchant from Amsterdam. His father and grandfather were originally Spanish crypto-Jews -- that is, Jews who were forced to adopt Christianity in post-Islamic Spain, but secretly remained Jewish. He was educated in traditional Jewish Curriculum. His father died when he was 21, after which he was embroiled in a lawsuit with his stepsister over his father's estate. Spinoza won the suit, but nevertheless handed virtually all of it over to his stepsister. Shortly after, Spinoza's budding theological speculations prompted conflict with Jewish leaders. Spinoza publicly contended that the scriptures do not maintain that God has no body, that angels exist, or that the soul is immortal. After failed attempts to silence him, he was excommunicated in 1656. For a time Spinoza was associated with a former Jesuit who ran a school for children. Spinoza used this as an opportunity to further his own education and to supplement his income by teaching in the school. At this time he also learned the trade of lens grinding for glasses and telescopes.

            In his late twenties, he supervised a discussion group on philosophical and theological issues. As his own ideas developed, he went on retreat from Amsterdam for three years to formulate them in writing. At a cottage in Rijnsburg, he wrote A Short Treatise on God, Man and his Well-Being, and On the Improvement of the Understanding. He also composed a geometric version of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, which friends encouraged him to publish.  Part of the purpose of the work was to pave the way for publishing his own thoughts which were critical of Cartesianism. By producing such a work, he could not be accused later of not understanding Descartes.  The work appeared in 1663 and was the only writing of Spinoza's published with his name on it during his life. Further developing his own ideas, over the next two years Spinoza composed his greatest work, The Ethics. In 1663 Spinoza left Rijnsburg and moved near The Hague. Hoping to publish the Ethics, and anticipating controversy, he wrote and published anonymously his Tractatus Thologico-Politicus (1670) which defends the liberty to philosophize in the face of religious or political interference. After a self-initiated and failed diplomatic mission to France, Spinoza and he was forced to give up hopes of publishing the Ethics. He died in 1677 from a lung disease, the result of breathing dust from lens grinding.

SPINOZA'S PANTHEISM IN THE ETHICS. As directed in Spinoza's Will, the Ethics was published posthumously along with some of his other works (1677). The Ethics is about 200 pages in length and in five parts:

1. Concerning God

2. The Nature and Origin of the Human Mind

3. The Nature and Origin of the Emotions

4. Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions

5. The Power of the Understanding, or Human Freedom

Its most visibly distinguishing feature is its style of composition modeled after Euclid's geometry. Each of the five parts opens with a brief list of definitions and axioms, and from these a series of propositions (or theorems) are deduced. Spinoza initially composed the first parts of the Ethics in dialog form, but rejected this for the more precise -- and unfortunately more difficult -- geometric method. In general, geometric proofs are designed so that if we accept the definitions and axioms at the outset, and deductions from these are properly made, then we must accept the concluded propositions. However, as Leibniz observed, even though Spinoza's system follows this style, it nevertheless lacks mathematical rigor. Consequently, we must look at the content of Spinoza's complete system and accept or reject it on its own merits, rather than from the success of the various deductions.

            The following selections are taken from Part One of the Ethics, "Concerning God." After presenting a short list of definitions and axioms, Spinoza deduces 36 propositions which explain the nature of God. The most important of these is Proposition 14, which expresses Spinoza's pantheism: "Besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived." The term "pantheism" (literally all-God) means that God is identical to the universe as a whole. For example my car, my house, and even I myself are all parts of God. Other Western philosophers before Spinoza advocated pantheism, including Xenophanes, Parmenides, Plotinus, and Meister Eckhardt.  However, the vast majority of Western philosophers and theologians strongly rejected this view in favor of a transcendent concept of God which holds that God is distinct from his creation. Indeed, some theologians maintained that God has the attribute of separateness thus being completely separate from the rest of the universe, including the physical world and humans. Spinoza's argument for pantheism in Proposition 14 is as follows:

Proposition 5. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.

Proposition 11: God (defined as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality) necessarily exists.

Therefore, Proposition 14: Besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived.

The intuition behind Spinoza's argument above can be expressed simply.  Two separate substances cannot share the same attributes (P 5). God has every actual and possible attribute (P 11). Thus, no other substance can exist. To illustrate Spinoza's point, imagine an infinitely long list of qualities such as "consiousness" and "three-dimensionality." For Spinoza, each attribute on this list can be assigned to only one substance or thing. So, substance 1 might exclusively have the attribute of "consciousness," and substance 2 might exclusively have the attribute of "three-dimensionality." However, God has already been assigned all attributes on the list, and no attributes are left to assign to other substances. Since a substance can't exist if it doesn't have any attributes, then God is the only substance which exists.

DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS. As noted, Spinoza opens part one of the Ethics with a list of definitions and axioms.

Definitions. Initially, the most important of the definitions below are those of substance, attribute, and mode. Substance, for Spinoza, turns out to be the totality of the universe. An attribute is an all-encompassing property of the universe, such as being three dimensional. Spinoza commentators give various explanations of "attribute" and its relation to "substance." Jonathan Bennett notes that that "An attribute for Spinoza is a basic way of being -- a property which sprawls across everything... [that pertains to that substance]." Edwin Curley notes that for Spinoza the totality of a thing's attributes constitutes its substance. A mode (or modification) is a more confined property of the universe, or how an attribute appears on a smaller level. For example, the shape of a tree is a modification of the universe's larger attribute "three-dimensionality."

            I. By that which is self-caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent.

            II. A thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.

            III. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.

            IV. By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.

            V. By mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.

            VI. By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite -- that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

            Explanation. -- I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind: for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes maybe denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation.

            VII. That thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. On the other hand, that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, which is determined by something external to itself to a fixed and definite method of existence or action.

            VIII. By eternity, I mean existence itself, in so far as it is conceived necessarily to follow solely from the definition of that which is eternal.

            Explanation. -- Existence of this kind is conceived as an eternal truth, like the essence of a thing, and, therefore, cannot be explained by means of continuance or time, though continuance may be conceived without a beginning or end.

Axioms. Like definitions, axioms are also foundational elements from which propositions are derived. Rather than defining key terms, though, Spinoza's axioms stipulate some foundational fact about the world. Only Axioms 1, 4 and 5 are drawn upon in the selections from Part I below.

            I. Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else.

            II. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be conceived through itself.

            III. From a given definite cause and effect necessarily follows; and, on the other hand, if no definite cause be granted, it is impossible that an effect can follow.

            IV. The knowledge of an effect depends on and involves the knowledge of a cause.

            V. Things which have nothing in common cannot be understood, the one by means of the other; the conception of one does not involve the conception of the other.

            VI. A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object.

            VII. If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence does not involve existence.

            TWO SUBSTANCES CANNOT SHARE THE SAME ATTRIBUTE. The first step in Spinoza's argument is to prove Proposition 5 that two substances cannot share the same attribute.

            Prop. I. Substance is by nature prior to its modifications.

            Proof. -- This is clear from Def. iii. and v.

            Prop. II. Two substances, whose attributes are different, have nothing in common.

            Proof. -- Also evident from Def. iii. For each must exist in itself, and be conceived through itself; in other words, the conception of one does not imply the conception of the other.

            Prop. III. Things which have nothing in common cannot be one the cause of the other.

            Proof. -- If they have nothing in common, it follows that one cannot be apprehended by means of the other (Ax. v.), and, therefore, one cannot be the cause of the other (Ax. iv.). Q.E.D.

            Prop. IV. Two or more distinct things are distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of the attributes of the substances, or by the difference of their modifications.

            Proof. -- Everything which exists, exists either in itself or in something else (Ax. i.), -- that is (by Def. iii. and v.), nothing is granted in addition to the understanding, except substance and its modifications. Nothing is, therefore, given besides the understanding, by which several things may be distinguished one from the other, except the substances, or, in other words (see Ax. iv.), their attributes and modifications. Q.E.D.

            Prop. V. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.

            Proof. -- If several distinct substances be granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Prop. iv.). If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications -- as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Prop. i.), -- it follows that setting the modifications aside, and considering substance in itself, that is truly, (Def. iii. and vi.), there cannot be conceived one substance different from another, -- that is (by Prop. iv.), there cannot be granted several substances, but one substance only. Q.E.D.

(1) The only way to distinguish two substances is by noting differences in their attributes or differences in their modes. What does Spinoza say about two substances which have the same attributes?

Suppose, though, that two substances had the same attributes, but different modifications. For example, suppose there were two universes in which both were three-dimensional (i.e. same attribute) but one had trees and the other did not (i.e. differing modes). Spinoza argues that these differences in modification are not relevant. A substance has its own identity before it is modified. That is, the universe is what it is before it has trees or not. Thus, the only properties which truly distinguish one substance from another are broad attributes, not narrow modes. Thus, if two universes have precisely the same attributes, then they are the same universe.

GOD'S EXISTENCE. Spinoza's next task is to prove the existence of God (Proposition 11). He gives five preliminary propositions which serve as evidence for this conclusion.

Existence Belongs to the Nature of Substance. The key point of the first  two propositions is that substances are self-existing, and existence is part of its nature.

            Prop. VI. One substance cannot be produced by another substance.

            Proof. -- It is impossible that there should be in the universe two substances with an identical attribute, i.e. which have anything common to them both (Prop. ii.), and, therefore (Prop. iii.), one cannot be the cause of another, neither can one be produced by the other. Q.E.D.

            Corollary. -- Hence it follows that a substance cannot be produced by anything external to itself. For in the universe nothing is granted, save substances and their modifications (as appears from Ax. i. and Def. iii. and v.). Now (by the last Prop.) substance cannot be produced by another substance, therefore it cannot be produced by anything external to itself. Q.E.D. This is shown still more readily by the absurdity of the contradictory. For, if substance be produced by an external cause, the knowledge of it would depend on the knowledge of its cause (Ax. iv.), and (by Def. iii.) it would itself not be substance.

            Prop. VII. Existence belongs to the nature of substance.

            Proof. -- Substance cannot be produced by anything external (Corollary, Prop. vi.), it must, therefore, be its own cause -- that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature.

            Prop. VIII. Every substance is necessarily infinite.

            Proof. -- There can only be one substance with an identical attribute, and existence follows from its nature (Prop vii.); its nature, therefore, involves existence, either a finite or infinite. It does not exist as finite, or (by Def. ii.) it would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist (Prop. vii.); an there would be two substances with an identical attribute, which is absurd (Prop. v.). It therefore exists as infinite. Q.E.D.

            Note I. -- As finite existence involves a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that every substance is necessarily infinite.

            Proposition 7 above (existence belongs to the nature of substance) is the most central for Spinoza's proof of God. In the following note, he concedes that readers may have difficulty in comprehending Proposition 7. We see natural objects such as trees come into and go out of existence, and we assume that substances also come into and go out of existence. Spinoza argues that we would not make this confusion if we kept in mind the difference between modes and substances. Modes, such as properties of trees, do indeed come and go out of existence.

            Note II. -- No doubt it will be difficult for those who, think about things loosely, and have not been accustomed to know them by their primary causes, to comprehend the demonstration of Prop. vii. For such persons make no distinction between the modifications of substances and the substances themselves, and are ignorant of the manner in which things are produced. Hence they attribute to substances the beginning which they observe in natural objects. Those who are ignorant of true causes, make complete confusion -- think that trees might talk just as well as men -- that men might be formed from stones as well as from seed; and imagine that any form might be changed into any other. So, also, those who confuse the two natures, divine and human, readily attribute human passions to the deity, especially so long as they do not know how passions originate in the mind. But, if people would consider the nature of substance, they would have no doubt about the truth of Prop. vii. In fact, this proposition would be a universal axiom, and accounted a truism. For, by substance, would be understood that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself -- that is, something of which the conception does not requires the conception of anything else. On the other hand, modifications exist in something external to themselves, and a conception of them is formed by means of a conception of the thing in which they exist.

(2) For Spinoza, substances and modes differ from each other in how we conceive of them. What is that difference in conception?

Spinoza continues noting that we can also conceive of non-existent modes such as the properties of a unicorns. Again, though, we cannot conceive of a non-existent substance.

Therefore, we may have true ideas of non-existent modifications. For, although they may have no actual existence apart from the conceiving intellect, yet their essence is so involved in something external to themselves that they may through it be conceived. Whereas the only truth substances can have, external to the intellect, must consist in their existence, because they are conceived through themselves. Therefore, for a person to say that he has a clear and distinct -- that is, a true -- idea of a substance, but that he is not sure whether such substance exists, this would be the same as if he said that he had a true idea, but was -- not sure whether or no it was false (a little consideration will make this plain). Or if anyone affirmed that substance is created, it would be the same as saying that a false idea was true -- in short, the height of absurdity. It must, then, necessarily be admitted that the existence of substance as its essence is an eternal truth.

There is only One Substance. Jumping ahead of himself for a moment, Spinoza argues further  in Note 2 that there can only be one substance. Objects which exist in multiplicity (e.g. twenty people) require an external explanation for why they exist in precisely the number that they do. That explanation is found in a substance. And there is only one such substance since(a) it exists (Proposition 7), and (b) nothing in its definition implies multiplicity.

And we can hence conclude by another process of reasoning -- that there is but one such substance. I think that this may profitably be done at once. And, in order to proceed regularly with the demonstration, we must premise: --

            1. The true definition of a thing neither involves nor expresses anything beyond the nature of the thing defined. From this it follows that --

            2. No definition implies or expresses a certain number of individuals, inasmuch as it expresses nothing beyond the nature of the thing defined. For instance, the definition of a triangle expresses nothing beyond the actual nature of a triangle: it does not imply any fixed number of triangles.

            3. There is necessarily for each individual existent, thing a cause why it should exist.

            4. This cause of existence must either be contained in the nature and definition of the thing defined, or must be postulated apart from such definition.

            It therefore follows that, if a given number of individual things exist in nature, there must be some cause for the existence of exactly, that number, neither more nor less. For example, if twenty people exist in the universe (for simplicity's sake, I will suppose them existing simultaneously, and to have had no predecessors), and we want to account for the existence of these twenty people, it will not be enough to show the cause of human existence in general; we must also show why there are exactly twenty people, neither more nor less: for a cause must be assigned for the existence of each individual. Now this cause cannot be contained in the actual nature of humans, for the true definition of humans does not involve any consideration of the number twenty. Consequently, the cause for the existence of these twenty people, and, consequently, of each of them, must necessarily be sought externally to each individual. Hence we may lay down the absolute rule, that everything which may consist of several individuals must have an external cause. And, as it has been shown already that existence pertains to the nature of substance, existence must necessarily be included in its definition; and from its definition alone existence must be deducible. But from its definition (as we have shown, Notes ii., iii.), we cannot infer the existence of several substances. Therefore it follows that there is only one substance of the same nature. Q.E.D.

God has Infinite Attributes. Continuing with background material for his proof of God, Spinoza argues that an absolutely infinite substance has infinite attributes, each of which must be conceived through itself.

            Prop. IX. The more reality or being a thing has the greater the number of its attributes (Def. iv.).

            Prop. X. Each particular attribute of the one substance must be conceived through itself.

            Proof. -- An attribute is that which the intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence (Def. iv.) and, therefore, must be conceived through itself (Def. iii.). Q.E.D.

            Note. -- It is thus evident that, though two attributes are, in fact, conceived as distinct -- -- that is, one without the help of the other -- yet we cannot, therefore, conclude that they constitute two entities, or two different substances. For it is the nature of substance that each of its attributes is conceived through itself, inasmuch as all the attributes it has have always existed simultaneously in it, and none could be produced by any other; but each expresses the reality or being of substance. It is, then, far from an absurdity to ascribe several attributes to one substance: for nothing in nature is more clear than that each and every entity must be conceived under some attribute, and that its reality or being is in proportion to the number of its attributes expressing necessity or eternity and infinity. Consequently it is abundantly clear, that an absolutely infinite being must necessarily be defined as consisting in infinite attributes, each of which expresses a certain eternal and infinite essence.

            If anyone now ask, by what sign shall he be able to distinguish different substances, let him read the following propositions, which show that there is but one substance in the universe, and that it is absolutely infinite, for this reason such a sign would be sought for in vain.

(3) Why are we not given any sign or litmus test to distinguish one substance from another substance?

Proof for God's Existence. Finally, Spinoza offers his proof for God.

            Prop. XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.

            Proof. -- If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God does not exist: then his essence does not involve existence. But this (by Prop. vii.) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists. ...

Spinoza's proof is an ontological argument in the style of Anslem's and Descartes'. Like Anselm, Spinoza gives his argument in the form of a reductio ad absurdum:

(a) The idea of God is that of substance with infinite attributes, each of which is eternally and infinitely essential  (Def. 6)

(b) Suppose that God does not exist

(c) Then existence is not part of his essence

(d) However, existence belongs to the nature of a substance

(e) Therefore, God exists

More simply, his argument is that God exists since (a) God is a substance, and (b) existence belongs to the nature of a substance. Spinoza continues by giving three additional proofs for God's existence (which will not be explored here). All four proofs are based on the common notion that God's existence necessarily follows from his nature.

GOD IS THE ONLY SUBSTANCE. Having proved that (a) no two substances can have the same attributes (Proposition 5), and (b) God exists with infinite attributes (Proposition 11), Spinoza proceeds to conclude that God is the only substance.

            Prop. XII. No attribute of substance can be conceived from which it would follow that substance can be divided.

            Proof. -- The parts into which substance as thus conceived would be divided, either will retain the nature of substance, or they will not. If the former, then (by Prop. viii.) each part will necessarily be infinite, and (by Prop. vi.) self-caused, and (by, Prop. v.) will perforce consist of a different attribute, so that, in that case, several substances could be formed out of one substance, which (by, Prop. vi.) is absurd. Moreover, the parts (by Prop. ii.) would have nothing in common with their whole, and the whole (by Def. iv. and Prop. x.) could both exist and be conceived without its parts, which everyone will admit to be absurd. If we adopt the second alternative -- namely, that the parts will not retain the nature of substance -- then, if the whole substance were divided into equal parts, it would lose the nature of substance, and would cease to exist, which (by Prop. vii.) is absurd.

            Prop. XIII. Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible.

            Proof. -- If it could be divided, the parts into which it was divided would either retain the nature of absolutely infinite substance, or they would not. If the former, we should have several substances of the same nature, which (by Prop. v.) is absurd. If the latter, then (by Prop. vii.) substance absolutely infinite could cease to exist, which (by Prop. xi.) is also absurd.

            Corollary. -- It follows, that no substance, and consequently, no extended substance, in so far as it is substance, is divisible.

            Note. -- The indivisibility of substance may be more easily understood as follows. The nature of substance can only be conceived as infinite, and by a part of substance, nothing else can be understood than finite substance, which (by Prop. viii.) involves a manifest contradiction.

            Prop. XIV. Besides God no substance can be granted or conceived.

            Proof. -- As God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied (by Def . vi.), and he necessarily exists (by Prop. xi.); if any substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and thus two substances with the same attribute would exist, which (by Prop. v.) is absurd; therefore, besides God no substance can be granted, or, consequently, be conceived. if it could be conceived, it would necessarily have to be conceived as existent; but this (by the first part of this proof) is absurd. Therefore, besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Q.E.D.

Again, the proof which Spinoza provides for proposition 14 is as follows:

(a) There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute (Proposition 5)

(b) God (defined as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality) necessarily exists (Proposition 11)

(c) Therefore, besides God, no substance can be granted or conceived (Proposition 14).

Spinoza continues by making clear that Proposition 14 implies pantheism.

            Corollary I -- Clearly, therefore: 1. God is one, that is (by Def. vi.) only one substance can be granted in the universe, and that substance is absolutely infinite, as we have already indicated (in the note to Prop. x.).

            Corollary II. -- It follows: 2. That extension and thought are either attributes of God or (by Ax. i.) accidents (affectiones) of the attributes of God.

            Prop. XV. Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

            Proof. -- Besides God, no substance is granted or can be conceived (by Prop. xiv.), that is (by Def . iii.) nothing which is in itself and is conceived through itself. But modes (by Def . v.) can neither be, nor be conceived without substance; for this reason they can only be in the divine nature, and can only through it be conceived. But substances and modes form the sum total of existence (by Ax. i.), therefore, without God nothing can be, or be conceived. Q.E.D.

(4) For Spinoza, trees, rocks, and humans are modes. Based on proposition 14, these modes can only be in (or part of) what type of nature?

The Nature of God's Body. If all things are part of God, then the three-dimensional universe itself is part of God. This means that, in some sense, God has a body. However, Spinoza criticizes those who anthropomorphize the nature of God's body by maintaining that it is finite, and even susceptible to having emotions (given the fact that human emotions are the result of a human body). Spinoza harshly rejects both of these limitations on God's physical nature. However, the vast majority of western philosophers reject the notion that God has a three-dimensional body of any sort. Spinoza also criticizes this view.

            Note. -- Some assert that God, like a human, consists of body and mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have strayed from the truth is sufficiently evident from what has been said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile by the other reasons with which they try to prove their point, they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. From which cause the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly ignorant; thus they clearly show, that they do not know the meaning of their own words. I myself have proved sufficiently clearly, at any rate in my own judgment (Coroll. Prop. vi., and Note 2, Prop. viii.), that no substance can be produced or created by anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. xiv.), that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God. However, in order to explain more fully, I will refute the arguments of my adversaries, which all start from the following points: --

(5) For Spinoza, extended substance (or thee-dimensionality) is what kind of attribute of God?

Spinoza continues by presenting then refuting arguments offered by traditional philosophers which maintain that God has no extended body.

            Extended substance, in so far as it is substance, consists, as they think, in parts, for this reason they deny that it can be infinite, or, consequently, that it can pertain to God. This they illustrate with many examples, of which I will take one or two. If extended substance, they say, is infinite, let it be conceived to be divided into two parts; each part will then be either finite or infinite. If the former, then infinite substance is composed of two finite parts, which is absurd. If the latter, then one infinite will be twice as large as another infinite, which is also absurd.

            Further, if an infinite line is measured out in foot lengths, it will consist of an infinite number of such parts. It would equally consist of an infinite number of parts, if each part measured only an inch. Therefore, one infinity would be twelve times as great as the other.

            Lastly, if from a single point there be conceived to be drawn two diverging lines which at first are at a definite distance apart, but are produced to infinity, it is certain that the distance between the two lines will be continually increased, until at length it changes from definite to indefinable. As these absurdities follow, it is said, from considering quantity as infinite, the conclusion is drawn, that extended substance must necessarily be finite, and, consequently, cannot appertain to the nature of God.

            The second argument is also drawn from God's supreme perfection. God, it is said (inasmuch as he is a supremely perfect being) cannot be passive. But extended substance, in so far as it is divisible, is passive. It follows, therefore, that extended substance does not appertain to the essence of God.

(6) Give one of the above arguments offered by traditional philosophers to show that God has no extended body.

Spinoza continues by refuting the above arguments. The key error in all of them is the assumption that  extended substance is composed of parts.

            Such are the arguments I find on the subject in writers, who by them try to prove that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature, and cannot possibly pertain to it. However, I think an attentive reader will see that I have already answered their propositions. For all their arguments are founded on the hypothesis that extended substance is composed of parts, and such a hypothesis I have shown (Prop. xii., and Coroll. Prop. xiii.) to be absurd. Moreover, anyone who reflects will see that all these absurdities (if absurdities they be, which I am not now discussing) -- from which it is sought to extract the conclusion that extended substance is finite, do not at all follow from the notion of an infinite quantity, but merely from the notion that an infinite quantity is measurable, and composed of finite parts. Therefore, the only fair conclusion to be drawn is that infinite quantity is not measurable, and cannot be composed of finite parts. This is exactly what we have already proved (in Prop. xii.). For this reason the weapon which they aimed at us has in reality recoiled upon themselves. If, from this absurdity of theirs, they persist in drawing the conclusion that extended substance must be finite, they will in good truth be acting like a man who asserts that circles have the properties of squares, and, finding himself thereby landed in absurdities, proceeds to deny that circles have any center, from which all lines drawn to the circumference are equal. For, taking extended substance, which can only be conceived as infinite, one, and indivisible (Props. viii., v., xii.) they assert, in order to prove that it is finite, that it is composed of finite parts, and that it can be multiplied and divided. ...

(7) For Spinoza, the notion of extended substance must be drawn from the more foundational notion of infinite quality. What does he say about the measurability of infinite quality?

            APPENDIX: GOD DOES NOT WILLFULLY DIRECT THE COURSE OF NATURE. In the remainder of Part I of the Ethics, Spinoza derives various properties of God. He summarizes these properties in the opening paragraph of the Appendix to Part I.

            Appendix. In the foregoing I have explained the nature and properties of God. I have shown that (1) he necessarily exists, (2) that he is one, (3) that he is, and acts solely by the necessity of his own nature, (4) that he is the free cause of all things, and how he is so, (5) that all things are in God, and so depend on him, that without him they could neither exist nor be conceived, and (6) that all things are predetermined by God, not through his free will or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or infinite power. I have further, where occasion offered, taken care to remove the prejudices which might impede the comprehension of my demonstrations. Yet there still remain misconceptions, not a few which might and may prove very grave hindrances to the understanding of the ordering of things, as I have explained it above. I have therefore thought it worth while to bring these misconceptions before the bar of reason.

The principal misconception about God that Spinoza wants to address in the Appendix is that God acts purposefully and directs events in nature towards a definite goal. For Spinoza, God does not do this.

            All such opinions spring from the notion commonly entertained, that all things in nature act as men themselves, act, namely, with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for humans, and humans that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first, why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so prone to adopt it.  Secondly, I will point out its falsity. And, lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like.

(8) What three issues does Spinoza plan to address?

Why People Think that God acts with a Purpose. Turning to the first of the above three points, Spinoza notes that individual humans do not act freely, but are under the illusion that they do. We are ignorant of the true causes of things, but only aware of our own desire to pursue what is useful us.

However, this is not the place to deduce these misconceptions from the nature of the human mind. It will be sufficient here, if I assume as a starting point, what ought to be universally admitted, namely, that all people are born ignorant of the causes of things, that all have the desire to seek for what is useful to them, and that they are conscious of such desire. From here it follows, first, that people think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance, of the causes which have disposed them so to wish and desire. Secondly, that people do all things for an end, namely, for that which is useful to them, and which they seek.

(9) Given our ignorance of the true mechanical causes of  our own action, what two attitudes do humans adopt about our wills and goals?

Given this tendency to see human behavior as willful and purposeful, we continue by imposing willful purposes on events outside of us.

Thus it comes to pass that they only look for a knowledge of the final causes of events, and when these are learned, they are content, as having no cause for further doubt. If they cannot learn such causes from external sources, they are compelled to turn to considering themselves, and reflecting what end would have induced them personally to bring about the given event, and thus they necessarily judge other natures by their own. Further, as they find in themselves and outside themselves many means which assist them not a little in their search for what is useful, for instance, eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and animals for yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for breeding fish, &c., they come to look on the whole of nature as a means for obtaining such conveniences. Now as they are aware that they found these conveniences and did not make them, they think they have cause for believing, that some other being has made them for their use. As they look upon things as means, they cannot believe them to be self-created. But, judging from the means which they are accustomed to prepare for themselves, they are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe endowed with human freedom, who have arranged and adapted everything for human use.

(10) Why did humans conclude that a divine being or beings intentionally designed nature for our use?

Religious superstitions arose as humans found their own ways of worshipping God. Problems of consistency also arose as people insisted that everything in nature is done by God for a purpose.

They are bound to estimate the nature of such rulers (having no information on the subject) in accordance with their own nature, and therefore they assert that the gods ordained everything for the use of humans, in order to bind humans to themselves and obtain from him the highest honor. Hence also it follows that everyone thought out for himself, according to his abilities, a different way of worshipping God, so that God might love him more than his fellows, and direct the whole course of nature for the satisfaction of his blind cupidity and insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice developed into superstition, and took deep root in the human mind; and for this reason everyone strove most zealously to understand and explain the final causes of things; but in their attempt to show that nature does nothing in vain, nothing which is useless to humans, they only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods, and men are all mad together. Consider, I pray you, the result: among the many helps of nature they were bound to find some hindrances, such as storms, earthquakes, diseases, &c.: so they declared that such things happen, because the gods are angry at some wrong clone them by men, or at some fault committed in their worship. Day by day, experience protested and showed by infinite examples that good and evil fortunes fall to the circumstance of pious and impious alike. Still they would not abandon their inveterate prejudice, for it was more easy for them to class such contradictions among other unknown things of whose use they were ignorant, and thus to retain their actual and innate condition of ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning and start afresh.

(11) What experiences conflict with the position that everything in nature is done by God for a purpose?

They therefore laid down as an axiom, that God's judgments far transcend human understanding. Such a doctrine might well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the human race for all eternity, if mathematics had not furnished another standard of truth in considering solely the essence and properties of figures without regard to their final causes. There are other reasons (which I need not mention here) besides mathematics, which might have caused men's minds to be directed to these general prejudices, and have led them to the knowledge of the truth.

(12) For Spinoza, what alternative standard of truth refutes the superstition that everything in nature is done by God for a purpose

God does not Act from a Purpose. Spinoza continues with his second point and argues that everything in nature is done from necessity, and not from God's willful purpose. He first argues that the concept of a perfect final goal is flawed. For Spinoza, the most perfect of God's acts are those closest to him. Succeeding events further down the chain are more imperfect. Thus if a given chain of events culminated in sunny weather, for example, that would be less perfect than the initial events in the chain.

            I have now sufficiently explained my first point. There is no need to show at length that nature has no particular goal in view, and that final causes are mere human figments. This, I think, is already evident enough, both from the causes and foundations on which I have shown such prejudice to be based, and also from Prop. xvi., and the Corollary of Prop. xxxii., and, in fact, all those propositions in which I have shown, that everything in nature proceeds from a sort of necessity, and with the utmost perfection. However, I will add a few remarks, in order to overthrow this doctrine of a final cause utterly. That which is really a cause it considers as an effect, and vice versa: it makes that which is by nature first to be last, and that which is highest and most perfect to be most imperfect. Passing over the questions of cause and priority as self-evident, it is plain from Props. xxi., xxii., xxiii. that that effect is most perfect which is produced immediately by God. The effect which requires for its production several intermediate causes is, in that respect, more imperfect. But if those things which were made immediately by God were made to enable him to attain his end, then the things which come after, for the sake of which the first were made, are necessarily the most excellent of all.

            Further, this doctrine does away with the perfection of God: for, if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something which he lacks. Certainly, theologians and metaphysicians draw a distinction between the object of want and the object of assimilation. Still they confess that God made all things for the sake of himself, not for the sake of creation. They are unable to point to anything prior to creation, except God himself, as an object for which God should act, and are therefore driven to admit (as they clearly must), that God lacked those things for whose attainment he created means, and further that he desired them.

(13) How does the doctrine of final cause compromise the perfection of God?

For Spinoza, the theologian's contention that God willfully directs all natural events amounts to a reduction to ignorance. That is, all natural events trace back to God's will, and we are all ignorant of God's will.

            We must not omit to notice that the followers of this doctrine, anxious to display their talent in assigning final causes, have imported a new method of argument in proof of their theory -- namely, a reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance; thus showing that they have no other method of exhibiting their doctrine. For example, if a stone falls from a roof onto someone's head, and kills him, they will demonstrate by their new method, that the stone fell in order to kill the man. For, if it had not by God's will fallen with that object, how could so many circumstances (and there are often many concurrent circumstances) have all happened together by chance? Perhaps you will answer that the event is clue to the facts that the wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the man at that very time walking that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day before, the weather being previously calm, and that the man had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was the sea agitated, and man invited at that time?" So they will pursue their questions from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God -- in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. So, again, when they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine and supernatural skill, and has been so put together that one part will not hurt another.

            Hence anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving their authority would vanish also. But I now quit this subject, and pass on to my third point.

(14) For Spinoza, what motivates such theologians to insist on this path of ignorance?

Belief in God's Willful Guidance of Nature Distorts Value Judgments. Spinoza finally turns to the last of the three main issues in the Appendix. The view that God willfully directs natural events gives rise to an erroneous notion of value judgments, such as goodness, order, and beauty. These values are presumed to be objective abstract notions imposed on nature by God for our benefit. However, Spinoza contends that all of these value judgments in fact arise out of our own human construction and human preferences.

            After people persuaded themselves that everything which is created is created for their sake, they were bound to consider as the chief quality in everything that which is most useful to themselves, and to account those things the best of all which have the most beneficial effect on humankind. Further, they were bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth, cold, beauty, deformity, and so on. And from the belief that they are free agents arose the further notions praise and blame, sin and merit.

            I will speak of these latter hereafter, when I treat of human nature; the former I will briefly explain here.

            Everything which conduces to health and the worship of God they have called good, everything which prevents these objects they have styled bad. Those who do not understand the nature of things do not verify phenomena in any way, but merely imagine them after a fashion, and mistake their imagination for understanding. Such persons firmly believe that there is an order in things, being really ignorant both of things and their own nature.

(15) For traditional theologians, what is the objective foundation of  the concepts of goodness badness?

When phenomena are of such a kind that the impression they make on our senses requires little effort of imagination, and can consequently be easily remembered, we say that they are well-ordered. If the contrary, we say that they, are ill-ordered or confused. Further, as things which are easily imagined are more pleasing to us, people prefer order to confusion -- as though there were any order in nature, except in relation to our imagination -- and say that God has created all things in order. Thus, without knowing it, attributing imagination to God, unless, indeed, they would have it that God foresaw human imagination, and arranged everything, so that it should be most easily imagined. If this is their theory, they would not, perhaps, be daunted by the fact that we find an infinite number of phenomena, far surpassing our imagination, and very many others which confound its weakness. But enough has been said on this subject.

(16) For Spinoza, what is the true psychological foundation of  the notion of "well-ordered"?

Spinoza continues describing the psychological and physiological foundations of other values such as beauty, fragrance, and harmony.

The other abstract notions are nothing but modes of imagining, in which the imagination is differently affected, though they are considered by the ignorant as the chief attributes of things, inasmuch as they believe that everything was created for the sake of themselves. And, according as they are affected by it, they style it good or bad, healthy or rotten and corrupt. For instance, if the motion which objects we see communicate to our nerves be conducive to health, the objects causing it are styled beautiful; if a contrary motion be excited, they are style ugly.

            Things which are perceived through our sense of smell are styled fragrant or stinking; if through our taste, sweet or bitter, full-flavored or insipid; if through our touch, bard or smooth &c. Whatever affects our ears is said to give rise to noise, sound, or harmony. In this last case, there are people crazy enough to believe that even God himself takes pleasure in harmony. And there are plenty of philosophers who have persuaded themselves that the motion of the heavenly bodies gives rise to harmony -- all of which instances sufficiently show that everyone judges of things according to the state of his brain, or rather mistakes for things the forms of his imagination. We need no longer wonder that there have arisen all the controversies we have witnessed, and finally skepticism: for, although human bodies in many respects agree, yet in very many others they differ; so that what seems good to one seems bad to another; what seems well ordered to one seems confused to another; what is pleasing to one displeases another, and so on. I need not further enumerate, because this is not the place to treat the subject at length, and also because the fact is sufficiently well known. It is commonly said: " So many men, so many minds; everyone is wise in his own way; brains differ as completely as palates." All of which proverbs show, that men judge of things according to their mental disposition, and rather imagine than understand: for, if they understood phenomena, they would, as mathematics attest, be convinced, if not attracted, by what I have urged.

(17) What is the basis of the various controversies and opinions that arise in human discourse?

            We have now perceived, that all the explanations commonly given of nature are mere modes of imagining, and do not indicate the true nature of anything, but only the constitution of the imagination. And, although they have names, as though they were entities, existing externally to the imagination, I call them entities imaginary rather than real; and, therefore, all arguments against us drawn from such abstractions are easily rebutted.

(18) Values, then, are not abstract entities which exist external to us. Instead, where do values originate?

            Many argue in this way. If all things follow from a necessity of the absolutely perfect nature of God, why are there so many imperfections in nature? such, for instance, as things corrupt to the point of putridity, loathsome deformity, confusion, evil, sin, &c. But these reasoners are, as I have said, easily confuted, for the perfection of things is to be reckoned only from their own nature and power. Things are not more or less perfect, according as they delight or offend human senses, or according as they are serviceable or repugnant to humankind. To those who ask why God did not so create all people so that they should be governed only by reason, I give no answer but this: because matter was not lacking to him for the creation of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest; or, more strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast, as to suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an infinite intelligence, as I have shown in Prop. xvi.

            Such are the misconceptions I have undertaken to note; if there are any more of the same sort, everyone may easily dissipate them for himself with the aid of a little reflection.

(19) Some may wonder why God created us in such a way that values are based on human physiology and emotion rather than reason. What is Spinoza's reply?

B. NICHOLAS MALEBRANCHE

            The most influential and original of the Cartesian philosophers was Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715). Deformed and sickly, Malebranche was born in Paris and from his childhood preferred solitude. He studied theology at the Sorbonne, and at age 22 entered the Congregation of the Oratory where he spent the rest of his life in seclusion. He was ordained in 1664 and the same year became acquainted with Descartes' Treatise on Man, an unfinished work which explores the relation between the human mind and body. He subsequently devoted his studies to Cartesian philosophy and science and four years later published his greatest work, The Search After Truth (De la Recherche de la vérité, 3 vol. 1674-1675). In response to theological criticisms of this work he soon after published his Treatise of Nature and Grace (Traité de la nature et de la grâce, 1680) which attempts to reconcile God's power, knowledge, and goodness with the evil in the world. This work embroiled him in even more controversy, particularly with French Bishop Jacques Bénigne Bossuet and French theologian Antoine Arnauld. Malebranche's other philosophical writings include Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion (Entretiens sur la métaphysique et sur la religion, 1688), a work in fourteen dialogs which more informally covers much of the ground in his Search after Truth, and A Treatise of Morality  (Traité de morale, 1683). In 1699 he was elected to the Académie des Sciences for his scientific writings. Near the end of his life, similarities between his views of God and those of Spinoza led to accusations that he followed Spinoza's heretical system. He defended himself against these charges in various letters and writings.

            Two aspects of Malebranche's philosophy have been especially influential in the history of philosophy: (1) that we see all things through God, and (2) occasionalism. Both of these doctrines are presented below. As to the first of these, Malebranche was concerned with explaining how our minds get perceptual images of external objects. His final answer to the question is that, within himself, God contains images of all external things, and God implants these ideas in our mind at the appropriate time. Thus, we see external objects by viewing their images as they reside in God. The following selections are from The Search after Truth, Book 3, part. 2, chapters 1-6. Chapter titles below are Malebranche's; subsection titles are added.

CH. 1, SECT. 1: WHAT IS MEANT BY IDEAS; THAT THEY TRULY EXIST, AND THAT THEY ARE NECESSARY TO PERCEIVE ALL MATERIAL OBJECTS. Malebranche begins by setting out the problem he wishes to address.

The Definition of “Idea.” We do not have direct access to the external objects, but only have ideas (or perceptions) which presumably resemble those objects.

I think everyone will confess that we do not perceive external objects by themselves. We see the sun, the stars, and many objects outside of us. And it is not probable that the soul should go out of the body and walk, as it were, through the heavens, to contemplate all those objects there. She does not, then, see them by themselves and as the immediate object of mind. When the soul sees the sun, for instance, it is not the sun, but something which is closely united to our soul. And it is that which I call "idea" so that here by this word "idea," I mean only what is the immediate object, or the nearest thing to the mind when it perceives anything.

(1) What does Malebranche mean by "idea"?

A central problem in modern philosophy concerned the connection between our perceptions and the external objects which supposedly produce our perceptions. For example, if I perceive a red ball in front of me, I may be tempted to assume that the object in front of me has exactly the properties as I perceive them (such as a particular shade of red). This view is called direct realism, and Malebranche immediately dismisses this theory. Instead, for Malebranche, ideas in some way represent the object in question. This view is called representative realism. Accordingly, when Malebranche uses the word "idea" he restricts its meaning to mental perceptions which represent or copy some original thing.

            It must be observed, that to make the mind perceive any object, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of this object should be actually present, of which we can have no doubt. But it is not required that there should be some external object which resembles this idea. For it often happens that we perceive things which do not exist, and which never did exist. Thus, we often have in our minds real ideas of things which never were. For instance, when a person imagines a mountain of gold, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of this mountain should be really present to his mind. When a mad person, a person in a high fever, or a person that is asleep, sees any terrible animal before his eyes, it is certain that the idea of this animal truly exists. And yet this mountain of gold, and this animal, never were.

            However, people being naturally inclined to believe that only corporeal objects exist, they judge the reality and existence of things quite differently than they should. For as soon as they are sensible of any object, they will certainly maintain that this object exists, although, it often happens, that there is nothing out there. And further, they affirm that this object is exactly the same as they see it, which never happens. But in respect to the idea which necessarily exists, and which can be nothing else besides what it appears to be, without any reflection, they commonly judge it to be nothing. They do this as if ideas had not a very great number of properties: as if the ideas of a square, for instance, were not very different from that of some number, and did not represent things perfectly distinct; which could never happen to nothing, since nothing has no propriety. It is therefore indisputable that ideas have a real existence. But let us examine their nature and essence, and see what it can be in the soul that is capable of representing all things.

(2) What mistakes do people typically make when they make judgments about external objects based on their ideas (or perceptions) of those objects?

Types of Mental Perceptions. Malebranche divides mental perceptions into the following groups:

                                                Internal

            Mental Perceptions <                          Spiritual

                                                External <

                                                                        Material

Mental perceptions in general are either internally produced or externally produced. Our  internal mental perceptions (such as emotions) are not themselves ideas, since they do not copy or represent anything (unlike our idea-perceptions of external objects which in fact represent those objects). Properly speaking, then, ideas constitute our externally produced mental perceptions. Even here, though, there is an exception. Malebranche sees that some mental perceptions may be produced from an external spiritual source, such as telepathy, and thus do not represent or copy anything.

            Whatever things the soul perceives are either in or out of itself. Those which are in the soul are its own thoughts -- that is, all its different modifications. For by these words, thought, manner of thinking, or modification of the soul, I understand in general all things that can be in the soul without her perceiving them, as her own sensations, imaginations, pure intellections, or simple conceptions, even her passions, and natural inclinations. Now our soul has no need of ideas to perceive all these things, because they are within the soul, or, rather, the soul itself, after such and such a manner. This is just as the real roundness of some body and its motion are only this body figured, and moved after such or such a manner.

            But as for things that are out of the soul, we can perceive them only by the means of ideas, supposing that these things cannot be intimately united to it. There are two sorts of them: spiritual, and material. As for the spiritual, there is some probability that they may discover themselves to the soul without ideas, and by themselves. For experience teaches us that we cannot immediately, and of ourselves, declare our thoughts to one another, but only by words or some other sensible sign to which we have affixed our ideas. Thus, we may say that God has ordained it so only during this life, to prevent those disorders that would soon happen if people could make themselves be understood as they pleased. But when justice and order will reign, and we will be delivered from the captivity of our bodies, we will perhaps make ourselves mutually understood by an intimate union of ourselves, as it is probable the angels do in heaven. Thus, it does not seem absolutely necessary to admit ideas to represent spiritual things to the soul, because it may be, we may see them by themselves, although after a very imperfect manner.

(3) As an example of mental perceptions caused by an external spiritual source, how might angels communicate ideas to each other?

External Material Sources of Perceptions. Thus, at least in theory, some mental perceptions may be directly caused by an external spiritual source and would not involve any representative ideas. Malebranche's principal concern, though, is with mental perceptions caused by an external material  source. These, he argues, necessarily are given to us as ideas which represent or copy the original object.

            I will not examine here how two spirits can be united one to the other, and if they can after this manner mutually discover one another's thoughts. I believe, however, that there is no substance purely intelligible, but that of God. Nothing can be evidently known but in his light, and the union of spirits cannot make them visible. For although we are most strictly united to ourselves, we are and will be unintelligible to ourselves, until we see ourselves in God and he represents to us the perfect intelligible idea that he has of our being included in his. So although I may seem here to grant that angels can display one to another what they are and what they think, it is only because I will not dispute it, provided I am granted what is not to be doubted, viz. that we cannot see material things by themselves, and without ideas.

I will explain in the seventh chapter, my opinion how we know spirits, and will show that at present we cannot absolutely know them by themselves, although it may be they are united to us. But I speak here mainly of material things, which certainly cannot be united to the soul in such a manner as is necessary for us to perceive them. For, since they are extended, and the soul not, there is no proportion between them. Besides, our souls do not go out of our bodies to measure the greatness of the heaven, and consequently, they cannot see external bodies except by the ideas which represent them. This is what all the world ought to grant.

(4) Why are external material things perceived by us by means of ideas?

CH. 1, SECT. 2: DIVISION OF THE VARIOUS WAYS WHEREBY EXTERNAL OBJECTS MAY BE SEEN. Let us grant Malebranche's initial point that the ideas of external things are only representations or copied images of the original object in question. The next question for Malebranche, then, is how we acquire these copied images of the original. Malebranche considers five possible theories of how represented ideas are fed to us. Through a process of elimination he concludes that we receive these ideas of external things from God who discloses them to us as he sees fit.

            We are assured then, that it is absolutely necessary that the ideas we have of bodies, and of all other objects which we do not perceive by themselves, [1] proceed from these bodies, or these objects, or else that [2] our soul has the power of producing these ideas, or that [3] God created them with our souls; or that [4] he produces them every time that we think of any object; or else that [5] the soul has all those perfections in itself that it sees in these bodies: or in short, that it is united with a perfect being, which in general includes all the perfections of created beings.

            We cannot see objects except after one of these ways. Let us examine without prejudice (and without frightening ourselves with the difficulty of the question) which of them seems most probable. We may resolve it very clearly, although we do not pretend here to give such demonstrations as will satisfy all sorts of persons, but only convincing proofs to those at least who will meditate with serious attention upon them. For perhaps it would be thought too rash if we should pretend otherwise.

            CH. 2: THAT MATERIAL OBJECTS DO NOT EMIT SPECIES WHICH RESEMBLE THEM. The first possibility considered by Malebranche is that ideas of objects are fed to us by the objects themselves.

The theory of Emitted Species. He considers this theory as explained by Medieval philosophers who followed  Aristotle.

The most common received opinion is that of the Peripatetics who think that external objects emit species which resemble them, and that those species are carried by the external senses to the common sense or understanding. They call these species impressed, because the object imprints them on the external senses. These impressed species, being material and sensible, are made intelligible, by means of the active, or active intellect; and are fit to be received in the passive intellect. These species, thus spiritualized, are called expressed species, because they are expressed by the impressed ones. And it is by them that the passive intellect knows all material things.

            We will not pause to explain at large these fine things, and the divers manners in which different philosophers conceive them. For they do not agree as to the number of faculties which they attribute to the interior sense and the understanding. And there are several who doubt whether they have need of any active intellect to know sensible objects. Yet however they generally agree, that external objects emit the species or images which represent them. And it is only upon this foundation that they multiply their faculties, and defend their active intellect: so that this foundation having no solidity, as will soon be shown, it will be unnecessary to spend any time to overturn the superstructure.

(5) What is the underlying theory proposed by the Peripatetics (disregarding the various perceptual faculties they postulate)?

Criticisms of the Emitted Species Theory. The contention, then, is that some kind of species or sense data particles are emitted by objects which carry the object's image to our senses. Malebranche rejects this view for three reasons.

            We are assured, then, that it is improbable that objects should emit their images, or species which represent them, for these reasons.

            The first is from the impenetrability of objects. All objects, as the sun, stars, and all such as are near the eyes, cannot emit species which are different from their respective natures.  For this reason philosophers commonly say that these species are gross and material, in which they differ from expressed species which are spiritualized. These impressed species of objects, then, are little bodies and they cannot therefore be penetrated, nor all the spaces which are between the earth and the heaven, which must be full of them. From this it is easy to conclude that they must be bruised and broken in moving every way; and thus they cannot make objects visible.

            Moreover, one may see from the same place or point a great number of objects in the heavens and on the earth. Therefore, the species of these objects can be reduced into a point. But they are impenetrable since they are extended, therefore, etc.

But one may not only see a multitude of very great and vast objects. From all points in all the great spaces of the world we can discover an almost infinite number of objects, and even objects as large as the sun, moon, and the heavens. There is therefore no point in all the world where the species of all these things ought not to meet; which is against all appearance of truth.

(6) The first problem with this view is that the species particles themselves must be physical. However, at the same time, we must concede that they all are reduced to the size of a tiny (perhaps infinitely small) point. Why must they be as small as a point?

            The second reason is taken from the change which happens in the species. It is evident that the nearer any object is, the greater its species ought to be, since we see the object is greater. But what is yet more difficult to conceive, according to their opinion, is that if we look upon this object with a telescope, or a microscope, the species immediately becomes six hundred times as great as it was before. For it is yet more difficulty conceived from what parts it can grow so great in an instant.

(7) The second problem with this view is that the same object produces species of different sizes depending on how close we are to the object. What is difficult to conceive about this?

            The third reason is when we look upon a perfect cube, all the species of its sides are unequal. Nevertheless, we see all the sides equally square. So when we consider ellipses and parallelograms in a picture, which cannot but emit like species,  we nevertheless see circles and squares. This manifestly shows that it is not necessary that the object beheld should emit species like itself, that it may be seen.

(8) The third problem is that the same species must be emitted by the different objects, yet we perceive them differently. Explain Malebranche's examples comparing a the side of a real cube with a picture of a parallelogram.

            In short, it cannot be conceived how it can be that a body, which does not sensibly diminish, should always emit species on every side, which should continually fill all the great spaces about it, and that with an inconceivable swiftness. For an object that was hidden, in that instant that it discovers itself may be seen many millions of leagues on all sides. And what appears yet more strange is that bodies in great motion, as air and some other, do not have that power of pushing outwards these images which resemble them, as the more gross and quiescent bodies, such as the earth, stones, and generally all hard bodies have.

            But I will not stay any longer to enumerate all the contrary reasons to their opinion. There would be no end since a very ordinary judgment would raise innumerable objections. Those that we have brought are sufficient, though they were not so necessary after what has been said upon the subject of the first book, where the errors of the senses were explained. But there are so great a number of philosophers wedded to this opinion, that we believe it will be necessary to say something to incline them to reflect upon their own thoughts.

            CH. 3: That the Soul has no Power of Producing Ideas. The second theory which Malebranche attacks is that objects make some kind of impression on our senses, and from these impressions we by ourselves form the ideas which represent the object. Since, on this theory, the initial impression does not resemble the object, then we ourselves have the power to create the idea which does resemble the object.

            The second opinion is that of those who believe our souls have any power of producing the ideas of such things about which they will think, and the souls are excited to produce the ideas  by the impressions which objects make upon bodies, although these impressions are not images like the objects which cause them. They believe that it is in this that humans are made after the image of God, and participates of his power. Just as God created all things out of nothing and can reduce them to nothing again, and then create them anew, so too can humans create, and annihilate the ideas of all things as he pleases. But there are good reasons to distrust all these opinions which praise a person since these are the common thoughts which arise from a vain and proud origin, and which the Father of light has not inspired.

(9) What is the real motivation behind belief in this theory?

Criticism of this Theory. The initial problem Malebranche sees with this theory is that ideas are spiritual in nature, and we are ascribing to ourselves the power of creating something spiritual out of nothing.

            This participation of the power of God, which people boast of having, to represent objects and of doing many other particular actions, is a participation which seems to relate to something of independence, as independence is commonly explained. It is also an imaginary participation which people's ignorance and vanity make them imagine. They depend much more than they think upon the goodness and mercy of God. But this is not a place to explain these things. It is enough if we try to show that people have not the power of forming the ideas of things which they perceive.

            No one can doubt that ideas are real beings, since they have real properties and since they differ from one another, and represent all different things. Nor can we reasonably doubt that they are spiritual, and very different from the bodies which they represent. But it seems reasonable to doubt whether ideas, by whose means we see bodies, are not more noble than the bodies themselves. For indeed the intelligible world must be more perfect than the material and earthly, as we will see hereafter. Thus when we affirm that we have the power of forming such ideas as we please, we will be in danger of persuading ourselves to make more noble and perfect beings than the world which God has created. However, some do not reflect upon it, because they imagine that an idea is nothing, since it is not to be felt. Alternatively, if they look upon it as a being, it is a very mean, contemptible one, because they imagine it to be annihilated as soon as it is no longer present to the mind.

(10) Why  don't  some people reflect on the initial problem that we are creating something spiritual out of nothing?

Requirements for Creating Ideas. Some people try to gloss over the issue by saying that it is not true creation since we are actually starting with something (i.e. the physical impressions of the object). Malebranche rejects such attempts to evade the real issue and he emphasizes all the more that this theory gives us the power to create something out of nothing.

            But supposing it true, that ideas were only little contemptible beings. Nevertheless, they are beings, and spiritual ones. And since people do not have the power of believing, it follows that they cannot produce them. For the production of ideas, after the manner before explained, is a true creation. People try to gloss over and soften the hardness of this opinion by saying that the production of ideas presupposes something else, but creation presupposes nothing. Still, the difficulty is not solved by this ploy.

            For we ought to consider that it is no more difficult to produce something out of nothing, than to produce one thing out of another which cannot at all contribute to its production. For example, it is no more difficult to create an angel than to produce him from a stone; since a stone is of another sort of being wholly different, it cannot in the least be useful to the production of an angel. But it may contribute to the production of bread, gold, etc. For a stone, gold, and bread, are only the same thing differently configured, and are all material.

            It is even more difficult to produce an angel of a stone, than to produce him out of nothing. This is because to make an angel out of a stone (so far as it can be done) the stone must be annihilated, and afterwards the angel created. But simply to create an angel, nothing is to be annihilated. If therefore the mind produces its ideas from the material impressions which the brain receives from objects, it must always do the same thing, or a thing as difficult, or even more difficult than if it created them. Since ideas are spiritual, they cannot be produced of material images, which have no proportion with them.

(11) Why is it more difficult to create an angel out of stone than to create an angel from nothing?

Malebranche continues that even if we did have the power to create something from nothing, we still could not create an idea of an object. This would require some prior access to that object to accurately depict it.

            But if it is said that an idea is not a substance, I consent to it, yet it is always something that is spiritual. And as it is impossible to make a square of a spirit, although a square is not a substance from a spiritual idea, although an idea was no substance.

            But even if  we should grant to the mind of humans a sovereign power to annihilate, and create the ideas of things, it would still never make use of that power to produce such ideas. For, even as a painter, how skillful he is, could not represent an animal which he had never seen and of which he never had any idea, so that the picture which he should make would resemble this unknown animal. Thus a person cannot form the idea of an object if he did not know it before, that is, if he does not already have some idea of the object which does not depend upon his will. And if he already had an idea of it, he certainly knows this object, and it would be unnecessary for him to form it anew. It is therefore in vain to attribute to the mind of humans the power of producing his ideas.

Two Possible Defenses Rejected. Malebranche considers a possible defense that we naturally have some kind of confused ideas of things, and it is from these confused ideas that we develop the more distinct ideas which more accurately resemble the original object. Thus, we do not actually create our accurate ideas, but merely develop them. He rejects this view, though, since the naturally implanted idea would have to be distinct, otherwise it would be useless in helping us form an accurate idea. And, if the naturally implanted idea was distinct, we would not need to develop another idea from it. Malebranche notes a second possible defense: we conceive of something, such as a square, through our pure intellect, and then develop a visual image of it through our imagination. Again Malebranche has problems with this view since the imagined image is not an exact copy of the first.

Perhaps it might be said that the minds of humans have general and confused ideas which they do not produce. And those which they produce are particular, more clear and distinct; but it is always the same thing. However, a painter cannot draw the picture of a particular person, so as to be sure that he has perfected it, if he had had no distinct idea of that person, and especially if the person had not been present. Similarly, the mind which, for example, could only have the idea of a being or an animal in general, could not represent to itself a horse, nor form a distinct idea of a horse and be assured that it is perfectly like a horse, unless it already had the first idea [of a specific horse] with which it might compare this second idea [of the horse]. Now if it had a first idea [of a specific horse], it is not necessary to form a second idea [of the horse]. And the question regards this first. Therefore, etc.

            It is true that when we conceive of a square by pure intellection, we can also imagine it, that is, perceive it in ourselves, by tracing an image of it in the brain. Yet it must be first observed that we are not the true nor principal cause of this image. But it will take too long to explain this here. Secondly, so far is the second idea which accompanies this image from being more distinct and more exact than the other, that, on the contrary, it is not so exact because it resembles the first, which was only a pattern for the second. For indeed we must not believe that the imagination and senses represent objects more distinctly to us than the pure understanding. Instead, they only apply them more to the mind. For the ideas of the senses and imagination are not distinct, but only so insofar as they are conformable to the pure intellection. The image of a square, for example, which the imagination traces in the brain, is not exact and perfect, but is only so insofar as it resembles the idea of the square, which we conceive by pure intellection. It is this idea which regulates this image, and it is the mind which conducts the imagination. The mind obliges it, if we may so say, to observe from time to time whether the image it paints is a figure of four right and equal lines, whose angles are alike. In a word, it considers whether what it imagines is like to what it conceives.

The Fallacy of Attributing False Causes. Malebranche concludes this section by noting why people erroneously believe that the human mind has the power to create ideas. First, people observe that when they will to think about a certain idea, such as the idea of an elephant, then the image of an elephant appears. Since the act of willing and the emergence of the idea are correlated, they erroneously assume that the will causes the idea. Logicians refer to this error as the fallacy of false cause.

            After what has been said, I do not believe it can be doubted that people are deceived who affirm that the mind is able to form the ideas of objects. This is because they attribute the power of creation to the mind, and even of creating with wisdom and order, although it has no knowledge of what it does. For that is not conceivable. But the cause of their error is that people always judge that a thing is the cause of some effect when both are joined together, supposing the true cause of this effect is unknown to them. That makes all the world conclude that a bowl put in motion, and meeting another, is the true and principal cause of the motion that it communicates to it. This is just as they conclude that will of the soul is the true and principal cause of the motion of the arm, and other similar prejudices. For, it always happens that a bowl is shaken when it is met by another that runs against it, just as our arms are moved almost always when we will, and we do not see any other apparent cause of this motion.

            But when an effect does not so often follow something which is not the cause of it, there is nevertheless a great many people, who believe this thing is the cause of the effect which happens. Yet everybody is not guilty of the same error. For instance, a comet appears, and after this comet a prince dies. Some stones lie exposed to the moon, and they are eaten with worms. The sun is joined with mars at the nativity of a child, and something extraordinary happens to this child. All this is enough to persuade a great many people that the comet, the moon, and the conjunction of the sun with mars, are the causes of these effects, and others like them. And the reason why all the world does not believe it, is that they do not always see these effects follow these causes.

(12) What superstitions arise from the tendency to ascribe false causes to things?

            But all people commonly have the ideas of objects present to their minds as soon as they will it, and this happens many times in a day. Accordingly, almost all conclude that the will which accompanies the production, or rather the presence of ideas, is truly the cause of them. This is because they see nothing at the same time that they can attribute it to, and they imagine that the ideas no longer exist when the mind sees them no longer, and that they revive again anew when they are again represented to the mind.

            It is for these reasons that some judge that external objects emit images which resemble them, as we have mentioned in the preceding chapter. For, since it is impossible to see objects by themselves, but only by their ideas, they then judge that the object produces the idea. This is because as soon as it is present, they see it, and as soon as it is absent, they see it no longer, and because the presence of the object almost always accompanies the idea which represents it to us.

(13) How does the tendency to ascribe false causes explain why people believe that external objects emit images with resemble the object?

            Yet if people were not prejudiced in their judgments from this, given that the ideas of things are present to their mind as soon as they will them, they would only conclude that, according to the order of nature, their will is commonly necessary for them to have those ideas. They would not conclude that the will is the true and principal cause which presents them to the mind, and much less, that the will produces them from nothing, or after the manner by which they explain it. Nor should they conclude that objects emit species resembling them, because the soul commonly perceives them only when they are present. They should only conclude that the object is for the most part necessary for the ideas to be present to the mind. And lastly, they should not conclude that a bowl put into motion is the principal and true cause of the shaking of another bowl that it meets in the way, since the first had not the power of motion in itself. They can only determine that the meeting of two bowls is an occasion to the author of the motion of matter to execute the decree of his will, which is the universal cause of all things, in communicating to the other bowl a part of the motion of the first (that is, to speak more clearly, in willing that the last, it should acquire so much more motion as was lost by the first). For the moving force of bodies can proceed only from the will of him who preserves them, as we will show elsewhere.

(14) In view of the fact that the above mentioned events are merely correlated, what is the most that we can say about the role of the human will and external objects in the production of our ideas?

            CH. 4: THAT WE DO NOT SEE OBJECTS BY MEANS OF IDEAS WHICH WERE CREATED WITH US. The third explanation of the origin of ideas which Malebranche attacks is that all ideas of the external world were innately implanted in our minds when we were created by God, and we merely recall these ideas.

God acts in the Easiest Way. Malebranche argues that this theory would require an infinite number ideas, each with an infinite number of variations. God would not adopt this approach if there is an easier way to accomplish the same task.

            The third opinion is, that of those who say all ideas are created with us.

            To discover the improbability of this opinion, it will be necessary to consider that there are many different things in the world of which we have ideas. But to speak only of simple figures, it is certain that the number of them is infinite. No, even if we consider but one only, as the ellipsis, we cannot doubt but the mind conceives an infinite number of different kinds of them when it considers that one of the diameters may be lengthened out to infinity, and the other always continue the same.

            Just as the height of a triangle may be augmented or diminished infinitely, the base being always the same, we may conceive that there is an infinite number of different kinds of them. Further (which I desire may be considered here), the mind in some manner perceives this infinite number, although we can imagine but very few of them, and we can at the same time have particular and distinct ideas of many triangles of different kinds. But what must mainly be observed is that this general idea that the mind has of this number of triangles of different kinds. And this is sufficient to prove that, if we do not conceive each of these different triangles by particular ideas and, in short, if we do not comprehend their infinity, it is not the defect of the ideas, or that infinity is not represented to us. Rather, it is only the defect of the capacity and extension of the mind. If a person should apply himself to consider the properties of all the different kinds of triangles, although he should eternally continue this sort of study, he would never want new and particular ideas, but his mind would be unprofitably fatigued.

            What I have said of triangles, may be applied to five, six, a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand sided figures, and so on ad infinitum. Now if the sides of a triangle, which have infinite relations one with the other, make triangles of infinite kinds, it is plain that four, five, or a thousand sided figures are capable of admitting much greater differences, since they are capable of a greater number of relations and combinations of their sides than simple triangles are.

            The mind then sees all these things. It has ideas of them, and these ideas would never fail it, although it should employ infinite ages in the consideration of one figure only. And if it did not perceive these infinite figures immediately, or did not comprehend their infinity, it is only because its extension is very limited. It has then an infinite number of ideas. Do I say an infinite number? It has as many infinite numbers of ideas, as there are different figures to be considered. Thus, since there is an infinite number of different figures, to know these figures it is necessary for the mind have an infinitely infinite number of ideas.

(15) On the theory presented, how many ideas must the mind have?

            Now I ask, is it probable that God should create so many things within the mind of humans? For my part it does not appear so to me, mainly since that might be accomplished in a more simple and easy manner, as we will soon see. For as God always acts by the most simple ways, it does not seem reasonable to explain how we know objects by admitting the creation of an infinite number of beings, since we can resolve this difficulty in a more easy and natural way.

(16) Why would God not create us with such a vast number of ideas?

            Can’t Explain why the Soul Selects a Given Idea. A second problem with this theory concerns how the soul could decide to pick out a given idea to represent a given object when we look at it

            But although the mind should have a magazine of all the ideas which are necessary for it to see things, it would be yet more difficult to explain how the soul would make choice of them to represent things. For instance, how  can the soul represent the sun to itself when the sun is present to the eyes of its body?

            For since the image which the sun imprints in the brain does not resemble the idea we have of it (as has been elsewhere proved), and since the soul does not perceive the motion that the sun produces in the bottom of the eyes and in the brain, it is inconceivable how it should exactly guess (among these infinite number of ideas that it has) which one it must represent to itself so to imagine or to see the sun. We cannot, therefore, say that the ideas of things were created with us, as this will not explain how we see the objects that are about us.

(17) Even if we had all ideas implanted in us, why couldn't this explain how we perceive external objects?

            Nor can we say that God produces as many of them every moment, as we perceive different things. This has been sufficiently refuted from what has been said in this chapter. Besides it is necessary that at all times we actually have in ourselves the ideas of all things, since we are always able to think of all things. And we could not do this if we perceived them already confusedly, that is, if an infinite number of ideas were not present to our minds. For, we cannot will to think of objects of which we have no idea.

            CH. 5: THAT THE MIND NEITHER SEES THE ESSENCE, NOR EXISTENCE OF OBJECTS IN CONSIDERING ITS OWN PERFECTIONS. Malebranche turns to the fourth explanation of the origin of ideas. On this view, the human soul  is of such a superior nature, that it contains within itself the spiritual nature of  external things themselves (which are inferior). Ideas of external things, then, are copies of the spiritual nature of those things as they exist within our own souls.

The fourth opinion is that the mind stands in need of nothing besides itself to perceive objects. In considering itself and its own perfections, it can discover all things that are outside of it.

            It is certain that the soul sees within itself (and without ideas) all the sensations and passions it is capable of, such as pleasure, pain, cold, heat, colors, sounds, odors, flavors, its love, its hatred, joy and sadness, etc. This is because all the sensations and passions of the soul represent nothing external which is like them, and because they are only modifications which nothing but the mind is capable of. But the difficulty is to know whether the ideas which represent something that is outside of  the soul and which resembles them in some measure (as the ideas of a sun, a house, a horse, a river, etc.) are only modifications of the soul. This is considering that the soul cannot stand in need of  anything besides itself to represent to itself all external things.

            There are persons who make no scruple to affirm that the soul, being made to think, has in itself (I mean, in considering its own perfections) whatever is necessary to perceive objects. For, indeed the soul being nobler than all the things it conceives distinctly, it may be said that the soul contains them in some measure eminently, according to the notions of the schools. That is, the soul contains them after a nobler and more sublime manner than the things are in themselves. They accordingly pretend that superior things comprehend the perfections of those that are inferior. And, thus, being themselves the noblest of the creatures they know, they imagine they have in themselves, after a spiritual manner, all that is in the visible world. In a word, they describe the soul to be like an intelligible world, which comprehends in itself whatever the material and sensible world comprehends. No, it comprehends infinitely more.

            But in my opinion it is a great presumption to maintain this view. If I am not mistaken, it is natural vanity, the love of independence, and the desire of resembling him who comprehends all beings in himself [i.e. God], which confounds the mind, and inclines us to believe that we possess what we have not. "Do not say that you are a Light to yourself," says St. Augustine. For there is none but God who is a light to himself, and who can, in considering himself, see whatever he has produced, or can produce.

(18) What inclines people to hold this view about the nature of our souls?

Why Only God can do This. Malebranche explains how the above theory can only apply to God insofar as God created the external world. As creator, God made the world based on a set of ideas he had of all the world's  creatures and objects. These ideas are part of God's nature, and, thus, God sees within himself the existence and nature of all the things he created. By contrast, humans are limited, and we do not contain within  ourselves the existence and nature of all things.

            It is certain that there was no one but God alone before the world was created, and he could not produce it without knowledge and without ideas. Consequently those ideas which God had of the world are not different from himself. And thus all creatures, even the most material and most terrestrial, are in God, though in a manner altogether spiritual, which we cannot understand. God therefore sees all beings in himself, in considering his own perfections which represent them to him. He also knows their existence perfectly. For since the existence of all things depend on his will, he cannot be ignorant of his own will. It follows, then, that he cannot be ignorant of their existence. And thus God does not only see in himself the essence of all things, but also their existence.

            But the case is different with created [human] spirits since they can neither see the essence of things, nor their existence within themselves. They cannot see the essence of things within themselves because, being very limited, they do not contain all existing beings as God does, whom we may call the universal being (or plainly he that is, as he calls himself.). Since, therefore, the human mind may know all beings and infinite beings, and yet not contain them, it is a certain proof that the human mind does not see the essence of things in itself. For the mind does not only see sometimes one thing, and sometimes another successively, it also actually perceives infinity, though it does not comprehend it. So that not being actually infinite, nor capable of infinite modifications at the same time, it is absolutely impossible that it should see within itself what is not there. Therefore it does not see the essence of things in considering its own perfections, or by modifying itself variously.

(19) Malebranche argues that our limited nature prevents us from having the existence and nature of all other things within ourselves. To illustrate our limitations, he examines the human conception of infinity. As humans, what are we capable of understanding about the notion of infinity, and what is it that we don't understand?

Malebranche argues further that the ideas we have of external things clearly depend on something other than ourselves. First, ideas of things do not depend on our wills. Second, when we have hallucinations, these don't even correspond to anything real.

            Further, the human soul does not see the existence of things within itself, because the existence of beings does not depend upon the human will,  and also because the ideas of those beings may be present to the human mind, although the beings do not exist. For, everybody may have the idea of a mountain of gold, though there is no mountain of gold in nature. And though we rely on the report of the senses to judge of the existence of objects, nevertheless reason does not assure us that we should always believe our senses since we find clearly that they deceive us. For example, when a person's blood is inflamed, or when he barely sleeps, he sometimes sees fields, combats, and the like, which nevertheless are not present and perhaps never were. Therefore it is certain that it is neither within itself, nor by itself, that the mind sees the existence of things, but that in this case it depends upon some other things.

            CH. 6: THAT WE SEE ALL THINGS IN GOD. Given the failure of the above four theories, Malebranche argues that we obtain ideas of external things by viewing them within God himself. For, God houses ideas of all external things, and, by his own choosing, allows us to see those ideas.

Spiritual Entities Reside in God. This theory rests on the contention that spiritual entities reside in God. Malebranche maintains this for two reasons. First, as indicated above, as creator, God must have the ideas or blueprints of all things. Second, all spirits (and spiritual things such as ideas) dwell within God, just as all physical things dwell in space.

We have examined in the preceding chapters four different manners in which the human mind may see external objects, and these do not appear probable to us. There only remains the fifth, which alone appears agreeable to reason and is the most proper, which is the dependence that spirits have on God in all their thoughts.

            In order to understand it correctly, we must remember what has been said in the preceding chapter, that it is absolutely necessary that God should have in himself the ideas of all the beings he has created, since otherwise he could not have produced them. And, thus, he sees all those beings by considering the perfections which he includes in himself, and to which all beings are related. Moreover, it is necessary to know that God is very strictly united to our souls by his presence, so that we may say that he is the place of spirits, just as space is the place of bodies. These two things being supposed, it is certain that the mind may see what there is in God, which represents created beings, since that is very spiritual, very intelligible, and most present to the mind. Thus the mind may see in God the works of God, supposing God be willing to disclose to our minds what there is in God which represents those works. These are the reasons which seem to prove that he wills rather than creates an infinite number of ideas in every mind.

Efficiency Argument. Malebranche offers several proofs of his theory that we get ideas of external objects by viewing those ideas in God. He still is troubled, though, by the second rejected theory above (that God innately planted ideas of external things in our minds) and he sees this as the principal rival to his own theory. His first defense of his own theory, then,  is that it is a more efficient explanation than that offered by the rival theory.

            First, although we do not absolutely deny that God was able to produce an infinitely infinite number of beings who represent objects with every mind he creates, yet we ought not to believe that he does so. For it is not only compatible with reason, but it also appears by the economy of nature, that God never does by very difficult means what may be done by a plain and easy way. God does nothing in vain and without reason. His wisdom and his power are not exhibited by doing little things by difficult means. That is repugnant to reason, and shows a limited knowledge. On the contrary, his greatness is seen by doing great things by plain easy means. It is thus that from extension alone he produces everything we see that is admirable in nature, and even that which gives life and motion to animals. For those who postulate substantial forms, faculties, and souls in animals different from their blood and from the organs of their body, in order to perform their functions, at the same time seem to argue that God wants understanding, or that he cannot do those admirable things by extension alone. They measure the power of God and his sovereign wisdom by the smallness of their own capacity. Then since God may make human minds see all things, by willing barely that they should see what is in themselves; that is, what is in him that has a relation to those things, and which represents them, there is no probability that he would do it otherwise; and that he should produce, in order thereunto, as many infinities of infinite numbers of ideas, as there are created spirits.

(20) Malebranche rejects the theory of innately implanted ideas of external things because it is less efficient than Malebranche's own theory. Malebranche illustrates God's efficiency by describing the variety of things which God created out of extension alone (i.e. out of physical substance alone). What does this include?

            We must observe, however, that we cannot conclude that spirits see the essence of God insofar as they can see all things in God in that manner. This is because what they see is very imperfect, whereas God is very perfect. We see matter divisible and figured, etc., but there is nothing in God that is divisible or figured. For God is all beings, because he is infinite and comprehends all, but he is no being in particular. Nevertheless that which we see is but one, or several beings in particular, and we do not apprehend that perfect simplicity of God which includes all beings. Besides that it may be said, that we do not so much see the ideas of things, as the things which those ideas represent; for when we see a square, for instance, we do not say that we see the idea of that square, which is united to the mind, but only the square which is without us.

(21) Given that we obtain ideas of external things by viewing them through God, this does not mean that we actually can see the inner nature of God himself. What is the key difference between the ideas of external things that we see through God, and God's nature itself?

Sovereignty Argument. A second argument for Malebranche's own theory is that it highlights God's sovereignty more than the alternative theory.

            There is a second reason which may induce us to believe that we see all objects because God wills that that which is in God and represents things should be discovered to us (rather than because we have as many ideas created with us as we can see things). For this puts all created spirits in an absolute dependence upon God, and the greatest spirits that can be. This being so, we cannot only see nothing except what God wills that we should see, but we can also see nothing, unless God himself shows it to us. Non sumus sufficientes cogitare aliquid a nobis, tanquam ex nobis, sed sufficientia nostra ex deo est (2 Cor. 3:5). It is God himself which instructs and enlightens philosophers in that knowledge which ungrateful people call natural, although it is an immediate gift from heaven: deus enim illis manifestavit (Rom. 1:19). It is he that is properly the light of the mind, and the father of light or knowledge. Pater luminum (James 1:17). It is he that teaches wisdom to people: qui docet hominem scientiam (Psalms 53). In a word, he is the true light, which enlightens all those that come into this world: lux vera que illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum (John 1:9).

(22) How does Malebranche's theory emphasize God's sovereignty?

            In short, it is pretty difficult to distinctly recognize the dependence which our minds have on God in all their particular actions (supposing that they have all that which we distinctly know to be necessary for them in order to act, or all the ideas of things present to their mind, and truly that general and confused word concurrence, by which people pretend to explain the dependence that creatures have on God, does not awaken any distinct idea in an attentive mind). Yet it is quite necessary that people should know distinctly that they can do nothing without God.

Abstract Idea Argument. Malebranche's third argument is based on how we acquire abstract or general ideas, such as the universal notion of a triangle. General ideas are initially formed in God, and we access these through God.

            But the strongest of all reasons, is the manner in which the mind perceives all things. It is certain, and everybody knows by experience, that when we wish to think on anything in particular thing, we first cast our eyes on all beings. After that, we apply ourselves to the consideration of the object we design to think on. Now it is most certain that we see it already, though confusedly and in general. So, as we may desire to see all the beings, sometimes one and sometimes another, it is certain that all beings are present to our mind.  And it appears that all beings can only be present to our mind because God is present to our minds, that is, he who includes all things in the simplicity of his being.

            It seems, moreover, that the mind would not be capable of representing to itself universal ideas of kinds and species, etc., unless it saw all beings included in one. Since every creature is a particular being, we cannot say that we see anything created when we see, for instance, a triangle in general. In short, I believe that it is impossible to give a good reason of the manner in which the mind comes to know several abstracted and general truths, unless it is by the presence of him [i.e. God] that can direct the mind in a world of different manners.

(23) Malebranche argues that we cannot conceive of universal abstract ideas unless we saw all beings included in one, which we as humans cannot do on our own accord. What ability does God have which allows for the creation of  abstract ideas?

Using the abstract idea of "the infinite" as a starting point, Malebranche gives a variation of Descartes' proof of God's existence in Meditation 3. For Descartes, we have an innate idea of infinite perfection which must have been implanted in us by an infinitely perfect being (i.e., God). Malebranche's argument is as follows:

(a) We have a concept of infinite being

(b) We do not comprehend "infinite being" in the way in which ideas copy objects

(c) Our comprehension of infinite being results from a union or direct acquaintance with God himself

(d) Therefore, God exists

It is from the idea of infinite being, with which we are directly acquainted, that we form our ideas of finite beings.

            Thus, the chief proof of the existence of God which is the best, the most majestic, and the most solid (or that which supposes the fewest things) is the idea we have of infinity. For, the mind does not comprehend infinite being, and the mind has a very distinct idea of God which it can only have by the union it has with God. This is because it cannot be conceived that the idea of a being infinitely perfect, as that we have of God, should be anything that is created.

            But not only does the mind have the idea of infinity, it has it even before that of  the finite. For we conceive the infinite being, and from this alone that we conceive a being, without considering whether it is finite or infinite. But in order to conceive of a finite being, we must reduce something of that general notion of  a being which, consequently, must precede it. Thus, the mind perceives nothing but an infinity, and that idea cannot be formed by the confused mixture of all the ideas of particular beings, as philosophers imagine. On the contrary, all those particular ideas are only participations of the general idea of infinity insofar as God does not derive his being from the creatures, but all creatures only subsist by him.

(24) How do we arrive at the notion of finite being?

Principle Purpose Argument. Malebranche turns to his final proof that we see all things in God. Since God creates all things for his own purpose, then as human creatures we cannot perceive anything without seeing God in those things.

            The last proof, which perhaps will be a demonstration to those that are used to abstracted arguments, is this. It is impossible that God should have any other principal end of his actions but himself. This notion is common to all people that are capable of any reflection, and the holy scriptures do not allow us to doubt that God has made everything for himself. Therefore, it is necessary that our natural love (I mean the motion he produces in our mind) should tend towards him. Moreover, the knowledge and the light which he presents to our minds should make us know something that is in him. For whatever comes from God can only be for God. If God created a spirit, and gave it an idea of the sun (as the immediate object of its knowledge), in my opinion God would create that spirit, and the idea in that spirit, for the sun and not for him.

            God cannot therefore create a spirit to know his works, unless that spirit sees God in some measure by looking at his works. So we may say that, unless we do see God in some measure, we would see nothing. Similarly, unless we do love God (I mean, unless God continually imprinted in us the love of good in general) we should love nothing. For since that love is our will, then we can love nothing, nor will  anything without him. This is because we cannot love particular goods without directing towards those goods the inclination of love which God gives us towards himself. Thus, just as we love nothing except by the necessary love we have for God, so too we see nothing except by the natural knowledge we have of God. And all the particular ideas we have of creatures are only limitations of the idea of the creator, as all the motions of the will for the creatures, are only determinations of the motion for the creator.

(25) What is the main end towards which all love (or desire) is directed?

            I believe that all theologians will grant that the impious love God with that natural love which I speak of. St. Augustine and some other fathers affirm as an undeniable thing that the impious see in God the rule of morality and necessary truths. So, the opinion I explain should not trouble anyone. Thus St. Augustine speaks:

The mind is advised that it should turn to the Lord as to that light by which it was touched in some way, even when that mind turned away from him. For hence it is that even the godless think of eternity, and rightly condemn and rightly praise many things in the moral conduct of people. Bu what rules, pray, do they judge these things if not by those in which they see how each one ought to live, even though they themselves do not live in the same manners? Where do they see them? They do not see them in their own nature. For, these things are doubtless in the mind, and their minds are admittedly changeable. But it sees these rules as unchangeable, whoever can see even this in them. ... Where, then, are they written except in the book of that light which is called Truth? From there every just law is transcribed and transferred to the heart of the person who works justice ... But he who does not work justice, and yet sees what is to be worked, he it is who is turned away from this light, but still touched by it. (The Trinity, 14:15)

There are many passages in St. Augustine similar to this by which he proves that we see God, even in this life, by the knowledge we have of eternal truths. Truth is uncreated, immutable, immense, eternal, and above all things. It is true by itself. It derives its perfection from nothing. It makes creatures more perfect, and all spirits naturally try to know it. Nothing but God can have all those perfections. Therefore truth is God. We see some of those immutable eternal truths. Therefore we see God. These are St. Augustine's reasons, and ours differ a little from them. And we are unwilling to unjustly use the authority of so great a person to confirm our opinion.

(26) For Augustine what is truth?

Different Kinds of Ideas we See through God. Thus, we see God especially when we consider necessary truths, such as those of mathematics and ethics. Malebranche slightly modifies Augustine's position and argues instead that we see God in the ideas behind truths, not in the truths themselves.

            We believe that truths, even those that are eternal (such as that two times two is four) are not so much absolute beings, and even less so do we believe that they are God. For it is clear that that truth only consists in a relation of equality, such as between twice two and four. Therefore we do not say that we see God when seeing truths, as St. Augustine says. Instead, we see God when seeing the ideas of those truths. For ideas are real, but the equality between the ideas, which is truth, has no reality. For example, when people say that the cloth they measure contains three yards, the cloth and the yards are real, but the equality between three yards and the cloth is not a real thing. It is only a relation that is between the three yards and the cloth. When we say that twice two are four, the ideas of the numbers are real, but the equality which there is between them is only a relation. Thus, according to our opinion, we see God when we see eternal truths. Not that those eternal truths are God, but because the ideas on which those truths depend are in God. Perhaps St. Augustine understood it this way. We also believe that we know changeable and corruptible things in God as well, although St. Augustine only speaks of immutable and incorruptible things. This is because these do not require us to place any imperfection in God since, as we have already said, it is sufficient that God should show us what there is in him that is related to these things.

For Malebranche, we know both eternal truths and facts about the physical world by viewing them in God. When we see all things in God, though, it is not as if we ourselves are sensing them in God. Instead, God actively places these ideas in us by making the appropriate physiological modifications in our souls.

            But though I say we see in God the things that are material and sensible, it must be observed that I do not say we have a sensation of them in God, but only that it is from God who acts in us. For God knows sensible things, but he does not feel them. When we perceive anything that is sensible, sensation and pure idea is in our perception. Sensation is a modification of our soul, and it is God that causes it in us. And he can cause the sensation even though he himself doesn't have the sensation. This is because, in the idea he has of our souls,  he sees that our souls are capable of sensation. As for the idea which is joined to sensation, this is in God, and we see it because it is his pleasure to reveal it to us. And God joins sensation to the idea when objects are present, so that we may believe that the objects are as they are, and that we may have such sensations and passions as we ought to have in relation the them.

God, thus, is the source of all ideas including facts about the physical world, necessary truths (such as 2+2=4), and moral truths (such as that we must love good). The manner in which God gives us these ideas, though, differs. Ideas of necessary truths, for example,  come from a union or direct acquaintance with God himself.

            Lastly, we believe that all spirits see the eternal laws as well as other [physical] things in God, but with some difference. We know eternal order and eternal truths, and even the objects which God has made according to such order and truths. This is done by the union which our spirits have necessarily with the word, or wisdom of God which directs us, as we have shown. But [as to natural moral laws], it is by the impression we receive continually from the will of God, which inclines us to him, and tries, so to speak, to make our wills absolutely like that of his. This is how we know order is a law, I mean, and that we know the eternal laws, such as these: we must love good, and shy from evil; we must love justice more than all riches; it is better to obey God than to command people; and many other natural laws. For the knowledge of all those laws is not different from the knowledge of the impression which we always feel in ourselves, though we do not always follow it by the free choice of  our will, which we know to be common to all spirits, though it is not equally strong in all.

(27) How do we obtain ideas of moral truths?

            It is by that dependence, relation, and union of our mind to the word of God, and of our will to his love, that we are made after the image and likeness of God. And although this may be very much defaced by sin, yet it is necessary that it should subsist as long as we do. But if we bear the image of the word humbled upon earth; and if we follow the motions of the holy ghost, that primitive image of our first creation, that union of our mind with the word of the father, and to the love of the father and of the son, will be re-established, and made indelible. We will be like God, if we are like the person God. In short, God will be all in us, and we all in God, in a far more perfect manner than that by which it is necessary for us to subsist, that we should be in him, and he in us.

(28) In what way are we made in the image of God?

The Most Probable Theory. Malebranche concludes that this is the most probable of all the theories of how we acquire ideas of objects. He also notes how it makes God actively involved in all causal relations which we are part of.

            Here are some reasons which may persuade us that spirits perceive all things by the immediate presence of him who comprehends all in the simplicity of his being. Everyone will judge it according to the internal conviction he will receive of it, after having seriously considered it. But I do not think that there is any probability in all the other ways of explaining these things, and that this last appears more than probable. Thus our souls depend on God in all respects. For as it is he who makes them feel grief, pleasure, and all other sensations, by the natural union he has established between them and our body which is no other than his decree and general will. Thus it is he, who by the natural union which he has made between the will of humans, and the representation of the ideas which the immensity of the divine being includes, that makes them know whatever they do know. And that natural union is also nothing else but his general will. So, none but he can direct us, by representing all things to us; as none but he can make us happy, by making us taste all manner of pleasures.

            Let us therefore keep to this opinion that God is the intelligible world, or the place of spirits, just as the material world is the place of bodies. Spirits receive all their modifications from his power. That they find all their ideas in his wisdom.  It is by his love that they are acted in all their regular motions. Since his power and love are nothing but himself, let us believe with St. Paul, that he is not far from everyone of us, and that it is in him that we have life, motion, and a being. Non longe est ab unequoque nostrum, in ipso cnim vivimus, movemur, & sumius (Acts 17:28).

Malebranche continues in Chapter Seven (not included here), outlining the various ways we know things. We know God through himself. We know bodies through the ideas which God gives us of them. We know our own souls through consciousness and inner sensation. Finally, we know other people’s minds only through conjecture, based on their resemblance to ourselves.

OCCASIONALISM. Occasionalism is the view that God is the principal force behind all causal events. For example, when a baseball bat strikes a baseball, God is the actual cause of the motion of the baseball. The bat is merely the occasional or incidental cause which signals God to actually move the ball. Hints of this position are first found in Descartes'  Principles on Philosophy 2:36. In defending the view that "God is the Primary Cause of Motion." Descartes argues as follows:

[The cause of motion in nature] is in fact twofold: first, there is the universal and primary cause -- the general cause of all the motions in the world. And second, there is the particular cause which produces in an individual piece of matter some motion which it previously lacked. Now as far as the general cause is concerned, it seems clear to me that this is no other than God himself. In the beginning in his omnipotence he created matter, along with its motion and rest. And now, merely by his regular concurrence, he preserves the same amount of motion and rest in the material universe as he put there in the beginning. ... Thus, God imparted various motions to the parts of matter when he first created them, and he now preserves all this matter in the same way, and by the same process by which he originally created it. And it follows from what we have said that this fact alone makes it most reasonable to think that God likewise always preserves the same quantity of motion in matter.

Descartes' argument above is this:

(1) God first imparted things with motion at creation.

(2) God preserves or maintains the existence of things after creation.

(3) The act of preservation is indistinguishable from the act of creation (Meditation 3)

(4) Thus, God continually imparts motion to things.

What Descartes hinted at, his followers articulated more precisely. French historian and Cartesian philosopher Geraud de Cordemoy (d. 1684) drew a distinction between the "true cause" of an event, which is God, and its "occasional cause," such as the bat striking the ball. Malebranche further developed Cordemoy's reasoning and produced the definitive defense of the theory of occasionalism. His defense appears in the following selections from The Search after Truth, Book 6, part 2, chapter 3, titled, "Of the Most Dangerous Error in Philosophy; Of the Ancients."

Ancient Philosophy's Conception of Causal Power. Malebranche begins explaining how ancient philosophers postulated metaphysical entities as the basis of causal force. He refutes this position by pushing it to the point of absurdity. His first observation about their contention is that if something has power, it is to some degree divine.

Ancient philosophers explained the effects of nature by certain entities which they had no particular idea of. In doing so they not only spoke what they did not conceive, but even established a principle from where may directly be drawn most false and dangerous consequences.

            Let us suppose, according to their opinion, that in bodies there are some beings distinct from matter. Not having any distinct idea of these entities, we might easily imagine that they are the true, or principal causes of the effects which we see produced. This is indeed the common sentiment of most philosophers. For it is mainly to explain these effects, that they make use of the notions of substantial forms, real qualities, and other the like entities. But when we attentively consider the idea we have of cause or power of acting, we cannot doubt that it represents something divine. For the idea of a sovereign power is the idea of sovereign divinity. And the idea of a subordinate power is the idea of an inferior. But a true divinity at least, according to the opinion of the heathens, is the idea of a power or true cause. We admit therefore something divine in all bodies which encompass us, when we admit forms, faculties, qualities, virtues, and real beings, capable of producing certain effects, by the power of their own nature. And thus, they insensibly enter into the opinions of the heathens, by the respect they have for their philosophy. Faith indeed works it, but it may perhaps be said that if we are Christians in our hearts, we are heathens in our minds.

(29) According to ancient philosophers, what are some of the entities that are supposedly responsible for the causal power that exists between things (and are thereby to some extent divine)?

Malebranche continues his reduction to absurdity noting that anything with such power is superior to us and  entitled to be worshipped.

            Moreover, it is difficult to persuade ourselves that we ought neither to love or fear true powers and beings, who can act upon us, punish us with pain, or recompense us with pleasure. And as love and fear are a true adoration, it is also difficult to persuade ourselves that we ought not to adore them. For whatever can act upon us as a real and true cause is necessarily above us, according to St. Augustine and right reason. The same father (and the same reason) tells us it is an immutable law that inferior things should submit to superior. And from hence, this great father concludes, that the body cannot act upon the soul, and that nothing can be above the soul but God.

(30) Why, according to St. Augustine, can't the body act upon the soul (as when my soul perceives something warm which my body touches)?

            In the holy scriptures, when God proves to the Israelites that they ought to adore him, that is, that they ought to fear and love him, the chief reasons he brings are taken from his power to recompense and punish them. He represents to them the benefits they have received from him, the evils for which he has punished them, and that he has still the same power. He forbids them to adore the Gods of the heathens, because they have no power over them, and can do them neither harm nor good. He requires them to honor him only, because he only is the true cause of good and evil, and that there happens none in their city, according to the prophet, which he has not done; for natural causes are not the true causes of the evil that appears to be done to us. It is God alone that acts in them, and it is he only that we must fear and love: soli deo honor & gloria.

            In short, this opinion (that we ought to fear and love whatever is the true cause of good and evil) appears so natural and just, that it is impossible to destroy it. Thus, if we suppose this false opinion of the philosophers (which we try here to confuse -- that bodies which encompass us are the true causes of the pleasures and evils which we feel), then reason seems to justify a religion like to that of the heathens, and approves of the universal irregularity of manners.

            It is true that reason does not tell us that we must adore onions and leeks as the sovereign divinity; because they cannot make us entirely happy when we have of them, or entirely unhappy when we want them. Nor have the heathens ever done to them so much honor as to the great Jupiter, upon whom all their divinities depend, or as to the sun, which our senses represent to us, as the universal cause which gives life and motion to all things. If with the heathen philosophers, we suppose the sun includes in its being the true causes of whatever it seems to produce, not only in our bodies and minds, but likewise in all beings which encompass us, we cannot prevent ourselves from regarding this as a sovereign divinity.

(31) Following the logic of the ancient philosophers, why does it make some kind of sense to worship the sun as the sovereign divinity?

            But if we must not pay a sovereign honor to leeks and onions, yet we may always give them some particular adoration. I mean, we may think of and love them in some manner. If it is true, that in some sort they can make us happy, we must honor them in proportion to the good they can do us. And certainly, people who give ear to the reports of their senses, think that lentils are capable of doing them good. Otherwise the Israelites, for instance, would not have regretted their absence in the defect, nor considered it as a misfortune to be deprived of them, if they did not, in some manner, look upon themselves happy in the enjoyment of them. These are the irregularities which our reason engages us in, when it is joined to the principles of the heathen philosophy, and follows the impressions of the senses.

(32) Following the logic of the ancient philosophers, why does it make some kind of sense to worship leeks, onions or lentils?

            God is the True Cause, Nature is the Occasional Cause. Having rejected the ancient conception of the source of causation, Malebranche argues that God is the true cause of all motion. His argument is as follows:

(a) Only physical bodies and spirits exist

(b) Physical bodies cannot causally move things themselves

(c) Therefore, only spirits can causally move things

(d) Finite minds cannot causally move things

(e) God, who is infinitely perfect, can causally move things.

(f) Therefore, only God can causally move things

            To cast doubt on this miserable philosophy, the certainty of its principles, and clearness of the ideas we make use of,  it is necessary to clearly establish those truths which are opposite to the errors of the ancient philosophy. In short, we must prove that there is only one true cause, because there is only one true God. Nature, or the power of everything, proceeds only from the will of God. All natural things are not true causes, but only occasional ones, and some other truths will be the consequences of these.

            It is evident that all bodies, both great and small, have no power of removing themselves: a mountain, an house, a stone, a grain of sand. In short, the least or biggest bodies we can conceive, have no power of removing themselves. We have only two sorts of ideas, that of bodies, and that of spirits. Since we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive, we should reason according to these two ideas. Since therefore the idea we have of all bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves, it must be concluded that they are moved by spirits only. But when we examine the idea we have of all finite minds, we do not see the necessary connection between their wills and the motion of any body whatever it may be. On the contrary, we see that there is none, nor can there be any. From this we ought to conclude (if we will argue according to our knowledge) that as no body is able to move itself, so there is no created spirit that can be the true or principal cause of the motion of any body whatever.

(33) In defense of premise (d) above, why does Malebranche conclude that finite minds cannot causally move things?

            But when we think of the idea of God, of a being infinitely perfect, and consequently almighty, we know that there is such a connection between his will, and the motion of all bodies. It is impossible to conceive that he should will the motion of a body, and that would not be moved. Thus, if we speak things as we conceive them (and not as we feel them), we must say that only his will can move bodies. The moving force of bodies, therefore, is not in the bodies which move, since this power of motion is nothing else but the will of God.

(34) Why is God (who is spirit) capable of  willing the motion of a body?

God, then, is the true cause of all motion. The natural causes we see around us are what he calls occasional or incidental causes.

Thus bodies have no action. When a bowl is moved and contacts another bowl which is in turn moved, it communicates nothing of its own. For in itself it does not have the impression that it communicates to the other. Yet a bowl is the natural cause of the motion which it communicates. A natural cause, then, is not a real and true cause, but only an occasional one, and which determined the author of nature to act after such and such a manner, in such and such an occurrence.

            It is certain, that it is by the motion of visible or invisible bodies that all things are produced. For experience teaches us that bodies, whose parts are in greatest motion, always act more than others, and produce the greatest change in the world. All the powers of nature then proceed from the will of God. He has created the world because he willed it: dixit & facta funt: he moves all things, and so produces all the effects that we see happen. Because he has also willed certain laws, according to which bodies communicate their motions in their encounters; and because these laws are productive, they act, and bodies cannot act. There is therefore no force, power, or true cause, in the material and sensible world, nor must we admit of forms, faculties, and real qualities, to produce effects that bodies cannot, and to divide, with God, the force and power which is essential to him.

Just as God is the true cause of all physical motion, Malebranche continues explaining that God is also the true cause of  all mental events which are nonphysical.

Not only bodies cannot be the true causes of  anything, the most noble spirits are also under a like impotence. They can know nothing if God does not enlighten them. Nor can they have any sensation if he does not modify them. They are capable of willing nothing if God does not move them towards him. I confess they can determine the impression that God gives them towards him, to other objects. But do not know whether that can be called a power. If the capability of sinning is a power, it would be a power which the almighty does not have. St. Augustine says in some of his works, if people had in themselves the power of loving good, we might say they had some power. But people can only love because God wills they should love, and because his will is effective. They love only because God continually inclines them to good in general, that is, towards himself. Since God created them only for himself, he never preserves them without turning them towards and inclining them to himself. They have no motion towards good in general, since it is God who moves them. They only follow by an entire free choice, this impression according to the law of God, or determine it towards a false good after the law of the flesh: they can only be determined by a prospect of good: for being able to do only what God makes them, they can love nothing but good.

(35) What other types of mental events are caused by God, as suggested by Augustine?

            God is Also the True Cause of Human Bodily Motion. Having maintained generally that God is the cause of most (if not all) mental events, Malebranche argues specifically that God is true cause of human sensation and bodily motion. Suppose, for example, I wish to move my arm. My task is to will this event. This becomes the cue for God to physically move my arm through physiological causes.

            But if we should suppose what is true in one sense, that spirits have in themselves the power of knowing truth and loving good, if their thoughts and wills produced nothing external, we might always say they were able to do nothing. Now it appears most certain to me, that the will of spirits is not capable of moving the smallest body in the world. For it is evident there is no necessary connection between the will we have of moving our arms, and the motion of them. It is true, they are moved when we please, and by that means we are the natural cause of their motion. But natural causes are not true causes; they are only occasional ones, which act merely through the power and efficacy of God, as I have already explained.

            For how can we move our arms? To move them we must have animal spirits, and convey them by certain nerves, into such and such muscles to swell and contract them. For by this means the arms move. Or according to the opinion of some, we do not know yet how it is performed. And we see that people who do not even know they have spirits, nerves, and muscles to move their arms, yet move them with as much art and facility as those that understand anatomy best. It is then granted, that people will the motion of their arms, but it is only God that can and knows how to remove them. If a person cannot throw down a tower, at least he knows well what must be done in order to it. But there is no person that knows so much as what he must do to move one of his fingers by the help of his animal spirits. How then can people move their arms? These things appear evident to me, and to all those that will think of them, though perhaps they may be incomprehensible to such as will not consider them.

(36) As illustrated by his example of throwing down a tower, why aren't we the true cause of the movement of our arms?

Malebranche continues explaining why it is not conceivable that we should be the true cause of our bodily motion, and also why God would not give us that kind of power.

            Not only are people not the true causes of the motions produced in their bodies, it seems even a contradiction that they should be so. A true cause is such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effect. This is what I mean. Now it is only an infinitely perfect being whose mind can perceive a necessary connection between his will and the effects of it. It is only God, then, who is the true cause, and who has really the power of moving bodies. I say, moreover, it is not probable that God would communicate this power he has of moving bodies either to humans or angels. And those who pretend the power we have of moving our arms is a true power, must confess that God could also give to spirits the power of creating, annihilating, and performing all possible things. In a word, this implies that he can make them almighty, as I will further show.

(37) Why is it incomprehensible that we even could be the true cause of  moving our arms?

            God has no need of any instrument to act. It is sufficient if he wills a thing for it to be, because it is a contradiction to suppose he wills it, and that it should not be. His power then is his will, and the communicating of his power is a communication of his will. But to communicate his will to a person or an angel, can signify nothing else but willing. Some body, for instance, should be effectively moved when it is willed by a person or an angel. Now in this case I see two wills which concur when an angel would move a body, that of God, and that of the angel. And to know which of the two will be the true cause of the motion of this body, we must know which it is that is productive. There is a necessary connection between the will of God, and what he wills. God wills in this case, that a body should move when it is willed by an angel. There is a necessary connection therefore, between the will of God and the motion of this body. And consequently it is God who is the true cause of the motion of the body, and the will of the angel only an occasional one.

(38) Suppose that God gave an angel the power to move our arm. What would be the true cause and what would be the occasional cause?

Additional Arguments. Malebranche offers additional arguments showing why God must be the true cause of bodily motion, even if our wills are involved too. First, if God would make someone move contrary to his desire, the person's desire would clearly be only the occasional cause, and not the true cause. Second, if God make a person's will the true cause of an event, then, in acts of creation and destruction, the person's will would be the true cause of this as well. This is especially absurd when considering non-human decisions in which the wills of animals and even the natural dispositions of matter may be present along with God's will. These, clearly, are not the true causes of the resulting motion, creation, or destruction. Third, if God could give such power to people, animals or matter, he would be making them into gods, which God cannot do.

            But to show it yet more clearly, let us suppose that God wills that things should happen quite contrary to what some spirits desire, as we may think of devils, or some other spirits, who merit this punishment. We cannot say in this case that God communicates his power to them, since they can do nothing that they would do. Yet the wills of these spirits would be the natural causes of whatever effects should be produced. As such, bodies should be moved to the right hand, because these spirits would have them moved to the left; and the desire of these spirits would determine the will of God to act, as our wills to move the parts of our bodies, determine the first cause to move them. Accordingly, the wills of spirits are only occasional causes.

            Yet if after all these reasons, we will still maintain, that the will of an angel, which moves any body, should be a true cause, and not an occasional one, it is plain that this same angel might be the true cause of the creation and annihilation of all things. For God could as well communicate to him his power of creating and destroying bodies, as that of moving them, if he willed that things should be created and annihilated. In a word, if he willed, all things would happen as the angel wishes them, even as he wills that bodies should move as the angel pleases. If it is said that an angel or a human would be the true movers, because God moves bodies when they with it, it may also be said, that a human and an angel may be true creators since God can create beings when they will it. No, perhaps it might be said, that the most vile animals, or matter of itself, should be the effective cause of the creation of any substance. This would be so if we supposed, as the philosophers do, that God produces substantial forms whenever the disposition of matter requires it. In short, because God has resolved from all eternity in certain times to create such and such things, we might also say that these times should be the causes of the creation of these beings, as reasonably as to pretend, that a bowl which meets another, is the true cause of the motion it communicates to it. This is because God has determined by his general will, which constituted the order of nature, that when two bodies should meet there should be such and such a communication of motion.

            There is then but one only true God, and he the one only true cause. And we must not imagine that that which precedes an effect is the true cause of it. God cannot even communicate his power to the creatures, if we follow the light of reason. He cannot make them true causes, because he cannot make them Gods. Bodies, spirits, pure intelligences, can all do nothing. It is he who has made these spirits that illuminates and acts them. It is he who has created the heavens and the earth, which regulates the motions thereof. In short, it is the author of our being that executes our wills, femel jussis, sewsper pares. He even moves our arms when we make use of them against his orders, for he complains by his prophets, that we make him serve our unjust and criminal desires.

(39) Who is the true cause of the movement of our arms when we go against God's orders?

For Malebranche, superstitions and Godless beliefs resulted from the failure to recognize God as the true cause of all. Just as proper religion teaches us that there is only one true God, proper philosophy teaches us that there is only one true cause of everything.

            All these little heathen divinities, and all these particular causes of the philosophers, are only chimeras that the wicked spirit tries to establish to ruin the worship of the true God. It is not the philosophy they have received from Adam, which teaches these things. It is that which they have received from the serpent, for since the fall the mind of humans became perfectly heathenish. It is this philosophy which joined to the errors of the senses, has made them adore the sun, and which is still at this day, the universal cause of the irregularity of the mind, and corruption of the heart of humans. By their actions, and sometimes by their words, why do they say that we should love the body, since the body is capable of affording us all pleasures? And why do we laugh at the Israelites, which regretted the loss of the garlic and onions of Egypt since, in effect, they were unhappy by being deprived of what, in some measure, could make them happy? But the new philosophy, which they represent as a dismal thing to frighten weak minds, is despised and condemned without being understood. The new philosophy, I say, since they are pleased to call it so, destroys all the arguments of the libertines, by the establishment of the most chief of its principles, which perfectly agrees with the first principle of the Christian religion, that we must love and fear but one God, since there is only one God who can make us happy.

            For if religion teaches us that there is but one true God, this philosophy shows us there is but one true cause. If religion informs us, that all the divinities of the heathens are only stones and metals without life and motion, this philosophy discovers to us, also, that all second causes, or all the divinities of their philosophy, are only matter and ineffective wills. In short, if religion teaches us that we must not bow our knees to false Gods, this philosophy also tells us that our imaginations and minds ought not to be prostituted to the imaginary greatness and power of causes, which are not true causes. We must neither love nor fear them, nor busy ourselves about them. Instead, we should think upon God only, see him, adore him, fear and love him in all things.

(40) What do we learn from the "new" philosophy?

            But this does not agrees with the inclination of some philosophers. They will neither see nor think upon God. For, since the fall, there is a secret opposition between God and humans. People take pleasure in erecting Gods after their own imagination, and they voluntarily love and fear the fictions of their own imagination, as they heathens did the works of their own hands. They are like children who tremble at their companions, after they have daubed their faces. Or if they allow for a more noble comparison (although perhaps it be not so just) they resemble those famous Romans, who had some fear and respect for the fictions of their own minds, and foolishly adored their emperors after they had let loose the eagle when they deified them.

C. LEIBNIZ

Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was born into a Lutheran family in Germany, and in his early years was largely self-educated through his father’s private library. He entered the University of Leipzig in 1661 where he studied law, and later received his doctorate from the University of Nürnberg. He was variously employed as a councilor, historian, librarian, and diplomat, principally for the courts of Hanover and Brunswick. Throughout his life, and in all of his various areas of interest, he tried to mediate or reconcile disputing sides of controversies. As a political diplomat he tried to unite the nations of Europe. As a theological diplomat he tried to unify the churches. He promoted cooperative activity in scientific and medical research. Leibniz became influential within the scientific community through correspondences with noted scientists and his occasionally published scientific essays. His most noted scientific contribution was his invention of the calculus, which created a controversy with Newton. Early in his life Newton invented the calculus (which he called "fluxions") and privately used it in his scientific studies. For publications, though, Newton wrote the proofs out in conventional mathematics. Leibniz, though, published the theory first. Letters circulated among London scientists on the issue, and the consensus was reached they each arrived at the discovery independently.

Leibniz wrote in fragments (letters, brief essays) and only after his death was it revealed that the vast majority of his literary output was unpublished. His only book published during his life was the Theodicy (1710), written for Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia, which attempts to explain the presence of evil in a world created by a benevolent God. He also composed a book-length critique of Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding, which he titled “New Essays on Human Understanding.” His critique covers all four books of Locke’s Essay, but is particularly noted for its defense of innate ideas in the face of Locke’s attacks. After Locke’s death in 1704, though, Leibniz chose not to publish it. In the years following Leibniz’s own death in 1716, 30 or so of his philosophical essays and letters appeared slowly. Perhaps the most important of these is an untitled outline of the metaphysical doctrines in the Theodicy which was written just before his death in 1714 and first published in 1840. This essay, since titled the “Monadology,” is a systematic summary of the wide range of Leibniz’s ideas in 90 brief propositions. The complete text of the “Monadology” is presented below.

MONADS. Leibniz opens the “Monadology” by describing the essential features of monads and the role they play in the universe.

What Monads Are. Leibniz explains that monads are the true atoms of which all physical things are composed. They are simple substances without parts, indestructible, incorruptible, individual centers of force. Monads comes into being only through creation, and end through annihilation, and, unlike atoms, they exist neither in space nor time. He argues that, technically, monads do not have direct causal effects on other monads. That is, they contain no open windows which allow them entrance to influence other monads.

            1. The monad, of which we will speak here, is nothing else than a simple substance, which goes to make up composites; by simple, we mean without parts.

            2. There must be simple substances because there are composites; for a composite is nothing else than a collection or aggregatum of simple substances.

            3. Now, where there are no constituent parts there is possible neither extension, nor form, nor divisibility. These monads are the true atoms of nature, and, in fact, the elements of things.

            4. Their dissolution, therefore, is not to be feared and there is no way conceivable by which a simple substance can perish through natural means.

            5. For the same reason there is no way conceivable by which a simple substance might, through natural means, come into existence, since it cannot be formed by composition.

            6. We may say then, that the existence of monads can begin or end only all at once, that is to say, the monad can begin only through creation and end only through annihilation. Composites, however, begin or end gradually.

            7. There is also no way of explaining how a monad can be altered or changed in its inner being by any other created thing, since there is no possibility of transposition within it, nor can we conceive of any internal movement which can be produced, directed, increased or diminished there within the substance, such as can take place in the case of composites where a change can occur among the parts. The monads have no windows through which anything may come in or go out. The Attributes are not liable to detach themselves and make an excursion outside the substance, as could sensible species of the Schoolmen. In the same way neither substance nor attribute can enter from without into a monad.

(1) Unlike monads which come into being through divine creation and end through divine annihilation, how do composite things (i.e., things composed of monads) come into being?

The Identity of Indiscernibles and Changes within Monads. According to Leibniz, monads clearly differ from each other. His proof for this rests in a principle which philosophers refer to as Identity of Indiscernibles: if any two beings have exactly the same set of intrinsic and non-relational properties, then they are indiscernible (i.e. indistinguishable). Thus, according to Leibniz, monads must internally differ from each other in some way, otherwise there would only be one monad. Further on Leibniz explains two key qualities within monads which generate their differences: (1) the activity of perceiving the nature of surrounding monads, and (2) the activity of representing (mirroring, mimicking) the nature of surrounding monads. Both of these activities range from being completely active to being almost inert.

            8. Still monads need to have some qualities, otherwise they would not even be existences. And if simple substances did not differ at all in their qualities, there would be no means of perceiving any change in things. Whatever is in a composite can come into it only through its simple elements and the monads, if they were without qualities (since they do not differ at all in quantity) would be indistinguishable one from another. For instance, if we imagine a plenum or completely filled space, where each part receives only the equivalent of its own previous motion, one state of things would not be distinguishable from another.

            9. Each monad, indeed, must be different from every other monad. For there are never in nature two beings which are exactly alike, and in which it is not possible to find a difference either internal or based on an intrinsic property.

            10. I assume it as admitted that every created being, and consequently the created monad, is subject to change, and indeed that this change is continuous in each.

            11. It follows from what has just been said, that the natural changes of the monad come from an internal principle, because an external cause can have no influence on its inner being.

            12. Now besides this principle of change there must also be in the monad a variety which changes. This variety constitutes, so to speak, the specific nature and the variety of the simple substances.

            13. This variety must involve a multiplicity in the unity or in that which is simple. For since every natural change takes place by degrees, there must be something which changes and something which remains unchanged, and consequently there must be in the simple substance a plurality of conditions and relations, even though it has no parts.

(2) The differences between monads results from the differing changes that they go through. How do natural changes take place?

The Doctrine of Minute Perception. Although monads perceive things, Leibniz argues that they are not conscious. This position is called “the doctrine of minute perception. For Leibniz, this is an important point since many errors in the history of philosophy result from failing to recognize that some unconscious things can perceive. In particular, this has led followers of Descartes to conclude that that animals (which lack consciousness) don't even have perceptive souls, and that unconscious sleep is like death since all perception would also be annihilated.

            14. The passing condition which involves and represents a multiplicity in the unity, or in the simple substance, is nothing else than what is called perception. This should be carefully distinguished from apperception or consciousness, as will appear in what follows. In this matter the Cartesians have fallen into a serious error, in that they deny the existence of those perceptions of which we are not conscious. It is this also which has led them to believe that spirits alone are monads and that there are no souls of animals or other entelechies, and it has led them to make the common confusion between a protracted period of unconsciousness and actual death. They have thus adopted the Scholastic error that souls can exist entirely separated from bodies, and have even confirmed ill-balanced minds in the belief that souls are mortal.

            15. The action of the internal principle which brings about the change or the passing from one perception to another may be called appetition. It is true that the desire (l'appetit) is not always able to attain to the whole of the perception which it strives for, but it always attains a portion of it and reaches new perceptions.

            16. We, ourselves, experience a multiplicity in a simple substance, when we find that the most trifling thought of which we are conscious involves a variety in the object. Therefore all those who acknowledge that the soul is a simple substance ought to grant this multiplicity in the monad, and Monsieur Bayle should have found no difficulty in it, as he has done in his Dictionary, article "Rorarius."

(3) For Leibniz, what is the quality of “appetition” in a monad?

Whether Material Things can Perceive. The issue of the monad's ability to perceive raises in important issue: is a purely physical thing capable of perception? Philosophers today address this issue by considering whether advanced computerized robots could at some point be capable of mental perception. Philosophers of Leibniz's day were equally concerned with this issue and questioned whether any purely material machine could be capable of thinking. Leibniz answers no: perception cannot be reduced to physical mechanisms. He has us  imagine that a brain was the size of a mill house. If we could explore the inside, we could not locate the actual perception.

            17. It must be confessed, however, that perception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another, but never would he find anything to explain perception. It is accordingly in the simple substance, and not in the composite nor in a machine that the perception is to be sought. Furthermore, there is nothing besides perceptions and their changes to be found in the simple substance. And it is in these alone that all the internal activities of the simple substance can consist.

            18. All simple substances or created monads may be called entelechies, because they have in themselves a certain perfection. There is in them a sufficiency which makes them the source of their internal activities, and makes them, so to speak, incorporeal Automatons.

            19. If we wish to designate as soul everything which has perceptions and desires in the general sense that I have just explained, all simple substances or created monads could be called souls. But since feeling is something more than a mere perception I think that the general name of monad or entelechy should suffice for simple substances which have only perception, while we may reserve the term Soul for those whose perception is more distinct and is accompanied by memory.

            20. We experience in ourselves a state where we remember nothing and where we have no distinct perception, as in periods of fainting, or when we are overcome by a profound, dreamless sleep. In such a state the soul does not sensibly differ at all from a simple monad. As this state, however, is not permanent and the soul can recover from it, the soul is something more.

(4) What types  of human perception most closely resemble the kind of perception which monads exhibit?

            21. Nevertheless it does not follow at all that the simple substance is in such a state without perception. This is so because of the reasons given above; for it cannot perish, nor on the other hand would it exist without some affection and the affection is nothing else than its perception. When, however, there are a great number of weak perceptions where nothing stands out distinctively, we are stunned; as when one turns around and around in the same direction, a dizziness comes on, which makes him swoon and makes him able to distinguish nothing. Among animals, death can occasion this state for quite a period.

            22. Every present state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future.

            23. Therefore, since on awakening after a period of unconsciousness we become conscious of our perceptions, we must, without having been conscious of them, have had perceptions immediately before; for one perception can come in a natural way only from .another perception, just as a motion can come in a natural way only from a motion.

            24. It is evident from this that if we were to have nothing distinctive, or so to speak prominent, and of a higher flavor in our perceptions, we should be in a continual state of stupor. This is the condition of monads which are wholly bare.

            HUMAN PERCEPTION. Having explained the nature of simple perception in monads, Leibniz moves on to discuss the more complex varieties of perception in humans.

Animal and Human Mental Activity. Whereas monads can only perceive, animals and humans have more complicated forms of mental activity. First, we have heightened perceptions from our sense organs. Second, we have memories which are associated with events.

            25. We see that nature has given to animals heightened perceptions, having provided them with organs which collect numerous rays of light or numerous waves of air and thus make them more effective in their combination. Something similar to this takes place in the case of smell, in that of taste and of touch, and perhaps in many other senses which are unknown to us. I shall have occasion very soon to explain how that which occurs in the soul represents that which goes on in the sense organs.

            26. The memory furnishes a sort of consecutiveness which imitates reason but is to be distinguished from it. We see that animals when they have the perception of something which they notice and. of which they have had a similar previous perception, are led by the representation of their memory to expect that which was associated in the preceding perception, and they come to have feelings like those which they had before. For instance, if a stick be shown to a dog, he remembers the pain which it has caused him and he whines or runs away.

            27. The vividness of the picture, which comes to him or moves him, is derived either from the magnitude or from the number of the previous perceptions. For, oftentimes, a strong impression brings about, all at once, the same effect as a long-continued habit or as a great many reiterated, moderate perceptions.

            28. People act in like manner as animals, in so far as the sequence of their perceptions is determined only by the law of memory, resembling the empirical physicians who practice simply, without any theory, and we are empiricists in three-fourths of our actions. For instance, when we expect that there will be daylight tomorrow, we do so empirically, because it has always happened so up to the present time. It is only the astronomer who uses his reason in making such an affirmation.

            Higher Human Reasoning. In addition to the kinds of perceptions which we share with animals, humans have additional mental faculties which make us unique. First, we have knowledge of eternal and necessary truths, specifically knowledge of God, and reflective knowledge of ourselves. Second, we are capable of reasoning. Third, there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given, such as foundational tautologies.

            29. But the knowledge of eternal and necessary truths is that which distinguishes us from mere animals and gives us reason and the sciences, thus raising us to a knowledge of ourselves and of God. This is what is called in us the Rational Soul or the Mind.

            30. It is also through the knowledge of necessary truths and through abstractions from them that we come to perform Reflective Acts, which cause us to think of what is called the I, and to decide that this or that is within us. it is thus, that in thinking upon ourselves we think of being, of substance, of the simple and composite, of a material thing and of God himself, conceiving that what is limited in us is in him without limits. These reflective acts furnish the principal objects of our reasonings.

            31. Our reasoning is based upon two great principles: first, that of contradiction, by means of which we decide that to be false which involves contradiction and that to be true which contradicts or is opposed to the false.

            32. And second, the principle of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we believe that no fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise. Most frequently, however, these reasons cannot be known by us.

(5) What are the two principles of reasoning?

            33. There are also two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible. Those of fact, however, are contingent, and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, the reason can be found by analysis in resolving it into simpler ideas and into simpler truths until we reach those which are primary.

            34. It is thus that with mathematicians the speculative theorems and the practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms, and postulates.

(6) What are the two kinds of truth?

            35. There are finally simple ideas of which no definition can be given. There are also the axioms and postulates or, in a word, the primary principles which cannot be proved and, indeed, have no need of proof. These are identical propositions whose opposites involve express contradictions.

GOD. Having briefly explained the rational nature of humans, Leibniz turns next to the issue of God's existence, his nature, and his creative activity.

Cosmological Argument and the Nature God. Leibniz offers two proofs for God’s existence in the “Monadology,” the first of which is a reformulation of the classic cosmological argument for God's existence. Older versions of the cosmological begin with a given event, trace back the chain of causes of that event, and conclude that it is not possible to have an infinite chain of causes culminating in that event. Thus, a first cause exists which starts that chain. Leibniz, however, concedes that a causal chain of contingent facts can regress infinitely. Nevertheless, an explanation is still needed as to why this infinite chain of contingent causes exists in the first place. Thus, we must postulate the existence of a necessary being which explains the existence of this infinite chain of contingent beings.

            36. But there must be also a sufficient reason for contingent truths or truths of fact; that is to say, for the sequence of the things which extend throughout the universe of created beings, where the analysis into more particular reasons can be continued into greater detail without limit because of the immense variety of the things in nature and because of the infinite division of bodies. There is an infinity of figures and of movements, present and past, which enter into the efficient cause of my present writing, and in its final cause there are an infinity of slight tendencies and dispositions of my soul, present and past.

            37. And as all this detail again involves other and more detailed contingencies, each of which again has need of a similar analysis in order to find its explanation, no real advance has been made. Therefore, the sufficient or ultimate reason must needs be outside of the sequence or series of these details of contingencies, however infinite they may be.

            38. It is thus that the ultimate reason for things must be a necessary substance, in which the detail of the changes shall be present merely potentially, as in the fountainhead, and this substance we call God.

            39. Now, since this substance is a sufficient reason for all the above mentioned details, which are linked together throughout, there is but one God, and this God is sufficient.

Leibniz’s argument can be formulated as follows:

(a) The world contains an infinite sequence of contingent facts;

(b) An explanation is needed as to the origin of this whole infinite series (which goes beyond an explanation of each member in the series);

(c) The explanation of this whole series cannot reside in the series itself, since the very fact of its existence would still need an explanation (principle of sufficient reason)

(d) Therefore, there is a necessary substance which produced this infinite series (and which is the complete explanation of its own existence as well).

The classic criticism of Leibniz’s cosmological argument was given by Hume in Part 9 of his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion:

In such a chain too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the uniting of these parts into a whole (like the uniting of several distinct countries into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body) is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.

Leibniz continues discussing the various attributes of God, particularly his perfection.

            40. We may hold that the supreme substance, which is unique, universal and necessary with nothing independent outside of it, which is further a pure sequence of possible being, must be incapable of limitation and must contain as much reality as possible.

            41. From this it follows that God is absolutely perfect, perfection being understood as the magnitude of positive reality in the strict sense, when the limitations or the bounds of those things which have them are removed. There where there are no limits, that is to say, in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.

            42. It follows also that created things derive their perfections through the influence of God, but their imperfections come from their own natures, which cannot exist without limits. It is in this latter that they are distinguished from God. An example of this original imperfection of created things is to be found in the natural inertia of bodies.

(7) Where do humans get their perfection and imperfection?

            Ontological Argument. Leibniz offers a second proof for God’s existence, which is a modification of Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence. For Anselm, God (defined as the greatest conceivable being) must have every attribute which would make him the greatest being. Necessary existence is one such greatness-making attribute. Thus, by definition, God must have the attribute of necessary existence.  Leibniz begins his proof noting that, insofar as God is a necessary being, all other beings are contingent on God for their existence and for their natures. Like Malebranche, Leibniz believes that God has the master blueprint of all created things within him, and this blueprint contains eternal truths (such as mathematical truths). Working from such a priori “eternal truths,” Leibniz develops his argument, without any appeal to a posteriori experience. 

            43. It is true, furthermore, that in God is found not only the source of existences, but also that of essences, in so far as they are real. In other words, he is the source of whatever there is real in the possible. This is because the understanding of God is in the region of eternal truths or of the ideas upon which they depend, and because without him there would be nothing real in the possibilities of things, and not only would nothing be existent, nothing would be even possible.

            44. For it must needs be that if there is a reality in essences or in possibilities or indeed in the eternal truths, this reality is based upon something existent and actual, and, consequently, in the existence of the necessary Being in whom essence includes existence or in whom possibility is sufficient to produce actuality.

            45. Therefore God alone (or the Necessary Being) has this prerogative that if he is possible he must necessarily exist, and, as nothing is able to prevent the possibility of that which involves no bounds, no negation and consequently, no contradiction, this alone is sufficient to establish a priori his existence. We have, therefore, proved his existence through the reality of eternal truths. But a little while ago we also proved it a posteriori, because contingent beings exist which can have their ultimate and sufficient reason only in the necessary being which, in turn, has the reason for existence in itself.

Leibniz’s version of the ontological argument is a simple modus ponens argument:

(a) If it is possible that a necessary being exists, then a necessary being exists

(b) It is possible that a necessary being exists,

(c) Therefore a necessary being exists

The key to the above argument is premise (a), especially what it means for a being to be “necessary.” Using terminology which Leibniz introduces further on, a necessary being is one which exists in every “possible world.” Consider every possible configuration of the universe: in one possible universe Lincoln did not become president, and in another there are no humans. For Leibniz, a necessary being is one which exists in every possible world, including the actual world. Suppose that there is a possible world W in which God exists necessarily. That means  God would exist in every possible world which is relative to W, including our own actual world. This, then establishes premise (a):, if in some possible world God exists necessarily, then God indeed exists necessarily (i.e., in all possible worlds). For Leibniz, premise (b) would be false only if it is contradictory. But it is not contradictory to suppose that God possibly exists in every possible world. From this, the conclusion in (c) validly follows. Given that his proof for God here is based on “eternal truths” (specifically truths of necessity and contingency) Leibniz continues discussing that nature of eternal truths.

            46. Yet we must not think that the eternal truths being dependent upon God are therefore arbitrary and depend upon his will, as Descartes seems to have held, and after him M. Poiret. This is the case only with contingent truths which depend upon fitness or the choice of the greatest good; necessarily truths on the other hand depend solely upon his understanding and are the inner objects of it.

(8) What was Descartes’ view about eternal truths (such as mathematics) and what is Leibniz’s response?

Creation. For Leibniz, God is the only uncreated monad (or original simple substance). All other monads come into being and are sustained by him in an act he calls “fulguration.” Without God, monads can neither come into being or be destroyed (paralleling the modern view of the conservation of energy). God has three principle attributes: power, knowledge, and will. These three attributes are exhibited in more limited form within monads as subject, perception, and appetition (i.e. the desire to perceive new things). As noted above, monads cannot causally affect each other, although they are influenced by perceiving surrounding monads. Such perception between monads is mediated by God.

            47. God alone is the ultimate unity or the original simple substance. All created or derivative monads are the products of him, and arise, so to speak, through the continual outflashings (fulgurations) of the divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the creature to whom limitation is an essential.

            48. In God are present: power, which is the source of everything; knowledge, which contains the details of the ideas; and, finally, will, which changes or produces things in accordance with the principle of the greatest good. To these correspond in the created monad, the subject or basis, the faculty of perception, and the faculty of appetition. In God these attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect, while in the created monads or in the entelechies (perfectihabies, as Hermolaus Barbarus translates this word), they are imitations approaching him in proportion to the perfection.

            49. A created thing is said to act outwardly in so far as it has perfection, and to be acted upon by another in so far as it is imperfect. Thus action is attributed to the monad in so far as it has distinct perceptions, and passion or passivity is attributed in so far as it has confused perceptions.

            50. One created thing is more perfect than another when we find in the first that which gives an a priori reason for what occurs in the second. This why we say that one acts upon the other.

(9) What makes one object more perfect than another?

            51. In the case of simple substances, the influence which one monad has upon another is only ideal. It can have its effect only through the mediation of God, in so far as in the ideas of God each monad can rightly demand that God, in regulating the others from the beginning of things, should have regarded it also. For since one created monad cannot have a physical influence upon the inner being of another, it is only through the primal regulation that one can have dependence upon another.

            52. It is thus that among created things action and passivity are reciprocal. For God, in comparing two simple substances, finds in each one reasons obliging him to adapt the other to it. And consequently what is active in certain respects is passive from another point of view. It is active insofar as what we distinctly know in it serves to give a reason for what occurs in another. It is passive insofar as the reason for what occurs in it is found in what is distinctly known in another.

Best of All Possible Worlds. Of all the possible worlds which God could have created, his nature directed him to create the best universe. Thus, his choice of creating this universe was determined in the sense that all alternatives were inferior, and, thus, unacceptable.

            53. Now as there are an infinity of possible universes in the ideas of God, and but only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God which determines him to select one rather than another.

            54. And this reason is to be found only in the fitness or in the degree of perfection which these worlds possess, each possible thing having the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection which it involves.

            55. This is the cause for the existence of the greatest good; namely, that the wisdom of God permits him to know it, his goodness causes him to choose it, and his power enables him to produce it.

(10) How is it that God’s attributes direct him to create the best of all possible worlds?

            Every Monad Mirrors the Universe. In this best of all possible worlds, God completely filled the universe with monads, and all of these work together in carrying out God’s perfect plan. No matter how disconnected the world might seem, there is an underlying master plan. All monads, then, are interconnected by virtue of this plan, and each one contains within itself an incomplete copy of this master plan. Thus, each monad mirrors the universe.

            56. Now this interconnection, relationship, or this adaptation of all things to each particular one, and of each one to all the rest, brings it about that every simple substance has relations which express all the others and that it is consequently a perpetual living mirror of the universe.

            57. And as the same city regarded from different sides appears entirely different, and is, as it were multiplied respectively, so, because of the infinite number of simple substances, there are a similar infinite number of universes which are, nevertheless, only the aspects of a single one as seen from the special point of view of each monad.

            58. Through this means has been obtained the greatest possible variety, together with the greatest order that may be. That is to say, through this means has been obtained the greatest possible perfection.

            59. This hypothesis, moreover, which I venture to call demonstrated, is the only one which fittingly gives proper prominence to the greatness of God. M. Bayle recognized this when in his dictionary (article "Rorarius") he raised objections to it. Indeed, he was inclined to believe that I attributed too much to God, and more than it is possible to attribute to him. But he was unable to bring forward any reason why it is impossible to suppose that this universal harmony causes every substance to express exactly all others through the relation which it has with them.

(11) What aspect of Leibniz’s theory did Bayle object to?

            60. Besides, in what has just been said, there are a priori reasons for why things cannot be otherwise than they are. It is because God, in ordering the whole, has had regard to every part and in particular to each monad. And since the monad is by its very nature representative, nothing can limit it to represent merely a part of things. It is nevertheless true that this representation is, as regards the details of the whole universe, only a confused representation, and is distinct only as regards a small part of them, that is to say, as regards those things which are nearest or greatest in relation to each monad. If the representation were distinct as to the details of the entire Universe, each monad would be a Deity. It is not in the object represented that the monads are limited, but in the modifications of their knowledge of the object. In a confused way they reach out to infinity or to the whole, but are limited and differentiated in the degree of their distinct perceptions.

            61. In this respect composites are like simple substances, for all space is filled up; therefore, all matter is connected. And in a plenum or filled space every movement has an effect upon bodies in proportion to this distance, so that not only is every body affected by those which are in contact with it and responds in some way to whatever happens to them, but also by means of them the body responds to, those bodies adjoining them, and their intercommunication reaches to any distance whatsoever. Consequently every body responds to all that happens in the universe, so that he who saw all could read in each one what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened and what will happen. He can discover in the present what is distant both as regards space and as regards time; "all things conspire" as Hippocrates said. A soul can, however, read in itself only what is there represented distinctly. It cannot all at once open up all its folds, because they extend to infinity.

(12) For Leibniz, another reason why every monad responds to what happens in the universe is because of the fact that all space is filled up. What is the connection between filled space and mirroring the universe?

            BODY AND SOUL. Leibniz next examines the differing natures of physical bodies and immaterial souls, and how the two interconnect in living things.

            Physical Bodies and the Infinite Divisibility of Matter. Leibniz borrows the term “entelechy” from Aristotle to designate a primary active force in things. The entelechy of an inorganic monad is its physical nature, such as the monads which make up a stone. Living things such as trees are composed of monads with a different entelechy, such an active nutritional force. Animals are composed of monads with yet a different entelechy, such as an active appetitive force; we call this entelechy the soul of the animal. As part of God’s perfect plan, all of these objects are highly ordered both in themselves and in how we perceive them.

            62. Thus although each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body which specially pertains to it and of which it constitutes the entelechy. And as this body expresses all the universe through the interconnection of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe in representing this body, which belongs to it in a particular way.

            63. The body belonging to a monad (which is its entelechy or soul) constitutes together with an entelechy what may be called a living being, and with a soul what is called an animal. Now this body of a living being or of an animal is always organic. For, since every monad is a mirror of the universe and is regulated with perfect order, then there also needs to be order in what represents it.  That is to say there must be order in the perceptions of the soul and, consequently, in the body through which the universe is represented in the soul.

            64. Therefore every organic body of a living being is a kind of divine machine or natural automaton, infinitely surpassing all artificial automatons. This is because a machine constructed by human skill is not a machine in each of its parts. For instance, the teeth of a brass wheel have parts or bits which to us are not artificial products and contain nothing in themselves to show the use to which the wheel was destined in the machine. The machines of nature, however (that is to say, living bodies) are still machines in their smallest parts ad infinitum. Such is the difference between nature and art, that is to say, between divine art and ours.

(13) What is the difference between purely natural things (created by God) and artificial things (created by us)?

Like the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, Leibniz believed that matter was infinitely divisible. That is, for any given physical thing, one can divide it again and again, onto infinity. This position stands in contrast to the view of the ancient Greek anatomists and modern day Newtonians who contended that physical things are composed of indivisible, material particles which exist in a vacuum. Thus, as part of God’s perfect universe, there are infinitely many, infinitely small monads which occupy all space.

            65. The author of nature has been able to employ this divine and infinitely marvelous artifice, because each portion of matter is not only, as the ancients recognized, infinitely divisible, but also because it is really divided without end, every part into other parts, each one of which has its own proper motion. Otherwise it would be impossible for each portion of matter to express all the universe.

            66. From this we see that there is a world of created things, of living beings, of animals, of entelechies, of souls, in the smallest particle of matter.

            67. Every portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants and like a pond full of fish. But every branch of a plant, every member of an animal, and every drop of the fluids within it, is also such a garden or such a pond.

            68. And although the ground and air which lies between the plants of the garden, and the water which is between the fish in the pond, are not themselves plants or fish, yet they nevertheless contain these, usually so small however as to be imperceptible to us.

            69. There is, therefore, nothing uncultivated, or sterile or dead in the universe, no chaos, no confusion, save in appearance. This is somewhat as a pond would appear at a distance when we could see in it a confused movement, and so to speak, a swarming of the fish, without however discerning the fish themselves.

(14) For Leibniz, there is no real chaos or confusion in the universe. What is the basis of the chaos or confusion which we might see?

            Souls of Animals. As noted, souls of animals are its larger active forces which direct its sub-component parts. An animal’s soul can retain its identity even though the material parts may slowly change over time. Thus, even birth and death are gradual processes of changing sub-components.

            70. It is evident, then, that every living body has a dominating entelechy, which in animals is the soul. The parts, however, of this living body are full of other living beings, plants and animals, which in turn have each one its entelechy or dominating soul.

            71. This does not mean, as some who have misunderstood my thought have imagined, that each soul has a quantity or portion of matter appropriated to it or attached to itself for ever, and that it consequently owns other inferior living beings destined to serve it always. Because all bodies are in a state of perpetual flux like rivers, and the parts are continually entering in or passing out.

            72. The soul, therefore, changes its body only gradually and by degrees, so that it is never deprived all at once of all its organs. There is frequently a metamorphosis in animals, but never metempsychosis or a transmigration of souls. Neither are there souls wholly separate from bodies, nor bodiless spirits. God alone is without body.

            73. This is also why there is never absolute generation or perfect death in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call generation is development and growth, and what we call death is envelopment and diminution.

(15) How are birth and death gradual?

Pushing this point further, Leibniz maintains that animal souls are present before physical birth, and are not destroyed with the disintegration of the physical body.

            74. Philosophers have been much perplexed in accounting for the origin of forms, entelechies, or souls. Today, however, it has been learned through careful investigations made in plant, insect and animal life, that the organic bodies of nature are never the product of chaos or putrefaction, but always come from seeds in which there was without doubt some preformation. Thus, it has been decided that not only is the organic body already present before conception, but also a soul in this body, in a word, the animal itself. And it has been decided that, by means of conception, the animal is merely made ready for a great transformation, so as to become an animal of another sort. We can see cases somewhat similar outside of generation when grubs become flies and caterpillars butterflies.

            75. These little animals, some of which by conception become large animals may be called spermatic. Those among them which remain in their species, that is to say, the greater part, are born, multiply, and are destroyed, like the larger animals. There are only a few chosen ones which come out upon a greater stage.

            76. This, however, is only half the truth. I believe, therefore, that if the animal never actually commences by natural means, no more does it by natural means come to an end. Not only is there no generation, but also there is no entire destruction or absolute death. These reasonings, carried on a posteriori and drawn from experience, accord perfectly with the principles which I have above deduced a priori.

            77. Therefore we may say that not only the soul (the mirror of the indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself is indestructible, although its mechanism is frequently destroyed in parts and although it puts off and takes on organic coatings.

            Union of Soul and Body. The difficulties involved in showing the union between the soul and body led Descartes to deny that animals could think, and to postulate pineal gland as the gateway between the body and soul in humans. For Malebranche, God shuttles information back and forth between our bodies and souls. Leibniz’s theory does not face these problems. Although the body and soul follow their own distinct laws in their own distinct realms, they operate in perfect synchronization since they are both part of God’s perfect master plan.

            78. These principles have furnished me the means of explaining on natural grounds the union, or rather the conformity between the soul and the organic body. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws. They are fitted to each other in virtue of the pre-established harmony between all substances since they are all representations of one and the same universe.

            79. Souls act in accordance with the laws of final causes through their desires, ends and means. Bodies act in accordance with the laws of efficient causes or of motion. The two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are in harmony, each with the other.

(16) What are the laws which govern bodies and souls respectively?

            80. Descartes saw that souls cannot at all impart force to bodies, because there is always the same quantity of force in matter. Yet he thought that the soul could change the direction of bodies. This was, however, because at that time the law of nature which affirms also that conservation of the same total direction in the motion of matter was not known. If he had known that law, he would have fallen upon my system of pre-established harmony.

            81. According to this system, bodies act as if (to suppose the impossible) there were no souls at all, and souls act as if there were no bodies, and yet both body and soul act as if the one were influencing the other.

THE HUMAN SPIRIT. Leibniz closes the “Monadology” by describing human rationality, our place in God’s kingdom, and God’s method of rewarding and punishing our actions.

Rational Minds. In primitive form, the souls of humans also existed from creation. However, they are later elected to take on the rational nature of a soul. The rational nature of the human soul is what we call our “spirit” and this mirrors the image of God himself.

            82. I find that essentially the same thing is true of all living things and animals, which we have just said (namely, that animals and souls begin from the very commencement of the world and that they no more come to an end than does the world). However, rational animals have this peculiarity, that their little spermatic animals (as long as they remain such) have only ordinary or sensuous souls, but those of them which are, so to speak, elected, attain by actual conception to human nature, and their sensuous souls are raised to the rank of reason and to the prerogative of spirits.

            83. Among the differences that there are between ordinary souls and spirits (some of which I have already described) there is also this, that while souls in general are living mirrors or images of the universe of created things, spirits are also images of the Deity himself or of the author of nature. They are capable of knowing the system of the universe, and of imitating some features of it by means of artificial models, each spirit being like a small divinity in its own sphere.

(17) In what ways do we mirror the image of God?

The City of God and Suffering. Our rational abilities give us a social nature which enables us to have a relationship with God. The community of all rational beings with God constitutes a city of God, which is a moral world within a natural world. Just as there is a pre-ordered harmony between realms of the body and soul, there is a similar harmony between the natural world and moral world. Thus, the suffering that we see in the world is part of this total harmony and is nevertheless part of the best of all possible worlds which God could create. Since we cannot comprehend God’s master plan, we should simply be content with how the universe in fact is, and recognize that it cannot be improved.

            84. Therefore, spirits are able to enter into a sort of social relationship with God. With respect to them he is not only what an inventor is to his machine (as in his relation to the other created things), but he is also what a prince is to his subjects, and even what a father is to his children.

            85. From this it is easy to conclude that the totality of all spirits must compose the city of God, that is to say, the most perfect state that is possible under the most perfect monarch.

            86. This city of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural world. It is what is noblest and most divine among the works of God. And in it consists in reality the glory of God, because he would have no glory were not his greatness and goodness known and wondered at by spirits. It is also in relation to this divine city that God properly has goodness. His wisdom and his power are shown everywhere.

            87. As we established above that there is a perfect harmony between the two natural realms of efficient and final causes, it will be in place here to point out another harmony which appears between the physical realm of nature and the moral realm of grace, that is to say, between God considered as the architect of the mechanism of the world and God considered as the monarch of the divine city of spirits.

            88. This harmony brings it about that things progress of themselves toward grace along natural lines, and that this earth, for example, must be destroyed and restored by natural means at those times when the proper government of spirits demands it, for chastisement in the one case and for a reward in the other.

            89. We can say also that God, the Architect, satisfies in all respects God the Law Giver, that therefore sins will bring their own penalty with them through the order of nature, and because of the very structure of things, mechanical though it is. And in the same way the good actions will attain their rewards in mechanical way through their relation to bodies, although this cannot and ought not always to take place without delay.

(18) What are some of the reasons that suffering might occur from natural (i.e., “mechanical”) means?

            90. Finally, under this perfect government, there will be no good action unrewarded and no evil action unpunished. Everything must turn out for the well-being of the good; that is to say, of those who are not dissatisfied in this great state, who, after having done their duty, trust in Providence and who love and imitate, as is meet, the Author of all Good, delighting in the contemplation of his perfections according to the nature of that genuine, pure love which finds pleasure in the happiness of those who are loved. It is for this reason that wise and virtuous persons work in behalf of everything which seems conformable to the presumptive or antecedent will of God. Such people are, nevertheless, content with what God actually brings to pass through his secret, consequent and determining will. They recognize that if we were able to understand sufficiently well the order of the universe, we should find that it surpasses all the desires of the wisest of us. They will also see that it is impossible to make it better than it is, not only for all in general, but also for each one of us in particular. This is on the condition that we have the proper attachment for the author of all, not only as the Architect and the efficient cause of our being, but also as our Lord and the Final Cause, who ought to be the whole goal of our will, and who alone can make us happy.

(19) What should our attitudes be toward instances of suffering which we do not fully understand?

AGAINST ATOMS AND A VACUUM. Between 1715 and 1716 Leibniz exchanged a series of letters with theologian Samuel Clarke (1675-1792) on the subject of Netwonian science. Their debate became one of the most well-known scientific controversy of the 18^th century and signaled the end of metaphysical approaches to science (as advanced by Leibniz) in favor of mathematical approaches (as advanced by Newton and Clarke). Leibniz’s dispute with Newtonian science began ten years earlier over the issue of which of the two first invented the calculus. Their dispute then expanded to a variety of more substantive issues. Newton held that planets and comets move freely through an aetherial substance around a fixed center. Leibniz thought that this would be a perpetual miracle since Leibniz denied that objects can act on each other at a distance. Instead, Leibniz followed Descartes' explanation that the motion of planets results from swirls of aether. Most importantly, Leibniz attacked Newton's view that a vacuum in space is possible. Followers of Newton held that matter was composed of tiny, yet indivisible particles, or  “corpuscles” which existed in a vacuum of empty space. Earlier, Descartes argued against the theory of a vacuum maintaining that extension and matter are equivalent, thus empty space was a contradiction in terms. Leibniz offers a different line of reasoning in his attack on both the vacuum and corpuscle theories.

Leibniz’s Argument. In a postscript to his fourth letter to Clarke (June 2, 1716), presented below, Leibniz offers two distinct arguments against both vacuums and atoms. His first argument (paralleling arguments seen above in the Monadology) is that the more matter there is in the universe, the better. Hence God would have filled the whole universe with material stuff, and made each particle of matter infinitely small.

All those who maintain a vacuum are more influenced by imagination than by reason. When I was a young man, I also gave into the notion of a vacuum and atoms. But reason brought me into the right way. It was a pleasing imagination. People carry their inquiries no farther than those two things [i.e., a vacuum and atoms]. They, as it were, nail down their thoughts to them. They fancy they have found out the first elements of things, a non plus ultra. We would have nature to go no farther and to be finite, as our minds are. But this is being ignorant of the greatness and majesty of the author of things. The least corpuscle is actually subdivided in infinitum, and contains a world of other creatures, which would be wanting in the universe, if that corpuscle was an atom (that is, a body of one entire piece without subdivision). In like manner, to admit a vacuum in nature is ascribing to God a very imperfect work. It is violating the grand principle of the necessity of a sufficient reason which many have talked of, without understanding its true meaning; as I have lately shown in proving, by that principle, that space is only an order of things, as time also is, and not at all an absolute being. To omit many other arguments against a vacuum and atoms, I shall here mention those which I ground upon God's perfection, and upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. I lay it down as a principle, that every perfection which God could impart to things without derogating from their other perfections, has actually been imparted to them. Now let us fancy a space wholly empty. God could have placed some matter in it, without derogating in any respect from all other things. Therefore he has actually placed some matter in that space. Therefore, there is no space wholly empty. Therefore all is full. The same argument proves that there is no corpuscle, but what is subdivided.

(20) In arguing against the theory of a vacuum, why, according to Leibniz, was God compelled to fill all empty space?

(21) Leibniz states that the above argument against a vacuum can also be used to refute the theory of corpuscles (i.e., tiny indivisible particles of matter). Reconstruct that argument against the theory of corpuscles.

Leibniz continues with a second argument against the vacuum theory. Someone might hold that, to be harmonious,  nature needs a special balance matter and empty space. Leibniz opposes this view.

I shall add another argument grounded upon the necessity of a sufficient reason. It is impossible that there should be any principle to determine what proportion of matter there ought to be, out of all the possible degrees from a plenum to a vacuum, or from a vacuum to a plenum. Perhaps it will be said, that the one should be equal to the other. But, because matter is more perfect than a vacuum, reason requires that a geometrical proportion should be observed, and that there should be as much more matter than vacuum, as the former deserves to have the preference before the latter. But then there must be no vacuum at all. For the perfection of matter is to that of a vacuum, as something to nothing. And the case is the same with atoms. What reason can anyone assign for confining nature in the progression of subdivision ? These are fictions.

(22) For Leibniz, why must there be more matter than empty space?

Clarke’s Response. Clarke responds specifically to Leibniz’s attack on the corpuscle theory. According to Clarke, a given piece of matter will be either perfectly solid (and thus indivisible) or it will consist of pores (or holes) designating its subparts. Suppose that it consists parts with pores. Then , those subparts will either be solid or have pores.

The arguments alleged in the postscript to Mr. Leibniz's fourth paper have been already answered in the foregoing replies. All that needs here to be observed is that his notion concerning the impossibility of physical atoms (for the question is not about mathematical atoms) is a manifest absurdity. For either there are or there are not any perfectly solid particles of matter. If there are any such, then the parts of such perfectly solid particles, taken of equal figure and dimensions (which is always possible in supposition) are physical atoms perfectly alike. But if there be no such perfectly solid particles, then there is no matter at all in the universe. For, the further the division and subdivision of the parts of any body is carried (before you arrive at parts perfectly solid and without pores) the greater is the proportion of pores to solid matter in that body. If, therefore, carrying on the division in infinitum, you never arrive at parts perfectly solid and without pores, it will follow that all bodies consist of pores only, without any matter at all, which is a manifest absurdity. And the argument is the same with regard to the matter of which any particular species of bodies is composed, whether its pores be supposed empty, or always full of extraneous matter.

(23) Why, according to Clarke, can’t there be an infinite progression of material subparts with pores?

#CHAPTER 4

BRITISH EMPIRICISM

“British Empiricism” refers to the 18th -century philosophical movement in Great Britain which held that all knowledge comes from experience. Continental Rationalists maintained that knowledge comes from foundational concepts known intuitively through reason, such as innate ideas. Other concepts are then deductively drawn from these. British Empiricists staunchly rejected the theory of innate ideas and argued that knowledge is based on both sense experience and internal mental experiences, such as emotions and self-reflection. 18th-century British Empiricists took their cue from Francis Bacon who, in the very first aphorism of his New Organon, hails the primacy of experience, particularly the observation of nature:

Man, who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can act and understand no further than he has observed in either the operation or the contemplation of the method and order of nature.

Although British Empiricists disavowed innate ideas in favor of ideas from experience, it is important to note that the Empiricists did not reject the notion of instinct or innateness in general. Indeed, they believed that we have inborn propensities which regulate our bodily functions, produce emotions, and even direct our thinking. What Empiricists deny, though, is that we are born with detailed, picture-like, concepts of God, causality, and even mathematics.

            Like Bacon, British Empiricists also moved away from deductive proofs and used an inductive method of arguing which was more conducive to the data of experience. In spite of their advocacy of inductive argumentation, though, British Empiricists still made wide use of deductive arguments. Three principal philosophers are associated with British Empiricism: John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.

* * * *

D. ANNE CONWAY

British philosopher Anne Conway (1631-1678) was educated privately by Henry More, a prominent member of a 17th century intellectual movement known as Cambridge Platonism. Like More, members of the group were connected with Cambridge University – as either teachers or students – and appreciated Plato’s emphasis on both reason and the spirit-realm. Turned off by scientists of the time who offered purely mechanistic views of the universe, the Cambridge Platonists held that God and spirit were active components of the universe. In addition to the influence of Cambridge Platonists, Conway was also inspired by mystical writers of the Jewish Cabalistic tradition, who developed theories about female forces in the universe. Some years after her death, Conway’s private notebook was translated into Latin and, in 1690 was published in Holland – a country in which more controversial ideas could be disseminated without fear of political reprisal. Two years later the Latin work was translated back into English under the title The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1692).

            Two themes stand out in her work: (1) things are capable of changing much more than we typically might think, and (2) body and soul are more or less the same thing, differing only in degree, and not in kind. Although Conway is not a rationalist in the continental European tradition of Descartes, her emphasis on soul and her resistance to mechanical scientific explanations place her more among rationalist philosophers than among empiricists such as Francis Bacon. Leibniz himself noted an affinity between his and Conway’s views. Selections below are from Chapters 6, 8 and 9 of her Principles.

ALL CREATURES ARE CHANGEABLE.

Conway divides all things in the universe into three categories. First, there is God, who, being infinitely perfect, is incapable of change. Second, there is Christ, who changes only for the better. Third, there are created things, which can change in innumerable ways, for the better or the worse. Conway argues that species of things can change; for example, a horse can become a human being. Although in theory any physical thing can become anything else, Conway argues that God does not do this in reality because of problems that would invariably arise regarding moral responsibility.

            That all creatures in their own nature are changeable (the distinction between God and creatures duly considered) evidently evinces, and the same is by daily experience confirmed. Now if any creature be in its own nature changeable, it has this mutability (as it is a creature), and consequently all creatures will have the same, according to that rule: Whatsoever agrees to anything as placed under this or that species, agrees to all comprehended under the same species. But mutability agrees to a creature (which is the most general name of that species, under which all creatures are comprehended), and from thence it is manifest. For otherwise there would be no distinction between God and creatures. For if any creature were of itself, and in its own nature unchangeable, that creature would be God, because immutability is one of his incommunicable attributes.

            Now let us consider how far this mutability may reach, or be extended, and, first, whether one individual can be changed into another of the same or a different species? This, I say, is impossible. For then the very essences of things would be changed, which would make a great confusion, not only in the creatures, but in the wisdom of God, which made all things. As for example, if this man could be changed into that, viz. Paul into Judas, or Judas into Paul, then he that sinned would not be punished for his sin, but another in his stead, who was both virtuous and innocent. So then a good man would not receive the reward of his virtue, but a vicious man in his stead. But if we suppose one good man to be changed into another, as Paul into Peter, and Peter into Paul, Paul would not receive his own proper reward, but Peter’s nor Peter his, but Paul’s, which would be a confusion, and unbecoming the wisdom of God.

(1) What is the moral problem with God changing one human being into another?

            Moreover, if the very individual essences of things could be changed one into another, it would follow [that] creatures were not true in themselves. And so we could not be assured, nor have any certain knowledge of anything. And then all the inbred notions and dictates of truth, which men generally find in themselves, would be false, and by consequence the conclusions drawn from thence. For every true science, or certainty of knowledge, depends upon the truth of the objects, which are commonly called veritates objectivæ, or objective truths. If therefore these objective truths should be changed the one into the other, certainly the truth of the propositions depending thereon would be changed also; and so no proposition could be unchangeably true, no not the most clear and obvious as these are: the whole is greater than its part, and two halves make a whole.

 (2) If we could change the individual essences of things, what would we sacrifice?

Body and Soul Differ only in Degree, not in Kind. According to Conway, not only can one species change into another, but a thing made out of a material body can change into a soul, and vice verse. Her underlying reasoning is that body and soul are not essentially different kinds of things. With few exceptions, philosophers throughout history held that body and soul are radically different in nature. For example, bodies take up space, are incapable of moving by themselves, and are subject to decompose over time; none of this is so with souls. Conway disputes all of the conventional points of distinction between body and soul. Instead, she argues that bodies and souls fall into a spectrum, and intermingle with each other in differing degrees. She offers a series of arguments for her position, one of which, presented below, is based on the intimate connection and interaction between bodies and souls.

            To prove that spirit and body differ not essentially, but gradually, I shall deduce my fourth argument from the intimate band or union, which intercedes between bodies and spirits. [It is] by means whereof the spirits have dominion over the bodies with which they are united, that they move them from one place to another, and use them as instruments in their various operations. For if spirit and body are so contrary one to another (so that a spirit is only life, or a living and sensible substance, but a body a certain mass merely dead; a spirit penetrable and indiscerpible [i.e., indivisible into parts], which are all contrary attributes) what (I pray you) is that which does so join or unite them together? Or, what are those links or chains, whereby they have so firm a connection, and that for so long a space of time? Moreover also, when the spirit or soul is separated from the body, so that it has no longer dominion or power over it to move it as it had before, what is the cause of this separation?

(3) What are some of the problems involved with the connection between body and soul?

            If it be said, that the vital agreement ([which] the soul has to the body) is the cause of the said union, and that the body being corrupted that vital agreement ceases, I answer, we must first inquire in what this vital agreement does consist. For if they cannot tell us wherein it does consist, they only trifle with empty words, which give a sound, but want a signification. For certainly in the sense which they take body and spirit in, there is no agreement at all between them. For a body is always a dead thing, void of life and sense, no less when the spirit is in it, than when it is gone out of it. Hence there is no agreement at all between them. And if there is any agreement, that certainly will remain the same, both when the body is sound, and when it is corrupted.

            If they deny this, because a spirit requires an organized body (by means whereof it performs its vital acts of the external senses – moves and transports the body from place to place, which organical action ceases when the body is corrupted) certainly by this the difficulty is never the better solved. For why does the spirit require such an organized body? ex. gr. Why does it require a corporeal eye so wonderfully formed and organized, that I can see by it? Why does it need a corporeal light to see corporeal objects? Or, why is it requisite that the image of the object should be sent to it, through the eye, that I may see it? If the same were entirely nothing but a spirit, and no way corporeal, why does it need so many several corporeal organs, so far different from the nature of it?

(4) Defenders of the body/soul distinction might argue that the two are connected by means of a “vital agreement” between the two. What, for Conway, is the problem with this explanation.

            Furthermore, how can a spirit move its body, or any of its members, if a spirit (as they affirm) is of such a nature, that no part of its body can in the least resist it, even as one body is wont to resist another, when it is moved by it, by reason of its impenetrability? For if a spirit could also easily penetrate all bodies, wherefore does it not leave the body behind it when it is moved from place to place, seeing it can so easily pass out without the least resistance? For certainly this is the cause of all motions which we see in the world, where one thing moves another, viz. because both are impenetrable in the sense aforesaid. For, were it not for this impenetrability, one creature could not move another, because this would not oppose that, nor at all resist it. An example whereof we have in the sails of a ship, by which the wind drives the ship, and that so much the more vehemently, by how much the fewer holes, vents, and passages, the same finds in the sails against which it drives. When on the contrary, if, instead of sails, nets were expanded, through which the wind would have a freer passage, certainly by these the ship would be but little moved, although it blew with great violence. Hence we see how this impenetrability causes resistance, and this makes motion. But if there were no impenetrability, as in the case of body and spirit, then there would be no resistance, and by consequence the spirit could make no motion in the body. ...

(5) Defenders of the body/soul distinction might similarly argue that souls move impenetrable bodies, just as the wind pushes a sail. However, Conway argues that – even on the dualist’s view – souls can penetrate everything; thus, there is no resistance which might allow a soul to move a body. Explain how she makes this point with her analogy of the net.

How then should we visualize the interaction between souls and bodies? According to Conway, we should first recognize how light bodies impact heavy bodies – such as air pushing against a heavy windmill. Heavy spirits, then, interact with lighter bodies in the same way.

            For we may easily understand how one body is united with another, by that true agreement that one has with another in its own nature. And so the most subtle and spiritual body may be united with a body that is very gross and thick, sc, by means of certain bodies partaking of subtlety and grossness, according to divers degrees consisting between two extremes. And these middle bodies are indeed the links and chains by which the soul, which is so subtle and spiritual, is conjoined with a body so gross – which middle spirits (if they cease, or are absent) the union is broken or dissolved. So from the same foundation we may easily understand how the soul moves the body, viz. as one subtle body can move another gross and thick body. And seeing body itself is a sensible life, or an intellectual substance, it is no less clearly conspicuous how one body can wound, or grieve, or gratify, or please another. [It is] because things of one, or alike nature can easily affect each other. ...

            I shall draw a fifth argument from what we observe in all visible bodies, as in earth, water, stones, wood, etc. What abundance of spirits is in all these things? For earth and water continually produce animals, as they have done from the beginning, so that a pool filled with water may produce fishes though none were ever put there to increase or breed. And seeing that all other things do more originally proceed from earth and water, it necessarily follows, that the spirits of all animals were in the water. And therefore it is said in Genesis, that the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, viz. that from hence he might produce whatsoever was afterwards created.

(6) Conway defends her view of body/soul similarity by describing an array of situations in which spirits interact with material things. Give some of her examples.

            But if it be said, this argument does not prove that all spirits are bodies, but that all bodies have in them the spirits of all animals (so that every body has a spirit in it, and likewise a spirit and body, and although they are thus united, yet they still remain different in nature one from another, and so cannot be changed one into another) to this I answer. If every body, even the least, has in it the spirits of all animals, and other things, even as matter is said to have in it all forms, now I demand, whether a body has actually all those spirits in it, or potentially only? If actually, how is it possible that so many spirits essentially distinct from body can actually exist in their distinct essences in so small a body (even in the least that can be conceived) unless it be by intrinsic presence, which is not communicable to any creature, as already proved. For if all kinds of spirits are in any, even the least body, how comes it to pass that such an animal is produced of this body and not another? Yea, how comes it to pass that all kinds of animals are not immediately produced out of one and the same body, which experience denies. For we see that nature keeps her order in all operations, whence one animal is formed of another, and one species proceeds from another, as well when it ascends to a farther perfection, as when it descends to a viler state and condition.

            But if they say, all spirits are contained in any body, not actually in their distinct essences, but only potentially as they term it, then it must be granted, that the body and all those spirits are one and the same thing. That is, that a body may be turned into them, as when we say wood is potentially fire (that is, can be turned into fire), water is potentially air (that is, may be changed into air)...

(7) Responding to her previous argument, critics might argue that the presence of souls in the world not show that bodies are souls shows; instead, it only shows bodies contain souls, either actually or potentially. What is her response to the claim that bodies might contain souls potentially?

AGAINST DESCARTES, HOBBES, AND SPINOZA.

Conway was aware that her theory of body and soul ran counter to views of the subject held by famous philosophers of her time. Descartes believed that bodies and souls were radically distinct things. Hobbes held that everything was composed of matter, including God himself. Spinoza held that God’s creations were all part of God himself .

            From what has been lately said, and from divers reasons alleged, that spirit and body are originally in their first substance but one and the same thing, it evidently appears that the philosophers (so called) which have taught otherwise, whether ancient or modern, have generally erred...

            And none can object, that all this philosophy is no other than that of Descartes or Hobbes under a new mask. For, first, as touching the Cartesian philosophy, this says that every body is a mere dead mass, not only void of all kind of life and sense, but utterly incapable thereof to all eternity. This grand error also is to be imputed to all those who affirm body and spirit to be contrary things, and inconvertible one into another, so as to deny a body all life and sense, but utterly incapable thereof to all eternity. This grand error also is to be imputed to all those who affirm body and spirit to be contrary things, and inconvertible one into another, so as to deny a body all life and sense, which is quite contrary to the grounds of this our philosophy. Wherefore it is so far from being a Cartesian principle, under a new mask, that it may be truly said it is anti-Cartesian, in regard of their fundamental principles -- although, it cannot be denied that Descartes taught many excellent and ingenious things concerning the mechanical part of natural operations, and how all natural motions proceed according to rules and laws mechanical, even as indeed nature herself, i.e., the creature, as an excellent mechanical skill and wisdom in itself (given it from God, who is the fountain of all wisdom) by which it operates. But yet in nature, and her operations, they are far more than merely mechanical, and the same is not a mere organical body, like a clock, wherein there is not a vital principle of motion, but a living body, having life and sense, which body is far more sublime than a mere mechanism, or mechanical motion.

(8) According to Conway, what is Descartes’s view of body?

            But, secondly, as to what pertains to Hobbes’s opinion, this is more contrary to this our philosophy, than that of Descartes. For Descartes acknowledged God to be plainly immaterial, and an incorporeal spirit. Hobbes affirms God himself to be material and corporeal -- yea, nothing else but matter and body -- and so confounds God and the creatures in their essences, and denies that there is any essential distinction between them. These and many more the worst of consequences are the dictates of Hobbes’s philosophy, to which may be added that of Spinoza, for this Spinoza also confounds God and the creatures together, and makes but one being of both, all which are diametrically opposite to the philosophy here delivered by us.

 (9) According to Conway, what is wrong with Hobbes’s view that God is material?