Page:Essays in Philosophy (1856).djvu/49

 Having in these conclusions, as he conceived, demonstratively refunded concrete being into its elements, and related all created elements to the One uncreated and supreme, Leibnitz would next find the mutual relations of the several elementary forces of creation. Although the monads have neither figure nor extension in themselves, their co-existence and relations sufficiently account for the phenomena of extension, duration, and body. Space and Time have thus merely an ideal and relative existence. They result from the relation of monads, considered as co-existing or in succession; and are simply modes in which we regard the objects of our experience. Further, the elements of creation being absolutely destitute of parts and extension, cannot mutually influence one another. Inter-causation is thus excluded from the real universe, and is confined to the phenomenal, which is governed by mechanical law. Yet the universe is ideally related in the mind of God, and of each creature, in proportion as his ideas approximate to the Divine. God, "in the beginning," launched the elements into being, having resolved for each one a determinate history throughout eternity, and a history which should harmonize with that of every other. This mutual relation is beautifully illustrated, when we are told that from the given state of any monad at any time, the Eternal Geometer can find the state of the universe past, present, and to come. In the attributes of the Uncreated and Supreme, is to be found the sufficient reason for a Pre-established Harmony in all that He has made. This explains the nature of the changes of creation. The