Page:Leibniz Discourse on Metaphysics etc (1908).djvu/21

xx substances. In any case Euler's objection evidently loses its force.

Another difficulty raised against the monadology is that it effaces the distinction between the soul and the body. This difficulty seems to me like the preceding one to be merely apparent. Because in every hypothesis, the essential distinction between the body and the soul is that the body is a composite, while the soul is simple. In order to prove that the soul is not extended the proof is offered that it is not a composite, while the body on the contrary is. Now in Leibniz's hypothesis also, the body is only a composite, only an aggregation of simple elements. What difference does the nature of the elements make in this case? It is the whole, it is the aggregation which we contrast with the soul; and in Leibniz's hypothesis, quite as well as in that of Descartes, the body as an aggregation is wholly incapable of thought. Some one will reply: "granting all that, the elements are nevertheless single and indivisible like the soul itself and they are therefore of the same nature as the soul they are souls themselves." This last consequence is very incorrectly drawn, however.

What is meant by the words: "of the same nature"? Does it mean that the monads which compose the body are feeling, thinking, willing beings? Leibniz never said such a thing. What is the basis for affirming that the particles of my body are thinking substances? Let us look at the semblance they have to the soul. Doubtless they are like it single and indivisible substances. But what difficulty does it introduce to admit that the soul and body have common attributes? The atoms, for instance, have they not in common with the soul, existence, indestructibility, self-identity? And does the argument of the identity of the ego in contrast with the changing nature of organized matter, cease to be valid, because the atom is quite as self-identical as the soul? Indeed the indestructibility of the atom is used as an analogy to establish the indestructibility of the soul. If this common character does not prevent their being distinguished, why should their being distinguished be more difficult when they have in common a character essential to all substance, namely, the attribute of activity?

Furthermore, if the atoms of the substance, which constitutes the universe, are indivisible units, the power of thinking is not