Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/199

 KECENT W011K ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ. 185 which, as is justly observed (EMM, p. 12, note), suffices to prove that Spinoza had no durable influence upon him, at least as re- gards fundamentals. The question therefore arises why some things exist rather than others. The reply, to which, in published works, Leibniz always gave a theological turn, was that that world is actual in which there is the greatest metaphysical perfection, i.e., in which the greatest quantity of essence exists. The conflict of possibles, he says, results in the greatest number of compossibles (Gerh., vii., 194). This is the "divine mathematics" or "meta- physical mechanism " of which we hear so much (p. 227). Leib- niz's optimism was logico-mathematical : perfection was merely a quantitative maximum. 1 But the question for us is : How does this view follow from the principle of reason ? The answer to this question turns on the theory of existence. On this theory, he makes two classes of remarks, which both he and M. Couturat appear to regard as mutually consistent, but which seem to me radically opposed to each other. On the one hand, we are told that existence is a perfection, and that there is something more in the concept of what exists than in that of what does not exist, whence our author concludes (EMM, p. 13) that existence, like any other predicate, is contained in subjects of which it can be truly affirmed. But again Leibniz says: "If existence were anything other than the exigence of essence, it would follow that itself would have a cer- tain essence, or would add something new to things, concerning which it might again be asked, whether this essence exists, and why this rather than another" (Gerh., vii., 195, note). This pas- sage sounds like a refutation of the others ; nevertheless it is not so regarded by Leibniz, for he says : " Existentia a nobis concipitur tanquam res nihil habens cum Essentia commune, quod tamen fieri nequit, quia oportat plus inesse in conceptu Existentis quam non existentis, seu existentiam esse perfectionem ; cum revera nihil aliud sit explicable in existentia, quam perfectissimam seriem rerum ingredi " (EMM, p. 13, note). The end of this very instructive passage seems to imply that existence means belonging to the best possible world ; thus Leibniz's optimism would reduce itself to saying that actual is an abbreviation which it is sometimes con- venient to substitute for best possible. If these are the consolations of philosophy, it is no wonder that philosophers cannot endure the toothache patiently ! The whole theory is so radically vitiated by the analytic theory of judgment that it seems impossible to stale it at all clearly. 2 But the use of the principle of sufficient 1 P. 231. M. Couturat adds: "or minimum" : but metaphysical per- fection in itself is always a maximum, though in some mathematical problems e.g., the principle of least action a minimum appears as an alternative. - 2 M. Couturat's work has led me to abandon the theory that Leibniz held existential propositions to be synthetic with regret, since the theory he did hold appears to me very inferior to the one which I imputed to- him in my Philosophy of Leibniz. It is clear, at any rate, that Leibniz