Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/213

 RECENT WORK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ. 199 refutation, in the case of identity, to point out that, on the theory in question, the assertion that the Ego persists is purely linguistic, and has no significance except as part of a dictionary. In a similar subjective spirit, our author discusses the question of perception. The object is a well-founded phenomenon, not because it reflects a transcendent world of absolute existents, but because it represents an order which satisfies the scientific reason (p. 364). In other words, the scientific reason is satisfied by a tissue of falsehoods. The world of bodies is only a content of thought ; there is no ground for the existence of phenomena. It is a mistake to suppose that Leibniz constructed bodies out of monads. The organic body is not a new element in the monad, but a determina- tion of the content of consciousness (p. 408). To say that monads mirror the universe is only a figurative expression : there is no absolute object, such as would be required for mirroring. It might seem to have been forgotten that there are many monads ; but Dr. Gassirer adds (p. 468) that the perceptions of a single substance are not of the system of absolute substances. Since this system alone is real, it follows, one must suppose, that all per- ceptions are wholly mistaken : for what they perceive is unreal, and what is real they do not perceive. Our objects, we are told, are entirely spatio-temporal phenomena, and monads are not objects of either clear or confused perception (p. 468). I am far from denying that many passages in Leibniz support this interpretation; but they belong, I think, almost all, to later years, when he had forgotten that his system needed grounds. Before examining the view, I should like to remove an objection, urged by Lotze and endorsed by the author (p. 467), against the view that monads mirror the universe. One thing expresses another, according to Leibniz, when there is a one-one relation of the parts of the one to those of the other, as e.g. in geometrical projection (e.g. Gerh., ii., 112; vii., 264). Now such a relation is possible both between every pair of monads and between every monad and the whole system of monads. To take an illustration from Arithmetic : consider the various series whose general terms are respectively 1 - l/n, 2-1/n, 3-l/n, etc., where n is to take successively all positive integral values. Each of these series is similar both to every other series and to the whole series of series. If every term of each series stood for a state of a monad, and each whole series for a whole monad, we should get here a perfectly Leibnizian world, in which monads would all mirror both each other and the universe. Thus Lotze's objection, to which Dr. Gassirer answers by abandoning the notion of mirroring the universe, appears to be based upon an error. In order to judge of the philosophy attributed to Leibniz by our author, let us endeavour to state it in precise and un-Kantian terms. Every monad is a causal series, the series being definable by the relation of causality (which must be taken as ultimate) and any one of the terms of the series. All the series are ordinally