Great Throughts Treasury

"In whatever manner God created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order. God, however, has chosen the most perfect, that is to say, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypothesis and the richest in phenomena."

"Indeed every monad must be different from every other. For there are never in nature two beings, which are precisely alike, and in which it is not possible to find some difference which is internal, or based on some intrinsic quality."

"In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility."

"Indifference arise from ignorance, and the wiser the man is, the more is he determined to that action which is most perfect."

"Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth."

"It cannot be denied that all of that is real, and it is even necessary to assert that the last determination of the will, after it has been balanced for a long time and it has examined all the circumstances, is a real act, which is in the category of action, just as much as the thought and the movement. Nevertheless, it is this final determination that renders us criminal."

"It cannot be found except in one single source, because of the interconnection of all these things with one another."

"It can indeed be said that every substance bears in some sort the character of God's infinite wisdom and omnipotence, and imitates him as much as it is able to; for it expresses, although confusedly, all that happens in the universe, past, present and future, deriving thus a certain resemblance to an infinite perception or power of knowing."

"It can have its effect only through the intervention of God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God a monad rightly demands that God, in regulating the rest from the beginning of things, should have regard to itself."

"It follows from the supreme perfection of God, that in creating the universe has chosen the best possible plan, in which there is the greatest variety together with the greatest order; the best arranged ground, place, time; the most results produced in the most simple ways; the most of power, knowledge, happiness and goodness the creatures that the universe could permit. For since all the possibles in understanding of God laid claim to existence in proportion to their perfections, the actual world, as the resultant of all these claims, must be the most perfect possible. And without this it would not be possible to give a reason why things have turned out so rather than otherwise."

"It is necessary to act conformably to the presumptive will of God as far as we are able to judge of it, trying with all our might to contribute to the general welfare and particularly to the ornamentation and the perfection of that which touches us, or of that which is nigh and so to speak at our hand."

"It follows from what we have just said that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, and that change is continual in each one… Now this connection of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, each created monad represents the whole universe… Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe… The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts. And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples. Now where there are no parts, there neither extension, nor shape, nor divisibility is possible. And these monads are the true atoms of nature and, in a word, the elements of things… There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding… Indeed every monad must be different from every other. For there are never in nature two beings, which are precisely alike, and in which it is not possible to find some difference which is internal, or based on some intrinsic quality. I also take it as granted that every created thing, and consequently the created monad also, is subject to change, and indeed that this change is continual in each one. It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause would be unable to influence their inner being… And as every state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, so that the present state of it is big with the future."

"It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things."

"It is evident, at least as far as we can conceive it, that bodies act upon one another by impulse and not otherwise; for it is impossible for us to understand that a body can act upon that which it does not touch, which is as much as to imagine that it can act where it is not."

"It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions. This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty."

"It is the same with each monad. God alone has a distinct knowledge of everything, for He is the source of everything. It has been very well said that as a center He is everywhere; but His circumference is nowhere, since everything is present to Him immediately, without being removed from this center."

"It is said expressively in the Appendix to Mr. Newton's Optics that space is God's sensorium. Now the word sensorium has always meant the organ of sensation. Let him and his friends now give a quite different explanation of their meaning: I shall not object."

"It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives us Reason and the sciences, raising us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God."

"It is this way that in mathematics speculative theorems and practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates."

"It is thus that habituation causes us not to notice the motion of a mill or waterfall, after we have lived nearby for some time. It is not that the motion does not continue to affect our organs, and that something does not still take place in the soul to correspond to it, on account of the harmony of the soul and the body; it is that these impressions which are in the soul and in the body, when they are devoid of the attractions of novelty, are not strong enough to attract our attention and memory, when these are attached to more absorbing objects."

"It is true I have often glanced at Galileo and Descartes, but as I have only recently become a geometrician, I was soon put off by their manner of writing, which necessitated serious thought. And personally, although I have always taken pleasure in meditations of my own, I have always found it difficult to read books which cannot be understood without much thought; for in following one's own meditations one follows a certain natural bent, and gains profit and pleasure at the same time, whereas one is terribly put out at having to follow the meditations of another."

"It is true that we cannot ‘render service’ to him, for he has need of nothing: but it is ‘serving him’, in our parlance, when we strive to carry out his presumptive will, co-operating in the good as it is known to us, wherever we can contribute thereto."

"It is true that we can easily conceive of matter both as giving out and as taking parts; and it is in this way that we rightly explain in terms of mechanics all the phenomena of physics."

"It may be even be said that as a result of these minute perceptions the present is big with the future and laden with the past, that everything is in league together, and that in the smallest substance eyes as piercing as those of God could read the whole sequence of things in the universe:"

"It may be said likewise in respect of perfect wisdom, which is no less orderly than mathematics, that if there were not the best among all possible worlds, God would not have produced any."

"It must be the case that I have some perception of the movement of each wave on the shore if I am able to apperceive that which results from the movements of all the waves put together, namely the mighty roar which we hear by the sea."

"It was my aim here to expound, not the principles of extension, but the principles of that which is in fact extended, or of bodily mass. These principles, according to me, are the real units, that is to say the substances that possess a true unity."

"It is true that a man of judgment, that is to say, one who is capable of attention and restraint, and who has the necessary leisure and patience and is open-minded enough, can understand the most difficult demonstration if it is properly put to him."

"It is true that I am often of another opinion from him, but, far from denying the merit of famous writers, we bear witness to it by showing wherein and wherefore we differ from them, since we deem it necessary to prevent their authority from prevailing against reason in certain important points; besides the fact that, in convincing such excellent men, we make the truth more acceptable, and it is to be supposed that it is chiefly for truth's sake that they are laboring."

"It is true, I say, "that bodies operate by impulse, and nothing else ". And so I thought when I write it, and can yet conceive no other way of their operation. But I am since convinced by the judicious Mr. Newton's incomparable book, that it is too bold a presumption to limit God's power, in this point, by my narrow conceptions. The gravitation of matter towards matter, by ways inconceivable to me, is not only a demonstration that God can, if he pleases, put into bodies powers and ways of operation, above what can be derived from our idea of body or can be explained by what we know of matter."

"It is true the more we see a connection in what happens to us, the more we are confined in the opinion that there is reality in our appearances; and it is true also that the more nearly we examine appearances, the better connected we find them to be, as microscopes and other ways of making experiments show us. This perpetual agreement gives us great assurance; but after all it will be no more than a moral assurance until somebody discovers a priori the origin of the world which we see, and probes in the depths of its essence to find the reason why things are as they seem. When that is done, it will be proved that what appears to us is a reality, and that it is impossible that we should ever be disabused about it."

"It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind's labor."

"It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used."

"Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory. We are all merely empiricists as regards three-fourths of our actions. For example, when we expect it to be day tomorrow, we are behaving as empiricists, because until now it has always happened thus. The astronomer alone knows this by reason."

"It's easier to be original and foolish than original and wise."

"Miracles are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."

"Monas is a Greek word which signifies unity or that which is one."

"Mr. Newton says that space is the organ which God makes use of to perceive things by."

"Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine that perception must be sought for."

"Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting."

"Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting."

"Nature does not make leaps."

"Nature has established patterns originating in the return of events, but only for the most part. New illnesses flood the human race, so that no matter how many experiments you have done on corpses, you have not thereby imposed a limit on the nature of events so that in the future they could not vary."

"Nothing can be taught us of which we have not already in our minds the idea. This idea is as it were the material out of which the thought will form itself."

"Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves."

"Now it is evident that every true predication has some basis in the nature of things, and even when a proposition is not identical, that is, when the predicate is not expressly contained in the subject, it is still necessary that it be virtually contained in it, and this is what the philosophers call in-esse, saying thereby that the predicate is in the subject."

"Now this supreme wisdom, united to goodness that is no less infinite, cannot but have chosen the best. For as a lesser evil is a kind of good, even so a lesser good is a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good; and the would be something to correct in the actions of God if it were possible to the better. As in mathematics, when there is no maximum nor minimum, in short nothing distinguished, everything is done equally, or when that is not nothing at all is done: so it may be said likewise in respect of perfect wisdom, which is no less orderly than mathematics, that if there were not the best (optimum) among all possible worlds, God would not have produced any."

"Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity."

"Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe."

"Now this possibility or necessity forms or composes what are called essences or natures, and the truths which we are accustomed to call eternal; and we are right so to call them, for nothing is so eternal as what is necessary. Thus the nature of the circle with its properties is something which exists and is eternal: that is to say there is some constant cause outside us which makes all those who think about it carefully discover the same thing, and not merely that their thoughts disagree with one another; this might be attributed simply to the nature of the human mind, but for the fact that phenomena or experiences confirm them whenever some appearance of a circle strikes our senses. And these phenomena necessarily have some cause outside us."