C. Third Section.
The third development of the philosophy of the understanding is that represented by Leibnitz and Wolff. If Wolff’s metaphysics is divested of its rigid form, we have as a result the later popular philosophy.
1. Leibnitz.
As in other respects Leibnitz represents the extreme antithesis to Newton, so in respect of philosophy he presents a striking contrast to Locke and his empiricism, and also to Spinoza. He upholds thought as against the perception of the English school, and in lieu of sensuous Being he maintains Being for thought to be the essence of truth, just as Boehme at an earlier time upheld implicit Being. While Spinoza asserted the universality, the oneness of substance merely, and while with Locke we saw infinite determinations made the basis, Leibnitz, by means of his fundamental principle of individuality, brings out the essentiality of the opposite aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy, existence for self, the monad, but the monad regarded as the absolute Notion, though perhaps not yet as the “I.” The opposed principles, which were forced asunder, find their completion in each other, since Leibnitz’s principle of individuation completed Spinoza’s system as far as outward aspect goes.
Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von Leibnitz, was born in 1646 at Leipzig, where his father was professor of Philosophy. The subject that he studied in view of a profession was jurisprudence, but first, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he made a study of Philosophy, and to it he devoted particular attention. To begin with, he picked up in Leipzig a large and miscellaneous stock of knowledge, then he studied Philosophy and mathematics at Jena under the mathematician and theosophist Weigel, and took his degree of Master of Philosophy in Leipzig. There also, on the occasion of his graduation as Doctor of Philosophy, he defended certain philosophical theses, some of which discourses are still contained in his works (ed. Dutens, T. II. P. I. p. 400). His first dissertation, and that for which he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy, was: De principio individui,—a principle which remained the abstract principle of his whole philosophy, as opposed to that of Spinoza. After he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the subject, he wished to graduate also as Doctor of Laws. But though he died an imperial councillor, it was his ill fortune to receive from the Faculty at Leipzig a refusal to confer the doctorate upon him, his youth being the alleged reason. Such a thing could scarcely happen now-a-days. It may be that it was done because of his over-great philosophical attainments, seeing that lawyers are wont to hold the same in horror. He now quitted Leipzig, and betook himself to Altdorf, where he graduated with distinction. Shortly afterwards he became acquainted in Nürnberg with a company of alchemists, with whose ongoings he became associated. Here he made extracts from alchemistic writings, and studied the mysteries of this occult science. His activity in the pursuit of learning extended also to historical, diplomatic, mathematical and philosophical subjects. He subsequently entered the service of the Elector of Mayence, becoming a member of council, and in 1672 he was appointed tutor to a son of Von Boineburg, Chancellor of State to the Elector. With this young man he travelled to Paris, where he lived for four years. He at this time made the acquaintance of the great mathematician Huygens, and was by him for the first time properly introduced into the domain of mathematics. When the education of his pupil was completed, and the Baron Von Boineburg died, Leibnitz went on his own account to London, where he became acquainted with Newton and other scholars, at whose head was Oldenburg, who was also on friendly terms with Spinoza. After the death of the Elector of Mayence, the salary of Leibnitz ceased to be paid; he therefore left England and returned to France. The Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg then took him into his service, and gave him the appointment of councillor and librarian at Hanover, with permission to spend as much time as he liked in foreign countries. He therefore remained for some time longer in France, England, and Holland. In the year 1677 he settled down in Hanover, where he became busily engaged in affairs of state, and was specially occupied with historical matters. In the Harz Mountains he had works constructed for carrying off the floods which did damage to the mines there. Notwithstanding these manifold occupations he invented the differential calculus in 1677, on occasion of which there arose a dispute between him and Newton, which was carried on by the latter and the Royal Society of London in a most ungenerous manner. For it was asserted by the English, who gave themselves the credit of everything, and were very unfair to others, that the discovery was really made by Newton. But Newton’s Principia only appeared later, and in the first edition indeed Leibnitz was mentioned with commendation in a note which was afterwards omitted. From his headquarters in Hanover, Leibnitz, commissioned by his prince, made several journeys through Germany, and also went to Italy in order to collect historical evidence relative to the House of Este, and for the purpose of proving more clearly the relationship between this princely family and that of Brunswick-Lüneburg. At other times he was likewise much occupied with historical questions. Owing to his acquaintance with the consort of Frederick I. of Prussia, Sophia Charlotte, a Hanoverian princess, he was enabled to bring about the foundation of an Academy of Science in Berlin, in which city he lived for a considerable time. In Vienna he also became acquainted with Prince Eugène, which occasioned his being appointed finally an Imperial Councillor. He published several very important historical works as the result of this journey. His death took place at Hanover in 1716, when he was seventy years of age.[242]
It was not only on Philosophy, but also on the most varied branches of science that Leibnitz expended toil and trouble and energy; it was to mathematics, however, that he specially devoted his attention, and he is the inventor of the methods of the integral and differential calculus. His great services in regard to mathematics and physics we here leave out of consideration, and pay attention to his philosophy alone. None of his books can be exactly looked on as giving a complete systematic account of his philosophy. To the more important among them belongs his work on the human understanding (Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain) in reply to Locke; but this is a mere refutation. His philosophy is therefore scattered through various little treatises which were written in very various connections, in letters, and replies to objections which caused him to bring out one aspect of the question more strongly than another; we consequently find no elaborated systematic whole, superintended or perfected by him. The work which has some appearance of being such, his Théodicée, better known to the public than anything else he wrote, is a popular treatise which he drew up for Queen Sophia Charlotte in reply to Bayle, and in which he took pains not to present the matter in very speculative form. A Wurtemberg theologian, Pfaff by name, and others who were correspondents of Leibnitz and were themselves only too well versed in philosophy, brought it as a charge against Leibnitz—a charge which he never denied—that his philosophy was written in popular form.[243] They laughed very much afterwards at Wolff, who had taken them to be quite in earnest; his opinion was that if Leibnitz were not perfectly serious in this sense with his Théodicée, yet he had unconsciously written his best therein. Leibnitz’s Théodicée is not what we can altogether appreciate; it is a justification of God in regard to the evil in the world. His really philosophic thoughts are most connectedly expressed in a treatise on the principles of Grace (Principes de la Nature et de la Grace),[244] and especially in the pamphlet addressed to Prince Eugène of Savoy.[245] Buhle (Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, vol. iv. section 1, p. 131) says: “His philosophy is not so much the product of free, independent, original speculation, as the result of well-tested earlier” and later “systems, an eclecticism whose defects he tried to remedy in his own way. It is a desultory treatment of Philosophy in letters.”
Leibnitz followed the same general plan in his philosophy as the physicists adopt when they advance a hypothesis to explain existing data. He has it that general conceptions of the Idea are to be found, from which the particular may be derived; here, on account of existing data, the general conception, for example the determination of force or matter furnished by reflection, must have its determinations disposed in such a way that it fits in with the data. Thus the philosophy of Leibnitz seems to be not so much a philosophic system as an hypothesis regarding the existence of the world, namely how it is to be determined in accordance with the metaphysical determinations and the data and assumptions of the ordinary conception, which are accepted as valid[246]—thoughts which are moreover propounded without the sequence pertaining to the Notion and mainly in narrative style, and which taken by themselves show no necessity in their connection. Leibnitz’s philosophy therefore appears like a string of arbitrary assertions, which follow one on another like a metaphysical romance; it is only when we see what he wished thereby to avoid that we learn to appreciate its value. He really makes use of external reasons mainly in order to establish relations: “Because the validity of such relations cannot be allowed, nothing remains but to establish the matter in this way.” If we are not acquainted with these reasons, this procedure strikes us as arbitrary.
a. Leibnitz’s philosophy is an idealism of the intellectuality of the universe; and although from one point of view he stands opposed to Locke, as from another point of view he is in opposition to the Substance of Spinoza, he yet binds them both together again. For, to go into the matter more particularly, on the one hand he expresses in the many monads the absolute nature of things distinguished and of individuality; on the other hand, in contrast to this and apart from it, he expresses the ideality of Spinoza and the non-absolute nature of all difference, as the idealism of the popular conception. Leibnitz’s philosophy is a metaphysics, and in sharp contrast to the simple universal Substance of Spinoza, where all that is determined is merely transitory, it makes fundamental the absolute multiplicity of individual substances, which after the example of the ancients he named monads—an expression already used by the Pythagoreans. These monads he then proceeds to determine as follows.
Firstly “Substance is a thing that is capable of activity, it is compound or simple, the compound cannot exist without the simple. The monads are simple substances.” The proof that they constitute the truth in all things is very simple, it is a superficial reflection. For instance, one of Leibnitz’s maxims is “Because there are compound things, the principles of the same must be simple, for the compound consists of the simple.”[247] This proof is poor enough, it is an example of the favourite way of starting from something definite, say the compound, and then drawing conclusions therefrom as to the simple. It is quite light in a way, but really it is tautology. Of course, if the compound exists, so does the simple, for the compound means something in itself manifold whose connection or unity is external. From the very trivial category of the compound it is easy to deduce the simple. It is a conclusion drawn from a certain premiss, but the question is whether the premiss is true. These monads are not, however, something abstract and simple in itself, like the empty Epicurean atoms, which, as they were in themselves lacking in determination, drew all their determination from their aggregation alone. The monads are, on the contrary, substantial forms, a good expression, borrowed from the Scholastics (supra, p. 71), or the metaphysical points of the Alexandrian School (Vol II. p. 439), they are the entelechies of Aristotle taken as pure activity, which are forms in themselves (Vol II. pp. 138, 182, 183). “These monads are not material or extended, nor do they originate or decay in the natural fashion, for they can begin only by a creative act of God, and they can end only by annihilation.”[248] Thereby they are distinguished from the atoms, which are regarded simply as principles. The expression creation we are familiar with from religion, but it is a meaningless word derived from the ordinary conception; in order to be a thought and to have philosophic significance, it must be much more closely defined.
Secondly: “On account of their simplicity the monads are not susceptible of alteration by another monad in their inner essence; there is no causal connection between them.” Each of them is something indifferent and independent as regards the rest, otherwise it would not be an entelechy. Each of them is so much for itself that all its determinations and modifications go on in itself alone, and no determination from without takes place. Leibnitz says: “There are three ways in which substances are connected: (1) Causality, influence; (2) The relation of assistance; (3) The relation of harmony. The relation of influence is a relation pertaining to a commonplace or popular philosophy. But as it is impossible to understand how material particles or immaterial qualities can pass from one substance into another, such a conception as this must be abandoned.” If we accept the reality of the many, there can be no transition at all; each is an ultimate and absolutely independent entity. “The system of assistance,” according to Descartes, “is something quite superfluous, a Deus ex machina, because continual miracles in the things of nature are assumed.” If we, like Descartes, assume independent substances, no causal nexus is conceivable; for this presupposes an influence, a bearing of the one upon the other, and in this way the other is not a substance. “Therefore there remains only harmony, a unity which is in itself or implicit. The monad is therefore simply shut up in itself, and cannot be determined by another; this other cannot be set into it. It can neither get outside itself, nor can others get inside it.”[249] That is also Spinoza’s way of regarding matters: each attribute entirely represents the essence of God for itself, extension and thought have no influence on each other.
In the third place, “however, these monads must at the same time have certain qualities or determinations in themselves, inner actions, through which they are distinguished from others. There cannot be two things alike, for otherwise they would not be two, they would not be different, but one and the same.”[250] Here then Leibnitz’s axiom of the undistinguishable comes into words. What is not in itself distinguished is not distinguished. This may be taken in a trivial sense, as that there are not two individuals which are alike. To such sensuous things the maxim has no application, it is prima facie indifferent whether there are things which are alike or not; there may also be always a difference of space. This is the superficial sense, which does not concern us. The more intimate sense is, however, that each thing is in itself something determined, distinguishing itself from others implicitly or in itself. Whether two things are like or unlike is only a comparison which we make, which falls within our ken. But what we have further to consider is the determined difference in themselves. The difference must be a difference in themselves, not for our comparison, for the subject must have the difference as its own peculiar characteristic or determination, i.e. the determination must be immanent in the individual. Not only do we distinguish the animal by its claws, but it distinguishes itself essentially thereby, it defends itself, it preserves itself. If two things are different only in being two, then each of them is one; but the fact of their being two does not constitute a distinction between them; the determined difference in itself is the principal point.
Fourthly: “The determinateness and the variation thereby established is, however, an inward implicit principle; it is a multiplicity of modifications, of relations to surrounding existences, but a multiplicity which remains locked up in simplicity. Determinateness and variation such as this, which remains and goes on in the existence itself, is a perception;” and therefore Leibnitz says all monads perceive or represent (for we may translate perceptio by representation [Vorstellung]). In other words, they are in themselves universal, for universality is just simplicity in multiplicity, and therefore a simplicity which is at the same time change and motion of multiplicity. This is a very important determination; in substance itself there is negativity, determinateness, without its simplicity and its implicitude being given up. Further, in it there is this idealism, that the simple is something in itself distinguished, and in spite of its variation, that it yet remains one, and continues in its simplicity. An instance of this is found in “I,” my spirit. I have many conceptions, a wealth of thought is in me, and yet I remain one, notwithstanding this variety of state. This identity may be found in the fact that what is different is at the same time abrogated, and is determined as one; the monads are therefore distinguished by modifications in themselves, but not by external determinations. These determinations contained in the monads exist in them in ideal fashion; this ideality in the monad is in itself a whole, so that these differences are only representations and ideas. This absolute difference is what is termed the Notion; what falls asunder in the mere representation is held together. This is what possesses interest in Leibnitz’s philosophy. Such ideality in the same way pertains to the material, which is also a multiplicity of monads; therefore the system of Leibnitz is an intellectual system, in accordance with which all that is material has powers of representation and perception. As thus representing, the monad, says Leibnitz, possesses activity; for activity is to be different, and yet to be one, and this is the only true difference. The monad not only represents, it also changes; but in doing so, it yet remains in itself absolutely what it is. This variation is based on activity. “The activity of the inner principle, by means of which it passes from one perception to another, is desire (appetitus).” Variation in representation is desire, and that constitutes the spontaneity of the monad; all is now complete in itself, and the category of influence falls away. Indeed, this intellectuality of all things is a great thought on the part of Leibnitz: “All multiplicity is included in unity;”[251] determination is not a difference in respect of something else, but reflected into itself, and maintaining itself. This is one aspect of things, but the matter is not therein complete; it is equally the case that it is different in respect of other things.
Fifthly: These representations and ideas are not necessarily conscious representations and ideas, any more than all monads as forming representations are conscious. It is true that consciousness is itself perception, but a higher grade of the same; perceptions of consciousness Leibnitz calls apperceptions. The difference between the merely representing and the self-conscious monads Leibnitz makes one of degrees of clearness. The expression representation has, however, certainly something awkward about it, since we are accustomed to associate it only with consciousness, and with consciousness as such; but Leibnitz admits also of unconscious representation. When he then adduces examples of unconscious representations, he appeals to the condition of a swoon or of sleep, in which we are mere monads: and that representations without consciousness are present in such states he shows from the fact of our having perceptions immediately after awakening out of sleep, which shows that others must have been there, for one perception arises only out of others.[252] That is a trivial and empirical demonstration.
Sixthly: These monads constitute the principle of all that exists. Matter is nothing else than their passive capability. This passive capability it is which constitutes the obscurity of the representations, or a confusion which never arrives at distinction, or desire, or activity.[253] That is a correct definition of the conception; it is Being, matter, in accordance with the moment of simplicity. This is implicitly activity; “mere implicitness without actualization” would therefore be a better expression. The transition from obscurity to distinctness Leibnitz exemplifies by the state of swooning.
Seventhly: Bodies as bodies are aggregates of monads: they are mere heaps which cannot be termed substances, any more than a flock of sheep can bear this name.[254] The continuity of the same is an arrangement or extension, but space is nothing in itself;[255] it is only in another, or a unity which our understanding gives to that aggregate.[256]
b. Leibnitz goes on to determine and distinguish more clearly as the principal moments, inorganic, organic, and conscious monads, and he does it in the following way.
α. Such bodies as have no inner unity, whose elements are connected merely by space, or externally, are inorganic; they have not an entelechy or one monad which rules over the rest.[257] The continuity of space as a merely external relation has not the Notion in itself of the likeness of these monads in themselves. Continuity is in fact to be regarded in them as an arrangement, a similarity in themselves. Leibnitz therefore defines their movements as like one another, as a harmony in themselves;[258] but again, this is as much as saying that their similarity is not in themselves. In fact continuity forms the essential determination of the inorganic; but it must at the same time not be taken as something external or as likeness, but as penetrating or penetrated unity, which has dissolved individuality in itself like a fluid. But to this point Leibnitz does not attain, because for him monads are the absolute principle, and individuality does not annul itself.
β. A higher degree of Being is found in bodies with life and soul, in which one monad has dominion over the rest. The body which is bound up with the monad, of which the one monad is the entelechy or soul, is with this soul named a living creature, an animal. One such entelechy rules over the rest, yet not really, but formally: the limbs of this animal, however, are again themselves such living things, each of which has in its turn its ruling entelechy within it.[259] But ruling is here an inappropriate expression. To rule in this case is not to rule over others, for all are independent; it is therefore only a formal expression. If Leibnitz had not helped himself out with the word rule, and developed the idea further, this dominant monad would have abrogated the others, and put them in a negative position; the implicitness of the other monads, or the principle of the absolute Being of these points or individuals would have disappeared. Yet we shall later on come across this relation of the individuals to one another.
γ. The conscious monad distinguishes itself from the naked (material) monads by the distinctness of the representation. But this is of course only an indefinite word, a formal distinction; it indicates that consciousness is the very thing that constitutes the distinction of the undistinguished, and that distinction constitutes the determination of consciousness. Leibnitz more particularly defined the distinction of man as that “he is capable of the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths,”—or that he conceives the universal on the one hand, and on the other what is connected with it; the nature and essence of self-consciousness lies in the universality of the Notions. “These eternal truths rest on two maxims; the one is that of contradiction, the other is that of sufficient reason.” The former of these is unity expressed in useless fashion as a maxim, the distinction of the undistinguishable, A = A; it is the definition of thinking, but not a maxim which could contain a truth as content, or it does not express the Notion of distinction as such. The other important principle was, on the other hand: What is not distinguished in thought is not distinguished (p. 333). “The maxim of the reason is that everything has its reason,”[260]—the particular has the universal as its essential reality. Necessary truth must have its reason in itself in such a manner that it is found by analysis, i.e. through that very maxim of identity. For analysis is the very favourite plan of resolving into simple ideas and principles: a resolution which annihilates their relation, and which therefore in fact forms a transition into the opposite, though it does not have the consciousness of the same, and on that account also excludes the Notion; for every opposite it lays hold of only in its identity. Sufficient reason seems to be a pleonasm; but Leibnitz understood by this aims, final causes (causæ finales), the difference between which and the causal nexus or the efficient cause he here brings under discussion.[261]
c. The universal itself, absolute essence, which with Leibnitz is something quite different from the monads, separates itself also into two sides, namely universal Being and Being as the unity of opposites.
α. That universal is God, as the cause of the world, to the consciousness of whom the above principle of sufficient reason certainly forms the transition. The existence of God is only an inference from eternal truths; for these must as the laws of nature have a universal sufficient reason which determines itself as none other than God. Eternal truth is therefore the consciousness of the universal and absolute in and for itself; and this universal and absolute is God, who, as one with Himself, the monad of monads, is the absolute Monas. Here we again have the wearisome proof of His existence: He is the fountain of eternal truths and Notions, and without Him no potentiality would have actuality; He has the prerogative of existing immediately in His potentiality.[262] God is here also the unity of potentiality and actuality, but in an uncomprehending manner; what is necessary, but not comprehended, is transferred to Him. Thus God is at first comprehended chiefly as universal, but already in the aspect of the relation of opposites.
β. As regards this second aspect, the absolute relation of opposites, it occurs in the first place in the form of absolute opposites of thought, the good and the evil. “God is the Author of the world,” says Leibnitz; that refers directly to evil. It is round this relation that philosophy specially revolves, but to the unity of which it did not then attain; the evil in the world was not comprehended, because no advance was made beyond the fixed opposition. The result of Leibnitz’s Théodicée is an optimism supported on the lame and wearisome thought that God, since a world had to be brought into existence, chose out of infinitely many possible worlds the best possible—the most perfect, so far as it could be perfect, considering the finite element which it was to contain.[263] This may very well be said in a general way, but this perfection is no determined thought, but a loose popular expression, a sort of babble respecting an imaginary or fanciful potentiality; Voltaire made merry over it. Nor is the nature of the finite therein defined. Because the world, it is said, has to be the epitome of finite Beings, evil could not be separated from it, since evil is negation, finitude.[264] Reality and negation remain standing in opposition to one another exactly in the same way as before. That is the principal conception in the Théodicée. But something very like this can be said in every-day life. If I have some goods brought to me in the market at some town, and say that they are certainly not perfect, but the best that are to be got, this is quite a good reason why I should content myself with them. But comprehension is a very different thing from this. Leibnitz says nothing further than that the world is good, but there is also evil in it; the matter remains just the same as it was before. “Because it had to be finite” is then a mere arbitrary choice on the part of God. The next question would be: Why and how is there finitude in the Absolute and His decrees? And only then should there be deduced from the determination of finitude the evil which no doubt exists therein.
It is true that Leibnitz has a reply to the above question: “God does not will what is evil; evil comes only indirectly into the results” (blind), “because oftentimes the greater good could not be achieved if evils were not present. Therefore they are means to a good end.” But why does not God employ other means? They are always external, not in and for themselves. “A moral evil may not be regarded as a means, nor must we, as the apostle says, do evil that good may come; yet it has often the relation of a conditio sine qua non of the good. Evil is in God only the object of a permissive will (voluntatis permissivæ);” but everything that is wrong would be such. “God has therefore among the objects of His will the best possible as the ultimate object, but the good as a matter of choice (qualemcunque), also as subordinate; and things indifferent and evils often as means. Evil is, however, an object of His will only as the condition of something otherwise necessary (rei alioqui debitæ), which without it could not exist; in which sense Christ said it must needs be that offences come.”[265]
In a general sense we are satisfied with the answer: “In accordance with the wisdom of God we must accept it as a fact that the laws of nature are the best possible,” but this answer does not suffice for a definite question. What one wishes to know is the goodness of this or that particular law; and to that no answer is given. If, for example, it is said that “The law of falling bodies, in which the relation of time and space is the square, is the best possible,” one might employ, as far as mathematics are concerned, any other power whatever. When Leibnitz answers: “God made it so,” this is no answer at all. We wish to know the definite reason of this law; such general determinations sound pious, but are not satisfying.
γ. He goes on to say that the sufficient reason has reference to the representation of the monads. The principles of things are monads, of which each is for itself, without having influence on the others. If now the Monad of monads, God, is the absolute substance, and individual monads are created through His will, their substantiality comes to an end. There is therefore a contradiction present, which remains unsolved in itself—that is between the one substantial monad and the many monads for which independence is claimed, because their essence consists in their standing in no relation to one another. Yet at the same time, in order to show the harmony that exists in the world, Leibnitz understands the relation of monads to monads more generally as the unity of contrasted existences, namely of soul and body. This unity he represents as a relation without difference, and notionless, i.e. as a pre-established harmony.[266] Leibnitz uses here the illustration of two clocks, which are set to the same hour, and keep the same time;[267] in the same way the movement of the kingdom of thought goes on, determined in accordance with ends, and the movement onward of the corporeal kingdom which corresponds with it, proceeds according to a general causal connection.[268] The case is the same as with Spinoza, that these two sides of the universe have no connection with each other, the one does not influence the other, but both are entirely indifferent to one another; it is really the differentiating relation of the Notion that is lacking. In abstract thought that is without Notion, that determination now receives the form of simplicity, of implicitude, of indifference with regard to what is other, of a self-reflection that has no movement: in this way red in the abstract is in a position of indifference as regards blue, &c. Here, as before, Leibnitz forsakes his principle of individuation; it has only the sense of being exclusively one, and of not reaching to and including what is other; or it is only a unity of the popular conception, not the Notion of unity. The soul has thus a series of conceptions and ideas which are developed from within it, and this series is from the very first placed within the soul at its creation, i.e. the soul is in all immediacy this implicit determination; determination is, however, not implicit, but the reflected unfolding of this determination in the ordinary conception is its outward existence. Parallel with this series of differentiated conceptions, there now runs a series of motions of the body, or of what is external to the soul.[269] Both are essential moments of reality; they are mutually indifferent, but they have also an essential relation of difference.
Since now every monad, as shut up within itself, has no influence upon the body and its movements, and yet the infinite multitude of their atoms correspond with one another, Leibnitz places this harmony in God; a better definition of the relation and the activity of the Monad of monads is therefore that it is what pre-establishes harmony in the changes of the monads.[270] God is the sufficient reason, the cause of this correspondence; He has so arranged the multitude of atoms that the original changes which are developed within one monad correspond with the changes of the others. The pre-established harmony is to be thought of somewhat in this style; when a dog gets a beating, the pain develops itself in him, in like fashion the beating develops itself in itself, and so does the person who administers the beating: their determinations all correspond with one another, and that not by means of their objective connection, since each is independent.[271] The principle of the harmony among the monads does not consequently belong to them, but it is in God, who for that very reason is the Monad of monads, their absolute unity. We saw from the beginning how Leibnitz arrived at this conception. Each monad is really possessed of the power of representation, and is as such a representation of the universe, therefore implicitly the totality of the whole world. But at the same time this representation is not in consciousness; the naked monad is implicitly the universe, and difference is the development of this totality in it.[272] What develops itself therein is at the same time in harmony with all other developments; all is one harmony. “In the universe all things are closely knit together, they are in one piece, like an ocean: the slightest movement transmits its influence far and wide all around.”[273] From a single grain of sand, Leibnitz holds, the whole universe might be comprehended in its entire development—if we only knew the sand grain thoroughly. There is not really much in all this, though it sounds very fine; for the rest of the universe is considerably more than a grain of sand, well though we knew it, and considerably different therefrom. To say that its essence is the universe is mere empty talk: for the fact is that the universe as essence is not the universe. To the sand grain much must be added which is not present; and since thought adds more than all the grains of sand that exist, the universe and its development may in this way certainly be comprehended. Thus according to Leibnitz every monad has or is the representation of the entire universe, which is the same as saying that it is really representation in general; but at the same time it is a determinate representation, by means of which it comes to be this particular monad, therefore it is representation according to its particular situation and circumstances.[274]
The representations of the monad in itself, which constitute its universe, develop themselves from themselves, as the spiritual element in it, according to the laws of their own activity and desire, just as the movements of their outer world do according to laws of bodies; hence liberty is nothing other than this spontaneity of immanent development, but as in consciousness. The magnetic needle, on the contrary, has only spontaneity without consciousness, and consequently without freedom. For, says Leibnitz, the nature of the magnetic needle is to turn to the north; if it had consciousness it would imagine that this was its self-determination; it would thus have the will to move round in accordance with its nature.[275] But it is clear that in the course of conscious representations there is involved no necessary connection, but contingency and want of sequence are to be found, the reason of this according to Leibnitz (Oper. T. II P. I. p. 75) being “because the nature of a created substance implies that it changes incessantly according to a certain order, which order guides it spontaneously (spontanément) in all the circumstances which befall it; so that one who sees all things recognizes in the present condition of substance the past also and the future. The law of order, which determines the individuality of the particular substance, has an exact reference to what takes place in every other substance and in the whole universe.” The meaning of this is that the monad is not a thing apart, or that there are two views of it, the one making it out as spontaneously generating its representations, so far as form is concerned, and the other making it out to be a moment of the whole of necessity; Spinoza would call this regarding it from both sides. An organic whole, a human being, is thus for instance the assertion of his aim from out of himself: at the same time the being directed on something else is involved in his Notion. He represents this and that to himself, he wills this and that; his activity employs itself and brings about changes. His inward determination thus becomes corporeal determination, and then change going beyond himself; he appears as cause, influencing other monads. But this Being-for-another is only an appearance. For the other, i.e. the actual, in so far as the monad determines it or makes it negative, is the passive element which the monad has in itself: all moments are indeed contained therein, and for that very reason it has no need of other monads, but only of the laws of the monads in itself. But if the Being-for-another is mere appearance, the same may be said of Being-for-self; for this has significance only in reference to Being-for-another.
The important point in Leibnitz’s philosophy is this intellectuality of representation which Leibnitz, however, did not succeed in carrying out; and for the same reason this intellectuality is at the same time infinite multiplicity, which has remained absolutely independent, because this intellectuality has not been able to obtain mastery over the One. The separation in the Notion, which proceeds as far as release from itself, or appearance in distinct independence, Leibnitz did not succeed in bringing together into unity. The harmony of these two moments, the course of mental representations and the course of things external, appearing mutually as cause and effect, is not brought by Leibnitz into relation in and for themselves; he therefore lets them fall asunder, although each is passive as regards the other. He moreover considers both of them in one unity, to be sure, but their activity is at the same time not for themselves. Every forward advance becomes therefore incomprehensible when taken by itself, because the course of the representation as through aims in itself, requires this moment of Other-Being or of passivity; and again the connection of cause and effect requires the universal: each however lacks this its other moment. The unity which according to Leibnitz is to be brought about by the pre-established harmony, namely that the determination of the will of man and the outward change harmonize, is therefore brought about by means of another, if not indeed from without, for this other is God. Before God the monads are not to be independent, but ideal and absorbed in Him.
At this point the demand would come in that in God Himself there should be comprehended the required unity of that which before fell asunder; and God has the special privilege of having laid on Him the burden of what cannot be comprehended. The word of God is thus the makeshift which leads to a unity which itself is only hypothetical; for the process of the many out of this unity is not demonstrated. God plays therefore in the later philosophy a far greater part than in the early, because now the comprehension of the absolute opposition of thought and Being is the chief demand. With Leibnitz the extent to which thoughts advance is the extent of the universe; where comprehension ceases, the universe ceases, and God begins: so that later it was even maintained that to be comprehended was derogatory to God, because He was thus degraded into finitude. In that procedure a beginning is made from the determinate, this and that are stated to be necessary; but since in the next place the unity of these moments is not comprehended, it is transferred to God. God is therefore, as it were, the waste channel into which all contradictions flow: Leibnitz’s Théodicée is just a popular summing up such as this. There are, nevertheless, all manner of evasions to be searched out—in the opposition of God’s justice and mercy, that the one tempers the other; how the fore-knowledge of God and human freedom are compatible—all manner of syntheses which never come to the root of the matter nor show both sides to be moments.
These are the main moments of Leibnitz’s philosophy. It is a metaphysic which starts from a narrow determination of the understanding, namely, from absolute multiplicity, so that connection can only be grasped as continuity. Thereby absolute unity is certainly set aside, but all the same it is presupposed; and the association of individuals with one another is to be explained only in this way, that it is God who determines the harmony in the changes of individuals. This is an artificial system, which is founded on a category of the understanding, that of the absoluteness of abstract individuality. What is of importance in Leibnitz lies in the maxims, in the principle of individuality and the maxim of indistinguishability.
2. Wolff.
The philosophy of Wolff is directly connected with that of Leibnitz, for really it is a pedantic systematization of the latter, for which reason it is likewise called the Leibnitz-Wolffian system of philosophy. Wolff attained to great distinction in mathematics and made himself famous by his philosophy as well; the latter was for long predominant in Germany. In Wolff, as a teacher dealing with the understanding, we find a systematic exposition of the philosophic element present in human conceptions as a whole. As regards his connection with German culture generally, great and immortal praise is more especially due to him; before all others he may be termed the teacher of the Germans. We may indeed say that Wolff was the first to naturalize philosophy in Germany. Tschirnhausen and Thomasius likewise participated in this honour, for the special reason that they wrote upon Philosophy in the German language. In regard to the matter of the philosophy of Tschirnhausen and Thomasius we have not much to say; it is so-called healthy reason—there is in it the superficial character and the empty universality always to be found where a beginning is made with thought. In this case the universality of thought satisfies us because everything is present there, just as it is present in a moral maxim which has, however, no determinate content in its universality. Wolff, then, was the first to make, not exactly Philosophy, but thoughts in the form of thought, into a general possession, and he substituted this in Germany for mere talk originating from feeling, from sensuous perception, and from the ordinary conception. This is most important from the point of view of culture, and yet it does not really concern us here, excepting in so far as the content in this form of thought has caused itself to be recognized as Philosophy. This philosophy, as a philosophy of the understanding, became the ordinary culture of the day; in it determinate, intelligent thought is the fundamental principle, and it extends over the whole circle of objects which fall within the region of knowledge. Wolff defined the world of consciousness for Germany, and for the world in general, in the same wide sense in which we may say that this was done by Aristotle. What distinguishes him from Aristotle is that in so doing the point of view that he adopted was that of the understanding merely, while Aristotle treated the subject speculatively. The philosophy of Wolff is hence no doubt built on foundations laid by Leibnitz, but yet in such a manner that the speculative interest is quite eliminated from it. The spiritual philosophy, substantial in a higher sense, which we found emerging first in Boehme, though still in a peculiar and barbarous form, has been quite lost sight of, and has disappeared without leaving any traces or effects in Germany; his very language was forgotten.
The principal events in Christian Wolff’s life are these: He was the son of a baker, and was born at Breslau in 1679. He first studied Theology and then Philosophy, and in 1707 he became Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy at Halle. Here the pietistic theologians, and more especially Lange, treated him in the basest manner. Piety did not trust this understanding; for piety, if it is true, embodies a content which is speculative in nature, and which passes beyond the understanding. As his opponents could make no headway by their writings, they resorted to intrigues. They caused it to be conveyed to King Frederick William I., the father of Frederick II., a rough man who took an interest in nothing but soldiers, that according to the determinism of Wolff, free will was impossible, and that soldiers could not hence desert of their own free will, but by a special disposition of God (pre-established harmony)—a doctrine which, if disseminated amongst the military, would be extremely dangerous. The king, much enraged by this, immediately issued a decree that within forty-eight hours Wolff should leave Halle and the Prussian States, under penalty of the halter. Wolff thus left Halle on the 23rd of November, 1723. The theologians added to all this the scandal of preaching against Wolff and his philosophy, and the pious Franke thanked God on his knees in church for the removal of Wolff. But the rejoicings did not last long. Wolff went to Cassel, was there immediately installed first professor in the philosophic faculty at Marburg, and at the same time made a member of the Academies of Science of London, Paris, and Stockholm. By Peter the First of Russia he was made Vice-President of the newly instituted Academy in St. Petersburg. Wolff was also summoned to Russia, but this invitation he declined; he received, however, an honorary post, he was made a Baron by the Elector of Bavaria, and, in short, loaded with public honours which, more especially at that time, though even now it is the case, were very much thought of by the general public, and which were too great not to make a profound sensation in Berlin. In Berlin a commission was appointed to pass judgment on the Wolffian philosophy—for this it had not been possible to eradicate—and it declared the same to be harmless, that is to say, free from all danger to state and religion; it also forbade the theologians to make it a subject of dispute, and altogether put an end to their clamour. Frederick William now issued a recall in very respectful terms to Wolff, who, however, hesitated to comply with it owing to his lack of confidence in its sincerity. On the accession of Frederick II. in 1740 he was again recalled in terms of the highest honour (Lange had meanwhile died), and only then did he comply. Wolff became Vice-Chancellor of the University, but he outlived his repute, and his lectures at the end were very poorly attended. He died in 1754.[276]
Like Tschirnhausen and Thomasius, Wolff wrote a great part of his works in his mother tongue, while Leibnitz for the most part wrote only in Latin or French. This is an important matter, for, as we have already noticed (pp. 114 and 150), it is only when a nation possesses a science in its own language that it can really be said to belong to it; and in Philosophy most of all this is requisite. For thought has in it this very moment of pertaining to self-consciousness or of being absolutely its own; when one’s own language is the vehicle of expression, as when we talk of “Bestimmtheit” instead of “Determination,” and “Wesen” instead of “Essenz,” it is immediately present to our consciousness that the conceptions are absolutely its own; it has to deal with these at all times, and they are in no way foreign to it. The Latin language has a phraseology, a definite sphere and range of conception; it is at once taken for granted that when men write in Latin they are at liberty to be dull; it is impossible to read or write what men permit themselves to say in Latin. The titles of Wolff’s philosophic works are perpetually of this nature: “Rational thoughts on the powers of the human understanding and their right uses in the knowledge of the truth,” Halle, 1712, 8vo; “Rational thoughts on God, the world, and the soul of man, likewise on all things generally,” Frankfort and Leipzig, 1719; “On the action and conduct of men,” Halle, 1720; “On Social Life,” Halle, 1720; “On the operations of Nature,” Halle, 1723, and so on. Wolff wrote German and Latin quartos on every department of Philosophy, even on economics—twenty-three thick volumes of Latin, or about forty quartos altogether. His mathematical works make a good many more quartos. He brought into general use the differential and integral calculus of Leibnitz.
It is only in its general content and taken as a whole that Wolff’s philosophy is the philosophy of Leibnitz, that is to say, only in relation to the fundamental determinations of monads and to the theodicy—to these he remained faithful; any other content is empiric, derived from our feelings and desires. Wolff likewise accepted in their entirety all the Cartesian and other definitions of general ideas. Hence we find in him abstract propositions and their proofs mingled with experiences, on the indubitable truth of which he builds a large part of his propositions; and he must so build and derive his foundations if a content is to result at all. With Spinoza, on the contrary, no content is to be found excepting absolute substance and a perpetual return into the same. The greatness of Wolff’s services to the culture of Germany, which now appeared quite independently and without any connection with an earlier and profounder metaphysical standpoint (supra, p. 350), are in proportion to the barrenness and inward contentless condition into which Philosophy had sunk. This he divided into its formal disciplines, spinning it out into determinations of the understanding with a pedantic application of geometric methods; and, contemporaneously with the English philosophers, he made the dogmatism of the metaphysics of the understanding fashionable, that is a philosophizing which determines the absolute and rational by means of self-exclusive thought-determinations and relationships (such as one and many, simple and compound, finite and infinite, causal connection, &c.). Wolff entirely displaced the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools, and made Philosophy into an ordinary science pertaining to the German nation. But besides this he gave Philosophy that systematic and requisite division into sections which has down to the present day served as a sort of standard.
In theoretic philosophy Wolff first treats of Logic purified from scholastic interpretations or deductions; it is the logic of the understanding which he has systematized. The second stage is Metaphysics, which contains four parts: first there is Ontology, the treatment of abstract and quite general philosophic categories, such as Being (ὄν) and its being the One and Good; in this abstract metaphysic there further comes accident, substance, cause and effect, the phenomenon, &c. Next in order is Cosmology, a general doctrine of body, the doctrine of the world; here we have abstract metaphysical propositions respecting the world, that there is no chance, no leaps or bounds in nature—the law of continuity. Wolff excludes natural science and natural history. The third part of the metaphysic is rational psychology or pneumatology, the philosophy of the soul, which deals with the simplicity, immortality, immateriality of the soul. Finally, the fourth is natural theology, which sets forth the proofs of the existence of God.[277] Wolff also inserts (chap. iii.) an empirical psychology. Practical philosophy he divides into the Rights of Nature, Morality, the Rights of Nations or Politics, and Economics.
The whole is propounded in geometric forms such as definitions, axioms, theorems, scholia, corollaries, &c. In mathematics the understanding is in its proper place, for the triangle must remain the triangle. Wolff on the one hand started upon a large range of investigation, and one quite indefinite in character, and on the other, held to a strictly methodical manner with regard to propositions and their proofs. The method is really similar to that of Spinoza, only it is more wooden and lifeless than his. Wolff applied the same methods to every sort of content—even to that which is altogether empirical, such as his so-called applied mathematics, into which he introduces many useful arts, bringing the most ordinary reflections and directions into the geometric form. In many cases this undoubtedly gives his work a most pedantic aspect, especially when the content directly justifies itself to our conception without this form at all. For Wolff proceeds by first laying down certain definitions, which really rest upon our ordinary conceptions, since these he translated into the empty form of determinations of the understanding. Hence the definitions are merely nominal definitions, and we know whether they are correct only by seeing whether they correspond to conceptions which are referred to their simple thoughts. The syllogism is the form of real importance in this mode of reasoning, and with Wolff it often attains to its extreme of rigidity and formalism.
Under mathematics, which is the subject of four small volumes, Wolff also treats of architecture and military science. One of the propositions in Architecture is this: “Windows must be wide enough for two persons.” The making of a door is also propounded as a task, and the solution thereof given. The next best example comes from the art of warfare. The “Fourth proposition. The approach to the fortress must always be harder for the enemy the nearer he comes to it.” Instead of saying, because the danger is greater, which would be trivial, there follows the “Proof. The nearer the enemy comes to the fortress, the greater the danger. But the greater the danger the greater the resistance that must be offered in order to defy the attacks, and, so far as may be, avert the danger. Hence the nearer the enemy is to the fort the harder must the approach be made for him. Q.E.D.”[278] Since the increase of the danger is given as the reason, the whole is false, and the contrary may be said with equal truth. For if at the beginning all possible resistance is offered to the enemy, he cannot get nearer the fortress at all, and thus the danger cannot become greater. The greater resistance has a real cause, and not this foolish one—namely, that because the garrison is now at closer quarters, and consequently operates in a narrow field, it can offer a greater resistance. In this most trivial way Wolff proceeds with every sort of content. This barbarism of pedantry, or this pedantry of barbarism, represented as it is in its whole breadth and extent, necessarily brought itself into disrepute; and without there being a definite consciousness of the reason why the geometric method is not the only and ultimate method of knowledge, instinct and an immediate consciousness of the foolishness of its applications caused this method to be set aside.
3. The Popular Philosophy of Germany.
Popular philosophy flatters our ordinary consciousness, makes it the ultimate standard. Although with Spinoza we begin with presupposed definitions, the content is still profoundly speculative in nature, and it is not derived from the ordinary consciousness. In Spinoza thinking is not merely the form, for the content belongs to thinking itself; it is the content of thought in itself. In the speculative content the instinct of reason satisfies itself on its own account, because this content, as a totality which integrates itself within itself, at once in itself justifies itself to thought. The content in Spinoza is only without ground in so far as it has no external ground, but is a ground in itself. But if the content is finite, a demand for an external ground is indicated, since in such a case we desire to have a ground other than this finite. In its matter the philosophy of Wolff is indeed a popular philosophy, even if in form it still makes thought authoritative. Until the time of Kant the philosophy of Wolff was thus pre-eminent. Baumgarten, Crusius, and Moses Mendelssohn worked each of them independently on the same lines as Wolff; the philosophy of the last-mentioned was popular and graceful in form. The Wolffian philosophy was thus carried on, although it had cast off its pedantic methods: no further progress was however made. The question dealt with was how perfection could be attained—what it is possible to think and what not; metaphysic was reduced to its slightest consistency and to its completest vacuity, so that in its texture not a single thread remained secure. Mendelssohn considered himself, and was considered, the greatest of philosophers, and was lauded as such by his friends. In his “Morgenstunden” we really find a dry Wolffian philosophy, however much these gentlemen endeavoured to give their dull abstractions a bright Platonic form.
The forms of Philosophy which we have considered bear the character which pertains specially to metaphysics, of proceeding from general determinations of the understanding, but of combining therewith experience and observation, or the empiric method in general. One side of this metaphysic is that the opposites of thought are brought into consciousness, and that attention is directed upon the solution of this contradiction. Thought and Being or extension, God and the world, good and evil, the power and prescience of God on the one side, and the evil in the world and human freedom on the other: these contradictions, the opposites of soul and spirit, things conceived and things material, and their mutual relation, have occupied all men’s attention. The solution of these opposites and contradictions has still to be given, and God is set forth as the One in whom all these contradictions are solved. This is what is common to all these philosophies as far as their main elements are concerned. Yet we must likewise remark that these contradictions are not solved in themselves, i.e. that the nullity of the supposition is not demonstrated in itself, and thereby a true concrete solution has not come to pass. Even if God is recognized as solving all contradictions, God as the solution of these contradictions is a matter of words rather than something conceived and comprehended. If God is comprehended in His qualities, and prescience, omnipresence, omniscience, power, wisdom, goodness justice, &c., are considered as qualities of God Himself, they simply lead to contradictions; and these contradictions, Leibnitz (supra, p. 348) sought to remove by saying that the qualities temper one another, i.e. that they are combined in such a way that one annuls the other. This, however, is no real comprehension of such contradiction.
This metaphysic contrasts greatly with the old philosophy of a Plato or an Aristotle. To the old philosophy we can always turn again and admit its truth; it is satisfying in the stage of development it has reached—a concrete centre-point which meets all the problems set by thought as these are comprehended. In this modern metaphysic, however, the opposites are merely developed into absolute contradictions. God is indeed given as their absolute solution, but only as an abstract solution, as a Beyond; on this side all contradictions are, as regards their content, unsolved and unexplained. God is not comprehended as the One in whom these contradictions are eternally resolved; He is not comprehended as Spirit, as the Trinity. It is in Him alone as Spirit, and as Spirit which is Three in One, that this opposition of Himself and His Other, the Son, is contained, and with it the resolution of the same; this concrete Idea of God as reason, has not as yet found an entrance into Philosophy.
In order that we may now cast a retrospective glance over the philosophic efforts of other nations, we shall apply ourselves to the further progress of Philosophy. Once more we see Scepticism making its way into this arid philosophy of the understanding. But this time it is, properly speaking, in the form of Idealism, or the determinations are subjective determinations of self-consciousness. In the place of thought we consequently find the Notion now making its appearance. Just as with the Stoics determinateness is held to be an object of thought, we have in modern times this same manifestation of thought as the unmoved form of simplicity. Only here the image or inner consciousness of totality is present, the absolute spirit which the world has before it as its truth and to whose Notion it makes its way—this is another inward principle, another implicitude of mind which it endeavours to bring forth from itself and for itself, so that reason is a comprehension of the same, or has the certitude of being all reality. With the ancients reason (λόγος), as the implicit and explicit Being of consciousness, had only an ethereal and formal existence as language, but here it has certainty as existent substance. Hence with Descartes there is the unity of the Notion and Being, and with Spinoza the universal reality. The first commencement of the Notion of the movement of fixed thoughts in themselves is found in this, that the movement which, as method, simply falls outside its object, comes within it, or that self-consciousness comes within thought. Thought is implicitude without explicitude, an objective mode bearing no resemblance to a sensuous thing; and yet it is quite different from the actuality of self-consciousness. This Notion which we now find entering into thought, has the three kinds of form which we still have to consider; in the first place it has that of individual self-consciousness or the formal conception generally; secondly, that of universal self-consciousness, which applies itself to all objects whether they be objects of thought, determinate conceptions, or have the form of actuality—that is to say it applies itself to what is established in thought, to the intellectual world with the riches of its determinations and looked on as a Beyond, or to the intellectual world in as far as it is its realization, the world here and around us. It is in those two ways, and in those ways alone, that the actual Notion is present in the succeeding chapter; for not as yet is it in the third place to be found as taken back into thought, or as the self-thinking or thought-of Notion. While that universal self-consciousness is, on the whole, a thought which grasps and comprehends, this third kind of thought is the Notion itself recognized as constituting reality in its essence, that is to say as Idealism. These three aspects again divide themselves as before into the three nations which alone count in the civilized world. The empirical and perfectly finite form of Notion pertains to the English; to the French belongs its form as making an attempt at everything, as establishing itself in its reality, abolishing all determination, and therefore being universal, unlimited, pure self-consciousness; and, lastly, to the German pertains the entering into itself of this implicitude, the thought of the absolute Notion.