422 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the clock of the universe to make it go right. The sum of matter, like 

 the sum of motive force, remains ever the same. Whatsoever has oc- 

 curred or ever shall occur in the material world is ideally determinable 

 mathematically. In a word, the material world is a mechanism, only 

 infinitely more ingenious than any mechanism contrived by man, and 

 composed of an infinity of parts inclosed one in the other. 



Alongside of this machine of the corporeal world, Leibnitz sup- 

 posed a spirit world — the world of his monads — whose ideas, from 

 their creation down, keep pace with the changes of the corporeal world 

 and answer to them ; but between them and the corporeal world no 

 reciprocal action of cause and efi"ect is possible. On this theory, when 

 we suppose we are working for ends, or that we have sensations pro- 

 duced by external causes, such ideas are preestablished phantasms of 

 our soul-monad, which is ever presenting to itself exactly the course of 

 things that is passing outside at the same instant, and that seeming- 

 ly, but not in reality, works through or upon the monad. Once only, 

 miracles apart, has anything been done in the universe for an end, ac- 

 cording to Leibnitz, and that was when God created the universe as 

 perfect as he could. How Leibnitz supposed it possible to reconcile 

 his theory with freedom of will, is a question which does not concern 

 us here. 



Thus, there was no doubt in Leibnitz's mind that material particles 

 may, in virtue of the forces imparted to them, constitute an apparently 

 teleological universe. Nay, all • difi"erence between his and our theory 

 of the material universe vanishes if God created the world infinite ages 

 ao-o. But even if God created the universe at the finite time —t, the 

 course of events necessitated by Leibnitz's theory corresponds perfectly 

 with what it would be in our theory, onward from the instant —t. For, 

 inasmuch as Leibnitz looks on the condition of the universe at each 

 instant as a function of time, God could, according to him, create the 

 world in the instant -t only in that condition in which it was at that 

 time, according to our view. 



Take away from Leibnitz's theory of the universe the illusory ap- 

 pendage of the monadoloffy, of preestablished harmony, and of optunism, 

 and the onlv solid nucleus that remains is his mechanical conception of 

 the material world, and his perception of the impossibility of explammg 

 on supernatural grounds a material fact, or, conversely, of explaining on 

 mechanical grounds a spiritual fact. His having, over and over again, 

 clearly and sharply expressed this perception— indeed, it was this per- 

 ception that forced him to resort to the hopeless idea of preestabhshed 

 harmony— may well be esteemed to be Leibnitz's special service to 

 metaphysics, though he himself, and his followers, hitherto make that 

 claim rather for those more brilliant speculations. Certain it is that 

 matter, as we have to do with matter in physico-mathematical studies, 

 is not all, not the substance of things. But what there is over and 

 above matter is hidden from us ; and when we strive to set up before 



