40 NATURE 'AND LIFE. 



the series of substances, whose totality makes up the 

 world. We must rise, therefore, from physical or hypo- 

 thetical necessity, which determines the succeeding state 

 of the world accordantly with an anterior state, to absolute 

 or metaphysical necessity, of which we can give no ac- 

 count, and this last reason is the reason of all the others. 

 As a thoughtful interpreter of Leibnitz's teaching says, 1 

 thought, will, are at the bottom of all things ; phenomena, 

 in all their degrees, appear in the last result only as so 

 many refractions in the variously-disturbed media of sole 

 and universal light -light which shines most of all in our 

 own soul, because it is the focus in which are concentrated 

 the everywhere dispersed rays of that diffused effulgence. 

 From action to action, from power to power, we must thus 

 soar to a potency which at last suffices singly for itself 

 that is, to perfect spontaneity. 



In time, then, as in space, all things are subject to a 

 law of inflexible interdependence. This idea of beholding 

 the universe in the microcosm, of regarding the infinitely 

 great in the infinitely little, monads in incessant reciprocal 

 action, each part bearing the stamp of the absolute which 

 shines forth in the all, and this all moving onward in grand, 

 harmonious might toward an end of which our intelligence 

 can catch perchance but a dim glimpse, but which it feels 

 in deep conviction this idea is the glory of Leibnitz. It 

 is determinism in its all-embracing fullness. Descartes, too, 

 had formed an image of the world accordantly with supreme 

 laws ; but he had shut up those laws within the limits of 

 mechanism. Leibnitz beholds a grander sphere, and views, 

 beyond mechanism, energy, life, love, and good ; he gazes 

 upon the true God in his magnificence. The God of Descartes 

 is number and force ; the God of Leibnitz is life and beauty. 

 From his bosom all wells forth and radiates in floods of 

 eternal light, as thoughts emanate from our own existence. 



1 Ravaisson, " Philosophy in France in the Nineteenth Century." 



