PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE LEIBNITZ'S IDEAS. 43 



science has confirmed these ideas. Life does dwell in the 

 infinitely little ; it holds its silent and secret flow under the 

 " manifold disguises " Hamlet speaks of, eluding search 

 while it still plays in every pulse, and finding its food in 

 death. 



Leibnitz also turns his attention to species, which he 

 defines by generation in such sort that the being similar to 

 another which comes from the same origin, or the same 

 seed, is also of the same species. The various classes of 

 beings appear to him only as ordinates of the same curve, 

 and form but one chain, in which these classes, like so 

 many links, hold so closely to each other that it is impos- 

 sible to fix the point at which any one of them begins or 

 ends. All species, he says with remarkable exactness, 

 which border upon or occupy parts of the curve where it 

 is bent or returned on itself, must be endowed with equivo- 

 cal characteristics. Then, looking at the subject as a whole, 

 and bringing it under the law of continuity, he arranges 

 species, and beings generally, in an immense series, from 

 man to the simplest existences ; he holds that there is so 

 close an approach between animals and vegetables that, 

 taking the least perfect of the former and the most perfect 

 of the latter, they can hardly be distinguished. It accords, 

 too, with the superb harmony of the universe, with the 

 grand plan as well as with the goodness of its Sovereign 

 Architect, that the various kinds of creatures should rise by 

 degrees toward his infinite perfection. Leibnitz admits the 

 existence of creatures more perfect than ourselves, but of 

 whom he confesses that we can have no clear conception. 

 He also believes that in the series of existing things there 

 are voids, possible things non-existent. The variation of spe- 

 cies, several instances of which he examines, seems to him 

 to be real, but not their transmutation ; he is for limited 

 variableness, that is, he allows the action of modifying cir- 

 cumstances within a wide range, yet does not go so far as 



