iv.] SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ 351 



as also an infinity of others into languages which we know 

 not, are called up and even forced into existence by the 

 original, just as the essence of the circle is translated auto- 

 matically, so to speak, both by a figure and by an equation. 

 For Leibniz, on the contrary, extension is indeed still a 

 translation, but it is thought that is the original, and 

 thought might dispense with translation, the translation 

 being made only for us. In positing God, we necessarily 

 posit also all the possible views of God, that is to say, the 

 monads. But we can always imagine that a view has been 

 taken from a point of view, and it is natural for an imperfect 

 mind like ours to class views, qualitatively different, ac- 

 cording to the order and position of points of view, quali- 

 tatively identical, from which the views might have been 

 taken. In reality the points of view do not exist, for there 

 are only views, each given in an indivisible block and 

 representing in its own way the whole of reality, which is 

 God. But we need to express the plurality of the views, 

 that are unlike each other, by the multiplicity of the points 

 of view that are exterior to each other; and we also need 

 to symbolize the more or less close relationship between 

 the views by the relative situation of the points of view to 

 one another, their nearness or their distance, that is to say, 

 by a magnitude. That is what Leibniz means when he 

 says that space is the order of coexistents, that the per- 

 ception of extension is a confused perception (that is to say, 

 a perception relative to an imperfect mind), and that 

 nothing exists but monads, expressing thereby that the 

 real Whole has no parts, but is repeated to infinity, each 

 time integrally (though diversely) within itself, and that 

 all these repetitions are complementary to each other. 

 In just the same way, the visible relief of an object is equiva- 

 lent to the whole set of stereoscopic views taken of it from 

 all points, so that, instead of seeing in the relief a juxta- 



