XXiv PREFACE 



(2) It thus parts company with that "gradation 

 among the monads " which, as Leibnitz manages it, 

 — with his conception of "body" as an assemblage 

 of monads subject to a higher "regnant" monad, 

 and of " God " as the Monad of monads, the Supreme 

 Regnant under whom all these bodies arc formed 

 into a "System of Nature," — amounts to a system 

 of caste in the world of real individuals, annulling 

 universal freedom, and therefore abrogating the 

 asserted "System of Grace," by leaving to but 

 one individual any being but process, and that a 

 process directed exclusively by the so-called God, 

 of whom all the other monads are but so many 

 "fulgurations." 



(3) It equally leaves aside that illusory character 

 of extension and duration which Leibnitz so bluntly 

 affirms, when he proposes to account for the appar- 

 ent extending and lasting of sensible things by 

 saying that these qualities are owing merely to 

 " confusion and obscurity of thought " : with thought 

 distinct and clear, he holds, the real is seen as the 

 monad, the bare " metaphysical point." The theory 

 offered in these essays, on the contrary, gives to 

 natural objects, as items in the real experience of 

 minds, a reahty, secondary and derivative indeed, 

 but still unquestionable, and associated essentially 

 with the self-defining activity of every mind other 

 than God, while it provides for the great and signal 



