Philosophy of the Human Mind. 1 5 



in a former chapter. This system appears to have 

 been formed by its author, with a view, on the 

 one hand, to amend the theory of Des Cartes, 

 and on the other to oppose the doctrines of Newton. 

 Leibnitz conceived the whole universe, minds as 

 well as bodies, to be made up of monads, that is, 

 simple substances, each of which is, by the Cre- 

 ator, in the beginning of its existence, endowed 

 with certain active and perceptive powers. A 

 monad, therefore, is an active substance, simple, 

 without parts or figure, which has within itself 

 the power to produce all the changes it undergoes, 

 from the beginning of its existence to eternity. 

 The changes, according to him, which the monad 

 undergoes, of whatever kind, though they may 

 seem to us the effects of causes operating from with- 

 out, yet are only the gradual and successive evo- 

 lutions of its own internal powers, which would 

 have produced all the same changes and motions, 

 although there had been no other being in the 

 universe. He taught that every human soul is a 

 monad, joined to an organized body, which or- 

 ganized body consists of an infinite number of 

 monads, each having some degree of active and 

 perceptive power in itself; but that the whole 

 machine of the body has a relation to that monad 

 which we call the soul, which is, as it were, the 

 center of the whole. He further supposed that 

 there are different orders of monads, some higher, 

 and others lower. To the higher orders he gave 

 the name of dominant, and to this class belongs 

 the human soul. Those which make up the or- 

 ganized bodies of men, animals, plants, &c. he 



trlnes of the illustrious German in this place. Leibnitz died in the year 

 ijid. He was considered one of the greatest men of the period in which 

 he lived. In vigour and comprehensiveness of mind he was eminently dis- 

 tinguished ; in the variety and versatility of his talents he had few equals ; 

 and in the extent of his acquirements he was almost unrivalled. 



