186 Philosophy of the Ilumau ]\rmd. [Chap. XII. 



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

 tor, in the beginning of its existence, endowed 

 with certain active and perceptive powers. A 

 monad, therefore, is an active substance, simple, 

 without parts or hgure, which has within itself 

 the power to produce ail the changes it undeigoes, 

 from the beginning of its existence to eternity. 

 The changes, according to him,, uliicli the monad 

 undergoes, of whatever kind, though they may 

 seem to us the effects of causes operating from 

 without, yet are only the gradual and successive 

 evolutions of its own internal powers, which would 

 have produced all the sanie 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 organised body, which or- 

 ganised 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 

 centre of the whole. He further supposes 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 belonos 

 the human soul. Those which make up the or- 

 ganized bodies of men, animals, plants, cS:c., he 

 contended were of a lower order, and subser\'ient 

 to the dominant monads. iJut every monad, of 

 whatever order, he represented as a complete sub- 

 stance in itself, liaving no parts, ami indestructi- 

 ble by any power less than divine, which there is 

 no reason to believe M'ill ever be exerted in the 



