HIS PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 



being a simple unextended system, having power 

 of action. Active force is the essence of substance. 

 Monads are like the atoms of Democritus, they 

 are centres of force, a notion not unlike the modern 

 conception of Lord Kelvin, which describes atoms 

 as rotational movements of the ether. But we part 

 company with modern notions when we meet with 

 the assertion of Leibnitz, that the active forces in 

 monads are ideas. The soul is a monad, for it can 

 act on itself, a proof of its substantiality. Every 

 finite monad has a perception of those parts of the 

 universe to which it is related ; to our sensory per- 

 ceptions, the order of the monads appears as the 

 temporal and spatial order of things, while time is 

 the order of succession of phenomena. There is a 

 pre-established harmony between the movement of the 

 monad and the ideas of the mind, itself a monad. 

 Mind and body work together like two clocks, set 

 together and moving at the same rate. 



Much controversy arose between the schools of 

 Locke and Leibnitz, and the battle raged with varying 

 fortunes until Kant threw his influence on the side of 

 the latter. The origin, extent and limits of know- 

 ledge were examined in his Critique of the pure reason, 

 by the latter meaning reason independent of experi- 

 ence. He established the twelve categories or original 

 conceptions of the mind, unity, plurality, totality, 

 reality, negation, limitation, substantiality, causality, 

 reciprocal action, possibility, necessity, existence, as 

 253 



