46 INTRODUCTION 



in the second place, they may be supposed to be kept 

 in time with one another from moment to moment by 

 a skilled workman. Or, finally, they may have been so 

 perfectly constructed that they keep time of themselves, 

 without any mutual influence or assistance. If we com- 

 pare soul and body to the two clocks, the first of these 

 ways of connexion corresponds to the doctrine of an 

 mfluxus physicus, the second to the Occasionalist view, and 

 the third to the pre-established harmony. 



It is, however, misleading to suppose, as has too often 

 been done, that this is Leibniz's favourite simile for 

 explaining his system of pre-established harmony \ He 

 uses the illustration, not so much to explain his own 

 theory as to make clear the relation in which it stands to 

 previous hypotheses. He accepts for the moment the 

 limited problem which these hypotheses endeavour to 

 solve. But his own problem is larger and his own hypo- 

 thesis is therefore more comprehensive than those of his 

 predecessors. Body, for Leibniz, is nothing but a collection x 

 of Monads (or phenomena of Monads), and consequently 

 the question of the connexion between soul and body is 

 only a confused and imperfect form of the question as 

 to the relation between any one Monad and another. The 

 larger problem thus deals with the relations of body to 

 body and soul to soul as well as the relations of soul and 

 body, with which alone the earlier theories were concerned. 



Leibniz would maintain that, as substances (Monads) 

 are not physical but metaphysical, it is impossible for us 

 to realize the true relations between them by conceptions 

 of sense or imagination. These relations are metaphysical 

 or ideal, and are therefore only intellectually apprehended. 



1 The somewhat misleading prominence which has been given 

 to this illustration is to be attributed to Wolff and his school, who 

 represented the metaphysics of Leibniz in a very imperfect way. 

 Too many historians and teachers have been content with a Wolffian 

 Leibniz ; though for this there was doubtless some excuse in the 

 imperfection of the editions of his writings. For instance, the 

 Correspondence with Arnauld, in which the illustration of the choirs 

 occurs, was first completely published by Grotefend in 1846. 



