STATEMENT OF LEIBNIZ S PHILOSOPHY 97 



In short, as materia prima is abstract passivity, the limit 

 of activity, and is thus in reality merely the finitude or 

 imperfection of a Monad, so materia secunda is mere 

 abstract quantity, the limit of intension, and is thus a 

 mere phenomenon of that which is essentially one and 

 indivisible, of the 'soul' which the body 'contains 1 .' 

 Accordingly every created Monad or simple substance 

 has materia prima in so far as it is not entirely active ; or, 

 in other words (since activity and passivity are relative 

 terms), every created Monad must have materia prima, 

 because its activity is not entirely realized, but is in part 

 potential, because it is not actus purus, activity without 

 passivity. ' Materia prima is essential to every entelechy 

 and can never be separated from it, since it completes it, 

 *nd is itself the passive potentiality of the whole complete 

 substance. . . . God . . . cannot deprive a substance of 

 materia prima ; for He would thus make it wholly pure 

 activity [purus actus] w T hich He Himself alone is'-'.' 

 Materia secunda, on the other hand, is not necessarily 

 attached to any specific entelechy or individual substance. 

 It is a relationship of Monads imperfectly conceived by us 

 as a group of things which may vary from time to time, 

 ^and which, as a matter of fact, is constantly varying. 

 Leibniz compares it to a river 3 . i God, by His absolute 

 power, may be able to deprive substance of materia 

 secunda*.' In fact, it is not by itself anything real, but is 

 merely the relation of certain Monads, regarded abstractly 

 as a temporary aggregation or collocation. The only real 

 existences are the Monads, which are purely spiritual, 

 non-spatial existences, but in relatively confused or 



a collection of several substances, like a pond full of fish, or a flock 

 of sheep ; and consequently it is what is called unum per accidens : in 

 a word, a phenomenon. A real substance (such as an animal) is 

 composed of an immaterial soul and an organic body ; and it is the 

 combination of these two that is called unum per se.' 



1 Cf. this Introduction, Part iii. pp. 78 sqq. 



a Epistola ad Des Bosses (1706) (E. 440 b ; G. ii. 324). 



3 Ibid. (1706) (E. 436 b ; G. ii. 306). Cf. p. 1 14 and Monadology, 71. 



4 Ibid. (1706) (E. 440 b ; G. ii. 325'). 



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