STATEMENT OF LEIBNIZ S PHILOSOPHY 103 



absolute being there would something happen for which 

 it is impossible there should be a sufficient reason, which 

 is against my axiom. And I prove it thus. Space is 

 something absolutely uniform ; and, without the things 

 placed in it, one point of space does not absolutely diifer 

 in any respect whatsoever from another point of space. 

 Now from hence it follows (supposing space to be some- 

 thing in itself, besides the order of bodies among them- 

 selves) that 'tis impossible there should be a reason why 

 God, preserving the same situations of bodies among 

 themselves, should have placed them in space after one 

 certain particular manner, and not otherwise ; why every- 

 thing was not placed the quite contrary way : for instance, 

 by changing east into west. But if space is nothing else 

 but that order of relation, and is nothing at all without 

 bodies but the possibility of placing them, then those two 

 states, the one such as it now is, the other supposed to 

 be the quite contrary way, would not at all differ from 

 one another. Their difference, therefore, is only to be 

 found in our chimerical supposition of the reality of space 

 in itself. But in truth the one would exactly be the same 

 thing as the other, they being absolutely indiscernible; 

 and consequently there is no room to inquire after a reason 

 of the preference of the one to the other. The case is the 

 same with respect to time. Supposing any one should 

 ask why God did not create everything a year sooner, and 

 the same person should infer from thence that God has 

 done something concerning which 'tis not possible there 

 should be a reason why He did it so and not otherwise ; 

 the answer is, that his inference would be right if time 

 was anything distinct from things existing in time. For 

 it would be impossible there should be any reason why 

 things should be applied to such particular instants, rather 

 than to others, their succession continuing the same. But 

 then the same argument proves that instants, considered 

 without the things, are nothing at all, and that they 

 consist only in the successive order of things ; which 



