STATEMENT OF LEIBNIZ S PHILOSOPHY 105 

 >P 



Activity and Passivity of the Monads. Mutual Influence 



of Substances. Cause and Effect. 



So far, then, from space being, as Descartes held, the 

 essence of matter, it is a purely ideal relation which we 

 mentally construct between things or phenomena whose 

 ultimate reality or essence is not quantitative, and is 

 consequently not material l . But, as we have seen, every 

 one of the real substances (the Monads), each of which is 

 the essence or reality of a portion of matter, contains that 

 which, taken abstractly, may be described as materia 

 prima. Every created Monad is both active and passive ; 

 for there is no such thing as absolute passivity, and pure 

 activity belongs to God alone. As passive the Monad 

 has materia prima, as jictive it is entelechy. Thus every 

 soul has a body ; there is no such thing as an absolutely 

 disembodied spirit, unless it be the Spirit of God. And, 

 on the other hand, mere soulless body has no real exist- 

 ence : it is an abstraction. The world is active, living 

 through and through, even in its infinitesimal parts. It 

 is compact of souls. 



Now this activity and passivity of. the Monads do not 

 mean that any Monad exerts a real influence outside of 

 itself or receives any real impression from a substance 

 external to it. The relations between the Monads are 

 purely ideal, and their activity and passivity are altogether 

 internal. As we have seen, a Monad is in itself passive in 

 so far as its perceptions are relatively obscure or confused, 

 active in so far as they are relatively clear and distinct. 

 And similarly, as each Monad perceives or represents the 

 whole universe from its own point of view, one Monad is 

 said to be passive in relation to another in so far as certain 

 perceptions in the former are obscure or confused in com- 

 parison with the corresponding perceptions in the latter ; 



1 In spite, however, of this reduction of space, matter, &c., to 

 confused perception, Leibniz continues to use the language of 

 those who speak of them as real, comparing himself to a Copernican 

 who speaks of sunrise. Cp. Theodicee, 65 (E. 521 a; G. vi. 138). 



