108 INTRODUCTION 



C. ORGANISM. 



Organic and inorganic Bodies. Simple and compound 

 Substances. Dominant Monad. 



The notion of body existing by itself and that of soul 

 existing by itself are results of confused or imperfect 



ask about spiritual, or rather incorporeal things, and you say that 

 we see the mechanical arrangement of the parts but not the 

 principles of the mechanism. True ; but, when we see motion also, 

 we understand from this [what we see] the cause of motion, or 

 force. The source of mechanism is primary force [vis primitiva], 

 but the laws of motion, according to which impulses [impetus'} or 

 derivative forces arise out of the primary force, issue from the 

 perception of good and evil, or from that which is most fitting. 

 Thus it is that efficient causes are dependent upon final causes, 

 and spiritual things are in their nature prior to material things, 

 as also they are to us prior in knowledge, because we perceive 

 more immediately [interius] the mind (as it is nearest to us) 

 than the body ; and this indeed Plato and Descartes have 

 observed.' Also Lettre a Remond (1714) (E. 702 a ; G. iii. 607): 

 4 1 have found that most of the philosophical sects are right in 

 a good part of what they maintain, but not to 'the same extent in 

 what they deny. The Formalists, such as the Platonists and 

 Aristotelians, are right in seeking the source of things in final 

 and formal causes. But they err in neglecting efficient and 

 material causes and in inferring (as did Mr. Henry More in 

 England, and some other Platonists) that there are phenomena 

 which cannot be explained on mechanical principles. But, on 

 the other hand, the Materialists, or those who hold exclusively 

 to the mechanical philosophy, err in setting aside metaphysical 

 considerations and in trying to explain everything by that which 

 is dependent on the imagination. I flatter myself that I have 

 discovered the harmony of the different systems and have seen 

 that both sides are right, provided they do not clash with one 

 another ; that in the phenomena of nature everything happens 

 mechanically and at the same time metaphysically, but that the 

 source of the mechanical is in the metaphysical.' Also Lettre a 

 Arnauld (1686) (G. ii. 77) : * We are obliged to admit many things 

 of which our knowledge is not sufficiently clear and distinct. 

 I hold that the knowledge of extension is very much less so' 

 [than that of substantial Forms, of which he has been speaking], 

 ' witness the remarkable difficulties as to the composition of the 

 continuous ; and it may even be said that bodies have no definite and 

 precise shape, because of the actual sub-division of their parts [i. e. their 

 sub-division ad infinitum]. So that bodies would without doubt be 

 something merely imaginary and apparent if there were nothing but matter 

 and its modifications. Yet it is of no use to mention the unity, 

 notion, or substantial Form of bodies, when we are explaining the 

 particular phenomena of nature, as it is of no use for mathe- 



