STATEMENT OF LEIBNIZ^ PHILOSOPHY III 



of the simple substances which it implies. Materia 

 secunda, then, is due to the confused perceptions of 

 those who observe the compound substances. Thus to 

 the eye of God there can be no materia secunda, no com- 

 pound substance ; for in Him there is no confused percep- 

 tion. 



The aggregates of phenomena which we call things or 

 extended bodies are thus the result of confused percep- 

 tion. And the differences amongst them, which we 

 describe by the names of organic, inorganic, &c., are 

 really differences in their dominant Monads. Without 

 a dominant Monad, body would be mere indeterminate 

 quantity, 'without form' if not 'void,' a chaos of pure 

 difference. The dominant Monad is the unity implied 

 in a* specific or definite aggregate, the unity in virtue of 

 which an aggregate or compound is one thing as distinct 

 from other things. If the dominant Monad be a bare 

 Monad, with unconscious perceptions, we call the body 

 inorganic. If the degree of distinctness in the perceptions 

 of the dominant Monad be a little higher, we call the 

 body a plant and so on. The organic and the inorganic 

 pass imperceptibly into one another, and the degree of 

 organic unity possessed by any body is nothing but the 

 degree of distinctness in the perceptions of its dominant 

 Monad. Thus the parts of an organism are more closely 

 connected, more firmly held together, than those of an 

 inorganic mass, because the dominance of the central 

 Monad is greater, more complete (that is to say, its per- 

 ception is more distinct), in the case of the former than 

 in the case of the latter. 



Body without soul, or mere matter considered as inor- 

 ganic, that is to say, as an aggregate of parts which have 

 no unity other than their aggregation, is unreal. We 

 may regard it either as an abstraction from concrete 

 substance or (more nearly in Leibniz's way of thinking) 

 as an imperfect perception or representation of concrete 

 substance. Nature is organic throughout : no real thing 



