114 INTRODUCTION 



The phenomena which make up the body of a compound 

 substance must be continually changing according as the 

 dominant Monad rises or falls in perceptive rank. No 

 dominant Monad has a changeless body ; because of its 

 own variations its body 'is in a perpetual flux like a 

 river, and parts are entering into it and passing out of 

 it continually V And there is endless room for variation ; 

 because each compound substance is made up of other 

 compound substances (each with its dominant Monad), 

 and these again are made up of others ad infinitum*. 

 Thus some or all of the things which at one time form 

 an inorganic body may, in new relations, become parts 

 of an organic body and vice versa. And the size of any- 

 body, belonging to a particular dominant Monad, may 

 increase or decrease indefinitely. 



Metamorphosis. Birth and Death. 



Accordingly the change in compound substance of 

 every kind is always metamorphosis rather than metem- 

 psychosis 3 . The fundamental element in every com- 

 pound substance is the dominant Monad, and the matter 

 or body of the substance is continually changing by a 

 gradual removal and addition of parts. It is the body 

 which bit by bit transfers itself from one soul to another. 

 There is no such thing as the sudden transference of 

 a soul from one body to another entirely new body. 

 Such a transference would involve a sudden or discon- 

 tinuous change in the soul itself, which is impossible. 



1 Monadology, 71. So Lotze compares the life of the parts to 

 a throng of travellers. Microcosmus, bk. iii. ch. 4, 4 (Eng Tr, 

 vol. i. p. 368). 



2 Cf. Epistola ad BernouUium (1698) (G-. Math. iii. 560 1 : I would 

 readily allow that there are animals (in the ordinary sense) in- 

 comparably greater than ours ; and I have sometimes said in jest 

 that there may be some system similar to ours, which is the watch 

 of a very great giant/ Also Monadology, 66 sqq. ; cf. Spinoza, Ethics, 

 Part ii. Lemma vii. Scholium. 



3 Cf. EpistoUi ad Bemoullium (1698) (G. Math. iii. 561) : <I do not 

 admit fttr*/afwx*ott into a new animal, but utTapofxfxuau, 



of the same animal.' 



