1 16 INTRODUCTION 



generation and no passing from life to absolute lifeless- 

 ness. For lifelessness is entirely relative : the very dust 

 and ashes still have life \ 



Indestructibility and Immortality of Souls. 

 Accordingly the souls of all living beings are inde- 

 structible, while the soul of man is both indestructible 

 and immortal, since it not merely persists in existence 

 but continues to have consciousness, memory, and such 

 other characteristics as constitute personality 2 . It^is 

 apparently, in Leibniz's view, impossible for the mind 

 of man to degenerate so as to pass into a lower stage of 

 existence. The possession of self -consciousness is in- 

 alienable. The rational soul thus differs from all souls 

 that are beneath it in rank, inasmuch as it does not 

 experience such wide variations as those to which the 

 latter are subject. In a letter to Arnauld (1687), Leibniz 

 says : * Others, not being able to explain otherwise the 



1 Cf. Epistola ad Bernouttium (1698) (G. Math. iii. 553) : ' You argue 

 entirely to my mind when you say that changes do not take place 

 per saltum. And further. I do not laugh at your conjecture, but 

 I definitely avow that there are in the world animals as much 

 larger than ours, as ours are larger than microscopic animalcules. 

 Nor does nature know any limit. And again it may be, nay it. 

 must be, that in the very smallest grains of dust, and indeed in 

 the least atoms \atomulis~\ there are worlds not inferior to our own 

 in beauty and variety ; nor is there anything to prevent what may 

 appear a still more wonderful thing, that animals at death are 

 transferred to such worlds ; for I regard death as nothing else than 

 the contraction of an animal.' 



2 Cf. Lettre a Des Maizeaux (1711) (E. 676 a; G. vii. 534) : 'I am 

 of opinion that the souls of men pre-existed, not as rational souls, 

 but merely as ' sensitive ' [sensible] souls, which attained this higher 

 degree (that is to say, reason) only when the man, whom the soul 

 is to animate, was conceived. I grant an existence as old as the 

 world not only to the souls of the lower animals, but in general to 

 all Monads or simple substances from which compound phenomena 

 result ; and I hold that each soul or Monad is always accompanied 

 by an organic body, which is nevertheless perpetually changing ; 

 so that the body is not the same, though the soul and the animal 

 are. These rules apply also to the human body, but apparently in 

 a higher degree than to other animals which are known to us ; 

 since man must continue to be, not merely an animal but also 

 a person and a citizen of the City of God, which is the most 

 perfect possible state, under the most perfect Monarch.' 



