STATEMENT OF LEIBNIZ S PHILOSOPHY 123 



Thus in his theory of knowledge, Leibniz may be 

 regarded as seeking a via media between two extreme 

 views, the basis of both of which is mechanical rather 

 than dynamical. Each in its own way fails to do justice 

 to the relations in knowledge, to its unity as a system. 

 Each rests on the absolute (not the relative) validity of 



only in the incomplete notions of philosophers, like the void, 

 atoms and absolute or relative rest of two parts of a whole in 

 regard to one another, or like the maieria prima, which is conceived 

 as absolutely passive [sans aucunes formes']. Things which are 

 uniform and contain no variety are never anything but abstractions, 

 like time, space, and the other beings of pure mathematics. There 

 is no body whose parts are at rest, and there is no substance 

 which has nothing to distinguish it from every other. Human 

 souls differ, not only from other souls, but also from one another, 

 although the difference is not of the kind that is called " specific." 

 And I think I can prove that every substantial thing, whether 

 soul or body, has its own special relation to every other ; and one 

 must always differ from another by intrinsic characters ; without 

 mentioning that those who say so much about this tabula rasa, after 

 having removed from it the ideas, cannot tell what remains of it, 

 like the Scholastic philosophers who leave nothing in their materia 

 prima. Perhaps it may be replied, that this tabula rasa of the 

 philosophers means that the soul has originally and by nature 

 nothing but bare faculties. But faculties without any activity, in 

 a word the pure potencies [puissances'] of the Scholastics, are them- 

 selves only fictions, which nature knows not and which are 

 obtained only by making abstractions. For where in the world 

 shall we ever find a faculty which is shut up in mere potency 

 without any activity? .There is always a particular disposition to 

 action, and to one action rather than another. And besides the 

 disposition there is a tendency to action, and indeed there is always 

 an infinity of these tendencies at once in every object ; and these 

 tendencies are never without some effect. Experience is necessary, 

 I admit, in order that the soul should be determined to such and 

 such thoughts, and in order that it may take notice of the ideas 

 which are in us. But by what means can experience and the 

 senses give ideas? Has the soul windows? Is it like a writing- 

 tablet ? Is it like wax ? It is plain that all those who think thus 

 of the soul make it at bottom corporeal. There will be brought 

 against me this axiom, accepted among the philosophers, that 

 nothing is in the soul that does not come from the senses. But the soul 

 itself and its affections must be excepted. Nihil est in intellectu, quod 

 nonfuerit in sensu excipe : nisi ipse intellectus. But the soul contains 

 the notions of being, substance, unity, identity, cause, perception, 

 reasoning and many others, which the senses cannot give. This 

 agrees well enough with your author of the Essay, who finds the 

 origin of a considerable section of the ideas in the mind's reflexion 

 on its own nature.' Cf. New Essays, Introduction, pp. 360, 367 sqq. 



