140 INTRODUCTION 



an observable help or hindrance 1 .' This, he warns us, is 

 not to be taken as a strict definition of pleasure and pain, 

 for he does not think it possible to give such a definition. 

 But his account of these feelings seems to follow directly 

 from his general point of view. Pain is essentially a 

 hindrance or restraining of a Monad's appetition, while 

 pleasure is its free action 2 . They are thus entirely 

 relative to one another. And while we speak of the 

 hindrance or freedom of appetition as pain or pleasure, 

 only when the appetition has reached the degree of con- 

 sciousness, yet consciousness is separated from unconscious- 

 ness by no hard and fast line, and consequently appetitions 

 of a lower degree may be regarded as minutely painful or 

 pleasant, according as they are retarded or advanced. Thus 

 Leibniz speaks of ' semi-pains ' and ' semi-pleasures ' or 

 ' little imperceptible [inaperceptiNes] pains and pleasures, ' 

 corresponding to the petites perceptions in the theory of 

 knowledge. Like the petites perceptions these semi-pains 

 and semi-pleasures may. by growing in individual inten- 

 sity or by combining into one totality, become observable 

 in consciousness as complete pains and pleasures 3 . No 

 soul can ever be absolutely at rest, absolutely without 

 appetition. And no created soul can be purely active, 

 with a perfect freedom. Thus every soul has continual 

 appetition, which is partly free and partly restrained. 

 That is to say, every soul has continually pleasure and 

 pain in some degree. 



Accordingly Leibniz takes great interest in the ' un- 

 easiness' in which Locke finds the first movings of 



1 Nouveaux Essais, bk. ii. ch. 20, i (E. 246 b; G. v. 149). Cf. 

 Locke's Essay (.corresponding place), with note in Eraser's ed., vol. i. 

 p. 302. 



* Cf. Nouveaux Essais, bk. ii. ch. 21, 42 (E. 261 b ; G. v. 180) : ' I 

 think that fundamentally pleasure is a feeling of perfection, and 

 pain a feeling of imperfection, provided the feeling is sufficiently 

 marked for us to be definitely conscious of it [s'en apercevoir'}.' Cf. 

 De tribus juris naturae et gentium gradibus (Mollat, p. 21) : 'Pleasure 

 is nothing else than the sense of increasing perfection.' 



* See Nouveaux Essais,bk. ii. ch. 20, 6 (E. 248 a; G. v. 151, 152). 



