164 INTRODUCTION 



itself must have seemed as broken as was the expression 

 of it. The two principles of contradiction and sufficient 

 reason stood side by side, and there was no clear account 

 of the relation between them. A system with two 

 independent principles can have no stability, and this 

 defect must somehow be removed. On the other hand, 

 Newton had triumphed in the long controversy, and his 

 fame had led to Leibniz's discredit. Leibniz's metaphysics 

 seemed in some points incompatible with the Newtonian 

 physics, and must therefore to some extent be modified. 

 This systematizing and modifying of the philosophy of 

 Leibniz were accomplished by Christian Wolff (1679- 

 X 754)? wno himself, however, strongly objected to being 

 called a mere disciple .of Leibniz, or an elaborator of the 

 Leibnitian philosophy. 



Wolffs position may be regarded as in some respects 

 a return to the Cartesian attitude of mind. His solution 

 of the difficulty arising from the supposition of two co- 

 ordinate first principles is to make the principle of sufficient 

 reason a logical inference from that of contradiction, and 

 thus to make the law of contradiction the one supreme 

 law of thought. He holds that the difference between 

 'something' and 'nothing' is absolute, ' something' being 

 that of which there is some notion, while ' nothing ' is 

 that of which there is no notion 1 . Thus everything must 

 have a sufficient reason, i. e. some reason why it exists 

 rather than does not xist, for otherwise something would 

 proceed out of nothing. But ex nihilo nihil fit : there is 

 no middle term between ' something ' and * nothing V So 

 in Wolff the antithesis of being and not-being is supreme, 

 to the exclusion of the notion of becoming. ' The impos- 

 sible is nothing.' And on the other hand, 'the possible 

 is always something V It ought logically to follow that 

 everything possible is actual, and that there is no distinc- 

 tion between essence and existence. But at this point the 



1 Oniologia, 57, 59. 2 Ibid. 70. 



8 Ibid. 101, 102. 



