

ESTIMATE OF LEIBNIZ'S PHILOSOPHY 169 



the results obtained from consideration of the notion of 

 * imaginary ' space may justifiably be applied to ' real ' 

 space '. 'Real' space is the order of co-existing things 2 

 and is inseparable from the things themselves. God 

 alone can have a perfectly adequate notion of it and can 

 thus actually perceive its continuity. But we can form 

 an abstract or ' imaginary ' notion of space, by thinking 

 it as distinct from (or indifferent to) the co-existing things 

 of which it is an * order ' ; and this imaginary space is, 

 of course, homogeneous and continuous. The space of 

 mathematics and physics is thus t imaginary space ' ; but 

 it is such that the laws of mathematics and physics are 

 valid in relation to 'real' space. Manifestly we have here 

 neither the view of Leibniz nor that of Newton, but a 

 doctrine which points to a possible reconciliation between 

 them. On the one hand, space is not merely confused 

 perception. As space it has reality : it is a real order in 

 which physical things exist. But, on the other hand, 

 this real space is not the space of the mathematician. 

 He deals with a kind of projection or symbol of it, and 

 thus the Newtonian position also is without WoliF s 

 assent. It might easily be shown that the Wolffian 

 doctrine of space is riddled with inconsistencies, of a kind 

 similar to those which have been noticed in Wolff's 

 account of individual substances. But the matter of 

 main interest is that Kant received the problem of space 

 in the form which Wolff had given it 3 , and that through- 



1 Ontologia, 599. 



2 In analogy with time which is 'the order of successive things 

 in a continuous series/ space is defined as 'the order of simul- 

 taneous things, in so far as they co-exist.' Ontologia, 589. Cf. 

 Qosmologia, 56. 



3 Kant's criticism of Leibniz illustrates this. Cf. Fortschritte der 

 Metaphysik seit Leibniz und Wolff' (Bosenkranz, i. 516; Hartenstein, 

 iii. 441) : ' The principle of the identity of indiscernibles (princi- 

 pium identitatis indiscemibilium) is that, if from A and B, which, in 

 respect of all their internal characteristics (of quality and of 

 quantity) are entirely alike, we make a concept as of two different 

 things, we are in error, and we ought to have taken them for one 

 and the same thing (numero eadem). Leibniz could not admit that 



