THE MONADOLOGY 221 



absolutely no means of perceiving any change in things. 

 For what is in the compound can come only from the 

 simple elements it contains, and the Monads, if they had 

 no qualities, would be indistinguishable from one another, 

 since they do not differ in quantity 13 . Consequently, 

 space being a plenum, each part of space would always 

 receive, in any motion, exactly the equivalent of what it 

 already had, and no one state of things would be dis- 

 cernible from another 14 . 



13 Kant would say that they may differ in ' intensive quantity' ; 

 see note n. L'eibnfz makes the distinction between quality and 

 quantity as sharp as the Aristotelian distinction between iroTov 

 and troffov. Yet in some respects his Law of Continuity suggests 

 a different view. 



" E. reads * one state of things would be indistinguishable from 

 another.' Cf. Epistola ad Des Bosses (1706) (G. ii. 295) r. 'If we were 

 to admit, as the Cartesians desire, the plenum and the uniformity 

 of matter, adding to these motion alone, it would follow that 

 nothing would ever take place among things but a substitution of 

 equivalents, as if the whole universe were reduced to the motion 

 of a perfectly uniform wheel about its axis or, again, to the revolu- 



, tions of concentric circles, each made of exactly the same materials. 



[The result of this would be that it would not be possible, even for 

 an angel, to distinguish the state of things at one moment from 

 their state- at another. For there could be no variety in the phe- 

 nomena. ^Accordingly, in addition to figure, size, and motion, we 

 must allow certain Forms, whence there arises a distinction among 

 the phenomena of matter ; and I do not see whence these Forms 

 are to be taken, if they are to be intelligible, unless it be from 

 Entelechies.' To avoid a possible misunderstanding, it should be 

 noted that for Leibniz, the Monads are not in space, which is a 

 relation between phenomena ; see Introduction, Part iii. p. 101. Cf. 

 Epistola ad Des Bosses (1712) (E. 682 b ; G. ii. 450): 'Space is the 

 order of co-existing phenomena, as time is the order of successive 

 phenomena. There is no nearness or distance, whether spatial or 

 absolute, among Monads, and to say that they are collected, together 

 in one point or dispersed throughout space, is to make use of certain 

 fictions of our mind, by which we try to represent to ourselves in 

 imagination what cannot be imagined but only understood.' Kant, 

 misled by the position of Wolff, does not rightly interpret Leibniz's 

 view of space, which he discusses in the Critique of Pure Reason, 

 Hartenstein, ii. 256 sqq. ; Kosenkranz, ii. 216 sqq. ; Meiklejohn's 

 Tr., pp. 191 sqq., especially p. 199. Cf. Introduction, Part iv. 

 pp. 1 68 sqq. 



