224 THE MONADOLOGY 



14. The passing condition, which involves and repre-* 

 sents a multiplicity in the unit [unite~] or in the simple 

 substance, is nothing but what is called Perception 21 , 

 which is to be distinguished from Apperception or 

 Consciousness, as will afterwards appear. In this matter 

 the Cartesian view is extremely defective, for it treats as 

 non-existent those perceptions of which we are not 

 consciously aware 22 . This has also led them to believe 

 that minds [esprits] alone are Monads, and that there are 

 no souls of animals nor other Entelechies. Thus, like the 

 crowd, they have failed to distinguish between a prolonged 

 unconsciousness and absolute death 23 , which has made 



a particular change, according to the nature of its content, and 

 which all are present together in the soul; in virtue of the soul's 

 essential relation to all the other things in the world. It is because 

 they do not have this relation that the atoms of Epicurus have no 

 existence in nature. For there is no individual thing, which is 

 not to be regarded as expressing all others ; and consequently the 

 soul, in regard to the variety of its modifications, ought to be likened 

 to the universe, which it represents according to its point of view, 

 and even in a way to God, whose infinity it represents finitely, because 

 of its confused and imperfect perception of the infinite, rather than 

 to a material atom.' Cf. Appendix F r p. 272. 



21 Cf. Epistola ad Des Bosses (1706) (E. 438 a ; G. ii. 311): 'Since 

 perception is nothing else than the expression of many things in 

 one, all Entelechies or Monads must necessarily be endowed with 

 perception.' Also Lettre a Arnauld (1687) (G. ii. 112) : 'Because of 

 the continuity and divisibility of all matter, the least motion has 

 its effect upon neighbouring bodies, and consequently upon one 

 body after another ad infinitum, in a gradually lessening degree ; 

 and thus our body must in some way be affected by the changes in 

 all other bodies. Now, to all the motions of our body there corre- 

 spond certain more or less confused perceptions of our soul, and 

 accordingly our soul also will have some thought of all the motions 

 in the universe, and in my opinion every other soul or substance 

 will have some perception or expression of them.' See Introduction, 

 Part ii. p. 33. 



22 Cf. Method, Part 5, and Meditations, 2 and 6. See also Principia 

 Philosophiae, i. 48, and cf. Introduction, Part iii. p. 126. The Car- 

 tesian view is that animals and plants are purely ine'chanical 

 structures or living automata, parts of extension, entirely separate 

 from thought. 



23 * Sleep, which is an image of death, trances, the burying of 



