242 THE MONADOLOGY 



44. For 69 if there is a reality in essences or possibilities, 

 or rather in eternal truths, this reality must needs be 

 founded in something existing and actual, and conse- 

 quently in the existence of the necessary Being, in whom 

 essence involves existence, or in whom to be possible is 

 to be actual 70 . (Theod. "184-189, 335.) 



45. Thus God alone (or the necessary Being) has this 

 prerogative that He must necessarily exist, if He is pos- 

 sible. And as nothing can interfere 'with the possibility 

 of that which involves no limits, no negation and conse- 

 quently no contradiction, this [His possibility] is sufficient 

 of itself to make known the existence of God a priori 

 We have thus proved it, through the reality of eternal 

 truths. But a little while ago 71 we proved it also a poste- 

 riori, since there exist contingent beings, which can have 

 their final or sufficient reason only in the necessary Being, 

 which has the reason of its existence in itself. 



46. We must not, however, imagine, as some do, that 

 eternal truths, being dependent on God, are arbitraiy 

 and depend on His will, as Descartes 72 , and afterwards 



69 G. reads car, E. cependant. 



70 See Appendix G, p. 274. 7l 36-39- 



72 Cf. Descartes, Lettre au Pere Mersenne (Cousin's ed., vol. vi. 

 p. 109). * The metaphysical truths which you call eternal have been 

 established by God and are entirely dependent upon Him, like 

 all other created things. Indeed, to say that these truths are 

 independent of God is to speak of God as a Jupiter or a Saturn and 

 to subject Him to Styx and the Fates. . . . God has established 

 these laws in nature, just as a king establishes laws in his 

 kingdom.' Cf. loc. cit., p. 103. ' We cannot without blasphemy say 

 that the truth of anything precedes the knowledge which God has 

 of it, for in God willing and knowing are one.' Elsewhere he says 

 that God was perfectly free to make it untrue that the three angles 

 of a triangle should be equal to two right-angles. As early as 1671. 

 in a letter to Honoratus Fabri, Leibniz writes : ' If truths and the 

 natures of things are dependent on the choice of God, I do not see 

 how knowledge [scientia] or even will can be attributed to Him. 

 For will certainly presupposes some understanding, since no one 

 can will except in view of some good [sub ratione from']. But under- 

 standing presupposes something that can be understood, that is 

 to say, some nature. But if all natures are the result of will. 



