THE MONADOLOGY 243 



M. Poiret 73 , appear to have held. That is true only of 

 contingent truths, of which the principle is fitness [con- 

 venance] 74 or choice of the best, whereas necessary truths ; 

 depend solely on His understanding and are its inner 

 object. (Theod. 180-184, 185, 335, 351, 380.) 



47. Thus God alone is the primary unity or original 

 simple substance, of which all created or derivative 

 Monads are products and have their birth, so to speak, 

 through continual fulgurations 75 of the Divinity from 



understanding also will be the result of will. How, then, does 

 will presuppose understanding?' (G. iv. 259). The point was 

 much discussed by the Scholastics, with special reference to the 

 question whether or not the moral law is independent of the will 

 of God. Descartes's view is in harmony with that of Duns Scotus, 

 while Leibniz follows Thomas Aquinas. For Descartes, the Divine 

 and the human understanding differ in kind : for Leibniz they 

 differ merely in degree. 



73 Pierre Poiret (1646-1719), a Calvinist minister, who held 

 a charge in the Duchy of Zweibriicken, in the Ehine Palatinate. 

 He was at first a Cartesian and published a book, Cogitatioms 

 rationales de Deo, Anima et Malo, which Bayle attacked. Afterwards 

 he came under the influence of Antoinette Bourignon, the Dutch 

 religious enthusiast, whose life he wrote and whose views he 

 expounded at very great length. This influence led him to 

 attack Cartesianism with much fervour, and he is now remembered 

 as a mystic rather than as a philosopher. 



74 By convenance is meant mutual conformity, of such a kind that 

 things ' fit into ' one another in the most perfect way. Thus the 

 principle of convenance or of the best is what we should now call 

 the idea of system. With Leibniz it is the same as the principle 

 of sufficient reason, which is the principle of conditioned, as distinct 

 from unconditional reality or truth. Cf. note 85. 



' 5 That is to say, ' flashings ' or 'sudden emanations/ ' God is the 

 primary centre from which all else emanates' (G. iv. 553). Cf. the 

 Stoic rovos which Cleanthes calls a ' stroke of fire ' (71X7777) -nvpos\ 

 Frag. 76. The relation of God to the other Monads is the crux of 

 Leibniz's philosophy. He wishes to maintain both the individuality 

 of the Monads and their essential unity with God. Thus he seems 

 to take fulguration as a middle term between creation and emana- 

 tion. ' Creation ' would mean too complete a severance between God 

 and the other Monads ; ' emanation ' would mean too complete an 

 identity between them. ' Fulguration ' means that the Monad is 

 not absolutely created out of nothing nor, on the other hand, 

 merely a mode or an absolutely necessary product of the Divine 



K 2 



