244 THE MONADOLOGY 



moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the 

 created being, of whose essence it is to have limits. (Theod. 

 382-391, 398, 395.) 



48. In God there is Power, which is the source of all, 

 also Knoivledge, whose content is the variety of the ideas, 

 and nnally Will, which makes changes or products 

 according to the principle of the best 76 . (Theod. 7, 149, 



nature, but that it is a possibility tending to realize itself, yet 

 requiring the assistance, choice or will of God to set it free from 

 the counteracting influence of opposite possibilities. As a possibility 

 it has essential limits (i. e. it is not entirely perfect, actus purus) ; 

 but it is ready to spring or ' flash ' into being, at the will of God. 

 If there were no choice of God, possibilities would simply counteract 

 one another. But His choice means no more than the removal of 

 hindrances to development, in the case of certain 'elect* possi- 

 bilities. Creation adds no new being to the universe, and yet it 

 is not emanation, in the sense of a mere modification of the one 

 Eternal Being. Thus the ' continual fulgurations ' of Leibniz 

 are to be distinguished from the ' continual creation ' of Descartes. 

 According to Leibniz, conservation is not, as with Descartes, 

 a miraculous renewal of the existence of things from moment 

 to moment, an absolute re-creation constantly repeated ; but it is 

 the continuance of the activity, choice or .will of God, by which 

 certain possible things were set free to exist and through which 

 alone they can persist. The successive states of any being are 

 neither completely independent of one another, so that at each 

 moment there is a new creation (Descartes), nor are they so 

 absolutely dependent on one another that each proceeds from its 

 predecessor by a logical or mathematical necessity (Spinoza), but 

 they are connected together in a sequence which has its ground 

 in the nature of the being, so that each is automatically unfolded 

 from its predecessor according to a regular law, provided that God 

 chooses to allow this unfolding. The * continual fulgurations ' are 

 the continual exercise of God's will in allowing the Monads of the 

 actual world to unfold or develop their nature. Cf. On the ultimate 

 Origination of Things, p. 344. 



76 In the Theodicee ( 150 ; E. 549 a ; G. vi. 199) Leibniz hints at 

 a connexion between this characterization of God's nature and the 

 doctrine of the Trinity. ' Some have even thought that there is in 

 these three perfections of God a hidden reference to the Holy 

 Trinity : that power has reference to the Father, that is to say, to 

 the Godhead [Divinite] ; wisdom to the eternal Word, which is 

 called Ao-yos by the most sublime of the evangelists ; and will or 

 love to the Holy Spirit.' 



