THE MONADOLOGY 245 



150.) These characteristics correspond to what in the 

 created Monads forms the ground or basis 77 , to the faculty 

 of Perception and to the faculty of Appetition. But in God 

 these attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect ; and in 

 the created Monads or the Entelechies (or perfectihabiae, 

 as Hermolaus Barbarus translated the word 78 ) there are . 

 only imitations of these attributes, according to the degree 

 of perfection of the Monad. (Theod. "87.) 



49. A created thing is said to act outwardly 79 in so far 

 I as it has perfection, and to suffer [or be passive, pdtir] in 



relation to another, in so far as it is imperfect. Thus 

 activity [action] is attributed to a Monad, in so far as it has 

 distinct perceptions, and passivity [passion] in so far as its 

 perceptions are confused. (Theod. 32, 66, 386.) 



50. And one created thing is more perfect than another, 

 in this, that there is found in the more perfect that which 

 serves to explain a priori what takes place in the less 

 perfect, and it is on this account that the former is said to 

 act upon the latter 80 . 



77 Leibniz does not elsewhere discriminate three elements in the 

 created Monad, and we must not suppose that the 'ground or 

 basis' is anything in itself, apart from the two 'faculties.' Leibniz 

 wishes to emphasize the view that the Monad, whether created 

 or uncreated, is essentially force or activity, manifesting itself -in 

 perception and appetition. 



78 perfectihabia (from perfecte and habeo} was formed to correspond 

 to evT(\fx fta (from cfrcAcDs and ex ftv )' Cf. note 32. Hermolaus 

 Barbarus or Ermolao Barbaro (1454-1493) was an Italian scholar 

 who endeavoured, by means of translations of Aristotle and of the 

 Aristotelian commentaries of Themistius, to make known the true 

 Aristotelian doctrine as against the degenerate forms which 

 Scholasticism had given it. He came of a Venetian family and 

 was Professor of Philosophy at Padua, where he lectured on 

 Aristotle's Ethics. 



79 Of course, no Monad really does act outside itself. This is 

 merely Leibniz's explanation of what we mean when we speak of 

 outward action, just as the Copernican system explains what we 

 mean when we speak of ' sunrise ' and { sunset/ though the sun 

 neither ' rises ' nor ' sets.' 



80 Thus the explanation or reason of an event is its actual cause. 

 This connects itself with Leibniz's view that the existence of 



