THE MONADOLOGY 247 



active in so far as what we distinctly know in it serves to 

 explain [rendre raison de] what takes place in another, and 

 passive in so far as the explanation [raison] of what takes 

 place in it is to be found in that which is distinctly known 

 in another. (Theod. 66.) 



53. Now, as in the Ideas of God there is an infinite 

 number of possible universes, and as only one of them 

 can be actual, there must be a sufficient reason for the 

 choice of God, which leads Him to decide upon one rather 

 than another 84 . (Theod. 8, 10, 44, 173, 196 sqq., 225, 

 414-416.) 



54. And this reason can be found only in the fitness 

 [convenance], or in the degrees of perfection, that these 

 worlds possess 85 , since each possible thing has the right 

 to aspire to existence in proportion to the amount of per- 

 fection rTWlfckainsW germ 86 . (Theod. 74, 167, 350, 201, 



130, 352, 345 qq., 354.) 



84 See Introduction, Part ii. p. 65. 



85 See Monadology, note 74. God is not compelled by an absolute, 

 metaphysical necessity, but ' inclined ' by a moral necessity to create 

 the world which, as one harmonious system, is the best. The 

 distinction between moral necessity and absolute compulsion is of 

 Scholastic origin. ' Possible things are those which do not involve 

 a contradiction. Actual things are nothing but the possible things 

 which, all things considered, are the best. Therefore things which 

 are less perfect are not on that account impossible ; for we must 

 distinguish between the things which God can do and those He 

 wills to do. He can do everything, He wills to do the best.' 

 Epistola ad Bernoullium (1699), (G. Math. iii. 574). 



86 This aspiration to existence is the tendency to pass into 

 existence and to proceed from confused to distinct perceptions, 

 which makes the 'possible* things of Leibniz real essences as 

 distinct from purely indeterminate capacities. Possibilities, accord- 

 ing to Leibniz, are never quite empty : they are always realities in 

 germ. Of. notes 64 and 67. ' From the very fact that there exists 

 something rather than nothing, we must recognize that in possible 

 things, or in possibility or essence itself, there is a certain need of 

 existence [exigentiam existentiae] or (so to speak) a certain aspiration 

 to exist, and, in a word, that essence by itself tends to existence. 

 Whence it further follows that all possible things, i. e. things 

 expressing essence or possible reality, tend with equal right to 

 existence in proportion to the quantity of essence or reality they 



