264 THE MONADOLOGY 



of force in matter. Nevertheless he was of opinion that 

 the soul could change the direction of bodies. But that 

 is because in his time it was not known that there is 

 a law of nature which affirms also the conservation of the 

 same total direction in matter 127 . Had Descartes noticed 

 this he would have come upon my system of pre-estab- 

 lished harmony 128 . (Pref. [E. 4? 7 a; G. vi. 44] ; Theod. 

 22, 59, 60, 61, 63, 66, 345, 346 sqq., 354, 355-) 

 \/8i. According to this system bodies act as if (to 

 suppose the impossible) there were no souls, and souls 

 act as if there were no bodies, and both act as if each 

 influenced the other 129 . 



127 See Introduction, Part iii. p. 89. Descartes ' believed he had 

 found a law of nature, to the effect that the same quantity of 

 motion is conserved in bodies. He did not think it possible for 

 the influence of the soul to break this law of bodies ; but he thought 

 that the soul might nevertheless have the power of changing the 

 direction of the motions which take place in the body ; somewhat 

 as a horseman, although he does not give any force to the horse he 

 rides, nevertheless guides it by directing its force in the way that 

 he thinks right. As this is done by means of bridle, bit, spurs, 

 and other material aids, we see how it can take place ; but there 

 are no instruments which the soul could employ for this purpose 

 nothing in soul or in body, that is to say, in thought or in mass, 

 which could serve to explain this change of one by the other.' 

 Theodicee, 60 (E. 519 b ; G. vi. 135). 



128 That is to say, Descartes would have seen that neither soul 

 nor body has any influence whatever upon the other, and that they 

 must therefore be regarded as acting merely in harmony. 



1:9 ' All that ambition or any other passion brings to pass in the 

 soul of Caesar is also represented in his body, and all the motions 

 of these passions come from the impressions of objects combined 

 with internal motions. And the body is so constituted that the 

 soul never makes any resolution without the motions of the body 

 agreeing with it. This applies even to the most abstract reasonings, 

 because of the characters which represent them to the imagination. 

 In a word, everything takes place in bodies, as regards the par- 

 ticular series [detail'] of their phenomena, as if the evil doctrine of 

 those who, like Epicurus and Hobbes, believe that the soul is 

 material, were true ; or as if man himself were only a body or an 

 automaton. . . . Those who show the Cartesians that their way of 

 proving that the lower animals are only automata amounts to 

 justifying him who should say that all men, except himself, are 



