274 THE MONADOLOGY 



that he finds there a music-book, in which there are the pieces 

 of music or the " score " he is to sing on the particular days and 

 hours. The singer sings with open book [a livre ouvert], his 

 eyes are directed by the book, and his tongue and throat are 

 directed by his eyes, but his soul sings, so to speak, by memory 

 or by something equivalent to memory ; for since the music- 

 book, the eyes and the ears cannot act upon the soul, it must 

 by itself, and indeed without trouble or application and without 

 seeking it, find what his brain and organs find with the help 

 of the book. The reason is that the whole " score " of the book 

 or books that shall, one after another, be followed in singing is 

 potentially [virtuellement] graven in his soul from the beginning 

 of its existence ; as this "score " was in some way graven in its 

 material causes before the pieces of music were composed and 

 the book made out of them. But the soul cannot be conscious 

 of it [s'en apercevoir\, for it is enveloped in the confused per- 

 ceptions of the soul, which express all the detail of the universe. 

 And the soul is distinctly conscious of it only at the time when 

 its organs are markedly affected by the notes of the " score." 

 ... I have already shown more than once that the soul does 

 many things without knowing how it does them, when it does 

 so by means of confused perceptions and unconscious [insensibles] 

 inclinations or appetitions, of which there is always a very 

 great number, and which it is impossible for the soul to be con- 

 scious of, or to unravel distinctly. . . . The soul has all the 

 instruments which M. Bayle thinks necessary, arranged [place] 

 as they ought to be. But they are not material instruments. 

 They are the preceding perceptions themselves, from which 

 the succeeding perceptions arise by the laws of appetitions 

 [appetite].' 



APPENDIX G. 



PROOF OF TrfE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 



THE view of Leibniz, expressed in the Monadology ( 44 and 

 45), must be carefully distinguished from the Cartesian argu- 

 ment (derived from Anselm) that the idea of God involves His 

 existence, because if He does not exist, a more perfect Being 

 may be conceived, namely one who does exist. It is also 

 to be distinguished from the view of Spinoza, which amounts 

 to saying that the essence of God involves His existence, because 



