NEW SYSTEM OF THE NATURE OF SUB- 

 STANCES AND OF THE COMMUNICATION 1 

 BETWEEN THEM, AS WELL AS OF THE 

 UNION THERE IS BETWEEN SOUL AND 

 BODY 2 . 1695. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



IN this paper, which appeared anonymously in the Journal 

 des Savants of June, 1695, we nave Leibniz's first public state- 

 ment of his New System (see Introduction, Part i. p. 12). In 

 character it is much more tentative than his later writings, 

 and it is only towards the end of the paper ( 17) that he 

 ventures to speak of his view as 'more than a hypothesis.' 

 This is very characteristic of Leibniz : he likes to advance by 

 suggestion and hypothesis. But he regards hypothesis as 

 merely a stepping-stone : he will not rest there if it is possible 

 to go farther. ' In matters where certainty can be obtained, 

 I will not use hypotheses,' he says to Bernouilli (G. Math. iii. 

 575). And nearly twenty years after he published the New 

 System, Leibniz writes of ' this hypothesis, which I venture to 

 call proved ' (Monadology, 59). Thus the peculiar interest of 

 the New System is that it lets us see something of Leibniz's 

 philosophy in the making. For in this work he writes histori- 

 cally, indicating to us the course which his thought took. 



The New System may be divided into two main parts, in the 

 first of which ( i-n inclusive) Leibniz shows us how he was 



1 i. e. inter-relation or interaction. 



3 The title in the First Draft is New system for explaining the nature 

 of substances and their communication with one another, as well as the union 

 of soul with body. 



