298 NEW SYSTEM 



led to re-introduce into philosophy the ' substantial forms ' 

 of the Scholastics, and in what sense these forms, souls, simple 

 substances or real units are to be understood ; while in the 

 second ( 12-18) he applies his theory of substance to the 

 question of the relation between soul and body, mind and 

 matter, and finds that the problem can be satisfactorily solved 

 only through the hypothesis of a pre-established harmony 

 between all simple substances. Analyzing the title of the 

 paper, we may say that the first part deals with the nature 

 of substances and the second with their communication. 



Erdmann (E. 124 sqq.) gives the New System as it was origin- 

 ally published. Gerhardt (G. iv. 477 sqq.) gives it as it was 

 afterwards revised and altered by Leibniz, and he also prints 

 an interesting First Draft of it. I have translated from 

 Gerhardt's text, indicating its differences from Erdmann's; 

 and in the notes will be found some passages from the First 

 Draft. The paragraphs are numbered in E. ; but not in G. 



i. Several years ago I conceived this system and had 

 communications about it with learned men, especially 

 with one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of 

 our time 3 , who, having been informed of some of my 

 opinions by a person of the highest rank 4 , had found 

 them very paradoxical 5 . But having received explana- 

 tions from me, he withdrew what he had said in the 



3 * Mons. Arnauld.' Note by Leibniz, who tells us also that with 

 regard to his New System he ' followed the rule of Horace : nonumque 

 prematur in annum ' (G. iv. 490). There is an interesting account 

 of Arnauld and his friends in Stephen's Essays in Ecclesiastical 

 Biography, vol. i, Essay vi, The Port-Eoyalists. 



* Landgraf Ernest of Hesse-Kheinfels (1623-1693), who in 1652, 

 shortly after the close of the Thirty Years' War, became a Eoman 

 Catholic and published a justification of the course he had taken. 

 A copy of this work he sent to the Duke of Brunswick, and he 

 thus came into communication with Leibniz. They kept up 

 a correspondence on theological and ecclesiastical subjects until 

 the death of the Landgraf in 1693. 



5 Arnauld writes to the Landgraf : i I find in these thoughts 

 so many things which alarm me and at which almost all men, 

 if I am not mistaken, will be so shocked, that I do not see 

 what use there could be in a writing which apparently will be 

 rejected by everybody ' (G. ii. 15). Leibniz felt this very keenly ; 

 but Arnauld made ample explanations and apologies in a letter to 

 Leibniz himself. (G. ii. 25.) 



