304 NEW SYSTEM 



in comparison with which minds or rational souls are 

 like little gods, made in the image of God and having 

 within them some ray of the Divine enlightenment 

 \lumieres]. For this reason God governs minds [esprits] 

 as a prince governs his subjects, and indeed as a father 

 looks after his children ; while, on the other hand, He 

 deals with other substances as an engineer works with his 

 machines. Thus minds \esprits] have special laws which 

 put them above the revolutions of matter through the 

 very order which God has put in them 28 ; and it may be 

 said that everything else is made only for them, these 

 revolutions themselves being arranged for the felicity of 

 the good and the punishment of the wicked 29 . 



6. However, to return to ordinary forms or material 

 souls, the duration which must be attributed to them 

 (in place of that which used to be attributed to atoms) 

 might lead to a doubt whether they do not go from body 

 to body; which would be metempsychosis, something 

 almost analogous to the transmission of motion and the 

 transmission of species 31 which certain philosophers have 

 maintained. But this fancy is very far from the nature 

 of things. There is no such passing 32 . And here the 

 transformations noted by MM. Swammerdam, Malpighi, 

 and Leuwenhoek 33 , who are among the most excellent 



28 i Through the very order which God has put in them ' is given 

 by G., but not by E. 



29 Cf. Monadology, 83, 84, 89. 



30 E. has dmes materieUes while G. has dmes brutes. Leibniz prob- 

 ably wrote brutes in order to avoid the ambiguity of the other 

 expression, which seems to suggest that some souls are 'material,' 

 while Leibniz, of course, holds that all are 'immaterial.' By 

 ' material or brute souls ' he means the souls which are ' sunk 

 in matter' ( 5), i.e. unconscious souls, in which matter as a 

 phenomenon is bene fundatum. 



31 i. e. transference of quality from one body to another, as 

 when the quality of the leaven is imparted to the whole lump 

 or the red colour of a drop of wine is diffused throughout water. 

 Cf. Monadology, note 10. 



32 The First Draft says : ' This transmigration of souls is an 

 absurdity. The principles of substance do not flutter outside of 

 substances ' (G. iv. 474). 



33 ipj ie reference is to such changes as that from caterpillar to 



