NEW SYSTEM 31 1 



make one part any the less different from another 51 . 

 Only atoms of substance, that is to say real units [unites] 

 absolutely devoid of parts, are the sources of actions, and 

 the absolute first principles of the composition of things 

 and, as it were, the ultimate elements in the analysis of 

 substantial things 52 . They might be called metaphysical 

 points ; they have something of the nature of life and 

 they have a kind of perception, and mathematical points 

 are their points of view 53 for expressing the universe. 

 But when a corporeal substance is contracted, all its 

 organs together make but one physical point for us 54 . 

 Thus physical points are only apparently indivisible. 

 Mathematical points are indivisible [exacts], but they are 

 only modalities. None but metaphysical or substantial 

 points (consisting of forms or souls) are indivisible [m*c] 

 and real ; and without them nothing would be real, since 

 without genuine units [unites] there would be no multi- 

 plicity 55 . 



12. Having settled these things, I thought I had 

 gained my haven, but when I set myself to meditate 

 upon the union of soul and body I was as it were driven 

 back into the deep sea. For I found no way of explaining 

 how the body transmits anything to the soul or vice versa, 

 nor how one substance can communicate with another 

 created substance. So far as can be gathered from his 

 writings, M/ Descartes gave this up 56 ; but his disciples, 



61 See Introduction, Part ii. p. 30. 



52 E. reads * substances/ In the First Draft, Leibniz says : 

 ' What constitutes corporeal substance must be something which 

 corresponds to what is called ego in us, which is indivisible and 

 nevertheless active [agissant], for being indivisible and without 

 parts, it will no longer be a being by aggregation, but being active 

 [agissant] it will be something substantial ' (GK iv. 473). 



53 E. reads 'point of view.' Mathematical points are merely 

 positions in space, and when we speak of positions in space, we 

 are describing in a confused way the essential differences between 

 Monads. Cf. Monadology, 60-62. 



54 Cf. Monadology, 68 and 69. 



65 Cf. Introduction, Part ii. pp. 28 sqq. 



66 < The human mind is not capable of distinctly conceiving the 

 difference of essence between soul and body and, at the same time, 



