NEW SYSTEM 313 



possible the soul or any other real substance should receive 

 anything from outside, unless through the Divine omni- 

 potence, I was insensibly led to an opinion which 

 surprised me, but which seems inevitable and which, in 

 fact, has very great advantages and very considerable 

 beauties. It is this, that God at first so created the soul, 

 or any other real unity, that everything must arise 59 in 

 it from its own inner nature [fonds] with a perfect 

 spontaneity as regards itself and yet with a perfect con- 

 formity to things outside of it. And thus our inner 

 feelings [sentiments] (that is to say, those which are in 

 the soul itself and not in the brain or in the finer parts 

 of the body), being only connected phenomena of external 

 things or rather genuine appearances and, as it were, 

 well-ordered dreams 60 , these internal perceptions in the 

 soul itself must come to it from its original constitution, 

 that is to say from the representative nature (capable of 

 expressing beings outside of it in relation to its organs 61 ) 

 which was given to it at creation and which constitutes 

 its individual character. And accordingly, since each of 

 these substances accurately represents the whole universe 

 in its own way and from a certain point of view, and 

 the perceptions or expressions of external things come 

 into the soul at their appropriate time, in virtue of its 

 own laws, as in a world 6 ' 2 by itself and as if there existed 

 nothing but God and the soul (to adopt the phrase of 

 a certain person of high intellectual power, renowned 

 for his piety 63 ), there will be a perfect agreement between 

 all these substances, which will have the same result as 

 would be observed if they had communication with one 



* 



59 E. has 'arises.' As to the 'spontaneity* of the soul and its 

 'creation,' see Monadology, 47, note 75. 



60 ' And so genuine that they can be successfully foreseen.' First 

 Draft (G. iv. 477). See Introduction, Part iii. p. 98 sqq. 



61 That is, according to the nature and disposition of its organs. 



62 E. has 'the world.' 



63 Kirchmann suggests that this may perhaps refer to Foucher. 

 But Leibniz uses the phrase, without any special reference or 

 acknowledgment, in a letter to Foucher, written in 1686. (G. i. 382.) 



