320 FIRST EXPLANATION 



him my opinion as to this ; but he had perhaps other views of 

 which I did not know enough. Yet he had much cleverness 

 and subtlety and he was a most virtuous man, and hence 

 I lament him.' (Cf. G. i. 365.) Leibniz replied to the objections 

 of Foucher in an Explanation of the Neiv System, which appeared 

 in the Journal des Savants for April, 1696. ^A further Explana- 

 tion (called by Erdmann the Troisieme Eclaircissement} was 

 published in the Journal for November, 1696. I have translated 

 these two Explanations, omitting that which Dutens and 

 Erdmann call Second Eclaircissement (E. 133, J. S. Feb. 1696, 

 cf. G. iv. 498), as the Troisieme Eclaircissement contains practi- 

 cally the whole of it. 



In Foucher's letter of objections there appears the simile of 

 the clocks, which Leibniz passes over in his immediate reply 

 but takes up and develops in the Second and Third Explana- 

 tions. Foucher writes : ' It will be granted you that God, 

 the great Artificer of the universe, can so perfectly adjust all 

 the organic parts of a man's body, that they may be capable 

 of producing all the motions which the soul combined with 

 this body will desire to produce in the course of his life, with- 

 out the soul having the power to change these motions or to 

 modify them in any way, and that on the other hand God can 

 make a construction in the soul (be it a mechanism of a new 

 kind or not), by means of which all the thoughts and modifi- 

 cations which correspond to these motions might successively 

 arise at the same moment in which the body performs its 

 corresponding functions, and it will also be granted you that 

 this is no more impossible than to make two clocks keep time 

 [s'accorder] so well and go so uniformly that at the moment 

 clock A strikes twelve, clock B will strike twelve also, so that 

 we imagine the two clocks to be kept going by the same 

 weight or the same spring' (E. 129 b ; G. iv. 488). The 

 simile was originally applied in this way by Geulincx. See 

 Introduction, Part ii. p. 43 note ; cf. Third Explanation of the 

 New System, p. 331 note. 



In the translation of the Explanations I follow G.'s revised 

 text (G. iv. 493, 500 sqq.). E. gives them as they were origin- 

 ally published (E. 131, 134 sqq.). 



I recollect, Sir, that in compliance with what I under- 

 stood to be your desire, I communicated to you my 

 hypothesis in philosophy several years ago, although at 



