OF THE NEW SYSTEM 323 



substances, through the special laws which each has at 

 the beginning received, were not a thing most admirable 

 in itself and worthy of its Author ! You ask also what 

 advantage I find in it. 



7. I might refer to what I have already said ; but 

 I reply, first, that when a thing cannot but be 13 , there 

 is no need to ask of what use it is, before we admit it. 

 Of what use is the incommensurability of the side with 

 the diagonal ? 



8. I reply in the second place, that this correspondence 

 is of use in explaining the communication of substances 

 and the union of the soul with the body, through the 

 laws of nature which have been established from the 

 first [par avance], without having recourse either to 

 a transmission of species 14 [qualities], which is incon- 

 ceivable, or to a new intervention of God, which seems 

 out of accord with the fitness of things. For it is to be 

 observed that as there are laws of nature in matter, so 

 there are also laws of nature in souls or forms ; and the 

 meaning of these laws is that which I have just indicated. 



9. Again, I am asked 15 whence it comes that God does 

 not think it enough to produce all the thoughts and 

 modifications of the soul, without these useless bodies, 

 which the soul, it is said, can neither move nor know. 

 The answer is easy. It was God's will that there should 



13 Has Leibniz shown that his pre-established harmony ' cannot 

 but be ' ? In the Remarques already quoted, he says : ' This elaborate 

 contrivance, which makes each substance correspond to all others, 

 is necessary because all substances are the effect of a supreme 

 wisdom ; and it was not otherwise possible (at any rate in the 

 order of nature and without miracles) to bring about their inter- 

 dependence and the changing of one by another or in consequence 

 of another. It nevertheless remains true that they act upon one 

 another, provided we give a right sense to these words. . . . God is 

 not obliged to make a system, about which we are not liable to 

 make mistakes ; as He was not obliged to avoid the system of the 

 earth's motion, in order to save us from the error into which 

 almost all astronomers fell until Copernicus ' (G-. iv. 492). 



u See Monadology, 7, note 10. 



15 E. has ' I shall be asked.' The question was put by Foucher 

 in his letter of objections. 



Y 2 



