ORIGINATION OF THINGS 347 



world than that of the feeble lamp which hardly suffices 

 to direct their steps. If you look at a very beautiful 

 picture, having covered up the whole of it except a very 

 small part, what will it present to your sight, however 

 thoroughly you examine it (nay, so much the more, the 

 more closely you inspect it), but a confused mass of 

 colours laid on without selection and without art ? Yet 

 if you remove the covering and look at the whole picture 

 from the right point of view, you will see that what 

 appeared to have been carelessly daubed on the canvas 

 was really done by the painter with very great art 33 . 

 The experience of the eyes in painting corresponds to 

 that of the ears in music. Eminent composers very 

 often mingle discords with harmonies so as to stimulate 

 and, as it were, to prick the hearer, who becomes anxious 

 as to what is going to happen, and is so much the more 

 pleased when presently all is restored to order ; just as 

 we take pleasure in small dangers or risks of mishap, 

 merely from the consciousness of our power or our luck 

 or from a desire to make a display of them ; or, again, as 

 we delight in the show of danger that is connected with 

 performances on the tight-rope or sword-dancing (sauts 

 perilleux) 3 *, and we ourselves in jest half let go a little 

 boy, as if about to throw him from us, like the ape which 

 carried Christiern, King of Denmark 35 , while still an 

 infant in swaddling-clothes, to the top of the roof, and 

 then, as in jest, relieved the anxiety of every one by 

 bringing him safely back to his cradle. On the same 

 principle sweet things become insipid if we eat nothing 

 else ; sharp, tart, and even bitter things must be com- 

 bined with them, so as to stimulate the taste. He 



33 A most interesting variant of this illustration occurs in 

 Bosanquet's Essentials of Logic, pp. 55 sqq. 



34 Leibniz gives the French phrase to explain his Latin. 



35 Probably Christiern or Christian V (1646-1699), the first 

 hereditary (not elected) King of Denmark, who was reigning at 

 the time when Leibniz wrote. In the text he is called Christiernus, 

 Christiern or Kristiern being the Danish form of the name. 



