374 NEW ESSAYS 



a higher mind [esprit], although the individual himself 

 may not be conscious of them, that is to say, though he 

 may no longer have a definite recollection of them. But 

 they [these perceptions] furnish also the means of re- 

 covering this recollection, when it is needed, through 

 periodic developments which may some day occur 74 . That 

 is why death, owing to these perceptions 75 , can only be 

 a sleep, and cannot even last as a sleep, for in animals 

 perceptions merely cease to be distinct [distingue] enough 76 , 

 and are reduced to a state of confusion, in which con- 

 sciousness [aperception] is suspended, but which cannot 

 last for ever 77 , not to speak here of man who must have 

 great privileges in this regard in order to keep his 

 personality 78 . 



Further, the unconscious [insensible] perceptions ex- 

 plain 79 that wonderful pre-established harmony of body 

 and soul, and indeed of all Monads or simple substances, 

 which takes the place of the untenable theory of the 

 influence of one upon another, and which, in the opinion 



74 What is meant is that, as perceptions are not isolated but 

 linked together, they do not each independently rise and fall in 

 distinctness by a kind of chance, but as one group or system of 

 perceptions falls out of consciousness another rises into conscious- 

 ness, so that there is a kind of periodicity in our perceptions, with 

 troughs and crests as in wave-motion. Thus the recollection of any 

 former perception means that the system or group of which it is 

 a member has passed from the crest of consciousness to the trough 

 of sub-consciousness and so back to the crest again. Cf. Considerations 

 sur Za Doctrine d'un Esprit Universel Unique (1702) (E. 181 a; G. vi. 

 535) : ' The organs ' [of the animal] ' are merely " enveloped " and 

 reduced to a small size, but the order of nature requires that some 

 day all shall re-develop and return to an observable condition, and 

 that in these vicissitudes there be a certain well-ordered progress, 

 which serves to mature things and to bring them to perfection.' 

 For a development of this idea cf. James's Psychology, vol. i. ch. g. 



75 E. omits ' owing to these perceptions.' 



76 i. e. distinct enough to produce consciousness. 



77 The remainder of this sentence is omitted by E. 



7d Cf. Principles of Nature and of Grace, 12, note 51 ; Monadology, 82, 

 note 130. See also Introduction, Part iii. p. 116. 



79 E. reads ' by the unconscious perceptions I explain.' 



