NEW ESSAYS 377 



small to great, and vice versa, through that which is 

 intermediate in degrees as in parts 9J ; and that a motion 

 never immediately arises from rest nor is immediately 

 reduced to rest, but comes or goes through a smaller 

 motion, just as we never completely traverse any line or 

 length without having traversed a smaller line, although 

 hitherto those who have laid down the laws of motion 

 have not observed this law, and have thought that a body 

 can in a moment receive a motion contrary to that which 

 it had immediately before 93 . And all this leads us to 

 think that noticeable perceptions also 91 come by degrees 

 from those which are too small to be noticed. To think 

 otherwise is to know little of the illimitable fineness 

 [subtilite] of things, which always and everywhere contains 

 [cnveloppe] an actual infinity 95 . 



I have also noticed that, in virtue of imperceptible 

 [insensible] variations, two individual things cannot be 

 perfectly alike, and that they must always differ more 

 than numero y V This makes an end of ' the empty tablets 

 of the soul,' 'a soul without thought,' 'a substance with- 

 out activity' [action], 'the void in space,' 'atoms,' and 



92 i. e. in degree as in quantity. 



93 Cf. Introduction, Part iii. pp. 87 sqq. 

 91 E. omits ' also.' 



95 See Monadology, 65, note 107. 



96 Cf. Introduction, Part ii. pp. 36 sqq. Also Monadology, 9, note 

 15, and Nouveanx Essais, bk. ii. ch. 27,. i (E. 277 b ; G. v. 213) : 

 ' Besides the difference of time and place, there must always be an 

 internal principle ^ distinction, and although there are several things 

 of the same kind, it is nevertheless true that none of them are 

 ever perfectly alike. Thus although time and place (that is to say, 

 external relation) enable us to distinguish things, which we do not 

 readily distinguish by themselves, the things are none the less 

 distinguishable in themselves. The exact determination of identity 

 and diversity is not a matter of time and place, although it is true 

 that the diversity of things is accompanied by that of time and 

 place ; because they ' [i. e. time and place] ' bring with them 

 different impressions about the thing. Not to mention the fact 

 that it is rather by means of the things that we must distinguish 

 one place or time from another, for in themselves they are perfectly 

 alike, but of course they are not substances or complete realities/ 



