3^0 NEW ESSAYS 



or other, of one and the same kind 10 \ ever come perfectly 

 alike from the hands of the Creator, and each has always 

 from the first a reference to the point of view it will have 

 in the universe 103 . But this indeed follows already from 

 what I observed regarding two individuals, namely, that 

 their difference is always more than a numerical one. There 

 is also another important point, as to which I must differ, 

 not only from the opinions of our author, but also from 

 those of the majority of modern writers. I believe, with 

 the majority of the ancients, that all superhuman spirits 

 [genies], all souls, all created simple substances are always 

 combined 107 with a body, and that there never are souls 

 entirely separated [from body] 108 . I have a priori reasons 

 for this, but it will also be found that the doctrine is of 

 advantage in this respect, that it solves all the philo- 

 sophical difficulties about the state of souls 109 , about their 

 perpetual preservation, about their immortality and about 

 their working ; for the difference between one state of 

 the soul arid another never is and never has been any- 

 thing but a difference between the more and the less 

 conscious [sensible], the more and the less perfect, or vice 

 versa, and thus the past or the future state of the soul 

 is as explicable as its present state 110 . The slightest 

 reflexion makes it sufficiently evident that this is in 

 accordance with reason, and that a leap from one state to 

 another infinitely different state could not be natural. 

 I am surprised that the philosophic schools have without 

 reason given up natural explanation m , and have deliber- 

 ately plunged themselves into very great difficulties and 



103 E. reads ' no two human souls or two things of one and the 

 same kind/ 



106 Cf. Monadology, 51 sqq. 



1J7 E. omits ' combined,' reading ' sont toujours a un corps.' 



108 God alone is actus purus, without body. Cf. Introduction, 

 Part iii. pp. 108 sqq., and Monadology, 72, note 115. 



log This probably means questions as to what has been the state 

 of souls in the past and what will be their state in the future. 



110 See Introduction, Part iii. pp. 113 sqq. 



m E. reads 'nature.' 



