NEW ESSAYS 385 



which perhaps my system alone clearly shows to be ^o 

 impossible 120 . 



We seem also to differ as regards matter in this, that 

 the author thinks there must be a void in it [matter] 121 

 for the sake of motion, because he believes that the 

 particles of matter are indivisible [roide]. And I admit 

 that if matter were composed of such parts, motion in 

 the plenum would be impossible, as if a room were filled 

 with a great many little pebbles, so that not even the 

 smallest place in it was empty. But this supposition 

 is not by any means granted, and indeed there does not 

 seem to be any reason for it ; although this able author 

 goes so far as to think that the rigidity or cohesion of its 

 particles constitutes the essence of the body. Space must 

 rather be conceived as full of an ultimately fluid matter, 



happy souls is compatible with the functions of their glorified 

 bodies, which will still remain organic in their own way.' Esprit 

 Universel Unique (E. 182 a ; G. vi. 536). 



120 For, according to Leibniz, no substance can be without an 

 activity of its own, and thus none can be lost in the ocean of the 

 one spirit. Against this idea that ' the universal spirit is like an 

 ocean composed of an infinity of drops, which are separated from 

 it when they animate some particular organic body, but are 

 reunited to their ocean after the destruction of the body's organs,' 

 Leibniz argues that ' as the ocean is a quantity of drops, God would 

 thus be an assemblage of all souls, somewhat in the same way as 

 a swarm of bees is an assemblage of these insects, but as the swarm 

 is not itself a genuine substance, it is clear that in this way the 

 universal spirit itself would not be a genuine being, and in place 

 of saying that it is the only spirit, we should have to say that in 

 itself it is nothing at all, and that in nature there is nothing but 

 individual souls of which it is the aggregate. ... If we hold that 

 the souls, when reunited to God, are without any functions of 

 their own, we fall into an opinion contrary to reason and to all 

 good philosophy, as if any being with a continued existence could 

 ever reach a state in which it is without function or impression. 

 For when one thing is combined with another it retains never- 

 theless its peculiar functions, which, when combined with the 

 functions of the others, produce the functions of the whole, other- 

 wise the whole would have no functions, if the parts had none.' 

 Esprit Universel Unique (E. 181 b ; G. vi. 535). 



121 E. omits <init' [y]. 



c c 



