400 NEW ESSAYS 



which seeks reasons, and the Divine wisdom which 

 furnishes them., 



Now as to thinking it is certain, and our author 

 more than once allows it, that it cannot be a modification 

 of matter that is intelligible or can be comprehended 

 and explained by matter 177 : that is to say, a feeling or 

 thinking being is not a mechanical thing, like a watch 

 or a mill, so that one might conceive sizes, figures and 

 motions, the mechanical combination of which could pro- 

 duce something thinking and even feeling in a quantity 

 of matter in which there was nothing of this kind 

 which thinking and feeling would also come to an end in 

 the same way when the mechanism falls into disorder 178 . 

 Accordingly it is not a natural thing for matter to feel 

 and to think, and this can take place in it only in two 

 ways, 'one of which is, that God should unite with it a 

 substance to which it is natural to think, and the other 

 is, that God should miraculously impart thinking to it. 

 In this matter, then, I am entirely of the opinion of the 

 Cartesians, except that I extend it even to the lower 

 animals, and hold that they have feeling [sentiment], and 

 that their souls are immaterial (properly speaking) and 

 no more perishable than are atoms according to Demo- 

 critus or Gassendi 179 ; while the Cartesians, who are 

 without reason perplexed regarding the souls of the 

 lower animals, not knowing what to make of them 

 if there is conservation of them (because it has not 

 occurred to them that there is conservation of the animal 

 itself in a minute form), have been compelled to deny 

 even feeling [sentiment] to the lower animals, contrary 

 to all appearance and to the judgment of mankind 180 . 



which he is speaking is a ' lazy ' one, because acceptance of it 

 would imply that it is futile to investigate the * secrets of things.' 



177 E. omits from l or can be ' to ' matter.' 



178 Cf. Monadology, 17. 



179 Cf. New System, 4. 



180 See Monadology, 14. 



