32 NATURE AND LIFE. 



and God. The demon of geometry, accused of having been 

 the evil genius of Descartes, never tormented Leibnitz ; his 

 philosophy does not issue from that source. Nevertheless, 

 that philosophy is a star that, after seeming eclipse, rises 

 anew to illuminate us. In the light of its rays, it may be 

 unwittingly, sciences gain unlooked-for power, and are in- 

 vigorated by grand inspirations. Be its term of revolution 

 long or brief, it will have been the guiding star, through 

 all the course of its circuit, for the most useful and produc- 

 tive studies. We shall attempt to prove this assertion ; but 

 first we must renew the recollection of the principles lying 

 at the foundation of Leibnitz's metaphysics, and the too- 

 unfamiliar aggregate of his scientific teachings. 



Our senses are struck by an endless variety of per- 

 plexed and intertangled phenomena ; our mind is a restless, 

 limitless ocean, full to overflow of impressions, thoughts, 

 and longings. By what means do we attain the concep- 

 tion of any single distinct thing in this measureless chaos ? 

 By unceasing action and reaction of the external upon 

 ourselves, and of ourselves upon the external. We begin 

 by dividing the I from the not T, and this process gives us 

 the perception of a profound difference between these two 

 terms. The not I, the external, impresses us at once, from 

 the most general point of view, that of motions and forms, 

 with something purely geometrical; but we also discern 

 in it another, more hidden element, which Leibnitz dis- 

 cusses admirably; that is, resistance, spring, inward and 

 latent force. At the bottom of those phenomenal shows, 

 which Descartes reduces to what he calls material points, 

 and to motion, the Hanoverian philosopher detects a very 

 different notion, that of " force not myself," as Maine de 

 Biran uses the expression, in virtue of which the external 

 object resists the effort of will, limits and confines it, and 



