each successive change is termed a Perception, and every monad is a living mirror, giving forth, after its own fashion, a picture of the universe, which is thus one vast collection of spiritual forces. These necessary elements of all concrete existence cannot all be reduced to one class or order, for they are distinguished by different degrees of perception and active power. Some are destitute of conscious perception, and these are the elements of which the material world is the result . Then there is the animating principle of the lower animals. There are also the self-conscious souls of men, containing in themselves the fountains of necessary truth. And these three classes of created forces or substances must have a sufficient reason for their existence. There cannot be an infinite series of contingents, and, if there could, the final reason even of such an infinite series could be found only in a necessary substance. Creation must thus involve the existence of One Supreme infinite, the monas monadum, from whom all that is finite has been derived, and in whose existence it finds its complete explanation. This Supreme Substance is God. He is the fountain of all reality. The attributes of the created monads, as far as they are perfect, result from the perfection of God; as far as they are imperfect, from the necessary imperfection of the creature.[1]
- ↑ The Monadologie of Leibnitz is discussed in the pieces presented for the competition (Sur le Système des Monades) proposed by the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and which, with the successful prize dissertation by T. H. G. Justi, were published at Berlin in 1748. Each side in the controversy has its able defenders among the writers of these curious disquisitions.
