Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/303

THE ORGANIC WORLD. 281 the dose connection of the elements of the organism thus postulated, Leibnitz, in the discussions with Father Des Bosses concerning the compatibility of the Monadology with the doctrine of the Church, especially with the real presence of the body of Christ in the Supper, consented, in favor of the dogma, to depart from the assumption that the simple alone could be substantial and to admit the possibility of composite substances, and of a "substantial bond" con- necting the parts of living beings. It appears least in contradiction with the other principles of the philosopher to assign the role of this vinculum substantiale to the soul or central monad itself. Everything in nature is organized ; there are no soulless bodies, no dead matter. The smallest particle of dust is peopled with a multitude of living beings and the tiniest drop of water swarms with organisms: every portion of matter may be compared to a pond filled with fish or a garden full of plants. This denial of the inorganic does not release our philosopher from the duty of explaining its apparent existence. If we thoughtfully consider bodies, we perceive that there is nothing lifeless and non-representative. But the phenomenon of extended mass arises for our confused sensuous perception, which perceives the monads composing a body together and regards them as a continuous unity. Body exists only as a confused idea in the feeling subject; since, nevertheless, a reality without the mind, namely, an immaterial monad-aggregate, corresponds to it, the phe- nomenon of body is a well-founded one (^phenomenon bene fundatian). As matter is merely something present in sen- sation or confused representation, so space and time are also nothing real, neither substances nor properties, but only ideal things — the former the order of coexistences, the latter the order of successions. If there are no soulless bodies, there are also no bodiless souls; the soul is always joined with an aggregate of sub- ordinate monads, though not always with the same ones. Single monads are constantly passing into its body, or into its service, while others are passing out ; it is involved in a continuous process of bodily transformation. Usually the change goes on slowly and with a constant replacement of