Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/308

286 LEIBNITZ. ass"). A spirit capable of looking us through and through ■would be able to calculate all our volitions and actions beforehand. In spite of this admitted inevitableness of our resolutions and actions, the predicate of freedom really belongs to them, and this on two grounds. First, they are only physically or morally, not metaphysically, necessary ; as a matter of fact, it is true, they cannot happen otherwise, but their opposite involves no logical contradiction and remains conceivable. To express this thought the formula, often repeated since, that our motives only impel, incite, or stimulate the will, but do not compel it {inclinant, ?wn yiecessitant), was chosen, but not very happily. Secondly, the determination of the will is an inner necessitation, grounded in the being's own nature, not an external compulsion. The agent determines himself in accordance with his own nature, and for this each bears the responsibility himself, for God, when he brought the monads out of possibility into actuality, left their natures as they had existed before the creation in the form of eternal ideas in His understanding. Though Leibnitz thus draws a distinction beween his deterministic doctrine and the "fatalism" of Spinoza, he recognizes a second concept of freedom, which completely corresponds to Spinoza's. A decision is the more free the m.ore distinct the ideas which determine it, and a m.an the more free the more he withdraws his will from the influence of the passions, i. e., confused ideas, and subordinates it to that of reason. God alone is absolutely free, becaus'" he has no ideas which are not distinct. The bridge between the two conceptions of freedom is established by the principle that reason con- stitutes the peculiar nature of man in a higher degree than the sum of his ideas; for it is reason which distin- guishes him from the lower beings. According to the first meaning of freedom man is free, according to the second, which coincides with activity, perfection, and morality, he should become free. Morality is the result of the natural development of the individual. Every being strives after perfection or increased activity, i. e., after more distinct ideas. Parallel to this the- oretical advance runs a practical advance in a twofold form-