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of truths; namely, that supreme and universal spirit, which must exist, and whose understanding is, in reality, the region of the eternal truths. And in order that it may not be thought that it is not necessary to have recourse to this region, we must consider that these necessary truths contain the determining reason and regulative principle of existence, and, in a word, of the laws of the universe. Thus these necessary truths, being anterior to the existences of contingent beings, must in turn be based upon the existence of a necessary substance.”
It is because facts are not mere facts, in short, but are the manifestation of a “determining reason and regulative principle” which finds its home in universal intelligence, that knowledge of them can become necessary and general.
The general nature of truths of reason and of their ruling principle, identity and contradiction, has already been given in the quotation regarding the principle of sufficient reason. It is Leibniz’s contention that only in truths whose opposite is seen to involve self-contradiction can we have absolute certainty, and that it is through connection with such eternal truths that the certainty of our other knowledge rests. It is thus evident why Leibniz insists, as against Locke, upon the great importance of axioms and maxims. They are important, not merely in themselves, but as the sole and indispensable bases of scientific truth regarding all matters. Leibniz at times, it is true, speaks as if demonstrative and contingent truths were of themselves, in principle, distinct, and even opposed. But he also corrects himself by showing that contingency is rather a subjective limitation than an objective quality. We, indeed, do not see that the truth “I exist,” for example, is necessary, because we cannot see how its opposite involves contradiction. But “God sees how the two terms ‘I’ and ‘exist’ are connected; that is, why I exist.” So far as we can see facts, then, from the standpoint of the divine intelligence, so far, it would appear, our knowledge is necessary.
Since these axioms, maxims, or first truths are “innate,” we are in a condition to complete (for the first time) the discussion of innate ideas. These ideas constitute, as we have learned, the essential content of the divine intelligence, and of ours so far as we have realized our identity with God’s understanding. The highest form of knowledge, therefore, is self-consciousness. This bears the same relation to necessary truths that the latter bear to experience. “Knowledge of necessary and eternal truths,” says Leibniz, “distinguishes us from simple animals, and makes us have reason and science, elevating us to the knowledge of ourselves. We are thus developed to self-consciousness; and in being conscious of ourselves we are conscious of being, of substance, of the simple, of the spiritual, of God.” And again he says that “those that know necessary truths are rational spirits, capable of self-consciousness, of recognizing what is termed Ego, substance, and monad. Thus they are rendered capable of demonstrative knowledge.” “We are innate to ourselves; and since we are beings, being is innate to us, for knowledge of it is implicit in that which we have of ourselves.”
Knowledge, in fine, may be regarded as an ascending series of four terms. The first is constituted by sensations associated together in such a way that a relation of antecedence and consequence exists between them. This is “experience.” The second stage comes into existence when we connect these experiences, not by mere relations of “consecution,” but by their conditions, by the principle of causality, and especially by that of sufficient reason, which connects them with the supreme intelligence, God. This stage is science. The third is knowledge of the axioms and necessary truths in and of themselves, not merely as involved in science. The fourth is self-consciousness, the knowledge of intelligence, in its intimate and universal nature, by which we know God, the mind, and all real substance. In the order of time the stage of experience is first, and that of self-consciousness last. But in the lowest stage there are involved the others. The progress of knowledge consists in the development or unfolding of this implicit content, till intelligence, spirit, activity, is clearly revealed as the source and condition of all.
Chapter XI.
The Theology of Leibniz.
One of the chapters concerning knowledge is entitled, “The Knowledge that we have of God.” This introduces us to the theology of Leibniz and indirectly to the completion of those ethical doctrines already outlined in the chapter on will. Leibniz employs three arguments to prove the existence of God: that of God as the sufficient reason of the world (substantially the cosmological proof); of God as the source of the pre-established harmony (an extension of the teleological proof); and the ontological. The latter he accepts as it came from the hands of Descartes, but insists that it requires an added argument before it ranks as anything more than presumptive proof. The Anselmic-Cartesian argument, as stated by Leibniz, is as follows: “God is defined as the greatest, or most perfect, of beings, or as a being of supreme grandeur and perfection. But in the notion of a perfect being, existence must be included, since it is something more to exist than not to exist. Or existence is a perfection, and hence must belong to the most perfect being; otherwise some perfection would be lacking, which is contrary to the definition.” Or as Descartes sometimes puts it, in the notion of anything like a tree, a mountain, a triangle, contingency is contained. We may conceive such an object to exist or not, as we like. There is no necessity involved in our thought. But we cannot think of a perfect being except as existing. It does not rest with the decision of our thinking whether or not to include existence in this notion. We must necessarily think existence as soon as we think such a being.
Leibniz takes a middle position, he says, between those who consider this a demonstrative argument, and those who regard it as a mere paralogism. It is pre-supposed by this argument that the notion of a Supreme Being is possible, or that it does not involve contradiction. This pre-supposition is to be proved. First, it is well to simplify the argument itself. The Cartesian definition may be reduced to this: “God is a being in whom existence and essence are one. From this definition it follows as a corollary that such a being, if possible, exists. For the essence of a thing being just that which constitutes its possibility, it is evident that to exist by its essence is the same as to exist by its possibility. Being in itself, then, or God, may be most simply defined as the Being who must exist if he is possible.”
There are two ways of proving this last clause (namely, that he is possible) the direct and the indirect. The indirect is employed against those who assert that from mere notions, ideas, definitions or possible essences, it is not possible to infer actual existence. Such persons simply deny the possibility of being in itself. But if being-in-itself, or absolute being, is impossible, being-by-another, or relative, is also impossible; for there is no “other” upon which it may depend. Nothing, in this case, could exist. Or if necessary being is not possible, there is no being possible. Put in another way, God is as necessary for possibility as for actual existence. If there is possibility of anything, there is God. This leads up to the direct proof; for it follows that, if there be a possibility of God,—the Being in whom existence and essence are one,—he exists. “God alone has such a position that existence is necessary, if possible. But since there can be nothing opposed to the possibility of a being without limit,—a being therefore without negations and without contradiction,—this is sufficient to prove a priori the existence of God.” In short, God being pure affirmation, pure self-identity, the idea of his Being cannot include contradiction, and hence is possible,—and since possible, necessary. Of this conception of God as the purely self-identical, without negation, we shall have something to say in the next chapter.
The cosmological proof is, as we have already seen, that every cause in the world being at the same time an effect, it cannot be the sufficient reason of anything. The whole series is contingent, and requires a ground not prior to, but beyond, the series. The only sufficient reason of anything is that which is also the sufficient reason of itself,—absolute being. The teleological argument Leibniz invariably, I believe, presents in connection with the idea of pre-established harmony. “If the substances of experience,” runs the argument, “had not received their being, both active and passive, from one universal supreme cause, they would be independent of one another, and hence would not exhibit that order, harmony, and beauty which we notice in