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it has knowledge of self,—that is, of the nature of pure spirit,—or, what again is equivalent to this, of the nature of reality as it universally is. Such knowledge is knowledge of God, of substance, of unity, of pure activity, and of all the innate ideas which elevate the confused perceptions of sense into science. Distinct consciousness is therefore equivalent to self-activity, and this to recognition of God and the universal. But if knowledge is confused, it is not possible to see it in its relations to self; it cannot be analyzed; the rational or ideal element in it is concealed from view. In confused ideas, therefore, the soul appears to be passive; being passive, to be determined from without. This determination from without is equivalent to that which is opposed to spirit or reason, and hence appears as matter. Such is in outline the Leibnizian philosophy.
It thus is clear that merely stating that matter is passivity in the monad is not the ultimate way of stating its nature. For passivity means in reality nothing but confused representations,—representations, that is, whose significance is not perceived. The true significance of every representation is found in its relation to the ego, or pure self-activity, which, through its dependent relation upon God, the absolute self-activity and ego, produces the representation from its own ideal being. So far as the soul does not have distinct recognition of relation of all representations to self, it feels them as coming from without; as foreign to spirit; in short, as matter. Leibniz thus employs exactly the same language about confused ideas that he does about passivity, or matter. It is not possible that the monad should have distinct consciousness of itself as a mirror of the whole universe, he says, “for in that case every entelechy would be God.” Again, “the soul would be God if it could enter at once and with distinctness into everything occurring within it.” But it is necessary “that we should have passions which consist in confused ideas, in which there is something involuntary and unknown, and which represent the body and constitute our imperfection.” Again, he speaks of matter as “the mixture (mélange) of the effects of the infinite environing us.” In that expression is summed up his whole theory of matter. It is a mixture; it is, that is to say, confused, aggregated, irresolvable into simple ideas. But it is a mixture of “effects of the infinite about us;” that is, it takes its rise in the true, the real, the spiritual. It only fails to represent this as it actually is. Matter, in short, is a phenomenon dependent upon inability to realize the entire spiritual character of reality. It is spirit apprehended in a confused, hesitating, and passive manner.
It is none the less a necessary phenomenon, for it is involved in the idea of a continuous gradation of monads, in the distinction between the infinite and the finite, or, as Leibniz often prefers to put it, between the “creator” and the “created.” There is involved everywhere in the idea of Leibniz the conception of subordination; of a hierarchy of forms, each of which receives the law of its action from the next higher, and gives the law to the next lower. We have previously considered the element of passivity or receptivity as relating only to the monad which manifests it. It is evident, however, that what is passive in one, implies something active in another. What one receives, is what another gives. The reciprocal influence of monads upon one another, therefore, as harmonious members of one system, requires matter. More strictly speaking, this reciprocal influence is matter. To take away all receptivity, all passivity, from monads would be to isolate them from all relations with others; it would be to deprive them of all power of affecting or being affected by others. That is what Leibniz meant by the expression already quoted, that if monads had not matter as an element in them, “they would be, as it were, deserters from the general order.” The note of unity, of organic connection, which we found to be the essence of the Leibnizian philosophy, absolutely requires, therefore, matter, or passivity.
It must be remembered that this reciprocal influence is ideal. As Leibniz remarks, “When it is said that one monad is affected by another, this is to be understood concerning its representation of the other. For the Author of things has so accommodated them to one another that one is said to suffer (or receive from the other) when its relative value gives way to that of the other.” Or again, “the modifications of one monad are the ideal causes of the modifications of another monad, so far as there appear in one the reasons on account of which God brought about in the beginning certain modifications in another.” And most definitely of all: “A creature is called active so far as it has perfection; passive in so far as it is imperfect. One creature is more perfect than another so far as there is found in it that which serves to render the reason, a priori, for that occurring in the other; and it is in this way that it acts upon the other.”
We are thus introduced, from a new point of view and in a more concrete way, to the conception of pre-established harmony. The activity of one, the energy which gives the law to the other and makes it subordinate in the hierarchy of monads, is conceived necessarily as spirit, as soul; that which receives, which is rendered subordinate by the activity of the other, is body. The pre-established harmony is the fact that they are so related that one can receive the law of its activity from the other. Leibniz is without doubt partially responsible for the ordinary misconception of his views upon this point by reason of the illustration which he was accustomed to use; namely, of two clocks so constructed that without any subsequent regulation each always kept perfect time with the other,—as much so as if there were some actual physical connection between them. This seems to put soul and body, spirit and matter, as two co-ordinate substances, on the same level, with such natural opposition between them that some external harmony must arrange some unity of action. In causing this common idea of his theory of pre-established harmony, Leibniz has paid the penalty for attempting to do what he often reproves in others,—imagining or presenting in sensible form what can only be thought. But his other explanations show clearly enough that the pre-established harmony expresses, not a relation between two parallel substances, but a condition of dependence of lower forms of activity upon the higher for the law of their existence and activity,—in modern terms, it expresses the fact that phenomena are conditioned upon noumena; that material facts get their significance and share of reality through their relation to spirit.
We may sum up what has been said about matter as an element in the monad, or as a metaphysical principle, as follows: The existence of matter is not only not opposed to the fundamental ideas of Leibniz, but is a necessary deduction from them. It is a necessity of the principle of continuity; for this requires an infinity of monads, alike indeed in the universal law of their being, but unlike, each to each, in the specific coloring or manifestation of this law. The principle of organic unity requires that there be as many real beings as possible participating in and contributing to it. It is necessary, again, in order that there may be reciprocal influence or connection among the monads. Were it not for the material element in the monad, each would be a God; if each were thus infinite and absolute, there would be so many principles wholly independent and isolated. The principle of harmony would be violated. So much for the necessity of the material factor. As to its nature, it is a principle of passivity; that is, of ideal receptivity, of conformity to a law apparently not self-imposed, but externally laid down. This makes matter equivalent to a phenomenon; that is to say, to the having of confused, imperfect, inadequate ideas. To say that matter is correlative to confused ideas is to say that there is no recognition of its relation to self or to spirit. As Leibniz sometimes puts it, since there is an infinity of beings in the universe, each one of which exercises an ideal influence upon every other one of the series, it is impossible that this other one should realize their full meaning; they appear only as confused ideas, or as matter. To use language which Leibniz indeed does not employ, but which seems to convey his thought, the spirit, not seeing them as they really are, does not find itself in them. But matter is thus not only the confused manifestation or phenomenon of spirit, it is also its potentiality. Passivity is always relative. It does not mean complete lack of activity; that, as Leibniz says, is nothingness, and matter is not a form of nothingness. Leibniz even speaks of it as passive power. That is to say, there is an undeveloped or incomplete activity in what appears as matter, and this may be,—if we admit an infinity of time,—must be developed. When developed it manifests itself as it really is, as spirit. Confused ideas, as Leibniz takes pains to state, are not a genus of ideas antithetical to distinct; they differ only in degree or grade. They are on their way to become distinct, or else they are distinct ideas which have fallen back into an “involved” state of being. Matter, therefore, is not absolutely opposed to spirit,—on the