[Footnote 25: Monadol. 38.]
The idea of God is of such a nature, that the being corresponding to it, if possible, must be actual. We have the idea; it involves no bounds, no negation, consequently no contradiction. It is the idea of a possible, therefore of an actual.
"God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Substance of which all the creatures, or original monads, are the products, and are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations from moment to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature, of whose existence limitation is an essential condition." [26]
[Footnote 26: Ib. 47.]
The philosophic theologian and the Christianizing philosopher will rejoice to find in this proposition a point of reconciliation between the extramundane God of pure theism and the cardinal principle of Spinozism, the immanence of Deity in creation,—a principle as dear to the philosophic mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to the theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-existent unit, divine in itself, but with no Divinity behind it. That of Leibnitz is an endless series of units from a self-existent and divine source. The one is an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood.
The doctrine of the Preëstablished Harmony, so intimately and universally associated with the name of Leibnitz, has found little favor with his critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach calls it his weak side, and thinks that Leibnitz's philosophy, else so profound, was here, as in other instances, overshadowed by the popular creed; that he accommodated himself to theology, as a highly cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his superiority, accommodates himself to a lady in his conversation with her, translating his ideas into her language, and even paraphrasing them. From this view of Leibnitz, as implying insincerity, we utterly dissent. [27]
[Footnote 27: See, in connection with this point, two admirable essays by Lessing,—the one entitled Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment, the other Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the Trinity. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's Defensio Trinitatis. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.]
The author of the "Théodicée" was not more interested in philosophy than he was in theology. His thoughts and his purpose did equal justice to both. The deepest wish of his heart was to reconcile them, not by formal treaty, but in loving and condign union. We do not, however, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the doctrine in question; and we quite agree with Feuerbach that the phrase préétablie does not express a metaphysical determination. It is one thing to say, that God, by an arbitrary decree from everlasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every motion in the world of matter that each volition of a rational agent finds in the constant procession of physical forces a concurrent event by which it is executed, but which would have taken place without his volition, just as the mail-coach takes our letter, if we have one, but goes all the same, when we do not write,—this is the gross, exoteric view,—and a very different thing it is to say, that the monads composing the human system and the universe of things are so related, adjusted, accommodated to each other, and to the whole, each being a representative of all the rest and a mirror of the universe, that each feels all that passes in the rest, and all conspire in every act, [28] more or less effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the prime agent. This is Leibnitz's idea of preëstablished harmony, which, perhaps, would be better expressed by the term "necessary consent." "In the ideas of God, each monad has a right to demand that God, in regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have regard to it; for since a created monad can have no physical influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that one can be dependent on another."—"The soul follows its own laws and the body follows its own, and they meet in virtue of the preëstablished harmony which exists between all substances, as representatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according to the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc. Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. And the two kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, harmonize with each other." [29]
[Footnote 28: In this connection, Leibnitz quotes the remarkable saying of Hippocrates, [Greek: Sumpnoia panta]. The universe breathes together, conspires.—Monadal. 61.]
[Footnote 29: Monadol. 78, 79.]