Now I quote (§62) a sentence that reëchoes the most beautiful philosophy of the Orient. Leibnitz has seen as distinctly as the old nature worshippers of the early Aryans, that “every monad represents the entire universe.” This short sentence is the key to all mystical philosophy and to all magic; it is only second to such sentences as these: “God dwells in all things in His fullness,” (Vemana verse), and “The world is the image of God,” (Sufi philosophy).
It is a common mistake in the world to believe that God and his truth is only to be found in the Grand, in the Large, in the infinitely large.
In opposition to this, much of our mystical and esoteric philosophy points to the infinitely Small, declaring, that if we can become humble enough to descend to nature’s workshop, we shall learn more from the “atoms in space” upon which God let fall a “beam of his glory,” than from all the magnificent systems of the learned. Hear what Leibnitz himself says, though he is not a mystic. He ought to have been, for his insight was truly remarkable. He declares: (§66) “There is a world of creatures, of living things, of animals, of Perfection of souls, in the minutest portion of matter.” (§67) “Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of plants, or as a pond full of fishes—all swarming with life!“
Keep this in mind, that I am not talking about atoms of MATTER, but of atoms of substance, real unities, the first principles in the composition of things. Leibnitz himself, besides calling these corpuscular units Monads, has also called them Metaphysical points, and Scaliger called them seeds of eternity, and a Persian poet has put it very clearly before us, that an atom is not a unit, by saying, ”Cleave an atom, and you will find in it a Sun.” Here is the kernel of our subject, the substance of an atom in space is the storehouse of the immanent forces to which elementals, and elementary spirits to some extent, have access, and by means of which they work.
This view is fully corroborated by a representative of modern science, Sir John F. W. Herschel, who has approached very near to the teachings of occult science by declaring the presence of mind in atoms. In the Fortnightly Review of 1865, Sir John Herschel stated as follows: “All that has been predicated of Atoms, ‘the dear little creatures,’ as Hermione said, all their hates and loves, their attractions and repulsions, according to the primary laws of their being, only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence of Mind.”
These various definitions of the Monads as given by Leibnitz, answer in many important points exactly to what we find in occult teachings about the Elementals, and I can see no good reason why we should not look upon Leibnitz’s Monadology as a work on Elementals.
We are really done with him as far as our subject is concerned, but before dismissing him to turn to other wisdom, permit me to quote a few more passages, though they do not bear directly upon the subjects of monads. He says (§83-86): “Among other differences which distinguish spirits from ordinary souls, there is also this: ‘That souls in general are living mirrors, or images of the universe of creatures, but spirits are, furthermore, images of Divinity itself, or of the Author of Nature, capable of cognizing the system of the universe, and of imitating something of it by architectonic experiments, each spirit being, as it were, a little divinity in its own department.’—Hence spirits are able to enter into a kind of fellowship with God.—All spirits constitute the City of God—that is to say, the most perfect state possible under the most perfect of monarchs.—The City of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural; and it is the most exalted and the most divine among the works of God.”
(To be continued.)