We can see this even in the simple case of the familiar “infinite series” of arithmetic and algebra. Such a series as 1, 1/2, 1/4 ... is “infinite” not merely because you never come to the last term, but because its character is determined from _within_, solely by the principle according to which each term is derived from the one before it; that the series has no end is a simple consequence of this positive property of self-determination. But suppose I take _n_ terms of this series and no more, where _n_ is a specified number, the resulting series is now _finite_, not primarily because there are more terms of the same kind outside it, but because the number of terms to be taken is not prescribed by the law of formation of the series, but fixed with reference to some object independent of the principle of the series itself. In other words, only the infinite is in the full sense of the words a completely self-determined whole. The finite is the imperfect, not primarily because there is something outside it, but because its contents are not solely prescribed by the principle of structure which they embody. I, for instance, am a finite being, not principally or merely because there are other men in the world, but because my ideas and purposes are not a fully coherent systematic whole in themselves.[70] The view we have taken of individuality and the distinction between finite and infinite individuality is closely akin to some of the most fundamental ideas in the philosophy of Leibnitz. It was the doctrine of Leibnitz that each of his monads “represented” the nature of the whole system of existence, _i.e._ repeated the structure of the whole in its own special structure, from a particular “point of view.” According to the fulness and clearness of the “representation,” _i.e._ the adequacy with which the structure of the monad repeated the structure of the whole system, the monads were classed as higher or lower in the scale of existence. The clearer a monad’s representation of the whole within itself, the greater the monad’s “activity”; the more confused the representation, the greater its “passivity.” It followed that, inasmuch as no created monad fully exhibits the systematic structure of the whole of Reality within itself, every one contains some element of “passivity,” and that to be “passive” primarily means not to be affected by extraneous influences, but to contain internal “confusion.”