Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding: A Critical ExpositionDewey, John
Philosophy
Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding: A Critical Exposition
Dewey, John
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
We have thus discovered that all motions conspire together, or
form a system. But in their unity they do not cease to be motions,
or variously differentiated members. Through this differentiation,
or mutual reaction of motions, there comes about the appearance of
boundaries, of separation. From these boundaries or terminations
arise the form and size of bodies. From motion also proceeds the
cohesion of bodies, in the sense that each relative system resists
dissolution, or hangs together. Says Leibniz, "The motions, since they
are conspiring, would be troubled by separation; and accordingly this
can be accomplished only by violence and with resistance." Not only
form, size, and stability depend upon motion, but also the sensible,
the "secondary" qualities. "It must not be supposed that color, pain,
sound, etc., are arbitrary and without relation to their causes. It is
not God's way to act with so little reason and order. There is a kind
of resemblance, not entire, but of relation, of order. We say, for
example, 'Light is in the fire,' since there are motions in the fire
which are imperceptible in their separation, but which are sensible
in their conjunction or confusion; and this is what is made known in
the idea of light." In other words, color, sound, etc., even pain,
are still the perception of motion, but in a confused way. We thus see
how thoroughly Leibniz carries back all the properties of bodies to
motion. To sum up, motion is the origin of the relative solidity, the
divisibleness, the form, the size, the cohesion, or active resistance
of bodies, and of their properties as made known to us in immediate
sensation.
In all that has been said it has been implied that extension is already
in existence; "first matter" is supposed to fill all space, and motion
to determine it to take upon itself its actual concrete properties. But
this "first matter," when thus spoken of, has a somewhat mythological
sound, even if it be admitted that it is an abstraction. For how can
an abstraction be extended in space, and how can it form, as it were,
a background upon which motion displays itself? The idea of "first
matter" in its relation to extension evidently demands explanation. In
seeking this explanation we shall also learn about that "subject" which
Leibniz said was necessarily presupposed in extension, as a concrete
thing is required for a quality.
The clew to the view of Leibniz upon this point may be derived, I
think, from the following quotations:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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