We have to see that this contradiction on the side of existence has its correlate on the side of knowledge, and our examination of this fundamental deficiency in Leibniz is ended. Sensation is on the side of intelligence what matter is on the side of reality. It is confused knowledge, as matter is imperfect activity or reality. Knowledge is perfect only when it is seen to be necessary, and by "necessary" is meant that whose opposite is impossible, or involves contradiction. In spite, therefore, of Leibniz's thorough conviction that "matters of fact"--the subject-matter of physical science--are not arbitrary, he is yet obliged finally to agree with Locke that there is no certainty to be found in such knowledge, either as a whole or in any of its details. The element of sensation, of confused knowledge, cannot be eliminated. Hence it must always be open to any one to object that it is only on account of this imperfect factor of our knowledge that there appears to be a physical world at all, that the external world is an illusion produced by our sensations. And Leibniz himself, while claiming that the world of fact, as opposed to the realm of relations, possesses _practical_ reality, is obliged to admit that _metaphysically_ it may be only an orderly dream. The fact is that Leibniz unconsciously moves in the same circle, with relation to sensation and the material world, that confines Spinoza with regard to imagination and particular multiple existences. Spinoza explains the latter from that imperfection of our intelligence which leads us to imagine rather than to think. But he accounts for the existence of imagination, when he comes to treat that, as due to the plurality of particular things. So Leibniz, when an account of the existence of matter is demanded of him, refers to confused knowledge as its source, while in turn he explains the latter, or sensation, from the material element which sets bounds to the activity of spirit. Leibniz seems indeed, to advance upon Spinoza in admitting the reality of the negative factor in differentiating the purely self-identical, but he gives up what he has thus gained by interpreting the negation as passivity, or mere deprivation.