The way in which the question has just been stated suggests the Leibnizian answer. The monad, indeed, in its form is thoroughly individual, having its own unique mode of activity; but its content, that which this activity manifests, is not peculiar to it as an individual, but is the substance or law of the universe. It is the very nature of the monad to be representative. Its activity consists in picturing or reproducing those relations which make up the world of reality. In a conscious soul, the ability thus to represent the world is called "perception," and thus Leibniz attributes perception to all the monads. This is not to be understood as a conscious representation of reality to itself (for this the term "apperception" is reserved), but it signifies that the very essence of the monad is to produce states which are not its own peculiar possessions, but which reflect the facts and relations of the universe. Leibniz never wearies in finding new ways to express this purely representative character of the monad. The monads are little souls; they are mirrors of the world; they are concentrations of the universe, each expressing it in its own way; borrowing a term from scholasticism, they are "substantial forms." They are substantial, for they are independent unities; they are forms, because the term "form" expresses, in Aristotelian phraseology, the type or law of some class of phenomena. The monad is an individual, but its whole content, its objectivity or reality, is the summation of the universe which it represents. It is individual, but whatever marks it as actual is some reproduction of the world. His reconciliation of the principles of individuality and universality is contained in the following words: "Each monad contains within itself an order corresponding to that of the universe,--indeed, the monads represent the universe in an infinity of ways, all different, and all true, thus multiplying the universe as many times as is possible, approaching the divine as near as may be, and giving the world all the perfection of which it is capable." The monad is individual, for it represents reality in its own way, from its own point of view. It is universal, for its whole content is the order of the universe.