Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
The important point in Leibnitz’s philosophy is this intellectuality
of representation which Leibnitz, however, did not succeed in carrying
out; and for the same reason this intellectuality is at the same time
infinite multiplicity, which has remained absolutely independent,
because this intellectuality has not been able to obtain mastery over
the One. The separation in the Notion, which proceeds as far as release
from itself, or appearance in distinct independence, Leibnitz did not
succeed in bringing together into unity. The harmony of these two
moments, the course of mental representations and the course of things
external, appearing mutually as cause and effect, is not brought by
Leibnitz into relation in and for themselves; he therefore lets them
fall asunder, although each is passive as regards the other. He moreover
considers both of them in one unity, to be sure, but their activity
is at the same time not for themselves. Every forward advance becomes
therefore incomprehensible when taken by itself, because the course
of the representation as through aims in itself, requires this moment
of Other-Being or of passivity; and again the connection of cause and
effect requires the universal: each however lacks this its other moment.
The unity which according to Leibnitz is to be brought about by the
pre-established harmony, namely that the determination of the will of man
and the outward change harmonize, is therefore brought about by means of
another, if not indeed from without, for this other is God. Before God
the monads are not to be independent, but ideal and absorbed in Him.