And yet the method led Leibniz in a very different direction. One of the fundamental doctrines, for example, of Leibniz is the existence everywhere of minute and obscure perceptions,—which are of the greatest importance, but of which we, at least, can never have distinct consciousness. How is this factor of his thought, which almost approaches mysticism, to be reconciled with the statements just made? It is found in the different application which is made of the method. The object of Descartes is the erection of a new structure of truth upon a tabula rasa of all former doctrines. The object of Leibniz is the interpretation of an old body of truth by a method which shall reveal it in its clearest light. Descartes and Spinoza are “rationalists” both in their method and results. Leibniz is a “rationalist” in his method; but his application of the method is everywhere controlled by historic considerations. It is, I think, impossible to over-emphasize this fact. Descartes was profoundly convinced that past thought had gone wrong, and that its results were worthless. Leibniz was as profoundly convinced that its instincts had been right, and that the general idea of the world which it gave was correct. Leibniz would have given the heartiest assent to Goethe’s saying, “Das Wahre war schon längst gefunden.” It was out of the question, then, that he should use the new method in any other than an interpreting way to bring out in a connected system and unity the true meaning of the subject-matter.
So much of generality for the method of Leibniz. The positive substance of doctrine which he developed under scientific influence affords matter for more discussion. Of the three influences which meet us here, two are still Cartesian; the third is from the new science of biology, although not yet answering to that name. These three influences are, in order: the idea that nature is to be explained mechanically; that this is to be brought about through the application of mathematics; and, from biology, the idea that all change is of the nature of continuous growth or unfolding. Let us consider each in this order.
What is meant by the mechanical explanation of nature? To answer a question thus baldly put, we must recall the kind of explanations which had satisfied the scholastic men of science. They had been explanations which, however true, Leibniz says, as general principles, do not touch the details of the matter. The explanations of natural facts had been found in general principles, in substantial forces, in occult essences, in native faculties. Now, the first contention of the founders of the modern scientific movement was that such general considerations are not verifiable, and that if they are, they are entirely aside from the point,—they fail to explain any given fact. Explanation must always consist in discovering an immediate connection between some fact and some co-existing or preceding fact. Explanation does not consist in referring a fact to a general power, it consists in referring it to an antecedent whose existence is its necessary condition. It was not left till the times of Mr. Huxley to poke fun at those who would explain some concrete phenomenon by reference to an abstract principle ending in —ity. Leibniz has his word to say about those who would account for the movements of a watch by reference to a principle of horologity, and of mill-stones by a fractive principle.
Mechanical explanation consists, accordingly, in making out an actual connection between two existing facts. But this does not say very much. A connection of what kind? In the first place, a connection of the same order as the facts observed. If we are explaining corporeal phenomena, we must find a corporeal link; if we are explaining phenomena of motion, we must find a connection of motion. In one of his first philosophical works Leibniz, in taking the mechanical position, states what he means by it. In the “Confession of Nature against the Atheists” he says that it must be confessed to those who have revived the corpuscular theory of Democritus and Epicurus, to Galileo, Bacon, Gassendi, Hobbes, and Descartes, that in explaining material phenomena recourse is to be had neither to God nor to any other incorporeal thing, form, or quality, but that all things are to be explained from the nature of matter and its qualities, especially from their magnitude, figure, and motion. The physics of Descartes, to which was especially due the spread of mechanical notions, virtually postulated the problem: given a homogeneous quantity of matter, endowed only with extension and mobility, to account for all material phenomena. Leibniz accepts this mechanical view without reserve.
What has been said suggests the bearing of mathematics in this connection. Extension and mobility may be treated by mathematics. It is indeed the business of the geometer to give us an analysis of figured space, to set before us all possible combinations which can arise, assuming extension only. The higher analysis sets before us the results which inevitably follow if we suppose a moving point or any system of movements. Mathematics is thus the essential tool for treating physical phenomena as just defined. But it is more. The mechanical explanation of Nature not only requires such a development of mathematics as will make it applicable to the interpretation of physical facts, but the employment of mathematics is necessary for the very discovery of these facts. Exact observation was the necessity of the growing physical science; and exact observation means such as will answer the question, How much? Knowledge of nature depends upon our ability to measure her processes,—that is, to reduce distinctions of quality to those of quantity. The only assurance that we can finally have that two facts are connected in such a way as to fulfil the requirements of scientific research, is that there is a complete quantitative connection between them, so that one can be regarded as the other transformed. The advance of physical science from the days of Copernicus to the present has consisted, therefore, on one hand, in a development of mathematics which has made it possible to apply it in greater and greater measure to the discussion and formulation of the results of experiment, and to deduce laws which, when interpreted physically, will give new knowledge of fact; and, on the other, to multiply, sharpen, and make precise all sorts of devices by which the processes of nature may be measured. The explanation of nature by natural processes; the complete application of mathematics to nature,—these are the two thoughts which, so far, we have seen to be fundamental to the development of the philosophy of Leibniz.
The third factor, and that which brings Leibniz nearer, perhaps, our own day than either of the others, is the growth of physiological science. Swammerdam, Malpighi, Leewenhoek,—these are names which occur and recur in the pages of Leibniz. Indeed, he appears to be the first of that now long line of modern philosophers to be profoundly influenced by the conception of life and the categories of organic growth. Descartes concerned himself indeed with physiological problems, but it was only with a view to applying mechanical principles. The idea of the vital unity of all organs of the body might seem to be attractive to one filled with the notion of the unity of all in God, and yet Spinoza shows no traces of the influence of the organic conception. Not until Kant’s famous definition of organism do we see another philosopher moved by an attempt to comprehend the categories of living structure.
But it is the idea of organism, of life, which is radical to the thought of Leibniz. I do not think, however, that it can truly be said that he was led to the idea simply from the state of physiological investigation at that time. Rather, he had already learned to think of the world as organic through and through, and found in the results of biology confirmations, apt illustrations of a truth of which he was already thoroughly convinced. His writings show that there were two aspects of biological science which especially interested him. One was the simple fact of organism itself,—the fact of the various activities of different organs occurring in complete harmony for one end. This presented three notions very dear to the mind of Leibniz, or rather three moments of the same idea,—the factors of activity, of unity brought about by co-ordinated