Infinite Possible Universes

53. There is an infinity of possible universes among God’s ideas, and only one of them can exist

There must be a sufficient reason for God’s choice, which determines him to the one rather than to the other.

54. This reason can be found only in harmony, or the degrees of perfection which these worlds contain, since each possible world has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it includes.

Thus nothing is entirely arbitrary.

55. This is the cause of the existence of the best, which his wisdom makes him know, which is goodness makes him choose, and which his power makes him produce.

56. This interconnectedness, or this accommodation of all created things to each, and of each to all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations to all the others, which it expresses. Consequently, it is a permanent living mirror of the universe.

57. The same town looked at from different angles appears completely different, and is, as it were, multiplied perspectively.

In the same way, it emerges that, because of the infinite number of simple substances, there seem to be as many different universes as there are substances. However, these are only different perspectives on a single universe, according to the different points of view of each monad.

58. This is the means for obtaining as much variety as possible, but with the greatest order as possible. In other words, it is the means for obtaining as much perfection as possible.

59. This is the only hypothesis (although I think I have demonstrated its truth) which gives proper recognition to the greatness of God.

Mr Bayle recognises the fact when he criticises it in the article on Rorarius in his Dictionary. He even says he is tempted to believe that I attribute too much to God, and more than is possible. But he cannot cite any reason for the impossibility of this universal harmony, which brings it about that every substance precisely expresses all other substances through the relations it has to them.

60. Besides, what I have just said provides the apriori reasons why things could not happen in any other way.

In organising the whole, God paid attention to each part, and in particular to each monad. Since the nature of monads is to represent things, nothing could restrict them to representing only a selection from things.

This representation is merely a confused representation as far as the details of the universe as a whole is concerned, and that it can be distinct only over a very limited range of things.

In other words, monads have distinct representations only of the things which are closest to them, or relatively large. If this were not the case, each monad would be a divinity. Monads are not limited with respect to the objects of their knowledge, but with respect to the modes of their knowledge of their objects.

All of them penetrate to infinity, or to the whole — but confusedly. What makes them finite, and distinguishes one from another, is the variation in their distinct perceptions.

61. In this respect, compounds are analogous to simples.

The fact that there is no vacuum means that the whole of matter is interconnected. Each body is affected by its neighbours, and in one way or another it registers everything which happens to them.

But in a plenum, every motion has some effect on distant bodies in proportion to its distance.

So each body also registers what happens to its neighbours’ neighbours, through their mediation.

It follows that this communication extends to any distance whatever.

Consequently, all bodies register everything which happens in the universe. Someone who could see everything could read off from any individual what is happening everywhere, even what happened in the past, and what will happen in the future.

What is distant in time and place is observable in the here and now, as Hippocrates said: ‘Everything breathes together.’

But a soul can read in itself only what is represented there distinctly.

It cannot suddenly unfold all that is folded within it, since it extends to infinity.

62. So although each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body which is especially involved with it, and of which it constitutes the entelechy.

Just as this body expresses the whole universe by virtue of the interconnectedness of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe, by virtue of representing this body which belongs to it in a special way.

63. The monad to which a body belongs is either an entelechy or a soul.

If it belongs to an entelechy, the combination can be called a living being; and if it belongs to a soul, the combination can be called an animal.

This body of a living being or of an animal is always organic.

The reason is that, since each monad is a mirror of the universe in its own unique way, and since the universe is arranged with a perfect orderliness, there must be the same orderliness in that which represents it — in other words, in the perceptions of the soul, and consequently in the body, since the representation of the universe in the soul follows that which is in the body.

64. Thus the organic body of each living being is a sort of divine machine, or a natural automaton, which is infinitely superior to any manufactured automaton.

This is because a machine made by human technology is not a machine in each of its parts.

For example, the tooth of a brass cog wheel has parts or smaller bits; but as far as we are concerned, these are no longer something manufactured, and no longer have any anything which characterises them as a machine in relation to the intended function of the wheel.

But machines of nature, that is to say living bodies, are still machines in their smallest parts right down to infinity. This is what makes the difference between nature and technology — that is to say, between divine and human technology.

65. The Author of Nature was able to apply this divine and infinitely wonderful technology because each portion of matter is not only divisible to infinity (as the ancients recognised) but also actually sub-divided without end — each part divided into parts, of which each has some motion of its own. If this were not so, it would be impossible for each portion of matter to express the whole universe.

66. From this you can see that there is a world of created things — living beings, animals, entelechies, souls — in the smallest part of matter.

67. Each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond.

68. And although the earth and the air separating the plants in the garden, or the water separating the fish in the pond, are neither plant nor fish, yet they still contain them — though they are usually far too small for us to be able to perceive them.

69. Thus there is nothing uncultivated, sterile, or dead in the universe. If anywhere seems empty or confused, this is mere appearance. It is rather like how a pond might appear from a distance: you see a confused motion, and, so to speak, a threshing around of fish in the pond, without being able to make out the fish themselves.

70. You can see from this that each living body has a dominant entelechy, which is the soul in the case of an animal. But the parts of this living body are full of other living beings, plants, animals, of which each in its turn has its own dominant entelechy or soul.

71. But you mustn’t suppose (along with some who have misunderstood my thoughts) that each soul has a hunk or portion of matter, which is peculiar to it and assigned to it for ever, and consequently that it possesses other, inferior living beings which are permanently devoted to its service. All bodies are perpetually changing, like rivers; and particles join and leave them all the time.

72. Thus the soul changes its body only gradually and by degrees, so that it is never deprived of all its organs at one go. Animals often undergo metamorphosis, but never metempsychosis; nor is there any transmigration of souls. No more are there any completely separate souls, or superhuman beings without bodies. Only God is entirely detached from body.

73. This is also why there is never any generation from absolutely nothing, or complete death, taken in the strict sense of separation of the soul from the body. What we call ‘generation’ is unfolding and growth; just as what we call ‘death’ is infolding and shrinkage.