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Locke, after discussing the subject of innate ideas in their relation to knowledge, goes on to discuss their practical side, or connection with will. We shall follow him in this as Leibniz does; but we shall consider in connection with this, Leibniz’s general theory of will, which is developed partially in this chapter, but more completely in his critical remarks upon what Locke has to say of the notion of “power.” Since the theory of morals is as closely connected with will as the theory of knowledge is with the intellect, we shall supplement this discussion with what Leibniz says upon the ethical question, drawing our material somewhat freely from his other writings.

The doctrine of will which Leibniz propounds is in closest harmony with his conception of intelligence, and this not merely in the way of empirical juxtaposition, but as the result of his fundamental principles. If we recall what has been said concerning the monad, we shall remember that it is an activity, but an activity with a content. It is a force, but a force which mirrors the universe. The content, that portion of reality which is reflected in the action, is knowledge, or the idea; the activity which brings this about is will, or the volition. They are related to each other as form and content. There is, strictly speaking, no “state” of mind; there is only a tension, a pushing forward of mind. There is no idea which is not a volition. Will is thus used, in a very broad sense, as equivalent to action. Since, however, the activity of the monad is in no case aimless, but has an end in view, the will is not mere activity in general, it is action towards some definite end. And since the end at which the monad aims is always the development of an idea, the reflection of some constituent of the universe, the will is always directed towards and determined by some idea of the intellect.

We have seen, however, that there are various stages in the reflecting power of the soul, or in the realization of intellect. Taking only the broadest division, there are perception and apperception; that is, there are the conscious and the unconscious mirroring of reality. We shall expect, then, to find two corresponding stages of volition. Leibniz calls these stages “appetition” and “volition” in the narrower sense. The constant tendency in every monad to go from one perception to another,—that is, the following of the law of development,—constitutes appetition. If joined to feeling, it constitutes instinct. Since, again, there are two degrees of apperception, one of empirical, the other of rational, consciousness, we shall expect to find two grades of volition proper,—one corresponding to action for conscious particular ends; the other for ends which are proposed by reason, and are hence universal. In this chapter we shall simply expand and illustrate these various propositions.

Sensations, looked at not as to what they represent, but in themselves, are impulses. As such they constitute the lowest stage of will. Impulsive action then includes all such as occurs for an end which is unknown, or at best but dimly felt. Such action may be called blind, not in the sense that it is without reason, but in the sense that reason is not consciously present. We are not to think of this instinctive action, however, as if it were found simply in the animals. Much of human action is also impulsive; probably, indeed, an impulsive factor is contained in our most rational willing. We are never able to take complete account of the agencies which are acting upon us. Along with the reasons of which we are conscious in choosing, there are mingled faint memories of past experience, subconscious solicitations of the present, dim expectations for the future. Such elements are decisive factors far more than we realize.

Indeed, it is because of the extent to which such unconscious influences bear upon us and move us that there arises the idea of indifferent or unmotivated choice. Were both motive and choice unconscious, the question as to whether choice were antecedently determined would not arise; and were our motives and their results wholly in consciousness, the solution of the question would be evident. But when we are conscious of our choice, but are not conscious of our impulses and motives, we get the impression that our choice is unmotived, and hence come to believe in “indifferent freedom,”—the ability to choose as we will.

We shall shortly take up in more detail the theory of Leibniz regarding the freedom of will; and it is needful here to remark only that the conception which makes it consist in ability to choose without reason is in direct contradiction to his fundamental thought,—namely, that there can be no activity which does not aim at some reflection of the universe, by which, therefore, it is determined. From the psychological point of view, it is interesting also to notice how Leibniz’s theory of unconscious ideas enables him to dispose of the strongest argument for indifferent choice,—that drawn from the immediate “testimony” of consciousness.

Upon the origin and nature of desires Leibniz has much more to say than about the impulses. His account of the transition from impulse to desire is based upon the conception of unconscious ideas. Slight and imperceptible impulses are working upon us all the time. Indeed, they are a necessity; for the actual state of a soul or monad at any time is, of course, one of incompleteness. Our nature must always work to free itself from its hindrances and obtain its goal of complete development. But it will not do this unless there is some stimulus, some solicitation to induce it to overcome its limitation. There is found accordingly in our every condition a feeling of dissatisfaction, or, using Locke’s word, of “uneasiness;” and it is this which calls forth that activity which brings about a nearer approach to the soul’s real good. But Leibniz differs from Locke in saying that this feeling of uneasiness is not a distinct, or even in most cases a conscious, one. It is not pain, although it differs from pain only in degree. Uneasiness and pain are related to each other as appetite for food is to hunger,—the first suffices to stimulate us to satisfaction, but if the want is not met, results in actual pain; if met, these “half pains” become tributary to pleasure itself. These unconscious stimuli to action result in actions which meet the want, and the aggregation of these satisfactions results in pleasure. In Leibniz’s own words:—

“If these elements of pain were themselves true pains, we should always be in a state of misery, even in pursuing the good. But since there is always going on a summation of minute successes in overcoming these states of uneasiness, and these put us more and more at ease, there comes about a decided pleasure, which often has greater value even than the enjoyment of the good. Far, then, from regarding this uneasiness as a thing incompatible with happiness, I find that it is an essential condition of our happiness. For this does not consist in perfect possession, which would make us insensible and stupid, but in a constant progress towards greater results, which must always be accompanied, accordingly, by this element of desire or uneasiness.”

And again he says that “we enjoy all the advantages of pain without any of its inconveniences. If the uneasiness should become too distinct, we should be miserable in our awaiting the good which relieves it; but as it is, there is a constant victory over these half-pains, which we always find in desire, and this gives us a quantity of half-pleasures, whose continuance and summation (for they acquire force like a moving body as it falls) result in a whole and true pleasure.” In short, there is indeed an element of pain in all desire which stimulates us to action, and therefore to higher development. But ordinarily this element of pain is not present as such in consciousness, but is absorbed in the pleasure which accompanies the realization of the higher good. Thus Leibniz, accepting and emphasizing the very same fact that served Schopenhauer as a psychological base of pessimism, uses it as a foundation-stone of optimism.

But desire, or the conscious tendency towards something required as a good, accompanied by the dim feeling of uneasiness at its absence, does not yet constitute the complete act of volition. “Several impulses and inclinations meet in forming the complete volition which is the result of their conflict.” In the concrete act of will there are contained impulses which push us towards some end whose nature is not known; there is desire both in its inchoate stage, where pleasure and pain are not in consciousness, and in its formed state, where the pain and pleasure are definitely presented. Mixed with these desires and impulses are images of past experiences which call up the feelings which were formerly attached to them, and thus there are aroused indirectly additional impulses and desires. Out of this complicated mass of impulses, desires, and feelings, both original and reproduced, comes the “dominant effort” which constitutes complete will. But what governs the production of this prevailing or dominant effort, which we may interpret as the act of choice? The answer is simple: the result of the conflict of these various factors, the striking of the balance, is the choice. Some desire emerges from the confused complex, and that desire is the final determination of the will. This desire may not in all cases be the strongest in itself,—that is, the one whose satisfaction will allay the greatest “uneasiness,” for the others, taken together, may outweigh it; it may, so to speak, have a plurality, but not a majority, of volitional forces on its side,—and in this case a fusion of opposing factors may defeat it. But in any event the result will be the algebraic sum of the various desires and impulses.

It is not at all necessary, however, that the net outcome shall make itself apparent as a mechanical equivalent of the forces at work. The soul, Leibniz says, may use its skill in the formation of parties, so as to make this or that side the victor. How is this to be done, and still disallow the possibility of arbitrary choice? This problem is solved through action becoming deliberate. Deliberate action is impossible unless the soul has formed the habit of looking ahead and of arranging for modes of action which do not present themselves as immediate necessities. Only in this way can one look at the matter impartially and coolly; “at the moment of combat there is no time for discussion. Everything which then occurs throws its full force on the balance, and contributes to an outcome made up in the same way as in mechanics.” The formation of certain habits beforehand, therefore, is the secret of translating impulsive action into the deliberate sphere.

Of these habits the simplest consists in thinking only occasionally and incidentally of certain things. Imagination is the mother of desire. If we do not allow the imagination to dwell upon certain lines of thought, the probability of such thoughts acquiring sufficient force to become motives of weight is small. A still more effective method of regulating action is “to accustom ourselves to forming a train of thoughts of which reason, and not chance (that is, association), is the basis. We must get out of the tumult of present impressions, beyond our immediate surroundings, and ask: Dic cur hic? respice finem!” In other words, we must cross-question our impulses and desires, we must ask whence they come, that we may see how valid are the credentials which they offer. We must ask whither they tend, that we may measure them, not by their immediate interest, but by their relation to an end. The desires are not to be taken at their face-value, but are to be weighed and compared.

Such a process will evidently result in arresting instantaneous action. There will be a pause between the presentation of the desires and the overt act. During this pause it may well occur that the examination to which the desires have been subject has awakened contrary desires. The thought of the ignoble origin of a desire or of its repulsive, though remote, result will bring into action desires of an opposed kind. Thus the soul regulates action, not as if, however, it had any direct influence over desires, but by its ability of bringing other desires into the field. The will, in short, is not opposed to desire, though rational desire may be opposed to sensuous desire. “By various artifices, then,” Leibniz concludes, “we become masters of ourselves, and can make ourselves think and do that which we ought to will, and which reason ordains.” Such is the summary of Leibniz’s analysis of the elements and mechanism of volition. There was not much psychology existing at the time which could aid him in such an acute and subtle account; only in Aristotle could he have found much help. On the other hand, it has been so generally incorporated into current psychology that we may seem to have wasted space in repeating truisms.

Of moral action, however, we have as yet heard nothing. We have an account of a psychological mechanism; but for what ethical end does this work, and by what method? This question may best be answered by turning in more detail to the question of the “freedom of the will.” Freedom in the sense of arbitrary choice Leibniz wholly rejects, as we have seen. It is inconsistent with at least two of his fundamental principles; those, namely, of sufficient reason, and of continuity. “Everything that occurs must have a sufficient reason for its occurrence.” This oft-repeated dictum of Leibniz, the logical way of stating the complete rationality of experience, would be shattered into fragments by collision with groundless choice. It conflicts equally (indeed for the same reason) with the principle of continuity. “The present is pregnant with the future.” “Nature never makes leaps.” “An absolute equilibrium is a chimera.” “The soul is never wholly at rest.” These are only various ways of saying that the notion of arbitrary or unmotivated choice rests upon the assumption that there is a complete break in the life of the soul, so that it is possible for something to happen which bears no organic relation to anything that precedes. The notion of a state of the soul without motives, followed by the irruption of a certain line of conduct, the notion of an equilibrium broken by arbitrary choice, is simply the counterpart of the idea of a vacuum. All that makes Leibniz reject the latter conception makes it impossible for him to accept the former.

This should not be interpreted to mean that Leibniz denied the “freedom of the will.” What he denied is a notion of freedom which seemed to him at once unverifiable, useless, and irrational. There is a conception of freedom which Leibniz not only accepts, but insists upon. Such a notion of freedom is indeed his ethical ideal. Its three traits are contingency, spontaneity, and rationality of action. How action can be at the same time contingent and determined is perhaps difficult to understand; but Leibniz takes the position that it is. His first step is to distinguish between physical, mathematical, metaphysical, and moral necessity. There are truths which are eternal, truths which are absolutely necessary, because their opposites involve contradiction. They cannot be violated without involving us in absurdity. There are other truths which are “positive,” that is, ordained for good reason. These truths may be a priori, or rational, and not merely empirical; for they have been chosen for reasons of advantage. God always chooses and ordains the best of a number of possibilities; but he does it, not because the opposite is impossible, but because it is inferior. Truths whose opposites are impossible have metaphysical and mathematical necessity. Positive truths have moral necessity. The principle of causation must be true; the three interior angles of a triangle must be equal to two right angles. But that God shall choose the better of two courses is a moral necessity only. It invokes no absolute logical contradiction to conceive him choosing some other way. Upon moral necessity depends the physical. The particular laws of nature are necessary, not because their opposites are logically absurd, but because these laws are most in accordance with the general principles of good and order, in agreement with which God chooses. Physical and moral action is therefore in all cases contingent. (Contingency does not of itself, of course, constitute freedom, but conjoined with the characteristics of rationality and spontaneity, does so.)

Necessity, in short, is based upon the principle of logical contradiction; contingency upon that of sufficient reason. Since our actions are in no case necessitated in such a way that their opposite is self-contradictory, or, put positively, since our actions are always determined by the choice of that which seems best, our actions are contingent. Occasionally Leibniz puts the matter in a much simpler way, and one which brings out the essential element more clearly than the foregoing distinction. Some facts are determined by the principle of physical causation; others by that of final causation. Some, in other words, are necessary as the mechanical outcome of their antecedents; others are necessary as involved in the reaching of a given end. It is simply the Aristotelian distinction between efficient and teleological causation. Human action is determined, since it always has a motive or reason; it is contingent, because it springs from this reason and not from its temporal antecedents. It is, in short, determined, but it is also free.

It does not require much analysis, however, to see that this distinction, in whatever way it be put, really has no significance, except as it points to the other marks of freedom,—spontaneity and rationality. As we shall see, Leibniz makes and can make no absolute distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. The contingent and the necessary are one at bottom. To us with our limited intelligence it does indeed often appear as if no contradiction were involved in the former,—as if, for example, a man could turn either to right or left without there being any logical contradiction in either case; but this is because of our defective insight. An intelligence cognizant of the whole matter could see that one action would contradict some truth involved in the constitution of the universe. The source of the contingent and changing is in the necessary and eternal. Thus it is that although Leibniz at one time says that “neither one’s self nor any other spirit more enlightened could demonstrate that the opposite of a given action (like going out in preference to staying in) involves contradiction,” at another time he says that “a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances, internal and external, would enable any one to foresee” the decision in a given case. If that be so, any other action must be impossible; that is, according to Leibniz’s invariable logic, imply contradiction.

We get the same result if we consider the relation of final and efficient causes. It is only when speaking in a very general way that Leibniz opposes action as determined by precedent activities to that directed towards the attainment of an end. He does not really mean that some action is physical, while other is teleological. He cannot suppose that some action has an antecedent cause, while other has a purpose. The very essence of his thought is that action is both mechanical and teleological; that all action follows in a law of order from precedent action, and that all fulfils a certain spiritual function. The distinction is not, with Leibniz, one between two kinds of action, but between two ways of looking at every action. The desire to go rather than to stay, has its efficient cause; the movements by which the desire is executed, have their final cause. The truth of the matter seems to be that Leibniz in his desire to guard against being thought a fatalist, or one denying all freedom, uses terms which are compatible only with a freedom of indifference. So in his statement that man’s action is free because “contingent,” he seems actuated rather by a wish to avoid the hateful term “necessity” than by considerations strictly in harmony with his own principles.

Had he confined his use of the term “contingent,” however, simply to re-stating the fact that human action is spontaneous, no such apparent contradiction would have presented itself. Human actions may be called contingent, as physical actions are not, because the latter always seem to be externally determined, while the former are internally directed. Motions act from without; motives from within. The cause of the falling of a stone lies outside it; the source of a desire which moves to action is from the mind itself. We are thus introduced to contingency as a synonym of “spontaneity.”

Kuno Fischer calls attention to the fact that Spinoza and Leibniz both use the same sort of illustration to show the non-arbitrary character of human action, but the same illustration with a difference; and in the difference he finds the distinction between the two philosophies. Spinoza says that a stone falling to the ground, if endowed with consciousness, might imagine itself following its own will in falling. Leibniz says that a magnetic needle similarly endowed might imagine that it turned towards the north simply because it wished. Both examples are used to illustrate the folly of relying upon the immediate “testimony” of consciousness. But the example of Spinoza is that of an object, all whose movements are absolutely necessitated from without; the example of Leibniz is that of an object whose activity, though following law, and not caprice, is apparently initiated from within. Of course in reality the movements of the magnetic needle are just as much externally conditioned as those of the stone; but the appearance of self-action in the latter case may serve at least to exemplify what is meant by spontaneity as attributed to human action.

It must be noticed at the outset that spontaneity belongs to every simple substance. We have only to recall the doctrine of monads. These suffer nothing from without, all their activity is the expression, is the unfolding, of their own law. “By nature,” Leibniz says, “every simple substance has perceptions, and its individuality consists in the permanent law which forms the succession of its perceptions, that are born naturally one of another. Hence it is not necessary for it to receive any physical influence from without; and therefore the soul has in itself a perfect spontaneity in such a way that its actions depend only upon God and itself.” Or if we put the matter in its connection with his psychology rather than with his metaphysics, it is true that our actions are determined by our motives; but motives are not forces without the soul, they are forces of the soul. In acting according to motives the soul is simply acting according to its own laws. A desire is not an impulsion from an external cause; it is the expression of an inward tendency. To say that the soul acts from the strongest desire is simply to say, from this standpoint, that it manifests the most real part of itself, not that it obeys a foreign force. Impulses, desires, motives, are all psychical; they admit of no description or explanation except in their relation to the soul itself. Thus when Leibniz compares, as he often does, motives to weights acting upon a balance, we are to remember that the balance is not to be conceived as the soul, and the weights as energies outside it, but that this is only a way of picturing what is going on within the soul itself. The soul may be a mechanism, but it is a self-directing and self-executing mechanism. To say that human action is free because it is spontaneous, is to say that it follows an immanent principle, that it is independent of foreign influences,—in a word, that it is self-determined.

But here again it seems as if Leibniz had stated a principle altogether too wide to throw any light upon the nature of moral freedom. Spontaneity is no more an attribute of human activity than it is of all real activity. Every monad, even the unconscious, as truly follows its own law without interference from without as does man himself. If the spontaneity of action constitutes its morality, we are not in a condition to ascribe morality to man any more than to any real thing. We are thus thrown back again upon the conception of rationality as the final and decisive trait of freedom and of ethical conduct. Just as “contingency” gets a moral import only in connection with conscious ends of action, so “spontaneity” comes within the moral realm only when conjoined to reason.

Why is there this close connection between reason and freedom? The reader has only to recall what was said of Leibniz’s theory of causality to get a glimpse into their unity. Causality is not a matter of physical influence, but of affording the reason in virtue of which some fact is what it is. This applies of course to the relation of the soul and the body. “So far as the soul is perfect and has distinct ideas, God has accommodated the body to it; so far as the soul is imperfect and its ideas are confused, God has accommodated the soul to the body. In the former case the body always responds to the demands of the soul; in the latter the soul is moved by the passions which are born of the sensuous ideas. Each is thought to act upon the other in the measure of its perfection [that is, degree of activity], since God has adjusted one thing to another according to its perfection or imperfection. Activity and passivity are always reciprocal in created things, because a portion of the reasons which serve to explain what goes on is in one substance, and another portion in the other. This is what makes us call one active, the other passive.”

If we translate these ideas out of their somewhat scholastic phraseology, the meaning is that the self-activity of any substance is accurately measured by the extent to which it contains the reasons for its own actions; and conversely, that it is dependent or enslaved just so far as it has its reasons beyond itself. Sensations, sensuous impulses, represent, as we have seen before, the universe only in a confused and inarticulate way. They are knowledge which cannot give an account of itself. They represent, in short, that side of mind which may be regarded as affected, or the limitation of mind,—its want of activity. So far as the mind acts from these sensations and the feelings which accompany them, it is ideally determined from without; it is a captive to its own states; it is in a condition of passivity. In all action, therefore, which occurs from a sensuous basis, the soul is rightly regarded as unfree.

On the other hand, just in the degree in which distinctness is introduced into the sensations, so that they are not simply experienced as they come, but are related to one another so that their reason for existence, their spiritual meaning, is ascertained, just in that degree is the soul master of itself. In Leibniz’s own words: “Distinct knowledge or intelligence has its place in the true use of reason, while the senses furnish confused ideas. Hence we can say that we are free from slavery just in the degree that we act with distinct knowledge, but are subject to our passions in just the degree that our ideas are confused;” that is, not really representative of things as they are. “Intelligence is the soul of liberty.”

This psychological explanation rests, of course, upon the foundation principle of the Leibnizian philosophy. Spirit is the sole reality, and spirit is activity. But there are various degrees of activity, and each grade lower than the purus actus may be rightfully regarded as in so far passive. This relative passivity or unreality constitutes the material and hence the sensuous world. One who has not insight into truth, lives and acts in this world of comparative unreality; he is in bondage to it. From this condition of slavery only reason, the understanding of things as they are, can lift one. The rational man is free because he acts, in the noble words of Spinoza, sub specie æternitatis. He acts in view of the eternal truth of things,—as God himself would act.

God alone, it further follows, is wholly free. In him alone are understanding and will wholly one. In him the true and the good are one; while every created intelligence is subject in some degree to sensuous affection, to passion. “In us, besides the judgment of the understanding, there is always mixed some unreal idea of the sensation which gives birth to passions and impulses, and these traverse the judgment of the practical understanding.” Freedom, in fine, is not a ready made garment with which all men are clothed to do with as they will. It is the ethical ideal; it is something to be attained; it is action in conformity with reason, or insight into the spiritual nature of reality and into its laws; it is not the starting-point, it is the goal. Only with a great price do men purchase such freedom. It will be noticed at once that Leibniz comes very close to Plato in his fundamental ethical ideas. The unity of virtue and reason, of virtue and freedom,—these are thoroughly Platonic conceptions. To both Plato and Leibniz reason is the ethical ideal because it is the expression of, nay, rather, is the reality of the universe; while all else is, as Leibniz says, imperfect or unreal, since it is not an activity, or, as Plato says, a mixture of Being and Non-Being. Again, to both man bears a similar relation to this spiritual reality. In Plato’s words, he participates in the Ideas; in those of Leibniz he reflects, as a mirror, the universe. To both, in a word, the reality, the true-self of the individual, is the spiritual universe of which it is an organic member. To both, therefore, man obtains freedom or self-realization only as he realizes his larger and more comprehensive identity with the Reason of the universe. With both, knowledge is the good, ignorance is the evil. No man is voluntarily bad, but only through lack of knowledge of the true Good. Leibniz, however, with a more developed psychology, supplements Plato in the point where the latter had the most difficulty,—the possibility of the feelings or of a love of pleasure overcoming knowledge of the good. This possibility Plato was compelled to deny, while Leibniz, by his subtle identifying of the passions with lack of knowledge, or with confused knowledge, can admit it. “It is an imperfection of our freedom,” says Leibniz, “which causes us to choose evil rather than good,—a greater evil rather than the less, the less good rather than the greater. This comes from the appearances of good and evil which deceive us; but God, who is perfect knowledge, is always led to the true and to the best good, that is, to the true and absolute good.”

It only remains briefly to apply these conceptions to some specific questions of moral actions. Locke asks whether there are practical innate ideas, and denies them, as he denies theoretical. Leibniz, in replying, recognizes two kinds of “innate” practical principles, one of which is to be referred to the class of instincts, the other to that of maxims. Primarily, and probably wholly in almost all men, moral truths take the rank of instincts alone. All men aim at the Good; it is impossible to think of man wilfully seeking his own evil. The methods, the means of reaching this Good, are implanted in men as instincts. These instincts, when brought to the light of reason and examined, become maxims of action; they lose their particular and impulsive character, and become universal and deliberate principles. Thus Leibniz is enabled to answer the various objections which are always brought against any “intuitive” theory of moral actions,—the variability of men’s moral beliefs and conduct in different countries and at different times. Common instincts, but at first instincts only, are present in all men whenever and wherever they live. These instincts may readily be “resisted by men’s passions, obscured by prejudice, and changed by custom.” The moral instincts are always the basis of moral action, but “custom, tradition, education” become mixed with them. Even when so confounded, however, the instinct will generally prevail, and custom is, upon the whole, on the side of right rather than wrong, so that Leibniz thinks there is a sense in which all men have one common morality.

But these moral instincts, even when pure, are not ethical science. This is innate, Leibniz says, only in the sense in which arithmetic is innate,—it depends upon demonstrations which reason furnishes. Leibniz does not, then, oppose intuitive and demonstrative, as sometimes happens. Morality is practically intuitive in the sense that all men tend to aim at the Good, and have an instinctive feeling of what makes towards the Good. It is theoretically demonstrative, since it does not become a science until Reason has an insight into the nature of the Good, and ascertains the fixed laws which are tributary to it. Moral principles are not intuitive in the sense that they are immediately discovered as separate principles by some one power of the soul called “conscience.” Moral laws are intuitive, he says, “as the consequences of our own development and our true well-being.” Here we may well leave the matter. What is to be said in detail of Leibniz’s ethics will find its congenial home in what we have to say of his theology.