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One of the chapters concerning knowledge is entitled, “The Knowledge that we have of God.” This introduces us to the theology of Leibniz and indirectly to the completion of those ethical doctrines already outlined in the chapter on will. Leibniz employs three arguments to prove the existence of God: that of God as the sufficient reason of the world (substantially the cosmological proof); of God as the source of the pre-established harmony (an extension of the teleological proof); and the ontological. The latter he accepts as it came from the hands of Descartes, but insists that it requires an added argument before it ranks as anything more than presumptive proof. The Anselmic-Cartesian argument, as stated by Leibniz, is as follows: “God is defined as the greatest, or most perfect, of beings, or as a being of supreme grandeur and perfection. But in the notion of a perfect being, existence must be included, since it is something more to exist than not to exist. Or existence is a perfection, and hence must belong to the most perfect being; otherwise some perfection would be lacking, which is contrary to the definition.” Or as Descartes sometimes puts it, in the notion of anything like a tree, a mountain, a triangle, contingency is contained. We may conceive such an object to exist or not, as we like. There is no necessity involved in our thought. But we cannot think of a perfect being except as existing. It does not rest with the decision of our thinking whether or not to include existence in this notion. We must necessarily think existence as soon as we think such a being.

Leibniz takes a middle position, he says, between those who consider this a demonstrative argument, and those who regard it as a mere paralogism. It is pre-supposed by this argument that the notion of a Supreme Being is possible, or that it does not involve contradiction. This pre-supposition is to be proved. First, it is well to simplify the argument itself. The Cartesian definition may be reduced to this: “God is a being in whom existence and essence are one. From this definition it follows as a corollary that such a being, if possible, exists. For the essence of a thing being just that which constitutes its possibility, it is evident that to exist by its essence is the same as to exist by its possibility. Being in itself, then, or God, may be most simply defined as the Being who must exist if he is possible.”

There are two ways of proving this last clause (namely, that he is possible) the direct and the indirect. The indirect is employed against those who assert that from mere notions, ideas, definitions or possible essences, it is not possible to infer actual existence. Such persons simply deny the possibility of being in itself. But if being-in-itself, or absolute being, is impossible, being-by-another, or relative, is also impossible; for there is no “other” upon which it may depend. Nothing, in this case, could exist. Or if necessary being is not possible, there is no being possible. Put in another way, God is as necessary for possibility as for actual existence. If there is possibility of anything, there is God. This leads up to the direct proof; for it follows that, if there be a possibility of God,—the Being in whom existence and essence are one,—he exists. “God alone has such a position that existence is necessary, if possible. But since there can be nothing opposed to the possibility of a being without limit,—a being therefore without negations and without contradiction,—this is sufficient to prove a priori the existence of God.” In short, God being pure affirmation, pure self-identity, the idea of his Being cannot include contradiction, and hence is possible,—and since possible, necessary. Of this conception of God as the purely self-identical, without negation, we shall have something to say in the next chapter.

The cosmological proof is, as we have already seen, that every cause in the world being at the same time an effect, it cannot be the sufficient reason of anything. The whole series is contingent, and requires a ground not prior to, but beyond, the series. The only sufficient reason of anything is that which is also the sufficient reason of itself,—absolute being. The teleological argument Leibniz invariably, I believe, presents in connection with the idea of pre-established harmony. “If the substances of experience,” runs the argument, “had not received their being, both active and passive, from one universal supreme cause, they would be independent of one another, and hence would not exhibit that order, harmony, and beauty which we notice in nature. This argument possesses only moral certainty which becomes demonstrative by the new kind of harmony which I have introduced,—pre-established harmony. Since each substance expresses in its own way that which occurs beyond it, and can have no influence on other particular beings, it is necessary that each substance, before developing these phenomena from the depth of its own being, must have received this nature (this internal ground of external phenomena) from a universal cause from whom all beings depend, and which effects that one be perfectly in accord with and corresponding to every other. This cannot occur except through a being of infinite knowledge and power.”

Having determined the existence of God, Leibniz states his attributes. These may be reduced to three. He is perfect in power, in wisdom, and in goodness. “Perfection is nothing other than the whole of positive reality separated from the limits and bounds of things. Where there are no limits, as in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.” “In God exists power, which is the source of all knowledge,—which comprehends the realm of ideas, down to its minutest detail,—and will, which directs all creations and changes according to the principle of the best.” Or as he expands it at another time: “The supreme cause must be intelligent, for the existing world being contingent, and an infinity of other worlds being equally possible, it is necessary that the cause of the world take into consideration all these possible worlds in order to decide upon one. Now this relation of a substance to simple ideas must be the relation of understanding to its ideas, while deciding upon one is the act of will in choosing. Finally it is the power of this substance which executes the volition. Power has its end in being; wisdom, or understanding, in truth; and will in good. Thus the cause must be absolutely perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness. His understanding is the source of essences, and his will the origin of existences.”

This brings us to the relation of God to the world, or to an account of the creating activity of God. This may be considered to be metaphysically, logically, or morally necessary. To say that it is metaphysically necessary is to say that it is the result of the divine essence, that it would imply a contradiction of the very being of God for the world not to be and not to be as it is. In short, the world becomes a mere emanation of power, since, as we have just learned, power and being are correlative. But this leaves out of account the divine understanding. Not all possible worlds emanate from God’s being, but there is recognition of them and of their relations to one another. Were the world to proceed from the divine understanding alone, however, it would be logically necessary,—that is, it would bear the same relation to his understanding that necessary truths do. Its opposite would imply contradiction, not indeed of the being of God, but of his understanding. But the will of God plays the all-important part of choosing among the alternative worlds presented by reason, each of which is logically possible. One of these worlds, although standing on the same intellectual plane as the others, is morally better,—that is, it involves greater happiness and perfection to the creatures constituting it. God is guided then by the idea of the better (and this is the best possible) world. His will is not arbitrary in creating: it does not work by a fiat of brute power. But neither is it fatalistic: it does not work by compulsory necessity. It is both free and necessary; free, for it is guided by naught excepting God’s own recognition of an end; necessary, for God, being God, cannot morally act otherwise than by the principle of the better,—and this in contingent matters is the best. Hence the optimism of Leibniz, to which here no further allusion can be made.

Since the best is precisely God himself, it is evident that the created world will have, as far as possible, his perfections. It would thus be possible to deduce from this conception of God and his relation to the world all those characteristics of the Leibnizian monadology which we formerly arrived at analytically. God is individual, but with an infinite comprehensiveness. Each substance repeats these properties of the supreme substance. There is an infinity of such substances, in order that the world may as perfectly as possible mirror the infinity of God. Each, so far as in it lies, reflects the activity of God; for activity is the very essence of perfection. And thus we might go through with the entire list of the properties of the monad.

To complete the present discussion, however, it is enough to notice that intelligence and will must be found in every creature, and that thus we account for the “appetition” and the “perception” that characterize even the lowest monad. The scale of monads, however, would not be as complete as possible unless there were beings in whom appetition became volition, and perception, self-conscious intelligence. Such monads will stand in quite other relation to God than the blind impulse-governed substances. “Spirits,” says Leibniz, “are capable of entering into community with God, and God is related to them not only as an inventor to his machine (as he is to other creatures) but as a prince to his subjects, or, better, as a father to his children. This society of spirits constitutes the city of God,—the most perfect state under the most perfect monarch. This city of God, this truly cosmopolitan monarchy, is a moral world within the natural. Among all the works of God it is the most sublime and divine. In it consists the true glory of God, for there would be no glory of God unless his greatness and goodness were known and admired by spirits; and in his relation to this society, God for the first time reveals his goodness, while he manifests everywhere his power and wisdom. And as previously we demonstrated a perfect harmony between the two realms of nature,—those of efficient and final causes,—so must we here declare harmony between the physical realm of nature and the moral realm of grace,—that is, between God as the architect of the mechanical world-structure, and God as the monarch of the world of spirits.” God fulfils his creation, in other words, in a realm of spirits, and fulfils it because here there are beings who do not merely reflect him but who enter into relations of companionship with him, forming a community. This community of spirits with one another and with God is the moral world, and we are thus brought again to the ethics of Leibniz.

It has been frequently pointed out that Leibniz was the first to give ethics the form which it has since kept in German philosophy,—the division into Natur-recht and Natur-moral. These terms are difficult to give in English, but the latter corresponds to what is ordinarily called “moral philosophy,” while the former is political philosophy so far as that has an ethical bearing. Or the latter may be said to treat of the moral ideal and of the moral motive and of duty in themselves, while the former deals with the social, the public, and in a certain sense the external, aspects of morality.

Puffendorf undoubtedly suggested this division to Leibniz by his classification of duties as external and internal,—the first comprehending natural and civil law, the second moral theology. But Puffendorf confined the former to purely external acts, excluding motives and intentions, and the latter to divine revelation. Both are “positive,” and in some sort arbitrary,—one resting merely on the fact that certain institutions obtain, the other on the fact that God has made certain declarations. To Leibniz, on the other hand, the will of God is in no sense the source of moral truths. The will of God does not create truth, but carries into effect the eternal truths of the divine understanding. Moral truths are like those of mathematics. And again, there is no such thing as purely external morality: it always contains an inner content, of which the external act is only the manifestation. Leibniz may thus be said to have made two discoveries, or rather re-discoveries: one, that there is a science of morals, independent of law, custom, and positive right; the other, that the basis of both “natural” and “positive” morals is not the mere will of God, but is reason with its content of eternal truths.

In morals the end is happiness, the means wisdom. Happiness is defined, not as an occurrence, but as a condition, or state of being. “It is the condition of permanent joy. This does not mean that the joy is actually felt every moment, but that one is in the condition to enjoy whenever he thinks of it, and that, in the interval, joyfulness arises from his activity and being.” Pleasure, however, is not a state, but a feeling. It is the feeling of perfection, whether in ourselves or in anything else. It does not follow that we perceive intellectually either in what the perfection of the pleasant thing consists or in what way it develops perfection within us. It is enough that it be realized in feeling, so as to give us pleasure. Perfection is defined “as increase of being. As sickness is, as it were, a lowering and a falling off from health, so perfection is something which mounts above health. It manifests itself in power to act; for all substance consists in a certain power, and the greater the power the higher and freer the substance. But power increases in the degree that the many manifests itself from one and in one, while the one rules many from itself and transforms them into self. But unity in plurality is nothing else than harmony; and from this comes order or proportion, from which proceeds beauty, and beauty awakens love. Thus it becomes evident how happiness, pleasure, love, perfection, substance, power, freedom, harmony, proportion, and beauty are bound up in one another.”

From this condensed sketch, taken from Leibniz himself, the main features of his ethical doctrine clearly appear. When we were studying freedom we saw that it was not so much a starting-point of the will as its goal and ideal. We saw also that true freedom is dependent upon knowledge, upon recognition of the eternal and universal. What we have here is a statement of that doctrine in terms of feeling and of will instead of knowledge. The end of man is stated to be happiness, but the notion of happiness is developed in such a way that it is seen to be equivalent to the Aristotelian notion of self-realization; “it is development of substance, and substance is activity.” It is the union of one and the many; and the one, according to the invariable doctrine of Leibniz, is the spiritual element, and the many is the real content which gives meaning to this rational unity. Happiness thus means perfection, and perfection a completely universalized individual. The motive toward the moral life is elsewhere stated to be love; and love is defined as interest in perfection, and hence culminates in love of God, the only absolute perfection. It also has its source in God, as the origin of perfection; so that Leibniz says, Whoso loves God, loves all.

Natural right, as distinguished from morals, is based upon the notion of justice, this being the outward manifestation of wisdom, or knowledge,—appreciation of the relation of actions to happiness. The definitions given by Leibniz are as follows: Just and unjust are what are useful or harmful to the public,—that is, to the community of spirits. This community includes first God, then humanity, then the state. These are so subordinated that, in cases of collision of duty, God, the universe of relations, comes before the profit of humanity, and this before the state. At another time Leibniz defines justice as social virtue, and says that there are as many kinds of “right” as there are kinds of natural communities in which happiness is an end of action. A natural community is defined as one which rests upon desire and the power of satisfying it, and includes three varieties,—domestic, civil, and ecclesiastic. “Right” is defined as that which sustains and develops any natural community. It is, in other words, the will for happiness united with insight into what makes happiness.

Corresponding to the three forms of the social organism (as we should now call the “natural community”), are the three kinds of jus,—jus strictum, equity, and piety. Each of these has its corresponding prescript. That of jus strictum is to injure no one; of equity, to render to each his own; and of piety, to make the ethical law the law of conduct. Jus strictum includes the right of war and peace. The right of peace exists between individuals till one breaks it. The right of war exists between men and things. The victory of person over thing is property. Things thus come to possess the right of the person to whom they belong as against every other person; that is, in the right of the person to himself as against the attacks of another (the right to peace) is included a right to his property. Jus strictum is, of course, in all cases, enforceable by civil law and the compulsory force which accompanies it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to obligation in cases where there is no right of compulsion. Its law is, Be of aid to all, but to each according to his merits and his claims. Finally comes piety. The other two stages are limited. The lowest is negative, it wards off harm; the second aims after happiness, but only within the limits of earthly existence. That we should ourselves bear misery, even the greatest, for the sake of others, and should subject the whole of this existence to something higher, cannot be proved excepting as we regard the society, or community, of our spirits with God. Justice with relation to God comprehends all virtues. Everything that is, is from God; and hence the law of all conduct is to use everything according to its place in the idea of God, according to its function in the universal harmony. It thus not only complements the other two kinds of justice but is the source of their inner ethical worth. “Strict justice” may conflict with equity. But God effects that what is of use to the public well-being—that is, to the universe and to humanity—shall be of use also to the individual. Thus from the standpoint of God the moral is advantageous, and the immoral hurtful. Kant’s indebtedness to Leibniz will at once appear to one initiated into the philosophy of the former.

Leibniz never worked out either his ethics or his political philosophy in detail; but it is evident that they both take their origin and find their scope in the fact of man’s relationship to God, that they are both, in fact, accounts of the methods of realizing a universal but not a merely formal harmony. For harmony is not, with Leibniz, an external arrangement, but is the very soul of being. Perfect harmony, or adaptation to the universe of relations, is the end of the individual, and man is informed of his progress toward this end by an inner sentiment of pleasure.

It may be added that Leibniz’s æsthetic theory, so far as developed, rests upon the same basis as his ethical,—namely, upon membership in the “city of God,” or community of spiritual beings. This is implied, indeed, in a passage already quoted, where he states the close connection of beauty with harmony and perfection. The feeling of beauty is the recognition in feeling of an order, proportion, and harmony which are not yet intellectually descried. Leibniz illustrates by music, the dance, and architecture. This feeling of the harmonious also becomes an impulse to produce. As perception of beauty may be regarded as unexplained, or confused, perception of truth, so creation of beauty may be considered as undeveloped will. It is action on its way to perfect freedom, for freedom is simply activity with explicit recognition of harmony.

We cannot do better than quote the conclusion of the matter from Leibniz’s “Principles of Nature and of Grace,” although, in part, it repeats what we have already learned. “There is something more in the rational soul, or spirit, than there is in the monad or even in the simple soul. Spirit is not only a mirror of the universe of creatures, but is also an image of the divine being. Spirit not only has a perception of the works of God, but is also capable of producing something which resembles them, though on a small scale. To say nothing of dreams, in which we invent without trouble and without volition things upon which we must reflect a long time in order to discover in our waking state,—to say nothing of this, our soul is architectonic in voluntary actions; and, in discovering the sciences in accordance with which God has regulated all things (pondere, mensura, numero), it imitates in its department and in its own world of activity that which God does in the macrocosm. This is the reason why spirits, entering through reason and eternal truths into a kind of society with God, are members of the city of God,—that is, of the most perfect state, formed and governed by the best of monarchs, in which there is no crime without punishment, and no good action without reward, and where there is as much of virtue and of happiness as may possibly exist. And this occurs not through a disturbance of nature, as if God’s dealing with souls were in violation of mechanical laws, but by the very order of natural things, on account of the eternal, pre-established harmony between the kingdoms of nature and grace, between God as monarch and God as architect, since nature leads up to grace, and grace makes nature perfect in making use of it.”

No better sentences could be found with which to conclude this analysis of Leibniz. They resound not only with the grandeur and wide scope characteristic of his thought, but they contain his essential idea, his pre-eminent “note,”—that of the harmony of the natural and the supernatural, the mechanical and the organic. The mechanical is to Leibniz what the word signifies; it is the instrumental, and this in the full meaning of the term. Nature is instrumental in that it performs a function, realizes a purpose, and instrumental in the sense that without it spirit, the organic, is an empty dream. The spiritual, on the other hand, is the meaning, the idea of nature. It perfects it, in that it makes it instrumental to itself, and thus renders it not the passive panorama of mere material force, but the manifestation of living spirit.