Monads are quantitatively simple but qualitatively complex ex istents Specifically, they

•have qualities (8);

• change qualities over time (8);

• differ in their qualities [identity of indiscernibles) (9). B. Monadic Perception

IV. Monadic change is change in the qualities of substances that • is ever-present (10);

• comes from within through the unfolding of an inner law of development ( n );

• roots in the inner complexity [detail) of substances (12); • obeys a law of continuity (13).

V. The ever-changing, internally complex make-up [detail) of a mo- nad's qualitative state

• can be called perception (which need not be conscious, that is,

32 Thematic Structure

• is subject to an inner drive of developmental change called ap-

petition (15);

• reflects a comprehension of multiplicity in unity that we our- selves can and do experience within ourselves (16);

• is inexplicable by mechanical reasons (17);

•proceeds entirely from the monad's own internal make-up through an inherent "programming" that makes each sub- stance into a (fully independent) source of its own actions (18); •is subject to an inherent orderliness that means that what

comes later emerges through a natural explanation from what has gone before (22).

C. Souls and Spirits

VI. All monads have perception and appetition and the self-suffi-

ciency of inherent development. But

• some monads—to be called souls—also have consciousness and memory (19, 20, 24);

• these monads enjoy a more heightened and developed mode of (conscious) perception (21);

• this sort of perceptual experience is orderly and coherently in- terconnected (23).

VII. The more sophisticated perceptual experience of the conscious sort that is found only in the more developed soui-endowed or- ganisms

• reflects the physiological make-up of the animals that mani- fest it (25);

• is accompanied by memory in a way that brings a law of as-

sociation into operation (26);

• is also accompanied by a capacity for imagination (27). VIII. The monads of the highest sort—typified by persons—are called

spirits:

• they are distinguished by also possessing the capacity for rea-

soning from general truths (28-29);

• this capacity furnished us with access to the necessary and "eternal" truths of mathematics, metaphysics, and theology (2.9-30).

D. Principles of Truth

IX. The key metaphysical principles which undergird the present de- liberations themselves are:

every truth whatever, there is a sufficient reason for its being so rather than otherwise (32);

• the principle of contradiction, which furnishes (via the insis- tence or noncontradiction) the sufficient reason for the nec- essary and eternal truths (31); and

• the principle of perfection (or principle of the best), which pro- vides the sufficient reason for the contingent truths (36, 5 3-5 5)-

• There are accordingly two fundamentally different kinds of truth, the truths of reason (necessary truths) and the truths of fact (contingent truths) (33).

X. As regards the sufficient reason for truths:

• The sufficient reason for any truth can be found by a process of analysis. This analysis is finite in the case of necessary truths, where it ultimately terminates in self-evident propo- sitions (33-35);

• the analysis involved in providing a sufficient reason for truths of fact is of unending complexity and infinite detail (36-37). E.God

XI. The sufficient reason of truths of fact extends into something be- yond the entire series of contingent existence in its endless detail. This "ultimate reason of things" is God himself (38). And this God must, of metaphysical necessity, be conceived of

• as unique and uniquely sufficient (39); • as necessary and unlimited in existence (40); • as perfect and infinite (41);

• as the creator and sustainer of everything that is good in ex- isting things (42).

XII. But while God is perfect, creatures are not.

• For imperfections lie in their own nature, over which God has no control (42).

• God finds these creatures as abstract possibilities in his intel- lect; his will has no part in making them what they are (43). • The intellect of God is thus the region of possibilities: if {per

impossible) God did not exist, not only would nothing else

exist, but nothing would even be possible (44).

XIII. Accordingly the existence of God is necessary (45 ). And more- over,

• the necessary truths hinge upon his intellect, unlike the con- tingent truths which depend on his will as well (46);

• God is thus the self-necessitated source of all else that exists, and everything else depends contingently upon him (47);

34 Thematic Structure

• God is accordingly the perfect being, at once all-powerful, all- being, and all-good (48).

XIV. God alone is a genuine agent. The agency of created substances is an agency in name only.

• The created monads are active insofar as their nature involves perfections and inactive insofar as their nature involves im- perfections (49).

• They are perfect, and thus active, exactly insofar as God finds in the nature of the one that which provides a reason for se- lecting another that is coordinated with it (50).

• The agency of one substance on another is ideal only; one sub- stance can have no actual influence on one another (51). • God's creation choice is the only real action that there is. His

selection among alternatives adjusts monads to one another. The superior, to whose interests others are accounted are thereby "active"; the inferior, who give way to others in the accommodation process are thereby passive (52).

F. God's Choice Among Possible Worlds XV. God's mind is the domain of possibilities.

• God chooses one alternative over others for actualization (53). • In so doing he is guided by the inherent perfection that the

concept of these possibilities enfolds (54).

• The existence of the best accordingly roots in the free will of God (55).

XVI. God's commitment to the realization of perfection in the real world

• involves a coordination among all existing situations which attunes all things to one another in smoothly coordinated in- terrelations (56);

•means that each substance represents a particular point of view regarding one single unified whole (57);

• maximizes realizable perfection by way of an optimal com- bination of variety and orderliness (58).