the Divinity. The spirit has not only a perception of the works of God, but it is even capable of producing something which resembles them, although in miniature. For, to say nothing of the marvels of dreams where we invent without trouble, and even involuntarily, things which when awake we should have to think a long time in order to hit upon, our soul is architectonic in its voluntary actions also, and, discovering the sciences according to which God has regulated things (pondere, mensura, numero, etc.), it imitates, in its department and in the little world where it is permitted to exercise itself, what God does in the large world.

15. This is why all spirits, whether of men or of genii, entering by virtue of reason and of the eternal truths into a sort of society with God, are members of the City of God, that is to say, of the most perfect state, formed and governed by the greatest and best of monarchs; where there is no crime without punishment, no good actions without proportionate recompense; and finally as much virtue and happiness as is possible; and this is not by a derangement of nature, as if what God prepares for souls disturbed the laws of bodies, but by the very order of natural things, in virtue of the harmony pre-established for all time between the realms of nature and of grace, between God as Architect and God as Monarch; so that nature leads to grace and grace, while making use of nature, perfects it.

16. Thus although reason cannot teach us the details, reserved to Revelation, of the great future, we can be assured by this same reason that things are made in a manner surpassing our desires. God also being the most perfect and most happy, and consequently, the most lovable of substances, and truly pure love consisting in the state which finds pleasure in the perfections and happiness of the loved object, this love ought to give us the greatest pleasure of which we are capable, when God is its object.

17. And it is easy to love him as we ought, if we know him as I have just described. For although God is not visible to our external senses, he does not cease to be very lovable and to give very great pleasure. We see how much pleasure honors give

men, although they do not at all consist in the qualities of the external senses.

Martyrs and fanatics (although the affection of the latter is ill-regulated), show what pleasure of the spirit can accomplish; and what is more, even sensuous pleasures are reduced to confusedly known intellectual pleasures.

Music charms us, although its beauty only consists in the harmony of numbers and in the reckoning of the beats or vibrations of sounding bodies, which meet at certain intervals, of which we are not conscious and which the soul does not cease to make. The pleasures which sight finds in proportions are of the same nature; and those caused by the other senses amount to almost the same thing, although we cannot explain it so clearly.

18. It may be said that even from the present time on, the love of God makes us enjoy a foretaste of future felicity. And although it is disinterested, it itself constitutes our greatest good and interest even if we should not seek it therein and should consider only the pleasure which it gives, without regard to the utility it produces; for it gives us perfect confidence in the goodness of our author and master, producing a true tranquillity of mind; not like the Stoics who force themselves to patience, but by a present content which assures us of future happiness. And besides the present pleasure, nothing can be more useful for the future; for the love of God fulfills our hopes, too, and leads us in the road of supreme happiness, because by virtue of the perfect order established in the universe, everything is done in the best possible way, as much for the general good as for the greatest individual good of those who are convinced of this and are content with the divine government; this conviction cannot be wanting to those who know how to love the source of all good. It is true that supreme felicity, by whatever beatific vision or knowledge of God it be accompanied, can never be full; because, since God is infinite, he cannot be wholly known. Therefore our happiness will never, and ought not to, consist in full joy, where there would be nothing farther to desire, rendering our mind stupid; but in a perpetual progress to new pleasures and to new perfections.

$48. The soul is a simple substance. For the soul is not body (847) nor an attribute communicated to the body (§ 46), and further, neither is it a composite entity nor does it inhere in a composite entity (§ 119, Cosmol.1). Wherefore since every entity is either composite or simple (§ 532, 673, Ontol.2) the soul must be a simple entity.

Now since acts of thought continually change and succeed one another in turn, they are to be classed with modes (§ 151, Ontol.) The soul, therefore, to which these modes apply, is subject to modification (8 764, Ontol.), and since it is obvious that the soul lasts for some time in conjunction with the body (for whether it can exist apart from the body or not need not be established here) it is per durable (§ 766, Ontol.). Certainly a per durable and modifiable object is a substance. Therefore the soul is a substance.

But the soul is a simple entity by the foregoing proof. Therefore it is a simple substance.

53. The soul is endowed with a certain power. The soul is a substance (§48), and since perceptions succeed one another in the same, and desires spring from perceptions, and perceptions

From Christian von Wolff's Psychologia rationalis. Francof. et Lips. 1734.

1 Wolff's Cosmologia generalis. Francof. et Lips. 1731.

Wolff's Philosophia prima sive Ontologia. Francof. et Lips. 1730.

again from desires, as is generally admitted in Empiric Psychology, its condition changes (§ 709, Ontol.). It therefore is endowed with a certain power. (8 776, Ontol.).

§ 54. A power and a faculty of the soul are different from one another. For power consists in the continual endeavor to act (8 724, Ontol.). Faculties are merely potencies of action on the part of the soul (§ 29, Psych. Empir.1), and thus have possibilities of action (§ 716, Ontol.). Therefore a power of the soul and a faculty differ from one another (§ 183, Ontol.).

$56. The soul continually tends to change its conditions. For it is endowed with a certain power. Wherefore, since a power continually tends to change the condition of the subject in which it is (§ 725, Ontol.), the soul, too, through the mediation of its own power, is bound to tend continually to change its condition.

$57. The power of the soul is absolutely simple. For the soul is simple and thus lacks parts (§ 673, Ontol.). Let us now suppose that the soul has more than one power distinct from one another; since each one of them consists in the continued endeavor to act (§ 724, Ontol.), each one requires a particular subject in which it is. And so we must conceive of several actual entities distinct from one another (§ 142, 183, Ontol.), which when taken together with the soul will be the parts of the same (§ 341, Ontol.). But this is altogether absurd by the proof above given.

§ 62. The soul re-presents to itself this universe in accordance with the location of its organic body in the universe, conformably to the mutations which affect the organs of sensation. For this law of sensations is constant and inviolable: if a certain mutation is produced in some organ of sensation by some sensible object there coexists in the soul a sensation which may be explained to it in an intelligible way, or which recognises in it a sufficient reason why it should be, and why it should be such as it is. ($85, Psychol. Empir.) Now sensations are perceptions of external objects, which produce a change in the organs of sensation (§67, Psychol. Empir.), and hence while the soul feels, it

1 Wolff's Psychologia Empirica. Francof. et Lips. 1732.

re-presents those objects to itself (§ 24, Psychol. Empir.). And since our body is constantly in this visible world, bodies also which compose the same (§ 119, Cosmol.) act constantly upon our body in accordance with its location in the world, or the universe. It is clear, therefore, that the soul re-presents to itself this universe, or this visible world, in accordance with the location of our organic body in the universe, and conformably to the mutations which the bodies of which it is composed produce in the same. When we sleep we perceive nothing clearly and distinctly (§ 15). However since the soul is still in a condition of preception, although all its conceptions are confused or obscure, there is nothing to prevent it from still perceiving obscurely its own body, and the things that impress it, and hence from continuing this re-presentation of the world, so that therefore it may be said without reservation that it re-presents to itself this universe.

§ 66. The essence of the soul consists in its power of re-presenting (vis repræsentiva) the universe, which power is materially limited by its location in an organic body in the universe, and formally limited by the constitution of the sensory organs. For this power is the first principle which is conceived with regard to the soul, and on which depend the other attributes which are inherent in it (§ 65). Therefore the essence of the soul consists in the same (§ 168, Ontol.).

§ 67. The nature of the soul consists in the same re-presenting power (vis repræsentiva). For by this power of the soul everything is activated that is possible through the faculties of the soul. Wherefore since we understand by the nature of the soul that principle of mutations in the soul which is intrinsic in the same, just as by the nature of the universe we understand that principle of mutations in the world which is intrinsic in the same (§ 503, Cosmol.); and since this principle of mutations is power (§ 807, Ontol.), and since the power with which the soul is endowed (§ 53) is only the power of re-presenting (vis repræsentiva) the universe (§ 62), that power of re-presenting (vis repræsentiva) the universe is likewise the nature of the

soul.