"Monadology" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm)

1898

THE MONADOLOGY

by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

translated by Robert Latta

1. The Monad, of which we shall here speak, is nothing but a
simple substance, which enters into compounds. By 'simple' is meant
'without parts.' (Theod. 10.)

2. And there must be simple substances, since there are compounds;
for a compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simple
things.

3. Now where there are no parts, there can be neither extension
nor form [figure] nor divisibility. These Monads are the real atoms of
nature and, in a word, the elements of things.

4. No dissolution of these elements need be feared, and there is
no conceivable way in which a simple substance can be destroyed by
natural means. (Theod. 89.)

5. For the same reason there is no conceivable way in which a simple
substance can come into being by natural means, since it cannot be
formed by the combination of parts [composition].

6. Thus it may be said that a Monad can only come into being or come
to an end all at once; that is to say, it can come into being only
by creation and come to an end only by annihilation, while that
which is compound comes into being or comes to an end by parts.

7. Further, there is no way of explaining how a Monad can be altered
in quality or internally changed by any other created thing; since
it is impossible to change the place of anything in it or to
conceive in it any internal motion which could be produced,
directed, increased or diminished therein, although all this is
possible in the case of compounds, in which there are changes among
the parts. The Monads have no windows, through which anything could
come in or go out. Accidents cannot separate themselves from
substances nor go about outside of them, as the 'sensible species'
of the Scholastics used to do. Thus neither substance nor accident can
come into a Monad from outside.

8. Yet the Monads must have some qualities, otherwise they would not
even be existing things. And if simple substances did not differ in
quality, there would be absolutely no means of perceiving any change
in things. For what is in the compound can come only from the simple
elements it contains, and the Monads, if they had no qualities,