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

are nothing but empirics. For instance, when we expect that there will
be daylight to-morrow, we do so empirically, because it has always
so happened until now. It is only the astronomer who thinks it on
rational grounds.

29. But it is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that
distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives us Reason and the
sciences, raising us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God. And
it is this in us that is called the rational soul or mind [esprit].

30. It is also through the knowledge of necessary truths, and
through their abstract expression, that we rise to acts of
reflexion, which make us think of what is called I, and observe that
this or that is within us: and thus, thinking of ourselves, we think
of being, of substance, of the simple and the compound, of the
immaterial, and of God Himself, conceiving that what is limited in
us is in Him without limits. And these acts of reflexion furnish the
chief objects of our reasonings. (Theod. Pref. [E. 469; G. vi. 27].)

31. Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of
contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a
contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to
the false; (Theod. 44, 169.)

32. And that of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we hold that
there can be no fact real or existing, no statement true, unless there
be a sufficient reason, why it should be so and not otherwise,
although these reasons usually cannot be known by us. (Theod. 44,
196.)

33. There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those
of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is
impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is
possible. When a truth is necessary, its reason can be found by
analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we
come to those which are primary. (Theod. 170, 174, 189, 280-282,
367. Abrege, Object. 3.)

34. It is thus that in Mathematics speculative Theorems and
practical Canons are reduced by analysis to Definitions, Axioms and
Postulates.

35. In short, there are simple ideas, of which no definition can
be given; there are also axioms and postulates, in a word, primary
principles, which cannot be proved, and indeed have no need of
proof; and these are identical propositions, whose opposite involves
an express contradiction. (Theod. 36, 37, 44, 45, 49, 52, 121-122,
337, 340-344.)

36. But there must also be a sufficient reason for contingent truths