representation/representation sensations/sentiments perception/perception animais/animaux
SECTION 27
27. The potent imaging that strikes and moves them <namely, souls [âmes), when making associations> comes either from the size or from the number of the <kindred> preceding perceptions. For often a <single> strong impression has at one blow the effect of a long-formed habit, or that of a great many re- peated perceptions of modest size.
27. Et l'imagination forte, qui les frappe et erneut, vient ou de la grandeur
ou de la multitude des perceptions précédentes. Car souvent une impression forte fait tout d'un coup l'effect d'une longue habitude, ou de beaucoup de perceptions médiocres réitérées.
(G VI, 500; Loemker, p. 548; Ariew & Garber, p. 187; "On What is Indepen- dent of Sense and Matter" [1702].) Since therefore our soul compares the num- bers and the shapes of colors, for example, with the numbers and shapes discovered by touch, there must be an internal sense where the perceptions of these different external senses are found united. This is called the imagination, which comprises at once the concepts of particular senses, which are clear but
confused, and the concepts of the common sense, which are clear and distinct.
C O M M E N T A R Y
The "principle of association" is critically important in Leibniz' conception of mental phenomena, although he does not call it by that name, but views it simply as part of the natural mechanism of imagination. For Leibniz, as for Descartes and Locke, the imagination is a faculty that re-produces earlier sense- images or impressions. The vividness with which it can do this depends both on the intensity and on the frequency of those earlier impressions. As section 26 indicates, Leibniz takes imagination and association to constitute a lower- level approximation to reason and inference.
KEY W O R D S :
imagination [\m.SLgmg)limagination perception/perception
impression (of a perception)/impression (d'une perception) habit/habitude
SECTION 28
28. Men function like beasts <i.e., lower animals> insofar as the connec- tions among their perceptions come about only on the basis of memory, resem-
bling empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory. We are all mere empirics in three-quarters of our actions. For example, when one expects a sunrise tomorrow, one acts as an empiric, seeing that this has always been so heretofore. Only the astronomer judges this by reason. (See Theodicy, Pre- liminary Discourse, sec. 65.)
28. Les hommes agissent comme les bêtes en tant que les consecutions de leurs peiceptions ne se font que par le principe de la memoire, ressemblants aux Médecins Empiriques, qui ont une simple practique sans théorie; et nous ne sommes qu'Empiriques dans les trois quarts de nos Actions. Par exemple, quand on s'attend qu'il y aura jour demain, on agit en Empirique, parce que cela s'est tousjours fait ainsi jusqu'ici. Il n'y a que l'Astronome, qui le juge par raison. fThéodicée, Discours préliminaire, sec. 65.)
[Theodicy, Preliminary Discourse, sec. 65.) Beasts have consecutions of per-
ception which resemble reasoning, and which occur also in the inner sense of men, when their actions have only an empirical quality. But beasts do nothing which compels us to believe that they have what deserves to be properly called a reasoning sense....
(PNG, sec. 5 ) Men too, insofar as they are empirics, that is to say, in three- fourths of their actions, act only like beasts. For example, we expect day to dawn tomorrow because we have always experienced this to be so; only the astronomer predicts it with reason, and even his prediction will ultimately fail when the cause of daylight, which is by no means eternal, stops. But rea-
soning in the true sense depends on necessary or eternal truths, as are those
of logic, number, and geometry, which make the connection of ideas indubit- able and their conclusions infallible. Animals in which such consequences cannot be observed are called beasts, but those who know these necessary truths are the ones properly called rational animals, and their souls are called
spirits.
(Loemker, p. 283 [ca. 1684].) fust as there is a twofold way of reasoning from experiments, one leading to the application, the other to the cause, so there is also a twofold way of discovering causes, the one a priori (theoretical), the other
a posteriori (empirical), and each of these may be either certain or conjectural.
The a priori method is certain if we can demonstrate from the known nature of God that structure of the world which is in agreement with the divine rea- sons and from this structure can finally arrive at the principles of things. This method is of all the most excellent and hence does not seem to be entirely impossible. For our mind is endowed with the concept of perfection, and we know that God works in the most perfect way. I admit, however, that, though this way is not hopeless, it is certainly difficult and that not everyone should undertake it; besides, it is perhaps too long to be traversed by men. For sensible effects are too greatly compounded to be readily reduced to their first causes. Yet superior geniuses should enter upon this (a priori) way, even without the hope of arriving at particulars by means of it, in order that we may have true concepts of the universe, the greatness of God, and the nature of the soul, through which the mind can be most perfected, for this is the most important end of contemplation. Yet we believe the absolute use of this method is con- served for a better life.