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

68. And though the earth and the air which are between the plants of
the garden, or the water which is between the fish of the pond, be
neither plant nor fish; yet they also contain plants and fishes, but
mostly so minute as to be imperceptible to us.

69. Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, nothing dead in
the universe, no chaos, no confusion save in appearance, somewhat as
it might appear to be in a pond at a distance, in which one would
see a confused movement and, as it were, a swarming of fish in the
pond, without separately distinguishing the fish themselves. (Theod.
Pref. [E. 475 b; 477 b; G. vi. 40, 44].)

70. Hence it appears that each living body has a dominant entelechy,
which in an animal is the soul; but the members of this living body
are full of other living beings, plants, animals, each of which has
also its dominant entelechy or soul.

71. But it must not be imagined, as has been done by some who have
misunderstood my thought, that each soul has a quantity or portion
of matter belonging exclusively to itself or attached to it for
ever, and that it consequently owns other inferior living beings,
which are devoted for ever to its service. For all bodies are in a
perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are entering into them and
passing out of them continually.

72. Thus the soul changes its body only by degrees, little by
little, so that it is never all at once deprived of all its organs;
and there is often metamorphosis in animals, but never
metempsychosis or transmigration of souls; nor are there souls
entirely separate [from bodies] nor unembodied spirits [genies sans
corps]. God alone is completely without body. (Theod. 90, 124.)

73. It also follows from this that there never is absolute birth
[generation] nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in
the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births
[generations] are developments and growths, while what we call
deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

74. Philosophers have been much perplexed about the origin of forms,
entelechies, or souls; but nowadays it has become known, through
careful studies of plants, insects, and animals, that the organic
bodies of nature are never products of chaos or putrefaction, but
always come from seeds, in which there was undoubtedly some
preformation; and it is held that not only the organic body was
already there before conception, but also a soul in this body, and, in
short, the animal itself; and that by means of conception this
animal has merely been prepared for the great transformation
involved in its becoming an animal of another kind. Something like
this is indeed seen apart from birth [generation], as when worms
become flies and caterpillars become butterflies. (Theod. 86, 89.