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

existence, but nothing would even be possible. (Theod. 20.)

44. For if there is a reality in essences or possibilities, or
rather in eternal truths, this reality must needs be founded in
something existing and actual, and consequently in the existence of
the necessary Being, in whom essence involves existence, or in whom to
be possible is to be actual. (Theod. 184-189, 335.)

45. Thus God alone (or the necessary Being) has this prerogative
that He must necessarily exist, if He is possible. And as nothing
can interfere with the possibility of that which involves no limits,
no negation and consequently no contradiction, this [His
possibility] is sufficient of itself to make known the existence of
God a priori. We have thus proved it, through the reality of eternal
truths. But a little while ago we proved it also a posteriori, since
there exist contingent beings, which can have their final or
sufficient reason only in the necessary Being, which has the reason of
its existence in itself.

46. We must not, however, imagine, as some do, that eternal
truths, being dependent on God, are arbitrary and depend on His
will, as Descartes, and afterwards M. Poiret, appear to have held.
That is true only of contingent truths, of which the principle is
fitness [convenance] or choice of the best, whereas necessary truths
depend solely on His understanding and are its inner object. (Theod.
180-184, 185, 335, 351, 380.)

47. Thus God alone is the primary unity or original simple
substance, of which all created or derivative Monads are products
and have their birth, so to speak, through continual fulgurations of
the Divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of
the created being, of whose essence it is to have limits. (Theod.
382-391, 398, 395.)

48. In God there is Power, which is the source of all, also
Knowledge, whose content is the variety of the ideas, and finally
Will, which makes changes or products according to the principle of
the best. (Theod. 7, 149, 150.) These characteristics correspond to
what in the created Monads forms the ground or basis, to the faculty
of Perception and to the faculty of Appetition. But in God these
attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect; and in the created
Monads or the Entelechies (or perfectihabiae, as Hermolaus Barbarus
translated the word) there are only imitations of these attributes,
according to the degree of perfection of the Monad. (Theod. 87.)

49. A created thing is said to act outwardly in so far as it has
perfection, and to suffer [or be passive, patir] in relation to
another, in so far as it is imperfect. Thus activity [action] is
attributed to a Monad, in so far as it has distinct perceptions, and
passivity [passion] in so far as its perceptions are confused. (Theod.