DISCOURSE ONMETAPHYSICS 587
not sufficiently determinate for one individual, and does not include the other qualities
of the same subject, nor everything that the notion of this prince includes, whereas God
who sees the individual notion or haecceity** of Alexander sees in it at the same time
the foundation and reason for all the predicates that can truly be ascribed to him, such as
that he would defeat Darius and Porus even to the point of knowinga priori(and not by
experience) whether he died naturally or by poison, something we can only know his-
torically. Also, when we consider well the connection of things, we can say that there is
in the soul of Alexander for all time traces of everything that happened to him, and
marks of everything that will happen to him, and even traces of everything happening in
the universe, though to recognise them all belongs to God alone.
- EAC HUNIQUESUBSTANCEEXPRESSES THEWHOLEUNIVERSE
INITSOWNWAY, ANDINCLUDED INITSNOTIONAREALL THE
EVENTS THATHAPPEN TOITWITH ALL THEIRCIRCUMSTANCES,
AND THEWHOLESEQUENCE OFEXTERNALTHINGS
Among several paradoxical conclusions following from this, is that it is not true that
two substances are completely alike, differing only numerically, and what St Thomas
has to say on this point about angels and intelligences (“in these cases every individual
is a lowest species”) is true of all substances provided that the specific difference is
taken in the way geometers take it in relation to their figures. Likewise, if bodies are
substances, their natures cannot possibly consist solely in size, figure and motion:
something else is needed. Likewise, a substance can begin only by creation and perish
only by annihilation; a substance cannot be divided into two, nor can two substances
become one, and so the number of substances does not naturally increase or diminish,
though they are frequently transformed.
Moreover every substance is as it were an entire world and a mirror of God, or
rather of the whole universe, expressing it in its own way, somewhat as the same town
is variously represented according to the different positions of an observer. It can even
be said that every substance bears in some way the mark of the infinite wisdom and
omnipotence of God, imitating Him as far as it is capable. For it expresses, if only con-
fusedly, all that happens in the universe, past, present and future, and this has some
resemblance to an infinite perception or knowledge. And since all other substances in
turn express it and are accommodated to it, it can be said to extend its power over all the
others in imitation of the omnipotence of the Creator.
- THERE ISSOMESOUNDNESS TO THEBELIEF INSUBSTANTIAL
FORMS, BUTTHESEMAKE NODIFFERENCE TO THEPHENOMENA,
ANDSHOULDNOTBEUSED TOEXPLAINPARTICULAREFFECTS
It seems that the ancients in distinguishing an ens per sefrom an ens per accidensand
in introducing substantial forms, as well as the many able people who were accustomed
to profound meditations and who taught theology and philosophy centuries ago, many
**Literally “thisness,” an allusion to the theory of what makes something an individual substance pro-
duced by Duns Scotus and in which Leibniz had taken an interest when writing a student dissertation. Every
individual has its own haecceity, according to Duns Scotus, though (like Leibniz) he believed it was only
known to God.