DISCOURSE ONMETAPHYSICS 591
connection in these propositions has its basis in the nature of each. But these are not
necessary demonstrations, since these reasons are only based on the principle of the
contingency or of the existence of things, i.e. on what is or seems to be the best of sev-
eral equally possible things; whereas necessary truths are founded on the principle
of contradiction and on the possibility or impossibility of the essences themselves,
without regard to the free will of God or of creatures.
- GODPRODUCESDIFFERENTSUBSTANCESACCORDING
TO THEDIFFERENTVIEWSHEHAS OF THEUNIVERSE.
THEDISTINCTIVENATURE OFEAC HSUBSTANCEENSURES,
BY THE(MEDIATION) OFGOD, THAT WHATHAPPENS TOEAC H
CORRESPONDS TO WHATHAPPENS TOALL THEOTHERS,
WITHOUTTHEMACTINGDIRECTLY ONEAC HOTHER
Having after a fashion come to know what the nature of created substances consists in,
we must try to explain their mutual dependence and their actions and passions. Now, in
the first place, it is altogether obvious that created substances depend on God who con-
serves them—and even continually produces them by a kind of emanation, as we do our
thoughts. For as God, so to speak, turns on all its sides and in all ways the general sys-
tem of phenomena which He finds it good to produce to manifest His glory, and as He
looks at all the faces of the world in all possible ways—because there is no relation that
escapes His omniscience—the result of each view of the universe as if seen from a par-
ticular place is a substance expressing the universe in conformity with that view, if God
finds it good to make His thought effective and produce this substance. And since the
view of God is always true, our perceptions are so too; it is those of our judgements that
derive from us that deceive us.
Now we have said above, and it follows from what we have just said, that each
substance is like a world on its own, independent of everything else apart from God.
Hence all our phenomena, that is, all that can ever happen to us, are consequences of
our natures and, since we are free substances, of our wills. Since these phenomena pre-
serve a particular order conforming to our nature or, so to speak, the world within us,
so that we are able (to make observations useful for regulating our conduct which are
justified by the favourable outcome of future phenomena) and to judge the future by
the past without error, this enables us to say that these phenomena are true, without
worrying whether they are outside us or whether others perceive them as well.
Nevertheless, it is very true that the perceptions or qualities of all substances corre-
spond with each other, so that each, carefully following the particular reasons or laws
it has observed, fits in with the other in doing the same, just as when several people
agree with each other to be at a particular place at a prearranged day, they can in fact
do so if they wish. Now although all express the same phenomena, it does not follow
from this that their expressions should be perfectly similar: it is enough that they are
proportionate to each other. In the same way several spectators think they have seen
the same thing and indeed agree with each other, although each sees and speaks
according to his point of view.
Now it is God from whom all substances emanate continually and He sees the
universe, not only as they see it, but quite differently from them all as well. He is the
only cause of this correspondence between their phenomena, and He alone makes what
is peculiar to one public to all, otherwise there would be no connection between them.