A History of Western Philosophy

etablished harmony" between the changes in one monad and those in another, which produces the semblance of interaction. This is ...

but the sufficient reason of his action has no logical necessity. So, at least, Leibniz says when he is writing popularly, but, ...

The ontological argument depends upon the distinction between existence and essence. Any ordinary person or thing, it is held, o ...

term. There is therefore an uncaused cause of everything, and this is obviously God. In Leibniz the argument takes a somewhat di ...

essence can be known independently of experience--such at least is Leibniz's view. The apparent greater plausibility of the cosm ...

ment from design. This argument contends that, on a survey of the known world, we find things which cannot plausibly be explaine ...

possible worlds, and the evil that it contains affords no argument against the goodness of God. This argument apparently satisfi ...

his letters to Arnauld, which contain a part of his more profound philosophy, were published in the nineteenth century; but I wa ...

be his own. Nevertheless he cherished through his life the hope of discovering a kind of generalized mathematics, which he calle ...

... The proposition in question is of great importance, and deserves to be well established, for it follows that every soul is a ...

leads Him to create the best possible world, there is no a priori reason why one thing should exist rather than another. But som ...

view, and thought it part of God's goodness to create as full a universe as possible. It would follow that the actual world woul ...

he was a pioneer in mathematical logic, of which he perceived the importance when no one else did so. And his philosophical hypo ...

caused by thought than the flow of a river is caused by the bubbles that reveal its direction to an onlooker. For my part, I bel ...

end to political and theological strife, in order to liberate energies for the exciting enterprises of commerce and science, suc ...

Since different individuals reached different conclusions, the result was strife, and theological decisions were sought, no long ...

moderate parties, including the Girondins, but with their extermination it disappeared for a generation from French politics. In ...

completely in harmony with those of most intelligent men that it is difficult to trace their influence except in theoretical phi ...

Parliamentary party consisted of two factions, the Presbyterians and the Independents; the Presbyterians desired to preserve a S ...

at the Restoration, and were respected by Charles II because it had been shown that kings could be made to suffer at the hands o ...