CORRESPONDENCE WITH SOPHIE CHARLOTTE
Translation © George MacDonald Ross, 1999
Leibniz to Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia,
8th May 1704
[345] . . . And nothing could destroy all the organs of this substance, since it is essential to matter that it is organic, and consists of mechanisms at every level. This is because it is the effect and continual emanation of a supreme intelligence. However, these organs and mechanisms must usually be located in the tiny particles which are invisible to us, as is obvious from what is visible. This shows that the saying 'everything is like it is here' is still true, in that what is invisible is like what it visible.
It also follows that, in accordance with the order of nature, and speaking with metaphysical strictness, one and the same animal is never generated or dies, but merely unfolds or folds in on itself. If this were not so, there would be too much of a discontinuity, and nature would depart too far from its characteristic of uniformity, by undergoing an inexplicable change of essence. Experience confirms that there are transformations of this kind in certain animals; and here nature herself has revealed to us a tiny sample of what she keeps hidden elsewhere.
Again, observations made by the most assiduous researchers have led them to the conclusion that the generation of animals is nothing other than growth combined with transformation. So it is reasonable to conclude that death cannot be anything other than the opposite. The only difference is that in the one case the change happens little by little, whereas in the other case it happens suddenly, and with some force.
Besides, experience also shows that we are stunned by an excess of barely distinguishable little perceptions, like those which follow a blow to the head; and that if we faint, it happens that we remember, and must remember, as few of these perceptions as if we had never had any of them.
So the law of uniformity must not make us come to any alternative conclusion about death in accordance with the order of nature, even in the case of animals. This is because it is something easy to explain in this way, which is already known and confirmed by experience; and it is inexplicable in any other manner. It is impossible to conceive how the existence or activity of the perceptual faculty could start or stop, nor is it any more possible to conceive its separation.
Besides, it is natural to conclude that the sequence of changes in an animal will without doubt display a very elegant orderliness, and one very capable of giving satisfaction, since there is order and mechanism everywhere.
To give you a rough idea of it, I would compare these [346] beings with people who want to climb a high mountain which is covered in vegetation, but with steep ridges like a rampart, supplying resting-places or stages at various intervals. Having climbed close to one of these resting-places or ledges, they sometimes suddenly fall back onto another lower one, and have to work their way back again. Nevertheless, they do not fail gradually to attain one stage after another. Sometimes you have to step backwards in order to jump better. But the order of Providence treats conscious beings in a completely special way, which is doubtless the most appropriate, and even the most desirable. . . .
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